Chapter 3

  As usual, Lucy was the first one in the store, I mean I should have been the first one. The construction had me up at the ungodly hour of eight am, two hours before the store opens. But I was waiting for the writers to all arrive at breakfast. I wanted to remind them all that the deadline for submitting essays about safe nonviolent protesting was this Friday.

  Most writers, it seems, have a need for structure, even panters. The most important part of the structure being a deadline. Panthers could do without the outlines, without the loglines. Just grab a character and they were off to the races. But without a deadline, they very well might never start. I don’t blame them, writing is hard work and it only seems natural to try and put it off as long as you can. Then when time is almost up, you burst into action. The deadline in the back of your head, well that keeps you focused now. The phone gets turned to do not disturb, the social media pages are closed on the laptops. One hundred percent attention is now given to the job at hand. Sometimes a writer might even get into a state of flow, where they are so focused on what they are doing that time itself just stands still.

  But we live in a physical world and of course time can’t be brought to a halt just so they can finish an essay. Bending the very laws of physics only happens in good fantasy or bad science fiction. Unless you got there with Clarke’s adage ‘Any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic’. If some kind of time vortex sucked me back to thirteen century Rome, I’d be burned at the stake just for the possession of a cellphone.

  Those Christians just love burning women alive and people ask me why are you an atheist, the question should be reversed, why are you not an atheist. Do you have a secret hankering to burn women alive? No, instead of burning people alive, now they just go after the most marginalized of targets. Their favorite target at the moment are trans people. I would gladly renounce my atheism if for Jesus’s second coming he came back as black trans woman, I’d sign up for Christianity in a heartbeat. It would be some much fun watching them all backpedal their bigotism.

  Anyway the point is the reason I was late was because I had to remind the writers not to be late. Yes of course I see the irony in that, I was an editor. Yes I definitely can recognize irony. Besides I knew that Lucy would be early, because Lucy is dependable to a fault.

  Lucy and Zoe were behind the register, Lucy was teaching Zoe to ring up a sale while their customer waited patiently. It wasn’t a townie, so maybe a tourist staying somewhere in town. The other tourists we get are the bus tourists, just here for the day, usually to tour one or more of the Olympic sites, but they come in groups of fours or fives almost always. Like the tourists don’t want to stray too far from their herd.

  I said good morning to both of the women, after the customer. I asked Zoe if she thought she could handle it alone for twenty minutes while Lucy and I went to the bank. I told her if she got a video order just to write down what books were needed and the shipping address and then I’d handle pulling the order when we returned from the bank.

  We were only gone for twenty minutes but Zoe had managed to rack up three video orders in that short a time.

  “Zoe, here’s your check for all of the books, I’m sorry you had to wait for it. Do you think it would do your van any harm driving to the boat house on the lawn?”

  “No I think it would be fine Laura, but didn’t you want to wait until the roof was repaired.”

  “Yeah, it was repaired this morning, so you two go move as many of the books as you can but please come back around five minutes to eleven. I have a meeting with a TV producer at eleven.”

  “Sure Laura,” was Lucy’s cheerful reply.

  While they were doing that, I pulled two of the orders then packed one of the orders and finished it with shipping labels. The third order I left untouched so that Lucy could show her what exactly to do from start to finish.

  At five minutes to eleven Lucy was back. Holy crap she was as precise as Anais. I was going to ask her how she managed to do that, but then I thought that asking that might be rude. I should just ask Anais, I didn’t care if I was rude to Anais but I also didn’t want Anais to know that I was intrigued by her extreme punctuality. It was a dilemma.

  “Where’s Zoe?”

  “She’s still at the boathouse, she only has about ten more boxes to move in and she said that she didn’t mind doing it on her own. I told her to leave all the doors and windows open to let the place air out, we have really low humidity today so if we get a little breeze, it should dry out. Are you going to get a dehumidifier?”

  “I’m not sure, Lucy. I’d rather not use a lot of electricity to dry out the place if I can just air the place out on nice days. Global warming is a real threat, even if you weren’t one hundred percent sure, if you had kids you wouldn’t want them to have to live in a hellscape. That’s why I can’t believe these climate deniers unless they are single and only care about themselves. Besides, who knows how long we’ll actually be storing books out there. With any luck, Urge will do a good business this weekend, and we can refill her with books from the boathouse. If you get any customers looking for nonfiction while Urge is here, just send them out to Urge and let Phoebe help them, she is going to be sending fiction readers our way if she doesn’t have what the customer wants or if he demands new. She’ll be doing the same thing with Willow for nonfiction. Phoebe is working on a percentage of sales so Willow wants as many sales to go through Urge as possible especially while it is sitting here. Phoebe will have a video link, so it’ll almost be like having a third bookstore in the mix.”

  ***

  Roberta Dalgaard arrived fashionably late around a quarter past eleven, a woman after my own heart. She was a pretty well dressed middle aged woman, I don't know if she needed the glasses that hung around her neck, or if they were just a pair of cheater glasses. I had looked her up online, after I found out who was running the Baking show. She was old money rich. According to Wikipedia it was her great grandfather that made the family fortune, and all his offspring since have been trying to spend it. I wondered if the 'Superb Lake Placid Bake Off' was another attempt to waste money or her attempt to prove to the world that she wasn't the wastrel the rest of her family was.

  “Laura, I’m Roberta, you are to walk me through the grounds. The mayor says you are some kind of hippy. Well, I don’t want any trouble, no protests, no sit-ins, nothing, do you understand or your mayor isn’t getting his million dollars for the town’s parks and recreation department. The mayor also said that your cook is going to act as a judge, well I’ll need to meet her to see if she is suitable. I highly doubt it if she is the cook for some kind of weird commune. At least it’s not as dirty as I thought it would be.”

  Her phone rang and she picked it up immediately, and she began berating whoever it was she was on the phone with.

  She has no idea how lucky she is that I am a pacifist. I could take all the insults just fine until she started on Amy. A woman who devoted her life to helping the people of Essex county. I was planning in my mind just what I was going to say to the mayor. Where he could shove this ridiculous contest. But then I thought about the writers counting on that discount and Phoebe working on commission and I gritted my teeth. Yeah, I’d do it for them, but not without a quick renegotiation, if he was getting a million dollars to use my land, I would get a two year no property tax deal or no way were we going forward.

  Then she was snapping her fingers at me, like I was a dog she was teaching to heel. It’s only ten days and if I can get the writers, no property tax for two years it’ll be worth it.

  “The grounds woman, take me to see the grounds.”

  Well, I may not like her, but I can definitely have some fun with her.

  “Umm, it’s so nice to meet you Roberta.” I adopted my frailest of old ladies walks, it was painfully slow, for me. But painfully frustrating for Roberta. After we were about half way to the door, I abruptly turned back to the counter. “Ohh, I forgot my phone.” Lucy looked up from the video terminal and I winked at her. I managed to take more than five minutes just getting out the front door. Roberta was so red in the face, I was afraid she might have a stroke. That’s when Zoe came cruising back across the lawn into the parking lot with her van.

  She sprang from the van, her clothes a dirty mess after moving all of the boxes of old books. Spiky white hair, not sure if it is dyed or she went prematurely gray, had not endeared her to Roberta but was growing on me. A woman stepped out of the front passenger seat.

  “Mother is everything alright, you are going to be late for golf with the county executive if we don’t leave right now.”

  “Bobby I don’t give a good damn about the county executive, call right now and cancel. I don’t have any time for nit wits most especially not that nit wit. I need to tour these grounds, decide where the tent should go and meet this judge that the mayor has hoisted on me. Now you take an uber back to the office and get to work on that paperwork. I want it ready when I get there after I finish up here, do you hear me? Chop Chop.”

  The poor woman gave me a tight smile and nodded her head at me before fleeing the area. Wow, that poor woman. I might be able to listen to this woman's abuse for ten days, but how, how could a daughter live through a lifetime of that kind of abuse? If this were a mystery this woman would probably be found dead within the first thirty pages. It’d be a tough case to solve too, I wonder if there is any person this woman hasn’t treated like dirt. If you wanted a suspect you’d just have to ask, did you know Roberta? Just knowing her would be a strong enough motive. Then why didn’t you kill her?

  Then something odd happened, I felt like the grinch who had grown a heart. Roberta isn’t just making everyone else’s life miserable, she is miserable herself. She couldn’t possibly have any friends and if her daughter is any indication there is no love lost with her own family. Maybe the reason that she is so dead set against hippies and communes is because that is exactly what she secretly longs for. When you look at her from that point of view, she just becomes a tragic figure, like King Lear, but still firmly in charge. I dropped the frail old lady act

  “You know, Roberta, you’d get people to work a lot harder for you if you stopped barking orders at them and snapping your fingers like you were some old dog trainer. I’ve got a contract that states that I get paid whether this show gets made or not. So from now on if you want any cooperation from me or my staff, you will treat us with respect. If my dear friend Amy is not a judge, then my contract with the mayor lets me back out and still get paid. You are on my property, get it, if you want to use it, change your behavior or get the hell out. What you know about hippies or communes probably couldn’t fill a paragraph. Get it Lady?”

  “Got it. I’m sorry, I’m stressed and when I’m stressed, I act even worse than I normally do. The caterer backed out yesterday right after the venue canceled. It’s the strangest thing the caterer claims that I canceled them in an angry email, the venue claims I called and swore at them, told them I was suing them.”

  “Hmm, so I really was the mayor's last chance, that’s good to know. Alright tell me what you need and I’ll see what I can do to help.”

  So I showed her around the grounds, I dropped my limp and then we went upstairs so she could meet Amy. She wasn’t charming, I could see she was still extremely stressed out, but she stopped being nasty. So I could live with that. But the mayor was still going to be getting a visit, from myself and my attack dog of a disbarred lawyer, Anais.

  The kitchen smelt wonderful, Amy was baking a couple of pies, two pies sat on the table cooling as two more baked in the oven.

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  “Amy, this is Roberta, she’s running the Bake Off and wanted to meet you before the party on Friday night. Do you know anyone that could cater for her?”

  “That’s pretty short notice, what’s the menu?”

  “Roberta, what’s the menu?”

  “At this point it could be anything. Maybe pastries and champagne, fancy cookies. Bobby already has the champagne on order that is supposed to arrive tomorrow.”

  Eve walked with a coffee cup in hand, writer fuel. But then she saw Roberta and smiled. That was an unexpected reaction.

  “What are you doing here you old battleax, you’ll need to find a new divorce attorney, I’m retired.”

  “Eve, oh my god, what are you doing here? I heard you had moved to Lake Placid.”

  “I started my second career, all thanks to Laura here, but what are you doing here Roberta, giving up on high society, ready to move into our writers collective to write your memoirs. Wait, are you running the baking show? We are pretty sure that it is a trademark nightmare if you don’t change that title.”

  “Eve, that is the title the network stuck us with, I had no say whatsoever in the title, but at least I have full control over the rest. But someone is out to sabotage it before it has even begun. Maybe you could work a little attorney magic?”

  “Sorry Roberta, I really am, but I have my hands full writing. But I’ll be out to watch the baking for sure. Too bad Amy couldn’t be a contestant, she’s as good as any patisserie in Boston. Well, it was really nice to see you, and I’ll see you during the filming,but I need to get back to writing. Laura and Amy, they'll have you sorted out in no time. If someone is trying to sabotage you, hire Laura, she will figure out who it is faster than the cops ever will.”

  “I never would have expected to see Eve in a writer’s collective, she was a real powerhouse attorney in Boston.”

  “She’s done very well here, she cleared two young women from serious consequences, one was arrested for murder.”

  “Laura, you caught the killer, that was a big help towards clearing her name as well.” Amy volunteered.

  “Amy is there anyway that you would bake some pastries and maybe some finger foods for the contest. It pays ten thousand dollars, but you’d need to hire a couple of servers, because as a judge you’ll be expected to attend the party.”

  “How about if I make Profiterole, Chouquette, Mille-feuille, Strudel, Baklava, Cannoli, and some mini muffins and butter cookies.”

  “That would be lovely, it was very nice meeting you Amy, I’ll be back on Friday, but here is my card if you have any problems or need anything, anything at all just call.”

  Then I walked her back to her car.

  “Laura, do you think you could help me? I’d like to hire you. It’s hard enough trying to get a TV show going on a budget, but with someone actively working against me, I just don’t know if I’ll be able to pull it off.”

  “I’m not a professional investigator, Roberta, I’m an editor and a bookseller.”

  “Yeah and a frail old woman with a limp, you are a great many things, Laura. Will you think about it, and at least just keep a really close eye on anything Bake Off related here on your property?”

  “Sure I can do that, but you can’t hire me, I’m having a cashless summer, so just think of me as a friend who’ll keep an eye out for anything untoward regarding the Bake Off.”

  “What’s a cashless summer?”

  “It is three months of not buying anything, I refuse to participate in an economy lorded over by a corrupt administration.”

  “You really are a hippie? Well at least you are a democrat.”

  “I really think of myself more as a socialist.”

  “So does Bernie Sanders but he still votes with the democrats.”

  ***

  “So Anais do you want to meet me at the mayor’s office? In say ten minutes?”

  I hung up the phone and told Lucy, I’d be back in a little while, Zoe was out in the boathouse sorting through the books we had stored out there. She was looking for any cookbooks, baking books anything at all related to cooking like biographies of famous cooks or even restaurants, when Lucy and her had tried sorting through the books while they sat in har van they found a couple of boxes full of cookbooks, but they had also come across "Sardi's: The Story of a Famous Restaurant". I’m not a foodie but this is a book I'm definitely reading before it goes onto Urge to be sold to another customer interested not just in a famous restaurant but New York theater culture.

  “Lucy, I have to go to town hall, I shouldn’t be long, but before I go, go out and tell Zoe I thought of something else the audience for the Bake Off might be interested in reading, books about television. Anything and everything that is related to the entertainment industry. That Sardi’s book made me think of it. Even novels like Eat Pray Love, when I come back, you can go out there and help her.

  We will need book ends for Urge’s bookcases. Normally you can't put any books on top of the book cases because as soon as you started to move the bus, everything not secured inside the bookcases by those wooden slats would at the very least fall on the floor and make a mess to clean up for the driver. But with Urge parked here for ten days we can treat her just like an ordinary stationary store. So we pile the top shelf of each bookcase, with the books that we think might appeal to a group of people interested in a cooking show.

  We will be overfilling the bus and we might have to remove books and put them back into storage, but with any luck, we’ll sell enough books over the ten days to at least equal the amount that we over fill. So Lucy ran to the boathouse to fill in Zoe, on the new strategy. I had Zoe and Lucy doing this job because I knew I’d be terrible at it, not just because they are stronger, faster and have more energy. But because I’d have to look over each book, books are way too distracting to me.

  Like other people can just keep doomscrolling, I could browse books all day. Even books I wouldn’t read if you paid me, like John Norman's Gor novels, I’d still pick up each one of the novels, check out the cover art, read the blurb on the back. I wouldn’t be able to help myself. The ones I was actually interested in reading like that book on Sardi’s, I couldn’t stop myself from opening it, scanning the foreword, maybe the introduction. I see a book and I want to know more about it.

  Every book is a puzzle, will I be able to discover what the author meant for me to learn, whether they set out to purposely inform me about a subject or if they subconsciously included interesting information, to be discovered by the perceptive reader. The better written the book, the better chance I’ll have of solving the puzzle. What did this author really mean?

  ***

  Anais was waiting out front of town hall, she must have just come because her foot was not tapping impatiently when I arrived. I explained what I learned from Roberta, Anais just nodded her head. We went in and went directly to the mayor’s office. Cherie, the mayor’s gatekeeper, asked if we had an appointment.

  “No, Cherie, we don't have an appointment. He didn’t see the need to make an appointment to speak to me on Monday at my store, so why exactly should I have to make an appointment to speak to him on a Wednesday at his office.”

  Cherie didn’t think that statement deserved a reply so instead she got up and knocked on the mayor’s door then let herself in, closing the door behind her so we couldn’t hear what was said. She came back out about thirty seconds later.

  “I’m sorry but the mayor has a full schedule, but he very much wants to speak with you, he asked me to make an appointment for you early next week.”

  “Early next week is going to be too late, Cherie, are you sure that he doesn’t have something today or tomorrow?”

  Cherrie made a show of flipping through a day planner on her desk.

  “No he is fully booked through the weekend, Laura, the earliest appointment I can make for you is Monday at three pm, would that work for you?”

  “First off Cherie, why is the town wasting money on day planners and computers. Computers are expensive but they do a multitude of things like replacing dayplanners. Secondly, since Mr High and Mighty Mayor is so slammed with work that he can’t spare time for a constituent please give him this.” I pulled out the contract I had with the mayor, actually a copy of the contract, just in case this didn’t work out as well as I hoped it would. I ripped it into eight equal sized pieces, careful not to let any of the pieces fall onto the floor. “Oh and Cherie, when you give him that you can also tell him that the deal is off. Thanks for the help. Let’s go, Anais.”

  We exited the office as quickly as possible, but instead of moving toward the front door, I dragged Anais into the ladies room. It wasn’t too long before I heard some pounding of heels on the floor, fading into the distance. Then we exited the ladies and started toward the front door. When we had almost reached the entrance, a winded looking Cherie came bursting through the door.

  “The mayor wants to see you now.”

  “Well Cherie, tell his honor when he has time to stop by my store. I have a load of books to sort through. Want to help Anais?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Then we exited the building and walked back to the store.

  “Laura, why didn’t you go back and just talk to him?”

  “Because now Anais we’ll have the home field advantage.”