Page 24 of You've Got Hate Mail
Fine.
Cricket will move into the basement apartment in the house that I rent here.
And in the meantime, I’m getting the plumbing and flooring in the mother-in-law cabin fixed as fast as fucking possible.
And knocking on doors everywhere I go.
5
THE (HOUSEMATE) PROPOSAL
Cricket
When I was born,my parents named me Constance Gwendolyn Garland.
They started calling me Cricket because my oldest sister said I chirped like a cricket when I was crying or eating or hiccuping or something, and the name stuck.
It justfeelslike me now, even if my mother regularly reminds me that it’s time for me to go by a more grown-up name.
If I were to name myself today, I’d call myself Cricket Chaos Garland, because that apparently fits better.
The urn thing?
That was tame compared to what happened with the fajita salad at lunch and the round of Yahtzee with Olivia this afternoon, and that’s all I intend to ever say about that.
This isn’t who I am.
I’m not a klutz. I’m not an embarrassment.
I’m a strong, confident career woman making the most of the opportunities I’ve had to carve out a life full of fascinating experiences.
Except for this past week.
This past week, I havenotbeen her.
And the urn thing means I have to dash back to the little house to change for the second time today.
I pretend I don’t see the disaster in the kitchen and head for the bedroom, where I pull my luggage out of the closet.
But as I dig and dig in my suitcase, I find two pairs of jeans, pajama shorts, two skirts, a distinct lack of enough socks and underwear, and only one shirt.
Unfortunately, it’s a shirt I wore to a friend’s bachelorette party a few years ago.
It’s hot pink with black rhinestones spelling outI’m the troublewith an outline of a penis beneath the words.
This is what I get for not caring when I was packing.
And for not actually showering any of my days on the road.
Hopefully there’s a shop in the nearby town that can deliver something new.
Also, I need to do laundry, which is basically the story of my life.
Since it’s the dick shirt or continuing to look like I’ve been rolling around at a crime scene, I pick up the dick shirt.
Heath was taking Lavender back to their house for dinner, so it’s not like I’ll be an immediate bad—worse—influence.
But when I finally leave the cottage with my dirty laundry in hand after giving myself some time to breathe, the first thing I see is Heath and Lavender, along with a surprisingly large calico cat on a leash, lingering on the other side of the wildly overgrown garden.
