I shake my head. Jamie said room reservations are flat for July and August, but I don’t know what the rest of the year looks like. I don’t even know our current percent occupancy. The resort has two conference spaces—the dermatologists are using one of them this week, but have we had any other groups since I’ve been home? I’ve been back for more than a month. I should know these things. Even if I end up selling the resort, I need to know the numbers.
My alarm must be clear across my face, because Reggie’s expression softens. “Don’t be hard on yourself,” he says. “You’ve suffered a terrible loss, and those are some big shoes Maggie left you to fill. I’m here to help in any way I can, when you’re ready.”
When I finally told Mom I didn’t want to work at the resort all those years ago, she stopped talking to me about the business altogether. But Brookbanks was her first love, and over time, she let me back in—asking my opinion about the band she was thinking of hiring for the end-of-summer dance, or a dish she wanted to take off the menu. Would the guests revolt if we lost the fish and chips? (Yes.) Knowing Mom kept the resort’s problems from me is sobering. I thought we were closer.
I used to resent how much she worked when I was a kid. I hated every dinner I ate alone, every emergency phone call that pulled her away when we were supposed to have a girls’ night. I never wanted to tie myself to work the way she did, but I’ve been putting in fifty-hour weeks at Filtr. I know what it takes to run a business. I know how much Mom cared about this business. Stressed wouldn’t begin to describe how she must have felt. The worry would have been constant, gnawing at her from the inside out. My guilt is a lead jacket. While I’ve helped Philippe make Filtr a success, Brookbanks has floundered. For the first time since my mom died, it really hits me—Brookbanks is mine. Actually mine. Not my mother’s.
“I’m ready,” I tell Reggie. “Do you have time to get me up to speed now?”
I ask him for a pen and paper, and he digs out a fresh yellow legal pad from his desk. He points out areas where we could cut back and some costly updates Mom delayed to help offset the slowdown. I think of the golf cart covers, and the ice machine that broke down the night of the accident. Jamie said it had been on the fritz for a while.
When we finish hours later, my head is spinning and my hand is cramped from taking pages of notes. I’m supposed to meet Mr. and Mrs. Rose for cocktails at their cabin this evening, but I could use a martini now.
It’s clear the restaurant’s food costs are too high, but otherwise Mom kept expenditures low and staff hours modest. I’ll have to dig into scheduling and our supply orders to see if we can tighten any more. But it’s obvious what we really need are more bodies through the door. I’m overwhelmed, but underneath there’s a spark of excitement.
I’ve always been competitive. Before I got kicked off my high school soccer team, I lived for the rush of winning. Brookbanks, I realize, is something I want to win at. Mom may not have asked me for help, but I want to prove to her I can do it.
“Did Mom ever mention hiring a consultant?” I ask Reggie before I duck out to the garden to say hello to Rosemary. She returned from church a while ago.
Reggie takes his glasses off, rubbing the lenses on his shirt. “She did. Couldn’t believe the deal he gave her, but Maggie could charm the knickers off a nun.” It’s true. Mom had a vibrant energy and sense of showmanship that drew people to her. She was naturally chatty, but at home, when she didn’t have to be “on,” she softened a little.
Reggie chuckles to himself. “Why do you ask? Did he get in touch?”
“He showed up yesterday.”
“Well, that’s a piece of good luck. I hope you don’t take offense to me saying you need reinforcements,” Reggie says. “I know you’ve got a business degree, and Maggie said you were running an impressive operation down there in Toronto.”
“Really?”
“Don’t look so surprised. She was proud of you. Maggie wouldn’t have left the resort in your care unless she believed you could do it.”
My throat goes tight. I thank Reggie for his help, blinking away the stinging in my eyes, and escape to the backyard.
I find Rosemary tying tomato vines. She’s wearing a yellow sundress and a straw hat, and as she takes me around her vegetable patch, explaining her trick for keeping the slugs off the leaf lettuce, I notice I’m more casually dressed than she is for mucking around in the dirt. Torn jeans and Birkenstocks were probably not appropriate for a business meeting, even if it was with someone I’ve known my whole life.
If I’m going to get more involved in Brookbanks, then I’m going to need something to wear. My mother’s bright shift dresses aren’t me, and while ripped denim and cotton tees fit Filtr’s minimalist sensibility, they’re not right for working at the resort. As I walk to the boutiques on Main Street, I realize that’s what I want to do. Work. Not follow Jamie around aimlessly like I have been, but actually work. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to sell, I tell myself. It doesn’t mean I’m staying.
I manage to find more than a few things I don’t hate—simple pieces that don’t make me feel squirmy about the weight I’ve collected on my mom’s couch. I’ve never been a clotheshorse. Jeans, I’m good with. I know I can rock a camisole. Pushing too far beyond that tends to stretch my already limited fashion patience. I used to dig for treasures in secondhand stores, but I have no time for that anymore.
As I’m heading back to the car, I notice there’s a slick record shop that never used to be here and a guitar store that also serves food. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play. I pause in front of the Splattered Apron, a cute kitchenware shop, and duck inside. I leave thirty-five bucks poorer. Mom may have been content to sip watered-down sludge every morning, but I’m not.
Once I get back to the house, I pack up the pod coffee maker and put my new French press on the counter. It feels monumental. Even if I’m only here for a short time, I don’t have to drink my coffee like Mom did, and I don’t have to run the resort like her, either.
Then I pick up my phone and call Philippe.
* * *
—
I arrive at Cabin 15 already buzzed. It felt good to quit. Philippe didn’t think I’d ever do it, even though he knew I wanted to open my own place. But Philippe has always been arrogant in the extreme. From the cotton of his T-shirts (exclusively pima, always white) to the temperature of the oat milk in his flat white (135 degrees), he’s also picky in the extreme. For a long time, that’s what I liked about him. That someone so particular was attracted to me was an ego boost, and mine was dented for years after Will.
“You look good, girlie. You’ve got a bit more color than you did last week,” Mrs. Rose says, holding me at arm’s length for inspection.
Mr. and Mrs. Rose have hosted Sunday cocktail hour at Cabin 15 since before I was born. First, it was my grandparents who joined them, then my mother, and now me. Sometimes there’s a larger crowd, an assortment of longtime Brookbanks visitors and newbies they’ve befriended at the horseshoes pit, but otherwise, the ritual is the same: ice-cold gin martinis and plain Ruffles chips on the porch at five p.m.
They never had children, and I’m not sure whether that was by design or just how things worked out, but either way, they give off major kooky grandparent vibes. Mrs. Rose’s neck is always draped with so many strands of wooden beads, you’d suspect them of causing her hunched back. Mr. Rose was a theater critic “back when the theater was worth critiquing.” I don’t think either has eaten a vegetable in their lives, save for the pickled onions in their cocktails.