Page 40 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
I stared at him stonily. I’d lived a whole childhood at the mercy of a cruel asshole. While Manfred might have scared me a little, there was no chance in any hell I’d show it.
Mayor Holt cleared his throat. He had a mic clipped to his lapel. “Leo has the floor,” he said. “Any other speakers will have their turn after she’s finished.”
Manfred bowed and made an ushering gesture with his hand and arm, like he was making way for a lady. He really was an asshole. Grade-A Prime.
So I had the floor, but I’d said what I wanted to say, which was simply that yeah, we were planning to try to open the Sea-Mist again. So there were a few seconds where everyone satstaring at me while I frantically scurried around in my brain trying to figure out what I should keep saying.
My brain grabbed at a thought, and all at once I knew how to proceed. I didn’t know then if it was something Ishouldsay, but I definitely wanted to.
“The other day, Wyatt and I came back home from registering him at the high school, and there was a strange car parked in front of our cabin. We didn’t see anyone around up front, so we did a turn through the property. We found this man”—I pointed at Manfred like I was about to shoutJ’accuse!—“trespassing. He was standing in Cottage 12, acting like he belonged there. When I told him I was the owner and he wasn’t welcome, he made it very clear that he felt entitled to the property. So I want to make it equally clear right here in front of everyone: The Sea-Mist is mine. I am my mother’s heir. My son and I intend to stay in Bluster. We intend to get the Sea-Mist back in shape and open the business again. In the event that something happens to change that plan and I decide to sell, I will not be interested in any offer from Darryl Manfred or anyone he represents.”
With that, I handed the mic to Amelie and sat down. Roman took my hand and leaned close to whisper into my ear. “That wasexcellent!”
Flush with pride, and anxiety, I smiled and squeezed his hand. “Thanks.”
Unfortunately, that little moment of self-satisfaction didn’t last long. Manfred had the mic.
His tone now was markedly different from the way he’d spoken to me the other day. There was no hint of condescension, threat, or irritation in his voice now. He sounded like a perfectly reasonable man only trying to conduct his business.
“My name is Darryl Manfred. Many of you are familiar with me—I’ve been to a few of these town meetings over the past fewyears. If you are familiar with me, you know that I have, indeed, been trying to secure a purchase of the Sea-Mist. Mrs. Braddock and I had come to terms, but she passed—God rest her soul—before we could finalize the deal. Since then, until just two weeks ago, that beautiful property sat neglected. Miss Braddock here says the Sea-Mist is hers, but she didn’t care when her mother was sick, or when she died, and she didn’t care about the property for years afterward. Even so, of course she is currently the legal owner of the Sea-Mist. The law doesn’t care if children are good to their parents.”
Roman’s fingers tightened around mine, but I barely noticed. I was focused on Manfred, and I saw the flicker of venom in his smile now. I didn’t care about his dumb dig, but he had something else up his sleeve, I could tell.
His eyes locked with mine, and that poison smile sharpened. “I know Miss Braddock has a lot of things going on. She’s just arrived, she’s living with her child in a cabin that’s sat neglected for years, and she’s got serious financial issues stemming from bad investments by her deceased husband. And there’s significant damage to at least one of the cottages, which might, in fact, need to be razed and rebuilt. With all that going on, probably she forgot that property taxes accrue whether or not a property is in use. Mrs. Braddock had fallen behind already before she died. It’s one of the reasons she was so glad for my offer. The bill is now significant, and more than five years in arrears.” Throwing me a subtle, nasty wink, Manfred turned to face the council table. “I wonder, Mayor Holt, has the town sent Miss Braddock a tax bill yet, and if so, has she paid it?”
My hand went slack in Roman’s hold. In fact I had forgotten about property taxes. Also, I now understood how and why Manfred had been scheming to get the property out from under me. If the bill was five years unpaid, it wasn’t eminent domain he was trying to use.
It was foreclosure.
The mayor looked at me as he answered. “I won’t discuss billing matters with private citizens in a town meeting.”
His expression was gentle, and I understood that he was trying to give me some cover. I appreciated that, but my insides were on fire with panic. Five years of unpaid taxes on a thirty-acre property in Northern California? I didn’t know the amount, but it had to bewellinto five figures, if not more. There was no way I could pay that.
Foreclosure. Again. I couldn’t go through that again.
“Property taxes are public record, Jerry,” Manfred said, his tone more pointed now.
“But billing matters are not. Do you have other business for the open forum, Mr. Manfred?”
Manfred stared at the mayor long enough for the silence to become rhetorical. Then, with a brisk nod, he handed the mic back to Amelie and strode back up the aisle, past scores of fascinated townspeople, and straight out the door.
As Amelie hurried off to the next person with their hand up, the mayor gave me a paternal smile and mouthedWe’ll talk.
I nodded, but I was really scared. If I had to pay that bill soon and in full, I was screwed.
SIXTEEN: Rough Day
Iwas screwed.
Early in the week following that town meeting, I sat in the mayor’s office—a much more humble space than you might imagine of a mayor’s office, but Bluster is a humble town—and stared at the paper in my hand: the property tax bill for the Sea-Mist. Mayor Holt sat in his chair across his Office Depot desk and looked at me with sympathy. Or maybe just plain pity. There’s a fine line between those emotions.
If I had to guess? Pity.
My mother had last paid her property taxes six years earlier. California allowed foreclosure proceedings after five years of unpaid taxes. This was the crux of Manfred’s smug antagonism: if the administrations of Bluster, Del Norte County, or the state of California so chose, they could foreclose on me right then. My one saving grace was that Mayor Holt was Team Leo. He didn’t want to foreclose, and nobody at the county or state level had noticed me.
Yet. No doubt Manfred had started addressing that oversight the minute he left the town meeting.
I was learning very quickly, sitting here in the mayor’s office, how ruefully ill-informed and ill-equipped I was for taking on this ‘inheritance.’ Until right now, I’d had no clear sense of the property’s value. I’d figured thirty Northern California acres of mainly redwood forest, half a mile from the Pacific coast, was probably worth some money, whether or not the business itself was an asset or a deficit to the value. But that was an unsubstantial, half-believed notion floating around in my head.
