Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3) (19 page)
Green and gold helium balloons attached to colorful ribbons are scattered along the corners of the room, and streamers loop around the light fixture fashioned to look like a seashell. A banner pasted on the wall reads: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
“Did you suspect anything?” asks Sheerly as we line up at the long table to load our plates with spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread, and a salad filled with cherry tomatoes.
I think of the past week and Minnie’s strange behavior. I knew something was being kept from me, but I didn’t guess it was this. To my aunt, I reply, “Oh no. Y’all are all good secret keepers.”
Sheerly laughs. “We parked at the bank so you wouldn’t see any cars.”
“Clever.”
The food is tasty, made by a catering company whose owner I have yet to interview. I make a mental note to tell Selena we need to do a piece on Italian by the Sea.
Before the cake is cut, Sheerly leads everyone in a rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Then she and L. J. sing a song my aunt has composed just for me. The chorus is catchy: “Thirty years old and worth more than gold. Yes, I’ve been told, you are more precious than gold.”
The cake is delicious, and I find out they ordered it from the Orange Blossom Bakery in Buxton.
I suppose one of the best things about having a birthday is the presents. Sheerly tells me that humans are never too old to experience that excitement that goes along with unwrapping a gift with your name on the card. On a table to the left of the food is an arrangement of boxes and bags, all in colorful birthday wrapping paper. Inside the gold gift bag from L. J. is a homemade CD of one of the All That Glitters Is Gold concerts held at the nursing home.
“Thanks, L. J.”
L. J. and Sheerly both radiate happiness.
My parents give me a twenty-five-inch TV for my bedroom.
“Not a flat screen, but you like,” Mom tells me. Mom loves to watch TV in bed. She sleeps with the TV on the Food Network, claiming it helps her get a better night’s rest. “It’s Samsung,” she tells us all.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Korean,” she adds. “Like us.” Based on Mom’s glowing smile, you’d think the Korean electronics company belonged to her.
I know Ron is groaning because I hear a muffled embarrassed sound coming from where he stands.
Aggie hands me another gift. This one is wrapped in green paper. I lift the cotton item out—a purple fisherman’s hat with the words “Hatteras Girl” embroidered in pink on the front. Even though there is no card to tell me who it’s from, I know who it must be. My eyes meet Buck’s across the room, where he’s seated next to Ron. He grins.
“Buck,” I say, “I’ve never had a personalized fisherman’s hat. Thank you.”
Sheerly, Tiny, Beatrice Lou, and Ropey have chipped in to get me a gift card for Wal-Mart. “It is such a good store. I don’t know what I’d do without it,” Tiny confesses.
Aggie gives me a pair of earrings—gold hoops so that I no longer have to borrow Minnie’s—and Minnie’s gift is a promise to cook me dinner on my actual birthday. Ron’s present is a pair of cheetahspotted sunglasses.
Zane shows me his rope art—a basic white braided rope tied in a single hitch knot with two small white seashells glued to it. There is one blob of glue that is larger than one of the seashells. “Happy Birthday!” He extends the gift to me, but when I reach for it, he won’t let go.
“Zane, let her have it,” says his mother.
“I’ll put it in my room,” I say. “You can see it every day.”
He seems pleased, and I am, too. My child psychology is getting better these days.
Zane begs for another slice of cake. Sheerly assists him but asks him first to say please. He refuses, his lips pucker, but when he sees Ropey with a piece of cake, his eyes grow wide, and quickly he gives in. “Please.”
As I walk by Irvy, she reaches out to me, gives me a kiss on the cheek, her faint breath caressing my ear. “Thank you for being here,” I say.
After opening and closing her mouth a few times, her words come at last. “Remember Mrs. Dupree,” she says.
“What?” I move in closer.
“She fell.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” I wonder who Mrs. Dupree is. Perhaps a woman at the nursing home.
“Remember her.” Irvy’s eyes flicker and then shut. “She needs to be remembered.”
Maybe I could send some cake back to the home for the woman. “Does she like cake?” I ask.
Irvy keeps her eyes closed as she says, “Mrs. Dupree fell on a Sunday.”
I give up trying to understand Irvy when a fine distraction enters. Davis walks across the room, making his way toward me.
His embrace is tight and warm. “Hi, happy birthday.” He kisses me, and I grow weak at the knees. He’s wearing a white dress shirt and pair of tan slacks and smells of Ralph Lauren’s Polo cologne. I know because he’s told me that’s what he wears.
I really wish I’d dressed up.
He hands me a manila envelope. “For you.”
I fiddle with the clasp and then reach into the opening. Anticipation grips me as I pull out papers. I read the bold heading on the first one, then lift my eyes to meet his. They are serious with a hint of mystery.
No words will come out of my mouth. He smiles and pulls me closer.
“Is it really what it says it is?” I whisper.
“What does it say?”
I gulp. “Rent . . .” Moistening my lips, I try again. “Rent with the option to buy. It’s for the Bailey House!”
“Happy birthday!” He grins.
Elated, I hug him. “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!”
Then my parents approach, and I introduce them to Davis. I’m more bubbly and animated than I’ve been in weeks.
Irvy is not so pleased; her eyebrows are bunched together. I catch her glaring at Davis.
At four, Buck leaves with Ron to go kayaking. “See you later, sis,” my brother tells me. “I’m crashing at your place tonight. Just leave a pillow on the sofa for me.”
My relatives are now all seated around one table talking about family updates. They all seem interested in the conversation. Except for Ropey. When I look into his eyes, I think his mind is on that eighteenfooter at Casey Luweigneson’s. He told me last week that Beatrice Lou said she would not let him own a “death machine.” After Lawrence’s boat was capsized in the storm, Beatrice Lou claims she’s never going to ride on one, nor be married to a man who owns one.
I load my gifts into Minnie’s car with Dad’s help. “Come visit us sometime,” he says as he places the TV in the trunk. “Mom and I miss having you in Charlotte.”
I say I will, putting the manila envelope that holds the best gift of all on top of the TV. I then carefully close the trunk and lock the car. Twice.
As we make our way back inside the Grille, I think of how I love my family, but right now I just want to be alone with Davis.
When I walk back into the party room,
Sheerly is telling Davis about coming in second place at the Kitty Hawk song competition. I manage to extricate him and then follow him outside the Grille. He tells me he has to go to a meeting.
“On a Sunday afternoon?” I feel like Zane with a notion to whine.
“Business is always waiting to happen.”
I squash the niggling thought that this business might have something to do with Vanessa. I don’t want the role of the jealous girlfriend. I pull him to me, gently touch his chin and neck, and then give him a kiss along his jaw. “Thanks for the lease papers. I can’t wait to read them and sign.”
I walk with him to where his BMW is parked at the bank across the street and then watch as he climbs into the driver’s seat. My eyes are still on him as he lowers the top, puts on a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, backs out and away, and until he’s only a dot on the road.
He gave me lease papers for the Bailey House; my excitement is as vast as the August sky. I smile up at the wispy clouds and at a stranger riding his bike down the road. The stranger smiles back.
“Thank you, God.” My voice sounds much too giddy to belong to me. “Thank you for Davis and for this gift.”
While Minnie drives Zane and me home, we excitedly talk about our plans for the bed and breakfast. Zane claps his hands and sings, “London Bridge Is Falling Down.”
That night, I drive to the Bailey House by myself, and when I step out of my truck, I feel like a celebrity as I give one of the front columns a kiss. “We are really going to do this!” I cry. Davis has entrusted this prime real estate owned by his grandparents to me—to
me
! The locked front door is the only thing stopping me from going inside today. I wish Davis had given me a key. I close my eyes, letting all the memories of being inside the house fill me. Davis said the furniture is covered in old sheets for protection. Who knew I could look forward to taking off dusty old sheets?
Beside the large Colonial-style home is a garage that Mr. and Mrs. Bailey used for not only their Lincoln but all the lawn tools and a riding mower. On the side of the garage is a set of stairs that leads up to a room above the garage, a room where the Baileys slept. I’ve always thought that either Minnie or I could have this room. Now, with Zane, Minnie will need more space. I decide to let the two of them use that room. There is a small office inside the main property on the first floor that could serve as a cozy bedroom for me.
When I get home, Zane is tucked in bed. Ron and Minnie are talking in low voices on the back deck. I greet them and then excuse myself to my bedroom.
Opening the manila envelope, I take out the pages. There it is in bold print: Rent with the Option to Purchase. I smile at myself in the dresser mirror. “Hello,” I say to my reflection. “I’m Jacqueline Cate Donovan. I’m twenty-nine; on Tuesday I’ll be thirty. I rent the Bailey House!”
I see that the agreement states I’ll pay $2,800 each month to rent the house located at 3 Red Pelican Court. Even though that is the exact sum I told Davis I could afford, now that it is in black and white I wonder how I’ll be able to come up with that. I shove the worry aside and read over the pages about five times. There are paragraphs about the closing, the rent payments, the landlord, and all kinds of legal things I only partially understand. I notice that Davis has reduced the price of the property. When we first spoke, he told me it was $1.5 million, but the contract lists the cost of the home as $1.2 million, should I desire to exercise my right to buy it. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to come up with that kind of money.
It strikes me funny to think that Davis will be my landlord. What kind of landlord will he be? Surely not like Mrs. Appleton, who always spies on us and is strangely particular about where we place our check. Flipping over the lease, I let my eyes blur. I place the papers on the bed and sigh. I’ll ask Davis to explain it all to me later.
There’s a knock on my door. Minnie asks if I want to join her and Ron.
I shake my head in a dreamy sort of way.
She smiles. “Oh, I know. You want to read over the contract a few hundred more times.”
Once she’s closed my door, I send a text message to Davis.
Thank you. I miss you.
As I cook breakfast for
Minnie, Ron, and me, I think of the first breakfast I want to serve at the Bailey House. I’ve often thought about this, but now that I have the legal papers in my hand, it’s as different as deciding which ice cream flavor you plan to eat as you sit at home compared to standing in front of all the varieties at Baskin-Robbins with a sales clerk ready to serve you.
Prying open an old cookbook, I flip through the breakfast section. Waffles with strawberries? Omelets? One photo has a fluffy yellow omelet with spinach spilling out over the edges, all presented on a Carolina-blue plate. I turn the pages to see recipes for banana bread and strudels. I know that a hash brown casserole would also fit in nicely on the breakfast menu. I wonder if I’ll need to hire a cook to help me on busy mornings. All I know is it can’t be one of my Hatteras relatives!
Once when Minnie and I were daydreaming about our plans for the Bailey House, she recommended we have a Korean night.
I stopped massaging her shoulders. “What would we serve?”
“Pulgogi.”
“Who’s cooking?”
“Your mom could come over.”
Mom would love that. However, I’m surprised by Minnie’s suggestion. The last time Minnie came over to eat a Korean meal with us, she hardly tried any of the pickled vegetables, not even the tamer ones like cucumbers in soy sauce. She did have a small portion of the seasoned beef strips—called fire beef—from the large pan set in the middle of the dining table.
Questions buzz around my head, and I find a piece of paper to start a list. There must be lemon cookies and raspberry cream soda in stock at all times. Perhaps we should follow the practice of Doubletree Hotels and give out fresh cookies upon check-in. I feel sadness seep into my heart when I realize I don’t have Mrs. Bailey’s lemon cookie recipe.
Not wanting to give in to sorrow, I quickly resume the list. Should we play flute music in the sunroom? Maybe buy a piano or have a music night and let Sheerly and her group entertain? Unfortunately, Irvy’s piano was sold at auction shortly after she moved in to the Morning Glory Nursing Home.
Flowers,
I write at the bottom of the list. Lots of color will make the parlor bright and beautiful. My mind whirls with thoughts of special functions, dessert parties, and the possibility of having canoes and kayaks to rent by the back pier.