“Well . . .” Chrissie tried to think of something else to say about the painting, but couldn’t come up with anything other than “Nice of them to be true to their word and hang the painting.”
“Not sure about the decision to hang it next to the door, though. It might deter people from viewing the rest of the exhibit,” Jared said as they followed the path from the carriage house to the mansion. “I bet they’re sorry they ever made that promise. That thing was downright awful. I’m probably going to have nightmares tonight.”
Chrissie laughed. “Maybe we’ll see some pretty in here to chase the creepy out of your head.”
The path led to the mansion’s main door, and once inside the huge foyer, they were met by another docent, this one a woman who appeared to be in her late seventies.
“You’re free to wander anywhere that’s open. If a door is closed, however, we ask that you respect that,” she said.
Chrissie and Jared acknowledged the request and set out to explore the huge old house, from the first floor to the attic. It had been set up to accommodate everything from children’s crafts in two rooms on the first floor, to a conference room on the second floor that, according to the note on the door, was used primarily for social and civic meetings. Another room served to display works by a local sculptor, and yet another, miniature boats made by a retired waterman, which caught Jared’s eye. It seemed every craft and hobby had its designated space in the old mansion, and when they made it back to the first floor, they went into the parlor that was open to the foyer by a large pocket door.
The walls were lined with bookshelves, and around the room, various chairs and sofas were arranged for group discussion or for solitary reading. Chrissie sat in a rocking chair and put her head back and rocked slowly, while Jared walked around the room, stopping occasionally to read the title of a book.
“I don’t smell anything,” she said.
Jared turned to her, a book in his hand. “What did you expect to smell?”
“Gardenias. Sophie said her deceased grandmother Rose comes back here. When she’s here, you can smell gardenias.”
He took a deep sniff. “Nope. No flowers of any kind.”
“I knew it.” She closed her eyes again and rocked peacefully.
“Are you all finished with your nap?” Jared said a while later.
“I wasn’t napping. Just rocking.” Chrissie got up and smiled. “Ready to resume the tour? I think you can walk around the grounds, too.”
“I think I’d rather save that for another day. I’m getting hungry.”
“We can walk back to town.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the time. “I should be picking Ruby up soon anyway.”
Once outside, Jared started to cross the street to go back the way they’d come while Chrissie had taken five steps to the right.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I wanted to check out the old church.” She pointed to the street sign. “Old St. Mary’s Church Road. The church—Old St. Mary’s—is up this way. But you know your way back to the inn.”
“Yeah, but . . .” He appeared torn. “Where’s Charles Street from here?”
“It’s at the top of this one. That’s where the church is. You’ve probably passed it fifty times without realizing it.”
“Well, if it’s Charles Street either way, I’ll go with you.” He walked in her direction. “There are places to eat on this end of Charles, right?”
“We’re not far out of the center of town. Like, two blocks from the light.”
“Seemed like we walked farther than that.”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“It has been kind of fun. Not my usual kind, but still.” He nodded as if to himself as they walked along. “The architecture on this side of town is interesting. I’ll bet some of these old houses could tell some wonderful stories.”
“And I’ll bet Grace knows them all.” Chrissie thought about that for a moment. “Gigi probably does, too.”
Up ahead was the library and a series of brick buildings that served as professional offices. Chrissie saw signs for engineers, accountants, and law firms.
“That must be Sophie’s brother,” she told Jared as they walked past a building with a sign out front reading ENRIGHT AND ENRIGHT: ATTORNEYS AT LAW. “And a few doors down is Alec’s office. You know he’s an environmental consultant, right?”
“I did know that. We’ve talked on several occasions about efforts being made to clean up the bay and renew the fishing and crabbing industries. He says they’ve come a long way over the past ten years.”
“Oh, there’s the church, on the corner.” She pointed up ahead.
“That little bitty building?”
“Hey, show some respect. That’s the oldest building in St. Dennis, which just goes to show that they regarded their faith as more important than anything else.”
When they reached the church, Jared read the sign posted out front. “The sign says it was built in 1718. That’s really early,” he noted. He tried to peek through the windows but it was pretty dark inside.
“It was open this morning but closed about a half hour ago.” Chrissie pointed to the sign that told the church’s story.
“Guess you’ll have to take another walk next Sunday if you’re going to get inside.”
“Guess I will.” She walked around the small building. Rosebushes had been planted on each of its four corners, and ivy trailed over the arched front door, which was barely tall enough for a man of Jared’s height to enter without ducking. “It’s pretty. I bet it’s nice inside. So I will come back. You?” She looked back at Jared, who hadn’t bothered to walk around the church when she did.
“Probably not.”
Chrissie took a few pictures of the church on her phone, including one of Jared standing next to the sign.
“So I guess you’re more interested in food right now.” Chrissie put her phone back into her pocket.
“Way more.”
“Help is just a few storefronts away.” She pointed up the street. “I see two restaurants, a take-out place, and a bakery within steps of each other.”
“On my way.” He set off across the street. “Lag behind and you’ll be left in the dust.”
She laughed but took her time catching up with him.
“Here we are. The Checkered Cloth. I heard their takeout’s pretty good.” He stopped in front of the shop, his hand on the door handle. When she didn’t move toward the door, he asked, “Aren’t you coming in?”
“I think I should get back to pick up Gigi. She’s probably waiting for me.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, but thanks. Enjoy whatever you end up getting.”
“One of everything on the menu.” He grinned. “Thanks for letting me join you. It’s a pretty cool little town. I enjoyed the company.”
“Thanks. Me, too.” She started walking toward town.
“Maybe we could do it again sometime,” he called to her.
“Maybe we could.” She kept walking, afraid if she turned around she’d change her mind and follow him into the shop. She thought he’d gone inside, but then he called, “You still owe me an ice cream cone.”
She stopped and turned to him. “I owe you a dish.”
“Huh?”
“You had a dish last week, not a cone. A cone would be an upgrade.”
He laughed, and while she’d thought he’d go directly into the shop, she could swear she felt his eyes on her. She didn’t have the nerve to turn around again to see if she was right.
The center of St. Dennis held a number of wonderful shops, some in storefronts, others in old houses that had been retrofitted for retail purposes. The gourmet spice shop, Curry Favor, and the children’s clothing store, Giraffe, were both in Victorian houses with wide porches and bay windows. The bookstore, Book ’Em, was a storefront, and its big window facing Charles Street never failed to lure Chrissie inside.
Five minutes
won’t make a difference to Gigi, she assured herself as she stepped inside.
She spent well more than five minutes going through the stacks of sale books, then the new releases that were on a table near the front window.
“I thought you were in a hurry to get back to the inn,” she heard a male voice say behind her.
“I am,” she said without turning around. “But I had to make a quick stop. Gigi loves thrillers and mysteries—the gorier the thriller, the more convoluted the mystery, the happier she is. I see her favorite author has a brand-new book out this week, so I thought I’d surprise her.”
Jared took the book from her hand and placed it back on the display. “She already has this one.”
“No, it just came out.” She picked it back up again.
“And she’s probably holding an autographed copy in her hand right at this moment.” He returned the book to the stack.
Chrissie stared at him blankly.
“You want to know how I know?” He leaned closer. “Maybe I’m psychic, too. Maybe I know things. Maybe I have, you know, that eye thing.”
“If you ‘know things,’ what am I thinking?” she asked, even as she tried unsuccessfully not to smile.
“You’re wondering how I know that Ruby has this book.”
“Ha. Nope. I was wondering how you ate so quickly if you were soooo hungry you were going to order one of everything.”
“How long does it take to eat a couple of burgers and an order of onion rings, and a handful of cookies?”
“You must have inhaled it all.”
He shrugged. “I told you I was hungry.”
“I guess so. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.” She pointed to the book under discussion. “So how does Ruby already have the book?”
“Delia Enright, the author, sent a copy to Grace and one to Ruby, because she knows they are both fans.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Delia’s my dad’s girlfriend. If you can refer to people in their seventies as boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. They’ve been together for years. Delia loves to come to St. Dennis and stay at the inn. She’s done a couple of signings here at this store. She said she always feels inspired here. She and Grace have become great friends.”
“So she’s related to Sophie and Jesse then? That’s why she comes here?”
Jared shook his head. “No. Delia’s husband was Curtis Enright’s son. They divorced, and her ex remarried. Actually, he’s remarried a couple of times. One of those wives—maybe the second or the third, I don’t remember which—was Jesse and Sophie’s mother.”
“Got it. Well, you just saved me twenty-five bucks, so thank you.” She left the book where he’d put it and walked to the cash register with the others she’d selected.
Barbara Noonan, the shop owner, asked Chrissie, “Find what you were looking for, Chrissie?”
“I did. Thanks.”
Barbara glanced over Chrissie’s shoulder to Jared. “Hi, Jared. I understand we’re going to be seeing your dad this summer.”
“Yeah, I heard Delia’s having a signing here.”
“She’s such a good sport to come here every year. The customers love meeting her and we sell a ton of books, but it has to be exhausting for her. This place is always packed for hours when she’s here, and she never turns anyone away.”
“I remember from last year. It was pretty intense, but she likes to meet her readers.”
“And we’re so glad she does.” Barbara bagged up Chrissie’s books. “Tell Ruby we’ll have another new Burke in two weeks. She can call me if she wants me to put one aside for her.”
“I’ll do that, thanks, Barb.”
On the way back to the inn, Jared asked Chrissie, “Tell me the truth. Were you just ditching me back there, when you said you had to get back?”
“Of course not. Honestly, as hungry as you said you were, I figured it would take you about an hour to eat, and I knew I wanted to stop to pick up a couple of books, so I just thought I should keep moving.”
“You swear?”
“I swear. Truth zone.”
“Huh? Truth zone? What’s that?”
“That’s when you have to tell the truth, no matter what, and the other person has to promise not to hold it against you. You just have to accept that what you’re hearing is the pure, unadulterated truth, no malice intended.”
“So let’s suppose I asked you out to dinner—just as a friend—and when I came to pick you up, you asked me if your dress made you look fat and I said yes, because it did, you wouldn’t get mad?”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Frankly, I can’t see myself ever asking you or any other man for his opinion on how I dress.” Been there, done that. Not gonna happen again. “But yes. If we’re in the truth zone, I can’t get mad. It’s like you’ve made a pact to let the other person speak honestly.”
“Got it.”
They crossed at the light and continued the walk back to the inn on the sandy shoulder of Charles Street, the sidewalk having ended at Kelly’s Point Road.
“So what you’re saying is there’s nothing that might be exempt from that whole, tell-the-honest-truth thing?” he asked.
“No exemptions, no exceptions.”
“Interesting.”
“What is?”
“I’ve found that a lot of the time, people don’t really want to hear the truth. They want to hear what they want to hear.”
“Agreed. But the whole idea behind the truth zone is that you care enough about the other person—as a friend, a lover, a relative, whatever—that you tell them the truth. If I was wearing something that looked terrible on me and I asked you about it, as a friend, I’d expect you to tell me the truth. What good would it do to tell me I look fine when I don’t? Not that I’d ask, but you get the point.”
“I do.” He seemed to think about that for a minute or two. “Who came up with this truth zone idea?”
“I did. And before you ask, it was because I was lied to for so long about so many things, I never knew what to believe.”
“Wow. I’m sorry. Can I ask . . .”
“No. You can’t.” She forced a smile. “But thanks anyway.”
There were some things you didn’t discuss. Like where your father went and why, and why did he take your brother and leave you behind? Surely your mother knows, so why has she been lying to you for all these years? The truth zone had never been part of that conversation, and probably never would be. Dorothy Jenkins had never met a lie she wouldn’t tell. And then there was Doug, and the lies he’d told to keep her from leaving. Like how he’d stopped drinking and how sorry he was for what he’d done and said the night before.
“So about that ice cream you owe me,” Jared said when they reached the inn’s lobby.
“Wednesday. Five o’clock.”
“I’ll be there.”
Chrissie went into the dining area and searched for Ruby and Grace. She could see them through the double doors, sitting on the shaded veranda and sipping cool drinks. When she reached the table, she pulled out a chair, asked the waiter to bring her an iced tea, and turned to Grace.
“So tell me how you know Delia Enright . . .”
Chapter Six
Jared sat on the balcony outside his room at the inn, his feet up on the railing, a cold beer in his hand via room service, and reached for his ringing phone. He checked the caller ID and smiled.
“Hey, Dad. How’s it going?”
“Good. Very good. How’s our sunken ship doing?”
“Same thing it was doing the last time you asked. Nothing.”
“Still waiting for someone to make a decision?”
“We are. On the one hand, they want the ship removed because there’s evidence of a Native American settlement beneath it. On the other, no one wants to be the person who gives the order to demolish the ship to get to the settlement. It’s frustrating. I can’t leave because we could
get word any day now. But I can’t work, either, so my hands are tied.”
“But you’ve already given your report, right?”
“Two weeks ago. It was pretty straightforward. I explained how we could salvage the artifacts from the wreck, then we could bring up what’s left of the ship piece by piece depending on its condition. Obviously there’s a lot of rot. I also mentioned we’d bring in Sam as the marine archaeologist.” As Jared spoke, he could almost see his father nodding in agreement.
“Exactly what I’d have done,” Gordon assured him. “I know you’re not a patient man, but try to hang in there. We’ve committed to this project, and right now, things are a little slow. Which is fine. We all need downtime.” Gordon paused. “You in particular. You haven’t taken time off since last year.”
“Somewhere I heard someone say, ‘When you’re doing what you love, you never work a day in your life,’ ” Jared said, half in jest. “I had a great time diving in Costa Rica not too long ago, and before that, we were in Australia.” Thinking of Australia made him remember something else he’d seen that he couldn’t explain, which made him think of Chrissie. He tucked away the thought to save for Wednesday. “Anything going on I should know about?”
“Actually, there is.” Jared heard his father take a deep breath. “Delia and I are getting married.”
“This must be a bad connection. It sounded like you said you and Delia were getting married.” His eyes were on the bay and the sailboats that flashed by in the early morning sun.
Gordon laughed. “I know, hard to believe, after how many years we’ve been together?”
“So why now?” Jared swung his legs down from the railing. This was the last thing he’d expected to hear from his father.
“It’s time, that’s all. I want to. And after she and I talked it over, she’s agreed.”
“Wow. That’s some news, Dad. Have you told Rachel?”
“Right before I called you. She’s obviously thrilled.” Gordon paused. “How ’bout you? Aren’t you going to wish us luck?”
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