Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
MILLER
As we stroll away from the miniature donkeys’ enclosure, Frankie veers toward the feed and tool shed, but it’s the large barn that draws my attention.
It looks like a strong gust of wind might blow it over, but the architecture is stunning.
It has a traditional gambrel roof and giant sliding doors on industrial tracks, probably the original ones—way more beautiful than the modern versions that went into the units of our Back Bay development.
“Can we look at this first?” I ask her.
“Not much to see,” she says. “Just an old tractor. Oh, and some raccoons have set up home in there.”
“I don’t care what’s in it. I’m just interested in…” Shit, this pretending to be someone else is going to be tricky. “Buildings. I’m interested in buildings.” No one can say that’s not one hundred percent the truth.
She shrugs. “Sure.”
When we get there, I run a hand over the aged, silvery siding. “Has this wood never been treated?”
“No idea.” She uses the heel of her hand to knock open the giant bolt holding the doors together. “It was here when my grandparents bought the place. And that was just before I was born. That makes it at least thirty-one years old.”
She takes one door, I take the other, and we slide them apart, like theater curtains drawing back to reveal the new world we’re about to be transported to.
“Whoa.” I cough a little at the warm dusty air that wafts out, contrasting with the fresh chill out here. It can’t be in that bad of a shape then, if it doesn’t let in too much of the weather.
“There they go.” Frankie smiles and points toward scurrying in the far corner. “The raccoon family. There’s a hole somewhere at the back there.”
“This is huge.” The interior of the stunningly trussed roof was probably made with craftsmanship that no longer even exists.
I wander around the tarp-covered tractor in the center of the space and past a row of crates or something that are lined up against the side wall and covered in drop cloths. A bit of red-painted wood peeks out from under one of them.
“They’re the sleighs for the Christmas festival.” Frankie must have noticed me looking. “We put antlers on the donkeys and run rides to raise money every year.” She sighs. “That was the last time I was here. Just to help out with that.”
There’s obvious regret and self-blame in her voice.
“Oh, and also to give a bride a sleigh ride to her wedding on Christmas Eve,” she adds with more of a smile.
I cast off thoughts of who the hell would want to ride a donkey sleigh to their wedding when I reach the back wall.
Yeah, now I see some issues—and not just the ones caused by the raccoons.
“That’s where you’ll find all the trouble,” she calls. Her voice sounds soft and deadened by the wood walls and beams.
“Yeah, I see the rot.” I poke the toe of my shiny new muck boot at an area of the lower back wall that gives under the pressure.
I circle back around the other side of the tractor, looking up at the underside of the loft area overhead.
I rub my fingers through my hair. “What’s up here?”
“Storage, mainly.”
I round the end of the stairs and start to climb them.
“Totally not to code.” I point at a non-existent railing.
She shrugs. “It’s hardly used.”
I pause halfway up. “Are these stairs safe, by the way?”
“As far as I know,” she says, following me up.
The loft area is the full width of the barn, with a small window at either side. I’d bet if you put a giant window all the way along the back it would give an amazing view over the countryside.
Immediately I’m seeing architectural renderings of a luxury home with skylights and white plaster walls between the original beams. A huge country kitchen with professional stainless-steel appliances and a giant center island.
A double height living room with a huge sofa facing a modern take on a traditional wood stove.
And a massive bedroom up here—an en suite with a clawfoot soaker tub right under the window with the best view.
“Ever thought of dividing up the land and selling the parcel with this barn on it?” I ask her. “It’s a designer home waiting to happen.”
This perfectly natural question—natural to me anyway—has the side benefit of bringing up the subject of selling the land, giving me a chance to feel her out.
She makes a sneering sound. “Not dividing up anything. Not selling any part of it.”
“That sounds definite. And like you’ve given it thought.”
“I’ve had to. But not much. About one-point-three-five seconds is all it took.”
“You’re attached to the place then, huh?” I wander to the other side of the loft where it looks like someone’s been camping, and continue my oh-so-casual questions. “So why have you had to consider whether to sell?”
“Developers are sniffing around,” she says.
“Construction’s about to start on a new rail link to Grand Central, and there’ll be a station just about…
” The floor shakes a little as she marches past me toward the small window.
“See that bunch of pine trees way on the other side of that brown field? Over there.”
I move alongside her, bending my knees to crouch a little so I can follow her sightline through the low window.
To see what she’s pointing at, I have to move so close that I get the scent of decidedly un-small-town hair products.
The expensive-smelling concoction is sweet but natural.
And would be more at home in a luxurious Beacon Hill spa than at a rundown donkey sanctuary in the Hudson Valley.
Who is she? And how can anyone be these two things at once?
“Yes, I see them,” I murmur.
“That’s where the station’s going to be. The line will go in between the trees and the river on the other side.”
“Got it,” I say as if I didn’t already know all of this and it’s not the only reason I’m here. “That must make this land pretty valuable. I mean, you could probably fit”—I pretend to do the math from scratch like I haven’t already sized up the site—“maybe ten condo buildings on it?”
In Boston, or the suburbs, I’d put thirty buildings on seventy-five acres, but I don’t want to shock her. And, anyway, in a small rural town like this you’d need at least a nod to sensitivity to get past the planners.
We straighten simultaneously, her outstretched arm accidentally brushing mine when she reels it in.
“Condos?” she says, like I’d just uttered the most profane profanity imaginable. “Why would anyone want condos here?”
I’m my own worst enemy. Of course I thought of condos first. Condos are my fucking life. I need to be more careful not to allow myself to relax so much around Frankie that I slip up and am accidentally too much myself.
“I just thought that would be the natural high-density development to go near a rail line. You know, allow more people who work in New York City to escape the astronomical living costs and move up here for a better quality of life, but still be able to commute and keep their jobs.” That’s certainly part of the argument I would make to a local council.
“You mean, for the developers to cram in as many people as they can to make as much money as they can?”
I open my mouth to say something about not all developers being heartless bastards and that some of them create top-quality living experiences, but she continues before I can get out even the first syllable.
“The town would never give permission for that,” she says.
“The council’s pretty useless, but not so terrible that they’d approve condos.
” She imbues the word with more disgust than might be reserved for a soggy mound of steaming donkey diarrhea.
“Townhouses. The shitty developer wants to build townhouses. There’s already a precedent for that from a development that ruined the other side of town a few years ago.
So yeah, this shitbag wants to do the same here. ”
“But he won’t, because you’re not selling, right?” I ask, trying to sound supportive.
“Exactly fucking right. I have no idea what the people with the second offer want to do with it, but it must be more of the same.”
Well, I had thought maybe condos, but since I’m in a hurry to snatch up this land so Skinner can’t have it, it’s the first time I’ve ever tried to buy property without making sure of the planning permission and zoning first. This time revenge is more important than what I could build.
There are only two crucial issues at stake here—that Skinner does not get the land, and that I do.
Frankie moves away from the window, and me. “Anyway, I’ve always thought this barn would make an amazing gift shop and tearoom. That’s if we could increase visitor numbers, I mean. But we’ve never been able to raise the funds to do it.”
As much as I’d like to hammer through this conversation and nail down all her whys and wherefores about being so reluctant to let go of the sanctuary, I’ve learned that sometimes it’s the slowest steps that get you to the finish line first. Sometimes you have to be the tortoise, not the hare.
And here, literally right under my nose, is an opportunity for some tortoise-ing.
“What’s all this for?” I point at a camping cot and hodgepodge of old tables and cabinets littering the loft.
“Oh, Dean stayed here for a while.”
Who the fuck is Dean? Her boyfriend?
Why would I assume it would be her boyfriend? Thanks, brain, for immediately going there.
“Dean?” I ask, carefully omitting the word “boyfriend.”
“The last full-time member of staff. He worked here for a couple of years while saving up to go to veterinary school. Grandpa let him live up here rent-free, and he bartended at The Moody Rooster in the evenings for extra cash.”
Oh, here’s my in. This is a bigger gift than I could ever have hoped for. “Could I stay here?” After I’ve fumigated it to within an inch of its life, of course.
Frankie recoils slightly and her eyebrows spike. Maybe I was a little abrupt or eager.