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We spend the rest of the afternoon clearing out the kitchen area in the rear of the ice cream parlor, which took the worst of the damage.
Ryan cranks on some tunes and we sing along while we work. It passes the time because there’s nothing fun about hauling out broken plaster, wood with rusty nails, and cracked tile.
“Why aren’t we hiring a company to do this?” I ask Ryan when we meet by the dumpster.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I say.
“Seriously?”
He shakes his head slowly like it’s a revelation. “No, Chip did most of the work himself on the properties, so it didn’t occur to me. But now that you mention it...”
“We’re almost done, anyway,” I say, never one to back down from a challenge.
“That’s the spirit. But I should ask Royal for contractor recommendations since there is a lot of work ahead of us.”
On the radio, the song changes and we get back to work, singing along. Who’d have thought Ryan and I would genuinely have fun together, destroying an ice cream joint? Though I guess we’re tearing down to build back up.
The rest of the afternoon zooms by. I’m working on removing the last of a supplies shelf in the bathroom when I shift the base and a panel cut out of the sheetrock falls onto the floor. It may have been a plumbing repair that didn’t get taped, mudded, and painted with the lazy worker thinking it wouldn’t be noticed behind the shelf. From inside the cavity in the wall, white writing against red metal catches my eye.
Inside, I find an old coffee can. “I think I found some treasure,” I call to Ryan.
He’s beside me in a flash. “Really?”
“No, but maybe someone made a time capsule or hid their deepest, darkest secrets in this old can of Folgers coffee.”
“Dark secrets? Makes sense, it is a dark roast.”
I playfully roll my eyes. “Har har.”
“Chip liked Folgers’ Brazilian blend, a medium roast.”
I pass the can to Ryan since technically, this place is his. He removes the lid and then pulls out a stack of cards. “Recipe cards like your aunt’s coconut crunch?”
“Ice cream secrets?”
Ryan unties the string holding them together and plucks the first one from the pile, flashing it at me. It’s a classic white sand beach overlooking turquoise water and saysHello from the Bahamas.
“It’s a postcard.”
He reads the reverse side. “From my great Aunt Lorena, Chip’s sister.”
“That’s a strange thing to hide in a can in a wall.”
“What’s even stranger is this one is signed LorenaandJohnny.”
“Weren’t you guys saying she was married to Gerome Glandman? Perhaps she had a secret affair.”
“Maybe, but why would she send my uncle postcards with her new guy’s info too?”
“Because she knew her brother despised Glandman.”
Ryan shakes his head. “Something doesn’t add up.”
“Maybe it’ll make more sense after you read them all.”
There are at least a dozen, all with similar images of beaches, but with different greetings, including ones fromBeautiful Jamaica,Sunny Barbados, andAdventures in Aruba.
“Looks like she was island hopping...for years,” I add, noting the dates spanning over a decade.
