by A. Gardner
"Oh dear." Franco was still deciding if he wanted one piece of cake or maybe two. He held the knife and paused. "You two have history, don't you?"
"Of course we do," I replied quietly. I gently picked up an empty plate. It was the resort's finest china. Hand-painted and completely original with pictures of deer and evergreens. "We both grew up in this town."
"Not that kind of history, sweetheart." He chuckled to himself and set the knife down. I scooped a spoonful of berries and plopped it on his plate so there was no room for anything else. Franco's eyes went wide as he looked at me.
"Habit," I said. "Sometimes my clients need to be nudged in the right direction. A bite or two is fine. Unless you're like me and a bite or two is just the beginning."
"Brilliant." Franco looked down at his plate. "Honestly, I should pin an alarm to my shirt that goes off every time I touch sweets."
"It's not as filling as my red berry protein shake, but you'll like the fruit just as much as that cake thing."
"It's a pandoro." He raised his eyebrows.
"Is there a difference?"
"You don't get out much do you?" he asked.
"I…"
"It's okay, honey. I assumed as much." His eyes did a once-over of my entire body. "I mean with a figure like that you would have been engaged to a millionaire or on the cover of Fitness Magazine by now." He leaned in a little closer and quickly looked over his shoulder to make sure Lila was otherwise occupied. "I'm surprised that you and Patrick haven't … you know. Unless you have?"
"Me and Patrick?" My cheeks went hot. I hate blushing in public, and thinking about not blushing always made it worse. "No."
"Not even in high school?" he asked. "It's okay, honey. Your secret is safe with me." He casually scratched the side of his chin and the surface of his nails glistened like they had been painted with clear nail polish.
"No, not even in high school." Especially not in high school. "We were just friends." I paused and re-evaluated the words that came out of my mouth. We were just friends, but what were we now? I had no idea.
"I see." With a subtle smirk on his face, Franco took his plate and sat next to Lila. He grabbed a pitcher and filled her glass with water. Right after he did so he reached into his pocket and handed her a tiny circular pill box. He did it so discreetly that no one at the table saw him do it. Lila rolled her eyes and accepted the pill box.
I immediately turned my back to her and finished filling my plate with fruit, skipping over the pandoro and pastries. I reached for a coffee cup tempted to fill it to the brim with some strong brew. I fought the voice in my head telling me to give in by grabbing a tea bag instead.
No caffeine. No caffeine. At least keep your resolution until February.
"Essie," Bebe said as I took the seat next to her. "You made it."
"I wasn't sure what the plan was today."
"You did get the itinerary, right?" Lila said sharply. "Or did that up-tight wedding planner forget to give you one?"
"She gave me one," I answered, hoping she wouldn't go off complaining about Joy for no reason. "She definitely gave me one I just…" My gaze drifted to Patrick who took a deep breath and gulped down a large portion of his coffee.
"What?" Lila demanded. Her jaw clenched slightly as she waited for me to answer. Her eyes were puffy like she hadn’t slept much and her engagement ring slid off and on her miniscule little finger. Even in the short period of time she had been here, she looked like she was dropping weight by the hour. With the levels of stress she was under, I wouldn't be surprised if she was losing her hair too.
"Nothing." I swallowed all the things I wanted to say about canceling or postponing the event if not for her own sanity then to honor the deceased. I chickened out. "The room is beautiful."
I smiled and Lila studied my expression. She immediately copied me and lightened her stern glare. She took a calming breath and sat up straighter, delicately placing her hands in her lap. She sipped some ice cold water and cleared her throat.
"I'm sorry." She shook her head. The tone of her voice was softer. "I'm just trying to forget what happened yesterday." The entire room went eerily silent. "I don’t mean to be a witch all the time…" Her eyes began to look glossy and she hurriedly fanned her face as a tear escaped. It rolled down her cheek, and she wiped it away like she was embarrassed to be crying in front of everyone. "Horrible things always happen to me." She sniffled. "I wanted something good to happen for once. All this has just reminded me that life is too short. That's why I didn't cancel the wedding." She finally buried her head in her hands. Patrick put his arm around her.
"Hey, it's okay," he reassured her. "It's only natural that we are all concerned."
Lila wiped away more tears and looked up. She made eye contact with me, Bebe, and then Franco. "Am I a terrible person for wanting a little happiness in my life?" she asked.
Franco and Bebe automatically shook their heads.
"No, of course not," Bebe replied. "I agree with you."
"I do too," Franco followed.
Seeing the sorrowful look on Lila's face and the way her sunken cheeks were starting to lose their color made me feel guilty for thinking she was a psychopath for wanting to carry on with the wedding. That she was insane for carrying on because seeing one of her bridesmaids floating dead in a pool wasn't enough for her to at least postpone her marriage to Patrick. I might have misjudged her. I nodded in agreement. Patrick glanced at me and mouthed the words thank you. Behind the superficial exterior, Lila was much more fragile than I thought. I'm sure Patrick felt that calling off the wedding would shatter her into pieces.
"How about a moment of silence," Patrick added. "For Donna."
"For Donna." The five of us recited the phrase in unison, and fell silent for a couple of minutes.
"Now, let's talk about something else," I blurted out. "Something more cheerful?"
"Like the wedding," Bebe chimed in. "You're getting married tomorrow, darlin'. We should be celebrating with a bottle of champagne." She set aside her mimosa and forced a wide smile.
"Of course you would suggest something like that," Franco commented. Rather than take offense, Bebe giggled. Lila eventually smiled and nodded as if Franco was right. "Child, it's not even noon."
"You should have seen her the time she got plastered before that red carpet thing in Vegas and—"
"How about a good old-fashioned hike?" Patrick interrupted Lila.
"In this weather?" Lila challenged him. The tone of her voice was still soft and dainty though she sounded back to her usual self.
"Snow shoes," I added. "It's more fun than it sounds." I casually jabbed a berry with my fork and proceeded to put it in my mouth. Bebe watched me and glanced at her glass of mimosa.
"Are you thinking of the time we hiked up to the abandoned miner's cabin?" Patrick said. We were in seventh grade when we did that and I just about coughed up a lung. The strenuous physical activity had come easily to Patrick, and I never admitted to him that I'd barfed behind an aspen tree when he wasn't looking. Twice.
"Please don't tell me that you still think it is haunted." I couldn't help but laugh as my mind jumped back to that brisk Sunday morning when I attempted to prove to him that ghosts weren't real. Old man Simpkons liked to say otherwise, especially to the children of Bison Creek who disturbed his peace and quiet by playing near his fence.
"Didn't one of the miners die up there?" he continued. "It's definitely haunted. Stop kidding yourself."
"How many times do I have to prove you wrong?"
Patrick chuckled and a familiar grin graced his face as he looked at me in a way he'd never looked at me before. I told myself I was imagining it. If Joy was standing next to me she would have told me to stop reading into a simple look. Because that is all it was. A look.
Franco cleared his throat. I broke eye contact with Patrick and noticed that both Bebe and Lila were studying the two of us. I took another bite of fruit, but I wasn't hungry for it at all. Franco cut into h
is slice of pandoro and purposely hit the side of his plate with his fork. It made a loud clanging noise and pulled us all back to the task at hand.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Lila carried on. "We have rehearsals later. We can't miss that. Oh and…" She rubbed her forehead before looking down into her purse. She pulled out a shiny tube of lipstick. Probably from her own collection. "Someone needs to box up Donna's luggage to send back to her family. I don’t think I can deal with that right now."
"Don't you worry about it," Franco said. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "We'll figure that out later. Or better yet, you let me handle that one."
"The police didn't take care of it?" I couldn't help but ask. Lila ignored my comment and moistened her lips with light pink gloss.
"They looked through her things," Franco said quietly. "But they said they didn't need to take anything as evidence."
"Okay, well I'm ready." Lila smiled and stood up to adjust the hem of her dress. "Let's go meet the minister or whoever that guy is who's marrying us."
"His name is Pastor Tad," Patrick corrected her. "My parents have been attending his services every Sunday since they moved here."
"Right." She grabbed his hand and glanced at me and Bebe like she was publicly claiming her property. "I knew that." She pulled Patrick out of the room and immediately Bebe exhaled. She automatically tugged at the white wristband she'd been wearing yesterday. She snapped it against the inside of her wrist. The simple motions seemed to keep her positive and relaxed.
"Oh Lord," she muttered. "This wedding is going to give me a heart attack. I am so glad you're here, Essie." A tiny smile crossed her face, and she stopped snapping the wristband. She shook her hand until her sparkly tennis bracelets covered it.
"Yesterday was a rough one for all of us," I replied. "Maybe today will be different. Lila seems to be doing better."
"I hope she doesn't have a breakdown before tomorrow. I hate it when she bosses me like she does." Bebe took one last gulp of her mimosa and pushed her plate aside.
"Ladies," Franco remarked before leaving the room.
"Bebe." I had an idea, but I wasn't sure if Bebe would play along. "What if we packed up Donna's stuff? You know, as a favor to Lila? Unless it would be too painful—"
"No, I'll do it," she quickly agreed. "If it'll get me away from Lila for a while, I will do it." She placed a hand on her chest feeling her heartbeat. "I've never met anyone like Lila. It's like the moment we became friends, her stress became my stress. She's a very intense person. Have you ever known anyone like that?"
"My sister," I answered. "Well, sometimes."
Bebe laughed.
"Come on," she said as she linked her arm with mine. "Let's get crackin' on rehearsals. Lord knows what will happen if either of us doesn’t remember where to stand tomorrow."
"I'll be there in a minute." I pulled myself away from her and peered through the doorway towards the kitchen. "There's something I need to take care of first."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Miss Korston, the head baker, was a larger, middle-aged woman, but she wasn't large in the sense that she had flabby extremities and a jumbo muffin top. She was large as in she was robust. She looked and acted like she could whip up an entire Thanksgiving Day spread on her own and then do a hundred pull-ups. Her forearms were thick and she grimaced when she cooked, staring down each ingredient like they were disobedient children. Amazingly, her food turned out superb.
"Stop calling me Miss," she scolded me. "My name is Aggie. And who are you again?"
"I'm Essie," I said loudly over the banging of pots and pans. "Joy's sister."
"Oh." She continued forming honey wheat loaves. I followed her around the kitchen until she finally stopped and took a breath.
"Listen Aggie, I have a couple of questions—"
"Always the questions," she interrupted. "Alright let's hear it. What are you? Gluten-free? Dairy-free? Non-fat? Non-sugar? Low-sodium? I have had it up to here with all the food restrictions. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to put together that wedding menu?" She threw her hands up in the air. "I didn't sleep a wink. My dog Cuddles had to take himself for a walk. That's how crazy it has been in here. Understand?"
"I understand," a voice said from the doorway. Eli, one of the servers and Pinecliffe's self-appointed messenger boy, cut through kitchen on one of his regular errands. He snagged a spare dinner roll from a serving basket. I always saw Eli hanging around Misty and claiming he was as busy as ever when someone gave him a job to do. I'd always thought he said that so no one gave him any work to do.
"Get out of my kitchen, for the hundredth time boy," Aggie yelled. She was losing her patience. Eli scooted away from her, but he wasn't bothered. In fact, he acted like this exact scenario had happened before. "You can't keep cutting through my kitchen and taking whatever you like."
"I hear you loud and clear," he teased her. Eli was tall and lanky. He had ashy brown hair that he liked to part on the side and smooth down with a comb. Sometimes he wore glasses, but it wasn't because he needed them to see. "You have a dog named Cuddles."
"Ughhh." Aggie shooed him like a stray cat.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm going. But seriously. Cuddles?" Eli smirked and hurriedly left with the warm dinner roll already in his mouth.
"You see what I have to put up with," Aggie muttered. She turned back to her baking. "All hours of the night it is one special request after another. How am I supposed to make a gluten-free vegan shortcake with no nuts?"
I waited for Aggie to cool down and resume kneading. She carried on with her work with her back to me as if I'd left the kitchen. I cleared my throat but over the banging of pots and pans by the rest of the kitchen staff she couldn't hear me. I took a step closer, eager to figure out who ordered the cupcakes that Donna ate.
"Aggie," I stated.
"Oh." She jumped when she finally heard my voice. "You're still here, are you?" She stopped and wiped her hands on her apron. "Okay, what'll take to get rid of you?"
"I want to know about some of the food that was sent out yesterday," I replied. "A cupcake order sometime yesterday afternoon?"
"Oh," she huffed. "You'll be wanting the list." She stepped past me and opened a door I had previously assumed was a storage closet or an extra pantry. Inside was an office. It was small and it looked very much like it used to be a closet, but a half smile crossed Aggie's face as she sat at her computer and glanced at a photo of her dog Cuddles. "We keep track of all that stuff here." She opened a file on her desktop and clicked on a list of items that were ordered yesterday. They were categorized and alphabetized. "What are you looking for again?"
"Cupcakes," I answered.
Aggie's mouse scrolled through the list of items and stopped when she got to an order for a dozen specialty cupcakes for pickup. She highlighted the order.
"Here you go. Only one cupcake order was placed yesterday afternoon."
"A dozen Pinecliffe Delights," I said out loud. "What's that?"
The resort's prized dessert collection is a mystery to me. I made the mistake once of trying a slice of the specialty blueberry spice pie, and it almost killed me that I couldn't eat the whole thing. After thinking about it so much that a slice of berry heaven started showing up in my dreams, I decided it was best to leave the food in the kitchen to the guests.
"It's our award-winning cupcake," Aggie said proudly. "I came up the recipe myself. Chocolate cake with peanut butter cream inside. The filling is also a special invention of mine. It's like biting into a piece of peanut butter fudge."
I ignored the rumbling in my stomach upon hearing Aggie's detailed description.
"And who placed the order? Someone in the wedding party?"
"Of course not," she gasped. "Why, I wouldn't allow it. That's absurd." Her expression was stern. She glared at me like I was being scolded for licking the frosting off of a wedding cake.
"Why not?"
"Because one of the wedding guests has a severe nut allergy. I received the no
tice right after they checked in. I take the dietary needs of each guest very seriously you know. I wouldn't have even allowed this order to go through, but I wasn't here when it was called in. My foolish assistant approved it. I would've at least used the soy nut butter substitute just in case."
"Then who ordered it?"
She looked closer at here computer screen. I squinted and read the name on the order. It was called in on a line that wasn't connected to any of the hotel rooms. The order was paid for with cash, and picked up by someone named C. Darnay.
"C. Darnay?"
"Sometimes people don't bother to use their full names," Aggie responded. "Or even their real names if the order is a surprise for someone and they don't want any of the staff ringing their room about it."
"Were you here when the order was picked up?" I asked. Aggie studied the list and shook her head.
"No, that would be Dora. It says that the box was collected at one o'clock. I would have been on my lunch break." She stood up and gestured towards the door.
"Is Dora here?"
"Dora!" Aggie shouted. She waited as a young girl wearing a hair net came quickly with wide eyes and a terrified look on her face. "This woman wants to speak with you." Aggie turned to me. "Are we finished?"
"Yes, thanks."
"Can I help you?" Dora timidly asked. She was shorter than me and very petite. I remembered Joy telling me once that the kitchen staff had to be at least eighteen years old to qualify for a permanent position, but Dora looked like she was sixteen years old.
"Yeah." I took a deep breath. Doc Henry was right. Donna had an allergic reaction to the peanut butter filling. Someone gave her that cupcake on purpose. Someone really did kill her. Her fate was no accident. Shivers pulsed up and down my spine. "You were here yesterday afternoon when someone picked up an order for a dozen Pinecliffe Delights. Did you happen to see who it was?"
