Page 19 of Dream House
“Yep.”
“And you a white girl?”
“Yep.”
Silence. And more silence.
I’ve already made up my mind about Livy Arnold. “I have two furnished rooms available. Would you like to take a look at th—”
“Yes.”
Now I’m grinning. “Would seven o’clock tonight do? I work until six.”
“That would be ideal,” she says crisply. “I have class until six-thirty.”
I remember Nina’s distress at breakfast this morning and don’t want anyone else to be surprised. “Aside from my daughter and Pen, my brother Tyler lives with us and we just rented one of the rooms to a young woman named Nina,” I say.
“Are they gonna ask me to explain BLM to them?” Bitterness turns her voice to acid.
I picture Nina hiding behind her hair. Tyler re-learning the alphabet. “I can say with almost absolute certainty they will not.”
“Hmph.They better not,” Livy mutters.
“Are you crazy?”
Pen is at the stove getting a bicep workout as she stirs her sausage jambalaya.
The kitchen smells amazing. Pen picked up Maisy from aftercare before five o’clock and handed me a glass of Landry’sBlanc du Boisas soon as I walked in.
I could get used to this.
Everything except her asking me if I’m crazy.
“It sounds like she’s having a terrible experience in the dorms.” I would’ve thought that Pen would’ve found Livy’s situation compelling.
“Did it occur to you that maybe she’s having a terrible experience because she’s a terrible person?” Pen raps the side of her long metal spoon against the rim of the stock pot with a clanging that makes me glad Tyler’s in his room. Even Maisy, who’s coloring at the table, covers her ears. “This is ready,” Pen says—as if any of us can hear anymore.
“Maisy, could you go tell your uncle it’s time for dinner?”
My four-year-old slides off her chair and scampers from the room while I take down bowls from the cabinet. “And to answer your question, no, I do not think she’s a terrible person.”
I move to the stove to serve Maisy and Tyler. “This looks really good, by the way.”
Pen gives a modest shrug. “I cheated.”
I heap Tyler’s bowl with steaming chunks of sausage. “How did you cheat?” I tease. “Did you use magic like the three fairies inSleeping Beauty?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, smartass. I used Minute Rice.”
“Oh.” I fake disdain. “You just ruined it. You picked up my kid, made dinner, and poured me a glass of wine. I was going to ask you to marry me, but if this is Minute Rice—”
She snorts a laugh. “You know you’re not my type.”
“And what type is that?” I ask, carrying the bowls to the table. “Gainfully employed? No police record? Or no piercings south of the border?”
Her brows leap. “I told you about Jeremy Hollier?” Jeremy Hollier works at Spirits, the liquor store across from the Pen Pen.
My eyes bug. “Jeremy Hollier has a piercing on his—”
