The shop smelled like sawdust and new paint and the faint ghost of the lemon oil I’d rubbed into the front counter the night before when I came to do a final pass-through.Carl Jessup’s crew had done what they’d promised.The back room was sealed off with a length of butcher paper across the doorway until the floors finished curing, but the front of the house looked exactly as it had the morning I bought the place.
Chowder waddled past me toward his cushion behind the counter, his Saturday morning attire a soft sage bow tie with white polka dots.
“Don’t get comfortable yet,” I told him.“We have eggs to whisk.”
He got comfortable.
I tied on my apron over a vintage tea-length swing dress in soft cream cotton with a pattern of tiny blue teacups scattered across it, a thin red belt at the waist, and red patent leather Mary Janes.I’d pinned my hair up loosely at the crown and let the rest curl down at my shoulders.
The kitchen was a deep, sweet hush before the ovens kicked on.I lit the burners.Pulled the scone dough I’d mixed the night before from the walk-in.Set out the eggs and the cream.And put the kettle on so I could have a cup of tea in peace before things got too busy.
Friday night drifted back as I worked, the way certain evenings do when your hands are busy and the rest of your mind is free to wander.
Dash had come by at six with a paper bag of takeout from the Italian place on Lighthouse Street, a bottle of cold white wine, and the look of a man who’d decided that what I needed before opening day was someone else to do the dishes.We’d eaten on the piazza with the citronella candles burning.I’d told him about Jackie and the housekeeper and the woman Henry had supposedly been dating.He’d listened the way he always listened, which was to say with both elbows on the table and his eyes on my face and no interruption that didn’t earn its keep.
When I’d asked him what his afternoon had looked like he’d said only that he’d been catching up on paperwork at the station.He’d kissed me at the door an hour later, slow enough that I’d had to find the railing afterward, and he’d left so I could rest before the rush.
I’d lain in bed for a long time remembering the kiss.The way his hand had spread wide at my back.The way he’d waited until the very end to deepen it, like a man who’d been thinking about it all through dinner and finally let himself have it.I’d fallen asleep with my fingers pressed to my mouth and woken regretting nothing.
The first scone tray came out of the oven at five thirty, browned and singing, and I forgot about everything that wasn’t butter and steam for the next half hour.
By six I had the trays on the marble counter under their glass domes.Blueberry and lemon-glazed and the brown butter cardamom that I made only on opening days and Christmases.I’d rewritten the chalkboard menu in my best script with the day’s specials and a small drawing of a teacup that Chowder seemed to approve of.
At six twenty-eight I unlocked the front door.
The street was still dark and quiet, only the rumble of a delivery truck a few blocks over and the first faint stir of birds in the live oaks.I stood for a moment with my hand on the doorframe, breathing the soft cool air before the sun came up and the humidity settled in for the day.I’d done this same small ceremony a thousand mornings.It still meant something every time.
At six forty-five Howard Miller pushed the door open.
“Mabel McCoy,” he said.“I have been buying hot water and a tea bag from the gas station for two weeks.The gas station, Mabel.”
“First cup is on the house,” I said.“No one should have to do that.Sit down.I’ll bring it to you.Blueberry scone?”
“Please.And don’t tell my wife.”
I laughed and steered him to his usual table by the window.The one with the chair he liked because it gave him a clear view of the bookstore across the street where he could watch his own door without leaving mine.
Mrs.Pinkerton came in at seven sharp the way she always did, in a yellow cotton dress and a sun hat that hadn’t aged a day in the four years I’d been pouring her chamomile with honey.She didn’t speak.She nodded.She took her seat.She lifted her teacup to her lips and closed her eyes for one long moment and then opened them again and looked at me across the room with what I’d come to understand was Mrs.Pinkerton’s version of a standing ovation.
“I’ll take one of those cinnamon rolls,” she said.“We’ve missed you, Mabel.”
The first hour was the soft kind.Howard worked through his scone and his Earl Grey in the slow, unhurried way of a man who’d been deprived.Mrs.Pinkerton sipped her chamomile and watched the street through the front window.The mail carrier waved through the glass on her way past.Old Mr.Verlander came in for his usual black coffee and scone.
By eight the bell over the door was chiming steadily, and Carly and Genevieve worked the front while I restocked the display case.I’d missed this more than I realized, though I might change my mind once my feet and lower back started hurting.
Greta Carmichael walked in at quarter to nine in a poppy print dress and a triumphant expression I’d seen on her before.It meant she’d cracked a piece of intel and could no longer be held responsible for what she did with it.
“Mabel,” she said, “I have figured out your family friend.”
“Hibiscus tea?”
“Three sugars and don’t try to talk me out of it.Mabel, listen.”
I poured the tea.I added the three sugars and slid the cup across to her at the counter and folded my arms.
“Wainwright,” Greta said, dropping her voice to the conspiratorial level that on Greta was still audible from across the room.“Josephine Wainwright Hale.I knew that face.I knew it.Couldn’t place her because she hasn’t been back to the island in a while and the hair’s gone white, but it came to me in the middle of folding napkins last night.Henry Wainwright’s sister.”
“Greta.”
