by Wendy Tyson
“Megan?” Clover took a step closer. “You okay?”
The customer had made her way to the check-out counter and was waiting to be rung up. Megan forced herself to smile, first at Clover, then at the customer.
“I’m fine.”
“You weirded out on me for a second,” Clover said as she moved toward the register. She stopped. “You sure you’re alright?”
Megan nodded.
Ray Cruise. Thana Moore. Back in Winsome—for good?
Three
Tuesday morning was sunny and warm—too warm. Yet again, Megan found herself wishing it would rain. The crops needed a few days of steady drizzle to reap the benefits, but all the wishing in the world wasn’t going to make it happen today. Megan would have to be content with a decent lunch and a pleasant visit with her father and his new wife. Megan left the farm at eleven wearing a newly-purchased plum-colored vintage sundress and strappy sandals—a departure from her normal work attire. She just wished she could shake the rock hanging out in the pit of her stomach.
Denver had agreed to join her for this impromptu lunch with her father and Sylvia. While the two sat quietly in Denver’s 4Runner, watching the Bucks County pastoral landscape go by, Megan pondered her reasons for this visit. Yes, she was taking Clay’s advice and seeking out time with her father. But as loathe as she was to admit it, there was a secondary reason for the trip. She wanted to see why all the fuss with the Center. And maybe, just maybe, she wanted a glimpse of Ray Cruise and Thana Moore.
“You seem quiet today, Megan. Everything okay?”
Megan turned toward Denver. She placed a hand on his forearm, appreciating the firm muscle beneath her fingers. “I’m fine. Just a little anxious about seeing my dad.”
“Understandable. I’ve heard that his new wife can be a handful.”
Megan laughed. “Is that so? Heard from whom?”
“During my rounds. You know, people chitchat about all sorts of things when they’re bored or nervous. While I’m stitching up a horse or a puppy, they’re carrying on about the Phillies season or the drought or the latest Winsome gossip.”
“And Sylvia is the latest Winsome gossip?”
Denver glanced at Megan, his blue eyes crinkling in amusement. “Let’s see. From a different country. Snagged a Winsome bachelor. And ready with her opinions on any topic ranging from the correct color to wear in winter to the political climate in Mozambique. Yes, I’d say she’s the latest gossip.”
“Wonderful.” Megan sank a little lower in the seat. Even the air freshener hanging from the mirror couldn’t mask the scent of dog in Denver’s vehicle, and Megan tried unsuccessfully to stifle a set of sneezes.
“God bless you.” Denver handed her a tissue from the glove compartment. “You never know when a situation will call for Kleenex,” he said in response to her querying look. He pulled onto Orchard Hill Road, a curvy stretch of asphalt that eventually led to the Center, and let out a long, low whistle. “Someone was well-funded when they undertook this project.”
Orchard Hill Road climbed steadily upward toward the sprawling inn at the top. On either side of the road were fenced-in horse pastures where horses lazed under shady oaks and maples. Megan could make out a new red barn in a meadow at the top of a steep hill. Fields of late-season lavender and other wildflowers blanketed the hilltops like a scene from Provence, and a wall of tall sunflowers surrounded the barn. As they continued to climb, Megan could make out a large swimming pool and glass-enclosed solarium.
Denver pointed. “That must be the restaurant.”
Megan followed the gesture. The inn itself was white and grand with clapboard siding, deep sills, dark green shutters, and imposing columns. It was built to look like a historic estate, possibly one more at home in Carly Stevenson’s New England than the Philadelphia region. Along the side facing the woods was a grand covered porch twinkling with tiny lights and dotted with terracotta pots filled with geraniums and trailing ivy. Fans blew cooler air down, and gauzy sheets of fabric blotted the bright sunlight. Dozens of patrons sat at civilized tables adorned with milky-blue water pitchers and bouquets of lavender. It was a scene from a country club. Or a movie about a country club.
“Nice,” Megan said. “Very tasteful.”
“Very expensive.”
“Well, I guess we get to see how the food is.”
Denver nodded. “First things first. Since your father isn’t expecting us, want to take a quick trip inside?”
“Of course,” Megan said. They parked, and as they made their way hand-in-hand toward the porch, Megan found her gaze drawn to a group of people who were laughing and clinking glasses at a corner table. Not just any people—Winsome residents, including Merry Chance, Roger Becker, and Anita Becker. Washington Café regulars. Megan swallowed the jealousy that she felt bubbling up to the surface.
Denver had spotted them as well. “The newness will wear off, Megs. Hard to compete with a farm-to-table café in your own backyard.”
Not when the competition has fancy china, linen napkins, top-notch staff, and a breathtaking view, Megan thought. But she simply smiled and said, “Let’s go inside. I want to see what the Center is really about.”
They got as far as the lobby before Megan saw her father. He was standing by the concierge desk talking with a slender woman wearing a crisp aqua suit and a silver name tag. Eddie was sporting plaid Bermuda shorts, loafers, and a melon-colored Polo shirt. Megan had never seen her father in any shade of orange—or Bermuda shorts, for that matter. It took her a moment to adjust to the vision.
Eddie saw Megan, took a double take, and then smiled at his daughter with what looked like relief. He finished up his conversation with the aqua-clad woman before joining Megan and Denver by the entryway’s massive cream couches.
“Megan, I’m glad to see you.” Eddie kissed her on each cheek, European-style. He looked at Denver questioningly, and Megan made introductions.
“Ah, my daughter has told me a lot about you. She didn’t exaggerate, either.”
The handshake lasted a little too long and was a little too hardy. Eddie seemed distracted and Megan said as much.
Eddie’s attention turned toward the entryway. “It’s just Sylvia. She had some errands to do at the art show this morning, and she was supposed to meet me here well over an hour ago. I’m afraid I lost track of time at the gym.” He blushed. “I was late and I thought perhaps she’d come and gone.”
“I’m sure she just got sidetracked. The Center is beautiful,” Megan said. “It looks like it would be easy to get distracted.”
Eddie’s nod was noncommittal. “She does like to socialize.”
Denver asked, “How are the rooms?”
“Simple, actually. Tasteful—but simple. Sylvia says that’s in line with the Center’s aesthetic.” Eddie motioned toward the nearest couch. “Would you like to wait with me?”
Megan smiled. “We thought we’d take you to lunch.”
“Sure.” Her father glanced around. “If you don’t mind waiting for Sylvia.”
They all sat side-by-side on a long pale cream couch with no arms. An assortment of square, rectangular, and round pillows in soft shades of aqua, cocoa, yellow, and red served as back and arm cushions. The room itself had high ceilings and white trim with splashes of aqua here and there. Paintings had been hung on soft cream walls, and more paintings and sculptures were displayed on easels and stands around the large room.
The “welcome hall”—a lobby, really—was large and uncluttered enough to feel open, yet small enough to feel cozy. It seemed contemporary, while maintaining the character of the intended historic style. The colors were soothing but clean and fresh. Megan had to hand it to whoever designed this place. They’d had a vision, and kept to it.
“Have you taken any of the classes?” Megan asked her father.
He was glancing around the welc
ome hall. “Sylvia signed me up for yoga for beginners and a meditation class.” He gave Denver a conspiratorial look. “I went to meditation. I told her I was going to yoga but had a smoke behind the horse barns instead.” He shook his head. “No smoking here. Anywhere. Can you imagine? That would never fly in Italy. The Italians are still addicted to their cigarettes, and they don’t try to hide it. One of the things I love about them.”
Denver smiled. “Tough for a smoker here in the States.”
“I’m not really a smoker. Just the occasional cigar. But yoga? I’d rather have a root canal.”
“Then why in the world are you here?” Megan asked. She pictured her father doing Downward Dog and laughed. “Seems like this isn’t quite your thing.”
“Because it’s good for me to broaden my horizons,” Eddie said, tongue-in-cheek. He placed one leg over the other and sat forward, his hand tapping rhythmically against a hairy knee. “Tonight we have the sweat lodge. And Thursday? A regimen of liquid meals followed by high colonics.”
Megan laughed. High colonics—a fancy name for enemas.
“Makes me glad I’ll be on a plane for Scotland,” Denver murmured.
Eddie took out his phone. “I’ll text Sylvia again, and then would you like a tour, Megan? No use sitting around here feeling nervous. I’m sure she’s off making deals and sweet-talking artists.”
Denver raised his eyebrows behind Eddie’s back. Megan stifled a laugh—she wasn’t quite seeing Sylvia sweet-talking anyone either. “Sure,” Megan said. “As long as we have time for lunch.”
“We’ll have to put our names on the waiting list anyway,” Eddie said. “It seems like everyone from the surrounding towns has come to the Center today.” He stood and straightened his shorts. “Apparently the Center is the new ‘it’ place in Bucks County.”
They’d toured the main building and were dining outside on the restaurant’s porch when Sylvia finally joined them. She sat down with a flourish. She wore a slim-fitting black pants suit, and her bright red hair was pulled into a neat chignon. Several loose strands flew around her face. Megan couldn’t help but notice the large diamonds in her ears or the diamond embedded in the jade pendant around her neck. More diamond than Megan was used to seeing, even on the wealthy tourists who flocked to Winsome in the autumn. The diamonds clashed with the bits of mud and pine needles caked on the edges of Sylvia’s strappy flats. A hazard of the countryside, Megan figured.
“Ah,” Sylvia gave a tight smile. “Have you ordered? The salmon mousse is spectacular. But I had that yesterday.” She slipped on smart black-rimmed readers and stared at the menu for all of thirty seconds. Like Eddie, she seemed distracted, even a bit frazzled. She checked her phone twice then seem to push it away reluctantly. “The fruit plate for me. With a glass of Pinot Grigio. And some sparkling water.” She glanced over at Megan and Denver, as though for the first time. Her smile brightened. “Who is this, Megan?”
Megan introduced Denver. He stood, towering over Sylvia’s petite form.
Sylvia met him around the table and kissed him on each cheek before staring into his eyes for a moment. “You’re Megan’s beau, no?”
Sitting back down, Denver smiled. “I am.”
“You can get her to reconsider her vocation, perhaps?” Sylvia squeezed his hand. “Farming is no life for a young woman. She’s a solicitor by training? A lawyer? She spent a lot of money to put herself through law school. Or someone spent a lot of money.” Eddie reached out a hand to stop her, but Sylvia waved him away. “Youth of today don’t understand the value of security. Why throw away a good career to pursue something that will lead to the poor house? You like to grow things? Have a garden. But this life?” She shook her head and made a tsk, tsk sound. “No.” She squeezed Denver’s shoulder this time. “You’re a doctor. You understand what I’m saying.”
The waitress arrived. With one last insistent look at Denver, Sylvia sat back down. Denver seemed about to respond, but Megan caught his eye. She wanted this to be a pleasant lunch and fighting with Sylvia about farming wasn’t something she was about to do.
The waitress—dressed in a pale aqua shirtdress and matching one-inch heels—took their orders with the seriousness of a surgeon preparing for her first procedure. No pad—she simply listened to their selections and nodded.
When she’d left, Sylvia made another tsk, tsk noise with her tongue. “When wait staff do that, they never get it right. Just write the orders down.” She placed those perfectly manicured hands on the table. Megan saw a slight tremble, and Sylvia quickly placed her hands under the table, on her lap. After a few seconds, she grabbed her phone, glanced at it, and frowned. “This restaurant is so crowded. How is one supposed to relax?”
Eddie placed a hand on his wife’s arm. “Are you okay? You seem agitated about something.”
“I’m just hungry. You know how I get when I haven’t eaten, and that Cream of Wheat we had this morning was more like gruel. Megan, Denver—tell me, do you like the Center?”
“It seems nice so far—what we’ve seen of it,” Megan said.
“It’s…over the top,” Denver said. “But is there substance beneath the pretty façade?”
To Megan’s surprise, Sylvia agreed. “Yes. It is supposed to be a center for health and spiritual and physical rejuvenation. One would expect soothing quiet, an emphasis on the individual. This grand opening, with all its pomp and circumstance, makes a mockery of that notion.”
“And the art,” Eddie said. “There must be hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of art in the Meditation Gallery alone.”
“Yes, the art.” Sylvia glanced at her phone, clearly longing to pick it up. Instead she said, “It’s in the Gallery, but also around the Center. On the walls. In the rooms.”
“Someone coughed up a lot of money to fund this place,” Denver said. “Even without the art.”
“Speaking of art,” Megan said, “did you meet with Thana?”
The waitress arrived with their drinks, and Sylvia took a long sip of her wine before responding. “No, not yet. I’m afraid she’s been busy.”
Megan couldn’t help but feel a tiny frisson of satisfaction. She figured getting an audience with the now-famous Thana Moore would be hard—even for someone used to getting her way.
A short time and a few awkward silences later, the meals were served. Megan’s sea bass was delicious, although she noticed the vegetables were rather lifeless in taste and color. Denver’s beef Wellington looked good, and Eddie’s salad—ordered for him by Sylvia (“the heart knows when you’re cheating, Darling”), was passable.
“Decent food,” Denver whispered, “but no match for Alvaro’s cooking.”
Megan looked out over the porch rails, at the stretch of rolling pasture and forest beyond. No, the food was no match for Alvaro’s slow-cooked wonders. But that view, Megan thought. The café could never compete with the sheer size and grandeur of this place.
As Sylvia was taking care of the bill—she’d insisted on paying—Megan thought about how to broach the subject she’d come to discuss. She wanted to spend more time with them, and she wanted Eddie to reach out to Bibi to spend time with her as well. Business trip or not, Eddie hadn’t been back in the States in two years, and now that he was here, he was making no effort to see them. Clay had been right. How could Megan expect Eddie and Sylvia to know how much that hurt if she didn’t share her feelings?
Before Megan could bring it up, Alvaro’s wife Maria stopped by the table. Maria was an elegant older woman with impossibly broad, sculpted cheekbones and a toothy smile, but today she seemed drained of energy, a shell of the person Megan was used to seeing. For a rejuvenation center, no one seemed very rejuvenated. Maria hugged Megan and Denver and shook hands with Sylvia and Eddie.
“I saw you come in,” Maria said to Megan in her accented English. Like Alvaro, she’d moved to the United States from Mexico many yea
rs ago, but her words still held the beguiling lilt of her birth land. “But I was tied up with the art show. How do you like the Center? It’s quite grand.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Yes. We are so busy I barely see it anymore.” Maria looked back, toward the entryway into the kitchen, and frowned. Her eyes looked red and swollen. “Well, I have to go. We have a charity auction tonight. Paintings donated by a few of our artists. Several sculptures too. I have to take care of some things before I leave for the day. Will you be staying for the auction?”
“I’m afraid not.” Megan explained that she had to go back to work at the farm. “But Sylvia and Eddie will be there, I imagine.”
Sylvia’s face tightened. “No, unfortunately. We have reservations at the sweat lodge for tonight. It’s the couples retreat. Eddie insisted.”
Megan looked from Sylvia to her father and back again. Eddie insisted? The Eddie she knew liked football games and softball picnics. His only retreat was to the back room to catch a Phillies game or a nap. And if this was a business trip scheduled to buy artwork for the boutique, why was Sylvia skipping the auction for a sweat lodge?
Megan chose to let it go. She said good-bye to Maria and watched the older woman make her way across the restaurant, her aqua dress floating around her like a shroud.
The pull of the phone was too great and Sylvia was back on it. “I have to go make some calls,” she said. She stood to leave. Remembering her manners, she spun back around and gave Megan and Denver each a perfunctory hug. “Darling, I’m exhausted,” she said to Eddie. “Would you mind going to Pilates alone this afternoon? I have business to attend to and then I think I may take a nap.”
Eddie’s eyes brightened and Megan knew he was envisioning cigars behind the horse barns. “Sure. Get all the rest you need.”