“If I were you, I’d take a shot of bourbon first.”
“Elizabeth!” Aunt Amelia got up and reached for Barnacle Bob’s cage. “Vincent Price and his wife were gourmet cooks, just like you. I think I have his cookbook somewhere, A Treasury of Great Recipes.”
Liz stood and wordlessly took the heavy cage from Aunt Amelia’s hand. “I’d love to see it. Speaking of food, let’s finish our discussion about the Spring Fling in the kitchen. Maybe we can get Dad to join us?”
“That would be splendid.”
“I burst in on Dad this morning. He had Pops’s grandson with him. Any idea why the guy needs an attorney?”
As they continued up the aisle, Aunt Amelia said, “No. Not a clue. But that Ryan is such a nice, polite boy and hot as a Carolina Reaper.”
The Carolina Reaper was the winner of the hot pepper contest Pops had a few weeks ago at Deli-cacies by the Sea.
“If you say so. Auntie.” She wanted to change the subject before her great-aunt came up with a name for Ryan Stone from the midcentury TV vault in her head. Liz thought the guy resembled the actor who played Ross Poldark on the PBS television series Poldark. Darn. Now Liz was playing the twenty-first-century naming game.
“I let Ryan rent out the caretaker’s cottage until he goes back to New York,” Aunt Amelia said.
“You what!”
“It makes sense. On the days when Pops isn’t feeling good enough to put in a full day, Ryan will be nearby to open and close Deli-casies. Pops lives in a one-bedroom condo. It can’t be that comfortable for Ryan.”
Liz would protest more, but she’d grown fond of Pops. He was always so jolly, and he sure knew how to prepare all the home-style deli foods she missed from New York, while still offering local seafood, produce, and an amazing cheese and wine selection. Ryan would never be considered jolly like his grandfather. The thought of Ryan living in the caretaker’s cottage, which she and her father had called home for thirteen years, also rubbed Liz the wrong way, but she let it go. Aunt Amelia could do whatever she wanted when it came to the hotel, but that didn’t mean Liz would let her guard down when it came to people who could take advantage of her great-aunt. Iris Kimball also came to mind; something wasn’t right with the woman. Later she would ask Aunt Amelia if she could take a look at Iris’s references. “Come on, Auntie, let’s go to the kitchen for some rocket fuel and beignets. You really need to bring a flashlight with you the next time you come into the theater alone. I don’t want you falling and breaking your hip or something.”
“Ha. My bones are as strong as an ox’s. Had a bone-density test last week. I have the skeleton of a forty-year-old. So there.”
“Okay. Okay. No more ‘old’ comments. Got it.”
Chapter 8
Liz returned to the lobby after her discussion with her father and Aunt Amelia about tomorrow’s festivities. She found Captain Netherton and David Worth seated by the door to the inner courtyard, chatting amicably. Regina’s loud presence was notably missing, and Liz exhaled with relief. When the captain noticed Liz, he excused himself, stood up, and grabbed his cane, which had been leaning against his chair.
She said, “It’s Friday. Are you taking the day off skippering Queen of the Seas?”
The captain nodded his head in David’s direction. “The Worths have chartered the entire ship. They want to check out their building site from the water.”
Once again, she wondered why Regina wasn’t living the high life on her recently departed father’s yacht, usually moored at the ritzy Eau Galle Yacht Club. Liz looked toward David Worth, who was intently reading his newspaper. Seconds earlier, Liz had seen him leaning forward in his chair, trying to overhear their conversation. Maybe if she used the word “bedbugs,” he would pass it on to his wife and they would vacate the hotel.
Captain Netherton and Liz talked a little while about the upcoming weather pattern, then she excused herself. She planned to meet Kate to talk about tomorrow’s Spring Fling. She walked toward the lobby’s massive revolving door and stepped inside. It took all her strength to get the heavy thing moving. A little WD-40 might be in order. Finally, Liz was spit out the other side, onto the green carpet under the hotel’s main portico.
She inhaled the salty air and surveyed the seascape in front of her. The temperature was in the upper seventies, and the ocean wind was calm, but you never knew what storm might blow in this time of year in coastal Florida. Liz looked toward a huge fountain encircled in coral hibiscus, whose backdrop was the glittering Atlantic. In the center of the fountain was a statue of Hercules holding a bow and arrow. Water trickled from the bottom of his quiver and into the fountain. From a distance, it looked like the Roman god with six-pack abs had a prostate problem. The statue’s left foot was missing and the tip of his aquiline nose was gone, adding, per Kate, rescuer of all things old, a “rustic charm and air of antiquity.”
When Liz was small, the hotel had a live-in groundskeeper. Now, every Tuesday, a six-person crew came to cut the grass. They did a little trimming, then were gone in under an hour. Pierre tended to his kitchen garden, and Aunt Amelia took care of the cutting garden and flowering shrubs. The responsibility for the upkeep of the flowers and foliage in the interior courtyard was shared between Pierre and Aunt Amelia.
Once upon a time, the hotel had its very own mascot in the form of a magnificent peacock. When Liz was a child, she saw a snapshot in an old photo album
