Trixie was leaving today. Bobbie was up early. She made coffee, fed Fossy and went to her office. She checked up on all her automated payments and what was coming into the business account and then checked the vacation schedule for her staff. Finally, she checked the reservation schedule and saw they were pretty full. They did have rooms with longer term guests. She wasn’t sure about Rick, he seemed to quite happy to say awhile but George was leaving soon.

She wanted to see Rocco about look offs and benches for her mountain trail. He was also almost finished the shade structure that would hold water pipes on the roof where Rick could rig up his pool heating system. Since Bobbie didn’t want to ruin the view of the mountains, it was built along the North edge of the pool and would have a black metal roof

Then she needed to talk to Joe about fine tuning the special events spreadsheet and have him call Joan’s niece about her wedding to start the process. Joan called her last week, knowing it was their first wedding and graciously offered to help. Once they had the ball rolling she would call Joan. It wasn’t until October 12 and it felt like they had loads of time. Her Mom still wanted her to have the Planned Parenthood (PP) gala.

But first she had to have the goodbye lunch for Trixie. It was hard to imagine how she would have finished the motel, with no Alex, if Trixie hadn’t been there. She vowed to support Trixie and couldn’t make her feel bad about leaving. She was surprised at how sad she was. It was like she was facing Alex’s loss all over again.

She looked at the guest list for the lunch. They were going to set up tables in the art gallery and bring food over. They would all take turns serving lunch and high tea and just keep the lights on in the motel. It was a typically quiet Wednesday and no boardrooms were booked. Mark was making some of his fancy giant sandwiches and had ordered extra pastry from the Community College. Everyone from the motel was invited, all the Thurstons were coming, Bobbie’s sons were coming and her mother and the rest of the McNally clan. There were about 40 RSVP’s so Trixie was having the first event in the gallery.

She double checked Fossy and headed down to the kitchen to see Mark. He was in his element. He had Sipho cooking eggs and hash browns and Gina was stocking the breakfast buffet.

Mark was taking the sandwich loaves out of the oven. “I’ve got six extra long sandwiches. Two will be stacked high with shaved beef, lettuce, cream cheese and horseradish mayo. Two are chicken, cheese lettuce, tomato onion and bacon, one is a full on smoked meat, sauerkraut with mustard and Swiss and finally one is my dragged through the garden veggie sandwich. I have some gluten free buns that I’ll make for Johnny and Ray”

“Mark that all sounds great. How are you getting stuff over there?”

“We have 2 trolleys and I think we’ll just wheel everything over.”

While you are finishing up, Barb and I can start to set things up. We might need the trolley’s to bring gasses and stuff over.

“You can put them in these trays we use for bussing. Then we will use them to bring things back.”

“Thanks Mark.” And she walked over to the reception building.

The furniture on the floor of the gallery was moved around and some was stored behind the reception desks themselves, which were mobile, were pushed back. Five tables were set up in a small U shape and there were 30 chairs all around it. Barb and Quinn were there. Bobbie hugged Barb and said thanks for taking the day off.

“How do you like the table set up Bobbie? Everyone can face each other.”

“It’s a little more boardroom than banquet but I like the intimacy.”

Joe had arranged to print big pictures of Trixie on clear plastic and he and Lacey were hanging them on the bottom half of the big windows.

Lacey stepped back. “These look so good I might have to have some sort of permanent display like that, made for these windows.”

“Everything looks nice, I’ll head out for the flowers and pick up the wine.”

Barb nodded. “Quinn and I will go over to the restaurant and get tablecloths, glasses and coffee cups and set up the dessert and coffee station.” She pointed to a table in the corner.

Bobbie headed out to her car, behind her apartment. She leaned against it for a moment and let herself be a little sad. She didn’t notice Rick sitting in a chair by the back door of his room, drinking a coffee. “Would you like to sit down Bobbie. I have some water if you’d like some.”

She hastily wiped her eyes. “Thanks Rick, maybe I will sit down for a second. Water sounds nice. I’m just a little sad because Trixie is leaving us this afternoon. I suppose she’s always been there for me. We both lived in Cid city for a long time and when I moved back to Crow Harbour she came too. She’s a financial advisor and I thought she’d build a client base here but she’s done with that kind of work, I think. She needs to do more now.”

“Do you think you need someone new to help run the motel?”

“I don’t think so, I’ll still be able to get her advice sometimes and she’s still my friend. Well, I should get to my errands, are you coming to the luncheon this afternoon?”

“I have a little pain with my new cast but Johnny wants me to come play.”

“You play very well, where did you learn?”

“I took classical guitar lessons for a long time and me and my Dad used to play together sometimes.”

“I remember your Dad could play. I’ll see you there.”

What a good listener thought Bobbie as she got into the car. She travelled town and the wine store where they knew her and had her order ready. Then she went to VanDam’s to get the flowers. She had 10 pretty baskets she was going to put around the room. The plants were not full grown she so they could sit on the tables. Hopefully people would take them and hang them to grow the rest of the summer. She had ordered cupcake toppers that had little good bye sayings and was going to put the little signs in the flower arrangements. Bobbie found a goodbye card that looked all mushy and sad and when opened it said Later Traitor and laughed so hard, she bought it.

Finally everything was ready and people were arriving. It was so nice to see everyone. Trixie’s mom had been half Native but only a few of her mother’s relatives were left. Bobbie went to greet Uncle Joseph and Aunt Bride.

“Hey Bobbie it’s nice to see you still have a motel after all that mining kerfuffle.” Said Joseph.

“Are you sad to see Trixie go? You and Trixie were inseparable. The motel looks very grand. I’m glad you stopped the mining too.”

“Thank you, it is my privilege. This land was lived on by my family 8 generations or so but my Great Grampa 8 times back, likely stole it from your ancestors.”

“Bride took her hand. Well, maybe. This whole territory was counted as native fishing grounds but one journal I have, from an old Native scout, said the mouth of this river was rocky and hard to navigate so it was seldom used for fishing.”

“Maybe you can comp. us a nice room on our anniversary.” Joseph joked.

“Always” Bobbie smiled, thanked them for coming again and moved over to find her sons. Eddy, Jen and Charlie had come from the hospital. Trixie spent a lot of time with them when they were kids.

“Trixie and you have always lived in the same city eh Mom?”

“When we were teenagers Trixie moved to England and she didn’t come back until we both finished University. We’ve been together since. I’m really going to miss her.”

“We have to get together for lunch sometime Bobbie and you must come over for dinner too, we haven’t really gotten used to you being back in Crow Harbour.”

“That a good idea Jen, We get so focused on our routines it’s hard to adjust to change when it happens. I really did move back here to get closer with you and the kids.”

Bobbie gave her a hug and excused herself and went to talk to Quin, Ray and Uncle Gary.

Gary hugged her and Quinn said. “Mom is with the twins back at the room. Trixie is going to stop in to see them before she goes. I owe her so much. She hired me and turned me into an office manager and I’m going to miss her; as I’m sure we all will.”

Trixie came in to the room. “Cheer up I’m not dead or joining the foreign legion. I’ll be back a couple times a month. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

Mark, Mink and Gina arrived with the food. “We will give the others a chance to come over here in half an hour.” Said Mink; accepting a veggie sandwich from Mark. People were lining up for food. Bobbie got a small slice of the Reuben sandwich and sat with Barb and her mother and Linda and Johnny. They were all eating and chatting and her mother said. “Are you going to be all right with Trixie gone dear? You don’t seem to be eating much.”

Bobbie ignored the comment about her food. “We’ve got a lot to keep us busy. Johnny wants to start building his new house. I’m still working with Mark on planning events. I’m working with Rocco to make a nice hiking trail up the mountain. I will miss her but I’ll think of finding a new financial manager sometime. I don’t have a lot of money left to manage now anyway.” She finished, laughing a little.

Her mother just patted her hand. Florence didn’t like discussing finances.

Gifts were presented, speeches were made, tears were shed and eventually Bobbie was in the car with Greg, Trixie and their bags headed to the airport.

“We can Skype now. Remember when we were kids and pretended we had video phones.”

Trixie laughed. “I’d almost forgotten that. Technology really has come a long way. We did that on our plain old dial up telephones because there were not even cell phones. I even remember Gramma having a party line.”

“We’re here. I don’t think I can stand going inside, how about I just say goodbye now?” Bobbie and Trixie got out of the car and met on the sidewalk and hugged. They were both crying and Greg went to find a trolley for their bags. “This is crazy, I don’t know why I’m so emotional. You’re not leaving the country. You still live here and have always travelled a lot for work.”

“Right? I’m not flying off to Cambridge or something I can be home with 2 hours notice, maybe sooner, I think I get to use a private company plane.”

Bobbie laughed. “If you are going green you’ll have to sell the jet for scrap.”

“Oh, can’t I just use it a little while? I’ve always wanted a private jet.”

“I’ve always wanted a jet too.” Said Greg, loading their bags on the trolley. “I’ll be back on the weekend so I may drop by the motel.”

Goodbye.