While the two men sat at my dining room table enjoying a beer after their long drive, I had filled them in on the most current scuttlebutt around town: Emily’s purchase of the old Rawley Mansion; the latest round of infighting among the town’s Festival Committee members; MacKintyre Sullivan’s new book landing on the bestseller list. I promised to make homemade pizza for them sometime over the weekend since they’d called from the road to say they’d built up a powerful craving for pizza.
Odd cravings could happen when you hung out with a bunch of fishermen all week. Pizza was fairly normal, compared to some hankerings Dad had come up with in the past. The pizza request reminded me of some of his funny old sayings, or truisms, as he called them. One of his favorites went like this: building a house is like building a pizza. It took skill and artistry, the right tools, and strong wrists to pound nails into wood—or throw dough up in the air.
It wasn’t the smoothest of axioms, especially the part about artistry, but it worked for him.
The thing was, not only had Dad signed this house and his business over to me after he suffered that mild heart attack five years ago, he had also turned over to me his longtime ritual of making homemade pizza. Once the task was safely passed on to the next generation, namely me, he was lavish in his praise of my culinary abilities. Oh, I knew I made a good pizza, but he liked to lay it on thick because he never wanted to have to make one for himself again.
I pushed the diner door open and was greeted with shouts of welcome along with the savory smells of bacon and warm syrup. I suddenly craved something yummy, even though I’d promised myself a healthy bowl of oatmeal.
“Over here, honey,” Dad said, and scooted closer to the wall to make room for me in the booth he shared with Uncle Pete. Cindy the waitress arrived seconds later to pour a hot cup of coffee for me.
“Thanks, Cindy,” I said, smiling at her. Today her name tag handkerchief corsage was a lacy floral concoction, which covered half her chest. If they were handing out prizes at a waitress convention, Cindy would win the corsage-name-tag competition hands down.
“You know what you want, hon?”
“I’ll need a few seconds.” I frowned at her. “I had my mind made up until I came inside and smelled bacon.”
“Rocky’s French toast is excellent today,” she said with an evil wink before walking back to the front counter.
“Great,” I muttered. So much for my noble attempt to start the day with a healthy breakfast. Cindy knew my weaknesses and exploited them gleefully.
A minute later, she was back to take my order of French toast, a side of bacon, and a fruit bowl. The fruit bowl was my nod to healthiness. It was a pitiful little nod, but it was enough to let me enjoy the rest of my order without feeling too guilty.
While I drank my coffee, Dad and Uncle Pete filled me in on all the latest happenings around town. It was mystifying how two men could go away for a week and come back knowing so much more about my neighbors than I did.
“Have you seen Jesse lately?” Dad asked, referring to Jesse Hennessey, the man who’d been our next-door neighbor for almost as long as I’d been alive. Most mornings, Jesse could be found sitting at the end of the counter reading his paper and nursing the one blessed cup of coffee he was allowed to drink each day.
“Cindy says he hasn’t been in here in a few days,” Uncle Pete added.
I glanced at the counter where Jesse usually sat and realized I hadn’t seen him recently, either. “I hope he’s not sick.”
Uncle Pete wiggled his eyebrows. “Maybe he’s shacked up with his little sweetie.”
I almost choked on my coffee. “What’re you talking about? There’s no little sweetie shacked up at Jesse’s house.”
Pete shrugged. “So maybe he goes to her place.”
“We’re talking about Jesse, right? He doesn’t have a girlfriend,” I assured them. “I would know.”
“But he told us all about her,” Dad said. “She’s supposed to be a hottie.”
Good grief, Jesse Hennessey was seventy-seven years old. What was he doing with a hottie? “You know how he likes to embellish the truth. Maybe this is one of those times.”
“Could be,” Dad admitted. “I know he’s told some whoppers in his time.”
As I sipped my coffee, I started to feel a little less certain. “I guess he could be dating someone, but I’ve never seen another car next door. He rarely has visitors. I would notice.”
Uncle Pete shrugged again. “He’s a private guy. Might not want the neighbors talking.”
Private didn’t come close to describing my neighbor. Paranoid was more accurate. He’d always been a bit of a conspiracy theorist and Jane and I used to be amused when he’d claim that people were watching him. But in the last few years, I had to admit he’d grown to distrust everyone except for his niece Jane, who was one of my best friends. Especially when it came to business and money. I liked to think he trusted me, too, but he’d never introduced me to his hottie girlfriend—if the woman even existed, which I doubted. I would have to ask Jane about her.
“Shannon might be right, Pete,” Dad admitted. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find out Jesse was pulling our legs. He’s always liked the ladies well enough, but he likes his privacy more.”