The goodbye cafe, p.18
The Goodbye Café, page 18
“Why should it?”
“Well, you know, you two haven’t been on the best of terms lately.”
“No, we’re fine now,” Allie assured her, and turned to smile at a party of six who were leaving. “Grab that table before someone else comes in.” She looked around as the others came in. She greeted Joe, his mother and sister. “I thought you said Ben was coming with you.”
“He got a call about a possible burglary, but he’ll be along.” Joe looked around the room, spotted Nikki, and waved. “Is that her dad?” he asked.
Allie nodded. “That would be him. And his girlfriend. And the girlfriend’s daughter, who used to be Nikki’s best friend.”
“Used to be?” Joe asked.
“Long story. I’ll tell you later.” Allie showed them to the table.
Ben came in just as Clint and company were getting ready to leave. The two men nodded at each other in a sort of wary greeting when they both apparently realized the other was staring at Allie.
“Looking good this morning, Miz Monroe,” Ben whispered as he walked past to join Joe and Cara.
She smiled. She walked Clint and Marlo to the door, Courtney lagging behind. Had she just taken a photo of Mark with her phone? And had she taken a second before dropping her phone into her bag, or was she photographing the café?
Nikki hugged her father, and Marlo held her arms open to give her a hug, which Nikki stepped into tentatively. Allie’s heart constricted, and she wanted to shout at Marlo to get her hands off her daughter, but her better angels intervened and she said nothing. Chances were good that Marlo would be her stepmother someday, and at the very least, she appeared to show genuine affection for Nikki, which in the long run could only be a good thing. But when she caught Courtney hugging Nikki, she couldn’t help but send her best mom’s stink eye in her direction.
That girl was trouble, Allie was sure of it. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for Marlo, and by extension, Clint. Well, maybe not so sorry for him. Allie smiled to herself. Maybe when he compares Courtney to Nikki—which he will inevitably do—he’ll have to admit that I did one hell of a job with that kid of ours. Allie wasn’t modest about taking 90 percent of the credit.
Nikki walked her father out and waited on the sidewalk until the car pulled away from the curb. When she came back into the café, she gave Allie a hug.
“What was that for?” Allie asked.
“Just for being my mom.”
“Do you feel sad about your dad leaving?” Allie said.
“I’d feel sadder if he’d come by himself.” Nikki went over to Mark’s family table and pulled out a chair.
The influx eased as the afternoon progressed. Barney finished her table hopping and came back to the desk.
“After watching you in action,” Allie said, “I do believe you bought this place strictly for the opportunities to socialize for hours on end.”
“Ah, she’s on to me.” Barney looked around the restaurant. “Do you think we should redo the interior with a vintage look? Something that might be compatible with the theater?”
“That’s a thought.” Allie shared her ideas about painting the room and reframing the old photos. Barney agreed to all Allie’s ideas, and asked what Allie thought they could do about the floor.
As they exchanged ideas for the café’s new look, the breakfast and brunch diners began to make way for the late-lunch crowd. Allie sent Barney home—it was clear the woman was exhausted—and later, when it came time to close for the night, Allie locked the front door behind the last diner, sent the staff home, and was on her way out when she remembered she’d wanted to check the waitress schedule for the coming week.
She went into the office, then sat at Judy’s old desk and resisted the urge to put her head down and sleep. As uncomfortable as she usually found Judy’s chair, it felt wonderful to sit anywhere after having been on her feet the entire day. Judy’d promised to clean off her desk before she left for New Mexico, but she hadn’t done it. Allie didn’t like riffling through someone else’s correspondence, but she’d been told the schedule was on the desk. She found an unmarked folder and opened it, but the form she was looking for wasn’t among the seemingly random papers. She was just about to close the folder when something she’d seen toward the back of the file caused her to pause. She flipped through a layer of bills to a note that was written on plain white paper.
J. ~
Just a heads-up that I’m going to be on vacation starting the week after next, but I have someone who can cover for me if need be. Give me a call.
J.
Allie stared at the writing, at the form of the letter, at the signature at the bottom.
“Oh my God . . .”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Barney, are you awake?” Allie stood outside Barney’s bedroom door and knocked.
“Mom, what’s going on?” Nikki stepped out from her room, which was across the hall from Barney’s.
“I need to talk to Barney.” Allie knocked again. “Barney, are you up?”
“I am now,” Barney barked. “Stop banging on my door. Just come in.”
Allie opened the door and found Barney half sitting, half lying on her bed.
“What is it?” Barney sat up to turn on the lamp on the bedside table, then fell back against the pillow. “And it had better be good.”
“It is.” Allie stood at the foot of the bed, Nikki next to it. Des and Cara wandered in to see what was causing the commotion. “I know who J is.”
“What?” Barney sat all the way up.
“It’s Justine Kennedy.”
“Justine?” A blatantly skeptical Barney frowned. “Why on earth would you think it’s her?”
Allie took the note out of her bag and handed it to Barney. The others gathered around.
“I found this note on Judy’s desk. I’ve seen Judy’s handwriting, and this isn’t it. But it’s the same style, set up the same way J set up the note to Dad. The exact J signature.” Allie was confident. “It’s the same handwriting.”
Allie held up the note J had written to Fritz all those years ago. She’d stopped in the sitting room to compare, just to make sure. There could be no mistake: the J’s were identical.
“Justine Mitchell.” Barney studied the note to Fritz, then scratched the back of her head. “I never saw that coming. This is really hard to believe.”
Barney handed the two notes to Cara and pushed her pillow up behind her back as if holding court. Which, Allie mused, in a way she was.
“Why is it so hard to believe?” Cara asked. “Why not Justine?”
“Justine was just . . .” Barney paused as if searching for a word. “She was just so not Fritz’s type. He always went for the girls who were petite and beautiful, you know. He liked long hair. Nora to a T. Justine was tall, lanky, and had a pixie haircut back then. She and her sister both had those cute little pixie cuts that looked so off on that tall body. I can’t imagine what he’d have seen in her, to be blunt.”
“There had to have been something,” Cara said. “What else do you remember about her?”
Barney appeared to give it some thought.
“Back in the day, the Mitchell girls were considered too modern about things like women running for Congress and anchoring the TV news. Things we take for granted turned a lot of heads back then, especially in small towns like Hidden Falls. I remember Justine ran for student government against Fritz one year. He seemed amused by it.”
“Why was Dad amused that she ran against him?” Des asked.
“Because Fritz knew she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell to win. He knew no one could beat him. Your father was the golden boy of Hidden Falls, remember. He won everything he’d ever gone after.”
“Including Justine, apparently,” Des said.
“She was very smart, I do seem to recall that. She might have gone to law school, which wasn’t common for girls back then. I think I heard some talk about that.” Barney’s raised right knee supported her elbow that rested on it. “That could have been it, you know. My brother loved a beautiful girl, but he also was intrigued by intelligence. Nikki, would you mind running down to my sitting room? All the old yearbooks are on the second to the bottom shelf on the first bookcase. I think Justine would have graduated in . . . oh, just bring all the ones from the early 1960s.”
Allie sat down on the edge of the mattress at the foot of the elaborately carved bed. Barney’d told her once that it had belonged to a great-great-aunt who’d never married but lived with her sister and her Hudson husband in this house. It was Eastlake in style, as were the dressers and the desk. The bedroom walls were papered—dark red roses on a sage green background—the drapes heavy green velvet. Not for the first time, Allie wanted to suggest a change in décor. The furniture was old enough to be considered not only vintage but extremely cool. The wallpaper and drapes, not so much. She was envisioning the lovely mahogany of the wood, with that tinge of dark red undertone, against walls painted cream or palest gray. The drapes had to go as well, maybe replaced with lacy curtains that would sway and billow in a gentle breeze. She knew Barney was attached to the furniture—understandable—but she didn’t understand her reluctance to strip the walls or pitch the drapes.
“Allie, I’m still having a hard time believing it was Justine,” Barney was saying. “Nora was absolutely his type. She was younger by about four years, as you know, and I’m sure you remember what a tiny little thing she was. She had such beautiful features and skin like porcelain. When Nora was around, Fritz couldn’t keep his eyes off her. I think he found it hard to believe someone so ethereal looking could be real.”
“She may have looked like an angel, but living with her was hell.” Des sat opposite Allie.
Nikki came back into the room, a stack of gray yearbooks in her arms. “Here you go, Aunt Barney. Where would you like them?”
“Right here is fine.” Barney patted the space next to her on the bed. She sorted through the pile until she found what she was looking for. “Ah. Here we go. I think this would have been Justine’s junior year.” She leafed through the book. “Here’s her photo, girls, as a member of the newspaper staff.”
Barney turned the book around. Allie had to stretch to see the black-and-white photo.
“Which one is Justine?” Allie asked. “Oh, right. The tall girl with the—duh—pixie cut standing behind the guy seated at the desk?”
Allie leaned closer and tried to see the angry woman from the café in the teenage face. “She’s not so bad looking. She’s actually kind of cute. Though I agree her hair being so short pulls her out of proportion a bit. She sure has changed, though. And she looks a hell of a lot nicer when she’s not pissed off.”
“We’d be able to see her face better had the photo been taken closer, but I get the idea.” Des looked at Barney over the top of the yearbook. “She’s cute, and if she was really smart, I could see Dad being interested. Though since she wrote that note well after high school, they probably didn’t get together back then.”
“Maybe. We’ll never know unless Justine decides to tell us, and I’m not going to be the one to ask.” Barney closed the yearbook and put it back on the stack.
“Which brings up the question, are you going to say something to her?” Allie asked.
“Something like what?” Barney repositioned the pillow behind her head.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that she holds a grudge against the family because Dad played around with her—or whatever it was he did—and then left her to go to California with Nora. Maybe if you talked to her about it, she’d realize the whole family wasn’t to blame,” Allie said.
“So what do you propose I do? Ring her doorbell and say, Justine, I’m sorry my brother dumped you. Can’t we all be friends?”
“Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be a good idea,” Allie conceded.
“So we just let her off the hook from baking for us because Dad jerked her around?” Des was clearly annoyed.
“I checked the café’s freezer yesterday, and it looks like we might have another week or maybe two of Justine’s goodies,” Barney said. “I’m thinking of putting ice cream sundaes on the menu, at least for the rest of the summer. Once everyone’s back in town from their vacations, I’ll start asking around to see if anyone we know has some hidden talent, or at the least some suggestions. I’d like to keep things in town if possible. But now that the mystery’s been solved, is there any reason why I shouldn’t be going back to sleep?”
They all shook their heads and got off the bed.
“Nikki, love, please put these yearbooks on the desk over there. And then you may all leave.” Barney snuggled back into her pillow and pulled her light blanket up to her chin. She didn’t wait until the foursome left before turning off the light. Nikki slipped out of Barney’s room and across the hall into hers.
“Okay, so now we know who J is and why Justine hates us so much she won’t bake for us.” Cara was the last out the door, and she closed it quietly behind her. “Good work on your part, Al.”
“With all the discussion going on in there, I forgot to thank you. Good job.” Des patted Allie on the back as they headed down the hall.
“I just wish we could have gotten the whole story, though, you know?” Allie paused at her bedroom door. “I bet it’s a whopper.”
“Maybe so, but like Barney said, you really can’t say anything to Justine without bringing up something in her past that obviously still bothers her a lot.” Des stood opposite Allie’s door. “We just have to let it go and be glad you were able to figure out who wrote the note. Anything beyond that would be prying into someone’s private life, and we’re not going there, right?”
“Right,” Allie and Cara both agreed.
“Okay. Well, I’ll see you all in the morning.” Des went into her room and closed the door.
“Night, Al.” Cara did the same.
“Night, guys.” Allie pushed her door open, but before she could close it, she heard Nikki call to her from the end of the hall.
“Mom, I wanted to ask you if my friend Wendy could come over tomorrow.” Nikki caught up with Allie in her bedroom doorway.
“Who’s Wendy again?” The name rang a bell but Allie couldn’t put a face with it. Had she met this girl?
“She’s staying in her grandma’s house next door to Hayley and Mark. That’s how I met her. She and her mom visit every summer, so Hayley’s known her forever. Mark and Hayley leave early tomorrow morning for sports camp for the week. Wendy’s really nice and I’d like to get to know her better.”
“Sure, as long as it’s okay with her mother. What are you planning on doing?”
“Just stuff. We’ll probably go down to the theater ’cause she’s never seen it. Maybe have lunch at the Goodbye. Maybe walk out to Seth’s farm. Wendy’s mom’s teaching a summer class at the high school, so she’s not home during the day, and her grandmother’s still on vacation.”
“It’s fine with me. Just mention it to Barney in the morning as a consideration of the fact that it’s her house.” Allie stepped toward the door and kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Night, sweetie.”
“Night, Mom, and thanks.” Nikki twirled around and danced quietly down the hall to her room in the front of the house.
Allie changed and dragged her tired self to her bed. It was barely midnight, but to her, it felt like the wee hours of the morning. She’d been on the go since Barney took over the Goodbye, so it seemed she always felt on the verge of sleep. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the last time she remembered a dream, but she was out before she could tap into her memory bank.
She hit the snooze alarm three times in the morning before she could force herself to move.
“Rise, I can do. Shining, however, is probably too much to ask,” she murmured as she made her way to the bathroom.
• • •
Allie was midway through the first stencil when she heard voices in the lobby. She put the lids back onto the jars of paint and rested her brushes on an old wooden cutting board Barney had given her for the purpose. As she swung her legs over the side of the scaffold, she recognized Des’s and Cara’s voices along with two others.
By the time she reached the bottom, Des, Cara, and the two Werner sisters were at the base of the platform. Allie introduced herself, and Rita Werner, who appeared to be the elder of the two upholsterers, greeted her politely, then wasted no time in turning to the business at hand.
“We’ve brought our sample. If you ladies approve, we’ll order what we’ll need to re-cover the seats.”
As she spoke, her sister removed a folded piece of rose-colored velvet from a bag. “Let’s head down into the audience and see if this will do the trick,” Elsa said.
“Great. Let’s do it.” Allie gestured for Elsa to lead the way.
They went into the audience section and Cara turned on the overhead lights. Elsa stopped at the first seat in the back row and placed the fabric over the seat, so it lay directly next to the chair to the left.
“It’s not a perfect match,” Des said.
“But it’s awfully close.” Cara knelt to get a better look. “I don’t know how noticeable the difference would be if the lights aren’t real bright.” She glanced over her shoulder at Allie. “What do you think?”
Allie stood three rows below. “Cara, turn the lights down just a bit.” She watched the lights dim slightly. “In lower light, it’s really hard to tell there’s a difference. Honestly, I don’t know if we’d ever get an exact match, unless we tracked down the original manufacturer of the chairs and they just happened to have some of the fabric left over from the 1920s and in good enough shape to use. Let’s face it, guys, in a few more years, this place will be one hundred years old. I don’t see how we’ll do better than this, the colors are so close. I say we go with it.”
“If the artist in residence is okay with it, who am I to argue?” Cara stood. “I’m fine with this.”
“Me, too,” Des agreed.
“So we have a yes on the seats. Now the stage curtains.” Allie walked down the aisle in the direction of the stage. “You said you thought you could repair them?”
