“Around the corner you’ll see a nondescript kind of door. There’s a buzzer beside it, no name, though. Don’t know if she’s home.”
I paused. “What do you think about Dinah? She’s kind of new in town, right?”
Mrs. Grover shrugged. “Seems all right to me. She moved right into town, joined clubs, volunteered, made friends. Not like Isadore; when Isadore Openshaw came to town seven or eight years ago to look after her brother, she just kind of hid away. After he died, everyone thought she’d open up, have more time for folks, but once a grump always a grump. Set in her ways.”
Speaking of grumps set in their ways . . . “Did you know my uncle?”
“Weeeell, kinda. He wasn’t a big fan of mine, if you know what I mean.”
I looked at her, eyebrows raised, inviting her to continue.
“I’d been out to the castle a couple of times, just to look around, you know. He chased me off the property and told me never to come back.”
I bit my lip, trying not to giggle.
She eyed me with a smile. “Oh, don’t worry . . . once I got home, I laughed plenty. Must have been quite the sight, an old curmudgeon chasing a large lady in a floral muumuu, boobs bouncing like basketballs, down the driveway, shaking his shotgun and yelling, ‘Get off my property!’ at the top of his lungs.”
I liked Janice Grover! I couldn’t help myself. “I guess my uncle was a mean old man.”
She shrugged, her parrots swinging merrily. “I hear he wasn’t so bad if you knew him well. Gogi Grace swears he was once quite affable. But I was a newcomer, see . . . only been here twenty years.”
A newcomer. I blew air out of my lips, my bangs fluffing out, and she grimaced in sympathy. “I guess I’d better go and find the other newcomer in town,” I said. I took a last look around at the boxes and tables and shelves jammed with junk. It was so packed in the shop, I was on sensory overload, and I’d need a day or more to explore. “I’m going to have to come back and look around. You might even have some stuff I need.”
“You bet! That place needs dressing up. Say, I have a storage place—kind of a warehouse on the outskirts of town—where all my big stuff is stored, like outdoor stuff. You need to have a look. I’m usually here, even when the sign says Closed, so just bang on the door anytime and I’ll take you there.” She sighed. “It’s my hobby and my addiction, I suppose.”
I went out and circled to the side of the building, on a narrow lane, finding the door right where Janice had said it would be. I hit the buzzer, and after a few seconds, a window slid open above me. The nicely coiffed Dinah stuck her head out.
“Good morning,” I said, looking up. “Can I come up and talk to you?”
“I was just on my way out,” she said. “Do you want to meet me at my new shop?”
“Sure,” I said. “Would you like coffee, or something from Binny’s Bakery?”
Her expression brightened. “That would be nice! Meet you there in ten minutes!”
Food smoothed social communication, I’ve always thought. There was a reason many deals were done over lunch at nice restaurants, and it wasn’t just the booze. I got a selection of pastries from Binny’s and two coffees to go from the Vale Variety, and headed to Dinah’s storefront.
The door stood wide open, and she was inside, moving a couple of folding chairs to a small, teetery, wrought-iron table. I “hallooed” and entered, carefully navigating through boxes with the cups, box of pastries and my purse.
“Here, let me help you!” she said. She took the box and trotted back to the table, propped it open, and set a stack of paper napkins beside it.
I put the coffees on the table, as well as the creamers and sugar packets, then tucked my purse under one of the chairs and sat down.
“This is nice!” she said with a bright smile. She eyed my skirt suit, pointed, and said, “I love the color!”
It was a robin’s egg blue, not perhaps very fallish, but it was a lovely cut and fit well. I had put my hair up and was wearing gray pumps and chunky jewelry to make the color seem less out of sync with the season. After all, it was after Labor Day but not quite autumn yet. “Thank you! Loehmann’s Back Room,” I said with a grin.
She sighed. “I miss shopping. I only make it to the city once or twice a year. Rochester and Buffalo are okay, but they are not Manhattan!”
She was stylish, like Gogi was. I wondered if the two women were friends, being of similar age and tastes. I wondered why Dinah stayed in Autumn Vale, now that Rusty and her job were gone. I wondered a whole lot of things, but didn’t want to rush the inquisition . . . er, chat. “You do manage to find Prada, though,” I said, pointing my spoon at her handbag. “And Balenciaga!” I shifted my pointer to her shoes, chunky-wedge platforms.
“Rochester has a few good shops. I’ll take you there sometime, maybe?”
Having bonded over a similar taste in nice clothes, handbags, and shoes, we continued over awful coffee and wonderful French pastry. “Binny is wasting her talents here,” I mumbled around mille-feuille, which crumbled in my mouth and showered my lap with crumbs.
“That is God’s own truth,” she muttered. “She should still be working in New York City.”
As we drank coffee and ate pastry, I mentioned my problems with cell reception. She nodded. Autumn Vale itself was kind of a dead zone, she said, because of its location in a deep valley with few towers close by. It was definitely underserved.
“Your best bet is to switch providers.”
She went on to advise me that if I didn’t want to do that or didn’t think it would help, I could have Wi-Fi installed at the castle and have my cell phone jigged to ping off it, or some such nonsense. I’m substituting words; it was all too technical for me. “I am impressed, and a little in awe,” I admitted.
She shrugged. “I have to deal with stuff like that all the time, so I’ve worked out the bugs.”
I looked around the empty, uninspired space, wondering what Dinah would do with it. But I had other fish to fry, as my grandmother used to say, and many questions to ask. “So what is a nice, stylish woman like you doing in the cultural desert that is Autumn Vale?”
She shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “It’s as good a place as any, I guess. Cheaper than a city.”
“I’d take you for a Florida sort,” I said. It was true; she looked like a Boca Raton real estate agent, or a senior sales associate at an upscale boutique catering to wealthy retirees.
“Can’t stand hot weather,” she said with a laugh.
“I still can’t imagine why you came here to live, of all places!”
“I knew someone who lived here, and it seemed like a nice area. Then I found a job, and just . . . stayed.”
“Who did you know in town?”
“It was an old friend, but she died a year ago,” she said, her eyes watering. She ducked her head down and dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I gave her a moment, then asked, “What do you plan on doing with this shop? Have you decided?”
For the next ten minutes, she sketched out her plans for a florist-slash-design boutique. It sounded like the kind of place I’d shop, but I had to say, “Do you think that will fly in Autumn Vale?”
“I hope so,” she said. “I need to find some way to make money. I have a little cash to set up with, but if it goes under, I’ll be broke. I’ve tried looking for a job, but there’s nothing. Since Rusty disappeared, most of Turner Construction’s jobs dried up, too, and I didn’t even take a salary for the last three months or so. Tom just wasn’t like his father, you know? The boy had no hustle.”