Chatty, chatty. “So what brings you here?” she asks, because small-town servers always know who belongs and who doesn’t.
“I’m visiting a friend.”
“Really? Who?”
Roy tilts his head at her. “Do you know everyone in town?”
“Lived here all my life.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“It’s a try me.”
“She’s a Mundy. Know any Mundys?”
She grins. “Know them all. I’m one of them.”
“You’re a Mundy?”
“My great-great-grandmother was. Or maybe it was my great-great-great—anyway, I’m a Block but I know everyone around here. Who are you trying to find?”
Before he can elaborate, the door opens and they both turn expectantly. Has the huge rush begun?
A lone redhead walks in, phone and keys in hand. She’s thin, wearing cropped khaki pants and a navy blue sweater, and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail.
“Sully!” Little Mary Sunshine is thrilled to see her. “We were just talking about you!”
“Crap.”
“No, it was all good. We were thinking about going to New York City.”
Raising an eyebrow, Sully glances from Twyla to Roy and back again.
“Not me,” he says quickly, grasping her assumption, and Twyla bursts out laughing.
“No! Not him. He’s a customer and we just met. I mean me and Dina. She was on tonight till eleven—you just missed her. We were looking at the new schedule and neither of us has to work on the Fourth of July, so we want to go see the fireworks in New York.”
New York, where no one expects you to stand around making idle chitchat at midnight when you’re exhausted and just want to dunk your damned donuts into some coffee and go on your way.
“That’s a long way to go for fireworks,” the redhead, Sully, points out.
“Yeah, but the ones around here aren’t big fancy ones like they have in New York City. I bet you probably had a favorite place where you always watched them when you lived there.”
“I did. My couch.”
“You could see the fireworks from your couch?” Twyla is impressed.
“I could see the TV from my couch. If I ever watched the fireworks, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t in years, that’s the only way I did it.”
“That doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“Sorry to be a party pooper, but the thing about New York is . . . the people who live there hate crowds.”
Roy likes crowds. You can get lost in a crowd.
“Well anyway . . . you want a blueberry muffin and a mango Coolatta?” Twyla asks Sully.
She shakes her head, because why would anyone want that?
“Not tonight. I’ll have a large black coffee and a ham egg and cheese on a bagel.”
“You never drink coffee!”
“Never say never.”
Looking unnerved, Twyla tells Sully what she told Roy—that she just put on a fresh pot in anticipation of the rush. “It’s almost done, if you can wait for it.”
“How long?”
“Like, two minutes. Trust me, the old one is stale and gross.”
Sully trusts her and leans against the counter to wait.
Roy checks his cell phone for the time. If the coffee isn’t ready in two minutes, he’s out of here. He’s starting to think he might need something stronger than caffeine.
“So why did you change your order?” Twyla asks Sully as she takes a bagel from the case. “Is it for someone else, or . . .”
“No, for me. Same old thing gets boring.”
Twyla seems convinced, but Roy is not.
Sully is clenching her keys in her hand, her thumb beating a staccato rhythm against the ring.
Twyla motions at Roy and announces, apropos of nothing, “He’s here to visit a Mundy.”
“That’s nice.” Sully flashes him an uninterested smile—New Yorker to New Yorker—for which Roy is grateful.
“Where are you from?” Twyla asks him.
“California.”
“Who did you say you were visiting again?”
He didn’t.
“Her name is Emerson, but she’s—”
“Emerson?” Sully snaps to attention.
“You know her?”
“I just met her, over at the Dapplebrook.”
“Was she alone?”
Sully is still smiling, but something changes. It’s as if a transparent shield has descended over her green eyes. “Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering. I worry about her.”
“You’re a friend?”
He nods, resenting the tone.
“Does she know you’re here?”
“No, I’m . . . it’s . . . a surprise.”
“There you are—nice and hot.” Twyla holds out Roy’s coffee and pastry bag.
“Thanks.” He grabs it, already on his way out the door.
“It was nice meeting you. Be sure to come back and—”
Her final words are lost on the closing door as he makes a hasty exit, feeling Sully’s gaze following him all the way to his truck.
“He was nice,” Twyla comments. “Cute, too, right?”
“Not my type,” Sully murmurs, keeping an eye on the departing stranger.
“You don’t think the beard was sexy?”
Masculine movie-star-on-vacation stubble and even ironic hipster beards can be sexy. This guy’s bushy beard and mustache were anything but, and he looked, at first glance, as if he’d been in a fight.
The angry red gashes along his arms pinged her Inner Detective radar. He was asking too many questions about Emerson Mundy.
Earlier, Sully had noticed an engagement ring on her finger. Can it possibly be from this guy? She seems out of his league. And the look in his eyes when he asked if she was alone—is he a jealous lover? Jealous ex-lover?
She and Twyla watch the pickup truck with California plates pull out of the restaurant parking lot and into the one diagonally across the road.
“I wonder if he’s staying at the Holiday Inn?”
“He is.”
“How do you know?”
Sully gestured at the other two businesses facing that lot. “Because he isn’t buying tropical fish or doing Zumba at this hour.”
“You’re so smart. No wonder you’re a detective!”
Oh, Twyla, Sully thinks, and smiles.
“So I guess he’s going to wait until tomorrow to see his friend. She sure will be surprised.”
Not if I have anything to do with it.
Notice to Heirs
STATE OF NEW YORK
COUNTY OF DUTCHESS
In the matter of the estate of Oswald A. Mundy
Notice to Heirs
Donald X. Mundy
14130 Oxnard Street
Van Nuys, California
April 17, 1962
Dear Mr. Mundy:
With regret, I provide formal Notice that your father, Oswald A. Mundy, the decedent, died on March 11, 1962. As his only living offspring, you are sole heir to Mr. Mundy’s estate.
Duvane and Associates has been appointed administrator of the estate. All documents, pleading, and information relating to the estate are on file in the Dutchess County Courthouse under case number 0007697366.
The assets of the Estate of Oswald A. Mundy will be disbursed 60 days following the date of this Notice.
Sincerely,
Harold Duvane, Esq.
Duvane and Associates
129 Fulton Avenue
Mundy’s Landing 73, New York
Chapter 5
Tucked into the Jekyll Suite’s cloud of a bed, Emerson listens to the ticking mantel clock and the night sounds that drift through the window.
Every time wind stirs the tall maple beyond the screen, she hears ghostly whispers—foliage grazing the mesh, she reminds herself. More pleasant are the steady cricket chorus, a barking dog, a passing car, the far-off clatter and whistle of a tr
ain.
She might hear the same noises back in her Bay Area apartment, she supposes. But when she thinks of being there, she remembers only the lonely ache that kept her awake so many nights, even when Roy was snoring beside her.
They dated for six months before he asked her to marry him, and she can no longer remember why she said yes.
Was it because his proposal caught her off guard? Because they were in a public restaurant, with beaming patrons waiting expectantly? Because it was Valentine’s Day? Because it’s what you do when a man is down on his knee? Because she loves him?
She thought maybe she did. He seemed like a good man, and he came along at precisely the right time. Her father’s death allowed her to finally devote herself to a real relationship—one she wouldn’t have to put on hold every time she had to make the trip to LA.
They had so much in common. Roy told her that he, too, had been raised an only child by a single parent. Like Emerson, he longed for roots, wanted to settle down, buy a home, start a family . . .
He seemed too good to be true.
Because he was.
How—why—had she overlooked his moodiness, and the occasional flares of temper? Had grief and loneliness distorted her judgment? Had she mistaken neediness and possessiveness for caring and nurturing?
Or is exhaustion confusing her now?
Glancing out the window before she climbed into bed, she could have sworn she spotted Roy’s pickup truck driving slowly past the Dapplebrook.
It had to be her imagination—power of suggestion introduced by the tattooed young waiter. “Stay safe,” he said as she headed upstairs to her suite.
Of course she’s safe, behind locked doors and resting her head on a silky, eight-hundred-thread-count charcoal gray pillowcase.
Beneath the pillow, though, is the steak knife she swiped from the table downstairs.
Closing her eyes, she breathes deeply, reliving her arrival, moment by soothing moment.
The signpost: Welcome to Mundy’s Landing.
The village Commons, the climb into The Heights, the warm light glowing in the Dapplebrook’s lace-curtained windows . . .
Home. Home at last . . .
Savannah Ivers parks in the municipal lot up at the top of Market Street and walks two short blocks to the Windmill. It’s tucked into a row of stores and restaurants facing the Commons, all shuttered at this hour. Even Marrana’s Trattoria, which seats people until ten on weeknights, has flipped its Closed sign and moved the sidewalk tables inside for the night.
But the Windmill’s plate-glass windows are lit. An old Van Morrison tune spills onto the sidewalk, where a band of pretty girls loiter, simultaneously talking to one another, texting on their phones, and smoking. Manicured index fingers tap cigarette ashes into a terra-cotta sidewalk planter filled with vinca vine and geraniums. Strikingly similar short skirts, cropped camisole tops, and heeled sandals reveal a probable group wardrobe consultation, along with a lot of tanned, taut skin.
Avoiding eye contact with the Girls’ Night Outers, Savannah senses their semi-disinterested regard as they note that she didn’t get the super-cute-mini-and-cami memo, and her own nails are inadequate, short and free of polish. Why is it that females—her age, especially, but even elderly women like Ora Abrams—always seem to be sizing her up? It isn’t just that they scrutinize her appearance, but she often senses a telepathic background check resulting in an instantaneous status report: Outsider.
The place looks jammed. Battling the usual insecurities, she pauses to look over the menu on a framed doorway placard.
No buffalo wings and cheese fries here, just locally sourced organic small-plate appetizers and “mixology”—aka drink—specials. The cocktails have creative names, like the signature “Dutch Kill,” and are accompanied by intricate descriptions of herbal infusions and exotic-sounding liqueurs.
Unlike a regular college bar where the numeric costs listed on the food menu end in ninety-nine cents and there’s nothing over ten bucks, the prices on this one are written in script and start at fifteen dollars.
No wonder she’s only been here once in the four years she’s attended Hadley. Last fall, her human behavioral genetics professor invited her here for drinks. Though he made it sound as if a group of students would be joining them, it was just the two of them.
His name was Tomas, but that night he invited her to call him Tommy.
The boyish nickname might have felt natural on a different kind of man, but he was thin and intense, with an enormous Adam’s apple and John Lennon glasses. She tried “Tom,” but he corrected her, so she didn’t use his name at all.
He told her the Windmill used to be a dive bar where the students hung out. When the current owners bought it years ago, they got rid of everything but the name. The old pool table, dartboard, and neon Windmill sign—too gaudy for the modern incarnation—now reside in an off-campus fraternity house.
“Going in, or coming out?” a voice asks as Savannah hovers in the doorway, and she turns to see a bearded guy in a red shirt behind her.
“Oh, sorry. Going in.”
He makes an after-you gesture, and she notices that his forearm is covered in angry-looking scratches.
She steps into the pub. Dark wood, exposed brick, flickering votives.
Last time, she spotted Tomas waiting for her at a table for two and wondered, with an almost idle curiosity, if he was going to make a move on her.
He did, later in the evening. He smelled of the garlicky smoked fish tapas he’d just devoured, and, oddly, of formaldehyde.
She rejected the advance. Not because of the formaldehyde. She probably smells of it, too, sometimes—occupational hazard.
But Tomas wasn’t Jackson. She didn’t want anyone else.
Not then, anyway.
Not until graduation day scattered her handful of Hadley friends like pollen on a warm May breeze, sending them to their hometowns or jobs in distant cities. After more than a month alone here on campus, she concluded that some new acquaintances—maybe even a new relationship—might not be such a horrible thing.
No one will ever replace the love of her life. But maybe it’s time to let down her guard a little, think about dating again.
Hoping she hasn’t been stood up, she searches the café tables along the wall where, according to Tomas, there used to be ugly, sticky vinyl booths.
“Sticky?” she echoed.
“Sticky,” Tomas repeated.
Made queasy by the suggestive gleam in his eye, she said, “You mean from puke?”
That put a momentary damper on the romance.
She shouldn’t have gone to meet him that night.
She shouldn’t be here tonight.
She scans the other side of the room, where a long, backlit bar is lined by tall cushioned chairs instead of plain wooden stools. Every seat is occupied, with a standing crowd mortared between and behind them.
Her phone buzzes, and she glances down to see a new text. No message, just a photo, of . . .
Me?
Snapped a moment ago, it shows Savannah stepping through the door, with a blur of red-shirted guy behind her.
Noting the angle, she looks toward the bar and spots a hand waving at her. Aha! There he is.
She shoulders her way over, relieved to note that her date, Braden, hasn’t morphed into an unappealing jerk since they met.
She takes in his Mr. Nice Guy good looks: crinkly smile, burnt-sugar eyes, and the dusting of cinnamon freckles across the bridge of a slightly elfin nose. His hair, a burnished copper earlier in the sunshine, is more the deep shade of a vintage penny. It’s long enough to wave around his ears, but just misses brushing the collar of his kiwi green polo. He’s only a few inches taller than she is—maybe five-ten, five-eleven at most. He’s fairly fit, in an average way—no ripped, muscular physique, but no hint of beer gut, either.
He tries to stand, but is boxed in by people crowding around waiting for drinks, so he leans over to give her a quick, cramped
hug. “Sorry for the creepy text.”
“I didn’t think it was creepy.”
“Sure you did.”
“Maybe a little,” she admits, and he laughs.
“You didn’t hear me calling your name, and I was afraid to leave these seats to come and grab you. I had to stalk the bar for twenty minutes to get them.”
She perches on the stool he saved for her, so close to his own that the padded seats are touching. The proximity makes her a little uncomfortable, but she resists the urge to tug her chair away. It’s good for to let the walls come down a little bit, let someone in.
Braden summons a busy female bartender and manages to get Savannah a glass of wine, and a bourbon for himself.
“Cheers,” he says, clinking against her glass.
“What are we drinking to?”
“My brother’s crappy car, what else?”
She laughs.
This afternoon, engrossed in her work, she was startled by a knock on the lab window and looked up to see a lanky, freckle-faced redheaded kid outside. Incoming student orientation was under way across campus, and she correctly pegged him for a soon-to-be freshman.
“Lost?” she called through the screen.
“No, my car’s dead. I left the stupid lights on again.”
“They’re not automatic?”
“Nah, it’s an old car. Do you have jumper cables?”
She did not. Nor did the only other person in the building, a custodian whose laid-back name—Davey—belied a surly demeanor.
“Do you want me to call Triple A or something?” Savannah offered, after a scowling Davey had dumped a trash bag into the Dumpster and gone back into the building, leaving them in the parking lot staring at the crippled car.
“No, my mom will find out. This is the third time I killed the battery.”
“Those stupid headlights, huh?”
“Yeah. I’ve only had the car since, like, Memorial Day but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
Three dead batteries in a month? Savannah didn’t blame him for not wanting to tell his mother.
He decided to call his brother.
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