Knot on Your Life

by Betty Hechtman

  “You don’t know. All the neighbors could be looking out their windows with their binoculars trained on us.” I tried to sound serious, but it was such a ridiculous statement that I couldn’t hold back a smile.

  Dane Mangano lived down the street. There had been an attraction between us from day one. No matter how I tried to keep him at arm’s length, he kept pushing in closer. He’d offered me his heart and everything that went with it. It was too much, too soon. The best I could do was to acknowledge that he was my boyfriend. But I still wanted to keep it on the down low from the Cadburians. Knowing looks and winks weren’t my thing. And in the back of my mind I worried that even though I liked living in Cadbury by the Sea, making sweets for the town and putting on the retreats, how long would it satisfy me? I worried that one day I’d wake up and be done with it and anxious to move on. Suddenly I’d decide to take my mother’s offer of cooking school in Paris or detective school in LA.

  “I know you might want to leave Cadbury someday and you’re convinced I’ll be broken hearted,” he said. “But did it ever occur to you that you wouldn’t have to leave alone?”

  He grinned at my surprise that he’d read my thoughts.

  But no matter what he’d just said, I knew that Dane was committed to the small town, where being a cop meant keeping tourists from driving too fast down Grand Street and reminding locals to pick up after their dogs. His cop duties were low on violence and high on working things out peacefully.

  He’d taken it upon himself to avoid trouble before it happened by keeping Cadbury teens busy with gratis karate lessons in his converted garage. He also fed them and gave them advice. No matter what he said, he’d be lost in a big city and deeply unhappy.

  “I can’t deal with this right now,” I said, still emotionally worn from the morning meeting with the Delacortes and Gwen and Crystal.

  Dane picked up that I wasn’t playing around and his expression faded to serious. “Why, what happened?” The flirty tone of his voice was gone.

  I debated what to say. I hadn’t told him that I’d discovered that Gwen Selwyn was the love child of the Delacorte sister’s late brother, Edmund. I hadn’t told anybody, well, other than Frank, while I debated what to do with the information. Finally, I’d dropped it in Gwen’s lap to do with as she chose. Only recently had she decided to face the Delacorte sisters. It seemed like the cat was out of the bag, or at least sort of. Should I tell Dane? I glanced at him and considered trying to make it sound like I was worried about the upcoming retreat, but I knew he wouldn’t buy it. I’d dropped too much of a hint and he would never let it go.

  “You have to keep what I’m about to tell you to yourself.”

  His eyes brightened and he grinned at me expectantly. “Oooh, a secret. I love a secret.”

  I think he was expecting some gossip I’d picked up at the Blue Door and I saw his eyes widen and his grin disappear as I told him who the very down-to-earth Gwen Selwyn really was.

  “How long have you known?” he asked in an interrogation tone he must have learned in cop school. He pursed his lips with annoyance when he heard how long it had been. “Why didn’t you tell me right away? Don’t you trust me?”

  “I didn’t even tell Lucinda,” I protested. She was probably my best friend in town and also sort of my boss since she and her husband, Tag, owned the Blue Door. “The only person I told was Frank and he’s far away and uninvolved.” When Dane still looked hurt I continued. “Frank advised me to forget about what I’d found out.”

  “But obviously you didn’t,” Dane said.

  “I struggled with it, but in the end I thought Gwen had a right to know.” I looked at Dane hoping for a nod of understanding before he returned to his usual teasing demeanor, but it wasn’t happening. To make up for what I’d done, I reached out and hugged him.

  I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel him leaning into the embrace. “Aha, trying to use your feminine wiles to make up for not telling me,” he said. I let out my breath, noting that his tone had lightened. “Well, it worked. I forgive you. I like this side of you, making the first move.”

  I was already squirming out of the hug as he suggested I might want to join him for lunch at his house. I opened my mouth to speak and before I could say the words, he said them for me. “I know, I know. You have retreaters coming and you have to gear up.”

  It turned out to be truer than I expected. I’d just gone into my house when the landline began to ring. I barely got out a hello before Cloris spoke. “Casey, you better get over here, like right now. Your people arrived and there’s a problem. A big problem.”

  I was on the way to the door as she was talking and dropped the cordless just before I went out. What could possibly have gone wrong already?

  Chapter 4

  I made it across the street in record time and pulled open the door to the Lodge out of breath both from running and in anticipation. Kevin St. John was standing in front of the registration counter glaring at the five women I assumed were my retreat people. I couldn’t understand why he looked so perturbed until I noticed one of the women was holding a tiny white poodle wearing a pink T-shirt.

  “Ms. Feldstein, do something. You know that pets are not allowed.”

  “But Fifi isn’t a pet,” the woman said. “She’s my emotional support dog. The airlines let her on planes when I fly, so I can’t see why this place wouldn’t allow her.” The woman looked around at the rustic surroundings.

  “No pets for any reason,” Kevin St. John repeated. The dog looked at him and let out a squeaky bark.

  This was a first and I had no idea what to do. There was no doubt that the manager wouldn’t bend. He didn’t like pets and couldn’t understand why people had them. He’d almost run over Julius when he’d strayed onto the Vista Del Mar grounds. I was surprised he hadn’t tried to run off the wild deer that wandered through the property.

  I introduced myself while I tried to think of a solution. They’d driven together, and if one of them was turned away they would all leave and insist on a justifiable refund. I assured the manager that I would take care of it and wished he would go away. He lingered for a moment, but then luckily was tagged by a pair of the bird-watchers holding a map.

  “Aileen Bursten,” one of the women said, putting out her hand.

  “Oh, sure,” I said, shaking her hand. I recognized the name as the person I’d dealt with about planning the event. She had a squarish face with long dark wavy hair pulled into a low ponytail. Her clothes made no impression on me other than they seemed plain. I already knew she was the organized type from our emails and phone calls setting up the weekend. She took my arm and led me away from the group. “You have to do something. I’m, I mean, we’re all looking forward to this weekend.” She pointed to a large pink tote at the dog owner’s foot. “She carries the dog around in that bag all the time. What if she kept her in the bag?”

  Before I could nix it, the dog’s owner joined the two of us. She had a slight build and a pixieish face. Her brown hair was pulled into something at the back of her head. It was too tiny to be called a ponytail and was more like a puff. “We could just go somewhere else in the area,” the woman said. “I heard that hotels in Carmel are very pet-friendly.” She turned to me. “Whatever you planned could just be moved there.”

  “No,” Aileen said firmly. “It has to be here. This place is perfect for what we want.” She looked to me for help.

  “I suppose Fifi could stay at my place,” I said, pointing out how close I lived. I generally liked to keep my place off-limits from retreaters, but this was an emergency. I mentioned having a cat who I wasn’t sure would welcome a dog visitor and offered my guesthouse for the dog. Fifi’s owner stepped in as I was talking.

  “And then I could sneak her into my room at night,” she said. I glanced around and Kevin St. John was out of earshot and now busy on a phone call.

  “I didn’t hear you say that,” I said in a forced tone. “I can give you a key and you’ll be f
ree to come and go as you wish. I certainly won’t be keeping tabs on you and Fifi. Just please be discreet,” I said, dropping my voice. What was I doing? If Kevin St. John found out the dog was on the grounds, let alone in her room, he’d demand she leave and take the information to the Delacorte sisters. I couldn’t afford any black marks against me right now. But by the same token, I wanted Fifi’s dog mom to be happy.

  Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.

  Aileen grabbed my hand. “Thank you for saving the weekend.” She went off to tell the other three women what was going on.

  The manager was back behind the registration counter, and even when I assured him that I’d made arrangements for the dog, he insisted the woman put the dog into her tote bag.

  He watched until the two of us went out the door.

  “I didn’t get your name,” I said as we went up the Vista Del Mar driveway. Of course I knew all their names, just not which name went with which woman.

  “Sorry,” she said, looking down at the dog head showing over the top of the pink tote bag. “I was just so worked up about Fifi I wasn’t thinking about anything else.” She held out her free hand. “Deani McCarthy.”

  When we got across the street I opened the door to the guesthouse and brought them in. Deani gave the place the once-over. “So this is what counts as a guesthouse here?”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant by her comment and quickly said that I knew guesthouse sounded grander than it was.

  Deani chuckled. “I’m afraid you took my comment wrong. I was just thinking what a place like this would rent for where our group comes from. You could get a boatload of money for a place like this.” Fifi was still in the bag and making no move to get out. “This might sound a little strange, but this is too big a space to leave her in. We need something smaller.”

  I glanced around the converted garage. I was about to suggest the bathroom—it was barely big enough to turn around in—but then I remembered my aunt had an old dog crate from when she’d had a pet. A small part of the former garage had been kept as a storage space and I went and found the metal crate. Deani unfolded it and set it in the middle of the floor. I got a bowl for water and an old blanket to put in the bottom of it. Fifi watched it all from the confines of the bag. As soon as it was done with barely any coaxing, she jumped out onto the floor and went right into the crate. She began to root around, rearranging the blanket.

  “Just give me a minute,” Deani said. “I want to make sure she’s okay.” She did a sweep of the interior again. “You said you have a cat. It won’t be coming in here, will it?” she asked nervously. “Fifi is afraid of cats.”

  I didn’t say anything but I could see why. Julius was bigger than the tiny poodle.

  I assured her I would make sure Julius didn’t get a chance to meet the dog face-to-face. She seemed reluctant to leave the dog and I offered to let her stay while I went back across the street, but she seemed torn.

  “I’ll just stay until she get used to the place. Then I’ll come back in an hour or so to make sure she isn’t too lonely.” Deani looked around the main area and settled into a wing chair I’d always liked to use for reading. She looked in the tote bag and took out a skein of moss green yarn and a set of circular needles. I still didn’t know why they were referred to as a set since a cable ran between the shorter version of knitting needles, making it one long piece.

  I watched in amazement as she began to cast on stitches without even looking. Not something I was able to do. I judged by the size of her cast on she was making a scarf. Her fingers flew as she went back and forth making row after row, all without looking.

  “You’re sure good at that,” I said. She sighed and smiled.

  “I don’t sleep well and I feel better if I can do something positive with the time.” She held up the work she’d completed. “I make scarves and hats and donate them.” She made a face. “It used to bother Don, but it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Was Don her husband, her boyfriend or even another dog? And why didn’t it bother him anymore? I wasn’t sure how to ask, but then she answered it all for me, explaining that she and Don had been together for seven years and recently had broken up. You didn’t break up with husbands, you divorced them, making it clear he’d been a boyfriend.

  “Don kept telling me I ought to grow my business into something bigger. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t take one of my customers up on his offer.” She rolled her eyes. “All his talks of apps and going national. But that’s what happens when you deal with all these start-up types. I really thought I’d be getting away from it all this weekend, but then I saw one of them was here.” She seemed to be having an internal discussion. “After what he did, I could kill him.”

  She’d lost me by now and I put my hand up to stop her. “What exactly is it that you do?”

  She gave me a blank look for a moment and then it seemed like a lightbulb went off in her head. “I guess I didn’t mention that. You can see I really need this weekend to catch up with myself. I’ve been up since five getting everything ready so I could go.” She stopped herself. “There I go again rambling on and you have no idea what I’m talking about.” She took a breath and let it out. “I bring lunch and snacks to offices.” She stopped herself and mumbled that she wasn’t explaining it well. “It’s more than just bringing random sandwiches and salads. I customize it. First I find out if the client has any food allergies, is vegan or vegetarian, paleo, keto, gluten-free, or has any religious or ethical dietary issues. I find out foods they hate and foods they like. And then I create lunch and snacks and deliver them.”

  “So you text them a menu or something and then they order?” I said, trying to follow what she was saying.

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You have to know these start-up types to understand. They just want the food to appear, so I choose what I’m going to bring based on all the stuff I asked them and they accept it. They are so into what they’re doing that they don’t even realize they’re hungry until I show up. I charge them a lot and most of them are thrilled to pay it so they don’t have to stop what they’re doing, look at a menu and click on their phone. They call me the lunch genie.”

  She looked at Fifi, who seemed very happy in the crate. “I better tell Madison who I saw. She’s not going to be happy.

  “Madison’s the birthday girl, right?” I asked.

  “Yes, and she’s freaking out about turning forty, but I don’t think you need to freak out until you turn fifty. Half a century? How can you still say you’re young? Madison brought some pink hair dye with her. Thank heavens she’s not making us all get crazy-colored hair.”

  “Which one exactly is she?” I asked.

  “That’s right, you didn’t get to meet the rest of the group. She’s the one with light blond hair to her shoulders. She’s kind of intense and gestures a lot with her hands. She put our knitting group together.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “Here I go again leaving half the story out.” She took a moment to collect her thoughts.

  “I met her because of my work. Madison manages one of those shared work space places that have a lot of start-ups. To say they’re demanding is an understatement. Think man-sized boys who are way too smart with no common sense. She’s always complaining that they think she’s they’re concierge. She says concierge but she really means mother. She just doesn’t want to admit that they think she’s that old. But I digress. While Madison is the manager of the place, she doesn’t have an office. Instead she has to man the reception desk along with everything else. To keep her sanity, she knits. I happened to see what she was doing once when I was delivering meals. A lot of my customers have space in her place. We always talked a little and I mentioned that I’d been knitting since I was a kid. She told me she’d been talking to some other people she knew about starting a knitting group. We could make things and, well, complain to each other. It sounded good to me, so I joined.

  Fifi had slept through it all, bu
t then she began to let out little yelps and barks in her sleep.

  “Oh, no, she’s having a nightmare. She’s probably upset about what the awful man said about dogs, as if she could even do any damage. She only barked at him because it was so obvious he didn’t like her. Fifi is very sensitive and I think she can smell it when someone doesn’t like her. It’s just ridiculous that the manager won’t allow her on the grounds.”

  “But he makes the rules. And as far as I know you’re going to follow them. Just please be discreet whatever you do.”

  “Of course,” she said. “But it’s not like he does room checks or anything, right?”

  “I hope not,” I said, imagining the manager patroling the hallway listening for barks.

  I was anxious to get back across the street, but Deani kept stalling by talking about the others. I heard all about Aileen and how they’d listen to her complain about her husband—how dull he was and how he didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. The group had been relieved when she finally got a divorce.

  She gave me the lowdown on PJ. I should definitely not ask her what the PJ stood for. Once I heard it was Pauline-Josephine, I understood. Who would name a kid that? And because she had a vlog that focused on lifestyle hints that were now called “hacks,” she was constantly looking to record stuff for it. “She’s always ready for her close-up,” Deani said with a laugh. “But seriously, she wants to brand herself and have a line of products, but she’s a little clueless on how to go about it and maybe a little desperate. She was a housewife for years and now is trying to make something for herself out of what she did for all that time.” Deani’s needles kept going and she was turning out row after row as she talked. “Apparently, her husband was one of those in-charge kind of guys who wanted her to walk one step behind, if you know what I mean. And when he moved on, she was left trying to figure out how to reinvent herself. She has a grown daughter who’s working on getting a master’s in some obscure field.