I smiled. “I think I will stay here. Judging by how much work there is to do, it’ll be easier if I’m here to at least make sure things start off right. If that’s okay with all of you,” I said, not wanting to sound, well, like I owned the place.
Dot smiled. “I was hoping you’d stay.” She looked at Bert. “Not so we can smother you in old stories, but so you can get a real sense of the life here. This was your home too. It still is. We all need a place to escape real life sometimes.”
My life felt fine to me—no need to escape, thank you—but maybe there was something to what Allyn said about making peace.
11
MAGS
MARCH 1960
Just before I left for one of my trips to Grimmerson’s Grocery for weekly supplies, the doorbell rang. I left my list in the kitchen and walked to the front door. Mrs. DeBerry came out of the living room just as I arrived at the door, and I stood by as she opened it.
A man in a dark suit and sunglasses stood on the porch holding a briefcase. “Are either of you”—he looked down at the piece of paper in his hand—“Mrs. Henry DeBerry?”
I looked at Mrs. DeBerry.
“I am,” she said, turning to me. “Could you put the kettle on the stove for me, dear? I’d love a cup of tea.”
“Of course.” I started down the hall, though curiosity paused my feet by the staircase where I could still hear them talk.
“I’ve already asked you people to stop coming to the house. The money is coming if you can give me just a little more time.”
“Mrs. DeBerry, this is your second notice. You won’t get a third. I understand you have several people living under your roof. I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate—”
“Can you step out on the porch, please?” she asked a little too brightly. “Let’s just talk out here, why don’t we?” She pulled the door behind her, closing me out of the conversation.
Another man like this one had come to the house the week before, but I hadn’t thought much about him. I’d asked Mrs. DeBerry later if we were going to have a new guest at the house, and she laughed. “Oh no, he won’t be staying here.”
I opened the envelope of cash I was about to take to the grocery store, then ran back to the door. I flung it open, only to find the man climbing into his car and Mrs. DeBerry pressing her hands to her flushed cheeks.
I held the envelope out to her. “We can do without a trip to the store this week. We have leftovers, and Starla and I can rework the meals around what we still have in the pantry. You can use this.”
“Don’t be silly. Everything is fine. I told Mr. Curtis he must have written the wrong name down. Simple as that. You go on to the grocery and be sure to pick up a box of tea bags for me.”
Mrs. DeBerry ambled down the hall to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. I went on to the grocery and tried to put the thought of Mr. Curtis out of my head.
When I wasn’t helping Starla in the kitchen or cleaning up after the artists, I sat in William’s workshop while he worked. His hands carved rough planks of pine and oak into smooth, practical pieces. Kitchen tables. Pie safes. Armoires. Buffet tables. Things Mother would display proudly at the front of the house. I told him so.
He nodded as he pushed a piece of sandpaper down the length of a table leg. Up and down. Slow and steady. “Your life at home sounds a lot different from mine.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, not as innocent as I sounded.
“I make the furniture people like your mother show off at parties, but I don’t actually go to the parties.”
“You’re not missing much.”
He laughed, just a puff of air from his nose. “What are you doing here?”
“You know why I’m here. I’ve already told you.”
He put the sandpaper down and slapped his hands against his pants to rid them of dust. He marched over to me, grasped me firmly by the shoulders, and lowered his head so we were at equal height. “Tell me why you’re still here.”
“I-I’ve stayed because of you. Because everything feels different with you. I’m different with you.” I pushed his hands off my shoulders. “Why are you asking me this? You were the one who said your life began when you saw me at the front door. Have you changed your mind?”
I paced to the other side of the room to escape the uncomfortable intensity of his gaze, but then his hands were on my shoulders again. He turned me around to face him, his face close to mine. I smelled wood dust, turpentine, and something else distinctly William.
“I’m not going to change my mind. I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing. You’re giving up a lot to be with me. I’ll never be able to give you what your daddy has or what your husband could. Do you understand that?”
I gave up my old life the minute I packed my bags and shoved them in the closet of the house I shared with Robert. I did it again when I closed the car door, peering at Daddy from inside the quiet cocoon. And again when I pulled away from the house without a last look over my shoulder. I knew what I was doing, and now that William was part of my new life, it all made perfect sense.
I nodded. “I understand.”
He pulled me tightly to his chest, kissing my cheeks, my eyelids, my forehead. “Okay. We’re in it. Let’s show everyone how far we can go.”
Later that day, I bumped into Mrs. DeBerry as she stood bent at the waist, rummaging around in the closet by the front door.
“Can I help you with anything?” I took her arm and helped her straighten up. Her face was red and beads of sweat had formed on her upper lip.
“I’m fine. Just cleaning out a little. I haven’t looked in this closet in ages.” Around her sat beautiful pieces of clothing I’d never seen her wear. Impractical things, like Chinese satin-soled shoes that would fill with water the first time they touched the dew-saturated grass and a chocolate-brown floor-length mink coat.
I ran my hands up and down the coat. Mother had a mink she only wore during Mardi Gras season. It could be sixty-five degrees on Fat Tuesday and she’d still pull it out. “Luxury is luxury, Margaret, regardless of something as temperamental as the weather,” she’d say.
“You can have that old thing,” Mrs. DeBerry said when she saw me touching the mink. “Henry brought it back from a trip to Russia ages ago. It’s too warm to wear it in Alabama, but maybe you’ll make a trip up north someday. I’m too old to be making trips anymore.”
She stopped rummaging and glanced around the house, her gaze pausing on a pair of artists painting at easels in front of the large living room windows. She shook her head. “Henry would turn in his grave if he could see what our B and B has turned out to be.”
“Maybe not. It still has a charm.”
“It must. After all, you’re still here. It’s been a couple of months now. How long do you plan to stay, dear?” She tossed items into a box at her feet, but her gaze remained on me.
I picked up the red satin shoes from the floor. The fabric was worn away near the soles, but the embroidery on top was still perfect. I tossed them in her box. “I don’t know. Can I let you know a little later?”
She exhaled. “Stay as long as you want. That’s what everyone around here seems to do anyway, and it’ll probably continue long after I’m gone.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
She glanced around the room again. “I’m getting old. I’m probably not the best proprietor for a place full of young folks such as yourself, but here I am. Next to losing Henry, giving up this house would be the hardest thing I could ever do.”
She hoisted her box and took a deep breath. She’d avoided my question, but her face was still flushed and damp, and I worried for her.
“Are you sure I can’t help you with that? I could take it to your room for you.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” She turned toward the hallway but paused. “Mrs. Parker, you’ve been good for this house. You straighten up, clean what needs to be cleaned, help organize meals. You even shooed the artists out of the li
ving room and outside into the fresh air. And you’ve done it all without being asked. You’re taking care of this old place, and I want you to know I appreciate it.”
The emotion on her face surprised me. As she eased her way down the hall toward her room in the back, her box tight in both hands, she called over her shoulder, “Are you ever going to tell me your real name?”
I smiled. She’d probably seen through me that first night, but she chose to let me have my time of anonymity, even if I was only anonymous to her.
“It’s Maggie. Maggie Van Buren,” I said just before she turned into her room.
“Good night, Maggie.”
12
SARA
APRIL
I spent most of the next morning calling contractors I was familiar with in New Orleans. It turned out not many were willing or able to work two states away. I found a couple with satellite offices in Alabama who said they’d look into it, but it didn’t sound hopeful. Each one I talked to asked why I wasn’t using a local contractor, but when I asked if they had any referrals for contractors in the area, they all asked some variation of “Now, where’s Sweet Bay again?”
With reluctance I did what I never do when looking for help on a project. I opened the Yellow Pages. I’d thought the days of thumbing through the phone book looking for a particular business were long gone—who didn’t just type it into Google? But after a lot of thumb-typing, it was clear Google’s long arms hadn’t reached Sweet Bay.
I flipped to the beginning and called the first entry listed under A: A1 Contractors. Clever. Twenty seconds on the phone with Earl Weathers told me all I needed to know about whether local people still talked about The Hideaway.
“You know that place used to scare all the kids around here,” he said when I told him I was renovating the house. “Or maybe it was the lady inside who scared us. My buddies and I used to dare each other to go to the front door and ring the doorbell, then run away. We were just kids. Big imaginations.” He laughed. “I wondered what would happen to the house now that the old lady’s croaked. So they hired you to take care of it? What’d you say your name was, sweetheart?”
“I didn’t,” I said through my clenched jaw. “It’s Sara Jenkins.”
“Jenkins,” he said, pondering. “Wait, you’re not . . . ?”
“That’s the one. Mrs. Van Buren was my grandmother.”
“Oh, I . . . you—Lord’a mercy,” he sputtered. “I guess I spoke too soon.”
“Nope, just soon enough.” I hung up, cutting off his apologies.
The next two calls were similar. Their eagerness to get inside the house and see what it was like was unprofessional at best, offensive at worst. I thanked them all for their time—although I wished I hadn’t given them a reason to think of Mags again—and ignored their protests as I hung up.
I finally found one that looked promising. Coastal Contractors. The logo had a silhouette of a heron standing in front of a sun setting over water. At least they had a logo. And a brick and mortar office. The other ones I called appeared to be working out of their homes. Nothing wrong with that, but I imagined Earl sitting on his back porch, picking his fingernails with a pocketknife, waiting for work to come calling. I couldn’t stomach being the reason he folded the knife away, hitched up his pants, and climbed into his work truck.
No one answered at Coastal. Instead, I was greeted with a message on an actual answering machine. The mechanical click at the beginning of the message told me it wasn’t a typical voice-mail recording. The message told me if no one answered, they were likely out on a job or working out back. “Leave a message or feel free to stop by for a chat.” The voice was friendly, giving me hope that maybe this wouldn’t turn out to be just another dead end.
When lunchtime rolled around, I made a plate of chicken salad and coffee cake left over from the mountain of funeral food and headed out to the dock. Dot and Bert were in town for groceries, and the house was calm, a stark contrast to the previous day’s whirl of activity. I sensed that this quiet peacefulness was how the house had been for much of the time since I’d left. From what Major said, they’d all settled into a tranquil existence here. I remembered the old magazine articles that featured the house as one of the top vacation destinations in the Southeast.
Taking in the house from the long grassy hill that sloped down to the water, I had trouble imagining The Hideaway as anything but a tired, sprawling old home. The house had been a much livelier place when I was a child, but nothing close to the resort featured in the magazines. Fireworks, boat tours, badminton on the lawn—it was more than hard to imagine. It was impossible.
I settled in a chair out on the dock and took my first bite when I heard a voice behind me.
“Well, if it isn’t Sara Jenkins, back from the dead.”
Clark Arrington. Perfect.
“That’s probably not the most appropriate thing to say, considering my grandmother just died,” I said in place of a greeting. Clark had always been just socially awkward enough to offend most people, even if he wasn’t trying.
“I sure was sorry to hear about Mrs. Van Buren. How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine. I see you still live across the street.”
“Yeah. I’m in the apartment above my parents’ garage, but I’m moving out soon.” I wondered how long he’d been telling people he’d soon be moving out of his parents’ home. “You here for long or just for the funeral?”
“Looks like I’ll be here for a little bit. I’ll be doing some work on the house.”
“I see.” He walked to the edge of the dock and peered into the water below. “Tide’s coming in.” He straightened up and stared at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. “And the owner’s okay with you doing the work?”
“The owner? That’d be me now. Mags left me the house in her will and asked me to fix the place up, so yes, I’d say the owner is fine with it.” Why was I defending myself to him?
“I’d just be careful if I were you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You haven’t been here much lately. A lot has been going on.”
I assumed he was messing with me, like he did when he used to taunt me in the yard on his bicycle. I once threw a Coke can at him as hard as I could because he had made fun of Mags. The can fell short, landing feebly in the water at his feet, adding embarrassment to my anger. I ran into the house, the sound of his laugher echoing in my head, and flung myself across my bed in tears. Part of me was mad at Mags for being so easy to make fun of, for having this grand old house but letting it be so shabby, for not caring about rules and the way things were supposed to be, but on the heels of that came guilt for being mad. Mags was my grandmother, kooky but loving.
This time, I didn’t have a Coke can to throw at him, but I wouldn’t have given him the satisfaction anyway. “Thanks for the heads-up, Clark. I have things to do, so if you’ll excuse me.” I picked up my plate and cup and headed toward the house.
“You remember Sammy Grosvenor?”
I stopped walking. Sammy was a well-known Baldwin County developer. He’d been sticking his nose into waterfront property owners’ business for decades. He used to knock on Mags’s door, reeking of body odor covered with strong cologne, mopping his forehead with a damp rag. Each time, he’d say he had been out walking around and admired the property. And each time, Mags told him to get lost.
“It’s a lot of money, Mrs. Van Buren,” he’d say. “You could turn in the keys and spend your golden years with your feet up and a drink in your hand.”
“Do I look like someone who wants to snooze the rest of my life away, Mr. Grosvenor?” She’d spit his name out like it tasted bad. “This is my home, and I’m not selling it. If you were smart, you’d stop sniffing around here.”
Sammy was the one thing on which Mags and many of the other townspeople agreed. No one liked the way he scoped out homes and businesses as if he imagined a theme park in their place. Dot always told Mags she
should be careful with Sammy, but Mags was never too concerned. If she didn’t let wind blowing through a broken glass pane in the kitchen bother her, she definitely wouldn’t be bothered by a land developer who had so far been all talk.
Clark’s name-dropping let me know Sammy was still on the prowl, still trying to get his hands on the property. I wasn’t worried, though. Mags could be a bear when she wanted to, but I had more professional ways of making him get lost. Starting with a court order if necessary.
“Yeah, I ran into him a while back,” Clark said. “He started babbling about this old house here. Something about his time finally coming. I don’t know what he meant, but it smelled fishy to me. He was excited though. I’ll tell you that much.”
I kept walking toward the house. This was nothing more than Sammy attempting another dead-end scheme and Clark trying to get in the middle of it all. However, deep down, in some small, hidden part of me, something squeezed. Sammy could be ruthless if he wanted to be.
I walked up the porch steps and made sure the screen door slammed shut behind me.
13
SARA
APRIL
The office of Coastal Contractors couldn’t have looked more opposite than what I had imagined. The mental image of Earl sitting on the porch in his dirty overalls quickly dissipated as I turned off County Road 1 at the sign bearing the now-familiar heron and setting sun. The cottage overlooking the water was quaint, its cedar-shake siding weathered to a relaxed gray—the kind of gray that sent people back for paint chips again and again, trying to get the same shade on their walls.
I collided with a mess of black fur and a wet tongue as soon as I walked through the open door.
“Popcorn, down!” a male voice said. “Sorry, she just gets excited. It’s been a quiet day, so you’re the lucky recipient of her pent-up attention. Here, try this.” A towel, dry and mostly clean, appeared in my hand as I held my now-damp dress away from my legs. I wiped at my arms and right cheek, trying without success to remove all traces of the sticky slobber. I had never been much of a dog person. Too much wet, not enough manners.
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