A Spicy Secret

by D. Savannah George

  A door down the hall opened, and John came out of the ICU and walked toward them. He was dressed in a suit and tie—he’d obviously come to the hospital straight from the bank—but he’d removed his suit coat, and his tie was askew.

  “How are you doing?” June asked, giving him a hug. “And how’s Gwen?”

  “Thankfully, her vitals are steady, but they have no idea what has caused this,” he replied. “As for me, I need to get a sandwich or something to eat. I never did get lunch. Would one of you ladies mind grabbing me something? I don’t want to leave Gwen for too long.”

  Annie started to reach for the granola bars she had brought, but before she could even get them out, the church ladies held out covered plates. The sight made her stomach rumble, and she realized she hadn’t eaten lunch either.

  John laughed, grabbed the plate closest to him, and peeled back the plastic wrap. “Thanks everyone! Anyone happen to have a Coke handy?” He took a bite out of the sandwich. One of the women dug around in her bag and handed one over. “Here you go, John! I talked to your assistant, Allison, and she told me that’s what you prefer to drink.”

  “Remind me to thank her when I get back to the bank,” he replied. “Thanks again, ladies. I’m heading back in.”

  “Before you go, can you tell us what’s wrong with Gwen?” June asked, her hand on his arm.

  “The doctors aren’t sure yet, so they’re running a bunch of tests. She’s nauseous and uncomfortable, has a fever, and is dehydrated. They’re pumping her full of fluids right now. Hopefully we’ll know something soon.”

  He turned and walked back to the ICU, closing the door gently behind him.

  ****

  Four hours later, most of the Hook and Needle Club members still kept vigil in the lounge. Most kept their hands busy with needlework. Annie stayed as busy as she could with Alice still needing some reassurance.

  “Are you sure it’s not my fault?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Annie heaved a sigh. “If all of us were sick, then you probably would have been responsible. But we’re not. You’ve baked bread that tasted better—that’s probably the fault of that mystery recipe—but nothing about today’s entry was toxic.”

  Annie loved Alice dearly, but the girl was presently plucking at her very last nerve.

  A little after five o’clock, John came into the lounge, looking tired, followed by a woman in a doctor’s coat.

  “Hello everyone, I’m Dr. Shay Barnett,” she said, tucking a strand of long brown hair behind one ear and looking at a clipboard. “Mr. Palmer has given me permission to speak directly to you all. I’m pleased to let you know that Mrs. Palmer has acute pancreatitis caused by gallstones.”

  At first there were murmurs of relief heard through the group, but then the diagnosis sunk in. Gwen’s friends all began to press forward with questions for the doctor about the condition and what would happen next.

  “We’ll keep her hooked up to lots of fluids and antibiotics, and in a day or two, when she’s stable, we’ll do surgery to remove her gallbladder and the stones,” the doctor reassured them. “After that, we’ll keep her for another day or two. Now, please excuse me; I need to attend to other patients.”

  John turned to the group and said in a hoarse voice, “I cannot thank you all enough for sitting here and waiting with me. Gwen’s sleeping now, but I’m going to go back to her room so I’m there when she wakes up. I’ve called our kids and their families. Why doesn’t everyone go home now and get some rest? Gwen’s going to be fine, and I will make sure you know her progress and when the operation is going to occur.” He turned and followed Dr. Barnett out of the room.

  By the time the group had begun to disperse, Kate and Vanessa arrived, bearing a bouquet of lilies in a vase.

  “I think I remember Gwen saying once that these are her favorite,” Kate said. She sighed and plopped on a chair next to Annie. “How is she?”

  After Annie filled in Kate and Vanessa on Gwen’s condition, she asked, “And how was the Teen Hook and Needle Club meeting?”

  “Well,” Vanessa answered with a sigh. “We didn’t get much work done, but we made a card for Mrs. Palmer and everyone signed it.” She pulled a sheaf of multicolored papers from her bag.

  “That’s one card?” Annie laughed.

  “Yes, it’s one big card,” Vanessa answered, “but I’m not sure what to do with it now, or how to make sure Mrs. Palmer sees it.”

  A nurse overheard Vanessa and walked over to where they sat.

  “I’d be happy to pass that along to her husband,” he said. “As soon as Mrs. Palmer is transferred to a regular room, we can put it up on her board.” He took the sheets from the teenager. “Also,” he added, “you might want to let everyone know that we offer a free service where friends and family can go on our website to send a card; we print them out and hang them in the patient’s room. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Before Kate or Annie could say anything, he had left, and Vanessa had whipped out her cellphone.

  After a few minutes of pushing buttons, she said, “OK, I’ve sent a text to all my friends and told them they have to send a card. I told them they need to let all their friends know.”

  Annie stood up and stretched.

  “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m beat. I’m going home too. I’ll see everyone soon.”

  ****

  A day after she’d been admitted, Gwen sat up and demanded that someone bring her supplies so she could work on her blanket. Despite being hooked up to IVs and monitors and being on painkillers, and despite her doctor’s opposition, she knitted as much as she could while awake.

  John reported that she had said she was still going to do her part, even if she was sick.

  So many cards had been sent, the board was four and five layers deep and they’d run out of pushpins.

  After two days, the doctors determined Gwen to be well enough for surgery. A large group assembled in the operating room lounge to pray, and then cheered when they were told that Gwen was awake and being moved from recovery to a regular room.

  Two days later, Gwen got to go home.

  14

  Annie and Alice had spent the rest of February focused on doing three things: First, with others they helped out Gwen around Wedgewood, the Palmers’ home, since John had to go back to work, and Gwen needed to take it easy. A week after going home, Gwen was pretty much back to normal and her cadre of volunteers were able to slowly wean themselves away from Wedgewood.

  Second, Alice’s Princessa jewelry sales and parties had picked up around Valentine’s Day, but she and Annie still found time to finish getting ready for Wally to start the remodeling work on the carriage house. Alice and the Swanns had worked out an amicable resolution for the furnace issue, and it had been replaced, much to Annie’s relief. It was also much easier to help sort out clothing and haul it away when she could feel her fingers. John Palmer and the staff at the Stony Point Savings Bank had finished work on Alice’s mortgage, and now she— and the bank—would own the carriage house. All that was left was the signing of the documents and the loan closing.

  The remainder of the time, Annie, Alice, and many other Stony Pointers were knitting, crocheting, and quilting frantically to meet their goal for the Blanket Haiti project.

  March ushered in … absolutely nothing. It wasn’t really winter any more, but it was still too early for spring. High temperatures were only about forty degrees, and nights were still pretty cold. Snow still blanketed the Maine countryside, looking like a picture postcard, but a few cold rains along the Atlantic coastline had morphed Stony Point’s townscape into dirty snow, mud and slop. Chilly, damp winds now blew, and foliage was not yet ready to awaken.

  By the first Saturday in March, Alice and Annie stood in the second-floor hallway, both of them with their hands on their hips, surveying the near-empty rooms.

  “I cannot believe how much stuff we’ve thrown or given away,” Annie said.

  “
And I cannot believe what a huge write-off I’m going to get on my taxes this year with all my charitable donations!” Alice said.

  “And I cannot believe I helped you haul everything off.”

  “What do you think best friends are for?”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Annie said. “What I really cannot believe is how much space you seem to have now. This looks twice as big as it did before.”

  “I know. Just imagine how big the downstairs will look when we get done with that,” Alice said.

  Annie groaned loudly for effect. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed. “In the flush of victory for all we’ve done, I forgot all about the downstairs. I think I just block it out whenever I walk upstairs.” The pair had moved some items into the dining room; they were using the room as temporary storage for the items Alice planned to keep. “What are you going to do about the furniture up here?”

  “Wally told me not to worry about it. He and his helpers will move everything from room to room as they work on the walls and floors.”

  “Oh, that makes sense,” Annie said. “I know you’ll be glad when all of this work is finished,” she added, poking her friend in the shoulder.

  “That’s probably true. I cannot believe how much lighter I feel already. Once we finish the downstairs, I’ll actually be able to host parties here again. I’m looking forward to that, especially since it will actually be my very own home now. Plus, some of my clients have mentioned wanting to host a party, but they don’t have the space in their homes. Everyone knows I give the best parties in town.”

  “And this purging and cleaning wasn’t all bad,” Annie said. “I’ve never seen Valerie and Grace down at the library look so excited to get donations. They’ll be sorting through those books and magazines for months.”

  Alice laughed and then gave her best friend a big hug. “Now we get to do the fun part—pick out paint colors for the walls!”

  ****

  At each Hook and Needle Club meeting, the colored-in blankets on the tracking poster inched a little higher, but it didn’t seem like they would ever be able to fill in the very last one. Even the teen club felt discouraged—they’d only finished one blanket each, and seemed a little lost without Gwen, who was still trying to take it easy after her hospital stay.

  Alice persisted in making the mystery recipes, but she now tested them at home rather than bringing them to the meetings. Most of them were as bad—or worse—than the first one she’d made.

  By the first Hook and Needle Club meeting in March, they’d almost reached the halfway mark—fifty-two completed blankets. Seventeen outlines on the poster sported cheery colors, and some had been signed. As they prepared to leave the meeting, Alice asked Annie if she would mind going to the bank with her.

  “I’ve got a few papers to sign, and I want to ask John what he might know about the Swanns,” she said. “This mystery is truly driving me cuckoo. Why are so many of these recipes so terrible?”

  “Sure, I’ll go with you,” Annie replied, wrapping her neck in a warm scarf. “I don’t know why the recipes are so bad. You know, usually we get to the bottom of our mysteries a lot quicker than this. Of course, we’ve been slammed with the Haiti project, and then with Gwen being so sick and needing surgery. What I really hate is that you have spent so much money on ingredients, only for most of it to go to waste.”

  They headed down the slushy sidewalk toward the bank, being careful where they stepped. Alice’s ankle had healed, but she didn’t want to risk injuring it again.

  “I’m more worried about my street cred than the money I’m spending,” Alice said.

  “Street cred?” Annie asked, just as they walked past The Cup & Saucer. “I didn’t realize you had any. I’m not even sure what that is, for that matter.”

  “Yeah, my street cred. You know, that hip-hop term for credibility on the street,” Alice explained. “Oh, do you care if we stop in at the diner? I want to talk to Jeff a minute, and I’d like to grab a Coke to take to John.”

  “Sure,” Annie said, trailing her friend into The Cup & Saucer. She grabbed an empty chair near the front door and waited while Alice sailed to the back and cornered the owner.

  “Hey Annie. Can I get you anything?” Peggy stood next to the table, her order pad at the ready.

  “Not right now, Peggy. Thanks anyway. I’m just waiting while Alice talks to your boss.”

  Peggy rolled her eyes. “Alice has been bugging him to use some of the recipes—the ones that turned out OK, of course—in the restaurant. She’s not giving up. But I’m not either, and I’ve told Jeff in no uncertain terms that he has to tell her no.”

  “Why’s that? Besides the obvious?”

  “Well, just because it turned out OK once doesn’t mean it will again. Plus, she’s just so insistent. And Marie’s not a fan of trying new things. What she makes works just fine, and our customers are happy. And again, we still don’t know where those recipes came from. They could belong to someone, and then we’d be stealing them by using them.”

  “Wow. I hadn’t thought of that,” Annie said.

  Alice breezed up, a to-go cup in one hand. “Ready?”

  “After you,” Annie replied.

  “See you later,” Peggy called as they went back outside.

  “What did you want to talk to Jeff about?” Annie casually asked as they once more made their way down the messy sidewalk. She’d thought about Peggy’s opinion, and wondered what Alice had to say about it.

  “Oh, I just want The Cup & Saucer to put a few of these recipes on the menu. But Jeff keeps saying no. And Marie won’t even talk to me.”

  “At all? That doesn’t sound like Marie.” The Cup & Saucer’s cook was usually quite kind and friendly.

  “Oh, yeah, she’ll talk to me,” Alice said, waving her free hand around. “She just won’t talk about the recipes. If I bring it up, she either changes the subject or flat out leaves the room. I just don’t understand.”

  “Well, can you blame them, really? I mean, most of the recipes obviously aren’t complete or something. Besides that, we don’t know where they came from.”

  “They came from under my floor!” Alice exclaimed, continuing to wave her hand about.

  When they arrived at the bank, Annie opened the door and followed her friend in. Allison, John’s assistant, waved them over and offered them each a seat.

  “John’s on a phone call, but he said he’d be right out.”

  “Thanks, Allison!” Alice said.

  A few minutes later, John came out and asked Allison to hold his calls. He then ushered Annie and Alice into his office and shut the door, gesturing for them to have a seat at his desk as he flipped open a file folder.

  “I brought this for you,” Alice said, handing him the cup.

  He immediately unwrapped the straw, shoved it through the lid, and took a big swallow.

  “Aaaah. Thanks, I needed that. Since Gwen’s health scare, I’m pretty sure I’ve drunk more Coke than I previously had in my entire life. I’ll have to wean myself off eventually.”

  “How is Gwen?” Annie piped up. “I haven’t seen her in a few days.”

  “She’s doing fine, thank the good Lord,” John said. “I’m glad people are still visiting her. She’s so used to being active, and Dr. Barnett told her to rest so her body can heal and her immune system can get stronger.” He took another swig of the Coke. “All the visitors distract her and keep her from doing too much.”

  He opened the folder, pulled out a stack of papers, and handed Alice a blue pen.

  “Anyway, thanks for stopping by, Alice. Here are the final loan papers for your signature. Of course, there will be more to sign when we do the actual closing, which we are trying to schedule for the 20th, but it’s going to be a little tricky since the Swanns won’t be able to come here to sign their portion. I’ll be sending the paperwork to a partner bank for them to take care of that end.”

  Alice had known the Swanns, who lived in New York, probably wouldn’
t be able to make the trip. “Sounds complicated,” she said.

  “A little, but we’ll get it worked out. Now, sign here … and here ….”

  Annie zoned out while John pointed out places to sign and answered Alice’s questions. After handling the bookkeeping for the GM dealership back in Texas all those years, Annie had decided she wanted nothing more to do with financial information. At least, as little as she could help it.

  “That’s all we need for now. I’ll let you know when I hear a final date for closing. But for now, congrats on almost owning your home!” John said after what seemed like hours, but had probably only been a few minutes.

  “Thank you ever so much, John. You have no idea how appreciative I am of your help,” Alice replied. “But I have another question. Has Gwen mentioned our mystery?”

  “Yes, she has.” He leaned his chair back and drained the last of the soda, throwing the cup in the trash can. “Something about some recipes you found in the carriage house?”

  “Yes. Handwritten recipes, in a mason jar, hidden under a floorboard of what used to be the main bedroom, and that I now use as my guestroom. Mary Beth said she remembers that the Swanns only stayed in Stony Point during the summer, and that the food at their parties could be kind of—well, different.”

  John laughed. “Yes, the food they served could definitely be called different. I think it came from living in New York most of the year. They could be very adventurous when it came to food.”

  “You don’t think they would have hidden the recipes, do you?” Annie asked.

  “Probably not—and definitely not handwritten ones. Yvonne especially was very fastidious about her cookbooks. She even retyped the ones she collected and had them organized in a binder.”

  Alice sighed. “So I guess we’re looking for someone who lived there when Captain Grey was alive.”

  “Not necessarily,” he said, moving his chair forward and resting his elbows on the table. “Before they stopped coming down during the summer—right before you moved in, Alice—the Swanns occasionally rented out the carriage house during the winter. Best I can recall, the renters were families whose husbands either worked on boats or assisted with the renovation of Butler’s Lighthouse. The women tended to work at the library or in one of the shops.”