by Janet Spaeth
“Pleased to meet you,” the man answered, his dark eyes sweeping across the property. “I’m—”
In a split second, as she saw the familiar scan—the rapid tally, the quick appraisal of market value—a protective temper rose in her. Sunshine was hers.
She knew from working with the man that he did nothing without a firm objective in mind. What did he want from her? It couldn’t be good.
Livvy stepped forward. “This is Michael Evans, my former boss.”
Hayden turned to her, clearly startled by her blunt tone. “Livvy—” he began, but she waved his interruption away, and Mr. Evans laughed a bit nervously as Leonard growled again.
“Mr. Evans is here to see me, or, no, better than that, I’m wondering if he’s here to see Sunshine,” she said, hating that her voice was shaking. “What is it? Is there oil under the land? Gold tucked in a cave? Gemstones in the buttes?”
She tried to interject some lightness into her words, but she knew she failed. She knew him too well. He wasn’t here because he was on vacation in the Badlands. Not Michael Evans. Their relationship in Boston had been very formal, very careful, very precise. Their parting hadn’t been exactly cordial either.
There was some reason he was here, and it had to do with Sunshine. Or her.
He had some kind of agenda, and the most effective way to deal with it was to face it head-on, directly.
Mr. Evans looked at her, and she saw herself in his eyes. Cut-off jeans, a faded and stained T-shirt that she’d found in one of the cabins a month ago, no makeup, and hair that hadn’t seen a stylist since she left Boston. To complete the package, she probably smelled like dirt and sweat and was coated in both.
“Actually,” he said, his voice as smooth as Martha Washington’s fur, “I’m out here because I need your signature on some papers.”
“Really?” she asked, making no effort to disguise the disbelief in her voice. “And what papers would those be?”
“The Millner transfer. You didn’t sign the agent’s agreement.”
Livvy shook her head in self-reproach. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She’d done all of the behind-the-scenes work on the account. It had been a massive amount of work because the Millners owned rental property not only in Massachusetts but also in Virginia, Florida, and Arizona. Each state’s laws were a bit different, and adding to the difficulty was that the Millner family, which was spread all around the world, owned varying percentages of each property. It was the largest account she’d ever worked with. She’d left before everything was completed—the finalization had still been months away.
And yet of all the papers for her to miss, the agreement was probably the most important.
“You don’t get your bonus until it’s signed,” Mr. Evans said, knowing, she was sure, that those very words would make her get out her pen immediately.
She’d forgotten about the bonus. It was a substantial one. With it, she’d be able to get through the winter—if nothing broke.
She took a moment and breathed a prayer: Give me patience, strength, and understanding.
“I apologize if I sounded rude,” she said, motioning him to the door. “Come inside, and let’s put ink on paper.”
Gramps was at the screen door. “All that commotion woke me up from my nap,” he said. His eyes were confused. “Is Ellie in the garden?”
She took his arm. “Hayden is right out here. And we have a guest, Gramps. This is Michael Evans. I worked for him in Boston. He owns one of the largest real estate management firms in the United States.”
Mr. Evans reached his hand out and shook Gramps’s. “Sir, it’s good to meet you. This is my first time in North Dakota, and I must say it’s quite a spectacular place. Sunshine has a beautiful setting.”
Gramps nodded. “Sunshine is a treasure.” He shook his arm free of his touch. “You can’t have it.”
She bit back a smile at her former boss’s expression. He managed to look horrified and amused at the same time. He had clearly underestimated Gramps’s mental facility, which didn’t surprise her too much. He’d always sent her to negotiate with family members.
What he didn’t know—had never known—was the reason she was so successful with estate work. She didn’t push the family members but instead guided them to a consensus, one that they could all be happy with.
“I don’t want Sunshine,” Mr. Evans said in the voice he usually kept in reserve for those he considered slow.
“Then you’re dumber than I thought.” Gramps pulled the screen door shut and hooked the latch.
She heard Hayden gasp behind her, and in a series of great loping steps, he joined them. “Gramps, now, Mr. Evans is here to visit with Livvy. He has something she needs to sign.”
The old man shook his head vigorously. “He’s here to sell something. Vacuum cleaners maybe. Or toilet brushes.”
A nervous giggle rose in her throat, but she choked it down. Gramps’s fingers tapped nervously along the handle of the door.
“I can assure you, sir,” Mr. Evans said, “that I am not here to sell anything, especially not vacuum cleaners or toilet brushes.” He said the products as if the very words tasted bad.
Livvy glanced quickly at Hayden. His forehead was lined with worry. He reached toward the door but Gramps shook his head, and Hayden shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and looked upward, his face a study in frustration.
A loud rumble accompanied by blares and screeches rose behind them, and Livvy spun around to see the cause.
It was Trevor. Apparently bored by the entire scene, he’d started his car again—those were the sounds that shook the floorboards of the porch—and turned on the radio. It might have been music that he was listening to, but Livvy wouldn’t stake any bets on it.
“Is that Martha Washington?” Gramps asked, and from somewhere deep inside Livvy, a bubble of laughter burst and erupted out of her. Hayden looked at her, and he joined in, too.
Mr. Evans gaped at them as if they’d both lost their minds, and as the laughter continued to pour out into the October afternoon, unchecked, she thought that perhaps he was right. She could no more stop laughing than she could sprout wings and fly around the yard.
She reached for Hayden and put her hand on his shoulder to balance herself as the laughter rolled on. It felt so good to laugh. It cleaned her. It refreshed her. And it gave her new vigor.
At last Mr. Evans coughed, a sound that shot through the growl of Trevor’s truck engine and the shrill blast of guitars and drums and wailing voices from his radio, and the last vestiges of mirth died in her throat.
“Can you explain this to me?” he asked rather stiffly. “I am somewhat at a disadvantage here.”
“Martha Washington is a cat,” she answered, wiping her eyes from the laughing jag. “A big fat lazy cat that chases the chicken and that’s about all. She purrs but not quite that loudly.”
Gramps wiggled the screen door. “It’s locked,” he announced.
Hayden cleared his throat and approached the door. “Gramps, you locked it.”
“I know.”
“Now you need to unlock it.”
The older man fiddled with the latch and at last it sprang free.
Hayden opened the door and motioned Livvy and Mr. Evans inside.
She took her former boss into the kitchen as Hayden led his grandfather to the couch and began to talk to him in a low voice.
Mr. Evans looked over his shoulder. “He’s all right?”
Livvy nodded. “He fades in and out. Usually he’s fine. He’s the fellow I bought Sunshine from.”
“I see.”
As they neared the table, he opened the large manila folder he carried and took out the papers, looking through them, not losing a step in his stride. “I would have done this by phone, but I couldn’t get through.”
“No service right here. At least not for that carrier.”
“And then you weren’t answering your e-mail,” he continued.
�
��No Internet out here.”
Mr. Evans stopped midstep. “You’re serious? No cell phone service. No e-mail. No Google.”
“I’m serious. The only thing I miss is talking to my parents, since they live in Sweden, and we use the computer for that, so I go into town and use the library’s connection.”
He stared at her. “Amazing.” He laid the papers on the scarred surface of the kitchen table and ran his hands over the faux marble top. “This would get a fairly decent price at auction, wouldn’t it? Now let’s see, Release, Assignment of Rights, Temporary Transfer of Title, Deed in Kind, Agent’s Agreement, there we are. You have a pen? Sign by the yellow sticky note.”
He seemed anxious to move the conversation on, to get out of the kitchen of this place where crazies lived, and she didn’t totally blame him. She read through the document, making sure that she remembered what she had written before she signed it. It was a good agreement, fair to all those involved, but it had involved months of work, of close negotiation, of listening, listening, and more listening.
She was justifiably proud of what she’d accomplished, and she signed it with a tinge of sadness, knowing that she would probably never do this kind of work again. There weren’t enough property sales or leases to make her career possible out here.
“Here you go,” she said, blowing on the inked signature before handing it back to him. Mr. Evans always used a fountain pen that she knew cost several hundreds of dollars. “Signed, sort of sealed, and delivered.”
“Thank you.” He placed the document back in the folder and snapped the rubber band around it. “This means a lot to the agency, and, of course, to you. You deserved this bonus. I’m not one to give out compliments, you know that, but the clients have told me repeatedly how much they appreciated what you did for them. Thanks to you, the family has reunited, despite the friction of the past, and they asked me to relay their appreciation to you for your work, not just as an agent but as a human being.”
She could only stare at him. This was amazing.
“Do you have a card?” he asked.
“What kind of a card?” She looked at him blankly.
“A business card,” he answered, “of course.”
“Business card? For what?”
“Well, for one thing, to make sure the check arrives here, unless you want it automatically deposited in the bank. Do you still have the same account?”
“I do.” For once her laziness was in her favor. She’d left the account in Boston open. “Can you go ahead and deposit it for me?”
“Sure. But you should have a business card.”
“Why?”
He put the packet flat onto the table. “Well, Livvy, for this.” He motioned around him with a sweep of his arm. “Sunshine. You can’t do this without advertising. It’s the stuff of business success, after all. You’ll need to start the accounts for food service, unless you want to do it all yourself, and there’ll be a cleaning crew, I imagine, and a linen supply contract, just to begin.”
“But for what?” She understood the words but there wasn’t meaning behind them. What on earth was he talking about?
A fly roused itself on the windowsill and batted itself halfheartedly against the screen, warmed by the Indian summer afternoon. Outside the cacophony of Trevor’s truck radio and engine shook the usual calm.
“For this.” He leaned on the table, his black suit still spotless even after riding in the teenager’s truck. She’d been in the truck just five months ago, and she doubted that he had cleaned it since. How Mr. Evans accomplished maintaining his immaculate appearance was nothing short of a miracle.
She could only shake her head.
He sat down, keeping his back stick-straight, crossed his legs, and looked her directly in the eye. “For when you reopen. You are reopening, aren’t you?”
She knew Michael Evans well enough to pay attention when he was positioned like this, poised and attentive. She used to say that she could see his ears literally perk up when he sensed a business opportunity. She let him continue speaking, anxious to let him share his vision.
“This would be a splendid resort,” he said.
“But it wasn’t working,” she objected, pretending that she hadn’t been thinking of just that. The more she could learn from this man’s years of cagey expertise, the better. “Plus it’s not exactly Hawaii or the Riviera.”
“The destination is what you create.” He looked out the window, and Livvy’s eyes followed his. The copper and bronze of the Badlands were framed against the bright blue of the sky. “Look at that. You name me one other place that has that. And I wager that if that teenager would turn off his truck, we’d hear only nature. Am I right?”
She nodded, beginning to feel a twinge of excitement.
“Figure out what kind of resort you’d like it to be.” He stood and picked up the folder and tucked it under his arm. “I’d make it a retro theme, and market it to L.A. and New York. Big Internet splash, which is practically free. I bet that kid out there could cobble up a webpage with his eyes closed. Run off some flyers on a printer, nice full-color images with this place all spiffed up, and blast them to travel agents out there.”
It sounded wonderful, and as she listened, the ideas started to take root.
“One question, Mr. Evans,” she said as she walked him to the truck, nearly shouting to be heard over the music coming from Trevor’s radio. “Why aren’t you trying to get this from me, open it yourself, if it’s such a great business proposition?”
“Me?” he asked. He opened the door of the truck and with a look of complete revulsion, flicked a bug off the seat and climbed into the cab. He placed the packet neatly centered on his knees and snapped the safety belt across his shoulders. Then he faced her squarely, and with a voice just a touch under the decibels still thundering from the radio, said, “I don’t want it. But you do, and that’s what counts. You have heart, Miss Moore, and that’s what this is going to take. North Dakota heart.”
Trevor caught her eye over Mr. Evans’s shoulder and grinned, making loopy “crazy” signs and pointing at the real estate magnate.
She smiled back.
She loved this place, loved this old house, even loved this obnoxious truck and its driver and its blaring radio and amped-up engine.
North Dakota heart, indeed!
The chill of autumn was definitely in the air. That Indian summer day had passed, and the temperatures had become more October-like. The leaves on the trees along the river began to dry, and when the afternoon winds picked up, they rattled together like shells, a wind chime heralding the end of summer and the time-to-come of winter.
The little apartment in Obsidian was cozy—which was a code word for cramped. Gramps was still with him awaiting an opening in the senior living facility, and while Hayden was grateful to have his grandfather with him, a one-bedroom apartment was just that—one bedroom. He’d given Gramps the bed, and he’d been bunking on the couch in the living room, which was about ten inches too short for any comfort.
He sat at the kitchen table, papers that needed to be graded spread out in front of him, but he wasn’t seeing them. Too much was on his mind to be able to focus on the area of a trapezoid if side D was 1.3 and side B was 2.4.
Livvy had moved out to Sunshine, and they had an awkward arrangement. He’d bring Gramps out to her during the day, and he’d come back to Obsidian and teach. Then, at the end of the school day, he’d return to Sunshine, visit with Livvy and make sure everything was working well, and retrieve Gramps and the two of them would drive to Obsidian, to the tiny apartment.
He felt better knowing that Gramps was not alone during the day, but it was asking a lot of Livvy to have the older man out there all day long. And as the season progressed, he wasn’t sure it would continue to work.
But it had to. There just wasn’t any choice. Some things had to be the way they were, and that was simply all there was to it.
Gramps was in the living room, watching a video
of an Elvis Presley movie he’d gotten at the grocery store. Why he’d chosen it from the rack of movie rentals, Hayden had no idea, but the old man had seemed delighted with the choice and was now deeply engrossed in it.
He stacked the homework into a neat pile and laid it aside. Maybe later he could get to it, but first he had to deal with what was topmost in his mind.
He picked up the envelope and removed the sheet of paper and read it once again. What should he do?
He buried his face in his hands in a futile attempt to wipe out what was in front of him. He had taken action, and now—now did he want it?
Earlier in the year, on a February day when the high was five below zero and the winds would not stop, he impetuously applied for a teaching job in Florida. He spread his fingers a tad and peeked through the opening at the correspondence in front of him. There were the letters, forming the words and sentences he had wanted to hear, and now dreaded. They had an opening and needed him to teach: Could he come for an interview?
He couldn’t leave. Sunshine might be sold, but his grandfather needed him. And without a place for Gramps to live, he had to stay in Obsidian. Until a spot opened in the senior living complex, his grandfather would have to live with him.
Not that he minded. He would walk over hot coals and through burning lava for his grandfather.
Plus there was Livvy. Livvy with her cap of dark hair that curled wildly when it rained, with her eyes so deeply brown that they glowed. She needed him to help her with Sunshine. There was no way she could do it by herself, not with just that goofy book to help her. What was the name of it again? Oh yes. The Complete Guide to Home Construction and Repair.
He put his hands together, palm to palm. When he had been a little boy, that’s what he would do when he prayed. He tried it now, asking for clarity, for comfort, for reassurance.
Usually he got a pleasant, warm feeling from his prayers, a sense that they had been heard and acknowledged, and this was no different. He came away from his brief time with the Lord refreshed and ready to face what was ahead.
