Page 4 of Death By Llama (Friendship Harbor Mysteries #7)

I managed a bright smile. “Yes. That was my thought. Although, I guess, I didn’t realize the theme was a Victorian Christmas.”

More irritation rose in my chest. Cameron was my boyfriend, and I had gotten no information about what to expect.

Then, I immediately felt guilty. To be fair, Cameron had been ridiculously busy getting the inn ready to open, and I could’ve asked what the event was going to be like myself.

In fact, I should’ve asked. Even though Cameron and I had only been dating a few months, I should’ve known that he would pull out all the stops. That was Cameron.

And Oliver could have told me too. He and Henry had to have known what the plan was.

“Opulent Occasions,” I said, deciding that I had to let go of the fact that I had been left out of the loop. I was here—in full elfin garb—and it was time to make the event the best we could for Steamy’s. “I haven’t heard of you before. Are you from Bar Harbor? Bangor?”

The man grimaced as if I had suggested they were aliens from Mars.

“No, we are here from Boston,” the smiling blonde said. “How about you?”

“South Boston?” the man asked.

I didn’t know Boston well enough to know what that meant, but I could tell it wasn’t a compliment.

The blonde shot her companion a disapproving look.

She was genuinely nice, at least.

“I’m Sophie. Right here from Friendship Harbor.” I offered my hand to her.

She readily accepted. “I’m Ashley.” Then she tilted her head toward her tall companion. “And this is Brad.”

“Nice to meet you both.”

Unsurprisingly, Brad didn’t offer his hand. Instead, he’d spotted Jack, who had shifted his bulky, woolly frame behind George and attempted to crane his neck over the man’s shoulder to get a drink of his beer. George brushed him away. Jack rumbled low in his chest.

Brad tore his gaze away from my large pet. “You have some sort of animal with you?”

He said “animal” as if it were the most offensive term he could come up with.

“Yes. That’s an animal,” I said brightly, unable to resist. What sort of stupid question was that?

“What is it?”

“My pet llama, Jack Kerouac. He’s sort of the unofficial mascot of all of our events here in Friendship Harbor.”

Brad grimaced again.

But to my surprise, Ashley laughed, delighted. “I love llamas!”

“Right?” Dave said from beside me. “Who doesn’t?”

Brad—if his horrified glance at Ashley was any indication.

Brandy appeared at my side. “Hey, things are starting to pick up. A lot of people are arriving.”

“Looks like it’s show time,” I said to my employees.

Dave immediately joined Jimmy in the booth, donning plastic gloves, and helping prepare lobster rolls and getting them arranged in the cooler.

Brandy also jumped in to add ice to towers of our signature holiday drinks—an Elf-tini and a You Make A Mean One, Mr. Grinch punch.

Which had seemed quite clever before we discovered we were supposed to be serving wassail or hot toddies or something.

“It looks like Santa’s elves are busy, busy, busy,” Brad said, watching us scrambling. He sauntered back to their elaborate booth, clearly already prepared for the crowd.

“Flatlander,” Jimmy muttered as he added a bit more salt and pepper to his giant pot of chowder.

“He’s just worried because our booth smells so good,” I said with a bright smile as I jumped in to help set out our homemade whoopie pies and blueberry cake.

By the time the festival-goers made it down to our section of the booths, we were ready. And while our decorations might look like something from a Charlie Brown Christmas, I had no doubt our food and drinks were spectacular.

Soon the festival sprang into full swing.

People milled around, taking in all the vendor’s wares and food options.

I breathed a sigh of relief to see our booth, despite its DIY decor, was hopping.

Jimmy was already steaming more lobsters and Dave picked them as fast as he could for more lobster rolls.

“Well, thank Santa and his dang reindeer. Finally real festival food,” I heard a cranky voice say.

I turned to see our resident cynical senior, Eleanor Hall, tottering toward me with a new walker. This one was bright blue and had wheels and a place to sit. She pushed the sparkly new medical four-wheeler up to our booth, then collapsed onto the seat, effectively taking up the whole counter.

Behind the ancient woman was her beleaguered daughter, Millie Hall, an elderly woman herself, looked as if she could use one of those fancy walkers as well—if for no other reason than to carry all the items, purses, bags, and various things they’d acquired during the festival.

“This is one strange festival,” Eleanor said, reaching for a whoopie pie without asking or paying for it. “I don’t recognize a single vendor here. Who are all these people? This place is crawling with more tourists than locals.”

Eleanor shot an irritated glance at a couple who cautiously tried to go around her to place an order with Brandy.

“I think that’s the point, Mom,” Millie replied, groaning slightly as she dropped her bags to the ground beside her mother.

Eleanor grunted. “If the point is to bring in vendors that aren’t even from the town, then it’s a dumb one.

If out-of-towners come to stay at the inn, they’re going to come to Main Street looking for all these places, and they’re not going be there.

We don’t have a sushi bar in Friendship Harbor. Or an artisan cheesemaker.”

“Or a glassblower,” Dave said disappointedly.

Eleanor tipped her whoopie pie at him to acknowledge his point.

“Well, Steamy’s will be here,” I said, smiling warmly to the couple, who I didn’t recognize and assumed fell into the category of out-of-towners.

“Yeah, you’ll be here. But can you believe they didn’t even have the quilting ladies?” Eleanor complained, unwrapping the whoopie pie and taking a big bite. Frosting circled her mouth.

“Mom, Oliver explained to us why the quilting ladies weren’t included in this festival. It’s not like we don’t have other festivals where we can display the things we’ve made,” Millie reminded her.

Eleanor rolled her eyes, then reached across in front of the couple to grab a napkin.

“Oliver claims to be an honorary quilting lady. He should be looking out for you and your hard work. Not to mention, it’s one of the few things you do well. It might be the only one, actually. It’s a shame you’re not selling some of your quilts today.”

I glanced at Millie, who blanched slightly at her mother’s words. Although it was probably as close to a compliment as she ever got from her crotchety old mother, backhanded as it was.

“It is weird that none of the local businesses are here,” George Sprague agreed, taking a sip of his beer from where he still sat at the end of the counter, looking just as he would if he were at the bar in the pub.

“I mean, I can see that they want to bring in people who will be coming to spend the weekend.” He glanced at the couple, who were still trying to place an order with Brandy for lobster rolls.

“But, you know, the locals will be using this inn too, for things like weddings and special events.”

“And I hear it has a great restaurant,” Millie added. “I haven’t had a chance to get there, but Oliver has been telling me all about the menu.”

I tried not to react to that. I did know the inn was going to have its own restaurant, which made sense, but it was a little strange to have my boyfriend start a restaurant that would be my competition.

Of course, we had trivia night, which packed the pub. I doubted Cameron would allow his restaurant to have that.

I turned to help Brandy with the two tourists, who looked decidedly uncomfortable listening to this conversation.

“Where the heck are the doughboys?” Dougie MacDougal appeared at the counter, wedging himself between Eleanor and her walker and the poor couple. “You can’t even call this a festival without doughboys.”

“No, you cannot,” Eleanor agreed, reaching for another whoopie pie. Then she grabbed two and handed Dougie one.

He frowned, clearly not finding the popular Maine treat a good substitute to the admittedly delicious delicacy of fried dough covered in powdered sugar, but then he shrugged and unwrapped the chocolate cake.

A troupe of the carolers stopped behind them in the thoroughfare, singing a lovely rendition of “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing.” The couple hurried to gather up their lobster rolls in the pretense of not wanting to miss the performance.

“I do think it’s a little insulting to aim this whole event at people outside of Friendship Harbor,” Brandy admitted. “Shouldn’t the inn benefit local businesses too? And heck, we have a lot in this town that would bring tourists back. Even uppity ones like the people here today.”

I didn’t know what to say. I could see both sides. Cameron knew that tourists would be the ones filling the rooms of the inn, but the townsfolk were right too. The local businesses also needed those tourist dollars.

“I think you are the only booth from Friendship Harbor at this shindig,” Dougie said, around a bite of whoopie pie. He glanced down at the half-eaten sweet and sighed.

Yeah, it wasn’t a satisfying replacement for that fried dough.

“Would you like to try one of our caviar blini bites?”

Brad stood between George and Dougie, holding out a silver platter.

“Don’t be a damn fool, son,” George said. “Fish eggs will ruin the taste of my beer.”

“I need to watch my waistline,” Dougie said, running his hand over his stomach even as he raised the remainder of his whoopie pie to his mouth.

Brad appeared to be speechless for the first time in his life.

Ashley, who looked worried that her business partner might slap Dougie in the face with a blini bite, hastily said, “Oh, look everyone, it’s Santa! Santa is here!”

“Where?” Dave asked, pausing in the middle of fixing an Elf-tini, even though no one had ordered one.

I suspected it was for himself.

He craned his neck around eagerly, like once he spotted the man, he was going to leap onto his lap and present him with a length list for Christmas.

Santa was not the Victorian actor we’d seen earlier.

Santa was…tottering on his feet, his beard askew and his suit way too snug around his belly.

“That’s not Santa, Ashley,” Brad said. “That’s just a drunk local. They should have made this a ticketed event.”

“Hey,” George protested.

If I thought George was going to defend the character of the good citizens of Friendship Harbor, I was wrong.

“How do you know Santa isn’t a drunk?” he asked.

“Mind blown,” Dave said, sipping his Elf-tini.

“For heaven’s sake,” Eleanor Hall snapped. “That’s Peanut. He’s been the town Santa for thirty years. And a drunk that long too.”

George gave Brad a pointed look.

“Another reason to push for progress,” Brad muttered.

“Sir, can I help you?” The unexpected voice boomed over the chorus of carolers now singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, you can stop stealing my job!”