Chapter 23
Group chat message from Aunt Susie: Nate, please tell your mom to immediately turn around for the airport because I’m FINE and she doesn’t need to be here.
Group chat message from Mom: Nate, please tell your aunt if she doesn’t unlock the front door in the next two seconds then I’m posting an incredibly lengthy and detailed post on social media about her upcoming heart surgery which WILL include the exact location, date, and time, as well as a plea for everyone to visit, and a brief side note about how her doctor has been telling her to lose weight for years.
Group chat message from Mom: She opened the door.
So his mom had finally made it inside Aunt Susie’s house. That was good. For a moment Nate was beginning to wonder if she ever would. He’d forgotten how stubborn his aunt could be.
Nate slid his phone aside on the kitchen table and lifted his turkey and pepperjack cheese sandwich up for a bite as he eyed the to-do list his mom had slapped on the fridge with a magnet before rushing off for the airport early this morning.
Thankfully she’d already stocked up on groceries in anticipation of his arrival, so he shouldn’t have to pop into town anytime soon and risk running into well-meaning ladies intent on marrying him off to the closest single female relative between the ages of twenty and fifty.
He couldn’t help noticing how the age range had really broadened ever since he turned thirty last year.
Working his way through the to-do list ought to keep him busy enough to be safe from any matchmaking attempts. Especially since he’d already added several more things his mom had overlooked to the list.
After seeing his mom off, Nate spent the rest of the morning wandering the entire property taking notes on what needed done.
Repair fence line. Repair chicken coop. Clean out gutters. Patch up roof on toolshed. Repaint goat shed and get it to stop leaning. Monitor she-shed/glass-cottage project. Clear brush from property line. Add more gravel to driveway . . .
And that was just the start of the list for the outside. This afternoon he’d begun a separate list for inside.
Replace peeling wallpaper in front room everywhere. Fix locks on both doors. Check gutters.
Replace vent in upstairs bathroom. Repair torn screen in front door. Figure out why light fixture in entry way is flickering . . .
At least Nate knew how to handle most everything on the to-do list, thanks to spending a summer break in college working at a small ranch in Nebraska, a job his mentor had lined up for him when he claimed Nate’s hands were getting too soft studying poetry all the time.
Nate didn’t mind the calluses then, and he certainly wouldn’t mind the calluses now. His only concern was whether he could get everything done before he needed to head back to Buffalo.
An extra pair of hands sure would be helpful. Too bad the only extra set of hands available belonged to Gus. And those hands typically preferred snacks over calluses.
Besides, sounded like Gus’s hands were busy enough just fielding phone calls from the check-in desk. How did his mom not have any guests when the phone hadn’t stopped ringing all day?
Nate had just loaded his plate in the dishwasher, ready to take an inventory of all the supplies he was going to need, when Gus poked his head in from the hallway. “Hey, Nate. Just got another call.”
“Airport?”
“Wacky lady.”
So that’s how his mom didn’t have any guests despite the phone ringing all day. Nate shook his head. “She just won’t let it go, will she?”
“Maybe you should just talk to her. Find out what she wants.”
“I know what she wants,” Nate said, reaching for a pen out of a Smoky Mountains mug sitting on a stand next to the refrigerator. “She wants a personal invite so she can come make winky eyes at me in person. Not happening. I already told her I wasn’t interested.”
When Gus remained in the doorway, Nate shot him another glance over his shoulder. “Was there something else?”
“Just wondering if you’re about ready to attend our meeting. We usually get started about two o’clock.”
“What meeting?”
Gus scratched the gray stubble on his cheeks. “Homeowners maybe? Never really sure anymore. I just know there’s usually cheese and crackers, and if I remember correctly, Barb said she’s bringing her homemade cinnamon rolls to this one.”
Nate stared at Gus.
Gus stared at Nate. “You’re our interim secretary.”
Nate stared at Gus.
Gus stared at Nate. “You’re in charge of handling the minutes.” More staring. “Alicia promised us that you’d fill in for her while she was gone.”
Nate blinked. He should’ve known this crew would carry on with their ridiculous meetings while his mom was gone—and somehow rope him into it. “How do you guys have a homeowners association? You live miles apart. Isn’t this town just basically one sprawled-out neighborhood?”
“Would you be more excited about filling in as our interim secretary if I told you the next meeting we’re having is the Sprawled-Out Neighborhood meeting? Because that can be arranged.”
Nate reached under his glasses to rub his eyes. “How long do these meetings usually last?”
Gus stroked his gray mustache. “In the grand scheme of things, not all that long.”
Twenty-eight minutes later Nate adjusted his weight on a dining room chair and cleared his throat because even in the grand scheme of eternity, this meeting was taking forever. Especially when he realized that after twenty-eight minutes of taking notes the official meeting hadn’t even started yet.
“Sorry to interrupt, Barb. I do want to hear more about your squash, but I have a lot of things I need to get started on today.”
“For your doctorate program?” said Gus. “I feel like you’ve been working on that forever.”
“Because he has been working on it forever,” said Georgie. “Didn’t you already take out an extra loan for one extension already?”
“Your mother’s so proud of you, by the way,” said Evie, looking up from the yarn she’d been trying to hook onto her knitting needles ever since Nate had taken a seat twenty-eight, now twenty-nine, minutes ago. “Not for the extra loan bit. For the finally completing it bit.”
“Oh, so you did complete it?” said Barb. “That’s wonderful.”
“Not if you’re in huge financial debt now,” said Lottie with a puckered frown. “I hear people get into serious debt when they keep taking extensions. ABT, they call it. All but the dissertation.”
“Yep. Know what ABT stands for. But as Evie already pointed out, I have completed my dissertation and graduated from my PhD program, and I actually have a great job I’m really looking forward to because of it, so .
. . the meeting.” Nate clicked his pen and held it over the notebook Georgie had handed him for the minutes. “I think I saw something about—”
“Does that mean you’ll be coming home more often now?” asked Gus, licking cinnamon roll frosting off his thumb.
“Of course.” Nate shrugged. “Hopefully. I mean, I am starting a new college teaching position further north in the fall, so it’s not like I’m going to have a ton of free time once the school year starts up.”
“Why didn’t you take a teaching position closer to home?” said Georgie. “Tennessee has colleges.”
“And single girls,” said Barb in a sing-songy voice.
Yeah, well, Tennessee also had his dad. Nate sighed, keeping that to himself. Nobody needed to know part of the reason he left Tennessee in the first place was to put plenty of distance between himself and the stranger who suddenly wanted permission to step back into his life.
The only person Nate had ever confided in when it came to his dad was his mentor. And now that his mentor was gone, looked like his days of confiding were gone too.
“So, the meeting.” Nate clicked his pen again. “I see a Dominoes Dance on the agenda. That seems like a good place to start.” And end.
“Nate’s right,” Gus said, looking down at the agenda Georgie had passed out to everyone thirty-one, now thirty-two, minutes ago. “We need to get started. Those chickens and goats ain’t gonna feed themselves. Actually, the goats probably will.”
“We’ll circle back to your squash in a bit,” Georgie said, pointing at Barb.
“Only if someone motions to add it to the agenda,” said Lottie, pointing at Georgie.
“Not to step on your toes, but I just want to remind the group how important it is that we stick to the agenda.” Her eyes landed on Nate.
“The Dominoes Dance is number three. Things turn into chaos when we don’t stick to the agenda. ”
“Thank you,” Georgie said, her mouth clamping in a tight smile that probably mirrored Nate’s. Especially when Lottie continued talking.
“It’s just that I remember this one meeting—this was back when I was president of the PTA in my daughter’s school district in Franklin, one of the most active and thriving PTAs in all of middle Tennessee, including Nashville, but that’s neither here nor there.
No, the reason I bring it up is I’ll never forget this one meeting we had when I couldn’t attend.
What happened was the group skipped an item on the agenda, saying they’d come back to it.
Well, guess what happened?” Lottie paused to meet everyone’s gaze one by one.
Before she made it to Nate, he ended the suspense. “They never got back to it.”
“They never got back to it,” she said as if Nate hadn’t said anything. “Never. It didn’t even get added to the next meeting’s agenda. To this day it’s out there floating in the universe of lost agenda items.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t ever let that happen in one of my meetings,” Georgie said, straightening her green cardigan sweater over her green striped blouse. “Not when we have so many important topics to cover. Speaking of which, does everyone approve the current agenda for today’s meeting?”
Heads nodded and she pointed out Nate. “Great. Now does everyone approve the minutes from last meeting?” More head bobs and nods. “Excellent.” She pointed at Nate again.