by Mary McNear
“Here, take these to the party,” Sam said, coming around to the front of the counter and handing him a couple of bags of Doritos. “Seriously, girls love this Zesty Ranch flavor.” He faced him toward the door then and gave him a little push. He didn’t say thank you as he left, but Sam hadn’t expected him to.
When he went back to ringing up customers, Sam wondered if he’d ever been that young, or that stupid, and decided that he had been both. He’d had an easier time getting beer, though. His friend John had had an uncle who used to buy it for them. His nickname was Seven Fingered Freddie, Sam remembered, due to the fact that he was missing three fingers. He wouldn’t tell them how he’d lost those fingers, but Sam and John and their friends had spent hours sitting in the hayloft of an old abandoned barn, drinking beer and speculating on what might have happened to them.
His mind wandered on like this for some time, or at least until he’d handed a customer change for a cup of coffee and a familiar voice said, “Sam! Aren’t you even going to say good morning?” It was Margot Hoffman, her bright green polo shirt emblazoned with the Butternut Nature Museum insignia across her left breast and a matching green visor perched on her head.
“Yes, of course. Good morning, Margot. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“That’s all right,” Margot said, cheerful as ever. “I still can’t believe you missed the fireworks.”
“Yeah, I ended up staying at home and trying to get some work done.”
“Well, you missed a great show. But you’re forgiven, on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You buy tickets to the hoedown.”
“Is it . . . that time of year already?” Sam said, of the annual fund-raiser and silent auction for the Butternut Nature Museum. This was held on a farm outside of town, and came complete with a country and western band, strategically placed bales of hay, and enough checked shirts, string-ties, and cowboy boots to convince the denizens of the town that they’d been picked up and transported a thousand miles due west for the evening.
“Yes, Sam, it’s that time,” Margot said, her brown eyes shining. “And we have a special addition to the festivities this year.”
“What’s that?” Sam said, trying to muster the requisite enthusiasm.
“A professional square-dance caller.”
“No kidding.”
“Swear to God. He’s the real deal. He makes a living doing it, Sam. Can you believe it?”
“I really can’t,” Sam said. The thought of square dancing inspired in him a dread so acute that it was very close to panic.
“Well, he’ll be there, and I wanted to give you a heads-up about something else, too,” she said. She leaned in and added, in a conspiratorial tone, “This is supposed to be a surprise, but one of the silent auction items is a naturalist-led pontoon boat tour of Butternut Lake. And honestly, Sam, I think your kids would love it.”
“Are you by any chance the naturalist?”
She blushed. “Yes, that would be me,” she said, fidgeting with a lanyard that hung from the strap of her backpack. “And I can personally guarantee that if you bid on the tour and win, I’ll show the twins every single bald eagle’s nest on the lake.”
“Wow. That’s . . . quite an offer,” Sam said, and he felt a flicker of irritation then, not at her but at Byron, who’d closed his notebook and was watching his and Margot’s exchange with a sly amusement.
“Okay, well, I’ll let you get back to work,” Margot said. “If it’s okay with you, though, I’d love to post these around the store,” she added, holding up a sheaf of flyers for the hoedown.
“Of course,” Sam said. “Go right ahead.”
Margot left then, and Byron drifted over, adjusted his seersucker hat, and leaned on the counter. “You said it yourself, Sam, that was quite an offer from Margot. And I’m not talking about the boat ride, either.”
“Byron, come on. Give me a break.”
But now Linc sidled up to the counter, a gleeful expression on his face.
“Did you, uh, tell Margot she could plaster those flyers all over the place?” he asked.
“Yes, I did, Linc. It’s a worthy cause,” Sam said, feeling an ominous thud at his right temple. He came out from behind the counter and grabbed a travel size bottle of Advil from a display and a bottle of water from the refrigerated case.
“You know what else is a worthy cause, Sam?” Linc said. “Margot.”
Sam, twisting the cap off the Advil, finally lost his patience. “Cut it out, both of you. She’ll hear you,” he muttered.
“Oh, Sam,” Byron said good-naturedly. “Just ask her out already. The woman is spending a small fortune here just to see you every day.”
“I’m not asking her out,” Sam said, keeping his voice low. “Just . . . give it a rest, okay?”
He spilled a couple of Advils into his palm, unscrewed the lid on his water bottle, and washed them down. “Byron, do you want to take the register?” he asked, looking over at Byron. But Byron wasn’t listening to him. He was still leaning against the counter, but now, instead of joking with Linc, he was gazing off into the middle distance, watching something with rapt attention. Linc, standing next to him, was watching the same thing, his mouth slightly ajar. Sam knew what they were looking at without having to look himself, but he sighed and followed their gaze anyway.
Poppy was done with the s’mores display, and she was down at the other end of the aisle, standing on a stepladder, arranging bottles of barbeque sauce on the top shelf. She was wearing a floral print cotton blouse, faded blue jeans, and Converse sneakers, and her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail. But it didn’t matter, she was still a sight to behold, and God knew how long they would have gone on beholding her if Sam hadn’t suddenly said, under his breath, “This is pathetic.” And, as irritated with himself as he was with them, he knocked Linc’s baseball cap off his head, and gave Byron a gentle punch in the arm.
“Knock it off, you two. Really, you look like a couple of puppy dogs. Linc, I think you got some drool on the floor. You should probably wipe it up. And Byron? Come on, you’re old enough to be her father. Her grandfather.”
Sam grumbled a little more about this, but neither one of them seemed particularly penitent. Linc put his baseball cap back on and continued to stare, and Bryon sighed and said, “A man can dream, can’t he?” So Sam went back behind the counter and ignored them as he rang up a woman buying enough Popsicles to feed a small army, but by the time he was done with this transaction, he’d made a decision.
“Is Margot still here?” he asked, looking around.
“Why?” Linc asked.
“Because . . . you’re right. I should ask her out. I don’t know why I haven’t done it before.”
“Yes,” Linc said, pumping his fist in the air. “I told you, old man,” he said to Byron.
“You got lucky this time,” Byron admitted.
“What are you two talking about?” Sam asked, but he realized, with a sinking feeling, that he already knew. “Byron, this isn’t one of your bets, is it?”
Byron looked a little sheepish. “It’s a pool, Sam. But it’s all in good fun,” he insisted. “Just something to keep things interesting around here.”
“Unbelievable,” Sam said, shaking his head. “You are unbelievable.” And then, because he couldn’t help being curious, he asked, “What’s the bet?”
“Whether you two will go on a date.”
“One date?”
Byron nodded.
Sam pulled his wallet out of his pocket and took out a twenty-dollar bill. “I want in,” he said, holding it out to Byron.
“You can’t get in on your own bet,” Byron said, appalled.
“Then pull the whole thing,” he said.
Byron looked unhappy, but he took the twenty. “This is not how it’s done, Sam.”
“It is this time.”
“Ah, Byron,” Linc said, his mouth twitching in a barely repressed smile. “
Tell Sam what else you wanted to bet on.”
Byron gave him a dirty look.
“Let’s have it, Byron,” Sam said.
“Well, I thought about another bet. This would have just been between Linc and me.”
“And what would that have been?”
“It would have concerned whether or not you”—here Byron lowered his voice—“whether or not you and Margot closed the deal.”
“Closed the deal?” Sam repeated.
Byron cleared his throat, and because he was normally so proper, he looked embarrassed as he explained, “You know, had sexual relations.”
“And how were you going to know whether this happened or not, Byron? Did you honestly think I was going to tell you?”
“No.” Byron shook his head. “We just assumed that if it happened, you’d be in a better mood than you usually are.”
“Never mind,” Sam said, snatching the twenty-dollar bill out of Byron’s hand. “Just pull the whole thing. And don’t ever bet on my personal life again, is that clear?” he added, though he was less angry than amazed. Amazed that his life, so consistently uninteresting to him, could be interesting enough for anyone else to actually bet on.
He hurried out the front door and found Margot putting flyers under the windshield wipers of cars in the parking lot.
“Sam?” she said, looking up. “You don’t mind that I’m doing this, do you?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Who doesn’t love a hoedown, right?” she said.
“Right. Uh, Margot,” he said, leaning on the car. “Would you like to go out with me sometime, maybe get dinner or something?”
“I’d love to,” she said, her face lighting up.
“When’s good for you?”
“Tonight,” she said, without hesitation.
“Oh, all right. I’ll have to see if I can get a babysitter. It shouldn’t be a problem, though. Do you want to grab something at the Corner Bar?” Sam asked, of a place in town where you could get good beer on tap and a decent hamburger.
“That sounds great.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“I’ll see you then,” she said.
He turned and started to go back inside, but she called after him. “Sam?”
“Yes?” he said, turning around.
She smiled again. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Finding a babysitter, though, was easier said than done. Sam didn’t need one very often—he usually saved his socializing for the weekends, when his kids were with their mom—so he only had a short list of people he could call on. He worked his way through it pretty quickly. Lonnie Hagan, his children’s favorite babysitter, was on vacation, and Miss Suzette, Cassie’s baton twirling teacher, already had a commitment. That left Justine or Linc. They’d both pitched in during emergencies before, with mixed success. (Justine had given his children elaborate henna tattoos of skulls that he’d found somewhat morbid, and Linc had helped them build a near professional blanket fort that had taken Sam days to dismantle.) Still, he trusted them both, and when he found out they were busy, too, he realized he’d reached the bottom of the barrel, otherwise known as Byron. Byron loved the kids, and they loved him, but at night he was apt to be watching whatever televised games he’d taken bets on that day, and Sam suspected that his boys would see this as an opening to slip away and do what it was they most wanted to do, which was to find different ways of blowing things up. Nonetheless, Sam was on the verge of asking Byron to babysit when he walked by Poppy, who was arranging condiments on a shelf.
“Sam!” she said, waylaying him. “Can you answer a question for me?”
“Of course.”
“Why would you sell this here?” she asked, holding up a jar of light mayonnaise. “It’s an abomination. I mean, taking the fat out of mayonnaise? That’s just wrong.”
He looked at her quizzically.
“I’m kidding,” she said, putting the jar on the shelf.
“Oh, right,” he said, feeling the not unpleasant confusion he often felt when he was with her.
“I did need to talk to you about the Red Vines, though,” she said, as she continued stacking jars on the shelf. “I know we agreed on one package per day, but I’ve been having two and sometimes even three. I’m not used to this all-access approach to them. Maybe you should put them behind the counter, just to be safe,” she suggested, gracing him with another one of her lovely smiles.
He nodded. Yes, she was definitely flirting with him. Even Sam, who’d been out of the game for a while, could tell this.
“I’m kidding, again,” she said, when he didn’t say anything.
“I know,” he said. I’m just . . .” I’m just distracted by you, by everything about you. But most of all, for some reason, right this second, by the little hollow at the base of your neck. How did you get it so tan? And what would it taste like if I kissed it?
“I should get going,” he said, abruptly, moving on. “I’m trying to find a babysitter for tonight.”
“Sam,” she called after him. “I’ll babysit for you.”
He stopped. “You will?”
“Why not?” she said. “Cassie and I can work on her twirling. Her performance is only two weeks away now.”
“Well, there are the boys, too.”
“I can handle them.”
He hesitated.
“Oh, come on. It’s the least I can do,” she said. “You gave me a job, didn’t you? And, by the way, I wouldn’t charge you for tonight. It’s on the house.”
“That’s not necessary,” he said. “I’ll pay you the going rate.”
She shrugged, unconcernedly. “What time do you want me to come?”
“Six thirty?”
“Okay,” she said. “Is there, uh, anything going on in Butternut tonight that I should know about?” she asked. “Anything . . . exciting?”
“There’s nothing exciting going on in Butternut. You should know that by now,” he said, and then he made himself say something more, something he hoped would put them back on the professional footing they belonged on. “I’m going on a date.”
“Oh . . . that’s nice,” she said, and she smiled politely, and went back to stocking the condiments. But he’d seen it anyway. Just for a second, when he’d told her, he’d seen the expression on her face. And when he went back to his office it wasn’t Margot he thought about, but Poppy. Poppy who’d been disappointed when he’d told her he was going on a date.
CHAPTER 12
When Sam got back to the cabin that night after his date with Margot, he found Poppy on the living room floor, scooping Legos into a plastic bin.
“You don’t need to do that,” he objected. “We’re used to stepping on them. It probably wouldn’t feel like home if we didn’t.”
She smiled but kept picking them up. “I don’t mind. How was your night?” she asked, casually, looking not at him but at the Lego strewn rug.
“It was . . . fine,” Sam said, and because it felt wrong to watch her pick up his childrens’ toys alone, he knelt down and started to pick them up with her. Had it been fine? he wondered of the night. He hoped, for Margot’s part, it had been. But for his part, it had been a mixture of tedium and tension. Tedium because, other than the town they lived in and the people they knew, they had almost nothing in common. And tension because, while Margot was careful to broaden her conversation to include topics other than the nature museum, there was always the possibility, Sam felt, that she would suddenly start lecturing him on the environmental hazards of sulfide mining in Northern Minnesota, or on the reasons why the northern long-eared bat should be put on the endangered species list.
On the drive home, they’d finally lapsed into silence, Margot humming along, a little self-consciously, to a song on the radio, and Sam puzzling, silently, over the night’s central mystery. Here was an attractive woman whom he wasn’t attracted to, an interesting woman whom he wasn’t interested in, and a nice woman whose niceness only served
to make him feel guilty for not appreciating her niceness more. Maybe it was that guilt that made him kiss her a little more enthusiastically than he’d intended to when he left her at her front door. He’d have to answer for that kiss tomorrow, he thought, when Margot came into Birch Tree Bait, first thing, to get her coffee.
“How’d things go here?” Sam asked, throwing the last Legos into the bin.
“Well, let’s see,” Poppy said, sitting back on her heels. “From what I could tell, the boys were on their best behavior. And everyone seemed to like dinner, which was chicken nuggets, French fries, and Popsicles. Should there have been a vegetable in there somewhere?” she asked, frowning slightly, her blond hair shining in the lamplight.
“In a perfect world,” Sam said. “But, you know, it’s not.”
She smiled. “Right. Then, after dinner, we tried to play the Game of Life, but it didn’t really get off the ground.”
Sam nodded. “Cassie just likes to fill up her car with the little pink pegs”—the little pink pegs signified that a player had had daughters—“and drive it around the board.”
“Yeah, I figured that out pretty quickly.” Poppy laughed. “After that, the boys went up to their room to play, and Cassie practiced twirling a little, and then we tried out some new hairstyles on her, and then . . . oh, and then she showed me her dolls. Did you know that one of them is in a coma, Sam?”
“I did. Cassie got sunscreen in its eyes, and now they won’t open, so she decided she was in a coma.”
“Well, we talked to her a little, anyway. Your daughter heard somewhere that’s what you do with people who are in a coma. You know, in case they can still hear you.”
“Exactly,” Sam said, standing up, and Poppy stood up, too, brushing her blue jeans off. They were faded and worn at the hems, and her pale blue wool sweater—it was a chilly night—had a hole in one of the elbows. But it didn’t matter, Sam thought. She would have looked beautiful in a brown burlap sack.
“Then, after that,” Poppy said, “they all got ready for bed, and Cassie went right to sleep, after I’d checked all the places in her room a ghost could be hiding, but the boys”—she shook her head—“I’d leave them in their room, and they’d be in their beds, and then I’d come back, and they would have just popped right back out of them again.”