Seed money, p.1
Seed Money, page 1
Seed Money
B. E. Baker
Copyright © 2023 by B. E. Baker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
For Emmy
* * *
You are the best cheerleader
* * *
always
Contents
1. Seren
2. Dave
3. Seren
4. Dave
5. Seren
6. Dave
7. Seren
8. Dave
9. Seren
10. Dave
11. Seren
12. Dave
13. Seren
14. Seren
15. Dave
16. Seren
17. Dave
18. Seren
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by B. E. Baker
1
Seren
Not all moments in life are created equal.
There’s that moment when you’re standing on the dance floor and all eyes are on you—your makeup is perfect, your heart is pounding, and you fit into the dress that hung in your closet for six months waiting for you to lose that last ten pounds.
You command the attention of everyone in the room.
All the girls hate you.
All the boys want you.
And maybe a few of the boys hate you and a few of the girls want you, but you get the point.
That moment is not at all the same as the moments you spend lying in bed, your covers up to your chin, binge-watching every season of Grey’s Anatomy for the third time, a half-eaten container of Ben and Jerry’s melting on your nightstand.
Unfortunately, the moment in which I met Fancy Guy was not a dance-floor moment. It was more of a binge-watching-Grey’s kind of moment. The kind of moment that stretches out and drapes itself over everything rudely. The kind of moment you wish could last forever without anyone discovering it existed.
That’s when Fancy Guy came into my life.
In other words, it was a Low Point. In my defense, things for me had not been going well. I should have dusted myself off and ended the pity party, but in those long, never-ending moments, you know what you need, but you don’t know how to get there. Otherwise, you would get there.
Duh.
But that’s why I was wearing an old t-shirt of Will’s and boxers with Transformers on them, and that’s why my hair was rucked up in the back, and that’s why I had a Cheerio stuck to my cheek the first time Fancy Guy ever set eyes on me.
We weren’t off to the best start.
Actually, he must have thought I was insane.
He wasn’t entirely wrong.
2
Dave
The first week of second grade, I found a broken digital camera in a box of discarded junk when I went with Dad to the dump. Mom and Dad never cared what we did with garbage as long as it didn’t smell, so I stuck it in my pocket. While I was supposed to be doing research for a history paper at school, I googled how to fix cameras that turn on and then shut right back off again. I found a blog post that explained what was wrong.
Once I got home, it only took me twenty minutes to fix it.
I’ve been jonesing for that same feeling ever since. Taking something that was discarded and fixing it up so that people can use it is the best kind of high. There are very few joys in the world like turning garbage into treasure.
Since then, I’ve repaired bikes, televisions, and shoes. I’ve replaced buckles on purses and made them look brand new. . .or close, anyway. I learned to patch tires until they work like new ones, although the guy at the tire shop fired me after three weeks for selling too many used tires. Apparently the new ones have a higher profit margin. People throw away a lot of things in this world that could be saved, if there weren’t economic reasons to trash them.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when my friends started calling me ‘garbage guy.’ But when the people who disliked me picked it up, it became something I couldn’t get rid of, not even in high school or college.
It didn’t help that my Dad bought a landfill.
His entire family always found it absolutely hilarious that, with the last name of Fansee, he ran a landfill. But early this year, the city bought the land—for an obscene amount—and now he’s relocated his business to somewhere far cheaper. The upshot for me is that, after a decade and a half of being mocked for a combination of my own proclivities, my surname, and my dad’s occupation, I finally have a plan.
Because Dad split the profits above the cost of his new landfill between my sister and me.
I decided to use my share of the after-tax windfall—all two point five million of it—to start a new business. My one criterion was that it had to have nothing to do with trash. After a lot of poking around, a few online tests, and some chats with friends, I decided to invest in an inn. Since I live in Scarsdale, New York, real estate isn’t cheap, but it’s a solid investment. Even if my plans go south, I can probably sell whatever I buy and get most of my money back. I’m looking for a property that can earn me a decent income that will also appreciate over time, like my dad’s landfill. . .only less embarrassing.
I’ve spent the entire morning with my high school pal, checking out small inns that are in various stages of disrepair. My brain processes numbers easily, but I’m still struggling because of the number of properties we’ve seen. “Are we almost done? Because I can’t remember if the one with the broken windows was near the bank, or whether that was the one with the dead frog.”
Bernie looks up at the sky as if begging for patience. “The one with the dead frog? Really? That hotel had marble floors, a totally refurbished kitchen, and it was within walking distance of the train station.”
“Sure, sure,” I say. “Remind me why it wasn’t a slam dunk?”
“It has that pending lawsuit, and it’s only twenty rooms, which makes it a real risk for the price.”
It’s been three days of nonstop appointments. I thought it would be fun searching for the perfect inn. But the big difference between hotels and inns, I’ve discovered, is that hotels are generally larger, and inns are often independently owned. Also, they capitalize on being unique. Only, none of the places we’ve seen really stood out as unique to me. Actually, they were all so similar that I’m left identifying them by their location and the dead critters we saw inside.
“What about that one with the lizard skeleton dangling from the office window?” That one was a screaming deal, for somewhat obvious reasons, but neglect I can handle. In fact, it’s sort of in my wheelhouse. My budget is quite modest for an inn around this area, and that means my best bet is to find a fixer upper.
“I called on it,” Bernie says. “It’s under contract.”
I sigh. “You still think. . .”
“That you’re going to need a partner?” My old friend snorts. “Of course I do. I did mention that I’d be happy to invest.”
I could save paying him his cut if he was a partner, which would be nice, but he’s also got quite a bit of money saved. The problem is that Bernie’s pushy to the point of being almost overbearing. It annoyed me with school projects. I feel like we might kill each other if we went in together on a business deal.
“Or if not me, you know that—”
“Don’t say Bentley,” I say.
I already know he’s thinking it. Bernie, Bentley, and I have been best friends since kindergarten. I had the only normal name, Dave. And our teacher called us ‘two Bs and a D.’ She thought it was clever. By first grade, the teacher was calling us the three peas in a pod.
They were right about one thing. We were always together.
We still talk all the time and hang out regularly, but as hard as it would be to partner with Bernie, I’m pretty sure Bentley would be even worse. He was always the one of us with loads of money, and that gap has only widened with time. I mean, his name kind of says it all. No normal parents would name their kid Bentley. He’s old money, he’s an intellectual, and he’s also stupidly muscular. The only reason I can handle him at all is that he’s also a genuinely kind person.
Usually.
But if Bernie’s pushy, Bentley’s the opposite. He never has to be pushy, because he’s always right.
My sister Danika told me I should just hand my money over to him and ask him to invest it. She’s not wrong. That would be my best play, hands down, but I want to do something with it myself. No one wants to be a sidekick, right? I mean, not in their own life.
“Remind me again why we’re looking at this one.” I scrunch up my nose against the blinding rays of the early morning sun, most of my enthusiasm gone now that we’re on our fourth day of looking. The old house is elegant, and the lot it sits on is enormous, especially for this area. But it needs a new roof ASAP, as well as a new coat of paint, and that’s probably just the beginning. “Our first order of business would be to tear out the enormous and overgrown garden, and that alone feels like a lot of work.” If it were well-maintained, maybe, but we’ve seen places that were bigger and they were in better locations to boot.
We’ve definitely seen plenty of places that had more rooms. “How many rooms did you say you thought we could get out of it?”
Mostly we’ve looked at functioning inns. This one’ s a house we’d have to convert into an inn. More work. More repairs.
More hassle.
No thanks.
“Dave.” Bernie sighs. “This is the one I was telling you about last night. It just came back on the market.”
I blink, reevaluating. “Wait, you mean the one Audrey Colburn’s daughter owns?”
“The one Audrey Colburn lived in her entire married life. The one her granddaughter now owns.”
“You think that would still be a draw? I mean, I’ve heard the name, sure, but she was a star back when movies were black and white, right?”
Bernie sighs. “You’re so uncultured, and no. Her movies were in color.”
“Either way, the number of people who know who she is must be dwindling, right?”
Bernie looks like it’s a real imposition to have me as a friend. “It’s not about how many people remember her—look. Didn’t you say you wanted to change your image?”
I run my hand across my face. “It’s not like it’s my top priority, though. I mean, I’m sick of being called the garbage guy, but—”
“Nothing says classy like Audrey Colburn. Okay?”
“Fine, but we still evaluate this one with the same criterion as all the others. Total doors matters. We look at likely profit relative to the total cost.”
Bernie unlocks the door, and I prepare myself to be impartial. Nothing I see inside will sway me one way or another. I’ll tally up the costs and the possible profits, just like I always do, and I’ll assign some kind of value to the reputation that comes along with the house and that will be it. I mean, I don’t want my future kids to be mocked for having the last name of Fansee and a dad who owns a trash company, but it’s not as if that’s all that matters.
I have to be able to earn a living, too.
The front door creaks as it opens, which doesn’t seem promising, but as we walk into a very large, very spacious entryway, I can’t help feeling that it’s a happy space. That might sound crazy. I mean, it doesn’t have the twenty-foot ceilings of the place from last night or the enormous chandelier of that first one by the train station, but it’s open, it’s bright, and it’s clearly got personality. The sunlight streams indirectly from the big bay windows, which all look out onto the wide porch. The wood inside the front rooms is warm and inviting. There are beautiful plaster medallions on the wall and ceiling.
I mean, the trim paint’s peeling, the floors are weathered in a few spots, there are dust bunnies making babies, and it smells a little bit like mothballs.
But even so, I like it a lot more than I expected.
We slowly walk the place, now that I’m in a better mood, and we start talking about how many doors we could squeeze out of it, realistically.
“Think of it, though,” Bernie says. “The rooms could have names and be themed from her movies. Or the famous people who came and stayed in them, if we could figure that out. This place has history.”
“I guess.” I study the profit loss sheet. It’s still not anywhere near the top of the list there.
“It’s an old house,” Bernie’s still gushing, “but Audrey was ahead of her time. Fourteen of these rooms have bathrooms adjacent to them. Those other four rooms—the study, the library, the sun room, and the music room—could be remodeled to add an en suite bathroom pretty easily. That brings us up to eighteen rooms, and I hear there’s a carriage house.” Bernie looks as impressed as I feel.
“What’s a carriage house?” I feel like I’ve heard that term before, but I’m not sure what it means.
“It’s like a guest house, maybe?” Bernie looks confused. “I think the gardener and chauffeurs used to live there, back before they had power tools and one yard crew could come through and clean this place up in three hours.”
The idea of having a live-in gardener at someone’s personal residence is mind-boggling to me.
“I wonder why the granddaughter’s selling,” I say. “You’d think she’d want to stay here, right?”
Bernie frowns. “As I understand it, she has to sell.”
“What?” Now I feel a little. . .predatory. “Why?” I need to know more or I’ll drown in guilt for someone I don’t know.
He shrugs. “Zoning, maybe? It was grandfathered in for years, but now it’s transferred to another generation, I heard it can’t be a residence anymore.”
“Wait, so she’s getting kicked out?” Now I feel downright awful. “What happens if she can’t sell it?” I follow Bernie out the side door and around a bend, where a cute little one-story house comes into view through a path that’s flanked on each side by rows of huge oak trees.
“Would you want to keep a building you couldn’t live in and had no other use for?”
I guess not.
“You’re doing her a favor,” he says. “Stop worrying. Her last sale fell through, and she can’t want to keep something she can’t even live in. We’re not the big bad guy, swooping in and ruining her life. I’m sure she’s a pampered little princess, who probably only summered here anyway.”
Thinking about it like that, I feel better. I could give this place life. It occurs to me that, although the house was entirely empty in an almost morose way, we could decorate it in the period that Audrey was popular. We could even include placards and prints about her movies on the walls. Then even people who don’t care about her at all would get the feel of what it means to be in such a graceful and cheerful house.
I’ve been casting around for the last few days for any kind of theme—really successful inns need themes, apparently—and this is the first one that has felt viable. Once Bernie unlocks the carriage house, I have an epiphany.
“You know, we could make this little house available for family gatherings and private parties. People who want to book a few rooms for privacy, but want the convenience of a shared space. It might make it even more attractive to some people.”
Bernie’s jotting some notes down, and I’m actually thinking of giving the sprawling green monstrosity a chance, when we hang a right and turn into a large bedroom that must be the master. It’s the first room that has been furnished, if you consider a lumpy mattress in the center of the floor furniture. But that’s not the biggest surprise.
Not at all.
The biggest surprise is the woman whose head pops up in the center of the mattress, her hair sticking up at strange angles as if she’s auditioning for a role in a Dr. Seuss play.
“Buh?” She spins around in the middle of the mattress like she’s under attack from all sides. She finally identifies where we are, and blinks repeatedly. “What are you doing here?”
There’s a Cheerio stuck to her left cheek, and the other side of her face is covered in pink lines that I assume are from the pressure of the bunched-up sheets being shoved against her face until this very moment.
She drags the errant sheet upward and back over her head with an inelegant groan.
“The listing said the property’s vacant,” Bernie hisses. “Plus. It’s not zoned as residential.” He blinks and regroups. “I’m so sorry to invade your space.”
“Don’t apologize to her,” I say. “Obviously she’s not supposed to be here. Call the owner’s agent and tell them a vagrant has broken in.”
“Vagrant?” When she sits up this time, her voice is so shrill it could practically shatter glass. “Vagrant?”
Bernie splutters impressively. “Mr. Fansee didn’t mean that.”
“Did your footman or whatever just call you Mister Fancy?” She rubs at her eyes. “Or am I dreaming in Disney again?”
“Fan-see,” I say, as if pronouncing the word again will explain anything. “Like the word ‘fan.’ And then the word ‘see,’ like, what you do with your eyes. But shoved together.”
Now the probably-not-homeless woman scowls. “No one told me there was going to be a showing today.”
