8. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
T hat evening, Louise fired up the grill.
“Did you see Angie?” she asked, holding a plate of raw burgers in one hand and a grill spatula in the other. She was decked out in canvas shorts that went to her knees and a sleeveless T-shirt with a scalloped lace trim over the bosom.
“Mom, here, I can man the grill,” Nadine said, relieving her mother of the plate and the spatula.
“Thanks, honey. Maybe Emma could help me set the table?”
“Sure, Gram.”
“And yes, we saw Angie briefly. She was too busy really to talk. Hopefully, we’ll catch up later,” Nadine said.
“Did she say anything about Java Joe’s across the street?” her mother asked.
“She’s not happy about it. ”
Louise pursed her lips and shook her head. “That’s a rant she can’t seem to get off of. Honestly, she sounds like a broken record. It’s like she’s taking it personally,” she huffed.
“Let me grill these burgers and we’ll talk about it later,” Nadine said, anxious to get outside and get started. Her stomach growled.
When she stepped out back, she took in a deep lungful of air. That’s what she needed, fresh air and lots of it.
She loved her mother’s backyard. Although small, everywhere you looked, there was something to look at. Louise was an avid gardener, and every available space had been utilized. A paved brick walkway looped around the garden. The grill sat on a bed of stones with paving bricks right in front of it, like a mat. Nadine laid the burgers on the grill and sat down in the chair next to it, crossing one leg over the other, content to sit and chill for a minute. She looked around, enjoying the hostas, the astilbe, the lilac bush that had been a gift from her grandmother. There was a small boulder that her father had moved from the beach, surrounded by plantings of black-eyed Susans and daisies. Wind chimes hung from the roofline, but there was no breeze that day and they were still. The sun was getting low in the sky, and the shade just about reached her. The smell of the burgers and the sizzling sound they made on the grill made her stomach growl louder .
A few birdhouses painted in shades of gray, green, and brown lined the back fence. She didn’t have to turn her head to know that on the table on the patio were a pair of binoculars and a book about birds.
Shortly, she carried the plate of burgers inside and asked, “Mom, who is going to eat all these?” There’d been five on the plate.
“One for each of us and two for Herman,” Louise said.
Herman came running from the other room, came to an abrupt halt in the doorway, and turned around and walked backward into the room.
“Beep, beep!” Emma said with a laugh.
“Why does he do that?” Louise asked.
Nadine shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“He even looks over his shoulder when he’s doing it, like he’s backing into a driveway.” Louise said. “You like hamburgers, don’t you, Herman?”
Herman wasn’t fussy when it came to human food. He liked it all. He was an equal-opportunity eater.
The three of them gathered around the table, and Herman settled down with a groan of protest against the wall. Nadine had trained him early on about begging from the table or table surfing. Still, he was vocal about his disagreement over this from time to time. She suspected he was now trying to elicit sympathy from her mother. And by the look on her mother’s face, it might be working.
Louise tore off a small bit of hamburger .
“Mom, don’t,” Nadine warned, her voice low.
Herman seemed to know that the discussion was about him and lifted his head.
“Just this one time, that’s all,” her mother said with a smile.
“No.”
Louise scowled and looked sympathetically at Herman. “I’m sorry. She’s a meanie. But after dinner for sure.”
With a sigh, the dog laid his head down between his paws.
“Come on, let’s eat,” Louise said, nodding toward all the food on the table.
There was a bowl of potato salad with sliced hard-boiled egg and a sprinkling of paprika. Next to it sat a bowl of tuna macaroni salad and a tossed salad with chopped tomatoes and cucumbers dressed in a light vinaigrette. All the bowls were vintage pink Pyrex that Nadine remembered from her childhood. She was pretty sure they’d been her grandmother’s.
“You don’t eat like this every night, do you, Mom?” It seemed like a lot of work. Nadine loved cooking for her family, especially when all the planets aligned and the three of them were home together. But those occasions were rare. And sadly, they would be no more.
“Oh goodness no,” Louise replied. “It’s just nice to have someone to cook for. ”
“I ran into Edna Knickerbocker,” Nadine said. “She told me that Johnny Hadley died.”
Louise scrunched up her nose in sympathy. “I’d heard that.”
“Remember the old Hadley place?” Nadine asked, dumping a scoop of potato salad on her plate. She passed the bowl to Emma, who sat next to her. She worried the girl wasn’t eating properly. But her daughter ignored it, her plate home to only a burger with cheese, lettuce, and tomato.
“I do. Old Mrs. Hadley used to take in lodgers.” Louise chewed thoughtfully before adding. “I suppose Edna will sell that place now.”
“I told Mom that if I had the money, I’d buy it,” Emma said enthusiastically. Nadine looked at her daughter. The wheels in her brain began to spin, albeit slowly because it felt like all the wheels had come off of her bus recently.
“Wouldn’t we all?” Louise said. “But I don’t know. That close to the beach? It would be a constant battle with the sand.” She surveyed the offerings on the table before deciding on the macaroni salad. As she scooped some out onto her plate, she said of the old house, “Torturous.”
That wouldn’t bother Nadine one bit. Living in a landlocked state had made her miss the water. The sand. The smell. The cry of circling gulls. Sometimes, she longed for it. The missing it was never so acute as when she returned from a visit to Lavender Bay. But with time and how busy she was with all her activities, that homesickness always faded.
She reached for the ketchup and mustard and put generous amounts on her burger before replacing the top bun. “Not to mention the cost of renovating an old house. It’s always more than you think it’s going to be.” She and Richard had found that out the hard way with their first house, which they’d renovated themselves. It had needed a lot of work when they bought it. Although admittedly, Nadine had loved every minute of it. Every time she looked around at it, she was reminded of all the tender loving care they had put into it. But Richard soon grew bored with it and after several promotions, pushed to move. When they purchased their second house, it had been a new build from the ground up. And although everything was brand, spanking new, it did not possess the character and charm the first house had. She had no sentimental attachment to their current home, not like she had with the first, where Emma had spent the first few years of her life.
“Johnny Hadley never lived in that house as an adult,” Louise said, referring to the Hadley place. “After he graduated from college, he left for Chicago. He used to rent it out but as he got older, he couldn’t be bothered. At one time, long ago, it used to be a boarding house.”
“I know, that must have been interesting,” Nadine said. How much fun it would have been to be the landlady of the house, looking after all those people and their problems. The mother in her liked looking after people and animals.
“That wouldn’t be for me,” her mother said, waving her hand in the air, the one holding her burger. She set her burger down on her plate. “All those strangers in your house? No, thank you. I could barely handle four girls, especially during the teenage years.” She looked over at Emma and smiled. “No offense, sweetie.”
“None taken, Gram,” Emma said with a laugh.
“Dad did better with us girls,” Nadine said with a smile at the memory of her father.
“Your father was very laid back,” Louise Cook reminisced. “The house could be burning down around him, and he’d ask me what was for dinner.”
“How long was the boarding house in operation?” Emma asked.
“Mrs. Hadley operated it from the time of the Depression and was still operating it when I was a young girl.”
Nadine couldn’t believe that a town the size of Lavender Bay required a boarding house. “What happened?” she asked.
Her mother helped herself to some more salad, put the bowl down, and looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“I wonder why it stopped operating as a boarding house.”
Her mother shrugged. “I don’t know. Mrs. Hadley became too old. She died. Boarding houses became less popular. I don’t even know if they’re legal anymore.” She laughed. “Why all this curiosity about the Hadley house?”
Now it was Nadine’s turn to shrug. “Just interested, that’s all.” She turned her attention to her dinner. But even as she dug her fork into her potato salad, she was aware of a nagging sensation at the back of her mind.
Emma abruptly stood up from the table, startling Nadine. “Can I go to Aunt Maureen’s house?”
“Sure. But if they’re busy, come back here.”
Nadine’s sister Maureen had two sons, and a daughter a year younger than Emma. It amazed Nadine how Emma and Ashley always seemed to pick up right where they left off, no matter how long they’d been apart. They FaceTimed each other and were on social media together. She wished it were that way with her own sisters. It seemed that with every reunion, there was that initial awkward stage where they had to get to know each other all over again.
Emma bolted, but Nadine called out after her.
Emma returned, sulking. “What?”
“Clear your dishes. We’re not the hired help.”
Blushing, Emma cast a glance at her grandmother and muttered, “Sorry, Gram.”
Louise waved her away. “Don’t worry about it. Leave your plate on the counter and go off to Maureen’s. They’ll be happy to see you. ”
Emma smiled, removed her dishes, and carried them to the counter nearest the dishwasher. She bounded out the door with a quick wave.
“Not too late,” Nadine called after her.
Nadine and her mother did a quick cleanup. Once the dishwasher was loaded, Louise announced that there was a strawberry-rhubarb pie for dessert.
“I haven’t had that in a long time,” Nadine said.
Her mother cut two generous slices, and Nadine took vanilla ice cream from the freezer and laid a scoop on each piece of pie.
They sat down together, and as Nadine took her first mouthful, her mother regarded her own fork, turning it around in her hand and staring at it.
“Why don’t you tell me the real reason you’ve come back to Lavender Bay,” she said.
Nadine slumped forward in her chair, elbows on the table. She sighed. “What makes you say that?”
Louise laughed. “I’m your mother, Nadine, I’ve known you longer than anyone. And one thing I know about you is that you don’t do anything spur of the moment. You’re a planner. Always have been.”
Nadine drew in a deep breath. She hadn’t considered that.
Louise continued. “When you called me and told me you were on your way, you can imagine my concern. ”
“Of course.” Was she that predictable, that easy to read? No wonder Richard had looked elsewhere. She wasn’t exactly exciting.
“Is it Emma?” Louise asked quietly.
Nadine shook her head. “No, Emma’s fine.” At that point, Emma was the only bright star on her horizon. “It’s Richard.”
Louise’s brow furrowed. “Richard? What’s wrong with him?”
“There’s nothing wrong with him. It’s what he’s done.”
Nadine poured forth the whole sordid affair. Her mother sat there, her head tilted slightly and her mouth hanging open as she digested all that Nadine told her.
At first, there was shock, then disbelief and finally, outrage.
“I’m so sorry, Nadine,” Louise whispered. She stood and gathered the pie plates, the pie half-finished and sitting in pools of melted ice cream, and announced, “We need something stronger than pie. I’ll be right back.”
She cleared the plates and returned, a container of ice cream in each hand with two spoons.
“Butter Pecan or Cherry Panda Paws?” she said, holding up the two cartons.
Knowing her mother’s favorite was Butter Pecan, Nadine said, “Cherry Panda Paws. ”
Louise handed her the ice cream and a spoon. Nadine wiped her eyes and her nose and then peeled the lid off the carton, took her spoon, and dug in.
“I don’t know if eating ice cream will solve my problems,” she said. “But it definitely tastes good.”
They sat in silence for a bit and her mother swallowed a spoonful of ice cream and said, “You know, Nadine, you could always move permanently back to Lavender Bay.”