South of Superior (24 page)

“And even if you could get the loan, who would pay it back, and how? And take care of the Upkeep, and the insurance, and a thousand other things?” Nathan asked.

But Arbutus seemed immovable.

“Well, we're just at a complete standstill,” Nathan said finally. “I thought you wanted me to get started on the paperwork. You'll need a seller's appraisal, a disclosure statement, a purchase agreement, all kinds of things.

“And
I
can't think why you're being so stubborn,” Gladys said. “We decided all this already.”

“I don't want to rush into it, is all.” Arbutus looked very Unhappy. “Maybe there's another way. Maybe somebody else would want it. Maybe somebody would live in it and run it again, appreciate it for what it is. I don't think we've really tried, when it comes right down to it.”

“No one else wants it,” Gladys said. “The overhead, Butte. And the repairs. No one will take on the repairs.”

“I know you said that, but you might be wrong. I don't think we've given the old place a chance. Is that really fair? What would Mother and Dad think?”

“Mother and Dad are
dead
. And we're the next to go, and Nathan here doesn't want it, he's made that clear—”

“No, I don't want it. So sue me. I live in Chicago, my life is there. Excuse me. Excuse me for living at all.”

“I wish I could,” Gladys said. Madeline stared at her.

“I'm sorry I lived and Frank didn't,” he said in a weary voice. “We've been over that a thousand times. I know you'll never forgive me for it and it's just something I have to live with. But I still don't want the hotel.”

“No, you just want the money! Made a bunch of bad investments, I'll bet, and you'd hustle both of Us into our graves if you could, to get the little bit we have so you can throw that away too! I may not be able to stop it, but by God I'll say it the way it is.”

“Oh for God's sake, Aunt Gladys. Yes, I could Use the money. It's true! You've guessed it. And what is so wrong with that? I could Use the money and it might save me a lot of trouble in the long run, but that's not what I'm after. I hate to see you both struggling like this when it is so absolutely Unnecessary. That old building isn't doing anything for any of Us, it's a liability. Mother hobbling around the way she's been is just idiotic, she's bound to break a hip next time, and then what? Besides which, if she didn't own it she'd qualify for Medicaid.”

“I don't want charity! And I'm fine. The doctor says I can go home soon.”

“This time.”

“This is the only time there is,” she said simply.

Nathan closed his eyes. “I give Up. I'm no match for either one of you, I never have been. I'll just stay out of it. I'm heading over to the motel now, Mother. I'll stop and see you tomorrow before I go back down.”

“But, Nathan, you just got here—”

“I'm glad you're doing so well. I'll try to come again in the next few weeks. I'm sorry I can't stay longer, but I've got to get back for a meeting. If you really are determined to sell your house, I'll see about getting it listed.”

“No,” Arbutus said slowly. “No, I'll take care of that. It's too much headache for you to bother with. Such a small sale, so far from home.”

“Whatever you think. I'm going now.”

“Good riddance,” Gladys spat.

Nathan gave a worn-out wave and left the room.

Madeline spent half
that night gazing out the dormer windows of the Hotel Leppinen. The lake looked silvery black in the darkness. The roll of waves seemed eternal. An era of her life had ended since she left Chicago; another had begun and gotten complicated already. In the quiet dark of this attic room at the edge of the earth, Madeline was ready to admit a strange thing to herself.

She wanted this hotel. Even after everything—all that had gone wrong, everything Gladys had said about the expense and impracticality of it—she wanted it. Even if it was the worst idea she could ever have, she wanted it, if for no other reason than its beauty. But it was more than that. The hotel had a spirit and that spirit called her. It was wrong to let the Bensons tear it down. It was right that it should be open, part of the town again. If she bought it, she'd be a part of the town, too.

Despite everything, that was already happening. Mary, Albert, Emil, Greyson, Arbutus, even distant, angry Gladys—they'd become her people. They all needed each other. Or they
could
need each other, if they chose to. If she stayed. And why not stay? A person had to make a home somewhere.

At first the hotel had been a daydreamy place, an escape, a stage to play out her desire to be a painter. But lately it felt empty as much as anything. It needed people and voices, life, to fill it. It needed to be open. Of course the idea was crazy—what did she know about running a hotel?—but her conviction was like her certainty about coming north: bone-deep, Undeniable.

 

 

Madeline rode to Crosscut
with Gladys in the morning. They didn't talk on the way. Gladys drove. Madeline stared out the window, her stomach fluttery. She had to be sure that what she was thinking was right. When they arrived, Arbutus looked sad, but resigned.

“Nothing's worth all of Us at odds like this. If you really think the Bensons are the only ones who'd want the hotel—”

“I'd be interested,” Madeline said, slowly.

All eyes—Nathan's included, he hadn't left yet—turned to her.

“What on earth are you saying?” Gladys asked. “Have you gone out of your mind?”

“Maybe.”

“Well this is no time for playing around. I do not appreciate practical joking.”

“I'm not joking. I've been thinking about it ever since you sent me in there for the—” Gladys was giving her a venomous look and Madeline skidded to a stop on that sentence. “I've been thinking about it for a while.”

“Well, it's just not possible. You have no idea what you're saying. Romantic fantasies, that's all.”

“You're probably right. But nevertheless, I really am interested.”

“You can't afford it! You can't even afford to fix that old wreck of a car you're driving—and last I knew, you lost your job. It's ridiculous.”

“No, that's true. But I do have an apartment in Chicago.”

“That is neither here not there, now don't—”

“An apartment—how many bedrooms?” Nathan asked.

“Two. It's on the North Side. An old building, but nice. It's on the third floor.”

“Not bad. Property values are high Up there.”

“There's no elevator,” Madeline said, wondering if that would make a difference.

He shrugged that off. “You have clear title?”

“I inherited it. Emmy—the woman who raised me—left it to me, and we lived there my whole life. I've got a mortgage on it, but there's a lot of equity.”

“Everybody has a mortgage, that's no problem. What's the heating system like?”

“Boiler in the basement. I think it's pretty old, but—”

“
Madeline!
” Gladys cried. “Stop it this instant. You're talking like a maniac. You
cannot
sell your home to buy the hotel!”

Madeline felt a slow smile spread across her face. “Watch me.”

Nathan took Madeline's keys back to Chicago with him, as well as a contract giving him six months to sell the apartment. If she let herself think too hard about it she got panicky.

Gladys continued to maintain that the whole idea was foolish and worse, and in a way Madeline knew that everything she said was true. The hotel would cost a fortune to heat, the wiring was ancient, the roof hadn't been reshingled in fifty years, and she didn't have a clue how bad the water damage from the leak in the roof really was. There were already cabins and motels in town, maybe plenty of them, but the hotel was too big to be a house and McAllaster was too small and quiet, even in the summer, to support it as a store. And how many more stores did McAllaster need, anyway? There was already a grocery and gas station, an antique shop and the craft market. The tourists weren't
that
plentiful. Or were they? Madeline didn't know. She didn't know a lot of things she should have, she Understood that. Yet she would not be swayed. The hotel was going to reopen and she was going to be the one to do it.

“Oh my dear, you can't rush into this,” Arbutus said, whenever Madeline and Gladys visited. “We can't let you do that. You don't realize.”

“You'll lose your shirt!” Gladys said. “I don't want that on my conscience.”

“Well then I'll lose it. But I'll lose it doing something I wanted to. I may go down in flames, but I'll go down trying.”

“It's not that simple,” Arbutus insisted. “Why, you could very well wind Up with nothing. I'm sorry to be blunt but I'm afraid you don't have enough capital to start out with. It all sounds like an adventure now, but when it really happens—”

“There's no money in it,” Gladys said. “There really isn't. Oh, sure, there are tourists now, right through color season, but you've got the whole rest of the year to contend with. Snowmobilers aren't going to stay in a rooming house. They don't want quaint. They want swimming pools and a bar and cable TV. And the place needs work. We haven't put anything into it in years. The wiring went in in forty-seven and none of it's been changed since. Why, McAllaster didn't even
have
full-time electricity Until the sixties, the power went off with the mill at night. There's just so much that needs doing. You can't imagine how expensive it'll be.”

“I want to try. I need a job. And your hotel—there's something about it. I want it. It's right. And letting the Bensons have it and tear it down—that's wrong. I don't know how else to explain.” And she didn't, quite. Not without admitting to them that she'd spent hours in their hotel without their permission, wandering, daydreaming, working.

One trip at a time, she'd taken all of her art supplies Up to the attic. It was a miracle that no one had noticed her comings and goings, though she always was very careful. She considered the idea that the very secrecy the spot necessitated had something to do with her painting again. If she kept it an iron-clad secret—almost even from herself—then there could be no pressure, no expectation, no disappointment or failure. There could be magic, and art could happen. The picture of the sisters at the table over their morning coffee was almost done, and she liked it. She thought it might be good, but most of all she'd liked the making of it.

Gladys and Arbutus looked at each other with worried eyes and they both said the same thing, in different words. If it was the Bensons she was worried about, she must not do this. The two of them had gotten by this long without selling to Terry and Alex, they could get by longer. She couldn't do this out of some kind of loyalty to two foolish old women who ought to have arranged their finances better decades ago.

“No, that's not how it is. I want the place. I want to make it live again. I want you to help me, Gladys.” Gladys's eyes flashed with an interest that Madeline saw her immediately quell. So she'd guessed right about that, no matter what Gladys felt obliged to say about how hopeless and impossible it all was.

“I want to run it. I want to rent the rooms to people who'd love staying there. I want to shine the windows and wax the floors and polish the furniture. I want to sell antiques from behind the front counter, and serve coffee and rolls in the dining room. Cardamom rolls, I could be known for it. I want to have a big ledger for the guests to sign, and I'll hang the sheets out on the line to dry in the wind off the lake. I think I can do it. I want to try.”

Neither sister said anything, but Madeline saw the skepticism on both their faces.

She flUng her hands out and kept talking. “There are a hundred reasons for me to do this. I love the place. I want to stay here. I want to be part of something. I want to
do
something—to do
this
. I'm thirty-five. I'm single, I have no family and no real job. I can't stay with you forever. I have zero responsibilities, really, and it turns out I hate that. Who knew? You know, people thought it was so sad that I gave Up so much to take care of Emmy, but it
wasn't
sad. It was love, it was life. And now I'm basically nothing to anyone.”

Arbutus made a sound of protest but Madeline stopped her. “I'm not trying to be pitiful. Just factual. I'm on my own. And that's good in a way. No one but me gets hurt if I fail. And if I don't fail, look what I get. I get a beautiful old hotel in a beautiful spot and I get to—take care of people. It's what I'm good at, usually.” When she wasn't preoccupied with figuring out what it was she wanted to be good at.