The Body in the Birches (13 page)

Yet, despite the popularity of the tropical island dishes, Ben noticed that the entrée most ordered was the chef's take on butter poached lobster ravioli. Chef Zach coated the raviolis with a velvety nape of citrus beurre blanc—minced shallots, white wine, lemon juice, heavy cream, and a ton of unsalted butter. The first
day, Ben and Tyler had been amazed at how much food got wasted. People, especially skinny women, would leave whole plates almost untouched. But the lobster ravioli ones were almost licked clean. The chef had given them a sample, and it was one of the best things Ben had ever eaten. Not that he'd tell his mother.

“I need fresh lime juice for the halibut I'll be poaching as today's lunch special, so you could get that ready. I may have to fire that guy's ass if he doesn't start showing up on time.”

Mandy walked in. “The tables are all set, Chef. What do you want me to do now?”

“See if you can find Derek. He hasn't been in this morning, and I need to speak to him about this week's Sysco order.”

Mandy looked upset. “Uh, I think he said something last night about maybe not being in until after lunch. But I'll go look,” she added hurriedly.

“You do that. Dream job. Oh yes, that's what he and his parents said. Becoming more like a nightmare.”

Ben quickly finished squeezing the limes. “Let me do those onions, Chef. My mom has taught me knife skills and you can get going on something else.”

If the chef quit, the Lodge would definitely suffer and who knows what could happen. He didn't want to be out of a job. What his mother didn't get was that it wasn't a question of Mandy keeping an eye on Ben, but Ben having to keep an eye on her.

By Monday, Gert Prescott had found someone to take Bev Boynton's place, but Marge Foster wasn't able to be full time. She'd take care of the house, make lunch, and leave dinner. “Can handle the baking, too. Nothing fancy, but muffins, biscuits, cookies, bread—people like my anadama. Crumbles, especially if you can get me some rhubarb.”

Sophie thought this sounded like more than a full-time job. She told her uncle she could do the marketing from the lists Mrs.
Foster supplied, and she'd also see to breakfast for as long as she was there.

“I'm sure some of the others will pitch in, too,” Paul said. “Will is a dab hand at waffles. But, Sophie, I'm hoping you'll be staying the whole summer. Your mother said you were between jobs and had the time free.”

Sophie wasn't so sure about people pitching in, no matter how adept at waffles. She silently exchanged a few words with her mother in absentia. Free the whole summer! Then the look on Uncle Paul's face stopped what she had been going to say—that she would only be here a week or so more at most. She couldn't let him down.

“I'll most certainly stay as long as you need me.” She gave him a quick hug.

He hugged her back. “That could mean a very long time, my dear.”

Sylvia—with Daisy trailing behind—walked onto the porch where Sophie and Paul were sitting. She immediately hugged them both.

“Such a bittersweet time!” Sylvia said. “We all need to bond. Now what should we do today? I know! How about the trail out to Barred Island?”

“I'm afraid the tide is wrong just now. Perhaps later when it's low. Don't want to get stranded. Simon and Forbes have kindly invited me for a sail. Mrs. Foster is packing us a lunch,” Paul said.

There was no mistaking the sour look that crossed Sylvia's face and he hastily added, “The walk and a picnic for your birthday? It's Wednesday, isn't it?”

At that moment Simon and his entire family came out onto the porch from the house. Once again, Simon and Forbes could have posed for an ad, this time one for what the well-dressed yachtsman might wear. Felicity and Deirdre were similarly attired, and it appeared the whole family would be going sailing. Or bonding.

“What's Wednesday?” Deirdre asked.

When the pause made it apparent that Sylvia wasn't going to answer, perhaps because her teeth were so tightly clenched, Sophie did. “It's Sylvia's birthday and we're talking about what to do to celebrate.”

“Celebrate? Aren't we a little past that sort of thing? Balloons, party hats?” Deirdre's voice hinted that whatever Sylvia's approaching number, any notice would not only be inappropriate, but absurd.

Paul jumped in to soothe the ruffled feathers. “Oh, one is never too old, or too young, for a birthday celebration. Come, Sylvia, how would you like to mark the happy occasion?”

Sylvia's mouth opened and closed, then opened again. “I want to see puffins.”

“Birds? I never knew you were an ornithologist,” Simon said. “Besides, we'd have to go quite far, and I'm not sure they are still around.”

“I called Robertson Sea Tours and Adventures out of Millbridge. That's not far at all. Captain Robertson said there were still plenty of puffins on Petit Manan, which is where he goes. Other seabirds, too.”

Simon was intent on raining on Sylvia's parade, probably remembering what she had tried to do at Thursday's parade, Sophie thought.

“Petit Manan is a National Wildlife Refuge,” Simon said. “Only the Coast Guard manning the lighthouse and vetted individuals studying the birds from places like The College of the Atlantic are allowed to land. Sorry, Sylvia.”

“I know that!” she spat back. “I don't intend to pet one, I just want to see them.”

Paul was beginning to look distressed and Sophie decided it was time to stop all this one-upmanship. “It will be a beautiful ride and we'll certainly see birds of some sort plus seals, maybe dolphins. I'll organize a birthday lunch, shall I?” she said.

“And I'll call the tour office to make reservations.” Will Tarkington
had been sitting off to one side reading a book. Sophie hadn't noticed him. The porch wrapped around the house, and she couldn't help but think that he had stationed himself perfectly to observe without being easily observed.

“That's settled then,” Paul said. “We'll all be onboard. Now, if we're going to catch the wind, perhaps Forbes and Felicity can check on the lunch while I get another jacket?”

“Room for me to tag along? I've never sailed these coastal waters, and from what I hear, they have Georgia's beat. Not that I believe that,” Will said, his accent noticeably thicker.

“Sure,” said Simon. “The more the merrier.” Sophie didn't think her uncle was looking at all merry.

Advantage Team Will—or whoever he was?

“Okay, make my hair curl,” Faith said. She'd run into Ed Ricks at the bank. He suggested they get iced coffee to go from the new coffee roasting place and sit by the millpond behind it. The young women had scavenged some lawn furniture from the dump, painted it, put it out, and now “meet you at the millpond” was a popular invitation.

Faith was tempted to tell Ed about Ben's altercation Saturday night. He didn't treat adolescents, but she was sure he could give her some insights. Pix's suggestion was hard to follow. Faith wasn't used to doing “nothing.” Yet it didn't seem fair to ask Ed. Enough people seemed to be taking advantage of his expertise without Faith adding to his load.

“What was the worst family feud?” she said.

“Hmm, there are a lot of contenders. And I'm eliminating the ones where everyone stops talking to each other. Those are pretty mild, but hurtful. Very hurtful.”

“And punitive. Like the whole Amish shunning thing,” Faith said.

“Exactly, especially when it's parents and children. Adult children, that is. Siblings not talking doesn't have the same sting.”

Faith could not think of anything her children would ever do that would cause her to stop speaking to them. An image of Ben's angry face flashed into mind and she repeated to herself, nothing they could do . . . She might yell, but she'd communicate.

“I suppose the winner would have to be the two Rogers brothers, mainly because it lasted so long and was so public they might as well have taken space in the
Bangor Daily News
for updates,” Ed said. “They were flatlanders, originally from someplace near Chicago. Understand, we're not talking about kids here. Grown men in their forties. Their parents bought a whole point jutting out into Toothacker Bay sometime in the 1950s.”

He paused.

“With you so far.” Faith smiled. “I know what a flatlander is and wonder why Sanperers use that term when it's not mountainous here, but back to the story. Oh, and I know the bay and it's named after a family, not an unpleasant dental emergency.”

“Back in that day,” Ed said, “you could get a whole point of land for next to nothing, but this family wasn't hurting in that department. Some sort of business in the Midwest. They clear-cut for the view—you could do that then, too, although I'm sure you know some people do it now and pay the ridiculously low fine. They built a real nice year-round house smack on the shore—again, no setback regulations. The boys grew up there, every summer. The father died first. Mother lived to a ripe old age. People round here speak highly of her still.”

“Even if she was from away.”

“Ayuh. She left the whole thing to the two of them, which did cause some comment, as those brothers were chalk and cheese from the moment they got old enough to be possessive about their toys.”

What with all the folksy expressions, Ed was certainly going native, Faith thought.

“The mother did have the sense to appoint an estate executor, a lawyer down in Portland, and for years he tried to get those two men to divide the acreage up and the house, too, so many months each or put up a second one—there was plenty of room. But they just wouldn't do it. That stubborn. Each wanted the whole pie. One of them got up at the Island Country Club's Saturday night dinner every week and asked that they pray for him to get it all as part of the blessing. For a while people went along with it, because he was a darn good golfer and a lot of members wanted him as a partner for the Presidents Cup. Then it got ridiculous. The other son was doing much the same thing. Took out ads for a whole summer in the
Island Crier
asking anyone who had observed ‘moral turpitude' on his brother's part to let him know. Think the plan was to get him arrested for something. And yes, they duked it out. Everyone got used to seeing the two of them with black eyes, crooked noses.”

“I shouldn't be laughing,” Faith said, laughing, “but it
is
funny.”

“It became less funny when one of them was in a bad car accident and it turned out the brakes had been tampered with, and the other one came down with some sort of virulent food poisoning.”

“No, not funny.” Faith thought of The Birches and Ursula's comment. “What happened?”

“They stuck to their guns, that they were waiting for the other one to die. The will was set up so the survivor got the whole place. Meanwhile, they began to run out of money. Taxes are high on that amount of waterfront, and they had to keep the place up. The irony is that they both stopped trying to come to the house and rented it out. Even that wasn't enough income. Eventually the lawyer got it in lieu of payment owed for his services.”

“There's a lesson here,” Faith said.

“Yup. Only have one kid.”

She frowned at Ed. “No, the lesson is decide who gets what and put it in notarized writing
before
you go yonder.”

“Yonder? Is that some sort of religious term? Sorry, it really isn't all that funny. You're right. Both of those men had been coming to the island all their lives and loved it. Neither ever married that I heard of, so all their emotions were focused on the place. Both were close to their parents, and that was a part of it, too. It was a kind of shrine. Every once in a while, one of them rents a place, shows up at the Harbor Café, and cries on any shoulder available. They're old men now.”

“I guess it also points out how hard you have to work to make sure your kids get along, at least somewhat civilly,” Faith said. “Pix is always telling me you're never finished raising your kids. Maybe these parents quit too soon.”

“That's an interesting thought. I'm not seeing these people professionally, but I am advising some friends here who have a small cottage about how they should leave it. It's a blended family, which adds more complications. Real estate has increased in value on the island, even with the economic slump. In this case, what's happening is childhood rivalries are getting played out all over again. Who does Daddy or Mommy love most?”

Faith thought back to a ski vacation the Fairchilds had taken en famille several years ago to celebrate Dick's seventieth birthday. Ed had just described the week perfectly. She still gave a slight shudder when she thought about it. Some of it was because she had also found a corpse and almost ended up one herself. She forced her thoughts to more cheerful ones. Like the iced coffee.

“You notice they make their ice cubes from their espresso? All they need is someone to bake some treats and they would be an even bigger success.”

“They could have frozen anything for their ice cubes and I wouldn't have noticed. I very much admire a palate—and talent—like yours.”

“As soon as we can move back to our cottage and Tom returns, come for dinner.”

“I'd like that very much. And Faith, next time you talk to Tom, please tell him I'm thinking about him and his whole family. But also tell that husband of yours he's a very lucky man.”

Faith felt her face flush. Must be the caffeine.

She supposed she should bake some kind of birthday cake for Sylvia, Sophie thought, yawning as she opened her eyes. Cupcakes, since it was a picnic. Before he'd gone off sailing yesterday, Will had called Captain Robertson and made the reservations. With such a big group, Sophie had suggested they bring snacks and drinks on the boat, saving the picnic for dry land. The boat was good-size, but trying to balance plates while using binoculars and taking pictures would be tricky. They would picnic at the part of the Petit Manan refuge that was on the mainland. It was a short drive from Millbridge, near Steuben and in the same direction as Sanpere. Wanting to have a short trip back told her something she already knew but hadn't put into words. She did now, softly out loud. “I don't want to go.” Saying it made her feel a bit better and she repeated it, “I
don't
want to go.”