I looked at Race and said, “James plays in a band.” Again, duh, and I tried to recover. “With his twin sister.”
Another long pause.
“Well, it was nice to see you Cammy, and nice meeting you, Race.”
“Good to meet you, James.”
James stepped around us and walked away.
I took Race’s hand and we continued down the sidewalk to where we’d parked our bikes, and I said, “And that was James Alexander.”
“That it was,” said Race.
And we didn’t talk anymore about it.
The following week I got a call from Barbara at the Historical Society and she told me, “Your plans have been approved. I’ll send them over to the Island Building Department, and they’ll call you when your permit is ready.”
A week later we got the call that the permit was ready. We were on the fast track. James. I didn’t tell Race what I was thinking, but I guessed he may be thinking it too.
I got on the phone and called in the troops. For the carpentry I chose a husband and wife team who lived on the island. They would also be hanging the drywall. Joel Morrison would be out the next Monday with his plumbing crew. And Ralph Cummings and his fifteen-year-old son Matthew would start right away on the electrical. A roofer from the mainland would start as soon as he had finished up his current job.
Race and I sat at the table on the porch of the cottage and looked over our financial statements and the bids. When we had reviewed everything, I slapped my hands down on top of the papers and exclaimed, “Let the bleeding begin!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
If All Went Well
With some exceptions, having crews of carpenters, electricians and plumbers around is like having a house full of teenagers. They are all trying to get their work done so that they can go and play, and no one picks up after themselves. So when the workers arrived, we had our own little circus, featuring power tools.
I held a meeting in the lobby with all of the crew leaders, the first of many that we usually would have on Monday mornings, meetings that were dubbed the pow-wow by the crew. I made sure everyone had copies of the plans and detailed lists and instructions. I emphasized that the work was to be done without disturbing anything that didn’t need to be disturbed, especially the ghosts.
“You got it, Chief,” said Joel Morrison, a.k.a. plumber extraordinaire, and then he had the group stand up and salute.
“Fine,” I said, “I can see how this is going to be. Next time there will be no coffee and pastries. You will all get bread and water instead.”
Kurt and Lisle, the husband and wife carpentry team, showed up with Lisle’s two brothers and they got right to work taking down walls, which was hard to watch. Then they started framing the new bathrooms.
Joel had four or five guys with him each day, rarely the same faces. He didn’t tolerate slackers and would cut them loose at the slightest dawdle.
Ralph Cummings, the electrician, and his son Matthew must have been related to George somewhere down the island line. They are two of the quietest, meekest individuals I have ever met. Unlike George, they did speak to me in full sentences when I talked to them, but they always prefaced everything with, “Yes, ma’am.” “No, ma’am.”
At lunch time the rest of the Cummings family would ride out to the lodge from their home in the middle of the island to bring lunch to Ralph and Matthew. The family, which included Miriam, the mother, and Matthew’s five siblings—an older sister and four younger brothers—would go down to the beach and eat and then pack up and let the men get back to work.
Just as the chaos was in full swing, our first official guests arrived. I felt as though I should have hired a marching band and hung up a banner that read, Congratulations! You are the first guests of The Lake Lodge in over six decades. Welcome!!! And then I would have had the band play them up the hill.
Instead, I made Rhubarb Strawberry Cream Cheese Muffins with Coconut Streusel Topping, yum, and left them in the cottage with a vase of Lucy’s Shasta daisies and a note, Welcome to Rhubarb Cottage at The Lake Lodge. If you need anything, please let us know. Cammy and Race Coleman, Proprietors.
Before their stay with us, I spoke to Grace and Grant from Madison, Wisconsin, and I asked if they wanted someone to meet them at the ferry to pick up them and their luggage.
“No, we’ll just ride out there,” Grace told me.
And that they did. They rode up to the front gate on their bikes, sporting big backpacks that I couldn’t have carried if I was walking slowly, and on level ground. Granted, they were half my age, but she was a tiny thing. Stuffed inside their packs was all their food and clothes for the week and they didn’t seem to want for anything, at least they didn’t ask.
I had called the couple and told them the renovation had begun and gave them the option of cancelling. “We hadn’t started the renovation when you booked the cottage. It won’t be as quiet as I described it to you.”
I was concerned how they would feel about the situation once they arrived. My concerns were a waste as most concerns are. Not only did they not seem to mind that a major construction site was a hundred feet from their front door, they were genuinely interested in the project as were our other guests that summer.
We walked them through the lodge and told them what our plans were, and they asked lots of questions. Grant was a painter by trade and he offered us some tips that we might want to consider when we began the painting.
The night before Grace and Grant left, Race and I had the couple in for dinner. After dinner we walked over to Rhubarb Cottage and took their picture, which is now on the first page of The Lake Lodge scrapbook with the caption, Our first guests, Grace and Grant Poole, Madison, Wisconsin.
When our first guests departed, I refocused on the property. I finished seeding the vegetable garden, put in asparagus crowns, and planted climbing roses along the fence at Shoreline Drive. Race and I planted ten new trees in the fruit orchard and two new cherry trees down by the front gate.
I spent time in the attic most days, sorting at least two crates or piles as a goal. While I did that, I took the opportunity to reassure anyone who might be listening that the workers were all on our side and that they would make the lodge more beautiful than it had ever been. With the rest of my time, I hovered, sorting trash from salvageable material, picking up, sweeping and watching over the progress.
I was on the second floor porch, shaking the dust from some rugs I had found in the attic. Down below, Nigel, one of Lisle’s brothers, came out of the lodge carrying an armload of old wooden trim. Race was out on the lawn in front of the lodge changing a tire on my mountain bike, and I heard Nigel ask him, “Mr. Coleman, Kurt told me to ask you where you wanted us to start a trash pile.”
“Oh no, son, you’re in Cammy Coleman country. That isn’t trash.”
“What would you possibly want to do with this stuff?”
“Trust me, the lady of the place will find a use for it. Just stack it over there.”
I cleared my throat, “UhHmm.”
Race looked up and saw me hanging over the railing. “Oh, hello, lady of the place.”
“Hello, man of the place.”
“I’m just looking out for you, babe.”
I shook my head at him and went back inside.
According to my timeline, if all went well, we would be finished with stage one of the renovations by the end of August, and we would still be able to rent rooms in the lodge in the fall. All did not go well.
Wade, the roofer, arrived and discovered that not only were there layers of rotted shingles to be removed, the shingles sat on rotted slats instead of panels of sheeting, which he was expecting but hadn’t mentioned to me. All the slats would need to be removed and the whole roof re-sheeted, ditto for the cottages. Also, under the lodge roof, rafter beams had rotted and would need to be replaced.
While Wade was investigating, he also noticed two of the chimneys were cracking and then told me, “I can reco
mmend a good mason. Good guy, lots of experience.”
Alrighty then, send him right over.
We knew the plumbing would all need to be replaced, but when Joel got into the walls he found pipes that were split and had leaked in several places, rotting the framing and subfloor, which he was also expecting but hadn’t mentioned to me. Joel took Race and me on a tour of the damage and gave us a crash course in Plumbing 101.
“Look at this Chief. With no heat on in the place for so many years, these pipes have froze and thawed. The ice swelled the pipes and they cracked. Then they stayed swelled even after the ice thawed and the water leaked out.” While making his sucking noises from the side of his mouth and shaking his head with a half grin on his face, Joel pointed to one of the expanded pipes and ran his finger along a crack. “Look at the size of that one, Chief.”
The rotting floor boards called for extra support when removing the walls, which needed to be replaced because of more rotting wood. When some of the old walls had been taken down to be reframed, a clawfoot tub almost fell through the second floor.
Lisle heard the cracking and yelled for help. We had a chain of carpenters, plumbers, and electricians who pulled it to solid ground before it broke through the floor. It would have crashed down on top of one of the dining room tables that I still had stacked with china.
The good news? The foundation was solid and the floors and walls were all amazingly level and straight. Oh, and no ghosts had objected to the progress so far.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Celebrate
I think everyone should take time out to celebrate the day they were born. Even if you’re alone and you take yourself shopping, or you get your favorite take-out and watch a stack of movies, or you read all day until your eyes are bugging out. The day you were born was the beginning of a life that was meant for something.
If your life isn’t going the way you were hoping, it’s a good day to set down some goals—maybe make a list. It’s a great day to take stock. It is called a birth day, isn’t it?
June 28th I woke up to the sound of the teakettle whistling on the stove. I found Race on the porch setting the table with cups and saucers, a plate of cut up fruit, a vase of flowers he’d bought from Lucy and a basket of pastries—custard and cinnamon Danish, raspberry-filled croissants, and peach turnovers—that he had ridden into town to pick up at the crack of dawn. In the center of the table with the flowers was a tiny pink gift bag, a box wrapped in pink tissue paper and tied with a green ribbon, and a plain white envelope.
“Where is everybody?” I asked Race.
Ralph and Matthew were always working by six-thirty, and everyone else usually trickled in soon after. By seven there would be a good buzz that escalated to a roar by eight.
“I gave them the day off. I knew it was the only way I’d be able to tear you away, Happy Birthday!” Race cradled my waist, dipped me back, and kissed me good.
“Who did this? It’s beautiful.” I winked at him and he kissed me again.
“The bag is a gift from Paul and Janie and the envelope is from George.”
“George, really, what is it?”
“Take a look.”
I picked up the envelope. Inside was a photograph of a trillium flower.
“George collected trillium seeds and then sowed them last summer under those trees.” Race pointed to a stand of maple and birch trees that bordered the cottage.
“For me?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Race and saw his pleasure at the tears that pooled in my eyes.
Trillium seeds are planted by ants in nature. The ants are attracted to a fatty part of the seed so they climb the stem of the flower and take one home. They feed the fat to their babies and discard the seed in their trash heap. The seed germinates in the winter and sends out roots in the spring. But all the growth is underground until the following spring when, hopefully, one leaf may surface. That leaf will stand all by its lonesome for three, five, seven, even fifteen years with some varieties before it is joined by the first bloom. I think trillium flowers are one of God’s ways of teaching patience and reminding us who’s in charge.
“George wanted you to be able to see them from the kitchen window of the cottage when they come up,” Race told me.
I had tried to not let the whole George thing get to me, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some reason he didn’t like me and why. Did I make him uncomfortable and why? Did he simply not have anything to say to me? After that day it didn’t matter anymore. That gift was better than any ol’ yabberbash.
“The other present is from me. You can open it now or later.”
Race is a champion gift giver. He has this special gift-giving ability and he puts a good deal of thought into using it. He may not spend a dime but the recipient will remember the gift for the rest of their life. It’s always significant and not always tangible. Money is never the issue. Race would sooner sit and tell someone a story than buy them a gift card. Race Coleman will never buy a gift card.
“I’ll open Paul and Janie’s gift now and yours later.” I like my birthday to last as long as possible.
In the pink gift bag was a pair of earrings Janie and I had seen when we were shopping downtown. They were silver hoops that dangled teeny flowers made of tiny pearls.
After breakfast Race and I rode to the Water Gardens. He knew it was one of my favorite places on the island, next to the lodge of course. So, for two years in a row I celebrated part of my birthday in that lovely paradise, a tradition in the making perhaps. We walked from the lake where we left our bikes and hiked all of the way up to the top of Gabriel Falls and back down again. Then we went to lunch.
Race guided me to the back of a restaurant we hadn’t tried yet, Chums. It was supposed to have a great spinach salad with hot bacon dressing and the best Pasties on the island.
What are Pasties, you ask? Pronounced “past” as in not the present but the past, Pasties are a sort of turnover that are made with either a piecrust or yeast-type dough and filled with meat, potatoes, and vegetables in any variety of combinations. They can be eaten plain or covered in gravy.
The table Race guided me toward was already occupied, so I resisted a bit as he kept walking in that direction. Then I recognized the light-blue eyes and the tiny blue stone sparkling on the upper lip of the blonde that was sitting at the table. What I didn’t recognize was the pixie haircut, no dreads, it was shorter than mine had been when I cut it for Marni’s wig.
“Is that you, Sara Strauss?” I asked.
“Es ist ich, Geburtstagskind!” she answered.
“Translation?”
“It’s me, birthday girl!” Sara stood up and gave me one of her swaying hugs.
I smoothed my hand over her hair. “You look sassy.”
“Thanks. That’s exactly what I was going for. Sassy and whipped up.”
“Whipped up?” Race asked.
I held up my hand to Sara and asked her, “Can I do the honors?”
“Be my guest,” she said.
“Well, it can mean lots of things.” I looked at Sara. “Stop me if I’m mistaken here.”
“Not possible,” Sara said, “It’s your birthday. You’re queen for the day and therefore supremely right about everything.”
“So, as I was saying, it has many different meanings—a change for the better, updated, new and improved, dressed to the nines.” I looked to Sara for approval. “How did I do?”
“Pretty good, but you forgot stylin’,” she said.
We all sat down and I asked Sara, “Who let you out of the bakery?”
“The Haustermans are here from Duluth. I have three days all to myself.”
“So you can come out to the lodge,” I said.
“I could, but I’m not going to.”
I could no longer insist she was being silly, now could I?
“You can come into town and we’ll do something completely pointless, like, I don’t know something that absolutely
does not need to be done,” said Sara.
For over two hours we ate, laughed, and when my birthday lunch was over, we did not say goodbye to Sara Strauss.
Instead I told her, “Come out and see us, friend.”
To which she replied, “Not on your life, friend.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow at the park at nine, then.”
Race and I rode back to the lodge, and he took me up to the front door of the cottage and said, “Now, get whipped up.”
“Whipped up as in new and improved, a change for the better or—”
“As in dressed to the nines, I’ll be back to pick you up at six.” And he left.
Whipped up? Dress to the nines? What is he up to?
St. Gabriel is a pretty casual place. With the exception of the View Point Hotel, where a dress or coat and tie are required after six in the evening, formal attire is not usually worn on the island—unless, of course, someone is a member of the St. Gabriel Community Development Board and is out protecting island property.
I had two formal dresses left in my wardrobe—the olive-green satin dress with cap sleeves and a basic black sleeveless. I wore the black sleeveless.
At six o’clock sharp, there was a knock at the front door and I opened it to see Race standing there, wearing a suit and tie. He slowly looked me up and down, which is a very sexy way for a husband to check out his wife of twenty-six years, and he said, “Cammy, you are so beautiful.”
The way he looked at me I felt beautiful.
“You look pretty scrumptious yourself, Race Coleman.”
He took my hands and kissed them. “Will you marry me?” he asked.
“Only every day for the rest of my life.”
At the foot of the stairs to the porch was Tasha, hitched to the one-seater buggy. “What is she doing here?” I asked.
“I’m taking you for a ride.”
“You’re taking me for a ride?”
“Well, Tasha and I are taking you for a ride.”
Having spent many summers at his grandparents’ farm in Texas, Race had ridden a few horses—but driven a buggy? Not to my knowledge.
My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) Page 20