Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter Page 7

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The only people they want to continue their legacy are you and Baker. They’ve had other offers, higher ones I might add, but they feel like you guys are the best people to carry on their tradition. They’ve even agreed to hold your mortgage for the first year. By then you’ll be established, and acquiring a loan from a local financial institution should be no problem.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I told him.

  “Just say you’ll take it! I’ll fax you guys the revised copy of the contract right away.”

  “This is all happening so fast. I’ll need to run it by Baker,” I said, in a panic and trying to buy a block of time.

  “Of course. I’ll be in the office all afternoon. Call me back as soon as you’ve spoken with him. Oh, and one more thing, I’ve taken the liberty of sending roses to Helga, from all three of us. You can pay me back when I see you at the closing.”

  I won’t even tell you what Daddy would have said about that.

  Of course Ed was thrilled. He had both sides of the contract. We didn’t even have the sense to enlist the help of our own real estate agent to act on our behalf. My, how we learn from our mistakes. Naturally we were the best people to carry on the Schloygin tradition. We had a hefty down payment—two hundred thousand Daddy-dollars to be exact—a wife who knew absolutely nothing about the restaurant business, and the Schloygins were holding the mortgage. If we failed, they got their inn back with interest and all the renovations we planned to do, plus an extra two hundred grand to add to their nest egg. What did they have to lose?

  Ed had convinced us that Rolf could teach Baker to be a gourmet chef in a year. All we would have to do was hire him to continue as the executive chef, and let Baker train as his sous-chef. “Keep everything just the way it is for one year,” Ed said. “The customers will never know anything has changed. There’s no point in risking the loss of the loyal clientele.” Ed added one more piece of good news. “Helga has agreed to stay on as hostess and bartender to train Leelee.”

  When I arrived at the Vermont Haus Inn that frosty mid-December night, I not only had a new house, I had a new occupation. I was the owner of a four-star restaurant and the boss of four full-time employees and eight part-time employees. And . . . I was an aspiring martini mixer!

  The inn looked completely different now. No more lush gardens of lovely flowers waltzing in the warm summer breeze. Instead, snow—and heaps of it. The stars were so close it seemed like if only you could climb to the top of the highest tree, you might could reach up and pluck one out of the sky. The moon looked bigger and brighter than the moon in Tennessee, which made the snow look even prettier. I had only seen this much snow one other time, on a Young Life ski trip to Colorado my junior year, and I got butterflies in my stomach just looking at it.

  The girls were half asleep when we carried them inside. They would have to wait to get their first glimpse of our new winter wonderland.

  There’s the smell again, I thought as soon as we walked in the front door. I had already accepted the fact that deodorizing would be my toughest challenge. The second thing I noticed was total disarray. Our furniture from home was everywhere. When we bought the inn, it came completely furnished. Baker and I had loads of furniture as well, especially after Daddy died. Now we had two houses full and it was strewn all over the place, along with 150 boxes piled high to the ceiling. The sight of it all was overwhelming.

  “Ignore all this,” Baker said, when we walked through the front parlor. “We’ll get it done. You can start unpacking tomorrow and get this place just like you like it.”

  I stared at the boxes and then over at Baker. “I can’t unpack all this by myself.”

  “I’ll help you. No need to worry.”

  “It’s not the inn I’m worried about. It’s our apartment that’s been keeping me up at night.”

  “It’ll get there. One step at a time.”

  Issie poked her head up off my shoulder. “Where’s Gracie, Daddy?”

  “She’s back in our apartment. Let’s go find her.”

  What if he wasn’t able to improve the apartment? I thought. Nothing could be done to increase the size, but a décor change was nonnegotiable. When we moved in that direction, I could see the door between the inn and our quarters was open and now we could move freely between the two places. Baker put Sarah down and stood behind me, covering my eyes with his hands. The four of us walked slowly into our living area.

  “Steady, steady, let me turn you around. On the count of three, open your eyes. One, two, three!”

  I opened my eyes to yellow. A bright, beautiful shade of my second favorite color (peach is my number one). The hideous burnt orange was gone and the doors and windows had changed from chocolate brown to white. The new tan Berber carpet, along with the fresh paint, drastically improved the aroma.

  “What do you think? Do you like the yellow?”

  “I do. It’s beautiful, Baker, you’ve really been working hard.” I threw my arms around him and gave him a big kiss.

  Gracie came running up and pawed on the front of my calves. “Oh, Gracie, you’ve missed us, old girl.” After putting Issie down, I picked up the dog and kissed the top of her head. She stunk to high heaven, but what could I expect? She’d been running around in a musty, BO-infested house for two weeks.

  “Let me hold her,” Issie said, and reached out for Gracie.

  “Where’s my room?” Sarah asked, and started toward one of the bedrooms.

  “Hang on, let’s go upstairs first,” Baker told her. “I want y’all to see what I’ve done up there.”

  We ran up the steps to see the transformation. It, too, looked like a different place. The original character of the room stood out now, and the wooden beams made a lovely contrast to the freshly painted ecru walls. Logs in the Franklin stove popped, warming the room. The white kitchen cabinets Baker promised were gleaming from the fresh coat he had finished earlier in the day.

  As it turns out, if it hadn’t been for the two woodchucks he hired to help with the renovation, Baker would have never gotten it ready before we arrived. I learned that woodchuck is the nickname for a Vermonter equivalent to the Southern hick. They wear those lumberjack red plaid coats and hats with earflaps to match, like the ones my friends wore at the luncheon. (Sharp accents and lots of facial hair are two more characteristics of the woodchuck.)

  Sarah tugged on my coat and pleaded with us. “Now can I see my room?”

  “What are we waiting for?” Baker said, and grabbed her hand.

  We all scurried back down the stairs. The doors to both of the bedrooms, which sat side by side, were shut. With a big grin on his face, Baker slowly opened her door. Since it was the size of a postage stamp, joy was not the emotion I would use to describe the way Sarah felt when she first saw her new bedroom. The twin beds were unmade and boxes were everywhere. But, the walls were pink, just like she wanted.

  Sarah’s smile drooped into a frown.

  “We’ll get it looking beautiful,” I said, and caressed the top of her head. “Don’t worry, sweetie, it’ll only take a couple of days. You’ll love it. I promise.”

  She shot Baker a sour look.

  “It’s pink, Sarah. Aren’t you happy about that?” he said.

  “I guess so.” She hung her head and dropped her backpack on the floor.

  Issie was happy to see Gracie and had no comment.

  I felt bad for Sarah. She so loved her room back home. It’s not like it was huge or anything, but her bedspreads matched and the area rug was pink and white. It was full of stuffed animals and there was plenty of room for her dollhouse. She spent hours playing in there and had plenty of friends from school to invite over anytime. Here in Vermont, the dollhouse would obviously have to go out in the hall.

  I had no expectations of what our microscopic bedroom would look like, so when I opened the door and it barely missed the bedpost, I can’t say I was surprised. Baker said it took all three guys two hours to
get Great-grandmother’s canopy bed to fit. After they finally got it in the room, there was no space left for another stick of furniture. I could sit on the bed, reach out my arm, and slide open the closet curtain. Baker said we could use the windowsills for nightstands but we had to put our dresser out in the hall. It gave new meaning to the word “bedroom.”

  Even though I wasn’t expecting much, I still had a hard time when I saw it. The letdown in my gut, that extreme feeling of disappointment, told me I should probably put my mind on something else. It was the kind of thing you had to flat forget about, or you might lose your mind. So I turned my thoughts to Vermont moose and diamond earrings and tried to convince myself to be excited about our new, adventurous life that lay ahead.

  By now it was past dinnertime, the girls were hungry and cranky, and I was worn out from traveling with two children. It seemed the easiest thing to do at that point was order a pizza and Baker volunteered to go out and get it.

  “They don’t deliver here?” I asked, when I saw him grab his coat.

  “Well, uh, not the kind I like.” Baker ran out the door before I had a chance to say anything else.

  Hmmm, I thought, and stored it—for future ammunition, if you know what I mean.

  The Vermont Haus Inn was still closed down for Stick Season and we were gearing up for our grand opening in nine days. We had work ahead of us for sure. Apparently there are two downtimes per year: mid-October through mid-December, and April through Memorial Day. Let me try and explain. Stick Season is the time period between the leaves falling off the trees and the first snowfall. Nearly every day the sky is overcast and the landscape is drab and monochromatic. You’d never even know the sky had any color to it at all. The ski resorts open around Thanksgiving but don’t really get cranking until Christmas. So most of the inns stay closed for Stick Season. (We’ll get to the other interval later. But here’s a hint for now—it’s called Mud Season.) I’ll go on record right now as saying no one ever told me about either of these seasons before I moved.

  The Schloygins traveled back to their homeland for the first half of Stick Season. As far as I was concerned, this was the part of the Schloygin tradition I would definitely be carrying on—trips home!

  The moment I opened my eyes, after our first night at the inn, I was determined to put my best foot on the floor. No more sulking, no more regret. I had a mission and I had chosen to accept it. The Vermont Haus Inn was my new home. I had arrived with every curtain, every bedspread, every stick of furniture, and even some of the light fixtures from Memphis and I was determined to stamp my fingerprints on this place within a few short weeks.

  So, as I explored my new house, my first morning in Vermont, I had a new attitude. To make the unpacking more pleasurable, I carried the Beatles around with me from room to room, and cranked up the volume on my small, but powerful, pink boom box. I was peeking into drawers, examining the wall colors, even checking out the locations of the bathrooms for the first time. The one thing I had going for me was that I love to decorate, and this old place was the ultimate challenge. It was in desperate need of a face-lift and I couldn’t wait to perform the surgery.

  There was more charm than I had noticed when I was first there in the summer. A small dining room with a tremendous fireplace was the focal point of the house. The old wooden beams protruded from the ceiling and a big bay window brought the beauty of the snow-covered yard inside.

  The wallpaper in that dining room, however, was horrific. It was red-and-white checked, just like a tablecloth, and resembled a cheap Italian eatery—at least I felt like it did. Now I don’t profess to always have the final word on what’s tacky, but trust me, it was real tacky. If any of my friends had seen the décor at that point, I’m afraid they would have told me to light a match and start over.

  Baker told me that we were going to have to turn one of the guest rooms upstairs into a storage room due to all our extra furniture. And that was fine with me. There was no way I was getting rid of one thing that I had brought with me. (I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the boxes, either. Once I had them unpacked, I stacked each one up, one inside the other, in a corner of the attic. The moving company charged me big bucks for those boxes. Besides, I just might need them, I thought.)

  First order of business—get rid of the junk. Helga and Rolf were clutter keepers. Dozens of half-burned freestanding red (and only red) candles and hundreds of old paperback books were stacked up in the corners. The bookshelves were crammed full of garage sale knickknacks and cheap souvenirs, like the kind you find in airports with the name of the city imprinted on a shot glass or an ashtray. Helga must have thought she was doing me a favor by leaving her ceramic hippopotamus collection on the mantel, but that would have to go.

  Each time I opened a new box, I found real joy in deciding where to place my stuff. My beautiful collection of Herend china looked perfect on the parlor bookshelves. My own crystal and silver made the rooms come alive and I felt like the place looked more and more like home. I was having so much fun, I didn’t even notice the time flying by. It was getting close to lunchtime.

  I never saw anyone come into the house, so when the cellar door in the red-checked dining room swung open mysteriously, it scared the daylights out of me. When I screamed, it made the man scream. Both of us had to sit down at one of the dining tables to stop the adrenaline from rushing.

  “Oh my gosh, you scared me to death. I didn’t know anyone was down there,” I said, holding my hand to my heart.

  “Well, I was scared myself,” the man said, and nervously twirled the end of his huge handlebar mustache. “I spend quite a bit of time down cellar. The name’s Jeb Duggar. I’m the official handyman here. I also wash dishes at night.”

  “For a minute there I thought you were a burglar.”

  “I’m no burglar, I’m your neighbor. I live right acrosst the street.” He pointed behind him and began whistling along with the Beatles in the background.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Jeb. I’m Leelee, Baker’s wife.” I extended my hand to shake his.

  He stopped whistling for only a moment to ask, “You’re not thinking of changing the name, are you?” Then went right back to his habit, which quite honestly was a little annoying.

  “Pardon me?”

  “The name of the inn. You’re not thinking of changing it, are yous?”

  “My husband doesn’t want to change anything for a year. Why do you ask?”

  “I would have to redo my advertising.”

  I couldn’t help the confused look that spread across my face. “What advertising?”

  “JCW’s advertising. I took out an ad in the Yellow Pages. Them folks charged me two hundred dollars, but Mom told me it was worth it as long as they said it was right acrosst the street from the Vermont Haus Inn.” He hit the table with his fist and nodded with confidence.

  I’m sure he could tell I was confused but he kept on jabbering. “How do you like my new sign? I just finished painting it yesterday.” He puffed out his chest and combed his beard with his fingers; two of the many gestures I would learn were characteristically Jeb Duggar.

  “I can’t say I’ve seen it.”

  “If you look out the window in the front dining room, you can’t miss it.”

  “Oh! Well, I’ll go take a look.” I stood up from the table, and thought about the girls back home. They would have killed to be sharing in this moment.

  “I only work here on the side,” Jeb said, while escorting me over to the window. “I’m really the solo proprietor over at JCW.”

  When I peered out the front window straight across the street I saw a modest old white clapboard home with a small front porch. A painted gray lean-to, about the size of an outhouse, sat about fifteen feet away from the house. It looked like half of a little hut, really, with a slanted roof on one side only. The whole other side of it appeared to be missing. The only sign I saw at all was a hand-painted job with red lettering that took up most of the wall of the lean-to. T
he words were stacked one on top of the other—JEB’S COMPUTER WORLD.

  “Oh, so that’s what you mean by JCW,” I said, holding on to the window sash and peering through the pane. “Did you paint that yourself?”

  “Why, sure.” One could almost smell the pride exuding from his pores.

  “I like the red.” I turned to look at Jeb and smiled.

  “Picked it out myself.”

  I glanced back out the window and looked around. “Where is Jeb’s Computer World, Jeb?”

  He was standing right behind me now, peeking through the same pane. “Right there.”

  “Right where?”

  “There,” he said, with an “are you blind?” tone, and pointed and tapped on the glass.

  It took a moment to sink in. But I was looking dead at it. Jeb’s Computer World was that tiny hut. And, as if that wasn’t enough, pulled right in front was an old weather-rusted pink Chevy Chevette. JEB’S COMPUTER WORLD and the phone number were written in huge letters on the driver’s side.

  All I could think about was Alice Garrott’s face upon her first glimpse of JCW. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You’re not the first to lose their speech!”

  “I’m sure I’m not. Where’d you find a pink car?” I just had to ask. “It’s mighty cute.”

  “It’s a hand-me-down from Mom,” Jeb proudly fessed up. “She got it for all her years with Mary Kay. She don’t drive that much no more, but we both use it for advertising. I’ve got the driver’s side and she’s got the other.”

  Rolf and Helga stopped by after lunch. As I have already mentioned, Helga has a strong personality. Very outspoken, very opinionated, and as I would find out, very set in her ways. She and Rolf weren’t big fans of change. They didn’t share in my enthusiasm for fixing up the place; they felt it was fine just the way it was. After all, they were the ones who decorated the inn in the first place.

  Helga was a chain smoker and that bothered me a lot, since I was allergic to smoke. Even still, she sauntered around my house—her former house of thirty years—with an unflicked cigarette in her right hand, raised eyebrows, and pursed lips, eyeing my handiwork.