by Kelly Harms
Interesting comparison. I smile and rub Nana a little more. “That’s good stuff.”
“They use it to make sweaters I guess. Do you knit?”
“What do you mean, do I knit? What do I look like?”
“I dunno,” he says, shrugging again. J.J. uses shrugs like punctuation. I wonder if he ever comes home at the end of the day and wonders why his shoulders are so tired. “I just thought, maybe.”
“I don’t knit,” I say indignantly. But then, afraid that I’ll seem uncomfortable with the homemaking arts, I add, “but I can bake.” Small exaggeration …
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep. In fact, I have to get back kind of soon because I have some dough rising in the kitchen.” Note to self, do not let J.J. come into the kitchen and see the gooey blob that no doubt awaits me. Or perhaps has already taken over the house.
“Oh, okay,” he says, and I am thrilled to see he looks a little disappointed. I hope it’s because of me, and not Nana and Boo Boo. “Let’s get your eggs then, and head back.”
He leads me into the side door of the house, which is not the traditional big farm house but a weathered-looking cottage, and through the mudroom to the bright yellow kitchen. There’re two big fridges whirring next to each other, and in one is a small supply of egg cartons in stacks. “These are from this morning, I’ll bet,” J.J. says. “Take one and leave maybe three bucks? But you have to make sure to bring back the carton, okay? They are always saying they don’t have enough cartons.”
“Okay,” I agree, and pick out a dozen eggs. When I open it up I find eggs of every shade of tan and some dark brown, all quite small. Janey is going to love these, perhaps so much that she never throws anything frozen at me again. I can hope.
I leave five dollars on the counter by the fridges—I know what good eggs cost and these seem extra fancy—and J.J. takes the eggs from me as we head back down the road. The whole walk goes by and still we see no cars, no bikes, not another living soul all the way back to the house. But I am starting to see the upside of living out here in the boonies with more llamas and chickens than people to keep me company.
At the house, J.J. hands me back the eggs and tells me he’s glad I liked the llamas and talks about how he thinks the llamas are very good judges of character and he wouldn’t want to hang out with a girl that the llamas didn’t like. And then he says, “I think the llamas really like you. So, we’re good.”
JANEY
“Peas have a gentleness about them that is reminiscent of a warm spring rain.”
—JULEE ROSSO AND SHEILA LUKINS, The New Basics Cookbook
I spend the next couple of days basically hiding in my bedroom working on dresses while Nean is around, trying to avoid her at all costs. I tell myself it’s because I despise Nean and want her to move out, but the truth is I’m mortified that I accosted her with a duck. And even more than that, I don’t want to have to explain why I got so upset over the whole Noah/Ned thing. In Iowa everyone knew about Ned, how he died, the whole kit and caboodle, and I got a lot of “poor Janey, destined to be alone for the rest of her life now” looks. In Maine I have a chance to start over with no one knowing a thing about my engagement or what happened to me after—how I started working at the bridal shop to pay off the enormous deposit on the wedding dress I would never wear, or how it turned out that Ned had taken out all that life insurance on himself and named me the next of kin. How I’ve never really been the same since.
I don’t want to ruin that anonymity by telling Nean everything, and I’m not sure I would be able not to tell her if she asked. She has ways of making me talk. Annoying ways. So I hide out until she’s gone off with Aunt Midge to deliver the better part of a pot roast and two trays of stuffed potatoes, or whatever is waiting in the fridge, and then try to get a burst of cooking in while they’re gone. But after a while, it seems like all is forgiven, and finally I let down my guard, hanging around the kitchen to finish up a cold watermelon soup even when I hear the car crunching on the gravel outside.
When Nean and Aunt Midge blow in through the front door making a great ruckus as always, I’m standing there pushing hot-pink melon through a food mill and getting more of it on me than in the mill. Nean marches in and puts a finger in the bowl of juice at the bottom, licks it off, and says, “Janey, you’ve got to start driving Aunt Midge to the shelter.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t. You’re doing a great job.” I go back to cranking my watermelon, hoping the mess will shoo her away.
“Yeah, yeah, but now she wants to spend a couple hours a day in there doing good works and boring everyone to tears in the process with stories of how she was a nurse during the Revolutionary War and invented color TV. I don’t want to hang around every day for two hours in Little Pond, waiting for her,” she jerks her thumb to my poor, maligned old aunt, “to get out her charity ya-yas.”
Aunt Midge huffs. “She is, incidentally,” she says, picking up the third person, “perfectly capable of driving herself, if you ask me.” With that, both pairs of eyes turn to face me expectantly, waiting for some verdict on the subject.
“How is it I’ve become the mother of two in such short order?” I ask them. “I must have had Nean when I was eleven, and you”—I level a finger at Aunt Midge—“when I was … minus fifty-three. It’s a miracle!”
“Oh, can it,” Aunt Midge says. “You’re just crabby because you’ve been all cooped up in your room for days. You’re just like a set of summer sheets. You’ll feel better after a nice airing out.”
Well, she has a point there. “Maybe,” I say, letting a little friendliness into my eyes and setting down the watermelon. “Okay, start over from the beginning. What’s going on, now?”
“I’m going to start helping with lunch service,” Aunt Midge says, crossing around to sit at the breakfast table and pick at the bowl of berries I keep there. “I’m bored to tears and I need to make myself useful. I have to be in there by eleven and I’ll be out by one, weekdays only.”
“Is it hard work?” I ask. “Will you be on your feet for the whole two hours?”
“I’ll be fine,” Aunt Midge says in the same gruff tone she gets every time I try to take care of her. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“That’s right,” chimes in Nean, sitting down too and plucking up a big handful of raspberries. “Worry about me. What am I supposed to do that whole time?”
“Get a job?” I suggest, watching with amazement at the number of berries she can cram in her mouth at once.
“Ignore her,” Aunt Midge says to Nean, putting her hand over Nean’s protectively. “You’re just fine. You don’t have to pay your way here. We’re happy to have you for as long as you need.”
I raise my eyebrows and consult the ceiling at this but say nothing. “Anyways,” Nean says, still chewing, “I have a job. The bread, remember? Everyone is loving it.”
“Really?” I think of the dough-bricks she took out of the oven a few days ago and wonder just how bad the shelter’s patrons have it if they’re enjoying that.
“No, not really,” she answers. “But today for the first time so far it all got eaten. So I think I’m getting better. It turns out it’s easier to make just using your hands, no special tools or appliances,” she says with a meaningful look at the Cuisinart.
“Most things are,” I agree, and I can’t help but feel a little proud at the way Nean is taking on all this baking with such fervor, even if I did try to kill her with a duck the last time we shared the kitchen. “Just keep at it. And keep at driving Aunt Midge,” I say. “You’re doing well at that too.”
Nean’s hand closes into a fist. “Seriously? You can’t even drive her every other day?”
“Seriously.” I watch as she looks to Aunt Midge for an alternate ruling, but Aunt Midge just shrugs.
“If it was up to me, I’d drive myself,” she says. “But I like having you for company.”
Nean sighs dramatically and heads outside, presumably to stink up m
y porch with disgusting cigarette smell. I go over to the table where Aunt Midge is sitting, looking for a little of the comfort she had to offer Nean just a moment ago. But when I sit down she says, “You know, Noah is at the shelter.…” Exasperated, I pop back up again and heave the biggest sigh I can muster.
“Not you, too,” I say.
“What? I thought you’d want to know,” she says.
“I did know—remember? He said he worked there when we ran into him at the clam bar.”
“No, I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” I interrupt. “If I drove you to the shelter I could see him every day, right? And then maybe we’d fall in love and have six kids and you wouldn’t have to worry about me being all alone anymore?”
Aunt Midge sits quietly for a moment, then sighs. “I do worry about you being all alone. After I die,” she says.
“Then don’t die,” I respond, sitting back down right next to her, so I can put my arm around her little shoulders and let her know I’m not really mad. Nor do I want her dwelling on death, not when she’s as strong as a mule and twice as ornery.
“I’m trying not to,” she says, and all of a sudden I hear so much tiredness in her voice that I am overcome with worry. “But I’m eighty-eight years old. At some point I’m going to have to go be with your mom and Ned, and leave you behind all by yourself.”
My eyes fill with tears. “No. I don’t want to talk about this,” I say. “You’re borrowing trouble.”
Aunt Midge puts her hands on both sides of my head and looks in my eyes and I see the same fear I’m feeling reflected in hers. “I’ll stick around,” she says at last, like she’s giving in to the demands of a ten-year-old desperate for a pony. “I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“I’m taken care of already,” I say, not sure if I’m referring to the new house, or the insurance money sitting in the bank, or Aunt Midge sitting at the table with me with her age-spotted hands balanced on my head so carefully. “I have everything I need. I’ll be just fine.”
Her mouth twitches. “Of course you will,” she says, and if she is being sarcastic, I pay it no mind.
* * *
Aunt Midge starts her volunteering the very next day. When she and Nean get home they rush into the kitchen to find me and debrief me on the day’s excitements, which I can see is going to become a nasty little habit. Today the big news is Nean’s bread. Last night Nean and I worked a little on the bread together and there was an unspoken truce in the air—she didn’t ask me a single personal question and I didn’t throw anything at her head. She’s been getting a really sticky dough, so I explained that the flour measurements aren’t a science, and change depending on where you live and what the weather is like on a given day, and basically just to go with the flow. This morning they took in four loaves of bread that looked like actual bread. Apparently it got rave reviews at lunch, and Nean is now strutting around like she grew an inch overnight.
“I’m going to open a bakery,” she tells me.
“Oh good. Does that mean you’re leaving?”
Aunt Midge chuckles like I made a good joke. “What would we do without her, Janey?” she asks me. “Think of all the baking she’s doing. And she took some of your hemming jobs back to the shop and got you another stack of dresses to shorten, saving you a trip and a human interaction.”
“Lucky for her…” I say, but I know I don’t sound even remotely menacing. How can I when I’m genuinely grateful? “It’s gorgeous outside and I’ve been cooped up sewing all morning. Want to go to the backyard and gaze at the ocean?” I am addressing Aunt Midge—after her weird out-of-nowhere comments yesterday about mortality, I’ve wanted to get her to myself—but Nean jumps up from her perch at the island and rushes to the kitchen door like a puppy with a full bladder.
She spins around, waiting for us to follow, and then says, “Hurry up! J.J. is out there right now mowing the lawn with no shirt on.”
Aunt Midge springs up from the table so fast that I forget all my worries about her health. “Come on, slow poke!” she says and I untie my blue-striped apron and follow them out the back, stopping to grab a tray I’ve made up full of summery treats for exactly this purpose.
By the time I get out back with the grub, Nean has repositioned a row of padded teak lounge chairs so that they face the ocean on an angle, by way of the back lawn, where J.J. is appearing and then vanishing again as he pushes the mower in long rows. We plop down on the chairs, Nean, Aunt Midge in the middle, and then me, and take in the view.
“Ahh, this is the life…” Aunt Midge sighs the next time J.J. comes into view. I see what she is saying. He’s your ideal twenty-something male specimen in so many ways: tan skin, bright blond hair, not an ounce of fat on his body, and plenty of that lean boyish muscle from all the landscaping. The sun, which is out in force, seems to gleam off his body with the same intensity that it twinkles over the breaks in waves out on the water.
“This is a very nice view,” I say, feeling a little silly but enjoying the camaraderie nonetheless.
“Isn’t it just?” says Nean on a lustful sigh.
“Nean,” says Aunt Midge, “you need to go break yourself off a piece of that man-candy.”
“Oh my God, Aunt Midge,” I say, aghast. “You are a disgusting old lady.”
“What?” Aunt Midge turns to face me with a saintly expression that quickly turns wicked. “Did you have dibs?”
“I don’t have dibs,” I exclaim.
“I have dibs, if anyone has dibs,” says Nean. “But I’m not going there. We’re just going to be friends.”
Even I am a little taken aback by that. “Just friends? That seems like an awful waste.”
Nean laughs. “I knew you had a pulse! He’s all right to look at, I agree. But I haven’t had much luck with men lately…”
The three of us get quiet as we think about this, the understatement of the century.
“J.J. doesn’t really seem very … aggressive,” Aunt Midge says delicately.
“He’s as gentle as a llama,” says Nean.
“Huh?”
“Never mind. I’m just saying, it’s good to have friends sometimes. I’m in a friends place right now.”
“Fair enough,” I say, thinking of Noah. Could I be friends with him?
“Maybe…” says Aunt Midge. “But I’m not sure that J.J. is in a friends place.” She gestures to him as he pushes the mower forward into view and sure enough, he’s trying to surreptitiously sneak peaks at Nean.
Nean grins. “Maybe I should go put on a bikini.”
“Don’t you dare,” I say.
“Chill. I don’t even own a bikini. Is that sangria?”
“Yep. And mini-frittatas made from the last of those eggs you brought me.” I pass her the tray.
“You’re welcome,” says Nean, pouring herself a glass of sangria and taking four frittatas. Aunt Midge and I exchange a look. No matter where she’s been or what she’s done, I’m glad she’s getting fed now; she clearly needs it. Already she’s put on a couple of pounds and lost that gauntness about her chin. No wonder J.J. is smitten. “Speaking of gifts that keep on giving,” she says, “Noah gave us something for you today from his garden. I left it in a bag on the kitchen table.”
“What is it?”
“Vegetables.” Nean shrugs. “If you ask me, that makes it the worst gift ever.”
“Not for Janey,” says Aunt Midge.
“What kind of vegetables?” I ask.
“Dunno, something green,” Nean replies. “Peas, maybe?”
Peas? I shudder with excitement. I don’t think I’ve ever had fresh garden peas before. They’re supposed to be so sweet if you eat them right away. Do I make a soup with them or would that be a waste?
No matter what I’ll need some mint.
“Wow, that’s a pretty big grin for a bag full of veggies,” Nean says.
A chilled pea soup with yogurt, I think. Chilled! “I hope there’s enough…” I say
aloud, but mostly to myself.
“It was a pretty big bag,” says Nean, and I shiver with happy anticipation. “I guess Noah has you pegged, then. He said to expect more tomorrow.”
“What else did he say?” I ask as nonchalantly as possible.
Nean shrugs. “Nothing,” she says. But I don’t miss the look she gives Aunt Midge. A conspiring look. Those two need to be separated.
“Well, tell him thank you for me tomorrow.”
“Okay. Or … if you want, I’ll let you drive Aunt Midge in and you can tell him yourself.”
“How generous of you. No thanks.” An idea comes to my head. “But I will send him some pea soup so he can taste the fruits of his labors.”
“Aww, so romantic. Love via produce.”
“It’s better than love via ogling,” Aunt Midge says, and even as she does Nean looks over to J.J. and we watch as they exchange a glance that could be classified only as “longing.” Before our eyes, he turns off the mower and comes strolling over to us, slowly, like he’s in a perfume commercial. I wait to see if he’ll toss his hair.
“Ooooh,” says Aunt Midge on a gasp of air. “He’s coming over here!”
“This is our cue to leave,” I tell Aunt Midge, tearing myself away from the excitement.
“No way!” she says. “Hello J.J.!”
“Hi there, Mrs.…” he searches around for a moment, “Mrs. Aunt Midge.” I crack a smile. What a cutie. He hardly gives me hives at all.
“Would you like some sangria?” she asks, already pouring him a glass.
“Aunt Midge!” I say, scooping the glass out of her hands. “Don’t just feed him liquor! Are you even twenty-one?” I ask Adonis Junior.
“Twenty-two,” he says with some pride. With a sigh I fork over the glass and he takes a big slurp. “It’s hot out.”
“Yes it is,” says Aunt Midge, waving her hand in front of her face like a Southern belle. “Care to take a break and join us?”
“Actually, we were just leaving, weren’t we,” I say, grabbing Aunt Midge and trying to heft her out of her lounge chair.
“That’s okay,” says J.J. “I’ve got to get back to it pretty soon. You just stick around and enjoy the view.” With that, J.J. brings his arms up and flexes his biceps in classic muscle beach fashion. Aunt Midge cracks up.