by Ryan, Sofie
Liz made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “No, I do not. Like my real age, some things should not be discussed in public.”
Rose came across the floor to us. She was barely five feet tall, with cropped white hair and warm gray eyes. She was dwarfed by the neon orange tote bag over her shoulder. Rose’s bags reminded me of Mary Poppins’s carpetbag. I never knew what she was going to pull out of one of them.
“Hello, sweetie bug,” she said with a smile, reaching up to pat my cheek. “Welcome to Shady Pines.”
“Shady Pines?” I asked.
“Don’t encourage her,” Charlotte said. She’d come from the kitchen again, carrying a tray loaded with teacups, napkins and a small glass bowl filled with sugar cubes.
I hurried over to take it from her, setting Liz’s cookies on a stack of napkins, and immediately realized I had nowhere to put the whole thing down.
“She’s not encouraging me,” Rose said. “She just asked a question.” She looked at me. “I call this place Shady Pines because it’s just like living in an old folks’ home. All anyone wants to talk about is how many pills they’re taking and when they last had a bowel movement.”
Liz smirked at me. “You were warned,” she said. She turned to Rose. “Will you please come and live with Avery and me so we don’t have to listen to you talk about other people’s ailments and bodily functions?”
Rose crossed her hands primly in front of her. “Have you actually forgotten Vermont?” She looked over at me. “Liz and I shared a room when we went on a bus tour to Vermont. I seriously considered smothering her with a pillow while she slept.”
“I’m not suggesting we share a room,” Liz said, making a sweeping gesture with her hands. “I have that big house. We could probably go for a day or two and not even see each other.”
“No.” Rose shook her head vigorously. “The key to us having been friends for the past fifty years is never spending that much time together. I’m not about to ruin a beautiful friendship now.” She gestured at the long, multipaned windows on the side wall of the room. “We should open a couple of these. It’s going to get stuffy in here.”
“Is Alfred putting his clothes on?” Charlotte asked me in a low voice.
“I sincerely hope so,” I whispered. I set the tray on the floor and headed for the supply closet at the far end of the room.
By the time I had the cups set out on a table under the tall windows, the other women in the class were coming in. Avery had spread the drop cloths on the floor and was carrying in the various little wooden tables I’d collected for the class to work on. She’d set a cardboard box over by the wall. I was trying to remember what was inside when one of the top flaps, which hadn’t been folded flat, seemed to . . . move.
“Avery,” I said, making a get-over-here gesture with one finger, my eyes fixed on the carton.
She came to stand in front of me. “What?”
I pointed at the box. “Tell me you didn’t,” I said.
She shrugged. “Okay, I didn’t.”
The chance that I would have believed her was pretty much zero, anyway, but Elvis chose that moment to poke his head up out of the box and look around.
“Okay, so maybe I did,” she said. “But, c’mon, he gets lonely hanging out in the store all day.”
The cat jumped out of the box, shook himself and came to sit in front of me, all green-eyed innocence. “Don’t think I don’t know your part in all this,” I said, glaring at him and folding my arms across my chest. In the few months I’d had the cat I’d learned he wasn’t above doing his Sad Kitty routine to get what he wanted. It had even worked on me a couple of times—okay, maybe six or seven times—before I got wise. “Avery, Elvis is a cat. His life is eat, sleep in the sunshine and get scratched behind his ears.”
Elvis gave a short, sharp meow and narrowed his gaze at me.
“And be the enforcer when it comes to mice, birds, bats and the occasional Junebug. You shouldn’t have brought him.”
Avery jammed her hands in the pockets of her black jeans. “You take him with you lots of times.”
“That’s different. That’s work.”
“So is this,” she immediately countered, bending down to pick up the cat.
“How is this work?” I said.
“Public relations. People meet Elvis. They like him. They come to the store. It’s good for business.”
The cat actually leaned his furry face against Avery’s cheek and half closed his eyes. She gave me her sweetest smile.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I muttered. I knew when I was beaten. “He’s your responsibility,” I said sternly. I narrowed my eyes at the cat. “Stay out of the paint.”
Elvis closed his eyes and shook his head, almost as though he’d understood what I’d said and was offended at the suggestion that he’d get paint on his sleek black fur.
I headed out to the truck to get the paint and the trash cans we’d be using to mix the color wash, since Avery had her hands full. The sun was streaming through the wall of windows that made up the east side of the old factory, making checkerboard squares of light on the plank floor of the hallway. Legacy Place had been the Gardner Chocolate factory—“A little bite of bliss in a little gold box”—until the company’s new manufacturing plant had been built just on the outskirts of North Harbor.
The building had had a number of incarnations in the next twenty years, and then about three years ago the Gardner family had renovated the space into a much-needed apartment complex for seniors. The fact that it all happened at the same time that a tabloid had published photos of Hank Gardner, the CEO of the company, boogying at a club with an exotic dancer while wearing a certain item of her clothing as earmuffs was just coincidence. (Gardner had explained it all by saying, “It was January and my ears were cold.”)
The chocolate factory and tourism were the main industries in town and that made for an eclectic mix of people that was part of North Harbor’s appeal. There were musicians, artists, sailors and fishermen, small business owners, factory workers, young people and senior citizens.
I glanced in at the art class as I passed by the room. Mr. Peterson was dressed—thankfully—in a long-sleeved, navy blue golf shirt, gray pants hiked up almost to his armpits and running shoes. He was posed on a stool in the middle of the room, circled on three sides by easels.
Avery had found a chair somewhere and Elvis was perched on it, holding court when I returned with the paint. I set her to work opening the cans and did a quick head count. Eight women had signed up for the class. We were missing someone. I scanned the room. “Does anyone know where Maddie is?” I asked when I realized one of my gram’s longtime friends hadn’t shown up yet.
“Probably with her new boyfriend,” someone said. The speaker was a tiny woman, more petite than Rose, wearing a flowing shirt covered with blue and green parrots.
“Maddie has a boyfriend?” I said.
“Uh-huh. She’s smitten,” Liz said, pulling a men’s faded chambray shirt over her tunic. Liz dressed for every occasion. I’d never seen her in a sweatshirt or yoga pants, unlike most of the other women her age.
Charlotte took a sip of her tea. “Elizabeth is right. Maddie’s like a young girl when he’s around.” She handed me a cookie.
I couldn’t picture sensible, practical Maddie getting giggly over a man. On the other hand, I hadn’t seen her in a long time.
“I was looking forward to seeing her today,” I said. “When I was little, Gram and I would walk to Maddie’s house for lemonade in the summertime. She had an incredible garden behind her house. Gram said there were fairies living there and I was always trying to find them.” I took a bite of the cookie.
Charlotte smiled. “That’s Maddie. She was born with a green thumb.”
Liz nodded her agreement. “I got a poinsettia plant at Christmastime. The thing turned brown—I do
n’t know what the heck happened to it—but Maddie pulled it out of my kitchen garbage can and brought the darned thing back from the dead.”
“You probably forgot to water it,” Rose said.
“No, I didn’t,” Liz retorted as she fastened the snaps on her paint-streaked shirt. “I definitely remember I gave it the last of the coffee a couple of times.”
Rose sighed. “Well, I don’t think that was a good idea.”
Liz made a dismissive gesture with one hand. Her nails were painted a deep royal purple. “Clearly, since the danged thing turned brown.”
Charlotte shook her head. With her height and perfect posture she might not have fit every grandmother stereotype, but she had a huge, loving heart. She and my own grandmother had been friends since they were girls. “Maddie met her beau, Arthur, at a fund-raiser for the Botanic Garden. She’s still in the rose-colored-glasses stage when it comes to him. She probably just got caught up in whatever his latest plans are and forgot to call you.”
“Arthur?” I said slowly.
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “Arthur Fenety.”
Arthur Fenety.
Maddie was seeing the man who had brought in the silver tea set and then wanted to buy it back a day later. The man I’d thought was a little too smooth, a little too charming.
And it was really none of my business.
Avery had the paint cans open and had brought in a couple of big buckets of water. I looked at my watch. It was almost twelve o’clock. Time to get started. Maybe Maddie would arrive in a few minutes.
The ladies were eager to learn. I explained how to make the color wash by diluting the paint. Then we tested the depth of the color on some scrap wood. We got started by dipping the legs—which I’d detached from the underside of each little table—using a brush to pull the color upward and create a faded effect.
I was glad I’d brought Avery along. She had a great eye for color, she didn’t mind getting her hands dirty and she might have had an opinion on well, pretty much everything, but a lot of her insights were dead-on. Elvis stayed on his seat, watching intently but happy to be away from the paint.
The hour-long class was over before I knew it. A couple of times I couldn’t help glancing over at the door from the hall, hoping Maddie might show up late, but she didn’t.
When the class ended, Avery helped me pack everything and prop up the color-washed table pieces so that they weren’t lying on the drop cloths as the paint finished drying. There was nothing happening in the room for the rest of the day, so we’d be able to pick up the completely dry tables in the morning and the ladies could retrieve them from the shop later in the week. We carried the rest of our supplies back out to the truck. Mr. P., whose posing duties had ended at the same time as the workshop, held open the door to the parking lot. The only spot I’d been able to find was at the far end of the space—the parking area of the office building next door was being paved and their clients were using the Legacy Place lot—so I tried to carry as much as I could in each trip.
Once everything was loaded, Avery left with her grandmother. I could hear the two of them arguing about what they were going to have for supper. Liz wanted to order a pizza and Avery seemed to be making the case for fermented vegetables.
I walked back to the building. I’d found a heavy canvas tote in the truck that I used at the market and it was over my shoulder, Elvis’s head poking out of the top. Mr. P. held the door for me. “Thank you,” I said. “That was the last load.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome, my dear.” He reached over and stroked the top of the cat’s head. Then he pulled a tiny spiral notebook and an equally tiny pencil out of his pocket. He tore a page out of the book and offered it and the pencil to me.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“You’ve been repeating the same three names under your breath. Why don’t you write them down?”
I felt my cheeks get warm. “Thank you,” I said. “They all wanted me to say hello to Gram next time I speak to her and I was afraid that I’d forget somebody’s name. I hadn’t realized that I was talking out loud.”
My grandmother was somewhere on the Atlantic Canadian coast with her new husband, John, in an RV that wasn’t much bigger than a minivan. John looked like he could be actor Gary Oldman’s older brother. He had the same brown hair, streaked with gray, waving back from his face, and the same intriguing gleam in his eyes. There were thirteen years between them, which had raised some eyebrows, but Gram didn’t seem anywhere near her seventy-three years and, even more importantly, she didn’t care what other people thought.
I took the pencil and paper from Mr. P. and scribbled down the three women’s names before I forgot them.
“At your age when you talk to yourself it’s charming,” Mr. P. said. “When you do it at my age they start asking if you eat enough roughage, and watch to make sure you’re not wearing your underwear on the outside.” He hiked up his pants and gave me a wink and a smile. “Sometimes I do, just to mess with people.”
I watched him head down the hallway, nodding at Charlotte as she came from the kitchen. I wasn’t sure if the old man might have been messing with me.
Charlotte smiled as she walked up to me. Like Mr. P., she reached over to pet the top of Elvis’s head. “The class was lovely, Sarah. Thank you. I know Isabel roped you into it.”
“It was fun,” I said, taking the fabric tote she was carrying. “Is this everything?”
She glanced in the top of her bag and then nodded.
“Where could I drop you?”
“Oh, I don’t mind walking,” she said as we started across the parking lot. “I don’t have that far to go,” she pointed at the carryall, “and my bag’s not that heavy.”
I pulled my keys out of my pocket. “I have time.”
Charlotte’s glasses had slid down her nose, and she frowned at me over the top of them. “Thank you, dear, but I’m perfectly capable of getting an empty cookie can and a canister of tea bags home.”
“I know that,” I said. “I also know that no matter what you said, you’re worried because Maddie didn’t show up and you plan on going to check on her. I thought maybe I could go with you.”
She fingered one of the buttons on her rose-colored sweater. “I know I’m being an old worrywart. It’s just not like Maddie to not call if she wasn’t coming.”
My mother had always told me to trust my instincts. Now I was wishing I’d paid more attention to the funny feeling I’d had about Arthur Fenety and at least asked Sam if he’d heard anything about the man. Because he owned The Black Bear, Sam knew pretty much everything that was happening in North Harbor. Maddie had been a nurse and she was one of the most responsible people I’d ever met. I wasn’t going to ignore my gut feeling again.
“You’re not being an old worrywart,” I said. “I want to check on Maddie, too. We might as well go together.”
Charlotte patted my arm. “All right, let’s go see what’s going on.”
“Does she still live at the end of your street?” I asked as I slid onto the front seat of the truck. I set Elvis down and he settled himself in the middle, between us.
She nodded. “Oh yes. That house has been in her family for close to a hundred years. I can’t see her selling it.”
In North Harbor a hundred years didn’t really make a house that old. There were lots of buildings that dated back to the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Charlotte fastened her seat belt and reached over to give Elvis a scratch under his chin. “We’re probably worrying about nothing.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “But it doesn’t hurt to check.” Once we got there I’d decide how to sound Maddie out about Arthur Fenety.
I backed out of my parking spot, made a tight turn in the tiny lot and pulled out onto the street.
“You drive like your grandmother,” Charlotte said, folding he
r hands in her lap. Elvis was looking straight ahead out the windshield.
“That’s probably because she’s the one who taught me how to drive,” I said. “Do you remember that old one-ton truck she had? She called it Rex.”
“Heavens, yes,” Charlotte said, with a shake of her head. “Don’t tell me she taught you how to drive on that old rust bucket.”
“She did,” I said, grinning at the memory of being behind the wheel of the old green truck for the first time, front seat squeaking as we bounced down a pothole-pocked dirt road just on the outskirts of town. “Liam took driver’s ed, but the class was the same time as honors math, so I was going to have to wait an entire term to learn to drive. I didn’t want him to get his license months before I did.”
There’s only a month between my brother—well, strictly speaking, my stepbrother—Liam and me. My mom and his dad had gotten married when we were in second grade. One moment he’d be a pain-in-the-butt, overprotective big brother, making it pretty much impossible for me to date anyone, and in the next he was covering for me when I set the vacuum cleaner on fire. (Another long story.)
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Charlotte shoot me a skeptical look. “Your mother agreed to let Isabel teach you how to drive?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly tell her.”
“And I’m thinking you didn’t exactly tell Isabel that you didn’t have your mother’s permission for driving lessons.”
“Pretty much.” I stopped at the corner and looked over at Charlotte. Elvis seemed to be as interested in the story as she was.
She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard this story. So, what happened?”
I grinned. “I got my license two hours before Liam did.”
“And?” Charlotte prompted.
“And I was grounded for two weeks and couldn’t drive for a month.”
She laughed. “So was it worth it?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Not only did I get my driver’s license before Liam got his, I could drive a stick and he couldn’t.”