Chapter Twenty-Seven
With the sun so bright she needed sunglasses, Kit fell in line behind Abby and Benny, who bounced along behind his mother and sang a song that sounded like a combination of “You Are My Sunshine” and the Sesame Street theme song.
With Beth walking beside her, chatting away happily, Kit’s earlier gloom couldn’t help but fade like the mist off the lake.
Might as well enjoy the company and the morning, she thought as they approached the first cabin.
Abby stopped in front and began to point out its qualities like a docent in a museum.
“The foundation is really solid, as is the porch. No loose or missing boards. The roof is intact—if you’re concerned about it at all, Chief Hal said he knew a roofer in town who could come out and check it, but he thinks it looks fine.
” Abby went up the steps and took the key ring from her pocket, unlocked the door, and beckoned the others inside.
She took a large flashlight from the bag she’d slung over her shoulder and turned it on.
“The electricity is off, but as you can see, all the furniture is still here.” Abby shined the light around the room, pausing on the chairs and the sofa. “Benny, stay with Nana.”
Kit’s gaze swept the room. She’d seen the cabin before, but hadn’t focused on the furnishings. “Honey, I don’t know that I would ask anyone to pay to sit on that sofa. I would be surprised if there aren’t mice and bugs living inside the cushions,” she said dubiously.
“Then we should think about replacing them. I bet we could find a discount furniture store where we could make a deal for upholstered pieces for all eleven cabins.” Abby took her phone from her pocket and said, “Check online for discount furniture stores.”
Beth looked at Kit and suppressed a grin. “Remember the time you told me you wanted to raise your kids to question things and think for themselves? And me telling you that you might regret that someday?” She poked Kit in the ribs and stage-whispered, “The birds have come home to roost.”
“She’s been like this since she was three,” Kit reminded her.
Abby pretended to ignore them.
“Moving on. The fireplace looks to be in good condition, but we should have a chimney sweep out to clean them and make sure there are no loose bricks or stone. I did see a few loose stones in the firebox in one of the cabins—I forget which one—but we should check them all. Now, in the kitchen, the appliances are old but might still work. But, if we want to get top dollar, we should replace those. There’s room for a larger fridge and a larger stove, so we should do that.
The old sinks should stay—they add character—and we should keep the cabinets but clean them up.
Maybe paint them in one of the cabins to see how they look.
Now, in the bathroom—” Abby disappeared into the short hall, and her mother and aunt followed.
“Benny, put down that . . . whatever it is you just picked up, please.”
Benny dropped the pile of leaves he’d gathered from inside the door.
“She has her pitch down pat,” Beth whispered to Kit before they left the kitchen. “She has put a lot of thought into this.”
“I know. It’s like she’s making a presentation,” Kit agreed.
“I can hear you, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.
” Abby stood in front of the open bathroom door.
“I have thought about this. Keeping the camp isn’t a whim.
I figured I had one chance to win you over, Mom, from I don’t know to Yes, let’s do it.
This is my shot, as they say, and I’m taking it.
I’m all in to show you what we could do here. ”
Kit nodded and reached for Benny’s hand. “Lead on.”
“Okay, in the bathrooms we need a major overhaul. Nothing fancy or we’d lose the rustic charm, one of the reasons people come to a place like this.
” Abby turned to her mother. “There’s lots online about Maine sporting camps, and I read everything I could find.
I saw the competition and I read how much they charge for whatever they’re offering.
We can be very competitive, and we have the advantage of having a list of campers who are eager to come back.
I think if you started making phone calls, we could book this place solid for the summer. ”
Kit shook her head. “We’d never complete the work you’re talking about doing in all eleven cabins by summer. I don’t think it’s physically possible. Plus, none of us know a damned thing about running a camp.”
“Don’t sell us short. I found a brochure in the desk in the front hall.
The activities we can offer are not things we have to do.
We just have to have the rowboats and canoes and the kayaks available for people to use, and of course, new safety vests.
We need to have hiking trails clearly marked.
And we have to have a few evening events, but those have already been laid out for us.
S’mores night around the campfire down near the lake.
We can do a games night in the addition—we should find a better name for that space—and serve dinner like your aunt and your grandparents used to do.
We can make the Camp in the Meadows a fun, happy, friendly family place again. ”
Before Kit could voice her objections—which she was still considering—Abby took her by the hand.
“The bedrooms need new mattresses, of course, and a good cleaning. Campers can bring their own bed linens; we don’t have to supply them, other than maybe an extra blanket or two per cabin for those nights that unexpectedly turn cold.
Otherwise, the bedrooms are all fine, these on the first floor and the loft upstairs, or will be, once they are cleaned and maybe some new decor touches.
Since some of the cabins have twin beds, I would suggest we offer bunks in all of them instead.
We can accommodate three sets of bunks up there if we only go with one dresser.
No bathroom but it’s not that far to come downstairs.
At this stage it would cost too much to put a bathroom in. ”
“Maybe we should think about putting in a small half bath upstairs and two sets of bunks in one or two of the cabins and see how that’s received,” Beth, who’d stayed mostly quiet, suggested.
“I think that’s a good idea. What do you think, Mom?”
Kit nodded slowly. “It’s worth thinking about.”
“Okay, then. I’m going to trust you will think about it objectively.
That mostly does it, generally speaking, for the cabins.
I do want to check the cupboards in all of them—we may need to buy new dishes and glassware and tableware, but we can do that later,” Abby said.
“After we clean and paint and refurbish.”
“Oh, I think we should look at what we’ve got in each cabin and supplement it from thrift stores. The more mismatched, the better. Adds to the old-time, rustic ambience,” Beth said. “We may need to repair or replace a chair or two, though.”
“I love that idea. Mismatched chairs, mismatched china.” Abby’s eyes were shining as her vision appeared to become clearer.
“I think our campers would love it. Too much matching will give a too-new feel to it all. That’s not why people come to a place like this.
” She walked to the front door. “Now, there’s one more thing I want to show you. ”
They left cabin one and walked down the path, Benny between his mother and grandmother, apparently enchanted by the forested area and all the other cabins they passed by until they got to the clearing where cabin eleven once stood.
“Now, hear me out. I want to clean up this lot and put in a few stone benches. I want to make this space a garden. The Miles and Maxine Memorial Garden, where people can come and meditate or just relax and clear their minds, or maybe bird-watch, or read, whatever they feel like doing. But since we are the only sporting camp that I know of that has ties to a literary legend, we should use that.”
“I wouldn’t want to exploit them,” Kit said. Even though she’d never met her aunt or Miles, she felt a certain sort of loyalty, even a fondness for them both.
“Nor would I. But apparently Miles is very highly regarded as a literary genius in some circles, and the movies are making him well known to an entirely different audience. I want to use that section of the living room back at the house as a library for the campers to use. We can stock the shelves with some classics and some popular fiction but make Miles’s work the showpiece.
Copies of all his works. Our campers can sit in here and read or take the books to the cabins.
We’ll have a sheet where they can ‘sign out’ books so we’ll know who has them.
Of course they’ll have to return them before they leave. ”
“Some might not want to,” Beth noted. “Maybe we can keep a few copies on hand to sell.”
“Oh, and we’re going to do a movie night. We’ll show one of Miles’s movies,” Abby went on.
“This could get complicated,” Kit groaned.
“So what? What else have you got going on in your life that you can’t do this with us?” Beth demanded.
“It’s us already?”
“I told you, I’m in with Abby. We will buy this entire place from you if you insist on selling it. I haven’t felt this good in a long time, Kit.”
“Maybe it’s the meds that are making you feel better.”
“Ha! Or maybe I just fell in love with that house the minute I saw it from the road. And the lake—I am dying to get out on that lake and do a little fishing. You know how I used to love fishing, and I haven’t been in more years than I can count.
I feel revived here, Kit. It won’t be as much fun without you, and I desperately want you to stay, but if we have to run this place ourselves, we will,” Beth announced with fierce determination.