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Present Day
It shouldn’t have been so easy to buy the Grayson Estate.
But with a bit of minor finagling from Becca, the financial planner, Rose left the real estate office with the keys just one week after she’d seen the flyer in Charlie’s woodworking shop. A smile played across her lips.I can still surprise myself,she thought.
But Rose wasn’t fully sure she wanted to step through the ancient doors of the Grayson Estate by herself—not without proper assistance. It was clear the property was damaged and potentially dangerous. She needed someone to do another thorough inspection to tell her where she could go and what she could do as she plotted and schemed her way to refurbishing it in time for next year’s tourist rush.
Rose contacted Charlie first thing. She knew he had experience in that world, and he agreed to meet her at the Grayson Estate first thing in themorning.
He also said:
I can’t believe you bought it.
ROSE: Call it a late midlife crisis.
CHARLIE: Magical things come out of midlife crises sometimes.
ROSE: Let’s hope this is one of those times!
The Salt Sisters’ group chat was all over the place about the news.
HILARY: Tourism is gold around here. I think it’s a brilliant idea.
TINA: Isn’t that place haunted?
ROSE: It’s haunted by the events of my life, but it’s not haunted for anyone else. I don’t think it is, anyway.
STELLA: You don’t sound totally convinced it’s not haunted. Should we call the Ghostbusters to swing by, just in case?
ROBBY: Didn’t the Ghostbusters retire?
HILARY: There has to be a new generation of Ghostbusters. It’s the 21st century. Times are changing.
Rose giggled to herself, reading the messages out on the veranda of the home she’d bought and fixed up for herself going on fifteen years ago. The house was not far from Hilary’s place, with an elaborate rose garden, quaint brickwork that reminded her of old-world Germanarchitecture, her fingernail crescent of white sandy beach, and plenty of room to roam around. She’d always lived here alone—
although there had been a boyfriend in her mid-forties who’d nearly moved in before they’d both gotten cold feet and separated. Rose thought of him fondly, though they hadn’t spoken to one another in many years at this point.Another chapter of my life,she remembered.Another thing I had to say goodbye to.
Rose had been flat-broke when she’d first met Stella and Hilary in 2004. Hilary’s offer for her to move in had enlivened her up to a point. It also reminded her of the definition of her life: other people would always be wealthy. Not her.
But that had changed. Miraculously. Insanely.
Set on remaining in Nantucket no matter what, Rose had moved into a quaint apartment after leaving Hilary’s place and put herself to work. She’d waitressed; she’d worked at the movie theater; she’d scrubbed floors and tutored high school students and paid every single one of her bills on time.
But it wasn’t till she discovered her artistic side that the money rolled in.
Rose had always enjoyed making art and using her hands. During her stint at Hilary’s, she’d helped Hilary paint several rooms in the house and gave advice on carpeting, drapes, and artwork. Hilary had said at the time,You have a sharp eye for detail, Rosie.Rose had brushed it off.
Two or three years after her stay with Hilary, Rose discovered a canvas on sale at a secondhand place and bought it for three bucks. Paints were more complicated to come by, but she eventually wrangled some from anacquaintance of Hilary’s who’d taken up painting briefly before abandoning it for what he called his “true hobby,” which involved partying on sailboats.
That first painting had been relatively conservative in form and function. Rose had selected the Nantucket lighthouse as a subject and spent a good two weeks perfecting it. Not long after, she showed it to Hilary, who immediately set her up with an art dealer named Oriana Coleman. Oriana sold the painting for what Rose took to be a small fortune.Ten thousand dollars.Oriana urged her to paint more.
Rose did.
In fact, Rose spent the next twelve years exclusively painting her way across three hundred and sixty-two canvases. She painted anything that came into her head: lighthouses and beach bluffs and ancient houses, majestic horses, pancake spreads, and children holding ice cream cones. A few very rich people reached out to her to ask to have their portrait painted because the very rich were always narcissistic. But Rose didn’t mind. She profited off their narcissism. More than that, she adored painting portraits, digging into the soul of the person and seeing them for who they were.
It was with this cash that Rose could purchase this property along the water. With this artistic name, she could bounce from painting as a medium to something far more adventurous: sculpture.
Now, Rose abandoned the veranda and padded downstairs to her studio. The studio was the biggest room of the house, with walls twenty feet high and a massive window that echoed back to the view of the Nantucket Sound. A chandelier twinkled its lights from the ceiling.
