Bitter Sweet (16 page)

‘The place would need a little tightening up,’ Althea said sheepishly, and proceeded into the kitchen.

The room was horrendous with bilegreen paint flaking off the walls in one corner, giving evidence of bad plumbing. The sink was rustier than an ocean-bound tanker and the cupboards - a mere five-foot length of them – were made of tongue-and-groove beadboard, painted the same digestive hue as the walls. Two long narrow windows held shredded lace curtains that had turned the colour of an old horse’s tooth, while behind them hung tattered window shades of army green. Between the two windows a battered, windowless door led to the small rotting verandah they’d first glimpsed from outside.

The kitchen brought Maggie to her senses.

‘Mrs Munne, I’m afraid we’re wasting your time. “This is just not what I had in mind.’

Althea proceeded, undaunted. ‘One has to picture it as it could be, not as it is. I’m sorry about this kitchen, but as long as we’re here, we might as well take a look upstairs.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Yes, let’s.’ Brookie commandeered Maggie’s arm and forced her to comply. Climbing the stairs behind Mrs Munne, Maggie pinched Brookic’s arm and whispered through clenched teeth, ‘This place is a wreck and it smells like bat shit.’

‘How do you know what bat shit smalls like?’

‘I remember from my aunt Lil’s attic.’

‘There are five bedrooms,’ Mrs Munne said. ‘Mr Harding had them all closed off but one.’

The one he’d used turned out to be the Belvedere Room and the moment Maggie stepped into it she had the sinking feeling she was lost. Not the water-stained wallpaper, nor the musty-smelling carpet, nor the obscene collection of ancient mouse-chewed furniture could hide the room’s appeal. It came from the view of the lake, seen through tall, deep-silled windows and the exquisitely turned columns of the belvedere itself. As one upon whom a spell has been cast, Maggie opened the door and stepped out. She pressed her knees against the wooden railing, gazing westward as the san jewelled the surface of
Green Bay
. Below, the lawn lay in neglect, a rotting wooden dock listing to one side, half in the water, half out. But the trees were maples, lacy and ancient. The belvedere was solid, graceful, evocative, a place where women perhaps had once watched for steamships to bring their husbands home.

Maggie experienced a sense of loss for her own husband who would never stride up that long lawn, would never share the room behind her or clatter down the magnificent staircase.

But she knew as surely as she knew she’d regret it dozens of times that she would do this insane thing Brookie had suggested: she would live in Harding House.

‘Show me the rest of the bedrooms,’ she ordered, returning inside.

They mattered not a whir. Each of the four had charms of its own, but all paled beside the belvedere room. Returning from the attic (which proved Maggie right - she’d be sharing the place with hundreds of bats) she stepped into her favourite room one more time.

I have come home, she thought unreasonably, and shivered.

Following Althea back downstairs she said, ‘I’d be making it into a bed-and-breakfast inn. Could there be any zoning problems?’

Brookie grabbed Maggie from behind and spun her by an arm, presenting bulging eyes and a mouth gaping in amazement.

‘Are you serious?’ she whispered.

Maggie pressed a palm to her stomach, whispering, ‘I’m trembling inside.’

‘A bed and breakfast- hmmm...” Althea said, reaching the main floor. ‘I’m not sure. I’d have to check into that.’

‘And I’d want to have an architectural engineer look the place over to make sure it’s structurally sound. Does it have a basement?’

‘After a fashion. We’re on bedrock here, you know, so it’s really only a tiny cellar.’

The Spanish Inquisition might have taken place in the cellar, so dank and black was it. But the place had a furnace and Althea claimed it worked. A re-examination of the kitchen wall and the maid’s quarters which abutted it showed that the plumbing surely had leaked. Probably the bathroom fixtures overhead were ready to drop through the ceiling. But even as Maggie quavered Brookie called from the front parlour, ‘Maggie, come here! You’ve got to see this!’

Brookie had rolled back a moth-eaten rug and was on her hands and knees. She was rubbing the floor with a dampened Kleenex. She spat, rubbed again and exclaimed, ‘It is! It’s parquet!’

Maggie’s emotional barometer soared once more.

Together, on their hands and knees, dressed yet in bathing suits and beach jackets, the two discovered what Althea had not guessed: the parlour was paved with inch wide quartersawn maple strips, laid in a bird’s-nest design.

In the dead centre of the room they found the smallest piece; a perfect square. From it the strips telescoped to the outer edges of the room, growing longer and longer until they disappeared beneath the high, delicately-coved mopboards that languished beneath years of crust and dust.

‘Glory be. Imagine this sanded and polyurethaned,’ Brookie said. ‘It’d gleam like a new violin.’

Maggie needed no more convincing. She was heading back upstairs to have one more look at the belvedere room before she had to bid it a temporary good-bye.

One hour from the time they had stepped foot into the Homestead Realty office Maggie and Brookie were back in the rented
Toyota
, gaping at each other and suppressing whoops of excitement.

‘What in the name of God am I doing?’ Maggie said.

‘Curing yourself of your depression.’

‘Oh lord, Brookie, this is insane.’

‘I know! But I’m so excited I’m ready to pee my pants!’

They laughed, whooped and pounded their feet on the floorboards. ‘What day is it?’ Maggie asked, too exhilarated to sort out such incidentals.

‘Thursday.’

‘That gives me two days to do some fast footwork, one and a half if I go to that wedding. Damn, I wish I hadn’t told Lisa I’d go. Do you have any idea where I’d find out what the zoning would be on a bed and breakfast?’

‘We could try the town hail.’

‘Does this town have ay architects or engineers?’

‘There’s an architect up in
Sister
Bay
.’

‘How about a lawyer?’

‘Caristrom and
Nevis
, same as always. My God, you’re serious, Maggie. You really are serious!’

Maggie pressed a hand to her hammering heart. ‘Do you know how long it’s been since I felt this way? I’m hyperventilating, almost!’ Brookie laughed. Maggie squeezed the steering wheel, threw her head back and forced her shoulder blades deep into the seat cushions. ‘Oh, Brookie, it feels good.’

Belatedly Brookie warned, ‘It’d cost a bundle to fix that relic up.’

‘I’m a millionaire. I can afford it.’

‘And you might not be able to buck the residential zoning out there.’

‘I can try! There are B and Bs in residential areas all over

America
. How did they manage?’

‘You’d be living in the same area code as your mother.’

‘Oh,’ Maggie groaned, ‘don’t remind me.’

‘What should we do first?’

Maggie started the engine, smiling, and felt her zest for life restored. ‘Go tell my dad.’

Roy
beamed and said, I’ll help you every way I can.’

Vera scowled and said, ‘You’re crazy, girl.’

Maggie chose to believe her dad.

During the last business hour of that day Maggie made tracks to the town hall and verified that Cottage Row was, as expected, zoned residential and that an appeal would need to be made to get that zoning changed, but the clerk said the zoning was regulated by the county, not the township.

Next Maggie contacted Burt Nevis with an order to draw up papers- conditional- to accompany earnest money. She spoke with the
Sister
Bay
architect, Eames Gillard, who said he was all tied up for two weeks, but who directed her to a
Sturgeon
Bay
structural engineer named Thomas Chopp. Chopp said he could examine the house and would give an opinion on its soundness, but would give no written warranties nor did he know of any engineer or architect who would on a house ninety years old. Lastly, she called Althea Munne and said, ‘I’ll have earnest money and a conditional purchase agreement for you by
five o’clock
tomorrow afternoon.’

After supper Maggie sat down with Roy who worked up a generic checklist for the house: furnace, plumbing, wiring, termite condition, ground survey and water test if it was a private well, which, he said, it would be since Fish Creek had no city water.

Next he prepared a list of consultants from whom she might get estimates and advice.

All the while Vera carped, ‘I don’t see why you don’t have a pretty new house built up on top of the bluff, or move into one of the new condominiums. They’re springing up all over the county, that way you’d have close neighbours and you wouldn’t have to put up with leaky pipes and termites.

And taking in lodgers - for heaven’s sake, Maggie - it’s beneath you! Plus the fact that a woman alone has no business opening her door to strangers. Who knows what kind of weirdos might walk in? And to have them sleeping under your roof! Why, it gives me the shivers to think of it!’

To Maggie’s surprise
Roy
lowered his chin, levelled his gaze and said, ‘Why don’t you find something to do, Vera?’

Vera opened her mouth to retort, snapped it shut and spun from the room, red-faced with anger.

The next day and a half were a frantic merry-go-round of telephoning, exacting promises and dates from contractors, comparing real estate values, meeting lawyers; contacting the chamber of commerce, Althea Munne, the county, the state.., and the state.., again and again and again in an effort to obtain a Wisconsin state code book regulating bed-and-breakfast inns. After being misdirected no less than nine times, Maggie finally reached the person under whose jurisdiction B and Bs fell: the state milk inspector. The state milk inspector, for God’s sake!

After exacting his promise to send the pamphlet first class to her Seattle address, she raced to pick up the purchase agreement her lawyer had drawn up, then to Althea Munne’s office where she paid the earnest money in spite of the fact that she still had no answer regarding the zoning permit. As she shook hands with Althea she glanced at her watch and stifled a shriek. She had fifty minutes to get back home, bathe, dress, and be at the community church for Gary Eidelbach’s wedding.

Chapter 5

There could have been no more perfect day for a wedding.

The temperature was in the low eighties, the sky clear, and shade dappled the front steps of the
Fish
Creek
Community
Church
where the wedding party had gathered after the ceremony.

Eric Severson knew every person in the receiving line and most of the guests. His mother and Nancy moved ahead of him while behind him came Barbara and Mike, followed by businessmen, neighbours, and friends he’d known for years. He shook hands with the parents of the groom and made introductions.

‘Honey, this is
Gary
’s mom and dad.

Carl, Mary, my wife’ Nancy.’

While they exchanged small talk he watched their admiring eyes linger on his wife and felt proud, as always, to have her at his side. Wherever he took her people stared. Women, children, old men and young: all were susceptible. Not even at a wedding did the bride receive more admiring glances.

Moving through the line, he kissed the bride’s cheek.

‘You look beautiful, Deborah. Think you can keep this rounder in line?’ he teased, cocking a grin at the groom who was ten years older than the woman in white beside him.

The smiling groom drew his new wife firmly against his side and laughed into her eyes.

‘No problem,’ he replied.

Eric shook
Gary
’s hand. ‘Congratulations, Sheila, you deserve it.’ Everyone in town knew
Gary
’s first wife had abandoned him with two children five years ago to run off with a cinematographer from LA who’d been in
Door
County
on a shoot. The children were now eleven and thirteen and stood beside their father, dressed in their first formal wear.

‘Sheila,’ Eric teased, taking the girl’s hands. “Don’t you know it’s not polite to be prettier than the bride?’ He kissed her cheek and made it tam the same bright pink as her first ankle-length dress.

She smiled, revealing a mouth full of braces, and replied shyly, ‘Your wife is prettier than all the brides in the world.’

Eric grinned, dropped a hand on
Nancy
’s neck and let his appreciative gaze touch her face. ‘Why, thank you, Sheila, I think so, too.’