Thank you, Benton Coe, Eddie thinks.
“Except for Eddie and Grace’s old house. That was… well, that’s my number one favorite, but my second-favorite is Medouie Creek Road.”
“Really?” Masha says.
“The Medouie Creek Road house doesn’t have a garden shed, though,” Benton says. “Tell you what, if you end up buying that house, call me and I’ll build you a garden shed just like the one Eddie and Grace used to have.”
“You would do that?” Masha says. She’s acting like a twelve-year-old meeting Justin Bieber. Eddie would actually be ecstatic about this—score one for Raja and the Medouie Creek Road house!—if he didn’t have the horrifying memory of catching Grace and Benton locked inside the very garden shed of which he’s speaking!
If the Christys do buy the house, Eddie will tell Raja: Absolutely no shed! In fact, hire a different landscaper altogether.
“Well, good to see you, Benton,” Eddie says. “We have to be on our way.”
“Great to meet you,” Benton says, hoisting his cup. “Good luck in the hunt!”
They part ways, and Eddie leads the Christys across Centre and up Liberty.
“Wow,” Masha says. “He was handsome.”
“Masha,” Raja says.
Masha swats Eddie’s arm. “He thinks I’m bad,” she says. “You should have heard him carrying on about that lady Rachel from the last time we were here.”
“She made cookies,” Raja says.
Oh dear, thinks Eddie.
As they cross the threshold from the street to the front walk of the inn, Eddie’s phone pings. Quickly he checks it. There’s a text from Glenn that says: Full-price offer just came in on the WSI.
From who? Eddie asks. Then he thinks, Whom?
Some guy just called the office offering full market, Glenn says. I guess he used to stay there.
“Is something wrong?” Masha asks.
“Not… not, no,” Eddie says. “Not exactly. I just received word that the inn already has a full-price offer. It just came in.”
Raja smiles.
“But we can still look at it, right?” Masha says. “And if we like it, we can go higher than full price.”
Eddie ushers Masha forward. It sounds sketchy, doesn’t it? Some “guy” calling in and offering the full price because he used to stay there? Could be a crank, although Glenn is the best in the business at sniffing people out.
He has asked Mitzi not to be present in the house while he’s showing it—and yet before Eddie can reach for the knob, she is swinging the front door open, exclaiming, “Welcome!”
“Mitzi Quinn!” Eddie says. “I didn’t expect to find you at home.” His voice holds a touch of reprimand, but obviously not enough because Mitzi seems unfazed.
“Come in, come in,” Mitzi says. “I’m the owner, Mitzi Quinn.” She reaches out to hug—HUG!—Masha Christy, a woman she has never met. Masha, being Masha, thinks she has found her soul mate. Their embrace is one of long-lost friends reunited after a war.
“I’m Masha,” she says. “And this is my husband, Raja. Thank you for inviting us into your beautiful home.”
They all step into the great room, which, Eddie has to admit, presents well. Mitzi has decorated it with what must be a hundred strings of white lights. There are lights on the gigantic tree, there are lights amid the greens on the mantel, and there is an enormous lit evergreen wreath above the fireplace. The room twinkles.
“This looks even more festive than usual,” Eddie says.
“I went whole hog with the lights for Kelley,” Mitzi says. She smiles sadly at Masha. “My husband has terminal brain cancer and he’s blind in one eye.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Masha says.
“He used to really love my caroling village,” Mitzi says. She leads the Christys over to a table all set up with a Byers’ Choice Christmas market scene. “The kids used to tease me about my carolers, and Kelley, too, but one night I caught him out here, rearranging them.” She laughs, then quickly grows somber. “That’s why we’re selling.”
Eddie tries not to frown. This is why he wanted Mitzi gone! No potential buyer wants to hear about terminal brain cancer! They want to imagine a house filled with happy times. They want a place that will make them feel they will live forever.
“Shall we look at the kitchen?” Eddie says.
“Well, I loved it,” Masha says once they have toured the entire house save for the master suite. “No surprise there. But…”
But, Eddie thinks. To keep it running as an inn, she’ll have to hire a staff: a marketing expert, a reservationist, a general manager, a housekeeping manager, and at least one chambermaid, a breakfast cook, and a maintenance man. The mere idea is not only expensive, it’s exhausting.
“But… I think I’d like to look at the other house again,” Masha says. “The one on Whatever Creek Road. I’m intrigued by the outdoor space. And I definitely want a garden shed, like that guy said. What was his name?”
“Benton,” Eddie says. “Benton Coe.”
Eddie forgot that the week following Christmas Stroll is the busiest week in real estate. Everyone who has come to enjoy the holiday charm and whimsy of the island now wants to own a piece of it.
It’s Thursday when Raja calls. Eddie hopes that the reason it has taken him so long is because he has been in heated debates with Masha and has emerged victorious.
“Raja,” Eddie says. “What’s the good word?”
“I’ve given it a lot of thought,” Raja says. “And I keep coming back to the piece of advice my father gave me when I got married.”
“Oh, really?” Eddie says. “What was that?”
“He said, ‘Happy wife, happy life.’ It sounds elementary, I know, but I happen to believe those words are true.”
Happy wife, happy life. Eddie has never cottoned to that phrase; he’s always cast it aside into a basket of platitudes that includes Money can’t buy happiness. Of course money can buy happiness; denying that makes you sound like an idealistic simpleton. And yet who has subscribed to the adage of Happy wife, happy life more than Eddie? He has given Grace his enthusiastic blessing to work for her former lover, just so she will be fulfilled.
“I agree with you, Raja,” Eddie says. “A hundred percent.”
“So I’d like to surprise Masha and buy her the inn for Christmas,” Raja says. “It’s what she really wants.”
Eddie sighs. He hoped things wouldn’t go this way, but he can’t begrudge Raja for wanting to make his wife happy at Christmastime.
“I laud you for your selfless decision,” Eddie says. “And I’m going to make this happen—if I can. We do already have a full-price offer on the inn, I think. I’ll need to check with my colleague to see if that offer is real or just a paper tiger. Even if it is real, we may be able to go above asking. Now, this may result in a bidding war. How high are you willing to go?”
“Twenty million,” Raja says. His voice contains the bravado of a man who has just pushed all of his poker chips into the center of the table.