by Hannah Reed
“No, this isn’t my weekend to see them,” Carrie Ann said. “I wish Gunnar would loosen up a bit more.”
“He’s coming around,” I said. “A few months ago, he wouldn’t let you see them at all.”
Carrie Ann looked forlorn at the moment, but she was a survivor and never let anything get her down for long.
After she left, I looked around the store and sighed with contentment.
The building had been an abandoned church with a “For Sale” sign out front for the longest time. Until I had the idea for a market, bought the building, and gutted the interior, leaving the fine maple floors and stained-glass windows, front, rear, and overhead. After a coat of fresh paint and installing shelving units, coolers, and carefully selected stock, the store opened.
The great thing about working at The Wild Clover on a daily basis was the interesting and diverse relationships I developed with my customers. They took an active interest in me and my life, and I reciprocated. It felt good to know so many people cared.
The bad thing about being a permanent fixture at the store was that, along with the good people—most of them fit into that category—came the few that I wouldn’t tolerate if given a choice. Unfortunately, personal selection wasn’t an option as a business owner.
I’d known many of my customers my whole life, and it made me feel like I was part of a huge family. Like my dentist, T. J. Schmidt, and his wife, Ali, who came in for groceries.
T. J. Schmidt had it made, according to the pecking rules of our small town. He had been a local kid at a time when Moraine wasn’t much to look at, then he had gone off to college, which wasn’t a big deal since most of us did. But he’d continued to take advanced studies and actually brought a wallful of certificates back home to put his new skills into practice. Most others who had followed professional paths hadn’t returned, probably thinking they’d be wasting their talents in such a small place.
T. J. was a local boy in his heart and he’d be one until he went to his grave.
Of course, most of his incentive to come back had to do with his wife, since they’d been an item throughout high school and beyond, and Ali liked small-town living just as much as he did.
“Did you remember you have an appointment Monday?” T. J. reminded me. He had one of those pudgy ageless faces, with the coloring and complexion of a newborn.
I nodded. “And I bet you’ll come find me if I happen to mentally block that painful fact out of my mind.”
T. J. laughed because what I said was so true. Nobody got out of cleanings, fillings, and root canals while he was around. “I’ll be gentle,” he said. “You won’t feel a thing. I promise.” And with that big fib, he headed down aisle four where I could see him chatting up customers.
“We just stocked fresh rhubarb,” I said to Ali, knowing she loved the stuff. And off she went.
The other side of the coin—the bad part of such a public life, far removed from any warm and fuzzy family feeling—the forced-to-tolerate, dark side came strutting in shortly afterward. She was a daily shopper. Wouldn’t you know it? That type always is.
“I’m having a horrible time selling your ex-husband’s house,” Lori Spandle said, wearing a certain look of wide-eyed self-interest that screamed Insincere Salesperson. Or maybe I thought that because I knew her phony-baloney side only too well.
“That’s too bad,” I said with matching concern.
“Nobody wants to live next to a head case.”
“Thanks, Lori,” I said. My ex’s house was next door to mine. “I appreciate the term of endearment. Your kindness knows no bounds.”
Lori Spandle, besides being our only real estate agent, had slept with my husband. Not that I should have cared, since we had been separated at the time and no way was I going back to that jerk. But Lori was married to the town chairman and shouldn’t have been messing around at all. That particular fidelity rule was number one in my personal book of marriage code, conduct my husband hadn’t bothered upholding through our entire marriage—something I only found out much later.
Lori was also a year younger than me and had been after every guy I’d ever dated or even considered dating since middle school. With those big boobs, she’d had her share of successes, too.
“You have all kinds of other places to keep those bees,” Lori said. “They don’t have to be in your backyard where the entire town has to endure the menaces. They’re ruining my business.”
I couldn’t stop the wide grin I felt crossing my face. Wasn’t that a shame? “Patti Dwyre doesn’t seem to mind my bees,” I said, “and she lives right next door to me, too. Neither does Aurora at Moraine Gardens across the street.”
“Aurora lives in some kind of alternate reality. She doesn’t count.”
“Are you here to shop or did you stop by just to complain?”
“Just wanted you to know what kind of problems you’re causing for property values in this town.” With that she flounced down aisle one to squeeze fruit and eat grapes.
What Lori said was true about me having other options for my beeyard. Grams owned a lot of country acreage, and not too long ago when the town was debating banning my bees, I hid them there for safekeeping. After that issue blew over and my honey business expanded, I moved the hives back into my backyard where I could keep a better eye on them.
Besides, one thing people don’t realize is that honeybees do as well and sometimes better in towns and cities where they have more diverse nectar sources and longer flowering seasons. Especially with Moraine Gardens right across the street from where I lived. All those wonderful native species blooming throughout the season. That was like bee heaven.
For the next half hour I worked the register without even a pause. After that, I had a breather—time to look around The Wild Clover with my usual pride and joy. Sales had been climbing steadily ever since day one, thanks to word of mouth, loyal customers, and my honeybee side business, which most visitors and residents really appreciated. Plus, I constantly worked on coming up with new, innovative ideas.
Like the beeswax candle-making class coming up at three o’clock this afternoon in the basement of The Wild Clover, where former church members had at one time congregated for fellowship. I was thrilled to bring my version of fellowship back to the space.
Weekends in Moraine are busy as long as the weather holds, which is always a new adventure in southern Wisconsin where I live. Today was bright and sunny, although the air was still a little crisp. Our unincorporated town boasted a cozy library, a frozen-custard shop, Stu’s Bar and Grill, an antique store, Moraine Gardens, and The Wild Clover, home to Wisconsin-made goodies. The town also sat along a rustic road where tourists could take in some pretty spectacular landscapes—quaint towns, rolling hills, and a boatload of lakes and rivers. Some of our visitors discovered they could put their kayaks in the Oconomowoc River at the dead end by my house and paddle up and down the river. The scenery was all woods, ridges, and marshes.
With monthly library events and weekly arts and crafts at my store, word had gotten around that Moraine was worth the stop. I had almost a full class of eighteen students for the candle-making class. Only two spots left. Yes, today’s event promised to be a killer.
A killer event, is what I’d been telling customers all week.
Looking back, I really wish I hadn’t called it that.
Two
Ten minutes before the candle-making class was scheduled to begin, Holly still hadn’t arrived, which had me grinding my teeth, chewing my nails, and considering ripping out every hair on my head. Or on hers, if I could get a firm grip on it once I tracked her down. I worked hard to have a full staff every Saturday. That meant at least two—better yet three—of us at all times. But today was one of those out-of-control staffing situations that come up constantly for those of us in the service industry. The twins, after witnessing the tense condition I was in, felt badly that they couldn’t help me out, but they had a wedding to attend, which was a perfectly good reas
on not to stay. Even in my desperation, I could see that.
As I was punching keys on my cell phone, trying to contact Holly for the hundredth time—not much of an exaggeration—my sister strolled in the door. I reined in my impulse to attack her with a Momlike tongue-lashing. Genetics, I’m discovering, are hard to overcome.
Holly managed to agitate me more than the twins, who rarely bugged me, or even Carrie Ann, who brought on some serious cases of frustration. Mainly Holly drove me nuts because she was supposed to be my partner, and partly because she was family, which I figured gave me carte blanche in the major annoyance department.
Holly was three years younger than me, making her thirty-one. She had married into big money when she said I do to Max Paine. The upside of marrying rich was all the disposable cash she had access to, and her seemingly unlimited generosity in loaning me what I needed to buy out my ex-husband’s share of the store and to obtain all the honey-making equipment and supplies to go into the bee business. The downside was that since Max happened to be on the road most of the time making all that dough, Holly chose (okay, maybe it was mostly Mom’s idea) to entertain herself by getting involved in the actual everyday workings of The Wild Clover. That loan I’d so gratefully accepted wasn’t without permanently attached strings, as I found out too late.
Although if I wanted to be honest, I would have taken the offered loan anyway, but with my eyes wide open, not blindsided.
Regarding her involvement in Queen Bee Honey: Holly was afraid of honeybees and would rather be stomped to death by wild horses than walk into the apiary, where the only risk I could see was a bee sting here and there. Big deal. And she wasn’t even allergic! Her bee phobia was a problem I decided to help her get over by engaging her in bee activities every chance I got. And if she never got over it, at least there was the revenge factor for letting Mom talk her into getting involved where she shouldn’t.
Besides, anyone who can afford to drive a Jag needs a reality check every once in a while.
“About time,” I said when she strolled up to the cash register finally ready to make a condensed contribution of time and effort. I heard a little witchiness in my voice as several candle-making students walked by and descended into the workshop where I’d already set up the supplies we’d need. “Why didn’t you answer your cell? I’ve been calling for hours.”
“Dead battery,” she said, holding up her cell phone, showing me the black screen.
I glared.
“Didn’t you get the MSG?” Holly asked.
Now, for most of us MSG would be an Asian food additive, a different kind of salt than the ordinary table variety. In Holly’s world where text-speak threatened to take over her vocabulary, it meant something entirely different. MSG equaled message. So what she really meant to say was “Didn’t you get the message?”
“Carrie Ann said you’d be late,” I answered, still really mad. “That’s not the point.”
“SS (So Sorry),” Holly said, dripping with sarcasm, as if I was the one with the problem, as if she hadn’t done anything wrong, as if—
I took a deep breath.
I was flustered, a condition brought on easily by most of my family members, excluding Grams, the only one in my family who never had a single mean-spirited thought or word for anybody.
In my haste to start the class on time, I almost lost my footing while hustling down the stairs, causing me to arrive at the bottom with a little too much noisy flair. A real attention-getter when I would have preferred a graceful entrance. A moment of silence ensued as everyone in the room turned and stared. Then I took another calming breath and propelled myself into the midst of a roomful of eager candle-making dippers.
The scoop on beeswax, as I explained to my students, was:
• Beeswax is secreted by honeybees from a gland in their abdomen.
• They use it to make the structural walls of honeycombs, those tiny six-sided cells.
• Honeycomb cells are where the young bees are raised and where honey and pollen are stored.
• A bee must fly 150,000 miles to produce one pound of wax.
• Beeswax is used to make so many things, including soaps, candles, cosmetics, dental wax, a coating for cheeses, and to waterproof leather and wood.
• Beeswax never goes bad, which explains why it has been found throughout history as far back as the days of the pharaohs’ tombs.
I had already prepared the beeswax by rendering it—cleaning and draining—and had melted it in slow cookers borrowed from friendly customers, since the church didn’t have its own kitchen facility. There were all sizes and shapes of beeswax candles, but for this event I’d decided on tapered candles, those elegant ones we used for special occasions.
We were all set to go.
The great thing about candle making is that it attracts all kinds of people—young, old, male, female. Most of the people at the table were locals, and the others were folks who came my way often enough for me to learn their names and remember their faces.
Stu Trembly, the owner of Stu’s Bar and Grill, sat at the end of the table next to his girlfriend, Becky, the expression on his face showing that this wasn’t his idea of how to spend a Saturday afternoon, but he was going along and making the best of it. What a guy!
Stanley Peck, sixtyish, good friend, amateur beekeeper, and a widower before his time, sat to the right of Stu and Becky. Stanley had a noticeable limp when he walked, ever since the time he shot himself in the foot while squaring off with temporary field workers who had been tending to his farm. Stanley had lost that round without any of the workers making a single move.
I always hoped he wasn’t armed when he visited the store, but I’m pretty sure that was wishful thinking. Stanley had a bit of a temper—displayed only once or twice in my presence—and add to it a concealed, loaded, illegal weapon? Not a good combo.
Next to Stanley sat Milly Hopticourt, The Wild Clover’s official newsletter editor and recipe tester. Then there were the weekend shoppers who had signed up earlier today. Finally, unfortunately, there were several kids in the mix.
I say unfortunately, because these kids were Kerrigans and had reputations for their unruliness and lack of anything remotely hinting of discipline or constraint. The Kerrigans had lived in Moraine even longer than my family, and they procreated as though they were trying to repopulate the world after an apocalypse wiped out most of humanity. Many of the kids in the room were Gus’s grand-children. Gus was close to my mom’s age, had a total of eight children and his was only one small branch of the Kerrigan clan. Plus all Gus’s kids stayed close by, having families of their own. Kerrigans were everywhere. Even though the business owners cringed every time Kerrigans brought their kids to town and had been reacting with that same dread throughout the generations, the children usually grew up to be honest, loyal, and hardworking members of the community.
At least most of them did. Like any big family, there were bound to be a few exceptions.
Ten minutes into my spiel, the kids were getting antsy and leaning over the pots of melting wax whenever they weren’t handling every single item on the table. Then two more adults came down the steps, about to fill those last two empty spots at the table and make me the winner of a bet I had going with Carrie Ann that every last seat would be taken.
I immediately recognized one of the latecomers as Rita Kerrigan, Gus’s sister-in-law. Rita hadn’t aged nearly as well as my own mother even though they were around the same age. She carried a lot of extra weight and it had worked a number on her knees. Just getting down the steps seemed like a major effort for her.
The other woman, who came downstairs right behind Rita, was twig-thin and a stranger to me. She seemed nervous and shy, carefully avoiding meeting my gaze. The last thing I wanted to do was single her out by asking her to introduce herself, since she was obviously uncomfortable. Instead, I smiled warmly and welcomed both of them.
“Let’s get started with the actual process,” I said, after summa
rizing what we would do in the next hour. How we would dip our wicks (that got a snicker from Stu’s end of the table) into melted wax to begin to create tapered candles, then let them cool a little before dipping again. Each dip into the melted beeswax would add another thin layer of wax to the wick, until slowly but surely candlesticks would form.
The fun began. Or continued, as in the case of the kids, who dripped melted wax everywhere on the table (smart me, I’d put down layers and layers of newspapers) and on the chairs. That was going to be a mess!
The naturally sweet fragrance of honey filled the room.
The woman who joined the group late wasn’t doing much other than nervously wrapping her wick around her fingers, so I went over to help her. Although dipping candles was hardly rocket science. Even the youngest kid was into the groove.
“Like this,” I said, taking the wick and making the first dip for her, then handing it back. A few drops of wax fell on the newspaper-lined table. “Hold it in the air for a few seconds before dipping it again. Let it cool slightly.”
Then I noticed, since I was up closer than before, she was wearing a cheap brown wig that didn’t fit quite right, as if it were at least one or two sizes too big. She was older than me, or so I thought, and her wrists were excessively thin, the skin on her hands transparent, with protruding blue veins. When I handed the wick back, her fingers were ice cold to the touch.
And I thought she smelled like death, even over the sweet fragrant honey coming from the melted beeswax. Don’t ask me why that idea popped into my mind, because I didn’t know what death smelled like, or even that it had a smell. But if it did, this woman emitted it. Not powerful or overwhelming, more subtle and impossible to put into words.