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But we looked around. There were two small bedrooms, a bath and a half, a small shed off the side that housed the washer and dryer, and an attic, the entrance right above the fridge in the kitchen.
“As soon as it’s yours, I’ll hire my cleaning service to get in here and do something about that disgusting bathroom,” Pam said. “Oh my God, I can’t wait to tell Randy.”
We said goodbye to Rhonda, who seemed so pleased that I wondered if we shouldn’t have offered less.
Pam grabbed my hand as we trudged up the beach. It was still freezing out, but I didn’t feel the cold. My brain was on overdrive, thinking about the cottage. I tried to imagine my furniture from the apartment in the cottage. It was all wrong.
“I’m going to need to furniture shop if this goes through.”
“That’s my specialty,” Pam said.
“I can just imagine renovating that place!”
The excitement of renovating an old cottage had successfully shoved my worry about baby Yasmine, the idea of the police academy, and the slight by Ryan Maddox right out of my head.
Something creative, a goal to reach, perhaps requiring physical labor—now that was right up my alley. It reminded me of being in college a little; busy hands are happy hands. While my friends were apt to have drunken parties all weekend, I’d dress up and work, making more in one night than I made in a month researching. I’d promised myself I would never, ever have to do that again.
That Saturday, while we waited to hear from the agent, Pam and I spent time beachcombing despite the frigid temperatures, and I discovered focusing on the sand below my feet was a wonderful way to block out the noise around me.
One of the issues that began to haunt me was my past. When I’d left Chicago, I’d hoped what I had done there would stay there. That meant avoiding social media completely. Everyone I met in Manhattan asked me why I had no social media presence.
“I’m just not interested,” I lied.
Then Joan, my law student friend, had given me an idea. “Do what I do. Any social media presence I have as a law student has to be professional,” she said. “Future employers are going to search my social media, so I have my personal page restricted. You can fix your privacy settings so only those people you choose can see you.”
“I’ll think about it,” I’d said.
“Use your father’s last name,” she’d suggested. “No one here will find you. Anyway, don’t you think that some of your clients might have seen you on television?”
“Oh, shit! I never thought of that. As far as I know, no one has tried to contact me through the show. I should have used the name Braddock on the show.”
I decided to talk to Pam about it while we were looking for beach glass.
“Would you be okay if I used Braddock as my last name on social media? I have a few former dates I’d rather didn’t find me here,” I said honestly.
“It’s fine. I’m sure he’d be thrilled. Oh, look! Red glass!” She squatted to dig a piece of beach glass out of the sand.
So that solved it. I would be Laura Braddock on social media.
That afternoon, we got the news. The cottage owners had accepted our lowball offer without countering, which made me worry that we’d offered way too much, but it was a done deal. Pam contacted a thrilled Randy, who transferred the money without delay.
Flashing back to my senior year in college, when I’d needed to make a cash deposit in order to begin the master’s program, I got a little choked up at how easy everything had become for me since meeting Randy. Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
In desperation, I’d borrowed the money from my roommate, Joan, the law student, whose father was a judge. Judge Greenway hadn’t flinched, handing over ten grand to a stranger, trusting that I would find a way to pay him back.
One of the first things I had done upon accepting the job offer from Randy was to ask him for an advance on my salary so I could pay the judge back. Instead, he’d gotten in touch with Judge Greenway himself, tearfully thanked him for doing what Randy hadn’t been able to do for me, and paid him back with interest.
So here I was, the daughter of a hardworking single parent, living a charmed life because of my wealthy father, with my very own ramshackle beach cottage that needed about one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of renovation.
