Crazy Ride

by Nancy Warren

  “So you did see her. I thought so.” He revisited that moment when he’d witnessed the woman tuck a silver dish into her bag. “She stole one of your--” He didn’t quite know what to call all that junk. ”Your ornaments. In fact she stole a couple.”

  “Yes. I know. She doesn’t mean to, poor soul. She’ll give my things back tomorrow.”

  “Give them back? In New York, pilfering the silver is petty larceny. I think that’s a class B misdemeanor.”

  Emily laughed softly. “This is Beaverton, Joe. I know it’s wrong of her, but she can’t help herself. Taking pretty things makes her so happy, and she always returns them. Come with me, tomorrow, if you like. See if I don’t get my property back.”

  He shook his head in puzzlement. He really didn’t have time to traipse all over town. He needed to view the potential property. “I can’t resist. You’re on. How do we do that exactly? Do we wear all black, throw stockings over our heads and break in?”

  She smiled mysteriously. “Wait and see.”

  God she was cute. Her eyes were big and blue, her lashes ridiculously long and dark. Her hair was a tumble of dark honey and her mouth looked like it talked sweet all day, and whispered dirty all night.

  It had been a long time since a woman had intrigued him this way even though she wore a starched apron and was surrounded by nutbars, some of whom had grave doubts about his sexual prowess.

  His attraction surprised him. Partly it had to do with the way she smelled, like ginger and cinnamon. Like cookies his grandmother would have baked if his grandmother hadn’t been so busy winning tennis championships at her country club. All he knew was that he wanted to spend some time with this woman, with her sex-obsessed aunts and her cucumber sandwiches.

  When he went back into the parlor to collect more dishes, the other women were gone. He picked up Miss Trevellen’s teacup and plate. She’d folded her napkin neatly and dropped not so much as a crumb, and yet she’d pilfered from her hostess right before his eyes.

  A sudden thought occurred to him on his way back to the kitchen. The spun sugar haired aunt had said they opened the doors and announced that everyone was cured when the sanatorium closed. “Was Miss Trevellen a patient of Dr. Beaver’s?” he asked when he re-entered the kitchen.

  Emily paused in the act of placing crisp little cookies into an old-fashioned cookie jar. “The Beaverton sanatorium has been closed for a long time,” she said at last, as though she thought her kleptomaniac neighbor’s antics were somehow covered under doctor/neighbor privilege.

  In a way he admired that kind of loyalty; besides, her very evasion had answered his question. “Does the local law enforcement know about Miss Trevellen’s little hobby? Those pearls around her neck were worth a fortune.”

  She glanced up in surprise. “You know about women’s jewelry?”

  “I know a little bit about a lot of things. Well? Do they?”

  “Look, Joe, Miss Trevellen’s family was very well off. Those pearls have been in her family for generations. She’s not a thief. You’ll see.”

  “Just the local kleptomaniac who wasn’t entirely cured when they closed up the loony bin?”

  Her lips closed tight.

  “No,” he said. “Don’t do that. Say whatever you want to say.”

  “You’re a guest at the Shady Lady. I can’t.”

  “Believe me, nothing you say is going to make me run off screaming into the night. I like this place. And I’m curious.”

  “All right. The sanitarium was not a ‘loony bin’ and that is an entirely insensitive term.”

  “Bet your Aunt Olive wouldn’t think so. I definitely heard her refer to most of the townspeople as loons.”

  She turned around and planted her hands on her hips. “Aunt Olive is eighty-three years old and was brought up in a less kindly age. She has an excuse. You should know better.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call it the loony bin to anyone but you.”

  “Fine.” She started to turn away then seemed to change her mind. “Joe, Beaverton is a very special place. This is the kind of town that barely exists any more. People look out for each other and for the most part live happily and in harmony with each other and their world. We know our neighbors by name and we do our best to get along. But there are some eccentrics here.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Define eccentric.”

  “All I’m suggesting is that you keep an open mind.”

  “Apart from you the only remotely normal person I’ve seen is that Frenchwoman.”

  “Madame Dior?”

  “Yes, the dark woman with the Parisian accent who came to tea with the klepto.”

  “Madame Dior’s real name is Dorothea Woodrow and the only French she speaks is what she’s picked up from movies and Edith Piaf records. She saw Catherine Deneuve in a Dior commercial and decided she was French.”

  He began banging his head quietly against the wall.

  “Really, it’s not so bad. Before that she was Eva Gabor on Green Acres.” She chuckled a little at the memory. “It was the obsessive use of ‘darlink’ that really got to us after a while.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Tell me the worst. What nutbar gene is running through your blood?”

  She colored slightly. “I wish you would find some more modern, appropriate and politically correct terms.”

  “You’re stalling. Let’s see.” He helped himself to an apple from the fruit bowl and munched. He was hungry and figured he’d expended more energy in chewing those minute sandwiches than he’d taken in. “Your granddaddy thought he was Napoleon and your grandmother decided she was France and surrendered to the emperor.”

  She rolled her eyes and went back to putting the food away.

  “Oh, no. I’ve got it. She was his nurse. Or maybe he was her nurse. I’m trying to be politically correct and all that,” he said, when she raised her gaze and looked as though she might smack him with her wooden spoon. “And … and …” How was he supposed to think when she looked at him like Eve must have looked at Adam, and still smelled of cinnamon and ginger and brown sugar. She was sex and comfort all rolled into one mouth-watering package. “They decided to play nurse?”

  “Wrong again.”

  “But I’m getting warmer.”

  Finally she said, “My great grandmother founded the town brothel. My grandmother ran it and added some extra services.”

  He stopped chewing to stare at her in amazement.

  “Didn’t you know this was the former brothel? It’s in the brochure and on our website.”

  “My secretary told me this was the only place to stay in town. I never saw any brochure. So your grandmother was a—“

  “I adored her. She taught me a lot.”

  Really? He wondered just what that might be. Decided he’d like to find out.

  “I went away to college but came back to help her run this place.”

  “You ran a brothel?” Maybe she was a nutbar after all.

  She sent him a don’t be any stupider than you can help look. “It was a bed and breakfast by then. When Dr. Emmet stopped practicing there was no call for Intimate Healers any more.”

  “How disappointing.”

  A sudden grin lit her face. “There’s an attic full of old costumes and, um, things.”

  “Maybe you’ll show me some time.”

  The grin hadn’t completely faded, and now she sent him a provocative glance under her lashes that had to have been passed down in the Shady Lady gene pool.

  There was a pause. He finished his apple and went to throw the core into the trash but she stopped him and directed him to a small plastic bin decorated with flowers. It said Compost in fancy script on the side.

  “Well,” she said. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Did you think any more about those restaurants?” he asked her, not nearly ready to leave her company.

  “I’m not sure…”

  “I’ve got an idea. It’s a nice evening. Why don’t you walk me downtown and poi
nt out the best places.” He moved a step closer. “Better still, why don’t you have dinner with me?”

  She turned all the way around until her back was against the counter, then she fiddled with her apron tie. “Dinner. With you.”

  He found himself smiling. “Yes.”

  “Like a date?”

  “Exactly like a date.” Not that he’d really thought of it in such quaint terms.

  “Why?” She looked up at him with those big blues.

  “Because you’re a beautiful woman, I’m alone in town, and the bed and breakfast doesn’t serve dinner.”

  A tiny dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth when she smiled a certain way. “All right.” She must get asked out all the time, but he got the feeling she didn’t say yes very often. She was intriguing him more by the minute.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You must be very hungry,” Emily said beside him, sounding a little breathless. They were walking downtown for dinner.

  “Not particularly.”

  “Do you always walk this fast?”

  He turned to her and saw that she was nearly jogging to keep up with his stride. He had to remind himself this was Podunk, Idaho on a Sunday. “Sorry,” he said, making an effort to slow his pace.

  “It’s okay. Walking with you is like a workout with a personal trainer and I can use the exercise.” They continued walking, and he did his best to dawdle along, but he wasn’t much good at it.

  “Well, here we are on Main Street,” she said a moment later.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked, staring ahead at what looked like a rat rampant. It was carved out of wood and stood at least twenty feet high dominating the boulevard running down Main. The creature stood on its hind paws, baring buck teeth which had been carved out of some much whiter wood. The whole effect was enough to put a man off his dinner.

  “That’s our town mascot. The beaver. The town council voted to erect a statue of Emmet Beaver back in his heyday and the carver somehow got the wrong idea.”

  “Poor Dr. Beaver.”

  “Actually, the story goes that he loved it. And then it turned out to be a tourist attraction. I believe we have the largest carved beaver in the country.”

  He stared at the thing. “Probably the world. I’m surprised they didn’t call Main Street Beaver Boulevard.”

  “Emmet Beaver vetoed the idea, I believe, out of modesty. There’s a Beaver Boulevard out in our only suburb though.”

  “He wasn’t too modest for a twenty foot carved beaver in the middle of town?”

  She glanced up at him and he could see her blue eyes twinkling. “I guess not.”

  He stared at the world’s biggest beaver for another moment and then shook his head, knowing there was not one single comment he could make that wouldn’t get him into trouble. “So, where is this restaurant?”

  “Belle’s Home Cooking is a couple of blocks down and then left.”

  “Belle’s Home Cooking.” Yep, he was in Podunk, all right, but her next words still surprised him.

  “It’s well named. It really is Belle’s home. Ever since her kids moved out she’s missed them so much she keeps cooking big family meals and whoever wants to come for dinner shows up.”

  “What’s on the menu?”

  The street was all but deserted so he had no trouble hearing Emily, or following where she led, which was straight down Main.

  “Whatever she feels like cooking. For a while, after her youngest went off to college she kept up the same weekly meal plan she’d served her family for decades. Roast on Sunday nights, leftovers on Mondays, Tuesdays was pork chops in mushroom sauce. Thursday was … um spaghetti I think. No maybe it was chicken and mashed potatoes. Yes, that’s right. Saturday was spaghetti. After a couple of years, people started to complain so now she’s added some new stuff. I’m not going to fool you, though. It’s plain home cooking.”

  “So this woman serves whatever the hell she feels like and people come and eat it.”

  “Yes, that’s right. She’s a very good cook. She sets her big table in the dining room and she’s got a trestle table set up in the kitchen. Some people prefer that, because then they can chat to Belle while she’s cooking. She’s happy because she doesn’t miss her kids so much, and anyone in town who’s hungry for a simple home cooked meal and doesn’t feel like cooking themselves can go on down there.”

  “And you all share a table?”

  “That’s right.”

  He thought about Belle running her restaurant on a whim, and the woman he’d met at tea who’d decided one day to become French, and the old dear pocketing other people’s treasures because she liked them. “Does everyone in this town just do whatever they feel like?”

  She thought it over for a minute. “Pretty much. We frown on causing pain or harm. But that’s about it.”

  “This is the craziest damn place I’ve ever seen.”

  “Happiest too, I bet.” She drew closer to him and he liked the sense of intimacy. “It’s Sunday, so Belle will have a roast of some kind. That all right with you?”

  “What are the other options?”

  “Ernie’s.” So there were only two places to eat in town and one was somebody’s home kitchen. Why was he not surprised?

  “Tell me about Ernie? And if he calls himself Colonel and serves fried chicken, I’m not interested.”

  “Honestly, Joe. You should try to keep an open mind.” She shook her head at him and pointed across the street to a tavern with a neon Budweiser sign in the window that looked as though it needed a new bulb. “Ernie’s wife got after him about his drinking, so he went out and opened his own bar.”

  “Why didn’t somebody stop him? I thought you didn’t cause each other pain in this place?”

  “Well, it’s a funny thing. He’s so busy tending bar that he doesn’t have time for drinking anymore. And he needed Marge to take over the kitchen, which she did. I think it saved their marriage. Now they have something in common, he’s taking pride in his work, she’s too busy running the kitchen to nag and things have worked out for them.”

  “Okay, I pick Ernie’s. I want to see this for myself.”

  He’d like to see Belle at work serving up roast dinner at her kitchen table, but he wouldn’t get Emily to himself if he did that, so the bar would work for tonight.

  Ernie’s was the kind of place where you played pool in the back. It was a little on the divey side, but he figured if a woman who liked linen and lilacs on her dining table wasn’t complaining, he wasn’t either. The tables in Ernie’s were made of dark wood, with heavy oak chairs. The bar itself was a long affair with bar stools that looked retro but were probably original.

  Considering he’d pretty much figured the entire town of Beaverton was populated by loonies, the patrons of Ernie’s looked normal enough.

  An older man in a ball cap nursed a beer at the bar, four kids who couldn’t have been drinking age for long and looked as though they’d worked at some kind of labor all day, wolfed burgers at a booth. Good, he thought. Those were the first people he’d seen in town that might be suitable hires for the new factory.

  The guy sitting at the bar nodded to Emily and the four boys said, “Hey.”

  He supposed Ernie must be the fiftyish guy behind the bar, with a mustache that needed trimming and thinning gray hair.

  “Hi, Emily,” he said, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “Thanks, Ernie,” she said. Joe watched the guy give him a thorough once over. He felt like Ernie was her dad and he was taking her to the prom. That look said, you’d better get her home by curfew and her panties better still be on. In spite of himself he was amused. She hadn’t been joking about people looking out for each other here.

  He let her choose the table – this was her turf after all -- and she settled into a quiet corner. Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson were wailing about all the girls they’d loved from a sound system that needed updating.

  Plastic menus were propped between th
e rice-laced salt and the pepper. She handed him a menu and didn’t bother taking one herself.

  “The hamburgers are good. The bratwurst is okay if you like a lot of onion. Stay away from the fish and chips. It tastes like the fish crawled all the way inland before dying.”

  “So noted.”

  “The meatloaf is great and the pork cutlet’s not bad.”

  He replaced the menu as Ernie showed up at their table. “What do you want to drink?”

  “Soda water for me,” Emily said.

  “I’ll have whatever beer’s on tap.”

  Ernie nodded. “And to eat?”

  “Meatloaf,” Emily said.

  “Make it two.”

  After Ernie had left he tried to form some tactful question about the place and its residents when she forestalled him.

  “You said you were conducting business in the area?”

  Well, when she was his landlady checking him in to the bed and breakfast he could sidestep the question, but now they were out on a date, it didn’t seem fair. Besides, this was the kind of place where if you sneezed the entire population offered you a tissue. He might as well be up front.

  “That’s right. I’m looking at some property on behalf of a client.”

  “Really? What property?”

  Did he tell her now or wait? She’d be delighted that he was here to bring a big factory and resulting prosperity to a town whose biggest attraction at the moment was a gigantic carved beaver. On the other hand, he didn’t want her getting her hopes up if he ended up advising his clients against the factory. And possibly, deep in his mind was the vestigial embarrassment that he was representing a company that manufactured such a foolish product.

  He was saved having to decide when Ernie came up with their drinks. He’d barely taken his first sip of beer when a portly woman with her hair in a bun showed up with their dinner. He got the same once-over but the wife was more direct than her husband. “Who’s your friend, Emily?”

  “This is Joe Montcrief, Marge. He’s a guest at The Shady Lady.”

  “That so?” Marge looked him up and down like he might only be pretending to be a guest at The Shady Lady, and she wanted him to know she had her eye on him.