Page 64 of This Is How It Started
“Will do.” I make two guns with my fingers. “Good talk.”
He shakes his head at me and goes back to work.
At one o’clock, a shuttle van pulls into the driveway and six people get out. Four women and two men. They look fairly prosaic for people who write about murder. I would say most of them are middle-aged. Two of the women, younger, maybe in their thirties. It’s hard to say. They’re dressed in comfortable clothes, nothing flashy or black (for some reason I expected a lot of black).
Brooke rushes out of the house and greets them. While she takes them on a tour of the house, I play bellhop. I load up the luggage in the never-used elevator and take everything up to the second and third floors, following Brooke’s elaborate room chart.
I can hear them downstairs, cooing about how beautiful the house is, and my chest swells with pride. Maybe this won’t be as awkward as I thought.
In the dining room, Brooke has put out a charcuterie board with salumi, cheeses, dips, fruit, veggies and crackers. On the sideboard, she’s set up bottles of wine and stemware. The whole presentation looks like something you’d see at a posh resort in wine country. She wasn’t kidding about owning a catering company.
I introduce myself to the group. Brooke, bless her heart, doesn’t mention that I’m her stepdaughter. We’re just two women running an inn, entertaining famous mystery authors, who love the house I grew up in. Maybe one of them will even write about it in one of their books. Isn’t the scene of the crime always in a fabulous old ancestral home? Oh my God, Adam will die, except I haven’t told anyone from my family yet. Still waiting on that. Lately, I’m as bad as Josh with all my secrets. Even Josie doesn’t know about Beth Hardesty.
We leave our guests to enjoy their snacks and head out to the cottage. Campbell has already packed up and left. I have no idea if he’s coming back tomorrow, but I can’t see why. Pretty tough to build an addition without making noise.
“So how does this work?” I ask Brooke. “Are we supposed to be available to them all day?” Not that I have plans. The Zillow guy has dropped off the face of the earth, and seeing as he was my only client, I have lots of free time on my hands.
“As long as you’re here to help me clean up after meals and make the beds and clean the bathrooms in the morning, you’re good to go.”
“What about you?” I don’t want to stick her with all the work.
“Same. We’re contracted for three meals a day and an evening snack. The rest of the time, they’re on their own.”
The rest of the time? It would take me all day just to make dinner. I’ve seen Brooke’s meal plans. We’re not talking hot dogs and canned beans. Tonight, for instance, she’s making tutto mare. There’s enough fresh seafood in the garage fridge to feed the entire Gold family, and that’s saying a lot.
“Just out of curiosity, are you going to break even on all the food you bought?” It’s probably a stupid question to ask a former caterer, but for days she’s been shopping and prepping. I feel like I should be pitching in on the expenses.
“Ohhh yeah, and then some. Nothing I’m making is terribly expensive. It’s all in the preparation and the details. The key here is to make them so happy they want to book again next year.”
Seafood is far from cheap, but she lost me on “next year.” The cottage and pool house I can see. They’re just sitting there empty, after all. No reason they shouldn’t be earning some extra coin. But the house? “You’re planning to make this a full-time thing?”
“If I want to keep the house, I’ll have to. And that’s the goal...to keep the house.”
“Do you want to do this? Or are you doing it because you feel a responsibility to Dad?” There is a distinction, and I don’t know how I feel about her laboring to preserve the house for Hannah, Adam and me. She isn’t our mother and doesn’t owe us anything. I know my siblings would feel the same way.
She thinks about it for a beat. “A little of both, I suppose. It’s too much house for just me, and I’m finding that I kind of enjoy this new venture.”
“Just as long as you enjoy it.” I love this house and hated to lose it when my father died. But it’s hers now.
* * * *
After Brooke and I sling the evening’s hash for the mystery writers and clean the kitchen, I take off to meet up with Josie.
There’s a little café on Fillmore Street that has killer desserts and good coffee. I’m stuffed from Brooke’s tutto mare, which was amazing. If food is truly the way to a man’s heart, Brooke has that in her favor over my mom. But I’ll take that sentiment to my grave.
Josie is waiting at a table when I get there. It’s late for dinner, so the restaurant isn’t too crowded. As usual, Josie is adorable in a maxi dress, a cute little sweater and a pair of chunky platform shoes (her knocking-around-after-hours look). It makes me wish I would’ve worn something better than jeans and a battered SDSU sweatshirt.
We do the four-kisses-on-the-cheek thing. We’ve been greeting each other this way ever since Jew camp. It started out as us making fun of two fellow campers, these pretentious snotty girls from Beverly Hills. Rumor had it that one of them was Steven Spielberg’s niece and the other was the daughter of some French fashion designer. Anyway, every morning at breakfast they would make a big show of kissing each other’s cheeks twice on each side. So, it became our inside joke to mimic them. As time went on, it just became habit.
“You look so good, Rach.”
I do a double take. “Are you making fun of my outfit?” I tug my sweatshirt down and stare at the letters. “It’s college chic.”
“Not your clothes, which look like ass. You should let me shop for you. This.” She circles the air around my makeupless face with her finger. “You look like your old self again.”
I don’t exactly feel like my old self again. But I’m sleeping and eating, which is probably making a difference. And today, I actually got some exercise taking all that luggage up two floors in the elevator. I laugh to myself.
I tell Josie about the mystery writers.
