by Lynn Cahoon
As I continued to scan my e-mail, I found three responses from my ad from the Gazette. The print version wouldn’t be delivered until Sunday, but the online version showed all the ads as soon as they were paid for. I printed off the resumes and then stacked them in order of preference. I put one in the sorry, no, file immediately, but I called the phone numbers on the other two and tried to set up interviews. One took a message for her granddaughter. The other was a man and he agreed to be in the shop promptly at eleven the next morning. Toby would most likely be here to cover his shift and I could interview without interruptions.
Then with nothing else pending, I grabbed a new advanced reader copy of one of my favorite authors. Time for the research section of my bookseller duties. I grabbed a cup of coffee and with my feet up on the coffee table, I got lost in a story.
The bell over the door rang and I looked up from the book to see a group of women hurrying to the counter. Well, as fast as stiletto heels would let a woman hurry. I met them at the counter. “What can I get for you?”
The blond in front frowned. “Where’s Toby?”
I glanced at the clock, eleven thirty, and no Toby. I checked my phone for missed calls. Nothing. I tried to not show the panic I felt on my face. He’s probably just held up at the station. Or he went home for a power nap and fell asleep. On the other hand, someone else could have died. I pushed that last thought out of my mind and pasted on a smile. “You know cops. Their days are unpredictable. I bet he’ll be here any minute. Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”
The woman in front eyed me suspiciously. “You’re not just telling us that to get us to buy something, are you?”
Holding my hands up in a mock surrender gesture, I shook my head. “Honestly, Toby’s scheduled to relieve me so I’m as anxious for him to appear as you are.” Probably more, if I was honest with myself. I needed to get home and get ready for class. I had one more trip to the library to get done and then I could finish my last paper. However, if Toby didn’t show, I was stuck here until I could talk my aunt into coming in early.
“Well, I did drive all this way. I’d like a skinny mocha with a slice of the New York cheesecake.” She tapped her credit card on the counter, impatient for her order now that she’d decided to stay.
I got them all taken care of and I’d gone back to my book for a few minutes when Toby burst through the door. He’d must have run all the way from the station as he was out of breath and just a little sweaty. I swear I saw one of the women, the one that had ordered iced tea and a cookie, fan herself.
I took the book back to the counter and stood next to him as he washed up. “Everything okay? If you needed me to cover, you could have just called.”
“You have class tonight. Greg needed me to run on a lead for the investigation.” He held up a hand. “I’m sorry I’m late, but before you ask, I’m not telling you what or where I went.”
I watched him slip on his apron. “I wasn’t planning on asking.”
“And pigs fly. Seriously, Jill, I can see the curiosity in your face.” His gaze drifted toward the group. “Thanks for taking care of them. I guess I’ll go make an appearance.”
“Just because I’m curious doesn’t mean I was going to ask,” I said to his back but he ignored me. I tucked the book into my tote bag and put the strap over my head. I walked toward the front door and paused at the table where Toby had the women laughing over some joke. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Have fun at class.” He flashed one of his special smiles at me, but I just waved the magical power away. Be gone cute man smile, you have no power over me.
I heard his laughter through the glass doors as I left.
That night at our break during class, a guy broke away from the group of smokers huddled near the back fence and strode up to me. “You live in South Cove, right?”
“I own the coffee shop there, why?” I didn’t really think broadcasting my address to a bunch of college kids was a good idea.
“My mom knew that guy who was killed. She said he was trussed up like a barbeque chicken or something. Is it true?” He played with his unlit cigarette between his fingers.
“I really didn’t see the body.” I was trying to be vague. “How did she know Walter?”
He put the cigarette in his mouth, but realized he was out of the approved smoking area and took it out again. “They went to school together. I guess he was some brainiac. Mom was a cheerleader back then, part of the cool kids, I guess. Man, you should see her now. I think she can still do a cartwheel.”
I liked that he bragged on his mother. Most kids would be horrified that their mother even had a social life in high school. “I’m Jill, Jill Gardner.”
“Deek Wilder. I know, dumb name, right? My mom named all us kids names that no one else had. Unless they were a Greek god or something. My sister’s name is Athena. She hates it but at least people have heard of the name before. Deek, I just got teased from all the guys. Or I did until I could flatten them with one punch. My mom said she should have named me Sue. I don’t get the joke.” Deek leaned against the side of the building. “So if you own a coffee shop, why are you taking business classes?”
“My aunt is the manager right now. She thinks I need to know more about the business side of things. I kind of liked winging it.” I looked at my phone. We still had a few minutes. “So what do you want to do when you graduate?”
“Get another degree?” He grinned. “I’d love to be a perpetual student, but my mom says this is the last program that she supports. I’m getting kicked out of the house next September whether or not I have a job.”
I laughed, but Deek looked at me like I was crazy.
“Dude, she’s totally serious.”
I shook my head. “I know it’s hard, but maybe you’ll like living in the adult world. We have cookies.”
“You own a business. You don’t understand the stress of working for someone else.” Deek flipped his cigarette through his fingers again. Apparently, this subject made him nervous.
“I worked for someone else for years before I bought the business, so yeah, I get it.” I thought about Deek’s mom. “Hey, did your mom say how Walter got along with his classmates? Yeah, he was a brain, but did he have people who didn’t like him?”
“Of course he did.”
I leaned forward waiting to hear the gossip.
“It was high school. Everyone hates someone else. Even the popular kids get teased and knocked around a little, just because. It’s part of the ritual.”
Everyone was walking inside now, break time was over. “That’s a pretty cynical way to look at life.”
“I call them like I see them.” Deek made his way back to the smoking area. “I’ve got to get a few puffs in before I go into shock.”
I wanted to tell him smoking wasn’t good for him, but I wasn’t his mother. Heck, I’d barely met the guy. Who was I to make judgements on his lifestyle?
The rest of the class flew by and after reviewing what would be on next week’s final, the professor let us out early. I hurried to my Jeep because if the lights were working just right, and I had a tail wind behind me, along with the blessings from God, I could make it to the Dairy King for an ice cream before it closed. I’d mostly stopped keeping ice cream in the house, because, well, I’d eat it. I have no willpower. Which was another bullet on the can’t do it list, although I was pretty sure he already knew this about me.
Deek waved as he walked to the bus stop. The kid was nice. Too bad he really didn’t want to work. I’d enjoyed my undergraduate time immensely. I partied with the best of them, but I still kept up my grades and held an almost full-time job in a bakery. Aunt Jackie kept me on my toes. And so to pay her back, I went into law school—the one graduate level degree she’d told me not to pursue.
Now I wished I’d listened. In fact, there were several turning points in my life that I’d like to call a redo and start over. The day I met my ex-husband.
I shook awa
y the bad memories from the past and pulled into the driveway to order an ice cream bar for the road. With the music turned up and the cold vanilla cream filling my mouth with loveliness, I banished all the bad juju from my mind. This time when I came up on the corner before the South Cove turn, I slowed the car and watched. Esmeralda stood on the far edge of the bluff, away from traffic. I pulled the car over to the edge and got out.
She scanned the ocean one more time in the fading light, then came up to meet me.
“Want a ride home?” I looked out onto the ocean too. I’d lived in South Cove for over five years, and California most of my life, and the view still astounded me. It was like seeing the potential of another world, all you had to do was get out in a boat and start paddling.
“Why not.” She climbed into my passenger seat, setting my book bag on the floor in front of her. When I joined her in the car, she put on her seat belt. “How was class?
“Good. I actually met a guy whose mom went to school with Walter. How weird is that?” I checked the road behind me for cars and pulled onto the highway.
“Not so weird. L.A. and San Francisco may be cities, but out here, people tend to remember the kids they went to school with. I think that year, Bakerstown High graduated just over sixty kids. With a class that small, you tend to remember your classmates.”
“How did you know that?” I took a quick glance at her face when I paused, waiting for an oncoming car to pass before making the turn. Her face took on a ghastly glow with the reflection of the dash lights.
Her answer brought me up short. “I was one of the sixty who graduated with Walter.”
CHAPTER 11
We were sitting at Esmerelda’s table, drinking tea, for the second time in less than a week. Maggie wound herself through my legs, purring. I took a sip of my tea. “We really need to stop meeting like this.”
“Funny girl. Anyway, I’m sure you want to know more about Walter. I can’t believe someone would do that to him. The guy was a total sweetheart. He wouldn’t play football because it was too physical.” Esmeralda pointed to her head. “He lived here. I heard he went away to Stanford to study physics, but he couldn’t take the pressure of the bigger city. So he moved back home and his folks bought him the Beal Street house.”
“He turned it into a bed and breakfast? I thought I heard that somewhere.” Maggie jumped on a chair next to me and settled in, giving her face a bath while she listened to the conversation.
“You heard right. He had a flair for decorating so he spent a lot of time fixing the place up. Then Bill and Mary opened South Cove on Main Street and the competition was on.” She unwound a scarf from around her neck and put it on the table next to her.
“I don’t understand. They’re both booked months in the future. Why would they compete for guests?” I sipped the tea. Thankfully, I just had to walk across the road, since I was getting more tired by the minute. The week’s events had finally hit the bottom of my energy levels.
She smiled. “Now. Back a few years before you moved here, the tourist trade was sporadic. So when there was a choice between staying at South Cove B&B and Beal Street, people chose South Cove. I heard that Walter almost lost the place when the oil spill closed the beaches that summer. I wouldn’t doubt if that place is underwater with mortgages.”
“So he was a good, smart kid. And it sounds like Bill and Mary were winning the war of the little hotels, so they wouldn’t have anything against him.” I stood up and stretched. “I’ve got to go home. Otherwise, I’m going to fall asleep on your table.”
“Technically, I didn’t say that Bill didn’t have a grievance against Walter. I’ve heard rumors that the bad blood ran both ways. But I don’t want to keep you.” She followed me as I weaved toward the door.
My eyes were drooping and I swayed just a bit before steadying myself on the doorframe. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re being cleaned of the bad juju you thought you’d banished earlier.” Esmeralda held on to my arm. “My house tends to take care of people. You must have really had your pain up near the surface for the house to be able to pull it from you so easily. Let me walk you home.”
I didn’t have the energy to fight, but something she’d said made me frown. “You said bad juju.”
“Childhood pain most likely. I’ve never seen it manifest itself like this on you before.” She looked both ways before she took a step out onto the road. “That’s why Maggie’s drawn to you too. She senses a wound that needs healing.”
“I don’t have any wounds,” I protested, or at least that’s what I tried to say. I think the actual words that came out of my mouth were—I’m not hairy. Or something like that. I was beat.
“Give me your keys and I’ll unlock your door.”
I dug into my purse, knowing I’d put them in there somewhere when I’d parked the Jeep earlier.
“Let me.” She took it off my shoulder and started looking through it. “I don’t see them.”
I patted my pockets, found a bump, and pulled out the key ring. “Ta da!”
Esmeralda took the keys from me and when the door opened, I stumbled to the sofa and lay down, cuddling a pillow. She covered me with a blanket and then asked Emma if she needed to go outside.
A few minutes later, I heard the front door close, and that was it. I was out until the next morning when the alarm on my phone went off. I stretched and tried to rub out a kink in my neck. Emma sniffed my shoulder. I tried to remember last night. Had I had a few drinks? No, I’d been at school, and then I picked up Esmeralda and she said the house was drawing out the bad juju. Okay, that sounded weird just thinking about it, but I’d slept so soundly something must have knocked me out. Maybe it was her tea. I’d have to be more careful with my neighborly visits.
Emma barked at me.
“Hold on a sec, I’ll let you out.” I stood and stretched again, feeling pretty amazing for sleeping on my not so comfortable couch. Emma did a circle, sat on her butt, then barked a second time. “Fine, you’re in a hurry, I get it.”
I followed my dog to the kitchen where I let her out to the backyard and poured myself a cup of coffee that I’d set last night before leaving for class. I checked the clock. I’d need to get a move on if I was planning on opening on time. I got more local traffic on Friday mornings coming in for an end of week treat. I headed upstairs to the shower but paused on the third step. I could see Esmeralda’s house from this spot. I could have been imagining it, but the house seemed to glow white in the early morning light. What had she said about my wound and how did the house figure into this?
“Crazy talk,” I said to the empty house. Emma wasn’t even inside to hear my words. I bounded up the stairs to get ready for the day.
Aunt Jackie came down to check on me about eight. She glanced around the almost empty shop and sighed. “We really need to think about shortening hours of operation. We could open a few hours later.”
“We have too many morning commuter drop-ins to do that, but I guess we could set up the food truck in the parking lot at the beach and still get the off to work traffic.” I thought about the idea. The only bad thing is it would cut down the number of impulse book buying incidents that occurred while they were waiting for their turn in line. I’d have to open the truck, then close, then open the shop. All that activity would really cut into my reading time. “We’ll have to think about that some more.”
My aunt looked at me suspiciously, but then seemed to push the idea out of her head. “Anyway, I just wanted to remind you I need you here at three to help.”
“I told you I’d be there.” I picked up a rag and started to wipe down the front counter. It wasn’t dirty, but this way, I didn’t want to make “duh” signs with my hands. When I heard her sigh, I dropped the rag into the sink and then said the first excuse I could come up with. “Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“I’ve told you to replace your mattress.” My aunt looked around the room. “I think we’ll
set up the room theater style again. We may not be able to get as intimate, but we’ll get more people into the space. Is Sasha coming to help?”
Crap, what had she told me? “I don’t know. I’ll give her a call. By the way, I’ve got an interview today.”
“Good. We need to fill that spot before we get into the weeds and you and I are the only ones left here to work.” My aunt moved toward the back door. “Don’t forget to call Sasha.”
I didn’t say anything until she left the room. Then I sank onto the counter and took a deep breath. My aunt wore me out but at least she hadn’t asked about the real reason I’d slept poorly. And that was exactly how I liked it. I picked up my phone and called Sasha, getting voicemail. I left her a message to call if she wasn’t coming in tonight, but if I didn’t hear from her, I’d assume she was coming in.
I pulled out the file with the applications I’d printed off last night and sat down to prepare my interview questions. I’d just finished the last question when the bell rang over the door. An older woman, dressed in a light blue pantsuit with a floral shirt, came in. She was a little over dressed for a tourist, but we got all kinds. I walked over to the counter to greet her and noticed the string of pearls around her neck with matching earrings. Definitely real. This woman came from money; you could see it in her wardrobe choices. I thought about book ideas to suggest as I made up her coffee order. “Good morning, what can I get for you?”
She dug into her purse and pulled out a notebook and a pair of glasses. She opened the small book, read a page, then put it and the glasses away. “I’m looking for a Jill Gardner?”
Now, that wasn’t what I’d expected. A specialty drink order maybe. Or a book she wanted to special order for her book club. “I’m Jill, how can I help you?”
The look she gave me made no pretense of hiding her displeasure at my appearance. I was dressed in my typical summer work outfit of a nice tank and capris. Besides, with the apron, no one saw my clothes anyway.