1.
“Be careful.” Primrose Schuyler wrung her hands.
“I promise.” I steered her towards her sister Dahlia, who cried into her handkerchief. “Please, go inside, before you catch a cold.”
They both dithered.
“I can’t concentrate on rescuing Petey if I’m distracted because I worry about you two.”
Primrose took her sister by the hand. “Genie’s right, my dear. We’ve got to have faith.”
I waited until the two seventy-something ladies closed the door behind them. “The coast is clear,” I said. “You can now work your magic.”
“The poor sweetheart.” Adriana floated onto a branch high up on the oak tree where parrot Petey hid.
The bird was the apple of Primrose and Dahlia’s eye. He was also in shock. An hour ago, a window left open by a cleaner had been too much for him to resist. Unfortunately, Petey’s newfound taste of freedom came with a lot of dangers, real and imagined. He’d been fine until a red kite soared above him, and on the ground, a cat meowed. Now Petey was too scared to move a muscle or a feather.
I knew all this because Adriana told me. It would take all her powers of persuasion to guide the parrot down and inside, where he belonged.
I wished I could give her a hand, but my climbing skills were not up to that task. Also, whereas the bird trusted Adriana implicitly, I might startle him. After all, I’m just a human he’s seen a couple of times.
Adriana on the other hand is a pet-whisperer extraordinaire. She’s also my great-great-aunt – and a ghost. Officially she died in 1929, at the age of 21. In reality, she materialized in the same villa she took her first and her last breath in, a few months ago, and has been sharing my life ever since.
Up in the tree, she made coaxing sounds at the back of her throat.
Petey hopped to a lower branch. He moved his head back and forth.
Adriana continued to encourage him, until finally, ghost and bird both came down. “Now hop onto Genie’s shoulder,” she told the bird.
He obeyed, careful to hold on to me without digging his claws in too deep.
Together, we stood outside the door. I knocked. “I’ve got him.”
Primrose opened, and with a last look at my great-great-aunt, Petey flew inside, back to the safety of his aviary.
“You saved him. I don’t know what we would have done without you, Genie.” Primrose’s voice shook.
“I’m glad I could help.”
Adriana glowed with pride. She waved the parrot a cheerful goodbye before we dashed home.
The rescue mission meant that I needed to hurry. It also meant that my great-great-aunt could chalk up another good deed on her growing list of successful rescue missions. Adriana Darling was on the way to becoming the unrecognized good spirit of Cobblewood Cove.
Our orange tabby Cleo interrupted her preoccupation with tufting a rug and shedding all over the apartment, to come and greet Adriana.
I received a quick meow, to acknowledge that I, too, had been noticed. I took my overnight bag from the storage cupboard, ready to be packed later.
Cat and ghost froze and glared at me.
“It’s only for one night.” I snatched my keys. If I didn’t make it downstairs fast, I’d be late for work, and I was never late. It was one of my proudest traits, the fact that people could rely on my word.
“Are you at least going to explain the situation to Matt this time?” Adriana pulled herself up to her full height. Her slender frame vibrated with annoyance. Her voice could have cut glass, in a rare change from the dulcet tones she used for any mention of my boyfriend.
It would have been more impressive if I hadn’t seen the exact pose and expression only the night before, although in that instance the furious blonde had been 1930s movie star Madeleine Carroll and not Adriana Darling.
I took a step towards the door.
She spread her arms across the frame. “You have to tell him.”
Cleo, who invariably sided with my great-great-aunt, took an empty swipe at me, which for this little cat was the equivalent of counting down to three strikes.
At least that’s what I’d been told by a trustworthy source.
Said source switched tactics. Her shoulders slumped, and a deep sigh escaped her. “You can’t imagine how much it hurts to be left out in the cold.”
Hah. “I’ll turn on the heating.”
“Genie? Who are you talking to?” A voice rang out on the landing. Jilly Pepper, my friend and sometime business partner, had come to help me with my merchandise.
Adriana stomped her foot. In tense moments like this, she preferred my undivided attention.
“Nobody,” I answered Jilly.
I motioned Adriana to move aside.
She remained stuck to the spot.
I closed my eyes and took a big stride towards her, my hand stretched out. For a second, I felt a tingling sensation as my fingers merged with her body. Then she stepped aside.
She didn’t really need to do that. After all, I was the only human in the world who could see my beautiful relative in all her splendor, from her wavy blonde hair and silk evening dress down to her spangled shoes.
I wasn’t sure if she appeared to animals or if they only sensed her. Whatever was the case, they found her irresistible. Cleo was the best example.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I whispered before I joined Jilly. At least I had a few hours to think about my course of action. Now I was the one sighing.
Jilly had already run ahead of me, down the wooden staircase. Her heels clicked on the polished floorboards which dated back to Adriana’s days. Like my dear relative, I’d come close to breathing my last here as well, but Adriana had saved me when we had to play a dangerous game to unmask a murderer.
A surge of happiness washed over me. My life had never been as crazy or complicated before I met my great-great-aunt, but it also had never been exciting.
I breezed past my mother’s apartment on the first floor, which currently sat empty for a couple more nights. She and her new husband used the villa she’d inherited as a second home, which meant that most weeks, I had the free run of it.
Well, Adriana and I had the free run of it.
For a few weeks, Jilly had occupied the guest suite, until she’d moved in with her boyfriend Kenji, an up-and-coming architect. They’d met when she first came to Cobblewood Cove after we’d lost the lease of our shared city apartment plus studio at the very edge of New York, where Darling Designs and Pepper’s Pots created handmade jewelry and ceramics for the discerning few.
Jilly had since picked up new customers in the tea rooms, cafés, and B & Bs in the area, and I had branched out into a second business venture.
That’s what she had come to help me with this morning. Together, we lugged six heavy containers of ice cream into her station wagon. Gem and Gelato had already found a loyal clientele in town since Adriana and I’d returned from Italy.
Taking a gelato-making class there at the end of a treasure hunt of sorts with Adriana had been the best decision I could have made. It supplied me with the steady income my bespoke jewelry had thus failed to achieve, and it gave Adriana a sense of accomplishment.
I did the mixing, churning, and selling.
My spectral relative decided which secret ingredient would turn our ice cream from a mouthwatering treat to unbeatable delight. Dead or not, her nose and tastebuds were unrivaled.
The only person who came close to her talent was Pierre, the owner of the oldest delicatessen and diner in Cobblewood Cove. Generations of his family had stood at the ovens in the white clapboard building. The recipes of Butler’s Pantry were a well-kept secret and had been handed down from son to son or daughter since the first Pierre. He’d been a Huguenot immigrant called Bouteillier, who set foot on this soil not long after the town had been founded over two centuries ago. The last name had been anglicized to Butler, but the moniker Pierre stuck and, like the recipes, was passed down through the generations.
Whatever the Butlers cooked up transported customers to culinary heaven. The family had catered for early movie stars and darlings of the theater as well as for politicians, socialites, and, according to rumor, once for “King Solomon”, the uncrowned leader of the Boston underworld during Adriana’s lifetime.
That little bit of information I had from her. The rest was common knowledge.
Pierre and I had always been on friendly terms, despite the fact that he was 40 years my senior and I’d only sporadically spent time with my parents in Cobblewood Cove.
Both my mom and dad had set their sights on bigger things than a small coastal town that took its name from a cove no larger than two baseball fields. For me, Cobblewood Cove had been heaven with the sandy beach, the ocean, and the old movie theater, where a uniformed usherette would bring ice cream sodas and milk duds to the seats.
Childless Pierre had been a mainstay of my vacations, and once he’d discovered that I preferred his cooking to every other diner or clam chowder shack around, he’d become almost like an uncle to me.
He’d been the one who inspired me to start a now mostly defunct food blog in my student days, and he’d also been the one who supported my new business.
“Stop daydreaming,” Jilly admonished me. She almost disappeared behind the two large stainless steel containers with today’s gelato in her arms. Only her curly topknot which she’d lately dyed pink, and her butterfly sunshades were easily visible.
I carried in the rest while Jilly brought in her latest wares. She’d made platters and bowls for Pierre and me, which our customers could also purchase.
Gem and Gelato was located in one corner of the long room that made up Butler’s Pantry, where three tables sat ready for a small lunch crowd. The walls were covered with old photographs, showing the family members, staff, and customers throughout the years, all the way back to the 1870s. The names written underneath were proof of the familial feeling. There were Butlers and Wards, Schuylers, Darlings, and a couple of almost exotic names like Johansson and Koslowski.
Usually, Pierre would give me a quick wave to greet me as soon as I set foot in the door. Today, he ignored me, and so did the blonde woman who was arguing with him.
I’d seen her around on a few occasions, but up to now, she’d been mild-mannered. It took me a little to remember her name. Katie something, that's all I came up with.
She had her back turned to me, but I saw her shake her fist in Pierre’s stony face.
“You’re a liar, and I won’t be standing for this,” Katie snarled before she turned on her heel and stomped off.
“Careful,” Jilly said as the woman, who towered over Jilly’s five foot two, brushed past her.
Pierre waggled his eyebrows at us. “Sorry.”
“No worries,” Jilly said. She snapped on surgical gloves and ran her fingers over every bowl and every platter before she declared herself satisfied.
I gave her a gentle nudge. “Off with you and don’t forget to have fun.”
“Says the woman who hides herself away in that old villa.”
I shrugged. As much as I loved Jilly, who could be counted upon to be as easily excited about a thing as she could be distracted, I had no intention of telling her about Adriana.
Believing in chakras and karma and the power of numbers and the right shade of lipstick was one thing. Being told the sanest, most balanced person she knew, aka me, shared her life with a vivacious ghost might be a step too far. Plus, even if she believed me, I couldn’t expect Jilly to keep a secret of this magnitude from Kenji. Or, after a few beers, from my mother.
“Try to sell out my stuff while I’m gone,” she said. “If it works, I could branch out further afield.”
“I’ll try.” I held the door open for her. “See you in a week.”
She blew me a kiss and headed for her car, to set off for a week’s vacation at Niagara Falls.
I found Pierre helping himself to samples of my gelato.
“This is your best batch yet,” he declared.
I frowned. Something was wrong. Pierre always waited for me to offer him a taste.
At the age of 72, his habits were firmly ingrained, down to the number of times he wiped each shoe on the mat before entering the deli when he’d gone outside for his daily walk to the square and back. He caught my concerned glance. “Forget the woman. She was just complaining about something that didn’t happen,” he said with an air of finality.
That would explain it. Like me, Pierre reached for sweet things when the going got tough.
In the kitchen at the back pots and pans clanged and meat sizzled.
My mouth watered.
Pierre’s second in command, Steve Hiller, did most of the work these days. Only the final touches, when the real magic happened, were still reserved for Pierre. He and he alone would be in the kitchen to add whatever secret ingredients made the dishes irresistible. In the meantime, Steve would either meet his fiancée at one of the tables or when she was busy, he’d sneak out for a quick browse at Nuts and Bolts, the local hardware store.
Steve spent half his paycheck there, while he was restoring an old farmhouse and brewery just outside the city limits.
Pierre put his gelato bowl and spoon on a trolley.
For takeaways, we used paper cups, bamboo cutlery, and cardboard boxes. For everything else, Pierre insisted on bone china, ceramic plates, and real silverware.
Customers who brought their own mug for a coffee to go earned a discount. We took our environmental responsibility seriously. He also insisted that plastic affected the perception of taste and not in a good way.
Pierre smoothed back his silvery hair that still held traces of black, dithering as if deciding if he should say anything else to me before kitchen duty called.
While he was still making up his mind, the front door was pushed open so abruptly that I gave a start. Pierre muttered under his breath, “Here comes more trouble."
2.
I frowned as I recognized the new arrival.
Sure, there had been a bit of buzz over the opening of another upscale deli slash diner a few months ago. It went by the folksy name of Foodstock, and its well-preserved raven-haired owner now made a beeline for Pierre.
I gave her full marks for energy and sass, and also for her pantsuit. Where Olivia Goodge fell flat, was on an ability to read the room. Although Foodstock had been unable to make a real dent in Pierre’s business, Olivia had tried her best.
Rumor had it that she, together with her sidekick Katie, had copied Pierre’s menu as best she could, and undercut his prices.
Since their arrival had coincided with my and Adriana’s Italian vacation, I’d missed the opening battle, but according to my great-great-aunt’s four-legged sources, the local animals steered clear of Olivia’s bins.
Like most of the locals, the four-legged inhabitants also preferred Pierre’s food.
But why did he seem so gloomy at seeing her in his place? He should be shrugging her competition off.
Olivia waved a glossy magazine at him. “Did you see that?”
“You too? My answer won’t change. I’m not interested.”
“It’s a great opportunity for us together.”
My shameless eavesdropping was cut short by a gaggle of women from the bridge club. These ladies, all in their fifties and sixties, were among Pierre’s stalwarts. Thanks to Adriana’s contributions to my gelato-making, they also formed a substantial part of my clientele.
“What’s the flavor of the day?” their leader asked.
“Cherry and almond.” I offered three regular flavors – vanilla with a twist, double chocolate with a hint of spice, and mint choc chip, together with two seasonal fruit-based ice creams, and one daily changing flavor.
So far, even at the end of September, I’d never had to return home with unsold gelato. Most of it tended to be gone when I left shortly after the high school kids came by. If some was by then left over, Pierre’s wait staff took over my stall.
I was still busy with scooping gelato for the bridge ladies and for Neely Potts, a relative newcomer and one half of a vegetarian café, when Pierre was replaced by Fred Ward, one of my oldest friends in town.
Olivia dashed off, leaving the magazine behind.
Fred gave me a cheerful wave as he got ready to prepare the standing orders. He must have been the busiest retiree I’d ever met. Fred volunteered at the local library. He sat on the town council. He organized ball games for the children, and he also acted as a tour guide for the Cobblewood Cove museum, which held in its walls several mementos from the Darling family.
My ancestors had arrived here shortly after the Revolutionary War. Although we’d never been among the richest inhabitants, our name meant something on these shores.
My full name is Geneviève Darling Hepner, Genie for short. In my business dealings, I’d dropped my paternal name. Darling Designs sounded better. My first name came courtesy of my Francophile mother who’d shed her christened name of Amy for the much more sophisticated Aimée as soon as she and my dad had been sent by his bosses to Europe after their wedding.
They’d been happy moving from country to country and place to place for his career, and I’d been convinced I’d spent my life as a rolling stone too. But then, after ten years of widowhood, Aimée had not only married Tony Novak (with my full blessing!), she’d also rediscovered the delights of Cobblewood Cove.
So had I. What had started as a short visit, to sort out the ancestral home in a non-too-important small town at an equal distance from New York and Boston, had become my home for better or worse. There was something to be said for a place where everybody knew your name, if not your business.
Some of my family had achieved a certain amount of local fame. Among them was the “Dueling Darling”, who was celebrated for successfully defending a lady’s honor with his blade. That happened back in the days when sabers at noon were all the fashion.
Adriana’s mother Rosalind had been nicknamed the “Daredevil Darling”. She’d flown as a passenger in a flimsy aeroplane made of nothing but wood and canvas, ridden a Harley Davidson during the Great War until her worried husband had begged her not to make their children orphans, and she’d tirelessly marched and protested and lobbied for the women’s vote.
I’d come close to following in their footsteps as the “Deranged Darling”, until Adriana and I had worked out a way of interacting that didn’t include me having a public discussion with what to everyone else appeared to be thin air.
Even now I sometimes forgot that she wasn’t made of flesh and blood.
“Hey, girlfriend.” Jolene, local girl Friday and the best handywoman on the whole East Coast, popped up in front of me. She practically ran the Nuts and Bolts, her family’s hardware store, when she wasn’t busy fixing electricity, plumbing, or other important jobs around town. Her connections reached to all layers of society.
If anything happened in Cobblewood Cove without her knowing, it would be a first. Adriana was the one thing Jolene was clueless about.
“Your usual?” Instead of waiting for an answer, I grabbed one of Jilly’s gelato bowls and filled it with a scoop each of chocolate and the cherry and almond. Jolene had been my guinea pig for our creations and as such earned free gelato for life.
The same went for Jilly’s pottery. The hardware store had been the first to promote her, and Jolene had introduced my friend to Kenji too.
She dipped in a spoon and swooned. “Every time I think I’ve hit my favorite combo, you strike again.” She pointed at a shelf high above the food counter. On it sat more trophies than I’d ever seen outside the local sports club. “You should enter the competition at the fair. If this doesn’t win, there is no justice in the world.” She took another spoonful.
“Thanks, but I leave that to people who love public attention.” There was no way on earth I’d do one of these events where you have to whip up your signature whatever in front of judges or any other audience. Having a ghost as your near-constant companion and business partner has its drawbacks, especially when she’s the mastermind behind your success.
As much as Adriana deserved her creations to shine, I didn’t trust myself to work together with her with too much attention on my every move. I made a mental note to make my great-great-aunt stay out of this particular loop. The road to trouble was paved with too much information.
Jolene handed me her empty bowl. “I’ve actually dropped by to ask if you need a cat sitter for tonight. Or is Aimée back in town?”
“You’re a star but I think Cleo can handle a night on her own if I leave her enough food.” I didn’t mention that Cleo already had a sitter and that I was pretty sure cat and ghost had a ball whenever I was gone for a few hours.
“My offer stands,” Jolene said. “I’ll swing by before you leave, anyway. Your new lampshade should come this afternoon.” With that, she headed for the door, and our rush hour began.
I’d expected Pierre to help Fred once he’d finished turning good honest food into something that changed your tastebuds forever. Instead, I saw him head towards the fire door that led to the staircase up to his private apartment. That was another break with routine.
"Is everything okay with Pierre?” I asked Fred as I stacked the dishwasher with my dirty bowls and cutlery. The six gloriously empty gelato containers would go home with me.
Drat. I’d forgotten that Jilly had given me a lift. Under normal circumstances, the Darling villa was only a leisurely stroll away, past brownstone mansions and clapboard homes in white or shades of pastel. Carrying a tower of containers each capable of holding two gallons of ice cream would turn the distance of one mile into a challenge. I tried stacking the tubs this and that way, but they remained awkward.
Fred gave me a hand but didn’t fare better. “Pierre’s feeling a bit rough, that’s all,” he answered my question after a longish pause.
“Surely this isn’t about the business with the flyers?”
For the last week, every single business in town that sold animal products had found posters taped to their doors, accusing them of murder. Neely Potts and her daughter Sallie, who owned the Carrot Cove, a vegetarian café at the end of Main Street, had been everyone’s favorite suspects until a disgruntled ex-employee of the local butcher’s had confessed to the prank.
Fred’s mouth tightened. “This is strictly between you and me and the lamppost, but somebody has broken into the spare cash drawer in his office.”
No wonder Pierre was down in the dumps. “Did they steal much?”
“At the most, fifty bucks. It’s not the money he cares about. It’s tough on him not having a clue who the burglar is.”
“Did he call the police?” I already knew the answer. Pierre wouldn’t dream of neglecting what he saw as his civic duty.
Fred confirmed that. “Not much they can do, they told him. You’ll keep your eyes and ears open, won’t you Genie? It’s been a bit of a shock for him. Us old folks aren’t as elastic as you anymore, but don’t tell him I said that.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” I promised. While I wrestled some more with my containers, I wondered if I should check in on Pierre, but maybe he needed to be alone for a while. In the end, I settled on leaving the gelato containers behind, in Pierre’s giant dishwasher. I had more at home.
The sun peeked through clouds as I left through the back door, catching a partial glimpse of Steve.
Most of him was hidden behind the potted trees Pierre had planted to cover the dumpsters. Steve’s chef’s jacket gave him away. A tendril of smoke curled up in the air. No, not smoke. I took a sniff. He was vaping, a habit I thought he'd quit.
Or maybe his companion was, for now, I also spotted a sneaker sticking out at an angle. The foot couldn’t belong to Steve unless he was a secret contortionist, and his fiancée stuck to high heels.
I shrugged it off and went my merry way, for once alone and unencumbered.
The walk should have been bliss. Honeysuckle scented the warm air, bees darted in and out of the flowers, and a gentle breeze caressed my face. The shop windows shone, and behind the plate glass lay craft and art supplies, candles, and antiques. The cliffs and the cove were a little over a mile away, but if I turned my nose in the wind, I caught a whiff of salty sea air that added a certain sharpness to the mix.
Only two things prevented me from enjoying myself.
The first one was the break-in at Pierre’s. Ten years ago, I’d have put my money on a couple of cash-strapped teenagers who’d had a few beers too many. Nowadays, they all paid electronically. I could count the occasions on one hand when someone younger than 30 had paid me in cash. So, who would commit a crime for a handful of dollars?
The other fly in the ointment was my missing companion. My path took me along the homes of some of Adriana’s most fervent four-legged admirers, and they all made it clear they missed her.
The barking was bad enough, but worse was the sad, unblinking eyes that could have broken a heart of stone.
“I’ll bring her soon,” I promised every single dog. “I won’t forget.”