“Maybe Charlie can help.” Charlie seemed stylish and put together. “I’ll just give her a million dollars and tell her to go crazy.” But then she shook her head. “The lawyer said you could use money to move here and take care of basic needs. That’s probably like…a chair. And a fridge. And bread.”
Looking around the completely bare kitchen, Jill felt overwhelmed. Not so much because she hated shopping for appliances, though she was sure that she did, she’d just never done it. She’d always lived in places that came with that stuff.
Picking out things like refrigerators and stoves seemed like such a waste of time. She just needed something to keep her food cold and to heat food up on occasion. Actually, she probably didn’t need a stove and oven. She wasn’t a baker or cook. Though she was under the impression that Autre, Louisiana, did not have food delivery services like she was used to.
“Ugh.” She tipped her head back as she groaned.
And noticed the ceiling had nothing on it but cracked plaster and some wires sticking out from what she assumed had been a light fixture of some kind.
“Hell no. I’m not picking that stuff out too.” She straightened and looked around. “I’ve never picked out furniture and shit! I’ve always had hand-me-downs and lived places that come with this stuff!”
She would never take light fixtures for granted again.
She focused on the crown moldings around the edge of the doorway. They were as old and dull as the rest of the house. The guy hadn’t done anything with them.
Probably because she hadn’t responded to his email asking what she wanted the crown moldings to look like. She’d had to Google crown moldings when he’d asked that question.
“Who the hell cares?” she asked the universe at large, throwing her arms wide.
Cori, her friend Evan’s wife, had talked her into moving to Louisiana with nothing but her clothes. She’d insisted that Jill needed to start from scratch and that she not only didn’t have enough furniture to fill a house, but that she needed new stuff if she was going to remodel the house and start a new life.
Cori was who Jill needed to call next.
She pulled up her friend’s number on her phone and texted. Help!
Cori responded almost immediately. Hey! What’s wrong?
I know nothing about furniture.
Cori: Yes, I know.
Jill: Do you?
Cori: More than you do.
Jill: Then you do it.
Cori: I’ve been waiting for this text. Send me photos of the house and I’ll help you pick stuff out.
Jill: I don’t want help. I want you to do it.
Cori: *laughing emoji*. Fine. Photos.
Jill held her phone up and took several shots of the kitchen, sending them to Cori.
Jill: My kitchen at present.
Cori: What?! What’s the contractor been doing all this time?
Jill really wanted to blame the contractor but it was, of course, partly her fault. Not answering questions like what color she wanted the walls painted and what she wanted the flooring to look like had clearly kept him from moving ahead.
Jill: He’s waiting on me to make decisions. You know how I am about that.
Cori: Yes, I do.
Jill smiled. It was nice having people in her life that understood what she was like and loved her anyway. She knew she drove her mother crazy. Actually, some of her tendency to only worry about the basics came from her mother.
Okay, most of that tendency came from her mother.
The rest came just from… not wanting to deal with stuff.
The fewer balls Jill had to juggle, the fewer got dropped, and the less frustrated Holly got with her. Her mother was a master ball-juggler. Jill had watched her do it her whole life.
She’d gotten pregnant right after medical school and put her career as a physician on hold to raise her children and then, when she’d tried to go back to work, she’d had to quit after only a few months because her mother had gotten sick.
Holly had been the quintessential stay-at-home mom to her four children. She attended every event and activity, had dinner on the table every night, kept an immaculate house, and the kids never had to worry about forgetting their lunch or permission slips or a pair of shoes to change into after school.
And by observing Holly, Jill had learned that it was far easier to keep track of and take care of one ball rather than many.
Jill knew her current habits came from the fact that her mother had always handled everything for her. When Jill had left home and been on her own, she’d needed to drastically simplify her life because she didn’t have someone taking care of her.
For just a second, her thoughts went to Zeke again. But not his dirty mouth or his hot hands. Last night, he’d said that he probably wouldn’t have taken the goats back to their barn if she hadn’t insisted. He’d admitted it was because he knew someone else would have come along to do it and he’d said that was how things worked here for him. Other people took care of things, even if he had good intentions to help out.
That was a weird thing to have in common, but she understood that. Her mother had made Jill’s life very easy growing up.
And had made her pretty pathetic at taking care of adult things now.
But how was someone supposed to learn to cook and how to get stains out of fabric and multi-task and organize if they were never taught and practiced? She could have looked things up or taken cooking classes, she knew. But she’d gotten so wrapped up in her career that she didn’t have the time. Or didn’t want to take the time. So Jill didn’t cook, she threw things away if they got stained, and she focused on one thing at a time. Simple.
Jill: You’re hired to take care of this whole thing. Do you want the contractor’s email?
Cori: Yes, I do. Do you want the whole house done in black and white? :-)
Jill: Yes.
Black and white were her favorite colors. Yes, of course, that had to do with penguins.
Cori: I’m not doing your entire house in black and white. But if you want a black and white bedroom I’ll do that… if you let me include hot pink accents.
Jill rolled her eyes, but grinned. Cori Carmichael Stone was a very…colorful person. She would die if all she could do was black and white. She was so good for Evan. She made sure he had fun when Evan had spent so many years trying so hard to be serious and responsible.
Jill: Make it red, not pink and I’ll say okay.
Cori: Deal.
Jill: Thank you. You know this isn’t my thing.
Cori: *heart emoji*. I know. Don’t worry about this. Go make some penguin babies.
Jill: I’m on it. The new penguin habitat, on the other hand, looks amazing.
Cori: Maybe the guy who built the penguin house can work on your house. LOL!
Jill: :-) I’ll have to ask. Thank you! Talk to you soon.
Cori: Love you. It’s all going to be okay.
Jill felt the stinging behind her eyes. She certainly hoped everything was going to be okay. It really needed to be. Now that she was here in Autre, with this amazing penguin habitat sitting just up the road, she really had no choice. It wasn’t like she could leave Louisiana if things didn’t work out here. She couldn’t just pack up and move eight penguins—and hopefully more than eight penguins soon—if she decided she didn’t like gumbo or one thousand percent humidity.
She had to make it work here. This was where she was settling.