A Tangled Yarn Page 4

  “Yes, everything is fine,” I said in my best impression of a light tone. “I already had some early arrivals.”

  “Oh,” she said with concern. “I hope you made them wait until you were ready for them.”

  I didn’t want to admit the truth. Then she’d give me a lecture about being in control of the situation. It was complicated. I knew she was ultimately on my side, but she also wanted me to do things her way. I also knew it was absurd that at thirty-five, I was still battling with her over the direction of my life. Why couldn’t we be two adults having a discussion in a nonemotional manner? I vowed not to react to what she’d said and changed the subject.

  “Let me tell you about one of my retreat people. Maybe you can give me your professional opinion.” I could picture my mother in one of her countless pants suits, wearing dangling earrings and sitting up straighter as I described what my last arrival was wearing and the reason she’d given. “Is being allergic to the sun a real thing?” I asked.

  “I’m not a dermatologist, but you know I believe doctors should know about the whole body and not just their little corner of specialty. So, yes,” my mother said, before going into how victims got rashes on exposed skin. “Was she completely covered?” my mother asked. I thought back to the hat, the blouse and the skirt. Just as I pictured the woman’s hand as she took the tote bag, my mother asked if she was wearing gloves.

  “No. I remember noticing her manicure as she picked up her tote bag.”

  “Was there a rash on her hand?” my mother asked, and I said no. “Well, then my opinion is that she is not really allergic to the sun. Was she asking for special treatment because of it?”

  I thought it over and recalled how she’d asked me to check her in and how I’d escorted her to the building her room was in, things I didn’t normally do. “Now that you mention it, she did.”

  “She could be one of those needy types. You’ve told me that some of the people who come to your retreats are looking for some kind of transformation. I’d recommend not giving in to her anymore.” I was shocked at how this conversation had turned out. We were actually just two adults having a discussion. At least for the moment.

  “You listened to what I said about the retreats,” I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

  “Of course I did, Casey. Just because I wish you were more settled doesn’t mean I don’t listen to what you have to say.”

  Here we go, I thought. Settled was code for “married,” preferably to Sammy, whom both my parents loved. I should have let it go, but she’d hit my sensitive spot and I couldn’t help but react. “I know what you’re going to say next,” and repeated what she usually said at the end of our phone conversations. “When you were my age, you were a wife, a mother and a doctor, and I’m what?” I shook my head at myself. Was I really saying it for her?

  I heard her chuckle. “I guess you listen to me, too.” She told me to let her know how things turned out with the woman in the big hat and hung up.

  I tried to put the call out of my mind. I hoped my mother was wrong about Mona Riviera. Dealing with a woman with a sun allergy seemed easier than dealing with a woman making a fuss and looking for special treatment. I only hoped the rest of the retreaters would be easier. I grabbed my tin of cookies and went back to Vista Del Mar.

  If I had thought the cavernous interior of the Lodge was busy before, it was nothing compared to now. I had to thread my way through the crowd, and the din of conversations seemed magnified by the high, open ceiling. A cluster of people were impatiently hanging around my table, looking down at the sign that said registration would start at one o’clock. Scott, Olivia and Bree came through the crowd and caught up with me.

  “Wow,” Bree said, looking around before I told her that most of the crowd belonged to the writers’ conference.

  “It certainly isn’t a writers’ retreat,” Olivia said, pointing at her ear. When I’d first started putting on the yarn events, I had looked into what a retreat was supposed to be. It implied stepping away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday world to focus in on learning a skill or spending time reflecting. Basically it seemed to mean spending time someplace quiet.

  As soon as we got to the table and were set up, the group formed a line. As I began to check people in, the early birds handed out the tote bags and made sure everyone had gotten their room.

  I was besieged by problems. A woman with short knitting needles stuck in the bun on the top of her head had food allergies. A woman with a squeaky voice missed lunch and wanted to know where she could get food. The next two women had come together and they’d just seen their room.

  “Are you kidding?” the smaller, dark-haired one said. I saw her name tag had Rayanne written in red ink. “There’s no TV, no phone and the clock radio is like an antique. It’s not even digital. And the beds.” She threw up her hands. She had sharp features that reminded me of a ferret.

  “More like cots,” her friend interjected. Her name tag said DeeDee. “There has to be some kind of upgrade we can get.” She was taller, with golden highlights in her hair, and appeared softer looking than her friend. When she talked I noticed she had dimples.

  “Well, actually, no,” I began. “The sparse accommodations are part of the charm of Vista Del Mar.” I had a copy of the material I’d sent out describing the retreat, and it was very clear that the rooms were closer to a camp than a posh resort. I held it out to show them, but they ignored me.

  “Part of the charm? Says who? This is not what we signed up for,” Rayanne said.

  “We’re going to have rethink our plans.” It sounded like a threat to me, and I hesitated mentioning that Vista Del Mar was unplugged. But when I started to explain, it turned out someone else had told them. Surprisingly they were only mildly upset about that. The two women went off to the side, talking between themselves.

  In the meantime, the new male retreater moved up to the table. I’d already seen his picture so I knew who he was—besides, other than Scott, there was only one man registered for the retreat. What a contrast to the mostly older women in the group! Jeff Hunter looked to be somewhere around my age. He wore faded jeans with a dark green pocket T-shirt under a battered-looking black leather jacket that had a bunch of zippers, most of which looked jammed. He didn’t in any way resemble someone you’d think would knit. But he certainly wasn’t shy about it. He had taken out his needles while he was standing around and was clicking away.

  “I heard those two fussing,” he said gesturing toward the last pair. “You better hope they leave. If they stay, they’ll be nothing but trouble.” His needles clicked on. “Not like me. I love the idea of kicking back and chilling with my knitting.” Scott came up to him and gave him a high five.

  “My sentiments exactly. I don’t care about anything but relaxing and knitting,” one of the other women said. I wanted to hug her. I was relieved when I checked in the rest of the retreaters without any more problems, though the whole group seemed to be hanging around the table.

  Rayanne and DeeDee came back up to me. I’d already nicknamed them the Difficult Duo. “What’s this arm knitting and finger crochet?” Rayanne asked in a defiant tone, her hand on her hip.

  “Just like what it sounds like. You knit with your arms instead of needles and crochet by using your finger as a hook,” I said, repeating what my helpers had told me. “You’ll get a good idea of it at the first workshop this afternoon.” I went on to explain that I had two experts who led the yarn part of the retreats. “Crystal and Wanda are wonderful. They have different points of view that balance everything out—”

  “And we just heard someone saying that in the past not all your retreat people made it through the weekend,” Rayanne said, interrupting. She turned to the group, who were now listening with interest. “As in they die before the weekend ends.” I heard a collective sucking in of air move through them.

  “Who said that?” I asked, wondering if the early birds had said something.

  “He did. That man in the dark suit. He ought to know; he looks like an undertaker. Is that what he does? I mean, is he the local undertaker? And if he is, why is he here?” Rayanne demanded. Maybe she thought it was a rhetorical question because she continued without giving me a chance to answer.

  “He was talking to that man over there,” the dark-haired half of the Difficult Duo said. “Clear as anything I heard him talk about your first retreat and that someone had died during it and that you wouldn’t be doing them much longer so there was no reason to include them in anything he wrote about Vista Del Mar.”

  “He’s not an undertaker. He’s the manager of Vista Del Mar, and the man he was talking to is a travel writer. They were probably discussing a piece about Vista Del Mar the man was going to write.” I tried to leave it at that, but someone asked for details about the death. I was glad when Olivia stepped in.

  “The three of us all attended that retreat, and I can assure you that it had nothing to do with Casey, other than she solved the whole thing.”

  There was another intake of air by the group. “How exciting! How did you know what to do?” asked a woman wearing a long purple T-shirt covered with pictures of cats playing with balls of yarn.

  I wanted to downplay it, but I told them about my job working for a PI. I didn’t mention that it had been a temp job that lasted only a couple of weeks. “I’m still in contact with the PI I worked for, and he helped me with the investigation.” By then Bree had discovered the tin of cookies and was passing them out to the group, mentioning that I was a professional dessert chef as well.

  Pretty soon they were all talking among themselves.

  My stomach clenched. Maybe Jeff hoped the Difficult Duo would leave, but I didn’t. They would insist on a refund, and I’d have to make up the money for their rooms. No way would Kevin St. John agree to give it to them. And it would be another black mark against me with him. No, it was better to deal with them.

  “You said the workshop doesn’t start until four; what’s going on until then?” a woman with a nasally voice asked. She was overdressed in a navy blue suit and had bangs that were too short.

  “It’s your time to do whatever you want,” I began. “There’s a boardwalk that winds through the dunes.” I pointed toward the window behind me, and they all stepped closer. Beyond the wooden deck and the area called the grass circle—because it was the only spot on Vista Del Mar that had actual green grass between the trees—the beginning of the dunes was visible. “The beach is just past there.” I turned toward the other side of the Lodge. The window on the opposite wall overlooked the driveway where the airport van had let most of them off. From where we were standing, the stone pillars that marked the entrance to Vista Del Mar came into view. “If you’d like to leave the grounds, Cadbury has an interesting lighthouse.”

  I was about to give the directions when the woman wearing the cat T-shirt spoke up. “That lighthouse walk sounds great. When do we leave?”

  Apparently, she hadn’t understood that they were supposed to be on their own. “Whenever you like. That’s the thing about free time.”

  “What?” one of the Difficult Duo said. “First you tell us the first workshop isn’t for hours, and frankly you don’t seem to have many details on it, and then you suggest we wander off to some lighthouse and probably not be able to find our way back. We expected planned activities.” She left it at that, but it sounded like she was building a case to say I had deceived them about the retreat. I didn’t want to give in to her, but I didn’t want a problem, either, so I sucked it up.

  “Of course I’d be happy to escort you all.”

  4

  “Thank heavens, a friendly face,” I said. Lucinda Thornkill came through the side door of the Lodge as I was about to lead the group outside.

  “What did I miss?” she said in a concerned voice. “How much trouble could there be already? You just opened registration a little while ago.” She dropped her voice quickly, realizing the group was right behind me. I urged her to drop off her bag in her room as the rest of them had done and join us. In the sign of a true friend, she didn’t ask where we were going before she agreed.

  Lucinda was my friend and boss. She and her husband, Tag, owned the Blue Door restaurant. Like the early birds, she was a regular at my retreats. Even though she lived in town, she always stayed at Vista Del Mar. It was her chance to have a short getaway.

  “Can you tell me now?” she asked as a few minutes later we led the group up the driveway toward the street. The early birds had seen the lighthouse enough times, so they had stayed behind, glad to sit in front of the fire and knit, which made me even more glad that Lucinda had arrived when she did. Keeping my voice barely above a whisper, I explained why I was leading a walk to the lighthouse.

  “I’ve never had so many strange people come to a retreat. There were people who came too early, and then there’s those two.” I tried to gesture with my head toward the Difficult Duo, who were not far behind me. “They get the prize. So far they don’t like anything.”

  “But they just got here,” Lucinda said. “How much was there for them not to like?”

  “My point exactly.” I explained my concern about them deciding to leave and expecting a refund.

  “I’m sure glad I didn’t let Tag talk me out of coming,” Lucinda said. “Not that he really had a chance. I can only take so much before I need to get away for a few days. He was nothing like this when we first met in high school.” I knew what she was talking about. By the time she and Tag had reconnected, he’d become almost obsessive-compulsive, although he described it as keeping to standards. Countless times, I’d seen him walking around straightening the place settings at the Blue Door. As far as I was concerned, he should thank his lucky stars daily that he’d met up with Lucinda when he was a middle-aged widower and she was divorced. She kept him from going over the edge into full-blown obsessive-compulsive.

  We’d reached the open area surrounding the lighthouse, and the group spread out. The Cadbury lighthouse was different from the typical cylinder-shaped structures placed on the edge of the land. It was set back from the water and to me looked like somebody had taken one of those cylindrical lighthouses and stuck it through the roof of a regular house. But no matter how it looked, it apparently served its purpose very well. It was the oldest continuously operating lighthouse on the West Coast and had been placed on the northern tip, though not quite the edge, of the Monterey peninsula. Its job was to protect sailors who thought they’d reached Monterey Bay. The actual edge of the land was across the street. A bench sat there, near the cliff. Below, the waves crashed on the rocks.

  The area around the lighthouse was parklike and a popular stop for both tourists and locals. The ground here was covered in short grass, and several Monterey cypress trees stood guard near the white wood-sided structure. The horizontal shape of the trees’ foliage was even more extreme here than on the Vista Del Mar grounds, but then it was the wind that shaped them, and it was stronger here. I was at a loss as to what to do now that we’d gotten here. The retreaters were all adults and should be able to retrace their steps, but after the comment about getting lost, I figured I’d better hang out for a while.

  I chose one of the benches along the edge of the grassy space that had a good view of the whole area, so my people could find me. I invited Lucinda to sit, but she was already pulling out her cell phone. I noticed she wasn’t the only one. I think my group had started out with the idea of taking pictures and then noticed that they had a signal now that they were away from the dead zone around Vista Del Mar.

  “This will just take a minute,” she said. “I want to tell Tag where I went on the off chance he comes to Vista Del Mar looking for me.” She put the phone to her ear and walked away.

  With no sun to warm the air and the constant breeze, it was chilly, and I zipped up my aqua fleece jacket, glad that I’d added the cowl. As I looked over the area, I realized that I didn’t know exactly who had come along. I recognized the travel writer by his khaki cargo pants and Windbreaker, which looked straight out of a catalog for easy-to-pack clothing, as he walked toward the lighthouse. He was definitely there on his own, no doubt getting information to include in an article.

  I strained my eyes to make out the faces of Lisa and Derek on the bench on the other side of the grass. I was sure they’d come on their own, too. I watched them for a moment and noticed that Derek had binoculars around his neck. Dolly, the woman who reminded me of an opera singer, came across the grass. I waved to her, but she had her head down, probably because of the wind, and didn’t see me. I would have remembered if she’d come with the group. She stood out as being the least problematic of the bunch.

  The Difficult Duo was hanging out near the lighthouse with a small group around them. I was pretty sure that included everyone who’d been following me. It made me uneasy to see them clumped together that way. Was the Difficult Duo plotting some kind of mutiny?

  I shivered as the wind ruffled my hair. How long did I have to stay there? My gaze went back to the bench at the cliff, which I always thought of as sitting at the end of the earth. The bench had a special meaning for me. Now there was something on the ground next to it, and I felt annoyed, thinking someone had been too lazy to throw their trash away. I considered getting up and doing it myself, but then I got distracted. Someone had come up behind the bench and put their hands on my shoulders.

  “Thinking about that night, aren’t you?” a male voice said. I recognized it as Dane Mangano’s and blushed deeply, embarrassed that my thoughts were that transparent. All that had really happened was that I’d gotten lost in the moment and ended up in a very hot make-out session.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to cover.