Parfaits and Paramours

by Leena Clover

  “Kelly sent a lot of messages to someone,” Jenny told Brandon. “Did you notice she was using her phone a lot?”

  Brandon seemed to hesitate a bit. Then his face crumpled.

  “You’re right. Kelly might have been having an affair.”

  “What made you suspect her?”

  “It’s like you said,” Brandon explained. “She was on the phone a lot, even when she was with me. I even joked about it. She said it was a friend who was in distress. She needed to hold her hand.”

  “That’s possible,” Jenny nodded, considering what Brandon said. “But not probable. If she was so close to this friend, why didn’t she introduce you to her?”

  “That’s what I thought too,” Brandon said bitterly.

  “If you suspected Kelly, why were you going ahead with the wedding?” Heather asked.

  “I was hopeful,” Brandon said. “I thought maybe she was having a last fling.”

  “You’re saying you would have been fine with that?” Jenny asked incredulously.

  Brandon clutched his head and groaned.

  “I have a headache. Can we talk later?”

  He stood up and started walking inside.

  Jenny and Heather talked about what had happened on the way back.

  “I’m sure he’s lying,” Jenny declared. “He’s hiding something.”

  “I believe Brandon,” Heather said supportively. “He was hopeful in spite of his suspicions. That’s a man in love.”

  Jenny dropped Heather off at the Bayview Inn and stopped at Mama Rosa’s, the island’s pizzeria, on the way home. She was feeling exhausted and was in no mood to cook dinner. She ran into Jason.

  “Hey Jenny!” he greeted her.

  They chatted while their order was getting ready.

  “Are you eating pizza every night?” Jenny admonished. “Why don’t you cook something simple at home?”

  “Cooking for one is a chore,” Jason said. “Most days, I’m too tired anyway.”

  Jenny extended a dinner invitation and made Jason order a salad with his pizza.

  That night, Jenny thought about Jason as she walked on the beach. Jason had been recovering from a bad breakup for the past year. She wanted him to be happy. Even though she had chosen Adam over Jason, she cared deeply for him. Deep down, she felt a bit guilty for turning him down.

  Dark clouds lined the horizon when Jenny stepped out of her house the next morning. The sky was overcast and a chilly wind whipped Jenny’s hair around. She headed to the Boardwalk Café and started getting breakfast ready.

  Jenny pulled out a pan of freshly baked banana nut muffins just as the clock struck six. The phone rang before she had a chance to open the café doors. It was Jason.

  Jenny rushed to Jason’s house, praying that everything was alright. She had been unable to make sense of Jason’s gibberish. He had been hysterical and Jenny had promised to go see him right away.

  Jenny scrambled out of her car a few minutes later. Jason was standing out on the porch, white in the face. He held a pink colored bundle in his hands. He stood there dumbly, staring at Jenny.

  “What’s wrong, Jason?” Jenny cried. “What’s going on?”

  Jason held his arms out to Jenny.

  “Emily,” he mumbled.

  “Speak up, Jason.”

  A wail arose from the bundle before Jason had a chance to say anything.

  “This is Emily,” he said, staring at the bundle in his hands. “Emily Stone.”

  Jenny’s eyes widened as she realized what Jason held. She gently eased the bundle out of his arms and stared down at the chubby infant. A pair of brown, almond shaped eyes stared back at her. The baby gurgled and waved a fist in the air, demanding attention.

  “Where did she come from?” Jenny asked softly, looking up at Jason.

  Chapter 10

  Jenny bustled through the breakfast rush at the Boardwalk Café. After grabbing a cup of coffee and a muffin for herself, she made a batch of her banana caramel parfaits. Heather arrived right on time to taste them.

  Heather dug into the delicious treat as Jenny dialed the number she had been calling for the last couple of days. She muttered an oath when the standard recording came on. The phone was still switched off.

  “Any luck?” Heather asked with her mouth full.

  “I’m beginning to think someone chucked this phone into the ocean.”

  “You may be right,” Heather said seriously. “You need Adam’s help here.”

  “I’m going to talk to him,” Jenny said, her mouth set in a firm line. “Are you sticking around here?”

  Heather nodded.

  “Grandma will be here soon. You go ahead. I will keep an eye on things here.”

  Jenny walked the couple of blocks to the police station, hoping Adam wasn’t too busy. The front desk was deserted and Nora, the desk clerk, was nowhere in sight. Jenny knocked on Adam’s door and went in.

  Adam sat with his leg propped up on a chair.

  “Is your leg bothering you again?” Jenny asked with concern.

  “No more than usual,” Adam said with a shrug. “What are you doing here, Jenny?”

  “I tried that number again,” Jenny said, pulling up a chair. “No response.”

  “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “You need to trace this number, Adam. Find out who it belongs to.”

  “Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?” Adam asked, suppressing a grin. “You know better than that, Jenny.”

  “All I’m saying is, this phone is important. It could be our biggest lead.”

  “Our?”

  “Whatever,” Jenny snapped. “This Paula person was close to Kelly. We need to hunt her down so we can talk to her.”

  “I agree with you this time,” Adam said. “I’m already on it.”

  “Will you let me know when you learn something?” Jenny asked.

  “I can’t promise that,” Adam said honestly. “It’s all part of my investigation. I’m not obligated to share any information with you, Jenny. You on the other hand, are.”

  Jenny stood up in a huff and stalked out. Adam was very particular about keeping his professional life separate from his personal one. She just wished he would cut her some slack once in a while.

  Jenny took the scenic route back to the café, going over everything she knew about Kelly so far. She spotted a few familiar faces on the beach and waved at them. A bright cornflower blue sky stretched above her with not a single cloud in sight. Many tourists seemed to have taken advantage of the fair weather and were beginning to arrive on the beach.

  Jenny spotted the Magnolias sitting out on the deck of the Boardwalk Café and her face broke into a smile. She picked up her pace, eager to join the lively discussion that seemed to be on.

  “What do you say, Jenny?” Betty Sue asked as soon as she spotted Jenny coming up the café’s steps. “Can Jason take care of Emily?”

  Jason Stone and his baby girl Emily had become the talk of the town. Jason had told Jenny the whole story after he had come out of his initial shock. There wasn’t much to tell. His doorbell had rung early in the morning. He opened the door to find a baby on his doorstep. His baby.

  There was a small note tucked in the baby’s blanket. It was from Kandy, a city lawyer who had unceremoniously dumped Jason and disappeared from his life. As it turned out, Kandy had been pregnant. She decided she wanted to have the child on her own. A few months after Emily was born, Kandy had come to a new decision. There was no room for a baby in her life. She had left the baby on Jason’s doorstep, probably believing he would take care of her.

  Jason had come out of his daze after a day or two. He was overjoyed. In his late forties, Jason had given up all hope of ever becoming a father. Emily was a gift he cherished with all his heart. His aunt Linda had taken one look at the baby and declared she was 100% Stone. Jason had turned his home office into a nursery.

  The old biddies in town wondered how a single man, a confirmed bachelor, c
ould raise a child on his own. But Jenny believed in Jason.

  “Of course he can,” she said supportively. “He’s going to be the best father you ever came across.”

  “But can he do it alone?” Molly asked. “You know what they say. It takes a village to raise a child.”

  “And we have that village here,” Jenny said brightly. “I have signed up for babysitting duty. I can’t wait to wrap that little munchkin in my arms.”

  “Jason’s out of town a lot,” Star reminded Jenny. “Who’s going to take care of the baby then?”

  “He can hire a full time nanny,” Heather said.

  “Or he can reduce his workload,” Jenny said. “I’m sure Jason will figure it out.”

  “It’s been a while since I bounced a baby on my knee,” Betty Sue sighed. “I wouldn’t mind looking after that little one sometime.”

  “I’m not changing any diapers,” Heather groaned, wrinkling her nose. “But I can play with her.”

  “I can read her a story,” Molly joined in.

  The group broke up after a while and Jenny started making lunch. Two hours later, she collapsed into a chair in the kitchen, exhausted.

  The café had been busy and they had sold out of everything.

  “I saved a sandwich for you,” her aunt said, pulling out a plate covered in plastic wrap from the refrigerator. “There’s half a cup of soup left.”

  Jenny took a big bite of the sandwich and warmed the soup in the microwave. Something had been niggling at the back of her mind all day. The fog in her mind cleared suddenly and she almost choked on her sandwich. Star patted her on the back as she started coughing.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie?”

  “How could I forget that?” Jenny chided herself and cleared her throat.

  “Why don’t you finish eating first?” her aunt suggested calmly.

  Jenny took a couple of minutes to finish chewing her sandwich.

  “Ada had an argument with Kelly on the night of the party,” she explained. “I was going to talk to Ada about it but I completely forgot.”

  “You can do it now,” Star said.

  “Do you want to go with me?” Jenny asked.

  Ada Newbury was a snob. She only talked to a small bunch of people in town. Star wasn’t one of them.

  “I have no wish to be insulted by that monster,” Star smirked. “You go ahead.”

  Heather was busy working at the inn so Jenny set off for the Newbury estate on her own. The security guards waved her through, and the maid who greeted her at the door led her into Ada’s parlor.

  Ada’s mouth twisted in a grimace when she saw Jenny.

  “Have you considered calling ahead?” she asked haughtily. “I’m afraid I have a golf lesson in fifteen minutes.”

  “We need to talk,” Jenny said, ignoring Ada’s thinly veiled rebuke.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. You can wait here until then. But it might be better if you came back with an appointment.”

  Jenny sat down on a sofa and looked up at Ada.

  “Do you want to find out what happened to Kelly?” she asked calmly. “I don’t have to do this, Mrs. Newbury.”

  Ada rolled her eyes and sat down opposite Jenny.

  “I suppose I can cancel my golf lesson.”

  She picked up a phone and dialed someone. She turned her back on Jenny and talked softly into the phone. She hung up a couple of minutes later.

  “I postponed my appointment,” she explained. “I’m lucky my coach agreed to move some things around.”

  Jenny got to the point.

  “People saw you arguing with Kelly on the night of the party. Can you tell me what that was about?”

  “Just wedding stuff,” Ada said.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Brandon doesn’t know about this,” Ada said softly, looking over her shoulder.

  “I’ll try to keep this to myself.”

  “That girl wasn’t right,” Ada complained, back in form. “I was giving her the wedding of a lifetime. A poor orphan like her, getting married at the country club? Any other girl would have been grateful.”

  “What did Kelly do?”

  “She didn’t want the club wedding. She was happy with a civil ceremony. She wanted me to take the money I would spend on the country club wedding and give it to her.”

  “But why?” Jenny asked, perplexed.

  “She said she needed it for a down payment on a house, the house she and Brandon would live in after they got married.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Jenny shrugged.

  “Brandon already has a place of his own,” Ada dismissed. “There was no need to go buy another house.”

  “Didn’t Kelly know that?”

  “Of course she did,” Ada cried. “I think she just wanted my money. She would have taken the money and run.”

  Jenny wondered if Kelly had been that calculating.

  “Leaving Brandon at the altar?” Jenny asked.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” Ada said strongly.

  “I need to find out more about this argument,” Jenny told Ada. “I’m going to talk to a few more people.”

  “Do that,” Ada said curtly. “And call before coming next time.”

  Jenny wandered through the house, hoping to run into some of the staff that had been working the night of the party. She gravitated toward the kitchen. The cook greeted her like an old friend.

  “Got more questions for me?” she asked.

  “It’s about the fight Ada had with Kelly. I want to find out more about it.”

  The cook picked up a wall mounted phone and pressed a button. She asked the person at the other end to come into the kitchen. Jenny guessed it was an internal line.

  Jenny recognized the maid who walked into the kitchen a few minutes later.

  “This is about the night of the party,” Jenny began. “You saw Mrs. Newbury arguing with Kelly, right?”

  “Those two were ready to gauge each other’s eyes out,” the girl said with a grin.

  “Do you know what happened?”

  “It was about money,” the girl said, climbing up on a tall stool next to the big kitchen island. She picked up a carrot from a pile and started peeling it. “I think the boss wanted her to go away and leave Mr. Brandon alone.”

  Jenny could imagine Ada doing that.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  The girl became defensive.

  “Kelly was saying she didn’t care about the money. She just wanted to make Brandon happy.”

  “What else?”

  The girl’s voice dropped as she leaned toward Jenny.

  “The boss got all red in the face. Told Kelly she better listen to her or else. Then she pushed Kelly.”

  “I can’t imagine Ada doing that,” Jenny said skeptically.

  “Talk to the others,” the girl said. “They will tell you the same thing.”

  Jenny spent the next hour talking to other members of Ada’s domestic staff. All of them had watched the altercation between the two women. Each of them had their own theory about what the fight was about. They all seemed to agree on two things. Money had been mentioned. And Ada Newbury had pushed Kelly.

  Jenny felt confused on the drive back home. She knew Ada was a snob and loved talking down to people she didn’t consider her equals. Jenny could well imagine Ada looking down her nose at Kelly, calling her names. She could even imagine Ada offering the girl a bunch of money to leave Brandon alone. But was Ada Newbury capable of physically assaulting someone?

  Chapter 11

  Jenny had a surprise waiting for her when she got home. Her son Nick sat dozing on the sofa, his feet up on the coffee table.

  “Nicky!” Jenny cried joyfully. “When did you get here?”

  She had no idea he had been planning a visit home.

  Nick sat up and rubbed his eyes. His youthful face broke into a smile. He leapt up and wrapped Jenny in a tight hug.

  “I mis
sed you, Mom,” he said. “I just wanted to spend some time with you. Is that okay?”

  “Of course it’s okay,” Jenny said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “You don’t need permission to come home.”

  “You sure I’m not upsetting any weekend plans?” Nick asked with a grin.

  “Don’t be silly,” Jenny dismissed.

  Nick was a junior in college. He wanted to be a lawyer like his father.

  “Why didn’t you warn me you were coming?” Jenny asked as she walked into the kitchen. “I would have stocked up on your favorite stuff.”

  “I’m not here for the food, Mom,” Nick grinned. “I mean, not just for the food,” he said with a wink. “Whatever you cook is going to be great.”

  Jenny inspected the refrigerator, noting its meager contents.

  “How about meatloaf for dinner?” she asked. “We will get fresh fish at the market tomorrow.”

  Star arrived and exclaimed over Nick.

  Dinner was a lively meal, with Nick regaling them with anecdotes of his campus life.

  Jenny and Nick sat out on the patio later, sipping coffee. The salty air was a bit chilly, but pleasant enough to sit outside. A large stone water fountain gurgled a few feet away and a gibbous moon rose in the sky.

  “How’s Adam?” Nick asked his mother. “Is he behaving himself?”

  Jenny punched her son in the arm.

  “Don’t get fresh.”

  “Seriously, Mom,” Nick said. “Is he treating you well? I know he tends to fly off the handle sometimes.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Jenny assured him. “Adam’s changed a bit. For the better.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Nick nodded, sounding decades older than twenty. “When are you getting married?”

  Jenny blushed.

  “We haven’t set a date yet. What’s the rush?”

  “You know you have my blessing?” Nick asked her. “I’m with you whatever you decide to do. You can dump the guy or marry him tomorrow. It’s your call.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Jenny said lightly. “Now let’s talk about your grades.”

  Nick groaned and launched into a lengthy explanation of why he had dropped one class and was barely scraping through in another.