Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom

by Barton, Sara M.

  I did a load of sheets and then made my way to the kitchen to pack a picnic lunch for the teens. As soon as Jenny returned the vacuum to the closet and shut the door, she raced up the stairs for her suit and towel. Tote bag in hand, she appeared in the kitchen a short time later, ready to fetch the cooler.

  “Do you kids want to take sand chairs with you? You’ll find them in the back of the garage.” I handed Jenny a bottle of sunscreen. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Oh, there you go, fussing over me again!” The teenager crossed her eyes in mock frustration, but when Shark Boy turned away, she threw an arm around my shoulder and gave me a quick hug. “Thanks, Miz Scarlet.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Dr. Van Zandt wanted to take Laurel to the Frog and Cricket for a meal when she returned from her shopping expedition, so I printed out a map and directions to the Farmington restaurant. He sat on the sofa in the library, watching the news.

  “The ladies seem excited about this upcoming wedding,” he commented.

  “They do, don’t they?”

  “I guess you’re never really too old to appreciate romance,” he said, “even if you’re too old to do anything about it.”

  “Sometimes the occasional romantic gesture has power all its own. Besides, youth is wasted on the young. As long as you’re breathing, life goes on. You might as well enjoy it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? As Cole Porter suggested, you should face the music and dance.”

  “Sometimes timing is everything,” he sighed. Was he wrestling with his feelings for Laurel or processing the shock of finding out his cancer had returned? Something told me that was his question to answer, not mine. I left him to it and went back to work.

  Lacey had an ophthalmology appointment at one thirty. She and Edna had lunch on the sun porch before she left.

  “So, what will you do now?” I asked the Queen of Clean when the front door shut and we were alone.

  “I’m at loose ends,” she admitted.

  “If you’d like to watch a video....”

  “It’s not really my thing, as you young people like to say.”

  “What is your thing?” I admit I was curious. I didn’t know much about Edna Rivera. “How do you like to relax?”

  “I don’t. I work. I eat. I go to bed. I get up and do it again the next day.”

  “But you must have some favorite way of having fun.”

  “Not really.”

  “What do you do on Saturdays?”

  “I volunteer at my church. We give the place a thorough cleaning, to get it ready for Sunday.”

  “What do you do on Sundays?”

  “I go to church. I come home. I clean my house. I usually have dinner with my sister and brother-in-law.”

  “In other words, you don’t know how to have fun,” I decided.

  “I’ve spent my life working, Scarlet. I had to put food on the table, so I did what I had to do.”

  “What did you like to do for fun when you were growing up?”

  “Oh, I liked to read books.”

  “Well, it’s a beautiful afternoon, Edna. Why not sit in the garden and read for a while?”

  “I didn’t bring a book with me.”

  “We have a library filled with books. Why not pick one?”

  “I’m not used to frittering my time away on silly things like stories.”

  “You think reading is a waste of time?” I’ll admit I was shocked to hear that. No wonder Larry was always working. Like mother, like daughter.

  “There’s always something that needs doing, Scarlet. We can’t neglect our responsibilities,” she reminded me, somewhat dourly. I rolled my eyes heavenward in dismay.

  “A mind needs a good housecleaning once in a while, too,” I pointed out. “If all you do is work, work, work, you can get stuck in a rut.”

  “Well, life isn’t always about having a good time, Scarlet.”

  “No, but all work and no play makes you a dull girl. Good books lift you up and let you take a journey to places you’d never get to go on your own. They inspire you to think outside your little box, Edna, and look for opportunities you might not otherwise recognize. Take a good love story, for example....”

  The frown she wore on her face softened slightly as I pushed back. This old battle ax had no intention of conceding the war until I mentioned the part about the love story. That was her Achilles heel. She had kept the torch burning for Big Larry all these years. Was she ready to pour a little fuel on the fire?

  “Okay, okay!” She threw her hands up in the air. “I surrender. I’ll read a book. But it better be a good one, or I’ll take a chunk out of your hide, missy! None of this vampire nonsense! I want a proper book about human beings...and it better not be one of those heaving bosom tales, either. No pirates robbing, raping, and pillaging!”

  “Edna, come with me,” I instructed her, turning on my heel just barely in time to hide my smile. Boy, she was one tough cookie. No wonder she walked away from books. If she had indulged her desire for love stories, she’d have yielded to that magnetic tug of attraction long ago and confessed her stupidity to Big Larry. That little secret she kept for more than three decades changed three lives, four including Michaela’s, all because she was too stubborn to admit she was human and made a mistake.

  I considered Edna’s personal life, not because I’m a Nosy Parker, but because I was trying to figure out what books to suggest to the woman whose heart was so repressed, it wouldn’t show up on a cardiogram.

  “This is our library,” I announced, leading the Queen of Clean into the one room at the inn treasured by all the members of my family.

  My late father’s history tomes sat on the shelves beside my mother’s beloved collection of ornithology, botany, and gardening books. There were classics like War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, and even a tattered copy of Make Way for Ducklings. My grandmother had been schooled in the needle arts; we still had many of her favorites for quilting, cross-stitching, embroidery, and even clothing design. Over the years, partly because my mother felt confined in her wheelchair, we had expanded our book collection to include a number of mysteries, love stories, romantic suspense novels, and even thrillers. Laurel normally bought a book or two each month, perusing the respected reviews for potential winners. If, after reading the book, she still liked it, it was added to the shelves. If she didn’t, it went to the annual Cheswick Library Book Sale or to Goodwill. A lot of our guests took advantage of our collection, borrowing a book to read before bed or down by the pond on a nice day.

  “Wow.” Edna stood in the middle of the room, her gaze fixed on the scene before her. I could tell from her expression that she was more than a little baffled. “This is a real library.”

  “Of course it is. We Wilsons love books.”

  “But you work all the time. When do you have time to read?”

  “I make time,” I smiled. “To me, reading is like breathing. I can’t live without it.”

  “Well....” There it was -- the look of panic I’d seen before on the face of many an out-of-shape reader. Truth be told, it’s just a matter of taking a book off the shelf and opening it up to the title page. If you get through the first chapter and start the second, chances are good you’ll go all the way to the very end.

  “Let’s start here,” I suggested, steering her over to the paperbacks with the colorful covers. Keep it light, Miz Scarlet. Nothing too scary or emotionally overwhelming...unless....

  My fingers crawled along the spines in the D section and stopped on The Allure of Bougainvillea, Serena Duvall’s romantic romp. It was the perfect choice -- two mature adults stranded overnight on a tiny island after their excursion group returned to the cruise ship without them. Not only did the raven-haired Felicity and Donovan with the smoldering eyes have to evade modern day pirates who were using the island to hide their stolen booty, the couple also had to overcome their dislike of each other in order to survive. If Edna wasn’t inspired by the dramatic ending, there
was no hope for her future with Big Larry.

  “What do you think about this one?” I asked, slipping the paperback into those reluctant hands. She hemmed and hawed over The Allure of Bougainvillea like a dieter asked to break a year-long ban on chocolate. I noted the look of hunger in those dark eyes. Closet romantics are the most vulnerable.

  Maybe that was not the right book, I decided. “Perhaps you’d prefer something else.”

  “I don’t know....Are you sure there isn’t something I can do to help you? I could polish silver or make some beds,” she offered.

  I admit it. I groaned out loud, unable to hold back my exasperation with the woman. Was it really that hard for her to relax?

  “Shall I remind you that you’re here to help us catch some bad guys, Edna? If you go and sit in the garden with a glass of ice tea, you’ll actually be helping us.”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head, still resistant to the idea of getting lost in a story.

  “Tell you what. Why don’t you go out there for just half an hour? Set your watch. If you’re really miserable after thirty minutes, come and find me; I’ll figure out what else you can do to help us. But while you’re out there, keep an eye peeled for snoopers. Kenny thinks someone in the neighborhood is spying on us.”

  “So I am actually working while I’m reading out there?”

  “Indeed.”

  Did the woman actually have to believe she was working in order to do something that didn’t involve a mop and Murphy’s oil soap? I tried to imagine what her “Bucket list” would entail: Polish the Taj Mahal. Clean the Ganges River. Sweep the Grand Canyon. Dust Mount Rushmore. Vacuum Mount Saint Helens. I felt like taking her by the shoulders and shaking some sense into that noggin of hers. Was this the reason she and the Googins girls came up with the crazy notion of opening a wedding venue -- Edna needed an excuse to dupe Big Larry into her twisted scheme?

  “Okay. I guess I can stand it for half an hour.”

  I watched Edna through the kitchen window. She chose a bench under the wisteria-cover trellis and sat there, her ankles crossed, gazing around. I knew she was reluctant to open up the book. From time to time, I glanced out at the sight of the middle-aged housekeeper. Just short of half an hour, I resigned myself to the idea that my exercise in encouraging her to read was probably futile. With a shrug, I poured her a glass of ice tea, slipped a slice of lemon onto the lip of the glass, and walked out the back door.

  Making my way down the path, I came upon her. Her eyes were glued to the page and barely fluttered when I cleared my throat.

  “I thought you might enjoy a cold drink, Edna.”

  “Mmm...thanks.” She flipped the page, her eyes following the printed words.

  “I’ll just leave it here.” I set it down on the table and quietly left her. So far, so good.

  She was still there when Lacey returned from her eye appointment. In fact, Edna stayed out there until my mother and Thaddeus returned from their long, leisurely lunch just after four; she glanced up as the doctor parked his car and watched him help Laurel out of the passenger side and into her wheelchair. As the couple headed toward the front door of the inn, Edna slipped a white piece of paper between the pages and closed the paperback. She remained there, her face calm, placid. I wondered what went through her mind, whether she had decided what she might do to land Big Larry. It wasn’t as if she was still a young woman afforded the luxury of fickleness.

  Ever since they had been briefly reunited at Christmastime, Edna and her ex-husband had danced around the idea of restarting their relationship. There was just one problem -- with so much bitter history between them, neither one was willing to concede to the other. Every conversation began pleasantly enough, but it soon grew rancorous. I had never seen two people with such a knack for getting under each other’s skin. Caught in the middle was poor Larry, the parental referee. What would it take to get the former spouses to find middle ground? Maybe what they really needed was to be left on an island to fend for themselves, like the hapless Felicity and Donovan of The Allure of Bougainvillea fame. I was mighty tempted to help with that plan, but unfortunately, I had no access to a deserted island or a bunch of marauding pirates. With a shrug, I forced myself to leave my observation post at the kitchen window and turn my attention back to the work at hand.

  Dinner was a simple affair; I served crumb-topped cod, twice-baked potatoes, Grandma Googins’ scalloped tomatoes, and a tossed salad. For dessert, I served raspberry trifle.

  Thaddeus surprised me. For a man who had just found out his cancer had returned, he was in remarkably good spirits. He helped himself to hearty portions and even requested a second serving of trifle.

  “Anyone interested in a game of Scrabble this evening?” he wanted to know.

  “Count me in,” said Ruth, dabbing at her mouth with her cotton napkin.

  “What about you, Laurel?” He turned to my mother.

  “Oh, that goes without saying,” she smiled, her eyes softening. “Scrabble’s my game.”

  “I’ll watch,” Lacey announced cheerfully, glancing at her cousin. Ever since Thaddeus had taken an interest in Laurel, Lacey had made a point of hanging back and letting my mother take center stage. Did they have a written “no compete” agreement tucked away in a drawer somewhere or was it just an unspoken rule between them, that no man would ever break up the team?

  Chapter Sixteen --

  As we were having dessert, Bur wandered in from the kitchen, carrying a plate of fish and vegetables. He pulled up a chair and joined us as we lingered over coffee.

  “So, what have I missed?” he wanted to know. He poured himself some Chenin Blanc.

  “Thaddeus will be starting chemo soon,” my mother announced. I suddenly understood why the doctor was eating like there was no tomorrow. He was bulking up in anticipation of the rigors of his treatment.

  “Oh,” I said lamely, stalling for time as my brain tried to find the right thing to say about cancer treatment. Do you congratulate a patient or commiserate when you know the course of powerful medicine is likely to knock the stuffing out of a person? “How long will it take?”

  “The doctor wants to give me a cocktail mix of a couple of different drugs. I’m getting infusions once a week for six weeks this time around.”

  “Are there a lot of side effects?” Lacey wanted to know.

  “Some. One of the drugs is pretty powerful, so it should hit me when I’m back in Maine and by the time I come back for the next round of chemo, I should be feeling somewhat better.”

  “Gee, that’s rough,” my brother acknowledged. “Kind of puts a crimp in your summer.”

  “Well, unfortunately the alternative isn’t pretty,” the doctor sighed. “Besides, my oncologist is optimistic that I have a good chance of remission once I get past the treatment.”

  “So, does that mean it’s worth the misery,” Bur nodded, “even though it will be rough for a while?”

  “That’s it in a nutshell.”

  “Well, if you need anything, please let us know.” I rose with the coffee carafe and topped off the cups, moving around the table.

  “As a matter of fact, there is something you could do for me. I’d like to reserve a room for Thursday nights while I’m being treated. I’m scheduled to get my IV on Friday mornings at nine.”

  “Not a problem,” I assured him with a smile. “I’m glad you’ll be with us.”

  “I am too. The subject came up during our lunch and, after talking it over with a very good listener,” Dr. Van Zandt looked over at my mother, “I called the cancer center to get the ball rolling on my treatment. It starts in two weeks.”

  “Laurel’s always been my sounding board,” Lacey said, “and she’s never steered me wrong.”

  “You need that when you have an important decision to make,” Ruth agreed. “Sometimes the other person catches something you missed.”

  “And sometimes it’s nice just to know that people understand what you’re going through,”
Edna added. “It’s hard when you get older and you’re on your own.”

  “Amen to that,” Lacey replied. The others all nodded knowingly. Four single women and a man, all of a certain age, all in the same boat, in need of companionship and support. Maybe that was the beauty of the Four Acorns Inn. Unlike a big hotel, the intimacy of our small establishment encouraged guests to mingle over meals and socialize in the evenings.

  “Just let me know if you have any special food requirements, Dr. Van Zandt. I’m happy to make you whatever you need. I’ve been known to make a power shake or two. And I make killer chicken soup and grilled cheese.”

  “She does,” my mother smiled. “There’s nothing better on a dreary day. It’s comfort food that warms the cockles of your heart. And her macaroni and cheese is out of this world!”

  “Oh, what about her mushroom strata?” the other Googins girl asked. “It just melts in your mouth!”

  I could tell the cousins were trying to sell the doctor on the wisdom of staying at the Four Acorns Inn while he was being treated at the cancer center every week. We’d had other cancer patients stay with us. Thanks to a nutritionist, I learned to make soft, easy-to-chew, easy-to-digest foods for folks going through treatment. When fatigue and lack of appetite set in, the best thing I could do was to make sure they got as many calories as they could with as little effort as possible. It was all about keeping the pounds on.

  Bur joined Ruth, Thaddeus and my mother for Scrabble in the living room. Edna and Lacey opted to watch TV instead. I got busy with the washing-up, loading the dishwasher and scrubbing pots and pans.

  I was up to my elbows in suds when Jenny and Shark Boy popped into the kitchen on their return from their day at the beach. He deposited the cooler on the counter, thanking me with a few mumbled words.

  “Appreciate it.”

  “I’m glad. How was it? Did you two get to surf?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was awesome, Miz Scarlet!” Jenny gushed. I found her enthusiasm contagious. “I love that beach -- all that beautiful white sand and blue water!”