Margo Walsh, an elderly widow who lives with a daughter and a granddaughter in the house where she grew up, is struggling to pay property taxes that keep increasing. Until now she has been able to supplement her income from Social Security with her earnings from a café that she started five years ago, but her new landlord is doubling her rent, so she faces the risk of losing her business and being forced to sell her house. And while she is struggling to survive she must also deal with the problems of her children and her grandchildren.
Excerpt
Margo wondered who he was and what he was doing at her café because unlike her typical customers he was wearing a suit, a gray suit with a white shirt and a red tie like politicians wore, so she was suspicious, but she wasn’t at all prepared for what he did to her.
He came in after the rush of people doing takeouts on their way to work. He approached the counter where she was standing, and he ordered a small caffe latte and a plain croissant, which he paid for in cash, and then he sat at one of the tables.
While he took bites of his croissant and sips of his coffee he looked around as if he was seriously assessing the property. He was probably in his mid-thirties, the age of Margo’s youngest daughter, Tricia. He had probably gone to college and majored in business and now worked for a company, or he wouldn’t have been wearing a suit. She didn’t know anything about suits because neither her father nor her husband had worn them to work, but she noticed that this young man’s suit fit him perfectly, so it was probably expensive.
After he finished his breakfast he leaned back in his chair and called to her: “Are you Margo Walsh?”
“Yes,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“Would you mind joining me?”
It sounded like a command rather than an invitation, and it made her wary. After a moment of hesitation she said: “Okay.”
He watched her approach, and when she stopped and stood at his table he told her: “You may want to sit down.”
At that point she realized that he was going to give her some bad news. While she remained standing he reached into his shirt pocket and took out a business card, which he offered her across the table.
The card said: “Richard Pierce, Vice President, RSC Investments, LLC.” And it listed a New York City address.
“Okay,” she said as calmly as possible. “What’s this about?”
“It’s about your lease.”
It was a five-year lease which Margo had signed in 2019 without ever imagining that within nine months her business would be disrupted by covid. Her landlady was an elderly woman who
out of the goodness of her heart had let her pay whatever rent she could during the time when restaurants were closed. She had died almost a year ago, and according to Margo’s agent it was taking a while to settle the estate because of family conflicts.
“What about my lease?” she asked, looking directly into the man’s cold gray eyes.
“It expires at the end of May,” he said.
“I know, but I have an option to renew it.”
“You do, at the market rent.”
“Okay. So you want an increase of five percent?”
The man laughed mirthlessly. “That’s not the market rent. The market rent is double what you’re paying now.”
“Double? You’re crazy. You could never rent this place for that much.”
“We could, and we will.”
She was still standing, but she felt as if she had been hit by something, and she steadied herself by grasping the back of a chair. She looked again at the business card, saying: “RSC Investments. Who are you?”
“We’re the new owner of this building. We bought it from the estate,” he added.
“And you’re based in the city?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, you don’t know the market here. If you look around, you’ll see that there are five empty stores in this village.”
“But they’re not prime locations like this.”
“You think this is a prime location? I’m the fourth business to occupy this space in the past ten years.”
“That only means they weren’t good businesses.”
“How can you say that? You don’t know what they were.”
“I have a record of every tenant that’s occupied this space from when the building was constructed ninety years ago.”
She glared at him, disliking him for several reasons, including for being a know-it-all. “Well, I have a good business here, but I couldn’t pay double what I’m paying now. I could only pay a five percent increase.”
“It’s not negotiable,” he said, pushing back his chair.
“Then you’ll hear from my lawyer,” she said, doubting it would deter him.
“Your lawyer can’t do anything about it. Your lease only gives you an option to renew at the market rent. And the market rent is whatever we say it is,” he said, standing up.
She noticed that he was shorter than the average man and he had a small, thin mouth. She could see how women might have rejected him, engendering a need to get back at them. She felt like saying: “We’ll see about that,” but conscious of it being a standard retort in a playground quarrel she only repeated: “You’ll hear from my lawyer.”
“Fine,” he said. Before leaving he reached into his pants pocket and left a handful of change on the table.
“Asshole,” she muttered. Since there were no customers who needed attention she sat down at the table and fully confronted her situation. She was seventy years old, and she depended on her income from this business to help pay the property taxes on the house in which she had raised her family and still lived with her middle daughter, Lindsey, and a granddaughter, Keira. Her only other sources of income were Social Security, the individual retirement accounts which she and her husband had put their meager savings into, and Lindsey’s contributions which paid for the utilities. Those sources covered her basic needs, but without the income from the café she wouldn’t be able to stay in her house. Of course she could sell it, but the proceeds of the sale would be divided equally between her and her two remaining siblings, so it wouldn’t leave her enough money to buy or rent an apartment with the space she needed for her family in an area where she had lived her whole life.
She could try to get a job. She had worked more than twenty years for a real estate firm in the village, but that ended when the owner retired and wound down the business, and then she had worked for almost ten years at a doctor’s office, but that ended when he merged his practice into a group that used a complex computer system for processing claims. She struggled to learn the new system, but it defied her, and by then she really hated the job, so with the encouragement of her family and friends she started a business where she could apply her people skills. So she did have a useful set of skills, but at her age who would hire her?
