“Oh,” said Molly on a whisper. The space behind the bar used to hold one picnic table and one bench whose four feet never reached the ground at the same time. The only decoration had been a stockpile of old gas grills that Uncle Hugh had collected and never got around to fixing. It had been depressing, a place for the men to gather and smoke pipes while pulling on their beers, a place for the sisters to race through quickly on their way out to the beach or up to the oak trees in the hills beyond the hotel property.
Now, though, it was a twinkling paradise. Someone had built an arbor out of what looked like old driftwood. Grapevines twisted overhead, and on the sides, jasmine grew upwards. Smack-dab in the middle of winter, the jasmine shouldn’t have had any flowers at all, but somehow, it was blooming shyly, releasing its heady perfume. Molly touched a tiny flower. “How . . .?”
“Ain’t global warming great?” Adele tucked up an errant vine.
Twined through the arbor and vines were thousands of white lights that danced and swayed as the night breeze whispered through them. Sturdy-looking picnic tables provided plenty of seating. In the darkest corner, a young woman sat on a man’s lap – she put on his cowboy hat and laughed and then leaned forward for a kiss. Molly, used to watching couples canoodle (and worse) on the cruise ship, suddenly felt embarrassed to be witnessing such a sweet embrace. She looked at her sister, who watched her expectantly.
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Nate did it all. Remember how Dad and Uncle Hugh used to sit out here for hours?”
Molly nodded. “Donna would be bartending and she’d yell dirty jokes to them.”
“Oh, my God, I’d forgotten that part.” Adele’s eyes sparkled like the lights above. “Some of those jokes were so dirty I’m not sure I’d get them even now.”
“Okay. Onwards!” Nerves shot through Molly’s body, pulsing electricity to the tips of her fingers.
She followed Adele on the path that wound through the old rosebushes in the dark. Solar lights at ankle level lit their way, but they’d traversed this short route so many times as children, Molly was pretty sure she could have run up the paving stones with her eyes closed. Even though they’d only been in town on summer breaks and winter holidays, Darling Bay had always felt like home. Their mother, dead for so long now, had planted some of these roses. They were thriving.
The hotel rooms were set back, built into the hill above the saloon in a half-circle. Rooms one through four were on the left, rooms five through eight were straight ahead, with the remaining four on the right-hand side. Shallow steps led up to the three sides, and a long porch ran right around. Somehow Molly had forgotten the porch swings, but as soon as she saw them – unmoving in darkness – the phantom sound of them filled her head like a melody she’d almost lost, all wooden creaks and happy groans.
As if reading her mind, Adele spoke over her shoulder, “Don’t sit in any of them except this one here. I fixed it up after it fell with me still in it.”
Of course she had. “I’m surprised you haven’t fixed the others.” Two hung sideways, their chains rusted, and one of the old swings was resting on the porch itself.
“Girl,” Adele shook her head as she opened the door to the room, “you have no idea how much there is to fix. Come on in. It’s safe in here, at least.”
The bed had been moved, Molly thought, and the room felt smaller. The curtains were dingy off-white, but it smelled the same – of oak hardwood floors and something citrusy, and something that smelled exactly like Adele. “I’d forgotten you love orange-scented soap.” Molly’s two suitcases, battered by mileage and a thousand different cabins, had already been placed at the foot of the bed.
Adele patted a pillow, fluffing it. “Your detective nose. Yeah, when I was staying in here I used my own stuff instead of the old hotel soaps. You know there are about a million of them in the maid’s closet? Like, he must have bought them at cost in the sixties or something. A gazillion tiny slivers of paper-wrapped soap. It doesn’t go bad, right? If we ever open the hotel again, we could probably still use them, you think? Would antique soap add to the charm or take away from it?”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know much about hotel soap. Oh. Except for this one guy we had on an Aegean cruise. Or was it a Mediterranean one? Can’t remember. He ate soap.”
Adele pulled back a curtain. “See, I know most of the – wait, what?”
“Pica disorder. He came to see me on board because he wanted to make sure the housekeepers didn’t put any in his room. He had a bottle of liquid soap that he wasn’t tempted by. He just couldn’t be in the same room as solid bars. He also ate paper. He had to buy a Kindle to keep himself from chewing pages as he read.” Being a nutritionist on a cruise ship was like being the ship’s priest: only there in case of emergency. The onboard chaplain was just in case someone died. (Which people had done, actually, at a rate that had surprised Molly until she’d factored in the average cruiser’s age along with their dietary habits. Young, healthy, active people tended to book trips to Nepal or Iceland or the Scottish Highlands – they didn’t usually book all-you-can-eat week-long cruises to Mazatlán where the highlight was the early-bird tequila-fuelled bingo game.)
Adele laughed. “Let’s hope he never comes here, then. He could be the one thing that would threaten our soap stash.” She pointed out the window. “Look. Some of the path lighting still doesn’t work, but that makes the saloon even prettier, I think.”
“Oh, Adele.” Another thing Molly had forgotten was this view down the low rise. The garden was mostly dark, but from here they could see the twinkle lights in the arbor. To the left side was the staircase that led up to Uncle Hugh’s old apartment that made up the top floor of the saloon. White lights were strung around the railing, and multi-colored holiday lights blinked on and off around a sun umbrella. Tall, dark shapes made up the trees on the far side of the building.
Molly reached past Adele and slid the window open a crack. “There we go.” The sound was barely audible, just loud enough to hear if she listened hard: a burst of music as someone opened the back door of the saloon, a clap of laughter, a woman’s voice asking a question whose words they couldn’t quite make out. Someone yelled, “Merry Christmas!” Other people might visit Darling Bay to hope for the sound of the ocean’s waves. Instead, Molly had been longing for the sound of the saloon. “We fell asleep to that noise.”
Adele looked so pleased. “We did. Our favorite lullaby, ?”
Molly remembered what it felt like to make her sister happy, and she swallowed the lump that rested in her throat. “So.” She sat on the bed, testing it with a small bounce. She flopped backwards. “Still a crappy mattress.”
“I’m sorry. I know. It’s on the list.”
“Nah. I’ve slept on way crappier.”
“I’m so glad you’re –”
Molly cut her off. “So the hotel’s closed except for this room.”
Adele bit her bottom lip and nodded.
“And the café’s closed. For how long?”
“Years now.”
“Holy crap.”
“But I thought, if you came home –”
“This is only a visit.” Maybe. Probably. She wasn’t willing to make a decision, not yet.
Adele nodded. “I know. But you’re such a good cook. With your culinary-school experience, and you being a nutritionist, I can’t imagine anyone more capable of taking over the café…”
Molly waited.
“I mean, I could show it to you. You could think about it.”
Molly tried to keep her voice soft. “Don’t push, Adele.”
“I know, I know. But, really, how long can you stay? Give me a hint.”
“A couple of weeks.”
“Oh!” Adele’s cheeks were so pink, exactly the same way Molly’s got when she was excited. “That’s wonderful. I can’t wait to show you everything.”
“From what you’ve said, it’s a steaming pile of bull hooey.” The vodka had made her limbs feel loose, and the half glass of mulled wine she’d sipped afterwards hadn’t been a good idea.
“The saloon isn’t bad. You saw that. And Uncle Hugh’s apartment –”
“The love shack, you mean?”
Adele’s cheeks were almost coral. “Did you really like him? Nate?”
Molly had spent exactly fifty-seven minutes in the guy’s truck on the way into town. He’d been nice enough, and his excitement about their mutual surprise for Adele had been endearing. He was just a guy, though. Good-looking enough. He didn’t smell bad. “Sure.”
“I knew you would. I knew you’d like him. So.” Adele brought her hands together, interlacing her fingers as if she were praying. “Do you want to, um, hang out? Or do you want to go to sleep? It’s late, and I have no idea what time zone you’re set to.”
Molly had lost control of her internal time clock years ago. She knew she wasn’t ready for sleep, though – not yet. Her nerves still felt electric, as if her body was set to a low buzz. “Yeah, I guess I’m pretty tired,” she lied.
Her big sister had always been able to hear it in her voice when she was lying. Molly knew Adele would call her on it – she would go get a guitar and a couple of beers and then she’d insist that they sit around and talk till dawn. Molly wouldn’t be able to get out of it even if she wanted to.
Instead, Adele just said, “Of course you are.” Her words were bright. “I’ll go. Sleep well.”
Molly’s disappointment was laced with sadness.
Everything had changed.
Including them.