8. Chapter 8
Dean
The prince announced he would stay a while longer. He had several excellent reasons. Chief among them, raccoons.
“Hmm, I don’t know,” Rosie says, her thumbs hooked under the straps of her pink overalls. “I think it needs to go a touch to the left.”
I move the picture slightly left.
“Better?” I ask from atop a step stool, holding framed artwork with one hand and a level in the other.
“I think so?” she says, not sounding all that confident.
I offered to help Rosie one time, Friday night, because I couldn’t sleep.
Since then, I’ve painted trim, patched some holes, and then painted the walls the color “Cinderella Blue.” This morning I’m on a step stool with a level, making sure a glass slipper print hangs straight.
This was after hanging a gallery of pumpkins above the bed.
I’ve been asking myself how I got here, but I know.
I can’t do anything with the farm until the raccoons are out.
The only company that called me back came out Saturday, took one look at how many were up there, and said they didn’t have the right equipment.
So, I’m basically in a holding pattern. And somehow that holding pattern turned into helping Rosie with the inn.
I knew Friday night, when she told me she had to finish the rooms and also head up the festival, that there was no way she’d get it done. So when I couldn’t sleep, instead of adding to my list of ways this business could run better, I figured helping would be a better use of my time.
I didn’t expect it to turn into an entire weekend thing, and now here I am on Monday, still helping.
“My arm is falling asleep,” I tell a still-contemplating Rosie. I also want to tell her we don’t have the time to hem and haw over these small details when she’s still got three rooms to finish.
“Sorry,” she says. “I think it’s good.”
“Good,” I say before handing her the level and pulling a pencil from my back pocket to mark the spot for the nail.
I set the picture on the floor, carefully leaning it up against a wall before picking up the hammer and box of nails I’ve set to the side.
Rosie goes back to wiping down one of the side tables she found at an estate sale, humming a song while she does.
I’ve learned a lot about Rosie over the past few days.
Her approach is chaos. There’s no order to it.
Tools are everywhere, and she jumps between tasks like a browser with forty tabs open.
She starts four things to finish one and finishes a fifth she never mentioned starting, and still does things like going to church with her family on Sunday, even with a task list a mile long.
It’s been hard to watch her process (or lack of one) and keep my mouth shut. But I’ve learned that unsolicited advice doesn’t get taken. People don’t change unless they want to.
Rosie is genuinely skilled, though. Underneath the chaos, she knows what she’s doing as far as renovations go and claims she learned it all by watching YouTube videos. Which is impressive.
She works past exhaustion, fueled by Dr. Pepper and some sort of Energizer Bunny energy that, if bottled, would make billions.
Also, she hums when she’s painting. Or she talks. And talks. I don’t think she likes silence all that much; she usually fills it with music, stories about the town, or updates on which Edna is which. And then there’s the rambling and the apologizing for the rambling.
Her chatter is mostly light and easygoing, but then she’ll drop something heavy in the middle of a story, like how her mom passed away ten years ago, and then move on as if she never said it.
By every metric I’d normally use, she should be exhausting. But . . . she isn’t.
“Hello? Rosie?” a woman’s voice calls out from down the hall just as I’m about to hammer the nail into the wall.
“In here,” Rosie says.
An older woman with sparse, dyed-brown hair appears at the door.
“There you are,” she says. “I’m glad I found you.”
I might not find Rosie’s antics exhausting, but I’m beginning to find this town tiring.
We are constantly being interrupted. Mostly about the festival, which I guess is warranted (this town seems to be very serious about its fall festival), but it’s also hard to watch Rosie add things to her list when she already has so much to do.
One thing is for sure: The festival does not seem to be a well-oiled machine to me. It seems to be more like a machine held together with duct tape and a prayer.
“Hi, Linda,” Rosie says to the woman. “How are you?” She swipes her fingers across her cheek, leaving behind a smudge of Cinderella Blue paint.
“I’m doing just fine, thank you,” she says. “I’ve got a favor to ask.”
I quit my task and turn toward the conversation, curious what this woman, like everyone else in this town, will want from Rosie.
“What can I do for you?” Rosie asks, a tired smile on her face. “Is it about the carnival games at the festival?”
Linda shakes her head. “Oh, no, I’ve got all that in hand.”
Good for Linda. She’s the first one to come into the inn who isn’t needing information or help with their booth.
“That’s great to hear,” Rosie says.
“I was actually wondering if we might be able to use your front room for our quilting circle this Saturday.”
“Oh,” Rosie says, her smile going tight.
“We normally do it at the activity center at the church, but a scout troop is using it this weekend.”
“Oh, well, I . . .” Rosie says.
Now would be the time for Linda to tell Rosie—who’s standing in a half-finished room with paint on her face—that it looks like she’s got a lot on her hands and that she’ll find another place to do her quilting circle.
What even is a quilting circle? Do they sit around and share feelings about . . . quilts? A secret society of quilt makers?
“I promise we won’t be a bother. We’ll be like church mice. You won’t even notice we’re here,” says Linda.
Obviously, Linda does not know how to read a room.
Okay, so now Rosie has to tell her that it just won’t work. That she’s got too much going on and they’ll have to take their quilt cult somewhere else.
I watch her facial expressions as she considers it and try to tell her, telepathically, to say no.
Just say no, Rosie.
“Yeah, sure. I think we can make that work,” she finally says.
I guess I’m not actually capable of telepathy.
“Wonderful,” Linda says, bringing her hands to her chest. “I promise we’ll only be here for a few hours, and we’ll clean up after ourselves. You won’t even know we were here.”
“Sounds good,” Rosie says, giving her a smile.
“Well, I’m off to let the others know,” Linda says, before turning on her heel and walking back down the hall toward the stairs.
Rosie lets out a breath before going back to cleaning off the side table.
My consultant brain wants to ask her if she is capable of saying the word no. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it come out of her mouth. Anytime anyone has asked her to do anything, the answer is always some form of yes. I’ve noticed it for a while.
It rankles. Probably because her yeses remind me of my mom, whose propensity to say yes—especially when it came to the men in her life—would often upend my own life.
She moved us for a man a few times. Quit jobs for a couple of them.
Even changed her hair color for one. I spent my childhood watching her rearrange herself around other people until there was nothing left that was just hers.
Is that what Rosie is doing?
It doesn’t fully line up, though. Not exactly. My mom did it for love, or at least what she was hoping was love. But Rosie just said yes to a quilting circle. There’s no man she’s trying to hold onto. No one she’s trying to make stay.
So then, what is she getting out of it?
“Hey, Rosie,” I say, deciding to quickly test my theory.
“Yes?” She looks up at me, her rag stopping mid-swipe on the side table.
“I was thinking this picture might look better on the wall over here,” I say, picking it up from the floor and taking it to one of the smaller walls that frame the large window that looks out over Main Street.
“Why there?” she asks, her nose scrunching.
Why there? I have no idea. I don’t know the slightest thing about the placement of room decor.
“Well, because then when you walk in the door, your eyes will catch it right away. It’ll be the first thing your guests see.”
This actually seems plausible. I’m impressed by my own quick thinking.
Her eyes travel from the door to the wall and back to the door, her lips twisting as she concentrates. This is the part where she says yes. Where she abandons a perfectly good plan because someone with an opinion offered it to her.
“Nope, I think I like it where I first wanted it,” she finally says, pointing to the original spot, her lips pulling up into a smile, as if she’s trying to soften her answer. “I think it’s better across from the bed.”
She goes back to wiping the side table like she hasn’t just blown a massive hole in my entire theory.
Because she can say no. She just did—easily, without apologizing or launching into an explanation.
She can defend where a picture belongs. It’s disappointing people she seems unable to do.
“Everything okay?” Rosie asks, and I realize I’ve been standing there staring at her, the framed picture of a shoe in one hand, a hammer in the other.
Like an idiot.
“Yeah,” I say. “Across from the bed. Got it.”
“Listen, if your consulting thing doesn’t work out, and I actually make some money from this inn, would you be interested in being my head chef?” Rosie asks me after eating the last bite off her plate.
“I don’t think you could afford me,” I quip, and she smiles. “But also, it’s just spaghetti with some ground beef and store-bought pasta sauce. I’m not sure people would run here for my culinary expertise.”
She sets her fork down on her now-empty plate, only remnants of sauce left behind. “I don’t know. I think you might have the magic touch.”