“I get it.” Rose sipped her gin and tonic. She enjoyed one G&T every evening, the habit of a lifetime. Robert the Bruce watched the activity from the comfort of her lap, and Éclair snoozed in front of the stove. “You have one flighty idea after another. If you want to have a book published, Bernadette, you need to finish it. Not start another.”
“But this one’s sure to be a huge success.” Bernie beamed. “People are really interested in the history of Cape Cod.”
“And that is why—”
“I’m pleased for you,” I said quickly. I lifted my glass. “Cheers.” Bernie and I clinked glasses. “Whenever you feel writer’s block coming on, you can step out the door and drink in the atmosphere.”
“Exactly!”
“Stuff and nonsense,” Rose said.
I glared at my grandmother. She gave me a sweet smile in return.
“You’ll be proud of me, Rose,” Bernie said, “when I hit the New York Times bestseller list.”
“Which won’t happen if the book is never finished.”
Bernie grinned at her. She never took offense when Rose was being forthright. Rose and Bernie had been close since we were seven years old and my grandparents had visited Manhattan. It rained on and off the day we went on an excursion to Central Park, a cold, dark rain warning of winter soon to come. My mother and I cowered in the shelter of the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, while Bernie and Rose cavorted in the rain, loving every drop and splashing through every puddle.
I might look like Rose, but when it came to personality, anyone might have thought Bernie was her granddaughter, not me.
“Maybe you should check the pie, Rose,” I said. The grocery-store box the meat pie had come in was sticking out of the trash can.
She didn’t move. “It’s fine. You can start the salad, love. Ingredients are in the fridge.”
I checked the pie, noticed the crust was blackening around the edges, and turned the oven off. I then opened the small fridge, the one used for Rose herself, not B & B cooking. It contained nothing but a loaf of bread, a stick of butter, a container of milk, a handful of condiments, and a package of presliced salad ingredients, complete with dressing.
“It’s June in New England. You should be buying fresh ingredients from the farm markets. Better for you, far better tasting, and you’ll be supporting your neighbors at the same time.”
“Why should I support my neighbors?” she said. “They’re not supporting me.”
“Supporting you in what?” Bernie asked.
“Don’t ask,” I said. But I was too late.
“I submitted an article to the local newspaper this afternoon,” Rose said. “It was returned to me as unacceptable. Imagine the cheek!”
I groaned. I had no doubt what this “article” was about.
“What do you mean, they returned it to you?” Bernie asked. “If they didn’t want it, they wouldn’t publish it, not get into a discussion.”
“They said it was libelous. Stuff and nonsense. Email makes things happen too fast. In my day, it would take a day for the letter to get to its destination, the recipient would take time to consider it and to write a polite and appropriate response, and then a day for the return letter to arrive in the post.”
“Whereupon you’d have waited three days, rather than ten minutes, to be rejected,” Bernie pointed out.
Éclair jumped to her feet and let out a soft bark. Moments later, a light tap sounded on the door, and Edna peered into the room.
“Sorry to bother you. May I come in? I don’t want to interrupt your dinner, but . . .”
“Of course,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
Edna glanced at Rose, calming, sitting at the table, stroking Robbie with one hand and sipping her G&T with the other. “It depends on what you mean by okay. As long as I was coming, I brought you some jam.” She put a bag on the counter. From inside came the sound of glass jars bumping together.
“I’m running low on your tomato salsa,” I said. “The guests love it.”
“Nothing I can do about that until tomato season.”
“Fair enough. Can’t rush a tomato. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Thanks, but no. I won’t stay long. Frank suggested I drop by and have a word, Rose.”
“I’m sure he did,” Rose replied.
“A word about what?” Bernie asked.
I had a bad feeling about this. Edna’s husband, Frank, was the editor in chief of the North Augusta Times. “You’re here about a letter Rose wrote to the paper?”
“Not a letter, but an op-ed article she wanted him to print.” Edna turned to my grandmother. “You can’t be libeling people, Rose.”
“I speak my mind.”
“You might, but my husband isn’t going to print it.”
“Coward,” Rose said. “I thought better of him. Whatever happened to a free and independent press?”
Edna looked at me. “I thought you should know, Lily, in case she . . . uh . . . tries another avenue to get her opinions out.”
“Tell me,” Rose said. “Are your husband and his newspaper also getting kickbacks from this scheme?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Edna said.
“Is it?” Rose asked. “Didn’t the paper run an editorial recently saying the Goodwill property was too valuable to be allowed to fall into ruin? To continue to fall even further into ruin?”
“A great many people in town think the same,” Edna said. “That doesn’t mean we’re all being paid to think so.”
“You include yourself in that number?”
“I do.”
“Then you’re fired,” Rose said.
Robert the Bruce hissed and leapt off Rose’s lap.
“You can’t fire me,” Edna said.
“You are not fired,” I said.
“Yes, you are,” Rose said.
“You can’t fire me, because I quit.” Edna spun on her heel and headed for the door.
I threw up my hands. “Please, don’t leave mad, Edna. I need you. You work for me, not my grandmother.”
“She pays my wages, not you.” Edna opened the door and stepped into the soft glow of early twilight.
“I need you,” I repeated.
“Good night, Lily.” Edna climbed the steps, her back straight and her head high.
“Now you’ve done it,” I said to my grandmother. “Be here, in this kitchen, promptly at six thirty tomorrow morning. I cannot cook and wait tables at the same time. How many rooms do we have tonight?”
“As it’s a Friday, we are full. Sixteen adults and five children.”
“Twenty-one breakfasts. You’ll have to help.”
“Really, Lily. I told you when I hired you, I do not wait on tables.”
“Someone has to.”
“Even if I wanted to, which I do not, I’m too unsteady on my feet to be carrying trays of hot tea and taking