Anything

by Michael Baron

  It was while daydreaming that I saw Iris entering the gourmet food shop across the street. As I watched, my thoughts ranged from wondering if it was actually her, to how I would respond if she walked in here, to considering going to the stockroom until the moment passed.

  When I saw Iris come out of the shop and head down the street, I decided it was foolish to pretend (or even wish) that I hadn’t seen her. I told Tyler I’d be back in a few minutes and went out the door. I was crossing the street and she was about to walk into the bakery when I called out her name. She turned in my general direction, but didn’t make eye contact for several seconds. When she did, she seemed stupefied by the sight, as though we were standing on a street in Bali rather than in the town where we both grew up.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked as I walked up to her. I noticed her eyes scanning me from head to toe. She didn’t seem to be appraising me; it was as though she was taking inventory.

  “I read about this place in a guidebook and decided to check it out,” I said.

  “You look good. You seem – taller.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.” She looked stunning to me. I was surprised at how my memory had failed to do her justice. Her hair was shorter than I remembered, but her eyes seemed even more cobalt, her skin smoother, her posture even more approachable.

  “So what are you doing here? Last I heard, you were off wandering the globe.”

  “Yeah, moving from suburb to suburb in search of thrills. I finally got tired of the fast lane and decided to stop by for a little small town calm.” As I said this, I rolled my eyes to make sure that she understood was being ironic. “Actually, my dad’s sick and I’m here to check up on him.”

  Concern darkened her expression. “Is he okay?”

  “I think so. I’m gonna watch the store for him for a few days.”

  “Wow, things have changed.”

  “Well I guess you can do anything for a few days, huh? So what are you doing here? You haven’t moved back, have you?”

  “God, no. I live in Lenox now. I come down every month or so to see my mom. My dad died a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. He seemed like a good guy.”

  Iris nodded and looked up the street. I couldn’t tell if she was thinking about her father or feeling uncomfortable about seeing me.

  “Do you want to go grab a cup of coffee?” I said.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t. I’ve got a few more stops to make and I told my mother I wouldn’t be gone long.”

  I shook my head and looked down at my shoes.

  “That just sounded like I was blowing you off, didn’t it?”

  “No, your mom doesn’t like to be alone. I get it.”

  “Actually, my mom is fine being alone. She just gets irrational if I tell her I’m only going to be gone a short while and then I come back a few hours later. Even if I call her.” She chortled. “Mothers. You’re here for a few days?”

  “Yeah, three or four probably, assuming everything turns out okay with my father.”

  “I’m going to be here until the weekend. Do you want to get a drink sometime?”

  “That would be good,” I said, disproportionately cheered by the fact that she wasn’t blowing me off. “Tomorrow night?”

  “I’d like that. I’ll meet you at the Cornwall at, say, 8:30?”

  “The Cornwall. Yeah, absolutely.”

  “It’ll be nice to catch up. You can tell me about all of your adventures.” She smiled and touched me on the arm. “This was a nice surprise. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  She headed into the bakery and I returned to the store. It was no more active there than when I left and I again found myself looking across the street from the window. When Iris came out of the bakery, I saw her take a quick glance in my direction before walking away.

  For a reason that wasn’t entirely clear to me at that moment, I found this extremely satisfying.

  The Journey Home

  Joseph, a man in his late thirties, awakens disoriented and uneasy in a place he doesn’t recognize. He sets out on a journey to find his home with no sense of where he’s going and only the precious, indelible vision of the woman he loves to guide him.

  Antoinette is an elderly woman in an assisted living facility who has retreated inside her head. There, her body and mind haven’t betrayed her. There, she’s a young newlywed with a husband who dotes on her and an entire life of dreams to live. There, she is truly home.

  Warren, Antoinette’s son, is a man in his early forties going through the toughest year of his life. With far too much time on his hands, he decides to try to recreate his memories of home by attempting to cook his mother’s greatest dishes and eat them with her.

  Joseph, Antoinette, and Warren are three people on different searches for home. How they connect with each another at this critical stage in their lives, is the heart and soul of this story.

  From the author:

  The Journey Home has a very special place in my heart because it was inspired by my parents’s love story. The way they filled each others’s lives is one of the foundations of my life. This novel also posed a unique challenge for me. I wanted the dishes that Warren attempts to replicate to be true originals, not knockoffs of classics. This required a great deal of imagination and more than a few less-than-successful meals before I came up with the ones in the novel.

  Here’s an excerpt:

  “Come join us, Antoinette. You know you love the music.”

  The nurse had been insisting for minutes now, in spite of Antoinette’s quiet, continued refusal. Again, she shook her head no, tightening the collar of her house coat.

  “Jeffrey will be there,” the nurse said, teasingly. “You know he’s really into you, right?”

  Antoinette shuddered at the thought of Jeffrey, or anyone, being “into” her. She was sure Jeffrey was a perfectly pleasant man -- she couldn’t recall his face right now -- but the last thing she wanted was that kind of attention. It was better if she kept her distance from everyone. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she tried to get to know someone at this point.

  Antoinette still liked her room. Her pictures were here, along with other things she recognized. She didn’t like the other side of the door anymore, though. Too many confusing things. Too many things she wasn’t sure if she knew. Too many people who were friendly to her but might just be trying to take advantage of her in some way. She had everything she needed right here. The nurses would bring her food after a few minutes of trying to get her to eat in the dining room, and she had all the company she could want right here.

  “Maybe tomorrow, Diane,” Antoinette said quickly.

  The nurse tipped her head to one side. “Now, Antoinette, you know my name is Darlene. And you say, ‘maybe tomorrow’ every day.” The nurse moved toward the calendar attached by a magnet to the refrigerator. “Now let me see -- yes, it says right here that ‘tomorrow’ is today!” Darlene or Diane, or whatever her name was today -- Antoinette was certain they kept changing it on her -- held out her hand. “Come on, Antoinette, we’ll dance together. Everyone loves to watch you dance. You’re so graceful.”

  Antoinette stood from the couch and sat on her bed. “Maybe tomorrow. I mean it. I need to rest now.”

  The nurse let out a huge sigh, her shoulders rising and slumping in exaggerated fashion. “Okay, Antoinette. I’ll leave you alone this time. I’m not going to leave you alone tomorrow, though. Ice cream social tomorrow -- and I want to see you there eating a huge sundae. I’ll put the whipped cream on it myself.”

  She left after that, which made Antoinette feel much, much better. She always felt so much pressure from this nurse. The other one -- Jane, Judy, Angela, something like that -- was much nicer and much more understanding. For a long time after the nurse left, Antoinette stayed on the edge of the couch, thinking a
little about tomorrow’s ice cream social and all the people who would be there that she didn’t recognize, and then not thinking about much. Finally, she stood up, removed her house coat, and slipped into bed. The sheets hugged her and she warmed to their embrace. As she did, she let her mind drift, knowing it would take her someplace she truly wanted to go.

  ...Today they were walking on a New York City street. Antoinette recognized it as the neighborhood near their first apartment, the place they rented after they married sixty years ago. It was late spring, the sky was clear, and pedestrians bustled around them as Antoinette and her husband walked at their own, very steady, very relaxed pace.

  “It’s a beautiful day for a walk,” she said, “don’t you think, Don?”

  He took her hand, kissed the back of it lightly, and kept them clasped as they strolled. “It is most definitely a beautiful day, Hannah.”

  Virtually from the moment they met, they called each other “Don” and “Hannah” after the couple played by Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in “Easter Parade,” the movie they saw on their first date. Antoinette was already in love by the time she went out with him for the first time -- they’d been flirting for weeks -- and when he took her dancing after the movie and called her “Hannah,” Antoinette was pretty sure that he felt the same way. From then on, he was her “Don” and she was his “Hannah,” and they never used their given names to address each other except on the rare occasion when one of them was very, very angry.

  They stopped at a store window so Antoinette could admire a blue chiffon dress. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

  Don slipped an arm around her waist and put his face close to hers. “It is, and you would look remarkable in it. But I’m afraid it’s too expensive.”

  Antoinette turned to face him, which put their noses inches from each other and made her chuckle. “Too expensive? But we don’t even know what it costs.”

  Don kissed the tip of her nose and then took a couple of steps backward. “I’m afraid I do know what it would cost. You see, the price of the dress itself wouldn’t be the issue. The issue has to do with the neckline.” He gestured toward the store window. “Do you see how much of your shoulder would be left exposed? As you well know, Hannah, I become senseless with desire around your bare shoulders. That means that, to the price of the dress, we would have to add the fine I would pay for lewd public behavior if you ever wore it out of the house.”

  He grinned boyishly at that point, and Antoinette shoved him playfully. “That is the worst excuse ever devised to avoid buying me a dress.”

  “I’m just being practical, darling,” he said, still smiling and taking her hand to continue their walk.

  They stopped at an electronics store where Don ogled a new radio the way she had ogled the dress. Antoinette tried to come up with an excuse for not buying the radio that was as sappy and romantic as Don’s had been for not buying the dress, but her cleverness betrayed her. They left the store without the radio, anyway. In this case, Don really was being practical. They had a comfortable life, but they certainly didn’t have he luxury of purely frivolous expenses. The radio in the living room was a perfectly good one, certainly good enough to dance to.

  After a cup of coffee and a slice of blueberry pie at Horn & Hardart, they started back toward their apartment. The afternoon had left Antoinette feeling very much at ease. Her muscles felt smooth and her skin warm. Their pace, which had never been rapid, slowed even further, as though they were wading through a pool of the chocolate sauce Don loved for her to make for his ice cream.

  Don again raised her hand to his lips and kissed it softly. “I think a nap might be nice when we get home.”

  She squeezed their hands, which he still held to his face. “Mmm, sounds inviting. Let’s stop to get groceries for dinner now so we don’t need to go out again later.”

  “A nap sounds better.”

  “Now it sounds better. When we wake up afterward and you’re famished, you’ll wish I started dinner.”

  She turned him toward the market a block from their apartment. She wanted to cook something scandalously rich tonight. A gift for Don. Something to assure him that afternoons like the one they’d just spent were unspeakably precious to her. She chose leeks, cream, and chicken. She remembered noticing that they were low on butter, so she put some of that in her basket as well. Wild rice would be a surprising accompaniment, something that even seemed a little on the naughty side. And the asparagus looked very good.

  When they got back to the apartment, Don took to opening the mail while she melted leeks in butter and seasoned the chicken. She was browning the chicken in another skillet when Don came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  “Smells delicious,” he said, kissing the side of her face.

  She turned the chicken with a fork. “It’s going to taste even better.”

  He kissed her again. “Do you know what would be even more delicious?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The nap we were talking about.”

  Antoinette could tell from the feel of him that Don’s mind was on anything but napping. “Are you so sleepy that you can’t wait for me to finish getting this in the oven?”

  He kissed her neck now, which left Antoinette feeling like one of the leeks. “I’m very, very sleepy.”

  “Dinner won’t be as good if I leave it now.”

  “I can live with that,” he said, as he began to unbutton the back of her dress and Antoinette began to forget about dinner….

  The memory faded, but not the sensations that had accompanied the memory. The wonderful, deeply satisfying sensations. Antoinette pulled the sheets up around her neck. Feeling the warmth of his presence in the place she had created for them, she drifted off to sleep. Today had been a very good day.

  Spinning

  Dylan Hunter has it made. At 29, he has great friends, a huge job, all the women he can handle, and no commitments. A public relations executive, Dylan has dashed up the ladder of success by mastering the art of the spin – bending the truth to his and his clients’ needs. But when a former lover steps back into his life with a three-year-old girl by her side (no, she’s not his), Dylan suddenly finds himself in a place he can’t spin himself out of. And when Dylan unexpectedly becomes the child’s sole guardian, he finds himself to be like a circus performer trying to keep all of his spinning plates from crashing to the ground. In what seems like a blink of the eye, Dylan Hunter’s life has changed completely…whether he’s ready for it or not.

  From the author:

  Spinning gave me a chance to write about something I've always wanted to address: the moment when you realize that you're responsible for more than simply your own life. As with everything I write, I tried to look at this from a distinctive angle. The kid who changes everything for Dylan is not his, but under the circumstances, that doesn't make his sense of responsibility any less. I had an especially good time creating the little girl Spring. I find that my kid characters are always among my favorite. Maybe someday I'll bring them all together in one story....

  Here’s an excerpt:

  From deep sleep, I heard the noise again, was unable to place it in my dream, and ran my fingers along the sheet in search of Laurel. The sound came again. It took several seconds for me to recognize it as knocking on the front door.

  “Do you hear that?” I said, rolling over, hoping to glimpse Laurel’s magnificent body another time. She was gone. “Laurel?” I sat up. Still naked, I grabbed my robe and walked into the other room. It was dark and quiet. Laurel’s clothes were gone.

  Three more knocks came from the door.

  “Just a second.” It was almost 3:00 a.m. and everyone I knew should have been in bed – for one reason or another.

  It’s Laurel, I thought. She left her panties under the coffee table or something like that.

  “Coming,” I said. I ch
ecked the peephole and the image on the other side made me forget where I was. I opened the door.

  “Dylan!”

  A woman in pink, orange and yellow stood there, with her arms extended. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the light yet – or the bright colors.

  I squinted. “Diane?”

  “Dylan!”

  Just then, a head poked out from behind Diane and looked up at me. It was a little girl.

  All the air left my body.

  “Diane,” I said again, having suddenly lost access to all other vocabulary.

  It wasn’t Laurel returning for more, or to retrieve something that she’d left behind. Seeing Diane’s black wavy hair and gray eyes took me back a few years to a Chicago hotel room off Lake Shore overlooking the Odyssey cruising Lake Michigan. That had been a remarkable handful of days.

  “Dylan!”

  The conversation was obviously taking a little while to develop. It was understandable, considering the circumstances. Diane Sommers from Chicago and a lifetime ago was standing at my door at 3:00 a.m., extending her arms and waiting for a hug.

  Pulling her close, the memories of her perfume, her bright colors, her smile and her touch began to connect the dots until completing my vague recollection of the past. We’d worked head-to-head on the marketing campaign all day, wrapping ourselves in each other all night.