High Country Fall

CHAPTER 15

As Mary Kay had warned me, the Three Sisters Tea Room was jammed when I got there a little past noon, but I quietly worked my way through the vestibule, where at least six people waited to be seated in a room that could accommodate about three dozen.

When people glared at me, I smiled politely and murmured, “I have a reservation.”

“They take reservations?” a woman asked indignantly. “I was told they didn’t.”

“I’m a relative,” I said.

The young hostess who approached with a frown for my pushiness was wearing a long black skirt, white ruffled blouse, and a retro black velvet and cameo choker, a costume meant to conjure up a more gracious era, no doubt, and appropriate for a tea room decorated in pink and white with fresh flowers at every small table. I remembered her from my courtroom yesterday where she had sat immediately behind Danny Freeman.

“I’m sorry—” she began.

“Carla Ledwig?” I asked, eyeing her trim waistline. Her pregnancy wasn’t yet showing.

“Yes?”

“I’m Judge Knott. I believe my cousins are here? May and June Pittman?”

Her annoyance turned to alarm as she recognized me.

“Well, yes, but they’re really sort of busy right now.”

I drew myself up to look as official as possible. “Never-theless, I’d like to see them. Now.”

“I’ll tell them you’re here.”

“Why don’t I tell them myself?” I said pleasantly and pointed to a set of double doors at the rear. “Through there?”

She nodded.

From my own waitressing days I knew to enter through the right door, so that I didn’t collide with the young Asian woman who came through the left one carrying a large tray filled with luscious-looking open-faced cucumber and watercress sandwiches. Like Carla Ledwig, she also wore ruffles, long skirt, and a ribbon choker.

“I’m sorry,” she said as we met in the short hallway. “This is the kitchen. Restrooms are around the corner.”

I smiled, nodded, and continued through the door.

At the long central counter in the kitchen, the twins seemed to have an assembly line going, the same sort of assembly line as when they put together sandwiches for our midnight snack last night.

May spotted me first and groaned.

“What?” said June and looked up. “Oh, shit!”

“You guys are so busted,” I said, shaking my head. “The food here stinks? You thought that would keep me away after my clerk keeps telling me how good it is? When were you planning to tell your mom and dad that you’ve dropped out of school? Oh, wait! Bet I know. Parents’ Day, right?”

June shook her head. “Wrong.”

“We were going to fake it that weekend,” said May. “Keep it going till Christmas, when they won’t get our grade cards.”

“I thought Tanser-MacLeod was a small school. How’re the professors not going to notice a pair of twins who aren’t regis— Ah! So that’s why you cut and dyed your hair. To change your looks for Parents’ Day.”

“It would’ve worked, too,” May said.

“It still can.” June looked at me with pleading eyes. “They don’t have to know yet.”

“They don’t? You’re going to wait till they drop another bundle on tuition and board you aren’t using?”

“They haven’t dropped a bundle. We didn’t register this semester.”

“Your dad’s a CPA. He didn’t notice that the check was never cashed?”

“Well … actually it was.”

They had gone back to work as two waitresses scurried in and out. The menu seemed to be limited to a couple of salads and three or four sandwiches, which were served on unmatched luncheon plates decorated in cabbage roses, daisies, or other floral patterns. Rather attractive little plates, now that I looked. Unasked, May slid one my way.

I started to tell them I couldn’t be bribed, but egg salad on a bed of crisp watercress? With cracked grain toast points drenched in butter?

When it was lunchtime?

I perched on a nearby stool and said, “So how did you manage about the check? Know someone in the bursar’s office?”

“We’d never ask anyone to steal for us,” June said reprovingly.

“We told Mom and Dad we wanted to manage the money ourselves—”

“—write our own checks for the various fees—”

“—get an appreciation for how much our education was costing them.”

“And they bought it?”

“Yep. Deposited the money directly in our personal accounts.”

“But why not just tell them you don’t want to go to school anymore?” I asked.

“Look,” said May. “Mom and Dad love us, but they don’t think we’re real bright.”

“And we aren’t,” said June. “Not about book stuff anyhow.”

“But we know food, right?”

Since my mouth was full of their delicious argument at the moment, I merely nodded.

“They knew we’d never make it through dental school like Phil or accounting like Dad, but they thought we could maybe teach kindergarten.”

I watched a shared shudder run through both of them.

“And instead you talked your way in here as chefs? Not bad.” I looked at the two older women, who stayed busy in the back bringing them fresh supplies. “Which one’s the owner?”

June giggled. “We are.”

“What?”

“Well, we own fifty percent, and Carla, she’s the third ‘sister’ here at Three Sisters. She owns the other fifty percent. Our tuition and her trust fund.”

“We’re not making enough yet to be totally self-supporting here, so we waitress evenings at the Laurel for extra cash to pay our living expenses for when the condo’s rented and we can’t crash there.”

Now that their secret was blown, the twins seemed happy to be able to tell someone new exactly what they had accomplished: how they’d talked the owner into leasing them this space, the remodeling and how expensive it was to furnish a kitchen, how they’d talked some antique dealers into supplying them with tables and chairs, which their customers could then buy if they wanted—“you wouldn’t believe how many do”—how they’d scoured flea markets for dishes and glasses and flatware, and how scared they’d been that no one would come back a second time since they didn’t even serve soup yet.

“We vary the salads and sandwich fillings, still there’re never more than four or five choices on our menu. We’re only open for lunch and early tea—noon till four—but our breads and desserts seem to keep people coming through the door.”

I learned that Carla was an accounting student. Since she was still going to school full-time, her sweat equity consisted of keeping the books and making sure the proper taxes were paid, both for the restaurant and for their workers and themselves.

“Finding reliable help’s been the biggest problem,” said June.

As if on cue, the door swung open and a pimply-faced college student skidded in.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” he said. “The leaf people held me up. I swear I’ll leave earlier tomorrow.”

No ribbon choker for him. No ruffles either. Instead, he grabbed a plain apron from a nearby hook, tied it around his waist, picked up a large empty tray, and went out to begin busing the tables.

“Please say you won’t tell Mom and Dad,” May begged.

I had a feeling that Beverly and Fred might not be as angry or disappointed as the twins feared. They probably wouldn’t be thrilled to learn that they’d bankrolled a restaurant instead of a college education, but once they got over that, they might even be proud of this entrepreneurial venture.

I said as much, but they still urged me to keep their secret, and after a serving of warm apple pie topped with clotted cream, I finally agreed. But I didn’t let them off that easily. I scored a couple of cinnamon rolls to take back to the courthouse to share with my clerk at the afternoon break.

There was still a line at the front door when I left, and the sidewalks were as full of tourists today as they’d been on Sunday. Who knew leaves were such a draw? I mean, our trees down in Colleton County turn colors every bit as glorious as these up here, but you don’t see tons of out-of-state license plates parked at every vista, and our towns aren’t overrun with leaf lovers. I guess the hills really do make a difference.

As I neared the courthouse, I saw a patrol car come screaming out of the exit, siren blaring, lights flashing. And further up the street I saw an ambulance, its emergency lights flashing, too. It waited for the patrol car to thread a way through the slow-moving traffic, then it turned onto Main Street and both vehicles sped up the hill to disappear through the trees.

My first thought was that a couple of tourists had carelessly driven into each other. My second thought was of Norman Osborne, who had walked out of Joyce and Bobby Ashe’s party and disappeared. I hoped that this meant they’d found him and that he wasn’t too badly hurt.