broker had closed her car door and started her engine.
“Yeah, too small and too old . I want squeaky clean and all that new stuff, you know? I am all over drafty windows, uneven floors, leaking gutters, cracked asphalt driveways, unreliable furnaces . . . I want central air, central heat, new windows! I want to flush my toilets with confidence! I want a dishwasher that lulls me to sleep, not one that sounds like a 747! Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Gotcha!” she said, her index finger pointed like the barrel of a revolver.
I opened my car door, threw my purse over to the passenger seat and got in. Mimi leaned in the window. “How’s this Brad person?” she said.
“Brad’s great! The job’s great! But I gotta find a house, you know?”
“I’ll comb the Moultrie News !”
“Thanks,” I said and blew her a kiss.
There were so many choices of where to live in Mount Pleasant. And, I suppose like everyone else all up and down the coast, I would have loved to own a home with a view of something besides my neighbors. The harbor, the Cooper River, a creek—any of them would have been fine. But, not knowing how much I could spend put me in a weird position. It meant that I had to look at houses from the point of view of what would be sufficient. In spite of everything, my heart was leaning to living in the old village where I grew up, even though that choice would never deliver a house with new everything in my imagined budget range.
Yesterday, I learned Brad lived in Simmons Pointe, right by the Ben Sawyer Bridge. He was lucky enough to run into a furnished, year-round rental. Even though Brad was a partner in the restaurant, he hadn’t been in business long enough to earn enough money to buy anything. He said he felt like he had definitely hit the jackpot with his three-bedroom house on stilts, a new kitchen, two and a half bathrooms, and a marsh and water view for which there was no price tag on the face of this earth.
He had invited me to come see it, saying there might be another one available, and I had thanked him and had said I would but, in reality, the last thing I wanted was for my boss to have access to my privacy. I mean, what if I decided to let Antonio Banderas sleep over? Did Brad need to see his limo in my driveway? No. And did I want to know who was hanging around him? No thanks. Life was complicated enough as it was.
I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and, getting out, the smells of the creek startled me. How powerful! And, how reminiscent of my childhood. I could close my eyes and be seven years old again, my hand in my dad’s, tromping over to Magwood’s to buy five pounds of shrimp, the soles of my sneakers crunching along the broken oyster shells that covered the ground. After a good soaking rain, there were puddles wide enough for zigzag navigation and jumps that resurrected the boy in my father as we leaped over them together, whooping with laughter. Even hours later, long after the mud in the treads of my shoes was dry and fallen away, the smells of salt and sea remained. That same fragrance was linked to good memories like a bookmark. In some remote part of my psyche, I believed that to be surrounded by it again would bring me happiness.
It was in that dreamy state of mind that I began my workday, shuffling through a mountain of bills, organizing them on the computer by category, backing them up on disc. Certain things stood out as too expensive, others as bargains. I would have to think about all of it and apply some kind of analysis to it. One thing was certain—the produce bill was in the stratosphere. Others were unclear. Such as, I couldn’t understand the process for verifying the bills for seafood or why we used rentals for special events. It would all be sorted out in due time. My first order of business was to get everything entered in a bookkeeping software program that would produce checks.
Louise appeared at my door and cleared her throat.
“Yeah, too small and too old . I want squeaky clean and all that new stuff, you know? I am all over drafty windows, uneven floors, leaking gutters, cracked asphalt driveways, unreliable furnaces . . . I want central air, central heat, new windows! I want to flush my toilets with confidence! I want a dishwasher that lulls me to sleep, not one that sounds like a 747! Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Gotcha!” she said, her index finger pointed like the barrel of a revolver.
I opened my car door, threw my purse over to the passenger seat and got in. Mimi leaned in the window. “How’s this Brad person?” she said.
“Brad’s great! The job’s great! But I gotta find a house, you know?”
“I’ll comb the Moultrie News !”
“Thanks,” I said and blew her a kiss.
There were so many choices of where to live in Mount Pleasant. And, I suppose like everyone else all up and down the coast, I would have loved to own a home with a view of something besides my neighbors. The harbor, the Cooper River, a creek—any of them would have been fine. But, not knowing how much I could spend put me in a weird position. It meant that I had to look at houses from the point of view of what would be sufficient. In spite of everything, my heart was leaning to living in the old village where I grew up, even though that choice would never deliver a house with new everything in my imagined budget range.
Yesterday, I learned Brad lived in Simmons Pointe, right by the Ben Sawyer Bridge. He was lucky enough to run into a furnished, year-round rental. Even though Brad was a partner in the restaurant, he hadn’t been in business long enough to earn enough money to buy anything. He said he felt like he had definitely hit the jackpot with his three-bedroom house on stilts, a new kitchen, two and a half bathrooms, and a marsh and water view for which there was no price tag on the face of this earth.
He had invited me to come see it, saying there might be another one available, and I had thanked him and had said I would but, in reality, the last thing I wanted was for my boss to have access to my privacy. I mean, what if I decided to let Antonio Banderas sleep over? Did Brad need to see his limo in my driveway? No. And did I want to know who was hanging around him? No thanks. Life was complicated enough as it was.
I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and, getting out, the smells of the creek startled me. How powerful! And, how reminiscent of my childhood. I could close my eyes and be seven years old again, my hand in my dad’s, tromping over to Magwood’s to buy five pounds of shrimp, the soles of my sneakers crunching along the broken oyster shells that covered the ground. After a good soaking rain, there were puddles wide enough for zigzag navigation and jumps that resurrected the boy in my father as we leaped over them together, whooping with laughter. Even hours later, long after the mud in the treads of my shoes was dry and fallen away, the smells of salt and sea remained. That same fragrance was linked to good memories like a bookmark. In some remote part of my psyche, I believed that to be surrounded by it again would bring me happiness.
It was in that dreamy state of mind that I began my workday, shuffling through a mountain of bills, organizing them on the computer by category, backing them up on disc. Certain things stood out as too expensive, others as bargains. I would have to think about all of it and apply some kind of analysis to it. One thing was certain—the produce bill was in the stratosphere. Others were unclear. Such as, I couldn’t understand the process for verifying the bills for seafood or why we used rentals for special events. It would all be sorted out in due time. My first order of business was to get everything entered in a bookkeeping software program that would produce checks.
Louise appeared at my door and cleared her throat.
Similar Books
