by K. J. Emrick
Wonder if having a penguin cross your path is some sort of omen? Like a black cat. If it is, I wonder if it’s a good one, or a bad one?
Not that I believe in that sort of thing. There’s bad days and good days, and time moves on. We don’t usually get street signs that tell us which is which.
Waving so long to the penguin, I keep going. Fenlong Street’s just around the corner. That’s where my Inn stands right on the shore of Pine Lake. Gives the guests a spectacular view, and the chance to do some swimming or canoeing, or just sitting out on a picnic blanket under the scraggly Monterey Pines to enjoy the weather. Well, maybe later, when it cools off. It’s a bit hot for that now, isn’t it?
Three stories high, the Inn has gone through a lot of changes over the years. Used to be a hospital, and I think once upon a time it was some rich man’s mansion, but for as long as I’ve owned it this has been a wonderful place for people to stay when they’re sightseeing or passing through. I love this place. I love everything about it. Got a fireplace right inside in the main room here that’s more for show than for use, and a common room for the guests to relax in off to the left, with Rosie’s dining room off to the right. The two floors of rooms to rent above us, fifteen in all with my rooms at the very end of the hall at the top.
My daughter’s room is the one right next to mine.
All the other rooms at the Inn are full up at the moment, like I said. Some are just for regular guests but all the other rooms on the top floor? They’re being rented out by our special guests. Just three guests, actually, but they wanted the whole top floor to themselves. Except for me and Carly, of course. Special guests with money to spend get that sort of treatment, I suppose.
And by special, I mean the sort of special that makes or breaks your business. That sort of special. You might see why I’m nervous now.
Speaking of which, I really should hike myself up the two sets of stairs to the top floor, and make sure they’ve got everything they need. My staff’s been told in no uncertain terms to give them whatever they need. Within reason, of course. Don’t mind going out of my way to make someone happy so long as it doesn’t get somebody thrown in jail. Don’t think my son would let me hear the end of that. So, up we go…
From off in the dining room, I hear something go crash.
The simple sound of something dropping with a clatter can almost be scarier than hearing a ghost call your name in the middle of the night. A crash can mean anything from simple flub to a complete disaster. Bracing myself for anything, I look through the entryway to where I can just see a few of the tables, I wait for it to happen again. When it doesn’t, I know I’m going to have to go in there and see what’s broken. Our insurance agent loves us for stuff like this. I think with one more claim we get a free toaster oven.
At the registration desk, Danni Fairfield gives me a nod while talking on the phone and entering information into the computer at the same time. She knows I need to go check on that, and she’s letting me know she’s got things covered here while I do.
Danni’s come a long way since I hired her to work here at the age of nineteen. Back then, she was just this timid slip of a girl with a heavy braid down her back. She’s still tall and slim and cute, with her pouty lips and her button nose, and that way she has of leaving her top two shirt buttons undone that’s sort of accidental and mostly on purpose. There’s a confidence about her that didn’t used to be there, though, and it looks good on her. I could use a half dozen just like her.
Turning with a wave of my own, anxious to get into the dining room now, I nearly ran into one of the Pine Lake Inn’s oldest guests. Someone who—unlike Danni—I’m glad to say is one of a kind.
As ghosts go, Lachlan Halliburton isn’t all that scary. Annoying, is more like it. At best, he’s entertaining. The man died in the 1800s after a short and unremarkable life of thievery. Explains the plain, rough wool pants and the leather suspenders. He made a name for himself by using disguises in his robberies, and now as a ghost he changes his appearance at will. It’s a ghostly thing but thankfully, none of my other ghosts in the Inn do what he does.
He’s continuing to spend his afterlife here at the Inn even though we’d solved his murder and given him every opportunity to leave, short of an exorcism. That exorcism option’s been offered more than once, by the way. He’s got a way of getting under my skin.
I nearly stumble trying not to pass straight through him, with my arms cartwheeling and my feet dancing. I’m sure I look a state to Danni, although hopefully she’s not paying attention to me at the moment. It doesn’t hurt to walk through a ghost. They don’t have substance. The clothing you see them in isn’t really clothing, for instance. It’s all just an echo of their former self. But for me, as someone who is sensitive to the world of ghosts, it’s a prickly sort of tickling that I feel when I pass through one. Like having someone cleaning out my insides with a feather duster. Naturally, I try to avoid that whenever I can.
“Lachlan!” I whisper-hiss at him. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
He laughs at me silently from behind a hand and then, with a flourish, he waves his fingers in front of his face and suddenly his pinched features and copper red hair are gone. Now he’s the spitting image of Rosie, my good friend and business partner, a pudgy beauty in a flowered dress and a pink apron. In her guise, he mimics bumping into the wall, and the coat rack, and everything else he gets close to.
I roll my eyes, but in truth that’s a pretty good imitation. “Is she the one making all that clatter?”
He slaps both of his hands against his impression of Rosie’s face, putting his mouth in a wide, round O.
“I know, I know,” I tell him, keeping my voice low. “Don’t be mean. She’s just a little clumsy, that’s all.”
Lachlan’s face pokes out from his disguise, one eyebrow raised.
“All right, a lot clumsy. Just… go haunt a kangaroo, will ya?”
He laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard in his two-hundred-plus years. I fancy myself pretty humorous, but even I know that wasn’t what you might call gut-busting. He flusters me, and he knows it. Laying his finger against his nose, he fades back through the wall, and he’s gone.
With a sigh, I go on into the dining room.
It’s quite the scene. Rosie is in the middle of the room, frantically trying to blot what I sincerely hope is water off the lap of a man sitting at one of the round tables. The other two people at the table are watching helplessly as the man frantically tries to block Rosie’s well-intentioned efforts. He’s telling her it’s fine, just an accident, no worries, but Rosie is determined to dry off his slacks with the bunched-up hem of her apron. Around that table is a collection of dropped glassware and plates and food bits, thankfully with nothing broken but I can only imagine the series of mishaps that led to this state. Two of our wait staff are trying to sweep it all up with a broom and a dustbin, but they’re having a hard go of it as Rosie moves herself about trying to push her help on the customer who really, really doesn’t want her anywhere near his pants.
Oh, snap…
Between her trying to get past his guard and him waving his arms about like an experienced kung fu master, the table takes a few too many bumps and the candlestick in the middle starts to topple over. I can see the look of horror on the face of the man’s wife sitting next to him, but she’s frozen in her seat, and everyone else is too focused on the mess and the wet pants and the whole crazy hubbub that they haven’t seen the impending disaster. If that candle drops and catches the tablecloth ablaze, we’ll have worse worries than damp trousers.
I’d like it if my Inn did not catch fire today. Not sure the special guests upstairs would see it as just a comical anecdote of life here in lakeshore. People don’t usually come back to stay in a place that had to be evacuated by the fire department.
Rushing forward, I catch the candle just before it reaches its tipping point and set it safe on its base again. The two guys from ou
r wait staff look up at me like I’d just popped out of nowhere, as if I was a ghost myself, and then they look down, and I look down… to find I’ve put my foot squarely into what was once a blueberry cheesecake pikelet.
Oh, this day is starting to go downhill fast.
Rosie looks down at what I’ve stepped in, and then up at me, her apron still fisted in her hand. “Er,” she stammers, “g’day Dell. Fancy some lunch?”
That’s my Rosie. “How about this,” I suggest instead. “What do we have for desserts today?”
“Oh, got a grand assortment. Finally got the lemon curd pavlova to come out just right. You want a piece?”
Smiling, I gesture to the hapless man in his chair, soaked to his britches. “How about we bring out three pieces for the nice people at the table here. Our treat.”
Rosie’s eyes beam. She’s always happy to share her culinary creations. “I’ll bring them straight out myself. Won’t be a tick.”
She sweeps her way out of the dining room and through the swinging door that leads to the kitchen, bumping people’s chairs on the way and snagging someone’s plate with the edge of her apron—no idea how—and nearly whisking it clear off the table before the guest catches it away again. I recognize him. He’s a regular, and he just laughs off the whole thing and goes back to eating. Those that come to our Inn on a regular basis are used to Rosie’s loveable clutz. It’s part of our charm.
Those that aren’t used to it, however…
I apologize profusely to the man with the water all over his lap, and to his wife, and to the other gentleman at their table. All three of them are looking at me as if I’ve grown a second head as I try to laugh the whole thing off and help clean up the mess on the floor until there’s no evidence that anything at all happened. Except, of course, the man’s wet pants.
“Maybe,” the man says to me, “you should keep your chef in her kitchen. Might be safer for everyone.”
“Yes,” the other man at the table agrees. He’s wearing a business suit that looks like it cost just as much as a new car might and a striped silk tie that’s far too tight around his thick neck. Might be why his dark eyes are bulging so much. “The food here’s quite good, but I could do without the floor show.”
“Floor show,” I laugh weakly. “Ha. Yes. Well, Rosie likes to make sure her guests are enjoying what she makes.”
“We would enjoy it more,” the woman at the table gripes, “if it were on our plates instead of on your shoe.”
She pushes strands of her honey blonde hair back into place behind her ears as she says it. She’s in a black pantsuit herself, and that’s when it occurs to me that all three of them are dressed in professional attire. Even the woman’s double string of pearls gives the impression of all-business. I didn’t think jewelry could do that.
And then it clicks in my head. These three aren’t just any diners. I take a second look at their faces and it clicks in completely. These are the people renting out the rooms on my top floor. In fact, the man with his soggy pants is…
“Secretary Fillmore, sire. I mean, sir. Er, Secretary, sir.” Oh, snap! Now it’s my turn to stammer. “I didn’t recognize you.”
“You mean, you didn’t recognize me with my lap soaking up all this water?” He chuckles, which eases a lot of the tension. At least, in me it does. “I have to say, Miss Powers, I wasn’t happy when the Tasmanian Premier sent me and my people here to Lakeshore.”
“But now you see that we’re all friendly and this is a wonderful place to visit?” I ask hopefully.
None of them answer me. I made the reservations for the three of them, of course, arranging to have them alone on the top floor while they’re here for the Royal Hobart Regatta. I did everything over the phone, though. I wasn’t here when they checked in, and I hadn’t seen them since, and the only reason I recognized who they are now is because I’ve seen the face of Jackson Fillmore plenty of times before. Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development is a minor position in the cabinet, but one that puts him in the news often enough.
Picking up all of the cloth napkins from the table, he begins blotting at his pants. That’s when I notice the cheap copper ring on his left pinky. Not exactly my style, with its braided-rope design and the little metal leaves placed in the pattern of a cross on top. Not exactly a man’s style either, but who am I to judge, especially with someone who’s booked so many rooms at my Inn? His bushy white eyebrows are scrunched down when he looks at me again. “We’ll wait for the desserts, I suppose, and make our opinion of the meal after that.”
I suppose that’s the best I can hope for. Jackson Fillmore is one of those men who look like a big teddy bear, with a pudgy midsection and a fluffy head of white hair and wide, round glasses. Thing is, once you get close to him like this and look into his dark brown, almost black eyes, you start to realize that underneath the façade is a real bear. A man who will tear through anyone and anything in his way, and who would be equally likely to book an entire floor as he would be to find some way to shut this place down. The kind of guy you tiptoe around. The kind of guy, for instance, whose lap you definitely did not get all wet in a public restaurant.
I’m keenly aware of the way everyone is staring at us from the other tables, a few guests and several people from Lakeshore and even a few faces I don’t recognize, a few at tables by themselves, most enjoying a meal with a group and wondering what in the world was happening over here at the Parliamentary Secretary’s table. There’s Janice Wilson and her sister, and the mayor’s wife and her friends, and a curly-haired young guy with an earring stud in one ear sitting by himself, and the delivery man who likes to stop here for lunch after bringing packages into Lakeshore, and a woman I’ve never seen before with far too much makeup on her lips and eyes. All these diners, watching everything that just happened. How many of them recognized Jackson Fillmore before I did?
Too many, I’ll bet.
“Can I offer to pay your dry-cleaning bill, sir?” I offer hopefully. “We’ll comp your meals, too. Don’t even give it a thought.”
Plopping the napkins back on the edge of the table he waves a hand through the air. “Oh, this is just water. Thankfully, that’s all I drink. Never had a taste for alcohol, and I’m afraid my thyroid would not like anything with too much sugar. I might take a tea on occasion, but nothing more than that.”
“We’ll gladly accept the free meals, however,” the woman next to him says.
“No, Stephanie, we won’t,” Jackson corrects her. “We’re public servants and it wouldn’t be right to accept free meals when we’re here at the taxpayers’ expense as it is.”
The woman—Stephanie—sneers and crosses her arms at the rebuke in his voice. I’d been assuming she was Secretary Fillmore’s wife before I recognized him, but now I know better. She’s one of his staff. She does not look happy right now, and I kind of get the impression that’s a permanent look on her face.
The kitchen doors slap open again and I’m glad to see one of the servers has convinced Rosie to let him bring out the three plates of pavlova. I’ve known Rosie’s desserts to smooth over any number of bad feelings. Hopefully they’ll work their magic today.
“Ahem.” The other man at the table clears his throat. With his face all scrunched up like that it bristles a mustache that’s as bushy as the Parliamentary Secretary’s eyebrows. “Tell me, Jackson. How do you think the taxpayers will stand on us getting free desserts?”
I can see Jackson eyeing the puffy sweets on their plates as they’re served all around. The lemon curd is creamy and thick, and Rosie’s added a handful of raspberries on top. It’s got my mouth watering, so I can understand the look of desire in his eyes.
“Er, well,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “I suppose if Miss Powers insists on this, it would be rude for us to turn her down.”
That brings out a smile from both of his companions at the table, and another sigh of relief from me. A good word from a member of the Tasmanian Parliament, and we’d be
likely to have repeat business from the government. That’s something I would not turn down, I can tell you that. On the other hand, a bad experience for these three means we’ll likely be blacklisted by the suit-and-tie crowd. Little moments like this can make or break a business like mine. Best if I just step away from this, then, and let Rosie’s cooking do the talking.
“It’s wonderful to have you and your people here,” I tell Jackson. “I hope this little mishap won’t keep you from coming to see us again when you can stay longer. If there’s anything we can do for you this afternoon, just let us know.”
“Well, thank you for the offer, Miss Powers.” He’s already got his fork in hand, cutting into the chewy center of the cake. “However, we’ve got to be off to Hobart shortly to make arrangements for the Royal Regatta. I’m giving the speech at the opening ceremonies and there’s all these tiny details to work out… this is absolutely delicious,” he says, after taking a bite of the pavlova.
The other two at the table murmur their agreement. I smile all around and decide that’s probably the best place for me to make my exit. “I’m glad you like it. I’ll pass that on to Rosie. I’ll be around if you need something. Just shout.”
Acting as naturally as I can, I make my way out of the dining room just as fast as I can. I need to head upstairs anyway. Not to tend to our special guests, not since they’re all downstairs in the dining room having lunch. There’s something else I’ve got to tend to.
There’s one person upstairs still, and I need to check in on her. My daughter hasn’t been out of her room for a whole day now, not that I’ve been made aware of anyway, and I don’t want to go through a repeat of how it was when she first got back to us from that commune. She knew it was best for her to leave, and so she didn’t fight with me and Kevin when we picked her up and deposited her here, but she let us know she was out of sorts about the whole thing. She had been contrary about everything. Hardly spoke to us. Hardly ate.