Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter (18 page)

“No. He always acted like he was so together and had the restaurant thing down. He sure had me fooled.”

Could she be telling the truth? Is there any way I can trust this Yankee broad? I bet she’d lie to me in a second to snag Baker.
I was so confused my head was about to bust.

Pierre slipped into the kitchen with Gracie following right behind. Helga would have flipped if she had seen Gracie in the big kitchen, but thank the Lord she was in a foreign country by now.

I could tell Pierre was excited about his trip to France because his hair practically glowed from the jet-black Lady Clairol he must have freshly applied that morning. The black stain on the collar of his white shirt was more proof the amateur hairstylist had been hard at it.

“
Bonjour
, Leelee. Baker es back?”

“No, he’s not,” I said. I was wringing my hands and pacing back and forth in front of the coffeepot.

Jeb had slipped out to the mailbox and he wandered back into the kitchen whistling “Please Mr. Postman.” I was ready to slap him. My nerves were raw enough without his annoying habit. Even Pierre glared at Jeb like he wanted to take his head off.

Our eyes met and Jeb shot me back a curious look. I thought it was because I had come too close to letting my true feelings about Kerri slip and he was letting me know that he was on to me.

Truth was he knew something I didn’t. He had obviously nosed through my mail because lying right on top of the large stack of catalogs and bills
was a letter intended for my eyes only. The word
PERSONAL
was handwritten next to my name. My kismet lay in the hands of Jeb Duggar. As he passed the stack of mail over to me his whistling got louder and more inflective.

I clutched the mail to my chest and staggered out to the red-checked dining room, where I slinked down into a chair at one of the tables. There was no stamp; it had been hand-placed in my mailbox. My heart was beating out of my chest as I slowly opened the white envelope with the inn’s return address printed on the back. My small hands shook while I unfolded the one-page letter penned by the man I had loved since the tenth grade.

By now everyone had congregated around the table next to the one where I was sitting. They weren’t even trying to hide their nosiness. I looked up at all of them and they all nodded their heads in unison, as if to say: Go on, get it over with. Each sat in silence as I read the letter to myself.

Dear Leelee,

By now I’m sure you’re worried sick about me. I wish I could have found a better way to break this news to you, but I could not think of a better way to save my life. There’s no easy way to say this but this whole thing with the inn—and us—is not working out.

I met someone. Actually, she’s not just someone; she’s amazing. I know what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong—you don’t know her. Her name is Barb. She owns Powder Mountain and she believes I’m the guy to turn it around. It’s not that the resort is in horrible shape but she wants to make it the premiere ski resort in Vermont. I won’t be doing any cooking. I’ll be the director of operations—a position I’m much more qualified for in the first place.

If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll be relieved when you get this letter. You hate Vermont. You hated it from the minute you got here. Now you can finally go home. If I were you, I’d use Ed Baldwin again to sell the place. Hey, he sold it once, he can do it again. Keep the money. It’s all yours.

I’m not even sure what I want you to tell Sarah and Isabella at this point. It’s not like I don’t love the three of you. I do. It’s just that Barb makes me feel like I’ve always wanted to feel. She loves sports, she loves the outdoors, and best of all she thinks I hung the moon.

It’s not you—it’s me.

Baker

“She thinks I hung the moon.” I echoed his words out loud before folding the letter and placing it back inside the envelope.
And no mention of our anniversary
. When I looked up, everyone was leaning in toward me, waiting for an answer. Here four strangers were sharing in the most devastating moment of my life, instead of Kissie, Alice, Mary Jule, and Virginia. I barely even knew these quirky people but they were all I had. One by one each of them came up and hugged me like they sincerely felt my pain.

I knew they were dying to know what the letter said, but I didn’t feel like talking. “Y’all will have to excuse me. I think I need to lie down for a while.”

I honestly don’t remember much of the next twenty-four hours. I do remember praying to God as hard as I could that it was all a dream and to not let it be true. The faces of my precious little daughters peering at me from my side of the bed are vivid in my mind. The voice of Roberta calling to them from upstairs rings a bell. My soul felt like it had left my body and I could no longer feel my flesh. When the nighttime came I remember screaming out to God and Daddy, Mama and Kissie and anyone else who would possibly listen to “get me out of here.” I was weak, so weak that I lay motionless in the bed. I began to fall into a tunnel that kept getting narrower and narrower, deeper and deeper. There seemed to be no end to the tunnel. Only a dark, bottomless pit. I prayed to God for peace and slumber. He answered and with His mercy I slept.

Roberta was upstairs in our apartment with the girls when I finally stumbled out of my fog.

“There’s your mommy, girls. I told you she wouldn’t sleep all day.”

“What time is it?” I peered out the window at the gray, overcast April sky.

“Three thirty.”

“
Three thirty!
My gosh, I’ve been asleep longer than I thought. I never ate lunch.”

“Lunch, dinner, breakfast, and lunch again. Hon, you’ve been in a state of shock. Been in your room goin’ on twenty-six hours now.”

I sat down on the wicker sofa in the sitting room, outside the bedrooms.

“Are you okay, Mommy?” Issie jumped in my lap and covered me with kisses. “Me and Sarah tried to wake you up. You were sleeping tight.”

“Yes, baby, I was sleeping tight. But I’m wide awake now.” One look at Sarah’s little face jolted me back to reality. “Sarah! How’d you get to school?”

“Roberta.”

I glanced over at Roberta with both “thank you” and “I’m sorry” written all over my face.

“We’re going over to Erica Grover’s house,” Sarah said, crawling up on my lap to join her sister. “Is that okay? Roberta said it was okay. Mrs. Grover will be here any minute.”

“Pat called a little while ago, and I didn’t think you’d mind,” Roberta said, “seein’ the state you’re in. I thought you could probably use the break.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I relented, but it wasn’t without alarm. The thought of another mouse helping itself to my daughter’s dinner was enough to push me on over the cliff.

Pat Grover was rapping on the door five minutes later. I thanked her for inviting the girls and told her I’d pick them up in a couple of hours. I watched from the window as they sloshed through the leftover snow and crawled into Pat’s Subaru. Stay away from chocolate cake, I should have reminded them, but I couldn’t say it.

While I was talking with Pat, Roberta must have slipped into my bedroom to make up the bed. When I saw what she had done, I gave her a huge hug and broke down crying all over again. She was taking care of me.

“Guess what, Roberta?” I reached across the bed to the windowsill and grabbed another Kleenex. “It doesn’t look like Baker’s coming home at all.”

“I heard.”

I whipped my head around. “You know about Baker? How? Is it on the scanner? Don’t tell me it’s been broadcast all over southern Vermont already.”

“Oh, it’s been broadcast alreet, but I didn’t hear it on the scanner. Heard it from Betty Sweeney.”

“
Betty Sweeney!
How does
she
know?” Upon hearing that, my tears stopped, and with arms flailing I thrashed out into the sitting room.

Roberta was on my heels. “Well, I’ll tell you. Betty got an earful when she filled up her car at George’s this mornin’. Called me as soon as she got to the town clerk’s office.”

“Don’t tell me that. How in the world does George Clark know already?”

“George told Betty that a certain Ford Explorer with a Tennessee tag stopped for gas two days ago. Some buxom blonde was driving and paid for the gas with her own credit card. George recognized the name right away.”

“Was her name Barb?”

“Yuup, Barb Thurmond.”

“Does George know her?”

“Not personally, but he knows of her. She’s a
rich
divorcée. Her ex is a powerful man on Wall Street and she got Powder Mountain in the settlement. Seems her and all her rich friends from New York City been skiing at Sugartree for years. George says she’s got more money than God.”

“Really? More money than God, huh?”

“Yuup. George also told Betty that Barb Thurmond looks amazing for fifty and—”

“Wait a minute,
she’s fifty
!” I threw my arms up in the air and fell out on the sofa.

“Yuup, but George swore she looks closer to thirty-eight.” Roberta put her hand aside her mouth, leaned down toward me, and whispered, “Thanks to a skilled surgeon in New York City.”

“HOW WOULD HE KNOW THAT?” I shrieked.

“He’s got his sources.”

“I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that she’s fifty or that I live in a town where the gas station owner is privy to the fact that she’s had plastic surgery!” I held my face in my hands. “This can’t be happening.”
And what galaxy am I visiting again? My husband has just left me for a fifty-year-old Yankee divorcée with tons of money, counterfeit bosoms, and a fake face? Alice Garrott will never survive the phone call.
“Don’t tell me anything else, Roberta, I don’t think I’ve got the stomach for it right now.” Roberta followed me as I stumbled back into my bedroom.

“Of course you don’t,” Roberta said, rubbing my shoulder with one hand and digging at her bottom with the other. “Say, I’ve been thinking. You don’t need Baker. You’re going to make it just fine. You’ve gut all of us; we’ll help you make a go of the place.”

“That’s sweet of you, but I can’t even think about making a go of the place. I just wanna go home. That’s all I’m thinking about. It’s the only peace I’ve got right now.” I crawled back on top of my bed and turned around to face her. “Please understand. It has nothing to do with you, Jeb, or Pierre. Y’all have been very kind to me. It’s just that I don’t belong up here.”

“Why, sure you do.” Roberta could hardly fit in between the bed and the wall. Her right hip scraped against the footboard as she bent down to pick up my tennis shoes on the floor.

“This is not my home. I feel like an interloper trespassing on someone else’s property. Surely Ed Baldwin,
the
real estate tycoon, can hang one more Sold sign in the yard by the time we open for the summer season.” Just thinking about going home made the stress subside a little.

She stood back up and backed her way to the closet, placing my shoes on the floor behind the curtain. “Ed’s the guy to make it happen.”

“I might need your help with the girls over the next couple of days. I’ve got a lot of planning and packing to do. And so many phone calls to make. Are you busy?”

“Pooh. What are you talkin’ about? It’s Mud Season. I can use all the extra money I can get. Moe’s not working during the Thaw, neither. You have to moonlight in Vermont or starve!”

______

Okay, who to call first? Virginia? Alice? Gosh no, I may never hear the end of the ranting and raving. It’s Mary Jule. She won’t be happy with Baker one bit, but she’ll at least be sweet about it.

Then it dawned on me. Kissie was the person I really needed. Dialing her number, the sickness in my gut returned and the tears sprung up again as soon as I heard her soothing and familiar “Hello.”

“Kissie.” I struggled to get her name out.

“Is that you, baby?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What’s makin’ you cry, baby? Tell ole Kissie what’s wrong.”

“It’s Baker.”

“Baker? He sick?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then what’s wrong with him?”

“He’s gone.”

“Gone? Where to?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, but I know this. He’s got a
girlfriend
,” I wailed into the phone.

“A who?”

“A girlfriend,” I cried.

“You don’t mean it? Lawd have mercy alive, baby. Somebody need to kick his backside good and hawd ’til his brain start up again. Your po’ daddy and mama be turning circles in their caskets if they knew what Baker be up to.”

“Are you ready for the most unbelievable part?
She’s fifty!
”

“Now I know you pullin’ my leg.”

“Nope.”
Nope? What was I saying? One change of a vowel and I’d be sounding like a Vermonter. Get me outta here.

“What could Baker want with a woman sixteen years older than him?”

“Money. She’s filthy rich. You know what, Kissie? Daddy might have killed Baker if he were still alive. Can’t you just see Daddy now, busting into Satterfield State Farm and letting Mr. Satterfield have it? As if Mr. Satterfield would have had anything to do with it. They’d be duking it out and rolling around on the floor.”

Kissie let out one of her infectious, hearty belly laughs that I’d grown to love so much. It made me fall out laughing, too, and I felt a tiny bit better.

“Can’t you just hear Daddy? ‘Sattafield, that no count son of yours has messed with the wrong man.’ ”

“He’d be all talk. Your daddy wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what to do in a fight.”

We talked for more than an hour and as always Kissie made my spirits rise. But it wasn’t until I was tucking the girls in that night that I had any real relief at all. Aurora borealis suddenly lit the way to my Southern world.
I could be home by Friday!
Why should I wait? There was no one to stop me. I could make all the listing arrangements with Ed Baldwin from home in Memphis just as easily as I could from Willingham.