Chapter 11
***MALCOLM***
It had been a week since Malcolm had signed the paperwork on the old restaurant downtown, but it had been a busy seven days, and he was proud of the progress he’d made cleaning it up.
When he opened the door, instead of a face full of dust, he smelled cleaning supplies and fresh air; instead of cobwebs and dirt covering the walls, they were freshly washed, and the floor gleamed under his feet from a full day of polishing.
Closing the door behind him, he stepped further into the building, pleased that he’d been right.
All the place needed was a good cleaning and some paint and it could start its new life.
What that new life would be he wasn’t sure, but he’d know in a matter of hours if the appointment with the potential renter went well.
Knowing that renting the property only a couple of weeks after buying it was almost too good to be true, he forced himself to control his excitement in case things didn’t work out and got busy on the list of repairs that he wanted to make that day.
The hours flew by and before he knew it, the alarm on his phone was going off, giving him only a few minutes to clean up, but he was ready and waiting in the entryway when a car pulled up to the curb.
He watched as the lawyer got out of the car, then came around and opened up the passenger door before helping a woman out of the car.
She stood on the sidewalk examining the building for a long time, giving him a chance to study her with the same care, and he instantly knew that first, she had money, and second, she was ready to spend it.
As tempted as he was to meet them out on the sidewalk, he held back, not wanting to appear too desperate, and pretended to be talking to someone on his phone while the minutes ticked by.
When the lawyer finally pushed open the door for his client, Malcolm was so nervous he was sure that he was going to screw the whole thing up, but he took a deep breath, put his phone away, and plastered a confident smile on his face.
“Mr. Crabtree, how nice to see you again,” he said, shaking the man’s hand, then turned to the woman. “And this must be Ms. Bradshaw. It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” she said, shaking his hand and smiling at him warmly.
“Although I’m disappointed that you beat me to buying this place.
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but my beast of an ex-husband and his lawyer refused to settle; it must have been the longest divorce in history… ”
Her words died away. “Yes, well, anyway, here we are now,” Mr. Crabtree said. “Shall we have a look around, Elaine? I think you’ll see this isn’t the space for you; it’s entirely too big, and it’s going to take a great deal of work to get it ready.”
Ms. Bradshaw tore her gaze away from the doorway to the dining room and looked over at her lawyer. “Lawrence, you are one of the best divorce lawyers around, but you know nothing about running a café,” she said. “Let me do what I’m good at and I’ll let you do what you’re good at.”
“Right, right,” Mr. Crabtree said, backing away. “Forgive me for overstepping.”
Ms. Bradshaw looked over at him, then shook her head and sighed. “I’m so tired of being treated like a child,” she said. “First my parents, then my husband, now my lawyer. I don’t know how to convince people that I’m a grown woman who is perfectly capable of making her own decisions.”
“Just make a few,” he said, smiling at her. “Would you like me to show you around?”
“Yes, that’s an excellent idea,” she said, smiling back at him. “How about that, I’m already doing it, it’s not that hard at all.”
They walked around the first floor, spending extra time in the old kitchen, then climbed the stairs to the second floor.
“There’s nothing up here but an apartment, and I was planning to live here after I graduate next spring,” he said, opening the door at the top of the stairs.
“But the right offer could change my mind.”
He followed Ms. Bradshaw around the tiny space, watching her face, but couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
Then she turned and looked over at him. “You can keep the apartment, it’s much too small for me, but I would like to talk about the first floor,” she said, heading for the door.
“Unless you’d be willing to sell. I would give you ten percent more than what you paid. ”
“I’m not interested in selling, but we could definitely discuss a lease on the first floor,” he said, already calculating how much he would ask for in rent. “Let’s go back downstairs and talk about what it would take to get you to sign.”
After another trip through the first floor, Ms. Bradshaw seemed to have made up her mind.
“I’m interested in the dining room, kitchen and the entryway, but I have no use for the bar.
I’m going to be serving coffee and tea, not alcohol.
Could we make a deal on those three rooms by themselves? I hate to pay for space I won’t use.”
He thought about it for a minute. “I wasn’t planning on splitting the space, but I would be willing to for the right price,” he finally said. “I could always rent that to someone else, with your café here there will be a lot of foot traffic, and someone will snap it up. You’ve got a deal.”
“If you want my advice, tear out the bar and advertise it as retail space, it would make a cute bookshop or jewelry store, something like that,” Ms. Bradshaw said, shrugging her shoulders, then turned and walked away. “That’s what I would do if I owned the building. Now, let’s talk numbers.”
***Rose***
It had been three days since her disastrous dinner with Malcolm, and she still hadn’t seen him or heard from him.
She was beginning to panic, but she couldn’t bring herself to be the first one to make contact.
It hadn’t been her idea to kiss him; he’d kissed her, then backpedaled like a jerk.
She’d had every right to be mad; she still was, and hoped that he’d get the message.
Eventually, she’d have to give in and contact him; her stepfather wasn’t going to give up until she gave him what he wanted.
Until then, he wasn’t going to hear a word from her.
With a sigh of annoyance that she was forced to think about the big jerk at all, she began packing up for the day, looking forward to going home to her tiny apartment and forgetting about the whole thing for a few hours.
After she shut off her computer, she grabbed her purse, then closed her office door and headed toward the reception area to let Vanessa know that she was going home.
The front was dark and for a second she thought she’d missed Vanessa, but then she heard her talking. “I’ll pass the message on, Roger,” she said. “I hope everything works out okay. Let us know when you’ll be back.”
“What’s going on?” she asked when Vanessa hung up the phone. “That didn’t sound good.”
“Roger is going to be out the next few days, some kind of a family emergency. He didn’t go into any details,” Vanessa said, turning off her computer. “I told him we’d hold down the fort while he’s gone.”
“We can handle it,” she said. “At least I think we can.”
“We can, besides, I don’t think we have much choice. It sounded like he was calling from the car,” Vanessa said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Looks like we’re in charge, want to go celebrate?”
“I’m not sure there’s anything to celebrate, but what the heck,” she said. “I could use some downtime, and I don’t have to worry about you kissing me.”
“Pizza or pasta?” Vanessa asked, grabbing her coat. “I don’t care which, I just want some carbs.”
“How about both,” she said, grinning. “Why choose when we don’t have to?”
“I knew I liked the way you think,” Vanessa said, grabbing her purse. “Valentine’s it is, they’ve got the best of both and the waiters are all so cute it makes the food taste better.”
“Sounds perfect,” she said, following Vanessa to the front door. “I’ll drive.”
After locking the door, they headed toward the parking lot, already arguing about what to have on their pizza. “No, no, no, pineapple on pizza is all wrong,” she said, shaking her head. “Fruit doesn’t belong on pizza.”
“What about dessert pizza?” Vanessa asked, a grin on her face. “Those are made with fruit.”
“That’s totally different,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m talking about…”
Her words died away as her brain tried to process what she was seeing, “Oh my God,” Vanessa said. “Is that your car?”
“It can’t be…” she said, taking a couple of steps towards it, shaking her head. “It can’t be…”
“I think we should call the police,” Vanessa said, taking out her phone. “That’s a lot of damage, Rose.”
She looked over at her friend, then back at her car, still struggling to believe that the ruined mess was the vehicle she’d worked so hard to buy.
It was the only thing she owned, her pride and joy.
Now all the windows were smashed, the seats were torn, the dashboard cracked, and even worse, it was covered in obscenities written in bright red paint.
Reality hit her like a freight train, stealing the air from her lungs and she stumbled back a few steps, horrified and a little frightened. “I can’t believe someone did this to me,” she said, holding back a sob. “I’m not a bad person, I’m really not…”
She felt her legs turning to jelly, felt the strength draining from her muscles, and started to sink to the ground, but a pair of strong arms were suddenly supporting her. “What the hell is going on?” Malcolm demanded, lifting her into his arms. “Who did this? Did you see them?”
Comfort instantly washed over her, but she was still too shocked to speak and just shook her head, concentrating on her breathing.
“We just found it, I was going to call the cops,” Vanessa said, holding up her phone.
“I bet it was Sanda, there’s no way this was random, and you haven’t been here long enough to piss anyone else off. ”
Malcolm carried her over to a bench under the trees next to the parking lot, gently set her down, and then sat next to her. “Are you okay?” he asked. “That must have been quite a shock.”
“I think so,” she said, fighting back the tears. “My poor car. I loved that car, I saved up for years to buy it, and it’s the only thing I have that’s just mine.”
“I’m sorry, Rose,” he said, putting his arm around her. “I’m sure it can be fixed.”
“I know, but it will never be the same,” she said, then let out a long sigh. “I guess we’d better call the cops. I can’t believe Sandra did this. I was willing to forgive the other stuff, but I want her put in jail for this.”
“I don’t blame you,” Malcolm said. “I think we’d better give Roger a call, too. He needs to know what happened.”