Ginger of the West

by Meg Muldoon

  Was she talking about me? Did she foresee me signing those divorce papers and moving back into the old Victorian permanently?

  Or did she see roommates in her prison cell?

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Aunt Viv?”

  “It means that after all this time,” she said, her voice trembling suddenly with giddiness, “that the curse has finally lifted, hon.”

  “Curse? What curse?”

  The smile on her face was as mysterious and slick as the Cheshire Cat’s.

  “I’ll tell you all about it soon,” she said. “But for now, I feel like celebrating. What do you say we blow the rest of the afternoon off and head to the casinos in Lincoln City? Aunt Vivy is feeling lucky today, and she’s in the mood for a few good rounds of Hold ‘em.”

  I could handle Aunt Viv throwing her lawyer out of the interrogation room. I could handle her emerging from the police station like she was on cloud nine. I could even handle her ramblings about being unable to control what the police thought of her.

  But what I absolutely couldn’t handle was Aunt Viv talking about herself in the third person.

  I pulled up to the front of the aging house and put the car in park.

  “I have to get back to work,” I said in a harsh tone.

  “Oh, c’mon, hon,” she said. “Live a little.”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  “What about my car?” she said, referring to the VW which was still parked up at the Eagle Ridge Trailhead. “How do you expect me to do anything without my car?”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I expect you to stay here and keep a low profile until all of this blows over, Viv.”

  Her eyes bulged angrily at that and she started to say something else, but I reached across abruptly and opened her door for her.

  “You’re no fun, Ginger Marie. A stick in the mud! No fun at all.”

  She shut the door firmly, and I stayed out front until I was sure that she’d actually gone inside the house.

  I shook my head, catching my reflection in the rearview mirror.

  Maybe it was just the gray coastal light, but I looked a little pale and there were more lines around my eyes than usual.

  Maybe Aunt Viv had a point about not worrying so much.

  But the way I saw it, someone had to.

  Chapter 19

  “Well, one of the ovens went out for 25 minutes and you know Lilliana Marsh?” Sapphire said as she rolled chocolate chip cookie dough into perfectly-shaped rounds. “That rail-thin woman who’s in here a lot and always sits at the table in the far corner?”

  In my head I added “the woman Christopher Mann is head-over-heels in love with” to that description.

  “Sure. What about her?”

  Sapphire let out a depressed sigh, which wasn’t all that much more depressed than her usual sighs.

  “Well, she returned her cup of coffee, saying it was a sub-par roast. She said that if things don’t improve with the brew, she might not keep coming back here.”

  Honestly I never did understand what Christopher saw in Lilliana. But then again, he’d probably say the same thing to me about Steve.

  Lilliana was beautiful, to be sure, with her long dark hair, deep-set eyes, and full lips that she often stained a dark red. She also dressed nicely, which in a small, casual coastal town meant that she turned heads when she walked down the street. She had moved here from Seattle about two years ago, shortly after her husband died from a sudden and unexpected heart attack at the age of 39. His death had left her shattered – that’s what she had told me when I had dropped off a plate of cookies as a welcome gift at her new house. But she said that she was resolved to pick up the pieces and try and rebuild her life again.

  But maybe the tragedy had made Lilliana bitter. She wasn’t very friendly and never seemed to have a kind thing to say about anyone or anything. And though I had dropped off that plate of cookies two years ago as a kind gesture, it hadn’t bought me any goodwill with her. This complaint about our coffee wasn’t the first one she’d lodged.

  “We’re serving the Bohemian Joe roast though, right?” I asked Sapphire.

  She nodded glumly.

  “I’ve been brewing up fresh pots every hour,” she said. “Just the way you taught me.”

  “Well, Lilliana’s got nothing to complain about, then. Any other problems while I was gone?”

  I placed my unruly red hair up in a high pony tail.

  “No,” she said quietly.

  “Thanks so much for taking over. I’m sorry I had to leave so suddenly this afternoon.”

  “It wasn’t a problem,” she said in an even quieter voice

  I studied Sapphire for a long moment, feeling the solemn energy coming off of her like a whiff of strong perfume.

  Sapphire wasn’t ever exactly perky, but today she seemed to be more depressed than usual.

  “Is anything wrong?” I asked. “Anything I can help with?”

  She paused, and then looked as though she was about to say something.

  But then, she pulled back.

  “No, Ms. Westbrook,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”

  She took off her apron, hanging it on a nail over by the wall, and grabbed her purse.

  “See you tomorrow,” I said.

  When she left the kitchen, I felt the whole energy of the room buckle back up, as if a huge weight had just been lifted.

  Poor Sapphire.

  Some people were just prone to depression, and I was afraid that my baking assistant was one of them. In the past, I’d once asked if she wanted some of my homemade St. John’s Wort tea – a special blend I made to help clients who suffered from negative thoughts. She agreed to try it, but for some reason nothing changed.

  I’d have to think of something else.

  I started gathering ingredients to make a batch of Ginger Lemon Bars – I had to be sure that we were well-stocked in the bars if I wanted Nigel Parks to continue patronizing my little café.

  But before starting on the buttery crust, I glanced over at Sherwood. He sat there in his dark corner, propped up against the wall in his favorite position.

  “I’m not sure of much today, Woody,” I mumbled out loud, the way I did sometimes when I found myself alone in the kitchen with him. “But I am certain of one thing.”

  I let out a sigh.

  “Everything is not fine. Not by a long shot.”

  Chapter 20

  I had just flipped the sign in the front window from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ when I heard a loud, frantic tap at the kitchen’s back door.

  It was a noise that I had been accustomed to hearing over the past few years. A noise that meant one thing, and one thing only.

  Somebody needed help.

  And the help they sought wasn’t the kind you found at the police station, the doctor’s office, or at the local bar. It was the kind of help found only here, in the back of Ginger’s, after closing time.

  So even though it had been a long afternoon and evening, and even though my feet ached for the restorative effects of the frigid ocean waves down the shore, I knew my day couldn’t be over just yet.

  I left the messy dining room to clean-up for later, and made my way to the kitchen.

  A short woman in light-wash jeans and a casual purple sweater stood outside the back door, cupping her hands around the glass and peering inside.

  Her face lit up when she saw me.

  I went over and opened the door.

  “Hi, Mrs. Lewis,” I said. “Did Sapphire leave something behind?”

  Sapphire’s mother, the co-owner of a chain of successful hardware stores up and down the coast and a well-liked Broomfield Bay city councilor, shook her head.

  “No, Ginger,” she said. “I’m not here to pick anything up for my daughter. I’m here to…”

  She trailed off, gulping hard.

  But she didn’t need to finish her thought for me to understand what she wanted.

  I was used to this with new clients
.

  They’d heard the stories and finally mustered up the courage to come and see me. But they always had trouble saying exactly what they needed.

  “I, uh, I can’t believe I’m actually here,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder.

  Her feet stayed planted outside.

  She lowered her voice, her large features taking on a serious expression.

  “Are the stories they tell about you really true?”

  I smiled.

  “Well, I guess that depends on what stories people tell about me,” I said.

  She drew in a nervous breath.

  “They say that you and your aunt have… have ways that can help people,” she said. “I mean, Sapphire doesn’t seem to know anything about it, but other people in town swear that you have these magical abilities that—”

  “I help people when I can.”

  Her eyes grew wider.

  “But it’s not… it’s not like black magic or anything, is it? Because if it’s black magic or evil or anything dark like that, then I can’t—”

  “No, it’s not black magic or evil or anything dark,” I said, opening the back kitchen door all the way. “I don’t do that. Now, please come in Mrs. Lewis. Before anybody sees a city councilor consulting me and starts spreading rumors.”

  She quickly walked inside the kitchen.

  I didn’t know Joyce Lewis very well, but one thing I could tell.

  She needed help, and she needed it bad.

  The ones who had built up the courage to come here usually did.

  ***

  “Ever since Mark left her to go teach English in South Korea two years ago, Sapphire’s been devastated,” Joyce said, taking a sip of berry tea and casting a sideways glance at Sherwood in the corner.

  From my experience, most of the time when people came to me they wanted help with their own problems. Love problems, health problems, financial problems… and in nearly every instance, my assistance went toward helping them improve their own lives.

  It was a rare bird that came into my shop asking for help for somebody else.

  “Oh, I had no idea that was why she’s been so depressed,” I said. “I hope her job hasn’t contributed to her unhappiness.”

  “Oh, no,” she said, putting her cup and saucer down on the butcher block. “No, not at all. In fact, I think working here at Ginger’s is one of the few bright spots in her life. She loves baking, always has since she was a kid. And she always says nice things about you. No, work has nothing to do with it. It’s all about Mark.”

  She let out a troubled sigh.

  “Sapphire had her heart broken when Mark left. They were sweethearts all through college. They moved back here together, and Sapphire was expecting him to propose. But he decided he needed to go abroad before getting married. Now he’s renewing his contract in South Korea for a third year, and I think it’s finally hit home for Sapphire that he might not be coming back. Not to Broomfield Bay, and not to her.”

  Mrs. Lewis closed her eyes.

  “It’s been so hard to see her go through this. I’ve done everything I can to help her, but nothing’s worked to pull her out of this depression. Everything but… you know.”

  She looked around the shop.

  Though I didn’t know her very well, I liked Joyce. She was friendly and well-liked, as evidenced by the town electing her to a second term on the council.

  Additionally, the fact that she cared enough about her daughter to risk being seen at my café after hours – which could easily trigger gossip about magically fixed elections – was admirable.

  “I’m sorry to hear that Sapphire’s having such a rough time of it,” I said. “How would you like me to help?”

  Joyce looked away.

  “I want…”

  She met my eyes.

  “I want you to make Mark come back to her,” she said, her words coming out weak and shaky. “I think that would make her happy again. I want him to see what a fool he is for letting such a special girl go.”

  I got up. I went over to the window and stared out at the choppy ocean, frothing in high winds beneath a fading sky.

  It had only been a few weeks before when I’d had a request very similar to this one.

  I shuddered at the memory.

  Penelope Ashby had been so full of desperation when she’d begged me to cast a love spell on a man she’d fallen head over heels in love with.

  She didn’t tell me his name or who he was that day when she came to visit me here. She never got around to that. Because right away, I could tell by her energy that it was something I could not deliver.

  I wasn’t above helping people with their love life. Christopher was an obvious example of that. But there were rules for such things. And I wouldn’t cast a love spell or make a love elixir if I didn’t think the client was coming from an honest and true place with their request. And I made it clear to them that my magic only worked if everything else was aligned.

  Penelope had been desperate that day. Ravenous, some might call it. Full of lust and conquest for the man she was trying to get to fall in love with her. And something else, too, that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  I could sense it right away in her energy.

  Which was why I said no and returned her money.

  She’d left angry and upset, and had leveled some very serious threats at me. And I couldn’t help but think now if that intense desire to get Aunt Viv’s house taken over by the Historical Society was more or less an act of revenge because I had refused her request.

  I hadn’t known then that a short time later, Penelope Ashby would drive her car off a cliff.

  Or that the police would discover that someone had cut the brake lines on purpose.

  “I can pay you upfront, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” Joyce said, breaking the silence. “Just tell me your fee, and I’ll—”

  “I’d do it for free, Joyce,” I said, taking my eyes off of the white-capped seas and turning back around. “Sapphire’s been a great employee, and if there’s any way I can help her, I will.

  “But your request…”

  I looked over at Sherwood.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do something like that,” I said. “I know you want Mark to come back because you think it’ll make her happy. But you can’t know the feelings of the parties involved. And from an ethical standpoint, I can’t bring Mark back to Sapphire if it’s not in either one of their best interests. And besides, one of them would have to be the one asking me. Not a third party. I’m sorry.”

  Disappointment flooded her eyes.

  “But I think I can still help, if you want me to,” I said.

  “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “What do you propose?”

  I sat back down at the table, grabbing the pot of berry tea and pouring her another cup.

  “I can make a happiness tonic,” I said. “It’s a generalized solution that I think given Sapphire’s situation would be the best course of action. After all, there may be other things that are contributing to her unhappiness that we don’t know about. People her age can be depressed about a lot of things. Additionally, if Mark really is the one for her, this tonic may find a way of bringing them together. But I can’t promise that.”

  The corners of Joyce’s mouth turned up.

  “How fast does it work?”

  “It depends on just how depressed she really is. It may take more than one dose, but I would say if she takes the first dose tomorrow, you should see an improvement in her mood and general outlook on life within two weeks. I’ll bake some of the tonic into a batch of scones so she doesn’t know about it. I’ll also give you a bottle of it for maintenance.”

  I cringed a little after saying that.

  It never felt right forcing my magic on someone who hadn’t specifically asked for assistance. But truth be told, this was a mild solution, and I knew that Sapphire could use the help. And I also knew that Joyce’s heart was in the r
ight place. It was a terrible thing to watch someone you love be in so much pain. And I knew, especially lately, how bad a broken heart could really hurt.

  “And it won’t harm her?” she asked.

  “Not in the least.”

  “That’s wonderful,” she said, taking a sip of her tea. “Truly, truly wonderful. You know, before all of this Mark business, Sapphire used to be the happiest girl…”

  She trailed off.

  I got up and grabbed a box of Kleenex, placing it in front of her. She took a few and nodded gratefully.

  After a moment, she stood up.

  “Thank you so much, Ginger,” she said. “You don’t know what this means to me. And to Sapphire, too.”

  “Sapphire’s a good person. And she deserves to be happy.”

  The stout woman started rummaging around in her purse, and then pulled out a checkbook and a pen.

  “I mean it, Joyce. There’s no charge.”

  “I know, but I would really feel better if—”

  “Nope,” I said, shaking my head.

  She stared at me, slightly dazed, as if I’d just done something crazy like throw a bag of diamonds into the ocean.

  Then she returned the checkbook and pen to her purse.

  “You’re one in a million, Ginger. Truly.”

  I smiled.

  It was a lot better than being called no-fun and a stick-in-the-mud, the way I had been by a certain aunt earlier.

  Joyce made her way to the back door. She was about to close it behind her when something suddenly occurred to me.

  “Joyce?”

  She stopped in her tracks and turned around.

  “Yes?”

  “You were part of the mayor’s book club, weren’t you?”

  Her face darkened.

  “Unfortunately,” she said, pausing in the doorjamb.

  “Unfortunately?”

  “Not to speak ill of the dead, but I doubt the mayor was going to have much of a book club after the horror show of the last meeting.”

  Horror show?

  I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end, just as a gust of salt-tinged wind wound its way through the shop.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.