The House at Royal Oak

by Carol Eron Rizzoli

  On top of everything else, the grass was ankle-high along the driveway, overdue for mowing. Hugo’s approach to the lawn was Zen-like. With his push-mower, it took most of a day to cut the lawn and he liked it that way. I called up the Kilmons to ask if they knew anyone who could help.

  Scott answered the phone and I told him what had happened the day before to Hugo. Barely had I formed the question about the grass when he said, “It’s taken care of.” I wanted to cry. He went on to say that Susie would come over and give me a hand. She could cook, make beds, anything at all I needed. I knew she had a bad back and couldn’t bring myself to ask her to do beds or wait on tables. “We’re here if you change your mind,” he said. I should have accepted, but being new, I felt awkward asking favors of them.

  It was one of those times when everyone who might have helped was not around. Rick, away on a business trip. My two best friends, out of town for the weekend. Linda, in Florida to check on our ninety-two-year-old mother. Ethan, Lucy, and Amanda, thousands of miles away at work and school. I knew I could turn out breakfast under the circumstances, but I also knew I couldn’t serve it graciously or even calmly.

  I called up a server at our favorite eating place in Easton, where we allowed ourselves to go once a week when we didn’t have a kitchen. Amy Haines, the restaurant’s owner who was by now a friend, had told me we could raid her staff if necessary, but only for weekend mornings. The server said she would be glad to come over. By phone my sister suggested keeping the menu simple.

  I called the hospital. Hugo answered and told me not to worry, he felt a little better and there were a lot of doctors around. He wanted to know if his truck was okay.

  Fine, I assured him. He said something else then, so softly it took time for his words to register. “In the fast lane . . . doing seventy . . . and the yellow line . . .”

  What yellow line?

  The one in the middle of the highway, he explained. “Upside down . . . it seemed to be in the sky . . . and I was driving with the truck . . . on its side.”

  New panic washed over me. I rushed through the work to get more or less ready for the incoming guests and drove as fast as I dared back along Ditch Road, heading for the hospital.

  When I arrived, Hugo was still lying in bed, too dizzy to sit up or open his eyes.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Full House

  FRIDAY NOON. WHEN I ANSWERED THE PHONE, A WOMAN asked for Hugo. He isn’t here, I told her.

  “Oh. This is Kayla and I just wanted to let Hugo know we’ve landed so we’ll be at his place by three.”

  His place? This was a courteous guest, even if she seemed quite focused on Hugo. I thanked her for calling and remembered to say something welcoming.

  A few minutes after three, a couple parked and walked up the brick path, presumably Kayla and her husband. But who knew? You can’t be sure who the guests are until they identify themselves. For this reason I quickly got in the habit of introducing myself to encourage them to do the same.

  “Hi, I’m me,” the man responded. Kayla stepped forward and introduced herself and Bob, her husband. I offered to help carry their bags but, having learned from before, asked if they had something light because of a knee.

  “Looks to me like you’ve got two knees,” Bob said, handing me a bag of cookies and soda. “It’s in case you don’t have much to eat around here.”

  He’s more comfortable with hotels, Kayla said, but he agreed to try a bed-and-breakfast. I showed them to their room and Kayla asked if Hugo was around.

  “What’s all this about Hugo?” Bob said. “She’s called him three times in the last three days. I asked her why she had to call Hugo again from the airport. Is she in love with him or something?”

  He tends to have that effect, I said.

  “Then we’ll look forward to meeting him,” Bob said with a wink.

  Coming downstairs for tea, Kayla and Bob carried a bottle of wine they had brought from California. I thanked them for the completely unexpected gift and said I’d save it for when Hugo could enjoy it.

  Teatime passed quickly. I felt a rush of delight at meeting such a pleasant couple, people I just knew Hugo would take to. Alone back in the kitchen to refill the teapot, the bleak reality hit me. Hugo was lying in a hospital bed and couldn’t get up. No one knew what was wrong with him. Maybe he would never be able to taste the wine. He loved wine and would talk about the grapes, the regions, the variations from one vineyard to another. I would rather not drink the wine at all than drink it without him, even with the annoying slurping noises of his first sips. This is necessary to aerate wine properly, he said, and the only way to experience the full taste. I blinked back tears and pushed through to the dining room. Luckily, Kayla kept up the conversation, complimenting details of the house restoration and decoration I didn’t think anyone would notice while Bob interrupted with jokes. Pride kept me going, too. No one wants to see a crying hostess.

  “Bob doesn’t usually like inns, but he likes this,” Kayla was saying. “However, we will need more pillows, I can tell you that right now, at least two more.”

  Certainly, I said, knowing there wasn’t an extra pillow in the house and the closest store was a sixteen-mile trip.

  The doorbell rang and I went to greet the guests for the second room, a stately gray-haired couple. I ran through information about the house, already easier the second time in a day. Here’s the parlor for your use, the dining room where we serve breakfast at nine and tea in the afternoon, or you can have tea on the porch. Here are the keys, and up these stairs straight ahead is your room.

  One tea, one coffee for the Linden room, I repeated, coming back downstairs. I had forgotten to ask Kayla and Bob about coffee and tea, but found them on their way out for the evening. As I was writing down the requests, a third car pulled into the driveway and parked. I went out to greet a woman alone.

  She had encountered Bob outside.

  “What’s with the ‘I’m-me’ jokester?” she asked sharply.

  Mediating between guests, it crossed my mind for the first time, might be part of the job and it might not be easy. I followed this guest into the house and showed her around.

  My head was spinning as I anxiously jotted down “coffee, Acorn,” afraid of forgetting even this simple detail. She reappeared half an hour later, ready to join a wedding rehearsal party, and paused at the kitchen door.

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Yes, of course.” But if you don’t like this place, please don’t say so now, I thought, because my husband might be dying and I am about to start screaming.

  “Lights. I’ve stayed in a lot of B&Bs. I’m something of an authority on them, by the way, and I don’t know why everyone thinks no one reads in bed! I have moved the reading light from the table to the bedside. Will you please be sure that no one moves it back when they do my room?”

  Yes, I answered, completely missing her main point. I was listening only for immediate problems.

  “And another thing—pillows. If you are going to have shams, and they’re nice ones by the way, then you must also provide pillows with pillowcases on them. I’ll need two. You cannot expect your guests to take the pillows out of the shams.”

  Pillows again. I was starting to perceive a trend.

  “Of course,” I said, knowing the local department store was by now closed for the night. There was a superstore farther away. If they were open late, maybe I could buy pillows there on my way back from seeing Hugo.

  The Acorn guest was saying something else. When it sank in, I panicked. She promised “additional comments” at breakfast. Even in my distracted state I realized that this could only mean one thing. She was planning to embarrass me and our little business in front of the other guests. If she did that, there was a good chance I’d lose it. Running a bed-and-breakfast suddenly seemed like an extremely bad idea. You have to remain calm, cool, resilient, and flexible, other owners had advised, also helpful and cheerful. I hadn’t
paid enough attention at the time, thinking yes, yes, I know all that. I never stopped to consider the implications. You have to be like that, even if your own life is falling apart.

  When Hugo and I talked later on the phone, I told him about the nice guests and the lovely North Coast wine waiting for him. I told him everything was organized and going smoothly.

  The next morning, Saturday, I got up early and went into the kitchen. As before, I had done most of the work for breakfast the night before while the guests were out. Now with a guest for the first time sleeping in the room directly over the kitchen, I had to move quietly, which took extra time. When I set a pan on the stainless steel counter, the sound bounced off the ceiling. I washed the tangerines and sliced them for juicing, but set them aside because the juicer sounded like a lawnmower. I boiled water for tea, started the coffeemaker. At 7:30 I walked into the dining room to set the tables. Through the glass doors to the parlor, I was startled to see Bob sitting on the sofa, arms crossed, obviously waiting for someone or something.

  I waved and hoped he didn’t notice my worn-out moccasins as I opened the doors. I attempted a serene greeting.

  “Morning. Could I possibly have a cup of tea? Earl Grey, please.”

  He was testing the place. I knew we didn’t have any Earl Grey, but maybe Lady Grey.

  “Fine, Lady Grey,” he laughed. “Let’s try her out, and a newspaper if you have one?”

  “Certainly,” I said, having completely forgotten this detail. Minutes later, as Melanie came up the walk, I dashed out and whispered to her to get a paper. As I was serving Bob his second cup of tea, she returned with it. Breakfast was behind schedule by now and he still wanted to chat. I knew that with Melanie’s help I could pull everything together quickly, so I decided to visit with him for another ten minutes.

  Frankly, he didn’t care at all for B&Bs. As a commercial airline pilot, he liked hotel services. This time Kayla insisted and he had to admit he felt right at home here. But could he make a suggestion?

  I was starting to expect this. So what if I’d stayed in over a hundred bed-and-breakfasts and thought I knew all about the business?

  Whatever it was would be interesting, maybe something to learn from. Of course, I said.

  “Light from your sign. It shines on the ceiling in our room. Anything you can do about that?”

  After the electrician installed these lights, I’d noticed the problem, but the electrician couldn’t come back for another week. I told Bob I would look into it, knowing I didn’t have a clue how to fix it. Hugo had said something about it earlier and maybe he would be well enough today to remember. Bob would know exactly how to do it, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask a guest for help.

  At nine o’clock everyone gathered in the dining room. Kayla and Bob chose the round table by the front window. The couple from the Linden room sat at the large center table, and I set a place for the Acorn guest at a small table at the other end of the room. The idea was to allow the guests privacy if they wanted it or the opportunity to socialize if they preferred. I was happy when the Linden couple asked if the Acorn guest would like to join them and she quickly agreed. I moved her place setting over to their table.

  Fresh tangerine juice in the little glasses Hugo had specially chosen for that purpose was already set on the tables, along with baskets of toast and muffins. Melanie came out and poured coffee and tea. Never let guests sit at the table without anything to eat or drink, Hugo had lectured, and I told Melanie back in the kitchen that he would be proud of how we were doing.

  It took only a few minutes to scramble the eggs and decorate each plate with fresh thyme and roasted tomatoes. As Melanie opened the dining room door and carried in plates, I overheard animated conversation.

  Turning off the stove, I brought out the last two breakfasts while Melanie refilled coffee cups. The Acorn guest had been talking, but I didn’t catch what she was saying. The dining room fell silent.

  Then Kayla said, “You can have our blanket.”

  “You can have ours, too,” the lady from Linden spoke up. Quietly but distinctly she added, “I have my husband to keep me warm.”

  The Acorn guest eyed me. “You forgot to put salt and pepper on the table.”

  “Right here.” I hurried to set Zia Lillia’s little crystal salt and pepper shakers down and retreated to the kitchen.

  What were they saying? I asked Melanie who came in a minute later. She threw me a look that was both sympathetic and evasive. “Oh, that lady’s just a complainer. But they really like the breakfast—all of them.”

  Heartened, I returned to the dining room to ask if all was well.

  “The bed was good,” Acorn said, “but I’d like more juice.”

  After making and pouring more juice and coffee, I described some of the local sights and restaurants. Within an hour all the guests went out.

  Melanie helped put the kitchen back in order before leaving. I straightened sofa cushions in the parlor, folded the newspaper, swept the porch, took an extra blanket upstairs and left it outside Acorn’s door.

  After returning phone calls from worried family, I made tea, carried it into the office, and bolted the door. I switched off the lights and sat down on the bed. A migraine was setting in fast. I sipped a little tea. As soon as I lay down, someone rapped sharply at the door. I sat up and heard the Acorn guest calling my name.

  Insistently the doorknob turned. I flung myself out of bed. Fortunately, the lock held because our living quarters, a confusion of power tools, laundry, paperwork, suitcases, and dirty dishes, would have shocked anyone who saw it except other bed-and-breakfast owners who mostly say they lived in similar conditions while getting their places going.

  “Carol?” she called again.

  I opened the door and stepped into the hall, closing the door quickly behind me. Dressed and perfumed for the wedding, she looked very displeased.

  “They haven’t made up my room yet.”

  “That’s not . . . I mean, we consider the room yours while you’re here and we don’t go in unless asked.”

  “It’s quite a mess,” she said.

  Worrisome as that was, I considered apologizing to her, but now stress was taking its toll and I didn’t want to apologize. Some bed-and-breakfasts offer daily maid service, but many do not and we thought this style more suited short-stay visitors to our small place.

  I brought myself to say that I would go see what the problem was.

  “Please,” she said and was gone.

  I called up Hugo. Always the more easygoing of our team, he managed to offer sympathy while suggesting that it wouldn’t be hard to take a look around, make a bed if necessary. If she had made a “mess,” better to find out now.

  I took the duplicate key and clean towels and went upstairs. Outside her door the extra blanket was where I had left it. In the room the normal kinds of things were lying around, a book and clothes, tourist brochures. The bathroom was another story. Wet towels and the rug were heaped on the floor next to a waste-basket overflowing with soda cans, a partly eaten pizza, candy wrappers, plastic bags, and a wine bottle. Thinking it probably wasn’t easy in late middle age to travel alone to a wedding, I replaced the towels, collected the trash, made her bed, took the extra blanket out of its bag and laid it out in neat accordian folds at the foot of the bed, the way they do at luxury hotels so you can pull the blanket up and it slides gently over you.

  In my dreams of our new life, there wasn’t anything about being a housemaid. When I called Hugo back to complain about this part of the dream, he sounded brighter. This is only while we get started, he reminded me. Once we’re successful we’ll have some help.

  By late Saturday afternoon when I got to the hospital, he was sitting up, although one side of his body seemed stiff, as if he was partly paralyzed. I knew he was trying to put on a good show by sitting up, but his closed eyes gave him away. Yes, he admitted, his head hurt like hell.

  The cardiologist stood next to the bed, clearly unh
appy. “The medicine isn’t working,” he said. “Here we have a relatively young patient, healthy until three days ago, who now can’t even drive himself home from the hospital.” He had consulted the neurologist and ordered more tests. Results tomorrow.

  When he left, I gave Hugo the strawberries I had brought. He half-opened his eyes and started eating, then stopped. He almost forgot: His dad said to call right away. It was critical.

  CHAPTER

  16

  The Experts

  ON THE OTHER END OF THE LINE, HUGO SENIOR ordered me to hold my index finger in front of Hugo’s nose and move it to the right and then the left. Phone in hand, I climbed up on the hospital bed, sat cross-legged in front of Hugo, and told him to look at my finger.

  “Does his right eye follow your finger when you move to his right?” his dad wanted to know. I tried it twice before saying yes. Then he asked me to do the same with his left eye. “Start at his nose and move your finger to his left, your right. Does his eye make a jerky motion?”

  Yes.

  “Jesus!”

  What does that mean? I asked. He answered by instructing me to try it again.

  As his eye moved from center to right, following my finger, I watched closely. There was no mistake. His blue-green eye tried to follow my finger with tiny, flickering hesitations.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  I asked him again what it meant. Stroke.

  Hugo wanted to know what his dad was saying. I told him calmly because I didn’t really believe it and because he seemed a little better than before.

  At the same time his dad was directing me to get the neurologist on the phone immediately and get the results of the latest test, an MRI of the head.

  He’s not on call, the hospital operator advised and gave me his office number. An answering machine came on, saying to leave a message for Monday or to call the hospital. He could be bleeding into his head, I kept thinking, not knowing if a stroke could cause that, but vaguely remembering something about it and that it could be fatal. I went to find a nurse.