A matte red lipstick covered her large full lips, and her brown wig sat on top of her head like a hat. Aunt Jack was a large woman with a booming husky voice, thick fingers and big ankles. She always seemed to be out of breath, huffing out the smell of peppermint from the candy she was always sucking on, with the rest of her smelling like Chanel No. 5.
“Surprise!” she said and stood with her arms spread.
I guess she expected us to rush over and hug her. She hadn’t even been gone all that long. And my mother didn’t think much of her. At least not enough to be happy she was there.
“Jacqueline!”
Oh, but yes, she was my PopPop’s only daughter, although the only two girls I knew for sure that put a smile on his face were Rivkah Solomon and me.
He scooted out of the bench and walked double time over to her.
“Daddy!” she exclaimed. She kissed him and gave him a big hug. “I’m home.”
“Yes, you are,” he said. “And I’m glad to see you.” He turned and looked at the rest of us still staring at Aunt Jack with blank looks on our faces. “Look what the wind blew in.”
“I don’t remember there even being a breeze today,” Riya said. She knew how I felt about Aunt Jack.
Everyone who knew me, knew how I felt about Aunt Jack.
I frowned at her before coming from around the counter and giving her a hug.
“Hi, Aunt Jack,” I said. “Good to see you.”
“I know it must be.” She looked around the ice cream shop. “Things sure look different.” She walked around in a circle, taking it all in. The large cobalt-blue accent wall behind the well-lit display cases. It was the same color as the vinyl cushions on the white metal ice cream parlor chairs and the benches on the wooden booths. Then her eyes spotted the full glass wall I had had placed to give a full view of the falls. Our store sat atop it, the only one in the village. And from all the oohs and aahs I’d gotten from customers, I would say it had been a hit.
Of course Aunt Jack didn’t like it.
“Why would you put all that glass back there?” she said. “What if someone falls through it and into the river?”
“It’s double pane,” I said. “They’d have to fall through both of them.”
“Then you’d be doubly liable.”
I didn’t think being liable twice for the same thing was a possibility.
She looked back at PopPop. “Daddy, looks like I came back just in the nick of time.”
“What does that mean, Jack?” my mother said. “Everything is going great around here.”
Aunt Jack smiled. “That wouldn’t be what I heard.”
“What—” my mother started.
“Ailbhe,” my grandfather said, interrupting what he knew was going to be the start of insults slung around, all the while with fake smiles plastered on their faces and hurled in sweet singsongy voices. “Call Graham and let him know Jack’s here.”
“He’s in surgery, I’m sure.”
“Jack, how long you staying?” my grandfather said, ushering her back to his seat.
“I’m back to stay!” Aunt Jack said and tugged on her wig. “Don’t know why I left in the first place.” She patted PopPop on the back as she looked around. “Bet you’re happy about me being back.”
“Of course I’m glad you’re back, Jacqueline. I like having my children close by. What happened with that fellow you went chasing after?”
“I didn’t chase him, Daddy. He pursued me. Don’t know why, though,” she mumbled and tugged at the side of her eye. “He didn’t need me.”
“Oh, Jacqueline,” he said.
“But I see you guys need me.” She stood up straight and brushed her hands together. “No worries. I’m back to help.” She nodded.
“We don’t need your help, Jack,” my mother said. “We’re doing just fine.”
“Win, get your Aunt Jack some ice cream.” PopPop didn’t give Aunt Jack a chance to respond. He pointed her to a seat, not the bench where he’d been sitting. She probably wouldn’t have fit. He sat her in one of the parlor chairs. “What kind you want, Jacqueline?”
She cocked her head to one side and glanced over at the display case. “What kind you got?” she asked, popping back up and heading over to take a gander.
Maisie jumped behind the counter and started naming them instead of just pointing up to the sign. I was sure she didn’t remember that it was always better not to say too much to Aunt Jack, because Aunt Jack always had something not too nice to say back.
“My goodness, Bronwyn,” Aunt Jack said. “Can’t you just make up your mind what flavor of ice cream you want to serve?”
chapter
TEN
Rory and I left the ice cream shop and walked over to Molta’s. I needed to calm my nerves after Aunt Jack blew in and started a commotion. She hadn’t been there ten minutes and already she’d made my mouth turn dry and my stomach cramp up. My mother left soon after her, I was sure she was having a parking lot moment. Whenever she was stressed or depressed, she’d pull over into a parking lot and sit. Sometimes for hours. It didn’t matter where the parking lot was, just whatever was close when those feelings took over. My father said it was probably a good thing to have her off the road.
Maisie graciously stayed to man the store.
I was glad to have Rory for a distraction.
“So what do you do here?” she asked.
“Here, as in Chagrin Falls?” I asked.
“Yes. Chagrin Falls.” She glanced in the window of the shops as we passed. “I mean, I know Cleveland is literally just down the street, and it is bursting with stuff to do, but this place seems so far removed.”
“We’re a suburb of Cleveland,” I said. “And no, we’re not New York City, but it’s home. It’s a great neighborhood. A great place to live. And I have my business here.”
“Do you?” she asked.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m just saying”—she held up her hand defensively—“your Aunt Jack seems to want to take the shop back.”
“She won’t do that,” I said. “I’ve taken over management of the shop. She left. My grandfather turned it over to me.”
“In case you didn’t notice, she’s back,” Rory said.
“Of course I noticed,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean anything.”
“You don’t think your grandfather will give her the shop back? That is his little girl.”
“She is fifty-something years old,” I said, annoyed with the conversation. “She is no one’s little girl.”
“Don’t get huffy with me,” Rory said. “I’m just an observer.”
“An observer with an agenda.”
“Yes. I admit to that,” she said. “I have an agenda. I’m here to cart you back to New York, to your job and your office.”
“I didn’t have an office. I had a cubicle.”
“Not anymore. Not if you come back.” She lifted her eyebrows, letting me know it was part of the package Peter had put together to woo me back.
“Not interested.”
“Okay.” She said it like she was just placating me. Like she’d win me over in the end.
We walked in silence for a while. I had to admit, it felt good that my ad agency wanted me back. But it also made me wonder what was going on there that they needed me. And why send Rory? I glanced over at her. She was inspecting every store window we passed. I wonder what she was holding back.
And as for my Aunt Jack—well, I was sure she had her motives for coming home and I was sure they were selfish. Peter and Aunt Jack. I blew out a breath. Whatever their reasons, decidedly they weren’t doing anything good for me. All they were doing was interrupting my life.
A life I was quite satisfied with.
“Apart from your ice cream shop,” Rory said, breaking in
to my reverie, “this town seems a little behind the times.”
I chuckled, looking around at our surroundings. “We prefer ‘quaint.’”
“Good word,” she said and smiled. “See. You can still market anything.”
We rounded the corner onto West Orange Street where Molta’s was located. I nudged Rory and made her take notice of it.
The restaurant was new and chic. Architecturally modern in form, it had clean straight lines and resembled two boxes, one larger than the other, attached together. An entryway made up the smaller square structure. It had big dark wooden double doors with huge wrought-iron handles. The second square, in the back and to the right, made up the interior of the restaurant. The building was covered in a whitewash stucco. The trim and wrought-iron fence that delineated the porched-in eating area were black.
“You want a little piece of New York, Rory?” I smiled and pointed. “How about that?”
“It looks nice.” She chuckled. “Food good?”
“Yep,” I said. “And so is the coffee.”
I pulled open the heavy door and we walked inside, the cool air and the smell of roasted meats and exotic seasonings invading our senses.
“Smells so good in here,” Rory said. “I forgot I hadn’t eaten since yesterday.”
I frowned. “You got on the road this morning with nothing in your stomach?”
“What?” She turned, a confused look on her face. “Oh . . .” She closed her mouth and opened it to say something else, but nothing came out.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Just hungry.” She smiled. “And dumbfounded about something so upscale sitting right in your quaint village. We’re still in Chagrin Falls, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “We only walked around the corner.”
“Just checking,” she said.
Rory’s comment about Molta’s again reminded me of Riya saying that the village was going upscale. She’d said it the day I reopened the ice cream shop back on that snowy, cold day, saying that me serving flavors like cherry amaretto chocolate chip was ushering Chagrin Falls into gentrification. Looked like Riya may have had a portent of what was to come.
Gentrification.
That word had been used the night before at the SOOCFA meeting. Something all the shop owners present apparently resisted. Our village had stayed small and quaint because that was the way we liked it. It had been one of the reasons I’d come back home. Not because my life was spiraling on a course I couldn’t control and not because I had left chasing a dream I wasn’t able to achieve.
I wasn’t Aunt Jack.
I came back home because I wanted to be here.
I didn’t know if gentrification, or revitalization as Zeke Reynolds put it, was a bad thing, or not. But if moving our quaint little village up to the twenty-first century, like he said, meant that murder was invading our boundaries, me and my family’s ice cream shop wanted no part of it.
“Follow me, please.” The hostess greeted us with a smile and, clutching two menus, led us to a table against a colorfully tiled wall. “Your server will be right with you,” she said.
“You have to order the coffee,” I said, shaking out my cloth napkin and placing it over my lap. “You’ll enjoy it.”
“I’m good,” she said, mimicking my actions. “We’ll grab my car and drive over to Cleveland. You know where a Java Joe’s is, right?”
“I do,” I said. “But you have to try a cup here. I know you’ll like it.”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “But don’t be surprised when you have to resuscitate me from going so long without my fix.”
“You ate a ton of ice cream,” I reminded her.
“That was because it was soooo good.” She drew her shoulders together and wiggled in her seat, squeezing her eyes shut. “I know it goes against my mission, but your little shop is so cute and the ice cream will make you crave it even if there was a ton of snow outside.”
I laughed. “I don’t know about that,” I said.
“Trust me,” she said. “I know when word gets out about it, you’ll have a line going out the door.”
“Actually, your snow theory has already been tested.”
“How?”
“The day I opened, it snowed.”
“What? Get out of here!”
“Yep. Snow and a dead body tripped me up on opening day. Literally.”
Her whole expression changed. Rory’s skin was a beige color with red undertones and freckles scattered about, but with my words her face lost all of its color. “Oh my,” she mumbled.
“Can I get your drink order?” The waitress showed up with a bright smile before I could ask Rory what was wrong, her question cutting in on my concern.
“I’ll have water with lemon, please,” I said and waited for Rory to answer, but she seemed to still be distracted. “She’ll have coffee.” I ordered for her. “Cream and sugar.”
“Maybe a shot of expresso,” Rory said. She looked up at the waitress and I noticed a little color coming back to her face. Her voice hadn’t yet seemed to regain its full volume, though.
“You okay?” I asked. “You had me worried there for a minute.”
She cleared her throat. “Just feeling a little dizzy.” She shook her head. “That’s all withdrawal.” She gave me a weak smile. “I’m good.”
“Probably fatigue from the drive this morning and the lack of coffee.”
“Here’s your coffee”—the waitress was back—“and your water.” She smiled. “Do you still need time to look over the menu, or are you ready to order?”
“No. We’re not quite ready,” I said, realizing Rory hadn’t even opened up her menu. “Give us another minute, please.”
When I looked at Rory, I noticed she was frowning down into her cup.
“Now what’s wrong?” I asked. “You haven’t even tasted it yet.”
“I’m afraid to.”
“Drink the coffee,” I said. Her frown intensified, and she was blinking rapidly, combating, it seemed, watery eyes that emerged just from the thought of having to taste it. “You’ll like it. Ari isn’t the Dixby sisters. And he isn’t even from Chagrin Falls.”
“Who?”
“The guy who owns the place. Ari Terrain. He’s from a place that knows coffee.”
“I can’t imagine where that would be, but I do know he landed here. That couldn’t mean anything good.”
“I’m from here. And New York,” I added, “and I like his coffee.” I raised an eyebrow. “You trust my judgment, don’t you? I know a good cup of coffee.”
She blew out a breath and picked up the cup. She took an exaggerated sniff, put the cup to her lips and looked at me over the rim. Her frown still prominently displayed.
“Oh my,” I said. “Don’t be so dramatic. Take a sip.”
Her nose crunched and her lips tightened as she took a sip, but as soon as she had, her eyes brightened. “Oh man, this is good.” She smiled at me and licked her upper lip. “Almost as good a cup of coffee as your scoop of ice cream.”
I grinned. “Thank you, and I told you so.”
She set the cup down and let her eyes drift. “So what did you mean when you said you literally tripped over a dead body?”
“That I tripped over one,” I said matter-of-factly.
“How can you say it like that? That is so . . .” Her words trailed off. She looked at me, biting her bottom lip, seemingly searching for the right word.
“So what?” I prompted.
She shrugged. “Scary. Devastating.” She stared down into her coffee cup. “Life altering.”
I laughed. “It wasn’t that bad. And it wasn’t the dead body so much that made it scary. It was who the dead body turned out to be.”
“Who was it?” She leaned in, attentive, like I was telling a scary story.
“It was a man who had wronged my grandmother. A man my family hated and a man who was killed by a drug that was only used in surgery.”
“Okay, you want to explain that answer?”
“Long story short, my father was the number one suspect.”
“Oh,” she said, realization washing over her face. “He’s a surgeon?” I nodded. “Your grandmother—his mother?”
“Exactly.”
“Oh wow. So what happened?”
Looking down at my napkin, I smiled. Trying not to blush too much—it really was a serious thing—I said, “I solved the murder and cleared his name.”
“You did not!”
“I did.” I beamed. “Well, Maisie and I did.”
“Maisie? The girl I met in the shop today?”
I nodded.
“How in the world did you do that? I mean, put all the clues together and everything.”
“Believe me, we just stumbled our way through. Maisie watches Acorn TV—”
“Acorn TV?” she interrupted.
“It’s a British television streaming service that has all these amateur sleuth shows.”
“Oh. I get it.” She laughed. “She thinks she’s Nancy Drew or somebody.”
“Yes. But don’t laugh, because we did it.”
“You didn’t get into any trouble?” she asked.
My mind flashed into that stairwell. The white walls. Green doors. That great big painted number “1” showing my way out, and all that fear I felt that day made me shudder.
“None to speak of,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m impressed.” Rory bowed her head to indicate mock reverence. “Purveyor of ice cream extraordinaire and emerging impromptu amateur detective.”
I chuckled, tossing those memories out of my head. “Let’s order,” I said. “I think you’re getting light-headed again. You need food!”
chapter
ELEVEN
I did see one place in your little village I’d love to visit, though,” Rory said before stuffing another forkful of the breaded chicken stuffed with spinach and cheese into her mouth. “I saw a gallery.” She took her napkin and dabbed at the edges.
A Game of Cones Page 7