eleven | emberly
ELEVENEmberly
I wake up to the sound of … nothing.
No traffic. No seagulls fighting over the shells that washed up on the shore during the night. No reminder from the perky avatar on my Fitness app, telling me that It’s Time to Get Moving.
The silence freaks me out a little, but I’m trapped. The cushions on the fainting couch shifted around my body during the night and it feels like I’m stuck in velvet quicksand.
It feels … kind of good, actually.
Almost as good as the flannel shirt I’m wearing over my pajamas. Because the breeze filtering through the screens when I got ready for bed last night was a little chilly. And yes, I could have closed the windows, but Will’s shirt added the perfect layer of warmth. It also smells really good.
I drag the collar up to my nose and a hint of campfire smoke mingles with the Will-in-the-pines scent.
The campfire scent is me. I fell into bed five minutes after I climbed the stairs to the studio, too tired to shower after my introduction to the northern delicacy known as a pudgy pie.
I pat my stomach, surprised it’s still flat, and wonder if campfires are a regular thing around here. I could definitely become a fan.
Sunlight streams through the stained-glass window in the door and paints a mosaic on the hardwood floor.
I was so relieved Will agreed to let me stay in the studio, I didn’t notice there are signs it’s in the middle of some kind of renovation.
The three empty nails on the wall above the sofa, evenly spaced six inches apart.
A wooden crate filled with what looks like empty canning jars underneath one of the windows.
A faded square in the middle of the hardwood floor where a rug used to be.
Maybe these are the things Will was talking about when he claimed it wasn’t ready for guests.
I swing my legs over the side of the couch and pad over to the antique sideboard.
At some point the day before, most likely while I was out searching for restaurants, Will made good on his promise to provide a coffee maker.
Next to it is a shallow ceramic dish filled with generic, single serving pods.
I pick one up. The words Breakfast Blend have been crossed out with a Sharpie marker and replaced with Espresso.
The only coffee mug in sight looks like a tree stump. Poking out on one side is a bear’s head and front paws. The handle is its oversized, um, hindquarters and stubby tail.
Now I’m laughing.
The mug could be a coincidence, calling me Emily a mistake, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re all clues.
Finding out a sense of humor lurks beneath the gruffness and flannel is like sunshine through the stained-glass window in the door.
There are facets to Will Hartley’s personality that I wasn’t expecting, but find fascinating.
I add water to the reservoir, snap the pod into place, and press the only button on the coffee maker. My cell begins to ring and I jog back to the sofa to retrieve it. I anchor it between my ear and my shoulder.
“Hi, Nona.”
“I’m just calling to let you know that Dottie and I took a quick detour to see her niece, Stephanie’s, new home and the furnishings date back to the Cretaceous Period. Dottie wants to know when you can meet with her for a consultation.”
And Nona wants to make sure I got here safely. I travel a lot for work but she’ll never admit she’s worried about me.
“Mmmm … October?”
“The carpeting in the living room is like a bog. Brown and squishy. The poor woman is likely to disappear before then.”
I grin. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“How is the visit going with your friends?”
There’s a slight edge in her voice. Nona has never met the Suite Sixteens, but for reasons I can’t figure out, she doesn’t quite approve of them.
Nona doesn’t approve of a lot of people, my own father (and her only child) included, though, so I try not to overthink it.
“They aren’t here. They, um, weren’t sure when I’d be arriving and booked an excursion.”
“An excursion? For how long?” The edge sounds sharper now.
“Until tomorrow evening.”
“That’s half your vacation, Emberly. Can’t you join them?”
“They’re canoeing and had to leave their cell phones behind,” I explain. “They don’t even know I’m here.”
“Canoeing.” I hear a noise that on anyone else but my dignified grandmother would be called a snort. “I didn’t know they enjoyed those kinds of activities.”
Neither did I.
Even though the four of us became more like sisters than roommates during the four years we attended Langley-Davis. We all went our separate ways after graduation and I missed the late-night gab fests and Gilmore Girls marathons. The midnight study sessions and post-breakup shopping therapy.
After graduation, I started a group chat, sent cookie bouquets on birthdays and thinking-of-you gift baskets. Organized movie nights on Zoom (I wouldn’t recommend) and dropped in for visits if I was traveling near the cities where they lived.
Nona sometimes questioned how I’d become the official cruise director of the group, but I didn’t mind. Just because things get hard doesn’t mean you give up.
Like my parents had.
The first Christmas the Sixteens and I were apart, I filled gift bags with goodies like sunscreen and coupons for sunset yoga and seaweed wraps at a resort I booked in Maui.
We set aside a week in July and spent the time basking in the sun, shopping, and catching up on our lives.
It was so much fun, we decided to make it an annual event.
Everyone seemed perfectly content to let me continue planning the reunions, but when I’d sent a link to the hotel I was planning to book this summer, Olivia had suggested Pinehart instead.
She’d stayed here when she was a teenager and remembered it being fun (which I have a hard time believing because Liv isn’t the outdoorsy type) and thought we might enjoy it, too.
Whitney and Rachelle had instantly agreed, so the majority ruled. For me, being together was more important than the destination anyway. And with the last-minute work meeting, I’m just thankful I made it here at all.
“I’m sure there’s a lot to do,” Nona is saying. “There must be tennis courts. A golf course.”
No golf, but does a volleyball net count?
“I can entertain myself for a few days, Nona.” Independence is hardwired into the Lockwood DNA.
“Of course you can.” I can picture her frowning. “But I know how important it is for you to get away.”
“I travel all the time.”
“For work,” Nona points out. “It’s all right to relax a little, too.”
Says the woman in her seventies who refuses to retire.
Now might be a good time to mention that the Suite Sixteens and I might be returning to Sarasota and relaxing by our pool, but I hesitate.
Why am I hesitating?
It’s not like I want to spend the rest of my vacation at Pinehart.
Do I?
I grab the bear cup by its behind and take a sip of coffee. Smile again.
It is kind of peaceful here. I also don’t hate that my hair doesn’t triple in size the moment I step outside the door …
The window of opportunity closes when Nona sighs.
“I have to go, sweetheart. Dottie is either doing jumping jacks or she’s trying to tell me that breakfast is ready.”
“Tell Stephanie I’ll call her and set up a consultation as soon as I can. Love you and I’ll see you soon.”
“Soon,” she echoes. Which, in Nona-speak, means I love you, too.
Antonia Lockwood is not your typical warm, fuzzy, cookie-baking grandmother.
She became the head of an empire at the age of twenty-five and still sits on the board of LW Realty and Development.
She’s also the one who encouraged me to start my own interior design company after I graduated from Langley-Davis.
Dad was pushing me to move to New York and join his team, but even though I love him to pieces, I wasn’t sure I wanted to work with him. Wasn’t sure I wanted to join the family business, either.
While I was reviewing my options, Nona summoned me to the library, sat me down, and announced that she was giving me my inheritance early. And, if I promised to let her live with me until “God gave her the key to her mansion in heaven”, the deed to her house.
“It’s all going to you anyway,” she’d said. “Your father doesn’t need the money and this way, I get to see what you do with it.”
It turned out, Nona had an opinion about that, too. I tried to point out that even though I’d been helping her update some of the rooms in her house, I didn’t have a degree in interior design.
She’d brushed aside my arguments.
“You might not have a degree, but you have a good eye. And I have connections.”
A few months later, Ivy Gate Design was born.
I brew another cup of coffee. Ordinarily, my morning routine includes a three-mile run, but an image of Otto flashes in my mind. I retrieve my cosmetic bag from the suitcase and head for the bathroom.
The faucet sticks and when I crank on it a little harder, the whole thing falls off in my hand.
While I struggle to put it back on, I mentally compose a review of Pinehart.
Take the words “sofa sleeper” literally. Wait until water changes from reddish brown to clear before you brush your teeth. Basic plumbing skills helpful.
What else would be helpful? A dresser.
I’m one of those people who actually unpack when I stay at a hotel, but there isn’t one in the studio, so I peek inside the wardrobe. I was hoping to find some hangers, but the only thing I see is a handstitched quilt.
I’d noticed some hooks on the bathroom wall, but there isn’t a curtain on the shower stall, so I’m guessing whatever I hang on them would end up getting a shower, too.
I look around and spot the Hobbit door. If it’s a storage closet, there might be some hangers stashed inside.
The door sticks a little but I push open it and duck (literally) inside.
It takes a moment to realize that what I’m seeing isn’t a closet at all.
It’s someone’s secret garden.