Tessa opened the dishwasher and put her mug on the top rack. “The plan for today is not to have a panic attack.”
“I’m serious,” Carolyn said. “You need to know what you’re going to do. Have you called the man who runs the homeowners’ association for your building yet? Have you filed a claim with insurance for the condo and your car?”
“Mama, it’s six thirty in the morning,” she said. “I’ll call the HOA guy at a decent hour, and I’ll contact the insurance company as soon as I get to work. Speaking of working, I should probably get going. The office is probably flooded with calls.” Then she snorted a sad laugh. “Flooded. Punnotintended.”
Carolyn side-eyed her and stirred more sugar into her coffee. “Now, don’t mope around all day feeling sorry for yourself. Lots of people are in worse states than you.”
Tessa huffed. “I don’t have a car or a place to live.”
“You have your health.”
“Not mymentalhealth,” Tessa mumbled.
“Don’t sass me.”
Tessa’s shoulders sagged as she exhaled. “I know you’re right. It could be worse, and I’m grateful for a place to stay.”
“Don’t forget to take your things with you.”
Tessa blinked at her mama. “What do you mean?”
“You know your dad and I are leaving town. We’ve committed to house swap with that couple from Washington.”
The words oozed like cold cane syrup through Tessa’s brain. “Huh?”
“The house swap,” Carolyn said, enunciating each word clearly. “We won’t be back until July.”
Brakes squealed in Tessa’s head. “Hold up. July? It’s April. You can’t leave. I don’t have a place to live. What am I gonna do?” She swayed on her feet.
“First, you’re gonna calm down. Come over here and sit before you fall and crack your head on the tiles.”
Tessa slumped into a chair, dropping her head onto her folded arms. “Mama,” she whined, her words echoing in the hollow cave created by her body and the table, “can I geta littlesympathy?”
“A little, yes. But we’ve had this trip planned for months. We had no way of knowing the town would flood, and it’s too late to change our plans. The renters know about the flood, but our house is just fine, and the town is already drying. They’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. What about Mrs. Borelli’s offer?”
Tessa lifted her head. She’d nearly forgotten. “I should take that?”
Carolyn sipped her coffee. “Do you haveanotherplan?” When Tessa shook her head, her mama sighed. “Then, yes, but you need to work on what you’re going to do next. You can’t mooch off the Borellis indefinitely.” Before Tessa could argue that she wasn’t planning onmoochingoff anyone, Carolyn continued. “How will you get to work? You know you can borrow the Caddy.”
Tessa cringed as she thought about driving the 1979 orange Cadillac Eldorado again. Wasn’t it bad enough that she’d had to drive it all through high school while people called it “the Great Pumpkin”? It reeked of headache-inducing, vanilla-scented car air freshener. The air conditioning didn’t work, and it was nearly as long as a school bus.
During the hot summer months in Mystic Water, the cracked leather seats could cause second-degree burns on any exposed skin. Tessa remembered many afternoons when she’d climbed out of the car soaked in sweat, with her hair plastered to her neck in sticky strands. She still blamed the car for her lack of high school dates.
“Oh, don’t look like you’ve eaten a sour grape,” Carolyn scolded. “A car is a car, and right now, you don’t have one.”
Less than an hour later, Tessa borrowed the Great Pumpkin with a reluctance she hadn’t felt since high school. But her mama was right. A hideous operational car was better than a sleek sunken one. She parked downtown in front of Andrews Real Estate, a company her mama started more than thirty years ago. She checked voice messages first. A slew of clients—buyers, sellers, and renters—inquired about the current state of Mystic Water after the worst flood the town had seen in at least sixty years. A few sellers wanted to know if their closings would still happen, others wanted to discuss property values, some renters were stranded with nowhere to go because their properties were underwater just like Tessa’s, and the final message was from a cryptic out-of-towner who left her number and asked for a return call with no explanation. Tessa jotted her number on a sticky note before going through a mental list of whom she needed to call first, starting with her own insurance company to start filing claims for flood damage.
By early afternoon Tessa felt like she’d called nearly everyone in town, including the president of the HOA for her condo building, to ascertain accurate and up-to-date details on Mystic Water. She’d unfolded a map of Mystic Water on her desk and outlined the seriously affected areas with a blue highlighter. Her condo was contained within a blue boundary of devastation.
Staring at the map, self-pity surged through Tessa. Her grandma Mildred would have said this was a sign. “A sign of what?” Tessa would ask. She could almost hear her grandma’s slow, gravelly voice replying, “A sign that your life is a garbage heap of mistakes and poor choices.” Grandma Mildred hadn’t been known for her encouraging pep talks. “Cantankerous” was a more accurate description.
Tessa called and updated her clients before finally dialing the number she’d scrawled on the sticky note. Trudy Steele, who had a voice as brittle as hundred-year-old parchment paper, announced her name instead of giving a proper hello. She explained that she had inherited a local home in Mystic Water; however, she lived across the country in San Jose and had no desire to keep the property.
As Tessa wrote down the address, her hand faltered. A bumblebee knocked against the office window three times before it flew away. “That’s Honeysuckle Hollow,” she said. “It’s one of the oldest historical homes in Mystic Water.” Mrs. Steele remained unimpressed. When she told Tessa her desired selling price, Tessa gasped. “The square footage alone demands more than that. You’re basically giving it away at that price.”
Mrs. Steele scoffed into the phone and said, “That house has never meant anything to me. I’d burn it down if that weren’t illegal. There’s probably nothing but cobwebs, termites, and ill will holding that place together. They can bulldoze it and turn it into a gas station for all I care. I overnighted the keys to your office today. You should have them tomorrow.”
The phone burned against Tessa’s ear, and she pulled it away from her face. Mrs. Steele’s anger radiated like summer heat on asphalt, but Tessa felt indignant on behalf of the people who had made Honeysuckle Hollow their home for more than one hundred years.
