Autumn Dreams (2 page)

A
UNT CASSANDRA
.”

Two words. Four Syllables. Utter despair.

Cass Merton looked at her sixteen-year-old niece, Jenn, the drama queen, seated across the breakfast table. She was regal, demanding, and very full of herself.

Whatever possessed me to think I could do this?
Cass wondered. What did she know about raising the beautiful Jenn and her hulking eighteen-year-old brother, Jared? After two months of
in loco parentis
, she was ready to ship them off to their mother and father in Saudi Arabia and fie on the dangers. Certainly the risk to Cass’s own sanity was more real than the uncertain threats of Islamic terrorists.

Jenn’s face crumpled, and Cass braced for whatever was coming next.

“Everybody’s going!” She was a study in distress. “It’s all they’ve talked about all week. Please, Aunt Cassandra, I can’t be left out.”

“I’m not going,” Jared said around a spoonful of Cheerios.

Jenn ignored him. She opened her eyes wide, going for the innocent look. “Don’t you trust me, Aunt Cassandra?”

Cass was impressed in spite of herself. Jenn changed tactics like a chameleon changed colors, and each time she had the look down pat.

“Trust is not the issue, Jenn.” Cass thought she sounded the epitome of reason as she petted Glossy Flossie, who lay half on the table, half on Cass’s place mat. The old black cat spent most of her time on the back of the sofa in the family sitting room, never going into the public rooms, but when Cass relaxed in the kitchen after breakfast, Flossie always joined her. The cat arched her neck for a better scratch under her ancient chin, her purr rumbling through the room. “Wisdom and obedience are my concerns.”

“I knew it.” Jenn pouted. “You don’t trust me.”

Cass watched her niece in fascination. How did the girl look so adorable with that lower lip stuck out beyond the tip of her nose? Whenever Cass pouted—which wasn’t often these days, since almost-forty-year-old women weren’t allowed to pout—all she ever looked was infantile.

“You’re an idiot, Jenn.” Jared took his cereal bowl and juice glass to the sink. He rinsed them both and put them carefully in the dishwasher. He tossed the empty Cheerios box in the trash, the fourth he’d consumed this week. “Aunt Cassandra’s right about this one.”

Jenn spun to her brother, pout forgotten. Now the delightful rosy color in her cheeks and the becoming sparkle in her Elizabeth Taylor eyes were caused by anger. “Butt out, Jared. If I wanted your opinion, I’d have asked for it.”

“You never ask for it,” Jared said with a calm that irritated Jenn further. “And believe me, you need it.”

“Like someone like you knows from popular!” Jenn’s voice dripped with scorn.

“Jenn!” Cass was appalled.

Jared just smiled sadly. “At least I’m smart enough to know a party the cops are going to bust before the night’s over.”

Cass swallowed. She hadn’t thought about a raid. Certainly she’d been worried about underage drinking, the scourge of too many adolescent parties. And Derrick Smith, the party’s host, she didn’t trust an inch. She just hadn’t thought as far as the police. Cops at the door of her B&B, escorting a belligerent and/or weeping Jenn home in the middle of the night. Now there was something
that would be great for business as well as create a marvelous memory for the girl. Or Jenn in a holding cell in the company of who knew what unsavory women, waiting to be bailed out. Cass shuddered.

“Like Derrick’d let the party get out of control,” Jenn scoffed.

Jared looked at her with a mix of pity and bewilderment. “Wise up, Jenn. Derrick will be the drunkest one there.”

Jenn stared, flabbergasted. “He will not!”

Jared shook his head. “For a smart girl, you can be awfully dumb.”

“I am not!”

“Yes, you are,” Jared said, placing his paw of a hand on her shoulder. He towered over her by ten inches. His eyes were full of sympathy.

“Smart or dumb?” Cass wasn’t certain she was following the conversation. “Which?”

“Both.” Jared slid his arms into his green letter jacket with the big gold
S
on the back. “Almost as smart as me—”

Jenn blew a raspberry at him.

“—and much, much dumber.” He opened the back door and walked through, automatically ducking. “Later, Aunt Cassandra.” He sketched a little wave.

Jenn tossed her shining auburn hair over her shoulders with a loud snort of disbelief. Her perfectly polished green fingernail with little gold stars shining on the lacquered surface jabbed in the direction of her brother. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

How many thousands of dollars does a ticket for immediate travel to Saudi Arabia cost? I might be able to afford two if I cash in my IRAs, providing the penalty isn’t too steep
.

Jenn grabbed her purse and book bag and stalked toward the door. “I’m going to that party tonight!”

Cass stepped in front of the girl. “You aren’t going tonight.”

Jenn blinked up at her in surprise and took a step backward. Cass made herself as tall as she could, though she doubted size would intimidate Jenn, who was too used to her father and brother, to say nothing of her three uncles and grandfather, giants all.

“You tell Derrick that he can come here if he’d like to,” Cass
said, all reason and generosity, “but you are not going to his house.”

The drama queen struck an appalled pose. “Don’t tell me you believe Jared?”

“Only because I already checked things out for myself.”

“What?” Horror and disbelief filled Jenn’s face. “You checked? How?”

“Derrick’s parents will be away for the weekend. The party will have no adult supervision.” Cass watched the girl’s eyes narrow as she took in that piece of news. “Jenn, you are not going.”

“Please, Aunt Cassandra. Please.”

Cass expected Jenn to drop to her knees and grab the hems of her jeans any minute now. Instead she restrained herself and dropped a green-nailed hand onto Cass’s arm.

“I mean, think about how special it is for a sophomore to be invited to a senior’s party as his date.”

Like that bit of cajolery would sway a thinking adult. “No.”

The anger returned. “What if I defy you?”

It was Cass’s turn to blink. Didn’t the girl know you weren’t supposed to tell people ahead of time that you planned to defy them? Not that she herself had ever defied anyone, but she’d grown up with four older brothers who had had no trouble at all ignoring the rules if they felt the situation called for it. As the daughter of Cass’s third brother, Tommy, the king of defiers, Jenn came by her rebellious tendencies naturally.

Cass stared Jenn in the eye. “If you flout me, I’ll come and get you.”

“What?”

“I’ll march into the house calling your name. I’ll tell everyone I’ve come for you because it’s past your curfew. I’ll call all the boys ‘handsome’ and the girls ‘honey.’ I’ll grab your hand and hold it while I drag you outside.”

Jenn blanched. “You
wouldn’t.”

“I would. And I’ll bring Uncle Hal and Uncle Will along for good measure. Maybe Aunt Ellie and Aunt Lucy too.”

Jenn was obviously shaken at the thought of her two huge and very voluble uncles, their petite but extremely mouthy wives in tow, crashing Derrick’s party, though she struggled not to let her distress show. She sent Cass what was supposed to be a scathing look. “Why not fly in Uncle Bud and Aunt Jane too?”

Cass nodded. “Not a bad idea. Colorado’s not that far from New Jersey. Maybe your mom and dad could even come home for the weekend. Then we could have a family reunion at Derrick’s.”

With a snort Jenn stomped out the door and off to school, doubtless planning to make all her teachers pay for Cass’s uncooperative spirit.

Cass sighed. Tommy was on a one-year business assignment in Saudi Arabia doing something he had never bothered to explain to Cass, whether because it was some sort of secret government mission or because he deemed her too dumb to understand, she wasn’t certain.

He and Rhonda were due back in the States at the end of August. Cass glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall by the family phone. Friday, October 18 today’s date read. Cass sighed again. It was going to be a long year.

She gathered up Jenn’s juice glass and small plate, brushing the toast crumbs off the table onto the floor. It needed to be swept anyway. She wiped off the tiny table stuffed in one corner of her cramped kitchen, taking care not to bother Glossy Flossie who still slept on the place mat. As she whipped the broom around the room, Cass reviewed the coming busy weekend, smiling with satisfaction that her bed and breakfast would be filled.

Later today, nine guests were due at SeaSong, eight for the weekend and one for an indefinite stay. She didn’t have many guests who booked for an unspecified amount of time, and certainly she couldn’t accept someone like that in high season. But it was fall, and the later it got, the fewer reservations there were. This guest’s presence wouldn’t cost her income like it might in the summer if she had to turn away a definite future booking because he might still be here.

He was to have the second-floor front left, the premier room with an actual view of a wedge of the ocean two blocks away. There was a small private balcony off the room where the guest could enjoy the brine-scented breeze that blew almost constantly from the water. If the current run of Indian summer days continued, he could sit outside and bask in the sun’s kiss for hours.

Cass grinned. She sounded like she was writing brochure copy again.
Enjoy the sun’s kiss on your own private balcony at SeaSong, Seaside’s premier B&B
.

The family phone rang. Cass stared at it. What had Jenn forgotten today? She answered cautiously.

“Cassandra? This is Mrs. Martin.”

Cass’s heart sank at the sound of the high, slightly shaky voice of the old woman. There was only one reason for Mrs. Martin to be calling at this hour—or at any hour. “Mom?”

“She’s sitting in my living room right now.” Mrs. Martin made a tsk-tsk sound. “She’s come looking for Elsie.”

Cass closed her eyes. “I’ll be right there.”

“Don’t rush. She’s calm for the moment, drinking a cup of tea.”

Cass grabbed her red sweater, her keys and purse; patted Flossie quickly as she rushed past; and raced to her car parked in the paved area off the back alley. What was she going to do about Mom? And where was Dad, for heaven’s sake?

Oh, Father God, what do I do?

Thankful that her parents lived only a few blocks from SeaSong, Cass turned the corner onto Scallop Street, a residential neighborhood full of small, cozy retirement homes set back five blocks from the ocean. All the houses were neat and tidy, all lawns small with healthy but unimaginative plantings, all except her parents’ home where mums, marigolds, and petunias still bloomed in clusters of lush color while a clematis vine with small, sweetly scented white flowers climbed the porch rail.

She pulled up in front of her parents’ white clapboard home and hurried up the walk past the porch planters of still glowing if slightly leggy red geraniums. Maybe Mom had come home. She opened the front door. “Dad? Mom?”

“I’m in the kitchen, Cassandra,” her father answered. “Come on back.”

Cass walked through the jam-packed living room where floral-covered chairs too big for the space sat cheek and jowl with a monster plaid sofa that could be pulled out into a queen-sized bed, had there been room to open it. The clutter and colors always made Cass shudder. Home décor had never been Mom’s strong suit, and recently that shaky skill had deteriorated even more.

“I can’t give up my treasures,” Mom had said when she and Dad moved into the small Seaside house from the much larger one in the Gardens at the north end of the island where they had
raised Cass and the brothers. Mom had not only held on to almost everything, but she’d added considerably to her stock courtesy of all the garage sales she faithfully attended.

“Look at this beautiful vase.” Or picture or little statue. “I thought of you as soon as I saw it.”

Somehow a matador on black velvet didn’t seem the perfect gift to Cass, though her lack of enthusiasm never deterred her mother. Sleazy treasures appeared mysteriously in her antique-filled B&B. After years of trying to convince her mother that plastic flowers and little gnomes with their noses chipped didn’t go with SeaSong’s decorating scheme, she’d given up. She couldn’t deal with the flood of tears that filled Mom’s pale blue eyes at the criticism.