Knock, knock, knock.
It was the mystery sound from Ella’s office.
The day after Macy fainted at the mayor’s Christmas party—the day after she finally embraced her feelings for Deacon—she leaned against Ella’s door at Two Love Lane. Knock. Knock. Long silence. Knock, knock. She tapped on the door. “Ella?”
“Yes?”
“May I come in?”
There was a long pause. “Sorry. Not right now.”
Macy jetted a breath. “Ella, please tell us what’s going on in there.”
“Everyone has a right to privacy.” Knock, knock.
“I know that, but we’re a team here. And this is our office. Quite frankly, you’re driving us all a little batty. Don’t you trust us?” Macy stood and waited.
Ten seconds passed, and Ella opened the door a crack. “I’m wrapping Christmas presents.”
“No, you’re not.” Macy knew she was risking Ella’s wrath, which was rare, but when it showed up, it was very Italian, involving lots of hand gestures and many Mio Dios. “Miss Thing said you were doing this last summer too.”
Ella sighed. “Okay, I’m not wrapping Christmas presents. But I really don’t feel I should tell you. You guys will think I’m strange.”
Macy rolled her eyes. “We know you, Ella. You have your quirks. As do we all. We’re not going to think you’re strange.”
“Well, Greer will.”
“Not true.”
“She doesn’t believe in anything but logic.”
“It doesn’t come naturally to her, but she admitted last night that she knows there’s something deeper going on about love and its mysteries, right? I call it listening to your intuition or your inner voice. You call it fate or magic or destiny. Greer thinks an expenditure of time and effort—which we can graph—might make love happen. But we all dabble a little bit in each other’s philosophies, don’t we?”
“I guess.” Ella sounded blue.
“Of course we do. We combine them. So don’t underestimate how much Greer respects you.”
“Okay.” A little hope entered Ella’s voice.
“Aren’t you tired of keeping this secret?” Macy asked softly.
Ella slowly opened the door. “Yes. I really am.”
Macy walked across the threshold into the heretofore forbidden space.
Ella closed the door behind her. “Sit down.”
Macy sat. She was so glad her friend was willing to speak to her. A few beats passed. “So?”
Ella pulled up a chair. “When my nonna—the one still in Sicily—came for a visit last summer, she said something about my office.”
“Okay.” Macy waited while her friend settled into her chair. Ella was so petite, it looked like a throne beneath her.
“First of all,” Ella said, “when a Sicilian grandmother speaks, you listen. They don’t waste words. What they say matters.”
“I understand.”
“So my nonna came in here, and she said”—Ella inhaled—“‘Ella? There’s something precious here. I sense buried treasure.’ And then she said it again: ‘Buried treasure.’”
Macy drew in her chin. “Really?”
Ella nodded. “Macy, it has to be true. My nonna is never wrong.”
“Oh. Okay.” Macy would agree with her. Ella knew her grandmother best.
“So anyway, you know how in Revolutionary War times and during the Civil War people hid their family valuables in Charleston and other places in the South? So they wouldn’t be found by the British or the Yankees?”
“Yes. I do. Those folks were pretty ingenious too.”
“They were. And I found out that even during the 1920s prohibition years, people who ran bootleg liquor were very careful. If you suddenly started appearing richer than you normally were, that aroused the suspicion of the police. So you hid your valuables.”
“Makes sense.”
“So,” Ella said, her cheeks blooming with high color, “I truly believe, with all the Sicilian in me, that some kind of treasure is hidden in this room, and no one ever recovered it. Maybe they died before they could.”
“That could have happened, for sure.”
Ella gripped her armrests. “You’re not excited?”
“No, I am.” Macy decided to be brave, since Ella had been brave to confide in her. “But you’ve been doing this off and on since last summer, and you’ve found nothing. Not to diss your nonna.”
Ella’s face fell. “I know. It looks pretty hopeless, but I have to keep trying.” She was nothing if not loyal to her family.
“By the way,” Macy ventured, “why do you stop searching for long stretches?”
“Sometimes I get so frustrated,” Ella said. “I give up. I could never tell my nonna that. But I always get back in the saddle and try. She writes Momma letters and asks about it. That helps motivate me, you know? I have to find something before—” She sliced a hand across her throat.
Macy gave a discreet cough. “Before your nonna passes on?”
“Exactly.” Ella crossed herself and shuddered. “I have to do this. For my nonna.”
“Well, I’ll help,” Macy said, standing up.
Ella leapt to her feet. “You will?”
“Of course. On one condition—that we all know what this is about.”
“All right.” Ella’s eyes shone with excitement.
Macy hugged her. “It’s so great to have the air cleared. No one will make fun of you. I promise.”
And no one did. Miss Thing was delighted to help.
Greer showed great restraint when Ella mentioned her nonna’s mystical powers and latched onto the historical aspect of the situation. “You know, this old house might very well contain treasure. We’ve never really looked.”
“True,” Macy agreed, although inside, she figured that by now, someone in some other decade or century had already found the treasure, if it existed.
Ella went up to her wall on the north side of the house and tapped. “I’ve been knocking on the walls. And on the floor, hoping to hear a hollow sound.”
“So we’re looking for a hidey-hole.” Miss Thing was into it. She’s already Googled “how to find hidden treasure,” which had led her to Disney World’s website, and “where to conceal your valuables in your home,” a blog post written by a former burglar turned police informant.
“Right,” Ella said. “Problem is, I’ve tapped every inch of this floor numerous times. And every bit of the wall, up to about ten feet.”
Macy locked gazes with Greer. The ceiling was fourteen feet high. And Ella was five foot two.
“We still have a lot of ground to cover then.” Miss Thing clapped her hands.
“How did you get to ten feet?” Macy couldn’t wait to find out because the chairs wouldn’t get Ella that high.
Ella blushed. “That other noise you heard? The squeaking? That was me unfolding an old ladder I brought from home and stepping on the rungs. I hide it behind my window curtain.”
Miss Thing marched up to the curtain of one window and flung a panel back. Sure enough, there was the ladder, looking rickety and rusty.
“How did the cleaning team miss this?” Greer threw up her arms.
“I told them I do my own windows,” Ella said in a small voice.
They all laughed.
Macy got back to business. “So we need a better, taller ladder. There’s one in the garden shed. The cleaners use it to change light bulbs in the chandeliers.”
Ella gave a small sniffle. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “You’re really going to help me, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” the rest of them said in unison.
And they got started right away.
An hour and many cries for caution later to whomever was standing on the taller ladder at the time—and maybe a few choice swear words—they still hadn’t heard anything suspicious in the wall. But they had half the room to go.
Macy climbed down. “I hate to bail, but I’m meeting my sister and her family for supper over the bridge in about twenty minutes.”
“Let’s call it a night,” said Ella.
“We’ll start in the morning.” Miss Thing had snagged her panty hose on the ladder and decided to wear pants the next day.
“I’m totally up for it.” Greer folded the taller ladder up herself and moved it behind the curtain. It was a long window, so it fit.
They grabbed their coats and scarves and headed out. Macy felt the house watching them in a friendly manner as they wended their way down the cobblestone street.
She looked back at its proper windows, lit with electric candles on the sill for the holidays. Give up your secrets, she silently asked the house, if you have any left.
When she stuck her hands into her pockets, she realized she had some too. And secrets didn’t sit well with her. She was a natural sharer. But she’d learned the value of secrets. Her network of friends and professional acquaintances was as large as it was because she was trustworthy. You could tell her something, and it would stay in the vault.
Macy wished she could confide in Greer, Ella, and Miss Thing about her feelings for Deacon and how she couldn’t deny them any longer. But something in her held back.
* * *
A short while later, she was crossing the Ravenel Bridge with Anne, Kyle, and the kids. Anne sounded happy and relaxed in the car. She tuned the radio station to all Christmas music, all the time, and everyone sang along.
This is what Christmas is about, Macy thought from her perch in the middle of the back seat as she held Lucy’s hand on one side and Sam’s on the other.
At the restaurant, they sat at a plastic table, the kind you see by a pool, with semi-wobbly plastic chairs. The table had paper placemats, and the food arrived on paper plates.
“Fried shrimp is my favorite,” Sam said, dipping an entire one in a small paper condiment holder filled with ketchup.
Lucy squeezed lemon over her fried flounder. “I love fish.”
Anne looked at Macy and smiled. “A place that serves only fried seafood. You can’t beat that.”
“Just don’t let my boss see me here,” Kyle said. “Or my patients.”
Sam held up the shrimp dripping with ketchup. “This place is cool.” He dropped the shrimp into his mouth and chewed it with gusto. “It’s a secret restaurant,” he said with his mouth full. “No signs on the door. No pictures in the paper or commercials on TV.”
“Sam.” Anne said. “Better manners, please. And the people who live in Charleston know it’s a secret. That’s why we’re here eating dinner. It’s only visitors who don’t know about it. I always tell the nice ones I meet so they can come too.”
“Ohhh,” he said, then laughed.
“Secrets are bad to keep, usually,” Kyle told Sam.
It was typical parent talk, but it made Macy feel a little awkward. After all, she was keeping a secret about how she felt about Deacon from the people she loved.
“So I should tell you what Mommy got you for Christmas?” Lucy asked her father.
“No,” he said. “That’s a secret you can keep.”
Everyone laughed, Sam most of all. “Good thing you told me not to tell, Dad! I was gonna tell Mommy about the—”
“Sssh!” Just as Macy put her finger over his ketchup-covered mouth, she caught something out of the corner of her eye. What on earth?
Deacon and Penelope were waiting at the hostess stand!
Anne saw them too, and looked swiftly at Macy. “Who’s that guy with Penelope?”
“My neighbor,” is all Macy said. She dipped a fried scallop into cocktail sauce.
“Oh. Is that Deacon?” Anne wore a delighted grin.
“Yes.” Macy took a sip of her ice tea. Her throat was parched. And she was sorely embarrassed.
“Deacon who?” asked Kyle, a little loudly. “Am I missing something?”
Macy turned her wince into a smile. “He was a client. And he’s still my neighbor. At least temporarily. His aunt is Fran Banks.”
“Oh, I heard about them.” Kyle did his best to be discreet when he made a quarter-turn to check. “Did you set him up with Penelope?”
“No.” Macy fumbled with her napkin. “They might be just friends. I don’t know.” She’d die if they walked into the restaurant holding hands.
Kyle nodded. “She’s cute. I’ve heard good things about her.”
“She’s great.” Macy kept chewing. She was miserable inside. Just miserable. Because she had a feeling that Penelope and Deacon were on a real date. Penelope had brought him to a local place. It wasn’t fancy, but it was super special.
No tourists came here, unless they’d been tipped off by a local. And when you drove past it, you had no idea it was anything but an old warehouse. It was a secret restaurant, setting the perfect atmosphere for cozy confidences shared up close.
Macy’s imagination was running away from her.
Anne could tell. She put her hand over her sister’s. “Are you okay?”
“Sure. It’s fine. I mean, they’re good friends.”
“Maybe.” Anne took a long draw on her beer.
But Macy wasn’t fooled. Anne was on high alert, which didn’t make things easier.
When Deacon and Penelope walked by them to get to their table, of course the two of them acted shocked to see Macy and her family. Everyone laughed. Deacon told a joke. So did Kyle. Penelope chatted briefly with Anne, then bent down and hugged Macy.
It was a polite Hell. Macy hated every minute.
But she endured.
She even wished them a fun night.
That was what good matchmakers did.
And good aunts acted cheerful and fun. She didn’t let on to Lucy or Sam, or even to Anne and Kyle, that she pitied herself that night—not until she went home and told Oscar, who ignored her, as usual. So she took a bubble bath, which didn’t help.
She was in love. No two ways about it. Deacon didn’t know it, and Christmas was coming.
It would be her worst Christmas ever, which was why she let two fat tears roll down her cheeks into the bath, and why she ate an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food in bed.