by Jacquie Gee
“Don’t talk like that,” Aunt Penny snaps. There’s tension in her voice that is never there. “Those people are our bread and butter.” She scowls. “We need to be thankful they even stop here. They could skip us altogether and just go on up the road to Coochaquitamee— the main attraction.”
“The Coochaquitamee? Main attraction?” The bridge we doth not speak the name of?
“Yes. Remember it? The longest covered bridge in all of North America?”
“But that bridge isn’t even real. Almost every plank on that thing’s been replaced.”
“I know that, and you know that, but the average tourist doesn’t.” Her mouth pulls into a nervous, thin line. “To them, it’s the longest covered bridge, a full fifty longer than ours, and that’s all that matters. Which makes our bridge the ugly sister by comparison, when it comes to tourist dollars.”
“Really.”
“It doesn’t matter much anyway.” She aggressively dusts off a stuffed moose. “If your old fiancé gets his way, it’ll be the only bridge left in the area.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your mother really hasn’t told you anything, has she?” Aunt Penny whirls around. “Jebson Jefferies, our new Mayor, is lobbying to have our bridge taken down.”
“He’s what?”
“As Mayor of the town, he thinks it’s the best decision. He wants to see it demolished to make way for the new Government highway initiative.”
“They want to put it through here. Why? What good would that do?”
“Well, for one thing, it would get the truckers faster to the international docs in Fredericton.” She stuffs the moose back. “Not to mention, make Jebson look good in the eyes of the parliament up in Ottawa.”
“He has his sights on that destination, does he?”
“I don’t know whether he does as much as his father,” she sneers. “Either way, it’s not looking good for us.”
“How long has this threat been looming?” I ask.
“Upward of a year and a half now.”
“And I’m just hearing about it today?” My voice flips up.
“Don’t look at me.” Aunt Penny throws up her hands. “I’m not the one in charge here.” She turns her back and starts fixing a new shelf.
“Well, he can’t do that, anyway. We own the bridge. He can’t take it down.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Aunt Penny snaps.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She gets this look on her face like she’s just sworn at the Pope. “Nope. I’ve said too much already.” She waves her words away.
“Aunt Penny?” I press.
“I’ll tell you one thing. We're lucky to even be on the tour, and we’re only on it because your mother begged for them to include us.”
“She what?”
“Otherwise, they’d just be heading straight onto Coochaquitamee and bypassing us all together. They’re only a ten-minute jog off the highway, while we’re a good fifteen.” She turns her back, tucking a stuffed beaver back in with its pack. “Not to mention, Coochaquitamee has a mini flea market and a petting zoo, now.”
“Well, bully for them.” I pluck a lobster stapler from the moose paperweights and straighten both shelves. “The Coochaquitamee’s nothing more than glorified truck stop, in my opinion,” I mumble.
“And I here I thought you hated this place.” Aunt Penny lifts a smirky brow.
I pet the head of a stuffed moose I’ve just returned to its shelf. “I do. I just hate Coochaquitamee more.”
“Now the real work begins,” Aunt Penny huffs, finishing up her shelf.
“What?”
She turns, steering the stray lock of hair from her weary-looking eyes.
“What are you talking about?” I look around. “The place looks good. Everything’s back on its shelf. The floor is clean.”
“Ah, but the outside isn’t.” Aunt Penny strolls to the front of the shop and swings open the front door. “Have a look for yourself?” She leans back, stretching her hand through the door.
I stare out the door. The parking lot is covered in debris. A plethora of discarded food wrappers, water bottles, and french fry trays blow like tumbleweed across the landscape. Other vendors from the area are out and about, each with a garbage bag and poker, cleaning up.
“Time to do our bit,” Aunt Penny says.
“You mean, we have to—”
“That’s right.” She nods. “We’ve got until four thirty, until the next bus arrives, to make this place look like it does in the brochure again. And then again, when that bus leaves.”
“You do this every day?”
“Um-hum,” Penny tuts. “Three times a day. Seven days a week. May through October.” She snags a couple of garbage bags from a shelf next to the door and hands me one. “You’ll find the pokers over there behind the cash.” She jerks her head.
Wow. I truly am uninformed.
Chapter 13
Aunt Penny tosses the last of the garbage bags into the dumpster. “Come on,” she grabs my hand. “I’ll fix us both a Coke float. We’ve earned it.”
I check my watch. 5:30. I guess we have.
The second bus was early, and the crowd was not as big, so the clean-up wasn’t half as bad as the first one. Since that was the last bus for today, I guess we can indulge.
Wow, I can’t believe they do this every day.
“Chocolate or vanilla?” Aunt Penny grins, grabbing my arm and dragging me back toward the store. “I might even have some pineapple orange leftover.”
“Definitely chocolate,” I say, as she hauls me along, through the main shop, down the back hallway, through the Coke-pull-tab curtains that I’ve always loved, and out into her back-apartment suite. The little place behind the shop where she lives. I always loved this place. Loved everything about it. She’s lived here ever since I can remember.
It’s all as I remember it, right down to the fat pink-chintz overstuffed chairs with doilies on the armrests. I run a finger over the lace trim on the balloon drapes—the ones Mom and I sewed for one of her birthdays, then throw myself down into her old brown leather Lay-Z-Boy. The one piece of furniture in the room that doesn’t match the rest; the black sheep of her décor.
“Nuts?” Aunt Penny says, popping open the canister.
“Sure.” I sink into the chair, completely exhausted.
“That is, if I can find the food processor,” Aunt Penny mutters, rummaging through the cupboards. “Found it! One scoop or two?” She refers to the ice cream.
“Two,” I answer. There’s a hole in Aunt Penny’s chair.
“Two, it is, then.” She happily plops two scoops of ice cream in each glass.
I love Aunt Penny. She’s just so easy. No drama, no conflict, always easy going— like wind-kissed wash hanging on the line on a gentle breezy summer’s day.
Unlike how my father used to be.
I strum my fingers on the arm of the chair thinking. There’s so much to think about all of a sudden. I want to know what went on with Mom's house, but I'm kind of afraid to ask her. “So,” I hedge the conversation. “What’s happened to everything around here?”
Aunt Penny’s head shoots up.
“You know, the fudge? The brittle? The refreshment counter?” Half my house.
She adds Coke to the two tall glasses. The mixture fizzles up. “Oh, I dunno…” She turns, dropping the nuts into the food processor, and makes it roar.
“You don’t know what happened to this place?” I talk over the noise.
“What’s happened?” She stops, dumps the nuts on a plate.
“When did all the changes take place?” I clarify, though I know she knows darned well what I’m talking about.
“Oh, been a while now.” She’s clearly avoiding the subject. Feeding me vague, generic answers. This, from a woman who normally can’t be shut up.
“Like, for instance, where did the candy counter go?”
“Oh, that c
hange was recent.” She adds a pinch of I don’t know what—have never known what. “It was all just getting to be too much” — she tops each with a swirl of whipped cream, then drizzles chocolate over that. “It was just time to give it up, I guess.” She is across the room in two quick strides, handing me one of them. She put down her glass, then flops down in the armchair across from me.
“Is that what happened to Mom’s house, too? Was it just time to give half that up?”
Aunt Penny smirks. “Wasn’t my news to spread,” she says. “You know how fiercely independent your mother is.”
“So, you thought it was okay for me to come home in and find this all out?”
Aunt Penny glares. “We have a code.”
That, I didn’t know.
“I don’t tell her secrets and she doesn’t tell mine. Besides, I promised long ago, I wouldn’t try to raise you.” Her straw goes flat, so she stands to get another one. “I know better than to meddle in your mother’s affairs.”
I steer the conversation a new direction. “How long have you known?” I ask. “About my mother, I mean.” Meaning, my mother’s apparent onset of dementia—or whatever it is. I’m not ready to commit to that word, just yet.
“For a while.” Aunt Penny sighs.
“A while?”
“Yes, a while.”
“So, you’ve known.”
“Of course I’ve known. Who doesn’t know? It’s been happening right in front of our faces.”
“So why didn’t you take her to the doctor, then?”
“Because she refused,” Aunt Penny snaps. “You know how your mother can be. I badgered her for months. And then Trent suggested it and away she goes.” She flips out a hand. “To this day, I don’t know how he managed that one—”
“Trent? You call him Trent?”
“Well, that is his name. What am I supposed to call him?”
“Oh, I don’t know, traitor would be good.” I take a drink, muttering into my straw, “House-stealer. Manipulator. Conman. Pick one.”
“You have to stop that.” Penny’s expression softens. “That young man showed up at exactly the right time your mother needed him. He did your mother a great favor.”
“By what? Taking over her house?”
“By helping her keep it. His buying the house helped pay down the—” She stops herself short, her eyes flaring, startled. She swallows down the end of her sentence.
“Pay down the what?” I say.
Penny sucks in a sharp breath. “Again.” She turns her back. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” She walks away. “Cookies?” She calls from the kitchen.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” I race after her. “You’re not getting out of this one that easily. Now, what’s this all about?” I circle in front of her, swinging my butt up onto the countertop in front.
Penny’s spine goes rigid. She fights back the tears in her eyes. “Your mother has always been a very prideful woman.”
“I know that.”
“It hasn’t been easy for her since the Captain died.” Penny’s lips twitch.
“It hasn’t been easy on anyone.” Captain? This is serious. She’s referring to my father’s old naval rank. No one’s done that for years.
“She’s had to run this ship all alone for a great many years now, as you know, and just when she’s about to pull up to the dock in the final harbor—” Penny hesitates. “You know what… I’m going to have to leave it there,” she sets her jaw firmly. “If your mother wants you to know the rest, she’ll tell you. Or someone else will in this wretched town.” She turns her back, muttering, like I can’t hear her, as she polishes the already-clean countertop with a rag. “But I won’t be the one to betray her secrets.” Her lip curls up into a sneer, and I wonder if we’re still talking about Mom’s life, or hers.
A fat silence festers between us, something that’s never happened before.
It’s clear I’m not gonna get what I want out of Aunt Penny. Whatever went on here, whatever lead Mom to sever our property, to divide up Dad’s heritage home, it had to be very important, and Aunt Penny’s not gonna be the one to tell me.
“Can I ask you a something, personal?" I say breaking the bubble of silence. Aunt Penny turns to me slowly. I'm about to ask a question I should ask, but since I'm on a roll.
“Shoot,” she says, a little wary.
I draw in a slow breath, then just put it out there. “Why didn’t you ever leave here?”
The pupils in Penny’s eyes constrict. She stares, shocked that I’d ask her such a question. I’m a little shocked myself. I’ve wanted to know for years but never had the guts to ask her. We’ve never gotten this personal before—no one does around here—we’ve never even discussed her life or its details, but since I’m dabbling in the arena of death-defying questions today, I figured why not ask. Normally our conversations revolve around how much rain has fallen, or how the potatoes are doing, stuff like that.
But I don’t know, I just feel like things are changing, so why not change things.
I sure hope we’re still talking after this.
Aunt Penny leans back against the countertop. She doesn’t look relaxed. “How could I?” she answers in a low, breathy voice. “Where was I gonna go?" She twists the ring she's always worn on her middle finger. A ring, Dad once said, he thought she got from the only man she ever loved.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Away from here,” I gesture the Cove. “After all that happened,” I add, squinting. “Why didn’t you just pick up and go?”
Penny’s upper lip stiffens. “You wouldn’t understand,” she says.
“Try me.”
“Things were different then. Women didn’t just go places. They had to be taken.” She folds her arms. “Besides, I’m not you. None of us are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I’m confused.
She turns her back, then faces me again. “It means, I’m not brave, like you. I’m not a risk taker.” A risk-taker. I’ve never thought of myself like that before. I stare into Aunt Penny’s glossing-over eyes, afraid to push the conversation further, but wanting to say so much more. I want to scream, Yes, yes, you could have been! You could have been so much more. You’re smart and worldly, and wonderful, and… Most of all, I wanted to shout… It’s not too late, you know? But I don’t. I don’t say any of it. I just place my glass in the sink and prepare to leave. “I guess I should get going,” I say.
“Yes. I suppose you and your mother have a lot to talk about.” Aunt Penny’s voice is soft and sympathetic.
She’s right. We do have a lot to talk about all of a sudden.
“And I’ve got a few more boxes to unpack. Give her a kiss for me, will you?”
She turns to go, and I call her back. “If you need help, I can stay for a bit—”
“No, I think we’re done.” She shakes her head, and there’s a definiteness in her voice that frightens me.
I’ve offended her. I can tell by the look in her eyes. Either that or I’ve sent her reeling through memories she didn’t want to relive. I turn to leave then turn abruptly back. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t.” She smiles, the edges of her lips wobbling. “It’s nice to know we can talk.” She turns and heads off through the part in the Coke curtains. “Oh, Aunt Penny.” I stop her. She doubles back, pressing her face back between screen, Coke rings clattering against her plump cheeks. “Do you know any place in town I can hook up to wireless? I’ve got some work to do that I’d rather not do on my phone.”
“Only place that progressive in town is the Green Grub. He has wi-fi.”
My stomach sinks. “You’re joking, right? There must be another place.”
“Nope.”
“Not even the HeartBeat Inn.”
“Are you kidding, its owner’s far too cheap for that.”
“What about my Mom’s place?”
“Doesn’t extend to the second floor.”
I curse
, silently in my head.
“Why? Something wrong?”
“No. What could possibly be wrong?” I feel the muscles at the sides of my jaw clench. Other than I just told the owner off and stormed out of his establishment, and I’d rather die than set foot back in it.
Chapter 14
“He-ey.” I wave as the Skype screen comes to life on my laptop and Tia’s shining smile comes through. I’d decided not to face Mr. Green Grub again. Instead, I traveled up the road to Coldwater, where I read on the internet, Lund’s Café had muffins and wi-fi. I parked, walked in, ordered myself a coffee and a morning glory muffin for dinner, then plopped down at a table by the window and got to work. I’ve been at it steadily for several hours now, so I’ve decided it’s time to take a break and talk to Tia.
“Hey!” She greets me back all bubbly and smiling. Her hair is disheveled. She looks run off her feet. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, it’s going. What’s going on there?” I squint to see. The shop behind her looks pretty congested. “Are those line-ups of people I see?”
“Yeah, it’s crazy.” She turns around and back. “Been steady all day. The shop’s been going nuts here since you left.”
“It has?” The cash register rings and the line of people moves mysteriously, although Tia’s obviously not waited on anyone. Our crowds were for sure picking up before I left, but nothing of this magnitude. “What happened?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I came up with a couple of new cupcakes!” She beams.
“You did?”
“Uh-huh, ethnic ones. They seem to be a big hit.”
“Such as?” I’m dying to know. This is very cool.
“Well, there’s the Fortune Muffie”— she races about the shop collecting one to show me, holding it up to the screen— “baked with fortune cookie dough and jammed with lemon cream.” It’s shaped like a fortune cookie with lemon filling in its folds. “It even comes with its own edible fortune,” she tells me.