Софи Райан: Buy А Whisker

“That reminds me,” I said, turning in my chair to stuff my gloves into my jacket pocket. “Mac asked me to tell you he should have a couple of boxes for you by the end of the week.”

Mac and I were always looking for new items to sell in the shop. Families overwhelmed by clearing out their parents’ homes had led to some great finds for us, including the claw-foot bathtub that Mac and I had made over into a chair that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to sell when it was done. Occasionally we took on clearing out an entire house—something we’d just finished doing for the five children of Janet Bennett.

Since we didn’t sell clothing at Second Chance, Jess often bought items she felt she could rework or turn into quilts. She’d been making her own clothes since she was teenager. She liked to say that she’d been an environmentalist before it was cool. Mac pretty much knew her likes and dislikes. Families and seniors themselves tended to just throw up their hands over closets stuffed full of old clothing, and “Just make it go away” was something we’d heard more than once.

“That’ll work,” Jess said. “Thanks. Do you know what he has?”

“I think there are a couple of fake-fur vests, and I know I saw some jeans.”

Her eyes lit up, and I knew she was already dreaming up ideas for everything.

Glenn came back with our lunch then: chili and a couple of sesame breadsticks for Jess, vegetable noodle soup and a roll crusted with golden cheddar for me.

“Thanks,” I said as he set a tall, steaming mug of cocoa in front of me. A small bowl of whipped cream and a spoon were still on the tray he was holding. He put a dollop in Jess’s cup, said, “Enjoy,” and left.

“Why don’t you just order a cup of whipped cream next time?” I said.

“Do you think I could do that?” Jess asked as she pulled apart one of the breadsticks. “Maybe with lots of chocolate shavings and just a couple of inches of hot chocolate in the bottom.”

I made a face and shook my head at her.

She grinned back at me across the table. “So how was your morning?” She pointed at me with half a breadstick before taking a big bite off the end of it.

“Good,” I said. “I sanded a dresser and then I worked on the website.” We were running a small online store through the Second Chance website. I was constantly surprised by the things collectors were willing to buy and pay the shipping for.

I remembered something I’d wanted to ask Jess. “Did those two vanloads of skiers stop in at the store yesterday afternoon?” I asked. “Avery gave them directions.”

Avery was the granddaughter of Liz French, another of my grandmother’s closest cohorts. She was living with Liz after some problems at home and going to a progressive high school that only had morning classes, so she worked most afternoons for me. Avery had an eclectic sense of style and a smart mouth, and being around her grandmother Liz and Liz’s friends seemed to be good for her. It had always been good for me.

Jess nodded and wiped a bit of chili from her chin with her napkin. “They did. I sold three sweaters and two pairs of jeans.” She smiled. “I love Canadians.”

This winter, due to some weird configuration of the jet stream, Maine had a lot more snow than the Canadian Maritime provinces. We’d had a steady stream of skiers since the first week of December. They were responsible for more than half of my business in the last two months, and I was hoping the weather would work in our favor through February.

“Did you go running last night?” Jess asked, a contrived look of innocent inquiry on her face.

I reached for my cheese roll. “Yes, I did,” I said. “Would you like to hear how many laps I did around the track, or would you rather just ask me what you really want to know, which is did I see Nick Elliot?”

She shrugged. “Okay. Did you?”

Like Jess, Nick Elliot had grown up in North Harbor. Charlotte was his mother. They were a lot alike—sensible, reliable, practical. Unlike Jess, Nick and I had been friends as kids. I’d had a massive crush on him at one time. He’d worked as a paramedic for years, but now he was an investigator for the state medical examiner’s office. He was still built like a big teddy bear—assuming teddy bears were tall, with broad shoulders. He had sandy hair, warm brown eyes and a ready smile. He wasn’t quite the shaggy-haired wannabe musician he’d been when we were teenagers, but as Gram would say, he cleaned up well.

I dunked a hunk of bread in my soup and ate it before I answered. “No, I didn’t. Nick feels pretty much the same about running as you do.”

She smirked at me across the table. “You mean he only runs if someone is giving away free cookies? Go Nick.” She did a fist pump in the air.

“If you think Nick is such a catch, why don’t you go out with him?” I asked.

She wrinkled her nose at me. “Not my type. Anyway, whenever you’re around, he doesn’t notice any other women. We could be at the pub and I could get up and dance on one of the tables in a thong while Sam and the guys did “Satisfaction , ” and Nick still wouldn’t notice me. I think you should at least have a little fling with him.”

“Well, I don’t,” I said dryly, “and thank you for putting that picture of you dancing at the pub in my head for the rest of the day.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows at me before she bent her head over her chili again.

Jess kept insisting that Nick had had a thing for me since we were teenagers, and certainly Charlotte and some of Gram’s other friends hadn’t been subtle in their matchmaking efforts, but Nick hadn’t made a move, which I couldn’t fault him for because neither had I.

“Nick and I are just friends,” I said for what felt like the twentieth time. “Between the shop and working on the last apartment at the house, I don’t have time to have a relationship or a fling or anything with Nick—or anyone else.”

Jess grunted around a mouthful of beans and tomato sauce. She swallowed and gestured at me with her spoon. “You make time to eat. You make time to run, for heaven’s sake. You can make time for a little tongue wrestling with Nick.”

“That’s disgusting,” I said. “I’m changing the subject. No more talking about Nick Elliot’s tongue.” I could see Jess was about to say something. I shot her a stern look. “Or any other part of him,” I warned. “Tell me about the meeting yesterday with the North Landing people.”

Her expression turned serious. “Lily still won’t even talk about selling the bakery, and there doesn’t seem to be any legal way the town council can expropriate the land. And there doesn’t seem to be any way to rework the plan around her either.”

“Was she even at the meeting?” I asked.

Jess shook her head. “No, and it’s a good thing she wasn’t. Time is getting short and people’s tempers are even shorter.” She played absently with the end of a breadstick. “You know how tense things have been around town for the last couple of weeks. It was even worse last night. Jon West isn’t going to wait much longer. If he can’t build here, he’s going to take the project somewhere else. He wants North Landing to be his showpiece, a way to entice other towns and cities to build similar projects, but he isn’t going to wait forever. Some people are pushing for the council to go to court and find a way to force Lily to sell under eminent domain.”

Jon West owned North by West, the development company floating the harbor-front project. I had a vintage light fixture at the shop that he’d expressed an interest in having us refurbish for the hotel that was planned as part of the development.