Here's to Friends

by Melody Carlson

  She was midway through stringing a faux pine garland around the stairway banister when she heard someone coming in the front door. Excited that her guests had finally arrived, she turned toward the door with a big smile. “Welcome!”

  “Yeah, right,” Paul growled as he came into the foyer, shaking rain off his parka and stomping his feet on the pretty welcome rug. “Do you have any idea what time it is, Abby?”

  She peered over at the clock above the mantle in the front room. “Seven forty-five,” she told him as she came down the stairs.

  “And you’re still here”—he frowned around the space—“decorating for Christmas?”

  “I was waiting for the guests to arrive and—”

  “And meanwhile your husband is home alone, waiting for you to arrive.” He reached over and took several of the snickerdoodle cookies. “When was the last time you made these for me?”

  “You’re not supposed to have white sugar and flour,” she reminded him.

  “Or dinner either, so it seems.”

  “Oh Paul.” She came over and just shook her head. “You don’t have to be jealous of the B and B.”

  “I’m not jealous, Abby, I’m mad.”

  The door was opening again, and, worried it would be her real guests, Abby wanted to shoo her rude husband into the kitchen. But before she could, in walked Caroline. As usual of late, Caroline had on her work clothes and a ball cap.

  “Greetings,” Caroline said cheerfully. “Hey, this place looks great, Abby.” She turned to Paul as she peeled off her wet jacket. “And how are you doing, Paul?” She smiled warmly at him. “Did your wife ask you my big question yet?”

  He frowned. “What big question?”

  “Don’t ask him now,” Abby warned her. “Paul’s in a snit.”

  “I’m not in a snit,” he retorted. “I’m just hungry and tired of waiting for my wife to come home.”

  “And I’m waiting for my guests to arrive.” Abby glanced nervously to the door. “I’d hate for them to walk in while you’re throwing a fit.”

  “I know!” Caroline said. “Why don’t I take Paul to dinner?” She pointed to his work clothes. “Someplace casual, since we didn’t dress up. After your guests arrive, you can meet us.” She smiled at Abby. “My treat!”

  Abby nodded eagerly. “Yes, great idea. Now hurry along before the guests get here.”

  “What if I don’t want to—”

  “Come on, Paul,” Caroline urged him, tugging on his arm. “Let’s get out of her hair. How do you expect your wife to run a successful business if you’re hounding her all the time?”

  “But I—”

  “No arguing.” Caroline was pushing him out the door, looking back at Abby. She winked. “We’ll see you later.” Then she held up her thumb and forefinger like a phone. “Call me.”

  Abby nodded with relief as she blew Caroline a thank-you kiss. No sooner were they gone than another couple came in. “Welcome,” Abby said again. Smiling warmly at the neatly dressed thirtysomething pair, she moved to her position behind the registration table that she’d set up in the foyer. “You must be the Hawleys,” she said as they closed the door.

  “Is this the Coastal Cottage?” the man asked.

  “That’s right,” she said pleasantly. “Welcome to Coastal Cottage.”

  “But I thought there was a water view,” he told her in a slightly disgruntled tone.

  “Besides the rain, that is,” the woman added as she removed and shook off her scarf. “Does it always rain like this on the Oregon coast? It felt like we drove through a flood to get here.”

  “Western Oregon is known for its rain.” Abby’s smile stiffened. “It’s what keeps the place green and pretty. But don’t worry—we get sunshine, too. In fact, the forecast gets better in a few days.”

  “But you’re still not on the ocean,” the man pointed out again.

  “No, we’re not. But we are conveniently located near a lot of nice—”

  “I was certain this place had a water view,” he persisted. “The river or the bay or some sort of water?”

  “Besides the rain,” the woman said again.

  “You might be thinking of the other bed-and-breakfast in town,” Abby told him. “It has a bay view, but it’s also—”

  “Yes, that’s it,” the man said. “I think we’re at the wrong place.” He reached for his wife’s hand. “Come on, Tara, let’s go.”

  “But your reservation is here,” Abby said quickly. “And you will be charged for your first night whether or not you stay.”

  “But this is the wrong place,” he insisted.

  “You were referred here from the other B and B,” Abby explained in a tight voice, “because they are full.”

  “Oh.” He pressed his lips together with an irritated expression. “So we might as well stay here.” He turned back to his wife. “But they can’t make us stay more than one night.”

  “Maybe we’ll like it,” she said hopefully. “It’s kind of cute.”

  He rolled his eyes. “But it’s not by the water.”

  As she ran his credit card for one night only, Abby tried to pretend that this hadn’t started all wrong. She smiled and spoke in an amicable tone as she gave them the tour, explaining when and where breakfast was served.

  “Are we the only guests here?” the man demanded.

  “Well, I’ve only just started this place up and—”

  “Hopefully you won’t be shutting it down soon.” He laughed in a rather snide way.

  “Oh, Glen,” the woman said, checking him.

  “Hey, you can’t promise a water view then not deliver. That’s like a bait and switch, and unless I’m mistaken, it’s against the law.”

  “But I didn’t promise a water view,” Abby explained. “That’s the other B and B.”

  “It was misleading,” he told her as he took a couple of the cookies.

  She just nodded with a frozen half smile. “I’m sorry you felt misled, Mr. Hawley. I do hope you enjoy your stay. Would you like me to show you to your room?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  Keeping her smile in place, Abby showed them to the master suite, and Mrs. Hawley commented on how nice it was. That was something. But Mr. Hawley’s attitude made Abby feel slightly sick inside. What if every guest reacted like that?

  Abby went into the kitchen and then kept on going to the laundry room, where she closed the door and turned on the faucet of the laundry sink, and while the water gushed down the drain, she just cut loose and cried. What had made her think she could do this? Or that running an inn would be fun? Really, Abby should have her head examined. As usual, Paul was right! Not that she planned to let him know about this. At least not yet. If she was going to go down, she would go down fighting.

  Abby held her head high as she walked into the diner. She smiled and waved at Paul and Caroline, who were seated by the salad bar. No way was she going to reveal what a disaster her first guests had turned out to be.

  “You’re just in time,” Caroline told Abby as she sat down. “I think your husband just agreed to be my contractor.”

  Paul shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

  “It is to me,” Caroline insisted. She stuck out her hand. “Do we have a deal, Paul Franklin?”

  He gave her a lopsided grin, then stuck out his hand. “Yeah, I guess we do.”

  Caroline nodded to Abby as she shook Paul’s hand. “You’re our witness.”

  “So did you get your guests all tucked into bed?” Paul teased. “Read ’em a bedtime story and give ’em some milk to go with their cookies?”

  “Yes,” she retorted, “then I kissed them good night.”

  They all laughed.

  “So really,” Caroline asked, “how did it
go? Were they totally wowed by how great the place is?”

  “Oh, yes.” Abby tried to sound convincing. “Wowed is the word.”

  “You’re going to be so busy,” Caroline said as she picked up a roll. “I’ll really need to get into my own place before long. But don’t worry, I’m on it.”

  Abby planned to set Caroline straight later—just not in front of Paul.

  “Sorry I was so grumpy earlier,” Paul told Abby. “You know how I get when I’m starving to death.”

  She nodded. “And I’m sorry I didn’t get home earlier. I know how low blood sugar brings out the beast in you. I can see that I still have a few bumps to iron out in this whole B and B business.”

  “Speaking of food, you want me to flag down the waitress?” Caroline offered. “Their fish and chips are pretty good.”

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll just graze tonight.” Abby stood and made her way over to the salad bar, relieved to escape any more talk about her bed-and-breakfast. She really didn’t like telling lies, not to anyone, and especially not to her husband or friends. It tied her stomach in knots. She wasn’t even very good at it. As she loaded her plate with greens and other supposedly healthy things, wishing she was having fish and chips instead, she wondered how long she could keep up this charade. How long until everyone figured her out and she was forced to throw in the towel? Which would be, of course, a fine-Egyptian-cotton-luxurious-bath-sheet sort of towel.

  Chapter 6

  Janie

  Janie didn’t want to make a habit of going into her office on Saturdays, but she’d scheduled an appointment with a woman who worked full time during the week and had sounded desperate for a legal consultation. After ninety minutes of patiently listening to complaints about a disconnected marriage and a discontented woman, Janie decided that Sheryl Bowers needed more than just legal counsel. On the bright side, Sheryl and her husband, Jeff, had married late in life and had no children together. That was something.

  “Have you been to a marriage counselor?” Janie asked carefully.

  “Jeff would refuse to go. He thinks everything is just peachy.”

  “Does Jeff know that you’re seeing me today, inquiring about divorce?”

  “No. And I don’t want him to know either.”

  “What would he do if he did know?”

  “Probably start hiding money and assets to make sure I don’t get much in the settlement. For all I know, he’s doing that now anyway.”

  Janie looked at her notes again. “And you’ve been married for almost eleven years?”

  “Yes. As I said, it’s a second marriage for both of us.”

  “You keep your finances separate, but you never signed a prenuptial agreement.”

  “He wanted to sign one, but I refused.”

  “Jeff has no idea that you’re considering a divorce?”

  Sheryl ran her fingers through her short drab hair and frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  “And you have no idea how he’d act if he knew? He doesn’t exhibit any anger or control issues?”

  “No, not really.”

  Janie pressed her lips together, tapping her pen against the side of her laptop and thinking. “You really need to discuss this situation with your husband, Sheryl. It’s not really fair to start filing for a divorce while he’s completely in the dark. If he feels blindsided, it’ll make the divorce process more difficult for both of you.”

  Sheryl nodded. “Yes, that’s probably true.”

  “It’s possible that with some good marriage counseling you could—”

  “I don’t want counseling,” she declared.

  “So you’re finished with this marriage? Is that what you’re really saying? Even if it could be saved, you’re done?”

  Sheryl looked down at Janie’s desk, then nodded.

  “May I ask if there’s someone else in the picture? Another man, perhaps?” Janie might be a couple years younger than Sheryl, but she hadn’t been born yesterday.

  Sheryl continued looking down at the desk. She was not going to answer, but it seemed fairly obvious that something or someone had turned her head. Why else was she going to this much effort?

  Janie sighed. This was just the kind of legal case she had absolutely no interest in working on. An unhappy woman, probably already immersed in an affair, even if only an emotional one, trying to get the most she could from her husband before ditching him. Corporate law would be preferable to this.

  “May I ask something else?” Janie said a bit hesitantly.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “When you married Jeff, when you made that commitment to him, did you think your marriage would last? Did you want it to last?”

  Sheryl looked up. “Of course!”

  “Then what changed your mind?”

  Sheryl started to talk about her husband more specifically, citing how he wanted to go hunting and fishing and traveling to crazy remote places like Montana, plus a bunch of other “irritating” things. But nothing on the Jeff list seemed too serious—no fighting, no cheating, no abuse, no addictions. The man didn’t even sound stingy—just a bit clueless and unwilling to “grow old gracefully,” as Sheryl put it. As Janie listened to the complaints, it seemed that nothing was really a deal breaker, not in Janie’s mind anyway.

  “It’s not really a marriage,” Sheryl finally told Janie. “We share the same roof and sometimes the same bed, but we mostly live our separate lives. We even took separate vacations last year. He went to Alaska, and I went to Palm Springs with a friend. We had a very restful time. Meanwhile Jeff was up there tramping around in the wilderness with a bunch of moose and grizzly bears. Anyway, I’m just tired of this nonsense. I want out.”

  “I recommend you speak openly to your husband, Sheryl. Tell him how you feel. If he’s as apathetic about your marriage as you seem to be, perhaps you can agree on a no-fault divorce and save yourselves a lot of time and money and trouble.” Janie suspected this would be unlikely, because the husband appeared to have more to lose financially than the wife. Even so, Janie didn’t want to end up in the middle of what could easily become a hostile dispute.

  “Are you saying you don’t want to represent me?” Sheryl sat up straight in the chair, glaring at Janie.

  “I’m simply saying that I would first recommend you make some effort to get quality marriage counseling and see if it’s possible to reconcile your differences. Out of respect of marriage commitments, I’d never tell an unhappy couple to run out and hire attorneys. If your marriage truly can’t be saved, I would still encourage you to be forthcoming with your husband and try to resolve your differences outside of divorce court. If that’s not going to happen, I’d be happy to recommend some experienced divorce attorneys who could be of more help.”

  “But I heard you’re doing some pro bono work,” she said in a slightly pleading tone. “That’s why I called you. Like I said, my husband is the one with the money.”

  Janie got it. Sheryl was here in the hopes that she would get free legal representation. “Then you should be very thankful you live in Oregon, Sheryl, because it’s not a community-property state.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Oregon is an equal-distribution state. So if you choose to divorce, you’ll probably get a fifty-fifty split anyway.”

  “Really?” Sheryl’s eyes lit up, and Janie could almost see the dollar signs there. “So I really do have a retirement plan after all?”

  Janie didn’t know how to respond.

  Sheryl waved her hand. “Sorry. It’s just that Jeff keeps saying we don’t need a retirement plan. He acts like he thinks he’ll never get old. But let me tell you, it comes a lot faster than you think.”

  “Oh.” Janie just nodded.

  “I’m not originally from this state. I didn’t know
that there was a fifty-fifty split here. That’s a huge relief. You’re sure about that?”

  “It’s the law.” Janie closed her notebook and laid down her pen. There was more she could tell this obnoxious woman about the law and the divisions of property in the dissolutions of marriage and how it usually didn’t go smoothly, but she just didn’t want to go there right now.

  Sheryl stood and smiled. “Well, thanks for your time.”

  Janie smiled stiffly. “Good luck.”

  Sheryl had been gone less than two minutes when someone else knocked on the door to Janie’s office.

  “Come in,” Janie called as she closed her laptop.

  “Hey,” Caroline said as she entered the office, closing the door behind her. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, Janie, but I saw your client leave, and I thought you might not be too—”

  “No problem.” Janie pointed to the recently vacated chair across from her desk. “Have a seat.” At least Caroline wouldn’t be here to discuss the upside of divorce and how to make the most of it.

  “I need some advice,” Caroline began. “Not legal advice, but friend to friend.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Well, Paul has agreed to be my contractor on my house renovations and—”

  “You’re kidding. How’d you get him to do that?” Feeling slightly indignant, Janie remembered how Paul had flatly turned her down on her remodel. As juvenile as it seemed, Janie felt jealous and actually wondered if it was because Caroline and Paul had been some of the “cool” kids in high school, while Janie had been stuck hanging with the nerds. No, she decided, that was not only ridiculous, it was childish.

  “I know,” Caroline said, “I was surprised too. But I guess things really are a little slow for him this time of year.”

  “Anyway, that’s great news, Caroline.” Janie smiled, thankful that her friend hadn’t been able to read her thoughts. “I’m sure Paul will do a great job for you.”

  “Yes, but there’s a little snag. Paul has strongly encouraged me to hire Bonnie Boxwell to help.”