Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom (32 page)

“Great story,” I
muttered, plastering a half-hearted smile on my
face.

“You don’t understand,
dear. At first, I hated those replacements I bought. They just
reminded me of what a fool I had been to marry the jerk in the
first place. But then one day your mother said something that
changed everything.”

“What did she say?”
Jenny’s curiosity got the better of her. She glanced over at my
mother, who gave us a knowing smile.

“I told her she was
looking at the situation all wrong.”

“I don’t understand,”
said the girl beside me. I had to admit I didn’t either. Then
again, I wasn’t sure I cared.

“Breaking those plates
represented the end of Lacey’s patience with her philandering
husband, the last straw,” my mother patiently explained. “Maybe if
she hadn’t smashed so many of them, she wouldn’t have had the guts
to walk away from a marriage that wasn’t working.”

“So? What does that
have to do with me?”

“Think about the woman
your grandmother was, Scarlet. If she were here now, what do you
think she’d say to you?”

I shrugged, thinking
back to those treasured afternoons in Grandma Wilson’s kitchen,
when it was just the two of us talking as we prepared dinner.
“She’d tell me there were far worse things that could have happened
to me. She’d say I can always replace china, but I can’t always
replace the people in my life.”

“Exactly,” Laurel
nodded approvingly. “You’ll still think of your grandma every time
you look at the new plates, but you’ll also think about how Karin
Frenlind didn’t break your resolve with all the terrible things she
did to you. In the meantime, you’d better get to work on that
wedding and make it a big success, because there’s life and love to
be celebrated tonight in this house, darling daughter. Now,
go!”

“Go!” Lacey and Jenny
both said at the same time, echoing Laurel’s sentiments as they
waved me off in the direction of the butler’s pantry. What choice
did I have? I dragged myself off to the kitchen and got to
work.

I started another batch
of chocolate mousse, feeling like a puppy that’s been kicked. It
wasn’t fair that Karin got away with doing so much damage. As I
watched bittersweet and semi-sweet chocolates melting in the
double-boiler for the second time, I had to admit I wasn’t totally
caught off-guard. How else could you explain the fact that I made
an extra set of cake layers and bought enough chocolate to make a
second cake? Somehow I must have known things weren’t going to go
well. Call it intuition or call it recognizing evil when I saw it,
but I had had the good sense to protect myself. Maybe that made me
smarter than Karin. After all, she was off to jail and I was in the
kitchen. She didn’t stop us. The wedding was still
on.

I’m going about this
all wrong. Instead of wasting time feeling sorry for myself and
trying to make up for the losses, I need to forge ahead and get
beyond all that. Otherwise, Karin wins. And I’ll be damned if I’m
going to let that happen!

“Ha!” I said aloud.
Maybe I wasn’t yet vindicated and I certainly couldn’t call this a
triumph, but at least I was still standing. That thought motivated
me to get on with the preparations.

I decided I could wait
until after the guests ate their welcoming dinner to decorate the
new cake. We could serve dessert and coffee in the living room.
That would keep them occupied and out of my kitchen, giving me a
solid hour to decorate the new masterpiece.

While the melted
chocolate cooled, I washed off the little white porcelain birds and
carefully set them on the window sill. I thought about sturdy,
stouthearted Grandma Wilson. After Laurel’s terrible accident, she
had moved in and taken over many of the household duties for her
daughter-in-law. Those few years she lived with us passed too
quickly. She had been a godsend. Barely five feet tall, with a
silver bun at the nape of her neck, she looked like the
quintessential granny, complete with black laced shoes and what she
used to call her “house dress”. I adored her.

“There’s no better
revenge than success,” she had told me the day I came home from
school despondent after losing a spot on the junior varsity tennis
team to Lola Jeffers. She had a rolling pin in hand as she prepared
a pie crust. “Forget about the other girl and concentrate on
improving your game. That’s the thing that will catch the coach’s
attention.”

She was right about
that. I practiced my shots every day after school, hitting balls
against the wall for an hour or two. I did footwork drills and
served hundreds of balls to a non-existent opponent on an empty
tennis court. A month later, I was named as an alternate, when
Pammy Smith had to leave the team because of a torn Achilles
tendon. My persistence paid off, and by the end of the season, I
was moved up on the team’s roster.

“Jenny,” I said to my
assistant as she hovered near me, “I need you to go to the store
for a few things.”

“Like what?” she wanted
to know.

“We need more
flowers...lots more flowers. I want flowers in every room! Fill
every vase we have with color. Make sure you put a big bouquet in
the living room. That’s where we’re serving dessert and coffee
tonight. Ask Bur to set up a folding table in the corner. We’ll
cover it with a fancy tablecloth. And we’ll need a few extra chairs
for guest seating. Annalee and Gunnar don’t know it yet, but
they’re having a special party tonight!”

“But....”

“But nothing! Get some
of those wonderful truffles at Munson’s.”

“The ones with the
melt-in-your-mouth centers?”

“Yes. Here’s some money
for everything,” I announced, pulling a wad of twenties from my
secret stash in the spice cabinet. “Don’t come home until you spend
it all on party goodies!”

“Way to go, Miz
Scarlet!” the teenager grinned. “Should I take Lacey with
me?”

“No, I need the Googins
girls to get that living room in shape for the dessert reception
tonight. I’m putting them to work right now.”

Chapter Twenty Three --

It turned out that I
underestimated the party skills the ladies brought to the table.
Laurel and Lacey gathered every container they could find in the
house and set up their makeshift flower workshop in Bur’s bar tent.
They helped Jenny fill vase after vase with roses, irises,
carnations, and alomestria. By the time they were done, every room
sported blossoms of one kind or another.

Jenny had also filled
her shopping bag at Munson’s with an assortment of decadent little
treats. Lacey distributed them around the living room in crystal
bowls beside the dressed-up chocolate truffles. There was no
denying the festive mood.

Kenny and I kissed and
made up in the kitchen, while I was putting the final touches on
the hors d’oeuvres. He came up behind me, slipped his arms around
my waist, and whispered in my ear.

“I’m sorry I didn’t
give you a heads up when you were up on the
mountain.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t
too.”

“Pretty sore at me,
huh?”

“No,” I shook my head.
Most of my anger had dissipated by now. “I’m just pretty
sore.”

I showed him my
collection of bruises, starting with the black-and-blue marks on my
arms and ending with the ones on my legs. Karin might not weigh
more than a hundred and ten pounds, but she was a really mean
street fighter.

“I had no idea,
Scarlet. How long before you forgive me?”

“I’ll think about it
after you tell me what I missed, Captain Peacock.” At the use of
his nickname, he seemed to hold me just a little bit closer. That
was fine by me.

“We were just so
focused on trapping her before tonight, so when Max followed her to
the grocery store, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. He
was able to park next to her car and hold the spot until I could
get there in your car. I barely had a moment to spare before she
wheeled her shopping cart out and loaded her bags into her car. She
did a double take when she realized that, not only was she parked
next to your car, it was unlocked. By the time she grabbed the cake
and dumped it in the trash, she was positively
gleeful.”

“Probably not so much
now, huh?”

“No bail till Monday,”
Kenny informed me. “She’ll be cooling her heels in jail for a
while.”

“Good.”

The next two hours flew
by. When the happy bride and groom stepped into the vestibule of
the Four Acorns Inn, their faces seemed to glow with happy
anticipation. I showed Annalee to the Red Oak Room, which would
later serve as the honeymoon suite. Gunnar got the library for his
final night as a bachelor. Once they settled in, I gave them a tour
of the inn before the rest of the Pinault and Magnusdotter families
showed up.

“It’s even prettier
than your brochure, Scarlet,” Annalee gushed. Gunnar
agreed.

“This was a wonderful
choice for our nuptials.”

“Speaking of nuptials,”
I smiled, “why don’t we step out into the garden and I’ll show you
the spot we set up for the outdoor ceremony.”

By the time they passed
through the dining room and onto the sun porch, they were
speechless. The wicker arch, now draped with boxwood, myrtle, and
roses tied with white ribbons, was positioned to maximize the view
of the shade garden, away from the late afternoon
sun.

“Perfect,” Annalee
nodded. “I can’t believe the attention to detail.”

“You certainly did a
crackerjack job here. I’m very impressed,” said the
groom.

So were the rest of the
guests when they arrived. Annalee’s oldest son, Vic, and his wife,
Jackie, who took the ferry from Port Jefferson to avoid the usual
Friday night traffic jam, were thrilled to be on the third floor
with their two sons, especially after the boys discovered the TV in
the sitting room. Annalee’s younger son, Van, and his wife, Ranie,
arrived later, frazzled after the bumper-to-bumper traffic from
Philadelphia. They were happy to settle into the White Oak Room
with their two young daughters, Melanie and Lisa. Gunnar’s daughter
came down from Springfield with her fiancé. I put them in the Black
Oak Room.

“How lovely!” Ellie
Magnusdotter declared. Taking hold of the hand of the man beside
her, she said, “Bobby, this is exactly the kind of place I was
thinking of for our wedding.”

“Too bad it’s in
Connecticut,” Zak replied. “Otherwise, I’d say it’s a great choice
for us.”

“If only we could pick
this place up and put it in Springfield.”

You might think I was
dismayed by the conversation, but I was actually fired up by those
words. It told me that we were on the right track. Maybe the
Googins girls and Edna weren’t completely off their rockers. I gave
it some thought while I waited for the pair by the
staircase.
If we went slowly and
built the business up without overextending the Four Acorns
budget....

“Scarlet?” Ellie’s
voice broke through my daydreaming fog.

“Excuse me,” I quickly
apologized. “We’ve been talking about expanding the inn and your
comments got me thinking about what we could do.”

“Are you serious about
expanding?” Suddenly Zak was interested. I gazed up at the tall,
rangy young man with a fidgety sort of energy and smiled. Here was
my chance to test out the idea on potential clients. I jumped in
with both feet, telling them about some of our ideas. “We’re still
discussing it, of course.”

Five minutes later,
Ellie and Zak made me promise to let them know within the month if
we were going to host weddings at Wallace’s house. I led them to
the garden, where the rest of the wedding party was assembled for
cocktails.

The evening turned out
to be a great success. By the time the two families adjourned to
their respective rooms, it was nearly eleven.

“See you in the
morning,” Gunnar called over his shoulder as he walked his future
bride up to her room.

“Pleasant dreams,” I
replied, on my way to shut off inn lights, check doors, and clear
the last of the glasses from the living room.

Jen was already asleep
in Lacey’s bed when I finally crawled into the cot by the window.
Huckleberry hopped up and snuggled next to me. Within a few
minutes, I nodded off.

Sunlight crept into my
temporary quarters as the dawn broke, spreading a golden glow over
Lacey’s suite. I lay there for a few minutes, glad of the weather’s
cooperation. This was an auspicious start for our new venture. I
was already imagining the future guests flocking to Wallace’s
mansion.