Chapter 1
With throbbing feet and sore arms, Connie Petretta plopped down onto a metal folding chair to give her aching body a rest from scrubbing clean every inch of the eight-hundred-square-foot shop that would soon be the home of Just Jewelry, her handmade jewelry business. She was exhausted, but the satisfaction she felt from the hard work was reminiscent of the long days she spent volunteering in Africa after college. Like then, the job was tiresome, but her passion for the work carried her through.
That, and the knowledge that in a few short hours she would be spending the evening overlooking the Gulf of Mexico with friends in the beachfront condo she had recently inherited from her aunt and namesake Concetta Belmonte.
Since her return to Sapphire Beach a few days before, Connie had been counting down the minutes to when she could catch up with her cherished friends. It had only been three months since they were last all together, but it seemed like a year.
Relocating from Boston to southwest Florida was a bold move, but she couldn’t wait to begin living her new dream of selling Fair Trade jewelry and her own handmade pieces to the residents and tourists who flocked to picturesque downtown Sapphire Beach. She had the urge to pinch herself to be sure she wasn’t dreaming, but her weary body assured her she was well-grounded in reality.
“I think I’ll join you, honey,” Grace Jenkins, her only employee and one of the friends who would be coming to dinner, called from across the shop. Grace had been Concetta’s best and most loyal friend, never leaving her side during her brief battle with cancer.
Connie pulled open another metal folding chair for Grace before going out back for a couple of glasses of iced tea. She was glad she thought to have a refrigerator delivered first thing upon her arrival.
“Grace, you have been here well beyond the twenty hours per week I’m paying you for,” Connie said, handing her a glass and easing back into the chair.
Grace held up her palm to Connie and turned her face away. “You know how much I believe in this store,” she said. “I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”
The caffeine in the black tea, which she had brewed extra strong that morning, was kicking in nicely. Connie put her empty glass on the floor and retrieved her laptop from the circular counter in the middle of the store, which would soon serve as the checkout area.
She opened the flyer she had been working on for the grand opening and felt a surge of excitement, which magnified her caffeine boost. She couldn’t wait to show off her shop to the Sapphire Beach community.
“I scheduled the grand opening for the first Saturday in April, a couple of weeks before The Great Lexodus,” Connie said, the expression causing a smirk to push its way onto her lips. The Great Lexodus, as Aunt Concetta had explained one time, was when the snowbirds headed north, many in their luxury cars, to return home in time for Easter and to escape the brutally hot summer months in subtropical Florida. “That will give me the slower summer months to restock inventory in time for their return.”
After all the packing and unpacking, Connie was looking forward to spending those hot and humid summer days creating jewelry in the comfort of the air-conditioned shop. But for now, her focus was on the grand opening and all the preparations that had to take place in the two weeks and three days between now and then.
In addition to getting the physical store set up and all the advertising that had to happen, there was her website to think about, online venues, and photos for social media. With so many tasks swirling around in her mind like an ocean whirlpool, she constantly had the feeling she was forgetting something.
The sound of the door chime pulled them from their conversation. It was her contractor, Steve, a dark-haired man wearing jeans and a white polo shirt. With him was a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties, her shoulder-length blond hair tied back with a lime-green bandanna. Connie had hired Steve to oversee the renovations while she was back in Boston selling her condo and training her successor at Feeding the Hungry, the non-profit where she had worked for the past eleven years.
Connie stood to greet him. “Everything looks fabulous, Steve.”
“I know we’ve talked extensively over the phone,” he said, “but I wanted to stop by now that you’re back in town to be sure you were happy with the work and to introduce you to one of my carpenters, Brittany. She’s been working on another job, but she’ll be helping me knock off the final punch list.”
“It’s great to meet you,” Connie said, shaking Brittany’s hand. “I’m thrilled to be working with a female carpenter. You don’t see that often enough.”
Brittany smiled warmly. “A good friend and mentor helped me to see that I am capable of accomplishing anything I set my mind to.”
Steve took a quick walk around the store. “I can’t believe you got this place cleaned so quickly. I thought you’d want to hire someone to take care of that.”
“Absolutely not,” Grace interjected, putting an arm around Connie’s shoulders. “There’s no need to pay for something we can do ourselves.”
Connie was pleased with the finishes she had chosen. The fresh coat of baby-blue paint against the driftwood accent wall gave the interior of the store a beachy vibe, while the hardwood floors, freshly sanded and stained, still held some of the nicks and scratches from years of wear and tear. Connie had elected not to replace them because of the history and character they contained. And the brushed gold and crystal chandelier above the circular checkout counter added a touch of elegance. Connie had dubbed the style ‘beachy-glam.’
Of course, any remodel, beachy-glam or otherwise, was expensive. Fortunately, she had the money from the sale of her condo back in Boston to get her started, while she got everything off the ground. And she would be eternally grateful to her aunt for leaving her the beachfront condo mortgage-free.
“You did an amazing job, Steve. Every time I look at those empty shelves, I feel like a child on Christmas morning. I can’t wait to stock them with jewelry and for the furniture to arrive tomorrow.”
“There’s just a small punch list left,” Steve said. “Brittany or I will be in before the end of the week to complete it. Just be careful. There are a couple of loose floorboards out back in the storage area,” he said as they were leaving.
By the time Connie and Grace finished cleaning the last few spots, not even the afternoon sun streaming through the windows could find a speck of dirt. They gave each other a tired high-five and decided to call it a day.
Connie stayed behind to snap a few pictures for her social media pages that showed the store’s progress to her growing number of followers.
“I’m going to head out, honey, and take a hot bath before dinner tonight,” Grace said. “What can I bring?”
“Nothing. Everything is taken care of. Just come.”
After Grace left, Connie wandered out back to the storage room to look through some of her inventory. Metal shelving wrapped around the ten-by-ten room, where, in addition to product, she stored beads, pliers, tweezers, and other jewelry-making tools and supplies.
In addition to showcasing her talent for making stunning jewelry, a skill that Connie learned while volunteering and living in Kenya after college, Just Jewelry would also provide much-needed work for women in developing countries through the Fair Trade portion of the store. It was the perfect way to combine her love of jewelry-making with her passion for humanitarian work.
In choosing artisans to supply her jewelry, Connie had started with the communities in Africa where she already had connections. Her former boss, Sam O’Neil, also connected her with some of his associates in South America, where he had spent a year before leaving a successful corporate career to found Feeding the Hungry. The boxes of bracelets, necklaces, and earrings had arrived safely by way of Grace’s apartment and sat tucked away and unopened in the storeroom.
In addition, between everything else taking place back home in Boston, Connie had been hard at work every spare moment creating jewelry over the past few months and shipping items that she had already made. Some of the more intricate necklaces had taken her more than thirty hours to create, while other smaller pieces, such as earrings, had taken less than an hour. It was no small feat getting the store stocked and ready for the grand opening. Fortunately, the initial rush wouldn’t last too long, and she would have the summer to restock, hopefully with a better sense of what sells in Sapphire Beach.
As she looked at the boxes, Connie couldn’t contain herself. She just had to open at least one or two. She got a key from her purse and cut through the packing tape on one of the boxes from Kenya. Hidden among the one-of-a-kind necklaces, earrings, and bracelets was a note from her longtime friend, Dura, whom she had met while serving in Kenya. Dura was her own age, thirty-four, and was the first person to teach her how to make jewelry. She was also instrumental in identifying local artisans for Connie’s new venture. Warmth spread through Connie’s chest as she read Dura’s note: Praying for you and your important venture, my friend.
The second box was filled with a colorful array of jewelry from Ecuador. The blue, green, yellow, and orange hues took her breath away. They would be a perfect alternative to the earthier tones of the Kenyan jewelry. Connie carefully rewrapped them until she could properly display them on her shelves, and after a few minutes of further exploration, she put back the boxes and forced herself to leave. She still had dinner to prepare for company that evening. There would be plenty of time to admire each piece as she stocked the shelves.
On her way out, Connie absentmindedly stepped on one of the loose boards that Steve had warned her about, stumbling across the storeroom. Good thing nobody was around to see that graceful move.
When she stooped down to take a closer look, she noticed that not only were two of the wooden floorboards loose, but they also seemed to sink a little in the middle. She pulled them up and immediately saw the problem. A portion of the subfloor beneath the wooden planks had been cut out. She reached her hand into the hole and felt around. She had to reach way in, but eventually her hand hit a plastic storage box. She pulled out the box and popped open its blue cover.
She discovered a leather-bound notebook that looked like a diary, what appeared to be an old-fashioned financial ledger, and a pad of white-lined paper that contained a to-do list. She sat cross-legged on the floor to examine its contents more closely.
