Chapter 7

The “Macarena.”

I’d heard a lot of crazy requests in three years of event management but walking down the aisle at your wedding while doing the Macarena?

I stared at Evie, the bride-to-be, her face all aglow with excitement. She was serious. Actually, legitimately, for real serious. Was it possible I’d misunderstood? “We’re not talking about the reception, right? During the actual ceremony, that’s the song you want playing?”

“I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s such a significant part of our history. It’s our song, our dance, our happy-couple music. It’s the perfect song to usher me right into my future husband’s arms.”

My pencil froze over my notepad. She’d really just said that sentence out loud. The “Macarena” was the perfect song to usher her into her future husband’s arms. I dug deep to find my business-professional face before I looked up. I could make it through this without laughing. I could.

“Okay. The ‘Macarena’ it is. Is anyone giving you away?”

“Giving me away?”

“A father, maybe? An uncle?”

Evie blinked.

“Walking you down the aisle. The symbolic ‘giving away’?”

“Oh, right. That. My father’s dead, and I don’t have any uncles, so I’m dancing down the aisle on my own. That’s not a problem, is it?”

“Definitely not. Your wedding, your dreams. We’re just here to make it happen.” It was a canned line. Not even a good one. But it was a great fallback when brides started to get weird about their plans. Rule number one of successful event execution? Offer your own opinion as infrequently as possible. Preferably never. Because if you have no opinion, nothing is ever your idea and thus can never be your fault.

I jotted down a note for our audio-visual guy. A DJ would handle the reception, but he wouldn’t show up until after the ceremony was over, which meant the ceremony’s music fell on us. It killed me to think I’d be party to such an outlandish wedding march, but what was I gonna do?

“What does the groom think about the music?”

“About the ‘Macarena’? He doesn’t know. And I want it to stay that way. It’s going to be a huge surprise, and he’s going to love it. Trust me. When he sees me line dancing down the aisle, he’ll flip.” She squealed and clapped her hands. “Ahh! I’m so excited!”

I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to call Randi. She’d love the “Macarena” story. My freshman year at Berkeley, Randi had been my first roommate. After five minutes of hanging out, we’d discovered we were both from the East Coast, on the soccer team, and hospitality majors. Weird but totally convenient and fortuitous. Up until college, I’d never been great at making friends. Not for lack of caring—I was just busy. And incredibly passionate about soccer, which probably gave me a little bit of tunnel vision. Save my teammates, I rarely had much of a spare thought for anybody. If I was going to have a friend, I kind of needed her to fall into my lap. Randi had.

“Did you get that last part?”

I looked up to meet the bride-to-be’s expectant gaze. She’d asked me something. And I’d heard it. I knew I had. Something about dancing and bridesmaids and . . . “Yes!” It finally came to me. “I did get it. And we can absolutely widen the aisle so your bridesmaids and groomsmen can line dance in as well.”

“It’ll need to be at least twelve feet. Can the ballroom accommodate twelve feet?”

I wrote another note—twelve feet for line-dancing wedding processional. “It might cut the number of seats by a dozen or so, but based on your guest list, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” I said.

She leaned back into the sofa and grinned. “I can’t believe this is really happening.”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s about time to meet with the chef. Is anyone joining you for the sampling?”

She nodded. “My maid of honor and my mom.” She pulled out her phone. “Actually, they just pulled up. I’ll go out and meet them.”

Except for her terrible taste in music, Evie was a pretty cool bride. Though anything would seem cool after the Antiquing Club we’d had staying with us all week. Their first day, they’d inspected every piece of furniture on the property and declared anything manufactured after 1957 “absolute rubbish.”

I finished a few more notes, then grabbed my phone, tapping out a quick text to Randi. The wedding story to top ALL wedding stories? The Macarena. DOWN THE AISLE. We need to catch up. I have a new job. And a new man. Call me soon?

I slipped the phone back into my desk drawer, then headed toward the lobby to find Evie and the rest of her group. I was waylaid by April hurrying down the hallway. “Hey, Lane, how are you with numbers?”

“Are we talking how-many-points-did-they-score numbers? Or what’s-the-square-root-of-seventy-four kind of numbers?”

“How about profit-and-loss-statement kind of numbers? Didn’t you get a minor in business or something? I feel like that was on your résumé.”

“I did, but I promise it doesn’t qualify me for much. I had to retake my accounting class twice, and I still barely passed.”

She motioned for me to follow her. “Still. You’re more qualified than me.”

“Qualified for what?”

We stopped outside of Thornton’s old office. April sighed. “Ida’s going over the inn’s financials. She says she’s fine, but I’m not so sure she has things under control.”

An uneasiness grew in the pit of my stomach. I’d had my suspicions. Ida had seemed less than comfortable when I’d turned over a stack of bills from various vendors the week before. She’d insisted she knew what she was doing as she’d taken them to Thornton’s office, but I’d recognized the uncertainty in her eyes.

“What all should Ida be handling?”

“The better question is what isn’t she supposed to be handling?” April said. “Thornton pretty much did everything money related. I run deposits to the bank, and Gaspard handles the ordering for the restaurant. But everything else was Thornton—vendor payments, record keeping, taxes. All of it.”

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. See if you can help her make sense of things? We had a vendor call this morning wondering why they haven’t been paid yet. Someone has to help her sort things out. We have to pay people, Lane.”

“I’ve got a bride meeting with Gaspard in two minutes. You know I can’t leave anyone unsupervised with that man.”

“True. How about I handle Gaspard? I’ll take the bride, you take the money talk? Please?”

“Fine,” I grumbled. I handed her the notebook. “Bride’s name is Evie. Mom and maid of honor are joining her for the tasting. They should be in the lobby.”

“Got it,” April said. “Anything I need to know going in?” She started to back up down the hallway.

“Just don’t make fun of the ‘Macarena’ and you’re all set.”

She paused midstep. “I’m not even going to ask.”

I knocked on the door to Thornton’s office before opening it slightly and sticking my head inside. “Hello? Ida? It’s Lane. Can I come in?”

Ida sat behind Thornton’s desk, a sea of papers spread out in front of her. She looked up. “What? Oh, sure, sure. Come in.” I walked across the office and sat in the same chair I’d occupied when Thornton had interviewed, then hired me two months before.

Ida smiled, but it was weary. “How are you, Lane? Is there something I can do for you?”

“Actually, I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do for you.” I glanced at the mess on the desk.

She shook her head and sighed. “Thornton had a way about doing things. I figured it would be easy to sort it all out, but I’ll be honest. I’m not sure what’s up or down at this point.”

“Did Thornton work with an accountant?”

“No. Not even at tax time. He prided himself in handling all the financials himself.” She sank back into her chair. “It wasn’t right, him carrying all the responsibility like that, but I think he liked being the one who kept everything running. He was the keeper of the keys, so to speak. He liked having ownership like that.”

“That’s understandable,” I said. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

“Oh, I don’t want you to trouble yourself with all this. I’ll figure it out eventually.”

“Are you sure? I’ve got a minor in business. I’m not an expert by any means, but I might know a little something that could help. At the very least, let me help you sort through everything.”

Ida relented. “I guess a little help wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It’s kind of you to offer.”

Two hours later, I’d sorted the papers scattered across the desk into something that was almost organized. Thornton had been completely old school. He’d kept all his books and records by hand in thick black ledgers, one for each year. I’d created a stack of bills from vendors and food suppliers, a stack of bank statements from two separate accounts, and another stack of stuff I couldn’t make sense of but figured probably had something to do with . . . something.

The longer I worked, the more questions piled up. I still hadn’t come across any utility bills for the hotel. Power, phones, Internet. They were all still functioning, so that was encouraging, but I’d been working at Winding Way nearly a month—more than enough time for something like a utility bill to make its monthly appearance. It was possible there was an e-mail address Thornton used to receive digital copies, but it hardly seemed likely that a guy who balanced his bank statements in black hardbound ledgers would receive and pay bills online. There were other expenses too. Expenses I knew must have existed but that I couldn’t find any record of in the papers Ida had collected. The linen service that brought in fresh sheets and towels every day. The landscaping crew. The company that provided banquet staff when we had events too large for our own wait staff to handle. The list went on and on.

“Ida, did you say Thornton handled the payroll as well?” As soon as I’d asked the question, I knew the answer had to be no. I wasn’t an hourly employee, so I never had to clock in or out, but I’d seen other employees using a computer in the staff lounge to do just that. And we’d all still gotten our paychecks, even with Thornton gone. I’d set up the direct deposit for mine my first day at work.

Ida leaned back in her chair. “He used to. Had this big book and would write out the checks by hand. But then, a few years back, April set him up with a payroll service that handles it all.”

Well, that was comforting. At least through any potential turmoil we would all keep getting paid. Or would we? I picked up the most recent bank statement from what I assumed to be the inn’s main account. I didn’t know the exact amount required to pay the inn’s employees every two weeks, but my hunch was that it was more than what was in that account. Without knowing what deposits were expected, I couldn’t know for sure how serious the problem was or if it was even a problem at all. But I did know one thing. I was in way over my head.

“Ida, I think we need an accountant.”

“An accountant? Oh, Thornton would never have been okay with that. He hated the idea of anyone but him having any sort of hand in the money pot. Said you couldn’t trust anybody these days.”

“Not all accountants are bad. And I’m not sure how else we’ll ever sort through all of this.” I opened the current year’s ledger. Thornton clearly had a system. Each entry was notated, but he used some sort of shorthand that was impossible to understand. At least for my nonaccounting brain. At the root of it, I knew it was basic. Money comes in, money goes out. But figuring out how Thornton had kept those records in order, then figuring out why a vendor wasn’t getting paid and why the bank account didn’t look like it was going to make payroll? Yeah. It was definitely accountant territory.

Ida pulled off her glasses and rubbed her hand across her face. “You know we bought this old place and started things up, just the two of us? We only opened a handful of rooms—the rest were in terrible shape—and only offered breakfast at first. Thornton cooked. I ran the front desk and cleaned the rooms.” She chuckled. “We were so crazy. Doomed to fail. That’s what everyone said. But then people kept coming, and, well, forty years later, here we are.”

“I love the history of this place. I always have.”

“Did you know this building used to be a hospital?”

“I did know that. I must have read the historical marker plaque in the garden a thousand times as a kid.”

Ida shifted a stack of papers, straightening their edges. “Thornton loved this inn. It was everything to him.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know if I can do it without him.”

“We can do it, Ida. All of us. You don’t have to manage it all on your own.”

She shrugged her shoulders and huffed. “I know. But all this?” She motioned to the desk around her. “This isn’t anyone’s burden but mine.”

I stood. “You and a good accountant. And I think I know just the guy.”

“You do? Who?”

“His name is Simon Hamilton. He’s a friend from church. I don’t know him well, but I know his family, and I know he’s trustworthy. Do you want me to reach out and see if he’d be willing to look things over?”

Her shoulders slumped, the lines in her face drawn down, but then she shook her head and breathed out a resigned sigh. “You’re right. I can’t do this on my own. Go ahead and call him. If he’s willing, I could clearly use the help.”

Jamie: Hey. Lane needs a favor. You game for offering some accounting advice?

Simon: Probably. What’s up?

Jamie: It’s the inn. The owner died and left the finances in a mess. They need help sorting it out.

Simon: That sounds like more than advice.

Jamie: Yeah, probably. I’m going to give Lane your number. Okay if she calls?

Simon: Sure. I’ll do what I can.

Jamie: Feel free to do a little recon work while you’re with her.

Simon: ??

Jamie: Talk about books. Music. She mentioned Emily Dickinson the other day. Heard of her?

Simon: She’s a poet. If she’s telling you what she likes, why not Google it? You don’t need me to spy.

Jamie: Maybe not. But it’d be cool to name-drop someone she already likes before she ever mentions it.

Simon: That’s ridiculous.

Jamie: But you’ll still help, right? Just pay attention is all I’m saying.