“Yeah. Mama’s or Lily’s,” Tessa said as she cleared her throat, dislodging the sorrow trapped there.
“Well, I don’t have much, but you let me know if you need anything. We have a twin bed in Bert’s room if you need to use it. He’d love to have company to build new block cities with,” she said with a grin. “He’d think he’d won the jackpot.”
“Thanks, Laney. I appreciate the offer.”
Laney reached over and gave Tessa’s shoulder a squeeze. “Drinks are on the house today. The kitchen is about fifteen minutes behind schedule, as you can imagine. Want your usual?”
“We’re going all out today, Laney,” Lily said. “Bring us two orders of waffles with heaps of butter and a stack of bacon and two orders of biscuits with extra gravy, please. And probably a wheelbarrow to roll us outta here when we’re done.”
“And two pairs of sweatpants?” Laney asked with a smile.
Lily chuckled and said, “I like the way you think.”
Tessa dragged her last piece of biscuit round and round her plate like a buttermilk racecar zipping through gravy. She popped it into her mouth as she eyed the half-eaten waffle on the plate in the middle of the table. She pointed at it with her fork.
“If I eat the rest of that, I will probably explode.”
“I actually thought you might explode two biscuits ago,” Lily said. “Especially after that fourth cup of coffee, which, by the way, has given you an eye twitch.”
Tessa reached up and rubbed her left eye just as her cell phone began to ring. She dug her hand into her purse, grabbing a pack of tissues, a tube of ChapStick, and a notepad before locating her cell. “It’s Mama,” she sighed as she answered the call. “Hey—”
“Tessa Marie Andrews, I have been calling you for hours. Are you okay?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m alive—”
“Are you still at the condo?” her mama interrupted. “Lily called me to tell me you were okay. Thank goodness someone had the good sense to tell me something. I’ve been pacing around here, making your dad crazy, haven’t I, Clayton?”
Tessa heard her daddy’s rumbly voice in the background. “Mama, I’m okay…I think. But we’re not at the condo anymore. I’m at Scrambled with Lily—”
“We’ve heard horror stories about the condition of the homes around Jordan Pond. How’s the condo? Is it okay?”
“No, ma’am.” She exhaled. “The place is probably ruined.”
Tessa described the state of her flooded condo and choked down more tears. Somehow talking to her mama made her feel vulnerable and childlike. By the end of the conversation, she had to wipe her eyes on a napkin. When Tessa ended the call, she asked Lily, “Do you mind dropping me off at their house?”
Before Lily could answer, Tessa’s phone rang again. This time it was their best friend, Anna, calling from Wildehaven Beach. She’d just seen the news, and she wanted to know if Tessa was okay and if they needed her to come to Mystic Water to help. Tessa didn’t know exactly what she needed at the moment—other than a good cry—but she promised she would call Anna back when she was settled in at her parents’ house. Tessa ended the call and dropped the phone back into her purse.
She pulled out her notepad and started a new page with the heading What Should I Do? Then she wrote the numbers one through five down the left side of the page. She looked up at Lily. “What should I do?”
“Don’t eat that waffle. I just washed my hair, and I don’t want you exploding all over me.”
Tessa groaned, but beside the number one she wrote, Don’t finish waffle.
Cecilia Borelli walked over to the table and motioned for Lily to scoot over. In her late fifties, Cecilia still wore her black hair in a wavy, shoulder-length style. She and her husband, Harry, had moved to Mystic Water two years ago from New Jersey to escape the winters. Being unable to decide on where to start their new life, Cecilia swore she and Harry had blindfolded themselves and thrown a dart at a map on the wall. The green dart had lodged itself into Mystic Water. The two of them had fit right into life in town. Together they had made the diner a real success and a staple in Mystic Water.
True to her Italian-American upbringing, Cecilia never let anyone leave without ample amounts of food and hugs. She placed a plastic-wrapped quiche on the table. Then she reached over and patted Tessa’s hand. “Laney told me your place is flooded,” Cecilia said. “Where are you going to stay?”
“My parents’ place.”
Cecilia frowned. “You’re too old to move back in with your parents. My boys were out at eighteen.”
“I don’t plan to move home permanently,” Tessa said, feeling a bit defensive. It wasn’t as though she were returning home because she’d run out of money. “As soon as it’s dry, I’m going to get everything cleaned and fixed in the condo.”
“People are saying it’s going to take a couple of weeks before proper repairs can be made to the places that are salvageable,” Cecilia said. “And I heard the places around Jordan Pond are anything but salvageable.” She pushed the quiche toward Tessa and dropped a pair of keys on the table. She pointed toward the ceiling. “Why don’t you move into the apartment upstairs free of charge. It’s completely furnished, and no one is using it. It’s tough to move back in with your parents. Believe me, I know. After Paul was born, Harry and I moved in with his mother for a few months, and we nearly killed each other—his mother and me. It’s not easy going home after you’ve been out on your own.”
Tessa glanced at the apartment keys, and her defenses relaxed. “Oh, Mrs. Borelli, that’s very generous, but I couldn’t impose like that.”
“If I offer it, it’s not imposing. Take it. It’s sitting empty.”
Tessa looked at Lily for support. Lily shrugged.
“I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine at Mama’s.”
Cecilia’s dark eyebrows rose on her forehead. “There are many degrees of fine. Let me know if you change your mind. Take this quiche with you. It’s basil and Italian sausage with a butter crust.”
“Thank you. I love this one,” Tessa said, cupping her hands around the quiche.
“I know you do,” Cecilia said. She tapped her burgundy fingernails on the table in a wave of clicks. Then she looked at Lily. “How’s that beautiful baby girl?”
Lily smiled. “A two-and-a-half-year-old princess with a wild streak.”
Cecilia laughed. “She’s spirited all right. Bring her by to see me soon. Tell her I’ll make her cake batter pancakes with sweet sugar syrup.”
Lily clicked her tongue. “You spoil her.”
“I hope so.” Cecilia glanced toward the kitchen. “Back to work for me. Tessa, tell your mother hello for me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tessa watched Cecilia walk away, and once she was safely tucked into the kitchen, Tessa asked, “Would you take the offer?”
“Do you really want to live with your parents for weeks?”
Tessa exhaled. “No, but maybe it won’t take that long to get my condo back in order.”
“Tessa, I love you, and I’m going to be honest with you—”
“When are you ever not?” Tessa slumped against the booth.
“You swam out of your front door this morning. You told your mama it was ruined. Your car is currently underwater up to the roof. It’s going to be a while before you can put your life back in order.”
Beside the number two in her notebook, Tessa scribbled, Move home for weeks? Then she drew a frowny face.
Lily dropped enough money on the table to pay for the bill and to leave a generous tip for Laney, who had been moving around the diner nonstop since they arrived. She hefted Tessa’s bag from the seat. Tessa closed her notebook and dropped it into her purse. She slid out of the booth and glanced toward the ceiling, wondering what it would be like living above the diner.
“You think the apartment perpetually smells like bacon grease?” Tessa asked.
“Let’s hope for biscuits,” Lily said with a smile. “But if not, at least the car
nivores in town would be uncontrollably attracted to your bacon scent.” Lily laughed when Tessa glared at her.
“Are you talking about men or dogs?” Tessa grumbled.
Lily snickered. “Based on your track record, is there a difference?”
Tessa snorted and followed Lily out of the diner.
3
Good-for-You Garden Omelet
After tossing and turning most of the night, Tessa woke before the sun rose. She lay in her childhood twin bed, her feet sticking out beneath the covers, staring at the ceiling fan going round and round. Anxiety swelled inside her, making her feel as though stacks of novels were being piled onto her chest. She thought of her wrecked condo, of the furniture she’d so carefully chosen, of the stench of pond water tainting everything.
She rolled out of bed and padded into the hallway. Her daddy’s snores growled down the short corridor, signaling she had a few more minutes of time alone. Tessa dug through one of the bags she’d dragged from her condo and pulled out a water-stained romance novel. The swooning, buxom brunette clutched a muscled Native American as though she would die without him. Maybe her condo flooded too, Tessa thought. She could go for some clutching herself.
She started a pot of coffee that she hoped wouldn’t wake her mama too soon and curled onto the sun porch’s patchwork couch. She lazily flipped through the book until she found one of the good parts. She tried to read and relax her mind, but not even the desperate love and breathy sighs could make her focus. Nothing pulled her mind away from chiseling at the same question over and over again: What am I going to do?
Tessa poured herself a mug of coffee. She allowed herself to blink through tears while standing at the kitchen sink and staring out the window. By the time she finished her second cup, her mama was awake, and Tessa made sure the tears were gone.
“You’re making a plan, aren’t you?” her mama asked from the kitchen table.
Tessa washed her mug and dried it with the towel. “The plan for today is not to have a panic attack.”
“I’m serious,” her mama said. “You need to know what you’re going to do. Have you called the man who runs the Home Owner’s Association for all the units in your building yet?”
“Mama, it’s six thirty in the morning,” she said. “I’ll call him in a little bit. I think I’m gonna go on in to work. The office is probably flooded with calls.” Then she snorted. “Flooded. Pun not intended.”
Her mama eyed her and stirred more sugar into her coffee. “Now don’t mope around all day feeling sorry for yourself. Lots of people are in worse states than you.”
Tessa huffed. “I don’t have a car or a place to live.”
“You have your health.”
“Not my mental health,” Tessa mumbled.
“Don’t sass me.”
Tessa’s shoulders sagged as she exhaled.
“Don’t forget to take your things with you.”
Tessa blinked at her mama. “What do you mean?”
“You know your dad and I are leaving town. We’ve committed to house swap with that couple from Washington.”
The words oozed like molasses through Tessa’s brain. “Huh?”
“The house swap,” her mama said, enunciating each word clearly. “We won’t be back until July.”
Brakes squealed in Tessa’s head. “Mama! That’s more than two months. You can’t leave. I don’t have a place to live. What am I gonna do?” Tessa pulled in short gulps of air. Black spots danced in front of her eyes.
“First, you’re gonna calm down. Come over here and sit before you fall down and crack your head on the tiles. I just mopped last night.”
Tessa slumped into a chair, dropping her head onto her folded arms. “Mama,” she whined, her words echoing in the hollow cave created by her body and the table.
“You know we’ve had this planned for months. We had no idea the town would flood, and it’s too late to change our plans. They’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. What about Mrs. Borelli’s offer?”
Tessa lifted her head. She’d nearly forgotten. “I should take that?”
Her mama sipped her coffee. “Do you have another plan?” When Tessa shook her head, her mama sighed. “Then yes, but you need to work on what you’re going to do next. You can’t mooch off the Borellis indefinitely.”
Before Tessa could argue that she wasn’t planning on mooching off of anyone, her mama continued.
“How will you get to work? You know you can borrow the Caddy.”
Tessa cringed as she thought about driving the 1979 orange Cadillac Eldorado again. Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d had to drive it all through high school while people called it the Great Pumpkin? It reeked of headache-inducing, vanilla-scented car air freshener. The air conditioning didn’t work, and it was nearly as long as a school bus.
During the hot summer months in Mystic Water, the cracked leather seats alone could cause second-degree burns on any exposed skin. Tessa remembered many afternoons when she’d climbed out of the car soaked in sweat and her hair plastered to her neck in sticky strands. She blamed the car for her lack of high school dates.
“Oh, don’t look like you’ve eaten a sour grape,” her mama scolded. “A car is a car, and right now, you don’t have one.”
Less than an hour later, Tessa borrowed the Great Pumpkin and prayed no one would see her in it. She parked in front of her real estate office downtown and ducked inside. She checked her messages first. A slew of clients—buyers, sellers, and renters—called to inquire about the state of Mystic Water after the worst flood the town had seen in more than sixty years. A few sellers wanted to know if their closings were still on, others wanted to discuss property values, some renters were stranded with no where to go because their properties were underwater just like Tessa’s, and the final message was from an out-of-town caller, who only left a number and asked for a return call. Tessa jotted the final number on a legal pad before going through a mental list of whom she needed to call first.
By early afternoon, Tessa had made calls to nearly everyone in town, including the president of the HOA for her condo building, in order to receive accurate and up-to-date details on Mystic Water. She’d unfolded a map of Mystic Water on her desk and had used a blue highlighter to outline all the seriously affected areas. Her condo was contained within a blue boundary of devastation.
After staring at the map and feeling sorry for herself, she updated her clients before finally picking up the notepad and dialing the long distance number. An older woman, Trudy Steele, with a voice as brittle as aged parchment paper answered the phone. She explained that she had inherited a local home in Mystic Water; however, she lived across the country and had no desire to keep the property. As Tessa wrote down the address, her hand faltered. A bumblebee knocked against her office window three times before it flew away.
“That’s Honeysuckle Hollow,” Tessa said. “It’s one of the oldest historical homes in Mystic Water.”
Mrs. Steele remained unimpressed. When she told Tessa her desired selling price, Tessa gasped.
“That’s absurd,” Tessa said. “The square footage alone demands more than that. You’re basically giving it away at that price.”
Mrs. Steele scoffed into the phone and said, “That house has never meant anything to me. I’d burn it down if that wasn’t illegal. There’s probably nothing but cobwebs, termites, and ill will holding that place together. They can bulldoze it and turn it into a gas station for all I care. I overnighted the keys to your office yesterday. You should have them tomorrow.”
The receiver burned against Tessa’s ear, and she pulled it away from her face. Mrs. Steele’s anger radiated through the phone, but Tessa felt indignant on behalf of the people who had made Honeysuckle Hollow their home for more than one hundred years.
She knew the last local owner, Dr. Matthias Hamilton, who died two years ago, had been a third-generation owner. Dr. Hamilton hadn’t lived in the house himself, but he’d rented it out for weddings and events a
nd to passersby or locals who needed temporary housing. Tessa had never understood why he hadn’t wanted to live in his family’s house, but he’d taken care of it just the same.
Dr. Hamilton had been a quiet, kind man. He treated his prize-winning damask roses like children and gave cuttings to anyone who walked by. He dug a winding river through the backyard garden and filled it with koi, before naming each fish after famous fictional characters. Tessa remembered a fat albino koi named Captain Ahab and a skinny golden koi named Dorian Gray that liked to stare at its reflection in the mirrored rocks lining the bottom of the riverbed. Even thinking of bulldozing over Honeysuckle Hollow’s backyard made her chest tight.
Tessa wrote down the necessary information and promised Mrs. Steele she would call her with an update in a few days after she sorted out the listing. Once Tessa received the keys, she could properly assess the house. It had been years since Tessa had seen the inside of Honeysuckle Hollow, but from driving by the property, she knew the front yard had fallen into disrepair. She imagined the backyard would be more overgrown, but burning down the historical home seemed cruel.
After replying to e-mails, Tessa walked to Scrambled, which was up the block and around the corner from her office. Cecilia and Harry bustled with the late afternoon diners, so Tessa settled into a two-top table by the front windows and ordered a garden omelet with a strawberry lemonade. All through the meal, Tessa’s mind wandered between her condo drowning a couple of miles away and Honeysuckle Hollow sitting abandoned on Dogwood Lane. She thought of the rosemary growing untamed in the background, infusing the air with its woodsy scent, and the blooms of lavender waving in the spring wind. She wondered if the rainstorms had flooded the backyard river. Were there any koi still living there? She forked the last bit of tomato and basil into her mouth just as Cecilia breezed out of the kitchen.
“Changed your mind?” Cecilia asked. “Harry told me you called.” She dropped a set of keys on the tabletop.
Honeysuckle Hollow Page 2