Saturdays at Sweeney's

by Ashley Farley

  “Deal.” They shook on the unofficial offer, and Jackie led them to the front door. “I’m supposed to meet my Realtor in five minutes. Her name is Midge Calhoun. Shall I have her call your Realtor?”

  Catherine giggled. “That would be great. I’m sure she has his number. We’ve been working with her husband, Bennett.”

  Jackie smiled. “All the better. This might just be the most hospitable real estate closing in history.”

  #

  Midge and Hugh Kelley were waiting for Jackie on the sidewalk in front of the Church Street house.

  Hugh kissed Jackie’s cheek. “It’s good to see you.”

  He’d done a meticulous job on the Lamboll Street project, and she was looking forward to working with him again. His attention to detail had prevented her from making a bad decision on more than one occasion. Never mind that he was handsome in a rugged boots-and-blue-jeans kind of way. He’d been in a relationship with Heidi now for several years. A perfect match for sure. Jackie felt certain they’d eventually marry, most likely when they could find the time off from their demanding careers to tie the knot.

  Jackie and Midge wandered through the house from room to room while Hugh examined the mechanics—the plumbing and electrical. When they paused to enjoy the warm sunshine and light breeze on the second-floor piazza, Jackie explained about the Doyles’ offer on her house on Lamboll Street. “I just earned you a handsome commission and you didn’t have to lift a finger.”

  “Yippee!” Midge clapped her hands like a kindergartner. “I’m taking you to lunch at the Charleston Place to celebrate.”

  Jackie hesitated. Hugh had yet to inspect the Meeting Street warehouse, and she needed to get home to Sean as soon as possible. But she had to eat lunch at some point. “Sounds lovely.”

  “I can’t wait to tell Bennett,” Midge said, removing her phone from her bag.

  As Midge paraded back and forth on the piazza, phone pressed to her ear, Jackie admired her black Theory shift and Christian Louboutin patent pumps. Her Realtor had great style in clothes, with a fun-loving personality to match. She wasn’t flashy, nor did Jackie consider her a classic beauty. She was the pretty girl with pert nose and hot body that all the boys lusted over in high school.

  They had moved to the sidewalk in front of the house when Hugh emerged from the basement fifteen minutes later. “The electrical needs upgrading,” he said, rubbing his grimy hands on his jeans. “As does the plumbing. Gutting the kitchen and bathrooms, like you mentioned on the phone, will take care of most of your major issues.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take to finish the renovations? I just agreed to be out of my house on Lamboll by November first.”

  Hugh whipped out his phone and examined his calendar. “That depends on when I can start.”

  Jackie had long since worked out how she would pay for this house and the warehouse without the equity from her old house. She looked at Midge. “How soon do you think we can close a no-strings-attached deal?”

  “The house has been empty for some time, which means we should be able to work a deal. I’d say in thirty days, if you’ve already worked out your financing.”

  “If that’s the case,” Hugh said, “I can make November one happen. But only for you, Jackie.”

  “Thank you, Hugh. You can count on a handsome bonus for finishing on time.”

  It took Hugh even less time to inspect the warehouse than it had to inspect the house on Church Street. “Heating and air have been updated and are in pristine condition,” he reported after his thorough inspection. “Go ahead and make your offer. But do it fast before someone beats you to it.”

  Aside from installing computer and phone systems, painting the wall that separated the showroom from the workroom was the only improvement she planned to make.

  She hugged Hugh goodbye, despite his filthy clothing, on the sidewalk in front of the building and promised to be in touch as soon as the deals were finalized. She and Midge opted to walk to the Charleston Place to take advantage of the mild weather before the oppressive heat and humidity set in for the summer.

  They both ordered the crab salad, and Midge surprised her by requesting a bottle of Prosecco.

  “We shouldn’t jinx ourselves by celebrating before we’ve written the offers,” Jackie said.

  “Then we’d better get busy.” She removed her computer from her leather laptop bag.

  They sipped Prosecco and nibbled on crab salad while Midge crafted the contracts. An hour and a half later, Jackie was more than a little buzzed when Midge finally shut her laptop. “Now we wait,” she said, signaling the waiter. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to run. I have another appointment.”

  Jackie’s words slurred off her tongue when she said, “You can’t meet a client in your condition.”

  “What condition?” she asked with a wicked grin on her face. “You drank most of the bottle. I only had a teensy-weensy sip.”

  Jackie fell back in her chair. No wonder she felt drunk. “You are bad, Midge.”

  “How else was I going to keep you occupied while I wrote the contracts?” She signed the credit card slip and handed the black folder to the waiter. “Come on. I’ll order us an Uber.”

  “I’m gonna be in so much trouble with my husband. Do you think the Uber driver will take me to Prospect?” Jackie asked as she tripped through the hotel lobby after Midge.

  “Take a nap, hon. You’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”

  But Jackie slept hard for four hours. She woke a few minutes before six. When she retrieved her phone from the bedside table to call her husband, she saw she had five missed calls from Midge. She tapped the Realtor’s number.

  Midge answered on the first ring. “Finally! I was getting worried about you. I have great news. The owners of both properties accepted your offers.”

  “That is great news.” Jackie rolled over on her side and slowly sat up. The room spun around her. “Why’d you let me drink so much?”

  “As if I could stop you,” Midge said with a snicker. “Don’t worry about it. We all need to blow off some steam every now and then. I’m so sorry about your mama.”

  Goose pimples dotted her arms. “How do you know about my mother?”

  “You told me all about her diagnosis. Don’t you remember?”

  Jackie wasn’t in the habit of discussing her personal problems with friends. At least she’d had the good sense not to mention Sean. She brought a hand to her aching head. She hoped she hadn’t mentioned Sean. She was a drunk, no better than her son or her sister. “Thanks for listening,” she muttered.

  “Do you need me to take you to your car?”

  “No, but thanks. The fresh air will do me good,” Jackie said and thought, And sober me up.

  She rinsed her mouth out, used the toilet, and left the house on foot. She called Bill on the short walk over to Meeting Street. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I got tied up on a project I’m working on. I’m leaving Charleston now.”

  She was relieved when he didn’t sound angry. “And I’m leaving the office. Why don’t I stop by the store and pick up some steaks for dinner?”

  “That would be great. I have some exciting news for you. I can’t wait to tell you about it when I get home.”

  “In that case I’ll pick up a bottle of bubbly.”

  Her stomach lurched at the thought of more alcohol, but Jackie managed to say, “That’d be lovely.”

  FOURTEEN

  Jamie

  Sean was visibly hungover when Jamie picked him up from the farm on Saturday morning a few minutes after seven. They’d exchanged words the night before at work. Jamie had witnessed Sean nipping from his flask and called him out on it. “What’re you doing, bro? If the manager catches you, he’ll fire you.”

  “Don’t worry about it!” Sean tried to walk away, but Jamie grabbed his arm. “Where did you get the liquor?” Sean averted his eyes, and Jamie pressed. “Do you have a fake ID?”

  “So what if I do?” Sean yanked his
arm free. “Everybody under twenty-one has a fake. You need to back off. You’re seriously starting to get on my nerves.”

  Jamie had been serving drinks to a group of local drunks when Sean left work. Now, based on his bloodshot eyes and the odor of alcohol exuding from his pores, he had gotten drunk somewhere. Jamie hoped it was in the safety of his home, after he got there from work. Sean had bummed rides to and from work all week from Jamie, even though his 4Runner remained parked in his driveway. Jamie suspected his cousin might have lost his license.

  “How’d you get home from work last night?” Jamie asked casually on the way to the market lot.

  “Julius gave me a ride.” Sean stared him down. “I know what you’re gonna say, but save the lecture, dude. You were busy when I left, and I was tired and ready to go home.”

  Jamie decided to let it go for now. They had a busy day ahead of them.

  The cousins set up a seafood kiosk that rivaled the umbrella stand where their grandmother had originally started Captain Sweeney’s Seafood Market nearly sixty years ago. They’d borrowed the red pop-up tent Sean’s parents used for tailgate parties at Georgia football games, and they installed it in the Sweeney’s parking lot. Jamie backed his pickup truck under the edge of the tent and use the tailgate as a checkout counter. At Sean’s suggestion they filleted the flounder they’d caught on Thursday and sold it by the pound, packaged in Styrofoam containers and secured with plastic wrap. They sold the flounder and crabs out of YETI coolers from the bed of Jamie’s truck. Eli borrowed two orange traffic cones from the police department and used them to prop up the metal sign Sam had rescued from the rubble. The sign, with ‘Seafood’ painted in red in a retro style, had hung on the walls at the market for as long as anyone could remember.

  Sam, after a day of baking in her test kitchen, donated the products of her experiments to the cause—blueberry crumb coffee cake, cheddar cheese muffins, and angel food cakes. The most popular item from the selection was her pistachio pound cake. She’d made two batches of cake mix that yielded six loaves, all of which sold within the first hour. Jackie contributed a banquet table and blue gingham tablecloth to display the baked goods and a cooler full of bottled water for the patrons to drink while they shopped.

  The Sweeney clan showed up in shifts. Bill came first on his way to his eight thirty tee time. Mike brought Bitsy by on their way home from brunch at the Island Bakery, and Jackie stopped in for a few minutes around ten. Faith was the only family member who couldn’t make it. For fear of upsetting her, they’d all agreed to keep Lovie away.

  Sam had insisted they operate in a professional manner by running the money through the market account. She’d purchased a cash box and a credit card reader from the office supply store. The line of customers was already backed up when she arrived around eight. She took over the transactions while the boys filled their customers’ orders.

  During a lull in business around noon, Jamie pulled his mother over to the edge of the lot near the stationery store. “Did you realize Pen to Paper is for sale?”

  “Of course, honey. Anita closed down in March. Her business has been way off for the past two years. I hate to see her go. She’s been a good neighbor.”

  He took Sam by the arm and led her to the front door of the store. “Annie suggested we buy it,” he said as he peeked inside the window of the stationery store. “And I think it’s something to consider. With the expansion plans you have for the new market, we’re going to need more space than we had in our old store. A bigger building will leave very little room for parking. We could design an L-shaped building sited on the corner and have parking lots on either side.”

  Sam’s eyes darted back and forth between the stationery store and their lot. “I love the idea, honey. But we can’t consider a plan like that until we settle with the insurance company. If we settle with the insurance company. As it stands right now, we’ll have to file a lawsuit, which means a long, drawn-out court battle.”

  Jamie shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why?”

  Sam exhaled a deep breath. “I haven’t wanted to worry you with this, but the insurance company is trying to pin the fire on Lovie, and there’s a provision in our policy that excludes arson. You and I both know Lovie would never do something like that, regardless of her state of mind, but we’re having a difficult time proving it based on the evidence.”

  “Does that mean we might not get any money from the insurance company?”

  “Unfortunately, there’s a chance we won’t get a dime.” She cupped his chin in her hand. “But don’t you worry about a thing, my boy. One way or another, we’ll figure out how to reopen the market. I still have my share of Mack’s money. Combined with the documentation that proves the market was on solid financial ground, we’ll be able to build a similar setup to what we had.”

  Jamie hung his head. “So buying the stationery store is out of the question.”

  She nodded. “Unless we receive an unexpected windfall.”

  #

  By two o’clock that afternoon, they’d sold every crab, flounder fillet, and baked item on the lot. Farmer Fred Firestone, a local supplier of produce to Captain Sweeney’s, stopped in as they were packing up.

  “Good to see ya, son.” He gave Jamie’s hand a firm shake. They reminisced for a few minutes about old times at Sweeney’s. “If you’re planning to host your farmers’ market again, I’d love to get in on the action. I’ll pay you a fee, of course.”

  Jamie liked the idea of a Saturday farmer’s market. Why not include other locals with goods to sell?

  “Sean and I were just talking about whether to do it again next week,” Jamie said, and introduced the farmer to his cousin.

  “I’ve expanded my crops this year,” Farmer Fred said. “I have some newfangled vegetables your customers will like. My field is full of different kinds of peppers. My son says I need these varieties to make my garden current. Whatever that means.” He chuckled. “Evan’s a foodie, you understand. A banker by day and Top Chef wannabe by night. I have the tried-and-true vegetables as well. Best sweet corn I’ve grown in years. I have my own cart on wheels. I promise to stay out of your way. I’ll set up wherever works best for you.”

  “We’ll figure that out when we get here on Saturday,” Jamie said. “Is seven too early?”

  “Heck no! I’m a farmer. I get up when the rooster crows.” Fred started to walk off and turned back around. “Oh, and my wife has started a real purdy wildflower garden. I’ll have her bundle some up.”

  Jamie flashed him a smile. “The ladies will love that.”

  They watched the old man climb into his old beat-up pickup truck and drive away. Sean turned to Jamie. “Seriously, cuz. We made a killing today, and it’s not even two o’clock. We could’ve sold ten times more crabs. If only we had a place to store them. They won’t fit in our refrigerator.”

  Jamie thought about it while they took down the tent. “Maybe the marina store will rent us some space in their walk-in refrigerator. I had to get some ice from them yesterday afternoon when the ice machine broke at the restaurant. Their cooler was practically empty.”

  “That would be perfect,” Sean said, his blue eyes bright with excitement. “We can keep the crabs cold that way, and bring them across the street as we need them.”

  “We’ll need more time next Friday to prepare for the market,” Jamie said. “I know that Friday night is the busiest night at the Roost, but we should ask off anyway. I just hope they’ll let us have it.”

  “So what if they don’t, bro?” Sean said as he climbed into the passenger side of Jamie’s pickup. “We can make way more money selling crabs than pouring drinks and busing tables.”

  #

  Jamie thought Heidi Butler was a knockout for a woman who dressed like a teenager and wore her hair in a messy pile on top of her head. He’d found her fun to be around and full of creative ideas when she catered his mother’s wedding reception at the bungalow December before last. But that was prior
to Annie’s discovery that Heidi was her real mother. He did not approve of the way she had abandoned Annie as a baby, but if Annie could forgive her mother, then so could he.

  By the end of the Picketts’ wedding reception that night, Heidi had totally won him over. Not only was she a talented chef and an efficient coordinator, she treated her employees with a fair but firm hand. She expected perfection from them, and she paid them well accordingly.

  “You’re a hard worker, Jamie, a welcome addition to my staff,” she told him as they were loading her van after the last guest had left. “Make yourself at home tonight. I’m sorry I don’t have a guest room, but there’s an air mattress in the hall closet. Annie can show you where it is.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Jamie said. “Thanks for letting me crash.”

  Heidi drove off in the van, leaving Jamie with Annie and Lizbet on the sidewalk in front of the Picketts’ home, where the wedding reception had been held.

  “I know it’s late,” Annie said. “But I’m wound too tight to sleep. Do y’all want to hang out for a while?”

  “If we can go to my house,” Lizbet said. “My sister’s bored. She’s begging me to come home.” She held her phone up for them to see the long string of texts from her sister.

  Jamie shrugged. “I’m fine with whatever.” He would walk on hot coals to Antarctica and back if it meant spending time with Lizbet.

  “I live just a few blocks over,” Lizbet said as they headed off down the street. “My sister’s partner, Sawyer, is doing her residency at MUSC. She works all the time. I feel sorry for Brooke. That’s my sister. She gets lonely a lot.”

  “You’ll like Brooke,” Annie said. “She’s fun and funky. Very artsy.” She grabbed Jamie’s hand and dragged him down the street. “Let’s hurry. I’m thirsty for a beer.”

  Brooke was waiting for them on the front porch with a cooler of beer and Adele singing at low volume from a wireless speaker. Jamie was speechless at the sight of her. She was smoking hot, with wicked green eyes and her blonde hair in a sassy cut. She wore a tiny diamond stud in her nose and a loose-fitting white sundress that outlined her nipples. Most of the girls Jamie knew wore bras.