One Bad Apple Read Online Free

mother didn’t have a head for business. Meg made sure that her mother had named her joint owner of the property, which would entitle her to a share of the proceeds from the sale. With the stipulation that Meg had to oversee repairs. When Meg had signed the documents, she had had no idea of the extent of those repairs, and now she was kicking herself. She had foolishly agreed to use her severance money to fund them (maybe her mother was more savvy than she had thought), to be reimbursed from the profits. Those hypothetical profits were diminishing daily.
    She squared her shoulders. “Okay, give me a time line. When would be the best time to put it on the market?”
    “Certainly not right away, if you were thinking of it. Market’s kind of slow right now, all across the state, and mortgage lenders are pretty wary. In any case, spring and summer are always best— places just look prettier, you know? I mean, unless you’re in a real hurry to unload the place. You could do it, but it would cost you. You’d have to lowball your price.” Frances wrinkled her nose at the idea.
    “So I’d have maybe four months to get it into shape?” Meg asked.
    Frances looked relieved. “Right. I really think it would be worth it. Oh, tell me—you have anything like a history on this place? I mean, it’s been here for a while, since before the Revolution. If you could come up with a good story, that might be a nice selling point.”
    Meg shook her head. “I have no idea. It belonged to a couple of my mother’s unmarried great-aunts, Nettie and Lula Warren, and I think they’d lived here all their lives. As far as I know, it’s always been in that family, and they were the last of that line. I’m amazed they left a will at all, but I gather they were into genealogy, so they knew that their closest relative was my mother. They did want the place to stay in the family. Anyway, I have been thinking about looking into the house’s history.” Whenever she had anything like spare time, which at this rate might be never.
    Frances beamed. “Well, there you go! You can look up some old maps, maybe some deeds—get copies of them, frame them, and hang ’em in the hallway. Lookers love that kind of thing. They think they’re buying a little history.” Frances checked her watch. “Well, I’ve gotta run. Look, Meg, I know this seems like a lot to think about, but if you put some effort and some money into the place, you won’t regret it. And if you need some names to do the work, give me a call.”
    Meg escorted her to the door. “Thanks, Frances. At least you’ve been honest with me. I’ll be in touch.” After she watched Frances pick her way along the icy path to her car, Meg turned to contemplate the interior of “her” house. Freaking white elephant, that’s what it was. History indeed. It was old, period. And it was suffering from all the ailments of old age—creaky joints, failing internal organs. It would take an unthinkable amount of work to do even half of what Frances had suggested, not to mention money.
    Once Frances had driven off, Meg cautiously opened the door to her kitchen—and closed it quickly: the smell seemed to be getting worse. This problem was not going to just go away. Where was the plumber? She was trying to do as much of the work as she could herself, but plumbing was outside her pitifully small area of home-repair expertise. She needed a professional, even if she had to pay him.
    Why had she ever thought she could rehab an old house in the rolling hills of Granford, Massachusetts? Until a month ago, she had had trouble keeping her apartment in Boston neat—and had been happy to call the building manager at the first sign of a leaky faucet or balky electrical switch.
    No more. Boston was her past, and she was now a resident of Granford, albeit a temporary one. Her mother had decided that this little project was just the thing to do while Meg waited for that perfect job to fall into her lap. Then