No Grater Danger
Page 6
She looked back to Morgan. “It’s Jaymie Leighton. I met you at your aunt’s, Miss Perry’s place, last week. I’m borrowing some of her historic silver nutmeg graters. In fact, I’m going to see her Tuesday afternoon to finalize things.” She turned and pointed toward her table. “That’s my sister and brother-in-law, and my husband and daughter. I’m borrowing the graters for the heritage house, so we can do a school lesson at my daughter’s school on the spice trade.”
“Oh, yes,” Morgan said, her cheeks pink. “I . . . I’m not good at recognizing folks.”
Saunders leaped to his feet and took her hand, smiling. “Since my wife is being so vague, I’ll introduce myself: Saunders Wallace at your service, pretty lady. If you ever need a used car, consider me your guy! We’ve got cars, trucks, ATVs . . . heck, we’ve even got a tow truck on the lot!”
Jaymie had considered going to Wallace Cars for her vehicle purchase, but he had a reputation for cutting corners on service, so she had gone to his competitor. “I’d better move along and let you two finish your dinner,” she said.
Morgan stared down at her food and murmured a goodbye. Saunders frowned over at his wife in puzzlement, but nodded.
“What an odd encounter,” Jaymie said to her sister when she returned to the table. She told Becca about it and pointed the couple out as they paid and exited the restaurant, silence between them.
“Maybe you caught them in the middle of a marital spat. That does happen from time to time,” Becca said. “Not with you two, of course,” she added.
“Oh, we’ve had arguments,” Jaymie said softly. No two lives could be joined without them, but they had successfully navigated through some tension and had come out the other side none the worse for wear.
A waiter removed their plates and returned with a coffee urn to refill cups. Once he was done, he brought the dessert menus, leaving them on the table.
“Anyway, presents!” Becca said, her eyes sparkling as she regarded her sister’s family.
“You weren’t supposed to get gifts. It was your honeymoon!”
“Doesn’t matter. We had fun,” she said, exchanging a glance with Kevin, who smiled back at her. “You know I like to shop, especially in antique stores.” She pulled out gift bags. “One for you,” she said, plopping one down in front of Jakob. “And for you, and for you, especially!” she said, setting bags down in front of Jaymie and Jocie.
In Scotland they had bought a tartan tie for Jakob, who put it on right away. It was a great color and looked good with his burgundy dress shirt. For Jaymie, Becca had bought, at an antique store in Edinburgh, an art nouveau vintage hair comb for her long hair.
“Oh, Becca, it’s so beautiful!” Jaymie said, her eyes misting. It was amber Bakelite shaped like leaves, with pearls for berries.
“Kevin found it. You know how he is with Bakelite. It’s mistletoe! I thought you could wear it at Christmas.”
Jaymie jumped up and hugged her sister, then turned her attention to Jocie, who was pulling a box out of her gift bag. Jaymie helped her open the box and take out a vintage child’s tea set, sized beautifully for little hands. It was pink lusterware with decals of kittens on it, and was in perfect shape.
Jocie’s eyes were round and glittering as she picked up each piece, putting the teapot, covered creamer and milk pitcher together and setting the two teacups on their saucers. “Aunt Becca, it’s so pretty!” she said, her voice catching.
“I want a picture,” Becca said, jumping up and handing her phone to Kevin. She came around the table and crouched between Jaymie and Jocie, with the tea set in front of them, as her husband snapped the photo.
The waiter brought tea, and while Becca, Jaymie and Jocie had a tea party, Kevin and Jakob started talking about Jakob’s new ideas, and eventually moved their chairs close to each other. Kevin pulled out a pad of paper and began doing calculations, and by the end of dinner the two men were almost sold on a partnership of sorts.
Jaymie, meanwhile, had filled Becca in on what she had been doing with the school and the heritage house, and the display items she was borrowing from Miss Perry. She also told her an idea she had for the cookbook she had been writing for almost two years.
“You know, it’s all vintage recipes, right? Some from Grandma Leighton’s handwritten cookbook, and other vintage recipe standards, like meat loaf, that kind of thing. I’ve been redoing the recipes so far for the ‘Vintage Eats’ column, mostly with clarification of old cooking terms. But what about if I redid the recipe two ways, like, lightened up for modern eating habits, and then what all the cooking shows call ‘elevated’ . . . you know, taken to new levels?”
Becca’s eyes gleamed. “First, I’m so happy you’re talking to me about this! I feel like you and Val are closer than you and I, sometimes, and I’ve missed so much.”
Around Jocie, who giggled, the sisters hugged each other.
“I think it’s a great idea! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cookbook that does that, a recipe done different ways for different needs or wants.”
Their dessert order arrived; the sisters and Jocie shared a wonderful slab of brownie with ice cream, while the guys kept talking over hunks of apple pie. Finally there were hugs and kisses all around, and home for both parties.
• • •
MONDAY WAS, AS JAYMIE HAD PREDICTED, A BUSY DAY, so when she and Jakob finally collapsed on the sofa, all she had the energy to do was flick on the TV. It was the news. Normally she didn’t tune in, not with Jocie there, but the little girl was almost asleep, Jakob’s hand gently stroking her blonde curls.
That summer they had gotten some bad news from Jocie’s doctor. Because of her dwarfism, she could not continue to take part in tumbling, an activity she loved and which had given her a lot of confidence. It wasn’t safe because of the danger it posed to her spine. Neither should she play contact sports.
Instead, she had signed up for dance class, a doctor-approved activity. She had not even been cleared for that though, until today, because of her recent bout with the ear infection, which had affected her balance. She had celebrated her doctor clearing her to dance by trying out for the school dance team while Jaymie and Jakob attended a teacher-parent meeting. They then went over to Jakob’s parents’ for dinner.
Dinner at the Müllers’ was never a quiet affair, and it ended with Jocie showing her new dance moves to her cousins while the family had a raucous meeting about Jakob and Jaymie’s proposal for a Müller Family Christmas Store and Acres of Fun! Part of the fun was that they kept trying different names for the business, with much discussion of the merits of each. Helmut, the detail-oriented financial mastermind who looked after the farm books and also did accounting for other area businesses, promised to start working on a financial plan once a bid had been put in on the acreage.
Finally back home now and chatting quietly, Jaymie and Jakob watched as a Saunders Wallace advertisement came on the TV. With a toothy grin, a tartan suit and red bow tie, he announced that they were having an autumn clearance. Come in now! Get a vehicle now! Best prices anywhere now! It was annoying because he always seemed to shout in his ads. “Do you want any old used car, or do you want a wheely great Wallace used car?”
It wasn’t the worst of his cheesy commercials. He had another where he pitched shoes and slippers at the camera, yelling, “Tired of walking? Worn out your blue suede shoes? High-heeled sneakers hurtin’ your feet? If your boots were made for walkin’ then you can walk in, you can limp in, you can wear stilettos or slippers, but don’t walk away! Drive away in a wheely great Wallace used car!”
The local news came on. Her eyes were closing, the sound of the TV mesmerizing, when she heard a name she recognized, and then a voice she knew.
“Get offa my property!”
Jaymie sat up and stared at the TV. There was Miss Perry! “Back it up, back it up!” Jaymie said, flapping her hand at the TV. Luckily they had a DVR that allowed Jakob to back up live TV so he did, to the beginning of the piece.
Estelle Arden was an older woman, thin, with fine dyed blonde hair teased and styled in a flip, framing an aggressively powdered and rouged face, her pale eyes lined with blue eye makeup, mascara spikily emphasizing thin lashes. She was dressed in walking boots, dark green slacks and a quilted patchwork jacket in tones of yellow and orange over a dark green background, leaf appliqués all over it. “Winding Woods is a historic neighborhood,” she said, glancing toward the camera and back to the reporter. “The heritage society hopes to do heritage walks along the riverfront. Most of the home owners—including Haskell Lockland, who is the president of the heritage committee, you know, and who lives along here, too—have said they will allow walkers to follow the riverbank path. All except Miss Lois Perry, and that’s a real shame because—”
That’s when Miss Perry, leaning heavily on her cane, stumped out of her house, across the porch, down the stairs, looking like she was going to fall over any minute, and toward the reporter and Estelle, screaming, “Get offa my property! Get! All of you . . . shoo!” She waved her cane and hit the cameraman on the shoulder, a glancing blow that didn’t appear to do any harm. As the crew, the reporter and Estelle moved away, Miss Perry was still yelling.
The shot cut to the reporter looking into the camera. “Ms. Arden declined to continue with the interview, saying she is too shaken up by the assault. She plans to call the police, she said, since it is evident from our footage that we were not on Miss Perry’s property at all and the attack was unprovoked. Miss Lois Perry declined comment. We’ll check back with Ms. Arden and the heritage society for updates. This is Heather Drake, reporting from Winding Woods Lane in Queensville.”
“Wow, that Miss Perry is quite the spitfire.” Jakob yawned and carefully disengaged his arm from around Jocie as he stretched.
“Calling it an assault is a bit much, though. The woman can barely get around.” Jaymie sighed. “Miss Perry was nice enough to me, but she does seem to have her troubles. She had that run-in with Fergus Baird, the developer, and her neighbor, Langlow Zane, and now Estelle. I like Estelle! She’s very nice, and she and the reporter were not on Miss Perry’s property.”
“Maybe the lady had an upset tummy,” Jocie piped up.
“Hey, I thought you were asleep!” Jakob said, kissing her forehead.
“I was. Now I’m not.”
“Well, you’ll be asleep again very soon,” Jaymie said. “Bedtime, kiddo. We’re all tired tonight.”
Jakob winked at Jaymie over Jocie’s head. “I’m tired, but not that tired,” he said.
Five
JAYMIE WAS MEETING HASKELL at the heritage house to finalize plans for the nutmeg graters and the lessons they would be teaching with their aid. The Queensville Historic Manor, on the outskirts of Queensville, though the town was growing, and would someday encompass the property, was a large three-story Queen Anne, freshly painted and with a sign out front touting the heritage property and opening hours. It had been extensively renovated already, but there was more to be done.
The kitchen was Jaymie’s province and she had carefully chosen a vintage color scheme—soft green and cream—and found hundreds of vintage items to match. Utensils from the early part of the twentieth century often had painted handles in green or red, and cream. Even the stove was a vintage beauty painted green and cream that had originally come from The Junk Stops Here. It was her happy place; she volunteered as much as she could, acting as a historical interpreter in period costume and using the antique stove to cook and bake. Today, though, she was just meeting Haskell; the house was open, but visitors would pick up a self-guided tour pamphlet at the front door and wander through on their own.
Haskell was meeting with a builder in Wolverhampton who had offered to donate a structure on a property he owned rather than tear it down. The heritage society was studying whether it would work as the office and interpretation center they had always intended to build. As Jaymie found a spot in the newly paved parking lot behind the old garage, Haskell was returning across the open field with the builder.
She got out of her vehicle and waited. Haskell was a tall, nice-looking older man, calm and stately of demeanor. He was also some kind of cousin a few times removed to one of her best friends, Heidi. Thinking of Heidi, Jaymie reminded herself to call her later. Her friend had been struggling a bit over the summer, but Jaymie hadn’t kept up with her as much as she should have, given everything that was going on in her own life. However . . . that was no excuse. Heidi had been there for her, and she would be there for Heidi. It was an odd friendship in some ways, given that Heidi had “stolen” Joel, Jaymie’s former boyfriend, away from her two years before. Jaymie was grateful; if not for that theft she may have made the grave error of marrying Joel Anderson.
As they approached, Jaymie was startled when she recognized the builder. It was Fergus Baird! He was dressed as she had seen him before in colorful slacks—plaid this time—and a plain mauve shirt, with a pale green sweater over his shoulders.
“Mr. Baird,” she said after Haskell had introduced her. “I saw you down at the docks last week. You were a little hard on Miss Perry, weren’t you?”
Haskell gazed at her in horror. He was expecting help from Baird, after all. But the developer didn’t appear put out in the slightest.
“Someone needs to hold her accountable,” he said with a serious but mild expression, far removed from the anger of his confrontation of a week before. “Truly, do you think that rickety bait shop is the best impression for visitors to our village? I know you, young lady; I’ve seen you before. You are one of the most active servers at the annual Tea with the Queen event. As someone interested in the promotion of this lovely town, do you think those gentle ladies who come to sip tea on the lawn of elegant Stowe House are given a good first impression of Queensville as they wander down a decrepit board wharf past a feed store and bait shop?”
He had a point, and she admitted it. A couple of pretty shops would be a much more welcoming first impression from the water.
“Still,” she said, chin rising. “You were very rude to her. She’s an elderly lady, and frail.”
“So, pardon my bluntness, I should just wait until she dies of natural causes before we move this town forward?” He adjusted the sweater over his shoulders. “I’m well acquainted with the family history. Her mother was ninety-seven when she died. Miss Perry has a ways to go to reach that age. It makes better sense to press her to sell now, while I’m willing to do something, not fifteen years from now.”
“Jaymie, you are wasting Mr. Baird’s precious time,” the society president said, his thick brows drawn low over his eyes. He turned to the other gentleman. “Thanks for coming out, Fergus. I think the building will work for us, but I’ll need to take it to the expansion committee. We’d love to have it, but could use some financial help getting it here.”
“I said I’d underwrite some of the costs, Haskell.” The two men shook hands. “You know I’m good for it.”
Troubled, Jaymie watched him walk to his car. “I wouldn’t think you’d be on board with bullying an old woman, Haskell,” she said, turning to the heritage committee president. “This is still a free world.”
“He wasn’t bullying her. Isn’t anyone else entitled to a strong opinion? I think you underestimate Miss Perry.” Haskell talked about the building Baird was offering to donate. They needed a feasibility study to decide if it was a good fit for the property, he
said. It was a thirties relic, a car dealership building from that time, and had a lot of vintage appeal in some ways, with art deco features: long curving windows that could be used as display areas and for good natural lighting.
“Can we go into the house so I can show you where I want to put the cases? I’ve got to go soon,” Jaymie said. They turned together and started walking, a fallish breeze chasing clouds across the blue sky above them. A couple of smaller birds were chasing away a large black crow, squabbling and shrieking in the country quiet. “I’m meeting Miss Perry this afternoon to get the graters so I can take them to Bill to get started on the design for the cases. Hey, did you see the news last night? The part showing Miss Perry chasing Estelle and the reporter away?”
“That woman . . . she’s impossible. I don’t know what she has against us all, but she’s becoming a problem, one we need to talk about and figure out how to deal with.”
Jaymie fought back a spurt of anger. She saw it all too often. Once folks reached a certain age they were expected to give up control of things important to them: their property, their homes, even the care they received from doctors and home health care workers. Getting old, as Mrs. Stubbs often said, was not for sissies. “She’s not a problem, Haskell, she’s a woman still in control of all of her faculties. If you truly want to make a deal with her, have you enlisted Mrs. Stubbs’s aid? They’re cousins, after all.”
“Mrs. Stubbs told me to do something physically impossible when I asked her to talk to Miss Perry,” he said haughtily.
Jaymie suppressed a snort of laughter. It clearly ran in the Perry family, that streak of irascibility.
“Can you talk to her?” he said. “You seem to have some kind of rapport with the old battle-ax.”
Her smile died. She didn’t appreciate the lady being spoken of so disrespectfully. “I’m not going to bully or cajole her. Jocie asked if she had a tummy ache. Maybe she’s got a point; perhaps Miss Perry isn’t well. That can make people tetchy.”