The footsteps move quicker until we see the feet of a woman at the top of the stairs. She climbs down gingerly, the stairs popping and cracking with each careful movement.
“We’re closed.” Her voice is gruff and old, tinted with small town fatigue.
“I know, but we’re just passing through, and my girlfriend here is a huge fan of Elizabeth Wagner’s work. It would mean the world to her if you—”
“Twenty minutes,” she says. “And don’t tell anybody. I’m just the cleaning lady.”
Waverly’s mouth parts into a smile a mile wide and she gives my arm a squeeze.
“See?” I say. “Ask for what you want and you just might get it.”
She scampers off toward the living room, oohing and ahhing over display cases filled with handwritten notes and letters by the poetess. A desk with Elizabeth’s actual feather quill and inkpot sits behind velvet ropes.
“This was her desk,” Waverly says. “Her actual desk. Where she wrote. She sat here.”
You’d think we were touring Graceland, or something. “Yeah. Very cool.”
She doesn’t pick up on my sarcasm, so I stand aside and watch her fawn over every square inch of this humble dwelling.
“She had twelve children,” Waverly said. “Can you imagine?”
“How many sister wives?” I tease.
“Several. Eight, I think? She was the first, though.”
I follow her into the kitchen, where she ogles teacups Elizabeth Wagner once drank from as well as a pie pan she used to bake her famous boysenberry pies with.
The cleaning lady tromps down the stairs, a plastic caddy and feather duster in her hands. “I’m done upstairs. As soon as I finish down here, I have to lock up. Consider this your ten-minute warning.”
We head up, the staircase barely two feet wide and steeper than shit. The upstairs contains a few small bedrooms—one appearing to be a master bedroom and the others filled with makeshift bunk beds and covered in ancient quilts.
“This is where she slept,” Waverly sighs, running her palm against the multi-colored fabric that covers a bed.
“Lay on it.” I shrug. “No one will know but you and me.”
She swats at me. “You’re a bad influence, you know that?”
“Do it, Waverly. I’m sure if Elizabeth were here, she’d be more than happy to entertain you in her home.”
Waverly laughs. “I highly doubt that. She allegedly wasn’t the nicest person, but man, could she string together some beautiful sentences.” She leans over the bed, inspecting every square inch of the quilt as if she’s fascinated. “I bet she sewed this herself. She was an avid quilt-maker. Best in the county.”
I take the opportunity to gently shove Waverly, forcing her on the bed. “Oops.”
She whips around. “Jensen!”
I fall into the bed, taking the spot next to her. “Oh, my goodness. I think I tripped over the chamber pot.”
I expect her to scramble up off the bed and chide me, but she doesn’t. She lays there, parallel to me, her head resting on her hand. A slow grin captures her face and her hair falls over her left eye. “You’re terrible.”
“You’re easily persuaded.”
“You’re a smooth-talking salesman.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of things I can’t talk you into doing.” I lean back on the bed, tucking my hands behind my head and staring up at the wooden ceiling. God, growing up in the 1800s would’ve been mind-numbingly dull.
“You really think I’m that uptight still?”
“You are that uptight. Still.”
“I’m trying not to be,” she says, her hand across her chest. “I’ve gotten better. Uptight Waverly wouldn’t have snuck out to go to a concert with you. Uptight Waverly wouldn’t have signed herself out of Camp Zion.”
I love how we’re just lying in Elizabeth Wagner’s bed, in her museum, yakking away like it’s the most natural thing on earth. But that’s the beauty of being with Waverly—she tends to make everything else irrelevant.
I won’t tell her that, though. I won’t tell her how much I enjoy her company and the distraction she provides. I sure as fuck won’t tell her I actually might miss her come August.
“Fine. You’re making strides. I’ll give you that.” I trace my finger tip along her arm, connecting the freckles like a game of dot-to-dot. “So what kind of life does new-and-improved Waverly Miller want?”
“That I don’t know,” she says, pulling in a long sigh. “Just one of my own. One where I get to call the shots. That’s all I want.”