“Our family has been in Comfort for centuries,” Vera went on, oblivious to interruptions. “In fact, my grandmother was best friends with one of the Vanderbilts, who used to summer in North Carolina. The town has everything you could want.”
“Then why do you go to Hendersonville so often?” Jeffrey pushed a small truck around his place mat, using the border for a highway.
“It’s a beautiful place for a child to grow up. It’s safe…”
“What about the time Dad broke his leg?” Jeffrey ran his truck into the napkin holder and made an exploding sound.
“You said the rocks he was climbing were dangerous.”
“…with good people. Stanley is still friends with childhood buddies, all fine men. One said Stanley had inspired him to give up drinking in high school. That he owed him his life. Remember that, Megan?”
“You told me, yes.” Megan brought Jeffrey’s breakfast over. Elizabeth was looking at her curiously. The story of Stanley’s life became more impressive and more mangled every time his mother got hold of it, and Megan had probably been looking skeptical. She rearranged her face into a more wifely expression and was relieved when Elizabeth turned back to Vera.
“You must be so proud of your son.”
“Oh, yes, I am. Of course what mother isn’t proud of her child? But Stanley is special. He went to the University of North Carolina, and could have graduated, probably with honors, but he missed Megan and wanted to settle.” She shook her head as if Megan were responsible for bringing Stanley down from a sure shot at the White House. Stanley had actually failed out of UNC all by himself. “He’s a fine salesman, but he could have been a CEO if he’d set his sights that high. A Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs or a Jimmy Buffett.”
“Warren Buffet, Vera. Jimmy is a singer.” Megan put the plate she’d fixed for Elizabeth on the table for her son. “Jeffrey, put away the truck and eat.”
“Yes, Mom, I will, Mom.”
“Stanley is a fine singer too. You should hear him in church, Elizabeth.”
Of course he was. A fine singer and brilliant scholar, exemplary friend—but a lousy swimmer because his feet stayed on top of the water and he had to walk it.
“G’morning.” Lolly filed in sleepily, sexy in a worn, black Johnny Cash T-shirt of her father’s, hair in a sloppy ponytail. At fifteen, girls could look sexy covered in garbage.
“Hi Lolly. Nice to see you.” Elizabeth smiled at Megan’s daughter, who nodded, giving Elizabeth’s cute dress a covetous up-and-down.
“Deena up?” Megan opened the cookie tin where she stored her biscuits, and got down two more plates.
“She’s reading.” Lolly made it clear she thought this a completely lame way to spend time. “Some dumb science-fiction thing about shapeshifters from another galaxy.”
“Tell her it’s breakfast time.”
“Knock knock!” Ella’s voice, through the front door screen.
Megan sighed and pulled open the can of coffee to make more. “Door’s open, Ella.”
“Deena, get your lard-y butt down to breakfast!”
“Lolly, there are nicer ways to invite your sister.”
“You keep your door unlocked?” Miss New Yorker was aghast.
“At night?”
“Who’s going to steal anything?” Vera started a chuckle and ended up coughing, thumping herself on the chest. “When Stanley was a boy, he and his friends returned a wallet with over three hundred dollars in it, which Mr. Clements had left in the—”
“Hi everyone.” Ella’s tall elegance made the kitchen seem smaller and shabbier. “Sally and I came to say hi to your new boarder.”
“Come in, come in.” Megan put on a big welcoming smile.
“Lolly get your own juice. I’m making more coffee. Ella, Sally, this is Elizabeth Detlaff. Ella and Sally both grew up in Comfort. Sally is engaged to be married next month. Ella just moved back home in April.”
“It’s nice to meet you both. Sally, congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Sally beamed. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“Very nice.” Ella’s eyes followed Lolly’s path up and down Elizabeth. “So what brings someone like you to a place like Comfort?”
“‘Someone like me’? What do you mean?” Elizabeth looked like a scrappy cat ready to pounce. Two beautiful, vivid women—some jostling for position was bound to happen. Just the thought of it made Megan want to shoo them out into the yard like she did to her kids.
Ella shrugged, giving that aloof stare she used to protect herself. “Nothing bad. You just don’t look like—”
“Her dead grandmother told her to come.” Vera leaned her enormous bosom forward, speaking in a hushed voice. “In a dream.”
“Sally? Ella? Coffee?” Megan could hear desperation in her attempt to sound cheerful. She was not in the mood to listen to the weird story again. Nor was she anxious to watch Elizabeth attacked by Ella’s divorcée bitterness, though Elizabeth could probably hold her own.
“Coffee’d be good, thanks.” Ella drew Deena’s chair out from the table and sank gracefully into it. “Your dead grandmother told you to come here?”
“In a dream.”
“Yeah, thanks, Jeffrey, I heard that part.”
Jeffrey sent Ella a look of jelly-smeared disdain. “What-ever.”
“Manners, Jeffrey.”
“Yes, Mom, okay, Mom.”
“It’s true.” Elizabeth turned her chair to face Ella. “In my dream she told me to go find comfort.”
“And that made you think of this town…how?”
“Signs.” Vera nodded somberly, another crumb clinging to the corner of her mouth. “A powerful array, all pointing here.”
“Really.” Ella didn’t stop her critical study of Elizabeth. “So…what, you’ll stay until dead grannie tells you to go home?”
A snort of laughter from Lolly, abruptly snuffed, otherwise awkward silence during which Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed, and Megan started to panic.
“Ignore her, she thinks she’s being funny.” Sally gave Ella an exasperated look, which on her sweet face barely registered, then jumped to help Megan distribute mugs of coffee. “It’s real nice to have you here, Elizabeth. If you need anything, a tour or…well, anything, you let me know. Foster, my fiancé, owns the hardware store, so he can help if you need anything too.”
“I thought his hardware was spoken for.”
“Ella…” Sally smacked her friend on the shoulder, blushing sunburn red. “You are terrible.”
“Good morn—” Deena looked around at the crowd in startled horror. “Whoa. What’s going on?”
“Hi baby.” Megan blew a frazzled kiss to her middle daughter. “We’ll get some more chairs.”
“I’ll eat under the table.”
“No you won’t, Jeffrey. Help me, would you, Lolly?” Megan started toward the family room, counting down to the inevitable. Three…two…one.
“Fine.” Lolly said it in three syllables, fi-ee-nuh, and rolled her eyes.
“I’ll help.” Elizabeth jumped to her feet.
“No, Lolly should—”
“I don’t mind.”
Megan gave in with a sigh. She wasn’t up to explaining how important it was that her daughter help. Not this morning. A we’ll-talk-about-this-later stare at Lolly would have to do. “All right. Thank you.”
She led the way, aware of Elizabeth’s sweet floral scent behind her and how it made their family room seem dingy and stale. She opened a window, embarrassed by the smell, and headed for the folding chairs they kept stacked in the closet behind the stored winter coats.
“I love your house, Megan.”
Megan handed her a chair, not sure what that was about. The house was a house, not much charm or character. “I’m glad, thank you.”
“It has so much charm and character.”
“Really?” She handed over another chair. “It’s just a house. An ordinary one at that.”
“I know, but it has…warmth. A
nd people in it who love each other.”
Megan closed the door to the closet, flushed from burrowing through sleeves and hoods and zippers to get to the chairs. What was she talking about? “We’re family.”
“Yes, and friends gathering for coffee to meet the newcomer. It’s just so…perfect.”
Perfect? What kind of life had this child-woman had if Stanley and Megan’s house counted as perfect? “Well, thank you. That’s very sweet.”
“I don’t know if I came here for a reason or not. But if I did, I think I’m figuring out what that reason is.”
For a moment Megan considered ignoring her obvious cue and moving back into the kitchen, but she couldn’t bring herself to be that rude. “What?”
“To show me what my life has been missing. I think I’m going to find it here.”
A sharp laugh threatened to burst out of Megan. She gave in to the cliché and tried to make it sound like a cough.
“Well. That’s very nice.” She shut the closet door, bewildered. Maybe she should have known that someone from New York wanting to move into a garage apartment in a town like Comfort would be a little off. Stanley would say told-you-so, and then he’d imitate his grandmother’s deep old-lady voice and tell Megan she’d pooped in her own bait bucket, which would make Megan laugh in spite of herself.
Maybe Megan needed more time than she expected to adjust to the newcomer, more time to adjust to having yet another body and mouth around, this one not part of her family or Stanley’s.
Or maybe Megan would discover there were limits even to what she could cope with.
Chapter Four
Banana-cream pie!” Elizabeth couldn’t stop beaming. Another great meal. Pork and beef meat loaf. Potatoes mashed with butter and milk. Green beans from the garden cooked until tender and served with lemon and salt. Tossed salad with bottled Italian dressing. Now pie, and she was pretty sure she saw an empty box of Jell-O pudding—a childhood favorite—though Megan had made her own crust. “I haven’t eaten this well in way too long.”
Lolly exchanged a what-is-her-problem look with her sister. “It’s just normal food.”
“It’s Comfort food!” Elizabeth giggled at her own joke and got a chuckle from Vera.
“I thought you were married to a chef.” Jeffrey, fast becoming Elizabeth’s favorite, wrinkled his slightly upturned nose in comical curiosity. He was brown haired and brown eyed, as was his sister Deena, a contrast to strawberry-blond Lolly, who would probably end up auburn like Megan. “Can’t he make meat loaf?”
“Well yes. But he’d make bison meatloaf with crimini mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes, and mash his potatoes with fennel, garlic and imported goat-milk Parmesan.”
“Mercy.” Vera looked appalled. She had a great face: high forehead under old-lady white curls, sunken eyes and a ball at the end of her nose. Twin grooves extended outward from nostril to lip, two more from lip to chin, like the stacked roofs of Japanese temples. “What a fuss over meat and potatoes.”
“I know! Then for salad he’d have organic mâche with—”
“Organic mash?”
Elizabeth laughed, then noticed no one else did and stopped abruptly. “Mâche. It’s a kind of lettuce, also called lamb’s tongue.”
“Ewwww!”
“More milk, Jeffrey?”
“Yes, please, Mom, thank you, Mom.”
Elizabeth got up to get herself more water while Meg poured milk for her son. She missed having wine with dinner, but that was the only criticism. With meals like this she’d have to keep up her running schedule or inflate like a balloon. “Can I get anyone anything?”
Megan looked up as if the question surprised her. “Oh, no. Thank you. We have everything.”
“We’re all fine here. Just fine,” said Vera.
“Good. Okay.” Elizabeth went back to the table. Apparently she’d managed to say the wrong thing. Again.
“Hey, Elizabeth.”
Just the sound of Jeffrey’s voice made her smile. “Yes, Jeffrey?”
“Do you think if you could fly, that painting your house would be fun?”
Elizabeth grinned and ruffled his short, enviably thick hair. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a very original mind?”
“Weird, more like it.” Deena looked to her golden sister, who nodded confirmation.
“No kidding.”
“Kids…” Megan spoke absently, cutting pie, as if she’d said the word so many times that K-I-D-S had become a meaningless four-letter assortment. “This piece is yours, Elizabeth.”
“Oh boy.” Elizabeth accepted the plate. “I love banana-cream pie. Can’t remember the last one I had.”
“Vera? Pie?”
“No, thank you. I’m trying to remember where I put my waist.”
“What kind of food did you eat before you married the chef guy?” Lolly held out her hand for a plate, obviously used to being next in line.
“We’re not married.”
Megan’s smooth serving motion faltered. Vera’s eyes darted from Elizabeth to her daughter-in-law and back. Lolly and Deena exchanged wide-eyed looks of fascination.
Uh-oh. “So, um…I grew up with my mother and Polish grandmother in Milwaukee.”
“That’s in Wisconsin, right?”
“No, Deena, Florida.” Lolly rolled her eyes.
“Milwaukee, Florida!” Jeffrey burst out laughing. “How about Milwaukee, France?”
“No, Milwaukee, Africa.” Lolly giggled, losing several years along with the sneer.
“Milwaukee, Jupiter!”
“Yes, Deena, Wisconsin. This piece is for you.” Megan transferred a third perfect piece of pie to the center of another white plate.
“Mmm, the pie is fabulous, thank you, Megan.”
“Well. You’re welcome.” Compliments seemed to surprise her. Because she never got any or because she didn’t think what she’d done deserved them?
“I had Polish friends before they moved away from Comfort, oh, I guess twenty years ago now.” Vera stuck her fork in Lolly’s pie and snuck away a bite. “Good sausage.”
“A lot of good sausage. And sauerkraut, and cabbage. That’s what my grandma made anyway. My mom was as bad a cook as I am. Overdone meat, watery soups, charred cookies…When I moved to Boston we lived on sandwiches and cheap takeout. That’s why this is so good. Plain food done really well.”
“I guess we’re plain people.” Vera was looking steadily at Megan now.
Elizabeth sighed. She’d done it again. “I didn’t mean—”
“When did you leave home?” Lolly asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Really?” Deena’s eyes widened. “You didn’t finish high school?”
“I left the day after graduation. I have an August birthday.”
“You must’ve totally wanted out of there.” Lolly looked wistful.
“My then-boyfriend Alan was leaving town for Boston. I went with him. We lived in a horrid basement in a great neighbor—”
“Another piece anyone? Vera? Deena?”
Elizabeth glanced at Megan in surprise.
“You were living in sin.” Vera spoke quietly. “Around here that’s not done.”
Elizabeth let out a blast of laughter, then realized that was probably not the best reaction, though she couldn’t tell if Vera was condemning her or explaining Megan’s interruption. “Um, wow. Yes. I guess we were. I didn’t think about it that way, I’m sorry if I offended anyone.”
“It’s okay, Elizabeth. Jeffrey, you look ready for more.” Megan held out a hand toward Jeffrey, who passed his plate.
“Yes please, Mom, thank you, Mom.”
“Fine by me, I wasn’t born yesterday.” Vera raided Jeffrey’s plate with her thieving fork.
“No, definitely not.” Elizabeth realized how that sounded and flushed. “I’m sure the world is a lot different, though, than when you were young. Not that it was that long ago. I meant that things change so fast.”
“Well yes, the
y do.”
Elizabeth sighed, worn out by her floundering. If there was a career path for people who had a gift for saying the wrong thing she’d be a billionaire. She finished her pie, listening to the children chatter and laugh, thinking they probably had no idea how special this was. Her childhood meals had been mostly quiet at the dark table in the dark dining room—lonely widowed grandma, lonely single mother exhausted from a day at work and lonely only child Elizabeth. Why hadn’t they turned to each other in all that loneliness? They’d been too different. Ultra-conservative, iron-ruling grandma who lived in the past, grown-up ex-hippy mom waiting for rescue from the future and Generation-X daughter, concerned only with her present.
The phone rang. Lolly leaped for it.
“Oh, hey, Grandad.” She sounded disappointed.
Elizabeth glanced at Megan, who froze for half a beat, then calmly—always calmly!—put a sliver of pie on her own plate, rinsed her hands in the sink and waited for the phone, on which Lolly was speaking monosyllabically. “Yes. No. Okay. Yeah, here she is.”
“Hi Dad.” Megan walked to the kitchen doorway and stood with her back to the room.
“That’s Megan’s daddy.”
Elizabeth nodded to Vera. She got that.
“He’s a widower. Aileen died a couple of years after Megan and Stanley got married.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“She was a lovely person.” Vera folded her hands with the quiet superiority of someone enjoying spreading tragic news.
“Megan had a terrible time. She and her mama were very close.”
“Her mom—Aileen—taught her the lace.”
“Yes ma’am.” Vera sighed heavily. “Megan has a gift passed down through generations. It’s a terrible shame she doesn’t knit it anymore.”
“She stopped? Why? Because her mom died?”
Vera looked uncomfortable, then surprised, then nodded gravely. “Yes. That’s why.”
Elizabeth’s instinct kicked in. That wasn’t why.
“Can I have s’more pie, Grandma?”
“It’s not s’more pie, it’s banana-cream pie.”
Deena stuck her tongue out at her brother.
“I think you’ve had plenty, Deena.”
Knit in Comfort Page 5