Page 61 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
Roman and I both laughed, and Wyatt gave us a suspicious squint.
“We’re laughing because that was a funny joke, Wy. Not at you,” Roman said.
Another perfect response. Sometimes I forgot that Roman was a father. Gabriel had lived to nearly Wyatt’s age now; his father understood about teenagers.
I addressed the truly pressing point. “Bud, I’m just trying to see how to get you home safely afterward. I can pick you up—”
“Bailey says last year her grandma let her and her friends sleep in the diner that night, and she says she’ll do it this year, too. She makes up the back room like a dorm, and everybody brings a sleeping bag, then Catherine makes breakfast for everybody in the morning.”
That was a new wrinkle in the tradition, probably because now Catherine had a kid of her own to take care of. I found myself looking first to Roman, as if the decision needed his input. That was silly, and he only smiled back, waiting, like Wyatt, to hear what I’d say.
“Okay,” I said. “When we go back in, I’ll call Catherine and verify, and if you understand the situation correctly, yes. I can get behind that plan.”
“Yes!” my son cheered. “Awesome! Thank you!”
I hadn’t seen that exuberance from my son in a very long time.
AFTER DINNER, WE CLEANEDup the yard and carted the dishes and everything else into Roman’s kitchen. Wyatt had a little bit of homework after his first day of school, so he made himself comfortable in the living room and worked on that while Roman and I finished the cleanup.
First, though, I snagged my phone from my bag to call Catherine before it got too late. I wanted to be able to give Wyatt the full green light tonight, while he was still coasting on that high.
There was a notification on the screen—an email from the last of four banks where I’d applied for a loan. The other three had told me thanks but no thanks.
The preview text showed only the anodyne opening:Thank you for your application...
I tapped it and opened the full message.
Thanks but no thanks.
I was not going to get a loan. I was not going to be able to restore the Sea-Mist and get it open again. I was not going to be able to pay the back taxes, not even a negotiated lower amount.
I was going to lose the property.
“Leo?” Roman came over and set his hand on my back. It was damp from the sink. “You okay?”
I was too focused on fighting off despair to manufacture any words, so I handed my phone to him.
He took it, read the email, and muttered, “Fuck.”
“Yeah,” I managed. “That’s it, then. We lose. Manfred wins.”
“No,” he said at once, his tone one I’d never heard from him before: almost menacing in its resolve.
Thinking I knew why, I shook my head. “Don’t offer to lend me the money again, Ro. We’ve had that argument. It’s too much, and I don’t want it between us.”
“I know. And I see your point. I don’t want to put anything between us that makes pressure. But Manfred getting that property is more than you losing your inheritance. That’s huge, and you deserve something good from your mother, but it’s not the only thing. He wants to tear the forest down and put luxury condos and a fuckinggolf coursein there. It’ll change Bluster. It’llunmakeus.”
Maybe this mindset is unique in the US to coastal NorCal or the Pacific Northwest, I don’t know. I do know we have more than our share of counterculture oddballs hanging off both sides of the political spectrum. The one thing those two fringes tend to agree on is a general disdain for the very rich, and that means there’s a hard limit to what they’ll tolerate in terms of those political buckets of bullshit like ‘job creation’ and ‘wealth opportunities.’
Bluster is situated on some of the most beautiful land in the entire world. Redwood forests. The Pacific Ocean. Mountains and beaches, all within a sedate half-hour’s drive of each other. To the north on 101 and to the south, some communities have welcomed the kind of development that make them tourist destinations. But Bluster has resisted. Hard.
The only chain restaurant in town is a McDonald’s. The only guest accommodations, aside from a few Airbnb bungalows locals offer, is the Sea-Mist and the relatively new, eight-room Bluster Inn, a bed and breakfast.
We aren’t hostile to tourists—in fact, while I was away, the town buffed up the sheen on Bluster specifically to draw tourists in. Two new restaurants opened. We have a couple of small museums and other minor attractions like mini-golf and bowling. A new sign went up on 101 advertising the few blocks of Bower Street with the kind of quaint shops that lure in passersby. There’s also the marina, and the lighthouse the town reverted to human-operatedbecauseit has tourist appeal.
Bluster doesn’t mind tourists. But we prefer our visitors to stop by on their way somewhere else. We don’t want outsiders changing who we are.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, Manfred’s luxury condo and golf course development would likely be embraced with open arms and celebrated with a parade. In Bluster, California, not even the mayor was excited about it. Darryl Manfred being a festering asshole didn’t help.
