Garden Spells

by Sarah Addison Allen

  He stood and ran back toward the house, a faint purple light trailing behind him like the tail of a comet.

  From his bedroom window, Lester watched his grandson run. All Hopkins men were like that. Lester had been like that. It was a common misconception that being old meant you couldn’t feel passion. They all felt passion. They all had run that same stretch of field. Long ago, when Lester first met his wife, he’d set trees on fire just by standing under them at night. He wished for Henry the same thing he had with his dear Alma. And running at night like you were on fire was the first part of getting there. Eventually, if Sydney was the one, Henry would stop running to nowhere and start running to her.

  Claire discovered that expectation was nice for some things—Christmas, waiting for bread to rise, long car trips to somewhere special. But it wasn’t nice for others. Waiting for certain female guests to leave, for example.

  Every morning, just before dawn, Tyler would meet Claire in the garden. They would touch and kiss and he would say such things to her, things that made her blush in the middle of the day when she thought of them again. But then, just before the horizon turned pink, he would leave and promise, “Just three more days.” “Just two more days.” “One.”

  Claire had Rachel and Tyler over for lunch the day before Rachel was to leave, under the guise of good manners—because it was a Southern tradition to do all sorts of things under the guise of good manners—but really because she wanted more time with Tyler and the only way to get it was with Rachel.

  She set up a table on the front porch and served turkey salad in zucchini blossoms. She knew Tyler was immune to her dishes, but Rachel wouldn’t be, and zucchini blossoms aided in understanding. Rachel needed to understand that Tyler was hers. It was as simple as that.

  Bay had taken her seat at the table and Claire had just set out the bread when Tyler and Rachel walked up the steps.

  “This looks lovely,” Rachel said. As she sat, she gave Claire a once-over. She was probably a perfectly nice person. Tyler liked her, and that said something. But it was clear that she wasn’t entirely over Tyler, and her sudden presence in his life was curious. There was a long story to her.

  One Claire had absolutely no desire to learn.

  “I’m glad the two of you get to spend some time together before you leave tomorrow,” Tyler said to Rachel.

  “You know, my schedule is flexible,” Rachel said, and Claire nearly dropped the water pitcher she was holding.

  “Try the zucchini,” she said.

  It turned out to be a disastrous meal, passion and impatience and resentment clashing like three winds coming from different directions and meeting in the middle of the table. The butter melted. The bread toasted itself. Water glasses overturned.

  “It’s strange out here,” Bay said from her seat, where she was trying to eat. She picked up a handful of sweet-potato chips and left for the garden, where she didn’t think anything was strange at all about the tree. Strange, after all, depended on your personal definition.

  “I guess we should go,” Tyler finally said, and Rachel stood immediately.

  “Thank you for lunch,” Rachel said. What she didn’t say was, He’s leaving with me and not staying with you. But Claire heard it anyway.

  When Sydney came home from work that evening, Claire was in the shower, the water on her hot skin causing such steam that the entire neighborhood was enveloped in the moist fog. Claire heard the bathroom door open and jumped when Sydney’s hand appeared and shut off the water.

  Claire poked her head around the curtain. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because you can’t see your hand in front of your face for an entire block. I walked into Harriet Jackson’s house, thinking it was ours.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It could be true.”

  Claire blinked through the water dripping into her eyes. “I had Rachel and Tyler over for lunch,” she admitted.

  “Are you crazy?” Sydney said. “Do you want her to leave, ever?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then stop reminding her that Tyler wants you, not her.”

  “She’s leaving in the morning.”

  “You hope.” Sydney walked out of the bathroom, her hands out in front of her like she couldn’t see. “Don’t take another shower. She won’t be able to see to leave.”

  Claire couldn’t sleep that night. In the early-morning hours she crept to Sydney’s room and knelt at the window that overlooked Tyler’s house. She stayed there until daybreak, when she saw Tyler walk with Rachel out to her car, carrying her luggage. He kissed her cheek, and Rachel drove away.

  Tyler stood there on the sidewalk, looking at the Waverley house. He’d been doing that all summer, watching the house, wanting in to her life. It was time to let him in. She was going to live or she was going to die. Tyler was going to stay or he was going to go. She had lived thirty-four years keeping everything inside, and now she was letting everything go, like butterflies released from a box. They didn’t burst forth, glad to be free, they simply flew away, softly, gradually, so she could watch them go. Good memories of her mother and grandmother were still there, butterflies that stayed, a little too old to go anywhere. That was okay. She would keep those.

  She stood and started to walk out of Sydney’s room, but she gave a start when Sydney said, “Has she finally left?”

  “I thought you were asleep,” Claire said. “Has who left?”

  “Rachel, you goof.”

  “Yes, she’s gone.”

  “Are you going over there now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank God. You kept me awake all night.”

  Claire smiled. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not,” Sydney said as she covered her head with a pillow. “Go be happy and let me sleep.”

  “Thank you, Sydney,” Claire whispered, sure Sydney didn’t hear her.

  What she didn’t see was Sydney peek out from under the pillow with a smile.

  Still in her nightgown, Claire went downstairs and out the door. Tyler’s eyes followed her across the yard. He met her halfway and twined his fingers with hers.

  They stared at each other, their conversation silent.

  Are you sure?

  Yes. Do you want this?

  More than anything.

  Together they walked to his house and made new memories; one in particular would be named Mariah Waverley Hughes and would be born nine months later.

  Sydney and Henry walked around the green downtown one afternoon a few days later. Henry had met her after work for what was becoming an almost daily coffee date. Their walks lasted only about twenty minutes, because she had to get home to Bay and he to his grandfather, but every day around five o’clock she would start looking forward to seeing him, unconsciously watching the clock and looking toward the reception area for him to appear. As soon as he did, carrying two iced coffees from the Coffee House, she would call out to him, “Henry, you’re a lifesaver!”

  It was common knowledge that single men in beauty shops were descended upon like carrion, and all the girls she worked with liked Henry and flirted and teased him while he waited for her. But when Sydney told her coworkers that she and Henry were just friends, they all looked disappointed in her, like they knew something she didn’t.

  “So, can you and your grandfather come to Claire’s dinner party?” Sydney asked as they walked. Inviting people over was something Claire had never done before. Like their grandmother in her later years, she never liked having guests. But Claire had Tyler now, and love made her different, less like their grandmother and more like herself.

  “I put it in my calendar. We’ll be there,” Henry said. “I think it’s nice how you and Claire have been getting along. You both have changed a lot. Do you remember the Halloween dance our junior year of high school?”

  She thought a moment. “Oh, my God,” she groaned, sitting on the rock bench around the fountain. “I’d forgotten about that.”
<
br />   That was the year Sydney dressed up as Claire for Halloween. She thought it was hilarious at the time. She’d bought a cheap black wig and pulled it back with combs and she wore jeans covered in dirt and Claire’s old gardening clogs. Claire had become famous for unknowingly going out with flour on her face, and sometimes girls at the grocery store would make fun of her, so Sydney put streaks of flour on her face. The pièce de résistance was the Kiss the Cook apron she wore to the dance, which everyone had a good laugh over, because the whole town knew that no one would kiss oddball Claire, who was only in her early twenties at the time but already ridiculously set in her ways.

  “I think you did it back then to make fun of her,” Henry said, sitting beside her. “These days I see you dressing like her, but I think you’re trying to be like her in earnest this time.”

  Sydney looked down at Claire’s sleeveless shirt she was wearing. “True. And it helped that I didn’t bring a lot of clothes with me when I moved back.”

  “You left in a hurry?”

  “Yes,” she said, not explaining any further. She liked the way things were, the relationship they had, like when they were kids. David was nowhere in that picture. David didn’t even exist when they were together. And there was no pressure for anything beyond their friendship, which was a huge relief. “So you were at that dance?”

  He nodded and had some of his drink. “I went with Sheila Baumgarten. She was a year ahead of us in school.”

  “Did you date a lot? I don’t remember seeing you at any of the date spots.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. My senior year and a year after that, I dated a girl from Western Carolina University.”

  “A coed, hmm?” She nudged him with her elbow playfully. “You like older women, I take it.”

  “My grandfather is a huge believer in the fact that Hopkins men always marry older women. I do it to make him happy, but there’s probably some truth to it too.”

  Sydney laughed. “So that’s why your grandfather asked me how old I was when we went to your place for ice cream.”

  “That was why,” Henry said. “He’s always trying to set me up. But he insists they have to be older.”

  Sydney had been putting this off because she was so fond of her time with Henry, but she honestly thought she was doing him a favor by finally saying, “You know Amber, our receptionist, is almost forty. She likes you. Let me set you up with her.”

  Henry looked down at the drink in his hands but didn’t respond. She hoped she didn’t embarrass him. She’d never thought of him as shy.

  With his head tilted down and the sun shining on him, Sydney could see his scalp through his closely cut hair. His skin was getting pink from the sun. She reached up and rubbed his head affectionately, like he was a little boy. That’s how she saw him, that friendly, dignified little boy she once knew. Her first friend ever. “You should wear a ball cap. Your head is going to burn.”

  He turned his head and gave her the strangest look, almost sad. “Do you remember your first love?”

  “Oh, yes. Hunter John Matteson. He was the first boy to ever ask me out,” Sydney said ruefully. “Who was yours?”

  “You.”

  Sydney laughed, thinking he was joking. “Me?”

  “The first day of sixth grade, it hit me like a rock. I couldn’t talk to you after that. I’ll always regret it. When I saw you on the Fourth of July and it happened again, I was determined that this time it wouldn’t stop us from being friends.”

  Sydney couldn’t quite get her mind around it. “What are you saying, Henry?”

  “I’m saying I don’t want to be set up with your friend Amber.”

  The dynamic changed in a flash. She was no longer sitting beside young Henry.

  She was sitting beside the man in love with her.

  Emma walked into the living room that afternoon after unsuccessfully trying to make herself feel better by shopping. She had bumped into Evanelle Franklin downtown, and Evanelle said she’d been looking for Emma all day because she needed to give her two quarters.

  And, as proof of how bad her day was, taking money from a crazy old woman had actually been the bright spot.

  Her big mistake had been in meeting her mother for lunch to show her what she’d bought. Her mother scolded Emma for not buying enough lingerie and immediately sent her off to get something sexy for Hunter John. Not that it would work. She and Hunter John hadn’t had sex in more than a week.

  She dropped the bags suddenly when she saw Hunter John sitting on the couch, flipping through a large book on the coffee table. He’d taken off the jacket and tie he’d worn to work that morning, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up.

  “Why, Hunter John!” she said, smiling brightly, but at the same time an uneasiness settled in the pit of her stomach. “What are you doing here at this time of day?”

  “I took the afternoon off. I was waiting for you.”

  “Where are the boys?” she asked, hoping to take this to the bedroom. She glanced down, ready to grab the pink bag, the one that contained the sheer black bra and the thong with the tiny red bows.

  “The nanny took them to the movies, then out to eat. I thought we needed to talk.”

  “Oh,” she said, fisting her hands at her sides anxiously. Talk. Discuss. Dissolve. No. She pointed at the book in front of him to distract him. “What are you looking at?”

  “Our senior-high yearbook,” he said, and her heart sank. What could have been. She had his office at home decorated with his old football photos and trophies. She even had his old jersey framed. It was a time he could be proud of, when anything was possible.

  A time she took away from him.

  The bags and packages left on the floor, she walked to the couch and sat beside him, gently, cautiously, afraid that if she moved too fast he would bolt. The yearbook was turned to a two-page layout of candid photos. Sydney and Emma and Hunter John were in nearly all of them. There they were in the Dome, the covered picnic area outside the cafeteria where they would sometimes sneak puffs of cigarettes. There they were on the senior bench in the rotunda, an exclusive seating area claimed by the most popular in school. Hamming it up in front of the camera at their lockers. Celebrating at the homecoming game that year when Hunter John threw the winning pass.

  “I was in love with Sydney,” Hunter John said, and Emma felt strangely satisfied. Or maybe justified. He was admitting it. He was admitting that she was the problem. But then he continued, “As much as a teenager can feel love. It felt real to me at the time. I look at these photos, and in every single one of them, I’m staring at her. But then I see you, and in every single one, you’re staring at her too. I forgot about her a long time ago, Emma. But you didn’t forget, did you? Has Sydney been in this marriage for ten years without my knowing it?”

  Emma stared at the images, trying not to cry. She was ugly when she cried. Her nose swelled and her mascara ran like river water. “I don’t know. I just know that I’ve always wondered, if you had to do it all over again, would you still do it? Would you still choose me?”

  “Is that what this is all about? You’ve been trying so hard, the sex, the perfect house, because you thought I didn’t want to be here?”

  “I’ve tried so hard because I love you!” she said desperately. “But I took away your choices! I made you stay home instead of going off to college. You had children instead of spending a year in Europe. There’s always been a part of me that thought I ruined everything for you because I hated Sydney so much, because I hated that you loved her and not me. I hated it so much I had to go and seduce you. And I ruined all your plans. I’ve been trying to make it up to you every day since.”

  “My God, Emma. You didn’t take away my choices. I chose you.”

  “When you saw Sydney again, didn’t you think about what could have been? Didn’t you compare her to me? Didn’t you think for just a moment what your life would have been like without me?”

  “No, I didn’t,” he said, sounding honestly
confused. “I haven’t spared her more than a moment’s thought in ten years. And barely that since she’s been back. But you keep bringing her up. You think that her being back has changed things. But it hasn’t changed anything for me.”

  “Oh,” she said, turning her face away to wipe under her eyes, where tears were pooling, threatening to fall.

  He hooked a finger under her chin and made her look at him. “I wouldn’t change a thing, Emma. I have a great life with you. You are a joy and a wonder to me, every single day. You make me laugh, you make me think, you make me hot. There are times when you confuse the hell out of me, but it’s a pleasure to wake up to you in the mornings, to come home to you and the boys in the evening. I am the luckiest man in the world. I love you so much, more than I thought it was possible to love another human being.”

  “Sydney—”

  “No!” he said harshly, dropping his hand. “No. Don’t start that again. What have I ever done to make you think I regretted my choice? I’ve spent days trying to figure out how I could have prevented this from happening, but you know what I realized? This isn’t between me and you. This is between you and Sydney. I also suspect this might be between you and your mother. I love you. I don’t love Sydney. I want a life with you. I don’t want a life with Sydney. We’re not those people anymore.” He closed the yearbook in front of him, closing the book on childhood dreams of football stardom and backpacking through France. “At least I’m not that person anymore.”

  She put her hands on his leg, high on his leg because that was who she was and she couldn’t help herself. “I don’t want to be that person, Hunter John. I really don’t.”