Shore Lights (11 page)

“Any changes I should know about?” Jack asked as he flipped the enormous ledger.

Aidan pulled the laptop over to his place and opened Quicken. “We're holding our own,” he said. “Claire says don't tell her anything until the Fourth of July when the summer people come to town.”

Most shore towns sizzled from May to September, then slumbered the rest of the year. Except for the splashy B&Bs at the sound end of Main Street, Paradise Point was no exception. The B&Bs enjoyed a steady stream of visitors but not enough to make a huge difference in the town's economy. The people who stayed at the Candlelight drove Saabs and Volvos and drank designer waters. Not exactly the clientele that called O'Malley's Bar and Grill their home away from home.

Jack made a notation in the small leatherbound notebook he always carried, then leaned back in his chair. “Ever think of opening a B and B?”

“Funny,” Aidan said, “real funny. We could put them up in that room over the garage.”

“Yeah,” said Jack, flashing the grin that had cost his father the price of a 1967 Mustang, “maybe offer them warm beer and bagel chips for breakfast.”

“One bathroom, lots of waiting.”

“So it was just an idea,” Jack said. “They're not all winners, but it wouldn't kill you and Claire to think about upscaling the image a little.”

“O'Malley's isn't one of those eighties fern bars.”

“No,” said Jack, “it's more like one of those fifties places that looked outdated to our old men.”

“So you're saying we have a problem.”

“I'm saying you're going to have a problem if you don't start thinking ahead.”

“Nothing wrong with the way things are.”

“You're right,” Jack said. “O'Malley's is a terrific place, but in case you haven't noticed, things are changing around here and you're gonna have to move with the times if you want to stay afloat.”

Aidan slugged down some coffee. “I like the way you worked in that nautical metaphor.”

“Thought you would.” Jack ran a few numbers through his pocket calculator, then shook his head. “Could be better.”

“Could be worse, too.”

“Worse I don't want to think about. Better gives me something to look forward to.”

“Jeez,” said Aidan with a groan. “You're giving me your serious-accountant look.”

“It's not a joke.”

Aidan said nothing.

Jack took that as encouragement and forged ahead. “You and Claire have to start thinking about the future. You're getting by okay now, but that's not always going to be the case. This town is changing and you damn well better figure out a way to change with it or O'Malley's—”

“You don't have to spell it out.”

“Good.” Jack shut his notebook, capped his pen, and turned off his calculator. “It wouldn't kill you to start thinking a little more like Rosie DiFalco. You heard her in October at the Small Business Owners Association meeting. She got a standing O from the crowd when she said we needed to base our future on the richness of our past.”

“Gimme a break,” Aidan muttered. “Easy to say when you've got a ten-bedroom Victorian with ocean views tucked in your back pocket.”

“You've gotta admit she seems to be putting her money where her mouth is.” The transformation of her late mother's house from eyesore to showplace had been nothing short of miraculous.

Aidan wasn't willing to admit anything. There was no doubt that the town's B&Bs were doing great and that the Candlelight was doing greatest of them all. These days Rose DiFalco drove around town in a shiny new black Miata with vanity plates that read INNKEEP, and Aidan frequently found himself fighting the juvenile urge to let the air out of her Michelins. He and Rose had an adversarial relationship that had begun back when he was in high school and he'd lobbed a softball through her windshield. Rose's satin-and-lace B&B was a far cry from his gritty neighborhood bar and grill, and it was no wonder he and Rose tended to be on opposite sides of most local issues.

The success of the B&Bs had brought about a renewed interest in Paradise Point's rich history as a Gilded Age playground for wealthy families from the Main Line and Fifth Avenue. Marian Vroom, head of the Historical Society, said Web-site traffic had quadrupled since the
Star-Ledger
wrote a feature about the town's upcoming Centennial Anniversary celebration.

Needless to say the Historical Society's Web site had been Rose's idea.

Jack made a few other suggestions on how to firm up O'Malley's bottom line. Aidan agreed with most of them and promised to pass them all on to Claire.

“Tell Claire that Leah said she'll drive them to the mall Thursday night.”

Jack slipped into his heavy coat and gathered up his belongings. “Hang in there, O'Malley,” he said as he stepped out onto the back porch. “Your luck's gonna change any day now.”

“Yeah,” said Aidan. “It could get worse.”

The idea was to make his old friend laugh, but somehow his comment seemed to suck all of the oxygen out of the room. He wished he could backspace over it and start again, but life didn't come with an erase feature. Jack looked as if he was about to say something, but he shook his head instead and left without a word.

The whole thing was getting old, he thought as he threw the lock and went back to the kitchen table to power down the laptop.

 
MADDY WAS ABOUT to shut down the computer for the night when the familiar jingle of new mail sounded. Denise had promised to send her scans of some photos of the Candlelight that she had found tucked among some embroidered linens in Aunt Florence's very scary attic. They dated back to 1892 and would be a terrific addition to the local-history section of the Web site.

She toggled over to her e-mail screen and scanned the message headers.
Lose weight . . . Buy a Ph.D. . . . Become a private investigator in your spare time . . . Teapot
. A knot tangled itself deep in the pit of her stomach.

“Oh, damn,” she muttered. What if the sale was off? FireGuy or whatever he called himself might have e-mailed the seller behind her back and made an offer he couldn't refuse. It wasn't like that sort of thing didn't happen every now and again in on-line auctions. This wasn't a big operation like eBay with all sorts of rules and regulations and safeguards. This was a little mom-and-pop fund-raiser sponsored by a regional ISP and a quartet of Chambers of Commerce. If FireGuy wanted to play dirty, who could stop him? She clicked on the header and waited, holding her breath once again while the message loaded.

 
He didn't expect her to respond. Hell, he would've sent a note like his straight to the recycle bin and chalked up the sender as a total jackass. But damned if she didn't write back.

 
Paradise Point. He lived in Paradise Point? Good grief, she'd been e-mailing her private thoughts to somebody who probably wasn't a total stranger after all. How scary was that? God help her, she might even be related to him. With a screen name like FireGuy he could be one of Rose's old boyfriends or—even worse—that hideous man Aunt Lucy had dated, the one who set small appliances on fire for amusement.

So long, FireGuy. It was fun while it lasted
.

She exited the program and shut down for the night.

 
HE KEPT THE laptop connected while he served food, talked to customers, cheered an impromptu darts tournament, then helped Tommy close things up for the night. He didn't make a big deal of checking for messages, but every time he passed by the table he took a quick look at his in box just in case, and every damn time he was disappointed.

Enjoy your magic lamp, JerseyGirl
.

He hoped her kid's wishes all came true.

THE WORKDAY BEGAN before sunrise when Lucy let herself in the back door and set about whipping up breads and rolls and sticky buns that would be served warm for the guests between eight and nine-thirty. Rose was already up and about, quietly polishing the dining room furniture, laying out fresh table linens, dishes, and silver. A few minutes before seven, the luscious smells of fresh coffee and cinnamon permeated the house from first floor to third, where Maddy was struggling to climb out of bed and go wake Hannah.

One of the unexpected benefits of the transition from boardinghouse to B&B was the attention paid to the comfort of the paying guests. That attention, to Maddy's delight, spilled over onto family as well. She remembered waking up long ago Christmas mornings at Grandma Fay's in a room so cold she could see her breath. “So put on a sweater,” Grandma Fay would say when both boarders and family griped. “The boiler's older than I am, and we both take awhile to warm up in the morning.”

Was it any wonder Grandma Fay's boardinghouse saw a quicker turnover than your average hot-sheet motel?

Rose had brought the ancient heating system into the twenty-first century, along with the rest of the plumbing. Moody wiring and quirky phone lines had both been replaced by state-of-the-art setups. New windows, new paint, new wallpaper, new furniture, all of which Rose had accomplished without losing the Victorian ambience or integrity of the house.

If only the day started a little bit later . . .

Hannah squeezed her eyes shut tight when Maddy entered the child's room and gently touched her shoulder.

“School day, honey,” Maddy said, brushing a lock of hair off her little girl's cheek. “Time to rise and shine.”

“No!” Hannah pulled the pink-and-yellow comforter over her head. “Want to sleep.”

“Me too,” Maddy said, “but Grandma Rose and Aunt Lucy are downstairs making breakfast.” She paused a moment. “Can you smell the cinnamon rolls?”

Hannah wasn't buying it.

“Okay, kiddo.” Maddy peeled the comforter down over one tiny shoulder. “You have to get up, Hannah. You're a schoolgirl now. You don't want to miss the bus.”

Priscilla skidded into the room, paws sliding wildly on the polished wood floor. Hannah dived back underneath the comforter before Maddy could stop her. Priscilla barked twice, then, to Maddy's horror, a tiny puddle appeared beneath her.

Maddy swore.

Hannah burst into tears.

Priscilla's puddle grew larger.

It was going to be a long morning.

 
“I WOKE YOU up.” Claire sounded muffled and apologetic as Aidan shifted the phone from his right ear to his left.

“It's seven forty-five,” he said. “I've been up awhile.”

“I need to ask Kelly a favor.”

“You missed her by a half hour,” he said. “She has band practice on Tuesday mornings.”

Claire muttered something colorful that made Aidan wince. “My face is blown up the size of a watermelon,” she said. “I'm zonked on Tylenol with codeine. I feel like somebody stuck a cattle prod in my molar and forgot to take it out again. If you have even the slightest bit of compassion for me, your favorite sister-in-law, you'll—”

“Take Billy Jr. to the bus stop.” He couldn't count the number of times Claire had filled in for him when Kelly was little and he was working twelve-hour shifts.