A Little Romance: Stories for Hopeful Hearts

by Marilyn M Schulz

  Dorothy rolled her eyes, and the cat jumped over the table and onto her lap. She grunted and made a face, but scratched the cat under the chin.

  Lillian said, “Orca is everyone’s cat, but I keep him in at night. A couple of the cottages have small dogs, and one has a parrot—it swears. Do you like animals, dear?”

  She did.

  Dorothy said, “Don’t worry about meeting everyone all at once. They knew we are hiring someone, and they’ll figure it out, one by one and two by two.”

  Murphie wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but she said, “Well, I’ll just head back now and pack up my things. I’ll probably stay the night at my folks and come back tomorrow.”

  They nodded.

  “Well, thank you then.”

  Lillian said, “Dorothy, dear, get the First Sergeant her keys.”

  “It’s just Murphie, ma’am.”

  Dorothy handed her a key ring—lots of keys included, along with a tiny LED flashlight and an orange emergency whistle.

  Then the elderly woman held out her hand, and Murphie shook it. Lillian just waved, and the cat jumped up on the table and started washing its personals, as cats so rudely do.

  ~~~

  This time coming back to Sea Haven, she didn’t meander, but came directly down the freeway, so she could drop by the university to apply for fall term. Later she could come back to campus and look around—hopefully, she would need to. But she thought maybe she had waited too late, and might have to put it off another term or even another year.

  At least she had a job and a place to live in the interim. It might even be a good thing, until she figured what she really wanted to do.

  There you go, being an optimist. It sounded like something her dad would say, and it felt good.

  But on the forms, she wasn’t sure what major to pick. She’d had enough of cooking and guarding and dealing with difficult people. Cultural studies no longer interested her either—she’d been to other countries, seen that first hand. She didn’t regret it, but she wanted to stay home from now on . . . well, for quite some time.

  She thought about studying something like environmental science or botany or maybe there was something interesting to do with the ocean or the coast—something . . . quiet, and non-violent.

  She asked a person at the help desk.

  He said, “Coasts? That might be covered in geology.”

  “You mean as in rocks?”

  Someone else offered, “That’s some of it, but there is hydrology and there might be some sort of shoreline specialties to do with erosion and such.”

  The first guy said, “That sounds promising.”

  Actually, it sounded a little boring, studying how things just wore away with wind and water. It sounded too much like a long stretch on guard duty, and she had to admit that something quiet might not be what she wanted after all.

  Murphie took the catalog on fields of study and courses for them and decided she didn’t have to decide until she was accepted. The most she could commit to right now was a major called General Studies, for those who didn’t know what they wanted.

  Perfect.

  She spent the first night in her sleeping bag on the bed, getting used to the sounds and the smells. She was still moving into the cottage the next day and unpacking when a knock came at her door.

  It was a delivery truck, but the man said the obvious, “Delivery for Sea Haven Cottage 10.”

  “Delivery of what?”

  He checked the list. “Cedar rails and cement, some bags of pea-gravel and three boxes of spikes. Where you want it?”

  Ah, the path down to the beach needed fixing.

  She mumbled, “That was quick.”

  He said, “You want it or not?”

  She said, “You have to bring it to the shed. Drive back and go down— Here, I’ll go with you.”

  The only shed there was really a barn. It had been painted white a long time ago, but was in excellent shape and looked like the tin roof had been put on recently. She tried a few keys until she found the right one. With the help of the driver and another who came with him, they managed to get the stuff put in a good place.

  She signed his clipboard, and took the copy for her, murmuring to herself, “Put receipts in the top drawer by the fridge.”

  The driver and his helper both said as they left, “Good luck, First Sergeant.”

  How’d they know about that?

  Murphie watched the big truck drive off and decided to take the opportunity to explore. The ‘shed’ was rather big, and it was quite organized for practical use. For the first time, she wondered who had this job before?

  Oh my, she thought, I hope it wasn’t some old guy that just died in his sleep . . . in my cottage. She shuddered, and then began to wander around a bit more, looking in this container and that box.

  That must be a loft up there, she decided, and climbed the ladder that was built in-between beams in the wall with cross bars. Peering through the opening, she only saw bails of straw. She crawled all the way up and looked down to see what she hadn’t noticed before—those room dividers weren’t dividers, they were stalls. She had seen those before. Someone must have had horses here. Who knows, maybe someday . . .?

  Murphie crawled down and looked a bit more, but knew she was just procrastinating now—she had more unpacking.

  She locked up, remembering which key to use, then walked back by going up and over the hill to #10. A couple of elderly men were now sitting in the chairs outside her open door—which she hadn’t left open before, but she hadn’t locked it either.

  They were drinking beer, and raised their bottles to acknowledge her presence.

  One said, “Ed, cottage 3.”

  She nodded.

  The other said, “I’m Duncan, I live in 4.”

  Murphie was going to introduce herself when she heard a noise from inside—and it didn’t sound good. She rushed up the cement steps to find two women going through her boxes. The kitchen cupboards were all open now, and when one looked around mumbling something about a broom, she noticed Murphie at the door.

  Ed called, “They’re just snooping, but call it help if you want.”

  One elderly woman said, “Shut up, Ed.” Then she smiled at Murphie and said, “I’m Coreen, also 3, and we’ve been married too long.”

  Ed called, “Forever isn’t long enough, darlin’.”

  Coreen giggled.

  The other woman stepped closer. She looked a few years younger than the others. She said, “I’m in cottage 9, so that makes us neighbors, I guess.”

  She then held out her hand, adding, “Hello, my name is Ruth. You’re not a smoker, are you?”

  Odd question. Murphie shook the woman’s hand and said, “No, and hello. I guess I should thank you for the help?”

  Coreen and Ed laughed then, and Duncan came to the door.

  He said, “Want to come to supper? Some of us are going down to the Seabiscuit at 6 o’clock.”

  “Seabiscuit?”

  “It’s a café halfway to Cooper’s Landing. Old place though, not one of those new places the developer put it. Same old grub as they always had, but usually it’s good. Not as expensive as those new places either, want to come, can we count on you?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  Truth is, she didn’t have any food, and she needed to figure out where the warehouse store was, and the grocery store and a drug store and all of those normal things that Murphie forgot she might need. She could just go back to the city, but there might be some place closer.

  Duncan said, “Well, good, so as long as you’re going, I’ll just catch a ride with you.”

  Coreen called, “Cheapskate. You might as well know right up front that he’d steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.”

  Ruth said, “Why don’t we let the young lady get back her privacy, and I’ll come by when it’s time to leave. That okay with you too?”

  It was. Murphie was a bit . . . overwhelmed. She’d been in clos
e quarters for a long time, and she had been looking forward to some solitude. The plane back home was full up; the welcome home parties were too. Driving in the car had been sweet relief, and now her own place would be too.

  Still, so far, so good.

  ~~~

  It quickly fell into a comfortable routine after that—and there was plenty to do. Each cottage had a big picture window in the front but those shutters were only decorative. There were small windows for the kitchen and the bathroom—the bathroom had no shutters, and that glass was frosted too.

  The bedrooms had windows that were larger, and like the kitchen window, those shutters were functioning. That is, they could be shut up for the season, locking from the inside from the open windows. But now there was no season—people lived here all year round, and there was no need for that security either.

  Murphie met the other tenants, as predicted, and made a list of who lived where:

  Cottage #1: Office and recreation for the ‘tenants,’ a term which Lillian and Dorothy used collectively for all of them. They also used appropriately: ‘the boys’ or ‘the girls’ or ‘the couples’ or just the cottage number or door color to differentiate them . . . though seldom the names.

  While each cottage had a US Mail box out front, they also had boxes for messages in the office. They could leave extra keys or notes for guests, that kind of thing. Murphie got a notice in her message box for a potluck in a few days as a welcoming.

  She was still wondering what to bring.

  Cottage #2: Dorothy’s lair, and unlike the other tenants, she always kept her door shut—purple door and shutters. She never seemed to invite people in, though it was rumored to be full of souvenirs from an interesting life that included traveling. Lillian said that Orca loved to snoop in there, and that Dorothy didn’t want anything broken.

  Cottage #3: Ed and Coreen, with forest green trim in good condition, were retired early from careers in Seattle and had been here three years. Ed had worked with Dorothy’s husband, and taken her side in the sordid mess that led to a divorce. They had a little dog—a mutt named Beau who had a good dose of Terrier blood. Against all odds, Orca and Beau were the best of friends, but neither one of them liked Fig.

  Cottage #4: Duncan’s cottage had a strange sort of yellow green trim that looked like the color of antifreeze. He hated that color, he claimed, but the schedule listed his cottage for painting this season. He put on the list in the office that he wanted his trim painted purple too.

  Duncan had interest in every woman who was nice to him, but that’s only what Dorothy claimed. Truth was, from what Murphie had seen, the man took an instant liking to anyone who could get him something cheap, or even better, for free. Lillian pointed out (not in Dorothy’s hearing) that the man clearly had a crush on Dorothy, but Lillian also told Murphie to never seem to notice or say anything about it.

  Cottage #5: Lillian (and Orca, the black cat with big white swaths that looked like that whale in a miniature and furry form) had a door and shutters of a vibrant pink. Lillian called it the color of ‘washed out thimbleberry stains’. She was frillier than her older sister—that was the only word that Murphie could think of that truly applied.

  Lillian was a widow and had been well over a decade; Dorothy had been divorced for about five years; her husband had left her for a younger woman about half his age, and Dorothy still held a grudge—she also got half his fortune, which was made in the software industry during the time of their marriage.

  But Dorothy had always been more self-sufficient than Lillian—at least, that’s what Lillian wanted her sister to believe. Lillian was fussy, Murphie noticed, but she was also quite clever. For some reason, it did Dorothy some good to think that she was the one looking after her sister . . . often it was the other way round.

  Cottage #6: Herb and Larry—they were brothers who could only agree on the color of robin’s egg blue for their trim; otherwise, the men were always bickering. Duncan didn’t care much for the brothers. It was probably because they were the sons of a childhood friend of Lillian and Dorothy, and so the ladies tended to “let them get away with stuff.”

  The two men had a little longhair dog they called Fig, that ate better than some people’s kids—unless he was digging in the garden or the flowerbeds. Herb was an artist, and Larry ran the art gallery in Sea Haven, but they would be opening a new one in Cooper’s Landing this season.

  Cottage #7: It had navy blue trim that was the newest paint. It was empty now, but rented on a yearly lease by people from Seattle who came down on occasion during the year, or their friends did, or their adult offspring with their own families. They had been renting it for seventeen years now, and first rented from the ladies’ parents before.

  Cottage #8: George and Mina—their door and shutters were faded orange. They had learned to accept that, and didn’t want the bother of changing, because George was of a mind that it would only make it worse, and Mina couldn’t make up her mind about a new color anyway, so faded orange it stayed.

  They were younger than the others, even younger than Ruth, but still several years older than Murphie.

  George was a chef at the resort up the road, and Mina was a part-time accountant who did the books for most of the small businesses around that could afford it. George and Mina had come here to the Sea Haven Cottages as children, and had been friends and pen pals since they were nine.

  They lived in different cities growing up, but went to college together and got married. When they failed to have the children they wanted, they decided to move to the place where they had been happiest before. They claimed it was living life like a second honeymoon.

  Lillian thought it was romantic; Dorothy thought people’s love lives were nobody’s business.

  Cottage #9: Ruth’s cottage had bright yellow trim, but it did not match the woman’s demeanor. Lillian said that Ruth was a widow who hadn’t yet gotten used to it, and that’s why Lillian picked that color. It used to be a more pastel tone, but she wanted to make it more cheerful.

  Ruth’s husband had been six years younger than her, so she had expectations of dying first—all the insurance charts showed that. He died of lung cancer; it took a long time, and Lillian said it helped Ruth to talk about it sometimes.

  Murphie didn’t like to think of stuff like that—she’d seen too many empty Army boots, been to too many funeral services.

  Cottage #10: With the washed-out red door and shutters, this was her new home, and Murphie’s latest idea of Heaven.

  The ladies said that a cottage’s door and shutters would be painted every three years, as a rule of maintenance, given the sea air and the harsh weather too. But an occupant could get it painted sooner, if they were willing to pay for it—the paint, not the painter.

  Duncan now wanted purple—the same color as Dorothy’s. Dorothy didn’t want to be purple anymore, but hadn’t yet picked another color. She told Murphie to paint Duncan’s first, but they had to get more paint, and she didn’t want to be the same shade.

  There was a spare cottage door in the shed. Murphie was to carefully take off the shutters and locking hardware and hinges, and replace the door on the cottage with the spare. Next, take them all to the shed and refinish with a light sanding, and paint the shutters and doors up there.

  Murphie didn’t mind the idea of the work, but it would be easier hauling if she traded in her used car—the one her parents got her when she came back home—for a pickup.

  They’d understand, it’s not like it was a family car or new or even expensive.

  She said to Dorothy, “I’m going to pick up the purple in a couple of days—there’s some still in the shed, but it dried out. Storing them upside down will keep them usable longer. Do you want me to pick up some paint chips so you can decide from those? Just tell me what colors you are thinking about—”

  Dorothy was sitting outside her cottage, sipping ice tea. She mumbled, “I wouldn’t mind black.”

  “Lillian already vetoed that.”


  “Rats, I hoped you hadn’t heard that yet. If you bought the paint, then it would be too late. Lillian is thrifty, she’d cope.”

  The woman motioned, and Murphie sat in the other chair.

  She said, “I can pretend this conversation didn’t happen.”

  Dorothy laughed—an unusual sound for her. She said, “No, don’t do that. Lillian means well, she’s really quite a sweet woman. Black is for funerals, and not fun enough for this place—at least, how it used to be. Tell me, do you like it here?”

  “Yes, I do. I like it very much. I like being busy, and having my own space, and being on the beach is . . .”

  She didn’t have the words.

  Dorothy put a hand to her shoulder. “Bring me some colors, nothing in the pinks or oranges or yellows.”

  “Blues and greens, tans and browns, reds and—”

  “No, 10 is red, and that’s how it should be.”

  “Why is that?”

  “That was our Mom and Dad’s cottage—they still came here when Lillian and I got married and had our own lives. They bought it when the owner retired, and our folks lived there for a few years before Mom died. Dad was the handyman, then he hired someone from town. Red was his favorite color—no, that was Mom’s favorite color, and it reminded him of her, and now it reminds us of them, and we like to sit here and look up there, thinking of them.”

  Murphie nodded, but she could only whisper, “Red it is for #10 again.”

  Dorothy said, “I don’t want something girlie either. I’ve been the tomboy all my life—they don’t call them that anymore, do they?”

  Murphie shrugged. “I understand, believe me. So, let’s take a look, get some ideas to narrow it down.”

  She went to get her laptop and came back and did a search.

  Dorothy said, “They have that stuff online?”

  “They do. The colors are approximate, the screen display versus real life, I mean.”

  “Got it. My ex-husband is in the software industry, so I know what you mean. But how did you do that out here on the porch?”