Second Chance Love (23 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

Twenty minutes later, Steve walked into his condo and nearly tripped over a vacuum cleaner hose. “Oh, sorry!” Elizabeth said. “I was trying to clean up from the packing.” She wrestled the hose into semi-submission and kissed Steve hello.

“As long as you kiss me like that, I don't mind if you let household appliances set traps for me.”

After a moment with her head on his shoulder, Elizabeth pulled back enough to meet his eyes. “How bad was it?”

“Shutting the office down? Oh, not bad at all, as those things go. There was one very bright spot.” He told her the news about Betty's freelance services.

"That is a bright spot. What about the rest?"

“Okay, it wasn’t great, but now it’s done. As soon as we get moved into our new place—"

“Once we find a new place.”

"—we can settle down.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, but first, we’ve got the wedding to plan.”

"Or the elopement."

"And why would we want to do that?"

“Wouldn't it be great to just run off and get married in Vegas?" He dropped his voice. “Ah’ve always wanted to get married bah The King, baby.”

She sighed. "And someday you may find a woman who would go along with that nonsense. She isn't me. I don’t have a lot of friends, but those I do have, I’d like them to share our day with us.”

“Maybe that’s part of why I want to elope,” Steve mused. “Now that I'm broke, I don’t know where I stand with everyone.”

“Maybe a lot of people wouldn't take your phone calls now. That's a good way for them to let you know that they don't belong in your world. But where you stand is right where you belong: next to me, getting married in front of all our friends.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing big. Gail can help me. We could even hold it here, in your place, but it’s going to be mostly packed up by then.”

“Then? When is ‘then’?”

“Oh, I don’t know…maybe Christmas Eve?” she said, trying a bit too hard to sound casual.

“Won’t everyone have other plans?”

“Some might, but I’m not thinking of inviting a whole bunch of people. Your Mom and Gordon, Gail, Mr. Bartleby, Mrs. Spencer, and oh! Wouldn’t it be nice if Bayani and Chona and the kids could come?”

“Funny you should mention that." Steve filled her in on that part of the Betty episode, letting his mind wander back to Eden’s Bay in the Philippines, and the exceptional food Chona had made for them with limited resources.
What could she accomplish with a full kitchen?

When Steve finished, Elizabeth laughed in pure delight. “Betty is my hero! That's a woman who knows where her power is!”

“She really is something," said Steve. "I now begin to wonder if I shouldn't have made her CEO and become her secretary, but anyway. So, if we’re holding costs down, and it’s the middle of winter, where are you thinking of having this small, intimate ceremony that seems to be growing larger with each passing moment?”

She looked a little hurt. “Do you really mind so much?”

Steve smiled. “No, of course not. In the end, however we do it, the result is what I want most. Wait a minute...” Steve snapped his fingers. “Mom will still be in the rehab center. We could use the house. There’s the big room that mother used to call the Grand Hall. She held parties with a hundred of her favorite snobs in—"

"Steve!"

"—in there, so our 'little' wedding should fit.”

“Well, we need to ask her.”

“She'll say yes. She’s had Gladys there, keeping the dust off things and vacuuming every day the whole time she’s gone, so I’m sure she won’t mind. Let’s go talk to her about it in the morning. There’s something else I want to show you on the way there.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

The next morning, Steve and Elizabeth bundled into the Taurus and headed out. Thanks to the occasional intervention from Suzi, Steve had adapted to his modest new vehicle. He could now change the radio station, move the seat, turn on the defroster, and even check his own oil, a necessity when driving a Ford that had logged 125,000 miles driven by God knew who.

Instead of heading straight for the Park Central rehab facility, Steve drove them out into an upper-middle-class residential neighborhood called The Vista, just a few miles from Steve’s mother's home. “What do you think of this area?” Steve asked.

“I’ve always liked this part of town. When I was a kid, I dreamed of living someplace nice like this. Why? Did you find a rental here?” He could hear a trace of excitement in her voice.

“No, not a rental.”

“I thought we didn’t want to tie ourselves down just yet?”

“Well, don’t get too excited, because you haven’t seen it yet. I think maybe I found the first house we could flip. The first rule of flipping is to buy the worst house in the neighborhood. I’ve found a place that qualifies.”

He pulled the Taurus to a stop in front of a rambler almost hidden from the street by overgrown grass, trees and bushes. A crooked real estate sign hung on a chain-link fence in poor repair that surrounded a sad, forgotten-looking house. The roof was missing shingles, the cedar siding showed through the peeling paint, and all the front windows were covered with plywood.

“Isn't she gorgeous?” asked Steve, affecting an Australian accent.

Lizzie laughed a little, then looked at the adjacent homes. “This is what broken dreams look like. The neighbors will love you.”

“That won’t pay any bills, but, yes, I think the neighbors will love whoever fixes this house up.”

“Was it a drug house?”

"Fortunately, no, since that brings its own set of challenges. When the real estate market imploded in 2008, a lot of homeowners just walked away from underwater mortgages. So many of them just mailed their keys back to the lender that the banks started calling it ‘jingle mail.’ Eventually, the banks would foreclose, but their foreclosure people were a bit overworked. Sometimes a home slipped between the cracks and sat there for years, like this one. The previous owners moved out in 2012, but the bank didn’t foreclose until a few months ago. Now they want to get rid of it, but you see what buyers see." He gestured toward the house. "You said it well. A failed American Dream."

“Do you think you could make money on it?”

“I think so. It needs a new roof and new windows, but most of its problems are cosmetic. Until now, I was thinking I could do a lot of the work myself, or might need to hire one person at the most. With Bayani on his way, that just got a lot easier, and it won't be too horrible for his family once we get the utilities going. What's best is that we have a good chance to flip it quickly, so the interest payments and upkeep don't eat up the profits. Come on, let’s go in.”

Steve drew his phone. “Suzi? Activate MLS key and enter my access code.”

“Yes, Steve. Done.”

The Bluetooth in his phone communicated with the reader in the keybox. A small key container dropped into his hand.

“What will they think of next?”

“Slick, huh? Come on, let’s look inside.”

Chilly enough outside, felt even colder inside. "At least if the refrigerator doesn't work, the house would keep groceries cold," commented Elizabeth.

Steve rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, let’s keep moving.” Even in the extreme cold, the place smelled bad, like a pail of dirty diapers used to catch the waste from an oil change. Elizabeth stopped and took a doubtful look around.

“There’s just a few things we need to do to make this place worth a lot more. Do you see this tiny kitchen? I’ll take these walls down, here and here.” He pointed to two walls half-covered in mold and dirt. “This is a poor floor plan. That'll open the whole area up. We’re going to turn this into a great room concept. Some new cabinets, granite countertops, hardwood floors and fresh paint, and you won’t recognize the place.”

Elizabeth looked at Steve and shrugged her shoulders. “I think I might be one of those people that don’t have any vision when it comes to this. But,” she added, laying a hand on his shoulder, “I have vision when it comes to you. I know what you can do. You understand all this.”

“And if it weren't for you, Lizzie, I might not be looking for new projects and worlds to conquer. Your belief helps me believe." He laid a hand on hers. "Okay! Now that I’ve impressed you with the Trash Mahal, let’s go see Mother.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chelsea Stanton, fashionably dressed in a grey Italian suit, knocked on the door of Margaret Larson’s room, then pushed inside without waiting for an answer.

Margaret Larson had been asleep, but started slightly at the knock and sudden footsteps. When she recognized the visitor, a shadow flitted across her face. She dismissed it as a moment of weakness. “Oh, hello, Chelsea. It’s nice to see you. What a surprise.”

Chelsea marched over to the chair beside Margaret’s bed. Gordon’s chair, but he was in the restroom.

“I know, I know,” Chelsea said, “and I feel just terrible that I haven’t been to see you before this.” For some reason, which Margaret had never understood, at times like this Chelsea seemed to affect a Southern accent. She waved aside Chelsea's regrets.

“Well? How are you, dear?” Chelsea continued.

“As well as can be expected, thank you for asking. I don’t seem to be bouncing back from this heart attack as quickly as they hoped. I'm supposed to recover, though, provided I do as I'm advised.”

“Good, good. I’ve been so worried about you.” Chelsea crossed her legs and leaned forward, as if to confide. “I’m sure you heard about the unpleasantness at the Autumn Wonderland. I felt just awful, being part of a scene like that. I just can’t figure out what got into our Steve to say those hateful things.”

Margaret took a deep breath, let it out, but let the silence hang. “Chelsea, I’m sure you know, he’s not ‘our’ Steve. He’s his own man. If he’s anyone’s Steve, it’s Elizabeth’s. He’d do anything for her. They’re getting married, you know.”

Chelsea’s cool blue eyes narrowed at the mention of Elizabeth’s name, then still further at the mention of a wedding.

“You don’t say! But I didn’t see anything in the newspaper, on his Facebook page or in his Twitter feed about it.” She paused, caught between possibly having to explain Twitter to Margaret, or squirmier, why she was still following Steve on multiple social media. “Have they not made the announcement, yet?”

“I don’t think they’re planning on making a public announcement. It'll be a very small affair.”

“Oh, I see. A small affair. Yes.” Chelsea’s mind appeared to wander. “Well, I hope that works out well for him, but I fear that it won’t. They come from different worlds. There’s something just a bit off about Elizabeth, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t. She's been wonderful to me—treated me like I was her own mother, in fact. I completely misjudged her, and I remain embarrassed at my behavior.”

“I see. I’m surprised you feel that way. You know who her father was…”

“Do I?” Margaret asked, eyes locking on.

Chelsea swallowed, hard. “I always thought when everything was said and done, Steve and I would be together. Don’t you remember all our lunches and bridge games, how we planned it all out? It would have been so wonderful…”

Has she lost her mind? Is she really living that deeply in a dream world?

“Chelsea!” Margaret said, sharply enough to cut through the younger woman's meandering and shock her to silence. She softened her voice. “Chelsea, you must accept the reality. Yes, we had fun talking about you two being together, but even if he hadn’t reunited with Elizabeth, I don’t believe he would ever have married you. He had every opportunity to fall in love with you, and he did not.”

Chelsea jumped to her feet. Though not a large woman, she towered over the reclining Margaret. Her voice became shrill. “He
did
love me. I know deep down he still does!” Her hands balled into fists, and she began to shake.

After a single step toward Margaret, two large, calloused hands caught her under the armpits, not roughly. Chelsea felt herself lifted off the ground and set back down at the end of the bed.

Gord stood facing Chelsea with complete, infuriating calm.
He laid hands on me! Touched me! And since she saw it, I can't put him in jail for insulting me like that! Goddamn everything and everyone!

Margaret smiled. “Hello, Gord. You always had good timing. This is Chelsea Stanton. Chelsea, this is an old friend of mine, Gordon Bishop.”

Gordon nodded, very briefly, without expression.
Now he's looking at me like a bratty little girl! How dare he?

"Miss Stanton, I think now's a good time for you to leave," he said.

After a moment to calm down, Chelsea looked back at Margaret and hissed like an adder. “You had better tell your precious boy that he needs to watch his back. He can’t get away with threatening people and acting the way he has. Someone will do something about it. As for you,
Gord
, if you ever lay a hand on me again, I'll press charges.” Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and strode out the door.

“Friend of yours?” Gord asked drily.

"Once. It was complicated. You witnessed it becoming much simpler."