Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter (12 page)

I spent the rest of the afternoon driving around exploring while Roberta babysat for Sarah and Issie. Willingham had a post office, a library, a hardware store, a tiny market that also rented a
few
videos, my inn, the town hall (used once a year for town meeting day), and that was about the extent of it. The population was about six hundred, so we were lucky to have as much as we did.

Fairhope, the next town over, was a metropolis in comparison. Fairhope had a grocery store, four restaurants, a drug store/card shop, and even a movie theater. There were two more inns, a couple of outlet stores, a combination beauty shop and Laundromat, and the other usual businesses any small town needs to survive.

The reason any business survived at all was because of the two ski resorts only five miles apart. It only took fifteen minutes to get from one to the other.

Sugartree is the largest with two hundred trails and full snow-making capacity. It’s a four-season resort, with condominiums, a cobblestone village, restaurants, and health clubs. Without Sugartree, there would be no Vermont Haus Inn or most of the other businesses operating solely on tourist dollars. Dannon Mountain was the other popular resort and it appealed to the family crowd. It had the southern exposure and was considered the warmer of the two mountains. In the summer, Dannon had a three-course alpine slide, which was like sledding down the mountain on a bobsled. Dannon was the first place I skied when I moved to Vermont.

There were two gas stations in Fairhope, and Roberta told me the owners were mortal enemies. When I drove past George Clark’s service station the cars were lined up to the street. Roberta explained that even though it was self-serve, George pumped the gas anyway. He did it so he could find out the latest gossip while it was hot off the rack. George Clark thought of gossip like he did a donut. First he craved it, then he devoured it, then he’d
sit back full and happy while the sweetness lingered on his tongue. Everyone in town knew his gossip was the freshest, so they’d line up at his pumps even if it took twice as long. Little did I know the name Leelee Satterfield would become one of his tastiest treats.

Manchester was the town where I conducted all of my business. My bank was there, as was the large grocery store and the cleaners. The state of Vermont controlled the sale of alcohol, so I had to buy liquor for the restaurant at the state store in Manchester. If you wanted a decent haircut, you drove to Manchester. If you needed a dependable oil change, you drove to Manchester. If you had a craving for McDonald’s french fries, you drove forty-five minutes to Manchester. If you wanted to buy birth control pills or condoms, you avoided the Fairhope Pharmacy and drove to Manchester. (If not, you ran the risk of George Clark spreading your most intimate business.)

Even though Manchester had a million designer outlets, there was not one department store. Back home, it was no big deal to run my stockings or break my blush compact fifteen minutes before I had to be at a party. I could run up to Goldsmith’s and be back in ten. In Vermont, running out of Lancôme makeup meant I had two choices: I could drive to Albany, New York, or settle for CoverGirl or Coty at the Fairhope Pharmacy.

I suppose I felt a little better having ventured out and explored the places I would find essential to life in Vermont. However, I had an underlying fear that making friends would be a little more difficult for me than ever before. I was certainly atypical by Vermont standards. But the Vermonters, in my eyes anyway, were somewhat offbeat themselves. A peculiar incident, the next afternoon, left me wondering if and when I would ever really connect to those around me.

There was a faint rap on the apartment door. I opened it to find a man, a woman, and a little girl about Sarah’s age. The woman was holding a cake encased in one of those disposable aluminum containers that you find in the grocery store.

He spoke first, in questions, and could hardly look at me. “Hello, um, we’re the Grovers? I’m Fred and this is my wife, Pat? Oh, and our daughter,
Erica? We heard you have a little girl around our Erica’s age, so we decided to welcome you to the neighborhood?”

“Well, thank you, that’s so nice. Y’all come in. I’m Leelee Satterfield.” I shook both of their hands. “My husband’s upstairs with our daughters. Why don’t y’all have a seat and I’ll go find them.” I motioned to the wicker sofa. The size of our apartment embarrassed me and I cringed when I realized our bedroom door was wide open.
Note to self: Must learn to keep the bedroom doors shut at all times.

I bolted up the stairs calling Baker’s name, and when I got to the top, I happened to look behind me and found myself nose-to-nose with Fred Grover. “Oh. Excuse me, I didn’t realize you were behind me.”

The man shrugged his shoulders and the rest of the Grover clan followed him into our upstairs den.

“Baker, girls, I’d like you to meet some of our neighbors. This is Fred and Pat Grover, and their daughter, Erica.”

Baker stood up from the couch and shook Fred’s hand. “Nice to meet y’all, have a seat. Meet our daughters, Sarah and Isabella.” The children were playing with their Barbies, and eagerly welcomed young Erica to join them.

Fred Grover seemed a very timid man. He gestured, always with the same arm, and looked down at his feet when he spoke. His face was real shiny and his short dirty blond slicked-down hair had a perfect part on the left side of his oval-shaped head. A deep cleft in his chin made me wonder how he ever managed to shave it without cutting himself.

“Our Erica’s in school at Elfin,” Fred said. “Will Sarah be attending?”

“That’s the plan,” Baker said, all chipperlike. “And then next year we’re on to Fairhope Elementary. Can’t wait to get her on the slopes. Y’all ski, don’t you?”

“Nuup. Pat’s not too fond of heights.” Fred gazed devotedly at his bride.

Pat Grover couldn’t have been more than four-foot-ten if she was an inch. Her large frame loomed over her tiny feet and she looked as though she might teeter forward at any moment. These curly black hairs sprouted out of her chin—well, I’m sorry, but you’d have to be blind not to notice them, bless her heart.

Thirty minutes’ worth of idle chitchat later, Pat was still clutching the
cake, and after she made no gesture to give it to us, I sensed it was my responsibility to take it off her hands.
Maybe it’s a Northern thing
, I thought. I forced myself to say, “Did y’all bring that to us?” And then I gestured toward the cake.

“Yes, we did,” Fred gloated. “Pat made it last night.”

“Thank you, that was so sweet of y’all.”

When they still made no motion to hand it over, I took it upon myself to walk over to Pat and reach out for the interesting creation. The cake was iced with chocolate frosting and since it was uncovered, the top caught my eye. There was an odd pattern in the frosting that stretched horizontally across the rectangular sheet cake, bearing a strange resemblance to tracks of some sort. When I grasped one side of the pan and stared down to get a closer look Pat said, “I bet I know what you’re looking at. After I iced the cake last night, I left it on the kitchen counter. One of those darned mice musta run right acrosst it.”

Well, what do you say to someone after a statement like that? “Oh, don’t worry about it; that happens to all my cakes”? Or, “Mice just love chocolate cake, don’t they?” I couldn’t
say
a thing. A rare speechless moment in the life—well, the new life—of Leelee Satterfield.

Then, to put icing on the cake (no pun intended—I swear), Fred Grover dropped his own bombshell. “I tried to cover it up.”

Not knowing what in God’s name to add to that I just stared at Pat’s hands still clutching the other side of the pan. Once our eyes met again, it was then I heard myself saying, “Well, at least it wasn’t a rat.”

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Baker excusing himself. If our eyes met I knew the situation would have gone screaming downhill. It was all I could do to keep my shoulders from shaking and not bust into a full-blown laugh attack.

Now, I was left alone hoping Pat would just let go of the dang cake so we could move on with our conversation to something,
anything
else. Finally, I jerked the pan away from her and gazed at the Grovers with a forced smile.

Where in God’s name am I?
I thought to myself, a question that would pop up daily in the months ahead.

Chapter Eight

Opening night at the Vermont Haus Inn under the new Satterfield regime came and went, unnoticed. That’s because nothing had changed. From the weathered
VERMONT HAUS INN
sign and the ancient menu to the severe houseitosis and the well-known staff, everything was exactly the same. Rolf was still at the helm and Helga was still “on the floor,” working the front of the house. Baker had begun his training as Rolf’s sous-chef, but none of the customers had any idea. During the first week, the customers rarely saw me, either. I was taking care of Sarah and Isabella at night and getting them acclimated to our new home and our new schedule.

Whenever I did make it into the kitchen, it was close to eight thirty—after the girls were asleep. I brought my portable baby monitor with me into the kitchen, so I could hear any little peep they made. The bad thing was when they did peep, customers were always seated at the six-top table Helga insisted on keeping in front of our apartment door. So to reach them I’d have to trample through the snow, in my heels, to the front door of the apartment. Then I’d fumble for my key to get inside. By that time, their peeps had usually turned into wails.

As fate would have it, Helga was serving drinks at the six-top table one
night right before Christmas when Isabella woke up with a dirty diaper. Isabella stood in front of the door screaming her head off, mad as a hornet because she couldn’t find me. It was making her even madder that the door was locked. She started yanking on the handle and pounding on the hollow door as hard as she could. I could hear her on the monitor, but I was on the phone with a New Yorker taking a reservation.

“MOMMY, I HAVE A STINKY!” Isabella shrieked loud and clear through the baby monitor for everyone in the kitchen, as well as the six-top table, to hear. “CHANGE ME, MOMMY.”

Helga flipped. In a rage, she stormed into the kitchen and found me on the phone. She snatched the receiver out of my hand and handed it over to Pierre (I didn’t know what good she thought that would do). “Your kid es screaming for her mother and ze area around table eight smells like a
cow pasture
. My customers are vedy upset. Go to her at once before zay leave and decide to neva come back!”

“I’m sorry, Helga, Issie never does this,” I said, and scurried out of the kitchen.

When I finally made it inside the apartment, Isabella had stopped crying. She had decided to amuse herself instead by taking off her diaper and decorating the back of the door with her doo-doo. Sarah was awake by this time, running around the apartment singing: “Ooo, ooo, doo doo! Ooo, ooo, doo doo!” Gracie was barking up a storm at both of them.

“
Ssshhhhh
, all three of you,” I said in a hushed voice, and I scooped Isabella up—doo and all—and headed straight for the tub. I decided it was probably best to stay away from the restaurant for the rest of the night.

The phone rang around 9:30
P.M.
I knew before I picked it up who the call was from. Mary Jule was over at Alice’s, and Virginia was in her car headed out to the grocery store. All three of them were on the line.

“What’s goin’ on, girlfriend?” Alice, the boss, always initiated everything.

“Hey, Fiery,” Virginia chimed in.

“It’s me, too,” was Mary Jule’s response.

“Hi, y’all,” I said wearily.

“What’s the matter? You sound exhausted,” Alice said.

“I am.”

“Haven’t heard from you in a few days, what’s up?” she asked.

“That’s because there’s too much to report and I don’t know where to start. Y’all are just gonna have to come up here to see what I mean.”

“We’re already planning a ski trip. I told Al exactly what ski suit I want from this gorgeous catalog I got in the mail.” Mary Jule loves a good excuse for a new outfit.

“Are you serious? When are y’all coming?”

“I’m hoping for spring break,” Virginia said. “Will there still be snow?”

“No problem there. I found out it stays around through April.”

“
April!
” they all shrieked at the same time.

“That’s what I’m told.”

“Is everything okay, Leelee?” my sweet Mary Jule asked. She never ceased worrying about us.

“I guess. I just had a little run-in with Helga, though. I tell y’all what, I
can’t stand
her.”

“Who’s Helga?” Mary Jule had obviously forgotten about my new nemesis.

“The bossy bitch who won’t let Leelee decorate her own house,” Alice said.

“Oh yeah, what’d Helga do this time?” asked Mary Jule.

I told them the whole story . . . and I didn’t candy coat it at all.

“What is she still doing there, anyway? Why can’t you ask her to leave?” Virginia wanted to know.

“Because Baker and Ed Baldwin said we have to keep everything exactly the same for a year.”

“Easy for Baker to say. Personally, I don’t know how you’ll stand it eleven more months,” said Alice.

“I’m just looking forward to April when they go to Germany for two months. I suppose I can make it until then. Here’s another thing. We have had to spend so much money up here it’s ridiculous.”

I heard Baker’s key turning in the front door. “Uh-oh, better go, here comes Baker,” I whispered into the phone. “I don’t want him to hear me ragging on Helga. I love y’all, call you later.” I hung up just in time.

Not only did I not want him to hear me complaining about Helga, I sure didn’t want him to hear me confiding to the girls about our finances. We were clearly in over our heads but there was no way Baker would admit it. We had written an awful lot of big checks for start-up costs. There was food and liquor and beer and wine to buy, propane gas
and
fuel oil to heat the place, and salaries and payroll taxes to pay. And that was just the beginning. Our mortgage to Helga and Rolf was nearly $2,000 per month.