Elin Hilderbrand - The Rumor

“You wouldn’t have bothered me,” Eddie said. “This is a quiet time of year for me. I could have gotten you this place, and I would have done you better on the rent. Frankly, I’m surprised you decided to use Rachel. After what Calgary did to Hope…”

Madeline thought, Calgary didn’t do anything to Hope except for break up with her a week before the Christmas formal. And, supposedly, he gave the sea-glass pendant necklace-which probably cost all of thirty dollars-to another girl, Kylie Eckers. But hadn’t teenagers been doing this kind of thing since the beginning of time? Why should Rachel be punished?

“What are you doing here, Eddie?” Madeline asked.

“Once I heard you got a ‘writing studio,’” Eddie said, “I had to come see it for myself.”

She didn’t like the way he said writing studio. It made this decision sound fanciful and absurd, like she had bought a unicorn.

“I’m working,” Madeline said, nodding at her blank legal pad.

“Are you?”

“Trying.”

“I still haven’t read your last book,” Eddie said. “But everyone else loved it.”

Madeline knew that Eddie had never and would never read any of her work. The last book Eddie had even bothered to crack open was Dune, in the tenth grade.

Eddie gave himself a tour of the apartment, his interest in her writing evaporating like a bad smell. In the kitchen, he opened the cabinets, then the creaky door to the outdated dishwasher. In the bathroom, he turned on the water in the sink. And in the bedroom, he emitted a dissatisfied hmmmpf.

Madeline rolled her eyes. Really, what did Eddie Pancik care about a piddly one-bedroom apartment that rented for two thousand dollars a month? The only rental he handled was the famous fifty-thousand-dollar-a-week house on Low Beach Road, from which he took a whopping weekly commission.

Eddie popped out of the bedroom and readjusted his Panama hat in that way he had, giving Madeline a glimpse of his shaved head. Madeline had known him so long, she remembered his curls.

“What does Trevor think of this place?” he asked.

“He was very supportive,” Madeline said.

“Of course he was,” Eddie said. “You deserve your own time and your own space, Maddie. There’s no reason to feel guilty about it.”

“I don’t feel guilty,” Madeline said.

“Except you’re paying too much,” Eddie said.

“Speaking of money…,” Madeline said. She couldn’t believe she was going to bring this up, but there were so few times when she and Eddie were alone together that she felt compelled to at least ask. “Is there any way Trevor and I might see our investment back from you sooner rather than later? I’m not going to lie to you, Eddie. Taking this apartment was kind of a stretch. And Brick wants a car. I would honestly be okay with not making a dime in profit if you could just return the fifty grand to us.”

“I’m confused,” Eddie said. “Why did you invest with me if you didn’t care about profit?”

Why had she invested? Greed, she supposed, and hubris. Eddie had come to her and Trevor with the opportunity to double their money, and Madeline had been tantalized by the prospect. She and Trevor had been struggling financially for so long-while Grace and Eddie bought a huge house on three acres, bought a brand-new Range Rover and a Porsche Cayenne; while they let the twins shop online at Saks and Neiman Marcus-that Madeline had been determined to invest with Eddie because she finally could.

However, she didn’t want to admit this to Eddie. She had outkicked her coverage.

“Is there any way we could get it back, say, next month?” she asked.

“Next month?” Eddie said. He raised his eyebrows and gave her a devilish smile, one of his facial expressions that Madeline found attractive. “You do understand what I’m in the middle of, right? I’m building spec houses. I’m going to build them and then sell them, and we will all see our profit when I sell them. Right now, I’m just trying to get them finished.”

“Are you close?” Madeline said.

There was a long silence, long enough that Madeline thought perhaps Eddie hadn’t heard her, and she was about to ask again when he said, “No, Maddie, not really. I’m not really close at all.”

“But we’re still thinking June for a return, right?” she said. “June, or at the latest August. That’s what you told us back in January, Eddie.”

“Yes, Maddie, I know that’s what I told you, but things have changed since January. You have to take into account market variations.”

Madeline tried not to panic. Eddie was such a canny businessman that she hadn’t worried about investing with him for one second. Trevor had warned Madeline that financial deals-loans, investments, what have you-were exactly the kind of thing that ruined friendships. But Madeline had insisted.

“Market variations,” she said. She didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but she figured it meant her money was tied up for the time being.

“Yes,” Eddie said.

He was giving her his sensitive expression now, which she also liked. Eddie did have a sweetness to him, although it appeared only rarely, and mostly when he was dealing with his daughters.

“I should go,” he said. “Leave you to work your magic. We’ll see you tomorrow night for dinner. Grace is making shrimp tacos.”

Madeline exhaled. One small blessing, dinner at the Pancik house. Trevor and Brick wouldn’t have to eat pizza again. Grace was a phenomenal cook.

“Don’t tell her about this place,” Madeline said. “I want to surprise her.”

“Will do,” Eddie said. He suddenly looked keen to leave, pronto.

Madeline saw Eddie to the door. “See ya, Eddie,” she said. “Thanks for stopping by.”

After Eddie was gone, she flopped onto the sofa. Market variations? They would get their money back, though, right? There was a signed paper somewhere. But Madeline was worried. If she wanted money, she would have to get to work, write this book, make it something special. The mere thought was overwhelming.

She needed a nap.

Sultan Nash, who had been hired to repaint the outside trim on Black-Eyed Susan’s, watched Madeline King park her car in one of the three spots of the blue Victorian across the street.

Sultan knew Madeline because he had grown up on the island with her husband, Trevor, playing football at the Boys & Girls Club. He noticed Madeline’s turquoise Mini Cooper in the parking spot because he’d tried to park his pickup truck in that same spot the week before, and he’d narrowly escaped being towed. Sultan Nash had been irate about this. He knew it was private property, but he also held tight to the belief that anyone who had been born and raised on the island should be able to park wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted. He had appeared at town meeting for a string of ten years running and aired this opinion.

He waved at Madeline and said, “I wouldn’t park there if I were you.”

She grinned. “I’m renting one of the apartments in this building.”

Renting one of the apartments? Sultan thought. Had the unimaginable happened? Had Trevor and Madeline split? Sultan had seen them both at a wedding the previous fall, and he had noted how deliriously in love they seemed, like newlyweds themselves. At the end of the night, Trevor had done a soft-shoe dance for Madeline-he was actually pretty good-and when he was done, Madeline had laid a kiss on him that made Sultan blush. He would have given his right arm for a marriage like that.

About half an hour after Sultan saw Madeline enter the Victorian, he noticed Eddie Pancik knocking on the door. Madeline opened the door, and Eddie disappeared inside.

Sultan mentioned this to Darlene Lanta, a waitress at the Downyflake, which was where Sultan ate lunch every day in an as-yet-unsuccessful attempt to date Darlene Lanta.

Darlene said, “So let me get this straight: Madeline King got an apartment in town and Eddie Pancik stopped by to visit?”

Sultan nodded and took a bite of his BLT.

Rachel McMann told her husband, Andy (or Dr. Andy, as he was known to his dental patients), that she had rented Madeline “a room of her own.” Which Dr. Andy-who was a habitual half listener, due to the fact that the people he was most often conversing with had their mouths wide open and at least one metal tool inside and therefore were unintelligible anyway-construed to mean “a place of her own.” He had never read Virginia Woolf.

Rachel also said, “I basically lucked into the rental, right place at the right time, as I keep telling you, sweetheart. I can’t believe Madeline didn’t go with Eddie Pancik.”

Dr. Andy wondered if Madeline and Trevor had split. He didn’t care to surmise. But he accidentally mentioned what Rachel had told him to Janice, his hygienist, the next morning. Janice was married to a title examiner named Alicia, so she frequently lent a different perspective to the dramas that Dr. Andy told her about, all of which he heard from Rachel.

Janice said, “Madeline King moved out? That doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure that’s what Rachel told you?”

Dr. Andy was sure, or pretty sure. He said, “I guess Rachel expected her to go with Eddie Pancik.”

Janice, being a hygienist, was also something of a half listener. She heard this as Rachel expected that Madeline would get together with Eddie Pancik.

“Really?” Janice said. “That doesn’t seem likely, does it? Eddie Pancik? Isn’t she best friends with his wife?”

Dr. Andy said, “I suppose anything is possible, Janice. But we shouldn’t say anything one way or another about Eddie Pancik. He’s our landlord. We could easily find ourselves out on the street.”