Chapter 6 #3
“Johnny. He made an offer a few months ago.” Margaret looked away from Thea.
“A few months ago?!” Thea could feel her body start to shake with anger.
Margaret nodded. “He has some ideas about expanding his business.”
Thea swallowed the lump forming in her throat. “How long have you been thinking about all of this?”
“Since Johnny returned from Florida,” Margaret said. “He introduced us to a friend in hotel management. Works for an investment firm and they want to buy the inn.”
“Are you selling your family inn to a conglomerate corporation?” The irony seemed too obvious. “Don’t tell me this place will turn into a chain.”
The thought of a neon green sign lighting up their skies made her feel queasy.
“How could you?” An anger she had never felt toward her mentor, her makeshift grandmother, her idol, boiled her blood. How could she sell out?
“Thea.” Margaret put her glass down. “Come on. Paul and I have to think about ourselves and our family.”
Thea knew she wasn’t their family. The words weren’t meant to hurt her. But they stung deeper than a real knife slicing through her heart.
She stood up, grabbed her things, leaned over to Margaret, and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for the drink. I’ll talk to my bank.”
She turned around as Margaret said something. She didn’t hear what she said, because the bile in her throat had inched up before she could reach a bathroom.
She jogged across the street and up the stairs to her apartment. How could all this go on behind her back? Her closest friends, her boyfriend, all doing business that affected her livelihood without her knowing. How could they do that to her?
She stopped at her door, looking across the lawn to Johnny’s shop.
She dropped everything in her hands and let it all fall onto the wooden landing, some of the items falling off completely.
She climbed down the stairs, anger burned inside her and grew like fumes trapped in a closed space.
She inhaled a deep breath, pushed out her ribs and stormed over to Johnny’s and up the driveway, where he sat with his staff waiting for golf cart rental returns.
“How long did you know?” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, getting up from his stool and walking inside his shop. He put his phone in his back pocket.
“How long have you known Margaret was going to sell my building? You know, where I work and live.” She spoke as calmly as she could as her whole body shook.
He grabbed her arm and tried to usher her out of the shop, but she ripped it out of her grasp and didn’t budge.
She dug her heels into the wooden floor and grabbed hold of the entrance’s frame.
She stared right into his eyes, which diverted from hers the second they met. “I met David a while back, in Florida.”
His vagueness made her grip her stomach. She felt queasy again.
“Ten years!” She seethed the words through her clenched jaw. “I gave up ten years for empty promises, only to have a snake in my own shop?”
He knew she couldn’t afford it. He knew she had given her parents half of her savings after the pandemic. He knew she wouldn’t have what it took to keep her shop.
Yet he’d introduced the man to Margaret anyway.
“Ya sou, ti kánis!” She shouted it low and deep like she saw old witches do on cartoons, throwing as much of a Greek accent she could without sounding too far fetched.
She wanted him to think she sent some ancient curse, but all she really said was an informal greeting she had learned from her mother in Greek.
His face twisted. “You and I were on very different wavelengths.”
Not even an apology. “Yes, you’re right about that. We are on very different wavelengths. I believe in honesty and loyalty. And you, well…”
She shook her head at him. Suddenly, the handsome footloose vagabond looked old and overweight.
His thinning hair combed over, his once slender body now droopy and pudgy.
When was the last time he’d exercised or cared about his appearance around her?
When was the last time he’d done something special for her?
When had he ever acted like a boyfriend?
“Well, what?” he said.
She narrowed her eyes and pointed her index and middle finger together at him.
He rolled his eyes, but the gesture had been forced, and she could see he was shaken, still not making eye contact with her.
“Go. To. The. Crows.” She spoke slow and deliberately. No need to hold back. He needed to know he was dead to her.
She left the barn without looking back.
As she stormed back to her shop, she walked right past Mandy and the group of tourists she was helping at the register.
She pounded up the back stairs, past her unfinished painting and supplies dumped on the ground, and into her apartment.
She picked up a picture of her and Johnny sitting on his sailboat, leaning into each other holding a glass of wine toward the camera.
She noticed her smile in the photo, remembering the feeling of hope she had in that moment. Then she threw it against the wall, shattering the glass and frame to pieces.