Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom (6 page)

“I’ll be back in an
hour,” she informed me.

After setting the table
for the guests, I placed a pitcher of orange juice in the butler’s
pantry alongside a pitcher of milk, and then checked the breakfast
set-up on the counter. The tiny cereal boxes were displayed in
wicker basket for guests to help themselves. A cut glass bowl held
fresh tropical fruit salad made with pineapple, papaya, mango,
kiwi, and banana. Crisp bacon, wrapped in foil, was warming in the
oven, ready for plating. All that was left to do was to scramble
the eggs and toast the bread when guests sat down in the dining
room.

“Good morning!” said a
voice behind me. I turned and greeted Dr. Van Zandt. He was wearing
a madras plaid cotton shirt and a pair of chinos, with Topsiders on
his feet. He looked like he belonged on a sailboat on Long Island
Sound.
That’s not a bad thing for
a woman like Laurel, who loves the sea. Maybe they could take a
cruise together.

“How are you today?” I
gave him a bright smile.

“Very well, I must
say.” He chose a seat at the table next to the space where my
mother normally parked her wheelchair to dine. Was he calling
shotgun or was his choice of chair just a coincidence? Before I had
time to ruminate on the matter, I spied my mother making her way
down the hallway. She was wearing her favorite blue blouse, the one
with the embroidered Peter Pan collar. Just below that was her
favorite strand of freshwater pearls. She had swept up her hair in
an elegant French twist, so that her pearl earrings showed
nicely.

“Don’t you look lovely
this morning,” I told her. “Are you going out?”

Dr. Van Zandt rose from
his chair, giving Laurel a slight bow. “Indeed she is. She has
promised to escort me on a driving tour of Cheswick after church.
I’m also hoping I can convince her to have lunch with
me.”

“That sounds like fun.
You certainly have a picture perfect day for it.”

“Well, considering I
have that medical appointment tomorrow, I decided to enjoy myself
before the ax falls. I’m not looking forward to the
tests.”

“That’s understandable,
Thaddeus, even though I’m sure it will all work out just fine,” my
mother reassured him.

According to Lacey, who
lived to ferret out guest information, Thaddeus Van Zandt had been
a physician for the better part of forty years. He and his wife had
lived in West Hartford for much of that time, but after her death,
he sold their home and moved to Maine, to be closer to his daughter
and her family. A long-time cancer survivor, he returned every year
for his annual physical with his oncologist. This was his first
visit to the Four Acorns Inn, but judging from the way he looked at
my mother, I doubted it would be his last. He had asked if he might
extend his visit, especially if something unusual surfaced during
his physical exam.

“You know what they
say,” he laughed. “Doctors make the worst
patients.”

“Surely not in your
case!” My mother patted his hand. It was a gesture I hadn’t seen
her make since my dad passed away, and yet it seemed so
normal.

“Well, maybe I’m not so
bad, but I could tell you horror stories about my
colleagues.”

I left them to their
conversation, smiling as I walked back into the kitchen. I put the
bread into the toaster, ready to get started.

“Well?” Lacey sat at
the kitchen island, a glass of orange juice in her hand. “What are
they talking about?”

“They’re going to
church and then for a drive, followed by lunch. Will that work for
you?”

“It’s a
start.”

“Scrambled eggs and
toast will be up in a couple of minutes,” I informed her, turning
on the burner under the griddle pan.

“I’ll just eat here, if
you don’t mind.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t want to cramp
your mother’s style.”

“You think you
might?”

“Two’s company, three’s
a crowd, Scarlet. You’d be wise to remember that.”

“I’ll try my
darnedest,” I laughed. Through the open kitchen door, I saw Ms.
Vinson strolling purposefully towards the dining room. “What’s
four? Here comes Florence.”

“Nuts! I’ll be eating
in the dining room after all!” she groaned, scrambling to get off
the kitchen stool and beat the new arrival to the table, no doubt
to grab the chair on the other side of the man of the
hour.

The Johnsons and the
Wilkies soon filled the rest of the empty chairs at the table
before the platters of scrambled eggs were passed. Poor Ms. Vinson
was relegated to the opposite corner of the table, where she
engaged in conversation with the Johnsons about the art of fly
fishing. I suspected it was her way of trying to capture Dr. Van
Zandt’s attention, but it seemed to go nowhere. By half past eight,
the last platter of eggs was passed and all were satiated. With a
final round of coffees poured, I cleared their plates while they
chatted.

“Well,” said the man
with the bald pate, exuding the charisma of Sean Connery as his
female admirers hung on his every word. “We should probably get
going.”

“Oh?” Florence’s head
shot up. “Where are you heading?”

“To church,” said Dr.
Van Zandt.

“Can I get a lift with
you?” Florence didn’t even bother to wait for the answer. She
dabbed her lips with her napkin before she placed it on the table.
“I’ll just go and get my pocketbook”

One look at my mother’s
face spoke volumes. I heaved a great sigh at the thought she would
be so disappointed on what was one of the first dates since my
father died. And then I got a brilliant idea.

“Lacey, I have a
hankering to go to church today. Care to join me?”

“As a matter of fact,
Scarlet, I think I do. Say, why don’t you two go along? Florence
can ride with us.”

“Yes,” I agreed,
herding them towards the hallway as Lacey scooted away to intercept
the persistent Ms. Vinson, “you go on ahead. We’ll catch
up.”

“Do you want us to save
you seats in the same pew?”

“No, no, no.” I shook
my head. “Don’t worry about us. Just go enjoy
yourselves.”

The front door had no
sooner closed behind the pair when Florence began her descent down
the grand staircase.

“Did they just leave
without me?” The scowling face and quickened pace confirmed our
worst fears. She had the hots for Thaddeus.

“
Not
to worry. We’ll give you a ride. I just have to grab my purse. I
won’t be a moment.”

“You’re going too?” she
demanded, her voice brittle.

Chapter Five --

“Yes. So is Lacey.” If
looks could kill, I’d have a dagger stuck in my chest and a chalk
outline around my limp body. For that reason, I announced the news
with a cheerful smile. “Surely you don’t mind. After all, the
important thing is to be there for the church service. Reverend
Hoskins is wonderful.”

I kept up the vacuous
chitchat until I saw the physician’s silver sedan roll down the
driveway and turn into the street. A moment later, it was out of
sight.

“I won’t be long,” I
promised, hurrying up the staircase and onto the landing. I took a
moment to pop into my mother’s room and make her bed before moving
on to the third floor staircase. In my own suite, I fluffed the
sofa cushions in my sitting area where Scrub Oak, the cat, was
having a bath. I gave him an affectionate tickle behind the ears. I
made my own bed, threw a brush through my long locks, and then
stopped long enough to wind my hair into a French braid, which I
pinned up, all the time aware of the minutes ticking away. If I
played my cards right, by the time we got to the East Street
Congregational Church, the only seats left would be in the back of
the church.

“Okay, Scrubby. It’s
time for you to head downstairs.” I scooped the cat up under my arm
and off we went.

Florence Vinson was
practically apoplectic in the vestibule by the time my left foot
hit the bottom step. “We’re going to miss the
service!”

“Oh, heavens! What time
is it?” I replied, digging through my purse. “Let me just find my
keys.”

Scrub Oak left us to
join the dogs in the living room while I pretended to search
through my purse for the keys that I knew were already in my
pocket. Florence’s apparent distress reeked of desperation and
dismay. How could a woman, who had only arrived at the Four Acorns
Inn a day ago, have formed such a strong attachment to Dr. Van
Zandt? It bordered on the absurd.

That question went
unanswered on the drive. Florence huffed and puffed in the back
seat, communicating her deep disappointment in grunts and groans. I
made a point of taking the long way, heading down side streets and
tiny lanes that wandered along a meandering route, adding a couple
of extra minutes to the trip. The parking lot of the tiny church
was nearly full when I finally pulled my Ford Focus into an
available spot at the back of the property. Florence didn’t even
bother to wait for us. She practically sprinted into the
stone-faced building with Olympian determination.

“What is that all
about?” I asked Lacey, my concern rising. “Does Florence strike you
as a little unbalanced?”

“Honey, in a world
where there are more women than available men, you’d be shocked at
the lengths to which the desperate will go to snag a
mate.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. You’re
still young enough and pretty enough that men still pay attention
to you, but when you get to be my age, it’s ‘Slim Pickens time’,”
she confided, referring to the gangly rodeo rider and actor, who
appeared in old cowboy flicks. “On the rare occasion that a
good-looking, well-educated, half-decent man appears on the scene,
it’s a no-holds-barred fight to the finish for the single
females.”

“Competition is that
fierce?” I asked, amused.

“Are you kidding?”
Lacey shook her head. “Come down to the senior center at noon on
any given day. You’ll see more jockeying for position between the
challengers than on Kentucky Derby day. We sometimes take bets on
who will hit the finish line first.”

“That doesn’t sound
like something Laurel will want to get mixed up in,” I decided, as
we entered the church. “My mother isn’t exactly the competitive
type.”

“Kiddo, if your mother
wants something enough, she’ll do whatever it takes to get it,
whether it’s a man or marrying off her only
daughter.”

“She’s been waiting for
me to settle down?”

“Good heavens, we were
beginning to think you’d die an old maid, Scarlet!” Lacey poked me
in the side.

A touch of guilt rolled
over me. All this time, I thought Laurel was content enough with
her lot in life, even though she never got over the death of my
father. It never occurred to me that she worried about my romantic
life.

“Now that you and Kenny
seem to be heading towards matrimony, it’s only natural that Laurel
might consider her own situation and want a little something for
herself.”

“I never thought of it
that way.”

“Well, you should. She
may be your mama, but she’s still a woman and she still has
needs.”

“Hmm....”

“As long as there are
stars in the sky and sunsets that take your breath away, romance
lives. It doesn’t matter how old you are on the outside. The heart
is ageless.”

Those words stayed with
me as I sat beside her, listening to Reverend Hoskins’ sermon on
the role of human kindness in everyday life. Were any of us ever
too old for love?

Unlike my fairly chaste
and proper mother, Lacey had a long history of having men pursue
her after her divorce. The husband who dumped her for another woman
decided a year or two later that he had made a mistake, but by that
time, it was too late. Lacey had moved on emotionally. She never
wanted for male attention. Why hadn’t she remarried? It wasn’t like
she hadn’t been asked. Maybe she just hadn’t met the right man. Or
maybe she deliberately raised the bar too high to make sure no one
ever broke her heart again. Like me, she’d been badly burned and
found trust to be in short supply.

I spied the back of
Florence’s gray-haired head three pews away, where she was squeezed
in between a squirming child with inattentive parents and a
heavyset man with a girth the size of Cincinnati. Why, if there
were empty seats available, would she subject herself to such
discomfort? The answer was easy to discern the moment I spotted Dr.
Van Zandt’s shiny bald dome one row up.