A Scone of Contention

by Lucy Burdette

  She shook her head. “I started to feel like I was getting a migraine on that thing,” she said, gesturing at the wheel. “I don’t like heights, and you know I’m a little claustrophobic. And I definitely didn’t like the looks of that tunnel we were going to travel through once we got to the top. My whole head felt like it was squeezing into my brain, getting ready to explode.

  “But I hope no one pushed him,” she added, raising her eyebrows and tipping her chin in Vera’s direction. “Is that what you’re thinking? Like Vera?”

  “Stop it,” I hissed. “She would never hurt someone. She’s Nathan’s sister.”

  “She couldn’t stand that Gavin,” Miss Gloria said. “Didn’t you notice what a buffoon he was at the party? And this morning too. He thinks he’s too good for the rules that apply to everyone else in the world.”

  “Who didn’t notice?” I asked, falling silent under the glare of the nearest policeman. Was the victim Gavin? Hadn’t Vera been sitting cattycorner in the seats behind us when the ruckus began? Miss Gloria’s comment was making me doubt what I’d seen or not seen, and what I thought was even possible.

  As our turn with the police approached, Helen and Vera were the first in our group to be interviewed. Helen put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder while they answered the authorities’ questions. Helen seemed to be doing most of the talking, as Vera was visibly weeping. We shuffled a little closer to listen in.

  “We didn’t see anything,” Nathan’s mother insisted. “I’m a visitor from America, and we were looking at the amazing scenery. We have no idea who that person is or how he came to fall.” She gestured at the figure on the cement pier, now draped with a silver space blanket.

  Just then I noticed a man break through the police barrier, snapping photos of the police and the gawking spectators and finally even the figure on the cement pier.

  “Sir, stop that this instant!” shouted one of the cops.

  “It’s Gavin!” said Miss Gloria. “He’s alive and well. And still an idiot,” she added under her breath.

  Our turn came with the police. Miss Gloria explained that her headache and claustrophobia had kept her from noticing anything. I tried to report any details I could think of—how I’d hoped the person had fallen in the canal and how the only odd detail prior to the incident had been Gavin trying to climb the structure before we boarded the boat. “Honestly, I doubt that had anything to do with this. And we were sitting too far away to have noticed what happened before the fall.”

  By the time we had all completed the interviews and given our contact information to the police, Vera was barely holding herself together. Her teeth chattered, even though the temperature had to be near sixty degrees, and she took great gasps of air.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. She waved her hand as if to flick my concern away.

  “I’d like to ride in the back seat with her,” said Helen once we reached the car. “Can one of you possibly drive?”

  I thought of Miss Gloria lurching around Key West in her Oldsmobile, almost clipping gawking tourists and other cars with her big fenders while she warbled along with songs on her radio. Plus, this car was a stick shift, and it would require driving on the wrong side of the road.

  “I can do it,” I said, “as long as we put the directions in my phone.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Of all the meatloaves, potpies, grilled cheeses and other comfort foods we have been using to self-soothe during this time of anxiety and perpetual sweatpants, the tuna melt I had last Friday was arguably the most important sandwich of my life.

  —Judge John Hodgman, “Judge John Hodgman on Saving Leftovers From Your Leftovers,” The New York Times Magazine, April 20, 2020

  Once we arrived back at the house, Vera and Miss Gloria retired immediately to their bedrooms, and Helen called for a cab to take her back to her hotel for a bit. I was way too wired to rest, feeling as though I might never relax after an hour plus navigating Vera’s car in the left lane and over strange roads. The backward roundabouts were the absolute worst. My fingers cramped from gripping the steering wheel and my mind whirred with fragments of conversation and images from that terrible scene at the Falkirk Wheel. I’d never be able to nap.

  One thing might help settle my nerves: cooking. The repetitive motions of chopping and stirring, along with the smells of something delicious cooking, never failed to calm me down. I sorted through Vera’s refrigerator and found a package of free-range chicken, plus leeks, parsley, celery and the packages of cheese I’d brought home this morning. Was that only this morning? It felt more like days ago.

  Vera also had barley and chicken broth and flour and a box of prunes in her cupboard. On my phone, I pulled up a recipe for cock-a-leekie soup that looked similar to what Grace had served us at the dinner. I’d been meaning to try this anyway. That comforting stew, dished up alongside my best cheese scones, would make for a simple but appealing supper.

  After placing the chicken in a pot of simmering water, I rinsed the grit from the leeks and began to chop, thinking about all that had happened across the day. Vera had appeared crushed by the accident at the Falkirk Wheel. She had hardly been able to share her observations with the police. I absolutely understood how awful it was to see the man splayed on the cement. I’d felt it too—a combination of shock and horror, and “this can’t be happening.” But she was even more distraught than the rest of us. More curious, she accepted the ministrations of her mother, whom, so far, she’d held at bay.

  The more I thought about it, the more she reminded me of Connie’s husband, Ray, the way he had been acting just before we left the country. My first impression of Vera had been that she was fine, psychologically solid—that her husband and Nathan were exaggerating about how emotionally fragile she was. But this incident, following closely on the illness of her friend at the dinner last night, had totally freaked her out.

  I scraped the chopped vegetables into the bubbling pot of chicken and barley and began to mix up a batch of scones. I grated a hunk of sharp cheddar that Vera had stored in her fridge and added this to the dry ingredients along with a chunk of local butter, and a generous sprinkle of cayenne pepper. Once Vera’s oven dinged cheerfully to announce that it had preheated, I popped the pan of scones into the oven, set the timer, and went to stretch out on the couch. Probably a cup of tea and a warm cheese scone were in order, after a brief catnap. I wished that my kitty, Evinrude, had been here to purr me to sleep, but Vera’s big tom cat, Archie, eyed me from the back of the couch. I got back up to fetch a bribe of chicken scraps, thinking that with a little coaxing, he might be willing to serve the same function for me that Evinrude always did. Before I could lure him over, the oven timer dinged again, and I was back on duty.

  By five thirty, the soup was ready, and both Miss Gloria and Vera emerged from their bedrooms. Miss Gloria looked well rested—she always bounced back after a snooze. Vera appeared not to have slept.

  “Could I interest you ladies in a bite to eat?” I asked.

  “I thought I smelled something delicious,” said Vera, smiling, though the rest of her face did not look happy. “I was lying in there wondering what in the world I could serve my guests for supper. Somehow it doesn’t seem right that you will be serving me.”

  “Hayley loves to cook,” said Miss Gloria. “It’s not a chore for her—it’s therapy. She’s wired differently than most of the rest of us, and this oddity serves her friends and neighbors and family very well.”

  I laughed. “It is like therapy, and I’ve been meaning to try Scottish cock-a-leekie soup, and you had all the ingredients that my pal Susan Hamrick uses. I’ll be able to write about this in my weekly column for Key Zest as well, so it was a win–win situation.” I glanced at my phone, hoping for a text from Nathan. Nothing. “Should we wait for the men?”

  Vera said, “I think we’d be waiting for a long time. William informed me that they have to attend another official dinner that he hadn’t counted on. God knows when they’ll
show up. How about if we have a little finger of scotch and then an early supper?”

  “Perfect,” said Miss Gloria, taking a seat at the table.

  After we’d finished our drink out in the garden and then had a refill, we moved back into the kitchen, where I served up bowls of steaming soup and set out the platter of scones with more butter. We spent a few minutes eating in silence, enjoying the crusty scones, oozing with cheese, and rich chicken broth. Vera looked exhausted and worried but maybe more willing to talk.

  “That was a horrible day,” I said. “Following a dreadful night. You must be devastated.”

  She nodded slowly, set her soup spoon beside her plate. “Something is going on with this project that I can’t quite put my finger on.” She sighed and toyed with the placemat. “The last few days have made me question whether we shouldn’t just quit now. Though the book isn’t nearly done, and final photographs of some of the most marvelous places have yet to be added. We are supposed to be making one last pass around some of those featured sites so Gavin can take those photos and I can tweak the text and cut any unnecessary fat.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you’re ready to give up,” I said.

  She shook her head sadly. “We have all invested so much already. And we have a very tight schedule this week, and I was hoping we could all pull together. I was hoping for a magical ending.”

  “I wouldn’t call the last few days magical,” said Miss Gloria. “I hope having all of us here isn’t throwing you off.”

  Vera sighed again but then forced a smile. “Oh no, we wanted desperately to meet Hayley, and you are absolutely icing on the cake. But if we don’t come through with what we’ve promised by the end of this month, there’s an enormous advance and a lot of prestige on the line.” She covered her face with her hands, long slender fingers trembling. They had the same shape as Nathan’s fingers, only more delicate.

  “It’s more than those personal things at stake; it’s the future of our country’s thin places. The places that are loaded with history and tragedy and lessons, if we only cared to try to learn.” She dropped her hands to her lap and looked at me. “Maybe these two events are serendipitous, but I think not. I feel like somebody is trying to sabotage the project, but I can’t think why. They have the same stakes in it as I do …” Her words trailed off, and she looked close to weeping.

  “You seem to suspect that one of your friends is responsible for the troubles,” Miss Gloria said. “But it could very well have been someone we didn’t know who pushed that poor man. The boat was packed. He also could have been out on the landing by himself and simply lost his footing.”

  Vera could only shrug.

  “If the fall today is related to what happened at dinner the other night, what could that connection be?” I asked gently.

  “I have no idea.” She threw her hands up in the air and began to breathe so fast I feared she was spiraling into a panic attack. Where was my psychologist friend Eric when I needed him?

  “Well, let’s start at the beginning,” I said, trying to speak in a calm, level voice that might vibrate with confidence. “What were your friends like back when you first met them? Did you all gel right away, or did it start with a twosome, and later the third person was added? And what about the husbands? How do they fit into the mix? Are they friends? Do you have any old photographs from college that we could look at?”

  Vera looked at me as though I was out of my gourd.

  “What I’m trying to get at is whether you have some history that might be leaking to the surface now,” I explained.

  Miss Gloria was nodding as if I might be onto a good line of questioning. But Vera was still silent. Miss Gloria jumped in. “It’s not as though all college relationships are smooth, because kids are trying to figure out who they are in those years. And so sometimes they choose duds, not people with the solid qualities that you’d want in a lifetime friendship. My sons got mixed up with some real doozies.”

  I waited a couple of beats to see whether Vera would pick up this train of conversation. Nothing. “I was lucky with my college roommate, Connie, because we hit it off right away,” I added. “And we’ve stuck together all these years. We’ve changed—we’ve both gotten married, and she has a baby.” I grinned. “We had her as the flower girl at our impromptu wedding. She is the cutest thing.”

  I held myself back from pulling out my phone to show her pictures of baby Claire toddling down the dock, clutching the posy of flowers. Or the rest of our wedding day. Those happy details didn’t matter right now. Vera remained silent, so I kept talking.

  “One other thing that drew us together was that her mother was terribly ill during our senior year. And horribly, she ended up dying of her cancer. My mother lived close enough that we were both able to go home and get comfort from her over that awful time. I will always be grateful for that. And Connie’s good for me because she reminds me that even if my mother is occasionally a little annoying, I’m still very, very lucky to have her.” I paused for a moment. “I think I’m trying to say that sometimes a traumatic event or a tragedy pulls people together. And sometimes it splits them apart.”

  I stopped yakking and looked at Vera, wondering if she’d take up any of the threads of conversation that I’d offered. I really wanted to hear about her relationship with Helen, but I wasn’t sure that was most important to Vera right now either.

  “You ask a lot of questions,” Vera finally said after several minutes of silence.

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Nathan says the same thing.”

  “It makes me happy to see him happy,” Vera said, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. “And somehow you’ve won my mother over too, and that is not an easy task.”

  “I don’t know if anyone told you, but your mother and I shared a near-death experience last year, and we bonded in the process.”

  She stared at me for a moment or two. “I had one of those too,” she said, “and it did not work in the same way with me and her. In fact, it cracked our family into pieces. I’m pretty sure it was the cause of my parents’ divorce.”

  I would have tried to reassure her otherwise, but I had no idea what had happened in their family, and she’d shrug off my attempts anyway.

  Vera stood up and walked over to the bookshelves to pull a bulky book from the bottom corner. A family photo album? I would love to see more pictures of Nathan as a baby and a boy.

  “This was our college yearbook,” she said, handing the book to me. “I can’t think that it will be helpful to you, but”—she shrugged—“at least you can look at the individual portraits of me and Glenda and Ainsley. Maybe you’ll see the secrets we’re keeping in our faces.” She laughed weakly. “We can talk more about it later, see if it leads anywhere. But I’m doubtful.” She put a hand to her temple. “Right now, I have the worst headache.”

  “I’ll look it over. You go rest and take care of that headache—we’ll clean up.”

  “Of course, we will,” Miss Gloria said. “I usually have the KP job at home too. Or I did until Hayley moved next door with Nathan. It’s only fair since she shops and cooks.” She got up to carry plates to the kitchen sink. “Did you know that’s why gay marriages are happier than straight ones? They don’t have preconceived notions about who should be doing what, and so they’re better at sharing the workload.”

  “I’m not surprised to hear that,” I said, and then turned back to Vera. “One last question: Did you recognize the man who fell today?”

  “No. But I wasn’t close enough to really see.” Now she held her head between both of her hands. “Tomorrow, we should all be ready to leave by noon,” she added, straightening back up. “We’re going to spend our first night in Peebles for the summer solstice festival. We’ll grab a late lunch and watch the town parade before dinner—you two will love that. You are very fortunate to be visiting Peebles on the Eve of St. John’s, the celebration of the birth of John the Baptist. William’s ancestors considered the veil betwee
n this world and the next to be very thin on this day. Then the following morning, on to Glencoe.” She grimaced and clutched her head again. “I’m sorry this is all isn’t more relaxing, but I hope you’ll find our itinerary well worth it.”

  “Go have a rest,” Miss Gloria said, shooing her out of the kitchen. “We’ll clean up.” Once Vera had left the room, she added sotto voce, “I hope those weren’t the same ancestors who massacred my people.”

  Once we’d finished the washing up and stored the leftovers in the freezer, Miss Gloria insisted on pouring us another finger of whiskey to sip in front of the telly. We watched the end of the BBC news, and there was not a word said about America or her policies or politics. Honestly, it was nice to have a breather from the problems that dogged us at home.

  Deep into an episode of a TV series based on Ann Cleeves’s Shetland, I heard a car outside in the driveway, and then somebody crashing into the garbage cans. Before I could panic about a possible intruder, Nathan and William clattered into the room, wearing kilts again—the full-dress version with what looked like animal pelts hanging from their waists and swords tucked into their skirts. This time, Nathan looked completely comfortable in his costume, as if he had grown up roaming the Scottish moors. For the first time, I could really understand why Claire went all wobbly seeing the redheaded Jamie in his kilt in Outlander.

  I stood up to kiss him hello. “Who are you, you gorgeous hunk of manhood, and what have you done with my husband?”

  “It is I, Nathan the conqueror, and I’ve come to sweep away a wee Scottish lassie,” he said, sounding a little tipsy and absolutely giddy. He grabbed me by the waist and swung me into an embrace.

  I couldn’t help giggling once he’d released me. “And how much whiskey have you two had to drink? Because maybe Miss Gloria and I have some catching up to do. And I hope neither of you was driving.”

  “We cadged a ride from someone’s wife.” He flopped down on the couch beside our friend, and I perched on the other side of him and reached for his hand. “We’ve had the most amazing day. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be playing the same course where Tiger Woods won the British Open? Of course, my drives aren’t quite as long as his.”