At the River’s Edge

by Mariah Stewart

  “Okay, I give up.” She plopped back on the sofa.

  “Please do. You’re upsetting your grandmother.” He closed his eyes again.

  “Pop … oh, never mind.” He was never going to admit that he was behind the mysterious scent, and she was never going to accept his explanation. Why belabor the point? Besides, if it gave him comfort all these years to keep his beloved Rose close to him, what difference did it make where the scent came from? Hadn’t Jason said something like that?

  Sophie had to admit, though, that it was odd that, search as she might, she could not find an apparent source. Odd, too, that it seemed to come and go. One would think that if something had been rigged up to release a perfume into the air, it would be constant. There had been times when Sophie entered a room in this house where one minute there had been no scent at all, and the next minute, it seemed to surround her. How to explain that?

  Earlier in the day, she’d been chatting with her cousin Elizabeth—called Bit by her brothers, Lizzie by everyone else—and had complimented her on her choice of perfume.

  “Did you wear that for Gramma Rose?” Sophie had asked.

  “Wear what?”

  “The gardenia perfume.”

  “I’m not wearing perfume,” Lizzie had told her. “That is Gramma Rose.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  Lizzie had shrugged. “You explain it, then. I can’t. After all these years, I’ve given up trying.”

  Obviously the old man had any number of people fooled.

  Sophie watched her grandfather sleep, the scent fading as he began to snore softly. Her grandmother had been gone for close to twenty years, a long time to perpetuate a myth. Yet if it was in fact Rose’s presence, twenty years would be a long time to linger, a long time to wait. Could love really do that, she wondered—cross time and the barriers between life and death? Could you choose between moving on alone and remaining suspended between the two dimensions until your loved one joined you?

  As she curled up on the sofa, Sophie wondered how that would work. Did you get to the other side and refuse to cross until your beloved could cross with you?

  Sophie sighed and closed her eyes. After being a just-the-facts-please girl all her life, it was tough for her to accept something she couldn’t see without at least making an effort to understand. It seemed that over time, everyone else—even Jesse—had come to accept Rose’s presence. It was tough being the lone skeptic in a family of believers.

  Most puzzling of all was the nature of love. It was becoming clear to her that some loves could last through the ages—witness her grandfather’s unceasing devotion. And yet she’d once thought she loved Christopher, his infidelity had destroyed the feelings she’d had for him. If she’d really loved him, would those feelings have survived regardless of what he’d done to hurt her? When she thought about Chris now, mostly what she felt was annoyed—with him, with Anita, and mostly with herself for not seeing him for what he really was.

  But if she’d cared so much for him once, how could she have been so wrong? Had there been signs that she’d missed, or ignored? What, she wondered, did it feel like when you finally found “the one”? How do you know the difference between Mr. Right for Now and Mr. Right Forever?

  Was it possible to find the kind of love that had existed between her grandparents—the kind of love that still bound them to each other? She thought of the look on her brother’s face as he’d watched Brooke walk up the aisle toward him, and she knew the answer. Her last thought before nodding off was that maybe someday, someone would look at her the way Jesse had looked at Brooke, and that someone would be worth waiting for, no matter how long it took.

  Monday morning found Sophie at the office by seven, fired up to prove herself worthy of being the “& Enright” in the firm’s name. She made a pot of coffee in the kitchen—no Cuppachino for her today—poured herself a cup, and took it with her into Jesse’s office. She sat in his chair at his desk and went over her game plan. There was a stack of mail a foot high that he’d left instructions for, and that would have to be taken care of before she did anything else. Not a problem. Read, make a phone call, or respond via letter or email as the situation dictates. She was determined that by the time Jesse returned from his honeymoon, all of the work he’d left for her would be completed.

  She picked up the first letter in the pile and read it through. It was from the attorney for one of the co-defendants in a slip-and-fall case requesting information that he believed Jesse possessed. She’d pull the file, acquaint herself with the case, and decide whether or not he should be privy to the information he’d asked for. No big deal.

  But where, she wondered, would she find the file?

  She set the letter aside until Violet arrived. Her coffee was now cold, so she took the cup into the kitchen and microwaved it to reheat. Violet was just coming through the front door when Sophie stepped into the hall.

  “Hey, good morning,” Sophie called to her.

  “Not so much,” Violet grumbled. “I overslept and it made me late. I am never late.”

  “You’re not late. It’s barely eight o’clock.”

  “Seven has been my usual starting time for the past sixty years.” Violet bustled past her and directly to her desk. She plopped her bag on the floor and sat at her desk. “Do I smell coffee?”

  Sophie nodded. “I made it when I came in. Would you like me to bring you a cup?”

  “No, thank you. I make it every morning but I rarely drink it.”

  “If you’d rather have tea, I could—”

  “I’ll get it if I want it, thank you.”

  “Okay, then.” Sophie cleared her throat. “Violet, where would I find the Dexter v. The Copper Pot file?”

  “It should be in the second drawer in the first file cabinet to the left of the door in Jesse’s office.”

  “Thank you.” Sophie went into the office and right to the designated file drawer, but her search was unsuccessful. She looked through each of the drawers before trying the file cabinets on either side of the one Violet had suggested.

  “Violet, the file isn’t in the drawer. It isn’t in any drawer.” Sophie stood in the doorway.

  “No surprise there,” Violet muttered. “I’m afraid your brother has little or no regard for my filing system.”

  Sophie frowned. “Does he have his own system?”

  Violet snorted. “Try the floor.”

  By noon, after being forced to paw through the haphazard stacks of files Jesse had left not only on his office floor, but in the conference room as well, Sophie came to the conclusion that jeans and a sweatshirt would have been more appropriate attire than the nice linen sheath she’d donned that morning. She’d thought to make a professional impression should a client pop into the office unexpectedly, but in retrospect, it had been a bad idea.

  “Violet, I give up. I can’t find a thing.”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  “How can you stand it? There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for the way Jesse operates.”

  “Your brother is a very good lawyer, but he’s the most disorganized person I’ve ever met. The only saving grace is that he has a good memory and when he dumps something onto a pile, he generally does remember which file is in which pile. I no longer file until he’s finished with a case and he hands it to me to put away.”

  “Well, unfortunately, my brother and I do not share a psychic connection, so I don’t know one stack from the other. I’m going to go home and change my clothes. I’m tired of crawling around on the floor in one of my favorite dresses.”

  “It might be best to dress down this week,” Violet suggested. “There’s no telling what you’ll be called upon to find, or where you’ll have to go to look for it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are files in the attic, some on the second floor, some in your grandfather’s old office, some in your uncle Mike’s.”

  Sophie frowned. “Why would I need to go
into the attic?”

  “One of those letters on Jesse’s desk is from Clarence Edelson. He’s looking for a copy of his grandfather’s will.”

  “When did his grandfather pass away?”

  “Seventeen years ago.”

  “And he’s just looking for the will now?”

  “He says he did have a copy but can’t find it.”

  “Why would he want it after all these years?”

  Violet shrugged. “It’s not our place to question, dear. The client wants something from the file, we provide it.”

  “I may leave that one for Jesse. Meanwhile, I’m going to go home and change.” Sophie grabbed her bag off the back of her chair. “I’ll probably stop in town and pick up something for lunch. Can I bring you anything?”

  “No, thank you. I brought something from home.”

  Sophie’s gaze lingered on the pile of mail and the stacked files that covered the floor.

  “I won’t be long,” she told Violet as she headed for the front door.

  “Take your time, dear. None of that,” she nodded in the direction of Jesse’s office, “is going anywhere.”

  There’d been no provision in her game plan for taking her time. Sophie drove to the house, changed into work clothes, and was on her way back to the office when she realized the sound she’d been hearing over and over was her stomach growling. She remembered someone mentioning a place called The Checkered Cloth that was said to have really good take out. She’d yet to go food shopping, so take out sounded pretty good. She parked on a side street off Charles and went into the small storefront. The specials were on a chalkboard inside the door, and she studied it for a moment before making her selection.

  “I’ll have the Mandarin salad with grilled chicken,” she told the girl behind the counter. “Dressing on the side, please.”

  “And to drink?” the girl asked.

  “A bottle of water, thanks.”

  While she waited, Sophie picked up a folded menu from a stack that sat inside a basket on the counter and studied the offerings. Lots of sandwiches—some basic, a few more creative—and soups and salads that changed daily. Covered cake stands on the counter held layer cakes, brownies, and bar cookies. Figuring this would be her competition in the center of town, Sophie took it all in, from the light hardwood floor to the benches that stood along one wall. Not many seats, she realized, but since this was strictly a take-out establishment, the lack of seating wasn’t an issue. She watched the food being prepared, noting how everything was packaged to travel, then placed in a white paper bag stamped with a picnic spread out on a red-and-white checkered tablecloth.

  Cute, she thought. Nice presentation. She’d have to do better.

  Maybe box lunches, she thought as she paid for her lunch and walked back to her car. White boxes with the name of the restaurant—she was still working on that—maybe tied up with plain white string. Something that the film people would find visually appealing, since she was going to have to depend on them if her restaurant was going to be a success. And of course, the food was going to have to be exceptional. She’d have to find someone who cooked at least as well as she did.

  “What do you get when you cross the godfather with a lawyer?”

  Sophie glanced over her shoulder, then smiled. “An offer you can’t understand.”

  Jason walked toward her in dusty jeans that had a rip here and there, a short-sleeved gray T-shirt, dark glasses, and a Phillies ball cap.

  He does the suit-and-tie thing really well, she thought, remembering Saturday night, but casual? Outstanding.

  Sophie unlocked the driver’s-side door. “What else ya’ got?”

  “Depends. Can I use my cheat sheet?”

  “Sorry, but no.”

  “Then I’ll have to get back to you on that.” He leaned against her car. “So how’s your first official day as a St. Dennis lawyer going?”

  “It will be going better once I finish cleaning up my brother’s mess so that I can actually do legal work.”

  “What kind of work are you doing?”

  “Trying to get things organized so that I can do the work he left for me. Then I need to set up my office. Move some stuff around.” She pulled at the front of her baggy faded red sweatshirt. “Stuff you wear old clothes to do.”

  His phone buzzed and he hesitated. She could see he was trying to decide whether or not to answer it.

  “Go ahead and take that,” she told him. “I need to get back anyway. See you later.”

  “Okay. Sure.” He nodded and took the phone from his pocket and answered the call.

  She turned on the radio and found her new favorite satellite station that played ’90s music, the songs from her high school days. She drove back to the office mouthing the words to “Smooth” and thinking back on the crush she’d had on Kevin Russo her junior year. He was the cutest guy on the baseball team and he drove a Jeep Wrangler, which was the designated cool car back in the day. They’d gone to the movies together three weekends in a row and she could still remember every one of those films: Saving Private Ryan, Armageddon, and Lethal Weapon 4. No one was surprised when he joined the Marines right after graduation. Their romance was short-lived—the day after Armageddon he dumped her for Carrie Maloney, who was rumored to be fast and easy—but for a few short weeks, Sophie had been the envy of every girl in the school. She remembered how it felt to have the cute guy pass her notes in class and wait at her locker for her at the end of the day.

  It was a silly memory, she knew—she was long out of high school—but somehow it buoyed her spirits, and she went back into the office singing another song from that time—Sting’s “Brand New Day”—and trying to relate the memory to life as she knew it.

  She critiqued the salad as she ate at the small kitchen table: the romaine was fresh and the dressing citrusy, which she liked, but the oranges were tasteless and the chicken just a little on the dry side. Not bad, but all in all, she could do better. Maybe she should put something like this on her menu as a one-day-a-week salad special. She asked Violet for her opinion, but she claimed not to have one.

  “I’m a silent partner, Sophie,” Violet reminded her. “I’m not getting involved in the food or the day-to-day.”

  “But you can still have an opinion.”

  “No, I can’t. One opinion will lead to another, and the next you know, I’ll be bringing in my mother’s recipe for lemon meringue pie.”

  “You have your mother’s recipe for lemon meringue pie?”

  “I might.” Violet focused on opening the mail.

  “Well, you would share that, though, wouldn’t you?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Sophie smiled. The recipe was as good as hers. She went into Jesse’s office and stared at the files, then poked her head back into the reception area.

  “Violet, what is your filing system?”

  “It’s very simple. Alphabetical starting from the first file cabinet there.” She pointed to the tall wooden cabinets directly across from her desk. “It picks up in Jesse’s office because we ran out of room in here.”

  “All the files in all the cabinets are open cases?”

  “I’m afraid not. I used to pack away the closed files to store in the attic, but I stopped doing that years ago because it was too hard for me to climb the steps.”

  “So you wouldn’t mind if I weeded out the closed ones now and put them elsewhere?”

  “Not at all. I’d welcome it, actually.”

  “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, Sophie emptied filing cabinets and sorted files. She made the decision to use one of the two small unoccupied offices on the first floor as a file room and proceeded to move the closed files into there. It seemed she’d barely gotten started when Violet called to her from the front hall.

  “Sophie, I’ll be leaving now unless you need me for something.”

  “What time is it?” Sophie pulled up a sleeve to look at her watch. “Really? S
ix fifteen already?”

  “I’d stay and help you, but I have dinner every Monday night with some old schoolmates. I hate to miss that. There aren’t so many of us left.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of having you stay. Go. Have a great dinner. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Sophie continued emptying file drawers and boxing up files, all the while thinking about her restaurant. In eight more days it would be hers, and then the real work would begin. Violet’s mention of her mother’s pie recipe had sparked an idea. Sophie had wanted to make the restaurant reflective of the St. Dennis community in a unique way. What if she had other recipes that had been passed down through the generations there in town? Heirloom recipes, she’d call them, and she’d feature a different one every week. There’d be a special little blurb on the menu noting who’d contributed it, maybe something about that family that might be interesting or noteworthy.

  So much more fun than plastic blue claw crabs and fish nets on the walls.

  But what to put on those walls? she pondered while she pushed a box of files down the hall. She’d just pulled the box into the file room when she heard the front door open.

  “Hello?” she called and stepped into the hall.

  “How do you get a lawyer out of a tree?”

  “Cut the rope.”

  “Damn it.” He snapped his fingers. “I’m going to have to find a better website.”

  “I told you, I’ve heard them all.” Her nose caught the scent of something that caused her mouth to water. “What’s in the box?”

  “Pizza from Dominic’s. Best on the Eastern Shore. I ordered a medium, but they made a mistake and made me a large. I was driving home and passed by and saw your car here and the lights still on, and thought I’d take a chance that maybe you hadn’t eaten yet either.”

  “I haven’t, but you don’t have to …”

  “Where do you want it?” He held up the box.