The Restaurant(7)

“Everyone’s great, just great, thanks.” He glanced around the bustling room, full of people mingling, drinking and eating, filling their plates at the buffet table, while servers in elegant black and white uniforms stocked whatever was running low and efficiently cleared empty dishes and glasses away. “I suppose it finally is time to retire. I’ll really miss this place though.”

Emma patted his arm. “I can’t imagine how they’ll run it without you,” she said.

Ray chuckled. “Oh, they’ll be fine. It’s just time. Long overdue if you ask my wife. She’s ready to retire to Florida yesterday.” He stood up as one of the servers caught his eye. “Please excuse me, duty calls.” Some kind of crisis in the kitchen, from the looks of it. Jill suspected that he would miss this job quite a bit. Retirement wouldn’t be nearly as exciting.

“This place without Ray will just seem so odd,” Mandy said.

“I used to think that, too,” Emma agreed. “After all he’s been here as long as any of us can remember.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Jill reached for the half-full bottle of chianti in the middle of the table and refilled each of their glasses.

“Okay, so let’s talk about you now.” She focused her attention on Emma. “What are you going to do about Peter? Can you work things out, do you think?”

Emma still hadn’t shared the dirty details with them yet. The timing hadn’t felt right. It didn’t seem appropriate to whine about her marriage woes when they were writing Grams obituary and making arrangements to bury her. But now—well, she supposed Grams would have quite a lively opinion about the matter.

“Grams was never a big fan of Peter. I wonder if she somehow sensed something?” she mused.

“Was he unfaithful?” Mandy asked, and Emma just nodded. It was still too hard to say the words.

“No kidding? Who was she?” Jill exclaimed, clearly surprised by this revelation. Emma smiled wryly.

“He,” she corrected. After allowing a moment for that to register, she added, “It was his friend Tom. His very good friend Tom.”

“The one who recently moved to Phoenix?” Mandy asked.

“The very same. They evidently ‘experimented’ in college. Whatever that means. I don’t really want to know. Peter said it freaked them both out, and it didn’t happen again, until just recently, when Tom was transferred to Phoenix and looked him up.”

“That’s really scary. How do you deal with that kind of news?” Jill asked.

“Not very well,” Emma admitted with a nervous laugh. “If you’re me, you run away and hide and you question it from every possible angle. But there are no good answers.”

“Well, you need to take a vacation and figure out what you’re going to do next.” Mandy reached over and grabbed her hand. “Stay with me, as long as you like. We have plenty of room.”

“Or come to Manhattan. We can have a blast, go shopping and out to eat, whatever you feel like doing,” Jill offered.

“Thanks, both of you. I’ve been thinking a lot about this though, and what I’ve decided is what I really need to do is focus on work, and keep busy. I’m flying home tomorrow night and moving out. I have a room already booked at a spa in Scottsdale and am going to go apartment hunting. I can’t stay in our house anymore, not with Peter or even without him. There are too many memories there.”

She saw the sympathy in their eyes and anger at Peter on her behalf, which was understandable and she loved them for it.

“I don’t hate Peter. He is who he is and I know he never meant for this to happen, but I just can’t be around him anymore. It’s too hard.”

Mandy wasn’t ready to give up though. “Think about staying here a few more days at least. You can easily reschedule your flight. Let us take care of you for a bit and let yourself relax and recharge.”

Emma was too exhausted to protest. It was easier to put the decision off. “I’ll think about it and will let you know tomorrow.” They were meeting at the attorney’s office at eleven to go over the will. Emma didn’t expect that to take long. Grams had a modest savings account and the house and had always told the girls that whatever she had would go to the three of them equally. She figured she could probably suggest a nice lunch with Mandy and Jill, and then she’d be ready to head to the airport. She was anxious to get on with her life.





Chapter 4





Alvin Eldridge had been Gram’s attorney for over thirty years. He was an older man, nearly seventy, with plenty of snow-white hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His eyes were cheery as he welcomed the girls into his small office on Main Street. It was an elegant old building with a distant view of the harbor.

“Come in, come in.” He ushered them into a conference room and offered water or coffee, which they all declined. Once they were settled comfortably around the table, he opened a thick manila folder, handed a copy of the will to each of them and started reading through it. Everything was pretty much as expected right up until the end. He paused, and they thought he was finished, but then he leaned forward and said with much drama, “There is an addendum to the will, which your grandmother instructed me to save until the very end.” He handed a single sheet of paper to each of them.