by Lee Hollis
“Yes, Bruce, you’re my knight in shining armor, rescuing me from the evil witch, that’s your story and you’re sticking to it, but I have to at least try to repair this rift between me and Lisa, because she’s Liddy’s family, and she may still come to the wedding, and I don’t want there to be any tension . . .”
“It’s way too late! There’s already tension! She thinks you stole her gig as Liddy’s wedding cake baker. Everyone in town knows that Lisa is bullheaded and completely unreasonable, and there’s no chance she’ll ever forgive you. Honestly, I think you should just stay out of it and keep your distance.”
“I can’t. I have to at least try . . .”
Bruce shook his head. She could tell what he was thinking—that she was just as bullheaded and unreasonable as Lisa—but he wisely kept his mouth shut.
“Well, I will not allow you to go over there alone.”
Hayley’s mouth dropped open.
“You won’t allow me?” she scoffed.
Bruce immediately tried walking back the comment. “I mean, you do whatever you want, you’re a strong, independent woman and it’s not my job to try and control you or anything like that, but—”
“I’ll meet you at the bar, Bruce,” Hayley said, knowing he had boxed himself into a corner.
“Right,” he said, spinning on his heel and skulking back to his office.
Hayley hurried down the sidewalk to where her car was parked. It was chilly for a late-June afternoon, and the skies were cloudy and gray. She wished she had brought a sweater to work with her today, but she had forgotten to check the weather report on the way out the door that morning.
She jumped into her car, turning on the heat to warm herself up, and drove across town to the Cake Walk bakery. When she pulled up in front, the shop looked empty, although the cardboard sign that said “Open” was still in the window. She took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself for what might be an all-out verbal assault once she got inside. She got out of the car, slammed the door shut, marched up to the front entrance, and walked inside.
A bell jingled as she entered, but no one came out to greet her.
“Lisa?”
There was no answer.
“Lisa, it’s me, Hayley. I’ve come to apologize.”
Still no answer.
She scooted around the glass case full of tasty cakes and pies and cupcakes and poked her head through the door to the kitchen area that was set apart from the front of the store by a bright print pink and white curtain.
“Lisa, are you here?”
There was a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach and a little voice in her head that kept screaming to just get out of there and send her a conciliatory email. But Hayley Powell was never one to listen to any voices in her head. She just plowed ahead anyway.
As she entered the kitchen area, she suddenly knew why that little voice in her head had been screaming so loud.
Lisa was facedown, dead on the floor, her face buried in a smashed three-tier wedding cake, with a pair of small bride and groom figurines staring down at her from the drooping, melting top tier.
Island Food & Cocktails
BY HAYLEY POWELL
With all the hoopla surrounding Liddy’s upcoming nuptials, I’ve become a little nostalgic for all the past wedding receptions I’ve attended over the years. The one that has stood out the most in my memory, however, was my buddy Mona’s. It was a rather simple affair in her parents’ backyard. As I recall, because Mona’s lobster business had yet to take off and she had very little cash on hand for any kind of elaborate wedding celebration, Mona requested potluck. So instead of gifts, everyone brought their favorite dish. As I was just discovering my joy of cooking at that time, I chose an easy yet delicious appetizer, my pimento cheese deviled eggs. After the guests greedily gobbled them up on that day years ago, every potluck dinner I have been invited to ever since always comes with a special request—“Bring your pimento cheese deviled eggs!”
What made Mona’s wedding reception so memorable, however, was not the food!
Mona met her husband, Dennis, the summer before when he came to Bar Harbor to work for a buddy at his windowpane company. They were first introduced at a mutual friend’s keg party, hit it off immediately, and soon began dating. One year to the day after they met, Mona and Dennis planned to get married. Mona was never overly sentimental. When Dennis proposed, instead of weeping with joy, she just shrugged and said, “Looks like I’m never getting rid of you, so we might as well make it legal.”
The wedding would be the first time the families of the bride and the groom would meet, but no drama was expected, since both sides were very fond of their future son- and daughter in-law, respectively. Everything was falling perfectly into place, which is exactly how Mona prefers things. No fuss, no mess.
Neither the bride nor the groom expected all their uncles, aunts, and cousins to RSVP, but sure enough, they all did. It was going to be a crowded affair. In fact, on the big day there were upward of sixty to seventy people crammed into Mona’s small backyard. It would be years until she could afford to expand the property with the profits from her lobstering business.
Not one to drag things out, Mona kept the ceremony down to five minutes, and even interrupted the minister to hurry things along when he tried injecting a poem about true love he had personally composed for the occasion. Mona knew her cousins had short attention spans, especially when a buffet table with trays of lobster rolls and two kegs of beer were in their eye line.
Once the minister was sternly encouraged to wrap things up, and the party finally got under way, Liddy and I circled the crowd making sure everyone had heaping plates of steamed mussels, coleslaw, potato salad, and plenty of lobster rolls, not to mention my pimento cheese deviled eggs.
That’s about the time I noticed the two families were staying firmly planted on opposite sides of the backyard, as if they were intentionally avoiding each other. In fact, they were grimacing and pointing and whispering among themselves, obviously disturbed about something. Mona and Dennis were too busy gazing into each other’s eyes between plastic cups of beer to notice the dividing line right down the middle of the backyard keeping the families apart. Actually, Dennis gazed and Mona just kept telling him to stop acting so stupid. I didn’t think much about the families keeping their distance, because I simply assumed they were unfamiliar with one another, and sometimes it takes time to break the ice, especially with naturally shy people.
Well, as I came to find out, that certainly wasn’t the case, because just as I served my last deviled egg, suddenly Dennis’s uncle Joe abruptly stood up, raised his glass, and yelled at the top of his lungs that he wanted to make a toast. Dennis and Mona looked at each other nervously, because Uncle Joe’s tone wasn’t exactly warm and celebratory.
“Here’s to Dennis and Mona, may you have a life full of love and happiness . . . and I pray to God that Mona doesn’t inherit her aunt Betty’s trollop ways and leave my beloved nephew heartbroken!”
There was a stunned silence, followed by complete pandemonium as both families sprang from their seats and began shouting and arguing with one another. Mona’s grandfather Cliff tried to race over to Joe in his electric wheelchair and attack him, but Mona’s father managed to grab the hand brake and stop him. Aunt Betty was in tears, and Mona’s mother desperately tried comforting her. Joe’s wife, Esther, spit out her lobster roll and began pointing her finger at Betty as if she had a scarlet A embroidered on her kelly green cashmere sweater from J. C. Penney. Finally, Betty’s enraged husband, Al, managed to reach Joe, and the two began pounding on each other as they fell to the ground and rolled around until they knocked over the buffet table and were covered with steamed mussels.
Mona finally got up on a chair, her wedding dress covered in grass strains from trying to break up the fight, and let out an earsplitting whistle, which finally got everyone to stop fighting.
“What the hell is this all about?” she wailed. “You’ve ruin
ed my wedding day!”
Finally, as always, the truth came tumbling out. Apparently, back when Joe was a sophomore at the University of Maine at Farmington, he met Al, a freshman, when they played on the university basketball team together. The two young men became best friends and fraternity brothers. Joe met Betty at a fraternity party one night after a big game, and they fell for each other fast and hard. The three of them, Joe, Betty, and Al, all became besties and were inseparable all through college. When Joe graduated, he asked Betty to marry him. Of course Betty was ecstatic. The wedding was planned for the following summer, and Joe asked Al to be his best man.
Well, apparently a lot can happen in a year. While Joe was off in Skowhegan on a construction job, it got harder for him to visit Betty on the weekends, because the project was on a strict deadline. Betty and Al grew closer, and although they tried to keep things platonic, they couldn’t help but fall in love. Betty desperately tried to tamp down her feelings for Al before her wedding to Joe, but to no avail. She finally had to confess to Joe that she was in love with Al. Joe was understandably hurt and angry and never saw or spoke to either of them ever again—that is, until Mona’s wedding day.
It was a lovely and sad story, but Mona was having none of it. She told all three of them in no uncertain terms that if they wanted her and Dennis to stay in their lives, they had better mend fences, and fast. It took all afternoon, but by the time the second keg of beer was tapped, both sides had decided to let bygones be bygones, much like my mother and my husband’s uncle Otis on my own wedding day. I guess weddings have a tendency to bring people together.
Just in case you were wondering, Uncle Joe, who had stubbornly stayed single over the years, met Betty’s cousin Nancy that day when they both went for the last lobster roll, and by November, they were married. By February, Joe and Nancy were on a Caribbean cruise as a foursome with Al and Betty.
Life is full of surprises.
PIMENTO CHEESE DEVILED EGGS
1 dozen large hard-boiled eggs, peeled
2 ounces finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup real mayonnaise
½ teaspoon paprika, plus extra for garnish
½ teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
2 ounces diced pimentos, rinsed and patted dry
Cut your eggs in half lengthwise and remove the yolks. Place the yolks in a medium bowl and set your whites aside on a plate.
Mash your egg yolks with a fork, then add your pimentos, cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, paprika, garlic powder, and salt and pepper.
Stir your mixture until it’s all well-incorporated. Taste and add a little more salt and pepper if needed.
Fill your eggs with the mixture and refrigerate until needed. Right before serving, sprinkle a little more paprika on the eggs. Serve and watch them quickly disappear.
BEER COCKTAIL
We enjoyed kegs of beer at Mona’s wedding, but for Liddy’s reception, along with her favorite fruity cocktails, we thought those who prefer beer might appreciate a twist.
Ice
1 ounce rum
1 lemon or lime (your preference), juiced
1 orange, juiced
1 ounce simple syrup
4 ounces of your favorite beer
Fill a tall glass with ice and add your rum, lemon or lime juice, orange juice, and simple syrup, and top with the beer. Serve it up to your friends and enjoy!
Chapter 11
Hayley heard sirens fast approaching as she stood over Lisa’s prone body, shaking. She noticed that the cake Lisa had fallen into and knocked to the floor with a splat was an angel food cake with buttercream frosting, the exact cake Liddy had requested for her wedding, the same cake Lisa had adamantly refused to make. What had caused her to suddenly change her mind, especially after Liddy had so unceremoniously fired her? Was this some kind of last-minute bid to win back her job as the official wedding cake baker?
As the sirens got closer and she heard tires squealing to a stop just outside the bakery, Hayley also noticed Lisa was still clutching her cell phone in her right hand, as if she had been trying to make a call right before she collapsed. Next to her was a glass plate that was cracked in the middle and a silver fork with smeared frosting on it, indicating she might have been eating the cake when she died.
The doors to the shop flew open, and Sergio, accompanied by Officer Donnie, his tall, lanky, not-so-wet-behind-the-ears-but-still-borderline-incompetent patrolman, burst inside, radios crackling, batons drawn, just in case. Hayley sighed with relief and stepped aside, still breathless from her grisly discovery, to allow the police to take over the scene.
Sergio did a sweep of the area where Hayley had found Lisa’s corpse, surveying every inch and corner of the kitchen before kneeling down and inspecting the body.
Officer Donnie hung back, and Hayley noticed he appeared slightly nauseous, his nose crinkled up, as he stared down at the body.
Minutes before the cops had arrived, Hayley texted Liddy to update her on what was going on, but never heard back. She knew Liddy detested her repugnant cousin, but couldn’t believe she would have zero interest in learning she had just died. In fact, Hayley wondered to herself if anyone in town would be broken up over Lisa’s untimely and tragic death. She hardly had any friends, and most people in Bar Harbor would cross the street if they saw her approaching to avoid having to talk to her. Her reputation as moody and vindictive far preceded her.
“I can’t believe you got here so quickly after I called nine-one-one,” Hayley remarked to Sergio, who stood back up and studied the smashed wedding cake spread out all over the floor.
“Lisa managed to dial nine-one-one herself in her final moments, but apparently died before the operator was able to get any information out of her.”
Hayley couldn’t see any signs of foul play at first glance, but Sergio was the professional, so she refrained from drawing any of her own conclusions before hearing what he had to say. As she patiently waited for him to announce his own determinations, she was surprised when he never got around to it. He muttered a few asides to Officer Donnie, but they were too low for Hayley to make out what he was saying.
She understood that although Sergio was married to her brother, she couldn’t automatically assume he would draw her into any investigation. Usually she had to horn her way in on her own without an invitation, which could make family dinners somewhat tense at times.
Officer Donnie was by the door when it slammed open again and Liddy and her mother Celeste scuttled into the shop with pale faces and stunned expressions, still grappling with the unexpected and disturbing news. Donnie swiftly blocked them from entering any farther with his rail-thin body, his skinny arms outstretched and his big bony hands raised.
“That’s far enough, ladies,” Officer Donnie said.
“Oh, please, Donnie, out of the way before I take one breath and blow that scrawny body of yours halfway to Hulls Cove,” Liddy yelled.
“Let them through, Donnie. I’d like to have a word with them,” Sergio said.
Donnie scowled and then dutifully took a step to his left, allowing Liddy and Celeste to pass. As they entered the kitchen area and their eyes fell upon Lisa lying facedown on the floor, both mother and daughter gasped.
“Oh, dear! Poor Lisa! What on earth happened?” Celeste wailed as Liddy put a comforting arm around her distraught mother.
“Isn’t it clear, Mother? She died! Do you know how it happened?” Liddy asked, staring at the body, trying to muster up some emotion, anything to show the slightest bit of grief, but failing that, she just gave up and acted as if she was simply in the shop to buy a box of fudge brownies.
“I was hoping you could help me with that,” Sergio said. “On the surface, there do not appear to be any suspicious signs to suggest anything other than natural causes.”
“Frankly, I’m surprised, since pretty much everyone in town wanted to see Lisa dead,” Liddy cracked.
“Liddy, please!”
Celeste cried.
“It’s true,” Liddy said, shrugging.
“Lisa was a member of our family! Show some respect,” Celeste moaned as her eyes welled up with tears and she reached into her purse for a tissue.
Hayley gingerly stepped forward and gently placed a hand on Celeste’s arm. “Celeste, did Lisa have any health problems that you knew about?”
“Oh, Lord, yes! High blood pressure, high cholesterol, type two diabetes, you name it!”
“I never saw her touch a vegetable ever! It was all sweets all the time! No wonder she was a walking time bomb when it came to her health!” Liddy noted.
“Liddy!” Celeste squealed.
“I’m only stating the facts for the police, Mother, not judging her,” Liddy lied, judgment clearly written all over her face. “You just have to look at her family history to understand what happened.”
After glaring at Liddy for a few seconds, Celeste turned back to Hayley and Sergio. “Lisa’s father, my brother Stan, suffered from heart disease, God rest his soul. He died of a massive coronary two weeks after his sixty-third birthday.”
“Yes, but Lisa was in her early forties; that strikes me as a little young to have a massive heart attack,” Sergio noted.
“That’s true,” Hayley said. “But Liddy is right. I remember in grade school, all the kids coveted Lisa’s Melrose Place lunch box because it was always stuffed with Twinkies and Devil Dogs and Mars bars. We were all so jealous!”
“A heart attack . . . how awful . . . the poor dear,” Celeste whispered, shaking her head, still in a state of shock.
“It looks like she was eating one of her wedding cakes at the time she died,” Sergio said, circling the body once more.