Back in the Saddle (Jessica Brodie Diaries #1)(8)

“Um, hi--” I stammered stupidly, scrubbing at my face. A chip flacked off and fell to the ground.

“A young lady should never say ‘um’, it makes her seem dense. And you don’t seem dense to me.” She smiled in a playful sort of way, no doubt intending that “advice” to go down easier.

I was not impressed. Intimidated, however, absolutely.

“I’m Jessica, to rent, the uh...the cottage? I might have the wrong place…”

I scanned the property as if a veil would lift and reveal the mediocre dwelling in which I belonged.

“Oh Jessica, darlin. Yes, of course. I figured that was the way of it when I saw ya. I’m Gladis,” she said in an affluent Southern drawl. She stepped past me toward the house. “You don’t look like you brought much with ya?”

“Oh, well, no. I don’t really have much so I thought I would head to Ikea.”

“Of course. A fresh start. And you’re from California?”

“Yes.”

She smiled, her eyes slightly crinkling in the corner. She’d absolutely had work done to her appearance, but by expert plastic, and extremely expensive, plastic surgeons. Her face was nearly ageless. Her neck, however…

“Well, then, let me show you your new home."

She let me through the front door...and into a modern museum. The oval entryway could have been its own room with vast high ceilings and a pillar to each side. A large hall led away into the house and through the middle of a double stair case leading to the second level. Everything was marble, stone, and wood. An impressively large chandelier loomed above us, threatening to fall with the weight of the sparkling crystal.

I gingerly stepped to the side just in case today was the day for spooky mishaps.

We climbed the stair well and then turned right, into the large hallway. Since she was older, she didn’t have it in high gear, which gave me a chance to check out the well-lit and elegantly decorated rooms. As one would expect of a guest room, most were devoid of personal affects, but to make up for that lack, there were art and tiny decorative items that made a person feel more at home. As we walked, we passed a billiards room, which would have made me gasp in wonder if we hadn’t shortly thereafter passed a personal movie theater!

She turned into one of the rooms on the left, which turned out to be the biggest bedroom I had ever entered. Ever. With the biggest, most extreme four-poster piece of furniture that she apparently called a bed. And what was a giant, over-the-top bed without matching night stands? Or a huge dresser for that matter? Forget celebrity, she probably had royalty staying over. Who else but an excessively rich person could afford the wardrobe needed for so much space.

Gladis stopped near the window. “Have a look.

She must have missed my bug-eyed entrance, because I’d been doing nothing but looking. And fawning. And drooling. And feeling more than a little out of place.

Still, she stood with hands loosely clasped in front of her, eyebrows raised, expectant. Like a mime, I elaborately scanned everything a second time. I was an actor once, after all, I could get a point across.

Her continued silence meant an answer was expectant.

“Uh...I mean, it is very nice. Big. I thought, um--” I winced with that last um and lost my focus as heat rose to my cheeks. How did one bring up false advertisement to their landlady?

Gladis’s eyes twinkled. “No, honey, not this room.”

She beckoned me closer to the window.

I went thither, as one does when they are awkwardly standing in a giant room, in which they don’t belong, looking for some answers but too afraid to ask, and followed her gaze to the ground below.

A surge of excited adrenaline coursed through my chest.

There it was. My cottage. I fell in love immediately. It was actually more of a pool house than a cottage, and I was happier for it. From the window, it looked like a decent size, pushed back from the pool a respectable distance, with its own little cropping of trees and landscaped backyard behind it. It was perfect.

“I like to show the cottage from this vantage point," Gladis said in a hush, which strangely fit the situation perfectly. “It is a little more dramatic this way. Either you love it or you hate it, and this view brings out that emotion best. All the kids in my family hate it, which is why they aren’t invited over more than once a year.” She scrutinized my face. “But I can see that you love it.”

I had been staring at it like a fat kid stares in a bakery shop window. In other words, like I was a kid again. All I could do was nod quickly.

“I love it, too," she said with a smile, turning back to the window. “Every time me and the mister got in a tiff, I would hike up my skirts and head out to the cottage for a few days of peace and quiet. Now that the mister has passed on,” she crossed herself, “I just don’t go out there much anymore. I thought it might be time to have a starving student make her way in the world, starting from my favorite place!”

I finally turned toward her. She was clasping her hands in front of her, looking at me as if through a time machine.

“Do you believe in fate, Jessica?”

I blinked uncertainly. “I’ve never really thought about it, actually.”

“Yes, young people not looking for Prince Charming seldom do, do they? Let me tell you, Jessica. When I put that ad in the paper, I was praying to God the person that answered my ad would be starting a journey, like I once did. She, or he, would be taking her first independent steps in life, with nothing but hope and a dream on her shoulders.