Married to My Ex's Uncle novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: Thirty Days

Greta picked the envelope up off the hood after Margit's sedan was gone.

She didn't open it.

She already knew the number.

She walked into the office, wiped the whiteboard clean with her sleeve and wrote it at the top in red marker.

$180,000.

Under it she wrote 30 DAYS.

The old mechanic stood in the doorway with his coffee.

"Well," he said. "That's a big number."

"It's just a number."

"So's the depth of Lake Michigan."

The apprentice squeezed in past him, still in his bike helmet.

"Are we fired?"

"Nobody's fired," Greta said. "Sit down. Both of you. I need your phones."

By seven they had a list.

Every boat the yard had ever hauled, shrink-wrapped, winterized or fished out of a reed bed.

Two hundred and twelve names.

Greta wrote the deal on the whiteboard in block letters.

PREPAY WINTER STORAGE NOW. 20% OFF. LOCKED FOR THREE YEARS.

"That's robbing us next winter to pay this one," the old mechanic said.

"Yep."

"Your father would've done the same thing."

"I know. I watched him."

She made the first call herself.

It was the dentist from Egg Harbor with the old mahogany Chris-Craft she'd rewired twice.

"Greta! I saw the video from the wedding. My wife played it four times."

"Great. I need your money."

He laughed so hard he had to put the phone down.

Then he prepaid three years.

By noon the whiteboard had a second column.

By Wednesday there were fourteen thousand dollars in it.

A retired couple from Ellison Bay drove down with a cashier's check and a cherry pie.

A summer guy from Chicago paid for his sailboat and his brother-in-law's pontoon and didn't ask what for.

A woman Greta had gone to high school with paid for a jet ski she didn't own yet.

"I'll buy one," she said. "Eventually. Shut up and take it."

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