He mixes the blueberry muffin batter (sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, eggs, butter, vegetable oil, milk, and frozen blueberries that he picked himself in July at Wippamunk Farms). He pours the batter into extra-large muffin tins. At Murtonen’s Muffinry, there are no bulk orders of premixed batter squeezed from plastic bags. He didn’t graduate first in his class at Johnson and Wales for nothing.
He repeats the process for the corn muffins, then oat bran, chocolate, pancake, cinnamon apple, and zucchini tomato. He slides the trays into the ovens and sets the timers. A quick survey of supplies satisfies him that everything is stocked: cups, napkins, sugar packets. In an effort to impress Charlene—and she was impressed, because her last letter included a postscript that said, “Good boy for going green!!”—EJ recently switched to eighty percent recycled paper cups, unbleached napkins, and raw sugar. Organic ingredients are the next step, he thinks. Or maybe Fair Trade. He makes a mental note to learn the difference.
At the coffee station he tears open a bag of regular and takes a deep sniff as he dumps the grains into the filter. He repeats the process for decaf and all the winter flavors: eggnog spice, crème de menthe, butterscotch. Then he makes a pot of his own invention: New Orleans. He dumps regular grains into the filter and lays a few roots of chicory over the top.
He buys the chicory root from Charlene. Before he even stepped foot inside her café he knew she baked from scratch; he could tell by the aroma out front, on the sidewalk. The aroma of real butter, real flour. When the bells tinkled his arrival, she emerged from a back room. A taut apron accentuated her soft belly and ample hips. The body of a real woman, he thought; the body of a woman who takes her sweets seriously.
He ordered eight coffees. She laughed—eight coffees!—and set to pouring. He admired the exaggerated concavity of the small of her back, which made her round butt protrude invitingly. Black shiny hair curled around her pale ears and gave her the look of an imp.
She turned and smiled and handed him a tall cup of chicory-flavored coffee. “Yours is free,” she said in a warm, slow drawl.
He took the cup from her small hand and thanked her. He noticed her diamond-shaped mouth.
She glanced outside at the Wippamunk interfaith van waiting in the street. “You from up north?”
“Uh, yes,” EJ heard himself say.
“Drive all the way down here to help out with the Katrina damage?”
“Yep,” his voice said again.
She smiled. “Some sort of volunteer group you’re with?”
He didn’t answer. Shadows smudged the skin under her eyes; batter streaked her wrists. We’re made of the same stuff, EJ thought. She probably smells like coffee and sugar even after a shower. She probably relishes small talk with customers, and moments alone scraping silver bowls with white spatulas.
The bells jingled; Nick stood in the doorway. “Need a hand, Silo?” Nick asked. He always called EJ Silo, because that’s his shape: tall and thick. Nick approached the counter, and Charlene handed him a tray that secured four cups of coffee.
“They’re all on the house,” she said. She screwed three more coffees into another tray and filled a paper bag with creamers, sugar packets, and stir sticks.
Nick spoke with Charlene in that genuine, friendly way of his. Told her all about The Trip, their work, where they were staying, what they were doing.
Charlene nodded, eyeing EJ. “Come back tomorrow, if you can,” she said.
“Oh, we’re only going to be in the touristy section today,” EJ said. “Because—”
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” Nick said.
They finally left the café, each carrying a tray of coffee. Nick paused on the sidewalk. “Look at me,” he said.
“What?” EJ stopped beside the van. His eyes met Nick’s.
Nick laughed in that total-body way of his.
“What?”
“You know what.” Nick jerked his head in the direction of the café. “You’re totally macking on that cute Cajun coffee-shop chick. You’ve got the exact same look on your face as when you were twelve and France asked you to dance to ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ ”
“Shh,” EJ said. He glanced at France inside the van; Russ appeared to challenge her to a thumb fight, and she was ignoring him. It had been a very long time since EJ felt anything for France, and vice versa. It had been a very long time since EJ felt anything for anyone.
He sensed his cheeks reddening. “Don’t say anything,” he told Nick.
“I won’t.” Nick laughed again. “You dog.”
Russ slid the van door open and took the tray from EJ. “What’s funny? I always miss it.”
“Nothing,” EJ said. “Absolutely nothing.” He took his seat next to Russ. But EJ smiled as he helped distribute coffee to everybody—Russ and France and Dennis, Chief and Father Chet and Pastor Sheila, who was driving—and he smiled the rest of the day.
Every three weeks since, each shipment of chicory root from New Orleans comes with a handwritten letter from Charlene. It usually starts with something like, “Thanks for your order. How’s life in the Great White North?” as if Massachusetts is all impenetrable frozen tundra.
Charlene’s never been to New England. He fantasizes about hosting her, showing her around town, all his favorite spots. The summit of Mount Wippamunk (though he’d probably have to drive her to the top because he’s so out of shape); the second floor of the old fire station, with its antique brass pole and pool table from 1892; the bench in his own backyard, which looks out over Malden Pond. He’ll show her his mother’s name carved in the back of the bench. His father made it for his mother. His father always tinkered, always made things. The bench was the last thing he made before the divorce.
EJ can’t believe it’s been more than a year since he’s talked to Charlene in person. He can’t believe that all that time, she’s continued to write, e-mail, text, and even, from time to time, call. When his cell phone beeps at four in the morning, he knows it’s Charlene.
He was supposed to visit her once, in August. She invited him, and he made all the arrangements; he planned to take off two weeks and drive down. He even bought an extremely small diamond pendant at the Greendale Mall, but he returned it after she wrote, in her very next letter, about the atrocities of diamond mining, and some awareness rally she attended. He fretted about not having a gift and briefly felt sorry for himself that Nick wasn’t around to give him advice.
But Charlene’s mother died unexpectedly, and she called and tearfully said he shouldn’t come. She kept apologizing, and he kept saying, “No, no, no need to apologize.” That was half a year ago, and she hasn’t re-invited him.
EJ pours himself a cup of New Orleans. He sips while flipping the chairs one-handed. Near the window, which is fogged from the ovens, he notices movement outside. He peers into the street and is startled to see a person there, a very bundled-up person. It could be anyone, and EJ squints before he notices Ahab. The Captain is unmistakable. He’s the only greyhound in Wippamunk, and the town’s only ninety-pound dog that wears a coat and boots six months of the year.
EJ recognizes Zell’s yellow hat and mittens. The same Zell who caught lightning bugs in jars with him and Nick when they were seven or so. The same Zell—her bangs sprayed into an unmoving claw—who sat next to him freshman year in Ye Olde Home Ec Witch’s class, sampled a blueberry muffin from the first batch he ever made, and said—even after Ye Olde Home Ec Witch gave her a detention for talking—“These’re amazing, Eege. You should be a baker or something. Seriously.”
So this is it, EJ thinks. Zell got his note, and now, finally, they’re going to talk.
Something is under her arm—the present. The oven present from Nick. Good God, EJ thinks; maybe she wants him with her when she opens it. He swallows hot coffee and stretches his free arm over his head. Good God. What the hell will he say to her?
Ahab leads Zell. They turn into the lot and approach the Muffinry. But they both stop short. They look at som
ething, or for something—the source of an odd noise, maybe. EJ cranes his neck, but all he sees is blackness. Suddenly, Zell and Ahab turn around and practically run down the sidewalk, back down Main Street and out of view.
“Lost her nerve,” EJ says. He sips some New Orleans and flips a chair. “Lost her nerve.”
Moments later headlights sweep the parking lot. EJ checks the clock on the wall: The little wooden spoon is on the four and the big wooden spoon is on the six, which means Travis is late as usual. At least he’s consistent.
The bells of the front door tinkle as Travis enters; the bristles of the mat make a scratching sound as he wipes his boots.
“Morning, hey,” Travis calls.
“Morning.” EJ opens the back door. He’s about to toss a big empty butter tub into the recycling bin when a sort of silent command to be still grips him. His whole body seems infused with a wide-eyed and tingling awareness; if he had hackles, they’d be fully upright. It’s the same skin-prickling, pupil-dilating readiness he experienced just before Nick’s passage. That’s how EJ thinks of it: not Nick’s death, but his passage. Not something randomly, regrettably horrible, but something noble, like fate. Or at least like something Nick wouldn’t protest, were he made to understand the events that would take his life.
EJ got the terminology—“the passage”—from Charlene. Early on he told her about his nightmares in which he witnesses, over and over, what happened to Nick. She wrote back that all survivors have nightmares; it’s a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. She wrote about “the passage” of Katrina victims: “They didn’t die. They experienced a passage into somewhere else. That’s what I truly believe.”
EJ grips the empty butter tub. Goose bumps form along the nape of his neck. Something approaches—possibly the same creature that distracted Zell and Ahab moments ago. He takes a step back and thinks about black bears raiding trash barrels, then remembers it’s winter, and bears are hibernating. Maybe it’s a mountain lion, he thinks; they’re rumored to roam the area.
Near the recycling bin, movement flashes—filmy, alien green eyes appear. The eyes are followed by a cat, lumpy and practically lopsided with fur balls, a little potato sack with legs. It sits and meows. Old Man Bedard’s cat. A true barn cat.
EJ laughs. “Bastard,” he says. “You scared me.” He tosses the butter tub into the bin, and the cat scampers toward the street.
Nick
November 2, 2006
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Hello, Pants.
We are setting up our sleeping bags in the lunchroom of the school, which has already been rebuilt in the year-plus since the hurricane. It sort of sucks to be sleeping on a cafeteria floor, but I remind myself that it’s better than being homeless like so many of these people were, and still are, in many cases, or so I’m told.
We finally rolled into town at night, so I couldn’t see much because it was dark. But I guess tomorrow I’ll get the lay of the land. They’ll be gutting one little house. By they, I mean everybody else but me and Dennis: Pastor Sheila, Father Chet, Chief Kent, France, EJ, and Russ. I mean, technically Dennis and I are supposed to remain unbiased outsiders as they work. He’ll report on the missionaries; I’ll take pictures. We’ll do a story and photo-essay for The Wippamunker when we get back. Shouldn’t be too hard.
How was your cardiology appointment? I told Father Chet and Pastor Sheila that you were having some heart issues, and now they are praying for you. That sort of freaks me out, their praying, but they are “people of the cloth,” so I guess I should expect it. They even had us all praying in the van at one point. The eight of us holding hands with our eyes closed.
Anyway, I think you’re going to be fine, Pants. I feel it. Seriously, Zell—when I get home I’ll go to all your appointments with you, every single one. But hopefully you won’t have many more appointments, because you’re going to be all right.
When you write back tell me what the doctor said.
Take care of those perfect 34Cs. I will nuzzle them in my dreams. I will write to you every day and call you when I can.
Nick
2
Zell
THE SUN’S UP,and the trash-picked stained-glass window overlooking my second-floor landing casts a reddish hue. I lean on my bedroom door, opposite the attic door. I hold Nick’s nearly destroyed present. Gently, I shake it. The cube’s contents knock softly. What makes that noise? Nothing, I tell myself. Nothing at all but dust, air, and melted ghost.
The doorknob opposite me is glass. It reflects a tiny me, still in coat and hat. I cover tiny me with my mittened hand. I turn the knob. I push open the attic door one inch. Two inches. I push hard, with my shoulder and arm, because the door scrapes the floor.
The smell of stale attic hits me.
Balls.
I can’t do it. I can’t open the door any farther. I tug it toward me until it latches and leave the cube in the hallway.
MOMENTS LATER, I shiver on the back steps, watching Ahab pee like a girl dog next to the frozen hydrangea. As he pees he swivels his pointy ears—one black, one white—and sniffs the air, which still smells of burned plastic. It also smells of winter: old snow over dead grass over frozen earth.
One mile away Mount Wippamunk is a big bump on the horizon. It’s a true monadnock—an isolated peak. Nick taught me the meaning of that word, a Native American word. The trails ribbon out and down like raindrop paths on a window. Already, even this early in the day, skiers and boarders look like fleas jumping side to side.
“I like your dog.”
Ahab stops peeing and looks around.
The girl, my neighbor, leans out an upstairs window. Her hair is unbraided under the red ski hat.
“Hi,” I say. “Sorry about yesterday. I was upset.”
“It’s okay. I get angry, too, sometimes. I’m Ingrid.”
“I’m Zell.”
“Five minutes,” Garrett yells from inside their house.
“Your dog is the kind that runs really fast, right?” she asks.
“Yup.”
“Your dog can’t be faster than a cheetah, though, because cheetahs are the fastest land animals in the world.”
“Really?” I say.
“Yeah.”
I hear the rumble of Garrett’s truck from the other side of the house; he’s warming it up.
“My dad drops me off at school before he goes to work,” she says. “He works for lawyers. He’s going to be a lawyer someday, too, when he’s all done with lawyer school. That’s where he goes at night. And on Saturdays.” She scratches at the windowsill and loosens a stuck acorn cap, which falls and lands in the yard without a sound.
“Hey. Want to know why I was baking yesterday?” I ask.
“Cuz baking is awesome?”
“Come on down here and I’ll show you.”
Ahab follows me as I retrieve Meals in a Cinch with Polly Pinch from the little powder room under the stairs. Back outside, Ingrid waits in her yard. Her backpack looks like it weighs as much as she does. She’s dressed for school: tights, Uggs, denim skirt, snorkel coat with electric blue faux fur brimming the hood, and the big red hat. I pass her the magazine over the fence. She regards it at arm’s length, as if to confirm it’s really hers.
“The mailman put it in the wrong mailbox,” I explain. “Anyway, there’s a dessert contest. Check out page forty-eight.”
She studies the pullout page, tracing Polly’s face with a finger. “Whoa,” she says. “Snap. Did you read this? The grand prize is that you get to meet her on Pinch of Love Live. The new, live version of Pinch of Love.”
“And you win twenty thousand dollars,” I say.
“Yeah, but you also get to meet her. Polly Pinch.”
“Ingrid?” Garrett yells from inside. “Where are you?”
She flashes me a conspiratorial smile. One front tooth is bigger than the other. Instead of stuffing the magazine into
her backpack, she chucks it at me. “Keep it. Just for today.”
Somehow I manage to drop it. I grab after its slippery pages, but it flutters and slides down against my coat.
“See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya,” she calls before darting up the steps.
I pick up the magazine, shake it to remove the snow, and find the contest details.
Win $20,000 and an all-expenses-paid trip for two to Scrump Studios in Boston! Be a special guest on the inaugural episode of Polly’s new show, Pinch of Love Live!
Do you have an easy dessert that warms the soul? If so, Polly wants to bake it on her show! Show the world—and Polly Pinch—your kitchen creativity! Submit your word-processed recipes to the address below, or e-mail them via the online form at www.warmthesoulbakingcontest.com. Two lucky entrants will be deemed finalists by Polly’s hand-selected expert baking staff. The two winning desserts will be baked on the first-ever episode of Pinch of Love Live on May 5. And one of those entrants will win an additional grand prize of $20,000!
Entries will be judged on originality, ease of preparation, and above all, scrumpness. Entries must be postmarked or e-mailed no later than March 10. No purchase necessary. See www.warmthesoulbakingcontest.com for details and full contest rules, regulations, and restrictions.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK, Cap’n?” I say. “Twenty thousand dollars. The exact amount Nick mentioned in his e-mail. The exact amount he wanted to raise for the Katrina survivors. It’s got to mean something, right?”
Ahab sneezes, trots up the back steps, and whines. I let him inside. “Arr. Yer loony as a chigger in a rum barrel.”
I’m on my way upstairs when, from the second-floor landing, through the nonstained-glass window, I spy Garrett and Ingrid leaving the house. He tosses a long wool dress coat and a briefcase into the passenger side of his pickup. Ingrid climbs into the second row of seats, and he buckles her seat belt. They make a game of kissing: She pretends she doesn’t want to be kissed. He acts nonchalant, looking all around, apparently whistling, then swoops in for a kiss. He gets her twice on the forehead and once on the cheek. She giggles and giggles.
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