Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter (10 page)

“For a minute there I thought you were a burglar.”

“I’m no burglar, I’m your neighbor. I live right acrosst the street.” He pointed behind him and began whistling along with the Beatles in the background.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jeb. I’m Leelee, Baker’s wife.” I extended my hand to shake his.

He stopped whistling for only a moment to ask, “You’re not thinking of changing the name, are you?” Then went right back to his habit, which quite honestly was a little annoying.

“Pardon me?”

“The name of the inn. You’re not thinking of changing it, are yous?”

“My husband doesn’t want to change anything for a year. Why do you ask?”

“I would have to redo my advertising.”

I couldn’t help the confused look that spread across my face. “What advertising?”

“JCW’s advertising. I took out an ad in the Yellow Pages. Them folks charged me two hundred dollars, but Mom told me it was worth it as long as they said it was right acrosst the street from the Vermont Haus Inn.” He hit the table with his fist and nodded with confidence.

I’m sure he could tell I was confused but he kept on jabbering. “How do
you like my new sign? I just finished painting it yesterday.” He puffed out his chest and combed his beard with his fingers; two of the many gestures I would learn were characteristically Jeb Duggar.

“I can’t say I’ve seen it.”

“If you look out the window in the front dining room, you can’t miss it.”

“Oh! Well, I’ll go take a look.” I stood up from the table, and thought about the girls back home. They would have killed to be sharing in this moment.

“I only work here on the side,” Jeb said, while escorting me over to the window. “I’m really the solo proprietor over at JCW.”

When I peered out the front window straight across the street I saw a modest old white clapboard home with a small front porch. A painted gray lean-to, about the size of an outhouse, sat about fifteen feet away from the house. It looked like half of a little hut, really, with a slanted roof on one side only. The whole other side of it appeared to be missing. The only sign I saw at all was a hand-painted job with red lettering that took up most of the wall of the lean-to. The words were stacked one on top of the other—
JEB’S COMPUTER WORLD
.

“Oh, so that’s what you mean by JCW,” I said, holding on to the window sash and peering through the pane. “Did you paint that yourself?”

“Why, sure.” One could almost smell the pride exuding from his pores.

“I like the red.” I turned to look at Jeb and smiled.

“Picked it out myself.”

I glanced back out the window and looked around. “Where
is
Jeb’s Computer World, Jeb?”

He was standing right behind me now, peeking through the same pane. “Right there.”

“Right where?”

“
There
,” he said, with an “are you blind?” tone, and pointed and tapped on the glass.

It took a moment to sink in. But I was looking dead at it. Jeb’s Computer
World
was that tiny hut. And, as if that wasn’t enough, pulled right in front
was an old weather-rusted
pink
Chevy Chevette.
JEB’S COMPUTER WORLD
and the phone number were written in huge letters on the driver’s side.

All I could think about was Alice Garrott’s face upon her first glimpse of JCW. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re not the first to lose their speech!”

“I’m sure I’m not. Where’d you find a pink car?” I just had to ask. “It’s mighty cute.”

“It’s a hand-me-down from Mom,” Jeb proudly fessed up. “She got it for all her years with Mary Kay. She don’t drive that much no more, but we both use it for advertising. I’ve got the driver’s side and she’s got the other.”

Rolf and Helga stopped by after lunch. As I have already mentioned, Helga has a strong personality. Very outspoken, very opinionated, and as I would find out, very set in her ways. She and Rolf weren’t big fans of change. They didn’t share in my enthusiasm for fixing up the place; they felt it was fine just the way it was. After all, they were the ones who decorated the inn in the first place.

Helga was a chain smoker and that bothered me a lot, since I was allergic to smoke. Even still, she sauntered around my house—her former house of thirty years—with an unflicked cigarette in her right hand, raised eyebrows, and pursed lips, eyeing my handiwork.

“You can’t move these glasses out of ze cab-i-nets! How on earth vill the vaiters be able to get to them quickly?” she asked, from the red-checked dining room.

“Oh,” she continued, with a real loud inflection on the
O
after she saw the way I had rearranged the fireplace mantel with my own things. “This vill
neva
vork—ze menus must stay right
here
behind ze hippo. Oh God . . . vhere’s my hippo, vhat happen to my hippo?” She spied the beast sticking out of the box I had retired him in, snatched him up, and gingerly placed him back on the mantel. “There now,” Helga said, petting her ceramic friend on the back. She dug out the rest of his siblings from the box and placed the entire collection back on the mantel.

Unfortunately for me, the front parlor was her next stop. “No. This vill not do,
either
,” Helga said, peeved, when she spotted the bookshelves decorated with my Herend china. “We use ze shelves on ze right for condiments and ze shelves on ze left for tablecloths and napkins.” And with that she proceeded to undo two hours’ worth of careful thought and precise decorating.

I felt like a scolded child and couldn’t say a word. She reminded me of an angry schoolmarm inflicting her personal misery upon a student simply because she was the authority figure. Those teachers always scared me to death and I was never at liberty to stand up to them. Now, standing next to Helga, I was transported back to grade school.

“Ve are opening this restaurant in nine days, you certainly have your vork cut out for you,” she said. “You bought Vermont Haus Inn completely furnished. You should have sold all this extra furniture vhile you had ze chance in Memphis.” She waved her hand across my cream-colored living room sofa and her ashes sprinkled onto the cushion. The woman never even paused to wipe them up. “You’ll certainly need ze money for ze dry seasons,” she continued, and kept on walking.

Dry seasons!
I wondered.
What in the world did she mean by that?

Helga had a stack of books in her arms when she arrived and had set them down on one of the tables. “Come vith me,” she commanded. “Ve have vork to do.”

Like a youngster minding the teacher, I followed her into the red-checked dining room, where she sat down at the table and lit another cig.

“Sit down here,” she said, and patted the chair next to hers. (I couldn’t help wondering if a tube of lipstick had ever glossed her lips or a mascara wand had ever swept through her eyelashes.) She had on the same preppy outfit she wore the first time I met her—white oxford cloth shirt and blue slacks. Her hair was pulled back so tightly it seemed to have a smoothing effect on her crow’s-feet.

She lifted her glasses from the chain around her neck and placed them on the tip of her nose. “Let’s see now, Baker vill be in charge of kitchen operations and you vill handle all ze bookvork. You must keep the vorkload equal vith your husband.”

“I’m actually not much on bookwork,” I told her. (I despise it.)

After peering at me over the top of her glasses for what seemed like a full minute, Helga remarked, “Not much on
bookvork
? Then how are you planning on running zis business?”

“Well, I . . . it’s just that . . . bookwork’s never been my responsibility—in Memphis, I mean.”

She kept her stern gaze.

“But I suppose I could learn to do it here.”

“Your husband vill not have time to operate this business all by himself. You must carry your own veight!” Her voice climbed.

“Oh, I plan on it, Helga. It’s just that I have two daughters who need my full attention. In fact I should go—”

“You are a
vorking mother
now!” she declared loudly, and banged the table with her fist. “Let’s get down to business.”

Where was Baker when I needed him?

For the next two hours, my new hard-nosed boss instructed me on the accounting principles of the restaurant business while Sarah and Isabella played with Daddy. By the time Helga left, my job description had been laid out before me: preparing payroll, paying the bills, figuring the taxes and workers’ compensation, hostessing, taking care of inn guests,
and
I was a bartender in training.
What about mother, Helga?

When I climbed in bed that night, I couldn’t hold in my feelings. I told Baker that Helga was mean and frightful. Instead of holding me in his arms and reassuring me that it would all be okay, he fluffed his pillow and turned off the light.

Baker and I were in the apartment unpacking early the next morning when I heard a door swing open in the inn. A woman had let herself in via the garden door that led in from the screened-in porch, which was now piled up with six cords of wood. No one knocked on the door, I would learn. It was like any business—no need to knock. The fact that it was also someone’s personal residence had never stopped anyone before. After all, it was an inn.

I stopped what I was doing to greet her. “Hi there,” I called out from the apartment.

At first she seemed a little startled—she wasn’t used to seeing the door open between the apartment and the inn.

“You must be the Satterfields!” She moseyed over our way. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to Baker or to me because her left eye wandered way off to the side. “I’m Roberta Abbott. Welcome to the Vermont Haus Inn and congratulations on becoming the new owners.” She tugged on her underwear with her right hand and held a red down jacket in her left.

“Hi, I’m Leelee, Roberta. Have you met Baker yet?” I gestured toward him.

“Nuup, not yet, but I’ve heard about you.” She gave him a big smile.

Baker shook her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

A flame of bright orange set fire to her hair (all but an inch of gray that came off her scalp) and it was twisted in an unkempt bun on the top of her head. Black hairpins popped out every which-a-way. Her eternal smile disclosed her cheery disposition and I decided I liked her right away. Roberta was short and heavyset. (Mama always said that was the polite way to describe a person who is considerably overweight.) Her untucked flowery blouse had a hard time staying down and her huge bosoms made it hard for the blouse to stay buttoned. A plaid skirt hung just below Roberta’s knees and brushed the tops of her clunky snow boots.

“Congratulations are in order for both of us. I have an anniversary coming up on the fifteenth day of this month. It marks twenty years of loyal employment right here at the Vermont Haus Inn.”

“Congrats to you, too,” I said.

“Why, thank you.” Roberta beamed and took a bow. “I know every inch of this place. There’s more of my elbow grease in it than anyone else’s. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about anything that has to do with housekeeping—that’s my specialty.”

Thank you, Lord Jesus
.

“I also help out in the kitchen at night, so I can show you the ropes there, too.”

“I’ll be the one needing help in the kitchen,” Baker said. “Thanks, Roberta.”

“You’rrre welcome.”

Sarah and Issie heard Roberta’s voice and peeked out of their bedroom.

“Hi there,” Roberta said when she saw them. She leaned down to their level and put her hands on her knees. “What are your names?”

“Sarah.”

“Hi, Sarah, is that your sister?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What’s your name, little sister?”

“Issie.”

“Let me guess, are you six?”

Issie giggled. “No.”

“Eight?”

“No.” She giggled even harder.

“I’m five and Issie’s almost three,” Sarah told her.

“Well, you could have fooled me. You girls can help me anytime in the kitchen, would yous like that?”

Both Issie and Sarah nodded with a smile.

“Well, good. I better get a move on. Helga wants things cracking by eight sharp!”

“We’ll be in soon,” Baker told her.

“I’m really happy to know you, Roberta,” I said. “I have a feeling I’ll be leaning on you a lot.” Leaning on her was one thing. Helping her in the bathrooms was another. I did not move to Vermont to scrub other people’s toilets.

Rolf, Helga, Roberta, Baker, and I were in the kitchen talking when a tall brunette snow bunny bopped in the door. She was still bundled up from the cold and wore a pair of crocheted mittens with a ski hat to match, a darling white ski jacket, and a pair of lacy snow boots. The boots were to
die for. They resembled Indian moccasins but they hit just under her knees and were lined with white fur. The thick laces crisscrossed up her shins and there was a pretty design stitched in the coffee-colored suede exterior of the boot. She looked vaguely familiar.

“Hi, everyone, merry Christmas.” She took off her hat and mittens and unleashed her long brown ponytail.

Helga obviously liked her because she actually smiled when the woman came in. “Hello, Kerri, how vas your vacation?”

“Oh, I didn’t end up going nowhere, I stayed right here in town.” After hugging Rolf and Roberta, she gave Baker a side hug and extended her hand to me, like we were the only ones who weren’t close. “Hi, I’m Kerri, we sort of met when you and Baker were here last summer.”

Now I remembered who she was. The hostess who smiled incessantly at Baker.

“Oh yes, sure I remember. It’s nice to see you again,” I lied.

“Welcome to Vermont. I remembered Baker saying you and your daughters would be arriving sometime this week. How do you like it so far?”

“We just got in a couple of nights ago, and as you can probably tell we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“No joke. I saw all the boxes when I came in. Where are your girls?”

“Upstairs in our apartment watching
The Little Mermaid
,” I said.