She waves me off. “You wouldn’t remember me. You were about three feet tall last time you were here to visit Millie.”
“You knew my grandmother?”
She stands from the bench and meets me where I stand. “I did. She was one of my best friends here in town. And when Billy called me up and told me they finally told you about your inheritance and that you’re coming to fix up the place, I just about started streaking down Main Street with excitement.” I press a hand over my face to hide my giggle. “But I thought better of it. I heard people pay big money to see a pair of tits online these days. I can’t risk someone taking a video to give out for free.” She winks and retreats toward my car.
She’sdefinitelya total vibe.
“Get in,” she says, waving from the passenger side of my car. “Let me show you the place.”
I hesitate for half a second, because letting a woman I barely know get into my car feels wildly out of character for me. But I guess today is about doing things I normally wouldn’t do.
I jog to my driver’s side and get in quickly.
“What’s with the plastic cup of green and yellow candy?” Nan asks, buckling her seat belt.
I chuckle. “I only eat the red, blue, and orange Sour Patch Kids. I have an aversion to the green and yellow ones for some reason. You’re welcome to them if you’d like.”
She reaches in and pops a yellow in her mouth. “They all taste the same to me.”
She’s wrong, but okay.
Nan guides me with a mix of lefts and rights—she’s not good at it. She seems to tell me at the last second to turn, which has only made this drive feel very erratic.
I can feel my stomach twist as we get closer. Not from car sickness, but from a mix of nerves and curiosity. Every corner we take I wonder if it’s the street, or if the roof will peek out from behind the trees.
What if it ends up being bigger than anything I’m capable of?
What if I can’t pull it off the way everyone expects me to?
That’s the part that scares me.
We make another right on a street called Redwood Ave. when Nan finally points through the window at an open lot coming into view. “This is it on the left.”
When I pass the row of trees lining the edge of the property, my car slows to a stop in the middle of the road as I stare.
“Best views in town,” Nan adds.
I swallow, suddenly overwhelmed by how real this just became.
A two-story farmhouse looms at the end of a long gravel driveway, hidden between wild grass that claws around the edges, mixed with weeds and wildflowers as if they are locked in some kind of messy battle for dominance over the property. I put my car in park, unable to take my eyes away from the view in front of me as I exit and start to make my way up the driveway—if that’s what you even want to call it anymore.
The closer I get, the more I see the paint peeling in strips from the side as if it’s shedding its own skin. The windows are clouded over with age with an old wooden frame and paint cracked around the edges. There’s a mix of crooked and missing shutters, and a porch sagging just enough to make me hesitate to even step foot on it.
To anyone else, it probably looks like a burden.
To me?
It looks like potential.
“The house isn’t livable right now,” Nan says behind me, cutting through my thoughts.
I turn around to face her, not realizing she’s following me closer to the house.
“I assumed so,” I reply, reaching for my phone in my back pocket. “I think I have an email somewhere in my inbox about them handling lodging.”
Swiping through all my never ending emails, I finally find it. Only to feel my entire body tense because I never replied back to the email from them asking if I needed a place, or if I was finding my own.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
