“You’re good with kids,” Joy whispered, and the compliment made Rebecca ridiculously happy.
This was her family, no matter how much Joy had tried to resist her—or might continue to resist her. This woman and this boy were her family. Immediate family, interrupted.
When Joy took Rex to the bathroom, Rebecca opened her purse and fished around for the receipt she’d used to scribble the name and number of the real-estate agency. The moment she got back to her room at Finch’s, she was calling that number. Suddenly, having a place of her own here in Wiscasset didn’t seem like a crazy fantasy. She did have family here. And Maine was Vacationland.
“Coastal Real Estate, Maggie Herald speaking.”
Maggie? Ah—Rebecca had forgotten that Maggie was a Realtor. “Maggie, it’s Rebecca Strand.” She paced her small room at Finch’s, excited, nervous energy coursing through her.
“Hi, hon! If you’re calling about Ellie, she’s doing much better. Last I spoke to her, which was in the middle of the night last night, she had five Hefty bags full of that jerk bastard’s crap and had dumped them all in the backyard for him to pick up.”
“That must be so hard, getting rid of his stuff.”
“She’s purging. Vomiting him out of her life like the rotten egg he is. She’ll be okay. I have all my best divorce books in a pile for her. Spiritual Divorce, The Good Divorce. Like there’s any kind of divorce but a shitty divorce. Oh, and speaking of divorce, did Ellie tell you we started a new club? The Bitter Ex-wives Club of Wiscasset? We had to start a new club since Victoria is so sickeningly in love with Victor and can’t stand to be around us bitter hags. You think the town recreation department will let us call it that in the catalog?”
Rebecca laughed. “It’s catchy.”
“We’re going to have weekly meetings. Ellie and I were hoping you could come and lead the discussions, help keep us on track so we don’t start sharpening knives or anything.”
“I’m not sure there is a track with clubs,” Rebecca said. “You really just need each other and maybe some good junk food.”
“Oh, we’ll have the junk food, definitely. But we think having an impartial person might really help. Will you at least come to the first meeting? If it’s too boring, we’ll totally understand. We’ll pay you in booze and really good appetizers. Nachos with the works. Chocolate. None of that cucumber sandwich crap. First meeting is Thursday night at six at my house. Two other women will be joining us, and one man. We might have to change the name to just Bitter Exes Club to be inclusive.”
Michael’s voice rang in her ears. “You’re not a mediator …” But she was a person with a brain and a heart, and she happened to be good at helping people make sense of their own lives, their own hearts, even if she couldn’t seem to do it for herself. “I love pigs in a blanket. So it’s a deal. Oh, and, Maggie, I was out walking last night and I noticed this adorable yellow house, like a craftsman-style bungalow.”
“Oh, yes—on Elm, right?”
“That’s the one.”
“Well, it’s been on the market for over six months and the price has been dropped twice already. It’s tiny is the problem. Only two bedrooms. One and a half baths. People like a full second bath. And a third bedroom, whether to turn it into an office or a guest room.”
Tiny? It was a whole house! After a one-bedroom apartment in New York, shared by two people, a house was … huge. “I realize the sign said it was for sale, but, by any chance, is it available for a month-to-month lease? Till it sells?” She realized she was holding her breath.
“Absolutely. I’ve listed it in the local paper and on Craigslist every month and a few people have been out to see it as a rental, but no takers. A house without a garage in Maine scares people off, even renters.”
Thank you, universe, Rebecca said, ceilingward.
As for the lack of garage and winter looming (not that she necessarily anticipated still being here when the blizzards began), Rebecca figured that was what Home Depot was for—snowblowers and ice scrapers. “I’d love to see it. Can you show it to me today by any chance?”
“Tell you what—I’ve got a few appointments over in Brunswick this morning, some properties I’m showing, so why don’t you take a look inside the house yourself and let me know what you think. Oh—it’s lightly furnished, but the owner will rent it unfurnished if you prefer. She lives over by Sebago Lake now and will just have the stuff put in storage. If you like the place, I’ll come back with you and give you the details. You’ll find the key in the little can in the flower box window on the side, just before the fence. Let yourself in and look around. Good thing I can vouch for you personally.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I’ll call you later.” She was about to hang up when she remembered Charlie. “Maggie, are dogs allowed?”
“Dogs and cats. The owner is one of those animal rescue types, fostering three-legged everythings. I think she’s fostering a one-eyed ferret right now.”
Rebecca laughed. “Thanks. Call you later.”
Rebecca put on Charlie’s leash and practically ran over to the little yellow house. It had its own wonderful tree right in the front yard, shading the porch. The houses on either side weren’t too close, either, and they were as adorable as this one, but they were both white.
She found the key, then walked up the three steps to the little porch and unlocked the door, which opened into a tiny foyer with a round braided rug and a wrought-iron coatrack. The hardwood floors were wide-planked and old, yet weren’t scratched. The living-room walls were painted a pretty pale blue. There was a stone fireplace with a decorative mantel, above which was hung a particularly nice painting of five brightly colored rowboats docked in water. And the furniture was decent—a cranberry-colored denim sofa, another braided rug, and a coffee table made of what looked like sticks. Three tall windows were covered by filmy white curtains dotted with a tiny red filigree design. Down a short hallway was a small bathroom with a toilet and an antique round white wooden mirror above the sink.
Down another short hallway was the kitchen. It was small, but a good square shape with hardwood floors and a big window over the white-enameled sink, which reminded Rebecca of her late grandmother’s old apartment in New York. The appliances looked sound; she liked the fact that there wasn’t stainless-steel anything in this kitchen. And she loved the white wooden pedestal table with its matching chairs by a window covered with yellow curtains. Rebecca could absolutely imagine eating her Special K and the occasional bowl of Crunch Berries there.
Up a flight of ten or so stairs was a short landing and two decent-sized bedrooms, both with four windows each and double closets. One of the bedrooms, the one with the pale yellow walls, had a queen-sized bed and a dresser; the other had a twin bed. Between the bedrooms was a great bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a beautiful vanity that reminded Rebecca of a movie star’s dressing table.
This was definitely a woman’s house, Rebecca knew. A man had not lived here recently. It seemed a place where the owner had transitioned, perhaps, between lives.
This was Rebecca’s house.
She stood in the small backyard (fenced—another plus) and called Maggie. “I love the house. I absolutely want to rent it.”
“Great! You just earned me a commission. I’ll come by Marianne’s tonight with a month-to-month agreement. I’ll need the first month’s rent and a month’s rent as a security deposit, and you can move in immediately if you want. I’ll prorate the rent.”
“What is the rent?” Rebecca asked. She realized she had no idea what it cost to rent a whole house. The apartment she shared with Michael was thirty-one hundred dollars a month.
“It’s eleven hundred plus utilities. I could probably talk Anna down to ten-fifty, though, since it’s been empty for so long. She’ll be thrilled to rent it. Then again, she might insist on the eleven hundred because of the fence she had installed this past summer. Did you see the backyard? Theo Granger did the fence. Ellie said you brought him to her
bust of a dinner party last week. You two dating?”
Rebecca smiled and spun around in her yard, her gaze on her white picket fence that Theo built. “Nope. Just friends. And eleven hundred is just fine.” Thanks to Michael’s frugal ways, she had a fat savings account.
“So you’re not interested?”
“In Theo? Maggie, you know I live with someone.”
“But you’re renting a house in Maine. Unless the boyfriend is planning to move up here, too?”
Good point.
“My life is a little complicated at the moment.”
“All our lives are complicated at the moment,” Maggie said. “You’re lucky, though—Theo has his pick of single women in this town, and he hasn’t been interested in anyone. Except you.”
“He’s not interested, Maggie. We’re just friends.”
“ ‘Just friends’ don’t go to dinner parties together. ‘Just friends’ don’t take long walks together on beaches. ‘Just friends’ don’t sit on Marianne’s front porch and talk late at night.”
Humph. Small-town life had its drawbacks. “I’ll give you that he is cute. But like I said, I don’t know what I’m doing. I just know that I want this house.”
“Well, that I can give you. I’ll meet you at Marianne’s at five?”
“Five is perfect.”
As Charlie scampered around his new yard and christened one of the trees, Rebecca made mental notes of what she’d need to buy: new mattresses, for starters. Bed linens. Towels. Cleaning supplies. Kitchen everything, from silverware to pots and pans. Her list was getting so long that she reached into her bag for her little notebook and pen. She was up to shower curtain when her phone rang—a New York City number she didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“Rebecca, this is Martin Fischer.” Her father’s lawyer. He was a good friend of her father’s, and after the funeral he’d let her know she’d hear from him when the estate was settled. “As you know, you’re the sole beneficiary of your father’s estate. I have several documents that require your signature, and then I’ll have a check for you in the amount of one point three million dollars. And change. Five hundred thousand from his life insurance policy, and the rest from his various accounts.”
Holy shit! The pen dropped from Rebecca’s hand. She knew her father had a life insurance policy, and she knew he was well off, that he’d made sound investments that had survived the market crashes. Yet she’d never quite believed Michael when he talked about her father being worth over a million dollars; she’d thought it was financial lingo, money on paper, not in paper, and when all was said and done, there would be around two hundred thousand or so left over.
“I called your home first,” the lawyer said, “and Michael informed me you were away in Maine and would be there for a while. I’ll need your address to overnight the package.”
Her address. Rebecca raced outside and checked the front door. 44. “44 Elm Street, Wiscasset, Maine. I don’t know the zip code. Oh, wait—Martin, you’d better send the package to the inn I’ve been staying at, just in case. I’m not sure if I’ll be moving into the new place tomorrow or the next day.” She gave Marianne’s address.
“All set, then. If you could read over the documents and sign them and return them ASAP, I’ll have them filed and you’ll have your check within a couple of weeks.”
My check. I’d much rather have my father.
Rebecca sat on the porch steps. “Martin, I need to know the truth about something. Are you familiar with the name Pia Jayhawk or Joy Jayhawk?”
He wasn’t.
“There’s nothing in my father’s will about them?”
“No, nothing about a Pia Jayhawk or a Joy Jayhawk,” Martin said.
She explained about her father’s deathbed confession, about the letters, about finding Joy, about why she was in Maine. “So there’s nothing in my father’s accounting to indicate he paid child support over the years to Pia Jayhawk or set aside money in an account for Joy Jayhawk?”
Granted, Martin Fischer was her father’s good friend, but he was also a good lawyer. Rebecca understood about confidentiality. Martin would tell her nothing, even if her father had told him about Pia and Joy. He would tell her only what was documented, what was legal. “No, none at all. There is no record of their names whatsoever.”
How could that be? How could he not have sent Pia money, even anonymously? Had he really just turned his back so completely? Emotionally and mentally and physically, okay. Rebecca got that. But how could he turn his back financially? How could he not provide for the most basic of life’s necessities: food, clothing, shelter? Joy was his child, whether he wanted her to exist or not.
Every birthday, he sat and wrote Joy a stupid, meaningless letter about himself, about what he was thinking and feeling, when what she needed, what she must have wished for every year, was an actual birthday card. Contact. A father.
Rebecca felt her stomach churn. Joy more than deserved her share of his money. And she would have it, too. Whether her own attorney approved or not. Not that Michael was really her lawyer. She’d never had reason for one.
She’d barely clicked off her phone when it rang again. Michael.
“Did your father’s lawyer get in touch? He called a few minutes ago and I told him you were away, and then realized I didn’t even know your address. Interesting, right, that I don’t have my girlfriend’s address where she’s been for over two weeks.”
“Why are you home at”—Rebecca glanced at her watch—“noon on a Monday, anyway? Are you sick?”
“Do you care?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“I have the flu or something. I don’t know. I’ll live.”
She loved how he managed to be such a drama queen when he was insisting he was the opposite. “Michael, you know I’m staying at an inn called Finch’s in Wiscasset. Finding the address wouldn’t be so hard.”
She wasn’t going to tell him about the new house just yet. He wouldn’t understand. She barely understood. And it would only start an argument she wasn’t ready to have.
“I assume Fischer is sending you papers to sign for the inheritance? It’s over a million, right?”
“One point three,” she said.
“You’ll be set for life with that much money.”
“Well, half of that much money.”
Silence. Then: “Rebecca, you’re not seriously going to give her half. She’s not his daughter.”
“We’ve had this conversation before. She is his daughter. She was denied his financial support. She deserved to sue for it.”
“Why don’t you let her know that, since you’re so set on throwing your future away.”
“I’m giving her half the money, end of story. I hope you feel better. Bye.”
“Rebecca, think for once, okay? Just stop and think. You’re an emotional mess right now—”
“Why, because I’m not doing what you want? What you think I should do? Because I have my own opinion on my own life? I have to go.” With that, she clicked her phone shut and threw it into her bag, then noticed a little old lady staring at her from across the street.
She added another mental note to the list of thousands: Do not talk on the phone outside in a tiny town.
Rebecca went a little crazy in Bed, Bath & Beyond. Choosing a down comforter from a selection of at least twenty, with samples to feel and squeeze and varying warmth levels, had knocked her argument with Michael right out of her mind.
“Get the lightweight warmth,” someone said from behind her. “I bought the second level and sweated to death last winter. Trust me.”
Rebecca smiled at the woman and the little girl in her shopping cart. “I’ll take your word for it. Otherwise I’ll be here for hours.”
She grabbed a big plastic-encased queen-sized comforter and put it in her own cart, then headed to the sheets department, where she chose a yellow duvet cover with tiny flowers. And matching shams. And soft cotton and flannel sheets. And
between bedding and towels were rows of items that she couldn’t resist, like a radio for the shower, so she could listen to Lady Gaga and Coldplay while shampooing her hair. She spent twenty minutes deciding on a vacuum cleaner (she wanted the Dyson, but couldn’t imagine spending that much) and even longer on her china pattern. She selected soft lavender towels and a fluffy bath mat. Drinking glasses and a set of wineglasses. A corkscrew, too.
And a welcome mat.
When she checked out, she’d spent over eight hundred dollars on stuff for a house she didn’t even technically have the rights to. She glanced at her watch. Only a little after two o’clock. She’d go back to Marianne’s, call the utility companies, order mattresses, and mentally decorate her new home until Maggie came over.
All her packages barely fit in the little Honda. Maybe she’d buy a Subaru like everyone had around here.
You are getting ahead of yourself again, she thought, annoyed that she was not stopping to think beyond the right now. But who said she had to?
When Rebecca woke up the next morning, she eyed the shiny silver key and lease on her nightstand and scooped up Charlie for a hug. “We’re moving tomorrow! And we have a ton to do today to get our new home ready.”
He licked her chin, which she took to mean he was happy, too. She’d already told Marianne, who’d made her promise to come talk over whoopie pies once in a while.
The whir of a power saw told her Theo was here. After a quick shower and, granted, a bit too long choosing between sweaters for someone who was “just a friend,” she took Charlie for a walk around the back.
Theo turned off the saw and lifted his work goggles.
“Guess what?” she asked.
He glanced up at the brilliant blue sky, then looked back at her. “You rented that cute yellow house on Elm Street?”
“Good guess,” she said, lightly punching his arm. “Talk works fast around here. I’ll have to remember that.”
“Congratulations. I also guess that means you’re sticking around.”
“Looks that way.”
The Secret of Joy Page 19
