“Freedom!” Ange punched the air.
I stowed my overnight bag in the trunk and pushed away all thoughts of cats, responsibilities, and Ms. Vine.
Harper and her wife Reina waited outside theBlue Moon Inn,Harper’s family business, which they ran together. The neon sign pulsed in the mist which had crept in over the last hour. I hoped it wouldn’t worsen. In my years away, I’d missed the drizzle and mossy smell of the temperate rainforest stretching toward the coast. What I hadn’t missed was driving in fog thick enough to swallow up entire villages.
Harper peered at the sky. “It’ll clear up again soon,” she declared.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t and people stayed home,” Reina deposited their luggage and settled in the backseat.
“Pilar and her brother can handle a crowd for one night. We’ll be back soon enough.” Harper leant against Reina’s shoulder.
The drive to Cannon Hill took us through densely wooded countryside. Harper’s forecast had been right: halfway through, the mist lifted, and I occasionally glimpsed mountains in the distance.
Where Willowmere was small and cozy, with a variety of architectural styles from A-frame chalets to clapboard villas and Victorian gingerbread mansions, and a plethora of artisanal stores, Cannon Hill had a well-developed commercial center. It was also the seat of a community college, a hub for small startups, and on the outskirts, we passed the site of the future Cannon Hill Retirement Village, which dwarfed Willowmere’s care home. Building had already begun.
We’d booked rooms in a hotel in a quiet back street, within a few minutes’ walk from the main street lined with restaurants and a karaoke bar.
I dropped my bag on the luggage stand, tested the springiness of the mattress on my queen size bed, and admired the thick wall-to-wall carpet with a swirly pattern in blue and grey designed to hide dirt, and the velvet black-out curtains. I’d spent complete vacations in much inferior rooms.
We met up again outside.
“Where shall we go first?” Ange asked in a deceptively neutral tone.
“We could grab a coffee and a bite to eat,” Harper suggested in an equally neutral tone. “Or—”
“Yes?”
I shook my head in mock despair. We were all close to 50, and here we stood, with Ange and Harper acting again like they had in high school, because we all knew what Ange really wanted.
Well, three could play that game. Or rather, four. I said to Reina, “We could check out that pottery studio we drove past. Their sign said they have taster sessions every afternoon.” I winked at her.
She caught my drift. “It’s very meditative.” Turning to Ange, she said, “You could bring back handmade bowls for Mrs. Miniver and Mr. Chips.”
Ange’s adored labradoodles whose apricot color matched her own curls, had stayed behind in the doting care of Ange’s husband Nick, one of the town’s doctors.
For an instant, she seemed to waver. Then she looked at us. “I know, I know. We already agreed to go to the antiques’ fair after breakfast tomorrow, but a quick glimpse now won’t hurt. Especially if Bex works her magic and finds what I’m after, before another customer snaps it up.”
The bi-annual fair attracted bargain hunters from all over the county. Ange, a professional glass blower, had recently rekindled her love affair with vintage Tiffany lamps, when she and I had helped turn a heritage mansion into a boutique hotel. Now Ange had a long wish-list for her own home.
Since classic Tiffany lamps came in price ranges from three to seven figures, Cannon Hill was a good place to start. Anything sold here should be either affordable or a hitherto unrecognized treasure.
We decided to stroll to the old warehouse that held the fair for three days. The soft air was perfumed with dogwood and magnolia (my botanical knowledge had evolved in leaps and bounds since my return), and sidewalks were wide enough for us to amble arm in arm.
The parking lot outside the brick building showed only a few available spots. Several customers had arrived with trailers in tow or pickup trucks, although I also noticed a few convertibles. One, a Corvette Stingray in a bright shade of tangerine, had just pulled in. The driverjumped out in the exaggerated manner of a man used to attracting attention.
We snickered, but then we weren’t the intended audience. That honor belonged to two young women in flowing dresses too skimpy for the season. They both ogled the man, who smoothed his floppy dark hair back and flashed them a smile revealing the kind of perfect teeth that whispered wealth and needed a small fortune to achieve. I took him to be in his early thirties.
Ange said, “He’s a bit young for a man-o-pause car.”
“Maybe it belongs to his dad,” Harper suggested.
Ange’s voice had carried further than she’d intended. The two young women had heard us, because they broke into a giggle. Luckily, the Corvette driver had already entered the warehouse.
“Shall we split up?” Reina asked. “If we search in pairs, we’ll cover the ground quicker.”
“I’ll go with Ange, and she’ll tell me what to look for,” her wife said. “You stay with Bex and if one of us finds something promising, you and I will act as runners, so Ange or Bex can stay in place and guard the objects.”
“Great.” Ange took Harper’s hand and pulled her away, to the left side. The fair had been divided into six long rows of stalls, with large furniture in the two outer rows and smaller objects in the inner rows in a building the size of a football pitch.
