The Wedding Shawl Page 3

  The gardener waved back, then pointed down toward a mound of mulch in the wheelbarrow. “All organic, Fred promised,” she called out.

  The woman’s jeans were rolled up, her shoulders bare, tan, and freckled. A floppy straw hat and large sunglasses shaded her face.

  “Come, have coffee, meet everyone,” Nell called, and motioned toward the deck. “These skeptics don’t believe you’re real.”

  Claire tugged off her gardening gloves and walked up the steps to the deck, greeting the women with a smile.

  “Meet my gardening goddess,” Nell said proudly. “Claire—these are the people you’ve been hearing about every day. They are amazed at our paradise.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Izzy said. “Thanks so much for helping Aunt Nell with this.”

  Cass echoed Izzy’s praise.

  Nell looked over at Birdie, who was eyeing Claire Russell with a curious frown on her face. “Birdie?” she said.

  Birdie shook her head, as if scattering a fog. She took Claire’s tan hand in her own. “I don’t mean to be rude, Claire; I was simply trying to place you in my life. I don’t like it when my memory slips. A curse on senior moments.”

  Claire’s smile was guarded as she shook Birdie’s hand. “I don’t think we’ve met. I lived around here years ago but didn’t spend much time in town. But it’s lovely to meet you. Nell has told me wonderful things about you. About all of you.”

  Birdie nodded absently, but her frown stayed in place. “Sometimes this happens to me. I can’t remember where I saw someone, and then I realize it was the person in front of me in the checkout line at Shaw’s.”

  Claire loosened the sweater from her shoulders and slipped it over the back of a chair.

  Izzy was on it in a second. “This sweater is beautiful.” She fingered the blue-gray yarn. The sweater was light and airy, with front edges that dipped lower than the back. “Cotton and cashmere, right? Did someone knit this for you? I love it. What beautiful yarn.”

  Claire was clearly pleased. “I made it. It’s old. Knitting and gardening are my two passions. I’ve looked at your store from a distance, Izzy, not quite trusting myself to go inside until I’ve worked a bit longer, saved a little. But I’ll get there.”

  “I hope so. We would love to have you. And you don’t need to buy anything. Come sit. Talk knitting. I can tell from your gorgeous sweater that there are plenty of things we could learn from you. My coffee is atrocious, but the music, company, and vibes are amazing.”

  Claire handed the sweater to Izzy to look at more closely and took off her floppy hat, pushing her sunglasses up into her hair.

  Birdie’s frown disappeared. “That’s it. I remember now.” She smiled triumphantly, the irritation of a fading memory disappearing instantly. “You’re right. We haven’t met, not officially. But I at least know where I’ve seen you, and it’s nice to put a name to such a lovely face. We almost met last evening.”

  Claire’s smile fell away. “Last night?” She took a step backward, one hand resting on the table behind her.

  “Yes. In the Sea Harbor Bookstore—after the discussion of that cold-case mystery that we all tried to solve. You’re Archie Brandley’s mystery woman.”

  Chapter 4

  Nell admitted later that her timing was bad in handing Claire the mug of coffee just then. She hadn’t had Birdie’s vantage point, so she missed seeing Claire’s ashen face, her gardener’s tan disappearing right there in front of them.

  The mug was filled to the brim when she put it in Claire’s hands.

  And though the gardener tried to grasp it, it slipped through her fingers as if freshly greased, and fell to the deck floor, spraying a rich French roast in all directions.

  Claire’s hands flew to her face.

  “Not a problem. We do this all the time,” Birdie assured her, checking to be sure Claire’s sweater had escaped the spray.

  “Except it’s usually me,” Izzy said, then followed up her words with a laugh and headed inside for paper towels.

  Nell pulled out a chair and suggested Claire sit down, then filled another mug and set it down in front of her. She looked at her to be sure she was all right. Something had upset her, but Nell couldn’t imagine what it might have been. The bookstore? But that didn’t make sense—Archie’s bookstore was the most welcoming place in town. Sometimes he stayed open late just because people had settled into his comfortable chairs and he hated to disturb them.

  “One of these doughnuts will add a little boost to your blood sugar,” Birdie said, finding an easy way to change the subject. “I find they’re a grand way to start the day. Better than multivitamins.”

  “These aren’t doughnuts,” Cass said. “Doughnuts have dunkin’ in front of them.”

  Birdie laughed. “They’re fancy doughnuts, Catherine. Now, behave in front of our guest.”

  Claire pulled a small smile to her face. “Oh, Birdie, I’m not a guest; I’m a. . .”

  “Friend,” Nell finished for her. “I would never have spent all these hours on my knees without you.”

  And that was the absolute truth, she’d confessed to Ben a few days before. There was something about Claire Russell that was easy and comfortable, as if she and Nell had known each other a long time.

  Perhaps they’d known each other in another life, Claire had suggested. It wasn’t likely this one, since she’d only recently moved to Sea Harbor—and moved was not quite the right word. Claire was living in a small back room at Fred Euclid’s nursery for a couple of weeks until an apartment became available.

  With a bit of prodding as they knelt side by side, spreading mulch around newly planted red twig dogwoods, Nell had learned that Claire had been thinking of coming back east for a while. Now and then she’d check the Internet for jobs. When she saw the nursery position advertised, it seemed like fate. Gardening was the love of her life, working with the earth, with plants and shrubs. So she’d moved from California where she’d lived for more than a dozen years. On a commune, she confessed to Nell as they loosened the soil in a garden bed one day. “I was due for a change.”

  When Nell told Ben where Claire was staying, he had responded exactly as she knew he would. “That’s foolishness. Staying in Fred’s nursery? It’s a storage barn. If it’s only a couple weeks, why doesn’t she stay in our guest cottage?”

  Which was exactly what Nell was going to propose, once she had a few minutes alone with Claire.

  Izzy finished wiping up the coffee and took another beignet. “The backyard looks wonderful, Claire. I’ve always loved every inch of Aunt Nell and Uncle Ben’s yard. I didn’t think a single solitary thing needed to be done to it for the wedding. But somehow—I don’t know—somehow you’ve enhanced it without taking away any of what I love about it.”

  “That’s what your aunt and I hoped to do. It will be a wonderful wedding, Izzy. This is a perfect setting.” Claire wiped the sugar from her hands and stood up. “And now my soil is calling. I’ve a daisy bed to mulch.”

  “And I’ve a lobster trap to feed,” Cass said, swallowing the last bite of her third beignet and grabbing the keys to her truck. She looked at Izzy. “Want a ride?”

  Izzy nodded, then reminded Nell she’d meet her at M.J.’s to talk hair later that day.

  “And for the record,” she added as she picked up her bag to follow Cass, “you and Claire don’t need anyone’s input on what to do with the yard and the gardens. What you’re doing is perfect.

  “Absolutely perfect,” Izzy whispered, hugging her aunt tightly.

  When everyone but Birdie had left, Nell gathered the coffee mugs onto a tray and carried them into the house, with Birdie following close behind. They stood at the kitchen sink, Birdie’s white head barely reaching Nell’s shoulder. Through the window, they watched Claire Russell settle down in a dark bed beneath a tall maple tree. She sat back on her legs, looking up at the leafy branches that shaded her body.

  Then she picked up her trowel and began to work the soil.

>   “If I sat back like that, my knees would pop so loud, people would hear them over in Gloucester,” Birdie said. She picked up a towel and wiped the mug Nell handed her.

  Nell laughed. “She’s in good shape—strong as an ox. I guess it’s all the gardening. Such a lovely lady, and she truly loves what she does,” Nell said. “Working the soil seems to put her in another place. Sometimes when I look at her, I see a kind of sadness. But then she digs her fingers into the earth and I’m reminded of Buddhists, of people praying. I feel calm working next to her.”

  “She wasn’t calm last night when I saw her in the bookstore. She had no color in her face, and she looked like a trapped animal trying to escape.”

  Nell frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Claire.”

  “It certainly seemed to upset the poor dear when I mentioned it today. Her reaction was odd; didn’t you think so?”

  Nell looked out the window, then back at Birdie. “Are you sure it was Claire you saw last night? I got the feeling she thought you’d mistaken her for someone else.”

  “But she didn’t really say that, did she? No, these old eyes see remarkably well, and I looked at her carefully because both Archie and I were surprised to see her walk down the steps.”

  “Steps?”

  “She was in the loft. She must have been up there the whole time we were meeting, though I didn’t see her.”

  “I didn’t see her, either. That’s strange. I would have noticed her immediately. Unless she was back in the stacks and once Danny started talking, she didn’t want to cause a disturbance so she just stayed put.”

  Birdie nodded. “That may be. But it doesn’t explain the look on her face.”

  “Maybe not.” Nell looked out the window again. Claire was adding compost to the area, working it in. She moved her fingers with the same purposefulness the knitters used when working on a fine scarf or sweater. And with the same look of utter contentment. “Well, if anything was bothering her yesterday, I think she’s working it out right down there in the soil.”

  Birdie followed Nell’s gaze down to the back edge of the yard. “Let’s hope so, dear Nell. We’ll see.” Birdie turned away from the window and slid her arms through the straps of her backpack.

  Nell wiped her hands on a dish towel, watching a pensive expression play across Birdie’s lined face. Then she walked over and hugged her friend, backpack and all. She knew Birdie so well. Her tone of voice and body language told Nell clearly that she didn’t believe a word of it.

  Birdie believed something was burdening Claire Russell. And it was something that digging a new garden plot wasn’t about to resolve.

  Chapter 5

  Nell sat on a bench just outside Sea Harbor Bookstore, her cell phone pressed to her ear. When the call finally ended, Nell looked at the phone, sighed, and slipped it into her bag. Nearly five o’clock. The day had disappeared in a blink of an eye, her list of to-dos so long that she hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Claire about moving into the guest cottage.

  Tomorrow, she thought. Which would give her a minute to be sure everything in the cottage was in working order.

  She had come down to Harbor Road early, hoping to pick up a book Archie had ordered for her before meeting Izzy for their five o’clock meeting at M.J.’s salon, but then her sister Caroline had called and used up most of that time. The book would have to wait.

  Izzy’s mother called constantly these days, gushing thanks to Nell for filling in for her with Izzy. She always asked a million questions about the wedding plans, and today she read off a list of things to do. Nell knew it pained her sister not to be there herself, but the art gallery she managed was shorthanded, and Caroline was invested in it, financially and emotionally. But she felt so far away, she told Nell.

  Of course she did. Nell understood. It was her only daughter’s wedding. And she was being heroic about it, in Nell’s opinion. Not once did she complain to Izzy about not coming back to Kansas City to get married. Nell gave her great credit for that. The thought was always there, though, Nell knew, always at the edge of Caroline’s thoughts. But she would never mention it to Izzy. She understood that this was Izzy’s dream—getting married by the sea.

  Which was true, Nell thought, but she also knew it was Izzy’s only chance of having what she desperately wanted—a simple wedding, one she’d have little chance of having in Kansas City with her well-intentioned—and well-connected—mother in charge.

  Today Caroline had called because she was concerned with a gathering Izzy had suggested having at the Artist’s Palate, a casual bar and grill in the center of the Canary Cove Art Colony. Ben would plan a sailing trip for relatives who would arrive early for the wedding. Danny Brandley and Sam would help; then they’d all gather for beers at Hank’s bar and grill.

  But Caroline had thought the bar sounded a bit “rough.” Perhaps the yacht club instead? But Izzy and Sam wanted it at Hank’s, Nell told her sister. His wife, Merry, was a friend. Besides, next to the Gull Tavern, Hank had the largest selection of beers in town.

  Caroline had sighed and hung up.

  Nell slipped her phone into her bag and stood just as Izzy walked up.

  “My mother again?” Izzy said.

  “You can tell?”

  Izzy laughed. Then she hooked her arm through Nell’s and they walked down the block and across the street to M.J’s salon.

  M.J.’s shop had begun its life as a four-chair salon in her home. It reminded Birdie of Dolly Parton’s back room in Steel Magnolias, and Margo Jeanne Arcado’s clientele loved it—and her.

  But four chairs weren’t nearly enough to satisfy M.J.’s growing list of clients—young professionals trying to squeeze a cut in between meetings, retirees who lived in an enclave of elegant homes near the point, Bostonians who snapped up the luxurious vacation condominiums north of town, and teenagers who demanded edgier styles.

  Expanding meant moving, and when the old Sullivan place on Harbor Road finally went on the market, M.J. bought it and moved in. She added a spa with massage beds in a darkened room, facials in comfortable white chairs, clean walls filled with art from the Canary Cove artists, and a cozy waiting area with soft music, coffee, and tall glasses of water with slices of lemon or lime. After five, M.J. offered wine. The quaint storage cellar below the building would slowly be renovated into offices and perhaps more spa areas.

  Along with the move, M.J. had tried to change the salon name to Pleasure, but it never stuck. Nell thought it had its merits, though. Pleasure was exactly what she felt when one of M.J.’s young staff gently massaged her neck and her temples until she felt all the cares of the world replaced with the intoxicating fragrance of lemon balm.

  But today was business, not pleasure, with no time to put one’s head back and sip a cup of herbal tea while Norah Jones sang to you softly in the background. Today was for wedding planning.

  When Nell and Izzy walked through the door, the receptionist motioned them directly back to the salon office. “M.J.’s waiting for you,” she said.

  The office was around the corner at the end of a long, meandering hallway at the back of the salon.

  The door was open.

  M.J. stood near a love seat tucked into a bay of open windows on the east side of the room. “Sit in the breeze, lovies,” she said. “It’s going to be exactly like this on your wedding day, Izzy—blue skies, gentle breezes. I promise.”

  “A full-service salon,” Nell said. “You even handle the weather.”

  “Of course. Nothing but the best.” M.J. smiled and pointed to a bottle of wine on the coffee table.

  “A celebration?” Nell asked.

  “All wedding planning should take place over a glass of fine wine,” M.J. said. “Tiffany will be here in a minute. She’ll be the coordinator extraordinaire on your special day, Izzy. She must be finishing up with a client.”

  “Not a problem,” said Izzy. She looked out the window and breathed in the salty air. “It’s supposed to be a perfect summer evening.
I hope it brings out a crowd for the Fractured Fish’s gig tonight. Pete, Merry, and Andy have been practicing up a storm, Cass said. Her brother’s band is getting quite a name for itself.”

  M.J. waved one hand in the air and tossed her head back. “How silly of me. I nearly forgot.” She glanced at the clock on her desk. “I hope this wasn’t a bad time to meet.”

  “No. It’s perfect,” Izzy said. “This leaves Ben and Sam with the sweaty job—helping Pete haul his equipment over to the Artist’s Palate. We’ll show up when they’re all finished—and we’ll smell nice.”

  M.J. laughed. “The girls in the salon have been talking about it all week. The Fractured Fish are becoming minor celebs around here. Tiffany never misses a performance. Pete and Andy will be fighting off their groupies before they know it.” She handed them each a glass of wine.

  Nell took a drink, then set her glass down. “I noticed you at the book club last night, M.J. What did you think? Did you like the discussion?”

  The salon owner paused, then answered carefully. “It was interesting. But I think I’m in Esther Gibson’s camp. I think Danny might have picked a cold case that happened in California or Oregon or Canada—somewhere far away from Sea Harbor. Fifteen years seems a lifetime to someone your age, Iz, but to some of us, it wasn’t so long ago.”

  “But Danny’s intention wasn’t to talk about real people. He was just showing how real life can be a springboard for fiction.”

  “I suppose. And for people who didn’t live here then—like Danny, like both of you—it probably seems more remote. But having it brought up like that brings back memories to some of us, and not necessarily good ones. People start talking about it again. Like Margaret Garozzo, for example. She was in here today getting her hair done, and you’d think it happened yesterday the way she was going on—not in a gossipy way. Just reliving it. Their son was just out of high school at the time. It scared parents half to death.” She waved one hand in the air, as if scattering her words. “But enough talk about that. We have happier things to talk about.” She checked the desk clock again and frowned. “Tiffany must have been waylaid. She’s usually very prompt. I’ll check with the desk—”