Fortunate Harbor (18 page)

But she had a sinking feeling that she
was
going to be worried about
him
. Despite their checkered history. Despite her conviction he still wasn’t telling the truth.

Because she had to face the fact that despite everything she had wanted to believe since the divorce, once upon a time, she really had been in love with CJ Craimer.

Dana had good ideas, and Wanda was proud of herself for hiring the woman, instead of letting her languish at The Dancing Shrimp. She was probably paying Dana too much, considering that the shop would be in the red for months to come, but she had estimated how much Dana made at the restaurant and matched it. Wanda’s Wonderful Pies was never going to make Wanda a rich woman, but if eventually she and Dana could both make a living, then that was fine by her.

Today Dana was more than earning her keep. Not only was she packing up forty pies in the kitchen, Wanda was reaping the benefits of Dana’s good ideas on the telephone.

“I’m glad you liked my Charleston pie,” Wanda told the caterer on the other end of the line. “And we’re always happy to work with you. We have a special list, just for caterers, so our regular customers won’t already be tired of what you serve them. Plus, don’t forget, caterers get a ten percent discount, and that’s on top of our bulk pricing. So we’ll take that right off today’s invoice.”

She listened, nodding her head. “Friday night, then. And you’ll come by so we don’t have to charge for delivery?” She nodded again, then thanked the woman and hung up.

“Whoopie!” She did a little dance behind the counter, glad nobody was in the shop to see.

“What’s up?” Dana came out to see what the fuss was about.

“You are full of good ideas!”

“What’d I do this time?” Dana looked pleased.

“That was Yummy Tummy catering.”

“Can you imagine anybody coming up with Yummy Tummy for their business?”

“They can call themselves Botulism Betty’s for all I care. They just made an order for six assorted fruit pies, our choice. They’ll pick them up on Friday at five.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Dana looked even more pleased.

“And you’re the reason they found us.”

Last Tuesday—a particularly slow day, since Sunshine Bakery had run a two-for-one special—Dana had called a dozen caterers chosen at random from the telephone book and asked if they would like to sample a pie. She had delivered four of the day’s leftovers on her way home, and promised four more for the following day. And now the giveaways were paying off. This was the first real order from a caterer, but another had called with questions, and another had dropped in to see the shop and sample another slice. That young man had promised to keep Wanda in mind when he got too busy to do dessert on his own.

“Well, tonight’s going to be even better advertising,” Dana said. “The pies are gorgeous, especially the Elvis Surprise. And we know they’re delicious. So everybody’s going to be impressed, and some of them will want to know where the pies came from. You’ll get more orders.”

“I hope so.” Wanda checked her watch. Lizzie had a late-afternoon dentist’s appointment, and though Dana had offered to postpone, Wanda had recruited Janya to help with the delivery instead. “I guess you’d better scoot on out of here.”

“You’re sure you and Janya can manage?”

“We’re borrowing a van from her husband so we can set up everything in the back. Don’t worry.”

“Then I’ve done everything I can. The Elvis pies, and the luscious lemon and Key lime, are in the racks. The fruit pies are all in boxes.”

“You drop by tonight and I’ll tell you how it went.”

Dana smiled her thanks, as if she might really do it, but Wanda knew she wouldn’t. Dana kept to herself. Even when she was socializing, she always seemed on guard, as if every word she spoke had been weighed and judged before it was allowed to pass her lips. She never suggested a get-together, even though she’d been living at Happiness Key for a month. She seemed to like everyone, but she seemed to like them best at arm’s length.

Dana went back to the kitchen and returned with her purse. “Good luck. I know the pies will be a success.”

Janya passed her in the doorway, and the two women greeted each other quickly, but Dana didn’t stop to chat.

Janya was wearing one of her India getups. Wanda could never remember what she called them. A long raspberry-colored tunic over gauzy matching pants that ended inches above her ankle. She had silver bracelets on both arms, and her hair was woven in a French braid pinned under at the nape to show her lovely neck.

“You look too pretty to deliver pies. Even prettier than usual.”

“Rishi and I are going to dinner afterward.”

“That sounds like progress. Hasn’t he been working too hard lately?”

Janya’s tone was crisp. “Rishi works hard all the time.”

Wanda finished closing out the register and locked all the bills in the safe Ken had installed under the counter. Most days he stopped by and took her cash to the bank before closing time. She’d also put a Palmetto Grove Police Department sticker on the front door, and anybody casing the place would see that cops were her most frequent customers.

“Okay, let’s roll,” she said. “I got the address. You got the van. We’re in business.”

Fifteen minutes later, with the pies safely wedged together in the back and Wanda at the wheel, they were heading toward the most exclusive gated community in Palmetto Grove.

“I hope you’re going somewhere tasty,” Wanda said. “For dinner, I mean.”

“There is an Indian restaurant at a motel outside of town. It has just opened. We are going with his staff.”

“Have something to celebrate?” Wanda was ever hopeful.

“I am not pregnant, if that’s what you mean.” She glanced at Wanda. “Rishi is…” Her voice trailed off. She shrugged.

Wanda knew she ought to tread carefully, but that wasn’t what she did best. “Rishi is what? Unhappy? Unsure if he wants children?”

“Rishi is not cooperative.”

For a moment Wanda couldn’t speak. Then she exploded. “What man in his right mind would not cooperate with
you?
A man and a woman decide to have a baby and suddenly she’s saying yes every time he asks for sex. It’s a man’s dream come true.”

“Not for Rishi.”

Wanda was having trouble putting this together. She turned
onto the private road leading to the development, and stopped at the gatehouse to tell the security guard who she was and where she was going. He checked his clipboard before he raised the bar.

“So what’s his problem?” Wanda asked once she was moving again. She figured they didn’t have much time for conversation before they were too busy unloading pies.

“He says nothing is wrong. But I think he is so disappointed I have yet to conceive, he does not want to try anymore. He is disappointed in
me
.”

Wanda could tell this was serious and deserved her full attention. Unfortunately, she was also gawking at a long line of over-wrought minimansions. She had to be even blunter than usual.

“I don’t know Rishi like the back of my hand, but that sounds like nonsense. Everybody says he’s brilliant. Brilliant men know it takes time to conceive. He couldn’t be expecting you to do it on command. Besides, maybe he’s the one with the problem.”

“Do men consider that? In a man’s mind, isn’t the woman always at fault?”

“More like they’re so scared it
might
be them, they don’t want to even think about it.”

“Perhaps this is true, but if I am wrong, why is my husband finding so many reasons not to…” She shrugged again, and the raspberry silk rippled.

None of the reasons that occurred to Wanda were good ones to mention. Could be Rishi was having an affair. Or maybe he had decided that men were more to his taste. Or maybe he regretted his arranged marriage and didn’t want to bring a child into it.

“My bet?” she said instead. “Stress. Plain and simple. He
works too hard, and he doesn’t want making a baby to feel like more of the same. I bet he’s just tired and cranky and needs a vacation. Why don’t the two of you go somewhere for a few days? Shack up in a nice motel outside Orlando where they’re real cheap and let nature take its course.”

Janya sank her white teeth into her lovely bottom lip. “This is a good idea, I think. I will suggest it.”

Wanda figured even if the pies were a failure, at least she’d done one thing right today.

They found the Statler house, and she thought Mrs. Statler could simply have mentioned that her home was the largest in a development of huge houses, with the biggest lot and best view, directly on the water.

The house was two-story and Mediterranean in style, with a red tile roof and honey-colored stucco exterior. Wanda guessed the size was in excess of six thousand square feet, probably somewhere closer to ten. It spread across the property like a motel, only no motel she’d ever been in was half this luxurious.

“Well, I can see why hosting a reception as large as this one is no skin off Mrs. Statler’s nose,” Wanda said.

“In India, many families would live inside.”

“I imagine the only people living in this one are the Statlers and their household help. You know the butler, the chambermaid, the stable boys. I hope the kitchen’s in the back, so we can see the view.”

Wanda pulled the van into what looked like a parking spot to the right of the towering entry. “We’ll leave the pies inside for now. There might be a better place to park.”

“I will always be happy to deliver pies if it brings us to places like this.”

The courtyard was paved in marble. Wanda rang the front
doorbell and wondered as she did if she should have looked harder for a rear entrance. But Mrs. Statler herself answered, and she beamed one of her eerie unwrinkled smiles when she saw Wanda and Janya.

“You’re just in time,” she said. “I have to go out for a little while, the caterer’s not going to be here for another hour, and my housekeeper is out, too, so I was worried I might miss you.”

She delivered this flood of information without any change of expression, but she sounded genuinely glad to see them.

“We’ll bring the pies right in,” Wanda said. “Is there a place we should park to get them to the kitchen?”

“No, you’re fine. I’ll prop this door for you. My housekeeper cleared space in the largest of the two refrigerators for all the pies that need refrigeration. But once you’re finished unloading and putting everything away, would you mind closing this door and fastening the dead bolt, then leaving through the back? We won’t worry about the security system. I’m heading out this very minute. The back door will lock behind you. You’ll turn right and follow the path past the pool house. We have a guest staying there, but he’s not home at the moment, so don’t worry. You’ll see a gate beside the bougainvillea, and you can go through that, along the side of the house and back here to your van.”

Wanda followed the directions as closely as she could and nodded as Mrs. Statler spoke.

Mrs. Statler finished up. “I left your check on the counter, so you won’t need to go to the trouble of billing me, and the kitchen is that way.” She pointed toward the back of the house. For the first time she seemed to see Janya. “You are too pretty to believe. The world is not fair.” Then she lifted her hand in a wave, gave another taut smile and moved past them to a gray Lincoln parked not far from the van.

“She’s a trusting soul, isn’t she?” Wanda asked, once she and Janya were alone.

“Perhaps she has so much, she isn’t afraid to lose some of it.”

“More likely she just knows where to find us to get it back. And even if the alarm is off, there have to be security cameras everywhere. Not that they’ll see us doing anything we shouldn’t.”

“It’s a very grand house.”

“A little overdone, even for my fancy tastes. Wouldn’t you feel like you had to be dressed up every minute or the house might just boot you out and lock the door behind you? Let’s go find the kitchen and take care of business.”

They passed through several rooms, some of which Wanda could not identify by name. Everywhere she looked, the wood was heavy, dark and highly polished. The whisper-soft Oriental carpets under their feet hadn’t come from Taiwan.

“The place sure has been florified,” Wanda said. “The florist must have spent the whole morning just carrying in arrangements and fondling his bankroll. I never saw such displays.”

The formal dining room, which looked as if it could easily seat twenty at a Windsor Castle–worthy table, had already been set up with crystal and small china plates, as if this was the place where guests might first be channeled. Wanda made a wrong turn into a butler’s pantry, retraced her steps with Janya right behind her and found the kitchen just a short hallway from the dining room. Once there, Wanda was surprised they had missed it the first time, since it looked to be responsible for half the square footage of the house.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” She stopped in the doorway. Stainless steel appliances worthy of Manhattan’s finest restaurants adorned every wall. A massive granite island bisected
the room, and over it a skylight brought in natural light and bathed a suspended glass shelf of potted herbs. The sleek cabinets were unadorned except for the grandeur of the wood itself, a rainforest exotic that was nearly black.

“I’m not leaving,” Wanda said. “I’m going to stay right here and bake pies until I drop dead of exhaustion.” She crossed the room to a marble counter, clearly designed for rolling pastry. She ran one finger along it reverently. “I want this. I’m going to pry it right out and take it back to the shop. You’re going to help.”

Janya was busy examining the eight-burner stove with a built-in grill. “Do you think that anyone ever cooks in here? Everything looks new.”

Wanda sighed and, with one last swipe of her finger against marble, joined her. “It’s doubtful.”

“Is that not a waste? Shouldn’t this kitchen belong to a mother with many children to feed, one who spends all day on her feet cooking for them?”

“People like the Statlers are too busy making money and spending it to have a flock of children. And if they did, some poor woman with her own brood at home would be their cook. I always figure when we all get to heaven, there won’t be any streets of gold. There’ll just be a little rearranging of resources. People who don’t need a kitchen won’t get one. People who do, will get a beaut, like this. Everybody’ll be happy.”

“It seems as if, with a little thought and energy, that might happen now, on earth.”