Vintage Ladybug Farm (21 page)

Lindsay took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I never had to take care of anything before,” she admitted. “Not even a parakeet. I just want to do it right.”

Cici saluted her with her coffee cup. “You’re doing great,” she assured her.

And Bridget added, raising her own cup, “Really.”

Before Lindsay could even muster a smile in reply, Rebel darted out from under the porch in a furious cacophony of barking. He raced down the drive in a blur of black-and-white feet, and in another moment they heard the sound of tires on the drive. Lindsay straightened up and pushed back her hair as the truck rounded the curve, because Dominic often came to check the wine or work in the vineyard this time of morning. It wasn’t that he was unaccustomed to seeing any of them in their pajamas, and Cici and Bridget were as comfortable around him as they would have been with a brother. But they couldn’t help notice that Lindsay’s sleepwear had gotten quite a bit cuter over the past few weeks, and often, she came to breakfast wearing lip gloss, just in case.

Lindsay relaxed as they all saw it was only the battered red pickup of the roofing crew. Rebel veered off, as disappointed as Lindsay, and raced toward the meadow to torment the sheep.

Cici heaved a huge sigh. “And so the day begins.”

The roofers had finally begun replacing sheets of blue tarp with sheets of actual plywood, happily banging away from seven in the morning until noon, then disappearing until the notion struck them once again to continue the job. Rebel barked himself hoarse every morning, circling the trucks and the ladders, snapping at tires and lunging at toolboxes, until finally Cici yelled out the window, “You can bite them if you want to, Rebel!” After that, Rebel seemed to lose interest and trotted away in search of something to do. The roofers, however, looked at her with new respect and generally made themselves scarce when they saw her coming.

“I guess Bridge and I will get started in the barn while you torture the roofers,” Lindsay told Cici, turning to go inside. “But first, breakfast. I think I smell wild berry muffins.”

Bridget followed her. “I thought you were on a diet.”

“It’s okay,” Lindsay assured her, though she sounded a little morose. “I can eat anything I want as long as I drink a quart of grapefruit juice first.”

“A quart!”

“To tell the truth,” Lindsay confessed, “I don’t have much of an appetite after that.”

Cici started to follow them inside, then turned back at the sound of more tires on the driveway. Lindsay pushed past her to peer around the corner. They heard the truck stop in front and then move on. Cici shrugged. “Probably the mail,” she said.

And then Dominic’s truck came into view.

He slowed at the steps and rolled down his window. “Good morning, ladies,” he said pleasantly.

Cici watched Lindsay. Lindsay tried very hard not to have any expression at all.

Bridget called, “Hi, Dominic! We were just going in for breakfast. Will you join us?”

“No, thank you kindly. I can’t stay. I just stopped by to drop off a little something for you. I saw it in town and thought you could use it. I left it on the front porch.” He put the truck in gear and waved as he drove off. “Have a good day, now!”

Cici looked at Bridget, eyebrows raised in question. Lindsay swallowed hard. They all walked around the porch to the front of the house.

There, sitting in alignment with the three white rocking chairs, was a new rocker, freshly painted white, with a big red bow on it. Pinned to the bow was a note. It said:
Just in case you ever want to have company.

“Well, my goodness,” said Bridget, reading the note. “How sweet!”

“Thoughtful,” agreed Cici. “But then, he’s that kind of guy.”

Lindsay just stood there, smiling and smiling, and didn’t say a word.
 

~*~

“
W
hat a bunch of idiots,” Cici fumed, pulling on a pair of work gloves as she entered the barn half an hour later. “You won’t believe what they’ve done now. They’ve got half the shingles torn off the front porch roof—without even asking me, mind you!—and they’re planning to replace them with tin! Tin! This is a historic house. You don’t just go ripping off handmade tile shingles and tossing them in the trash pile. And you certainly don’t replace them with tin!”

“Tin roofs are kind of nice,” Bridget said, but when Cici turned her glare on her, she added quickly, “but not on Federal-style houses, of course.” She grasped the handle of the wheelbarrow and pushed it across the stone barn floor.

“Why don’t you call Paul and Derrick’s builder?” Lindsay suggested.

“Oh, I don’t know. Paul says they’re already behind because of all the rain we had, and I’d feel awful if I stole their builder just when they were starting to make some progress.”

“We’re going to have to find a builder anyway,” Bridget pointed out, “to remodel the barn for the restaurant and gift shop and build the office.”

“I suppose,” agreed Cici with a sigh. “So.” She looked around the dustily sunlit barn with her hands on her jeaned hips. “What’s the plan here?”

“Well.” Bridget dropped a box filled with loose nuts and bolts into the wheelbarrow and straightened up, dusting off her hands. “I know it’s hard to picture now, but I thought if we could move all this stuff out of the way, this corner here would be easy to section off. With the big doors open, there would be plenty of light, and we could set up a buffet station over here …” She crossed the floor with half-running steps and sketched a wide horseshoe shape in the air. “And tables …” Again a few running steps. “From here to here. I think we can get six in here easily, don’t you? And maybe half-walls …” More quick steps, more gestures. “Here, here, here. I mean, this is just a suggestion, right, of what the finished product will look like. Just for the party.”

Cici nodded thoughtfully, looking around. “It’s kind of quaint, having lunch in the barn. I like it. But, Bridge, I don’t think you should count on getting real walls up between now and then—even half walls. Maybe some kind of screen …”

“We could do trellis,” suggested Lindsay. “We’ve got all that trellis leftover from the wedding last year, and it’s already painted.”

“Perfect,” exclaimed Bridget. “We could back it with fabric …”

“And maybe wind some artificial grape leaf garlands through it,” Lindsay said. “I’ll bet they have some at the dollar store in town.”

“If not, I know they have silk roses.”

“Paul will die when he sees fake flowers.”

“Well, he’s just going to have to figure out some way to make roses bloom in April, then. Or grape leaves, for that matter.”

“We’ll have real flowers on the tables,” Lindsay assured her. “The tulips will be in bloom next week, and we’ve got plenty of daffodils.”

“Better—lilacs,” declared Bridget. Her eyes lit up as she looked around, picturing it. “In keeping with the whole vineyard theme, right? Lilac blossoms do kind of resemble grape clusters, and I could make napkins out of some of that lavender calico I found last year …”

“We have so many lilac bushes, we could bank the buffet with lilac branches. Of course, keeping them from wilting will be a problem. Do you know,” added Lindsay thoughtfully, “and just to keep Paul from making a scene, mind you—we
could
take cuttings from the pear tree, with all those gorgeous white blossoms and wind them through the trellis, mixed in with just a few lilac blossoms for symmetry, you know and—oh, I know! We’ll mix in some white Christmas lights for sparkle and maybe have Noah tack some on the underside of the loft. We could cover the lights with a drape of cheesecloth—they have it by the bolt at Family Hardware—and it would be absolutely heavenly! I know it won’t be as dramatic as if it were nighttime, but still, details are important.”

“Burlap!” Bridget clapped her hands together happily. “I’m going to use burlap for the tablecloths and the buffet and contrast it with lavender satin runners …”

“And the napkins,” Lindsay put in. “Satin for the napkins.”

“Of course! How cute will that be? Oh my God!” Bridget pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks, her eyes bright. “I think I’ve just come up with the décor for my restaurant!”

Lindsay grinned and gave her a quick one-armed hug, and Cici said, “How are you going to plug them in?”

The other two women looked at her blankly. “The lights,” explained Cici practically. Her gaze traveled from the loft, around the walls, and across the boundaries of Bridget’s imaginary restaurant, assessing. “How are you going to plug them in? The only outlet is on the other side of the barn, fifty feet away. You could run an extension cord, but it would be kind of ugly. And Bridge, you know that with all the hay we have stored in the loft there’s bound to be, well, mice. And the sun really heats this place up by the middle of the afternoon. You’ll need a fan to keep the air circulating, which brings up the question of where you’re going to plug that in, and when you do, there’s no telling what kind of dust and debris it’ll stir up. With all that food out …”

It was at that point that Cici noticed the excitement of her friend’s anticipation was deflating like a balloon with a slow leak with every word she spoke. She glanced at Lindsay, who moved protectively closer to Bridget, and she said brightly, “But, hey, it’s April. What are the chances we’ll need a fan, anyway? And we can spray-paint the extension cord white; you’ll never even notice it. So let’s get this corner cleaned out and start bringing in the trellis. What do you say?”

Like sunshine from behind a cloud, Bridget’s grin returned and so did her enthusiasm. She rubbed her hands together in glee. “I say, what are we waiting for?”

~*~

In Ida Mae’s Kitchen

~*~

Cici sat at the kitchen counter, scowling as she flipped through
A History of Blackwell Farms
.
The kitchen was redolent of the sharp odor of spring greens and new potatoes roasting in pork fat and the faint aroma of turned earth and spring flowers that wafted through the open window.

“Ida Mae,” Cici said, turning a page, “I don’t see anything in here about the Blackwell Farms tasting events. I don’t see how they could’ve been held in that barn. In the first place, there was no refrigeration, and they would’ve had to pull from the house for electricity. In the second place, there was no lighting. I know it was the sixties, but there had to be some sanitation codes and at least a
few
regulations about serving food to the public. Where did they wash dishes? Didn’t anyone need to go to the bathroom?” She sighed and closed the book. “I just don’t know what to do.”

Ida Mae sprinkled a generous handful of flour over the pie dough she was rolling out, and Cici brushed the residue off the cover of the book. “Bridget has her heart set on opening a restaurant in that barn,” she said, “but there’s no way it’s going to work. Even without a health department permit—I mean, let’s just assume we’re calling this a catering business—it’s just not practical. The ceilings are twenty feet high. To lower and insulate them would be a major construction job—like that’s something that’s easy to do around here!—and to try to heat and cool that space the way it is would cost a fortune. And let’s not even talk about building the walls—you’d have to trench out those gorgeous stone floors—and putting in HVAC. There is no plumbing whatsoever, and if we try to tie into the house I
know
we’re going to have to apply to the health department for a permit, and you just can’t imagine what kind of can of worms that opens. And did I even mention the electrical situation? Even if all we’re talking about is warming trays and steam tables … I mean, for heaven’s sake, you’ve got to have more than one outlet!” She dropped her head to her hands. “What was I thinking? I never should’ve let her get her hopes up. I should’ve been paying more attention.”

Ida Mae flipped the pie dough and applied the roiling pin with vigor.

“The truth is,” Cici confessed, dragging her fingers down her face as she straightened up, “it would be cheaper to build a separate building for the restaurant than to try to convert the barn. I mean seriously, at $120 per square foot for a commercial building … Oh, what am I thinking? That would take every bit of our windfall, and we’re supposed to be running a winery, not a restaurant.”

She squared her shoulders and pushed back from the table. “On the other hand, it’s just a party, right? And why not hold it in the barn? It’s going to be cute. I mean, we don’t even have a vintage, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like we’re going to be doing a tasting
today
.
The restaurant is the last item on the business plan, right? We have months to figure it out.” She sighed. “It’s just that I feel so bad. I don’t know what to tell her.”

Cici pinched a piece of pie dough from the rolling board and popped it in her mouth. “Umm.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “You know, Ida Mae,” she decided, “I think you’re right. What’s the point in breaking her heart? Not yet anyway. We’ll have the party. I’ll figure something out. Who knows? Maybe the vine blessing will bring us luck.”

She plucked off another piece of pie dough. “Good,” she observed, pushing away from the counter. “What kind of pie are you making?”