CHAPTER THREE
Harper awoke on Friday morning with a clear head, and although her eyes hurt from crying so much the day before, they weren’t nearly as bloodshot. It was still dark at five o’clock that morning as she made her way from her cabin to the café. Stars twinkled in the sky, but the promise of a pretty day was carried in the sweet spring air. In her previous job, the bar didn’t even close down until two in the morning. By the time she got things cleaned up and made her way to her tiny little apartment above the place, it was usually after three and she could still smell beer and whiskey that found its way up the back stairs. Then it took at least an hour to wind down before she could sleep.
“So I should be going to sleep about now, not waking up to the smell of roses and pure lake water. I could be happy here forever. If it weren’t for my sisters.”
“Mornin’. Who are you talkin’ to?” Zed said when Harper entered the café. “Have a cup of coffee and sit with me for a few minutes. We’ll get the breakfast goin’ at five thirty. Won’t be nobody here this mornin’ but you girls, so we won’t have too much to do.”
“Good mornin’ to you. So our day won’t be rushed?”
“Not this mornin’, but it’ll pick up this evening,” Zed answered.
“Why are we even open? Granny’s only been gone two days.”
“Because that’s what she made me promise. The day she passed on I was to call you girls, and the next day we were to be closed so y’all could get settled in. But on the day after that, we were to open shop for business as usual,” he answered.
The coffee machine offered decaf, dark roast, and hot water. Packages of instant hot chocolate along with a few kinds of tea were in a basket on the table. She poured a cup of the dark roast and then ripped open two of the hot chocolate packets to add to it. A double shot of half-and-half and she could pretend that it was a mocha latte.
“We got a full house checkin’ in sometime between three and suppertime. That’s ten cabins full, so tomorrow mornin’ will be a lot different than this one. Flora’s comin’ about midmornin’ to make sure all the cabins are up and ready. We shut them down a week ago when the doctor said it was Annie’s last days. Whooo-wee!” He threw up both hands. “You can’t imagine the fit she threw over that. Said that she could die without us losin’ money.”
Harper sipped her coffee. “That’s Granny Annie. She believed that work never hurt anyone.”
“Yep.” Zed’s head bobbed up and down. “We worked seven days a week around here, but we got to do it together so we sure enough didn’t mind. Come seven o’clock at night, we’d close up the café and watch some television.” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling to hold back the tears. “I’m glad you girls are here. Don’t know if I could handle it without y’all. I could hire help, but”—he hesitated—“family needs to be with family in these times.”
“Even if it’s a dysfunctional one?” she asked.
“Maybe more so.” He eased up out of his chair and carried his mug with him to the kitchen. Harper followed right behind him. He slid a pan of biscuits into the oven and then shook some flour over sausage that he’d already cooked in a deep cast-iron skillet.
“You can whip up those eggs, and I’ll get some pancake batter ready. Dana has got to go to school and enroll Brook this mornin’. I don’t expect that they’ll keep the child, since they’ll have to get all her records from the school she was in, but if they do, she’ll need a good breakfast. What they serve in lunchrooms these days is a cryin’ shame. Can’t have nothin’ fried,” Zed fussed as he slowly added milk to the skillet.
“Who’s goin’ to mind the store while she’s gone?” Harper picked up a whisk and went to work on a bowl full of eggs.
“Ain’t nobody here until after three and the locals don’t get up until midmornin’, so she can leave it for an hour or so. After today, it might be tough for her to get away through the daylight hours because she’ll be real busy. Not only is fishin’ season in full swing, but the local folks that own summer places have started to move in. Business is pretty steady most days. It closes at seven like the café, so her evenin’s are free. After breakfast you can take my grocery list to the store. We usually do our shoppin’ at Walmart in Tyler. I’ve got it ready, and I’ll send the company credit card with you,” he said.
“You goin’ to trust me with that?” Harper asked.
“Sure I will. You buy something not on the list, it comes out of your paycheck and I will cross-check the receipt with the list,” Zed answered.
It was straight up six o’clock when Tawny arrived at the café. Covering a yawn, she sniffed the air and went straight for the table where Zed and Harper had spread out the breakfast. She loaded a plate and took it to a table, returned for a cup of coffee, and headed back.
“You don’t eat our food without at least a good mornin’,” Zed told her.
“Good mornin’,” she grumbled. “I’ve never been a morning person, and I don’t expect to change.”
“Might be surprised what changes will come about here on the lake. You get that computer stuff all ready to start work this afternoon?” he asked.
“I sure did and went through the program to familiarize myself with it. I learned it in my freshman year of college. It’s old but pretty basic. If my work goes on after the workday closes, why do I have to be up at the crack of dawn?”
“You do your work in the mornin’s when you are fresh and your mind is clear. The store and café receipts and the bankin’ stuff can always wait until the next mornin’ after we give them to you. You won’t need to go to the bank tomorrow, since we haven’t been open here for a week. That will start next Saturday mornin’, and if you’ve a mind to be nice, then you can help either here or in the store when you ain’t busy with the book stuff,” Zed said as he headed back into the kitchen.
“And if I’m not in the mood to be nice?” Tawny asked.
“Then you can sit on your porch and watch the grass grow. It’s up to you, girl,” Zed answered.
“Grass has always fascinated me. I can’t remember when I had food like this,” she said between bites.
“Body needs to start off the day with something that’ll stick to the ribs,” he said seriously.
Harper brought her plate of food to the table. “I’m surprised you didn’t die from bein’ poor those few months.”
“Don’t you start on me,” Tawny growled.
“Looks like we’re the last ones to the party.” Dana and Brook pushed inside the room.
Brook looked from Tawny to Harper and back again. “So what are y’all fighting about now?”
“Whether or not bein’ poor is a fatal disease,” Harper answered. “Tawny never had to live in a world where she needed a paycheck until this last little while.”
“Shhh”—Brook nodded toward the kitchen—“don’t talk about death. It’ll make Uncle Zed sad all over again.”
“Best get to eatin’ or these two won’t leave nothin’ for you.” Zed emerged from the kitchen with another plate of crispy bacon.
Dana quickly changed the subject. “That’s the story of my life. Always comin’ in last.”
“That’s not the way I see it. Seems to me like you were always the bossy firstborn who lorded it over us,” Harper said.
“And you were the wild one and Tawny whined a lot and both of y’all were the precious little princesses who had a mama and daddy both,” Dana shot back.
“You don’t know that. You weren’t even here when I was a teenager,” Tawny said.
Brook poured two glasses of orange juice and put them on the table. “I’ll be bossy, wild, and whiny if y’all will homeschool me. I’ve attended the same private school since pre-K. I’m nervous about all this.”
“Private school?” Harper cut her eyes around at Dana.
“The kids on the ranch where I worked all went to the school. It was one of the perks of the job,” Dana said.
Brook fidgeted in her chair. “This is my first time to go to public school.”
“Harper and I went to a private school, but we both always wanted to go to public school,” Tawny said.
“Why?” Brook cut open a biscuit and slathered it with butter.
A wicked grin spread across Harper’s face. “We heard you could buy weed there better than in the private schools.”
“Harper Clancy!” Tawny raised her voice.
“Hey, don’t gripe at me. I was a pretty good kid, but if I remember right, Mama had to make a sizable donation to the school to get you out of trouble more than once. Come on, girl. Fess up. Why do your hands look like they’ve been diggin’ ditches?” Harper shot a look her way.
Brook jerked her head around to see what Tawny would say next.
“I’ve been working, and I didn’t get in trouble for weed. And you’re setting a bad example for this child. And how did you know about that stuff? You never came home after you ran away from that boarding school where they sent you,” Tawny declared.
“You and Mama weren’t the only Clancys I talked to. Until Daddy passed away, he and I talked at least once a month. If I remember correctly, the school got two nice little donations toward scholarships to keep you from being suspended.”
“That was for skipping school to go shopping,” Tawny explained to Brook. “Mama was angry because I ran up her credit, not because I skipped school. They were going to kick me out, but she still didn’t want me to go to public school.”
“Why?” Brook asked.
“Because she thought only the scum of the earth went to public school,” Harper answered for Tawny.
Brook turned to face Dana. “Well, I’m not the scum of the earth. Sounds to me like y’all’s mama was different than my granny Lacy.”
“Little bit,” Dana said and then yelled toward the kitchen, “Great breakfast. I’d forgotten how good your pancakes are, Uncle Zed.”
Tawny would have traded mothers with Dana in a heartbeat. When Lacy came to pick Dana up in the summers, she’d been sweet to Harper and Dana both. And Dana actually missed her mother while they were at the resort. Tawny could never remember having that kind of feeling. Mostly she wished she never had to go home.
Zed brought out another platter with six big pancakes on it and then went on back to the kitchen. “It’s Annie’s recipe. Secret is in beating the egg whites first and then folding them into the batter. Makes good light pancakes. I’ve got to get the lunch special started. Word’ll get out about us bein’ open, and some of the folks around these parts always eat here on Friday.”
Tawny hurried through the rest of her breakfast, cramming a biscuit full of scrambled eggs and bacon to take back to the cabin for a midmorning snack. Watching grass grow might work up an appetite. A gentle morning breeze brushed against her cheeks as she walked back to the cabin. She zipped her jacket and sat down on the porch in one of the vintage metal lawn chairs. This one was red, like the one on Harper’s porch. Seemed fitting—she and Harper shared parents and a bloodline, so that made them like two chairs cut from the same pattern.
A cardinal lit on the railing around the tiny porch and cocked his head toward her. She sat perfectly still and listened as he and a squirrel in the willow tree between cabins number seven and eight argued with each other. Off in the distance, she heard a rooster performing his wake-up calls. A couple of frogs joined in the mix, and a pair of robins chirped as they hopped around the yard.
The sun, a bright-orange ball sitting on the horizon, sent enough light through the trees that she could make out a few new spring leaves. There were a few tiny little whitecaps on the lake, and by cocking her head to one side she could hear the distant drone of voices—most likely fishermen already out there in the coves trying to catch their dinner. The cardinal grew bored with her and flew away, leaving one red feather fluttering from the railing to the porch.
She picked it up, went inside the cabin, and removed her jacket. When Zed had said that strangers would be coming into her personal space, it had freaked her out. So she’d arranged the desk, file cabinets, and everything to do with the business under the window looking out over the porch. Then she’d taken down one of the twin beds and carried one piece at a time to the storage room behind the laundry house. That’s where she found the bookcases and had asked Zed to borrow his old truck to take them to her cabin.
She’d pushed her bed under the window looking out over the backyard and wooded area, leaving only enough room for a nightstand on either side, and then built a wall of four bookcases to divide the room. On the back side was her personal space. Just inside the door was her office. She carefully laid the red feather on a top shelf.
She circled around the makeshift wall—bed made tight enough to pass Retha Harper-Clancy’s inspection, a thousand percent tougher than anything the military required. Her mother had never cleaned a house in her life, but by damn, she expected perfection in her hired help as well as her daughters.
It was no secret that Retha hadn’t wanted children. She’d made that clear, often and loudly, especially when Tawny or her sister weren’t perfect little angels. It had gotten worse after they’d sent Harper off to boarding school. Whatever it was must have been horrible because they hadn’t sent Tawny away when she was sixteen and got caught with a flask of tequila in her locker at school.
All schools, private or public, smelled the same and for the most part looked alike. The Frankston School had changed very little since the last time Dana was in it. She’d hated leaving her friends, but at the end of her eighth-grade year her mother, Lacy, had married the first stepfather and they’d moved to Austin, where Dana had finished high school. Now Lacy was married to Richard, stepfather number three, and that marriage was on shaky ground.
“Is that really Dana Clancy?” a deep voice behind her asked.
She glanced over her shoulder and stopped in her tracks. “Well, hello, Marcus. What are you doin’ here?”
“Teachin’ history.” His smile showed perfectly straight teeth.
“You’re kiddin’ me,” she gasped.
Brook raised an eyebrow. “Mama?”
“This is an old classmate of mine back when I went to school here. Marcus, meet my daughter, Brook, and Brook, this is Marcus Green.” No way was she going to tell her daughter that her history teacher had been one of the biggest pot smokers in junior high school.
“Pleasure to meet you.” Marcus nodded toward Brook. “So you’re married?”
“Was,” Dana answered. “Many years ago. Right now we’ve got to get to the office and get her enrolled.”
Marcus fell in beside her as she started down the hallway. “Moving back to the lake, are you? I was sorry to hear about Annie.”
“Thank you. It came as a shock to all of us, but we are all settling in.”
“That mean those other two sisters are coming back, too?” Marcus asked.
“They’re here, but it’s not a matter of coming back. They were only summer visitors. They never did actually live here. They were big-city girls out of Dallas, remember?”
“I do remember that about them. And they had kind of strange names.” Marcus stopped by a door. “Here it is. Some things never change.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Dana said. “Good to see you again, Marcus.”
“You too.” Marcus waved over his shoulder.
He wasn’t much taller than Dana, and she was considered medium height at five feet six inches. But he carried himself differently now. When they were kids, he’d reminded her of a miniature rock star with all his kinky dark-brown hair down to his shoulders. Now it was cut close. No one would ever believe that those blue eyes could have ever been glazed over from smoking too much weed during lunch.
It took all of fifteen minutes to enroll Brook, and the principal, Mrs. Johnson, wanted her to stay. “I see you brought your backpack. I’ll get Flora’s granddaughter to show you around. She’s enrolled in most of the same classes that you are.”
“Okay,” Brook said slowly, dragging out the syllables.
“You don’t have to stay today if you aren’t comfortable with it,” Dana said.
Brook shrugged. “Beats mopping floors and cleaning rooms.”
Mrs. Johnson leaned into a microphone and said, “Cassidy Jones, please come to the office.”
Before she even got the last word out, a slightly overweight girl with a jet-black ponytail, a round face, and pink glasses poked her head in the door. “Yes, ma’am?”
“This is Brook Clancy, a new eighth grader. Y’all have the same schedule.”
Cassidy nodded. “Then we’ve got English first hour and about five minutes to get there, so come on.”
“Hello, Cassidy. I’ve known your grandma all my life. I’m Brook’s mother,” Dana said.
“Pleased to meet you.” Cassidy smiled. “We’d better get goin’. The bell is going to ring anytime now.”
Brook picked up her backpack, laid a hand on Dana’s shoulder, and then followed the girl out of the office and into a hallway of chattering kids. Dana hadn’t planned to leave her at school, and worry gripped her heart even worse than on Brook’s first day of kindergarten.
“It’s okay,” Mrs. Johnson said. “Cassidy is a fine student. She’ll take good care of her today, and by Monday, your daughter will be part of everything.”
“I hope so. Thank you. We’re out at Annie’s Place. I did write down the phone number there, didn’t I?”
“You did. We all know it by heart anyway from making reservations for Sunday dinner. Sorry to hear about Annie. She was always a big supporter of our school. I’m sure Brook will be fine. Besides, you brought all the paperwork, so you made my job easy. Will you pick her up, or shall I make sure she’s on the right bus?” Mrs. Johnson put on her glasses and glanced down at the form in front of her. “Are you going to run the place? I’d sure hate to see it close. How’s Zed doin’? He and Annie have been friends for so long and worked together for, what, fifty years?”
“About that long. Uncle Zed is sad, but so are all of us. It came as a shock to us, since she didn’t want him to tell us that she was sick. We sure hope he’s not thinkin’ of retiring anytime soon.”
“Uncle Zed?” Mrs. Johnson asked. “But Zed is black. Is he . . . ,” she stammered.
“No, that’s what we’ve always called him at home,” Dana answered. “He’s been more like a grandfather than an uncle, but—” She shrugged.
Mrs. Johnson straightened all the papers and put them to one side. “Cassidy rides the bus to the cabins some of the time, so that will make things easy. I’ll just tell her to be sure that Brook is on the bus with her.”
“Thanks again.” Dana started toward the door.
As the phone rang, Mrs. Johnson picked it up and waved Dana out with her other hand.
Her thoughts were all over the place in the quietness of the truck as she drove back up the highway. Surely there wouldn’t be a drug problem in the school. Marcus and a very small group of kids were the only ones who got into that scene when she was there. But with him being a teacher? Had she talked to Brook enough about the dangers? She made a mental note to do that over the weekend. And to warn her about what could happen if she were to take drugs and drink liquor at the same time.
She didn’t remember driving home or even across the bridge, but there was the turn and she had missed it. She drove all the way to the bar up on the hill, turned around in the parking lot, and drove slower on the way back. The cabins and store were both visible when she made the right-hand turn. She parked her truck in front of the house and walked back to the store. She wished that she had seriously considered homeschooling Brook so she wouldn’t have to worry about all the outside influences, but then, teaching her in front of her two aunts would probably be even worse than what she’d get in public school.
Life was not going to be a bed of roses. “Or maybe it is,” she said as she opened the door and flipped on the lights. “Roses have thorns, and believe me, Tawny and Harper have always been thorns in my side.”
And you are one in theirs. Granny’s voice popped into her head. “Probably.” She nodded.
She fished her phone out of her purse and hit the “Speed Dial” button for her mother, but nothing connected. “Dammit!” she fumed as she picked up the corded phone and punched in the phone number. Lacy answered on the third ring, panting as if she was out of breath.
“Are you there? Did they really cremate Annie?” she asked. “Why are you calling from the store?”
“I am and they did. And remember, there is no service in this spot. And no Wi-Fi, either. Brook is havin’ a fit.”
“Poor baby,” Lacy huffed.
“Did I call at a bad time?”
“No, darlin’. I’d just walked in the door from a two-mile run. I’m not gettin’ any younger, and besides, runnin’ helps the stress. I’m filing for divorce today. Your stepfather has cheated on me his last time,” Lacy said. “Are the two princesses there?”
“Yep, they are. I’m going to manage the store. Harper is helping Uncle Zed in the kitchen, and Tawny has an office set up in her cabin to take care of the business for the place,” Dana said.
“You are jokin’, right? I can’t picture Tawny doin’ anything but sittin’ on the porch with a glass of sweet tea and lookin’ pretty. And Harper cookin’ and cleanin’ up after people? I can’t even drag up a faint vision of that,” Lacy giggled.
“That’s not why I called. I’m worried about leaving Brook at school. It’s worse than when I had to walk away from her in kindergarten.”
“That’s just your mother instinct. Change never hurts any of us. I’ll come see y’all sometime this summer, and I expect by then you’ll be settled in and lovin’ it. You always did like spendin’ time with Annie.”
“I loved her so much.” Dana’s voice broke.
“And she loved you, thank God. If it hadn’t been for Annie and Zed and their help, we’d have never made it. Your father sure never gave us any support. Went off to college and we never saw him again.” Lacy’s voice always got that bitter edge when she mentioned Gavin Clancy. It was as if she had had no part in her pregnancy.
“So you think I’m only a worryin’ mama?” Dana deliberately veered away from a conversation about her father.
“Of course I do. I’ve got to get a quick shower and put on a decent outfit. My lawyer and I are meeting at ten. He’s a widower—very well-to-do,” Lacy said.
“So you’ve got number four already picked out? Who was cheatin’ on who?” Dana asked.
“It’s not who’s cheatin’, but who gets caught. Why shouldn’t I look at the playin’ field?”
“And if you’d gotten caught?” Dana asked.
“Then I’d still be lookin’ at the playin’ field, but with no big fat settlement,” she laughed. “Got to run, darlin’. Talk to you later. If you don’t like it up there, you can always move in with me. I’m going to get the house for sure.”
“Thanks, Mama. Talk to you later,” Dana said and hung up the phone.
Living with her two sisters might be tough, but she’d make it work—no way in hell would she ever live with her mother.
Zed sat down in his recliner that evening and sighed. He glanced over at the other chair and smiled. “Annie, you left me a handful with them girls. Every one of them is fighting a demon. I’m tryin’ to be patient with ’em and learn what keeps them from opening up to each other and bein’ a family, but sometimes I just want to shake some sense into them.”
He sipped at a glass of wine for a few minutes and then frowned. “Okay, I hear you. It’s took a long time for them to get this way, and it will take a while for them to learn to love and trust one another. But you know, Annie, that I ain’t got forever. I’m lonesome without you, and I’ve been ready to leave this old world for a long time now. You could have waited for me, and we could’ve checked out together.”
Another sip of wine. “I understand it wasn’t none of your doin’s. You wanted us to be like that couple in The Notebook and die together holdin’ hands. I shouldn’t bitch and moan, should I? At least you knew who I was right up to your last breath and weren’t like that woman in the movie. I should be grateful for that.”
He finished off the wine and set the glass to the side. “Okay, it’s bedtime now, so good night, my sweet Annie. I miss you even more than I thought was possible.” He blew a kiss toward the wooden box where her ashes were kept. “Keep a candle in the window so I can find my way to you when the good Lord sees fit to turn me loose.”