Page 25 of The Treasure House

“Well, nothing’s been decided yet,” Jake broke in with his usual dourness.

“You must be close at least,” Elton told me. “You’re the first person the family approved to even see the place.” Elton looked up at the house. “Well, I can’t deny she’s a darling old girl and worth protecting from blood-sucking developers. You should have seen her back in her day…” He pointed to his own house, with its lemon-drop yellow door. “She was as pretty as my place back then.”

“Who?” Flo demanded.

“Your house,” he told her affably. “She wasn’t always like this.”

“How do you know it’s a girl?”

“Houses are always girls. Houses and ships.”

“How come?” Flo considered the house.

I hurried to interrupt, knowing from experience that Flo’s curious questions could spiral into chaos very quickly. “Have you lived here on Tinker Street a long time, Mr. Coutts?”

“Oh, well, that depends on what you mean by lived. This place was our summer house, the wife and I, for close on thirty years—but I would consider that vacationing, rather than living. Most of the year we lived in Boston.”

“Don’t you live while you’re on vacation?” Flo asked. “And you had a whole house just for summers?” She let out a low whistle, something she’d recently learned how to do. “You must be rich. This is our first and only house, and we can only afford it because it looks like a trash heap.”

“Flo!”

“What? It’s true.”

“Two houses is more than is strictly necessary, I agree,” Mr. Coutts—Elton—said genially. “But this is my only house now. When my wife passed away, I moved here full time. What did I need with a big house in Boston, when there was just me? And it’s nice to be here, where we made all our best memories.” His gaze drifted back to our witchy house in its tangle of green. “There’s lots of memories in old houses, good and bad, but your new home holds some golden ones.”

I followed his gaze to where the shingled treasure house sat buried in overgrowth.

“Well, the day’s getting on,” Jake said abruptly. “We don’t want to hold Ms. Copeland up much longer; she’s got a long drive home.”

I bristled. I had no plans to drive home yet. “It’s Zoe,” I reminded him sourly.

“You seem pretty set on getting rid of us,” Flo told Jake as he propelled us to our car. She turned to wave to Mr. Coutts. “Is it because you want to buy the house yourself? Is this a plot? Are you trying to steal our house off us?”

Jake looked genuinely horrified. “I can’t think of anything worse than owning that place.”

“Good. Because it’s ours. Right, Mom?”

“Yes,” I said, stopping when we reached the hardware store. “I’m going to call the agent now.” My heart was pounding. Oh my God, I was about to buy a house. A junk house. At least I was if the family would sell it to me. It sounded like they were pretty picky.

“This is really what you want?” Jake looked concerned, like I’d told him I was about to jump in the bay and swim across the Atlantic.

“It’s what we came for,” I reminded him, feeling snappy over his relentless interfering.

Jake shook his head in disbelief, his tousled hair falling across his sunglasses. “You must be half crazy.”

I remembered the other houses I’d sifted through online. “This house is a find,” I told him fervently. “You should see some of the others out there.”

“Yeah, well don’t tell Gail that or she’ll ratchet the price up.” He smiled but still didn’t look happy. “You might want to start a tab at my store,” he suggested dryly. “I can order in the things you need as you need them. You’re going to be renovating for a long time.” He gave Flo a rueful look. “And you better get used to Moxie, kid, if you’re going to be a Mainer.” Mainah.

“You better keep stocking lemonade,” Flo scoffed.

He shook his head, as though disappointed, but there was a glimmer of humor in his expression. “You got any idea when you’ll be moving?” he asked me. “And are you sure you don’t want another look at the place before you make your mind up?”

“We’ll be here before school starts in the fall.” I ignored his suggestion about seeing the house again. Maybe I was worried it would look worse on a second viewing. Right now I was clinging to memories of that long attic bedroom and its sea views—it was proof of what the house could be.

“Okay.” He sighed. “Well, welcome to the neighborhood, I guess.”

Jake watched us as we climbed back into the car.