The Cul-de-Sac War - Melissa Ferguson Page 0,44

with Evie for buying her share.”

“No problem.” She currently had $42.01 in the bank, but she could come up with more. Easily. No problem.

“And this house is old. It requires extra love and attention—”

Bree nodded, careful to avoid looking at the golden pothos she’d potted on top of the bookshelf that was very, very dead. “I can do that.”

“And a steady income to maintain—”

Her nods slowed. “I’ve got a job”—she coughed and lowered her voice—“currently.”

“And above all, stability.”

Bree kept nodding, but at her mother’s continued stare her nod petered out. “Stability. I can be stable.”

Her mother began pushing nonexistent crumbs off her knees. “Yes, well, that’s what we’d like to talk about.”

After a pause she took Bree’s hands. “You see, honey, you have this wonderful spirit within you. It’s . . . spontaneous.”

“Energetic,” Dan put in.

“Spirited,” her mother added.

Bree looked from her stepfather to her mother. “So it’s established then. I have a spirited spirit. But . . .”

“But sometimes our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses.”

“And that’s not unusual at all,” Dan interjected. “For example, your mother’s greatest strength is how loving she is.”

Her mother gave a bashful smile.

“On the flip side, that means she can sometimes be a bit too invested. Clingy.”

Her mother’s smile withered. “Yes. Well. Just as one of Dan’s many terrific attributes is his ability to stay laser focused on his goals, which also explains why he’s gained twenty pounds by being glued to the couch every weekend over football season.”

Dan opened his mouth to protest, but she raised a hand. “But I digress. The point is, honey, that while you are fun, and capable, and always ready for the next adventure—”

“And you can do anything you put your mind to,” Dan added.

“The point is, you . . . just sometimes . . . have this tendency to run off toward the next thing. Like with your hobbies, and your sports, and the jobs . . . and the colleges . . . and all the boyfriends—”

Bree’s cheeks flushed. “Okay, Mom, I get it. So I have, in the past, moved on with new opportunities. But this is different. This is Nana’s house. There’s no moving on with this. This is my dream.”

“I know, honey.” Her mother patted her arm. “But being a florist was also your dream. And a baker. And the general manager of Dollywood. It’s just, there are a lot of things we can do with the money by selling the house. If you are going to take it, we need to know you really mean it over the long haul.”

“And to demonstrate that,” Dan interjected, “we have an idea.”

He paused for the magnanimous moment and held out his hands. “One year.”

He smiled triumphantly.

Bree looked from Dan to her mother. “One year, what?”

Her mother spoke. “One year that you stay in one place, doing one job, providing your own way, then you can have the house. Live in this fine home with Evie, keep up your terrific acting career at the Barter. One year.”

“And on this day next year, April 7,” Dan put in, “if you still want it, it’s yours. If you decide you don’t”—he cleared his throat—“or can’t, Evie has agreed to buy it out. It’s the perfect housing solution.”

Her mother and stepfather smiled at her as if this was the most brilliant idea they’d ever hatched.

Bree felt her blood grow cold. “One year,” she repeated.

The notches in the key dug deeper into her palm as she clenched her fist at her side. One year. One year of working at the Barter—where she was approximately two weeks from being out of a job. One year of living in this house with Evie—where she was about two weeks away from living without electricity and sewing clothes from barley bags.

Her mouth opened. Paused.

The words were on the tip of her tongue: Super, guys. No problem whatsoever. But before we start, I just gotta do one thing. It’s absolutely not a reflection on my stability. Or seriousness. I just need to change everything about my job and roommate and life real quick first.

She could hear how that sounded in her own ears.

“One year,” Bree said, forcing a smile. “No problem.”

Six hours and approximately three thousand calories of birthday cake later, Bree pushed her parents’ passenger door shut and waved them off. The dog sat at the front of his owner’s mailbox, looking like a forlorn dad watching his children head off to college as they angled out of the cul-de-sac. Russell was

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