Page 59 of Gulfside Girls
She loaded her grocery bags onto the luggage trolley, along with the trays she’d scrounged from the storeroom in the office and hoped for the best.
Ali opened the door of the Lemon Love Shack. The sun was golden now and it lit the place in a way the Instagram kids would envy.
“Wow, Golden Hour, I guess.”
She didn’t have much time. She surveyed the kitchenette and the table. She’d stocked everything she’d need to prepare thesnacks. And before long, her charcuterie boards were looking respectable. A quick check in the cupboard revealed a nice big plastic bowl for the kids’ crackers and snacks. She tested the little fridge, and while it seemed to be making a noise like it might give up at any moment, the interior was cold.
“Okay, hang in there a few more hours, please,” she instructed the fridge.
She covered her snack boards with Saran Wrap and popped them in the fridge, doing a good once over to be sure there weren’t any geckos also in residence. Satisfied that the Lemon Love Shack needed reno but not a demo, she stored her snack creations. Next she decided to look around the grounds for chairs and anything else the Grand Finale might need to make it special for the guests.
Ali walked into the courtyard of the Sea Turtle. Nothing to be done about the green pool, and the ocean horizon was the star anyway.
She roamed the little courtyard, picked up a few errant palm fronds, and realized the place also probably needed some major landscaping. Faye would go bananas if allowed to run amok in this little green jungle.
The fact was, Ali needed a real estate agent in here, soon. She needed an appraisal to decide how to proceed. Each broken-down piece of the place probably lowered its value. The more she looked, the more its disrepair revealed itself. Poor Jorge probably hated the idea that so much needed to be done. But it was a huge job for someone of his age.Instead of feeling guilty that I’m going to sell, Ali thought,maybe I should consider that they’ll be grateful. They’re both past retirement age. Way past.
Back in the office, Ali explored a big storeroom area. There were labeled bins and remnants of perfectly organized shelving and storage. But there was also a fair amount of chaos.
At every turn at the Sea Turtle, she could see how Jorge and Didi used to do things versus how they now seemed to be barely scraping by.
She could spend all day in the storeroom, organizing and sorting. But there was no time. The guests were here, and that had to be the focus.
Ali moved things around a bit and discovered just what she had in mind.
Lights!
Ali looked at her phone. There was enough time, she hoped, to do this little bit extra for the guests’ first night. In short order, she sat on the ground in the courtyard with several tangled strings of white Christmas lights.
“Oh, how, ugh. Where’s the end?” she grumbled to herself, or so she thought.
“Come again?”
Ali jumped a bit in her spot.
But it was only Henry, with several bottles of wine. “I brought the fun, see? No worries about having enough wine. I hear you’re pinch-hitting on the Grand Finale.”
“News travels fast. How’d you hear?”
“Moe told Erica, and she called me. You probably have it under control, but you know, a bottle of wine never hurts. And a co-pilot on your first Grand Finale, well, if you need one. I humbly offer my services.”
He did a courtly bow, and Ali’s frustration with untangling the Christmas lights turned to gratitude.
“I gratefully accept,” she said and returned his bow with a regal nod and hand gesture.
“Okay, so you also need my expertise in the light department. That’s painfully clear.”
“Expertise?”
“I can reach the high branches.”
“Ah, yes, that would be good since I have no clue where Jorge keeps the ladder.”
Henry offered her a hand to help her up. She put her hand in his. And a frisson of attraction zipped through her like a shot of espresso.Wow.But Ali quickly shuddered that little distraction away. Number one, she had a husband—well, barely, but still, vows were vows, to her at least—and two, Henry wasn’t hitting on her. He was being a good neighbor! She focused on the task at hand, the stupid tangled lights.
“Are you sure? It’s maddening.” She lifted the wad of bulbs toward her knight in sandy flip-flops.
“I can take it.”
