Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3) (31 page)
We make lemon cookies. I prop the recipe card with Irvy’s handwriting on it against the canister of flour. Zane helps, and we don’t scold him for knocking an egg onto the floor or for dipping fingers into the mixing bowl and licking them.
The cookies are soft and round when they come out of the oven. We eat dinner as they cool on racks, and then sit at the kitchen table to frost them with the powdered sugar and lemon juice glaze. Zane pops three into his mouth as crumbs coat the top of his shirt.
“Zane, don’t you want to put some icing on them?” Minnie asks.
Zane shakes his head. “I don’t like that yellow stuff on them.”
Minnie and I spread the glaze on each cookie and, after ushering Zane to bed, sit in front of the TV with a plate of the treats.
Picking up a cookie, Minnie takes a few bites. “What do you think?”
I reach for a large cookie and sink my teeth into it.
“Delicious,” we say at the same time.
“We can serve these as guests check in. What do you think?”
“I think I have the strangest life,” Minnie says as the weatherman tells us the five-day forecast.
“Strange?”
“I mean, who would have known that Mama had this money tied up in a farm?”
“What are you going to do?”
“About what?” She stifles a yawn.
“The land.”
She smirks. “Hold on to it and raise cows.”
“Seriously.”
“You should know that answer. It’s going to be used for the Bailey House.” She reaches across the sofa and grasps my hand, the same way she did her mother’s. “We were born to run the Bailey House, you and me. Mrs. Bailey is smiling down from heaven at us now, don’t you think? ‘So glad you’ve come round to restore my house.’ Do you hear her?”
I think I might.
Minnie gives a contented sigh. “Oh, Jackie. I want to build something good. If I have to work hard, I want to put hours into something that can be mine, that can be ours. We can do it, right? With this extra money? Buck will help.” She stretches out on the sofa and flexes her toes. “I think it’s time to give my two-week notice.”
I’m grateful to see her so happy. I’m also the daughter of an accountant, and therefore my mind begins to think about numbers. “Minnie, what would you think of us using a chunk of the money as a down payment? You know, buy the house instead of rent it?” I stop myself. This is Minnie’s inheritance and I’m acting like it belongs to both of us.
Minnie peers at me. “Will he sell it?”
“You mean will Davis sell the house to us? Yes, I think so. We have a rent-with-the-option-to-buy agreement.”
Minnie says, “Or we could use the money for rent and repairs.”
“Selena tells me that according to the law, Davis should be the one to pay for the structural repairs if he’s our landlord.”
“Really? How are you going to get him to do that?” Minnie looks doubtful.
“Buck and Selena both say that as landlord, the law states he has to maintain the property and keep it up to code.”
After she eats another cookie, she says, “I’ll talk to Mama’s attorney again. I think his name is Johnson. I’ll make sure we get some good legal counsel.”
Something about her words makes me feel reassured.
Minutes later, I ask her when she plans to tell her bosses she’ll be quitting, but she’s softly snoring, her head on a blue pillow her mother crocheted with Eleanor decades ago. Eleanor, I have since learned, was Irvy’s mother.
I fall asleep to the wind whipping over the roof and pulsating the windows. My dream features a Colonial-style home with twelvefoot ceilings, a sunroom, and a picture of the queen in each of the six bedrooms. The two Siamese cats in my dream sit on the glider under the pergola and respond to the names Finally and At Last.
Bert says he can’t remember
the last time Selena actually worked all weekend on a piece for the magazine. “I can’t believe she spent all this time on something that may not ever be read. She even declined a golf game with the mayor on Saturday.”
Selena may have written it, this article describing Davis Erickson as a “Hatteras Landlord Gone Bad,” but she wants me to deliver it. She says it will be read by Mr. Erickson and followed, or else. We know what she means.
“You take this over to him,” she tells me as she pets Shakespeare’s ears. “If
Lighthouse Views
is going to eventually lose you to the bed and breakfast, I want to make sure that I’m entrusting you to a safe and protected environment.” Then she gives me a smile as I thank her for making my battle her battle.
Davis is seated at his desk talking on his cell when I enter Rexy Properties. I see him from Bev’s post at the front, just to the right of the Picasso. She’s on the phone as usual, tapping her nails against a coffee mug. I march right into Davis’s office, my stomach twisting with nerves. As I place the pages in the center of his desk, I wonder if he’ll hang up, but he only nods in my direction, avoids my eyes, and continues his conversation.
I don’t have to wait for him. The waiting days are over.
As I walk toward my truck in the parking lot, dampness from the overcast day surrounds me, making me wish I’d worn my jacket. Quickly, I get into my truck and start the engine so that I can turn on the heat. I warm my fingers by the vent as tepid air shoots through it.
“Hey!”
I turn to see Davis coming out of Rexy Properties; his long strides carry him to me. “What is this?” He waves the papers in his hand.
I roll the window down and ask, “Did you read it?”
“She’s going to put this in the magazine?”
“She will, if you can’t abide by the North Carolina property laws.”
“She won’t!”
“I work for her, and she will. Unless you start to really be a landlord who takes care of his property and tenants.”
“A threat?” His face looks as fierce as the afternoon sky.
And for the first time, my palms do not prickle from sweat.
“Are you threatening me?”
Repeating Selena’s words from this morning, I say, “A taste of your own medicine, Davis.” I know he’s thinking that this won’t and can’t affect him. That there is no way our little plan could force him to do what he doesn’t want to do. But the cold truth is, Selena knows a lot of people in this town.
And what will really destroy Davis will be my aunt Sheerly. She has this tendency to make up songs about people and sing them on Saturday nights at The Rose Lattice. Her songs have been known to travel up and down the island faster than a hurricane wind. You don’t want her singing about the evils you’ve done.
“I’m having a crew come in to do the needed structural repairs at the Bailey House,” I say, surprised by the authority in my tone. “You know, the railing outside, the plumbing, those crumbling walls that you’ve kept painting over.” I could go on, but my head is getting a little heavy. “I’ll send you the bill.”
Davis lets out a sigh. I’d like to think there is remorse in his eyes, but I think they only show that he’s sorry he got caught.
As Buck and his father work in the Bailey House’s kitchen on a mid-November afternoon, I take a walk around the property. I stand back to look at the house, framed under an autumn sky, and suddenly, I think that we can’t do it. I can’t do it. Change is good sometimes, such as Zane growing out of his tantrums and my relatives no longer seeking out eligible men for me. Yet sometimes there is no logical reason for change. Minnie, Buck, and I originally thought we should give a fresh name to this bed and breakfast since it is now under new management. Buck suggested The Fisherman’s Hat, and I had to hug him for that. But the more I watch the men of Griffins & Company restore it, the more I’m certain that it just doesn’t seem right. The Bailey House will remain the Bailey House, a landmark on the coast of Nags Head, as it has been for decades in our community.
We decided the first day of December
would be a good time to christen the remodeled Bailey House with friends and family. Sheerly suggested that we each bring a dish of food to share.
The wind is fierce, and we have to adjust the thermostat in the large house. I’m thankful that the heat works. Regardless of the chilly evening, our hearts are warm. My mom and dad have driven over from Charlotte. Minnie and Zane arrive, and then Ropey, Sheerly, Tiny, and later, Beatrice Lou. L. J. is excited as she enters the parlor, admiring the décor and breathing in the smell of fresh paint. She waltzes into the kitchen, gushing about what a wonderful job
handsome
Buck has done. She’d like new counters in her home’s kitchen, and new cherry cabinets, and then she says, “Oh, get me a new sink, too.”
Before our potluck dinner, she and Sheerly sing a song they’ve written for the christening of the bed and breakfast. The refrain talks about waiting on God and how prayers are sometimes answered in a different way than we expect. We clap at the end; Zane goes a little crazy and claps louder than anyone else.
Uncle Tiny suggests that we all join hands and pray. We do this, closing our eyes. My hand feels warm encased in Buck’s. We are all silent, standing there as the wind whistles outside.
Finally, Tiny says, “Ready when you are, Jackie.”
I realize he expects me to pray. I do; my heart is so full of gratitude, the words spill out easily. If I made a list of all the things I’m thankful for, it would go on for many pages in my new plaid notebook.
When we open our eyes, I feel history has been made—I just prayed our first prayer in the parlor now known as the Fisherman’s Hat Room. We continue by drinking a toast with raspberry cream soda from plastic cups with colorful hats on them—Sheerly’s find.
I look at the windows and floors as they shine under the lamps and chandeliers. I’ve cut back to interviewing only one business owner a month so that I could get this place in shape. As Griffins & Company fixed pipes, plaster, walls, ceilings, and other parts of the house, Minnie and I washed dishes, towels, and sheets. We dusted, shined, and polished. We hired a landscaper to cut and trim, and paid him extra to scrub away moss and algae.
One afternoon after going to three stores, I finally found a marble birdbath in the shape of a clam. As Minnie and I placed it where the old one stood, immediately the garden felt enchanted again. I think there was even a smile on the mermaid’s face.
Using the Wal-Mart gift card I got for my birthday, I bought two large ivy topiaries for the front doorway.
We already have it on the community calendar that there will be an open house the week before Christmas. We will string tiny yellow and white lights all around and serve lemon cookies and raspberry cream soda as people tour the newly reopened Bailey House.
We’ve created brochures for people to take and circulate. The amazing thing is that we already have our first paying guests. Ropey and Beatrice Lou plan to bring the boat over, dock at the pier, and stay next Friday. They want the English Breakfast Room.
With a cry of, “Let’s eat!” from Ropey, we all move into the sunroom. The official new name of this favorite room of mine is the Lawrence Room—a place for all to feel loved and welcomed, just as Lawrence made Minnie and Zane feel. A spot where everyone should feel cared for, no matter where they are on their journey. On the rectangular table, now spread with a checkered cloth from Sheerly, dishes of food stand, serving spoons beside them. There is tomato pie, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, cornbread with bacon, steamed okra, and fried flounder. Minnie picked up a chocolate cake with fudge frosting on her way here.
As we fill our plates with food—Zane and I avoiding the fish—I catch myself looking out the window of the sunroom and smiling. Though it’s dark out, I know that there are rows of honeysuckle bushes right outside. I picture Ogden in his coveralls, his straw hat tipped to one side, a pair of hedge trimmers in his hand, ready to get to work. The image is so clear, it’s as though he’s really there. But when I look again, he’s gone. I suppose he went looking for Mrs. Bailey—walking slowly due to his bad leg—to inform her that it’s time to bring out the lemon cookies and raspberry soda. We just need some of her scented napkins. Please.
After all, we have come round to celebrate.
