A Charm Like You

by Sharla Lovelace

  “Did Allie and Nick decide on paint?” Micah asked.

  Lanie gave her a look. “Micah.”

  “Don’t Micah me,” Micah said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “We told you, insurance is taking care of it,” Lanie said.

  “And the insurance money can go toward things I can’t do,” Micah said. “But I can get paint, and go spend a weekend slapping it on the walls. It’s the least I can do.”

  “The least?” Lanie said on a laugh. “You’ve helped pour concrete, hang sheetrock, I think you’ve done plenty!”

  “Including bringing my psychotic ex here to burn it down,” Micah said. “Not to mention, he would have done the same to your house if it weren’t for—well, whatever that was.”

  “My Aunt Ruby’s magic?” Lanie said, matter-of-factly. “It’s okay, you can say it out loud. The more you do, the less crazy it sounds,” she added with a wink.

  “Just let me do this,” Micah said. “It makes me feel less guilty.”

  Lanie held up her hands. “It’s between you and Allie,” she said. “You know how proud she is.”

  The bell dinged over the door as the mail lady pushed it open. Not our normal sweet little perky girl with the ponytail and husky laugh. Today, it was Lindsey Truitt, a woman I’d known since kindergarten and given my nasty bread pizza to for a full year in the third grade. She looked annoyed, but then again she always looked like she’d just tasted something sour.

  “Hey, Lindsey,” Lanie said. “Haven’t seen you out on route in forever, is Ash okay?”

  “Who knows?” Lindsey said, her brows dipping. “Carriers call in sick all the time, and are magically fine the next day. Today, three of them at once, so guess who had to pick up a route?” She grabbed a rubber banded stack of mail from her bag and tossed it at the counter and then paused, chewing her lip. “I have a certified letter for you, Gabi. Do you want it here or do you want to pick it up at the office?”

  I blinked twice. “Well, I’m right here. Why would I want to pick—”

  “It’s technically against the rules for me to deliver it here,” she said in an impatient rush. “It’s addressed to your house. But it’s faster to drop it here than fill out the door slip and leave it there.”

  I widened my eyes and forced a smile. “Okeydoke, yep, just give it to me.”

  Lindsey sighed like it was now all my idea and I was putting her out. She pulled out the white envelope and a scanner and beeped it, holding it out to me to sign for it, and then pulling it back at the last second as she gave it a double-take.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “This is for Bart or Gabrielle Larson,” she said.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Aren’t you divorced, now?” she asked. “I’ll need to see your identification.”

  I blinked. “You know who I am, Lindsey,” I said, pointing at the name. “That’s still me.”

  “Well, but this is from a bank,” she said. “It might make a difference.”

  I gave her a look as I snatched the letter from her hand. Grabbing a pen from the counter, I scribbled my name.

  “It’s none of your business,” I said, pulling off her part of the slip and thrusting it at her before I turned back, shaking my head. Some people.

  “I’m gonna have to call Bart and tell him you took this—”

  She stopped talking as I whirled around, her eyes going wary. She had also had a thing for Bart back in the day if I remembered correctly, going all doe-eyed every time he said boo.

  “Please do,” I said. “And get your postmaster to come out here while you’re at it so I can tell him that you’re delivering federal mail illegally—and making personal judgment calls on it.”

  I was totally talking out of my ass on that last one. I had no idea if that was a thing. The haughty roll of her eyes as she held up her hands like I was being unruly, however, told me it was enough to give her pause.

  “Who is the postmaster now,” Lanie asked. “Is it still Carson Crowley?”

  “Ugh, he’s a dick,” Mom said.

  “Mom!” Drew said, laughing.

  “What?” she said, looking over her cheaters at Drew. “He is. His wife is in my Bunko group, and he calls every single time to gripe at her about something and make her night miserable.”

  “Fine,” Lindsey said like she just wanted to get the hell out of there. “Keep your letter. I hope it’s horrible news.”

  I held it up. “Thanks,” I said, forcing my feet to root into the floor before I did something crazy like kick her in the ass. I wanted to yell, Call Bart! Jump him! Go for it, bitch, maybe he’ll hump you on his desk, too!

  Ugh. And to think I used to give her my pizza.

  “Everything okay, honey?” Mom asked, nodding toward the letter in my hand.

  I turned it over. It was indeed from a bank, but not from mine. I recognized it as the bank that held our former mortgage loan, which Bart had paid off before the divorce. We’d had a method, he and I. Rather than split everything, I paid the car notes and the groceries, and he paid the utility bills and the mortgage. He made more than I did, so it seemed fair, and it worked for us for years. In the divorce, we had the option to sell the house and split the proceeds, but we’d bought it cheap as a fixer-upper and made it beautiful, and I loved it. Bart, probably driven by guilt, paid it off early and told his lawyer to let me keep it. He took over his car note, I took the utilities, and all was said and done and everyone got what they wanted.

  Well, except that I now lived alone and he was banging a Barbie doll, but hey, I wasn’t bitter. I never had to watch another episode of Survivor for as long as I lived, and I’d put money down that he was having to watch the Kardashians do whatever they do. That alone made me feel a little better.

  “Probably the deed to the house or something,” I said, grabbing a letter opener from the drawer under the register. I slid it under the flap and sliced. “Bart paid the house off while we were separated, and I don’t know if he ever got the pap—”

  My words died on my tongue as I unfolded the gray sheet of paper in my hand and stared, uncomprehending, at the red capital letters typed across the header.

  “What—this—” I stammered, blinking rapidly. My eyes skimmed down the page, but nothing I read there made that large red word make any better sense.

  Micah was standing nearest to me, and I felt her reading over my shoulder.

  “Foreclosure!” she said, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Sorry!” she whispered. “What the living hell?”

  “What?” Mom said, her voice raising two octaves.

  “Seriously?” Lanie and Drew said in unison.

  “No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head at the paper like we just weren’t understanding each other. “There’s—no, there’s something wrong here. Bart paid the final note months ago. I don’t understand.”

  My mother was behind me in seconds, reading over my other shoulder.

  “Is it through our bank?” Lanie asked. “I can check on it.”

  “No, it’s with Fidelity Trust in Goldworth,” I said, reading the words again.

  We regret to inform you that after six consecutive months of non-payment on your loan, and no response to our repeated attempts to contact you regarding this, that the account for the property listed above has been foreclosed. Any further payments at this time are forfeit. In consideration of your long-time status with our institution, this is a good faith notification. Please make arrangements to vacate the premises of all personal possessions by January 31st, as the property will be seized at that time and locks changed.

  “Gabi,” my mother breathed, as Micah grabbed my arm.

  “It’s a mistake,” I said. “It has to be a mistake.”

  “That’s—that’s in five days,” Mom said.

  “I have to go over there
,” I said, turning on my heel. “They have to have the record of payment on file, this is insane.”

  “Call Fuckwad!” Drew said.

  “Drew!” Mom admonished.

  “What, you can call Crowley a dick, but I can’t call my lying, cheating, ex-brother-in-law a fuckwad?” she retorted.

  “He’s next,” I said, grabbing my wallet and looking for my keys. And trying to corral the sinking pit sucking a black hole in my gut. “I don’t want to talk to him if I don’t have to, so if I can clear this up first—” I stopped and blew out a breath. Slow down. Think it out. “And I need to wire my lease payment to Mr. Bailey, anyway, so I’ll do that while I’m out.”

  “People still wire?” Drew asked.

  “He does.”

  “He’s very old school from what I’ve heard,” Lanie said. “Carmen is a little freaked out by him.”

  Albert Bailey owned most of Charmed, sold Sully Hart part of it when Sully quit the carnival to come build the Lucky Charm theme park, and was rumored to live a hermited existence in the woods because he couldn’t be around people. Lanie’s best friend, Carmen, said something about losing time when she touched his hand, and I’d heard some weird things about him, too. While I mostly thought it was bunk, there were too many oddities that happened in Charmed to blow off the possibility of one man’s weirdness. Lanie’s eccentric late aunt had been Mr. Bailey’s childhood friend, and the freaky that happened around that house just couldn’t be explained off.

  “I still haven’t met him personally,” I said. “All the payments get wired except for now and then he wants cash and Sully comes to pick it up.”

  “Sounds like the mob,” Drew said.

  “Well, if it is, the mob is going to own a beautiful wildflower farm,” I said. “I don’t care.”

  “I heard Sully say he’s been sick,” Lanie said. “But I saw him just the day before yesterday at the park, sitting out on the gazebo. I was trying to walk this baby out of me, and he told me I was radiant.” She blew out a breath and rubbed her belly. “I wasn’t radiant. I was sweaty and waddling.”

  “I wouldn’t know him if I ran smack into him,” I said.

  “Yeah, you would,” she said. “He has a presence.”

  “Well, presence or not, I’d still like to thank him one day for believing in me enough to lease the fields for Wild Things instead of stripping the ground for housing.”

  Lanie rose awkwardly from her stool and confirmed coffee with Micah for the next morning while I stood there twitching, my keys still in my hand. She reminded me to text her about the pie because she’d forget before she got out the door.

  “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” she said, turning and waving her way out. “Bank reference, whatever.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  I watched my mom watch her waddle out the door, and averted my eyes.

  “What were we talking about?” I asked, gripping my keys.

  “Your house?” Drew said.

  “Before that.”

  “Oh,” Drew said under her breath. “Y’all leaving me here to do all the work.”

  “Going to Cherrydale in the morning,” Micah said. “I need to plan the spring schedule with Thatcher, so I’ll leave here at nine, meet up with him at ten, and then corral Roarke on harvest plans. I probably won’t be back till after lunch, but you’re welcome to come if you want. I’ll pick you up.”

  I wanted to go now about as much as I wanted a root canal, but I needed to stay on point. It had to be a simple accounting mistake on the bank’s part. Right? But if Bart did this or was doing this, and something was going on with my house, I’d have to handle it with minimal derailment. I had a business now. A dream. A life to get on with. Including meeting my merger partner and looking like a professional instead of flaking out over personal issues. Yes, Thatcher Roman was just Micah’s brother, but I couldn’t think like that. He was key to my business succeeding, and I certainly didn’t want him thinking she’s just Micah’s friend.

  “Sounds good,” I said, rubbing my breastbone with two fingers like that would assuage the anxiety. “I’ll be ready.”

  “Sure, you two get a field trip,” Drew said. “I get to throw out wilted flowers and make these orders and arrange the Callihan memoriam.” She glanced at the whiteboard calendar. “Shit, and do the quarterly sales tax report for year-end. Gabi, I know you’re all into your new business, but I need some help here, too.”

  “I’ll throw out the wilted inventory,” Mom said, waving a hand at her as she disappeared back down the hall. “Don’t act like it’s a one-woman show.”

  “Yay,” Drew said, shaking her head. “Out of all that, she picks the five-minute task.”

  The bell dinged over the door, and I both welcomed the diversion and cursed the delay. I knew I wasn’t being fair to Drew, dumping all my shop responsibilities on her lately, but starting Wild Things took a lot of my attention. I needed to make it up to her.

  A girl came in, maybe college-aged, with red curly hair pulled up in a messy tumble-down do, fresh faced and adorable with no makeup, a hoodie, and earphones.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said with a sweet smile as she pulled her earbuds out. “Do you do like, shower gifts and stuff?”

  “We do,” I said, resisting the need to bounce on the balls of my feet. My keys jingled in my hand, and I curled my fingers tighter around them.

  What the hell did Bart do?

  Her eyes lit up and she put her phone in her hoodie pocket, pulling out a folded piece of blue paper.

  “Awesome!” she said, opening the paper. “How fast could you do fifty—rosebud adorned miniature boots?” she read.

  My heart sank.

  “Fifty,” Drew echoed.

  “Miniature boots?” I asked.

  “Any color,” the girl said. “And I’ll bring you the little boots. She wants them woven into the sides with leather straps.”

  Holy shit. I looked to Drew, feeling totally inadequate that I wasn’t up to speed on the workload schedule or the inventory. Hell, but even if we could start at that very second, it would take—

  “We don’t have that many new rosebuds in inventory,” Drew said, as the girl frowned like that hadn’t occurred to her. “I’ll have to call some suppliers. I probably have ten or so on hand.”

  “I’ll be at the farm tomorrow and I can see what we have in the greenhouse,” Micah said. “Most likely around the same, though. It’s just not the time of year.”

  “You’re a florist,” the girl said. “Aren’t you supposed to have flowers all the time?”

  “It’s January, sweetie,” Drew said. “It’s not rose season. Plus, you’re asking for babies. They don’t stay buds long, they open up, so they have to be cut at a certain time to ensure the process stops.”

  “But I need these today,” the girl said, reaching in her pocket for her phone like it might provide comfort. “She said tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “Today?” I said, cutting a look to Drew to can it as she laughed out loud. “That’s just not possible, honey, I’m sorry. If you would have come in a week or so ago, we might have—”

  “Well, we just found out two days ago,” she said.

  “About—what?” I asked, confused.

  “About the baby,” she said, as if that were obvious.

  “Oh!” I said. “I thought you were talking about a wedding shower.”

  “I am,” she said, waving a hand. “We’ll worry about the baby shower later. Right now, we just have to get the girl married if you know what I mean.” She grimaced and winked. “She’s upset because she’s always wanted to get married on Valentine’s Day, but her mom said she can’t afford the extra few weeks.”

  Ah. That kind of weddi
ng.

  I winked back, feeling my escape window returning. “Gotcha.”

  “So, the shower is tomorrow night, and the wedding is next weekend,” she added. “We have the wedding flowers covered. I think Mrs. Dartwell is using someone in Goldworth. It’s a whole Daisy Duke theme with shorts under the dresses and boots, so we thought the boots would tie it all together cute. She told me to go there but this is closer and made more…”

  There was more. The words kept droning on about shorts and boots, but everything after Dartwell was just a weird echo bouncing from ear to ear. When the girl finally stopped speaking, there was a ringing silence as the solidarity next to me gave homage. I felt frozen, all thoughts pinging around my head on long loop, as my extremities went numb.

  Drew finally cleared her throat. “The—party boat across the pond,” she said, gesturing vaguely behind her.

  “Yes!” the girl said. “Dixie’s aunt and uncle are lending it for the wedding reception. Isn’t that awesome?”

  “Awesome,” I whispered, unsure I even said it out loud.

  “It’ll be loaded with booze, too,” she said on a laugh. “Not that Dixie will be drinking, but—”

  That’s right. Because she just found out, two days ago…

  My mind exploded. The sound of keys hitting the floor reached my ears as if it were in the next room.

  “We can’t help you,” I heard Drew say, her words monotoned and clipped. “Sorry, go to Goldworth.”

  The girl looked confused. “But—you were going to check your—”

  “No,” Drew said. “Bye.”

  “Rude,” the girl said, sliding us all a disdainful look.

  It was lost on me. I was stuck. Nauseous. Sick. I was going to hurl all over myself because I couldn’t move my feet.

  They’re having a baby. Everyone’s having babies. Bart’s having a baby.

  “Yep,” Drew said, striding out from behind the counter and beating her to the door to open it for her. “We’re very rude. Please go tell Dixie and her mother how rude we were. That should be an entertaining conversation.”