Arrogant Devil(46)
“Same time tomorrow?” she asks, standing up with her mat.
I grin. “Sounds good.”
I feel amazing as we head back to the house—better than I have in a long time. Not only did I get a little break from cleaning, it was actually really fun to practice yoga with Edith. I liked guiding her and coming up with poses, and I already have ideas for what I want to do tomorrow.
Later, Edith tries to get me to eat lunch with them, as she’s done every day, but I insist that I need to keep working. The rest of the afternoon passes quickly as I continue scrubbing, and shining, and folding, and generally staying out of Jack’s way. I figure my best chance of keeping under his radar is to steer clear of him altogether.
It works remarkably well. We don’t fight at all. In fact, it’s been so many days since we fought (two, for those of you counting at home) that he’s probably already warming up to me. Bonus: I’m so preoccupied with Jack and my work ethic, I hardly have time to remember my own crumbling life. Thumbs-up.
On Wednesday, I turn into Betty Crocker in the kitchen. I don an apron, use a rolling pin, and have half a pound of flour caked in my hair by the time I finish trying out the recipe Dotty sent home with Jack. A few dozen cranberry oatmeal cookies litter the counter. I put extra white chocolate chunks in them, and the result is nothing short of a culinary masterpiece. After a quick thank-you call to Dotty—that lasts 45 minutes—I fill up little take-home bags with cookies and deliver them to all the ranch hands. They thank me so profusely. “Meredith, you’re the best!” “Thanks Meredith!” “Aw Meredith, can’t you stay and chat?”
Though they’re remarkably good for my ego (much better than Jack is), I don’t let the hands coax me into staying. I don’t want to be a distraction. Instead, I tell them to enjoy then scurry back inside so I can take a plate filled with the very best cookies and an ice-cold glass of milk up to Jack’s office. The glass numbs my hand as I walk up the stairs, and the cookies are the perfect mix between crunchy and gooey and straight out of the oven. They could force an entire squadron of bake-sale moms into early retirement.
The door to his office is open, and he glares at me from behind his desk as I stroll in and out again without so much as a word, just a pleasant smile and a wave. He scowls like he’s confused by this version of me. Meredith Avery: non-nuisance. That Employee of the Year award has my name written all over it.
I grin to myself as I walk back downstairs. Obviously, I would have liked to stay and watch him roll on the ground, weeping at the glory of my baking abilities, but that’s not part of my plan. Instead, I just have to imagine it.
I think I’m kicking butt, proving Helen wrong, and staying focused. Later on, I’m in the kitchen making a marinade for tomorrow’s lunch when Jack shouts my name through the house. Uh oh. That doesn’t sound like cookie ecstasy. When I find him, he’s in his closet, one hand on his hip, the other gesturing to his racks of clothes. He’s wearing his Angry Jack face, his shoulders blocking out part of the overhead light. I wonder if he could squash me beneath his shoe or if it just feels that way when he’s worked up.
“What the hell is all this?”
His voice makes me jump.
“What is what?”
He points to the clothes, reminding me of the task I undertook earlier while the cookies were baking.
“Oh, right. I organized your clothes by color and category.”
“Why?”
I sweep my hand across the impeccably organized garments. “It was all a jumbled mess before—I’m surprised you could figure out where anything was.”
I don’t find it necessary to mention the fact that I did a fabulous job. His jeans are in descending shades of blue. His shirts are grouped together so that his black t-shirts (of which there are many) are all in their own section. His work shirts are separated from his nice long-sleeve shirts. The suits I was surprised to find are hanging together near the back. I also don’t mention the fact that I imagined him wearing those suits and had to prop my hand on the closet wall and pause my organizing for a solid five minutes while I let the fantasy play out in my mind. It was jarring, to say the least.
“Looks good, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t like change.”
“Okay-okay-okay,” I say, immediately deferent. “I’ll put everything back. Just…in the meantime, don’t look in your underwear drawer. No reason.”
After I finish work for the day, the guys are still wrapping up some tile work in the shack, so I’m left with no place to go. I could stay in the farmhouse, but Jack still seems annoyed about his closet and I don’t want to impose on him. I already did yoga with Edith, so I don’t really need the exercise, but I decide I’ll take another stroll around the property anyway. When I was chatting with Chris earlier, he mentioned that there was a nice creek due west of the house. He said it was a quarter mile or so to get there, but there’s a trail to follow and it’s worth the trek.
I set out in that direction and am a few minutes into my walk when I get the feeling that I’m being tailed.
I turn and see Alfred trotting behind me at a distance. He tucks himself half behind a bush. If he could, he’d be wearing a pair of those disguise glasses with the comically large nose and mustache. I continue walking and so does he. I stop and he stops and sits, tongue wagging, eyes shining with stupid love.