Tears were rolling down Zoey’s cheeks. “That explains a lot about your love life!”
“Seriously, I can’t believe you told something so gruesome to a little girl,” Gabi repeated.
Red-faced from cracking up, Mark snorted. “A little girl? She was thirteen!”
“I was not!” Zoey protested. “Don’t listen to him, Gabi. I was only seven or eight… eleven, max.”
All three of them burst out laughing again. When they settled down, Mark boasted, “You have to admit, I had you convinced.”
“Yeah, at first. But when I told Jessica about it, she said you made the whole thing up.” Jess never allowed anyone—especially Mark—to steer her little sister wrong. Remembering, Zoey thought, If she’d been here when I was seeing Erik, she would have tipped me off about him right away, too…
“Later that night you hid my skateboard behind the beach roses in the back yard for payback, remember?”
“Yeah. You looked for it for two days—Aunt Sylvia was the one who found it when she went out to clip flowers for her bud vase.”
“You two loved ganging up on me,” Mark accused, but he was grinning.
Zoey had forgotten about the pranks she and Jessica played on Mark and she was pleased he seemed to have such fond memories of the trio’s childhood antics, too. It occurred to her that over the course of the last ten years, she’d heard him laugh on occasion but she couldn’t recall ever hearing him howl in amusement the way he’d done just now about the Legend of Captain Chadwell, as they later titled it.
Gabi pointed to the oversized, black and white portrait photograph of a young man with a brilliant smile hanging above the fireplace. “At least your grandfather never got scurvy, Mark.”
“That’s not his grandfather—that’s Aunt Ivy’s husband, Dennis,” Zoey told her niece. “Mark’s grandfather’s portrait is hanging in the other parlor, with the rest of the paintings of Aunt Ivy’s closest relatives.”
“Oh, sorry.” Gabi narrowed her eyes at the portrait, her cheeks going pink.
“It’s hard to keep track of how we’re all related,” Zoey said, waving away her niece’s embarrassment.
She went on to explain a little about Ivy’s family. Ivy had been the eldest child of Thomas and Adele Winslow. Next came Charles, who was Zoey’s grandfather and Gabi’s great-grandfather. And then Ivy’s younger brother, Marcus—he later married Sylvia, who had become as close as a true sister to Ivy. Their son and grandson were both named Marcus, too, but everyone called their son Marcus Jr.—or sometimes just Junior—and their grandson Mark, so there wouldn’t be any confusion. Ivy’s immediate family members had sat for the portraits when she was sixteen and the paintings had hung in the same places ever since. Thomas Winslow had barred all other portraits, including those of spouses and offspring, from the best room.
After his death, Ivy continued to honor her father’s wishes, and she positioned the photo of her husband, Dennis Cartwright, prominently above the mantel in the living room, instead. The armchair opposite it was tacitly understood to be “Ivy’s seat” and no one else ever sat in it. She presumably had situated it there so she could gaze across the room at her long-deceased, handsome husband’s likeness. On occasion, Zoey had caught Ivy talking to him, too.
“When Aunt Ivy is up to it, we’ll ask her to tell you more about her father and brothers and her beloved Captain Denny—that’s what she calls her husband. She loves to talk about them and it’s so interesting to learn about our family hist—”
Wiping his forehead with his palm, Mark interrupted, grumbling, “It’s really hot in here.”
For once, Zoey agreed with him. “Yeah, it is. If you give me a hand, we could install the window screens earlier than usual this year.”
“I think Ivy hired a guy to come and do that in a couple of weeks,” Mark said, missing her point. Or ignoring it on purpose.
“But if we do it ourselves, she doesn’t have to pay someone else.”
“The kid’s a high school student. The same one who takes care of the lawn. He probably needs to earn the money.”
That’s a convenient excuse, Zoey thought, as the moment of camaraderie they just experienced seemed to dissipate into thin air. “Have you ever considered that maybe Aunt Ivy needs to save money? She’s on a fixed income, you know.”
“She’s hardly strapped for cash. She’s got a trust fund,” Mark replied.
“You don’t know how much of that she has left or what she might need to reserve for the future if she gets sick or needs long-term care.”
“If it means that much to you, fine, put the screens in yourself. I’ll tell the kid’s dad not to bother sending him over here.”
Zoey was about to say she couldn’t put them in herself—she was too short, that’s why she needed Mark’s help—when what he’d said sunk in. “How do you know so much about who she hired?” Don’t tell me—Aunt Ivy asked you for help with the screens and you pawned the job off on someone else.
“His father’s a buddy of mine from high school. He takes care of all Ivy’s repairs—and he did her flooring in the spare room last spring. We’re meeting on Friday to discuss the kitchen renovations.”
“Wa-wait a second,” Zoey stuttered. “What renovations?”
“I just told you. Kitchen renovations,” Mark said drolly. “You know, granite countertops, new cabinets. Maybe we’ll even knock out that wall, open the space up.”
“Whose idea is that?” As if I have to ask.
“I was the one who brought it up after the incident with the gas, but Ivy seems to agree it’s a good idea—who wouldn’t? That room is hideous.”
On one hand, Mark had a point. With its dark cupboards, yellow laminate countertops and brown appliances, the kitchen’s 1970s design was appallingly outdated. And it was completely incompatible with the style of the other rooms. So Zoey didn’t blame Mark for wishing their aunt would make some alternations.
In fact, years ago she’d spent her summer vacation trying to convince Ivy to remodel the kitchen, too. Or at the very least, to allow Zoey to paint the cupboards. But she backed off after Ivy confided the reason she couldn’t bear to change the room. Apparently, the water damage that necessitated the renovation in the 1970s had occurred shortly after Sylvia’s son, Marcus Jr., got married and moved off the island permanently. Sylvia was absolutely despondent from missing him, but after Ivy got her involved in planning the remodel, she began to perk up. Sylvia had taken special delight in choosing the yellow color scheme, which she said made her feel as if it was sunny inside the house no matter what the weather outside was like. Decades later, Ivy still refused to re-do the room, knowing how much designing it had meant to her sister-in-law.
Now that Sylvia had died, Zoey anticipated that her aunt would be even more resistant to making unnecessary alterations to the kitchen. So, while Zoey personally hated the décor as much or more than Mark did, she wasn’t going to let him force Ivy to change something that held so much sentimental value for her.
“She might need a new stove, but countertops and cabinets? Knocking out a wall? No way. She loves this house the way things are.”
“She may be ready for a change.”
“Everyone knows it’s unwise for people to make major changes or decisions when they’re grieving. I don’t want Aunt Ivy to do something now that she regrets later, when she’s thinking more clearly. What’s the rush, anyway?”
It was a stupid question. Zoey knew what the rush was; Mark wanted to get a jump start on profiting from his inheritance. Why wait until Ivy died to begin renovations, when he could literally pull the rug out from under her now? This way he could lease the house out the moment she passed away. And although the house would go to Mark, any money their aunt had leftover from her trust fund would be divided equally between him, Zoey and Gabi. So it was in his best interest to have Ivy pay for the renovations now, instead of footing the bill later himself.
“No rush. No need to get all worked up about it, eithe
r. Like I said, we’re just going to discuss it with the carpenter. He’s not bringing a wrecking ball with him.” Mark casually yawned, stretching his arms.
Zoey hated it when he dropped a bombshell like that and then implied she was blowing things out of proportion. Especially in front of people like Gabi, who weren’t familiar with how crafty he could be when he wanted his way. But Zoey refused to allow him to make her look bad. So when he changed the subject to ask if she’d made lunch yet, instead of telling him off, she just shrugged. “There’s tuna in the pantry. Help yourself.”
“You’re not making something special for Gabi’s first day here?” Ivy and Sylvia had always made “special” meals to welcome their guests to Dune Island, as well as when it came time to say goodbye—and for any occasion they could think of in-between. Even though Mark knew Zoey wasn’t much of a cook, he apparently assumed because she was an aunt, she’d carry on this tradition. But the way he was playing the guilt card on her for his own benefit was so obvious it was almost laughable.
“Yes, I do intend to make a nice meal for Gabi. But I thought I’d wait until suppertime, since we had such a big brunch.”
Gabi leaped up. “I can make tuna fish sandwiches for all of us.”
“Thank you, Gabi. That’s really nice of you.” For being an absolute ingrate, Mark could sound genuinely appreciative when it suited him, the big phony.
“It is nice, but you don’t have to make lunch for us on your first day here, Gabi,” Zoey said, throwing her cousin’s words back at him.
“I don’t mind. I’m hungry, too.” Gabi was inching toward the door.
“You kids are hungry already?” Ivy asked as she teetered into the room. She was always a little unsteady when she first got out of bed or rose from a chair. She glanced at the clock on the mantel. “No wonder. It’s half past one. You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long. I’ll go fix you something.”
Now Zoey jumped up. She didn’t want her aunt to get dizzy. And she didn’t want to let Gabi set a precedent of waiting on Mark; she was supposed to be teaching her niece good boundaries. She didn’t especially want to make Mark a sandwich, either, since he was perfectly capable of making one himself, but she had to pick her battles. And she planned to save her energy for the war she was about to wage.
Because it was one thing for Zoey to keep her mouth shut when her aunt was turning a blind eye to Mark’s laziness or forking her money over to him so he could waste it on himself. It was quite another thing for him to take advantage of Ivy’s emotional vulnerability and twist her arm into altering—or giving up—what was still her house. There’s no way I’m going to sit idly by while Mark hustles Aunt Ivy the way Erik hustled me.
“No, Aunt Ivy, that’s okay. I’ll fix lunch,” she insisted. “Have a seat. You, too, Gabi. It will only take me a minute.”
She patted the cushion and Gabi returned to the sofa. Ivy took her usual seat in the armchair opposite Denny’s photograph portrait. And as Zoey left the room, Mark gave her such a smugly victorious look that she would have liked to add a few of his teeth to the dentil molding.
Chapter Three
Ever since Mark mentioned meeting with the carpenter to discuss kitchen renovations, Zoey had been waiting for an opportune moment to bring up the topic with her aunt. She wanted to spare her the hassle of listening to a high-pressure sales pitch from Mark and whatever swindler he knew from high school if all she wanted was a new stove. In which case, Zoey could research stoves online, order the model her aunt wanted and a technician from the appliance store undoubtedly would install the new one and take the old one away.
But she had difficulty finding the right time to mention it, since Ivy was prone to intense bouts of weeping, especially in the mornings when she first rose and realized she’d have to face another day without Sylvia. Having lost her own sister, Zoey understood how overwhelming that must have been. Especially because in the past sixty-some years, the only time Ivy and Sylvia had ever spent more than a few hours apart was when one or the other of them had to be hospitalized.
As for the evenings, on both Tuesday and Wednesday after climbing the stairs to go to bed, Ivy experienced chest pain. Although she’d suffered from it on occasion before, it was rare for her to have two consecutive episodes. The nitro pills her cardiologist prescribed helped within minutes both times, but once her discomfort let up, Zoey didn’t want to agitate her by discussing what was potentially a distressful subject.
That left the afternoons, which were also inconvenient because that’s when Mark dropped in. Surprisingly, on Wednesday after gobbling down the Philly cheesesteak sandwich Ivy made him for lunch, he intimated to Zoey that it was his turn to keep their aunt company. “Why don’t you go run your errands or do something by yourself for a while?” he suggested.
Zoey was immediately skeptical. Was he going to work their aunt over about selling the house while she was at the grocery store? Will I find a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn when I come back? she wondered.
But Gabi was jet lagged and had gone upstairs to nap, so Mark’s presence gave Zoey the opportunity to walk to the market in town without rushing home to check on Ivy. It wasn’t that her aunt couldn’t be left on her own, but when she was she had a tendency to be overcome with sadness. Sometimes she cried so hard she got a headache and Zoey was concerned she might wind up with angina, too.
So, she left and when she returned an hour later, Ivy and Mark were in the living room, playing cribbage. After they finished, he took off for the golf club and Zoey unabashedly asked her aunt what they’d discussed while she’d been shopping. Ivy said they’d been too busy playing cards to talk about anything in particular.
Maybe I’m too suspicious of him, Zoey thought. It could be that he truly enjoys playing cribbage with Aunt Ivy. Or maybe he’s just frittering away an hour or two until his friends are free to meet him at the club?
But her suspicion that Mark was up to something intensified when he hung around again after lunch on Thursday. “You and Gabi should take a walk down to the harbor,” he recommended. “Enjoy this gorgeous weather before she starts school tomorrow.”
Gabi jumped at the idea, so Zoey gave in, hoping some quality one-on-one time would do the teenager good. On hearing the news—via Zoey, since Gabi was refusing to answer the phone to her stepmother—that her dad had officially checked in to the recovery center, Gabi had seemed indifferent, but Zoey sensed her attitude was a façade. She hoped while the two of them took a walk, she would open up about what had been happening at home. Or how she felt about going to a new school the next day.
“Your skin is so fair, Jessica. I have sunblock in the bathroom cupboard if you need it,” Ivy offered before they set out.
“That’s not Jessica,” Mark immediately corrected her. “That’s Jessica’s daughter, Gabi.”
Ivy rattled her head. “Oh, did I call you Jessica? What am I thinking?”
Mark raised an eyebrow at Zoey, as if to say, “I told you she was losing it.” Which was absurd—Gabi looked so much like her mother that Zoey had to stop herself from calling her Jessica on a number of occasions. It was a slip of the tongue, not confusion.
“I already put sunblock on. In California, I wear it every day. But thanks for the reminder, Auntie.” Gabi answered sweetly.
Why would such a gentle-spirited girl attempt to take her father’s car? Zoey wondered as they descended the hill. More importantly, how could she make sure Gabi didn’t get into the same kind of trouble here?
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” she asked, struggling to match her niece’s long-legged stride.
“Not really.”
“That’s good. I’ve heard wonderful things about Hope Haven High. But, if anything goes wrong, you can talk to me about it. You can talk to me about anything. Anything at all.”
“You mean like my dad going into a recovery center or why I’m not answering Kathleen’s phone calls.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah, like that,
” Zoey responded frankly. “I’m happy to just listen or to provide help if I can, whichever you need, whenever you need it. And you can count on me to keep whatever you say between the two of us.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to talk about that stuff right now,” her niece told her and Zoey nodded, indicating there was no pressure. Then the girl deadpanned, “But you don’t have to worry about me stealing Aunt Ivy’s car from the garage or anything like that while I’m here.”
Sometimes, she’s too perceptive for her own good, Zoey acknowledged to herself. “I know I don’t, honey.” She linked her arm through her niece’s. “And do you know how I know that?”
“Because you trust me?”
“I do trust you. But that’s not how I know.”
“Is it because Aunt Ivy doesn’t have a car?”
“Oh, she has a car all right. You might not remember it, but she’s had the same car since before you were born. Since before I was born. It’s a champagne-colored Cadillac Coupe DeVille with leather seats, a real beauty. She has literally only driven it to church or to the market, so it’s in mint condition. She has someone start it for her throughout the winter, to make sure it’s still running. But you’d have to be crazy to attempt to back it out the driveway—it’s as big as a boat.”
“Is that why you picked me up in a rental?”
“Yeah. Even if I managed to maneuver the Caddy to the ferry, they probably would have charged me a double fare to board. It’s so wide, it would overlap two lanes!”
“What happened to your car?”
Zoey hesitated. If she wanted her niece to be honest with her, she supposed she’d have to lead by example. “If I tell you, do you promise not to tell Aunt Ivy? And not Mark, either?”
“I won’t even tell Moby,” her niece quipped, reminding Zoey so much of Jessica’s humor that the flash of nostalgia made her breath hitch.
Zoey slowed her pace. Meandering through the park toward the beach, she explained that she’d lost her job in December. Although she’d been eligible for unemployment benefits, she’d had to stop collecting once Sylvia got sick because the rules required a claimant to be available and actively seeking work. Since she was gone so often anyway, Zoey sublet her apartment, along with the use of her car, to the friend of a friend, in order to pay her mortgage.
Aunt Ivy's Cottage: A totally gripping and emotional page turner Page 5
