Morning Glory Circle

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “Isn’t meditation just praying?”

  “Meditation can be different for everyone. For me it’s all about putting aside my ego, ignoring the constant chatter inside my head, and finding that stillness where there is peace and the knowledge that we are all one.”

  “I’d sign up for that,” Maggie said. “The voice chattering inside my head is most often my mother’s.”

  “I can teach you,” Caroline said. “It helps keep you in the now moment instead of worrying about the future or regretting the past.”

  “What else is there to do?” Maggie asked her. “I mean, besides working to make money, taking care of the family, and all the church and community stuff that I have to do. Worrying is just watching out for the bad stuff that might happen, so I can be prepared, and regret is what I feel when I fail.”

  “Regret and worry don’t really change anything, they’re just unnecessary suffering. Try just being,” Caroline said. “Just accept what is.”

  Maggie couldn’t imagine accomplishing all she had to do, looking after all the people she cared about, and keeping vigilant against the potential troubles that seem to always lurk nearby, if all she did was relax and accept “what was” all the time.

  “So, besides meditating and teaching meditation, what do the monks do all day?”

  “Not much else. Some orders keep bees, garden, or perform community services, but their particular mission is to teach others to meditate.”

  “There may not be a big call for that in Pine County.”

  “The universe will bring them what they need, and will draw to them the people who need what they have to offer.”

  “Just meditating all day would get kind of old after a week or two, I would think,” Maggie said. “Don’t they ever get bored, lonely, or depressed?”

  “The Buddhist way to approach suffering is to serve others in order to get away from feeling sorry for yourself,” Caroline said.

  Maggie though Caroline looked so sad when she said that. She wondered if all her frantic running around trying to save the world was really just an attempt to distract her friend from how unhappy she was deep inside. Maggie then had the uncomfortable thought that she herself might be guilty of the same thing, running around Rose Hill taking care of everyone, and keeping so busy she didn’t have time to think about what she was missing in her own life. Maggie decided a change of topic was called for, so she told Caroline about the Winter Festival coming up, and all that had to be done to prepare for it.

  “I would love to help,” Caroline said.

  “Great,” Maggie said. “You can help out in the bakery with me and Hannah tomorrow. My mom will really appreciate the extra hands.”

  “Count me in,” Caroline said. “Sounds like fun.”

  “I need to go to a committee meeting tonight and I might be home late. I’ll sleep on the couch when I come in this evening so I won’t wake you,” Maggie said. “You’ll really need your rest if you’re going to work in the bakery tomorrow.”

  “Thank you so much for letting me stay,” Caroline said. “I’m so glad we’ll have a chance to catch up tomorrow. I’ve spent all our time together today telling you all about me, but I want to know what’s going on with you.”

  Caroline went to the front room and Maggie cleaned the kitchen. She tried to imagine how she would feel if she, like Caroline, was alone in the world with only that pretentious pill Gwyneth for family, with no home or friends to return to when she was tired and cold. Maggie didn’t think any amount of money or any number of worthy causes could fill that kind of deep pit of loneliness in her own soul. She decided to do her best to make sure Caroline didn’t feel lonely. She would be a good friend to her, and help her however she could.

  Maggie left Caroline lounging in the sitting room with her newspapers and magazines, and walked up to the community center to attend the final Winter Festival prep meeting. Hannah was already there and had saved a seat for Maggie. The mayor’s capable secretary Kay was running the meeting in his absence, as usual, and she had everything planned down to the smallest detail. Stuart and his wife Peg may have taken turns being mayor every four years, but Kay was the one who actually ran the town on a day-to-day basis.

  Maggie looked around until she found where Scott was sitting, with his chair tipped back against the wall at the side of the room, looking right at Maggie with that blatant warm regard that made her feel nervous and happy all at the same time. When she crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him, he grinned and shook his head.

  When the meeting was over, Maggie told Hannah that Caroline would be there to help in the morning.

  Hannah said, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” in a way that irritated Maggie.

  “Don’t be like that,” Maggie said. “She’ll be there.”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see about that, now won’t we?” Hannah said with a smirk.

  Hannah left and Maggie found Scott waiting for her outside the community center, which used to be Rose Hill High School.

  “May I walk you home, Miss?” he said, and offered her his arm.

  She smacked his arm away, saying, “I don’t need police protection to walk three blocks, thank you very much.”

  “Then can I buy you a drink somewhere?”

  Maggie considered him a moment, then said, “I’m really in the mood for a beer and a bowl of pretzels. I ate a healthy lunch and I need something bad to balance it out.”

  “I better come along if you’re going to be bad,” he said, “just to keep an eye on you.”

  They walked down to Rose Hill Avenue and crossed the street to the Rose and Thorn, which was full of people. Maggie snagged them a booth and Scott got their drinks: beer for Maggie and a soft drink for himself. Scott smiled at her warmly from across the table, and Maggie was equal parts irritated and pleased.

  “Any sign of Margie?” she asked him.

  “No one has seen her. I have this feeling she’s somewhere having a laugh over us all worrying about her.”

  Maggie told him the stories Meg Kelly had told her, about Margie slashing Delores’s tires and sabotaging Meg’s wedding invitations, and Scott shook his head.

  “Why don’t people tell me about these things?” he asked. “That’s what the police are for.”

  “No proof,” she said.

  “I guess,” Scott said, and rubbed his forehead.

  “Aren’t you worn out?” Maggie asked him over the loud Irish folk music Patrick was playing.

  Scott had worked night shifts for the past three nights, and was now switching to three days in a row.

  “No,” he said, “I had a really long nap this afternoon.”

  “How’s the head?” she asked.

  “No problems,” he said.

  Patrick was filling glasses and flirting with some women at the bar, and Mandy, who worked in the evenings, was serving drinks at the tables and booths. Their Uncle Ian was holding down the far end of the bar next to the entrance, greeting new customers, and encouraging the ones who left to come back and visit. As Maggie and Mandy tried to hold a conversation over the loud buzz of the crowd and music, Maggie noticed Scott rub his forehead again, and realized the combination of noise and cigarette smoke was probably getting to him.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and drained the last of her beer.

  Scott walked her to the back door of the bookstore, and, as they were away from prying eyes, gave her a warm hug and a lingering kiss. Maggie let herself enjoy his warm embrace, the smell of his skin, and intensity of the attraction between them. She was tempted to invite him up, but stopped herself just as the words were about to leave her lips. There was no half way with Scott Gordon; if she slept with him they were as good as engaged in his eyes.

  “I don’t want to stop,” he said.

  He pushed her up against the back door and kissed her again, with an urgency that thrilled her and scared her to death. She was quickly losing control of her senses, and pushed him away.

 
“Maggie,” he said, and the longing and desire in his voice almost persuaded her. “Let me come in.”

  “Get out of here,” she said. “You’re as bad as that cat of yours, always following me home and wanting to come inside.”

  “You’re considering it, though,” Scott said. “I can feel it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maggie said, and unlocked the back door.

  “You’re weakening,” he taunted as he went down the steps and walked away.

  The cafe was busy even though it was late, and Maggie hoped the noise wasn’t keeping Caroline awake. She needn’t have worried. When Maggie went upstairs, she found a note from Caroline saying she’d gone to Drew’s for dinner.

  “That was quick,” Hannah said when Maggie called to tell her. “I hadn’t even got my matchmaking juices flowing yet.”

  Drew was now living in a much nicer, warmer place than the sad shack he had been renting from Theo Eldridge the month before. Maggie, Hannah, Scott, Patrick, and Ed had helped him clean, paint, and move into one of the small, one-bedroom apartments that used to be servants’ quarters over Mamie Rodefeffer’s vast garage. Mamie loved having someone close by to observe and criticize, and if that irritated Drew, he had only to remember the drafty fire hazard he’d left behind to find a good reason to put up with it.

  “Let’s make a bet about how soon they sleep together,” Hannah suggested

  “She’s not likely to start a new relationship so quickly,” Maggie protested.

  But she was wrong. Caroline didn’t call or come back to Maggie’s that night.

  After Scott left Maggie’s, he walked down to Lotus Avenue to check in again at Margie’s. Everything looked just as it had when he left earlier. Scott went back up to Margie’s room and looked around, determined to find some clue as to where she went. Frustrated by the lack of personal effects in the room, Scott picked up Margie’s pillow to see if anything was hidden under it. There was nothing. He knelt down and felt under the twin mattress, and found a manila envelope. Inside was a first class ticket to Maui, a new passport, a travel agent’s packet of brochures, and a detailed itinerary. She had rented a suite at a luxury hotel right on the beach. This was obviously her plan for after her mother moved into the retirement home, but how could she afford it? The plane tickets were for today’s date.

  ‘She’s missed her flight,’ Scott thought. ‘Where in the world is she?’

  Scott searched the room again, not worrying this time if he displaced anything or made a mess. The only other clue he found was a pamphlet hidden between her neatly folded nightgowns in a dresser drawer. It was from a plastic surgery center in Los Angeles that touted “Extreme Makeovers.”

  ‘How could she afford all this?’ he wondered.

  Scott had arranged for her bank accounts to be frozen when he found out about the embezzling, and if she wanted any money she had to get approval from the bank trustee assigned to her.

  ‘Maybe she has a large amount of cash squirreled away somewhere,’ he thought.

  Scott was reminded of the secret room in the lodge Theo had used to hide money, drugs, and blackmail fodder. He wondered where Margie’s secret room was. Scott ran his hand along the paneling all around the room, below the slanted ceiling. There were no doors into the crawlspace, and the paneling looked and felt continuous. He checked the floorboards and couldn’t find any that lifted up.

  Scott walked home wondering if he could make a missing person claim on Margie without Enid getting involved. He decided to wait until morning, check the house again, and then call someone at the county sheriff’s office to see what he could do. Sarah Albright, the county sheriff’s office investigator, would no doubt know, and Scott had her number on speed dial. He didn’t want to stir up that wasp’s nest, though, if he could help it. Sarah got under his skin, but not in a good way, and certainly not in the way she wanted.

  As he passed the mobile home park, Scott saw Ed walking Mandy’s son Tommy home, and he met them at the corner of Iris Avenue.

  “Any sign of Margie?” Ed asked him.

  “No, and I’m starting to think there’s cause to worry.”

  “I’m going up to the Thorn after this, want to join me?”

  “Sure.”

  They walked Tommy home, and made sure the doors of the trailer were locked tight before they left him. The trailer next door, which belonged to Phyllis Davis, had a light on inside.

  “Phyllis isn’t back, is she?” Scott asked.

  Phyllis had been Theo’s lover and blackmail accomplice, and had unwittingly provided his killer with the motive to murder him.

  “She’s living in one of the rooms behind the Roadhouse, near the highway,” Ed said. “We heard she’s rented the trailer to someone but we haven’t seen who it is yet.”

  Scott told him about the plane tickets, hotel reservation, the plastic surgery pamphlet, and the keys, purse, and coat being in Margie’s house.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Ed said. “I asked everyone I saw today if they’d seen her, and no one had. According to everyone I spoke to, since she quit at the post office, Margie’s been staying home all day and walking around town late at night.”

  “If she hadn’t missed that plane, I’d say she’s taken off. That was an expensive ticket to let go to waste.”

  “Maybe she set it up to look as if she’s disappeared, and she’s created a new identity for herself somewhere else.”

  “She’s certainly devious enough,” Scott said.

  The bar was packed with tourists, loud fiddle music was blaring, and a thick layer of smoke hovered near the ceiling.

  “Let’s just go back to my house and have a beer,” Ed said, knowing Scott couldn’t handle the smoke.

  “If you don’t care,” Scott said, “I’m just going to head home. I’m beat.”

  “No problem,” Ed said, and waved goodbye as he entered the noisy bar.

  Scott crossed Rose Hill Avenue and turned right down the alley. Duke, the huge striped tomcat that used to belong to the vet, had recently moved in with Scott, and was coming down the alley from the other direction. He meowed at Scott.

  “Hey buddy,” Scott said as they met. “Are you coming home?”

  Duke twined around Scott’s legs briefly in an affectionate greeting before continuing on in the direction he’d been headed. Scott shook his head and watched him go.

  “Be careful,” he told the big cat, and then headed toward home.

  Chapter Four - Thursday

  Maggie was so mad at Caroline for ditching them she couldn’t quit talking about it. She vented all evening to Hannah on the phone, and was still complaining about it the next morning while the two of them carried supplies from a delivery truck in the alley through the back door into the bakery kitchen.

  “That’s why she didn’t eat much of the food I fixed,” Maggie said. “She had plans for later.”

  Hannah had the ‘I told you so’ look on her face.

  “I guess she’s done with us,” Maggie said. “She needed a ride home from the airport, and that was all.”

  “You’re only mistake was in forgetting what a flake she is,” Hannah said. “This isn’t the first time she’s done this to us, you know.”

  “I know, I know,” Maggie said. “I always fall for it. I’m such an idiot.”

  “You’re not at fault for trying to help a friend,” Hannah said, as she handed Maggie two big tins of baking powder to shelve. “You just forgot who you were dealing with.”

  It was coming back to Maggie now, all the times Caroline had cancelled at the last minute because of the “cool” people she had just met, or the “awesome” place she had an opportunity to go to, always on the spur of the moment. Often Caroline forgot to call and let her know she was canceling, and Maggie would only find out why Caroline didn’t show up at the concert venue in June when she got a postcard from her in December.

  Maggie was wondering now why she had even bothered to stay in touch with Caro
line over all these years. Caroline, Hannah, Maggie, and their cousin Claire had all been close friends as little girls, but that was a long time ago. If she had let go of her, Caroline probably would have been content to drift away, and never look back. Maggie stewed about this as she and Hannah helped bake the merchandise they would sell at the festival.

  Hannah and Maggie worked in the kitchen all morning making many dozens of cookies, brownies and flaky turnovers using recipes they knew so well they hardly had to refer to them. It helped that they had an industrial size mixing machine and two large professional ovens, each of which held several pans on the wire racks inside. It was hot, thirsty work, and they drank what felt like gallons of ice water, stepping outside frequently to enjoy the cold air in the alley behind the bakery. Hannah and Maggie had been doing this work since they were old enough to see over the edge of the counter, and they worked well together, never getting in each other’s way.

  By mid morning there was still no sign of Caroline. When Maggie went back to her apartment during a break she saw that Caroline had taken her backpack and the clothes she had lent her, as well as the magazines and newspapers she took from Maggie’s store.

  “She came and got all her things while we were working here this morning,” Maggie said to Hannah when she returned to the bakery. “She left this note.”

  Hannah read the note out loud, “Thanks for the hospitality. We’ll get together soon. Love and Light, C.”

  “I can’t believe she did that,” Maggie said. “She said she was going to help us today.”

  “And once again, we’ve been used and discarded by Caroline Eldridge,” Hannah said.

  “I feel like such an idiot,” Maggie said. “I really thought we were friends.

  “Are we done now, with her and her bullshit?” Hannah asked Maggie.

  “Oh yeah,” Maggie said. “We’re done.”

  Ed Harrison, editor-in-chief and owner of the Rose Hill Sentinel, was standing in the front room of the newspaper office, arguing with Ethel Birch. Ethel, who was 79 years of age, was a homemaking enthusiast and the writer of the “Home Matters” column in the weekly newspaper. She was a stickler for tradition, and still typed her columns on an old Royal manual typewriter. She was a stout, dour looking woman who hadn’t changed her hairstyle in half a century, still sewed all her own clothes, knitted her own cardigans, and enjoyed crocheting covers for inanimate objects. Her gardening claim to fame was growing huge Dahlias which were as big as dinner plates.