I stepped into a living room and dining room combination. Set into a bay window sat a chintz-covered love seat. Built-in bookcases with glossy white paint lined one wall. Hobnail plant pots with ferns filled a white-painted whatnot shelf and a cheerful embroidered dresser scarf festooned a small end table.
“And through here is the bedroom.” A white iron double bed covered in a seafoam green chenille bedspread and chintz throw pillows sat tucked under the eaves.
I was delighted by how cozy and pleasant she had made the space. Everything was built on a small scale. I felt completely at home. “And over here is the kitchenette and the bathroom.” I followed her to the back of the apartment.
The kitchen was too small for both of us to fit in together so I entered alone in order to peek into the cupboards and the diminutive fridge. Vintage china and glassware filled the shelves. At the end of a short run of pink-tiled countertop sat the tiniest range oven I had ever seen.
Off the kitchen was a three-quarter bath with tile that matched the kitchen. Everything was tiny and cute as a button. I felt as though the apartment had been made just for me. As I stood in the living room once more I was seized by an overwhelming desire to rent the place.
“This space is truly charming.” Priscilla’s cheeks pinked and she smiled at me for the first time I could remember.
“That’s sweet of you to say. Frances always said she thought of this as a life-size dollhouse.”
“That’s it exactly. I can see why she was here for so many years. I expect she misses it terribly.”
“She does. But not as much as I miss her. I used to come up and have lunch with her almost every day after she retired from the bank. I checked on her most evenings, too, before I went home. I wasn’t sure I had wanted to rent to anyone new but I don’t think I’ll be able to keep making the mortgage payments if I leave it empty. Besides, Jim convinced me it would be good to have someone else in the building again.”
“I hadn’t realized you and Frances were so close. She must have been good company.”
“We were and she still is. I drive out to Dappled Oaks two or three times a week to take her books or some homemade treats.” I was seeing a whole new side of Priscilla, one that was far nicer than the one I was used to seeing.
“That’s really thoughtful of you.”
“Dappled Oaks has a lot of amenities but a decent library isn’t one of them.”
“From what I’ve been hearing around town we’re lucky to have a library that isn’t worse than the one at Dappled Oaks. Jim mentioned on the way over here that you’ve been a library trustee almost ever since the year the fund-raiser money went missing along with Spooner Duffy.” Priscilla pursed her lips and looked a lot more like the woman I was accustomed to encountering.
“That was not one of our finer moments as a community. But in the end it all turned out all right.”
“Not for Spooner, it didn’t,” I said.
“Not for the library trustees either. To be honest, I thought before it was all over Cliff Thompson would have a stroke.”
“He told me it was a difficult job.”
“He thought it was. He didn’t manage to last for another term. All the fallout from the robbery was too much for him to take, I guess. Life can really be hard sometimes.” She looked around the living room again, slowly shaking her head and straightening a throw tossed on the back of the love seat.
I could imagine myself sitting tucked up on the small sofa with Graham on the other end, a small, scruffy dog seated between us. In my imaginings we were carrying on a conversation with no one dropping in to see if he had popped the question. The vision I had created for myself was so appealing I heard myself speaking before I thought.
“Do you allow pets?”
“Frances had a dog for years. It wasn’t any trouble, so I can’t imagine why I’d object to you having one as long as it’s small.”
“You know, this is such a nice place I’d like to sign a six-month lease right now.”
“Well, I suppose it would be all right. I’d much rather rent the place to someone I already know. I wouldn’t want some stranger in here living above my store.”
Jim called up from the bottom of the stairs to ask how I liked the apartment and if we’d made a deal. Priscilla jumped like she was a triple-bypass survivor caught with her mouth full and a half-eaten block of cheese in her hands.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m just very easily startled. I have been ever since I was a small girl. I get so focused on one thing that anything else coming into my attention takes me completely by surprise.” Priscilla stood there immobilized, her trembling hand pressed at the base of her throat.
“Do you need some water?”
“I’ll be fine in just a moment. No need to make a fuss.” Priscilla held on to my arm as she led me out of the apartment and started down the stairs. “The more I think about it the happier I am that you’ll be moving in here. In fact, the sooner, the better.”
“What do you mean by soon?”
“Today, if it suits you. I’ll just need first and last months’ rent and a security deposit.”
“That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say. I’ve got my checkbook right here.” I dug into my purse and prepared to fill out a check for the first time in ages. Priscilla told me the expected total and then looked my check over carefully.
“I’ll go get you the keys,” she said. “And I’ll make you out a receipt. You can never be too careful about the bookkeeping.” Priscilla was meticulous about everything as far as I could tell. Her clothing had creases ironed into all the right places, her shoes could put your eyes out from the shine beaming off them, and her window displays were changed every Monday morning even if Monday happened to fall in the middle of a blizzard.
“Perfect.” I stood there thinking about what I had just gotten myself into. On the one hand I was feeling that flutter of excitement that comes with a new venture. The world felt full of possibilities and opportunities.
On the other, I was not looking forward to telling the family that I was moving out. They might be pleased for me and they might feel hurt. Probably, the reactions would be a mix of both. Priscilla returned, an old-fashioned two-part carbon copy receipt in one hand, a set of keys in the other.
“Here you go. It’s all official and aboveboard just the way the taxman likes it. You can’t be too careful, you know. If there’s one thing a small business doesn’t want to be ill-prepared for, it’s an audit.” Priscilla raised her hand to her throat again and looked around like she worried a government official might pop out from a corner.
“I know just what you mean. I’m very careful with all the paperwork at Greener Pastures. When I started the syrup business, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to have an office in the sugarhouse instead of in the den at the farmhouse. The paperwork kept getting moved around and mixed up.”
“Oh, you poor, poor thing. I had no idea.” Priscilla placed a reassuring hand on my arm. “If you need to store some things here to keep them safe you are welcome to do so.”
“I think I’ll run the risk of leaving everything at the farm for now. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of room in the apartment.”
“Well, no, there isn’t. But the apartment only takes up a small portion of the second floor. The rest is all storage. Frances used it and you’re welcome to as well, but be careful. The floor’s a bit rickety in spots. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to get back to work.”
Seventeen
Even as aggravated as I was with Jade, upon closer inspection the winery was still adorable. If I were being entirely honest I would have to admit I had harbored a hope that at a second glance Jade’s execution of her idea would have been poorly managed. I wished that the good first impression it made had been purely based on novelty. That wasn’t the case. If anything, the subtl
e details Jade had thought to include jumped out at me on this second visit.
I hadn’t before noticed the way the bar rail and the upholstery tacks on the stools were a coordinating gleaming brass. Or the sparkling glassware on floor-to-ceiling shelves at the end of the tasting area. Jade had cards sitting on top of wooden wine barrels that suggested sap wine and cheese pairings as well as recipes calling for sap wine in the list of ingredients. I had no idea Jade knew anything about cooking. She had never lifted a finger to prepare a meal at Greener Pastures.
I wandered around looking at things all over the shop while Jade rang up a line three deep. Her chatty and friendly manner seemed to be a hit just as much as her products were and her sales reflected it, from what I was overhearing when she announced the total for each customer.
If I were being big about things I would have to admit I could learn a thing or two about retail from Jade. If I managed to swallow my pride long enough I might work up the nerve to ask her for some tips for the sugarhouse shop.
“It looks like business is brisk. Congratulations,” I said.
“I haven’t been in here alone even once all day. If this keeps up, the shop is going to turn a profit in the first year even if I take the renovation costs into account.”
“That’s wonderful.” Only a couple of days in business was far too early to make that kind of prediction, if you asked me. But, if you asked me I would never have said a sap winery was an idea that made sense, so clearly I wasn’t the expert. “You’ve been working some long hours.”
“That’s what it takes to succeed in business. But I don’t have to tell you that,” Jade said.
“It can be draining. You really have to do what you can to streamline the other parts of your life to make it all work.”
“Absolutely. I’ve been cutting back on the amount of time I spend exercising and have gotten my morning routine down to under an hour.” If Jade was spending less time on her appearance I couldn’t tell. Every glossy hair was still hanging perfectly in place. The weak winter sunlight filtering through the windows bounced more radiantly off her face than it did off the stainless steel barrels holding sap wine. Even her eyelashes looked perky.
“It sounds like you are making a lot of sacrifices for your business.”
“I am. But I’m sure in the end it will all be worth it. Especially with the low cost of the raw materials for my finished product.”
“That’s the reason I’m here.” I took a deep breath and braced myself for impact. “I need to talk to you about the sap.”
“What about it?” Jade crossed her arms across her chest and scowled.
“We need to reach some sort of understanding about how to make both our businesses work.”
“Are you trying to cheat me out of the sap from the family trees?”
“I’m not trying to cheat you out of anything. I’m just saying you’ve decided to base your business on using a resource already set aside for another purpose without even letting anyone know you were interested in it.”
“So what you’re saying is that I should have asked your permission to start my own business?” Jade drummed her perfectly groomed nails on the gleaming butcher-block counter. I thought about how hard all the tapping and drilling and dragging of hoses and buckets were on my own nails. Not to mention all the cold weather chapping my hands. I felt myself beginning to lose my temper.
“I’m saying the sap doesn’t up and decide to jump out of the trees and into some buckets for you to use. It takes a lot of effort to have any sap to use for any purpose. You deciding to help yourself to enough of it to run a second business without asking is simply not okay.”
“The people collecting the sap are my family, too. There’s no reason their effort should benefit your business more than mine.”
“You’re missing the main point.”
“Which is?”
“I’m out there before anyone else drilling holes and tapping trees. I’m the one out on snowshoes at the crack of dawn checking miles of tubing for tangles and leaks. I’m the one making sure the sap remains at the right temperature to keep it from spoiling after it leaves the trees.” With each angry word I felt more and more like the Little Red Hen. By the time I paused to catch my breath I half expected feathers to sprout up all over my body.
“You don’t do that stuff alone,” Jade said. If we were any younger I would have expected her to stick out her tongue at me.
“I may have the help of a lot of family members but oddly enough, you’re never one of them. If you want sap, go get your own.”
“You can’t be serious. You know I’m not the outdoorsy type.”
“Then if you’re not willing to pay for it you’re not the sap-receiving type. And that’s final.”
“Final? You’re joking. You know you’ll never be able to stay mad about this. By the time we wake up tomorrow morning you’ll be back to sneaking out quietly so you don’t wake me up on your way out to check the trees.”
“I won’t be there in the morning. I’ve rented the apartment above Stems and Hems and I am moving in tonight.” With that I hurried out the door before I calmed down and changed my mind.
* * *
“You want me to help you to move?” Graham’s voice came through the phone loud and clear.
“I thought you might be happy to hear I’m getting my own place. After all, it means you can visit without running into Hazel.”
“Well, that certainly has its advantages but I thought you loved living at home. Aren’t you going to miss everyone?”
“I won’t miss Jade or Hazel.”
“What did your family say?”
“I haven’t told them yet.” I was still working up the nerve. I had phoned Graham from the car, sitting in a parking space in front of the winery. “I’ll do it as soon as I get home.”
“What time do you need me?”
“Does that mean you’ll help me move?”
“Unless there is another exotic animal outbreak in Sugar Grove or the surrounding countryside, I can be there in a couple of hours.” Graham rang off and I thought about how to break the news to the family. The only thing I could decide to do was to procrastinate so I headed to the police station to fill Lowell in on what I had learned.
Eighteen
Myra was in her customary place at her desk, yakking on the phone. From the sounds of things she was making a hair appointment with Shirley, the owner of the local salon, for a cut and color. She looked up from her desk where she was playing solitaire with actual cards instead of on the computer.
I tried to slip past her but she shook her head so hard her wagging jowls knocked the phone from its spot between her ear and her shoulder. She jabbed a pudgy, well-manicured finger at the visitor seat in front of her desk.
I looked at Lowell’s closed office door and figured it was easier just to wait than to tangle with Myra. I sat and stared at the center of my palm, racking my brain for what my mother had once told me about the lines on my palm and my destiny. Nothing came to mind before Myra finished her call and turned the full intensity of her interest on me.
“So, are you pregnant?” Myra leaned across the desk and scanned me up and down with her gaze like there was something in my face that would serve as a pregnancy test. As accustomed as I was to Myra’s prying, I was still thrown off-balance by the question.
“Why would you ask me a thing like that?”
“Because you’ve rented Priscilla’s apartment. I assumed your grandparents kicked you out for blighting the family name.” Myra pushed a box of tissues across the desk at me like she was expecting me to break down any second.
“I am not pregnant and they did not kick me out. My grandparents don’t even know I am moving out yet.”
“Yes they do. Lowell’s on the phone with your grandmother right now. You’ve made quite the stir.”
“How did they hear?”
“I don’t know that part. I just know your grandmother rang up asking to speak to Lowell. When I said he was busy on the Spooner Duffy case she said it was an emergency of the current sort and asked me to get him.”
“And you asked what sort of emergency, I suppose?”
“Of course I did. She told me you were moving out to Priscilla’s and I put her through to Lowell immediately.”
“And your first thought was that I was pregnant?”
“Why else would you leave?” Before I could answer, Lowell’s office door popped open and my godfather stood in the threshold. From the staccato motions he was making with his hand he didn’t look happy to see me. I jumped up and hurried to his office. Even an aggravated Lowell was easier to handle than a curious Myra. He shoved the door firmly in place and sat behind his desk.
“What’s this I hear from your grandmother about you running away from home?”
“How did you hear about it so fast?”
“Jade told Hazel and Hazel told your grandmother. Olive called here all dithered up. What do you have to say for yourself?” Lowell ran a broad hand through his thick gray hair.
“I wish I could have broken the news to them in my own time. But Jade always was a tattletale.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t like sharing a room with Jade because she’s a slob. Now that she’s started the winery it isn’t like when we were kids and she was just here for a visit. But it’s more than that. I’ve been thinking for quite a while about how it’s time for me to strike out on my own.”
“I see.” Lowell drummed his fingers on the desk. “So you aren’t moving out in a huff?”
“Is that what you heard?”
“Your mother says Jade told Hazel you were angry at everyone because you were forced to share your space with your cousin and had decided there wasn’t room enough for the both of you at Greener Pastures.”
“I know there is always room for me at Greener Pastures. But right now I don’t think that’s what is best for me. I’m ready to try something new. It’s past time.”
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