Dune Drive

by Mariah Stewart

  “You guys! You’re never going to believe who just got out of a limo out front!” Dana burst into the kitchen, her eyes huge and round. “Laura Fielding!”

  “Oh, she’s been here before. She came in a few times last summer with Dallas. She’s so nice.” Sophie turned the mini crab cakes over in their pans on the stove.

  “Damn. I wasn’t working here last summer.” Dana looked as if she was about to cry. “She’s my favorite actress. I loved her in Pretty Maids.”

  “That was the first movie Dallas produced on her own. Everyone had written off Laura Fielding as a flake and told Dallas she was making a big mistake casting her. Dallas went ahead and did it anyway,” Sophie recalled. “And of course Laura won an Oscar for her performance, with Berry winning best supporting actress. That was the hugest night ever for St. Dennis.”

  “Berry is . . . ?” Chrissie turned her attention to the previously baked fingerling potatoes wrapped with bacon and placed them into the oven to warm.

  “Dallas’s grandmother. Beryl Townsend, the actress? She’s ancient, but she’s still a feisty number,” Dana told her.

  “She’s the older woman who modeled in the fashion show,” Sophie told Chrissie. “Everyone in St. Dennis calls her Berry.”

  “I remember her. Very powerful-looking woman, and I don’t mean physically. She just oozed self-confidence.” Chrissie knew it when she saw it.

  “So everyone always thought she was Dallas’s great-aunt, but it turns out she was actually the mother of Dallas and Wade’s father,” Dana confided. “What a scandal the tabloids made of that when the story went public, but no one around here cared.”

  “Who was the father? A famous actor? A director?” Chrissie found herself getting caught up in the drama.

  “A local judge. He and Berry are engaged now. Finally. After all these years. True love always wins out in the end, you know?” Dana nodded slowly, as if she’d invented the concept.

  Margarite came into the kitchen, followed by two teenage girls.

  “Do you know who just arrived?” Margarite placed a hand over her heart. “Sidney Warren. Sigh.”

  “Sigh a few more times, then get ready to take drink orders,” Sophie said. “Dallas dropped off wine and champagne earlier.” She smiled at one of the girls. “Hey, Paige.” To Chrissie, Sophie said, “Paige is Grant’s daughter, which makes her Dallas’s stepdaughter. And Gabi is Ellie O’Connor’s sister. Nice to see you both again. You girls prepared to work your butts off today?”

  “We are,” Paige said, and Gabi nodded.

  “I’m going to have you two staffing the appetizer buffet, and then you can help out with the entrées, also being served buffet style. You’ll keep an eye on the dishes, let us know when something needs to be replenished, keep the table tidy.”

  Paige nodded. “Like, if someone puts down a used plate, we grab it and bring it in here.”

  “Right. I forgot how many times you’ve done this before,” Sophie said. “Start by taking those small plates outside and put them on the table by the warming trays. Your dad is already out there. And grab that stack of napkins, Gabi . . .”

  The patio was beginning to fill up with members of Dallas’s staff from River Road Productions, her film company, and others who would be involved in Dallas’s next project. A glance out the window assured Chrissie that all was going well. Grant had the bar under control even as he was chatting with some of the partygoers. Paige and Gabi kept the appetizers moving, returning occasionally to refill platters or return used plates.

  “How’s it going out there?” Sophie asked.

  “It’s a good party. Everyone’s saying how great the food is,” Paige said. “I’m hoping there’s some of that tomato thing left over. It looks so good and everyone’s coming back for seconds.” She grinned. “And my dad can’t stop eating those potato-and-bacon things.”

  “Tell your dad to knock it off.” Sophie laughed and stirred the pot of asparagus soup on her way to the oven to check the strata she’d prepared the night before to bake today, while Chrissie was busy arranging the salads on their plates. “Dana, how are you doing with the setup in the restaurant?”

  “All ready to bring them in whenever you want,” Dana replied.

  “We should start soon,” Chrissie said. “Everything is pretty much ready to serve. We don’t want the strata or the soup getting cold.”

  “Chrissie, when you’re finished with the salads, can you turn the chicken and get the waffles going?” Sophie pulled a baking dish from the oven. “And the oyster fritters—”

  “I’m on it.”

  Before long, the business of serving the group took over everyone’s attention, from soup to entrées, and before long, everyone had finished eating. Dallas had decided to talk to the group about her plans for her upcoming film over dessert, so the rhubarb upside-down cake was served along with the spring mint ice cream Steffie had made the night before. “I wouldn’t do this for anyone but my brother’s wife,” she’d told Chrissie. But before dessert was brought out, Dallas had insisted on Sophie and Chrissie coming into the front room to introduce them to her group, and her staff to them. There’d been applause and phones raised to take pictures. It had all been in fun, except for that one moment when, while listening to Sophie thanking them all for coming, an assistant producer had moved a little too close to Chrissie. Before she could blink, his hand had traveled to her waist, and then had gone lower. She’d stepped away, shaking inside, and gone back into the kitchen without saying a word.

  By three thirty in the afternoon, Grant had packed up the leftover wine and champagne and helped his daughter clean the patio. Dallas had come into the kitchen to plant a kiss on both Sophie’s and Chrissie’s foreheads.

  “You two are amazing! Honestly, I don’t think anyone, anywhere, could have done better than the two of you did today. Everything was delicious. My crew loved it. I can’t thank you enough for pulling through for me, especially on such short notice,” Dallas’d said.

  “Anytime,” Sophie told her.

  “Actually, it was kind of fun,” Chrissie said after Dallas had left and Dana and Margarite were busy cleaning the front room. Except for the creepy guy with the roaming hands. She wondered if she should mention it to Sophie. On the one hand, yes, she should. It had happened in her establishment.

  On the other hand, Chrissie couldn’t get the words to come out. It had embarrassed her that someone had thought her to be so easy a target. She didn’t want Sophie to think of her as weak, or a victim. She couldn’t make up her mind.

  “Definitely worth losing the day off for, though I don’t want to do this every Sunday. I really do need those two days off now more than ever,” Sophie was saying as she slumped against the counter, obviously tired.

  “I like having Sundays off, too,” Chrissie said as she again brought a chair in for Sophie to sit on and rest. “I’ve got this,” she told her.

  Sophie sat and kicked off her shoes and uttered a long, happy sigh. “I swear, I could fall asleep right here.”

  “This is ridiculous. Forget the chair. Go on upstairs and take a nap. I’ll finish cleaning up and I’ll lock the door. Just leave me a key.”

  “I know I should argue with you, but I just can’t. I’m too tired.” Sophie got up. “Just text me when you’re leaving and I’ll have Jason come down to lock up. Thanks, Chrissie.” She gave Chrissie a hug as she walked past her. “You’re worth your weight in gold.”

  “Does that mean I’m going to move from temp to full time?”

  “You have to ask?” Sophie smiled as she went through the door. “Silly girl . . .”

  Chrissie smiled and mentally patted herself on the back. She’d really fallen in love with this place, and while she’d been 99 percent certain she’d made the cut, she had to ask. She was still smiling when Dana came into the kitchen.

  “Boy, what a day, huh? I bet when word gets out, we’ll be crazy busy every day this summer, right into the fall. Great for tips.” She wiggled he
r eyebrows. “I might be able to pay my own tuition next semester, give my parents a break. Made a nice start toward that today. Dallas is a great tipper.”

  “Good for you. You guys worked really hard today,” Chrissie said.

  “Yeah. It’s just amazing to see what’s going on in St. Dennis. I’ve lived here all my life, and I never thought I’d see the day when Hollywood legends would come into town with the same regularity like it’s LA or something.” Dana shook her head and poured herself a glass of cold water. “Before it was ‘discovered,’ St. Dennis was just this little bay town with a pretty inn and some great views of the water and a lot of old houses. Then the tourists found us and the next thing we knew, there were shops opening up that sold stuff besides bait and tackle.”

  Chrissie laughed. “There must have been more here than that.”

  “Yeah, I’m exaggerating. There were a few restaurants—Lola’s and Captain Walt’s have been here forever—and the market was there, and a few other places. I don’t even know how word got out, but it seemed like overnight, things changed. And every year there are more tourists and more things to draw them to town. There are even festivals now—the Pirate Festival, the Strawberry Festival, Founders Day, you name it.”

  Chrissie finished up and decided to walk out with Dana rather than bother Jason to lock up.

  “And then there are the tours,” Dana was saying as they walked out of the kitchen and Chrissie turned off the lights. “Garden tours, historic house tours, ghost tours . . .”

  “Ghost tours.” Chrissie laughed. “Get out. People fall for that? Let me guess. They have it around Halloween?”

  “That would be the Halloween weekend tour. No, the ghost tours are in late May. People come from all over for that one, ’cause you get to go inside some of the houses. My grandparents’ house is on it this year. They have the ghost of a five-year-old child who lives in their attic.”

  Chrissie fought an urge to swipe a hand over her face.

  “Please. You don’t believe that, Dana.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve heard her. She talks to herself. When I was little, I was afraid of her. When I had to stay over there, I’d get so scared I’d end up sleeping down in the living room instead of in the bed upstairs, ’cause I could hear her. But now that I’m older, I just feel sorry for her. She had a fever and she died up in the attic. That was where she and her mom lived, up there, about a hundred years ago.”

  Oh brother.

  Chrissie didn’t trust herself to comment, so she left through the front door and waited while Dana locked it.

  “I can tell you’re skeptical, and I don’t blame you. If I didn’t grow up here and see some of this stuff myself, I’d be rolling my eyes, too. But there are all sorts of things in St. Dennis that can’t be explained. Most of us don’t even try.” Dana walked to her car. “See you on Tuesday.”

  “Right. Enjoy your day off.” Chrissie got into her car and slid behind the wheel, thinking about unexplainable things.

  Jared said he’d seen a lot of things he couldn’t explain. Sometime she’d have to ask him what else besides UFOs and an abandoned city in Turkey where the houses had no doors.

  Chrissie’s natural inclination to believe only in what she could see was too strong for her to buy into any of that. Maybe if she saw with her own eyes, she’d feel differently.

  She stopped at the sign where River Road flowed into the upper end of Charles Street and thought back to last Sunday when she and Jared had gone sightseeing, and wondered how he’d spent his weekend, and if he’d gone on a walking tour of his own.

  • • •

  WEDNESDAY WAS OVERCAST, and Chrissie had debated whether or not to stop at Steffie’s on her way home. For one thing, she was late, since they’d been really busy at Blossoms at lunch. For another, she was tired. In the end, the pull of Scoop was stronger than her fatigue, and she turned onto Kelly’s Point Road and parked behind the old crabbers shack. She got out of the car, and as she walked toward the weathered building, she saw Jared on the bench straight ahead. She slowed her step, wondering what he was doing there.

  “You’re late,” he called to her. “I was wondering if I’d been stood up.”

  He rose as she drew closer. “It’s Wednesday, right? Everyone knows that Wednesday is Chrissie’s day at Scoop.”

  Chrissie laughed.

  “Come on. Let’s see what she has today.”

  Chrissie still had yet to say a word. All she could think of was that Jared had been waiting for her.

  He opened the door, and when they stepped inside, Steffie looked up and said, “What did I tell you, Jared?”

  “Okay, so I owe you five dollars,” he said good-naturedly.

  “And I will collect. I know my customers, and I know my friends.” Steffie held out her hand. “Pay up, big boy.”

  Jared took a five from his wallet and handed it over with a smile on his face. Steffie tucked it into her apron with a grin and told Chrissie, “He was beginning to think you might not come today. I told him you would.”

  “Obviously you know me better than he does,” Chrissie said.

  “Obviously. Now, what can I get for you today, Chris?”

  Chrissie looked at the board. “Strawberry walnut sounds good. One scoop.”

  “You should know it was inspired by that salad you made for Dallas’s thing last weekend. She told me all about it. Said the food was out of this world. You ever consider catering?” Before Chrissie could respond, Steffie had handed Chrissie her cone and turned to Jared. “And for the man who is five dollars poorer?”

  “Three scoops of plain old chocolate in a dish.” He nodded in Chrissie’s direction. “And she’s buying.”

  Steffie filled a bowl and met them at the cash register, where Chrissie paid up.

  “Maybe sometime you’ll shock the world and stop in more than once a week,” Steffie said as Chrissie and Jared left.

  “Let’s take a walk.” Jared headed toward the center of town and Chrissie followed along. “So I guess you figured you’d learned all there was to know about St. Dennis, you’ve seen all there is to see.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You skip your Sunday walkabout? Or you just wanted to go on your own?”

  “Had we talked about doing that again? ’Cause I don’t remember having that conversation.” The sidewalk was so narrow their hips were almost touching as they walked.

  “We didn’t. I was just thinking it would have been fun to see the other side of town.”

  “You could have gone. What stopped you?”

  He shrugged. “It was more fun when I did it with you.”

  “I had to work on Sunday,” Chrissie explained. “Dallas had asked Sophie to open the restaurant for a special brunch meeting she wanted to have for her staff. Of course Sophie said yes. How often do you get to cook for Hollywood royalty?”

  “Lots of celebrities?”

  Chrissie nodded. “Actors, directors, producers, and assistants to all of those.”

  “So impress me. Who all was there?”

  Chrissie rattled off some names.

  “You had me at Laura Fielding,” he said, his right hand patting his heart. “Another of my crushes.”

  “She was so nice. Almost all of them were really nice.”

  “ ‘Almost all’ implies some were not.” He leaned in her direction and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Who was the bad egg?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She shrugged it off and turned her attention to her ice cream. “Strawberry walnut really is good. How’s your chocolate?”

  “It’s fine, and don’t change the subject. Seriously, was someone rude to you? Come on,” he prodded. “Spill.”

  “Just some guy. Some assistant something or other. Assistant producer, maybe. He was just . . .” Chrissie thought it over. “Entitled.”

  “Entitled to do what?”

  “To touch me where I wish he hadn’t.”

  “Seriously?”

>   When she nodded, he said, “What did he do?”

  “Oh, you know how some guys are.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “He grabbed my butt.”

  “Did you call him out?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not? He had no business doing that.”

  “I just . . . froze. Besides, I didn’t want to embarrass Dallas.” Or me, she could have added. I didn’t want to call attention to myself for something like that.

  She had the feeling at that moment that he knew what she’d gone through, that he’d read into her and he knew.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. They passed a trash can and she pitched the remains of her cone into it. She’d lost her appetite.

  “You don’t have to,” he said. “But if you ever wanted to . . . I’m your guy.”

  “Thanks, Jared. I appreciate that.”

  I’m your guy. Did he really just say that?

  They walked for another half block in silence and stopped in front of the pet store, Bow Wows & Meows, across from the market. In the window were displays of dog clothing modeled by stuffed dogs.

  “Do you have a dog?” Chrissie asked him.

  “Not right now, but we used to. You?”

  “Uh-uh. Never did.” She stared at the window. “I’m not sure I get the point of all that. Would you have dressed your dog up like that?”

  “I don’t know. If you put a rottweiler in a sundress, is it still a rottweiler?”

  “Only if she was wearing that pearl necklace.”

  “Spike might have drawn the line at wearing jewelry. He really wasn’t the pearl type.”

  Chrissie laughed again.

  They crossed the street in front of Book ’Em and paused for a moment to see the new releases in the window, then they walked on.

  “This is Vanessa’s shop,” Chrissie said when they walked past Bling.

  “I know. My future stepmother shops there every time she’s in St. Dennis. Loads up on stuff for her two daughters and her daughter-in-law and my sister and whoever else is on her radar that week.”