Chapter Seven
The thought of facing a roomful of strangers made Willow’s spirit shrivel into a hard knot. She would stay forty-five minutes, she told herself as she entered Diana’s Café and Antiques—an hour if she could handle it; enough to satisfy the social niceties. Surely forty-five minutes was doable.
A swirling sea of people talked and hugged and talked some more; the chaotic buzz of their rising and falling conversations, melded with the clinks of silverware and dishes, were almost comforting in the anonymity they afforded.
The anonymity was short-lived. It took mere seconds for Willow to feel a prickling at the back of her neck as eyes darted to her and quickly away, to perceive the shifting of heads and faint whispers behind hands.
The prodigal. The awkward girl who left and never came back.
And from some, the whispers stung enough to draw blood: The homophobic relative.
The ungrateful goddaughter. The one who cut Sue off from family.
It’s not fair, she whispered savagely to herself. She hadn’t known. She was a kid when it all happened. And her parents … How could they? I know they aren’t the most open-minded people in the world, but to have done this? Without even an explanation?
But another little voice inside her whispered back, You’re not a child anymore. You could have reached out at any time. You just assumed she was the one who had left you. And now it’s too late.
Willow wanted nothing more than to run, to get back on the boat and never have to face any of these people again. But there was Sue’s letter, written months ago, begging Willow to come back … You are still part of this place, she’d said. It needs you.
And then there was the conversation she had heard in the vestibule, the whispered threats.
The unknown speaker had been at the service; surely he would be here at the reception as well.
He had threatened Geralt, who had been Sue’s friend; worse, he had implied that Sue’s death had perhaps not been an accident, after all. And if that were true …
Willow had failed Sue, letting the years go by, not taking the steps to mend the rift between them. She couldn’t run now. And so help me, she thought fiercely, if someone did kill Sue, they are not going to get away with it.
She would stay. She would listen.
Forty-five minutes.
Willow caught sight of Rina, sitting beside the window, a little knot of women surrounding her; Mac was there, and a young woman with red hair and round glasses.
A tall woman in a wine-red suit—Diana, Willow guessed, the café owner—brought Rina a plate and a steaming cup and murmured in her ear; for a brief moment, a ghost of a smile crossed Rina’s tear-tracked face.
Rina’s closest friends, and probably also Sue’s, Willow realized—the family Sue had found, had made, for herself, in the years Willow had been gone.
Before Diana could move on to circle the room again, Mac stopped her and whispered urgently in her ear.
The pair never so much as glanced Willow’s way, but something about their body language made Willow sure they were talking about her.
Rina, too, was pointedly looking past and through but never at Willow.
Only the redhead briefly caught Willow’s eye, with a quick look of sympathy.
It was more than she had expected.
A familiar gravelly voice sounded nearby.
“I’m eighty-three damn years old; I’ll do what I want and eat what I want.
And I have no interest in listening to some moneygrubbing female who thinks she can boss me around.
” Willow turned to see Geralt Talbot approaching, still waving his cane.
“Ahh, there she is! Sue’s girl!” He sauntered over, the glamorous blonde she’d seen in church at his elbow.
“I don’t believe you’ve yet been introduced to my lovely young wife.
” His wicked grin dared her to let the slightest surprise show on her face.
The woman shot the old man the side-eye, snagged two glasses of red wine from a passing server, and pressed one into Willow’s hand with a wink and a subtle waft of expensive-smelling jasmine and sandalwood.
“Here. You’ll need this to get through the afternoon.
I’m Naomi. It’s nice to meet you.” She turned back to Geralt.
“If I were a money-grubber, I’d stuff as much saturated fat and salt down you as you wanted; it would get you out of my hair faster.
You know your blood pressure can’t handle it.
So how about you lay off the salty food and empanadas for today? ”
“What my blood pressure can’t handle,” he growled back, “is being ordered around.” His voice rose. “Now I’m going to get some goddamn ham!” He stalked off to the food table.
Naomi sighed. “He does like to listen to himself shout, doesn’t he?” She grinned at Willow. “He’s okay, though. And a good guy under all the noise. I mean, it’s not moonlight and roses, but we like each other, which is more than a lot of married couples have after a few years. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Willow thought of her parents, of the tense silences and cool politeness that filled her childhood home. Of her parents’ betrayal, still stinging like the oozing wound of a scraped knee. “You’re not wrong.”
She realized she liked Naomi.
She also realized that if Geralt Talbot inherited Cameron House, Geralt’s young wife would presumably inherit it as well; sooner or later, Geralt would die, and Naomi would get the mansion. But surely …
Naomi turned and gestured over a slim, dark-haired woman standing nearby. “Audra—Audra, this is Sue’s goddaughter, Willow.” She turned to Willow. “This is Audra DuBois. My personal assistant.”
Willow guessed Audra was a little older than Naomi, maybe in her late thirties, attractive and professional-looking without being glamorous—the image of the cool and impersonal employee.
But the smile she gave Willow was real. “Pleasure to meet you,” she said in a clean British accent. “You played the organ, right?”
Willow nodded, and Naomi looked impressed. “That was you? You’re fantastic.”
Audra nodded. “You really are. It was lovely.”
Willow blushed. “Um … thanks.” She casually looked at her wrist; good God, had it only been ten minutes?
Breathe, she told herself. Breathe and smile. Ask questions, look interested. Breathe.
A paunchy man sporting the most unfortunate comb-over Willow had ever seen swaggered up to the trio, reeking of Old Spice and self-importance.
“My goodness, if it isn’t all the loveliest women on the island, gathered in one place.
And you would be Miss Stone—” He pumped Willow’s small hand with his giant one.
“Welcome to Little North, my dear—the name is Henry D. Ramsey Jr., but everyone calls me Hank. So edifying to have our lady of honor’s dear niece back on the island at last—”
Willow tried to interject that she was not Sue’s niece exactly, but he pressed on, giving her no opening.
“I believe you’ve met my lovely bride, Patricia.”
Willow glimpsed the sour-faced organist at his elbow and winced inwardly, wishing she could disappear.
Naomi rescued Willow from having to reply. “You’re too kind, Mr. Ramsey,” she said sweetly. “And we all know your lovely wife outshines us all.” She shifted her false but brilliant smile to Patricia.
Patricia’s eye twitched ever so slightly. “Mrs. Talbot,” she said, “such a flattering dress. Wherever did you find it?” she asked, her voice dripping with syrup.
Willow shared a lightning-quick look with Audra, which confirmed as clearly as if the other woman had spoken: Yes. They really do hate each other that much. Willow was certain the temperature had precipitously dropped about ten degrees in their area of the room.
The beefy man did not appear to notice or care.
He shifted his attention to Willow. “You know, of course, Miss Stone, how vitally important the hospitality industry is to the economy of the coastal islands, and I’m proud to be able to do my part—the resort hotel over on Great North is one of mine, and the long-term parking over the bay where you no doubt have sheltered your car is one of mine too, so we can keep Little North pristine and unpolluted and automobile-free… ”
Willow watched helplessly as Naomi and Audra melted into the crowd, slipping away from Hank’s monologue; Naomi mouthed a silent sorry in her direction as she slid away. Willow could hardly blame her for making good her escape.
Hank kept talking. His properties, how many, their price points.
His collection of vintage cars. The write-up of his “hotel empire” in a midsize Boston paper.
The stateroom upgrade he had finagled on the most recent of his and Patricia’s annual cruises.
Boredom soon transformed into annoyance, and annoyance to desperation, but Hank had Willow well and truly trapped; all she could do was smile and nod, vainly eyeing the crowd around for an opportunity to slip away.
Willow sneaked a look at her watch—twenty-six minutes.
Tuning Hank out, she surreptitiously surveyed the room and the other guests.
If she’d hoped for an inkling of who had argued with Geralt earlier in the church, she came up empty; she caught no obviously negative body language between Geralt and anyone else in the room, and Hank’s bloviating baritone made it impossible to listen for the voice she’d heard in the church.
There were a lot of flasks slipping out of coat pockets and sly winks as men doctored one another’s lemonade.
At least four different people slipped Geralt empanadas, which she was certain Naomi would have vetoed had she seen.
She still felt the prickling of eyes on her in fleeting speculation, shifting guiltily away when she caught them at it, the sense of whispers being passed from one person to the next.
Another look at her wrist. Thirty-four minutes.
Hank was still going and showed no sign of slowing down.
“Here on Little North, you know,” Hank explained, “any whiff of a plan to build a resort along our lovely coastline brings out the preservationists and historians in full force—it’s a shame, really.
” He jerked his chin in the direction of the Cameron mansion.
“When I think of that giant old eyesore of a house, falling to disrepair, on such a beautiful and valuable piece of land…”
Willow’s ears pricked up, and she suddenly cursed herself for not paying closer attention.
Hank was interested in the Cameron family property? To tear it down and build a hotel?
Before Willow could ask Hank to elaborate, someone jostled her from the side. She turned, torn between a desire to hear more about his schemes for the old mansion and relief for any excuse to shift away from his endless, pointless pontification.
Diana, Mac’s mother, had somehow materialized, carrying two large sheet pans.
She said brightly, “Oh, Mr. Ramsey, we’re bringing out the desserts now.
I know tres leches cake is your favorite—oof!
” She seemed to nearly lose balance for a second.
“Here—Willow, is it?” She pressed one of the sheet pans into Willow’s hands.
“Help me out? I’m afraid I’m going to send one of these flying across the floor.
” Diana wove her way over to a table by the interior wall; Willow, frustrated but at a loss for what else to do, managed a look of feigned apology to Hank and Patricia and followed.
She put the dessert down on the table next to Diana’s tray. “Thank you for rescuing me,” she said a little shyly. Forty-one minutes; she was going to make it.
“That man will talk till the stars go cold, and keep talking,” Diana said with a shake of her head.
“I’m Diana Reyes, by the way. This is my place.
” She cut a square of the cake, moist and golden with a layer of fresh strawberries and cream atop the golden sponge, and put it onto a plate.
She pressed it into Willow’s hands and handed her a fork.
“You look like you need a minute. Go sit outside; I’m told my grandmother’s tres leches cake recipe is legendary, and who am I to argue?
Then come back and talk to Rina. She’s hurting, and she needs you. ”
“But—”
“She doesn’t know she does, and you might not know it either, but it’s true. More than that—you need each other. Best stop running away from it.”
Before Willow could respond, Diana slipped away.
Willow exited the café and took a seat on one of the broad granite boulders outside.
The village green was blessedly calm after the buzz and movement in the little shop; Willow had indeed needed this quiet moment and wondered how Diana had pegged her so perfectly.
Willow took a bite of the cake, then closed her eyes for a moment, lost in creamy berry-laden bliss.
Diana had not been kidding about her grandmother’s recipe.
She was pulled out of her sugar trance by a little chuffing sound a few feet away.
She opened her eyes to see a sturdy, loaf-shaped corgi, its brown-and-white coat splashed with patches of black and gray, sitting on the ground next to her.
His pointed ears stood at full attention as he gazed up at her longingly; one eye was blue and the other brown, but both intently followed her fork from plate to mouth and back to the plate again, as though willing the utensil to tilt just enough on its journey to let the morsel slip off.
“Look,” Willow said firmly. “You are super cute and undeniably appealing. But this is tres leches cake. This is Diana Reyes’s grandmother’s tres leches cake. I am told it is legendary—and having tasted it now, I can verify it deserves every bit of its status.”
One drop of drool fell from the dog’s white muzzle down to the grass.
Either he lacked the grace to appear embarrassed at his social faux pas or he was concentrating too hard on the movement of the fork; the heterochromatic eyes followed her fork up and down, and Willow could have sworn the dog was deliberately sucking his cheeks in to give an impression of underfed emaciation.
As one-sided as the conversation was, Willow realized this was probably the most satisfying company she had found since arriving on the island. That was worth something, wasn’t it?
At some point, a good-size dollop of cake, graced by a neat slice of strawberry, fell off the plate. It did not make it to the ground; the dog caught it halfway down.
They both pretended it was an accident.