A Tangled Yarn Page 5

  “I’m available for a repeat anytime you want,” he said in his usual teasing tone. By now he’d walked around to the front of the bench and I saw that he was in his Cadbury PD uniform and therefore on duty. But his teasing smile was all after-hours. “What brings you to our illustrious landmark?” he asked.

  Trying not to react too much to his presence, I told him about the latest group of retreaters, who were already giving me trouble. It was best that I looked away. Something happened when I looked at his face too long. The background fuzzed out and I felt some kind of magnetic pull toward him. So far, he didn’t know about my reaction, and I wanted to keep it that way. He lived down the street from me and we’d been dancing around a relationship. He was all gung ho about going forward, but I was holding back. I still wasn’t sure why, other than being concerned that it would be like a firework that burned hot—really hot—and then fizzled. Because of me, not him. And then we’d still live in the same small town where everybody loved him. And I could just imagine what everybody would think of me.

  It didn’t matter that I kept trying to keep him at arm’s length, though—he never gave up. To steer the conversation away from romance, I mentioned the bag I’d noticed by the bench. “Maybe you could find out who did it and give them a ticket for littering.”

  “Huh? You’re not exactly making any sense,” he said. I realized it was a rather awkward segue and he didn’t know what I was looking at.

  “The bag of trash somebody left,” I said. “Beside the bench.” Shoot. I was upset with myself about how I’d said the bench. My voice had warbled. I didn’t want to give away the heat I felt just thinking about that night.

  The sound of barking interrupted us, and when I looked toward it, I saw a golden retriever had come out of nowhere and was jumping all over the couple on the bench across the grass.

  “What trash?” he said, and I finally looked across the street. There was nothing.

  “I guess somebody came and picked it up,” I said.

  “I got one of the new muffins this morning at Maggie’s,” Dane said.

  “And?” I said, sitting up straighter. He was trying to get on my good side, but when it came to anything I made, I knew he would tell the truth.

  “It was delicious, but . . .” He hesitated. “I know you’re known around town for muffins, but I think you have to come up with something else to call them. How about Omelet in a Cup?” He saw my mouth slip into disappointment. “Aw, geez,” he said, sounding frustrated. “Remember I said it was delicious?” He gave my shoulder a surreptitious squeeze. “C’mon, don’t be mad at me.”

  “Of course not,” I said. He had only given me his honest opinion, which was what I’d said I wanted. I chanced a glance up at his face, and he gave me that look: a little teasing wiggle of his eyebrows and a cocky smile. I felt myself getting sucked in and quickly turned my gaze to my group as they walked toward me.

  “So that’s them,” he said. “You want me to go over there and arrest them for giving you a rough time?”

  “Ha-ha,” I said, getting up. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll manage.”

  “Well, then it’s back to patrolling the mean streets of Cadbury. Look out, jaywalkers.” He blew me a kiss and jogged back to the street.

  “Boy, has he got it bad for you,” Lucinda said when she returned from her phone call. I didn’t have to comment because by then all my people had rejoined us and we started walking back.

  Lucinda and I kept to the front again, and she told me about her phone call with her husband. “Tag is really getting nuts. You should have heard him,” she said. “He kept saying that you don’t know what’s going to happen anywhere anymore. He’s convinced there are things going on right in front of us that we don’t see because we don’t know what we’re looking at.” She shook her head, as if to trying to make the words make sense.

  I took a last look around the lighthouse. What if Tag was right and I had missed something? But what?

  5

  I had hoped for some free time to go into the café and find out the fate of my muffins, but when we got back to Vista Del Mar, I had to go right to the meeting room I’d arranged for our workshops.

  The buildings with guest rooms were spread all over the sloping grounds of Vista Del Mar, and the smaller single-story buildings with meeting rooms were sprinkled in between. The Cypress building had two meeting rooms. There was the one we were using and a much larger room on the other side. I read the sign on the door of the larger room and saw there was a travel-writing workshop starting earlier than ours.

  A number of seats in the first couple of rows in the larger room were already full. The writers didn’t realize I was there and were talking among themselves. All I heard were the words kill and perfect crime. Then I remembered they were all writers and shrugged it off.

  As I backed away, I almost tripped over Madeleine Delacorte, who was reading the sign on the door.

  “I didn’t expect you after such a long trip,” I said. “Jet lag and all.”

  “That’s what Cora said. She’s still in a snit that I went off on a trip alone. It’s disturbing to her that I have a whole new life going. She can sit around the house and go to committee meetings, but I want to be where the action is.” She did stifle a yawn before she continued. “I timed my trip so I’d be back for the retreat.”

  “Good.” I hoped it sounded more enthusiastic than I felt. I had hoped she might skip the first workshop. Between my not being that familiar with the program and the few troublemaking retreaters, there were bound to be some kinks. I would have preferred to straighten things out before Madeleine joined us.

  “Oh, there’s Don,” she said, seeing the travel writer coming up the path. He was surrounded by men and women with computer bags on their shoulders. They seemed anxious to get his attention. Most of them were carrying muslin totes that had been given out when they registered. I was surprised that Kevin St. John had left them plain instead of putting something about the writers’ conference on them.

  As the group filed past us, Don nodded in greeting to Madeleine and me. “So we meet again,” he said with a friendly smile.

  “It looks like we’re workshop neighbors,” I said, gesturing toward my half of the small building. Madeleine followed him as he stepped into our room and glanced around. Baskets of yarn were spread around the circle of chairs. But he seemed more interested in the fireplace, the window and the coffee and tea service, along with the tin of cookies I set on the counter.

  “I think I like your room better than ours.” He seemed to be joking, but Madeleine’s face clouded and I knew she was thinking of what she’d said about making sure he was happy with Vista Del Mar. “I’m just kidding,” he said when he saw Madeleine’s expression. “This room is too cheerful and cozy. They’d be too busy looking out the window, helping themselves to drinks and admiring the fireplace. I need them all looking at me.” He checked Madeleine’s expression to make sure she got that he was being facetious. I’d grabbed the tin of cookies and offered it to him, saying they were my special recipe. He took two and immediately began to nibble on them. “Too bad you can’t see it when my group is here. My yarn retreats are always filled with learning, friendship and fun.” Had I really just said that? It sounded a little forced.

  “Maybe later in the weekend. Particularly if there are more of these.” He held up what was left of the cookies as he headed to the door. “My group awaits. I need to get in there. There’s always lots of tension when they’re going to share their work and get critiqued.”

  Madeleine hesitated for just a moment before following him. “Maybe I should see what a writers’ workshop is like.”

  I couldn’t have been more relieved at her decision. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Madeleine; it was just that she required extra care. I always worried that she wouldn’t be pleased.

  The room had been set up differently than usual. My yarn helpers had suggested that instead of the table we typically had, we’d just have a circle of chairs with tablet arms.

  I walked around looking at the baskets of yarn. I picked up a skein of purple yarn. The label said superbulky. It was thicker than anything I’d ever used, but that was what Crystal had said we needed. There were balls of cotton yarn as well. I always felt keyed up at the beginning of a retreat, but this time it was even worse. I checked my watch and looked out the door to see if anyone was coming up the path leading to the building. Some late arrivals to the writers’ workshop were rushing in, but that was it.

  I glanced at my watch nervously. My two helpers, Crystal Smith and Wanda Krug, were supposed to meet me before the start of the workshop so we could go over the program before the workshop began, but I was the only one there. I looked out the window toward the path again, hoping I wouldn’t see my people already on their way. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until I let it out when I saw Crystal and Wanda approaching. It figured—they looked like they were arguing. At least none of the retreaters were around to hear them.

  If I had deliberately tried to pick two more different people to work together as a team, I couldn’t have come close to Crystal and Wanda. Crystal was all about bright colors and things that didn’t match. As she approached I saw that she had layered a bunch of shirts in yellow, aqua and orange. The only pants she wore were jeans. She let her short black hair fall naturally into tight ringlets. I couldn’t see her earrings or her socks, but I was betting neither were a matched pair. She was not into symmetry. She and her two kids had moved in with her mother when her rock-god husband had taken off with a younger woman. They ran Cadbury Yarn, though really it was her mother’s store.

  It still made me feel weird that I knew a secret about Crystal I couldn’t tell her. I wondered how she would react if she knew that Madeleine and Cora Delacorte were really her great-aunts. But it was not my secret to reveal.

  Wanda was close to her in age, but light-years away in style. When she wasn’t helping with my yarn workshops, she was a golf pro at one of the posh Pebble Beach resorts. The blue slacks and floral print top she wore were a standard outfit for her when she was co-leading one of my workshops.

  Their disagreement continued as they came into the room. “Maybe your plan will make for a memorable retreat, but you do realize there is good memorable and disaster memorable,” Wanda said. She had one hand on her hip and the other one outstretched. Whenever she did that, all I could think of was the teapot song. She turned to me. “I want you to know that I will do whatever I can to help, but I’m going on record to say I was against the idea from the start.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Crystal said, sounding a little harried. “It’s something different, and you said you wanted to broaden the appeal of the retreats. I’m telling you it will be a novelty to the people who already know how to knit and crochet and it will be a fun way to learn for the others.”

  Lucinda poked her head in. “Is it okay for people to come in?” I gathered she had heard a little of the exchange and was acting as a buffer. All I could think was how glad I was that Madeleine had chosen to go next door. Wanda’s comments were making me very nervous. It wasn’t the first time they hadn’t agreed on the plan for the retreat program, but this sounded more serious. The last thing I wanted was for Madeleine to be there if there were problems.

  “Sure, bring them in,” I said with an air of confidence that I didn’t feel. Lucinda started waving the group in. The Difficult Duo seemed subdued as they entered. Mona was still wearing her big hat and sunglasses. Dolly came after, with Lisa on her tail. Then the rest of the group trooped in, with Scott and Jeff at the end.

  Lucinda took one look at my face and leaned close. “Don’t worry. Everything will turn out okay, and one thing is for sure—the weekend will eventually end,” she added with a chuckle. I wished I felt more comforted by her remark.

  When they had all found seats and settled, I went to the front of the room. “I want to welcome you all to the yarn retreat. It’s going to be a great weekend. You’ll learn new skills and make new friends. And now let me turn things over to Crystal and Wanda. They are both wonders with yarn, and professional teachers.” I just didn’t mention that in Wanda’s case the subject was golf.

  Wanda stayed in the front only long enough to introduce herself before moving off to the side. “This is all Crystal’s baby. I’m just here to help,” she said. The subtext was clear to me. Doom was impending and it wasn’t her fault.

  Crystal seemed unconcerned with the comment and took over with confidence. Generally, the first workshop was all about everyone getting to know one another and talking about the plan for the weekend, but Crystal had a different idea. “Let’s just dive right in,” she said. “Everybody come and pick out your yarn.” She indicated the bins of superbulky-weight yarn in assorted colors in the bins behind her.

  When the retreaters all had their yarn and were seated again, Crystal started her demonstration of arm knitting. She walked around the group so everyone could watch. It looked a little odd at the beginning, when she put a slipknot on her right wrist and then did a long-tail cast on with the yarn draped over the fingers of her left hand. She was skilled at it, and in no time she had a bunch of stitches on her wrist. Then she showed the group how to actually knit, using her hand to make a loop and pull it through the stitches on her arm. She took her work apart and urged them to work along with her as she started all over again from the slipknot. But of course, they weren’t as accomplished as she was and it was awkward. I kept retrieving errant skeins of yarn as they fell from the retreaters’ laps, and there was a lot of grumbling. Loops were falling off arms and it seemed everyone was asking for help.

  And then it got worse. I glanced toward the window and saw Kevin St. John drive up in his golf cart. He often made the rounds, checking in on the first meeting of group events to welcome everyone to Vista Del Mar. I dreaded having him walk in with yarn rolling all over and the participants looking like they were wearing yarn handcuffs.

  But just as he stepped into the doorway, the woman in the big hat let out a shriek, got up and headed to the door. As she did, her feet caught on some of the yarn that had fallen on the floor and she pulled some of the skeins behind her as she ran out.

  There was chaos as everyone tried to restrain his or her yarn. In the midst of it, Dolly yelled that her bag was missing. Maybe it was in the context of what was going on around her, but she sounded almost panicky.

  “Is this it?” Lisa asked, pointing to a big canvas bag under one of the chairs. Dolly grabbed it and took it back to her seat. Did she honestly think somebody had tried to steal it?

  “With everyone getting up and down and the yarn rolling around, someone probably kicked it there by mistake,” I said, trying to smooth things over.

  Kevin St. John stood near the doorway, rolling his eyes at everything going on, and then he turned to me before he left. “I see you have everything under control.”

  • • •

  “What am I going to do?” I said, flopping in one of the empty chairs. It was just Lucinda and me in the meeting room now. Even with all the errant skeins caught and Dolly calmed down, Crystal couldn’t get the group back on track. She’d tried to move things along by going right to a demonstration of finger crochet, but she’d lost control and it was like the inmates had taken over the asylum. The comments from the group were still resounding in my head. No one was impressed when Crystal explained that once they got the hang of it, they could turn out a scarf in one workshop. She’d held up a sample, and it looked loopy and ungainly.

  “It seems stupid to use your finger when a crochet hook works so much better,” Rayanne had said. Crystal’s answer that it was different and fun had fallen on deaf ears.

  “I don’t see the point of either finger crochet or knitting with your arms,” the woman with the knitting needles stuck in her hair had said. There had been some yeahs from the crowd. Crystal was tough, but she was beginning to crack. Wanda had seemed at a loss for what to say.

  But then Lisa had made a remark that almost turned things around.

  “I think arm knitting and finger crochet could be very useful,” Lisa said. “What if you were on a desert island with no knitting needles and a bunch of yarn? You could make a canopy or a blanket and maybe save your life.”

  That’s when I’d stepped in and suggested they all help themselves to refreshments. The workshop had ended with Crystal promising to show them how to use finger crochet to make friendship bracelets.

  “What am I going to do?” I said, coming back to the present. “I’m sure everyone will remember this retreat. Crystal was at least right about that.” Then I apologized to Lucinda for burdening her with my problems. “You’re supposed to be enjoying the retreat like the rest of them.” I found another skein of yarn that had come unraveled and started to rewind it. “I forgot about Mona. I wonder if I should go and look for her to make sure she’s all right.”

  “I’ll look in on her. Her room is next to mine.” Lucinda got up. “And I have every confidence you will figure out how to fix things and make the retreat memorable in a good way.” She gave me a quick hug and went out the door.

  The room was very quiet after that, and I heard voices coming from outside.

  “This would be the perfect place to set a murder,” a man said. “It could take place at a writers’ retreat. Fifty people check in and forty-nine check out.” He said it in an Alfred Hitchcock impression.

  “Yeah,” his companion said. “The weather here is practically a character. I’d start it out with a line like, ‘The fog slipped in and wrapped around the weather-beaten buildings, shrouding them in mist.’”

  Writers, I thought, grabbing my bag and heading out the door.

  • • •

  The group came back together for dinner in the Sea Foam dining hall. Lucinda and I grabbed three tables near the entrance. Crystal and Wanda had long since gone home, and no one brought up the workshop. Mona Riviera grabbed a seat in the shadows. When Lucinda had checked on her, she’d insisted she ran out because she was concerned that the sun was breaking through the clouds and might shine on her. It made no sense, but I had too many other things to worry about and let it go.