Garden Spells

by Sarah Addison Allen

  “A few minutes ago. What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” Claire took her hand off the warm phone. “I just got a call to cater a party at Mr. and Mrs. Matteson’s house this weekend.”

  Sydney crossed her arms over her chest. Then she dropped her arms to her sides. She hesitated before asking, “The Mattesons who live in that large Tudor home on Willow Springs Road?”

  “Yes.”

  “Short notice,” Sydney said cautiously, curiously.

  “Yes. And she said she’d double my normal fee because of it, but only if I had enough help for the night.”

  “I always liked Mrs. Matteson,” Sydney said, a spark of something popping in her words, like static. Something, something like hope, was trying to make itself clear. “Are you taking the job? I’ll help you.”

  “Are you sure?” Claire asked, because things still seemed wrong. Sydney used to have a relationship with Hunter John, and she used to be friends with Emma. If she’d wanted to see them again, she would have gone before now instead of spending all her time cloistered in the house or hiding over at Tyler’s.

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  Claire shrugged. She must be reading too much into things. “Okay, then. Thank you.”

  Sydney smiled and turned on her heel. “No problem.”

  Claire followed her into the kitchen. There were some things that hadn’t changed about Sydney, like her light-brown hair that had just enough natural curl to make it look like waves of caramel icing on a cake. And her beautiful lightly tanned skin. And the freckles across her nose. She’d lost weight but still had a stunning figure, petite in a way that always made Claire, who was four inches taller, feel heavy and clumsy.

  Those were the familiar things.

  The rest of Sydney was a mystery. She’d been here almost a week now and Claire was still trying to figure her out. She was a terrific mother, that much was clear. Lorelei hadn’t been a great example, and their grandmother had tried, but they were nothing like Sydney. She was loving and attentive, knew where Bay was at all times but still let her have her space, let her dream and play. It was an emotional thing to watch her little sister be such a great parent. Where did she learn it?

  And where had she been? Sydney was jumpy, and she never used to be jumpy. Just last night, when Claire couldn’t sleep and went out to the garden, she found herself locked out, because Sydney would get up several times every night to make sure everything downstairs was locked up tight. What was she running from? It did no good to ask her questions; Sydney only changed the subject when asked about the last ten years. She left and went to New York. That was all Claire knew. What happened after that was anyone’s guess. And Bay wasn’t giving up any secrets. According to her, she was born on a Greyhound bus and she and her mother never lived anywhere. No, they lived everywhere.

  Claire watched Sydney walk to the pot of soup steaming on the stove. “Oh, I forgot what I came in here to tell you. I invited Tyler over for dinner,” Sydney said, taking a whiff of the chamomile chicken soup.

  Claire gaped at her. “You did what?”

  “I invited Tyler over for dinner. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  Claire didn’t answer and made a beeline to the bread keeper, not meeting Sydney’s eyes. She took out a loaf of wheat bread and started slicing it for sandwiches.

  “Claire, come on,” Sydney said, laughing. “Give the man a break. He’s thin. He has these notes all over his house, reminding him to eat. He told me he forgets. He showed me some of his artwork yesterday, and it’s phenomenal. But, I swear to God, if he asks me one more question about you I’m going to suggest therapy. Tyler’s nice. If you don’t want him, tell him so he’ll stop mooning over you and I’ll have a chance.”

  Claire looked up immediately. “Is that why you’re spending so much time over there? You want Tyler?”

  “No. But why don’t you?” Claire was saved from answering by a knock at the front door. “It’s for you,” Sydney said.

  “He’s your guest.”

  Sydney smiled and went to the door.

  Claire set the bread knife down and strained to hear Tyler’s voice. “Thanks for the invitation,” she heard him say. “Great house.”

  “Want a tour?” Sydney asked, which made Claire anxious. She didn’t want Sydney showing Tyler the house. She didn’t want Tyler knowing her secrets.

  “Sure.”

  Claire closed her eyes for a moment. Think, think, think. What would make Tyler forget her, make him less interested? What dish would turn his attention elsewhere? She didn’t have time to make something specific.

  She didn’t need this. It was all she could do to deal with Sydney and Bay in her life, trying to ease them into her routine. And she did this knowing they were still going to leave. Sydney had hated everything about this house and this town. Even now she was trying to protect Bay from unnecessary strangeness, not explaining the garden or the apple tree to her, not telling her what being a Waverley meant in Bascom. It was only going to take one comment, one snub from someone, and Sydney would disappear again like smoke.

  But Tyler was definitely something she could control in her life. She had to try to dissuade him in any way she could. Vehemently, rudely if necessary. There just wasn’t any room for him. She was letting too many people in as it was.

  Bay ran into the kitchen ahead of Sydney and Tyler. She hugged Claire, like it was the most natural thing in the world to give a hug for no discernible reason, and Claire held her tightly for a moment. Bay pulled away and ran to the kitchen table and sat.

  Sydney walked in and Tyler followed. She noticed right away that he’d had his hair cut. It suited him, made him seem more focused. That, she decided when his eyes focused on her, was not a good thing. You can’t lose what you don’t have, she thought, and turned away.

  “It must have been amazing, growing up in this house,” Tyler said.

  “It was interesting, all right,” Sydney said. “There’s a step on the staircase, three steps up, that squeaks. When we were young, every time someone stepped on it, a mouse would stick his head out of the knothole on the step above to see what made the sound.”

  Claire looked at her sister, surprised. “You knew about that?”

  “I’m not much of a Waverley, but I grew up here too.” Sydney snagged a slice of bread as Claire made the sandwiches and put them on a plate. “Claire learned all these crazy recipes from our grandmother.”

  “This isn’t a crazy recipe. This is soup and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

  Sydney winked at Tyler. “Almond butter and ginger jelly sandwiches.”

  Claire’s skin suddenly felt prickly. It came so easily to Sydney, and Claire used to hate her so much for it. Look how naturally she talked with Tyler, made it seem like it was no big deal to form connections when they were so easily broken.

  “Were the two of you very close growing up?” Tyler asked.

  “No,” Sydney said, before Claire could.

  Claire filled three bowls with soup and set them on the table with the plate of sandwiches. “Enjoy,” she said, and left the kitchen and went out to the garden, Tyler, Sydney, and Bay watching her go.

  About forty-five minutes later, Claire had finished digging a hole by the fence and was gathering up the apples that had fallen around the tree. It was humid, the air as thick as sorghum syrup, carrying a hint of the sticky summer to come.

  “Stop it,” she kept saying as the tree dropped apples around her, trying to vex her. “The more you drop, the more I bury. And you know it takes you a week to grow more.”

  It dropped a small apple on her head.

  She looked up at the branches, which were twitching slightly though there was no wind. “I said stop it.”

  “Is that your secret?”

  She turned to see Tyler standing on the grass. How long had he been there? She hadn’t even heard him approach. The tree had been distracting her. Damn tree.

  “My secret?” she asked warily.r />
  “Your secret to this garden. You talk to the plants.”

  “Oh.” She turned and gathered more apples in her arms. “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Dinner was great.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it.” When he didn’t move, she said, “I’m a little busy.”

  “That’s what Sydney said you’d say. And she said to come out anyway.”

  “Her confidence is attractive, I know, but I think she just needs a friend right now,” Claire said, shocking herself. She never meant to say that. It sounded as if she cared. Sure, she wanted Tyler to turn his attention elsewhere. But not to Sydney. Claire closed her eyes. She thought she was past all that jealousy.

  “What about you? Do you need a friend?”

  She glanced over at him. He was so comfortable with himself, standing there in his loose jeans, his button-down shirt untucked. Just for a moment, she wanted to walk to him, into his arms, and let that sense of calm envelop her. What was the matter with her? “I don’t need friends.”

  “Do you need something more?”

  She didn’t have a lot of experience with men, but she understood what he meant. She knew what those tiny purple snaps around him, the ones you could see only at night, meant. “I like what I have.”

  “I do too, Claire. You’re beautiful,” he said. “There, I said it. I couldn’t keep it in any longer.”

  He wasn’t afraid of getting hurt. He seemed to welcome it. One of them had to be sensible. “That thing about me being busy: I meant it.”

  “That thing about you being beautiful: I meant it too.”

  She walked over to the hole by the fence and dropped the apples in. “I’m going to be busy for a long, long time.”

  When she turned back around, Tyler was grinning. “Well, I’m not.”

  Feeling uneasy, she watched him as he walked away. Was he trying to tell her something? Was it a warning of some sort?

  I have all the time in the world to wiggle my way in.

  CHAPTER

  5

  The Matteson mansion looked the same as Sydney remembered. She could probably walk up to Hunter John’s bedroom with her eyes closed, even now. When they spent time alone in the house, she used to pretend they lived there together. They would lie in bed and she would go on and on about their future. But when he broke up with her at graduation, he said, “I thought you understood.”

  She didn’t understand then, but she did now. She understood now that she’d loved him, and he was probably the only man she’d ever loved like that, with such hope. She understood now that she would always have left Bascom, whether or not it was with him. She understood now that he hadn’t been able to accept her for what she was. She understood that part best of all, because even she hadn’t been able to do that.

  There was a small, remembered thrill to being somewhere she knew she really shouldn’t be as Claire pulled around to the service entrance and they entered the kitchen. She shouldn’t have come, but she couldn’t help herself. Maybe it was the challenge, the way it used to be a challenge to sneak around boyfriends’ houses while they were at work, stealing money from their secret hiding places before she left town. She was going to steal something here too. She was going to take memories that didn’t belong to her anymore. And why was she doing it? Because the best time in her adolescence, her best memories of Bascom, were when she dated the biggest catch in town. Everyone had admired her. Everyone had accepted her. She needed those good memories, needed them more than the Mattesons did. They probably wouldn’t even miss them. They probably forgot who she was a long time ago.

  The housekeeper met them and introduced herself as Joanne. She was in her forties, and her black hair was so shiny and straight that it barely moved, which meant she hated mistakes.

  “The flowers have already been delivered. I was told to wait to arrange them until you arrived,” Joanne said. “When you finish unloading, I’ll be on the patio. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes,” Sydney said importantly as Joanne disappeared through the swinging door of the butler’s pantry. “I liked Myrtle better.”

  “Who is Myrtle?” Claire asked.

  “The old housekeeper.”

  “Oh” was all Claire said.

  As soon as everything was in and the necessary things refrigerated, Sydney led Claire through the house to the patio. Mrs. Matteson had been proud of her antiques, which was why Sydney was surprised to find the house now was just so…pink. There was rose damask wallpaper in the dining room, and the chairs at the long dining-room table had pale-pink upholstery. The family room opened out of the dining room, and it was a riot of pink florals on the couch cushions and rugs.

  The extensive patio was to the right, through a set of open French doors. A warm summer breeze glided in, carrying the scent of roses and chlorine. When they walked out, Sydney saw that there were round cast-iron tables and chairs set up around the pool, and an elaborate bar had been erected in a corner. The longer tables for the food were skirting the walls, and that’s where Joanne was standing, surrounded by empty vases and buckets of flowers.

  Claire went to Joanne, but Sydney couldn’t move. She felt light-headed. It was just the fantasy of it all—the white linens on the buffet tables flapping in the wind, the lights in the pool sending watery shadows over the area, the starlights in the shrubbery. She wanted this so much when she was young, this prosperity, this dream. Standing there, she could remember so clearly what it felt like to be a part of it, to be a part of something, to know she belonged somewhere.

  Even if it had all been a lie.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and watched a maid put candles in tall glass hurricane lamps on each of the tables. Sydney listened distantly as Claire told Joanne where the roses and the fuchsia and the gladioli should be placed on the tables. “Gladioli here,” she said, “where the nutmeg stuffing in the squash blossoms and the fennel chicken will be. Roses here, where the rose-petal scones will go.” It was all so intricate, a manipulative plan to make the guests feel something they might not feel otherwise. It didn’t seem at all like Mrs. Matteson. Yet Claire had spent the better part of the evening on Monday discussing the menu on the phone with her. Sydney had made up an excuse to be in the kitchen and could hear Claire in the storeroom saying things like, “If it’s love you want to portray, then roses.” And, “Cinnamon and nutmeg mean prosperity.”

  After Claire had taken care of the nonedible-flower placement with Joanne, she started to walk back into the house but stopped when she realized Sydney wasn’t following her.

  “Are you all right?” Claire asked.

  Sydney turned. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, as if proud of it, as if it belonged to her. It did, for a while.

  “It’s very…” Claire hesitated a moment. “Deliberate. Come on, we don’t want to get behind schedule.”

  A few hours later, in the kitchen, Sydney said, “I see what you mean by deliberate. Why does everything have to be placed clockwise on the trays? We didn’t have to do this at the botanists’ luncheon.”

  “Those ladies only cared about the food, not what it meant.”

  “And what does this all mean?” Sydney asked.

  “It means they want people to see them as madly in love and fabulously wealthy.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense; everyone already knows that. Are Mr. and Mrs. Matteson having problems? They seemed so happy when I knew them.”

  “I don’t question the motives. I just give people what they want. Are you ready?” Claire asked, carrying two trays to the swinging kitchen door. They’d set out the food before the guests arrived, but Joanne had just informed them that the trays needed refreshing.

  Sydney wondered if she would recognize anyone out there. She’d tried to make out voices, sometimes stopping to crane her neck when she heard laughter, wondering if she’d heard that laugh before. Would Hunter John be out there? Did it matter? “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said as she picked up her trays. />
  Parties made Emma feel enchanted, like she was a little girl playing dress up and this was a world all of her own making. Her mother had been the same way. “Leave the magic to the Waverleys,” she used to say when Emma was little and she would watch her mother try on dress after dress before parties. “We have something better. We have fantasy.”

  Emma was standing by the bar because that’s where Hunter John was, but it gave her an excellent view of everyone enjoying themselves. She loved parties, but she’d never had a party feel quite like this one, when every other sentence out of everyone’s mouth was a compliment to her or an envious remark. It was wonderful.

  Ariel walked over to Emma and kissed her cheek. “Darling, you look wonderful. That red is perfect on you. Just perfect.”

  “This was a grand idea, Mama. Thank you for doing this. Who is the caterer? I’m getting compliments on the food. Not nearly as many comments as I’m getting on my dress, but still.”

  Ariel winked and turned Emma so that she faced the patio doors across the pool. “That, sugar, is my biggest gift to you this evening.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wait. Watch. I’ll show you.”

  Emma didn’t understand, but she laughed with anticipation. “Mama, what did you do? Did you buy me something?”

  “In a sense,” Ariel said mysteriously.

  “Mama, what is it? Tell me, tell me!”

  The pitch of Emma’s voice made Hunter John turn away from his conversation with some of his friends. “What’s the matter, Emma?”

  Emma grabbed Hunter John’s hand and pulled him toward her. “Mama bought me a gift and won’t tell me what it is.”

  “Ah, there it is,” Ariel said, pointing with a glass of champagne in her hand.

  “What?” Emma said excitedly. “Where?” Emma’s eyes focused on two women coming out of the house, carrying trays. They were servers, obviously. She was just about to look away to find where her real gift was when she realized who one of the servers was. “Is that Claire Waverley? You hired her to cater my party?” It suddenly occurred to her in one terrible moment what her mother had done, and her eyes darted to the other woman with Claire. “Oh, my God.”