I knock on Tilly’s front door and it takes her a few seconds, but when she opens the door, she has a huge smile on her face. “Ahh, give me a hug.”
She pulls me into a big hug, squeezing me tightly.
Over the last year, Tilly and I have become close. She’s new to town, and most of my friends I grew up with have moved away and I’ve lost touch with them, so when Tilly moved in across the street, I was excited to have our instant connection.
“What’s the hug for?”
“For winning the bid for Rudder’s. Since I wasn’t here for it, I wanted to give you a hug. That’s huge, Renley; they picked the right person.”
Well, at least she believes that.
“Thank you. I’m excited,” I say, attempting to put on a good face despite the nerves running through me.
“You should be. I know you’re going to bring life back to Rudder’s.” She holds the door open. “Come in. I was just finishing up putting together a box for you.”
“Okay, thanks,” I say as I enter her eclectic house. Tilly is a local artist, selling paintings to tourists for impressive amounts of money. She does the dot method, meaning she makes small circles all over the canvas and then meticulously fills them in with color, almost like a mosaic. And when you stand back, a landscape comes into view. They’re stunning and they sell like hotcakes at the local gallery. She’s now working on commission only, occasionally creating pieces just for her that she sells in the gallery, but those are few and far between now.
I glance to the right where her living room is supposed to be, but she’s replaced it with her studio. Stacks of large canvas lean against the wall, light blooms through the curtainless window, and an easel is set up in the center of the room with a stool and paint resting in front of it. From what it looks like, she’s starting a new painting, working on drawing the pea-sized circles first.
“What do you need all of this for? Are you throwing a tea party that you didn’t invite me to?”
“No.” I chuckle. “I’d never. It’s actually for, well…” I wince and then say, “Can you keep a secret?”
She offers me a stern side-eye. “You know you’re the only one in this town that I care to talk to. Everyone else is rude, boring, or too nosy for my liking. So do I really have to answer that question?”
“Good point.” I wring my hands together and say, “Well, I won the bid for Rudder’s, but when we filled out the application, we said we had the twenty thousand for renovations. Aunt Kitty made it seem like we did. But, uh, we don’t have it.”
“Oh shit, really?” she asks as she folds a tea towel and puts it in the crate she’s preparing for me.
“Yeah, it was a bit of a surprise, and well, long story short, we applied for a financier online and we found one. He’s coming today to the house to talk with us. He’s British, so we thought we would do tea and scones and totally butcher it as Americans.”
“You found a financier? That quickly?” she asks. “Wow, what website did you use? I’ve been trying to find someone to help me open my own studio. Also, he’ll probably appreciate the effort you’re putting into hosting him.”
“I hope so.” I hold out Aunt Kitty’s tablet to Tilly and say, “It’s a website called Financier.” I brought it with me in case she wanted to see what the website was all about.
“Oh, that’s pretty simple.”
“Yeah, see.” I let her take the tablet. “There are all these profiles of people looking to finance your project.”
Tilly examines the cracked screen, struggling for a moment, and then smiles, handing me back the tablet. “Nice try.” She laughs and shakes her head.
Confused, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Renley, give me more credit than that.”
She turns away, but I tug on her shoulder. “Wait, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “Do you really think I’m going to fall for it?”
“Fall for what?”
She gestures to the tablet. “Looking at those profiles for a financier when they’re all looking for fiancées. Nice try.”
My stomach bottoms out. “What are you talking about?”
She studies me for a moment, the humor in her face slightly disappearing as she lifts the tablet up to me and shows me the screen. “These are all profiles of men looking for fiancées.”
“No, they’re looking to invest,” I say with a shake of my head.
