Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
The new slider gets installed in Grand’s bottom floor bonus room/studio and we spend the morning organizing the space. Grand sets her easel back in its spot and puts her paints and brushes on shelves. When she can’t find her charcoals, I empty the last of the boxes in her studio and double-check the garage shelves. When I run out of obvious places to look, I go down and search her car, finally popping open the trunk.
“Hey, look what I found.” I hold up the box of charcoals along with a number of rolled-up canvases.
“Oh. Great.” She clears her throat, takes the charcoals, and sets them on her worktable. “Where did you find those?”
“In the very back of your trunk.”
Grand nods at the canvases but looks almost reluctant to take them from me.
“What are they?” I ask as she finally reaches for them.
“Nothing important,” she says. “Just a couple of works in progress that I lost interest in.” She sets them on an empty shelf without unrolling them. “I asked Kyle to bring everything from my Atlanta studio and figured I’d go through it all when it got here. I completely forgot about these.”
Her tone is casual; her body language is not.
“I truly appreciate your help and your company but I’m fine down here,” she says. “I’d like to finish up on my own. It’ll help me clear my head and ensure that I know where everything is.”
“Okay.” It is her studio after all and I know she’s capable of setting it up, but I also know she just lied to me. What I don’t know is why. Or even what she might be lying about. “I’ll be upstairs checking out casting calls. Yell if you need extra muscle.”
Up in my room, I stare out the bedroom window for a few minutes watching the dog walkers and delivery people, the trucks for electrical companies and AC companies, and plumbers, and car detailers, and neighbors out tending the small gardens in front of their town houses. It’s peaceful here yet there’s no lack of activity.
Ultimately, I force myself to boot up my laptop, where I waste a few more minutes checking email and deleting the junk and spam while I accept that there’s nothing from my agent, nothing from anyone I’ve already auditioned for, nothing new. Nothing positive.
On the bright side (I smile and make a note to save this for the next time I join Kyra and crew for sunset toasts), when I check the email forwarded from my professional site, there’s no hate mail awaiting me. No fans asking how I’m doing in rehab. And only a handful expressing their disappointment that I (aka Cassie Everheart) succumbed to alcohol and ruined my life over a man.
Finally, I log on to castingcalls.com and discover that the bra company is still looking for women willing to bare their bosoms, something I tell myself I’m not yet desperate enough to consider—unless they’re planning to provide body doubles, which seems highly unlikely.
The call for Romeo and Juliet is gone and so is the faux food prep opportunity for Publix supermarkets, which means someone else got the gigs.
I spend a solid thirty minutes searching the site and find absolutely nothing for which I, or Cassie Everheart just out of rehab, could be considered a good fit. When the doorbell rings, I breathe a sigh of relief for the interruption and glance out the window to see who’s there.
By the time I get downstairs, Grand is already ushering Myra inside. We meet up in the kitchen, and although she did not come bearing muffins, she’s beaming. “You’ll never guess what’s happened.”
“What?” Grand and I chorus.
“I bought the most adorable bungalow on St. Pete Beach.”
“St. Pete Beach?” we chorus again.
“Pass-a-Grille actually.” Myra looks like the proverbial Cheshire Cat.
“Are you moving?” Grand can’t quite keep the horror out of her voice. After all, it was Myra who drew her to Casas de Flores.
“No, of course not.” Myra laughs.
“Then why did you buy a bungalow there?” Grand asks.
“Because I’m going to turn it into a bookstore,” Myra replies gleefully.
Grand and I both stare at her.
“It’s right next door to the Gulf Beaches Historical Museum and on the corner of Tenth and Gulf Way right across from the beach. It was originally a single-family home. Then it was an arts and crafts gallery, so it’s already been opened up a bit, and has lots of shelving and storage.
“But it has a lot of its original architectural features. Plus, there’s a space in the back that used to be a sunroom that could be great for book club meetings or a kids’ story time, or I don’t know, maybe kids’ art lessons?” She beams at Grand.
Grand smiles. “Sounds like fun.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Myra continues. “And with all the tourists that vacation on the beaches here, I think there’s a built-in market. There’s a Barnes & Noble on Tyrone Boulevard and Tombolo Books near downtown St. Pete, but there are no bookstores actually on the beach. So I’m considering calling it Beach Reads. Or maybe Beach Books. And I’ll have a huge section of the kinds of books you want to read while you’re lying on the beach or around a hotel pool. And a kids’ section, and maybe some literary books as well. I’d have room to host author events, and I bet I could sell books on-site at the St. Pete Beach Library when authors come to town on book tours.”
Myra’s excitement is palpable and contagious. I feel like I’m in the middle of one of those black-and-white films from the thirties that we used to watch at Grand’s house where Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney would get everybody revved up and say, “Let’s put on a show!”
Grand is clearly intrigued. I’m just grateful that she’s not begging to be Myra’s partner, because all I’ve ever heard is how tough the book business can be. Not quite as tough as acting maybe, but not generally the road to riches, either.
“It’s been vacant for a while and is in serious need of some TLC,” Myra admits. “But if you’re not busy, I’d love for you to come look at it with me and help me figure out what it will take to turn it into a bookstore. Lunch is on me.”
“I’m in,” Grand says. “And I can be ready to go in ten minutes. Sydney?”
I hesitate because what I should be doing is figuring out how to convince (or even trick) someone into giving me a chance to act. But that will expose me to rejection again. Looking at Myra’s bookstore presumably will not.
“Absolutely!” If nothing else, I can make sure that Grand doesn’t invest in Myra’s venture. Giving art lessons to children could be fun for her—she’s great at it and some of my happiest memories were made in her home studio, where I was encouraged to express myself. And while I know it wouldn’t be smart for her to risk her money on a bookstore, it would be good for Grand to have someplace to be on a regular basis and people to interact with.
· · ·
The house is a Craftsman bungalow (I know this because I fell in love with the style five minutes after I arrived in California) with a wide front porch, tapered square columns, and a low-pitched gable roof.
We step into the living room with its center fireplace flanked by built-ins beneath double-hung windows, beamed ceilings, and dark wood wainscotting and moldings. The wood floors are scuffed but appear original. Leaded and stained glass in the prairie style give off a muted glow. We walk through the living room, dining room, two former bedrooms, one bath, and kitchen, which open onto one another without benefit of hallways. The enclosed back porch runs the width of the first floor and overlooks a shaded alley.
Upstairs we peek into a smallish bedroom-turned-office with a dormer window that looks out over the street, across the green space and rooftops, to what I think is Bella Flora’s barrel tile roof. Two double-hungs on the west-facing wall provide a stellar view over Gulf Way, Paradise Grille, and the sidewalk that borders the white sand beach.
“It’s adorable,” I say as we head back downstairs.
“It certainly is,” Grand agrees. “I don’t think I could have resisted it, either.”
Outside we pause on the front porch and watch the palm trees that line the street and Gulf Way sway in the cool breeze.
“So what do you think it needs?” Myra asks me.
“Well, originally, I assumed I’d call and see if Avery and Chase could come take a look to give us input on possible renovations. But honestly, I think the physical space is already great for what you have in mind.”
“I concur,” Grand says. “Maybe a fresh coat of paint, which I’m sure the three of us could handle. And I’d love to paint a mural for the story time/book club area.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful.” Myra smiles. “And a bit of a relief. That would leave more money than I was expecting to purchase furnishings and inventory.”
“What do you say, Sydney?” Grand asks. “Are you free to get started tomorrow?”
“Absolutely.” I grin. Now I’ll have a legitimate reason not to audition. Compared to facing rejection, a little painting and arranging furniture will be a piece of cake.