Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(25)

Since Sam was alive.

Sam always wanted Max to be a carefree kid playing outside. He didn’t experience that in his own high-rise urban childhood, nor did Bella in hers. They hoped things would be different for their son, but in this day and age, you don’t let kids wander too far beyond their own suburban backyards. Not even in bucolic Bedford.

Here in Lily Dale, she’s already noticed that things are different. Unaccompanied kids of all ages have been strolling or riding by the house on bikes, scooters, and skateboards all afternoon. A few are swimming off a small pier down the way, well outside the perimeter of the small lifeguarded beach.

Odelia mentions that Jiffy’s dad is overseas with the military and his mom is busy with appointments until dinnertime.

“Appointments? Is she . . . ?”

“She’s doing readings.”

That Jiffy’s mother is a medium shouldn’t be surprising, yet somehow it catches Bella off guard. Maybe it’s narrow-minded of her, but she can’t seem to reconcile the image of mundane maternal life with . . . well, special powers, real or imagined.

Imagined. Of course imagined.

As Odelia forewarned, crowds of visitors have arrived in Lily Dale this afternoon. Bella was amazed that so many of them appear to be . . . normal. There’s an inordinate ratio of women, and they come in all shapes and sizes, with a range of socioeconomic backgrounds and encompassing every racial and age group. There are even a few teenage girls.

“They always want to know who they’re going to marry,” Odelia commented earlier, as they watched a giggly gaggle pass the front porch.

“Do you know?”

“Sometimes. But I guarantee you that it’s never the name they want to hear.”

“Do you tell them anyway?”

“I deliver whatever message Spirit wants them to have.”

“I wonder if that has an impact on their relationship, then. If you tell someone young and impressionable that she’s not meant to be with the person she loves.”

“Most people shouldn’t marry the person they love at fourteen or fifteen,” Odelia responded with a shrug.

“My parents were high school sweethearts.”

“It’s lovely that it worked out for them. But most people aren’t the person they’re going to be a decade later, much less forty or fifty years later. My husband and I weren’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I wouldn’t trade my life now for anything.”

It must be nice to be so content.

Bella was, back when she was living her cozy little life with Sam and Max. Back when she knew exactly where she belonged.

Now . . .

Now, as she and Odelia sit with chicken salad sandwiches and cold lemonade, she’s doing her best to stop thinking about the past.

She asks Odelia about Jiffy’s mother: “So you babysit him while she’s busy, then?”

“Well, she hasn’t been very busy until today. But now that the season is under way, I’ll keep an eye on him. We all will.” At Bella’s dubious look, she adds, “It’s safe here. We trust each other.”

When Bella opts to drop that subject, Odelia promptly introduces an equally disquieting one: she wants Bella to temporarily manage the guesthouse—for pay.

“But I can’t take your money.”

“It’s not my money,” Odelia assures her, after popping the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth. “It’s Leona’s. Well technically, it’s her nephew’s, now. But Grant told me to hire someone to take care of things.”

Attempting to rephrase her protest, Bella sips the lemonade Odelia had poured from a large mason jar she brought from her kitchen. She’d mentioned that several newcomers had arrived in Bella’s absence—a young couple and a single man—and that Leona always liked to greet guests with a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade.

“I don’t mind helping out while I’m here,” Bella says carefully, “but that’s only for a couple of days. And if you won’t charge me for the rooms—”

“Out of the question,” Odelia inserts, shaking her head. Her frizzy orange hair is topped by a lime-green sun visor the same shade as her ruffled sundress, and she’s traded her red cat-eye bifocals for white cat-eye sunglasses. “The beds are vacant. You need a place to stay.”

“Then I guess the least I can do is keep an eye on the place in return.” She adds the most blatant lie she’s ever told in her life: “But I don’t need money.”

“Don’t be silly. Everyone needs money. And you’ll earn every penny. This is a full-time, round-the-clock job, and it can be challenging to deal with some people. You’ve already had a taste of it.”

True. When she returned from the service station, she found Odelia painstakingly climbing the stairs with Opal and Ruby St. Clair, a pair of elderly sisters who had just driven from Ohio in an enormous black car. Though hardly new to the guesthouse, they requested a tour of all the available rooms on the second and third floor. A lengthy discussion/argument ensued before they decided which one they wanted. Five minutes later, they emerged, having changed their mind. No sooner did they move to a different room than they opted to return to their first choice.

They were sweet, if slightly dotty.