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Charlotte tilted her head. The stoic expression she’d worn since he’d arrived softened. He felt as though he was on trial in her mind, as though she weighed up the pros and cons of knowing him and letting him work at the inn, taking stock of his hairstyle and his clothing and his clear privilege in the world. There was so much she couldn’t know about him, even as she dug into him like this.
Finally, Charlotte threw up her hands. “What’s the process of something like this?”
Charlie’s heartbeat quickened.Finally, he thought. He had something to do with his hands, something that had nothing to do with the dark memories in the back of his mind.
“I’ll draw up some plans,” Charlie said. “And I’ll show them to you in a few days. How does that sound?”
Charlotte’s cheek twitched as though something had just occurred to her, as though she wanted to call it all off. But somewhere behind the living room wall came the sound of a wailing baby. It was hard to imagine anywhere near that sparse living room being hospitable for humans. Charlie remembered there was an apartment attached to the inn, that this was where Charlotte’s grandfather lived full-time.
“I have to run,” Charlotte admitted. “My daughter just had a baby, and I’m helping out as much as I can. I hate to admit it, but I forgot how hard it is when they’re so little. When they need so much.”
Charlie’s heart thudded with memories of his own. Instead of agreeing with her or showing her an ounce of his own honesty, he said, “Thanks for this opportunity, by the way. Can I walk around a little bit more and get the lay of the land?”
“Of course. There’s a key beneath the mat out front. Lock out when you go.”
Charlotte disappeared through the back door of the living room, where it looked like she entered an intermediate room that led to the front door of the family apartment. Charlie inspected this after she’d arrived safely on the other side. Already, the baby had been quieted, and Charlie could hear the soft murmurs of Charlotte and another woman, her daughter, through the door. A part of him wanted to stand there and feel the vibrations of their sentences through the wood, to feel a part of the dynamics of their loving family. It had been ages since he’d felt he belonged to something real.
When he finally managed to pull himself away from the apartment door, Charlie walked around the Cherry Inn for over an hour, envisioning its future. He crept up the staircase, which was surprisingly stable, entered each of the suites, and even turned on his phone for the first time to make notes to himself. Already, he’d begun to anticipate guests from the elite Manhattan crowd, who required a different sort of luxury than the typical small-town inns often offered. One of the inns he’d flipped in Bar Harbor had gone on to be deemed a five-star hotel, with guests paying upwards of fifteen-hundred dollars a night to stay in its suites. If he focused, he could push the Cherry Inn in that direction. He imagined the article written about his quest:“Charlie Bryant has done it again.”The minute the idea came into his mind, he shook it away again. He thought he didn’t care about the accolades. Maybe he wasn’t as immune to praise as he thought.
But with his phone back on, text messages began to pepper in— at first slowly and then all at once, with messages from email, Skype, and different texting services dinging in wildly. Many of them were from Timothy, alternating between demanding to know where he was and thanking him for the sizeable Christmas bonus Charlie had sent. Many were from Baxter Bailey and Baxter’s secretary, inquiring about his “new project” outside of the city. And several more messages were from women he’d recently gone on dates with, none of whom he wanted to see again. To them, he seemed lonely, dark, and brooding, which was exactly the sort of man many women wanted to “change” and to “save.” He knew he was beyond saving. Probably Charlotte could sense that, too. That’s why she looked at him that way. Before they could pester him more, Charlie turned his phone to Airplane mode, bent on never returning to the real world again. He had a job to do.
* * *
All night, the following day, and the morning after that, Charlie labored over his plans for the Cherry Inn. In his little cabin in the woods, he spent the hours at the table by the fire, his glasses drawn over the bridge of his nose, sketching with his pencil as the fire crackled and spat. Frequently, he paused to draw a knife over the tip of his pencil, sharpening it in the way he remembered his own grandfather sharpening his pencils so many years ago. In the evenings, Charlie alternated between stiff whiskey, some good stuff he picked up at the White Plains liquor store, and black coffee, and he fell through dreamlands, imagining the Cherry Inn not only coming back to life— but having a brand-new spirit. People would journey from miles around to enter the gorgeous, fairy tale-like Victorian home. But beyond the historical exterior, they would enter into a state-of-the-art interior with glass walls, a modern and sleek fireplace, and contemporary art paintings. The suites upstairs would be modern, the bathroom walls made of stone, and the showers like waterfalls. Gone would be this “cutesy” inn feel. That was one of the reasons people had stopped coming to the Cherry Inn in the first place, he decided. People didn’t want cutesy anymore. They liked history— but they wanted to take a photograph of the exterior of the historical inn and then enjoy the luxurious interior, which transported the inn to the twenty-first century.
This was how he would save the inn.
After nearly forty-eight hours of sketching, pondering, erasing, and designing, Charlie decided he needed to leave the cabin again. The night before, there’d been nearly six inches of snow, and in the fresh light of the morning, he trudged through in his snow boots, adjusting his leather bag filled with his designs over his shoulder. He remembered seeing an adorable diner just off of Main Street in White Plains, and he had a hunch they had everything he currently craved, including bacon, eggs, and blueberry pancakes. Perhaps his diet of sandwiches, soups, and whiskey wasn’t cutting it anymore.
The diner was called Jeez, Louise, and it was little more than a hut with ten booths. There was a jukebox in the corner, and mirrors hung on most of the walls. A woman in her late sixties carried a pot of coffee as she whisked through the tables, her legs muscular from a lifetime of waitressing. She greeted Charlie with an easy smile and said, “Take any booth.”
Charlie slid into a booth near the window. Without asking, the woman placed a cup on his table and filled it with black coffee. “How are you doing this fine day, sir?”
“Just fine,” Charlie said. “Hungry.”
“You’re in the right place,” the woman said.
Charlie ordered exactly what he’d come for— eggs over-easy, bacon crispy, and blueberry pancakes, the extra tall stack. The woman didn’t write anything down. Probably, waitresses like her had better memories than most people in the world; probably, they could have handled world politics better than most leaders due to their coolness in the face of stress.
As Charlie waited for his food, he pulled out his designs for the Cherry Inn and splayed them across the table. In the back was the sound of spitting grease. The smell of batter on the griddle filled the air. Maybe he would gain a few pounds out here. Maybe he’d finally lose that “Manhattan six-pack” he’d worked so hard for. He imagined what Timothy would say if he saw him: “Charlie, I’ve signed you up for a meeting with your personal trainer. It’s time.” But Charlie never wanted to see a personal trainer again. He wanted to eat pancakes. He wanted to laugh more. He wanted to inhale the goodness of this small town.
When the waitress arrived with an enormous breakfast platter, she stopped before she put the plate down and inspected the designs across the table. Charlie beamed with pride.
“What’s all this?” she asked.
“Do you know the Cherry Inn?”
The woman arched her eyebrow. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Yes. I figured, in such a small town, you would have. Well, I’m a developer, and I’m going to flip it! Look.” Charlie traced his finger through the design of the new, modern, and sleek foyer, explaining his concept. “People don’t want ‘cute inns’ anymore. They want to feel a part of history without actually dropping themselves into history. You know?”
“I think I do,” the woman said, still holding up his breakfast platter.
“And here, look,” Charlie went on, gesturing toward his plans for one of the upstairs rooms. “This has been the library, which obviously doesn’t bring in any revenue for the inn. My plan is to tear down this wall and make this the biggest suite in the entire inn. With the right accoutrements, the owners can charge an arm and a leg for people to stay in this suite. Especially because the window of the library overlooks Main Street.”
The woman’s cheek twitched. She hadn’t smiled once throughout Charlie’s entire presentation.
“And here…” Charlie pointed toward the living room. “I was thinking…”
