Barefoot Season

by Susan Mallery

  Today she walked through the store, stopping to touch her favorite pieces, aware she was telling them she might be gone soon. As if the carving of an orca breaching and surrounded by spray would miss her.

  The front door opened and the attached bell tinkled. She turned and saw Leonard Daniels walking toward her.

  “Hi, Carly.”

  “Morning, Leonard.”

  Leonard was their resident ornithologist, specializing in the Puget Sound crane. He was here on a grant that paid for his room at the inn. They generally had two or three scientists at any one time.

  Tall and thin, with dark-rimmed glasses and pale skin, despite his time outdoors, Leonard personified the phrase “geeky scientist.” He favored plaid and khakis, inevitably had binoculars around his neck and a small netbook computer under one arm.

  He crossed to her, his gait more energetic than usual. “We have eggs.”

  She knew enough to understand he didn’t mean the breakfast variety. “Already?”

  He nodded. “Two in the first nest I found and one in the other. Within a week I’ll have enough data to determine a potential chick population.” His dark eyes brightened with excitement. “I’m hoping this is the third growth year. If it is, then we can finally look at taking the cranes off the endangered list.”

  He paused, as if expecting her to share his joy.

  “That’s great, Leonard.”

  “I know. We should celebrate.”

  “It’s kind of early in the day.”

  He pushed up his glasses, then looked at his watch. “Oh, right. Okay. I’m going back to work.”

  He left the store.

  She watched him go, hoping he wasn’t going to try to change the nature of their relationship. He was a paying guest and she’d always been friendly to him but the last thing she wanted in her life was a man. Men were trouble. It had taken her a while to figure that out but she wasn’t going to forget the lesson now.

  There hadn’t been anyone in her life since Allen had abandoned her. Over ten years. Sure, it would be great to have hot sex with a guy, but aside from that, she didn’t need the aggravation.

  She turned back to mental inventory, only to have Wendy, one of the servers, come in. Wendy worked the breakfast shift at the restaurant. She had three kids and a husband who worked nights. He got the kids off to school when he got home from his job and she took over until he got up in the late afternoon. They spent their evenings together, before he left and she went to bed.

  Wendy was reliable and the guests liked her—which made her someone Carly didn’t want to lose.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  Wendy wrinkled her nose. “Damaris got in my face this morning, which I can handle, but she came out and yelled at one of the customers, which I didn’t like. Jeez, what’s up with her? She gets in these moods. The guy wanted an egg-white omelet. She told him no special orders. When he said it was for his heart, she told him that his being fat wasn’t her fault.”

  Carly felt her mouth drop open. “Please say you’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were. Most of the time she’s fine, but every now and then she gets in a mood and takes it out on customers. You’ll talk to her?”

  Carly wanted to say no. This was the sort of thing Brenda handled. The other woman had actually enjoyed taking Damaris on. If it had been up to Carly, Damaris would have been let go years ago. Firing the temperamental cook had been on her to-do list, just as soon as she got her shares of the inn. Now she wasn’t sure if she had a job, let alone the authority to fire anyone.

  “I’ll talk to her,” she said, knowing she owed that to Wendy.

  “Thanks. I’m heading home. Have a good one.”

  “You, too.”

  Carly had nearly an hour to fume and worry before Ann showed up to work in the gift shop. Not sure what she was going to say, she walked through the inn to the restaurant kitchen. Damaris sat on a stool, her cell phone to her ear. When she saw Carly, she frowned before saying she had to hang up.

  “You know he was a big, fat guy. Do you think one egg-white omelet is going to make a difference?”

  So much for idle chitchat, Carly thought. “He’s a customer.”

  “The customer isn’t always right. Most of the time the customer doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I made the omelet. I didn’t want to, but I did.”

  “Your job is to cook their food. Being rude and critical doesn’t help our business.”

  “Our business?” Damaris raised her eyebrows. “It’s Michelle’s business, not yours.”

  “I’m speaking as an employee. We have a responsibility to do our best. That’s what we’re paid to do.” Carly could feel her face heating. She’d never been very good at hiding when she was upset. “Do you think Michelle would have been proud of your actions? That she would be happy about what happened?”

  Damaris stood and crossed to Carly. The cook was about five inches shorter, but much broader and more willing to be aggressive.

  “Don’t you tell me my job, missy. I was cooking before you were born. She’s back now. How long do you think before she fires you?”

  Less time than Damaris knew, Carly thought, knowing she had no power, no position of strength.

  “You were wrong and you know you were wrong. Not just because it’s bad customer service, but because it was rude. Whatever you think of me, saying things like that won’t help the business. You claim to care about Michelle but your actions are hurting her.”

  Damaris smiled. “Uh-huh? And who do you think is going to be here at the end of the day? Me or you?”

  A question Carly didn’t want to answer. She turned and left the kitchen.

  Frustration gnawed at her. Anger made her want to lash out. Maybe she should go ahead and leave. Start over somewhere else. Have a real life that wasn’t dependent on forces she couldn’t control and people who lied. People like Brenda.

  She stopped in the hallway, needing a second to get control of herself and calm down.

  “Why did you do this?” she asked out loud, knowing there wasn’t going to be an answer. Carly wasn’t a big believer in the dead coming back and having a conversation, and even if they could, she doubted Brenda would bother.

  She’d been used by Brenda. At times the other woman had been sympathetic, even kind. But in the end, she’d only cared about herself. Now Carly had nothing. Her carefully hoarded emergency fund held all of sixteen hundred dollars. Barely enough to cover a deposit on a small apartment, let alone rent. Not to mention living expenses while she looked for work. She doubted Michelle would fire her and then give her a recommendation, which meant getting a decent job would be beyond difficult.

  Which left what? Being homeless? Public assistance?

  Her eyes burned. She sucked in a breath and told herself she wasn’t going to give in to tears. Not yet. Not when there could be a bigger crisis brewing.

  She squared her shoulders; she would get through this. She’d gotten through plenty. She was strong and a hard worker and she had Gabby. Besides, ice cream had been on sale so she’d bought a quart. If necessary, she could have a sugar-based pity party later.

  She walked into the main room of the inn and found an older couple standing by the window. They weren’t guests, so she wondered if they were hoping to get a room. She had three available, at least for tonight. The biggest of them had a balcony and a view.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling automatically. “Can I help you?”

  The couple was casually but expensively dressed. More island chic than big-city vacationers. He was tall, she shorter, both fit with blond hair and tans.

  They turned to her.

  “Seth Farley,” the man said. “This is my wife, Pauline. Do you have a moment? Could we talk somewhere private?”

  They didn’t look like salespeople or vendors. She’d been careful to pay all the inn’s bills, so they weren’t after money. Lawyers seemed unlikely.

  “Sure. Let’s go in here.”

  Th
e “here” was a small conference room set aside for business guests.

  When they were seated around the large table, she offered them coffee.

  “No, thanks,” Seth told her. “I’ll get right to the point. My wife and I are psychologists. We’ve been in practice together for nearly twenty-five years. We have a program for married couples interested in working on their relationships. I won’t go into all the details, but we get together with two or three couples at a time for three days. We’ve been holding our retreats in Seattle, but we think that getting out of the city might help couples more fully immerse in their therapy. We’ve investigated several places and are interested in your inn.”

  “Oh.” Carly brightened. Returning guests were always welcome. “This is our only meeting room, though. We don’t have conference rooms like traditional hotels.”

  “We don’t need a space for the seminars themselves,” Pauline told her. “We have that taken care of. We’re looking for housing for our clients. Three rooms Tuesday through Thursday from the middle of May through late September.”

  Summer was their busiest time, she thought. While the weekends were always full, there were usually rooms available midweek. Having guaranteed bookings for that many weeks would be great.

  “I would have to check our availability,” she said, then remembered there was more. “And talk to the owner.”

  Seth drew his eyebrows together. “I thought you were one of them.”

  So did I.

  “No,” she said brightly. “But I’ve worked here for ten years, so I’m confident your clients would enjoy their stay. Let me get the dates from you along with your card. I’ll check the reservations and speak with the owner, then get back to you by the end of the week. How’s that?”

  “Perfect.”

  Seven

  Michelle sat with her fingers on the keyboard. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to open the programs; it was that she didn’t want to.

  Reality was damned unpleasant. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to be one of those people who could simply drift away. To be on another mental plane and not care about this world. Only not caring wouldn’t fix the problem. This was her inn. The one thing that had kept her going while she’d been away. The thought of coming home. If home was fucked-up, she was going to have to fix it herself.

  She typed purposefully, focusing only on gathering information. She was used to spreadsheets and charts and graphs. Her time in the army had been spent in and around supplies. Deciding what to order. Getting them where they needed to go. Getting the inn back on its financial feet was nothing compared with the logistics of housing, feeding and caring for thousands of soldiers on the other side of the world.

  She quickly sorted through the previous year’s tax returns, wincing when she saw the loss. Sure, avoiding taxes in every legal way possible was great fun, but seeing the amount of money the inn had lost made her heart sink. The only bright spot was that losses meant there weren’t overdue taxes.

  She printed out the tax return, then started printing out other reports. The checkbook register. Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable. She found that her mother had purchased not one, not two, but three new cars in the ten years Michelle had been gone. The last one, a BMW convertible with the price tag well over $70,000, had been repossessed.

  She sorted through desk drawers and found unpaid bills under boxes of paper clips and staples. Then she added Carly’s neat list of deposits and bills paid.

  After opening a new spreadsheet, she began to enter the information. What came in and what went out. She balanced the checkbook, then did it again because the number couldn’t be right. She looked at reservations and saw there were many weeks when they weren’t even close to the number required by the bank.

  Two hours later, she stood and limped slowly around the room. Blood circulated, pouring into her hip and causing pain. She was stiff and sore. But the worst of it was on the inside.

  Growing up, she’d always been her father’s favorite. Even as a little kid, she’d known her dad preferred her to Brenda. She’d accepted his love, his devotion, and had known that he was the one who stood between her and her mother. Brenda had been indifferent at best, and critical and hurtful at worst.

  Sometimes she wondered if her father’s favoritism had hurt Brenda. If, in return, Brenda had taken that out on her daughter. There was no way to know how much of her mother’s actions were the result of circumstance and how many came from a sucky personality.

  Michelle couldn’t remember when she first learned that her parents had “had” to get married. She’d been born seven months after the wedding. While Michelle and her father had loved the inn, loved the island, Brenda had resented being trapped here. There were no trips to Europe—the inn couldn’t be left for that long. No summer vacations—that was the busiest time. No weekends anywhere. The inn came first.

  Michelle remembered her mother screaming that she and her father were so selfish. At seven, Michelle had been a small but determined opponent. “If we’re so selfish, why do you always get your way?”

  A question for which her mother never had an answer.

  Brenda had resented her husband’s abandonment more than she had mourned his absence. He’d left them both—devastating Michelle. The desertion had not only proved he didn’t love her best, it had left her at the mercy of her mother.

  At the time, Michelle had wondered if she would leave, too, but Brenda didn’t. Instead, Michelle had been the one to go away. Looking now at the financial math that was her family’s legacy, she thought that Brenda had won in subtle ways. A bad decision here, a foolish purchase there. Individually they were inconsequential. Taken in total, they were a disaster.

  She studied the payroll reports. Boeing didn’t need this many people working for them. The inn only had thirty rooms, but seven maids. And what the hell was a reception greeter? Just as confusing, some people seemed overpaid while others didn’t make enough. Damaris hadn’t had a raise in six years. That was bad enough, but Carly’s financial situation was worse.

  Michelle stared at the biweekly paycheck amount. Even taking into consideration the fact that she got free living quarters and a couple of meals a day, she wasn’t making close to minimum wage. She had a kid. The medical insurance sucked. There had to be out-of-pocket expenses for that, not to mention clothes and shoes and whatever else children needed.

  While she was aware she should probably be happy that the other woman was practically living in poverty, she mostly felt embarrassed and maybe a little guilty.

  Michelle wanted to put all the blame on her mother. The inn had been left to her in trust. She was supposed to take care of it. But Michelle knew she was the one responsible. She’d been the one to leave, the one who hadn’t come back, the one who had never asked. Now she had two mortgages, a pending foreclosure and a list of rules and demands that made her skin crawl.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” she barked without looking up.

  “You sound like you’re still in the army.”

  She saw Damaris step into the office. The cook had a tray in one hand.

  “I brought you lunch. I didn’t think you’d eat on your own.”

  Michelle glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was nearly three. “Do you always work this late?”

  “Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.” The cook put the tray on the desk, then sat in the empty chair. “I had to order my meat and produce.”

  “What time do you usually get out of here?”

  Damaris shrugged. “Two. Two-thirty.”

  Michelle did the math in her head. She knew Damaris got to the restaurant sometime around six. They opened at seven and she worked through lunch.

  “You haven’t had a raise since I left.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Michelle wanted to ask if her mother had been doing this on purpose. If her goal had been to destroy the inn. She doubted her friend would h
ave an answer.

  “I’m giving you a raise now. Retroactive three months.” She named an hourly salary. “Better?”

  Damaris nodded. “You’ve always been a good girl. None of this is your fault.”

  “What have you figured out? About the inn?”

  “I hear things. People don’t get paid. Checks bounce. No one blames you.”