“I drank it, and I should be going. Have a good night.” Tessa tried to walk past her, but Crazy Kate grabbed her arm with surprising strength.
“You have to tell me what happened to you after you drank it,” Crazy Kate said.
“I don’t mean to be impolite, but this conversation is a little weird, and I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
Crazy Kate tightened her grip. “That land around the diner is special. You, of all people, should know that. Tell me what happened to you tonight after you drank the tea.”
Tessa pried Crazy Kate’s fingers from her arm. She lowered her voice and whispered, “I’m going to apologize ahead of time for disrespecting an elder, but you’re crazy.”
“And you’re a thief,” Crazy Kate whispered in return. “We’re all imperfect, thankfully.”
Tessa’s mouth dropped open.
“That was my favorite suncatcher, and you were, what? Eight? Awful young to be a delinquent,” Crazy Kate said. “When the lavender and rosemary in the garden are mature, I’ll need dried lavender and Cecilia’s rosemary tea. My memory is giving me a bit of trouble these days, and I could use a boost. You can bottle the rosemary tea and bag up the lavender. Bring it to my house. It won’t make up for what you stole, but it’s a start.”
Crazy Kate patted Tessa on the arm and smiled. Mischief crackled from her fingers and prickled Tessa’s skin.
“Go on, child,” Crazy Kate said with a sparkle in her eyes. “Sprinkle some thyme from the garden into your potatoes, and tell me you don’t know the rain is coming before everyone else.” She spun on her tiny feet and headed for the cash register.
Once Tessa was back inside the apartment, she walked over to the pot of mint tea she’d brewed. She scooped out the few leaves stuck to the bottom of her empty mug. Pressing the wet leaves between her fingers, she closed her eyes and focused on how the mint made her feel. Her fingers felt slimy and cold, and she opened her eyes and rolled them.
“Really, Tessa?” she asked herself. “You’re listening to Crazy Kate?”
Tessa poured herself another mug of mint tea and microwaved it until steam swirled from the top. She dropped the pink bag of caramel creams on the coffee table. Then she grabbed one of the travel magazines from the bookshelf and tucked herself into the couch. She squished herself into the corner cushions, held her mug in both hands, and propped the magazine across her thighs. As Tessa sipped and lazily flipped through the pages, she occasionally reached over and pulled a piece of candy from her bag. She was halfway through the first magazine before she stopped on a four-page article about the breathtaking landscape of New Zealand and its inhabitants, the Maori, written by Paul Borelli.
Tessa read straight through his article, and by the end of it, she wanted to go there immediately. In fact, she wished she had been therewithhim. Paul wrote like a storyteller, pulling in his readers like a man weaving a tale around a campfire.
She tossed the magazine onto the coffee table and grabbed more from the bookshelves. Just as she assumed, the magazines all contained Paul’s articles, probably Harry’s doing again. Tessa drank three more glasses of tea while she traveled across the world with Paul and his bewitching words. She fell asleep dreaming of trekking through the Amazon jungle, championing for rain forest protection, eating her fill of mangoes and passion fruit, and sharing a tent with a handsome explorer.
Chapter 5
Deconstructed Breakfast Burrito
ThenextmorningTessawoke to the sound of her cell phone ringing at 6:00 a.m. She tried to roll toward her nightstand where she kept her phone charging, but instead, she rolled into a couch cushion. She stared for a few seconds at the tan fabric one inch from her face before she remembered she was in the apartment above the diner. Tessa flipped over and reached for her phone on the coffee table, which was papered with magazines and caramel cream wrappers.
She checked the number; it was the president of her building’s HOA. “Good morning, Mr. Fleming. Tell me you have good news.”
“I have a mix of news,” he said.
“Good news first,” Tessa said, sitting up on the couch and stretching her neck. She raked her fingers through her hair.
“The water has started to recede,” Mr. Fleming said. “You can come on back and see the place for yourself. Salvage what you can.”
Tessa’s heart squeezed. “Salvagesounds disheartening.”
Mr. Fleming cleared his throat. “If you’ve already contacted your insurance company, you might alert them that they can send out someone to assess the property. Most of the residents didn’t have flood insurance, and the government didn’t register this event as a FEMA disaster, so no grants are available. Did you have flood insurance?”
Tessa rubbed her eyes. “No. Why would we have? Mystic Water hasn’t flooded in more than fifty years.”
Mr. Fleming cleared his throat. “Doesn’t mean your insurance won’t paysomething. A developer stopped by this morning, Tessa. He’s interested in buying up this whole place—all the units, even the undamaged ones—and remodeling the building in the next year or so. He’s offering residents very high prices, especially considering the extreme damage. It’s a good deal. For all of us.”
Tessa stood. “I don’t think I’m following you. It sounds as though someone has offered to buy our building, and people are selling? But we can repair flood damage.”
“I think it’s best if you come on down and have a look for yourself. Then you call me back, and we’ll talk more,” Mr. Fleming said.
Mr. Fleming ended the call, and Tessa stared at the mess of magazines, all open to Paul’s articles. She scooped up the candy wrappers and rushed around to clean up the clutter. She returned the magazines to the shelves, which gave her time to think about the conversation with Mr. Fleming. Was the state of most of the condos that devastating? Were the other owners leaving? Couldn’t they repair the damage? But how much could anyone repair without insurance help? Even if FEMA grants had been an option, everyone knew they didn’t cover nearly enough to return the house to the state it was in before the damage.
Tessa jotted the questions down in her notebook, and then she flipped back to yesterday’s unfinished list, which askedWhat should I do?Number one:Don’t finish waffle. And she hadn’t. Number two:Move home for weeks?That was a moot point now since her parents had house swapped for months. Tessa drew a line through number two.Beside number three she wrote,Sell my home?
