Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“Did you make any new friends?” Grandma prompts.
“No. But that’s okay. I’ll see Joy while in town, and Peyton might come visit for a week or two in August.” I wander over to the baking trays and study the muffin selections. “I still wish I didn’t let you talk me out of getting a job this summer.”
Grandma plucks off a small piece of her bran muffin. As long as I’ve known her, her breakfast has consisted of a muffin and a cup of tea. That’s probably how she’s maintained her figure all these years.
“Cass, sweetheart, if you’d gotten a job, well, then you wouldn’t be able to have breakfast with me, would you?”
“That’s a good point.” I select a banana nut muffin and grab a small glass plate from the cupboard, then join her at the table. A little walnut falls off my muffin, and I pop it into my mouth. “So what are we doing today?”
“I thought we’d go into town and browse some of the new shops that have opened up? Levi Hartley has taken it upon himself to revamp the entire boardwalk. His construction company has been making its way through all the establishments hurt by the hurricane, fixing them up one by one. There’s a very nice hat shop I passed the other day that I wouldn’t mind visiting.”
Only Grandma Lydia would want to go to a hat shop. The only hat I’ve ever worn is the Briar U baseball cap they handed out at freshman orientation, and that’s because they forced us to put them on in order to swear fealty to our new school. I think it’s somewhere in the back of my closet now.
“Hat shopping. I can’t wait.”
She snorts softly.
“And I need to find a present for the girls’ birthday, so I wouldn’t mind peeking into a couple of those kid stores. Oh! Any chance we can pop into the hotel too? I really want to see what they did inside.”
“So do I,” Grandma says, a slight frown touching her lips. “The young woman who bought it—Mackenzie Cabot—promised she would preserve your grandfather’s and my intent for the property, maintain its charm and character. She sent me the drawings of the upgrades they’d be doing, along with pictures of her progress. They indeed showed her commitment to restoring everything as close to the original as possible. But I haven’t received an update since early June.”
Her concern is evident. I know that was Grandma’s biggest fear—the Beacon becoming completely unrecognizable. The hotel was her legacy. It survived three hurricanes, was lovingly rebuilt by my grandparents twice. They put everything they had into it. Their blood, sweat, and tears. Their love. And it irks me, just a bit, that not a single one of their four children fought to keep it in the family.
My two uncles, Will and Max, live in Boston with their wives, and they each have three young kids. Both were adamant they weren’t going to relocate to the South to renovate a hotel they didn’t care about. Aunt Jacqueline and her husband, Charlie, have a house in Connecticut, three kids, and zero interest in dipping their toes in the hospitality industry. And then there’s Mom, who has a full social calendar in Boston and is busy spending her ex-husband’s money, which at this point is out of pure spite because she went into the marriage independently wealthy; the Tanners are worth millions. But my former stepdad Stuart made the mistake of being the one to ask for a divorce, and my mother is nothing if not petty.
I scarf down the rest of my muffin before hopping out of my chair.
“Okay, if we’re going into town, let me change into something a little more presentable,” I say, gesturing to my ratty shorts and loose T-shirt. “I can’t be going hat shopping in this.” I aim a pointed glare at Grandma’s impeccably pressed chinos, sleeveless shirt, and striped silk scarf. “Especially next to you. Like, jeez, lady. You look like you’re going to a luncheon with a Kennedy.”
She chuckles. “Have you forgotten my most important rule of life, dear? Always leave the house dressed as if you’re going to—”
“—be murdered,” I finish, rolling my eyes. “Oh, I remember.”
I tell ya, Grandma can get dark sometimes. But it’s good advice. I think about it often, in fact. One time I accidentally left my dorm wearing my must-do-laundry panties, the neon-orange ones with the huge hole in the crotch. When I realized it, I almost broke out in hives at the thought that if I were to be killed today, the coroner would undress me on that metal slab and my crotch hole would be the first thing they saw. I’d be the only blushing dead body in the morgue.
Upstairs, I find a pink sundress and slip it on, then braid my hair. My phone rings as I’m slapping an elastic band around the end of the braid. It’s Peyton. I didn’t call her back when I got home last night, but I did send an intentionally cryptic text I knew would drive her nuts.