Authors: Mariah Stewart
“Madison’s have apples,” Tina reminded her. “I don’t think they spray bad stuff on their trees.”
“Right. Madison’s.” Stef grabbed the phone book and searched for the number, which she dialed on the wall phone. “Clay, it’s Steffie Wyler. Yes, fine … Listen, I need apples. What do you have …?”
Five minutes later, Tina was on her way to pick up a bushel of honey-crisp apples and Steffie was showing Claire how to make caramel. On the blackboard for the day, Stef wrote the special of the day:
CARAMEL APPLE WALNUT SUNDAES
. At one forty, she was scooping up the first of many bowls of vanilla ice cream swimming in warm caramel over chopped apples, topped with walnuts.
“Stephanie, do you think there will be any of that yummy topping left after the crowd disperses?”
At the sound of the familiar voice, Stef looked up and grinned from ear to ear.
“Mom! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming today? Is Dad with you?” She tried to look over her mother’s shoulder.
“I had some business to tend to that your father didn’t have to bother with,” her mother replied. “I thought I’d see if you and Grant had time for a quick bite of lunch, but Grant has a full schedule this afternoon. I stopped at the clinic on my way here but only had a few minutes to spend with him.”
Shirley Wyler held up a bag that read
THE CHECKERED CLOTH
in black script across a red and white bag.
“I came prepared.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Steffie asked hopefully. “Bleu-cheese burger on a brioche roll?”
“Would I bring my daughter anything but?”
“Give me ten minutes,” Stef told her. “But you might want to start on yours now so it doesn’t get cold.”
“They triple-wrapped the sandwiches in heavy foil, so they should stay nice and warm. I’ll just visit with a few old friends I saw outside. I’ll be back when the crush is over.”
“Great. Thanks, Mom.” Stef turned her smile on the next person in the queue.
It was after two when Stef pulled up the chair next to her mother’s at the corner table in the shop.
“Sorry, Mom. It’s Historical Society day.”
“I know. I saw Eliza Sherman and Peg Wordsworth outside a while ago, and I ran into Grace Sinclair when I first got here. Amazing that Grace is still running
that paper.” Shirley opened the bag and handed her daughter a foil packet. “I thought the
St. Dennis Gazette
was almost ready to fold when your father and I moved to Havre de Grace four years ago. Remarkable that she’s been able to hold on all this time.”
“It’s the advertising that’s keeping her going. All the town merchants advertise in the
Gazette
every week so the tourists and the weekenders know what shops are in town and what’s on sale where.” Stef unwrapped her sandwich. “Yum. The roll is still warm.”
“Mine, too.” Shirley smoothed out the foil wrapping.
“I’m so hungry today I could eat five of these.” Stef took a bite of her sandwich. “Yum. Just … yum.” She took another bite, then stood. “Would you like something to drink? I have bottled water and tap water, root-beer floats …”
Shirley held up a hand to stop Stef from running through the entire menu of drinks.
“Bottled water would be perfect.”
Stef went to the cooler and grabbed two bottles and a couple of straws.
“So what’s going on? What brought you to St. Dennis today?” She sat back down at the table.
“I had to meet with Cousin Horace’s attorney,” her mother told her. “About his will.”
“Oh.” Stef frowned. “I miss the old guy. Well, not like he’s been the past few years, but before. Gosh, he was a fun guy. I owe this”—she gestured around the room—“to him. He taught me how to make ice cream when I was, like, twelve or thirteen. Remember
that old ice-cream maker he used to have? The one with the handle that you had to turn?” She took another bite, chewed, and swallowed. “I wonder whatever happened to that.”
“I imagine it’s still somewhere in his house.” Shirley put her sandwich down. “We’ll know soon enough.”
“What do you mean?”
Shirley reached into her pocket, pulled out a brass key, and handed it to Stef.
“I met with Jesse Enright this morning. Remember him? Mike and Patti’s nephew who used to visit sometimes in the summer?”
“Sort of.” Actually, Stef couldn’t place the face though the name was vaguely familiar.
“Mike took over the law practice when his father—who would have been Berry’s age—passed away. Since Mike and Patti have no children, everyone was delighted when Jesse agreed to join the firm,” Shirley said. “They’ve represented my mother’s family forever. Mike contacted me some time ago to come in to discuss the terms of Horace’s will, since he’d made me executor, but since Mike and Patti are on a cruise this month, I met with Jesse.” Shirley stopped and tapped her daughter on the arm. “You must remember him, Steffie. He’s tall and very good-looking. He used to be really shy, but I think he might have outgrown that.”
Stef shrugged. “He’s not really ringing any bells, Mom.”
“Well, anyway—to make a long story short: Horace left the house on Olive Street to you.”
“Huh?” Stef’s jaw dropped and hung open.
Shirley nodded. “It’s all yours. Lock, stock, and cobwebs.”
“But … but …” Steffie stared at the key that rested in the palm of her hand. “Why me?”
“Partly because he liked the fact that you were named after him. Stephen was his middle name, I’m sure you’ll recall, since you used to call him H. Stephen, which always amused him.” Shirley reached over and pushed a strand of loose hair behind Stef’s ear. “And partly because of the ice-cream machine, I suppose. You were the only one of the kids who ever went over on your own to visit with him—at least, the only one who hadn’t had to be dragged by the ear to go. No children of his own, no wife … I expect he was a lonely fellow. He often mentioned that he appreciated the time you spent with him because he knew you were there because you wanted to be.”
“Are you kidding? I
loved
going there. I always felt like he was doing me a favor by spending time with
me
,” Stef said. “He was such a cool guy. He had all these fun things in the house and he let me play with anything I wanted. He never treated me like a little kid. He was more fun than any other grown-up I ever met.”
“Well, there was more than a touch of the kid in Horace, we all knew that. And I suspect there will be lots more fun in store for you, since I doubt the house has changed much since you were a child. We closed it up when he went into the assisted living home, and I don’t think anyone’s been inside since. I always made sure there was someone to keep the grass cut and to shovel the walks if it snowed, but other than
that, I haven’t been inside since your dad and I moved, except to help Horace distribute some of the furnishings. Most of it went to Nita’s antiques shop. I imagine she’s sold almost all of it by now.”
“Holy crap, he left me a house.” Staring at the key once again, Stef shook her head. “I can’t believe it.” She looked up at her mother. “Are you sure you don’t mind? Would you rather he’d left it to you?”
Shirley laughed. “What would I do with it? I already have one house here in town that I don’t know what to do with. Why would I want another?”
“Well, he really was your cousin, not mine.”
“No, he was my mother’s cousin, remember? He and Gramma were first cousins.”
Stef nodded. “I do remember that. But what about everyone else? Your cousin Kathleen, and your sister Betts and their kids. Are they going to be annoyed that I got the house?”
“I wouldn’t worry about what anyone else thinks.” Shirley dismissed Stef’s concern. “For one thing, none of them ever bothered to send so much as a birthday or a Christmas card to Horace. Certainly no one other than you, Grant, and I visited him after he went into the home. Besides, he left everyone else cash.”
“Including Grant? And Evie?” Stef hoped that her good fortune wasn’t at the expense of her siblings.
“Both were well taken care of,” Shirley assured her. “That was one of the reasons I stopped by the clinic. The copies of the will had to be distributed; which reminds me. I have your copy here in my bag.” She leaned over and began to rummage in a tall green leather tote.
“I have a house. And not just any house. The house
on Olive Street is mine.” Stef held up the key. “Is it mine now, officially?”
“There are some papers to be signed, which you can do over at Enright’s office as soon as you get a chance.” Shirley handed Stef a brown envelope that was addressed to her. “But Jesse said you can go on in and move in or sell it or—”
“Sell it?” Stef’s eyes widened with horror. “Sell the house on Olive Street?”
“I told him that was most unlikely,” Shirley assured her.
“I’ve been saving money since I opened this shop so that someday I could buy a house.” Stef clutched the envelope containing the will to her chest. “I never thought I’d be able to afford one in that neighborhood, though. I never dreamed that someday I’d be living on Olive Street.”
“I imagine the neighbors will be delighted to see you move in. The house has been vacant, and no one likes to have an empty house on their street.”
“When can I move?”
“Whenever you want, though I think you’re going to want to take advantage of the fact that the house is empty to do some updates. Nothing’s been touched in many years, Stef. I’m sure the wiring and the plumbing and God knows what else needs to be brought into the twenty-first century.”
“Let’s go look at it.” Stef’s eyes were shining. “Can we go look at it now?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Oh, boy.”
They finished their lunches, and after assurance from Tina that she and Claire could handle the after-school
crowd for a while if Stef wasn’t back by the time the kids started pouring down Kelly’s Point Road, Stef and her mother took off for Olive Street.
Four streets formed the second oldest section of St. Dennis: Parish House Road, St. James Street, Cannonball Road, and Olive Street. All the houses on these four streets had been built in time to see the British shell the town in 1814, during the War of 1812. Many of the houses were brick, but a good number were clapboard. Steffie had always thought that Olive Street was the prettiest street in town, because it had a nice mixture of both.
Stef stopped in front of the red-brick house that had the numeral “32” in black letters on one of the porch columns. Rhododendrons rose two stories high on either side of the porch, edging out what might have been hydrangeas and possibly a rosebush or two. Dead stalks of hosta lilies poked out from beneath a network of ivy, and ferns grew uncontrolled along the driveway. A white fence was missing some of its pickets and most of its paint.
“It is a bit overgrown,” Shirley noted as they got out of the car. “Nothing that can’t be cleared away.”
“I think it’s beautiful.” Steffie stood at the front gate, her eyes glistening. “I think it’s the most beautiful house in town.”
“Let’s go see what’s going on inside, shall we?” Shirley reached around Stef and pushed the reluctant gate aside. “You have the key, sugar?”
“Right here.” Stef paused on the front steps and studied the porch columns where the paint had weathered and peeled. “I guess it could use a little paint.”
“Hmm, yes. A little.”
“But paint is pretty cheap, right?” Stef said as she fitted the key into the lock and pushed open the wide oak door.
“Relatively speaking, yes.” Shirley stepped into the foyer behind Stef.
“Oh.” Steffie stood inside the door and gazed starry-eyed at her inheritance. “I’d forgotten how big the entry was, and how cool the steps were, the way they wind up to the second floor. And that chandelier … how beautiful that is.”
“I imagine it could be cleaned up.” Shirley assessed the finish on the overhead light fixture. “It looks a bit tarnished.”
“I guess it wouldn’t take much to pull that old peeling paper the rest of the way down the wall, right?”
“It looks like it will come right off with a good tug.” To demonstrate, Shirley pulled on a strip that was hanging from the wall. It kicked up a bit of dust on its way down the wall, but it did in fact peel off with very little effort on her part.
“That’ll be an easy job,” Steffie assured her mother—and herself—as she followed the hall to the back of the house. “Oh. Looks like the kitchen could use a bit of paint, too.”
Her mother stepped in behind her. “I think paint is the least of what this kitchen needs.”
Stef quietly surveyed the room. “It’s a big space, and the cabinets are fine. I like those big old doors. I’m just going to paint everything white.” She nodded as she studied the space. “Maybe I’ll put in an island. And maybe replace those counters with something
really good, like granite, because I work at home a lot.”
“The linoleum is older than I am,” Shirley noted.
“I wonder what’s underneath it.” Stef went to the threshold and tried to peel up a bit of the flooring, but it cracked and pieces came off in her hand. “I’m betting it’s wood. We just need to rip it up.”
“Maybe you should wait until you know for certain what’s under there,” her mother cautioned.
“Too late.” Steffie pulled a jagged strip of flooring off. “And it looks like pine. Super. I just need to peel this all off and refinish the floor and it’ll be like new.”
“Will that be before or after you paint all the cabinets, install the island, and replace the counters?” Shirley leaned her elbow on the counter and rested her chin in her palm.
“I guess I should slow down for minute.” Stef felt an urge to pinch herself. “But, oh, Mom, it’s just the way I remember it. The old stove—I’ll bet that’s still a good working stove, Mom—and the old refrigerator, though I will need to replace that for one with a bigger freezer.” She reconsidered. “I could make more ice cream at home if I had a really big freezer.”
“Horace cooked many a pot of soup on that old stove,” Shirley remarked.
“He never married, did he?”
Shirley shook her head. “He always said there was only one girl he’d share his house with, but she’d never cross the threshold. Not sure what that meant, but that’s what he used to say. I don’t remember him ever bringing a lady friend to dinner, even for holidays, so who knows.”