by Rachel Magee
Bathroom remodels, roof repairs, rotted siding that needed to be replaced…
The list was five pages long. Five pages of things that needed to be repaired, updated, or simply redone. Hardwired smoke detectors installed, broken windowpanes replaced, lighting fixtures. And, at best, her bank account could only handle about half of the costs.
Sure, there were bank loans, but the fact that her small business technically wasn’t allowed to be a business at the moment made her an “undesirable candidate.” And she would consider asking a friend for a personal loan as an investment, but that would require her having friends with money. Which she didn’t.
“Where are we going to find the money?” she asked Bear.
She sank down onto the step and scratched her dog behind his ears, looking out over the front lawn. It was a gorgeous summer afternoon. Fluffy white clouds hung in a blue sky and the vibrant scent of flowers mixed with the fresh salt air. It was the kind of afternoon that made you want to relax by the pool with a glass of iced tea. Only her ice maker was broken and her pool needed a new pump and to be resurfaced before it could be filled again.
“Homeownership is a lot harder than I was expecting.” Bear lay down next to her, resting his head on her leg.
She opened the file folder she’d been holding and spread it across her lap, adding the new estimate page to the top. There were four of them in total. Four different contractors offering four different ideas of what she needed to do, each with four very different price tags.
“I don’t know, Bear. Which one of them did you like?” She started to flip through the reports when she was distracted by a shiny chocolate-brown convertible bumping down her driveway. It pulled to a stop in front of her steps and Sophia stepped out, wearing a blue and white striped sundress with her long, dark hair pulled up in a high, swingy ponytail.
“Hello, neighbor,” she said in her cheerful voice. She reached into her passenger seat and pulled out a turquoise box tied with a brown satin ribbon. “I’ve come to bring you a housewarming present.”
Bear’s ears perked and he trotted down the steps to greet their guest. Millie gathered up all the papers on her lap and shoved them back into the folder before she stood.
“That’s so thoughtful.” Millie accepted the box. “I’d invite you to come in, but it’s a bit of a mess in there.”
Sophia waved off the suggestion. “I can’t stay anyway. I’m on my way back to my shop. I just wanted to drop this off first.”
“I’m glad you did.” Millie tucked the file folder under her arm and pulled the ribbon to open the box. Inside were rows of picture-perfect chocolates in varying shapes and colors. “These are almost too beautiful to eat.” She took one out and examined the way the white drizzle fell over the round milk chocolate surface. “However, I’ve never met a chocolate I can say no to.” She popped it in her mouth and moaned as the velvety cocoa cascaded over her taste buds.
“This is amazing,” she said through her mouthful. “And the kind of pick-me-up I needed.”
Sophia flashed an amused smile. “I’m glad you like them. That one is my abuela’s famous secret recipe.” She motioned to Millie’s file folder. “What are you working on?”
Millie forced herself to put the lid back on the box instead of eating another sweet and retrieved the folder from under her arm.
“These are the estimates for the renovations.”
“Ahhh. The dreaded reno. I’ve been in my current shop for almost three years, but I still remember the drama of the buildout like it was yesterday.”
“It went that well, huh?”
“It turned out gorgeous, so all the blood, sweat, and oh-so-many tears were worth it.”
Millie giggled. “So the tears are a normal reno occurrence?”
“If you haven’t cried at least once, you’re doing it wrong.” She grinned. “Actually, Mildred gave me the best advice when I was building out my first shop. She said ‘even marathons are run one single step at a time.’”
Millie looked up at the dilapidated house and loneliness ached in her chest. “I wish she was here to help me now.”
Sophia pointed to the folder. “I’m far from having Mildred’s wisdom, but I’ve been down the reno road a few times. I’d be happy to take a look at what you’ve got if you’d like.”
“That would be really helpful, actually.” She handed Sophia the folder. “I’ve been trying to ask Bear for his opinion, but he’s more of the strong, silent type.”
Sophia nodded as she flipped through the different estimates in the folder. “I have a couple of fish and they’re the same way.”
The sound of a sports car engine revving filled the air, and Millie looked up in time to see her infuriating neighbor pull out of his driveway onto the main road.
“What about Mr. Everything By The Rules? Should I be worried he’ll file official HOA complaints about every little thing I do?”
Sophia looked up from the files. “Braxton? No way. He’s a great guy. Ever since the accident he comes across a little grumpy, but he has a heart of gold.”
She’d once again forgotten to google the man, but it was twice now that something in his past had been brought up as the reason for his less than neighborly attitude. “Accident?”
“Jade, his wife, was killed in a car accident about two years ago. Alice was only about a month old at the time.” Sadness filled her eyes. “She was one of my best friends and an amazing mother. Her death was a tragedy.”
Millie held back a gasp.
It was still no excuse, but she could understand. She was no stranger to loss, so she knew firsthand what it felt like to grieve. But losing a wife? She couldn’t even imagine how painful that would be.
“I had no idea.”
Sophia stared off in the direction his car had gone, as if looking at a memory. “Braxton was devastated. We all tried to pitch in with the baby, but Henry, his golf coach, played the biggest role in helping him through it. He even moved into Braxton’s house for a while to help out when Alice was really small.” Sophia laughed. “Henry never had kids and Braxton was a first-time dad. I can only imagine what kind of skit their two men and a baby situation looked like until Braxton hired Lena.”
“Henry sounds like a good friend.”
Sophia nodded. “Braxton is the closest thing to family Henry has. They’re really close. Which is why it’s so sad to watch his condition get worse so quickly. Braxton now visits him in the assisted living facility every day.”
A twinge of guilt pricked at her. Even though he hadn’t given her the best impression or the warmest welcome to Summer Island, maybe she had judged him too quickly on that one interaction. He had been infuriating at the HOA meeting as well, but that had felt more like teasing, which left her flustered for a whole other reason she would not think about right now. Well, at the very least, she would try to give him another chance and be civil during their next interaction.
Not that she was anticipating one or wanting to see him again.
She was still wrangling her wayward thoughts when Sophia handed her one of the estimate packets.
“I like Gus. He’s honest, hardworking, and sticks to his timelines. Plus, he’s very considerate of your budget. I used him when I moved into the shop I’m in now.” She stacked the rest of the papers neatly in the folder before handing it over. “I ended up having to do some of the work myself because of budget restrictions. It’s how I learned how to tile a backsplash.”
“Wait. You tiled it yourself? How did you learn how to do it?”
“One of my brothers and YouTube.”
Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Millie stared at the line items on the sheet and the numbers attached. If she did some of the work herself—okay, a lot of the work herself—she could save quite a bit of money.
She grinned. “I might be calling you to give me
some of your expert tile-laying tips.”
Sophia clapped her hands together. “I love a good DIY project! You tell me when you’re ready to start tiling and I’ll come over and help.” She glanced at her watch. “Except right now I gotta run.”
“Thanks for the chocolates and the help. I needed both this morning.”
Sophia waved goodbye and climbed into her car. Millie watched her drive down the cracked driveway. It needed to be fixed since it was the first thing visitors saw, but pouring concrete sounded much too technical to be in her YouTube-aided wheelhouse. Like it or not, she’d be spending six grand on a part of the estate no one would notice as soon as it wasn’t falling apart.
She turned to examine the front of the house with a different eye. While pouring concrete was out of the question, there were still plenty of things she could do herself. Like use a power washer. She’d never tried before, but she’d seen people using them. It didn’t look that hard. Painting the exterior of the house sounded like a giant task, but she was more than capable of using a paintbrush.
She balanced the folder on top of the box of chocolates and pulled the pencil from behind her ear to circle those two expenses on her list. Combined, they cost about the same as the driveway. It wasn’t enough to save the entire project, but it was a start.
She sat down on the steps and opened the box of sweets, selecting a white chocolate rectangle striped with dark chocolate. “If we’re going to do this, Bear, we’re going to need all the sustenance we can get. Don’t judge.”
Bear wagged his furry caramel tail. She scratched his head as she scanned other items on her list. All she had to do was whittle the reno price tag down by half. Which meant, since she still had to rent equipment and buy materials, she was going to have to do more than half the work herself.
“It’s a lot, Bear, but we can do it.” She circled another item on the front page. “How do you feel about polishing and resealing the tile floors?”
…
The next day Millie stood inside Summer Island’s hardware store with her trusty notebook, a pen, and a crick in her neck. This fact-finding mission should’ve been an easy—and possibly fun—task to cross off her to-do list. She’d thought wrong.
In order to set her final budget she needed to know what the materials would cost on jobs she intended to tackle on her own. Admittedly, it was a long list full of things that fell into the category of “I’d never heard of that” or “I’d never even thought about those.” But since she wasn’t making final decisions today or spending money she didn’t have, she figured it would be pretty low stress.
What she didn’t factor in was the vast number of options she would have to choose from for each item on her list. Take the doorknobs, for example. They seemed pretty straightforward, right?
Wrong.
An entire aisle from floor to ceiling full of different doorknob choices awaited her, to be exact. And the longer she stood staring at them, her neck getting sore from constantly looking up, the more overwhelmed she became. Should she go with brushed nickel or antique bronze? Or maybe just straight black? Of course there were also glass knobs if she wanted something more original. Then she had to consider the shape. Did she want a lever or round? And how could there be so many different ways to interpret the word “round?”
The knobs were starting to blur in her vision when a voice interrupted her internal debate. “Would you like a stranger’s opinion?”
A woman about her age dressed in a long-sleeved rash guard with a local dive shop logo, shorts, and a sun visor stood in the middle of the aisle holding a set of wrenches. “Sometimes I find that a stranger weighing in can help you figure out which one you really wanted to begin with. Either you agree with their opinion, or you’re ready to argue with someone you don’t even know about why it should be the other one. Regardless, you walk away feeling good about your decision.”
“You had me at decision,” Millie joked. “I’d actually love a second opinion. Or any opinion, really. What are your thoughts on doorknobs?”
“I find them pretty handy when trying to open a door. Other than that, I have to admit I’ve never given them much thought.” She pushed a few stray strands of sun-bleached blond hair out of her eyes as she turned to examine the options.
“That makes two of us.” Millie sighed and refocused her attention on the wall of knobs. “The only thing I know is that I need a lot of them.” She glanced down at the numbers on her page. “Seventy-two to be exact.”
“What are you doing with so many doorknobs?”
“Renovating my great-aunt’s house.” Millie shifted, trying to push away the chilly disappointment that started to creep up every time she talked about the house. “At least, I’m trying to. It turns out the process is a little more difficult than I’d thought.”
“Oh, wait.” Recognition flickered in her green eyes. “You must be Mildred’s niece. My friend Sophia told me you were in town.”
Millie extended her hand. “That would be me. Millie Leclair. Great-niece of Mildred and new owner of Seascape Inn.”
“I’m Tessa Foster. Welcome to Summer Island.”
“Thanks. I’m glad to be here.” It was the truth. Being in Summer Island felt right. Even if her struggles were piling up by the day and her bank account was shrinking by the minute, she felt more at home at Seascape than anywhere else she’d ever lived. Now all she had to do was convince Braxton Channing and his HOA cronies to think the same way. She took a deep breath before the thought overwhelmed her. “Although, I’m not sure everyone is as happy that I’m here.”
Tessa nodded. “I heard you had a little run-in with the Oceanside Estates HOA.”
“Do you live in Oceanside too?”
“No. I live on the other side of the island. But they’re known for having a very, shall we say, involved HOA.”
“I’m starting to see that.”
Tessa gave her an encouraging grin. “Don’t worry. Aside from their occasional warning letter, they’re all good people.”
“Good to know.” Millie would have to take her word for it, because as far as she was concerned, the verdict was still out.
“But back to your knob situation, I like those.” Tessa pointed to one in the middle of the wall. “It seems like a normal shape and comes in a box of eight. If nothing else, it’ll make it easy for you to carry them out of the store.”
“Great recommendation. I’m going with it.” Millie wrote the part number and the price in her notebook. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” Tessa jerked her thumb toward the front of the store. “I was about to meet Sophia for lunch at The Bait Shop. You should join us.”
Millie glanced at her binder. There were a lot of empty lines on her price estimate sheet and she’d only gotten about a quarter of the way through the store. But on the other hand, it would be nice to make some friends in her new hometown.
“I’d love to, but there’s one problem,” Millie said.
“What’s that?”
“The stranger’s opinion thing really worked, and I still have a long list of items to pick out.”
Tessa laughed. “The good news is a friend’s opinion is even better. And we have a few minutes before we have to be at lunch. What’s next on your list?”
“What do you know about bathroom faucets?”
“Not a thing. But let’s go pick one out and then I’ll introduce you to the best fried oysters on the island.”
“Sounds great.” Millie felt lighter as she followed Tessa to the faucet aisle. Today’s successes were only small steps in her reno-marathon, but at least she wasn’t at the starting line anymore. And every bit of road that was behind her put her that much closer to the finish line.
Plus, she’d run just about any race that included eating fried oysters.
Chapter Five
Friday afternoon, Braxton shoved
a quarter of his club sandwich into his mouth while listening to Jenna, the beautification chairwoman, give her update at their board meeting. He’d come up with the idea of switching the monthly meeting of the HOA’s nine board members to lunchtime and having Oceanside Estates clubhouse restaurant cater it as a way to maximize time.
Braxton was nothing if not efficient, and he was determined to check off all the items on the agenda and eat his lunch by the time he had to roll out of here at one thirty, even if it meant he had to inhale his sandwich while the various chairpersons were reporting.
“Lastly, as usual we’ll have a board displaying the fall color scheme and plant selection for the six shared space gardens at the next general meeting for the residents to see. And that’s all from the beautification committee.”
“Thanks, Jenna.” Braxton took a quick drink of water and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “That closes out our committee updates, moving us to new business. First on the list is the property at 121 East Shore Drive.”
“Do you really think that place could ever be a functioning inn again?” Lori, one of the members-at-large, asked.
“No.” Stan, the board’s parliamentarian, didn’t have any hesitation in his voice. “I don’t know why we delayed the vote. There’s only one way this thing can go.”
“Because it’s our job to make sure we’re ‘protecting the rights of our residents while providing a beautiful, safe, and secure place to call home,’” Braxton quoted the board member oath they all took when they were sworn into their positions. “Since she’s a resident, we owe it to her to listen to her complaint and make an educated decision about the situation based on the facts.”
“The fact is the place is a dump,” Stan said, eliciting a couple of muffled snickers from his end of the table. “I still don’t know why she doesn’t sell. It would be so much easier to start over.”
Jose, the chair of the standards committee, nodded. “It does seem like a full renovation to get it up to code will be a challenge.”
Braxton had to agree, which was why the real estate agent in him originally pounced on the idea of finding a buyer for the premium lot. But his spirited new neighbor was set on staying.
