Chương 19: Wynnie’s Three Things

Several busy days passed. The sailors were long gone, but they'd left their indelible mark. With the changes to the exterior, the Breakwater Inn looked more inviting. Folks kept stopping by to see the updates we'd made. When they did, inevitably, they wanted to see the insides. Despite the drab and dusty interior, my growing cocktail menu was getting noticed. Punch was the main draw. Slowly, it was gaining a word-of-mouth reputation in Seaport. I'd taken to putting some discarded ginger bug in it for a spicy bite.

The steady source of income wasn't much, but it slowly recouped costs. A few patrons were even adventurous enough to try the Greyhound and my Old Fashioned. It felt satisfying to watch folks step outside their comfort zone, nursing drinks in my bar. Which reminded me of the indelible mark the other adventurous crew had made on me. I needed to step outside of the comfort zone I'd built here. I needed to take Wynnie out. Maybe it would be an official date, or maybe just date-adjacent.

Either way, it was time to be more bold.

"I'm going out shopping," I told her one morning.

"Don't you have enough ingredients? I thought you said you had everything you needed!" It was true, mostly. We'd tackled one or two small things per day to improve the interior. One day, it was mopping the floors. The next, we installed a small metal sink with a plugged bottom to serve as my ice well. There was more to do, but I had an ulterior motive.

"We need decorations. Something to make the place feel more welcoming." She crossed her arms.

"And Crispy Dan isn't welcoming?" I looked at the dour portrait of the sea captain hanging askance on the wall. A thin curl of smoke faded from his tobacco pipe, and his gray mutton chops looked oilier than the paints used to render him.

"No. Sorry, Wynnie. He sucks."

"Yeah. He really does. It's just, he's all I had, you know?" She sighed, appearing to take in the main room anew, ready for change.

"Okay. Walk me through it. What's your vision?"

"Lighter. Simpler. Clean."

"Those sound a lot more like adjectives than a plan." How could I begin to explain the cookie-cutter Airbnb and house-flip aesthetic that took over the 2010s? I couldn't simply say, minimalist and strategically bland, because that'd never work.

"Neutral colors. A few inoffensive decorations. Lots of not-quite black or white."

"Sounds minimalist. And strategically bland." Welp. I shrugged.

"Got any better ideas?"

"No. I trust you. This place had a lot of heart once, but hearts break. And the rugs I liked at the market cost almost a gold each. Let's make it soulless." I wasn't sure I wanted soulless, but I admired her enthusiasm. Wynnie stuck around the inn to continue tidying. Meanwhile, I set out with the handcart to scare up some affordable knickknacks and cheap paint for the interior. We needed hotel lobby art, not haunted mariners.

And there was one other thing I needed to buy: The final element before going to The Good Inn. I knew just the dress she wanted, too. Wynnie was doing the laundry in the tub when I returned. I had it all. Squat candles with three wicks. Dried flower arrangements. Three carved wooden balls of different sizes that could probably decorate a mantle or something. I stashed the dress in her dresser, put the decorations aside, and got to work painting. Everything came off the walls.

Old, mildewy linens served as dropcloths; that meant Wynnie had won an argument—I'd wanted to throw them away, but she insisted they might still be useful. By the time she finished cleaning clothes and bedsheets, I'd put a thin layer on one small wall.

"White, huh?"

"I think the color is bone, actually." I couldn't remember. It might've been eggshell or pale nimbus, too.

"The same stuff as what used to be on the outside. It's an homage."

"Sure, Drew. It's the cheapest they have." If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"That too." It didn't need to survive storms and foul weather. It just needed to look better than the unfinished wood inside, which looked… sweat-stained, somehow. We put a Closed sign out front, heading off any business for the evening. Prep time, service, cleanup, and random hospitality needs would only get in the way. We needed a clear runway for this project to truly take off. With diligent work, we could paint the entire main room, which served as entry, dining room, lounge, and bar.

With real elbow grease, we could even tackle the guest rooms. The afternoon became a blur of slow, tangible improvements. Big, sweeping brush strokes converted dark grime into bright mediocrity. We painted, adjusted dropcloths, and leapfrogged each other as we tag-teamed the same sections. Out of laziness, we left a wall unpainted in each room.

"It's an accent wall," I explained.

"What's the point of it?"

"I don't know. It accents stuff, I guess. Makes it feel less sterile." It was just our luck that the slightly bowed wood in the walls looked almost like shiplap. We were creating a caricature of a quick HGTV home improvement result. A decade ago, suburban soccer moms everywhere would've been jealous. After several hours, we stepped back to admire our work. Not for long, though. Heavy fumes filled the air, and I could practically taste the pigments.

The paint was wet, we were hungry, and neither of us had the energy to cook and clean up afterwards. Wynnie coughed. Then she blinked. Several times.

"Have we been drinking?" My eyes stung, and my head felt light. The room was spinning slowly. Maybe it was just the rotation of the planet, but my money was on something else.

"We should get outside before these fumes get us too high," I said.

"We've been huffing this stuff for a while. I'm worried about how many brain cells we're losing."

"What are brain cells?" Right. Of course she wouldn't know that. That would be difficult to explain to anyone, let alone someone who had no grasp of cellular biology. That wasn't a conversation I felt confident leading. Especially not after how many VOCs I'd just inhaled.

"Um. You know what? Forget it. Let's just get some fresh air." I led Wynnie out into the street, walking well clear of the porch. The cool ocean breeze hit me like a splash of water, clearing the fog from my head. We took another look at the inn.

"You know, this place doesn't look so bad." Wynnie gazed thoughtfully from the freshly painted sign to the wooden steps, which no longer bowed and creaked.

"It actually looks kind of respectable."

"Would you say it's as respectable as the other inn in town?"

"You mean The Good Inn?"

"Sure, you could call it that. You could also call it the competition." She pursed her lips.

"That place is incredible. It has ambience, it has culture, it has gravitas. I don't even know what gravitas is, but I know it has it." I grunted. There was no way the inn was as nice as the one that I'd worked at back on Earth. We'd won several regional and national spots on "best of" lists. Our wine list was as thick as a phone book. Then again, The Good Inn had to have some kind of charm. In a fantasy world with magic, anything was possible, right?

"Well, there's something that I've been meaning for us to do. I think now, with the inn shut down due to toxic gases, we should just do the damn thing."

"And just what dang thing should we do?" Excitement and nervousness mixed in Wynnie's eyes. She could feel it. This sounded suspiciously like a date. But I couldn't use that word. Not yet. Not now. If you've never been that guy, then it's hard to explain. The best way I could describe it is to say that moving fast and relying on charm is a very different way of approaching a relationship than, say, developing strong feelings before making a move.

Silicon Valley may want to move fast and break things, but I wanted to move carefully and build. I just had no idea how to do it. Going out was a start. Calling it a date felt like too much pressure. Whatever this was, it was delicate, and different from the first drunken groping we'd done. For now, the word would remain unspoken. We would just dress up. Go out. Have dinner. Relax.

"We're going on a recon mission. Just you and me. Time to see what this other place has that we don't."

"A fire mage," she murmured. I laughed.

"Come on. Let's grab dinner and see what all the fuss is about." For a second, Wynnie looked panicked. Her freckles scrunched up on her nose. She glanced up the long hill toward where the other inn lay. Her hand found the hem of her dress sleeve, fingers worrying at the fabric.

"Oh, I don't know. I haven't been there in so long. It might be weird."

"Why?"

"I think they'll all look down on me. They're always full, and nobody ever complains about getting stuck there when another, even better place has no vacancy." This poor girl had been through the wringer. Her family died, she inherited a wreck of a place, and she didn't have the help or the skills she needed to turn it around. Now her confidence was completely shot. The only things she had going for her were plucky determination and a complete lack of other options. And now she had me.

Over the last week or so, we'd transformed the place. Not only that, but we had enough coin in our purse that it was a nuisance to walk around with it. The jingling was so loud that it sounded as though we were flaunting our wealth. The pouch was heavy enough that it probably counted as rucking for cardio. She had every right to show up and fit right in.

"Think about it this way. If they're not welcoming and kind to you, then they're going to get what's coming to them."

"Which is?" I grinned mischievously.

"Stiff competition. Pretty soon, the Breakwater Inn will be the fancy spot. It'll be The Good Inn that serves as overflow accommodations." She laughed.

"That's a bold claim, Drew. But what happens if they're kind to us?" I shrugged.

"It's always good to have friends in the industry. A rising tide lifts all ships." She took a deep breath and straightened her top. With a determined nod, she took a step up the street.

"Okay. I'm ready." A gentle hand on her shoulder restrained her, and I gestured at both of us.

"I love the enthusiasm, but maybe we could change out of these paint speckled clothes first?" Wynnie glanced down and started as though seeing herself for the first time. A faint blush bloomed behind her freckles, and she offered a goofy half smile.

"Whoopsie daisy." Even the faint grin sent a spark of electricity through my blood. I grinned back. With a thumb, I reached out and wiped a partially dried glob of paint from her cheek. The blush deepened at my touch, but she said nothing.

"Why don't you see what other dresses you have available? I'll freshen myself up too, and then we'll go."