the maid and the dishwasher too.
“Come along, Miss,” he said, pushing open the door behind him and leading me into a small but lavish room where four glass topped tables stood on four oval rugs. The burgundy walls boasted jewel framed mirrors, bead and ceramic hangings, and an ancient map of the world. A huge picture window and a double fireplace completed the room. It felt dark and spicy in here, old and sophisticated, and I hoped I wouldn’t break anything.
Vincent pulled out a high-backed wicker chair for me at the window end of the room. “This is our best table,” he noted as I sat down. “The Bushes always request it when they’re here from Kennebunkport.”
“Bushes?” My disbelief leaked out as a snicker. “As in former Presidents?”
“George, George W, Jeb,” he said. “The food is very good here. Very good.”
“Oh, I know. I mean, I smell it.”
He poured me a glass of water from a crystal pitcher. “Miss Bubbles and George were looking forward to dining with you, but something…came up. I’m afraid you’ll have the place to yourself tonight.”
What? Please, Vincent, tell me I heard you wrong. I couldn’t bear the idea of sitting alone through a whole meal here. I felt watched—the glinting eyes of the mirror jewels, the beaded eyes of the wall hangings, the hungry eyes of the sea dragons that swam the oceans of the antique map, they were all on me. I wished my mother were here. I wished this were a real vacation, and we were sitting down to dinner together. But it wasn’t anything like that, not even close.
“Where are the other guests?” I asked, hopeful for some other warm bodies in the room.
“You’re it,” Vincent answered.
“But what about that girl I saw in the parlor?”
“Girl?”
“Blonde hair, jeans, my age?”
Vincent thought for a second and then shrugged. “Don’t know who you saw, but honestly, no one else is staying here. Maybe it was Mike the heating guy’s daughter. She tags along with him from time to time.” He lit the candle in the center of the table, then made a little bow and disappeared into the kitchen.
I dropped my forehead onto my hands and tried to take a few cleansing breaths. Okay, I told myself, this is going to be okay. Who’d want to eat with a strange girl like that, anyway? Or with George No-Personality Henion? I drank some water from the goblet and began to wonder what could have come up so abruptly. Was George at the bottom of it? Did I disgust him to the point where he refused to come to dinner? A pulse of nausea kicked me in the stomach. All I wanted was to run away, but suddenly Vincent was standing over me again, setting a crock of soup and a loaf of steaming bread on the table.
“A Miss Rita original,” he said proudly. “Cream, cinnamon, cloves, beer and five cheeses.” He refilled my water and retreated.
Cinnamon and cloves—so he was right. I was still queasy, but I picked up my spoon and played with the soup—stirring, lifting, inhaling, stirring some more. This had to be a week’s worth of calories in one bowl—not exactly what I needed. Still, Cook Rita had gone to a lot of trouble, and I didn’t want anyone thinking me ungrateful, so I put a spoonful to my mouth.
Whoa. This was good. Very good, as Vincent said. I ate the rest of the spoonful greedily, then promised myself that would be all.
I broke my promise. This velvet potion was some kind of magic. I was suddenly ravenous, and a pinch less afraid of the room. If I didn’t look up at the eyes all around me, I could pretend they weren’t staring.
At one point, Vincent approached with a salad, but he withdrew when he saw I was still working on the soup. I’d have made that soup last until morning if I could, but when Vincent appeared with the salad for a second time, he insisted that I not fill up on the first course.
The salad. Wilted kale, Vincent explained, and roasted potatoes with plenty of garlic, topped off with a luscious tahini dressing. Who needed a main dish after all this? I did, I realized—once the veal and brandied squash arrived. I don’t know who ever thought up brandied vegetables, but I’d like to shake their hand.
I had no room at the end for the dessert, a creamy, nutty, not quite cake, not quite pastry thing that called to me from the center of a chocolate-drizzled plate. All I could do was nibble lovingly at the pistachios and the cocoa powder. The finale was an espresso served in a little Art Deco cup. Lingering over it, I knew Mom might be having more adventures than me right now, and Chad Laramy might be getting a better tan in Aruba, but no one was getting a better supper.
When I finally set my linen napkin on the table and pushed my chair back, I checked my watch. Nine o’clock. I’d spent two full hours here. That’s like ten normal dinnertimes for me. How did that much time go by?
As I left the dining room, I planned to head straight upstairs, but the caffeine hit me by the time I reached the parlor. Then I remembered a room I’d passed in the hallway on my way to and from dinner, a little room lined with bookshelves and crowded with armchairs and a sofa. A study, I guessed, or a lounge. Maybe it would have some decent magazines to help me while away my wakefulness or even some boring ones to put me to sleep. I turned around.
The study, softly lit by two table lamps, was windowless, which was a bonus. In here, I could pretend it wasn’t winter outside. I could pretend it wasn’t even Maine outside. This could be the study in some Caribbean retreat. Chad Laramy might be right next door. I liked this room—I didn’t even mind being alone in it—and I had the feeling I’d be spending a lot of time here in the long days ahead.
The bookshelves were loosely organized by category: travel, spiritual, food, boats, paperback novels, even comic books. I stopped at the paperback section, hoping to find a mystery I hadn’t read yet. I hadn’t read any of them. They were all wonderfully old, outdated and heavily thumbed. Six Parts Joy, One Part Murder caught my eye, and I took it out. The back flap promised a lurid tale of grisly crimes and a first-rate gumshoe—my kind of story. Just as I was turning to the first page though, a loud blare behind me nearly stopped my heart. I spun around and pressed my back against the shelves.
The face of a woman peered from around an armchair. Its high back had hidden her from my view. “Hello,” she said in a slight accent—French, I thought—and then she sneezed thunderously twice more. “I am sorry to startle you.”
“No, no,” I panted, heading to the sofa. “I just didn’t see you there.” Plus I thought I was the only guest.
At least old enough to be my mother’s mother, this woman wore jeans and a loose sweater and sat with her legs curled under her, a thick book crooked in one arm. With tawny eyes, milky skin and silver hair, she’d clearly once been beautiful, and, in fact, still was. I hoped I’d like my elegant inn mate, whoever she was, since we were bound to be tripping all over each other in the confines of the inn.
“How was supper tonight?” she asked.
“Great.” I patted my belly, wondering why she hadn’t eaten. Maybe she’d only just checked in. Maybe she was an unexpected arrival. “Really outstanding.”
“No, it was not. It was bland—mediocre at best.”
The hair on my nape bristled. I felt personally attacked by this insult to the closest thing to nirvana I’d ever tasted. “I don’t think we had the same
