by Jenny Hale
“There’s a balance between making money and preserving what we love about Clearwater. There’s a different mentality here. Let me show you.”
She stood up. Cautiously, he followed her lead. She could tell that he didn’t think any of this mattered, but he was wrong.
Emily entered the house and shut the front door, stopping in the modest entryway. “Gram’s gone to town, so it’s just us here.” There was surprise… or something in his eyes. What was it? Then he made eye contact. Perhaps sharing some memories with him would put him at ease. “My grandfather built this house for my gram. He liked the property because of the wildlife. We have wild turkeys, foxes, and deer that call this home as much as we do. It started as an old cotton farm, but Papa let it all go. We’ve also got a horse out back. It’s my horse…”
He looked more rigid than he had the first day they’d met, and she couldn’t figure out why, but she didn’t want to put him on the spot and ask. If he wanted to tell her, he would.
“Let me pour you a glass of juice,” she suggested.
They walked down the hallway into the kitchen and she offered him a seat, the old chair scraping the floor as she pulled it out to urge him to sit. He needed to relax, and she was going to show him how.
“It smells good in here,” he said.
“It’s my gram’s buttermilk biscuit rolls. Would you like one?” She preheated the oven and poured them each a small glass of locally made grape juice.
The windows were still open, letting in the morning breeze. When she set the glass down in front of him, Charlie took a sip. “This is really good.”
“It’s from the fruit and cheese shop down the road.”
He stood up and retrieved the bottle. “Do we serve this for breakfast at Water’s Edge?” he asked, peering down at the label, his brows creased in concentration.
“Not that I know of.”
“Call them. Find out how much they can supply. I want to get this into our restaurant. I can argue with the commission that we’d provide more revenue to local businesses… If I could get the local companies’ backing… In fact, later I’ll make a list of businesses to support. I already have a contract with local builders. It’s the biggest account they’ve ever landed. Let’s get as many voices heard as we can.”
“What’s the name of the builders? I probably know them.”
“T & N Construction.”
“Yeah! That’s Tommy and Nate! They’re good friends from high school. They’ve been building since we were young, and they are fantastic. If anyone needs anything done, they’re the people to call in town.” Emily couldn’t help but smile at this news. “I’m so glad to hear they got the job! Tommy’s wife is expecting their first child. I know because I got an invite to the baby shower. I couldn’t go,” she said, her voice dropping suddenly. “I was working.” She’d been too far away to drive, and she hadn’t come home for it. Now she felt bad, like she should’ve tried harder.
In an effort to keep the thought away, she slipped the biscuits into the oven to warm. When they’d gotten just warm enough to melt the butter, she pulled them out. “Cheese?” she asked.
“However you serve them.”
“I just put butter.” Emily opened the roll and slathered each side with a generous amount of butter. She set the small plate down in front of Charlie, who picked up a biscuit and took a bite.
“Do they have anything like that up north?” she asked.
He shook his head, finishing his bite. “You know, I wonder if we should have local southern fare at the restaurant as well. I hired a chef who grew up here, but I haven’t asked him to cook regional recipes. Wonder if we should. It might make the inn more of a coastal Virginia experience.”
“The chef was on board with the appetizer change we’d made. He’d probably welcome the challenge to create local cuisine.”
“You are a lifesaver. You’ve got me thinking,” he said. “Show me more.”
She was glad he was loosening up a bit. “I will show you more, but right now, you need to slow down, enjoy your biscuit, and have your juice. You’d said yourself, we move more slowly here. I’d like you to get a feel for that. Let’s talk.”
“About what?”
“Anything but business. Did you grow up in New York?”
She noticed his mental struggle to leave the topic at hand, but he recovered quite well. “Yes. I’ve lived in New York and Boston,” he said. Did he ever just sit and talk about nothing in particular?
“What took you to Boston?”
“I attended Harvard.”
Harvard? She wasn’t sure how to relate to that. She’d gone to a state school, taken out student loans, and lived on meager wages that she’d made working at a donut shop. “Did you have fun there?”
“Fun?” He said the word as if it didn’t feel right in his mouth. “I didn’t have any time for fun.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily said, noticing the curiosity that showed on his face when she said it. “I had a lot of fun at my college. My sister, Rachel, her husband—then boyfriend—Jeff and I were all there. We used to have these game nights on Fridays. They were so much fun! We still have them, or at least we did until a few years ago when I moved to Richmond. What do you do for fun?”
“I remodel things, although I haven’t had a whole lot of time to do it.” He’d leaned back in his chair, his body turned toward her, his face so relaxed now. Emily was delighted that what she was doing was working. And she loved that the conversation was beginning to feel more natural between them. She wanted to know more about him, even though she knew that wasn’t the goal.
“What kinds of things?”
“Furniture, rooms in my house—I once stripped a room down to the studs just to build it back up exactly the way I wanted it.” He smiled, excitement in those blue eyes of his.
“That’s amazing. How did it turn out?”
“It turned out great.”
“I have something to show you,” she said, more animated than she should be. She couldn’t help it; she’d found common ground. “Come with me.” She stood up, slipped her old boots on, and opened the back door off the kitchen. “Wait right here,” she said once they were outside. Then, as quickly as she could, she ran the long path to the barn.
“What is that?” Charlie shouted as she rounded the corner in the old tractor. Its green paint was faded and the tire treads were muddy, the engine vibrating so loudly, she almost hadn’t heard his question, but the cab was roomy, and its giant tires could easily maneuver over the rough landscape.
“It’s my papa’s old John Deere tractor. Hop in!” she called through the open window, unlatching the door.
She could see the deliberation and wariness surface again, but he grabbed a hold of the large handles and hoisted himself up, scooting in beside her. “You can drive this thing?” he asked as he shut his door.
“I’ve driven this longer than I’ve been driving cars. I started on my Papa’s lap.” She put it in gear and bumped along the clearing toward a wide path leading through the woods. “When I was little, my grandfather would put the farm wagon on the back and fill it with straw. He’d give my friends and me hayrides. It was so much fun!”
“And why are we in this tractor now?”
“Because it’s too far to walk, and I want to show you something.”
They arrived at another clearing, and she turned off the tractor. When the silence had returned, Emily could hear that friendly sound of the water calling to her, begging her to show Charlie. She opened her door and hopped down onto the wild grass.
“You might want to take your shoes off,” she said, slipping her boots off with one hand and steadying herself against the tractor with the other.
Charlie, who was wearing dress-casual loafers with his shorts, took them off and set them up inside the tractor. Then he walked around to her side.
“Follow me,” she said, her hair blowing into her face. She tucked it behind her ear. With Charlie behind her, she walked ov
er a small hill covered in sea grass and rocks, until her feet met the fine sand of the bay. She swallowed, emotion welling up inside her, as she saw the long dock that her grandfather had built.
She took him over to Papa’s old wooden boat, the paint nearly gone, the grains showing through it.
Charlie walked around it, his head tilted to the side, his face giving away his interest.
“I’ve thought about restoring it,” she said.
He looked up.
She’d considered restoring the boat even living in Richmond. She wanted to read up on the best way to strip the paint and apply more without ruining it, but there was something holding her back. A part of her wanted to leave it right there, undisturbed where it had always been.
“It was my grandfather’s. I called him Papa. We used to go fishing in it. He built it, along with the pier.” She walked up beside him, in disbelief of what she was about to share. She’d never shared it before, and she wasn’t sure why she wanted to now. Perhaps it was their mutual interest in restoring old things and bringing them back to life, or maybe it was the way he was looking at her now, as if he knew her better than he did.
“When I was young, my parents died in a car crash, and I was devastated. I was only seven—too young to know how to live without them. Papa never had long talks with me or spent a lot of time grieving, but he brought me here, away from our house and everyone, and he let me cry. I cried the whole time he built that pier. After he built it, he brought me here again and began to build the boat. He could’ve easily built it closer to his shed with all his tools, but he didn’t. He chose to build it here where I could cry. I came with him every day until—and I still remember it—one day, I didn’t cry anymore. He asked me to hand him the hammer. I spent the rest of the summer building that boat with him.”
She ran her hand along the edge of it, the proximity of it making her old emotions bubble to the surface.
“I feel like that boat represents the love I have for my parents and also for him.”
She nodded toward the pier and Charlie followed.
As they’d left their shoes and the tractor, Emily noticed that tension returning in Charlie’s walk. Even though he’d had moments when he’d relaxed a bit, that underlying rigidity was always lurking there today.
“Are you all right?” she asked finally, unable to keep her curiosity at bay. She hopped onto the pier, the water swishing underneath it. Charlie stepped up to meet her. He hesitated a moment, his eyes restless, thoughts showing on his face.
“What is it?”
“Originally, I was thinking that we could discuss how to change Rocky’s mind. If I could get him on my side, I think the planning commission would follow his lead. I was glad to find that you knew him so well, but now I’m afraid that we’ve hit a slight bump…”
“What is that?”
“The improvements I’m proposing involve an expansion of the inn. This land that we’re standing on now is part of my suggested plan for expansion.”
Emily had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep herself from laughing at him. She knew Gram wouldn’t sell it. Gram would never get rid of Oyster Bay. When Emily had regained composure, she said, “It’s not for sale.” There was no way in the world that he’d ever get his hands on Papa’s land.
Her tone caused him to sharpen his focus on her. He leaned in closer, those blue eyes locking on to hers. “Everything’s for sale at the right price.”
She stared at him. What a horrible thing to say. He couldn’t possibly believe that, and if he did, he was about to get a shock. If he thought convincing Rocky was difficult, Gram, Rachel, and Emily would be a whole new ballgame. They wouldn’t let him get within a hundred feet of Oyster Bay.
It had been only a tiny farmhouse when they’d bought it, but Papa knocked down walls, and, nail by nail, he built the house Gram had always wanted. The cement sidewalk outside had Emily’s and Rachel’s handprints imprinted in it with their names underneath, the hardwood floors in the hallway inside had the scratches that she and her sister had put there the morning Papa had bought them roller skates. It had rained, and he let them go inside, moving all the furniture just so they could skate. It was the weekend after their parents’ funeral, and it had been the first time since then that they’d laughed. Outside, under the maple tree was a large rock that still had remnants of red paint. That paint had spelled “Farley,” marking the final resting spot for the family dog that had slept at the end of her bed until his last days.
“I didn’t want to say anything about my plans for this land, but I felt terrible holding it in.” His face was serious, driven, as if he really believed he was going to buy Oyster Bay for the inn.
He thought he could just walk in and get whatever he wanted. And, by the look on his face, he might just put up a fight to get it. He wasn’t joking. He wasn’t even considering. It was as if he’d already cleared the land and laid his foundations. Emily felt sick at the thought. “Well,” she said, nearly breathless, “I’m sure you have enough understanding of local life now to get you through your meeting with Rocky.” She needed to talk to Rocky. She wanted to know everything that was going to happen at the meeting tonight. She felt like running all the way back to the house, but she had to stay calm. She had to be at that dinner. Struggling not to glare at him, she mustered all her energy to sound light about the situation. “May I still come to dinner?” she asked, trying to keep herself under control, her protectiveness for Papa’s memory and his things welling up.
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
Charlie had hardly left the driveway before Emily had looked up and dialed Rocky’s work number. Her knee bounced relentlessly as she sat in the chair in the living room, the phone ringing in her ear, panic rising in her chest. She noticed her shallow breathing as she waited for him to pick up, so she drew in a deep breath.
“Hello. Rocky McFadden.”
“Hi,” she said. “It’s Emily Tate.” She picked with a loose thread on the chair, but then realized how it was unraveling the seam, so she stopped and tucked the string down into the crease where it had come loose.
“Hey, Emily. How are you?”
She stood up and began pacing the room. “Not good.”
“Did you hear about your grandmother’s land?”
“We can’t let him have it. Don’t let him do it.”
“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I won’t. I’ve been putting on the brakes every time we meet. I knew you wouldn’t want the inn to swallow it up.”
Emily let out the air that she was holding in her lungs. She felt the slack in her shoulders as the tension left them, and she plopped back down in her chair. “Thank you,” she said.
“To be honest, I’m not really sure that his plans will benefit Clearwater anyway. We like to keep things small, you know.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding as if he were in the room. “I tried to tell him that.”
“When did you speak to him?”
“I work at the inn now, and he’s told me a little of what he plans, but I’ve only just learned about Oyster Bay.”
“Sorry about your break up. I had heard…”
“It’s fine.”
“Well, you don’t have anything to worry about with Mr. Peterson. I’m meeting with him tonight and I’ll dig in my heels.”
“I’ll be there too. He’s invited me. He wanted me to help change your mind, but I think he knows now that won’t happen.”
“Great! I look forward to dinner. And we’ll just keep it between us—no expansion.”
She peered down at the old tapestry rug that covered the hardwoods and all the memories of playing on that rug as a girl, all the fun she’d had, flooded her mind. “You know what,” she said. “I’m going to change his mind. I’m going to make him see how great it is here, and then he won’t even want to expand.”
“If anyone can, it’s you. Let me know if you need my help at all.”
“Thanks, Rocky. You’
ve done plenty. Just stick to your guns and don’t let him talk you into anything tonight.”
“Will do.”
She and Rocky said their goodbyes and Emily got off the phone feeling so much better. Rocky was right; if anyone could change Charlie’s mind, it was her. She was great at selling a place, at changing minds, at highlighting the great things about a location and making people want to be there. That was how she’d made the pub in Richmond so successful, and it was why Libby had hired her as events coordinator. She had to sell the concept of small-town, peaceful happiness to Charlie. Her mind was already spinning with ideas.
Seven
“While I applaud your ideas to help the area’s small businesses,” Rocky said as he set an empty oyster shell down on his plate, his eyes darting to Emily and then back to Charlie, “I just don’t see the need to rezone the land. The inn is substantial as it is. The farm butts up against a large residential area on the other side. Rezoning would drastically change their view and their home values.”
Emily could see frustration lingering under Charlie’s features. She wondered if he wasn’t used to someone telling him no. The members of the planning commission had all left by now, and it was just the three of them—Rocky, Emily, and Charlie. Charlie had delivered an impressive last pitch about increased tourism, county budgets, and lower taxes, but, true to his word, Rocky wasn’t budging. She kept noticing his loaded glances, but she didn’t even allow a hint of happiness. She’d kept it all business.
It was funny hearing Rocky speak to Charlie. Ever since he was little, he and Emily had played together and been in school together, so seeing this side of him was interesting. But she was impressed by how well he stood his ground.
Rocky rose from the table, set his napkin down, and held out a hand to Charlie. “Thank your for the nice dinner. I’m sorry. We just don’t think it’ll fit with the planning commission’s long-range plans.”
Emily could see Charlie’s jaw clenching as he shook Rocky’s hand. After Rocky left, Charlie sat back down in his chair and ordered a beer. “Want one?” he asked Emily. His voice was short, but she could tell his frustration wasn’t directed at her. He was irritated with himself for not changing Rocky’s mind, and by the determined look on his face she doubted he’d be giving up.