Chapter 2
Chapter Two
RENLEY
“Are you nervous?”
I shake my head even though I feel like the English muffin with peanut butter I ate this morning is threatening to make another appearance. “All good.”
“You sure?” Aunt Kitty asks as she leans back a few inches to give me one of her classic assessments.
“You look…clammy.” She drags her finger over my cheek and then sniffs it.
“Salt, unmistakable.” Her eyes dart back and forth over mine.
She sniffs again. “Fear. Indisputable.” Then she grips my jaw with her whole hand and awkwardly presses her nose to mine.
After what feels like a lifetime, she whispers, “Trembles. Unequivocal.”
Good lord.
With her hand firmly grasped on my jaw, causing my lips to purse together like a fish, I say, “I’m not…nervous.”
“Evidence states otherwise.”
I swat Aunt Kitty’s hand away and whisper, “Stop making a scene. I’m fine.”
She eyes me suspiciously but then thankfully drops it, turning back toward the ceremony unfolding in front of us.
To be honest, I’m nervous. Extremely nervous. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something as much as I want this.
Mayor Sheffield taps the mic in front of him. “Is this on? Marjorie, can you turn it up?”
His bumbling assistant adjusts the speaker, causing an ear-piercing screech to shoot through the crowd. Groans erupt while ears are clutched, including Aunt Kitty’s.
“By God, Marjorie.” Aunt Kitty sticks her finger in her ear and wiggles it around. “Get your life together.”
“Aunt Kitty.” I shush her. “Don’t be rude.”
Leaning in and keeping her voice in a hushed tone, she says, “Marjorie is an abomination of an assistant. She’s the reason Mayor Sheffield is wearing brown shoes with black pants and a navy blue button-up.
How do you think that’s going to look in pictures?
You can’t put three solid base colors together and call it an outfit.
” Cupping her hand over her mouth, she shouts, “Choose one, Marjorie. Choose one!”
Jesus.
This was a bad idea.
I don’t know what I was thinking, getting involved in something as big as this, with a town as unstable as mine.
And an aunt who is even more unstable.
“Can everyone hear me?” Mayor Sheffield asks, speaking loudly into the microphone.
The crowd cheers, and then he offers two thumbs-up in the mayoral way that says, I’m a nice guy, here for you even when I have leftover waffle stuck in my mustache that Marjorie has neglected to point out.
“Wonderful.” He places his hands on the brown lectern and smiles out toward the crowd.
“What a monumental day for this town, passing on the legacy of a cherished business to its next owner, a time-honored tradition we’ve been taking part in since 1947.
” The crowd cheers as nerves billow up in the pit of my stomach.
“Because our dear Ira Rudd has passed and left his candy store, Rudder’s Sweets, to the town, like every other business owner before him, we are prepared to hand over the keys to its next rightful owner.
” Marjorie starts clapping, leading the crowd to do the same.
Aunt Kitty obnoxiously swoops her arm around, being louder than everyone else.
Mayor Sheffield eyes her, causing her to settle down.
Clearing his throat, he continues, “We received twenty-one applications for Rudder’s Sweets. ”
Twenty-one?
Oh God, that’s a lot.
There’s no way I stand a chance with those odds.
I glance around the crowd, looking for any sign of the other applicants.
No doubt Shawn Herman put in an application. That sniveling man has been wanting to take ownership of several businesses in town.
And Jasmine most likely put in an application. I catch her off to the side, her hands poised together as she stares up at the stage. She’d be a good owner but would turn the sweets shop into some sort of healthy candy store, no doubt.
And then there’s Jericho. Aunt Kitty can’t stand the man because he spends the majority of his life shedding cat hair from his clothes. There would be so much cat hair in that store that no one would be buying candy from Rudder’s anymore.
But of course, there are people who would be a good match.
People like Laura Bell, who has her family’s wealth behind her.
She’d hire help and manage the people rather than the shop itself.
But wealth…wealth weighs heavily in this town because people don’t want to have a lot of turnover in our businesses.
I pull on the corner of my lip with my teeth, my anxiety revving up my doubt.
This is humiliating. I don’t even know why I’m standing here.
“You know what, I don’t think I got the bid,” I whisper to Aunt Kitty. “I think we should go.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you got the bid.” Cupping her hand over her mouth, she shouts, “Get on with it, Sheffield.”
“Aunt Kitty.” I tug on her arm as she points to her eyes with two fingers and then to Mayor Sheffield, who looks extremely displeased with the outburst during his walk down memory lane of the history of Rudder’s.
Mayor Sheffield and Aunt Kitty don’t get along. So I’m certain I won’t win.
Clearing his throat again, Mayor Sheffield says, “Well, we don’t want to keep you too long, because we want this shop opened sooner rather than later with summer upon us and the arrival of tourist season along with it, so, without further ado, I’d like to announce our new owner.”
I press my lips tightly together, wringing my hands in front of me, clammy from the humidity of a Cape Meril summer and pure nerves.
If I don’t get it, it’s not the end of the world, that’s what I keep telling myself.
I have my business, which made me known as the Jackie of all trades around town.
I help everyone with their odd jobs, help them fix up their own stores…
God, I want this.
I want this so bad.
I want to preserve the legacy of the store where I made some of my favorite memories with my dad before he passed.
I want to be able to have something of my own.
And most importantly, I want to be able to prove to this town that I’m not just Renley Gossage, daughter of the town screwup, niece of the quirky, hobby horse–riding Kitty Gossage, but that I can make something of myself, and of the name that my father gave me.
“The Cape Meril Business Society and I are proud to announce that the new owner of Rudder’s Sweets is…” Marjorie plays a drumroll over the speakers, and for far too long, as Mayor Sheffield motions toward her, attempting to get her to turn it off.
She fumbles, causing the speaker to send an ear-piercing screech into the crowd again, only for her to scramble some more, knock a speaker over, and cause the crowd to gasp in horror.
“For the love of…” Mayor Sheffield mumbles before helping Marjorie right the speaker back up on the stage.
“Marjorie sucks! Fire her,” Aunt Kitty shouts from the side of her mouth and then looks around, surprised. “Who said that? I…I can’t believe someone would say that.”
Dear God.
When everything is settled, Mayor Sheffield brushes off the front of his button-up shirt and vest and then grips the mic, leans in, and says, “Congratulations to Renley Gossage.”
I’m so busy looking around myself to make sure no one heard Aunt Kitty that I don’t notice when the crowd starts cheering.
“Wait, did he say your name?” Aunt Kitty asks.
“Did he?” I ask. When I look around, everyone is looking at me, even Mayor Sheffield.
“Holy shit, I think he said my name.”
Aunt Kitty turns toward the stage and shouts, “Hey, Sheffield, did you say my niece’s name?”
He rolls his eyes and then nods. “Yes, Renley Gossage.”
Oh.
My.
God.
“He said it.” Aunt Kitty shakes me by the shoulders. “He said your name. Oh my God, you’re the winner. You’re the winner!” Then she smacks my ass and shouts, “Get up there, Renley, claim your prize.”
In pure shock, I walk up the steps to the stage to shake Mayor Sheffield’s hand while he offers me the keys to the shop.
As if I’m having an out-of-body experience, I stand there while pictures are taken, my hand in the mayor’s, both of us posing with the keys as the cheers continue.
I did it.
I won the bid.
Rudder’s Sweets is mine.
Now it’s time to prove to the town that I am the right person for the job.
“What a day,” Aunt Kitty says as she kicks her feet up on the coffee table and leans back on the pink velvet couch in the living room.
“What was that old hack of a man talking to you about after he was satisfied with the amount of pictures that were taken of him?” Aunt Kitty snags a toothpick from her porcelain toothpick holder and starts shuffling it around her teeth.
“He was handing me all the paperwork, telling me about the work that needs to be done in the shop to bring it back to code. Apparently some things were left undone while Ira was sick, so I have to make sure I take care of them. But that shouldn’t be a problem because I can do the labor, we’ll just have to work on getting the materials and whatnot.
He also said the town business society would like to see an update to the storefront with paint, new windows, and some other things. It’s all in the binder.”
“Sheesh, that’s a lot of work.” She picks at her front tooth. “Good thing you won the bid to help pay for it.”
I sit down next to her and flip through the paperwork, going over the quotes they’ve received for some of the repairs, as Aunt Kitty’s words sink in.
“Wait, what do you mean good thing I won the bid?”
“For the money,” she says, flicking the toothpick into the small trash can that she keeps next to the couch.
Slowly I turn toward her. “I don’t understand. There was no bid for money.”
“Then what was the bid?”
“The bid was what we wrote up together, telling the business society how we would be able to take over the shop and financially support our endeavors.”
“Financially support?” she asks, looking incredibly puzzled. “I thought we were putting together a loan application saying how much we wanted.”
I sit taller, panic starting to take over.
“Please tell me you’re kidding. Like this is some sort of weird joke of yours.
You…you sat down with me, Aunt Kitty. You helped me fill out the application.
You said we had at least twenty thousand dollars for renovations.
We knew that would be enough because I could do the work myself.
Please, please tell me we have that money. ”
Confusion tugs at her brow.
Her lips purse with thought.
And oh fucking hell, I don’t think I’m going to like what I hear next.
“I said we would need at least twenty thousand dollars.” She shakes her head and then points at her chest. “I don’t have twenty thousand dollars. Do you?”
“Oh my God.” I press my hand to my forehead, my panic sinking in, planting itself deep in my chest. “Aunt Kitty, I signed a contract saying that I had the money for this project, that I’d do the best I could to preserve the shop and maintain the history of it.
How…how can I do that if I don’t have the money for it? ”
“Well, can’t you ask them for the money?”
“No!” I shout and then stand. “I can’t ask them for the money.
They’re not a bank. They’re a society of people who like to tell other people what to do with their businesses.
They keep people in line, apparently people like us who think they can take on a project like this but have no right to do so. ”
“Hey.” She points at me. “We have a right to do so. You’re better than all those other schleps out there.”
“Those other schleps probably have the money that they promised they had in their bid for the business!” I shout.
I flop down on the couch and press my hands to my head.
“I can’t believe this. I’m going to have to go back to Mayor Sheffield and tell him I can’t do it.
He’s…he’s going to probably just nod and say, ‘Sounds about right.’”
“Oh stop that, you’re not handing back those keys. That shop belongs to you.”
“Not if I can’t make the required updates. I can’t even open the store until the renovations are done.”
“Well, isn’t there money in the store we can use? Shouldn’t there be some sort of on-hand cash?”
You would think.
But no.
“Because of the business transfer and town regulations, I won’t have access to the store money until three months after opening back up.
It’s so that they don’t have someone coming in to rob the store of its cash and leave.
It’s why they require you to have money on hand to put into the store,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Ah, that makes sense.” She nods, pressing her finger to her chin. “Huh, that’s quite a predicament. We really should have had that money.”
Oh my God, I’m…I’m going to murder my aunt.
“I can’t with you,” I say, storming off toward my bedroom.