The Precipice (7 page)

Chapter 8

A
s expected, Tony and all of his staff were bustling about the kitchen in preparation for the evening’s dinner, a clambake on the beach. She watched for a while as Tony skillfully chopped several vegetables as quickly as she had ever seen a hand, with a knife in it, move. The movement was mesmerizing. He looked up to see her watching him. He paused and chuckled. “Elizabeth, check out my new knife.” Tony held out his latest gadget for her to see more closely. “Believe it or not, the blade is made of ceramic, but it is incredibly sharp. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anything sharper.” Quite a testimonial considering how long Tony had been a chef. He demonstrated its sharpness on a nearby tomato. He sliced it in half with very little effort, using only one hand. Elizabeth was impressed. Of course, she wasn’t much of a cook, but she had tried to slice tomatoes before and usually struggled to get consistently sized slices. She usually ended up with a mushy mess when she finished. She probably could use a decent knife to do a better job. Elizabeth looked up from Tony’s neat line of tomato slices to look directly into his face. She blinked when she saw his expression. He was enjoying his new gadget far too much. His eyes had a strange, sinister look. Tony put down his tool. “What can I do for you, Lizzi?” He always had a moment for Elizabeth. Upon hearing that she needed a little something for a late lunch, he skillfully pulled together a lobster wrap, to Elizabeth’s delight, accompanied by a fresh fruit salad, including some of Maine’s wild blueberries, and a sparkling water. She was thrilled. Tony’s lobster roll was the best she had ever tasted. Of course, it should not be confused with lobster
salad
roll that has mayonnaise in it, possibly even small pieces of diced celery. True New England lobster roll was simply generously sized chunks of lobster slathered in butter and nestled in a soft, fresh hot dog roll, slit along the top. Tony probably added a special ingredient or two. She could travel up and down the rocky coast of Maine and not find better lobster roll. Elizabeth preferred hers in a wrap.

With her boxed lunch in hand, she headed out through the lobby, giving a nod to Rashelle, who was busy with guests at the front desk. They appeared to be husband and wife with two little girls in tow. The man was not very tall, a bit dumpy with drooping shoulders, brown, curly hair. The wife seemed like a church mouse, with straight, shoulder-length, brown hair, parted in the middle. The girls looked to be less than five years old and very close in age with brown curly hair, like their father’s, that bounced softly on their shoulders with just the slightest movement. The younger one turned to see who was crossing the lobby. Elizabeth looked back as she reached the door, catching her eye. Elizabeth smiled gently. In a strange way, the younger girl reminded her of herself.

Picking up a folding chair from the front porch and tucking it under her arm, Elizabeth headed down the broad front steps, across the circular drive in front of the inn. She noted that her car was still parked at the top of the curve, and she would have to try to remember to move it later. It was time to get some ideas down on paper and get Vera off her back.

As Elizabeth set off across the front lawn toward the path in the woods toward the lighthouse, Tony was sending a staff person to deliver a bottle of red to Mrs. Leibowitz. Elizabeth noticed a couple of guys from the kitchen staff were headed across the front lawn to the left of her, toward the stairs to the beach. The beach side of the peninsula was accessed via a set of wooden stairs that were installed years ago. The steps washed out from time to time, usually during the occasional hurricane, and required constant maintenance. They were configured so that you descend about a dozen or so steps, reach a landing, turn and descend another dozen steps in the opposite direction, and repeat this pattern several times before you reach the sandy beach below. As long as you didn’t look down in the process, it wasn’t too scary.

On nights of a barbecue or a clambake on the beach, Tony and his staff went the extra effort to transport everything necessary for dinner from the kitchen down to the beach. Sometime during the summer, someone rigged a primitive pulley system to send down as much as possible, everything that will fit in a wooden box measuring three feet by four feet. The rest was carried by hand down the stairs. Since it is so labor intensive, only a couple of beach barbecues were planned per month. The guests really seemed to enjoy them, though. Tony and his staff dug a pit in the sand and roasted corn on the cob still in the husks and steamed native Maine lobsters over coals. He rounded out the meal with coleslaw, homemade rolls, and scrumptious pies made with Maine raspberries or blueberries depending upon which berry was in season at the time. Tonight’s pie would be raspberry. Some of the raspberries were from Nana’s garden and the rest were from a local farmer who delivered to the inn on a regular basis. Elizabeth loved raspberry pie. It reminded her of when she was little and her grandmother would send her out to the garden to pick some berries. Little Lizzi usually ate more than she brought back to the inn, but her grandmother never seemed to mind.

Grown-up Elizabeth needed to get focused and head for a quiet place to get some work done. She reached the path that led to the lighthouse and headed down it, as she had done so many times before. On the way through the woods she could hear rustling sounds. She kept her eyes forward trying desperately to ignore what was happening deeper in the woods. She kept telling herself it was just squirrels playing. Nothing more. She covered the half mile distance to the bluff very quickly. Once there, she plunked down her drawing supplies and her lunch, freeing up her hands to unfold the old fashioned lawn chair that was woven with faded yellow and white fraying strips of vinyl. A throwback to the seventies when yellow was the happy color. She situated herself facing the railing, looking out to sea. She was anxious to get some ideas down on paper so she let her lunch lay untouched in favor of the drawing pad. Vera often scoffed at her use of paper and pencil, calling it an archaic practice in the modern world of technology. Elizabeth, however, felt a certain sense of control with a pencil in her hand and found her creative juices flowed more easily. So she often plodded right along using her old fashioned equipment, in spite of her boss’s objection. It was hard for Vera to criticize too loudly when she saw the design creations Elizabeth produced.

Elizabeth had already envisioned the lobby of Drescher’s newly renovated luxury hotel with magnificent panels of rich fabric draped from the ceiling and from random points high up on the walls. She quickly decided the panels should be loosely woven to allow air flow and be constructed of a heavy duty faux silk that could be removed periodically to be cleaned. Always the practical one, Elizabeth was. The fabric would look luxurious, but would also help to absorb sound which was important in a public space like this three-story lobby. She sketched what she was picturing in her mind’s eye onto the pad of paper on her lap. Before long, she slid down in her chair, pulling her knees toward her body, bracing her heels on the edge of the chair, converting her legs into a makeshift easel on which to rest her paper. After several quick sketches of the fabric panels from different perspectives, she turned her attention toward the front desk, the concierge station, the bell hop’s stand, skillfully drawing each one with rich Italian marble counters, dark mahogany wood walls with antiqued brass fixtures and soft lighting. Next she focused on the furniture. She was picturing upholstered chairs and loveseats with clean, contemporary lines arranged in conversation clusters throughout the lobby. No particular color palette had crossed her mind yet, but she would just put that question in the back of her mind to work on while she kept going with this. Nice thing about the subconscious. If she was ever on overload or really didn’t have time to work out a problem at the moment, she tucked it back in and checked back later to see what she had come up with. It was amazing how well it worked. Obviously her subconscious had been putting time in on this lobby because she was surprised at how easily the plan was coming to her.

Now, to turn her attention to individual guest rooms. In a hotel of this stature, they would all be suites and each floor would have a different design style, perhaps with an international flair. She was on a roll and didn’t want to stop sketching before she had put down on paper, everything that was spilling out of her imagination. Her late lunch would have to wait a little longer. Her stomach growled a noisy protest, but she pressed on. As her grandmother always said, “strike while the iron is hot.” As a youngster it took her a while to figure out what she meant by that, but as an adult, Elizabeth not only understood the cliché, she lived by it.

After about an hour of fluid arm movements, Elizabeth had produced a couple dozen detailed drawings. A few discarded pages lay at the base of her chair, scrunched up into balls. She took a deep breath and exhaled a long, loud sigh. It was time for a break. Her body was starting to send a more desperate signal for food, the beginnings of a headache. Good thing she had eaten a late breakfast or else she never would have lasted this long before eating. She began with the sparkling water to quench the thirst in her parched throat, and then she eagerly opened the sandwich and fruit salad. What a treat. While her taste buds delighted in the succulent lobster and the sweet crunch of the fruit salad, she breathed in the fragrances of nature by the sea, closing her eyes and enjoying the sounds of the seagulls, playfully floating on the air currents above her. After a few minutes of nature’s serenade, she slowly opened her eyes and her gaze fell on the railing in front of her. Beyond the railing, she noticed a figure standing on the breakwater, near the lighthouse on the right side. It looked like Chief Austin. His hands were on his hips and he seemed to be gazing out to sea. Perhaps in a reflective mood. He had a lot to ponder. A lot to sort out. She watched him start to pace back and forth as if waiting for something. Elizabeth slowly stood from her lawn chair, a squeak reminding her of its age. Reaching her left hand forward to grasp the railing, she furrowed her brow. What was he up to?
She watched for a while longer, with a feeling she shouldn’t take her eyes off the scene. Suddenly, the chief started to make his way down toward the water. Elizabeth shifted her gaze slightly and noticed a figure emerging from the water. Someone in a wet suit, complete with an oxygen tank, mask and flippers. In the frigid waters of coastal Maine, such an outfit was necessary in order to spend any time underwater.

Elizabeth was holding her breath, waiting to see if the diver had found anything. The black rubber skinned individual was speaking to the chief, gesturing with his or her hands. From the distance, she was observing from on the bluff, it was hard to tell if the diver was a man or a woman. Suddenly, she took in a quick breath and started breathing again.

It was time for a closer look. She couldn’t tell what was going on from way up there. But she couldn’t very well lug all of her paraphernalia with her so she shoved the drawing pad and pencils in the portfolio and folded up the gaudy yellow and white striped lawn chair. Grabbing one in each hand, she glanced down and noticed the remnants of her lunch; the parchment paper from her sandwich, the clear plastic take-out box from the fruit salad, the green water bottle and the white cardboard picnic box in which they all had traveled. Absentmindedly, she shook her head. There was no way she was going to leave that mess behind. That would violate what was, in her mind, the eleventh commandment; thou shalt not litter in the pristine state of Maine. She put down her load and quickly gathered her litter, placing all the loose items inside the box. Tucking the box under her left arm, she picked up the chair and portfolio again and looked around, assessing the area near her to see where she could stash her stuff for the time being. A large tree on the far side of the clearing, just a few feet into the woods, would suffice. She quickly stepped behind the towering conifer and leaned her things up against it, freeing her to move quickly and quietly, down the trail to the lighthouse.

Elizabeth headed back onto the path. She wished she could break into a light jog to get there more quickly. Unfortunately the trail did not lend itself to that. You had to be careful where you stepped. After the bluff, the path became narrower and was riddled with tree roots that could easily catch a toe and send you airborne, landing you on your face. There were also branches that protruded into the path to grab onto when navigating down the steep slope that descended to the breakwater.

Elizabeth paused for a moment to peer through the pines toward the lighthouse. The diver was no longer talking to the chief. He was not even in sight. For that matter, the chief wasn’t there either. Suddenly, she heard voices below her on the path. They were heading up the hill! Elizabeth quickly slipped off the path to the left into the trees growing on the side of the hill. She grabbed onto the trunks of small pine trees as she went. Each step put her further away from the path. She could hear the voices getting closer. They were both male. Maybe she could glean something from their conversation as they passed. She squatted to try to stay out of sight and took hold of the trunk nearest her to steady herself. She looked down to find herself on a steep incline huddled up to a small pine tree. There were footsteps on the dirt path. They were close. She held her breath and listened, hoping she was successfully concealed. It would be embarrassing if she wasn’t. Then it got quiet; no footsteps and no voices. Even the gulls overhead were quiet.
What was going on?
The idea to hide in the trees was starting to seem foolish. Then the conversation began again. The feet weren’t moving, though. The Chief must have needed a breather. Only the extremely fit can make it up the hill from the light without getting winded.

“Look, Chief. This is getting us nowhere. Precious time is slipping away from us. We need to close down the entrance to the inn. No one gets out until we figure this out.” Elizabeth stifled a gasp.