“The Lake Lodge, on the other side of the island,” I answered.
Sherry’s eyes got wide.
Race and I looked at each other and smiled.
“You should come out and visit us sometime and bring your husband.” Race’s smile had turned into a smirk.
Sherry didn’t say anything as she moved her head in a combination of a nod and a shake. Clearly Sara wasn’t the only person on the island that believed in ghosts.
We bought dill Havarti, Race’s favorite, and herbed goat cheese, my favorite and we just had to get some chocolate cheese. We also bought fresh fish, fruits and vegetables, a loaf of fresh-baked olive bread, and island-grown strawberries, all priced above absurd.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Our First Two Weeks
Our second morning on St. Gabriel, George pulled up to the back of the lodge in the dray with Ted, the appliance guy from Kipsey. Although Ted was more than willing to come out to the lodge, I decided that offering to pick up the mainland workers at the ferry would be our regular practice, anything to increase the odds of securing labor.
“I was surprised you could come out so soon,” I told Ted when I was introducing myself.
“Quite honestly, I’ve been looking forward to coming out here since you first called me. My grandparents talked about this place. There were big fish fries on the front lawn. They would take a ferry to the island and come out here when they were courting.”
Every time I hear a story like that, I feel I’ve been given another piece to The Lake Lodge puzzle. I walked Ted through the cottages and the lodge to see the appliances. He pulled them out and looked behind, looked under, and opened and closed them to check their hinges and seals. The way he quickly disassembled the stoves gave me confidence that he’d been around their kind before.
“These old girls are sure beauties, in as good a shape as I’ve ever seen. The stoves and ovens I can clean up and get working like new without much trouble. They’re good old units, heavy walled and good cook surfaces. But the refrigerators, they’re another story. They would need new compressors and that big unit in the lodge takes a large one.”
When he told me how much to replace just one compressor, I took a deep breath but then said, “Okay, let’s do it.”
I wondered what George was using to keep his food cold and to cook on. I’d have to ask him.
“You know you could replace them for a lot less money.”
“I know. Eventually we’ll have to get something commercial for the lodge kitchen, but I’d still like to keep the originals.”
“It’s your money.”
“For now.”
Larry Meaks Jr. came out that day and helped Race move the bookshelves to the cottage. And then the two of them moved the dry sinks and the wardrobes from the old washroom to the servants’ quarters where I had planned to set up the new laundry room. A section of the old washroom would be the new first floor bathrooms, and I envisioned the rest of the space being a meeting room someday.
Larry stayed for lunch and we ate on the porch of the cottage. “My dad remembers when this place was open. He was a kid then,” Larry told us.
“I’d love to talk to him,” I said.
“Talking is one of his favorite things to do but never in the deli. Business is business.” Larry stroked his goatee. “You know, I’m surprised one of the Hill families didn’t get their hands on this place.”
“Hill families?” asked Race.
“One of the three families who own most of the property on the island—the Gables, the Marks, and the Alexanders,” Larry told Race.
Race tilted his head and looked at me while he asked Larry, “Alexander, would that be the same Alexanders as a James Alexander?”
“Yeah, he’s one of the great-great grandsons of the guy who started it all,” Larry answered and seemed to have taken note of the way Race was eyeing me. Then he asked, “So, you’re really going to open the place for business again?”
I smiled at Race who was still giving me the eye and said, “Hopefully.”
“She’ll do it. If she says she’s going to do it, she’ll do it,” Race said.
“She, I thought this was a joint venture?”
“It is, but Race is going to be writing a novel.”
“A writer, huh?”
“No, a teacher, who would like to be a writer,” Race clarified.
“If you write, you’re a writer. That’s the way I see it. I’m a writer.”
“Really, what do you write?” Race asked and leaned forward on his elbows.
“Poetry mostly.”
“I’d like to read some of your work.”
“I write for myself. But okay, sure.”
Race Coleman had been on St. Gabriel Island less than forty-eight hours and he had already cracked an old caretaker out of his shell, impressed a baker and found a writing buddy. So far so good, if he didn’t love the island yet, it sure seemed to be warming up to him.
But all was not as Race would have liked it. Even though nothing had happened between James and me, it was becoming apparent that Race would be dealing with his own question marks.
In bed that night he asked me, “Why didn’t you tell me he’s wealthy?”
“Would it have mattered?”
“Just wondering why you didn’t mention it.”
“You mean I should have said to you, ‘Oh, by the way, Race, the man who I would have maybe had a relationship with if we hadn’t got back together is very rich. So take that.’ Sounds a little bitter, don’t you think?”
“I guess.” Race smiled and rolled me into his arms.
“And I’m way too mature to be bitter.” I grinned at him and snuggled into his chest.
“If you say so, Mrs. Coleman.”
The next item to cross off of my to-do list would be getting the vacant cottage ready to rent. It was smaller than our home on the hill with only one story and one bedroom, one bath, and a room that held both the kitchen and a sitting area that had a stone fireplace. The rhubarb patch sat right beside it, so I decided it would be called Rhubarb Cottage.
The rugs from inside the cottage were hanging over the railing of the little front porch, and I was beating the daylights out of them when I saw George come out his front door. I dropped the broom and caught up to him as he was going into the barn.
“Hi, George.”
He greeted me with the tilt of his head.
“How are you?” I asked him.
“Fine.”
“George, I was wondering what you’re using for appliances, for a stove and refrigerator?”
“Stove and refrigerator.”
“Old ones like in the other cottages and the lodge?”
“Yup.”
“They work well?”
“Yup.”
“Have you been maintaining them?”
“Yup.”
“Do you want Ted to look at them when he comes back to take care of the other units?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.”
George turned around to walk away.
“George, one more thing, room number ten is open now and it’s beautiful. What was that room used for?”
He just looked at me. I waited but eventually moved on.
“Also, I didn’t get a chance to tell you when you met us at the ferry what a nice horse you bought. Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
“What’s her name?”
“No name.”
“So I can name her?”
“Yup.”
“And George, I’ve been assuming you’ll continue to take care of the horses and Cat. But we haven’t really talked about it. Is that going to be okay that you’ll take care of the animals?”
“Yup.”
So far the conversation was more of the same, exhausting and none too gratifying.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.”
“Yup.”
“See you later.”
“Yup.”
George turned around and went into the barn, closing the door behind him.
Later in the afternoon I saw Race up on the back porch of the lodge with George. They were talking, both of them, and Cat was walking in and out, rubbing up against Race’s legs. Race doesn’t even like cats. As for Cat, well, Slut, I’m telling Collard Greens.
Larry got us in touch with a welder on the island who lengthened the antique iron bed frames in the cottages to fit the mattresses I had ordered. Then he modified the other frames in the lodge.
Most of the lodge rooms were quite large, and I planned to move beds around so that they were two to a room. We would look for more beds in the attic and shop for the rest that we needed to furnish the rooms that were left empty. Mix-and-match, it would become our theme.
Every time Race and I went to the mainland, we would bring back a new queen mattress set. At that rate, I figured we would have all of the beds we needed when the lodge was ready for guests. One mattress set was allowed on the ferry as carry-on but twenty would require us to hire a shipping charter.
I finished cleaning Rhubarb Cottage and then Race helped me paint it. I made the bed with the new sheets we had purchased in Kipsey and then dressed it up with antique quilts and linens. We were ready for our first guests, so I wrote an ad.
One bedroom, one bath, rustic cottage on St. Gabriel Island’s north shore. Beautiful, quiet setting less than a five-mile ride or walk to St. Gabriel’s charming downtown. Fully furnished. Equipped kitchen. Reasonable weekly rates available.
We didn’t have Internet access at the lodge yet, so Race rode to the library to post the ad on the St. Gabriel Community Website. The site was full of information about the island, including places to stay when visiting. The sooner we had some income the better, since it would be months before the lodge would be ready for guests.
I checked Rhubarb Cottage off my list and was tempted to start rummaging through the closets, cupboards, and attic of the lodge. But I knew that would have me occupied until Christmas and I’d likely make a mess doing it, so I moved on to the lodge to clean and make it a little more presentable.
When the renovation began, the lodge would be blanketed with a new layer of dust. So as I cleaned, we covered furniture, counters, and shelves with plastic, and we closed off rooms that wouldn’t be disturbed during the remodeling, which as it turned out were not many.
Carefully, I stripped the bedding from all the guestrooms and began the time consuming process of gently cleaning each linen and quilt in the big kitchen sink. Then I laid them flat on sheets I had stretched out on the grass where they would dry.
While I was cleaning, Race got his study organized. Then he seemed to have immersed himself in his writing until the day he showed up in the doorway of the lodge kitchen and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning and trying to think of a name for the new horse.”
“What have you come up with so far?”
“I’m thinking either Beauty, which is a bit prosaic, or Tasha.”
“I like Tasha,” he said.
“So, what are you doing?” I asked him.
“I came to see if you need any help.”
“No, I’ve got it. How’s your writing coming?”
“Fine. If you’re sure you don’t need any help, I think I’ll spend some time in the library.”
“Okay.”
Race did spend some time in the library, the next three days to be exact. First he cleaned floor to ceiling. Race was always willing to help around the house when I needed him to, but cleaning had been my thing for the most part. He cleaned more in that first two weeks on the island than he had in our entire marriage.
Once the library was spit and polished, he arranged the furniture and sorted the books into piles on the floor before he rearranged them back on the shelves. When I walked by the room, he would call to me, “Look at this, another first edition, Mark Twain’s Autobiography.” One day he found some books he knew I’d be interested in and called out from the library, “You’re going to love the collection of children’s books—Beatrix Potter’s, The Fairy Cavern and Carl Sandburg’s, Rootabaga Stories. Can you believe it?”
We both kept busy at the lodge our first two weeks on the island, and there were trips downtown, sometimes together and sometimes I would ride in to see Sara by myself, or Race would meet up with Larry to talk writing and whatever else. Most days we would go for a bike ride and most evenings we would walk down to the beach and watch the sunset. Then we took a day to go over to the mainland where we drove into Kipsey to replenish our supplies.
I planned that we would eventually become as self-sufficient as possible. We would get the fruit trees in shape, plant a huge garden in the summer, and can, dry and freeze everything we could from the harvest.
Someday there would be a greenhouse on the rise next to our cottage where we would overwinter plants, grow transplants for spring and summer planting, and grow food in the winter. I had read about a man in Maine who used heat rods in his greenhouse to warm the soil and he grew peppers, squash, and tomatoes all winter long.
Once we boarded the ferry, Race was all smiles as we were about to make our first trip to the mainland since we had moved to the island. I hoped it was because he was looking forward to driving his jeep and not that he had contracted island fever.
If a ferry passenger would like their vehicle waiting for them, valet service is available at the dock on the mainland. Race thought about it, but the idea of a stranger driving his jeep wasn’t worth the two blocks we had to walk to get it ourselves.
He might rethink that in the winter, I mused.
My memory might be exaggerated, but I remember Race walking around the jeep three times and then opening the backdoors to check out the rear seat. He sat in the driver’s seat for five minutes, and finally he started the engine.
We went to the local bike shop and bought a woman’s mountain bike that I could ride on the trails with Race. After that we shopped for the first mattress of many we would buy for the beds in the lodge, and then Race waited patiently while I shopped for fabric to start reupholstering furniture. We ate lunch and saw a movie before we bought the groceries we would have boxed to take back to the island.
When we had all that we needed, we drove back to the ferry and unloaded our supplies at the dock. I stayed with our purchases while Race drove the jeep and our small hauling trailer to the garage, and then he jogged the two blocks back.
Trips to the mainland became something we looked forward to every couple of weeks. Simple pleasures have a greater meaning when you live on an island.
George met us downtown to take everything back to the lodge, and I decided to ride my new bike back. Race rode along with George, it gave them a chance to have a yabberbash. I just happened to have my camera and Einstein with me and took the time to stop along the way to record what was blooming and where.
During that first two weeks on the island, I had scheduled appointments with the subcontractors to talk about the renovation. Joel Morrison, the plumber Larry had recommended, came out and installed the washer and dryer, and I took the opportunity to discuss the plumbing work to be done on the property.
“It’s a job,” he said, shaking his head and making sucking noises from the side of his mouth. “And you start adding bathrooms, change anything, and the St. Gabriel Community Development Board is gonna get involved. I’m surprised they haven’t already.”
Joel knew the island. Two days later, I was outside picking up the birch branches that had once been part of the porch railing, when two men and two women pulled up to the gate in a buggy. The men were wearing suits, the women dresses, and none of them were wearing smiles.
I walked down the hill to greet them.
“Mrs. Coleman?”
“Yes.”
A rotund man with a handlebar mustache stepped away from the group. “We represent the St. Gabriel Community Development Board, and we’d like to set up a meeting with y
ou to discuss the restoration of this property.”
I felt like Professor Harold Hill from the Music Man. “There’s gonna be trouble in River City.”
“We’ve only been cleaning things up so far. I know we need to get a permit when we start any major work, but we’re still finalizing the specifics. What is it you’d like to discuss with me?”
“The Lake Lodge is an historical property on the island and we want to make sure that it’s protected.”
Hmm, where have you been the last sixty-plus years?
“I’d be happy to tell you what our plans are.”
The tall woman, with her hair pulled so tight in a bun she would never need plastic surgery, snapped open the clasp of her handbag, reached in, took out a piece of paper, and handed it to the apparent spokesman of the group. He handed the paper to me.
Written on the paper were a date, a time, and a location, St. Gabriel Public Library.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Treasure Hunting
The St. Gabriel Public Library sits on the lakeside of Shoreline Drive, right before it turns into Main Street. It was built in the early 1900s and like most of the buildings on the island, looks just as it did when it was first constructed.
Race went with me to the Community Development Meeting, which was to be held in the back of the building behind the library’s entire collection of books, ten stacks.
The original four messengers were there as well as about ten other people. Two chairs had been set on one side of the space and when we walked in, everyone else was sitting on the other side of the room, facing the two lone chairs.
Barbara and June from the Historical Society sat in the front row, sporting Hawaiian shirts printed with pink and orange hibiscus flowers. Pineapple earrings were dangling from their lobes. June smiled and gave me a little wave from under her chin.
Still the spokesman, apparently, the man with the handlebar mustache pointed to the empty chairs and requested, “Please, take a seat.”
Race looked at me and got his mischievous grin that I knew meant he intended on having some fun with the situation.
My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) Page 17