“So how many berries do you think there are here?”
Willow handed Chuck her mother’s gloves and a wire cane hook. “A hundred quarts or so.”
“Do you eat all that?” He stared at the hook, visibly confused until he saw her pull the blackberries closer to pick them.
“We usually don’t eat them all. We dry them for the birds in winter, but this year I am going to sell some of the extra too.”
Chuck glanced down at the bucket and realized she’d already half-filled it. “Wow. You’re fast.”
“I’d be faster if you started picking.”
“How come your mom’s gloves fit me? My hands aren’t that small.”
Eyes rolling, Willow systematically striped the berries off the canes. “She wore ones like this for berries.” She wriggled her fingers at him before turning back to her task. “Mother wore those over her regular gloves for dealing with animals in winter.”
An hour passed, two. Buckets filled slowly but steadily with blackberries. After a while, Willow sent Chuck to wheel buckets to the summer kitchen as she filled them. By lunchtime, she declared them done. Chuck tried to convince her to move to blueberries, but she refused.
“If I fill up the baskets Jill gave me, she’ll come get them. I’ll call.”
For the next hour, Chuck watched Willow as she sorted, filled, and then transferred dozens upon dozens of tiny baskets of fruit into Jill’s truck. After Jill left, she boiled water, washed berries, and filled jars with a mixture of sugar, lemon juice, and, of course, the berries. He tried to help but was more in the way than anything.
Bath after bath of berries and jam bubbled in the canner and then sealed on towels on the counter. “How do you know what to do? You don’t have recipes or anything!”
“I’ve done it every summer of my life. Even as a baby, Mother fed me berries while she washed and froze them. It’s what we do.”
“Why do it though? Why not just buy berries? You spend all this time in the heat, and you work so hard—why?”
“It’s how we eat,” she answered, knowing what was sure to follow.
“Why not just buy it. Come on. Tell me you can afford to buy food! Think of the time and work you’d save.”
Chuck screwed up his face in confusion as she answered, “And what would I do with all of the canning time I saved?”
“This is our library. Almost everything I ever learned came from one of these books or from my mother.”
Chuck picked at a book about the Amish and rolled his eyes. A copy of Gray’s Anatomy lay open to the brain on top of one shelf. Will and Ariel Durant’s History of the World stood proudly on another.
“You have a lot of books. Have you read them all?”
“Several times. Oh, look at mother’s carving. She did quills and parchment scrolls for this room.” The love in Willow’s voice pierced even Chuck’s superficial senses.
“She carved that woodwork?”
“Yep. Come see the dollhouse she built me for Christmas when I was six. I think it was a kit, but she must have spent every night after I went to sleep for a year to get it so perfect.”
Willow led him upstairs, past the bedrooms and to a small door at the end of the hall. Chuck wondered how she could stand the heat. Air conditioning was an essential of life in his book. “It’s up here,” her voice broke through his thoughts.
In the attic, at one end under a window, a shelf held several toys, more books, and in the corner stood the dollhouse. Willow’s face lit up. “Isn’t it adorable?”
A tenderness, like nothing he’d ever felt before, stole over him. He saw the pain Willow felt as she ran her fingers over the roof and wiped dust from the floors. In that moment he wanted, more than anything he’d ever wanted, to give her another afternoon with her mother. That thought made him shudder with the morbidity of it. Creepy.
“I should cover this with plastic. The dust can’t be good for it. I’ll come up next rain and clean it and cover it.”
“Willow—”
Her voice broke as she continued. “I didn’t take care of it like I should have. Some of the furniture got ruined when I left it outside and we had a thunderstorm. Mother took it away from me. I gave the mom a haircut—look at her.”
Tears flowed but she brushed them away quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“Come on; let’s go downstairs. I want to see what else you made.”
Willow stood as though to follow but pointed out a wooden rocking horse. “She made that too. From a kit. She said the pieces came all cut and ready to sand, stain, and assemble. I loved that horse.”
Chuck pulled her hand tugging her back down the attic stairs. “What about your room? Has it always looked the same or did you change it?”
Willow followed him into her mother’s room. “I remember the year mother painted the wallpaper on that wall. It was an experiment. She liked it so much we did my room the next year.”
“You painted this?”
Willow showed him how they’d measured carefully, drawn lines, and used masking tape to ensure a perfectly straight row. “Mother wanted roses, but I chose violets.”
“This is your mother’s room then.” Chuck’s voice was flat. He’d botched it again.
“Yes. Mine is over here.”
Willow took him room by room and described their life in detail. The cellar amazed Chuck the most. “I thought people only used these for old junk and tornados!”
After the tour, he suggested a movie. “It’s too early to go home.”
“I don’t feel like dressing for town.”
“Not the movies, just a DVD. What do you have?”
Willow stared at him blankly. He watched as thoughts—ones he couldn’t translate—flitted across her face. At last, she said, “I don’t have anything like that. If I wasn’t so tired and sore, I’d suggest a game of Frisbee or even offer to read aloud, but really, Chuck, I’ve worked hard today, I stink, I want a shower, and I want to go to bed. You need to go home.”
The words punched him in the gut. He thought she liked him—at least tolerated him anyway. “What?”
“I really am glad for all your help today. I’m sorry I don’t have any more zip, but I’m about to fall asleep on you, and I might have to rethink my position on hauntings if I did that. Mother would never approve.”
Relief doused his rising defensiveness. “You’re not mad at me?”
Willow smiled and shook her head. “Not at all. I’m sorry we can’t play a game or something, though. I’ve had fun.”
“Want to do something tomorrow?”
“Maybe next weekend. I’m busy tomorrow, but thanks.”
At the door, Chuck turned to Willow, reaching for her, but she pushed him away gently. “Very flattering, Chuck, but go home.” Her smile softened the rejection of her words as she closed the door in his face.
He stared at the combination of glass, wood, and metal that separated him from her. “Wow.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Willow packed her purse and tote bag in the front basket of her bicycle. The breeze teased her hair around her temples, sending her back inside to braid it. Irritants like hair in her face while doing an unfamiliar task like riding a bike on a busy highway probably posed a risk she shouldn’t take.
Each dozen yards down the driveway sent her mind grumbling over the tortures of the bicycle. Why did people choose such miserable ways of transportation? If she hadn’t waited so long to leave, she would have walked. Then again, this way people would see her ride it and understand how appreciative she was of the infernal thing.
The highway was different. The smooth road made riding both easier and a joy. The wheels whizzed along the road without the constant jarring of her teeth rattling. Her legs used muscles in new ways and grew sore and tired. Despite it all, she relished the refreshing wind in her face. The speed, though—Willow was astonished at the speed. She reached town a quarter of an hour sooner than she’d anticipated.
At the convenience s
tore, Willow stepped into the restroom and washed away the perspiration from her ride. She dusted herself with deodorant powder and changed her shorts and top for her new dress. Sandals replaced her tennis shoes, and she rolled her old clothes around her shoes, stuffing them back in the tote bag. Refreshed, she pushed the bicycle from the restroom and leaned it against the building as she hurried inside for a bottle of cold water.
She felt wonderfully alive and excited as she watched vendors set up their booths for the faire. At the corner of Elm and Market Streets, Willow pushed her bicycle toward the back of The Fox. She’d leave it there out of the way. Bicycles were more trouble than feet.
“Willow!”
She glanced around her at the sound of her name. Chad waved from across the street and started to cross, but a young boy zipped past on a skateboard, arresting his attention. He wanted to let it go—just this once—but he couldn’t. While she waited, he gave Aiden Cox the same lecture he gave the boy every week, pointing out exactly where the boy’s head would crack open when it connected with the concrete. Shoulders slumped, the boy sauntered away, and Chad jogged across to meet her, skateboard under his arm.
“Hey, you made it! Early too!”
“The bicycle is faster than feet. You look busy. What did the boy do wrong?” She eyed the skateboard.
“No helmet. That reminds me, you should be wearing yours.”
“I knew I forgot something. That’s ok. I don’t like how it slides around my head anyway.”
She put her hands up to demonstrate and felt her braid. Absently, Willow untied it and shook out her hair as she spoke. The golden strands fell perfectly around her head. The transformation was incredible. Chad was used to seeing her hair sleek and straight with occasional waves on the most humid of days. The tousled look she inadvertently achieved was flattering.
Chad cleared his head as she dug into her purse. “I’ll help you get it adjusted next time I’m out. You shouldn’t ride that highway without a helmet. The bike lane is good, but if you hit another rock or something…”
Grinning wryly at him, Willow pulled a brush from her purse but the look on Chad’s face stopped her. “What?”
“You look great, why ruin it?”
Laughing, she whisked the brush through her hair until it lay smoothly down her back. “Nice try. I know how messy my hair looks when I shake it out.”
Sighing, Chad beckoned her to follow. “Well, walk with me while I drop this off at the station and we’ll put your bike in the back of my truck.”
In her delight with all the excitement around her, Willow missed the occasional glances Chad gave her hair as they walked. “What’s that?”
He turned to see what she pointed to and watched as man drew cakewalk squares on the parking lot. Chad pointed out the cakes as they unloaded them from cars and filled tables. “St. Michaels does it every year. The money goes to pay for their kids to go to camp I think.”
“Mother and I camped by the stream once, but we didn’t like sleeping on the ground so we went home around midnight.”
“The point of camping is to be far away from home and practice survival skills. You’re whole life is survival skills. Your equivalent was going to the Towers in Rockland.”
At the station, Chad lifted the bike into the back of his truck and covered it with a tarp. Inside the station, Willow chatted with Joe and Judith as Chad logged in the skateboard and made a call to the boy’s mother. Joe dashed out of the station as a call came in over the scanner and Judith explained the protocols of law enforcement.
“I’ve got to get back out there. You can stay here or come with—either way,” Chad said as he pushed open the door.
Willow waved at Judith, thanked her for the mini-lesson, and followed Chad into the heat of the afternoon. As they walked, Chad pointed out interesting things until his watch beeped four o’clock. “Two hours until I’m off. I’ve got to make a few more rounds. I hate this.” He sighed.
“I still think it’s a good thing.”
“It’s ridiculous. We walk around like babysitters, making sure our little charges don’t get into trouble while mommy isn’t looking.”
Shaking her head as he spoke, she pounced. “No, no, you’re thinking of it all wrong. A mother watches over her child as she plays in order to protect her from making foolish mistakes. Just knowing mother is there, helps the child remember not to act impulsively. You’re like a father. You are there to help those around you feel safe just by your presence.”
Chad came to a standstill in the middle of the sidewalk. “So I’m like a lock on the door. If someone wanted to break it down they could, but because the lock is there, very few people try to breach the security of the home.”
“Exactly! I think you have one of the most important jobs in the world.”
“Well, I love the job,” Chad began. “I just thought it’d be—” He paused. Why belabor the point—again. She’d consider him a whiner if he grumbled about his job every time they talked.
Willow watched the emotions cross his face and laid her hand on his arm. “Chad I think people choose to live in this town because it is safe, friendly, and a true community. They work hard and travel far in order to make enough money to afford to live here. What you do makes what they desire possible. I don’t understand why you can’t see that.”
Chad started down Market Street, looking for double-parked cars and loitering kids—exactly the sorts of things he hated about his job. Willow hung back, watching someone set up a booth. A wolf whistle sent Chad spinning on his heels. Amused, he watched as Willow paused to glance at some trinket, oblivious to the jester who made the gesture. “She has no idea how attractive she is,” he thought to himself.
“Your purse is ringing.”
Willow glanced up at the man in the bookstore. “Oh! My phone. Thank you.” She hurried outside and answered it.
“Hey Willow, I’m leaving the station now. I’m going to go change, and then I’ll meet you somewhere. Have you eaten?”
Willow glanced at the line at Alexa’s table, wondering if she’d miss getting the woman’s autograph. “No, I thought I was supposed to wait for you. I know what I want to eat though.”
“Anything but pasties, and I’m good.”
“I found a place at the corner of the square that sells meat and vegetables on sticks.”
“Kabobs?”
“Yes!” She thought for a moment. “Oh, that’s what Mother meant. She told me about them, but when we tried it with toothpicks, the picks burned.” She glanced at the number counter beside Alexa’s table. The ticket in her hand told her she’d better hurry. “Anyway, they smelled delicious. I’ll meet you there when you’re done dressing, but I have to go. It’s almost my turn.”
Without another word, Willow slid her phone shut and slipped it inside her purse. “Hello, Miss Hartfield. I’ve finally decided to try one of your books. I picked this one because it looked like your newest one, but which do you recommend?”
With a smile, Alexa stood and disappeared amongst the shelves of books returning with another one. “I think this would interest you most. I’d love to hear what you think of it.”
Willow glanced at the title and then pushed it across the table. “Will you sign it?” As the author picked up her pen, Willow added, “Your dress is lovely. I think claret must be your color.”
Alexa glanced at her medieval gown. “It’s one of my—” She paused. “I know better than to say that. They’re all my favorites. Thank you, though.”
“Did you have it made for the faire?”
A titter rippled throughout the shop. “Actually, I planned to wear my favorite white Edwardian gown, but my brother said it was incongruous to imagine me in the Shakespeare bee wearing something so modern in comparison. Alexa handed Willow the signed book. “Oh, that reminds me, Wes has a gift for you at my house. I’ll walk home and get it before the bee.”
“Oh you don’t have to do that. I can stop by on my way home if you tell me how to ge
t there. How kind of him.”
“They’re some of his best pictures. I loved them.”
Willow left the bookstore and stood in line at the Shish-ke-Bob’s stand. She shrieked and whirled to kick her “attacker” when hands covered her eyes from behind. Chad backed away, his hands thrown up in surrender. “Uncle!”
“What? You scared me!”
“I’m sorry. I never thought I’d frighten you.”
Bob the shish-kebob hawker waved an empty box under their noses and demanded their order. “Chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, or veggie?”
“Two of each,” Chad answered, pulling out his wallet.
“I brought money Chad—”
Something in his eyes told Willow to drop the subject. They found a bench under one of the nearby trees, but Chad left her there while he went in search of drinks from one of the several cider vendors. By the time he returned, Willow had managed to create a full table spread for them.
“Wow.”
“This looks good, doesn’t it?”
They ate their kebobs with relish, Chad entertaining her with stories of past faires and the different exotic food options available. As she listened, Willow stared at their food, confused. “So what about these fits with the medieval theme?”
“Well, it’s a stretch, really. The justification I’ve heard is that the Crusades happened during the medieval times and places that now serve kabobs, so therefore, it is perfect. I think it’s just an excuse not to serve roasted pigs with apples in their mouths and lambs on a spit.”
They wandered through the streets laughing at jesters, smiling at children and making note of the things that interested them. A dunking booth drew Willow, and she plunked down her dollar without a second thought. A jester danced on the dunking board and mocked her as she threw a couple of balls to Chad to get a feel for them before she tried it.
Past Forward Volume 1 Page 27