by Lee Hollis
When Lex told Hayley that Glenda Goodrich was suffering from Alzheimer’s, she knew she had to come prepared. She went online at the office and printed out an old picture of Julian Reed in his prime from the Nineties. She hoped the sight of him might trigger something in Glenda’s brain.
She pulled the picture out of her bag and held it up in front of Glenda.
“Do you remember him?”
Glenda lowered her gaze to stare at the picture. She took her time.
Studying every part of him.
And then she smiled.
“Of course I remember him. He was so hand-some.”
Hayley sighed with relief.
They were actually getting somewhere.
“That’s your Papa Frank. That picture was taken right about the time he joined the Navy in 1966.”
“No, Glenda, that’s the man I was talking about. Julian Reed.”
“That’s not Frank?” Glenda said, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. “Why don’t I remember?”
The nurse intervened. “It’s time for Glenda’s nap, Hayley. I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave now.”
The nurse had every right to protect Glenda Goodrich.
Hayley’s questions were clearly confusing and upsetting her.
And the last thing Hayley wanted was to make Glenda feel worse.
Hayley stood up and gave Glenda a gentle kiss on the forehead. “Thank you, Glenda. You get some rest now.”
Hayley turned and started to follow the nurse out the door when Glenda said in a quiet whisper, “They have their whole lives in front of them.”
Hayley whirled around. “What did you say, Glenda?”
“You know, those girls are about your age, Natasha.”
“What girls?”
The nurse sighed and placed a hand on Hayley’s arm to steer her out of the room. “It’s really time we left Glenda alone.”
“That bastard deserved what he got if you ask me,” Glenda spit out, chunks of vanilla pudding flying across the room.
Hayley shook free of the nurse’s grip and scurried back to the bed. “Who are you talking about, Glenda? Do you remember now? Is it Julian Reed?”
The nurse finally lost her patience.
She marched up to Hayley and grabbed her arm, this time more forcefully. “Let’s go, Hayley, please.”
Glenda locked eyes with Hayley, a grim look on her face, as the now angry nurse pulled her away toward the door.
“I would never say anything. Those girls did nothing wrong. And they’re so young. Why would I destroy their lives?”
“Glenda, what girls? Who are you talking about?”
And then she saw the light go out in Glenda Goodrich’s eyes.
“You tell Papa Frank to warm up the car before we go, Natasha. I’m not going to ride to church freezing my buns off.”
The nurse finally managed to hustle Hayley out of the room.
After a quick apology for overstaying her welcome, Hayley raced out of the retirement home to her car in the parking lot.
Glenda Goodrich may have been mostly spewing nonsense.
But for a brief second, her thoughts crystallized into a very specific clear memory.
And it was enough for Hayley to finally start piecing together the puzzle.
Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell
The other evening my son Dustin informed me his class was having an end-of-school-year party and handed me a list of all the treats the other parents were making for their kids to bring. I instantly knew I would make my grandmother’s Chocolate Angel Food Cake. An always reliable party-time favorite. One thing I knew for sure was I had plenty of eggs for it.
This past winter I had become a bonafide chicken farmer. It was never a life-long dream, mind you, but it has certainly cut down my grocery bill now that I supply my own eggs.
My elderly neighbor, Mrs. Adelaide Gray, who feared the government was systematically poisoning us through processed food, decided to grow her own garden, which eventually included chickens to lay the four boiled eggs that she ate every morning. She had recently fenced in her yard and bought five chickens from a local former. Other than my kids complaining about the occasional clucking and a few escaping through a hole in the fence into my own backyard that I had to toss back once I got over my fear of touching them, the whole enterprise was relatively harmless.
Slowly, I began feeding them stale bread or a few leftovers since it was snowy and cold and Mrs. Gray didn’t seem to be paying much attention to them. I found out why a few weeks later when I ran into one of my neighbors at the Shop ‘n Save and she informed me that old Mrs. Gray had up and moved to Florida about a month ago after a nasty bout with bronchitis during the first winter storm, and her house was to be sold. Her son would be driving up from Portsmouth and emptying it out soon along with the chickens, which would be removed by any means necessary.
Visions of chicken pot pies and chicken cacciatore and chicken quesadillas filled my head! I know I should have let it go right then and there, but I had grown rather fond of those chickens. I didn’t want to see them die! Besides, I always had this Laura Ingalls fantasy ever since I watched reruns of Little House on the Prairie as a kid. And who wouldn’t want fresh eggs every morning?
I enlisted my friend Mona to help me haul over the little coop from Mrs. Gray’s backyard into mine and the chickens were finally safe and sound. They actually settled in quite nicely. I would let them out in the morning and shut the door on the coop when I came home at night. My son Dustin didn’t mind tossing out chicken feed on the ground before school and filling their pail with extra food when it was empty since there was still snow on the ground and no bugs to be found.
Well, about a week later, I got home from the office one night and fixed myself a nice Friday night pitcher of strawberry daiquiris to wash away the stress from the work week. There was a knock on the back door.
When I opened it I found myself facing an angry group of neighbors, almost too many to let into my small kitchen, but I couldn’t let them stand out in the cold. Once inside, they handed me a petition signed by everybody within three blocks requesting that I do something about the chickens or have them removed immediately.
I was flabbergasted. The chickens were so well behaved and hardly clucked anymore because they were fed regularly unlike at their previous home. That’s when they handed me an envelope stuffed with pictures they had taken over the past week. I was horrified!
One photo after another of my chickens on top of my neighbors’ cars, sitting on their porch rails, pecking through their garbage cans and even one of them chasing a cat while they all left their “calling card” (yes, chicken droppings) everywhere they went and all over everything!
I immediately offered to make strawberry daiquiris for everyone and they happily accepted, but still gave me just one week to fix this mess!
Well, no one said farming was going to be easy, so I purchased some chicken wire and bribed my brother Randy and his husband Sergio with some of my Chocolate Angel Food Cake to come over and install the fence around the coop so the chickens could have a home and keep my neighbors happy.
All in all, it worked out well and it’s nice to have eggs when I need them!
Strawberry Daiquiris
Ingredients:
Four 16 ounce bags of frozen strawberries
2 cups rum (feel free to add more
when you taste)
½ cup lime juice
1 cup simple syrup
Add the strawberries to a large blender and then pour in the rest of the ingredients. Blend until very smooth. Pour into your favorite glasses and be prepared to be wowed!
Chocolate Angel Food Cake
Ingredients:
1½ cups egg whites at room temperature (10 eggs)
1½ cups confectionary sugar
1 cup cake flour
¼ cup cocoa
1½ teaspoons cream of tarter
½ teaspoon salt
1 c
up sugar
Frosting
Ingredients:
1½ cups heavy whipping cream
½ cup sugar
¼ cup cocoa powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
First, make the cake. Place your egg whites in a large bowl. Sift together the flour, sugar, and cocoa powder three times (I know but this is what my grandmother always did), set aside.
Add the cream of tarter and salt to the egg whites and beat at medium speed until soft peaks form. Then gradually add the sugar beating on high until peaks are stiff and glossy. Add in the flour a bit at a time until fully incorporated.
Spoon cake mixture into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan and run a knife through it to make sure there are no air bubbles. Bake on lowest rack in a preheated 375 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes until light golden brown and the top is dry.
Remove from oven and cool completely, then remove from pan and place on a plate.
To prepare your frosting, in a bowl combine all of the frosting ingredients and frost the cooled cake.
Sit back and get ready for the “Oohs” and “Ahhs”!
Chapter 32
“Why bring up something that happened so long ago?” Sabrina scoffed, nervously stopping to tie her shoe.
Hayley had invited her for a casual stroll along the shore path while her boy toy Mason was working out at the local gym keeping those impossibly ripped abs hard. Sabrina had hesitated at first, but ultimately decided to trust Hayley when she told her she wouldn’t ask any more questions about Vanda Spears.
And she kept her promise.
She was now pumping her about the night Julian Reed died.
“I just remember that being a tough night for me. I thought you and Ivy and Nykki were my friends but then you ditched me to go to a party,” Hayley said.
Sabrina took more time than necessary to finish the knot because she was obviously using the extra seconds to get her story straight in her head.
She finally stood up and gave Hayley a quick sideways glance. “I just don’t understand why you’re so hung up on that. We were young and shallow and frankly not that nice, but times have changed. We changed.”
That was debatable, but Hayley wisely chose to keep her mouth shut.
“We matured. Don’t you think it’s finally time to let all that go, Hayley, especially given the fact that Ivy and Nykki are no longer with us?”
Sabrina zipped up her lime green hoodie over her black sports bra and launched into some light stretching while they were stopped on the path.
She was willing to do anything to avoid making eye contact with Hayley.
“I had no idea you were on your way to Julian Reed’s house that night. I mean, he was my favorite actor. I had a poster on my bedroom wall of him as the air force cadet in Flight School. That was, like my favorite movie when I was in eighth grade!”
Sabrina froze in mid-stretch.
She hadn’t expected to hear the name Julian Reed.
“I would’ve given anything to have had the opportunity to meet him. What was he like?” Hayley said casually.
Sabrina erected herself and continued walking at such a fast pace Hayley had to jog to keep up. She started to sweat underneath her own lumpy, misshapen gray sweatshirt she chose for comfort as opposed to trying to be fashionable like Sabrina’s colorful number.
Sabrina, out of sorts, a panicked look on her face, was about to break into a full run to escape Hayley, but Hayley anticipated the move and locked on to her wrist.
“Sabrina, talk to me. I know you and Ivy and Nykki went to Julian Reed’s house the night he died.”
Hayley wasn’t positive that’s what happened.
It was more of a guess.
But by the look of horror on Sabrina’s face, she knew she had just hit pay dirt.
“Who . . . who told you? Vanda?”
“Vanda? No, it was . . .”
Wait.
Vanda Spears.
It was all starting to make sense.
“Something happened up there, didn’t it? Something ugly,” Hayley said, releasing her grip on Sabrina, who was too shocked and upset to even move a muscle. “The three of you were there when something happened and he wound up dead in the swimming pool.”
“No . . .” Sabrina protested half-heartedly, but mostly she was resigned to the fact that the secret was out.
“Were you somehow responsible for his death?”
Sabrina nodded slightly.
Just enough for Hayley to know she was right.
And then Sabrina let out a wailing sob and doubled over as if in pain.
But it wasn’t pain.
It was more a sense of relief.
It felt so good not to have to keep all that dark awful energy tucked deep inside her anymore. Especially now that she was the only one of the three girls there that night who was still alive and carrying around this long kept secret.
Sabrina fell into Hayley’s arms and released twenty years of pent up fear.
It poured out of her being.
Hayley held her tight and rubbed her back.
Then Sabrina pulled away, wiping the tears away, fighting to regain composure. “It really wasn’t our fault. It was an accident. But we were so scared . . .”
“What happened?”
“We ran into him on Main Street earlier that day and we screamed like groupies and begged for his autograph. He was so nice. He invited us up to his house that night. Can you imagine? Three local yokels partying with a major movie star like Julian Reed? We were beside ourselves! I mean, it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to us! I really wanted to include you, but Ivy insisted just the three of us go.”
Now in hindsight, Hayley was grateful for the snub because if she had gone that night, her life might have changed forever too.
“When we got there he was really sweet and polite and had pizza and beer waiting for us. It was like a dream. He even put on some Whitney Houston and we all danced and laughed and it was all so innocent. But before long, he disappeared inside the house and when he came out he was wearing just a robe and we could all tell he didn’t have anything on underneath. He set down a silver tray and there were pills and cocaine and god only knows what else. He also had a bottle of whiskey and dared us to do shots. Nykki and I got a weird feeling and so we didn’t take anything but Ivy was really into it and started downing shots and snorting coke and just going with it. Pretty soon she was a complete mess. We tried to get her to leave but before we could talk her into it Julian grabbed her and half carried half dragged her into the house to his bedroom. Nykki and I were so scared. We didn’t know what to do. We sort of convinced ourselves she would be okay, but then we heard her screaming inside the house so we ran in and found Julian lying on top of her trying to get her clothes off. Nykki just lunged forward and gave Julian a shove and he toppled over and off the bed landing on his butt. It was almost funny. But it infuriated him and he started swearing at us and calling us teases and told us to get the hell off his property. So we got on either side of Ivy to help her walk and hurried out of the house. I thought that was the end of it. But then, just as we got to the pool, Julian came bursting out of the house. We were only a few feet from the back gate. We were as good as out of there. But he was wild with rage and told us we weren’t going anywhere until we showed him a good time. He came at us, swinging his fists at Nykki, who managed to duck but he still clocked her on the side of the head. I didn’t know what to do. I just started screaming. That’s when Ivy just lost it. She threw herself at him and shoved him as hard as she could. He stumbled back, and somehow lost his footing, and then he fell and his head hit the cement pavement. I just remember this sickening crunch. It was so loud. I heard him moaning. He tried to get back up but he lost his balance and fell into the pool. We just stood there, watching him float face down, not sure what to do. We were afraid if we tried to pull him out he would kill us. So we ran out of there as fast as we could.”
>
“Leaving him there to drown,” Hayley said, putting a comforting arm around Sabrina’s still shaking shoulders.
“We were up all night trying to figure out what we should do. Ivy wanted to go to the police but Nykki said, no. We’d be arrested and then we would never get to go to college or see each other again or live normal lives. We were just out of high school and had our whole lives ahead of us. We were so scared we would lose everything! We’d always be those girls who killed Julian Reed! So the next morning we made a pact never to speak of it again. We were the only three that really knew what happened there that night.”
“But you weren’t. I just spoke to the maid who worked for Julian Reed that summer. She was there and witnessed the whole thing. But she was so disgusted by what she saw go down, she kept mum.”
“I had no idea . . .” Sabrina said, her voice trailing off.
“And then there was Vanda Spears.”
“Yes. Vanda.”
“She must have been hanging around the estate that night hoping to catch a glimpse of her favorite actor and she probably saw the three of you running away.”
“The three of us never discussed it after that night. Not once in twenty years. But when we came back to town for the reunion Vanda started making trouble. She said she knew what had happened and wanted us to make it worth her while to keep her mouth shut.”
“We all know about Vanda’s personal demons she’s had to deal with and at the time she probably never even thought about going to the police with what she knew. She was too wrapped up in her own crazy world, and my guess is she just lost track of you. Maybe she even forgot what she saw,” Hayley said, sitting down on the grass of Albert Meadow just off the Shore Path next to Sabrina, who had planted herself and was hugging her knees tight.
“She’s always been mentally unstable and practically lived on the streets so the odds of her having her own computer and finding us on Facebook were pretty much nil,” Sabrina said.
“But when she saw the three of you back in Bar Harbor for the reunion, something must have clicked. The memory of that night somehow came rushing back to her and since she was always having money troubles and couldn’t keep a roof over her head she saw an opportunity. That’s why you paid her off with the money she used to buy her car.”
