Chapter 3
Zoe named the car Celine after Canadian legend Celine Dion because “it goes on and on” and, like her namesake, it is a classic that only gets better with every passing year.
This place is fancier than I remember.
There was a time when Port Logan was just like West Lake.
An affordable getaway for those from southern Ontario who couldn’t afford the high prices of Muskoka.
But over the years, things changed: a tennis club, then a wine bar.
Almost overnight, the kitschy shops selling cheap boogie boards and beach cover-ups with cartoon bikini bodies gave way to gelaterias and cafes with No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service signs in decorative gold frames.
Places like the Cranberry Inn—which brought in culinary-trained chefs from Toronto to sell deconstructed hamburgers none of the locals could afford.
I step out of my car at the exact time a cold blast of easterly wind gusts across the parking lot.
Instinctively, I reach to button my beige wool peacoat, but as my fingers graze the tiny nub of thread where the button once attached, I remember that it broke off last week, and I’ve yet to find the time to replace it.
Instead, I pull the coat tightly around my body with my arms, covering the Scooby-Doo scrubs that I threw on this morning because they are always a hit with my residents but that now feel juvenile as I walk up the cobblestone pathway and pass a pair of women my age in matching Lululemon leggings and knee-length black Canada Goose coats.
There’s a soft tinkle of bells as I pull open the solid oak door made even heavier by the wind.
As I step through the threshold, I’m hit with the smell of cinnamon and the sound of a crackling fire and the feeling of being very deeply out of my element as I am greeted by a middle-aged hostess with an immaculate silver bob and pleated wool pants.
I don’t miss how her eyes immediately shoot to the heart-shaped coffee stain over my left boob that never seems to fully come out, no matter how much bleach I use in the laundry.
“Can I help you?” Her tone also seems to ask if I’m in the wrong place.
“Yeah, I’m here to meet a guy?” My sentence comes out as more of a question when I suddenly blank on the lawyer’s name.
My hands skim over my butt as if searching for the business card I’m 98 percent sure is still in the pocket of the skirt I wore last night, my face pinkening until I spot him in the far corner of the dining room sipping from a dainty floral teacup, reading a copy of The Globe and Mail.
“Him.” I point at Niles James—his name returning with the sight of his face. “We have a business meeting this morning.”
The woman’s brow crinkles as she follows the tip of my finger, her mouth twisting in a way that makes me think she doesn’t quite buy my story. But then Mr. James looks up mid-sip, sets his cup down gently in its saucer, and smiles at her, giving me a polite come hither with his fingers.
“Oh, yes, Mr. James.” Her voice immediately softens.
“He mentioned he was expecting someone. Very well then.” She steps back with no further comment, returning to her perch behind a tall walnut podium as I cross the paisley-printed carpet, pressing my shoulders back in an effort to look like breakfasting at the Cranberry Inn is something I usually do.
“Good morning, Ms. DeMarco.” Niles James extends his hand as I approach—an invitation to the empty seat at his table.
“Thank you for coming.” He pushes a plate of what smells like blueberry scones toward me.
“Have you eaten? These are quite lovely. I believe they are from the bakery down the street. I have half a mind to pick up a dozen to take home for my wife later today. She does love a homemade scone.”
I bite my tongue and don’t tell him that the bakery he’s referring to ships in most of their stuff frozen from a commercial bakery two hours away.
I take the scone anyway. It crumbles in my mouth. The overly dry texture is only partially saved by the soured blueberries that burst between my teeth. But it fills the pit in my grumbling stomach like a comforting brick.
We both chew in silence for a few moments, forming mouth-full half smiles every time we accidentally make eye contact, until the chiming of the antique grandfather clock reminds me that these small luxuries are temporary and that I need to slip back into regular life in less than an hour.
With a wash of too-hot coffee, I swallow the remainder of my scone down and clear my throat.
“Thank you for this.” I gesture at my now empty plate.
“But I have a shift this morning and can’t stay too long.
Can you tell me whatever it is Kitty wants me to do? ”
Niles takes a long sip of tea, nodding his head as if he’s only just remembered the purpose of this breakfast. “You must have misunderstood me last night.” Niles takes his napkin, wiping scone crumbs from his face.
“She doesn’t require you to do anything.
” He pauses, and I notice a single white crumb clinging to the whiskers of his mustache.
“That’s entirely my fault. It was so late.
It’s just I had such a hard time tracking you down.
” He shakes his head. “I’m getting off track.
” He reaches down and pulls a brown leather briefcase from under the table.
He unzips the main compartment, pulls out a black leather folder, and takes a stapled stack of papers from it.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Kitty’s late husband was the heir to a large grocery chain that was sold several years ago.
After his passing, the large bulk of his wealth was passed entirely to her.
It’s a significant estate.” Flipping to the third sheet, he runs his index finger down the page, stopping halfway.
On my name.
“Along with her three children and several charitable organizations, she had named you as one of the beneficiaries. Julia DeMarco. See here…”
His fingers tap upon the page. The familiar letters ground me as my brain processes his words. Beneficiary.
As I was drifting off to sleep in the late hours of last night, I replayed my late-night meeting with this man and tried to dissect the conversation, searching for some rational reason why my name would be noted in Kitty’s will.
Kitty was unpredictable. A character, you might say. Zoe and I had joked on more than one occasion that she belonged to another era. Or another place far more glamorous than West Lake. It was her flair for the dramatic.
She’d spout her life lessons to Zoe and me as we’d wheel her to her doctor’s appointments—Kitty-isms, Zoe called them. “Your life isn’t yours if you care what others think,” or “If life hands you lemons, well, then it’s time to take a break and have a cup of tea.”
I remember a Meatloaf Monday a year ago when she showed up at the dining hall in a floor-length sequined gown. “Hello, my darlings,” she called to Zoe and me as we spooned out mounds of mashed potatoes and gravy to her fellow residents, who seemed just as enamored with Kitty as we were.
“Nice ’fit there, Kits,” Zoe said as Kitty proceeded to twirl slowly before settling into her seat.
“I felt like being fancy this evening,” she said, shrugging off the compliment. “Life is far too short to wear boring clothes.”
After that, Mondays became Kitty’s personal fashion hour. She’d show up in head-to-toe neon pink or wearing every single bangle or bracelet she owned. There was even a week in the middle of July when she ate an entire meal in a fox-fur coat and hat.
The fashions only ended because she slipped in the shower and broke her hip.
Then, for the next month, she refused to eat anywhere but in her room.
Even during that month, she’d make whoever brought up her dinner fix her a Manhattan and tell her all of the latest Sunnyvale gossip while she sipped it slowly in her silk pajamas, matching eye mask pushed up high on her forehead, her dyed-blond curls flying in all directions.
Kitty was feisty and a little demanding, so when she named me in her will, I assumed it was to task me with some wild last request. To row to some remote inlet of the lake and throw her ashes into the water or burn the naughty boudoir photos she once showed me and now didn’t want her family to find.
It had never once occurred to me that Kitty had left me something.
“1243 St. Mary Street.” I read the words next to my name. “What does that mean?”
Niles flips the papers around and adjusts his glasses. “Kitty has bequeathed you the building residing at 1243 St. Mary Street and its accompanying property. It’s a significant asset—from the look on your face, I suspect this is coming as a bit of a surprise?”
I nod, snaking my hand under the table to pinch the flesh of my thigh, not actually thinking that I’m dreaming but still wanting confirmation.
“I don’t understand…. Why would Kitty…? You said, one-two-four- three St. Mary?”
Niles nods, but it only adds to my confusion.
The retirement home is one-two-four- five. I blank again as I try to picture the property. The one next to Sunnyvale, just off the beach, with the faded asphalt parking lot, separated from the retirement home’s blacktop by a long line of half-degraded cement blocks.
“That stone building?” My mind finally forms a clear picture. “Isn’t it abandoned?”
I have vague memories of it being a beach shop when I was a kid. And then maybe hosting a communal garage sale for the Presbyterian church when they were trying to raise funds for a new roof. It was definitely abandoned by the time I was in high school.
“The building may not appear to be much,” Niles says, interrupting my thoughts.
“I took a look at it yesterday. But it does sit on a large street-facing lot. I’d highly recommend getting a full professional appraisal once things are settled if you do plan on selling. I’m assuming that would be your plan?”