Christmas in Wine Country (36 page)

             
“No. I took her order for 400 dark chocolate oyster shells with white chocolate pearls inside and thanked her very much.” Lila nodded with understanding. “OK, but tell me what happened at the auction!” Lila brought her tea with her as she sat at the table and enjoyed finally getting to regale Annie with her account of the big night.

*
             
*
             
*

             
Clustered around the folding table in the staff room, Zoe, Annie and Lila each helped themselves to their pot-luck lunch: grapes, cheese, leftover quesadilla, apple slices, and a bit of quinoa, cranberry and walnut salad. Godfrey flitted around the edges, attending to nothing much but maintaining proximity. It was the first time all four of them had hung out since she and Annie had reconciled. Marion was out front and said it was fine if they all wanted to have lunch together; she’d come and get one of them if things got busy. Lila knew from experience that Godfrey didn’t like to sit with them, but if she
fixed a small plate for him with some bites to eat he would eventually work his way over to it. A bit like a shy stray, she realized with a smile.

             
“I’ve been thinking,” Godfrey stepped near the table. “Do you think Mr. Meows should have a back story? I mean, in case any of the children ask? I ran into a lot of trouble last spring when one of the kids wanted a book about the Easter bunny and started asking questions. I had to think fast and make something up about him living on Majorca and traveling on a hydraulic cotton ball to all the gardens of good boys and girls.”

             
“I hear they make fabulous shoes there,” Zoe said. “Lovely soft leather.”

             
“Majorca?” Lila asked.

             
“It wasn’t my best work,” Godfrey admitted. “That’s why I think you need to be prepared when it happens to you. Where’s Mr. Meows from? Why’s he so cranky? What’s his motivation?” Lila laughed, having honestly not pondered these questions before.

             
“Maybe he was left on the shelf in a toy store for too long?” Annie offered. “It made him cranky.”

             
“Is that too dark for the kids?” Zoe wondered.

             
“I was going to say he was orphaned in a plane crash and raised by Romanian nuns who didn’t believe in physical contact,” Godfrey countered. Having drawn the three women’s attention, each wearing expressions ranging from rejection of the storyline (Lila and Annie) to sympathy for the orphans (Zoe), Godfrey asked, “What? Not believable? I know, he’d have an accent. But, Lila, you and I could work on that together.”

             
“Thanks, Godfrey,” Lila said, placing a small plate of food for him over on a nearby countertop. “I love the idea of a back story. Right now the toy shelf concept is really working for me. Maybe you and I can develop it?”

             
Considering the possibilities, Godfrey stroked the tiny hairs on his chin he was trying to coax into a goatee. “It could be that Sven owned the toy store. But he neglected the inventory due to his obsession with winning the
Oktoberfest
tasting.”

             
“Ooh!” Zoe clapped her hands. “Bring back Sven! I love Sven!”

             
“Have you met Sven and Olga?” Lila asked Annie, giving her a brief look of amusement as she began eating her quinoa. Sven had continued to make appearances at the bookstore, usually afterhours. Occasionally, however, unsuspecting tourists would find themselves getting advice on good murder mysteries from a Transylvanian book clerk. Olga, however, hadn’t
re
surfaced. Yet.

             
“No, but I would very much like to meet them.” With Annie’s magic words, Godfrey spirited away, only to reappear in a matter of seconds with a large, black beret.

             
“Just go with it,” Lila murmured softly to Annie, hiding her laughter by taking some bites of food.

             
After positioning folding chairs along shelving by the wall, Godfrey made two quick, loud claps and announced, “The Great Auction Rescue. Act One.”

             
Watching as Sven and Olga reprised their former roles, making something of a fuss with the imaginary waitstaff over the limited beer menu, Lila shook her head and wondered if she’d finally befriended people crazier than she.

             
She wished she could say it all felt like enough, that she was having a recurrence of that Zen transcendence and peace she thought she’d experienced on the bench
overlooking the ocean. She did feel grateful to be there with such true if insane friends. But she also felt restless. She and Annie had been devoting so much dream energy toward the café; what to do with that now? And there was the matter of all of the unanswered questions with Jake. In the aftermath of the emotional extremes—loathing, rage, despair, she’d pulled them each out for a spin on the dancefloor in the previous weeks—now she mostly found herself with questions and a growing desire to seek out answers.

             
“Girls!” Marion huffed into the break room, thrusting the door to the side as if it
had
shown insolence. “Something remarkable has happened.” Her eyes gleamed and she pressed her fingers together in front of her formidable chest.

             
“Marion!” Annie answered in greeting, setting her fork down. Sven and Olga swiveled on their chairs to face the newcomer. Lila rose, wondering if she was needed out on the floor.

             
“I’ve just received the most unusual phone call! I think I might need to sit down.” Hand fanning her face, Marion accepted the folding chair Lila offered. “Oh my goodness. You never know what’s going to happen in life, do you? I must confess, I am absolutely shocked.”

             
“What’s happened?” Lila asked, alarmed by the extent to which Marion’s feathers, typically tucked each in their own place, were ruffled.

             
“It’s the funniest thing!” She exclaimed, displaying an unusual inability to get to the point. “I was up at the cash register, ringing up a sale, when my cell phone rang. You all know how I loathe the things. I never keep mine on me, particularly while I’m at
the store. But this morning Joyce was running a temperature so I kept it in my pocket in case she needed something.”

             
“And then?” Annie prompted, clearly growing impatient.

             
“It was Martin.” At the name, Lila felt her pulse quicken. “The deal fell through! He wants to know if we still want the store?”

             
“What?!?” Annie’s shriek surely awakened some sleeping Japanese children across the Pacific as she sprang to her feet, managing to upend the folding table in the process. Neither the grapes rolling across the floor, nor the bowl with the quinoa splitting in two garnered the least bit of anyone’s attention.

             
“The deal fell through?” Lila asked.

             
“That’s what Martin said!” Marion brought a hand to her cheek in surprise. “I… I can’t think what happened. But he asked if we are still interested in making an offer. If we want it, it’s ours.”

             
Conveying an answer of ‘yes’ through screaming and jumping up and down, Annie and Lila officially freaked out.

             
“Then we’ve got a phone call to make,” Marion said, smiling. Throwing his beret up in the air, Godfrey joined the celebration. Zoe gave them all big hugs. Elated and still jumping, Lila couldn’t also help wonder—how did the deal fall through?

*
             
*
             
*

             
Put in charge of the Thanksgiving Tofurkey—a nod to vegetarian guests Zoe and Pete’s cousin, Zeke, whom Annie had described as ‘all beard’—Lila wasn’t sure of her next move. She’d never dressed one up before. Last night she’d decided on cranberries for the sweet taste and the holiday color and moved from there to an orange-cranberry
glaze and a cranberry-walnut stuffing. This morning, however, it seemed a bit much. As a rule, she didn’t like using holidays as tests and guests as guinea pigs, but, then, she’d never faced down a Tofurkey before.

             
Looking at the faux bird critically, Lila picked up the phone to call her Gram. She could get some advice plus wish the Massachusetts group a happy Thanksgiving. Gram, as always, was confounded by the time difference and astonished that Lila had yet to leave her apartment since it was already the middle of the afternoon.

             
“Not out here, Gram. It’s only ten thirty,” Lila gently reminded her. Annie wasn’t having people over until three, though Lila was expected at two, reporting for set up duty. There would be ten of them sitting down to dinner: Pete and Charlotte, of course, plus Pete’s mom, Annie’s mom and dad, Lila, Godfrey, Zoe and cousin Zeke. Without a dining room, Annie had yet to decide if she was going to try to cram everyone into the small living room at a round-kitchen-table-meets-folding-square-table ensemble, or separate the group into two rooms. The living room option sounded easier to Lila, but instead of bombarding Annie with yet one more opinion she figured she’d simply arrive on the scene and wholeheartedly support whichever configuration seemed to stress Annie out less.

             
Lila’s Mom had taken the phone for a few minutes as well. She, her boyfriend, Roger, and Roger’s mustache had made the drive down from Braintree to have dinner with Gram. It had been a long one in holiday traffic; Lila could hear the ice clinking in her Mom’s drink. Excited over Lila’s reinvention—and redemption in her eyes—as a small business owner, her Mom had wanted to talk over the details of the sale. She’d clearly missed her calling as an attorney with her laser-like attention to detail. 

The crew in Hyannis was joined by about five strays from the neighborhood, plus three dogs needing a home as well. Gram liked fussing over the details of a holiday dinner, from her special occasion table cloth/napkin/place mat combos to her platters of hors d’oeuvres, usually featuring pigs in blankets and deviled eggs, to her small glass dishes of candies and nuts placed strategically throughout the little cottage. 

             
“You know your Gram,” her mother had said and Lila could picture her shaking her head. Ever the counterpoint to Gram’s domestic focus, her mother was surely dressed in something she fancied chic and urban—usually black—and reading the paper on the couch alongside Roger. They’d probably brought a loaf of bread purchased on the drive down.

Cranberry-and-orange-dressed Tofurk
e
y riding shotgun on the seat next to her, Lila headed over to Annie’s around 1:45 for Thanksgiving dinner. She grasped the wheel with her trusty green handknit mittens and nervously kept the car at about 15 mph. Annie only lived about three miles away but Lila wanted to avert disaster. Even in a car crash, though, the food would probably still be all right, sealed as it was in a serving dish and plastic wrap. Gram had a penchant for wrapping. Food, gifts, mailed items, winter sweaters put away for the warm seasons, all were wrapped within an inch of their lives. Signs of a lifetime under Gram’s tutelage sometimes still emerged. 

             
Turning onto Annie’s street and listening to some excellent George Michael, Lila realized what hadn’t happened after her brief conversation back home. She hadn’t been struck hard and sharp across the head with the homesick stick. She’d enjoyed hearing their voices, picturing them in the familiar settings, even gained comfort from knowing all was as it always had been, but had then caught a glimpse of the clock and realized the
Tofurkey needed attention, pronto. Funny how the absence of something could go unnoticed, when its presence could be so consuming.

             
A giant paper mache turkey sat on Annie’s front stoop looking as if it were guarding the entrance rather than welcoming visitors. Pete must have taken on A Project with Charlotte, Lila thought, smiling to herself. It had long orange legs that looked like they were made of wire and wings that appeared to have real feathers.

             
The front door was open and Lila let herself in. She heard a stressed, “Lila? That you?” from the kitchen.

             
Walking round the corner, Lila found Annie hunched in intense concentration over delicate tissue-thin strips of Filo dough. Strewn across the counter were bags of cranberries and chopped nuts, diced apples and a bowl of melted butter.

             
“What are you doing?” Lila placed her Tofurkey momentarily on the floor for lack of counterspace.

             
“I don’t know!” Annie wailed. “Why didn’t you tell me this was a horrible idea!”

             
“You didn’t tell me you were individually wrapping each of our meals in filo.”

             
“That might have been easier. At least it all would have been done in one place. I’ve spent about an hour on this stupid desert and I haven’t even started boiling the potatoes yet.”