by Lee Hollis
“It’s a really dark play and I was way too old to be playing the lead, but it didn’t matter anyway, because something like six people showed up on opening night,” Conner said.
“I was one of them and you were wonderful in it,” Gemma said, turning around in the passenger’s seat and smiling at him, trying her best to be supportive.
Conner stared out the window. “Gemma’s career is skyrocketing, but I seem to be stuck in the same place I was two years ago.”
“That’s not true,” Gemma scoffed, swishing back around and looking at Hayley. “He had a really good role on Law & Order: SVU and got to play a scene with Ice T.”
“It was one line. I was a bartender and Ice T came in looking for the owner, and all I had to say was...” Conner cleared his throat and adopted a detached tone. “ ‘He’s not here.’ That was it.”
“But you delivered it really, really well,” Gemma said with an encouraging smile.
Hayley felt sorry for Conner, who continued staring blankly out the window. It had to be hard for him to see Gemma excelling in her chosen profession while he felt as if he was wallowing. “I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before you get your big break, Conner.”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, he just offered her a half smile and then looked back out the window, lost in thought.
Gemma clammed up after that, deciding not to push the conversation any further, and Hayley could plainly see that this frustration on Conner’s part regarding his career was having a serious effect on their relationship.
Chapter 5
It had been Hayley’s idea, when Gemma announced that she and Conner would be visiting Bar Harbor on Halloween and would be in town for the Garbers’ Witches Ball, that she and Gemma should go as a pair of iconic witches from the 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz. With her cascading, silky blond hair that she had clearly inherited from her father’s side of the family, Gemma was the obvious choice as Glinda the Good Witch, leaving Hayley to slap on some green makeup and a crooked black hat and try out her full-on Margaret Hamilton–inspired evil laugh as the Wicked Witch of the West. Gemma had instantly jumped at the idea, and the two of them got to work assembling their costumes.
Luckily, Liddy still had her frilly white dress from her disastrous ill-fated wedding day over a year ago boxed up and shoved in a corner in her attic. She was more than happy for Gemma to take it off her hands, and she certainly didn’t care that it needed to be altered and hemmed to Gemma’s exact size. They still needed a magic wand and a cheap tiara to complete the look, though. As for Hayley, she had already ordered some green water-based face and body paint from Amazon, ironed the black cape and dress she had worn to last year’s ball, and had found a crooked black hat at a yard sale the previous spring. On her list remained a broom to carry around, and so she and Gemma stopped into the local hardware store to find one. Hayley wanted a broom with a wooden handle and quickly settled on one she liked. She held it out to Gemma.
“What do you think?”
Gemma, who appeared to be lost in thought, didn’t answer her at first.
Hayley tried again. “Gemma?”
Gemma turned to her mother. “What?”
“Are you okay? You’ve been quiet all morning.”
“No, I’m fine.”
Hayley knew her daughter well enough to know she wasn’t being completely honest, but she didn’t have to say anything because Gemma could easily read her mother’s skeptical face.
“I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately.”
“Would you like to tell me about it?”
“Not really. I’m hungry. Can we get lunch somewhere?”
Gemma knew her mother’s weakness was food, and so when she wanted to change the subject, that’s where she would usually steer the conversation.
Hayley decided to drop it for now. “Sure, I know the perfect place we can go.”
After paying for the broom and walking back to the car, Hayley had barely strapped her seat belt on when Gemma suddenly blurted out, “I’m thinking of breaking up with Conner!”
Hayley gripped the wheel and slowly turned to her daughter, mouth agape. “I certainly didn’t see that one coming.”
“I love him, I do, or at least I think I do. I don’t know anymore . . .”
“What’s changed?”
Gemma shrugged. “Nothing, really. I mean, we get along great, and I know he’s been down lately because his career hasn’t turned out the way he had hoped it would, at least not yet, and I don’t think he resents me because I’ve been kind of on an upswing career-wise, but sometimes when I talk about working for Cyndi, he gets really quiet and I can sense he’s frustrated.”
“It can be hard on a relationship when one person is succeeding and the other is struggling, but that’s something that can be worked on...”
“I guess so, I just feel we’ve been in a rut for a while now and I don’t know how to get out of it. I just wish I felt more confident that we can go the distance, you know, make a future together...”
“How does Conner feel?”
Gemma thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. “I’m sure he feels the same way. He has to...”
Hayley shifted the car in reverse and backed out of the hardware store’s gravel parking lot. “Well, whatever you decide, I support you one hundred percent.”
“Thanks, Mom...” Gemma whispered, staring absently out the window.
Hayley left her daughter to ruminate until they pulled up behind Trudy Lancaster’s food truck, Wicked ’Wiches.
Suddenly Gemma snapped out of her reverie and bolted upright, excited. “When did Bar Harbor get a new food truck?”
“It hasn’t even been a week. Her gourmet subs are amazing. Trust me, I’ve sampled most of the menu.”
They hopped out of the car and walked to the window where Trudy was slapping together an Italian Combo for a balding, potbellied, middle-aged lobsterman with a scraggly beard, still in his waders from hauling traps all morning.
Gemma grabbed a paper menu off the pile that was set out on the counter and held down by a rock to keep them from blowing away in a sudden gust of wind.
After serving the lobsterman, who gratefully took a giant bite of the sub as he ambled away, Trudy happily waved at Hayley. “Good seeing you, Hayley.”
“Trudy, this is my daughter, Gemma,” Hayley said.
Trudy smiled. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Gemma. Welcome home.”
Gemma’s eyes were glued to the menu. “Thank you. I want one of everything.”
“May I recommend today’s special? It’s a bacon cheddar grilled cheese with sweet mustard,” Trudy said, pointing to a chalkboard listing her off-the-menu items of the day. “It comes with waffle fries.”
“Please, you had me at bacon,” Hayley said with a laugh. “I’ll take one.”
“Make it two,” Gemma said.
Trudy disappeared from the window and got to work filling their order. As Gemma continued perusing the menu, Hayley noticed another food truck, this one called Burger She Wrote, pull into an empty parking space directly across the street. Hayley recognized the fifty-something woman with her wild, unkempt gray hair, jumping out of the driver’s seat and hustling across the street, failing to even look both ways and nearly getting mowed down by a passing pickup truck with its horn blaring. She could hear the truck driver shouting out his open window, “Get out of the street, idiot!”
The woman, Cloris Fennow, ignored him as she marched up to the Wicked ’Wiches truck, ignoring Hayley and Gemma. She violently pounded on the counter just below the service window.
At first, Trudy didn’t hear her over the strips of bacon sizzling on her grill, but after a few more attempts at slamming her fist, Cloris finally got her attention.
Trudy poked her head out the window, somewhat annoyed.
“May I help you?” Trudy asked.
“Do you have a permit to park here?” Cloris Fennow shouted.
“As a matter of fact, I do,
” Trudy said.
“May I see it, please?” Cloris demanded.
“Are you the police?” Trudy asked calmly.
“I most certainly am not!” Cloris huffed.
“Then I don’t have to show you anything,” Trudy said with a pleasant smile. “Now if you would like to order something, you’ll have to wait a few minutes.” And then she disappeared back inside her truck to resume preparing Hayley and Gemma’s lunch.
Cloris reared back, thoroughly aghast and insulted, and twisted around to Hayley and Gemma. “I don’t know how she expects to do well in this town if she’s going to be so rude to the locals!”
Cloris stared at Hayley and Gemma, as if expecting them to agree with her, but they didn’t. Hayley had never been a fan of Cloris Fennow. She liked that she was a bit of an oddball, opinionated, and creative with the name of her food truck, the only one in town up until now. But Cloris was also paranoid, abrasive, and basically unpleasant to be around, and so that was why Hayley made it a habit of avoiding buying lunch from her despite the fact that others in town had readily attested to the fact that Cloris made a decent hamburger, despite Sal’s opinion of her stale buns.
But as the only game in town, Cloris didn’t feel the need to actually be nice to her customers. However, now that she had some real competition in the form of the pretty, young, and talented Trudy Lancaster, Cloris was going to be forced into making more of an effort.
And that cold, hard fact did not sit well with her.
In fact, it made her downright livid.
“I don’t see how this woman can just blow into town with her big ugly truck and try to run me out of business!” Cloris cried, her face red and puffy. “Did you hear the Garbers passed me over this year in favor of this stranger? I mean honestly, what do we know about her?”
Hayley decided not to point out that the Garbers had never hired Cloris Fennow to cater one of their Witches Balls because, quite frankly, nobody in town could stand her, least of all the Garbers themselves.
“She has no history here!” Cloris wailed, stomping her foot.
Trudy set out a plastic tray with two delectable-looking grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches and a generous pile of waffle fries on the side of each paper plate.
Ignoring Cloris, Gemma picked up the tray and looked giddily at the sandwiches. “Oh my God, Trudy, they look absolutely delicious!”
This innocent comment just enraged Cloris even further. She stomped her foot again and wagged a crooked finger at Trudy, who did not seem the least bit perturbed by her business rival’s childish temper tantrum.
“You better watch yourself, lady, because I can play rough if I have to!” Cloris warned.
“Is that supposed to scare me?” Trudy asked with a dismissive chuckle.
“Mark my words, you will rue the day you decided to come to Bar Harbor and set up shop in my territory!”
Cloris raced back across the street, again not looking where she was going, nearly getting hit by a passing Volvo, horn blaring. She climbed into her Burger She Wrote truck and roared away, nearly sideswiping two Cub Scouts who were in the middle of the crosswalk in front of her.
Trudy, who possessed a remarkable sense of calm, glanced down at Hayley and Gemma, who were already diving into their sandwiches, and asked, “Should I be nervous?”
Hayley shook her head, mouth full. Once she swallowed, she finally answered. “Cloris Fennow is just a big talker, kind of a crank. Believe me, there’s no need to worry.”
Gemma, her mouth also full, nodded in agreement.
Both of them could not have been more wrong.
Chapter 6
“I wish you wouldn’t speak to me like that,” Ted Lancaster said as he wandered toward the Wicked ’Wiches food truck, his phone clamped to his ear, grimacing.
Hayley and Gemma, who were finishing up eating their sandwiches, eyed him as he approached, declining to greet him as he was too engaged in what appeared to be a very difficult, prickly conversation with someone. He did nod to them in acknowledgment as he continued talking. “Listen, I understand where you’re coming from, but at some point you’re going to have to make an effort to—” He paused. “Hello?” And then he sighed and stuffed the phone in his back pocket, frustrated.
Trudy leaned out of the window of her truck. “Was that who I think it was?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Ted growled. “Sometimes she can be so... so... thickheaded and impossible.”
“Just like her father,” Trudy joked, winking at her husband before glancing over at Hayley and Gemma, who were standing awkwardly nearby and chewing the last bites of their subs. “Ted’s daughter, Alyssa.”
Hayley and Gemma both nodded, choosing to remain silent, not anxious to overstep their bounds and ask too many questions. But, fortunately, Trudy was in a chatty mood.
“She’s been having a rough time of it ever since Ted divorced her mom and married moi.”
“How old is she?” Gemma asked.
“Twenty-one,” Ted answered gruffly, obviously replaying the conversation with his daughter over again in his head.
“She’s a senior at Boston College, studying Education. She wants to be a teacher,” Trudy said.
“Not anymore. She just told me she’s dropping out and moving to New York to sing in a rock band, if you can believe it. She’s in her final semester, with enough credits to graduate in a few months, and now she’s throwing it all away on a whim!”
“Wow, is that why she called?” Trudy asked.
“Yes, and to remind me what a terrible father I am,” Ted grumbled.
Hayley and Gemma crumpled up the paper plates and tossed them in the trash can next to the food truck and were about to sneak away when Trudy drew them back into the uncomfortable conversation again.
“There has been a lot of tension ever since I came onto the scene. A lot of it has to do with the age difference between Ted and me. Alyssa has made it quite clear that she hates the fact I’m closer to her age than I am to Ted’s.”
“Look, I know how awful it is when your parents get divorced,” Gemma said softly, glancing furtively at Hayley. “But you can’t force them to stay together, and you certainly can’t control who they fall in love with.”
Ted didn’t appear to be listening because he was too lost in his own thoughts. “She’s doing this just to get a rise out of me. She wants to get me angry because she’s so angry.”
“Ted, maybe her going to New York is a good thing. If she wants to be a performer, that’s the place to be,” Trudy said.
“Have you heard her sing? I say this with love because I’m her father, but she stinks!”
“Ted!” Trudy cried.
“It’s true! No, this is her way of punishing me.”
Before Hayley and Gemma could finally make their escape, Trudy was talking to them again. “I feel terrible I haven’t been able to forge a positive relationship with her, and Lord knows I’ve tried. She just doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“It’s her problem, not yours, honey,” Ted said, gazing lovingly at his wife. “You’ve made a herculean effort to become her friend. She’s just acting like a spoiled brat.”
“Well, we better get going,” Hayley said, grabbing Gemma by the arm to quickly steer her away.
“Wait,” Trudy said. She disappeared inside her truck and then reemerged with a paper bag that she handed to Ted. “Did you walk here, honey?”
Ted nodded. “Yeah, when Alyssa called I figured it would be safer if we didn’t talk while I was behind the wheel of a car.”
Trudy turned back to Hayley and Gemma. “Ted’s picking up lunch for himself and the Reverend and Mrs. Staples over at the church. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind dropping him off on your way home.”
“Not at all,” Hayley said. “We’d be happy to.”
“Thanks,” Ted said, taking the bag from his wife and looking up at her. “You did remember no olives on Edie’s veggie sub?”
“Yes,�
� Trudy sighed. “She reminded me five times when she called to place the order.”
When Hayley, Gemma, and Ted piled into Hayley’s car for the five-minute drive to the Congregational church, Ted dropped any further references to his troubled daughter, Alyssa, and focused on how much he was looking forward to taking over ministerial duties from Reverend Staples. Hayley couldn’t agree more given her own complicated history with the mercurial reverend. She was eagerly anticipating some new blood at the church.
As Hayley pulled her Kia into the church’s gravel parking lot, she and Gemma were both stunned by the sight of a monstrous RV parked parallel to the backside of the church building.
Reverend Staples, who was just stepping out of the brand-new, pristine, shiny vehicle, spotted them immediately and waved frantically at them to get out of the car and join him.
Ted, who was sitting in the backseat, leaned forward and said, “I don’t think there is any way you are going to get out of a tour.”
Hayley shifted the gear into park. “I’m actually curious.”
They all jumped out of the Kia as Reverend Staples hurried over to them, excitedly huffing and puffing.
“So, what do you think?” he asked expectantly.
“It looks really nice,” Gemma said.
“It’s a 2020 Coachman Mirada 32SS,” Reverend Staples said, beaming proudly. “She’s such a beauty. And she better be because she cost us half our retirement savings!”
Hayley could only imagine what the reverend’s nettlesome and stingy wife, Edie, had thought about that.
“She’s thirty-four feet and ten inches long,” Reverend Staples boasted, leading them over and rapping on the side of the RV with his knuckles. “Exterior is champagne glass with partial paint.”
Hayley and Gemma nodded, pretending to have some idea as to what he was talking about.
“And she’s fully loaded. Come inside!” Reverend Staples said, clambering up the steps.
They all dutifully followed. Once inside, they found Edie sitting at the dinette table, scowling as she paid bills from a checkbook.
“Hi, Edie, we’re here for the tour,” Hayley said, smiling.