Build Me Up (NaNoWriMo)

Day 2 (3,859 words)

Author’s Note: Well, today’s attempt at a 24-hour writing session was a bust. Sure, I managed to haul myself out of bed one minute past midnight, and I wrote for a few hours. The result? Not even 1,000 words. I napped in short stints and eventually slept for a few hours straight. Then I wrote some more and reached the NaNoWriMo daily writing goal. Then I got stuck and got to procrastinating. In the end, I wrote about twice as much as I had for my first day of NaNoWriMo (during two hours intense writing), so I draw from this that I will get much more done under a shorter time period than under a longer one. At least now I can sleep with a good conscience and write when I’m awake : )

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Half a minute into the tour of the bed and breakfast, Kristen decided that this was either the last available place in Greenport, or Quinlan Bankhead had already decided he didn’t like her. Despite being located smack dab in the middle of a busy tourist spot, Breeze Inn might as well have been sitting in the middle of a dense forest where only does and possibly little lost girls hiding from evil stepmoms would find it. It needed a makeover. Stat.

“You get your breakfast from this cupboard here,” said the old lady who’d grudgingly let it slip that her name was Edie May Breezer and had been so since she married Mr. Breezer in 1948. Kristen guessed that that put her at about 80 years old now. The cupboard was a full-length pantry filled with canned goods and biscuits. Kristen could see a couple of packages of cereal, too.

“The cold stuff is in this here fridge,” she continued and pulled open the door to a small fridge. Kristen caught a glimpse of milk, yoghurt and butter before it shut again. “Don’t be letting out the cold.”

A meowing cat had Mrs. Breezer pausing her tour and scooping a black cat off the floor. “Hello there. Are you hungry?” The cat seemed to reply in its own way and Mrs. Breezer obviously spoke ‘cat’. “All right, let’s see what we got here…”

She opened the fridge again, the fridge that was said to house Kristen’s food for the duration of her stay, and pulled out a tin can of cat food.

“Frank Sinatra only eats veal,” Mrs. Breezer explained to Kristen as she shut the refrigerator door again. “Charlie Chaplin is a chicken man himself.”

Kristen nodded sagely, as if storing the information for further use. Rather, she was chopping it up like liver. Hm. Wonder if there was a third cat who only ate liver?

“You take what you want from the pantry and the fridge,” Mrs. Breezer said as she opened the tin can and a faint odor of cat food spread in the kitchen. Or maybe that was coming from the tins in the overflowing trashcan in the corner of the kitchen. In either case, Kristen hoped she’d be spared all evidence of cats in her room.

“I stock it once a week. If you want something else, there’s a store over by the harbor office, only a couple of hundred yards away if you swim. Bit more if you walk.”

Yes, Kristen would definitely be walking over to the harbor later on. Maybe she’d find a lead on alternate accommodations there.

“You’re lucky – the Harbor View room was available. You get the entire upstairs to yourself.”

Kristen could hardly believe it – or, rather, didn’t dare believe it until she saw it for herself. She couldn’t help grinning, though, as Mrs. Breezer hobbled up the staircase ahead of her. Kristen took even longer getting up the stairs, what with carrying her suitcase and all, which decidedly already had a couple of scratches on it.

The view was good – no, great – there was no denying it. The French doors leading out to the balcony, though, didn’t look sturdy enough to weather a storm. Or a cold front.