Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(39)

Eleanor doesn’t return the greeting, and Bella realizes she has on ear buds, listening to music.

Spotting her, Eleanor pulls them out of her ears and turns off her iPod. “Good morning,” she says cheerfully. “It’s really starting to come down. I had to stop. Steve is still out there, though. He’s a lot hardier than I am.”

“I didn’t even realize you two were already up and out,” Bella says, drying her still-stinging hand. “I’d have had the coffee ready earlier.”

“Oh, I’m not a coffee drinker. Steve is, and he wanted to make some himself, but I told him it’s not polite to go rummaging around someone else’s kitchen.”

“It would have been fine, but I’m sorry about that. Tomorrow I’ll be up earlier. I’m still trying to get the hang of this.” She turns the knob and this time the burner ignites beneath the tea kettle.

“No worries, you’re doing a wonderful job. My husband gets up much too early, even on vacation, and he doesn’t expect anyone to be at his beck and call at that hour, even though Leona always managed to be.”

“So do you two run together every morning?”

“Steve runs every day, and I try to. We start out together, but I can only do four miles at the most on a good day. He does twice that, sometimes three times. He’s very disciplined. He says it nurtures the heart and the soul. Are you a runner?”

“Me? No.”

Not that her heart and soul couldn’t stand a bit of nurturing.

Eleanor follows her into the breakfast room and puts a blueberry muffin and some fruit onto a plate, chatting the whole time. “I know you’re just filling in here, so what do you ordinarily do?”

“I’m a teacher.”

“So am I. Steve and I are both in education. That’s why we always like to stay in the Apple Room,” she adds with a smile. “What do you teach?”

“Middle school science, but . . . I just got laid off.”

“So you’re looking for a new position?”

I’m looking for a new everything.

Bella nods and asks about Eleanor’s and her husband’s careers.

“I’m a history teacher, and Steve taught English and drama for years, but now he’s in administration. He’s a superintendent, in fact, of a large district where we live in Massachusetts. I’m sure between the two of us, we can help you network, depending on where you live.”

Not wanting to admit that she doesn’t live any place at all, Bella thanks her and guides the subject away from careers. Eleanor lights up when she asks about family. She and Steve are celebrating their silver wedding anniversary next April, and she’s convinced he’s going to surprise her with a trip to Paris. They have three children—a son studying premed in college, another about to start law school, and a daughter who’s expecting their first grandchild.

As Eleanor pulls out her cell phone to scroll through a montage of happy family photos, Bella murmurs all the right things. But it’s difficult not to envy the other woman’s life or to think about what might have been.

Max was supposed to have siblings. She and Sam were supposed to grow old together.

“For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health . . . ’til death do us part . . .”

“Only ’til death? No, sir,” she remembers quipping at the time. “You’re not getting off that easily. I’m going to haunt you, Mister.”

How easy it was back then to laugh about the future.

How unthinkable that all their vows would be tested within a few short years.

Two sets of footsteps descend the stairs, and the St. Clair sisters enter the room.

They’re not the most attractive older women Bella has ever seen—not by a long shot. Mirror images of each other, they have sharp chins, sallow complexions, and smallish eyes set too close to their aquiline noses. They are fairly snappy dressers—she’ll give them that. But octogenarians in matching outfits—navy-and-white polka dot cardigans, khaki pedal pushers, and blue espadrilles—is a bit much.

Bella introduces them to Eleanor as a pair, apologizing because she can’t tell them apart.

“I’m Opal,” one says, “and she’s Ruby.”

“We’ve met,” Eleanor reminds them. “Last summer, and the summer before.”

“We have? These days I scarcely remember yesterday,” Ruby says, shaking her head.

“We met yesterday, too.” Eleanor smiles gently. “We were talking about names, and I said that it was lovely that you’re both named after gemstones.”

“Oh, yes! Well, Papa was a jeweler, you know.”

Eleanor nods. Clearly, she knows. “I was telling you that my own father was a history professor, and my twin sister Mamie and I were named for first ladies. Fortunately, we don’t look like them,” she adds.

“Look like whom, dear?” Ruby asks.

“Like Mamie Eisenhower and Eleanor Roosevelt.”

“Where?” Opal looks around.

Bella fights a smile. “Eleanor was just saying that she and her twin sister were named after first ladies, just like you and your twin were named after gemstones, but that she’s glad that they don’t—”

“Oh, no, dear, we aren’t twins at all.” Ruby shakes her white bun. “People often make that mistake, though.”