by Harper Lin
A natural divide of about an acre of wooded area and pine trees separated Sarkis Estates from the smaller, more conservative homes in Brightway.
Luann Jameson’s house was a huge manor with four pillars across the front of the house. The yard was pristinely kept. Not a stray leaf or brazen weed creeping up on the lawn. The flowers were perfectly maintained and bloomed happily even on this day that was anything but happy for the people living in the house.
Amelia slowed the hot-pink truck down as she approached the house and saw what had to be Bud Fetzer’s place. In contrast, his house was a beautifully rustic-looking home that almost blended in completely with the wooded landscape to the right and behind the house.
“That would be a breathtaking house if all the cameras and satellite dishes were removed and maybe the walkway was swept,” Amelia said to herself. It looked as if curtains covered the windows on the first and second floor. But the third-floor windows were wide open, and three of those windows faced the Jameson home. Amelia shivered.
She pulled into the driveway at the Jameson house by a young man in skinny jeans and a plaid shirt buttoned all the way up his neck, who pointed down the extended driveway.
“Please pull around to the back to the service entrance,” he chirped.
Amelia nodded and followed the driveway around to the back of the house. There were two other trucks there. One looked as if it was providing beverages. The other was the caterer for the lunch—Katie Pix Catering. Amelia had heard of her. She was the caterer for every political event in the city. Hopefully, she’d get to snag a plate of Katie’s goodies for herself.
Another woman was waiting back there to assist Amelia.
“Just park over there, and we’ll get the boys to bring in the cupcakes.”
“Okay” was all Amelia could think to say.
Two large men in black pants and white shirts came up to the truck. Without anything more than a grin, Amelia handed them each a box of cupcakes. Grabbing one herself, she followed them inside.
They wove their way through what Amelia guessed was a mudroom of sorts. It was an absolutely sparkling, sweet-smelling mudroom for only the cleanest muddy boots. There were thick cream-colored towels stacked on shelves along with several umbrellas hanging from pegs. There wasn’t a single scuff or smudge on the brown tiled floor.
The super-fancy mudroom opened up into a kitchen that would make Wolfgang Puck green with envy. As Amelia looked at all the steel appliances and marble countertops, she was once again struck by how sterile everything looked. It was beautiful. On her best day, Amelia couldn’t get her kitchen to look this clean. She wondered if Luann or even a hired chef ever used this kitchen. If they did, they must have had a maid that had a real violent hatred of filth.
“Are those the desserts?” a third person asked Amelia. She was a blond-haired girl in a black skirt and a peach-colored blouse, carrying a clipboard and with a Bluetooth in her ear.
“Yes,” she replied. “One hundred double-chocolate raspberry cupcakes from The Pink Cupcake.”
“One hundred?” the woman snapped. “There were supposed to be one hundred and ten.” She tapped her Bluetooth.
“No. Luann told me one hundred. I’ve got it written down. The price I quoted was for one hundred. It was all explained to her,” I replied calmly.
Without looking at her, the woman indicated for Amelia to follow her into a room where the food was already being displayed. Amelia almost fainted. There was prime rib, lobster tails, and a vegetarian lasagna that was at least seven layers high. It smelled wonderful.
There was a small table where Amelia began to assemble the cupcakes. She went back to the truck to get the displays to stack the cupcakes on, making them look more like an artistic sculpture than just a bunch of cupcakes.
Bluetooth Woman had left, and Amelia decided to take this opportunity to have a look around. According to her watch, she had about ten minutes before the mourners were expected to arrive. This was one heck of a sendoff for Greg. Amelia looked around, hoping to see maybe a wedding picture of him and Colleen or maybe a picture at a family get-together. Strangely, there was nothing. In fact, there wasn’t really anything to indicate that this was for a funeral. It looked like a fundraiser or perhaps a wedding brunch.
“Rich people are weird,” Amelia grumbled before asking someone where the bathroom was.
Amelia made her way through the dining room, past a sitting room, to a lovely winding staircase. Once upstairs, she slowly walked down the hallway. There were lovely paintings on the walls and a couple of pictures of Colleen. High school graduation. College graduation. Luann and Colleen with the late Mr. Jameson, who was at least two decades older than Luann.
He wasn’t the most handsome man Amelia had ever laid eyes on. Every man looked handsome in a suit and tie, but he did have a smile that even Amelia, as she looked at the picture, couldn’t help but return. It was contagious.
Inching down the hallway, Amelia was careful to listen for anyone coming up behind her. She found the bathroom. But before slipping inside, she took a few more steps to peek into the bedrooms.
“This is crazy. You are going to get busted. Just go back downstairs. What could be up here?” she muttered. But that was when she saw that the first room on the right side of the hall looked like the room of a young woman.
“This must be Colleen’s room. But if she was married, where did Greg sleep?” she asked the single bed with four posts. Another step inside the room, and Amelia saw an impeccably neat dresser and a desk with stationery on the blotter.
Out the window, through the lacy curtains, was a view of Bud Fetzer’s place.
Even with the thin curtain distorting the view, Amelia still shuddered, thinking Bud was watching the place.
Just as she turned to leave the room, she saw the only thing that looked out of place—a packet of papers that were stapled together, sloppily bent and rolled as if someone had been worrying the corners. It was on the nightstand next to a facedown picture frame.
Quickly, Amelia tiptoed over to the nightstand and flipped over the photo. It was Colleen and Greg on their wedding day. Bright smiles were on their faces as they looked at each other. Colleen was a beautiful bride, and Greg really did clean up nicely. They looked like they fit together.
“That poor girl.” Amelia put the frame back the way she found it. She picked up the documents, but what she saw caused her breath to hitch in her throat.
It was an insurance policy. On various pages were little red Post-it tabs with the words Sign Here on them.
Flipping through the pages, Amelia saw Gregory Timber Scottson was worth six million dollars dead.
“This is interesting.”
But before she could set the paper down, she heard voices on the steps. One she was sure was Luann. Thinking fast, she dropped to the floor and rolled underneath the bed. Thankfully, Colleen had a neat room and nothing under her bed.
Amelia held her breath as Luann and Colleen walked into the room.
“Have you signed the papers yet?” Luann asked.
The papers? The papers! The papers that were still in Amelia’s hand!
Brilliant, she scolded herself.
“Mom, he hasn’t even been gone a week,” Colleen whined. “I can’t think about that stuff right now.”
“Well, honey, you need to think about it. Where are they?”
Amelia watched her mother’s fancy pumps walk over to the desk. Colleen’s remained still by the dresser. With lightning speed, Amelia thrust the papers out from under the bed, leaving them on the floor by the nightstand.
“They’re over here.” Colleen walked over and without comment picked the insurance policy up from the ground.
“You haven’t signed a single page,” Luann snapped. “Look, I know you are mourning, and I know this hurts, but the sooner you can get this over with, the sooner we will be able to move on with our lives.”
“Mom, the house is filling up with guests. I’m not going to loo
k at this right now.”
Colleen’s flat ballet-slipper shoes turned and walked out the door. Luann’s stood there. Amelia was sure the woman could see through the mattress and box spring and was watching her underneath the bed. Any second, she was going to drop down to her knees and yank up the bed sham and scream, “A-ha!”
But that didn’t happen.
Luann dropped the papers back on the nightstand and left. Amelia let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Now she really and truly had to go to the bathroom. Giving Luann enough time to go back downstairs, Amelia shimmied out from underneath the bed like a crab escaping a seagull and darted on tiptoe across the hallway to the bathroom.
That made her gasp as well. The tiles on the floor looked like smooth stones from a Zen garden, and they climbed the walls in the shower and along the backsplash of the double sink. A sunk-in tub with eight different jets in it sat beneath a small stained-glass window that allowed the light in but obstructed any view in or out.
The soaps were little lavender balls, and the mirrors were beveled, with elaborate scrolling around the edges. The towel rack was heated.
“For heaven’s sake.” Amelia shook her head as she washed her hands and darted back downstairs.
Colleen was right. As she tried to maneuver her way back the way she had come, Amelia was forced to take a couple of weird turns and pass through unfamiliar rooms where people were talking and hugging and visiting. She swore it took an additional ten minutes to get her bearings and arrive back at her table in the dining room.
After letting out a deep breath, she pulled a couple of business cards from her pocket and set them in front of her lovely cupcake display and stood back while the guests helped themselves.
Chapter Eight
When Amelia had been hiding under the bed, all she could see from her hiding place under the bed were Luann’s shoes. But when she saw her entire ensemble, she had to fight not to stare. The dress reminded Amelia of the character Elvira, Mistress of the Night, who would run all those bad horror movies. Every curve was showing, and her cleavage was on full display.
Maybe she can’t help it? Amelia wondered as she watched her spend a few moments with each one of her guests. Maybe that’s how all of her clothes fit her and there isn’t anything she can do about it. She looked at the faces of the guests and wondered if they were as shocked as she. But aside from the casual glance of a gentleman or two, no one seemed to notice Luann’s outfit.
Colleen walked in and was a stark contrast to her mother. She wore a lovely black business suit. She reciprocated a couple hellos as she fixed herself a small plate of cheeses, bread, and some grapes.
“I’m going to go sit in the kitchen,” Amelia heard her tell her mother. Luann mumbled something, but Colleen shrugged her off. “I’m going to sit in the kitchen,” she said loud enough to get her point across.
Luann let her arms flop to her sides as she shook her head.
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do with that girl.” Luann pouted her lips at a sympathetic guest who was standing nearby.
“Just give her some time, Lu. She’ll come around,” the man said, sidling up to Luann.
“She blames herself,” Luann replied, looking at the man and then at Amelia, who was within earshot. “I keep telling her that she couldn’t have known what Greg was going to do while she was gone. They had been struggling.”
“Is that so?” the man asked, obviously enjoying Luann’s attention and probably the view as well.
“Greg, well, he wasn’t making enough money at the garage for them to move out the way they had planned. His heart was in the right place. Believe me. I could see it.” Luann nodded in Amelia’s direction. “But he just didn’t have the ambition. He started smoking, you know, marijuana.”
“Oh, that is too bad. It is a gateway drug, they say,” the man said encouragingly.
Amelia said nothing and didn’t move.
“I had been complaining that the roof needed a few tiles replaced. If anyone should blame themselves, it should be me.” She sort of sobbed. Amelia noticed she sort of did. “Colleen was at the salon. I had made an appointment for her with my stylist. The girl was running a little behind with her client, so Colleen had to wait. She hadn’t had her hair done in so long, and I was treating her to a manicure. It was supposed to be a beautiful day. But I forgot my wallet.”
The man nodded, never taking his eyes away from Luann’s face.
“It’s probably a blessing that I did. Had Colleen been the one to find him... My God. She would have died right there on the spot next to him. I know she would have.”
Colleen hadn’t seen the accident. No one was home when it happened. Amelia wondered if he could have been saved if someone had been home.
“Greg thought he would do me a favor and climb up on that roof and fix those loose shingles for me. I would have never let him do it if I’d known that was his plan. He was trying to earn his keep the only way he knew how. Using his hands. Let’s face it, he wasn’t valedictorian like Colleen was.”
“Colleen has inherited that from you, Luann. But somehow she has Walter’s heart.”
“He’s raised her since she was eight. It’s amazing how much of him I see in her, and they don’t share a single drop of blood.”
Amelia had no idea the late Mr. Jameson was not Colleen’s real father. She wondered who was.
“Does her real father know what happened? Have you spoken to him?” the man asked as if reading Amelia’s mind.
“Burt? Burt can’t be bothered. He’s not even in the state anymore. For all I know, he isn’t in the country. When I married, child support was no longer an issue. He pulled up stakes, and I’ve not heard from him in well over ten years now.”
“That’s too bad.”
“It is for Colleen. Not me.” Luann chuckled. “The only good thing to come out of that arrangement was my beautiful daughter.”
“Colleen needs you now. She needs you to be strong for her,” the man continued. “Like you always are.”
“You’re right, Hank. But sometimes, sometimes I really wish someone was there to be strong for me.”
“If there is anything I can do for you, anything at all, day or night, just call me.”
“Thank you, Hank. Please tell Dolores I said thank you, too.”
The man kissed Luann on the cheek then turned to the buffet and continued to load his plate.
“It’s a sad business,” Luann continued talking to Amelia.
“It is. I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Jameson.”
“Well, we don’t get out of this world alive, do we?” She smirked.
“No. I guess we don’t.”
“Cherish the people you love.” Luann nodded. “That’s the most important thing.”
She grabbed one of Amelia’s cupcakes and a napkin and skated out of the room as if she were floating instead of walking.
By the time the luncheon was over, Amelia didn’t have a single cupcake left, and all of her business cards were gone. As she disassembled the displays, Luann appeared with the Bluetooth girl.
“There seems to be a bit of a problem,” Luann stated. The woman who seemed so delicate earlier, who fretted over her poor daughter, was gone.
The first thing to come to Amelia’s mind was that maybe her truck was parked wrong and she was blocked in or that perhaps she shouldn’t have put her business cards out.
“You didn’t complete the order as I had requested,” Luann snapped with a smirk on her red lips.
“I’m sorry,” Amelia stammered. “What?”
“I specifically ordered one hundred and ten cupcakes. You arrived with only one hundred.”
“With all due respect, Mrs. Jameson, I have the receipt right here. I spoke to you directly on the phone and repeated the order more than once to…”
“Look, I’m just not going to pay for a job that wasn’t done.”
“The job was done. I was here on time, and I provided one hundred cu
pcakes per your instructions.” Amelia remained calm on the outside.
“In fact, I’ll be contacting my lawyer. On the day of my son-in-law’s funeral, you caused additional anxiety to my family and guests. This is unacceptable.”
“Is this a joke?” Amelia looked at the woman with the Bluetooth in her ear, who stood there looking smug.
“If you take your little cupcake business as a joke, Mrs. Harley.” Luann waved her hand at Amelia as if she were waving away a fly. “Like I’m sure most people do. I’m certainly not laughing. I’m humiliated, quite frankly. Now, please leave my home.”
Amelia’s mouth hung open.
“You owe me my money. I’m not leaving until you pay me for services rendered.” Amelia folded her arms across her chest.
“Bridgette, call the police,” Luann ordered, making the Bluetooth woman jump to life.
“This is ridiculous, Mrs. Jameson. You know you told me one hundred cupcakes.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“I’m saying that under the circumstances, maybe you aren’t thinking clearly. As for my business, I built it up to what it is with my own hands without any help. Certainly a woman who has made a name for herself in her own business like you have can appreciate that.”
What Amelia meant to be a compliment and a commonality that could bring them together backfired. At the mention of Luann’s business, the woman scowled.
“How dare you!” she hissed.
Amelia squinted as if she was trying to see what Luann had seen that would make her so mad. But there was nothing there.
“You get out of my house right now!”
Amelia sighed. Grabbing her display and tucking it under her arm, she went back through the kitchen, the spotless mudroom, and out onto the driveway, where her truck was waiting. The hired servants were standing around and staring at her. She couldn’t tell if it was with pity or amusement.
