She makes a gesture as if to shoo me away. “I have crowns in my teeth older than that kid.”
“He went to medical school.”
She doesn’t respond, but goes back to updating the inventory spreadsheet and drinking her sweet tea like I’m not there. I walk behind the desk and open the top drawer.
I’m looking for a rubber band, but instead find a whole box of sugar. Nana cuts her eyes at me. I simply remove the box, dig for a rubber band, and walk to the bathroom to fix my hair, chucking the box of sugar in the trash after dousing it with water.
I swear I sprout more gray hair every time I catch her with sugar or something fried. I’m thirty years old. At this rate, I’ll be completely white-haired by the time I’m forty. When people ask why I don’t want kids, I tell them it’s because I’m too busy raising my nana.
As I’m walking back into the cramped office, my cell phone dings. It’s Garrett, wanting to know if I can come over tomorrow night.
“Who’s texting you?” Nana asks.
“No one,” I say without looking at her.
She shakes her head. “Who’s gaslighting now?”
I roll my eyes and ignore her comment.
Garrett is my undefined boyfriend, or “situation-ship,” as my friend Patsy calls it. We met online a year ago, and he lives about an hour and a half away, in Montgomery. He owns some kind of computer programming company. I don’t pretend to understand what exactly he does, but he has a crazy schedule and doesn’t have a lot of time for dating or commitments. He calls it being married to his career, which I totally understand. Since he’s always busy, we agreed to keep our relationship casual. Maybe one day it’ll be something more, but for now I’m enjoying it for what it is.
Neither Nana nor any of my friends like him or our relationship, but it’s not like I have guys banging down my door. I’m not the girl who’s ever been able to easily get a boyfriend. I’ve always been bigger, both in height and weight, and it makes me awkward. The fact that a guy like Garrett wants to spend any time with me at all is a miracle in and of itself. Patsy is constantly telling me I’m wasting my time, but it’s not like I’m in a hurry to have kids and settle down. Patsy has a big family with a lot of kids, but that’s just not me. I would like to have a great romance at some point, but for now, Nana and I have each other, like we always have, and it’s enough.
I respond to Garrett and tell him I’d love to come see him, then spend the rest of the day planning my outfit in my head. Once it’s finally time to close, I drive Nana to the home we share. Neither of us mention Garrett again.
RHODES
When I got the call about a potential job restoring an old hotel in Magnolia Row, I jumped. I’d never been to the small Alabama town, but I’d heard all about it when I was in architecture school. It’s known for its stunning historic homes, manicured lawns, and picturesque location on the Florablanca River. It sounds like a dream.
The hotel I was contacted about was once a hotspot for Southern travelers, particularly honeymooners, but for the past thirty years has been completely ignored and unoccupied. The new owner reached out to me for a proposal to overhaul the hotel and completely restore it to its original grandeur.
It’s the day of my first meeting with the potential client, and I make the three-hour drive south from my loft in Birmingham. It’s all interstate until Montgomery, then I have an hour and a half of rural roads lined with cow pastures, oaks full of Spanish moss, and the occasional old farmhouse set back from the road like a totem to the past. It’s a beautiful day despite the heat, and I’m glad to be out of the congested city.
I drive into Magnolia Row and am immediately transported back in time. It’s quaint, as I thought it would be, and exquisite. Passing through the historic district, I see every kind of architecture I would expect from a town that boomed in the late 1800s. Victorian, Italianate, and Greek revival houses line the streets. Even the trees are immaculate – the most gorgeous oaks, magnolias, and dogwoods complement each house. The homes themselves are circled with azaleas and hydrangeas that no doubt give a spray of wild, bright colors in the spring.
Now I’m even more hungry to get this job. It’ll give me an excuse to come back and see the town through all the seasons.
I’m early, so I stop at a coffee shop on Main Street to get an iced latte. This stretch of road is the beating heart of town, and is even more vibrant than the residential streets. Instead of oaks, this street is lined with massive magnolia trees. If it weren’t for the modern cars, I’d swear I’d somehow been transported back to the 1950s. I can’t believe how well preserved the whole area is.
As soon as I step out of my car, I regret wearing a suit instead of something more casual and cool to meet the investor who purchased the hotel. My clothes feel like an oven. Luckily, the air conditioning in the coffee shop is on full blast. The girl behind the counter takes my order and asks me where I’m from. She’s short, with dirty blonde hair and a pink apron.
“Birmingham,” I tell her, strumming my thumbs along the counter and taking in my quaint surroundings. “I’m an architect and have a meeting with the new owner of Florablanca Inn.”
“Wow!” she says, running my card for my iced coffee. “I can’t believe someone actually wants to throw money into that old thing.”
“I haven’t seen it yet,” I tell her. “Is it in bad shape?”
She makes a hard-to-read face and steps behind the barista counter to make my drink. “I’m told it used to be beautiful,” she says, “but I’ve only ever known it as a creepy bat shack. A lot of the houses in the Victorian Village are in rough shape. It’s Magnolia Row’s dirty little dilapidated secret.”
I raise my eyebrows and chuckle. “Why is that? The rest of the town is so stunning.”
“I’m not really sure. Something about a fire on Old Vic Road a long time ago. The hotel is the first thing you’ll see. If you keep going down that street, you’ll be able to see where it was full of Victorian houses a hundred years ago. Most of them are gone now. There’s a house about a mile from the hotel in similar shape. My friends and I used break into it when we were bored in high school.”
“That sounds fun!” I say, but she merely shrugs and finishes making my coffee.
“Good luck to you,” she says, handing it to me. “I hope you enjoy a challenge.”
“I do,” I say, almost as a reminder to myself.
