The House Guests

by Emilie Richards

  “No Yiayia?”

  “I asked her to come, but she says we can’t both leave the restaurant.” Roxanne lowered her voice, even though Yiayia wasn’t there. “She’s been afraid to fly ever since 9-11. You didn’t know? That’s why she never goes back to Greece. Whenever flying is mentioned she tells the story of Icarus. Like we’re demanding she strap on wax wings and soar to the sun.”

  Cassie hadn’t realized Yiayia was afraid of anything. “I guess she’s never going home again, then.”

  Roxanne lifted one brow. “There are boats.”

  “That would be one long cruise.”

  “Wouldn’t it, though?” Roxanne smiled and let the silence stretch. “Wouldn’t it just?”

  Amber came out of the kitchen. She’d removed her apron and now she stretched her arms over her head and swayed back and forth. “We did it, ladies.”

  “Couldn’t have done it without you.” Roxanne grabbed her for a quick hug. “You are something special.”

  Amber looked pleased. “I hate to spoil this lovely moment, but Buck just gave me bad news. Somebody defrosted the rest of his lamb shanks. They moved them from the freezer to the refrigerator this morning and forgot to move them back.”

  Cassie didn’t voice what all of them were thinking. Yiayia, who felt it was her job to rearrange and keep track of supplies, was the most likely culprit.

  Amber went on. “They’re fine but can’t be frozen again. Anyway the shanks go on the menu tonight, and he wants to make stew but he’s out of canned tomatoes. Should I run to the market?”

  “Lamb stew is perfect,” Roxanne said. “Even Mama can’t argue with that. I’m sure we have extra cans of tomatoes in the storeroom, if I can get to them. It’s a mess in there.”

  “Let me guess,” Cassie said. “Yiayia knows where everything is and doesn’t want anybody else to organize it.”

  “You know your yiayia.” Roxanne beckoned and started across the floor. “And she refuses to buy a real point-of-sale computer system that would track everything, along with, oh, a hundred other important parts of running a restaurant. You two help carry what we need.”

  Cassie hadn’t realized the Kouzina now had a storeroom, since there hadn’t been one when she worked there during high school. The kitchen wasn’t large, and the space wasn’t well utilized. She visualized frequent trips back and forth, but even that was better than it had been, when cans and bottles were piled into pyramids in corners and someone always needed to shop for whatever was missing.

  She and Amber followed Roxanne to a doorway on the side of the dining room. She had assumed the door led to an employee restroom or an office, but when Roxanne unlocked it and swung the door open, Cassie saw a space the size of a small living room, cluttered and crowded but considerably more expansive than a kitchen pantry.

  She joined Roxanne, and Amber squeezed in behind her. “Wow, where did all this come from? What was here before?”

  Roxanne was moving cans from side to side with the toe of her shoe. “It was a newsstand. Do you remember? Books and newspapers from Greece? Souvenirs and penny candy?”

  Cassie couldn’t. “I guess not.”

  “When the property came up for sale, my father bought it. He always intended to expand the restaurant, put in more tables, maybe display baked goods in a case along one wall. But he never had the money to expand, and more restaurants were being added nearby, so it didn’t seem sensible to him. He gave the space to Mama instead. You don’t remember this?”

  “Before my time? After?”

  Roxanne moved more cans, bending over to clear a path. “He wanted her to make it into a souvenir shop, not that there weren’t already a ton of those, but I honestly thought he believed a shop would keep her out of the kitchen. At least some of the time.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Not for long. The shop was a disaster. He wanted low priced items she could sell for more than they were worth, and sponges. She wanted nothing but the best—real souvenirs straight from Greece, which people only want to buy in Greece. Here they want nice little souvenirs they can afford. He convinced her the space was needed for storage, so Mama went back to the kitchen, and he walled over the door to the street. For once she didn’t disagree. It’s not as sad as it sounds. She was bored standing here waiting for customers who didn’t buy anything.”

  “It’s been a storeroom ever since?” Amber asked.

  “More like a dump. It matches the apartment upstairs,” Roxanne said.

  The other two women each grabbed a can of tomatoes and left, discussing the server schedule. Cassie was dusting off another of the giant tomato cans to bring along when her cell phone rang. She perched on the crates Roxanne had just vacated and saw the call was from Ivy.

  She answered immediately. “Ivy?”

  “Hi, Cassie.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for a couple of days. Are you all right?”

  There was a pause, and then a little laugh. “As well as I can be, considering I’ve lost my job.”

  “I’m sorry. I saw you were no longer listed on the website.” She thought she ought to explain. “I was checking for Zoey Charles, but then I realized that you were...”

  “Kaput? Yeah, that’s me. Wednesday was my last day. Zoey’s been gone for a while. She was Dr. Dorman’s go-to, like I was Mark’s, and I think he found her a supervisory position in Michigan somewhere.”

  “Do you want to talk about this?”

  “There’s not a lot to say. Dr. Dorman has pull at Riverbend, and I guess we went head-to-head about a patient one time too many. He went over my head, and then over my supervisor’s. I was told if I left without a fuss, I’d get a good recommendation and the administration would be sure I was eligible for unemployment. Potential employers would be told that fewer patients were being admitted to behavioral health. I was the most recently hired, so reluctantly they had to let me go.”

  “Will you be able to find another job without a lot of trouble?”

  “I’m probably going to take a break first. Between unemployment and savings, I’ll be okay for a while, and I need a month or two to unwind before a new job gears up again. I have to decide what kind of setting I want to work in next time. Time off will help.”

  Cassie was only half listening. Fletcher Dorman had been the one to oust Ivy. Of course that would never appear on a document or even, most likely, in any conversation Ivy was privy to, but her friend sounded certain. When she finished, Cassie encouraged her to take the time off, especially since nurses were so badly needed, and she wouldn’t have a problem finding something else. Then she decided to take a chance.

  “You said you and Fletcher went head-to-head.” She waited.

  “That’s not unusual. He’s very old-fashioned. Even the meds he prescribes are older ones he falls back on. This time he overmedicated a young woman and then tried to send her home when she could barely stand upright. I protested, and I guess that was the last straw.”

  From conversations with Mark, Cassie had been left with the idea that Fletcher was always trying new approaches.

  “Was that all?” she asked. “Just a disagreement about medication?”

  Ivy was silent so long Cassie knew she wasn’t finished. “What else?” she prompted. “Please tell me this didn’t have anything to do with the reason Mark left Church Street.”

  She was still silent.

  “Okay, obviously it did,” Cassie said. “You can tell me, Ivy. I’m sitting down.”

  “I can’t say for sure. But I think Dr. Dorman discovered I was asking questions. Another nurse told me he asked if I’d been sticking my nose into office politics.”

  “Who would have told him?”

  “Anybody who wants to be the next Zoey Charles. Doctors have a lot to say about the shifts we work and the pay we receive. They aren’t really supposed to have that muc
h impact, but that’s the way it works. And there’s no better way to get what you want than to make sure somebody else doesn’t get it first.”

  Cassie couldn’t blame Ivy for sounding cynical. “I am so sorry. This is my fault, because I was the one who asked you to probe.”

  “You can’t blame yourself. Apparently I’m not good at the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Besides, without Mark on staff, it was harder to be sure things ran the way they should have on my floor. I know I’ll find a better job when I start looking.”

  They chatted a little longer, and then Cassie hung up, promising to call again soon. Even though she was scrambling for some way to fix what she’d broken, she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do to help her friend.

  Amber appeared in the doorway. “Turns out I’m not on tonight, and I need to do a little shopping so I’m getting out of here. Do you have the energy to come with me? I could drop you back here to pick up your car when we’re done.”

  Shopping was only a little less effective than baking as a mood lifter. Cassie got to her feet. “Be careful,” she warned. “I just got somebody fired. As a friend, apparently I’m lethal.”

  “You can tell me about it on the way.”

  Cassie realized with startling clarity how glad she was to have Amber in her life.

  27

  SAVANNAH NO LONGER THOUGHT of the bedroom in the second suite as hers. Will’s stuff was scattered all over the room now, even the bed where she sat cross-legged as she read a packing list out loud. The room smelled like sweat socks and deodorant spray, and if she ever moved back in, she would need to do an exorcism first.

  Today was Valentine’s Day, and now that school was out, the afternoon marked the beginning of a long weekend for students because teachers had a workday tomorrow. She and Will had plans for exactly how to spend it, but once she finished reading the list she’d prepared, she realized he was frowning. Doubt could derail the entire weekend.

  She didn’t waste time easing into a pep talk. She started full throttle. “Everything’s falling into place, Will. Like we’re supposed to do this. Don’t wimp out.”

  “About a million things can go wrong.”

  Savannah dropped the list and held up one hand, tapping her thumb with the other. “Roxanne left for Paris, so nobody will know we took the car. It’s mine anyway, so it’s not like we’re stealing it. Plus I have a copy of her house key, so getting in and out will be easy.”

  She tapped her pointer finger. “We have tomorrow off, kind of a miracle, wouldn’t you say, so we don’t have to kill ourselves driving to Georgia and back in two days.” The third finger was next. “We both got permission to do Coastal’s annual field trip to remove non-native plants in the Ocala National Forest. We’ll let Cassie or Amber drop us off at school in the morning to catch one of the buses, and your mom and Cassie will think we’re pulling weeds and learning birdcalls instead of heading for Blayney. They’ll never figure it out.”

  She still had two fingers left, but she’d finished, so she rested her hands on the bed. “See? We’re set. We pack light. Just a change of clothes, something to sleep in and toiletries. I have money saved from checks Gen’s sent me, and you have some from your job. We leave early tomorrow, drive all day, sleep somewhere, and then start back Saturday, after you’ve had time to look around and visit your father’s grave. We stay overnight on the road, repark the car and then walk to school Sunday morning to arrive at the same time the buses do. My mom or yours picks us up and we tell them what a great time we had. Nobody will find out, and you’ll feel a lot better.”

  “You’re sure about that last one? Like you can tell how I’m going to feel when we’re back home again?”

  She held up her hand again and pointed to her fourth finger. “You get to drive the Mustang. Maybe that won’t cure your guilt, but it should cushion it.”

  “I told my mom I wouldn’t take this whole thing with my dad any further. This is further.”

  “She shouldn’t have asked. She doesn’t seem to get how important it is for a boy to know his father, or at least everything he can find out.”

  “What if I don’t like what I find?”

  Savannah folded the list into quarters, shoving it in the pocket of her jeans. “You know what I think? I think you can face whatever you learn a lot better than you can face not knowing. Don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer, but she could tell by his expression she’d made headway.

  Amber chose that moment to come into the suite. “Hey, you two. What’s up?”

  Savannah took the initiative, so that Will didn’t confess. “We were just deciding what we’d pack for the field trip.”

  “Did the school give you a list?”

  “It didn’t include important stuff like snacks and battery packs for our phones.”

  “The trip sounds like fun. Campfires and cookouts.”

  “Outhouses and wood ticks.” Savannah got off the bed. “Scorpions and rattlesnakes.”

  Amber laughed. “Not much of a camper are you?”

  “Will promises he’ll teach me whatever I need to know.”

  “I think it’s great you two volunteered,” Amber said. “But I bet you’ll sleep most of Sunday once you get back. I don’t think you’ll get much rest on the trip.”

  “Helia probably snores,” Savannah said. In reality Helia wasn’t going on the trip, either, but Savannah had told Cassie they were in the same tent to make her own attendance more believable. She wasn’t worried that Amber or Cassie might run into her friend that weekend because Helia was going to SeaWorld with her foster family.

  Savannah started through the sitting room and stopped. An incredible dress hung from a hook beside the door.

  Amber came up behind her. “What do you think?”

  “That is, well, completely amazing. That’s not the dress you showed me—that rag you and Cassie brought home last week.”

  “She didn’t believe me when I said it was perfect, either. I told you the fabric was gorgeous. Just because the designer was an idiot shouldn’t mean the fabric has to go to waste.”

  The original dress was a wedding gown no bride would wear down the aisle. The transformation was unbelievable.

  “I took it apart, and then I dyed the lace and the silk separately. And while you don’t always know what you’re going to get when you dye old fabric, the two shades of butterscotch were exactly what I wanted, darker lace, lighter silk. I made a sheath out of the silk and then covered it with the lace, using the prettiest panel in the front. I decided against sleeves, so I made thick straps to emphasize the plunging neckline.”

  “Well, you can carry it off.” Savannah wondered if she’d ever be able to fill out a dress like this one.

  Amber took the dress off the hook and laid it over her arm. “I made the underskirt shorter than the lace, see? So the dress is knee-length, but the inner skirt is shorter and flirty, plus it’s split up the back just far enough to make walking easy. I had all kinds of ideas for trim, but in the end I didn’t need them. The fabric said it all.”

  “You’re going to be gorgeous.”

  “You could do this. I could teach you to sew.”

  Amber was being so nice, Savannah felt bad that she and Will were about to deceive her. She even felt a little bad about lying to Cassie.

  “Maybe you could,” she said, forcing a bright smile. “The party’s tonight, right? Have a great time.” She called into the bedroom behind her. “See you in the morning if not before, Will.” She winked at Amber. “I’ll take good care of him.”

  On the way to her room her pocket vibrated, and then her cell phone began to play Ariana Grande’s “Break Free.” She held the phone to her ear without looking at the caller. “What’s up?”

  “Vanna?”

  Savannah held the phone at arm’s length for a moment and saw that yes, the call really
was from her mother. “Gen! I can actually hear you. You must have a primo connection today. Are you in Nairobi?”

  “No, I’m back in California.”

  By now Savannah was in her room. She closed the door and fell into her desk chair. “You left Kenya? I thought you weren’t coming back for another month or two.”

  “That was the plan, but we finished what we needed to at the clinic earlier than expected. And one of the doctors in the practice here in Palm Springs is having surgery. He’ll be out for a while, and they really needed me to come back. I have to say, I’m happy to be home, in my own place. I had a lot of work done by a decorator while I was gone, and it’s really gorgeous. I can’t wait for you to see it, Vanna.”

  Gen was the only person in the world who called Savannah Vanna. She might have liked the pet name better if it hadn’t reminded her of Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune—which she watched religiously if nobody was around to catch her.

  “I can’t wait, either.” Savannah wasn’t sure what else to say.

  As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Gen chatted about what she’d done in Africa—reconstructive surgery, mostly on children with birth defects—the condo renovations, the weather in Palm Springs, which was nearly perfect this time of year.

  Savannah liked Palm Springs. Deserts fascinated her, and sometimes she thought she might like to do something desert-related as a career. Geology maybe, or desert ecology. Of course the area where Gen lived wasn’t all that deserty because the towns and suburbs had grass even greener than the yards in Tarpon Springs. Her mother was always lobbying people to pull up their turf and put in desert friendly plants, and now, as part of her monologue she touched on that, too.

  She finally ground to a halt. “I’ve gone on and on about me. I want to hear all about you. I just wanted to catch you up.”

  Savannah wanted to please Gen. She had wanted to as long as she could remember, even during early visits to California when she’d been so homesick for Cassie and her father that she’d counted hours until she could fly home again. But Gen was her mother, the real deal—not like Cassie.