by Thea Cambert
As if on cue, Alice and Franny’s cell phones dinged at exactly the same time.
“Speak of the devil,” said Alice, reading the text. “He says he got a call from Roz Fender, and she’s on her way to the bakery.”
“Now?” asked Franny, shocked. “We’re supposed to deliver the cakes out to the lodge in less than an hour. Wonder what she could want.”
“We’ll soon find out,” said Alice, pointing down to Main Street, where a shiny red sports car was just pulling up in front of Sourdough.
“She didn’t even park between the lines!” said Franny. “She’s taking up two spaces. How rude!”
They watched as a glamorous-looking woman, wearing snug, strategically distressed jeans, a trendy cable-knit, white turtleneck sweater, and knee-high boots with spiky heels, hopped out and hurried into the bakery below. She was followed by a young woman with dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, wearing a much more subdued outfit—consisting of a white t-shirt, khaki pants, and a denim jacket. She carried a small notebook and practically had to run to catch up to the first woman.
A few minutes later, Owen emerged onto the sidewalk with the two women, furiously scribbling notes down on his clipboard as the glamorous woman talked. Then, the two women quickly got back into the sports car and sped away.
As if he could feel his friends watching, Owen looked up to the rooftop garden and gave Alice and Franny an imploring wave to come down.
“What’s going on? Was that the enigmatic Roz Fender?” asked Alice as she and Franny joined Owen in the kitchen section of his bakery after giving Hilda, Owen’s assistant who was working the front counter, a quick hello.
“Canis Major. That’s the problem!” said a flustered Owen.
It was rare to see Owen in such a state. He could be a bit on the dramatic side, to be sure, but not in the bakery. When he was at work in Sourdough, he was calm and focused and creative. Alice was constantly amazed at what Owen could do with a little butter and sugar and flour.
“Canis what-is?” asked Franny.
“The great dog,” said Alice, nodding. “It’s a constellation.”
“That’s right,” said Owen, moving hurriedly around the large island where each tier of the cake for the party was set out. He finally stopped at one of the tiers. “There it is.”
Alice and Franny joined him and looked at the small, shimmering stars that formed the constellation.
“So, what’s the problem?” asked Franny.
“Roz wants Canis Major removed to make room for Hercules,” said Owen.
“Hercules?” asked Alice, confused. “But, isn’t that a summer constellation?”
“Thus, it is not on this cake!” Owen’s voice was rising higher with each word.
“You’re sounding a little shrill there, Owen,” said Alice. “Tell us how we can help.”
Owen took a deep breath in an attempt to calm his nerves. “I’m going to scrape these stars off, repair the background, then apply the new stars. Franny, look up Hercules on your phone so I’ll know how to place the stars. And Alice, Roz has also decided that she wants the words “Happy New Year” in metallic copper instead of gold.” He handed Alice a small bottle of edible food paint and a paint brush. “You have great handwriting, so I know you can do this. Go over the stars that form each letter with the new coloring. Once we’ve unloaded and assembled the cakes out at the lodge, I’ll do the final airbrushing to create the Milky Way. “
Between the three of them, the work went fairly quickly, and then they rushed upstairs to clean up for the party. Half an hour later, they all met out in the garden.
“Everyone ready?” asked Alice, who was last to emerge from her apartment.
“Alice, you look gorgeous!” said Franny.
Alice looked down at her clothes. “I wear this all the time.”
“It’s not the clothes,” said Owen, walking in a little circle around Alice and sizing her up. “You’re glowing,” he pronounced.
Alice had pulled her auburn curls back into a low, loose ponytail. She was wearing her favorite hazelnut-colored cargo pants with hiking boots and a thick, olive green wool sweater that set off her fair, freckled skin and the green of her eyes. To this, she had added her coziest parka, replete with faux fur-lined hood.
“Why are you glowing, Alice?” Franny teased, a big smile on her face.
“I wonder if it has anything to do with a certain Detective Hot Stuff,” Owen ventured.
Alice could tell her face had turned the color of a ripe red apple. “Luke said he wanted to ask me something tonight,” she said, trying to sound casual.
“Wonder what that could be,” Owen said with a knowing grin.
“You can wonder on the way to the lodge,” said Alice. “We’ve got to get those cakes loaded up.”
“Before Roz changes her mind again!” said Owen with a roll of his eyes.
“Should I grab my heavy coat, do you think?” Franny asked, eyeing Alice’s parka.
“We’ll be outside a good bit tonight,” said Alice. “And, it feels like snow.”
“Feels like snow?” Owen looked at the mostly blue sky and then checked the weather app on his phone. “Nope. Not tonight,” he said, scrolling through the forecast. “There’s a big storm to the north, but it’s going to miss us entirely.”
“I don’t know . . .” said Alice, eyeing the clouds gathering far off to the north. “I’ve lived here for over thirty years now, and—”
“Alice, you were born here,” said Owen. “It’s not as though you were observing the weather as a toddler.”
“What are you saying? I can’t take credit for the whole thirty years?”
“Just saying,” said Owen, walking back toward his apartment.
“It definitely smells like snow,” said Franny, sniffing the air.
“There! You see? Franny’s nose is never wrong!” said Alice triumphantly.
“She’s probably smelling the melting snow that’s already on the ground. Or, the snow that’s over there, to the north,” said Owen, waving a hand in a general northerly direction.
“I just—I have a feeling about tonight,” said Alice.
“What? You’re clairvoyant now? You’re the cloud whisperer?” said Owen with a laugh.
“We’d better be on our way, you two,” said Franny. “I have a feeling Roz Fender doesn’t take kindly to tardiness.”
“Good point. Let’s go,” said Owen, and he and Franny hurried into his apartment to head downstairs to the bakery.
But Alice stopped and took a last look at the distant clouds. She shook her head and pulled her coat a little bit tighter around herself.
“There’s definitely a storm coming,” she muttered, and followed her friends inside.
Chapter 3
It was exactly four o’clock when Alice, Owen, and Franny entered the grounds of the Great Granddaddy Mountain Preserve and Resort Lodge.
“Wow. This is just the driveway,” said Franny, as they all marveled at the road that wove through the woods and deeper into the valley. There was a collective gasp from the three of them as the trees cleared and they saw the lodge for the first time. It was set in a beautiful clearing, in the shadow of Great Granddaddy Mountain. The main building lay straight ahead, and looked, somehow, as if it had been there for a hundred years.
“Part log cabin, part mountain lodge, part something else,” said Owen, looking up at the gorgeous structure.
“New England!” said Alice. “That’s the something else! Look—there’s a widow’s walk on top.”
“Look at that huge balcony on the second floor!” said Franny. “And the front entry!”
Owen pulled his SUV into the parking lot near the service entrance, as Roz had instructed him to do, and the three carefully unloaded cake boxes and took them into the kitchen.
“Who might you be?” A man with a thick French accent looked up from a large workstation in the middle of the kitchen. Around him, a half dozen men and women worked quietly,
chopping things, sautéing things, sliding things into the oven. Alice’s stomach growled audibly at the delicious smells.
“You must be Chef Boucher,” said Owen, hurrying over to shake the man’s hand.
“I am, yes,” the man answered. “Louis Boucher.”
“Owen James,” said Owen. “I’ve read about your work. Nice to meet you.”
“Of course. Mr. James,” said the chef, his small waxed mustache curling up with his smile. “I take it these are your lovely helpers.” He looked at Alice and Franny and sent them a charming grin.
“Yes,” said Owen. “This is Alice and Franny Maguire.”
“Sisters, is it?”
“No,” said Owen. “Franny recently married Alice’s brother.”
“Sisters, then,” said Chef Louis, a twinkle in his eye. “You may set up the cakes in the ballroom. The first door, there, is the kitchen entrance. You will see the cake table off to one side.”
“Thank you, chef,” said Owen.
“But of course,” said Chef Louis. “You may leave your coats in the coat closet if you wish. It is near the large entryway, just off the great room—where the guests check in. The signs will point the way.”
It only took a few trips from the car, through the kitchen, into the ballroom for the three friends to get all of the cake tiers safely to the cake table. The layout of the first floor, from the standpoint of usability, was impeccable. The kitchen was a long, wide corridor of a room that ran along one end. It had banks of windows along one wall, bringing in lots of natural light where chefs and sous chefs worked at long counters, chopping and washing and arranging. From the kitchen, there were entries directly into the ballroom, the dining room, and a corridor that led to the great room.
The ballroom, which would be well-suited to wedding receptions, parties, and large meetings or conventions, was nothing like the usual bland hotel facilities Alice had seen before. It had gleaming natural wood floors and there was a stone fireplace angled into a corner. The room was mostly cleared of furniture, since there would be a dance that night, and there was a small, raised platform in one corner where the band would presumably set up. The ceiling was strung with drapes of old-fashioned lightbulbs that cast a warm, cozy glow over the whole room.
“I can take our coats and put them in the coat closet,” said Alice, as Owen began the painstaking task of tiering the cakes. He’d brought a small kit with extra tools and icings pre-dyed in the colors of the cake so that he could make any repairs necessary after everything was arranged.
“Thanks,” said Owen, as he and Franny peeled out of their coats and scarves and piled them into Alice’s arms.
“Want me to check your purse, too, Franny?” Alice asked, nodding at Franny’s brown leather backpack.
“No, thanks,” Franny said. “Never know when I might need it.”
“What do you keep in that thing, anyway?” asked Owen, as Franny dug down into the bag and produced a roll of mints. “It’s huge.”
“I keep everything in here,” Franny answered. “Mint?”
Owen accepted a mint and turned back to his work.
With a laugh, Alice trotted off, exiting the ballroom and entering the great room for the first time. It was breathtaking, and one of the most thoughtfully designed spaces she’d ever seen, from its exposed beams to its massive stone fireplace—a huge version of the smaller one she’d seen in the ballroom. To the left of the fireplace was a towering Christmas tree, decorated simply in glimmering lights. On closer inspection, Alice could see that the tree was potted, and a small sign on a stand next to it explained that the Fraser fir would be planted on the grounds following the holiday season.
Various cozy seating areas were tucked about the room . . . places to sit by the fire, quiet alcoves to read a good book, larger seating areas for gathering and playing games. In the corner, an upright piano invited impromptu singalongs. Somehow, it all blended together to bring warmth and intimacy to what was actually a very large space. The wall opposite the ballroom doors, facing Great Granddaddy Mountain, was nothing but windows, from the rustic wooden floor to the high ceiling. The panorama was breathtaking—literally.
Alice gave herself a little shake and tore her eyes away from the mesmerizing view and looked around. To the right of the fireplace, there was a grand staircase, with wide, polished wood steps leading up to a railed landing that overlooked the great room. The railing was wrapped in evergreen garland intertwined with twinkling white lights—and the doors to the lodge rooms where guests would stay lined the back wall, each one hung with a different wreath. The staircase then doubled back on itself, heading up to the third level and, presumably, it then continued on up to the widow’s walk that Alice had spotted earlier. Alice found herself wishing they could all stay overnight as she looked up the stairway.
She brought her attention back down to where she stood in the great room. Up ahead was the front entryway, with its thick windowed doors and spectacular blown-glass light fixture hanging overhead. Opposite the great room was the guest check-in area, which, like everything else, looked both beautiful and functional. There was an open door that led into an office area behind the check-in counter, and tucked down at the end of the counter, a door labeled “coat check.”
Alice hurried through the door and flipped on the light to find a generous space with rows of racks and numbered cubbies for accessories that people might want to set aside, like gloves and purses and hats. Alice had just begun hanging the coats when she heard voices coming from the check-in area. She peeked out of the closet, hoping it was the Fenders, so that she could say hello.
Sure enough, she saw Chad, but his back was to her and then he walked into the office behind the counter, where the person he was speaking to apparently was. Alice decided to wait until later to speak to the Fenders and went back into the coat closet.
She was shocked when the voices became more audible—a lot more audible, as Chad and a woman had now begun to yell at one another.
“You heard me, Chad! We’re through! It’s over.”
“But Roz, I don’t understand! Why?”
“If you really insist on knowing—not that it matters anymore—it’s because we were never suited for one another! You know that, right?” Her tone had turned ugly. Derogatory. Alice could almost hear the sneer in Roz’s voice. “I’m serving you with the papers on Monday. I didn’t want you to be surprised.”
“Didn’t want—” Chad pounded something. The wall, Alice guessed. “Why are you telling me this now, Roz? Right before the guests start arriving? At the grand opening? What kind of person are you?”
“I’m the kind of person who doesn’t want to live next to a mountain in a town that has, what? Three traffic lights?”
There was a long pause, then Chad said, “Fine. You want to leave? Leave. Leave now.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You could take all the credit for my design! My masterpiece! Sorry, Chad. I’m leaving Monday. This place is half mine, remember—and maybe even more than half mine, because I created it!”
“You? You created it? It was my idea! My concept! You can’t leave! You know I’ll be ruined if you take half of everything before it’s even off the ground! Completely ruined!”
“I don’t care if you’re ruined, actually.” Roz’s voice was hateful now.
“Roz, when did you decide all of this? What happened? I still don’t understand. Please. We can try counseling. We can—”
“We aren’t going to do anything, Chad. I am going up to change before the guests arrive. I am going to get out of this God-forsaken town and go back to LA where I belong!”
“But Roz—”
“Get out of my way!”
“But—”
“Move!”
Alice felt sick as she heard the rapidly retreating footsteps of Roz, followed by the slow, weary footsteps of Chad. She peeked out of the closet, feeling a mix of horror and guilt that she’d witnessed the exchange. Chad was standing, looking in
the direction Roz had gone, mumbling to himself.
Alice felt panicked, not wanting to stay trapped in the closet, but also not wanting to walk out and let Chad know she’d heard his argument with his wife. She was just about to step out with the plan of smiling and pretending she hadn’t heard a thing, when Chad’s fist came down hard on the counter.
To Alice’s relief, he stalked away—but just before he moved out of earshot, she heard him say, “I wish you were dead.”
Chapter 4
Alice crept out of the coat closet and peered into the entryway. She breathed a sigh of relief on seeing that the coast was clear. Chad was on the far side of the great room, walking up the stairs.
“Whoa. This place is amazing!”
Alice turned to see Ben, followed by Luke, walking in through the front doors.
“Hi, Ben.” She looked past her brother and locked eyes with Luke, who looked more handsome than ever in khakis, boots, and a plaid button-up in earthy colors layered under a worn, brown leather jacket. He looked like a walking ad for Eddie Bauer or LL Bean.
“Come on. Let’s . . .” Ben looked back and forth between Alice and Luke for a moment. “Oh! I see Franny over there!” He quickly made himself scarce and joined Owen and Franny, who had just emerged from the ballroom.
“Hello, beautiful,” Luke said, stepping close to Alice.
It was as if, at that moment, all the clouds cleared from the sky, and golden, late-afternoon light poured through the entryway windows. Alice felt as though she and Luke were the only two people in the entire world, and he seemed to sense it, too, because there was a look of wonder in his eyes.
“Alice, I—I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a while now, but I wanted the perfect moment.” Luke looked around them, then back at Alice. He touched her cheek and looked so deeply into her eyes that Alice almost looked away.
But she didn’t.
“This seems like a really perfect moment,” she whispered. Then swallowed. She could almost hear the question she hoped Luke would ask—could almost hear herself answering him—when another sound interrupted her thoughts.
