Andie left the Thompsons’ and headed to visit her mother at Tall Pines. She needed some time to come up with a plan for the Thompson house. Hopefully she hadn’t hastily made a promise she couldn’t keep.
She’d called Frank Fowler and cancelled the auction. His annoyance turned to sympathy when she mentioned Damien Carruthers was behind the cancellation. Turned out he’d had some run-ins with Damien, too, so he agreed not to charge Emily for his wasted time. He’d offered to bring the items to his auction hall, but that wasn’t going to happen by Saturday when they would have had the auction here at the estate. His hall was booked three months out, so Emily wouldn’t get any money from him in time to pay the bills.
Andie peeked into Sadie Thompson’s room on her way to her mother’s. Sadie was sleeping peacefully in her green recliner, the television remote clutched in her hand. She looked so relaxed, worry-free. Renewed determination surged in Andie when she thought of how Emily had described Sadie lighting up when she brought her to visit her home. She had to help them keep that house. But how?
They’d saved Tides by advertising to get more guests and including events and weddings in their venue. The situation at the Thompsons’ was totally different. It had never been an inn and wasn’t set up like Tides was with bathrooms for each room. Not to mention there was no online presence, no Yelp reviews, and the layout just wasn’t set up to accommodate guests. Since there was no money for renovations, Andie didn’t see how anything like that could happen. Shane had offered to help with anything, but she couldn’t ask him to take on a big job like that.
Then again, Sadie had already sectioned off part of the house. Maybe Emily could use that section for something like an Airbnb? Still, they’d have to do a lot of expensive work to get that set up, and bills were looming.
Laughter drifted out of her mother’s room, and Andie arrived to discover Claire and her boyfriend, Rob Bradford, entertaining Addie. A white bakery bag sat on the table, and a chocolate chip muffin—her mother’s favorite—sat in front of Addie.
“…and then she said… why not put the daisies in the pantry!” Addie slapped her knee and giggled while Rob and Claire convulsed with laughter. Good to see that her mother hadn’t lost her ability to tell jokes. If, in fact, it was an actual joke. She couldn’t tell if her mother had actually said something funny or if Claire and Rob were just being polite.
Addie looked over at Andie, her smile widening. “Bridgette! How nice of you to stop by.” Apparently today her mother thought Andie was her late sister. Oh well, as long as Addie was happy. That was all that mattered.
“Hi, everyone.” Andie edged into the small room and exchanged greetings with Claire and Rob. Claire and Jane had been best friends since they were kids, and it was nice that Claire visited Addie like she was her own mother. Andie didn’t have any childhood friends, but maybe now that she was back in Lobster Bay that would change.
“How are things going over at the Thompsons’?” Claire scooted over to make room for Andie on the bed. Rob was sitting in the only other chair aside from Addie’s.
Andie groaned. “Not too good. Turns out Damien Carruthers is one of the town events inspectors, and he shut us down.”
“Thompson?” Addie scowled. “Don’t let that Sadie Thompson tell you what to do.”
“I won’t, Mom.”
“So what are you going to do? Can you still have it later?” Rob asked.
“Yeah, but there is some urgency for money.” Andie didn’t want to go into any details, as it wasn’t her place to talk about the Thompsons’ financial problems. She didn’t need to, though. Rob and Claire weren’t the type to pry, so they simply nodded and didn’t press further.
“I wish I could figure something out to help them. That house needs some work, and there are great antiques inside, but it’s more than I can handle at my little shop.”
Addie snorted. “Help Sadie? Ha! She always did think she was better than us because her house was older. Lots of junk in the attic. Her house had a secret passage and lots of history. Talked like that thing was some kind of a museum. I was in there plenty of times, and it’s just a bunch of old junk.”
Her mother never forgot who Sadie was, but Andie never knew whether Addie would think that Sadie was her best friend, as she had been early in her life, or her biggest enemy, as she had been later in life.
Claire stood and patted Andie on the knee. “Maybe we can put our heads together and figure something out. That usually works when Jane and Maxi and I have a problem, and it just so happens I’m meeting the two of them at Splash at five o’clock. Why don’t you join us, and we’ll see what we can come up with?”
Andie’s heart swelled at the invitation, and she’d welcome having people to toss around ideas with. “Thanks, that sounds great.”
“Okay, see you then.” Claire and Rob said their goodbyes to Addie and left Andie to chat with her mother.
When Andie left two hours later after settling her mother in her recliner for a nap, she was in much better spirits. Addie’s good mood had been like sunshine for her soul, and the prospect of hashing over her problems with Jane, Claire, and Maxi at the beach bar they frequented made things seem not so insurmountable.
She ran into Jules Whitmore sitting on a bench outside Tall Pines. Jules had her head bent and was reading something. She looked a little down in the dumps.
“Hey, everything all right with your grandma?” Andie asked, remembering that she’d mentioned her grandmother was in failing health.
Jules looked up, wide brown eyes thoughtful. “Yes, thanks. Well, as good as they can be. She loved the Frozen Charlottes.”
“That’s great. Glad I could help.”
“I’m kind of glad I ran into you. I have a question.”
“Fire away.”
Jules sighed. “You had a big career in the city, right? I heard you telling Aunt Mary that your purpose and passion were to find an important antique. But now you’re here. Did you give up?”
The question gave Andie pause. Had she given up, or had her priorities changed? And was that good or bad? Earlier in the week she’d been questioning her decision to move to Lobster Bay until she’d gotten busy with the Thompson house. Would she start to question herself again once that project was over, or would she be content to stay here? But Andie was already fifty. Jules was much younger. She should encourage the girl to go for her dreams.
“I wouldn’t say I gave up. More like my priorities changed.”
“Right. So what you thought you wanted when you were younger isn’t as important now?”
She could already see Jules getting ready to shift priorities. That would be a big mistake. “Maybe, but I think if you really know what you want, you shouldn’t let anything stop you. Not at your age. Time goes by fast, and you don’t want to look back and have regrets because by then it could be too late.”
Jules squinted up at her, shading her eyes from the sun that filtered through the Japanese maple across from them. “So you don’t have any regrets?”
Did Andie have regrets? The past few days working at the Thompson house, she hadn’t thought about how “important” any of the antiques were. She’d been more focused on how she could help Emily. Maybe her important “thing” wasn’t about the antiques after all.
“Well, I did go for my dreams. And I did find some great antiques. Never anything that would get worldwide attention, but maybe that’s overrated.”
Now that she thought back, her most satisfying finds hadn’t been the ones with the most monetary value. They’d been the ones that had brought tears to the eyes of the families because of their sentimental value. Like the old diary she’d found from a client’s great-grandmother and the Civil War discharge papers rolled up in a trunk in the back of an attic. “But I think if you feel really drawn to something and you really want it, you owe it to yourself to try,” Andie said.
“I’m not sure what I want. I love Aunt Mary, and cutting hair is fine, but when I was helping to run one of Gram’s motels, that’s when I really felt like I was doing what I was supposed to do.” Jules sighed. “Of course, that didn’t work out very well. Besides, I couldn’t afford a motel anyway.”
“Maybe you could get hired on to manage one? You have experience, and then once you get some money saved up you could probably get a loan to buy your own.”
Jules’s eyes brightened at Andie’s suggestion. “Do you think so? I want to expand on Gram’s idea of boutique motels.”
“Boutique motels?” Andie was curious. Maybe this was something they could use for Tides.
“All of her motels have a theme. You know, like tropical, or lighthouses, or zoo themed. All the rooms are decorated for the theme. Like the zoo one had a room with a zebra-striped bedspread and zebra accents. That was the zebra room. Then we had a leopard room and so on.” Jules became more animated as she described the motels. She leaned toward Andie. “I want to do a vintage one with all cool yard sale finds.”
Jules’s excitement was contagious, and Andie found herself wondering if she could help the girl. Visions of them attending yard sales and antiques auctions together as she scouted out finds for her motel came to mind. But she was getting ahead of herself. Maybe right now the best way was with some friendly encouragement. “I think you should do it.”
Jules’s excitement faltered. “But I wasn’t very good at it before.”
Andie waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that. Think of that as a learning experience. Now you know what to do.”
Jules looked up at her, the smile slowly growing back. “Yeah, you know you could be right.”
Andie said goodbye and left with the elevated feeling one gets when they’ve really helped someone. Now if she could just figure out how to help the Thompsons. Hopefully Jane, Claire, and Maxi could help her figure that out when they got together at Splash.