Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Harriet
I forget about the Kingston Manor mystery until that weekend, when I stop by Aster Press to restock our vintage-style recipe cards. The bell over the door gives its usual chime.
Sloane is boxing up an order for a customer, nestling it in brown tissue. There’s a silver tray on the counter holding her business cards, printed with her basement offset press:
Aster Press
Letterpress * Archival * No pixels.
I study the front of the Ashwood Gazette. There’s an article about the gazebo roof repair, and the tourist who went missing on the riverwalk earlier this month.
They still haven’t found his body.
Sloane drifts over. Her lipstick is matte plum, and her hair is pinned in an elegant, slightly menacing updo.
“How are you, Harriet?” Her voice drips with theatrical concern.
“I’m well,” I reply with sweetness. “But how are you? Hanging in there?”
The corner of her mouth ticks up in that familiar half-smile that acknowledges our game.
We were good friends before the great Ashwood High newspaper fallout. Now we just do this weird thing where we pretend we don’t hate each other. A cold war is better than a hot war.
“We need more of those recipe cards printed,” I say. “Granabelle wants a new size added, and she’d like to do some more of those cherub postcard packs on consignment if you’ve got extras.” I slide the list across the counter. Sloane has a website, but people who order the analog way get a discount.
“Postcards are selling like hotcakes,” she says, moving to the register. “People are really moving back to the good old U.S. Postal Service. Who knew texts and emails would turn out to be so soulless? Right?”
This dig is aimed at me, Ms. Digital everything.
“All in the eye of the beholder, I guess.” I slide a fifty across the scratched glass counter.
“Or not.” She grabs the fifty and looks up our tax number in the little notebook she keeps by the cash register.
I examine a postcard from the display—an illustration of a paddleboat with a woman in a hoop skirt watching from shore. “These’ll sell to the river-walkers.”
“Yup,” Sloane says. “Can’t believe Easter’s next week.”
Easter is the unofficial start of tourist season.
People in Ashwood tend to be divided on the subject of tourists.
The boosters—like Mom, Granabelle, Sloane, and Josie’s family—love them for the retail and restaurant traffic.
But if you’re just trying to live and work, you start to dread the summers.
“So,” Sloane says, boxing up a set of cherub postcards with surgical precision, “the new owner of Kingston Manor stopped in yesterday evening to place an order.”
“Really,” I say too quickly.
“Very interesting.” She doesn’t elaborate, of course. She wants me to ask. She wants me to beg.
I try not to look interested. I try not to be interested. I want to ignore her dangling bait and leave, but Mom and Granabelle would be delighted with some news of our mysterious new Richie Rich family, and Sloane knows it. And I need to know, too.
“Interesting, huh?” I say.
“Very.” She folds the top of the bag and smiles.
“Okay, come on. What were they like? Is it a family or something? I understand they’re from the East Coast.”
“It was the man of the house, and he loved the store. Ordered custom calling cards in a heavy cotton stock. His taste is exquisite.”
This is so evil of her. Who cares what he ordered?
“And?” I prod.
“He appreciated the samples I showed him from the offset press and was very pleased to hear I could do his entire order like that. He went with the Claude Garamond version of Garamond. Just his name.”
“Sooo... what was he like? What does he do? Is there a whole family moving in? Will they live in Ohio year-round? Does he own some massive corporation or what?”
She drifts a finger along the silver edge of the business card tray. “I can’t reveal a customer’s private details or the contents of a printing order.”
“You just told me he ordered calling cards with his name. Also, why would somebody do that?”
“He’s clearly a history buff restoring the house to its original grandeur, and he no doubt understands that a calling card with just a name is the way it was done at the time the house was built.
People would call on a house offering their card to the butler, and the butler would inquire whether the occupant was home, meaning whether the occupant wanted to see that person. ”
“Oh, I get it,” I say. “I see why that kind of card would come in handy... if we lived in an Edith Wharton novel.”
“We’re done here.” She hands me the order.
I text Josie about these latest developments.
New owner of Kingston spotted. You will NOT believe where...
Sloane’s shop. Last night.
He ordered calling cards with just his name, but she won’t tell me what it is.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Reappear.
Calling Cards WTF.
I send her the steam-from-nose emoji and tuck my phone away, already planning how to drop this into conversation with Mom and Granabelle later.
I don’t love this new information. Alexandru is living in the past. Would he order calling cards? But then again, who would he visit? He despises humans.
For socialization purposes, anyway.