My mother had surprised me when she’d shown up at the Earthly Charm open house, saying she wanted to become involved in Dragonfly Lake life again and start making connections for our project. Like me, she hadn’t really fit in before, being the wife of a tyrant and having practically more money than the entire rest of the town combined. In the past, her social life had been more wrapped up in Nashville’s high society. That was where the galas were, the benefits, the organizations she’d chosen to volunteer for back when she still lived with Felix and me.
She was starting over here, just like I had.
Somehow, as if some higher power was making things happen for us, she’d ultimately found our buyer at the open house when Dakota had introduced her to Ian Finley, Dakota’s grumpy billionaire roommate. Long story short, Ian was more than qualified to purchase Lansford, and he’d been looking for a business opportunity now that he’d walked away from Wall Street. Lansford was in his wheelhouse.
Over the past week, our lawyers and his had worked nonstop to forge an agreement that would work for all of us. It wasn’t finalized yet—we were told that could take weeks—but Dave, my grandfather’s estate attorney who’d sat in for most of the negotiations, said he didn’t foresee any problems cropping up.
In the meantime, we were working on plans for our nonprofit. We’d lined up the assistance of more lawyers and a nonprofit consultant my mother had met years ago through her volunteer efforts.
Today my mother and I were at the Dragonfly Diner for a late lunch work session to organize our ideas before we had our first official meeting with the consultant. Presley’s wedding was only two days away, so my plate was overflowing, but now that my mother and I had our purpose, we were both impatient to get the ball rolling.
“You ladies look like you’ve got some serious business going on here,” Patrick, the server, said, making a circle with his hand to indicate my mother’s notebook and my laptop on the table. “Are we ordering lunch today or just having beverages?”
“Definitely lunch,” I said.
We put our orders in, then got down to business.
The consultant had sent us some materials with an overview of topics we needed to address.
“The first question is where we want to locate,” I said, glancing at the list. “I think we’ll have to build.”
“I agree,” my mother said. “Finding a property that would work for everything we want would be a long shot.”
“We’ll need apartments and a headquarters for offices. Classrooms, community center, a workout facility…”
“What do you think about a medical clinic?” my mom asked. “Maybe we could get doctors to volunteer their time for a few hours each month. These people likely won’t have health insurance at first, so what do they do for health care?”
“Good idea. We could do the same for counseling. Why don’t we start a wish list of all the things we’d like. A dream list with no budget restrictions for now. That’ll come later.”
“I like that. Our pie-in-the-sky list,” she said.
I opened a new document on my laptop and added the items we’d already mentioned.
“What if we had a community kitchen where residents could apply their lessons in cooking and nutrition?” I asked. “Kind of a cooperative setup.”
“That would cut down on paid staff if residents had some responsibilities like cooking, cleaning, landscaping…”
“I love that,” I said. “We could even turn these into hourly jobs so people can begin earning a paycheck right away. If we’d have to pay someone to staff the kitchen anyway?—”
“It might as well be a resident who needs an income.”
“Exactly.” I typed in some notes. “Are you thinking Nashville or Dragonfly Lake or somewhere in between?”
Patrick dropped off our lunch, so I pushed my laptop to the side but kept it close enough I could type. My stomach growled at the aroma of the juicy cheeseburger and fries on my plate.
“I’d forgotten how good simple diner food can be,” my mother said.
I didn’t imagine a diner was someplace she’d ever frequented. When I was growing up, we’d had a cook, so we hadn’t dined out often. When we had, it was often to some high-dollar, fine-dining establishment in Nashville.
“We might have more options in Nashville,” my mom said, going back to my question about location, “but I’d prefer Dragonfly Lake. It’s a lot more peaceful, more of a respite.”
I agreed. “Maybe we could start a program with local businesses to help residents get entry-level jobs,” I suggested.
“That would certainly be easier here in town where nearly everything is a mom-and-pop.”
“And we know a lot of the owners,” I added. “The trick will be finding suitable land. We’ll need a real estate agent to start the search soon.”
We spent the next forty-five minutes talking about the rest of the list—our mission statement, researching similar organizations, and what we needed to set up legally, financially, and staffwise.
