Chapter Eight #2
She heard footsteps thump down the stairs, and then Jack jogged into the kitchen. “Calisa, I found a cookbook!” He waved a tattered book with a gingham cover in the air and then froze. “Oh hi, Auntie Zee.” He looked as if he wanted to pivot and bolt.
“Jackson Thomas Jones.” Auntie Zee bit off each of his names.
He held the cookbook slightly behind him, as hidden as he could manage while trying to make it look casual. “I’m, uh, planning to fix the electrical outlet on the third floor today. Going to try to unstick the window in room eight after.”
“I told you, you’re not allowed near the stove or the oven.” Her voice was a thunderstorm, containing the threat of floods and fire within the rumble of her syllables.
He hadn’t done anything to deserve either drowning or electrocution by words. Calisa jumped in to defend him. “He hasn’t touched them. Not once since I got here.”
Snorting, Auntie Zee didn’t glance at her. Her eyes were fixed on Jack.
“I’m the one who cooked the pancakes and said I’d bake a cake,” Calisa said stoutly.
She didn’t know why Auntie Zee was being so hostile to Jack.
Near as she could tell, Jack was the only one who’d been helping with the bed-and-breakfast, especially with his father out of town.
She wondered if this was what had happened with the rest of the staff: Auntie Zee had chased them all off.
Except Jack has nowhere else to go. This is his home.
That makes it so much worse.
“Ah, I see,” Auntie Zee said, still glaring at Jack. “You found a loophole.”
“Um…”
“He wouldn’t need a loophole,” Calisa said, “if you’d just let him cook. He’ll be careful. He’s learned his lesson.” It was absurd that the punishment had continued for more than a week, much less however many months it had been.
“He nearly burned down the whole inn,” Auntie Zee said. “That boy can’t be trusted.”
He studied his shoes.
Calisa felt a curl of anger. “People make mistakes. You don’t punish them forever. He knows he messed up, and he has no intention of doing it again. You could try forgiving him.”
Auntie Zee scoffed. “You know nothing about it.”
“I know he lives here, which makes him practically your family,” Calisa said.
The unfairness of it—of everything Auntie Zee said and did—crept up into her throat, the curl of anger uncoiling into a flame.
It was fine if her great-aunt was in a perpetual bad mood; it wasn’t fair that she weaponized her grumpiness against people who cared about her, or who wanted to care about her.
Like Jack. Like her moms. Like me. “Is this how you treat family? Not forgiving them for mistakes? Is this why we haven’t been back since I was five? Did my mom—”
Scowling harder, Auntie Zee cut her off. “You know nothing about any of that.”
“What did Mom-Kate do that was so terrible?” Calisa pressed on, undeterred.
“No, never mind. I don’t care. Whatever it was, was it really worth losing her over it?
Pushing her away? Pushing me away?” She wondered if any of this was about her at all.
It could all be about whatever happened between Auntie Zee and Mom-Kate.
I’m just collateral damage. “Because it’s not logical to send me away.
You clearly need help, and I’m here, willing and able—”
“Enough!” Auntie Zee snapped. “I told you when you arrived: you aren’t wanted here.” In a softer voice that seemed more tired than kind, she added, “It is nothing personal.”
Calisa snorted. “You said I’m not the right fit. How is that not personal?”
“Girl, you don’t understand—” Her storm-cloud eyes were focused on Calisa now, but Calisa wasn’t intimidated. She’d weathered Jocelyn Pullman’s smirk, Ethan’s fury that she wouldn’t give him another chance, and the pity of everyone who already knew he was a lying cheater.
She cut her great-aunt off. “I definitely don’t understand.” She waved at the window with the view of the mountains and toward the foyer. “Look at this place! It could be amazing, but you’ve let it fall into ruin, and now you won’t let anyone help you save it—”
“Why do you care about saving it?” Auntie Zee said. “You’ve been here two days!”
“Ha! I told you it was just two days. I have one more day to prove—”
“This is my bed-and-breakfast, my home, and I can withdraw my hospitality—” Auntie Zee cut herself off this time.
Her wrinkles smoothed into a smile as Kendra glided into the kitchen and halted by the butcher block island.
“Ah, Kendra. We disturbed you. I’m very sorry.
We were just clearing up a little internal matter. ”
Kendra simply looked at Auntie Zee, her eyes full of disdain.
The moment stretched.
Calisa heard the sound of dripping water and realized it was from Kendra’s bathrobe. She must have just emerged from the shower. Briefly, Calisa contemplated ducking into the hallway of supply closets to retrieve a towel but decided this wasn’t the moment to move.
At last, Kendra turned to Calisa. “Is there tea?”
“Ahh…” She hadn’t touched the teapot to turn it on yet.
A look crossed Auntie Zee’s face that Calisa couldn’t interpret. Resignation maybe? “Come, it’s in the front room.”
Kendra pivoted and strode to the front room.
Calisa and Jack exchanged looks and then followed a second later. The teapot was already steaming, and Kendra had a cup in her hand.
“Earl Grey,” she said with a sniff. “Acceptable.”
How had it brewed that fast? It must have already been heating up. Perhaps Auntie Zee knew her guest would want tea and flipped the on switch earlier?
“Kendra…” Auntie Zee began.
“I heard mention of cake? Will that be offered with tea?” She addressed Calisa without even glancing at Auntie Zee. “I am tired of being disappointed.”
“That’s up to Auntie Zee,” Calisa said pointedly.
Kendra raised a sculpted eyebrow at the innkeeper.
Auntie Zee sighed heavily. “Calisa will be baking a cake with tea tomorrow. I’ll take care of obtaining the ingredients later today.”
Don’t cheer. Play it cool. Calisa glanced at Jack. He cheered silently and then stopped when Auntie Zee glared at him. Heroically, she kept herself from smiling. It was only one more day that she’d won, but it still felt like a victory worthy of an Olympic athlete.
With a nod, Kendra swept out of the sitting room. In the foyer, by the stairs, she looked back, every inch regal, despite the dripping bathrobe. “Also, I wish to thank you for your rehousing my unwanted companion. It was never my intention to attach him to me.”
Calisa stared at her, unsure what she was talking about but not wanting to admit that in front of Auntie Zee. “Um, you’re welcome?”
“He has not yet come into his fire, but he will serve you well when he does,” Kendra said. “I hope you will enjoy his companionship in the meantime.” She then proceeded upstairs, leaving a trail of droplets behind her.
There was silence for a moment.
“Calisa,” Auntie Zee said behind her, much closer than before, “what did you do?”
She turned to see that Auntie Zee had crossed the room and was standing only inches away. “I’m not entirely sure,” Calisa said. Unwanted companion? She didn’t know what Kendra was talking about, unless she meant—
Jack let out a nervous false laugh. “Just a little hiccup. We took care of it.”
Lower, softer, Auntie Zee repeated, “What did you do?”
—
Together the three of them trooped out to the greenhouse, with Jack in the lead and Calisa just behind him.
Auntie Zee followed, and Calisa tried not to feel the weight of her stare boring in between her shoulder blades.
She’d already explained how she hadn’t wanted to simply release the unidentified reptile into the wild, since she didn’t know whether it was either an invasive species or not suited to the environment.
Auntie Zee merely huffed as she strode through the grass, which could have been either from exertion or disapproval, Calisa couldn’t tell.
“So, Kendra arrived with a pet and then decided she didn’t want it?” Calisa asked Jack in a low voice. What kind of person did that? Not a nice one. Or maybe there was another explanation? “What did she mean about ‘come into his fire’?”
“Ahh…” Jack said.
Behind her, Auntie Zee said crisply, “We don’t ask questions of guests.”
She wasn’t asking the guest; she was asking Jack.
But Calisa pressed her lips together and decided it didn’t matter if Kendra was being cryptic deliberately or accidentally.
All that mattered was whether Auntie Zee was going to be pissed at her when she saw the relocated lizard.
Jack opened the greenhouse door, and Auntie Zee waddled past Calisa to enter first. Calisa followed.
It was crowded inside with the three of them.
Four, if you counted the uninvited lizard.
The lizard was lounging next to the tray of water.
His loose leathery skin hung from his back—he still hadn’t finished his molt yet, if that was what the excess skin was.
Calisa wasn’t certain now that she saw him again.
The flaps seemed firmly attached, and she thought she saw a hint of a bone running along the edge of the leathery skin.
He lifted his bulbous head as they entered but otherwise didn’t stir.
Auntie Zee’s hands were on her hips. She grunted.
A friendly grunt?
“You did well,” Auntie Zee said. The words sounded as if they hurt her throat.
Calisa wasn’t sure if she was talking to her, Jack, or the lizard. “I did?”
Auntie Zee studied the lizard for a minute more and then turned and marched out of the greenhouse.
“Leave the door open so he can come and go. He won’t hurt anything but the local rodent population, and that could do with a little diminishing.
If he still seems hungry, he can eat the alligator feed in the closet—don’t look alarmed.
That’s just the brand name; it’s made neither from nor for alligators.
Keep him out of the inn. He’s exclusively an outside pet.
I don’t want to see his little footprints in your morning pancakes. ”
Following her out of the greenhouse, Calisa stopped and watched her great-aunt toddle back to the inn and then up the steps into the kitchen.
She didn’t look back. Jack stood next to Calisa.
She’d gotten a friendly grunt for the lizard, as well as permission to bake a cake tomorrow and tacit approval of her pancakes—did that count as official permission to stay?
“Do you think that means I can stay for the summer?” Calisa said to Jack.
With a shrug, he handed her the cookbook.
She looked down at it. Across the gingham cover was a handwritten title: Jones Family Recipes. Jones…Where had she heard…“That’s your last name. Is this a family recipe book?”
“My dad’s. Found it in his room.”
Jack should be the one allowed to make the recipes inside. “She shouldn’t treat you that way,” Calisa said. “You’re doing everything around here.”
“She used to be kinder. Happier.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged again. “Time, I think. She’s angry that she’s older, that she can’t do it all, that the bed-and-breakfast is not what it was, that she can’t keep everything the same.”
That was very understanding and empathetic of him, but it didn’t excuse Auntie Zee acting that way toward someone who was obviously doing his best. Being mean to Jack was like kicking a puppy.
He clearly threw his heart and soul into this place—for his home, for his job, for his father.
She didn’t know him well enough to be sure exactly why, but she did know he didn’t deserve to be treated like he was some kind of screwup for one mistake.
“Auntie Zee has issues,” Calisa said as she cradled the cookbook.
“I suppose Kendra does too.” She nodded in the direction of the greenhouse.
“I think Kendra was trying to help, in her own way,” Jack said. “She practically praised you in front of Auntie Zee.”
“Why did she bother to bring a pet if she intended to abandon it?”
He shrugged. “She’s quirky.”
Or she was terrible, in addition to terrifying. Poor lizard. “And I don’t understand why no one has an explanation for why the lizard was in the bathroom closet.”
Yet another shrug. “Maybe he just wanted to go home?”
Calisa raised both her eyebrows at him.
“Or maybe he’s quirky too.”