One of the many benefits of living in a small town, as David had discovered, was that to pick up his date, all he had to navigate were the six and a half blocks between the Rainbow Arms and Genevieve’s house.
“So how long have you lived here?” he asked as she closed and locked her front door behind her. Once again, they were going to stroll to Shady Grove’s business district. This time, however, no reservation had been made. The vagaries of chance were being allowed some sway, now that a foundation for their relationship had been established.
“Most of my life,” she replied. “We moved to this house when I was five.”
David knew that Genevieve’s parents had died. He wasn’t sure how far he could probe without hitting a sinkhole. “What did they do?”
She smiled at him, and he could see sadness lurking in her eyes. “My father was a cabinetmaker. A craftsman. He had his own business in town, right at the corner of Willow and Sixth. He built the glass-fronted cabinets and shelves in the dining room that you were admiring a few minutes ago.” Her hand rose to ensure that her hair, done up in a bun again, was still perfectly in place. “My mother was a housewife. She could have been anything – she spoke three languages, and had degrees in both Mathematics and Applied Sciences – but she wanted to be there as I grew up. She wanted to raise me herself.”
They turned onto Fifth Street, heading toward Gum Avenue. “She did all right,” David said sincerely. “With you, I mean. You… turned out pretty amazingly.”
She didn’t glance over at him, though, and he wondered if it was his poorly worded compliment, or if the subject just needed to be changed.
Genevieve continued to look directly ahead of them. “I don’t know if I turned out the way they’d hoped. French mother, Scottish father, each well-educated and well-read. I wanted to be like both of them. Funny and creative like him, exacting yet happy like she was. I certainly got the creative and the exacting, but funny I’m not. And happiness? Well, it’s been elusive. But perhaps it’s that way for everyone.”
David almost guffawed, thinking of his own recent failures at being happy. But he didn’t. “They had a good marriage?” he asked instead.
She nodded. “Yes. They fought occasionally, tremendous, ear-bending fights that had me running to hide in my bed, but they loved each other. A lot. They were good for each other, they… I’m glad they died together. That’s a horrible thing to say, I know, but I’ve had many years to think about it, and I don’t believe that either one of them would have enjoyed living without the other.”
“But wouldn’t they – ” Her hand had jerked up, and David halted in mid-question.
“Wouldn’t whichever one that survived have me? Yes. But I wouldn’t have been enough, for either of them. That’s what I meant when I said I don’t know if I was entirely the daughter they’d wanted. For my mother, I was too independent, too… No, that’s not even the right word, it implies that I roamed free. I just didn’t need her enough once I hit a certain age, say eleven or so. And she loved it best when I needed her. And as for my father? I know that he loved me more than anyone in the world outside of my mother, but I never could have replaced her. Ever. When I was in high school, I would sometimes catch him looking at me with this touch of disappointment. I don’t think it was anything I said or did, or the person I was becoming. Only now, nearly fifteen years later, can I understand what that most likely was: he couldn’t comprehend why I wasn’t turning out exactly like her, which is how I think he saw me as a child, who he wanted me to become. A miniature version of Hélène Beaumont MacGuffie.”
Genevieve stopped walking. She grasped hold of David’s hand. “Can we not talk about this all night? And yes, I know that it’s me doing all the talking. Please, David?”
And then David did the unthinkable. He took hold of her and kissed her. Roughly, almost violently. Genevieve was too shocked to respond at first, but then she did, eagerly, joining him in a heated embrace that lasted for what felt like minutes, like hours.
And then he pulled back, slowly. “I… I’m sorry. About that. I didn’t – ”
“I liked it. A lot.” Her countenance was flushed. “And it’s about time, too. Fourth date, you know. I was starting to worry.”
He laughed. “And you say you’re not funny.”
“I’m not!” She began swinging their hands, still clasped together. “Let’s go somewhere quick to eat tonight. I want to have food that’s bad for me, and then walk some more and talk. Or listen to you talk, about happier subjects. Would that be okay with you, David?”
This was more than okay with David. And so they ate at Rocky’s Sandwiches, not the sandwich shop adjacent to Gâteaupia, but one out in the netherworld between Shady Grove’s business district and its farmland. Neither one of them saw a soul they knew.
“Lydia’s certainly become more taken with you the last couple of weeks,” Genevieve said as they slurped split pea soup and munched on BLTs with extra bacon.
“Feast or famine,” he replied with a grin. “And while we’re on the subject of Lydia, what’s with all the things she keeps saying to me? Screwy cake names that just sound awful?”
This time it was Genevieve who laughed. “I told her how you said she made every cake sound incredible. She’s… oh, tell me one of them! She’s just seeing if she can make the most terrible cake in the world sound good to you.”
“Yesterday, it was apple dumpling Bundt fantasy, with a tunnel of peanut butter and Maraschino cherries. A few days before, it was a gooey molasses-garbanzo bean layer cake, or something completely insane like that.” David set down his sandwich, still grinning. “Is she making fun of me?”
Genevieve shook her head, trying not to burst into the kind of laughter that would draw the attention of every patron at the diner. “She’s… It’s totally, totally my fault, but she’s been making hay out of that counter girl thing, too.”
“You told her I said that? Oh!” David’s palm slapped his forehead. “That’s embarrassing!”
She reached forward to place her hand atop his. “No. Not at all. All of us actually found it hilarious, especially the fact that you didn’t know it was my business. I think… it helped. With how they feel, I mean. The girls might be a little scared of me sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” David smirked. “You’re a one-woman phenomenon, creating fantastical cakes out of the air and running the business besides. I’d be scared of you, too!”
Her fingers tightened on his hand. “Are you scared of me, David?”
He thought about it, and then moved his head from side to side. “No. Yes.” And then he rolled his eyes. “Okay, maybe a little. But just a little.”
Genevieve’s eyes, though, were twinkling. “You shouldn’t be. I’m… far from perfect. And you should have tried some of the five thousand cakes I attempted that didn’t make the store’s lineup.”
“I would have loved to. I bet not one of them was a total clunker.”
Her hand returned to her side of the table. “Oh, a few of them were. Some tasted good, looked bad. Others tasted bad, looked good. The best ones I worried, worried, and worried over until they were just right.”
“Let me build you a website.”
“Huh? Why?”
“It’s what I do. I won’t charge you for it, even if…” He motioned briskly between the two of them. “…even if this doesn’t work out.”
“But... why would you do that? And what could a website do for Gâteaupia? We’re pretty well-established in Shady Grove.”
David sat back in his chair. “A website could garner you business from all the towns within a hundred miles, further even. Trust me, no one in the state can do what you do! And just to be fair, I will charge you for it. My price will be cake. Lots of cake. Any time I want a piece.”
Genevieve appeared disconcerted. “It’s not worth it. That’s hundreds of hours of your time, most likely. In exchange for something that I would probably offer you for free, anyway.”
“Not
if we break up. You wouldn’t give me free cake if we broke up.”
“But we’re not even together!”
“Then what was that back on the street there?”
“I welcome all newcomers to Shady Grove like that!”
“Then I want to be welcomed again. I enjoyed being welcomed to your town like that.”
“I’ll see what I can manage after dinner. Eat up, your soup is getting cold.”
It was a special evening for both David and Genevieve, ripe with banter and affection, underlined with a burgeoning sexual tension. By the conclusion of their meal, her hair had started to slip out of its tightly wound bun, and David had begun to see her as far less forbidding than he had before.
They strolled hand-in-hand down Willow toward the public square. She pointed out the building where her father’s woodworking shop had been, and David showed her the auto repair business where Grandpa Wilcott had worked for most of his adult life.
“He and my Grandma got married right down there. In the Episcopal Church just past the library.”
“Oh, it’s beautiful inside. Have you seen it?”
“No, I’ve never been in.”
The two of them climbed the steps of the church, but the doors to the narthex were locked.
“Another time, then,” said Genevieve as, disappointed, they retraced their steps to the street. “Can we go to the park for a bit? Will you be too cold?”
David gave her hand a brisk squeeze. “Isn’t it supposed to be me asking you that?”
She smiled. “I’m fine. You just have to let me know when you’re ready to go back to the house. I was hoping you’d want to come in for a bit.”
“Oh! Pressure’s on now. Let’s go up on the stage! I came here a few times to see plays when I was a kid. I always wanted to see what it looked like from up there.”
So they jumped onto the concrete stage of the outdoor amphitheater, and David strode about, testing various lines from various Shakespeare plays in his best stentorian tones.
Genevieve remained silent, but eventually pointed out to David that a group of teenagers was not so subtly enjoying his theatrics from the audience, where they were passing around what looked like a pair of marijuana cigarettes.
He blushed, gave one last brief oration from Hamlet as Genevieve hopped off the stage, and then bowed before following her. They wended their way through the square down to Oak Avenue, and then rested for a few minutes on the town hall steps, watching as the moon rose slowly, slowly over the eastern edge of Shady Grove.
“I like it here,” said David, taking her hand again. He pulled her toward him, and she slid a few inches closer.
“I like it here, too,” she replied. “And look. Right there, above the tallest tree. That’s the window where we stood, that day we met. Three weeks ago.”
“Three weeks? That’s it?” David tossed her hand back. “Too soon, too soon. Small town rules: no holding hands until at least six months have elapsed.”
“Ha!” She reached for him again. “My father always said that I could start dating after I got married. But you’d be surprised. For all that big cities have a bad reputation for things like that, it actually occurs a lot quicker in places like this. I’d be embarrassed to tell you how many girls in my graduating class got pregnant their senior year.”
“Were you one of them?”
“God, no! I was the perfect-in-every-way valedictorian.”
He snorted. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Oh, I worked for it. While everyone else was out partying every weekend, I was the nerdy girl hitting the books and volunteering at The Restful Nook.”
“And you still do.”
She leaned into him, pushing him to the side. “I go now because I love to, silly. I went then because I thought it would look good on my college applications. And it did!”
David righted himself again. “Do you have any dreams beyond Shady Grove? Expanding Gâteaupia, maybe? Or opening it in a major city?”
“No,” she replied without hesitation. “Why would I want that? Business is good, and if I need more, you can drum some up with that website of yours. We can knock out ten wedding cakes a weekend! How about you?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I’ve had my big city experience. I think I’m done with it. Or maybe it’s done with me, I’m not sure which.”
She released his hand, and then threaded her arm through his. “I do want more. But I want to do it here. I want to make things better in Shady Grove.”
“Like how? A longer trolley route? More dessert shops?”
That earned him a slap on the thigh. “Nobody’d better try to open another one. I’ll eat ’em alive!”
“I bet you would. And they’d deserve it, too.”
“I joined the board of the business association last year. I got someone to nominate me and ran. You’ve been down to Easton Avenue, right?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “A little gamey. You know I live a block away. It can get scary down there at night.”
“I know. I want to try to do something about it, stop it from spreading into the town. Too many people are leaving Shady Grove, though, and not enough move here like you.” She closed her eyes. “I also want to start a support group to help… well, people who need support. Because they’re confused sexually, and they don’t know what to do.”
“Are you confused sexually?” David asked. And then he took a breath. “And I’m sorry. That came out really stupid. Please, go on.”
Eyes open, she flashed him a weak smile. “No. Not me. But I know people who are. They feel… isolated, I suppose. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. You’re only the third person I’ve told.”
“I think it’s a great idea.”
“So did Lydia and Jess.”
“Jess, your friend from back East?”
“Uh, huh.” She turned to look at him. “And Lydia with the hummingbird on her shoulder who thinks you’re cute, and who cooks up crazy cake names to make you smile. Do you have any friends who aren’t straight?”
David blinked. Unbelievably, he couldn’t think of any. Any friends, period. And beyond that, any former friends who had been brave enough to step out of the closet. “No,” he answered aloud. “I don’t.”
“Well, then I won’t make you go to any meetings. If we ever get that far.” She stood. “Walk me back to my house?”
He rose as well. “Absolutely.”
And though they only kissed and cuddled that night, nothing further, it was a magical evening that both of them thought of often. A perfect, enchanted few hours that nourished their bond, and nurtured their hopes that the future might hold similar experiences.
Similar experiences there had been, but not in the abundance either had wished for. Still, they each made it work.
They wanted to. They needed to.
Chapter Seventeen
After a couple hours of light work, David was ready to take Johnson out for a walk. He’d built the template for an entire series of Culpepper Mills product web pages, but all he’d been able to think about was Clair. Clair, and the kooky things she’d said to him.
You will know yourself, David.
What the hell did that mean?
One day. Soon.
Wednesday? Friday? Was he about to join a self-realization fellowship?
And Clair had almost indicated that she did have some sort of idea as to when she and David would next see each other: Maybe I do. But maybe not.
What was with that screwy girl? And how had Johnson known she was in the courtyard, anyway?
“Johnson!”
The dog raised its head to gaze at David. His ears were perky, his tail wagging. He knew what time it was.
“Johnson, how did you know Clair was there earlier?”
Johnson barked.
“No, seriously. How did you know?”
No response. Only the eagerness of a simple animal, ready to savor the innumerable pleasures that an excursion about the st
reets of Shady Grove could offer.
“Fine. Keep it to yourself. But I’ll let you maul an entire bully stick if you spill.” David stood up, and grabbed Johnson’s leash off its hook. “Ready?”
But Johnson was already ahead of him. Leash snapped on, they stepped into the common area and David closed the door behind them.
“Hi, David.” The voice was shy, uncertain.
He turned. “Janice. How are you?”
Janice didn’t look good. She was haggard, her features drawn and pale. Her blond hair, usually her best attribute, was bedraggled, appearing to have been snared in its limp ponytail.
“I’ve had better weeks,” she said without a hint of levity. “I tried to find you last night, but you weren’t home.”
“No,” David answered, “I was out pretty late. I looked for you too, yesterday afternoon. Wouldn’t blame you for staying away, though.”
Her eyebrows lifted and then fell. “I missed two days at Bargain Bin this week. Swapped days with someone to go see my mother Wednesday, and then I couldn’t work Thursday ’cause of this. Had to make ’em up. You and Johnson going out?”
“Just on a walk.”
She shifted her purse. “Mind if I tag along for a bit? I have to get dressed to go to work again soon, but I don’t like being in there too long.”
David nodded. “Sure. You’re always welcome to.”
“Let me put this inside. Be out in a sec.” She turned toward her apartment door and stepped inside.
Two minutes later, she was back. Her hair was down, and her face had been scrubbed clean. “Didn’t realize how crappy I looked,” she said by way of explanation. “Certainly couldn’t show up to the The Hot Spot like that. Gonna have to pile on the makeup tonight.”
“Long shift?” David asked as they headed through the lobby, Johnson in the lead.
“The usual for Sunday. Six to ten. This morning was rough, after a Saturday six to midnight.”
“Rough week overall,” he commented as they turned right onto Piston.
“Yeah. Shitty. Totally.”
They walked in silence then for a few minutes. Janice’s footsteps were hurried, almost frantic, and David slowed his pace a jot, realizing that she’d probably always had to walk like this, her legs being quite a bit shorter than the average person’s. She didn’t glance over at him even once, just stared straight ahead of her as she plowed forward.
A Shiver of Wonder Page 8