The Summer Everything Changed (5 page)

“They want what!?”

Isobel was with Gwen, no doubt engaged in blog-related behavior, photographing a funky bit of clothing or trolling a Salvation Army or Goodwill store for hidden treasures. That left Louise alone in the kitchen with poor Quentin, the unfortunate witness of Louise's end of the latest call from Flora Michaels.

“Pink doves? They want to release pink doves after the ceremony? I don't think the town is going to allow the release of a flock of dyed birds . . .”

“Well, that's your concern, not mine,” Flora Michaels snapped. “You need to make it happen.”

“Me?” Louise heard her voice squeak. “Why me? Wait a minute, are the birds trained? Won't they poop on everyone's head? Will they come back?”

“How do I know? Just clear it with whoever you need to clear it with in that sleepy little town of yours.”

Flora Michaels ended the call in her usual abrupt manner.

“Pink doves,” Quentin said. It wasn't a question.

“What am I going to do, Quentin? I need more staff to deal with this crazy wedding, but I can't afford to hire more staff! Or maybe I just need to take a step back and think calmly about this whole thing . . .”

“It's a dilemma, for sure,” Quentin said in his usual, unperturbed way. If the guy ever got flustered, Louise had yet to see it. Then again, why should he be flustered about a flock of pink doves? That was her problem.

“If you don't need me inside,” Quentin said now, “I'm going to mow the backyard.”

Louise nodded and Quentin left. No sooner had he gone than Flynn Moore made an appearance at the kitchen door.

“Afternoon, Louise. I came by to take a look at that cranky food disposal.”

Louise smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Flynn. Can I get you a glass of lemonade first? Bella made a pitcher before she left this morning. It's pretty amazing.”

Flynn accepted the offer. Nobody in his right mind turned down Bella's food or her lemonade. Louise knew better than to ask Bella for her recipe; whatever secret ingredient went into her lemonade to make it so tasty would forever remain Bella's secret.

Flynn was a handsome man of sixty, tall and lean, though what there was of him was solid muscle. For years he had been the owner and beloved manager of an extremely popular and successful restaurant/music venue known as The Jive Joint. A few years back he had sold the enterprise for a very nice profit, and instead of journeying south as so many northerners did as soon as they could manage it, Flynn had opted to stay put. He still lived, alone, in the house he and a few friends had built thirty years ago, a post-and-beam construction that was as practical as it was beautiful. These days, from what Louise could tell, Flynn spent a good deal of his time being a helping hand around town. Just the other day she had seen him on a top rung of a sickeningly tall ladder outside Mrs. Berkeley's house down the road. And today, he was here to crawl under the kitchen sink, at no charge other than some chitchat and maybe one of Bella's muffins.

Chitchat they did, and then Flynn got to work. Louise busied herself with cleaning the fridge and thinking about the celebrity wedding that was looming. She wondered if Flora Michaels had ever been married, and if she had, Louise wondered if she had inflicted on herself a wedding planner. The thought was actually amusing, the imperious wedding planner getting a dose of her own medicine. Wedding planners. How long had they been around, anyway? Back when Louise had gotten married, a woman planned her own wedding, with the help of her best friend (if she had one; Louise had not) and her mother. Then again, she hadn't been born and raised in a world where people hired caterers to feed their picnic guests. You did that yourself, with a bowl of homemade potato salad, a package of hot dogs, and a tray of cupcakes made from a mix. Maybe wedding planners, like party planners, had always been around, for the relative few who could afford them.

“All done,” Flynn announced, bringing Louise back to the moment.

“Thanks so much, Flynn,” she said, closing the door of the fridge. “I owe you one.”

Flynn grinned. “As long as there's some of Bella's baked goods on hand, or a glass of lemonade, we're even.”

Catherine came by just then, half-running through the kitchen door after Charlie, who was straining on her leash.

“Afternoon, Catherine,” Flynn said with a grin.

Catherine caught her breath before responding. “Flynn.”

“And how's the Princess today?”

In response, Charlie threw her considerable bulk against Flynn's legs and turned up to him a look of abject adoration. Flynn obligingly scratched her head until she had had enough of his attention. For the moment.

“Ladies, I'm off. Louise, call me if that food disposal acts up again.”

“I will, Flynn. And thanks again.”

When he had gone, Louise turned to her friend. “Flynn likes you.”

“He likes everybody.”

“You know what I mean. He
like
-likes you.”

Catherine hooted. “Are you twelve? He's a nice person. Like I said, he likes everybody and everybody likes him back.”

“Look, the first thing he said to me, after ‘hello' and ‘I'm here to fix the food disposal,' was ‘where's Catherine'. All I could tell him was that you were out and about somewhere with your easel and paints and canvasses. No doubt if I had been able to tell him exactly where you were creating a masterpiece, he would have hightailed it off in hot pursuit.”

“I think it's cute the way you hallucinate.”

“Hilarious. Where are you two off to now?”

“Obviously,” Catherine said with a frown, “I'm not off to the beach, what with that ridiculous law about not allowing dogs in summer.”

“Well, it does make some sense,” Louise argued.

“It's not the dogs' fault if there are piles of poop along the sand, it's the fault of the idiot parents who don't clean up after them.”

“Be that as it may . . .”

“Oh, don't worry,” Catherine said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I'm not going to violate any laws. I want to keep a good reputation here, especially if I'm going to live out my days in this little town. I know I'm still eyed with suspicion by a good portion of the old locals. You are, too, my friend.”

Catherine took her leave then, the Princess leading the way, as princesses are wont to do.

When she had gone, Louise thought about what Catherine had said just before Charlie had pulled her off. The town was eying her with suspicion. Yikes.

And how would the townspeople feel about a celebrity wedding in their midst, especially one hosted by a newcomer? She hadn't once considered it, but now that she did consider it, she felt a little sick. She couldn't imagine the town elders appreciating a media circus, no matter the immediate business it might bring to store and restaurant owners. “I just might have committed social suicide,” she said aloud.

Maybe she should have talked to Flynn before signing that contract. Maybe he could help her research local laws about the release of dyed birds . . . Dye couldn't be good for a bird, could it?

And neither could lack of water be good for a plant. Louise filled two plastic watering cans at the kitchen sink and went out to the porch to tend to the hanging plants.

A few moments later, a very sleek and very shiny car Louise hadn't seen before made its way up the drive and came to a stop. A young man got out of the driver's side.

“Mrs. Bessire?”

“Yes,” Louise said, setting down the watering can. “I'm Louise Bessire. May I help you?”

The young man extended his hand. As she took it, Louise noted that it was nicely manicured. Not a farmer then, or a fisherman. Well, certainly not either if he drove a Jaguar!

“I'm Jeff Otten,” he said, “of the Ottens on Ocean Circle. On behalf of my family, I want to extend a welcome to Ogunquit. I apologize for it being so terribly belated. I thought one of my parents had certainly stopped by before now. I myself would have come by, but I'm away at school most months. And most summers I'm off traveling. But this year I'm sticking around town, helping my father with the business.”

Louise smiled. “That's very nice of you,” she said. “To come by and welcome us.”

“My pleasure. If there's anything we can do for you, here's my card. Just give me a call.”

“Well, thank you. I think we're all settled in,” Louise said, “but you never know!”

Huh,
Louise thought as the young man got back in his car and disappeared around the curve in the road that would take him toward the heart of town.
That was nice of him.
She looked at the card. J
EFFREY
R
ICHARD
O
TTEN
, V.P., O
TTEN
C
ORPORATION.
Contact information followed.

She made a mental note to ask Flynn about the Otten family the next time he came around. She had heard of them, of course, everyone had, but beyond the common knowledge that they were wealthy, had lived in the area for generations, and were active in state politics and their local church—facts that were true for just about any of the old families thereabouts—she knew nothing else.

Well, Louise thought, when Isobel started to date, and it would probably be before too long, she hoped she would choose someone with the good manners of a Jeff Otten. Too many young people these days were rude and disrespectful and—

Whoa. Louise grimaced. Where did that burst of grumpy old lady come from?

Hmm. She wondered how the Ottens would view the wedding of celebrity couple Emory and Drake. Or Kassandra and Mack. Or whatever their names were. As one of the leading families of the area, their opinion probably carried a whole hell of a lot of weight. They might even have the influence to drive the Blueberry Bay Inn out of business . . .

Louise sighed and went back to watering the hanging flowering plants. Well, it really was too late to pull out of the project now. As her mother had been fond of saying, she had made her bed and now she must lie in it. Fatalistic and depressing to the end, Louise thought. Good old Mom.

Isobel stopped typing. She debated deleting those last lines. True, she hadn't heard from her father in almost two weeks; his periods of prolonged silence were becoming more usual, but it was still troubling. She really didn't want to end the post on a grim or a whining note.
The heck with it,
she thought, letting that shout-out to her father stand. Isobel's fingers flew across her keyboard once again.

Isobel posted the blog and put her laptop to sleep.

And she thought about Jeff Otten.

Her mother had told her about how he had stopped by to introduce himself and to offer any help they might need “settling in.” Well, that had been very nice of him, but why would a guy like Jeff Otten be likely to pay attention to an obscure mother and daughter (obscure compared to people like the Ottens!) taking up residence?

Anyway, she guessed he hadn't said anything about his having met her in town, which was a little odd. Then again, she hadn't said anything to her mother about their running into each other—and that was the really odd thing. She knew she should say something soon, even if they never saw Jeff Otten again, because what if, just what if, he actually liked her? It was not good to start a relationship with a lie of omission, even if the lie was to her mother.

Whoa! Isobel thought. Talk about jumping to impossible conclusions, thinking that Jeff Otten might actually
like
-like her! Sure, she had always been popular in school with both boys and girls, but she had never had a genuine boyfriend. A few guys had asked her out (the first when she was nine and he was eight! She remembered thinking it was totally funny and laughing and then, when the boy started to cry, wow, she had felt so bad!), but not anyone she liked enough to say yes to. There was plenty of other stuff to do besides hold hands with some guy you could barely tolerate, like so many of the girls she knew from school did. Or, worse, have sex—oral or other kinds—with some guy just because you were “supposed” to be having sex.

Anyway, Isobel didn't really know who all these teens were who were supposedly having sex. She wasn't one of them, and neither was Gwen. Isobel had concluded that a lot of guys at their school were probably put off by Gwen's fiercely independent appearance and her perfect grades; she had heard the term “man repeller” (from that cool fashion blog) used about Gwen and about herself, too, once. Maybe in a big city it would be different, but in a small town there just wasn't a whole lot to choose from, and on the whole, people chose what was familiar, not what was wearing pink hair one week and green hair the next. It was understandable, if often frustrating.

As for Isobel, her mother's own cautionary tale hadn't put her off guys or scared her or resulted in anything negative or restricting like that. On the contrary, her mom's forthrightness about her own bad experience and her being so involved in the education of girls (all those workshops about girls' empowerment she had led!) had made Isobel feel pretty strong and smart about things.

And even though her father had become inattentive (to put it mildly) in the past two years, for a long time he had been a positive role model of true manly behavior. Well, maybe that very fact—his good behavior—had made his veering so wildly off course that much more difficult for Isobel to accept. If he had always been a bit of a slacker, then the contrast to what he was now—an absentee father—might not be so brutally clear.

Bottom line was that Isobel liked guys and was excited about the whole dating thing. Her basic nature was positive; she insisted on seeing the good before the bad, on seeing the potential for love before the possibility of hate. She just didn't assume the worst about people, and she was kind of proud of that. Not that she was a saint or anything, but she didn't look at the world and its inhabitants as inherently or necessarily flawed. Why should she? That option seemed too depressing. Maybe, like Gwen had said to her recently, being positive was a lot more exhausting than being negative, but that was just the way it was with her.

Isobel realized that she was smiling. So, Jeff Otten had come by the Blueberry Bay Inn . . .