Her mouth slightly agape, Chelsea stared blankly at Brandon.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “And the truth is, I never made the connection until just now. Legend has it that Emily started serving them here sometime during World War II. It’s always been her little secret where the recipe came from. Anyway, they became so popular that they’ve stayed on the menu ever since.
“Damn,” Brandon added. “The cottage, the journal, the photos . . . and then I bring you here, where something on the menu seems so suggestive of your late grandmother. Do you suppose . . . ?”
Chelsea shook her head. “I’ve been doing so much supposing lately that I don’t know what to think anymore. But it does seem too great a coincidence, especially since we now know that Emily and Brooke knew one another. Do you think that I could meet Emily?”
Brandon give her a wink. “You bet,” he answered.
Missy soon returned, bearing a tray with three plates and two glasses of iced tea. The sandwiches were made with dense French bread, thick mayonnaise, and huge heirloom tomato slices. As Missy put them down, she smiled. Finally, she also served a small dishful of seasoned, deep-fried pickle slices.
Chelsea gestured toward her sandwich. “I hear that these are really good,” she said to Missy. “Can you tell me how they’re made?”
Missy shook her head adamantly. “I wouldn’t, even if I could,” she answered. “Everybody asks! But the only person who knows is Emily, and she’s not talking. To keep the secret safe, she still makes every one of those sandwiches herself.”
“Could you please tell her that I’m here?” Brandon asked. “I’d like to introduce her to Chelsea.”
“Sure,” Missy answered. “I’ll let her know.”
As Missy walked away, Chelsea took a bite of her sandwich to find that it was the intriguingly flavored mayonnaise that made it so special. As a final touch, Emily had carefully trimmed off the bread crusts.
“So what’s the verdict?” Brandon asked Chelsea in between bites.
Just as Chelsea was about to answer, she saw an elderly woman approaching. She walked with unusual steadiness for one so old. Like Brooke, she had remained rather tall and slim in her twilight years. Her short hair was snow white, her eyes were blue, and her face was deeply etched with both the weight of her life experiences and the natural passage of her years. Along the way, she stopped at several tables to greet her regulars. When Emily finally reached their booth she smiled first at Chelsea, then at Brandon. Her manner seemed comforting, Chelsea thought, much like Brooke’s had been.
“Hello, handsome,” she said to Brandon, her voice revealing the slightest hint of a French accent. “May I sit down beside you, mon cher?”
Brandon immediately slid to one side. “Of course,” he said.
Emily sat down and patted his hand. “So how have you been?” she asked.
“I’m fine, Emily, and you?” he answered.
“Oh, I’m all right,” Emily answered with a casual gesture of one hand. Then she gave Chelsea a sly wink. “For a woman who’s lived so long, that is!”
Chelsea smiled and held out one hand. “I’m Chelsea Enright,” she said. “I’m a new friend of Brandon’s.”
Emily shook her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Chelsea Enright,” she said. “I gather that you’ve never visited the Blue Rooster before today?”
“No,” Chelsea answered, “but I love it.”
“It’s been in the Rousseau family for many decades,” Emily said as she looked around lovingly. “My father built it with his own two hands. Sadly, I am the last of us.”
As Chelsea searched the old woman’s face, she tried imagining Emily as a far younger woman, much the way Brooke had appeared in those old black-and-white photos back at her cottage. Like Brooke, Chelsea concluded, Emily had been attractive in her day.
“So tell me,” Chelsea said, “do you ever give out the recipe for these wonderful sandwiches? I’d love to have it.”
Emily smiled, then shook her head. “Non,” she answered. “It was confided to me long ago by a dear friend who invented it. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that, I’d be a wealthy woman! Anyway, I promised her that I would never divulge it.”
“I see . . . ,” Chelsea said. “She must have been a very good cook.”
“The best,” Emily answered. “And because I’m French,” she added with a smile, “that is a real compliment.”
“So in lieu of getting the recipe, may I ask you something else?” Chelsea inquired.
“Bien sûr,” Emily answered. “Any friend of Brandon’s is a friend of mine.”
“Your friend’s name was Brooke Bartlett, right?” Chelsea asked quietly.
A look of astonishment conquered Emily’s face. “Why, yes . . . ,” she said softly. “Yes, it was. But how did you know that?”
“Because I’m her granddaughter,” Chelsea answered.
“Oh, my goodness . . . ,” Emily whispered. “Can it be . . . ?”
Awestruck, Emily stared quizzically at Chelsea for a time. At last she smiled and nodded slightly.
“I knew that she had a granddaughter,” Emily said. “And although it has been such a long time since I’ve seen Brooke, I can recognize something of her in you. Especially around the eyes . . . And also like Brooke, you are very pretty.”
“Thank you,” Chelsea answered.
Then Chelsea realized something, and her heart lurched a bit. Emily doesn’t know, she thought. And I’m the one who must tell her . . .
Chelsea reached out and touched the old woman’s hand. “I’m sorry to have to say this, Emily,” Chelsea said, “but Gram passed away recently.”
Emily’s eyes widened with shock. Soon after, her wrinkled mouth moved but no words escaped her lips. Then she burst into tears and instinctively covered her face with her palms. Chelsea took up one of the spare napkins lying on the table and handed it to her. As Emily dried her eyes, she did her best to compose herself.
“Mon Dieu . . . mon Dieu . . . ,” she whispered. At last she found the strength to gaze back into Chelsea’s eyes. “How did Brooke die?” she asked. “Was she ill?”
Chelsea shook her head. “She died peacefully in her sleep,” she answered. “A stroke, probably.”
Emily sniffed a little, then dabbed at her eyes some more. “I am glad that she didn’t suffer,” she said. “But I can’t believe that she is gone. She still meant a great deal to me.”
“And to all of us, as well,” Chelsea said.
“Of course,” Emily answered. “But how did you know that it was Brooke’s recipe?”
Chelsea recounted how she came to be at Lake Evergreen and how she had also inherited Brooke’s recipe book. When she finished, Emily nodded.
“I still remember that recipe book,” she said. “Brooke and her mother, Gwendolyn, used to come into the café occasionally, where we became great friends. And I oftentimes visited the cottage. One rainy afternoon Brooke was making us lunch, and she hit on the idea of the sandwich. After naming it, she very graciously let me have the recipe for my use here at the café. In days gone by, I traveled to Syracuse from time to time to visit her, but then Father Time caught up with me and made it difficult.”
Pausing for a moment, Emily secured Missy’s attention and requested a cup of mint tea. Missy quickly nodded, then headed back toward the kitchen.
“But after her car accident, Brooke never returned here,” Emily added. “I of course knew that she had become confined to a wheelchair. Even so, her never revisiting Lake Evergreen always seemed odd to me. With help, she could have certainly returned to her beloved cottage and also here, to my little café,” she said, her voice cracking a bit. “And when you consider both how much she loved it up here and our ongoing friendship, her continued refusal to return seems even stranger. After I stopped going to see her, we corresponded and talked on the phone from time to time, but it wasn’t the same as being face-to-face. Now she’s gone, and along with her went my last chance to say go
od-bye . . .”
“I’m sorry,” Chelsea replied. “We couldn’t understand why she never returned here, either. She was equally adamant about keeping the cottage, which in itself is also very strange, because my mother and father have absolutely no interest in it. Whenever we tried asking Brooke about it, a wistful look came over her face. Because the subject always seemed to upset her so much, we eventually stopped asking. But I know for a fact that Brooke still loved her cottage, even though she never saw it again. For my mother and father, it has become little more than a distant memory. Then I inherited it, and I’ve come to understand how wonderful it is.”
Missy soon appeared with Emily’s tea. After taking a welcome sip, the old woman sighed.
“In France, we have a saying,” she said as she stared sadly at her teacup. “Plutôt que terminer deux amis, la mort de l’un a une façon de se joindre à eux pour toujours.”
“What does that mean?” Chelsea asked.
“ ‘Rather than parting two old friends, the death of one has a way of joining them forever,’ ” Emily answered.
Silence reigned as the three of them sat quietly for a time. Soon, a question occurred to Chelsea. She knew that Emily was still upset, and because of that, she almost left it unsaid. But she very much wondered if Emily could shed any light on something for her, so she finally decided to ask.
“May I inquire about something else?” Chelsea said.
“Of course,” Emily answered.
“You also knew a man named Gregory Butler, right?” Chelsea asked.
“Mais oui,” she answered. “I knew him well, in fact. Greg and Brooke were dear friends. That’s how he and I got acquainted. His cottage stood next to hers. Up until his death a few years ago, he still came in for lunch from time to time. In fact, seeing you and Brandon here together is almost like going back in time and sitting once again across from Brooke and Greg.”
At last, Emily managed to let go a little smile. “He was very handsome in those days,” she added, “like a movie star, he was. If memory serves, just before Brooke left for good, he was in the process of painting her portrait. He was an excellent artist, you know. And he never married, which always seemed strange to me.”
“Did you ever meet Bill Bartlett, my grandfather?” Chelsea asked.
Emily shook her head. “Non,” she said. “It was my understanding that he had finished his officer’s training and had shipped out. Shortly after that, Brooke just disappeared.”
Chelsea scowled. “What do you mean disappeared?” she asked.
“Disappeared is probably the wrong word,” Emily said, “although that’s certainly how it felt to me at the time. During that summer, Brooke was staying there alone. Then one day she just packed up and left far earlier than expected. It was sometime in mid-August, I think. Later on I learned from Gregory that she never said good-bye to him, either, and he seemed quite saddened by it. That part of it I never understood—especially when his cottage was so nearby hers, and it would have been quite easy for her to properly bid him adieu.”
Chelsea took a moment to look quizzically at Brandon, as if he might be able to supply her with some answers. But all he could do was shrug and shake his head.
Chelsea was dying to know more. But yet again she hesitated, because she didn’t want to tarnish Emily’s memories of Brooke. Even so, Chelsea was sitting across from perhaps the only living person who might be able to help her solve the increasingly beguiling puzzle that was Brooke Bartlett’s life. For better or worse, she decided to press forward.
“I have some old photos of Greg and Brooke together,” Chelsea said. “And in each one, it seems that they were close. Very close, if you know what I mean. Can you shed any light on that? I’m not asking you to violate any confidences. But if there are other things that you know and wouldn’t mind sharing, I’d be very much in your debt.”
Emily’s answer came without hesitation. “Non,” she replied. “I do not believe that there was ever anything physical between them, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Brooke loved her husband, and she worried for him day and night. He died in the war, but Brooke never told me how. Her heart was very closed about that, so I didn’t press her.”
Just then, Emily’s countenance sobered even more. “Even so,” she added quietly, “Brooke once told me something heartfelt, something that made me feel sorry for her.”
“What was that?” Chelsea asked.
Emily sighed. “The war years were hard times,” she answered. “Not just for the soldiers, but for their women, too. Brooke told me that she was developing deep feelings for Greg—feelings against which she was desperately fighting. But she also swore that she hadn’t acted on them, and I believed her.”
Emily sadly shook her head. “In the end, only Brooke and Gregory knew,” she said, “and they’re both gone now. But if they were truly in love, then why did she leave so suddenly and never come back? And why did she not say good-bye to him? It’s a riddle, I grant you. And like many riddles, its unraveling may prove quite impossible.”
Feeling more confused than ever, Chelsea sat back in her booth.
A riddle indeed, she thought. More and more, it seems, the only answers are to be found in Brooke’s journal. . .
“Is there anything else that you can tell me?” Chelsea asked Emily.
“Just one thing,” Emily answered. She then pointed to the vase of flowers standing on the table. Their blossoms were violet, and they resembled daisies.
“Are you familiar with those?” Emily asked.
“No,” Chelsea answered. “What about you, Brandon?”
“I see them all over the place in the summertime,” he answered. “But I’ve never known what they’re called.”
“They’re coneflowers,” Emily answered, “and they grow wild around here. In honor of Brooke, each day I place them on the café tables. I pay a local boy to go and pick them for me.”
Coneflowers . . . ? Chelsea thought. Something about that word was tugging at her mind, she realized. But she couldn’t understand why, so she let it go. “That’s a lovely gesture,” Chelsea said. “But why did you choose coneflowers?”
“They were Brooke’s favorite,” Emily answered. “I once asked her why, but she refused to say. Then one day when I knew that she was coming in, on a lark I placed a vase full of them on the table that I had reserved for her. I also liked the way they looked and smelled, and so I’ve been doing it every summer since.”
Then Emily became quiet for a time, thinking. After a few more moments, she again summoned Missy to their booth.
“Could you please go and get my book for me?” Emily asked her. “You know the one I mean? It’s upstairs, on my nightstand.”
“I think so,” Missy answered. “The green one, right?”
“Yes,” Emily answered.
As Missy scurried away, Emily looked thoughtfully into Chelsea’s eyes. “There’s something that I want you to have,” she said. “Your grandmother gave it to me long ago, just before she left Lake Evergreen for the final time. It was one of her favorite things, and I have cared for it long enough. At long last, the time has come for her granddaughter to possess it.”
Missy soon returned. In one hand she carried an old book, which she handed to Emily. Emily rubbed its cover thoughtfully for a time, as if she were saying good-bye to an old friend. When at last she surrendered it to Chelsea, Chelsea saw that it was an old copy of Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. Its dark green cover had long since faded and appeared to be made of buckram board.
“Have you read it?” Emily asked Chelsea.
Chelsea shook her head.
“That was Brooke’s favorite book,” Emily said. “She loved to sit on her cottage porch and peruse it. She was quite fond of claiming that everyone should read it at least once in his or her lifetime. Then one day, to my great surprise she left it to me. You’ll notice that there is a slight gap between two of the middling pages. I suggest that you open it there and look inside.”
When Chelsea did so, she saw two ancient violet coneflowers had been pressed inside. Fearing that they might fall apart if touched, she left them undisturbed as she gently set the old book atop the table.
“More coneflowers . . . ,” she said to Emily. “Did you put them there?”
Emily shook her head. “Non, ma chère,” she answered. “They were already there when Brooke first left the book behind for me. Later on I asked Brooke about them, but again she did not answer. She had so many secrets, it seems . . .”
Emily looked into Chelsea’s eyes. “And now,” she said, “you must forgive this old woman, for I have grown tired. I am very happy to have met you, Chelsea Enright, and I hope that you will return to my humble café. It would be lovely to talk to you some more, I’m sure. And please know that I will say a prayer for the woman whom we both loved so much.”
Then she stood. “For now, at least, I must say adieu.”
“Good-bye, Emily,” Chelsea said. “And thank you.”
“Au revoir,” Brandon added.
While Emily slowly walked away, Chelsea looked back down at the faded, lifeless coneflowers. They seemed so delicate lying there atop the old book, as if the slightest breeze might easily destroy them.
Secrets pressed inside yet more secrets . . . , she thought.
But where are they all leading me?
Chapter 22
Later that night, Brandon was helping Chelsea prepare another dinner recipe from Brooke’s journal. As they worked together in the kitchen, she smiled at him. Brandon wasn’t much of a cook, and he willingly admitted it. The red and white checked apron he wore seemed to hold more ingredients than did the bowl into which they were supposed to be going. Chelsea found his efforts endearing, and his obvious desire to help drew her even closer to him.
Tonight’s selection was something that Brooke had labeled Roosevelt’s Roast Beef, the ingredients for which Brandon and Chelsea had purchased in Serendipity, right after visiting Emily. When Chelsea had chosen the recipe earlier that morning, she saw that Roosevelt’s Roast Beef was in fact a baked beef strip loin, with a side recipe for a bourbon-mushroom sauce that sounded wonderful.
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