3. Lydia
3
LYDIA
T he stack of books in my collection grew as I added another one. I slid the pile onto the closest shelf as I pulled down a book on plumbing and flipped through the pages. Not enough pictures. I put it back. The next book was full of color, step-by-step photographs. I added it to my keepers and continued to scan the shelf.
“Are you sure you don’t want a cart?” Evie teased in a low, library approved hush.
“Funny.” I crinkled my nose and stuck my tongue out at her.
She pulled the top book from the stack and began flipping through it. “ Better Homes Plumbing for the DIYer . Do you really think you can fix the plumbing in that place all by yourself?”
“Somebody has to do it. Aunt Ruth really let the inn go, and there just isn’t the money to hire out all the repairs I need. Especially the third floor of the north wing. None of those rooms can be occupied as they are.”
“But, plumbing?”
I shrugged. “I want to start with smaller projects I can manage. I’m not comfortable taking on something like electricity yet.” I set a book on basic wiring down on my stack. “I should know how to clean out one of those…” —I grabbed the plumbing book back from her and flipped through the pages until I found the information I was looking for— “P-trap things under a sink. And I should be able to fix a leaky faucet.”
Evie looked at me skeptically.
“Mom knew all of this stuff. She was the best handy-person. She could fix anything. But Ruth had different ideas regarding what a woman should be able to do, and she was cheap. Wouldn’t hire anyone to do the work, and didn’t know how herself. Not that she would have done it if she could. And she refused to let me even try. I was a girl.”
Evie cackled. “You still are.”
I looked down at my boobs. I had more than enough for the two of us. As many times as Evie complained of not being particularly endowed, it seemed a shame that I had enough to share, was willing to share, and was left without a means of sharing. Yes, I was still a girl, a woman. When my mom was alive, that had been something to be proud of. I was capable of anything I wanted to do. I could be whatever I wanted to be. But my life under Aunt Ruth’s thumb had been very different.
Girls were meant to find a man to take care of them. I wasn’t allowed to think about going to college, and there wasn’t money for it, anyway. I certainly hadn’t been allowed to pick up a hammer or a screwdriver. Those were tools for men. The life I was headed toward with my mother was one of promise and independence. Under my aunt, it was full of the expectation of servitude to a future husband while wearing a strand of pearls.
“Are you certain?” I asked. “I’m wearing jeans. Don’t tell Ruth.”
We both suppressed a fit of giggles. I hadn’t been allowed to wear pants in public once I was under Aunt Ruth’s guardianship, and never jeans when she could see me. I was being positively rebellious.
“She must be spinning in her grave,” Evie said, sobering up.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “She’s definitely not pleased with my choices, that’s for certain.”
“Are you doing okay?” Evie reached out and rubbed my arm. Her brows pinched together in an expression of concern.
She knew my rather troublesome history with Aunt Ruth. She had known me before that particular phase of my life, also. Evie and I had been friends forever. We both grew up in this town, both had parents who, despite popular opinion, did their best to preserve the old, beautiful buildings in their care. If there was anyone who understood how conflicted and confused I was in those first few days after my aunt’s death, it was Evie. She also knew exactly why I had stuck it out when I could have walked away as soon as I had turned eighteen.
I nodded. It had taken several days of living in a fog before my head settled and I could think clearly after Aunt Ruth’s death. “It’s still weird. You know, I mean, look at me. I’m in the library pulling out a stack of books so I can start fixing the inn up, and I’m wearing jeans in public. None of these things would have been possible a month ago.”
“So, you’re keeping the inn?” Evie asked.
My eyes went wide. “Oh, my God, some jerk offered to buy the place the day I signed the papers. The inn had been mine for less than a couple of hours, and some opportunistic charlatan was sitting on the doorstep trying to take advantage of my mental state. How many people do they blindside that way? So rude.”
“Not the guy from JM Carlisle Group?”
I fished the wadded up business card from my pocket. I had kept it to remind myself what was at stake. If I couldn’t manage to reclaim the inn to its former glory, or close enough, I was setting myself up to have to sell out to some guy like that. And I knew the investment firms in New York City were not interested in saving the inn or bringing her back to her former glory. They would level her without thinking twice about it.
But Mountain Sweet was a late Victorian beauty, and she deserved to be rehabilitated. My mom had kept her in decent condition, but the last ten years of neglect were showing. She needed a facelift, power washing and fresh paint, with a few repairs on the gingerbread decorations and a window repair here and there. As far as I was aware, the roof was in good shape, and there weren’t any leaks. A professional inspection would be able to provide an accurate situational report. It was on my to-do list. And the rooms on the third floor really only needed some freshening up with new wallpaper, maybe a bump or two in the walls patched up, and updated plumbing. There was nothing charming about sinks and toilets with rust stains.
I held the card out. “This guy?”
Evie took it and pressed the wrinkles out. “Oh, yeah, him.” A low rumble of a growl started in the back of her throat.
If we had been anywhere other than the library, I would have expected her to let loose with a torrent of profanity. Evie knew when to keep it professional and when to cut loose.
“He had the nerve to tell me that since the family leased this place to the city, it really wasn’t my decision whether he could buy it or not. As if the lease were transferable, and then he could do what he wanted with this old place.” Her voice grew louder as she talked.
I waved my hands, pushing downward to remind her of her own volume rules in the library.
She leaned in and continued to whisper. “He said something about revitalizing the whole downtown area. And to start, they wanted to get rid of, and I quote, ‘these old eyesores’. I can’t believe he had the nerve to call the library an eyesore.”
The library was the same age as Sweet Mountain, late eighteen hundreds. It was the kind of Victorian mansion that people referred to as a painted lady with all the ornamentation and painted in all the bright colors. Were the colors authentic? Definitely not, but the teals and rich blues accented in gold tones and purples made the house such a joy to look at.
“What a freaking dick to insinuate that this place is not a thing of beauty. I mean I get it. From certain angles, Sweet Mountain could use a bit of a facelift, but she’s not ugly, either,” I grumbled.
“I wonder how many other places he approached and called ugly?” Evie pondered.
I thought about that for a long minute. “If he thinks he’s revitalizing downtown, is Dan Breaker in on it?”
“The mayor? No, he’s all mister historical preservation. He’s the one out there hanging all the decorations around the town square no matter the occasion. I mean, yes, I think the mayor would want to revitalize the town but at the same time, I don’t think he’d be the one to want to bulldoze the historical charm. Dan Breaker is more likely to organize a cleanup and painting party than he is to partner with a real estate developer,” Evie said.
“Are you certain?” I asked.
“The easiest way to find out is to ask,” she said.
“Fine,” I said as I picked up the stack of books. “I need to check these out, and then I’m headed over to his office.”
Evie took the top half of the stack in my arms. “Let’s put these behind the counter for now, and I’ll head over there with you.”
When we got to the mayor’s office, we weren’t the only ones there to ask about this JM Carlisle Group. Dan stood in front of the receptionist desk looking at something in his hands. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. When he looked up at us, he asked, “You too?”
“Did that guy try to get you to sell the inn?” Mary from the post office asked. She was in the group standing around.
“And the library,” Evie said.
“We won’t let that happen,” the mayor announced. “We’ll need to organize a committee?—”
“I’ll help,” I volunteered and raised my hand before he had even finished his words.