Page 33 of The Spotted Cottage By the Sea
My goodness, she was serious. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ve done something reckless.”
Eliza smiled. “Yeah sure, Mom. Like that one time you said you were going to live on the wild side and you declined the rental car insurance?”
A faint smile crossed Sheila’s face. “No. Not like that.”
“Did you go and yell at another neighbor?” Patty asked, then laughed at her own joke.
“No.” Sheila let out a sigh and dropped her voice. “I think I might be getting arrested soon.”
Fifteen
He hated to leave the table just then, but his business partner had called three times. Something was up.
Russell waited to answer until he was out of earshot. “Harry, what’s going on?”
Maybe if it was a quick conversation, he could go back to Patty’s. Maybe he could get Sheila to speak to him, or justlookat him. He’d take her yelling at him. Anything, really, to be the focus of her mesmerizing intensity again.
It made him feel…well,something. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but after hiding for the past few years, it was something he couldn’t stop thinking about.
“We’ve had a bit of excitement at Funland,” Harry said. “Nothing to worry you, and nothing that will cost you money.”
Russell laughed. That was good because he didn’t plan on spending any more money on the park. Buying partial ownership had been Holly’s idea. She’d shot a movie there, a thriller calledRace on a Roller Coaster Heart, and after the movie was successful, she felt sentimental about the park. The owner offered to let her become a part owner, and she had taken the deal.
During the divorce, he couldn’t understand why she gave it to him as an asset. Now, after dealing with all the unexpected bills and years of deferred maintenance, he understood it hadn’t been a gift.
“Someone broke into the whale stadium last night,” Harry said, quickly adding, “Nothing was taken, and nothing was broken. Lottie’s okay, too.”
“Ah, man,” Russell covered his eyes with his hand. “That’s a huge liability, Harry. We can’t have people getting into the park at night and getting themselves hurt.”
“I know, and it’s being taken care of.”
“What were they doing? Did they catch him?”
“Not yet, and who knows? We have camera footage, but we can’t make out the person’s face. We’ve got a team working on it. They’re going to beef up our security and track this person down.”
“All right. Well, keep me updated, I guess.”
They ended the call and Russell took a seat on one of his patio chairs. He felt bad, but what was he supposed to do? He had no control over how the park ran.
In truth, he’d wanted to sell off his ownership, but he couldn’t find anyone to buy it.
It was something he could talk to Sheila about: how to unload this asset. It could be part of a bigger conversation about how to put his financial life back together.
Perhaps he’d been too passive in the divorce. He didn’t really fight with Holly for anything. He should’ve, at the very least, made her keep this park. But he hadn’t.
She’d always handled all the money, told him what they could and couldn’t afford. Since Holly had left, he’d made some big purchases – a home outside of Yellowstone. A new truck. An investment into a documentary. Repairs at the park.
He was, truthfully, afraid to look at his expenses. Afraid to see what sort of financial trajectory he was on. It didn’t feel like it was going well, and if he faced it, he might have to do another movie. That was impossible.
Sheila could look out for him. She could give him the bad news, tell him what he had to sell off. Whatever she told him, he would do. He trusted her not to sugarcoat or lie or to try to get anything from him.
The thought startled him and he turned away from the vast ocean view.
It had been years since he felt like he could trust someone. It was a good sign. She could be his financial advisor. It was another perk of moving here – meeting non-Hollywood types.
Yeah, that was all. He got up and went back home.
