How Not To Run A B&B: A Woman's True Memoir

by Bobby Hutchinson

  HOW NOT TO RUN A B&B

  BOBBY HUTCHINSON

  One more tiny little favor—after you’ve read HOW NOT TO RUN A B&B, would you be generous and kind enough to leave me a review on Amazon? I’d be pathetically grateful.

  Copyright by Bobby Hutchinson

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express and written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table Of Contents

  HOW NOT TO RUN A B&B

  FREE BONUS

  Copyright by Bobby Hutchinson

  Table Of Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  INTRODUCTION

  HOW NOT TO RUN A B&B

  Bobby Hutchinson

  Introduction

  Divorce is the mother of invention. Of course necessity comes into it, but for me, divorce came first, which is why I decided, out of the fullness of my ignorance, to start a B&B.

  I needed money, and how hard could it be? I’d raised three strapping sons, I knew how to scrub bathrooms, change sheets and make breakfasts Paul Bunyan would appreciate.

  I was sixty one, twice divorced, loved people but hated leaving my home to come among them. I’d been single two years. My house in Vancouver had a respectable west side address, a terrifying mortgage due to buying out my ex, and three empty bedrooms upstairs.

  My entire education consisted of a high school diploma from little old Sparwood High, located in a coal mining town in interior B.C., Canada. I’d married at eighteen, had a son at nineteen, and read my way through two more pregnancies and several libraries while trying to maintain sanity while raising three diabolically inventive sons whose sole mission in life seemed either to commit suicide on my watch or live past adolescence--in jail.

  My only saleable talent was writing steamy romance novels. I was far too old for prostitution, the only other job I could think of which might net enough to pay the mortgage.

  Writing earned me a fair living, but it was unpredictable. The urban myth about romance writers making mega bucks applies to those few exalted souls who make the best seller lists. There are others who commit slow suicide by turning out ten saleable properties a year, eating M & M’s from a desk drawer and sacrificing their health for thirty good pages a day. Their rule is, if you can’t write better, write faster.

  Of course, there are a few amazingly gifted people—Nora Roberts comes to mind—who can write both fast and really well. It’s rumored Nora will turn out an entire page turner while waiting in line for take out Chinese.

  Most of us are somewhere in between. We’re nail biting, coffee guzzling peons who glue our respective asses to the chair each morning and churn out five pages a day in between interruptions, probably earning less in a year than the check out girl at Safeway.

  Why, people might say? We do it because we have to. Writing for us is like breathing—do it, or die. I’d done it successfully forty three times, and despite the impressive number of published books gracing my mantle, I was far from wealthy, albeit grateful to Harlequin for my not so steady income.

  Writing fiction is hit and miss—one’s best, most brilliant ideas are often not what editors think will sell. Advance payments are always late. Most professional writers can finish a novel in the time it takes their publisher to send out the check originally meant to tide the starving writer through the creative process.

  If we’re lucky, twice yearly royalties may pay the house taxes and the lawyer’s fees with enough left over to go to Puerto Vallarta to recuperate from divorce and deadlines.

  Or, more probably, the check will barely buy a tank of gas. There’s no surety in this writing game—you’re only as good as your next novel, and you have to sell the damned proposal for that masterpiece before you can even write it.

  Faced with shrinking markets and diminishing returns, I put a couple of notices on the Internet. I started with Craig’s list and added B&B International. Might as well go from the ridiculous to the sublime.

  Blue Collar B&B. Stay in the heart of beautiful Vancouver with a romance writer who wants to hear your story. Reasonable rates, full breakfast. Close to golf links, shopping, and India town.

  Some optimist (another B.C. writer, JP Kinsella,) once said, Build it and they’ll come.

  Guess what? He was right.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE JUNKMAN

  “I polished up the handles so carefully,

  They made me the ruler of the Queen’s Navy.”

  Utterly petrified, I cowered in the kitchen as the doorbell announced my first guest. I’d checked the upstairs bathroom—pristine—the sheets on the king bed—freshly laundered soft beige flannel loosely tucked—and my hair and makeup, but at a certain age, there was only so much one could hope for in that department. Besides, he wasn’t coming to date me, was he? He was coming to golf, his pert sounding secretary had said. And he preferred B&B’s to hotel rooms, yippee for me. I was on my way to earning that few hundred extra a week I thought the B&B might bring, if I could only dredge up enough courage to answer the door.

  It had dawned on me that not only had I never stayed at a B&B, I also had not the slightest clue how to run one. My one piece of advice, from my friend Patricia, who’d once operated a B &B with two toddlers underfoot while heavily pregnant with a third, was in answer to my query about sheets. How often should I change them—meaning if people stayed a week or longer?

  Pat thought it over. “Well, I think I’d definitely change them between guests,” she advised. “Mind you—“

  So I was on my own, and I didn’t know how to do this. But then I hadn’t known how to write when I started, either. My rule of thumb has always been, the more you do a thing the better you get at it. In my case it always worked, with the exception of marriage, of course.

  The bell chimed again. A good beginning would probably be to open the front door. I took a deep calming breath, sucked in my belly, and there he was, smiling at me, my virgin bed and breakfaster.

  “Hi, Bobby. I’m John Quinlan.”

  He was tall, handsome; fit looking, a good candidate for a hero in one of my books. Dark hair, good teeth, interesting eyebrows, squeaky clean. Forty five, maybe. He hefted small duffel and a large golf bag into my living room and set them on the rug, taking in the wall of bookshelves, the framed Klimpt print of The Kiss, the overstuffed furniture I’d inherited when my mother died. I’d tried to make up for it’s sagging cushions and bland tan by sewing a dozen silk pillows in a rainbow of bright colors and tossing them blithely around.

  “Welcome, John. Did you have a good journey?” Too late, I remembered that he’d only come across from Vancouver Island, a mere two and a half hour ferry ride and forty minute drive.

  “I did.” He had a great smile. “It’s always a good day when it isn’t raining on the Lower Mainland. Nice place you have here. You do the landscaping yourself?”

  “I have a gardener.” I couldn’t
afford Mavis, but I couldn’t fire her either. She was forty two, single, newly pregnant with her first baby by way of a much older man who wasn’t yet divorced from his even older wife. He also had six other kids, all older than Mavis. It goes to show that Viagra is not always a really good thing.

  Mavis was in big trouble with the income tax department, bi polar and prone to suicidal depression. She was also brilliant at unconventional landscaping. She’d turned my ordinary Vancouver lot into a showplace that had my oriental neighbors begging to see the back garden.

  “I like the driftwood.”

  “Thanks. I always wanted a beach house, so we dragged that stuff home and covered all the grass with black plastic and then sand. Grass isn’t my thing, what do people ever use it for?” Besides golf, I remembered too late. Oh God, what if he worshipped the stuff?

  “I know what you mean. Grass needs way too much maintenance for what you get out of it.”

  Hey, I liked this guy. “Let me take your duffel. Your room is up these stairs.” I led the way through the kitchen and made a sharp left, trying not to bang the duffel, which was surprisingly heavy, against my newly washed walls, and also trying not to look as if I was about to have the Big One as I lumped the bag up the stairs.

  At the top, I abandoned the cursed thing on the carpet in his room and tried to get my breath back without puffing audibly or giving in to the urge to collapse in a chair.

  His eyes took in the gabled walls and the king sized bed wedged into an alcove. A wealthy, compassionate friend had given me the bed when I decided on the B&B, knowing that this room had no furniture except for my desk and computer—which I’d now relocated.

  The cartage men had warned me that if I ever moved, the bed went with the house. It had taken two husky specimens, cursing and sweating, to force the pillow top mattress up the narrow staircase and around the corner.

  “Cozy,” my guest declared, walking over to the window. “Is that a tree house down there?”

  “It is.” My friend Eric had built a narrow bridge from my back deck to the stately old cherry tree, and then designed and constructed an irregularly shaped tree house among the spreading branches. The result was kooky and vaguely Oriental, but then so was Eric.

  “Feel free to use the hammock.” We’d suspended an Himalayan sitting hammock, orange and green and gold, from the cherry tree boughs.

  John laughed. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. I might never get out of the thing. Your back garden is spectacular. It looks like a jungle. I love the pond and the bridge. And what’s the little cottage for?”

  “It’s my studio. Where I write.” My first blind date after my divorce was with a down on his luck carpenter who’d built yachts in his hey day. He’d lost that job because of his nose and what he sniffed into it. He was more or less clean and sober by the time I met him, and I hired him to design and build the studio when I decided on the B&B. The romance, like most of my romances, skidded to a jarring halt when he proved to be surly in the morning, bad tempered by afternoon, and miserable by nightfall. My track record with men was one of the reasons my nieces had labeled me Catch and Release.

  “What’s the square footage on the studio?”

  Damn. I’d have to make up a list of guest’s questions, and find reasonable answers for them. But now all I could do was tell the truth. “I’m not sure, but it has plumbing and a loft.” And the interior had rounded corners with built in ship’s storage, and the most ingenious little galley. It was the perfect marriage between a boat and a cottage.

  “Maybe I could have a look? I’m interested in innovative housing.”

  “Sure. I’ll let you get settled first, your bathroom’s just down the hall. If you want a beer or some tea come on down, and then I’ll show you the studio.”

  “Thanks. Oh, if I’m late tonight and you’re out, do I need keys?”

  I hadn’t thought of that either. I only had one set.

  “Oh, no problem,” I lied. “I never lock the doors.”

  “In Vancouver? You’re a trusting soul.”

  “It’s all in the energy you send out,” I babbled. “Like attracts like.”

  Get extra keys made, I added to my mental to do list.

  The next morning, I was up at five after a mostly sleepless night spent radiating fearful energy that could have attracted every serial killer in the city. Unlocked doors, indeed.

  John had said he’d like breakfast at seven, he was hitting the links early. I knew he drank coffee, but I hadn’t thought to ask him what he might like to eat.

  In a nervous frenzy, I made fruit salad, current scones, blackberry muffins. I hadn’t mentioned on the web site that I was a vegan vegetarian, figuring it would limit my clientele. I had no intention of allowing bacon into my pristine kitchen, but now I was worried about that decision—this was a husky Canadian man who looked like he ate substantial quantities of animal protein.

  Buy bacon at the same time as keys, I added to my to do list. To hell with purism, where had it ever gotten me?

  Quantity, that was probably the answer for now. Load the table and he’d never notice the missing animal protein.

  I whipped up whole wheat pancakes, sautéed veggies for an omelet, and carefully sliced up potatoes to sauté in butter. I unthawed home baked beans, put on a pot of coffee, put oranges through the juicer. I raced out to the garden and picked pansies for a centerpiece and basil leaves to garnish the eggs.

  When he came down the stairs at six forty seven, the table was a work of art, the kitchen was a colossal disaster and I’d sweated through two Gap tees. Nevertheless, I greeted him as if I’d spent the morning sipping café au lait and doing my toenails.

  I seated him in the dining room and poured coffee and juice, wading through the mess in the kitchen to even reach the stove.

  “This can’t all be for me.” He stared at the baskets and plates and hot and cold entrees. “I usually just have a bowl of cold cereal. Maybe that and a piece of toast?”

  “No problem. Whole wheat or white?”

  Two slices of toasted Wonder bread and a bowl of Cheerios later, he reached for a muffin as I poured him another coffee.

  “You been doing this B&B thing long?”

  Busted.

  “Nope. Just starting.” I collapsed across from him and sipped my green energy drink, hoping it would revive me enough to make quasi intelligent conversation. “What sort of work do you do, John?” Get him talking, that was the ticket.

  “I’m the Mayor of a small town on the Island.” He named it, and I barely managed to swallow without choking. Even I’d heard about this idyllic little community. There’d been a glowing article in Vancouver Life announcing that his town had won an award from the Planning Institute of B.C. for innovative housing. The reporter extolled its bucolic charms and smart leadership.

  And here I was entertaining the mayor, for God’s sake. Right here in my own dining room. Me, a political imbecile who didn’t even vote. I racked my brain for a suitable conversational lead, grateful that I’d used cloth napkins and my best china.

  “Is this your first—umm, term?” Is that what they called it?

  “Nope. I’ve been mayor since 1992.”

  “Do you have to—“ here we were again. I couldn’t think of the word for convincing people to vote for you.

  “Campaign?” He shook his head and munched my humble muffin. “I’ve never campaigned. I’ve been lucky enough to be elected by acclamation. But I’m getting to be too much of a fixture, it’s probably time for me to step down and let someone else take over.”

  “Did you always want to be a—“ Politician? Boss of a town? It came to me, thank heaven. “Elected representative?”

  He laughed. “Not in my wildest dreams. See, I started out as a junk collector.”

  This was amazing. I abandoned my herbal tea and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “How did you make the transition?”

  “It just happened.” He shrugged. “I hated school, quit in grade ten. I starte
d working for a contractor, cleaning up after the workmen, driving his truck to the dump and back. I saved my money and bought a beat up half ton of my own, started cleaning up after a couple of other contractors. Then I bought another truck and hired my cousin. One thing led to the next. I bought a big truck, then another. Hired some more relatives and friends. Eventually a garbage contract came up for the town. I bid on it. I didn’t get it that year, but I did the next. I formed a company.”

  “And then what?” I poured more coffee, hoping he’d finish the story before he ran off to play golf.

  “I believed in being fair, I always gave my employees the chance to buy into the business. Most of them have been with me since the beginning. I’ve had ups and downs, but I eventually got the garbage contracts for most of the towns in B.C. Then one of my employees decided I should run for town council when a situation came up that we all felt was unfair. There was a lot of apathy going around. I got in, did that for a couple of years before the town was incorporated. I found out how things work on the municipal level. See, everybody complains about government, but the only way to change things is to get in there and do it yourself. I made some changes when I got elected, and now our little town does pretty well.”

  “What sort of changes?” I was really into this now. I reached for a muffin and buttered it, and sure enough he took a second one.

  He bit into it, and after he’d swallowed he said, “Oh, first thing I did was close down the municipal offices. What did we need all that space for? It cost the town a fortune. Now we use the church if we need to have a meeting, otherwise everybody runs things out of their homes. It made a substantial savings, we were able to fund a much needed community day care centre with the money we saved. It operates out of our old building.”

  “What else?” I was making mental notes. This guy was a ringer for a romance hero.

  “I got the council going on affordable housing. I knew enough about the building trades to know that it was possible to design and build a pretty nice three bedroom house for $160 thou. We’ve put up seven houses so far, there’s another four starting. We’re pretty careful who we sell to. We’ve paid for the land by throwing a series of charity golf events and fishing derbies.” He swallowed the last of his muffin and drained his coffee mug. “Speaking of golf, I’ve got to get a move on. The Mayor of Vancouver and I are teeing off in half an hour.” He got to his feet.