To Love A Ghost || ONC 2023 Shortlist

Chapter Five

I fell into the routine of my new life quickly enough. Without the looming knowledge that I'd have to head back to Minneapolis on Sunday, I was more relaxed as I fell into working on the many renovations needed to turn the shop into the coffeehouse and bookstore of my dreams. 

One of these projects entailed tearing down the drywall on the two long walls, exposing the beautiful red brick underneath. It was a tough and dirty job but when it was finished, the difference the exposed brick made to the place was amazing. I walked around the shop, my mind's eye filling the space with small bistro tables, a cream-colored L-shaped sofa in the corner, with the coffee bar against the opposite wall. In the back of the shop would be the bookshelves made with reclaimed barn wood and filled with titles of several genres. I planned to stock discounted used books as well, and maybe I'd even have a small section of rare, out-of-print titles.

For the coffee bar, I decided to go with a rustic look to match the rest of the interior, and I wanted to hang a huge chalkboard on the wall behind it, upon which I would handwrite the menu of drinks and pastries. I'd even managed to source a free chalkboard of the perfect size on Craigslist. It had been stored in the basement of an elementary school near Wausau that had closed years before and was now being converted into an apartment building.

Ed McKay, the electrical and plumbing contractor, had recommended his brother-in-law Seth, who was a local cabinetmaker to build the coffee bar. Seth stopped by one Wednesday afternoon and went over the rough ideas I'd sketched in one of my many project notebooks. He took several measurements, nodded approvingly at the location I'd chosen and Ed had done the wiring in, and quoted me a price that left me speechless for a moment before recovering enough to bargain him down a little.

Well, hell, I'd never expected this venture to be cheap. The costs on paper were piling up and unless my townhouse sold and soon, I would have to take out another small business loan and probably find a job to supplement my living expenses. Not that I was opposed to that, but the point of opening the coffeehouse was fueled in good part by the appeal of being my own boss.

Ugh. "Why does it take so much money to make money?" I grumbled that night after Seth left. He'd gone out the door with a spring in his step, and no wonder. I doubted landing a project of this size and scope was something he experienced every day.

I sat in the miniscule dining room, papers spread out all over Aunt Lorraine's fifties-era Formica-topped table. Gloomily, I went over the list of essential fixtures and supplies I still needed to purchase and the estimated costs of the inventory I still needed to source. Then there was the cost of obtaining a business license, a food service license, getting a tax ID sorted...the list was endless. After an hour of crunching numbers, a headache began to brew behind my eyes. "Fucking hell," I muttered as I double-checked the total. Thank God for my wise investment choices, resulting in my 401K's great performance over the years which would give me a good head start. Still, money was going to be tight, no way around it. Taking out a second small business loan seemed inevitable. I sighed and whispered, "God, I hope I can do this."

Over my head, the ceiling light flickered.

I glanced up. The fixture was ugly as sin, a yellowish cone-shaped job that hung on a gold chain fixed to the ceiling with an opaque white globe housing the bulb. It reminded me that this apartment was in dire need of updating to some semblance of the twenty-first century. Another expense, though not as urgent as getting the shop off the ground. I could live with my great-aunt's 70's era aesthetics, provided everything functioned as it should. I only hoped the flickering dining room light meant a bulb replacement was imminent, not a warning sign of a wiring problem that I'd have to dish out more money to repair. The electricity was up to code according to the inspection report, but shit happened.