by Susan Wiggs
He worked the same way he did everything else, with a peculiar grace and efficiency, innately confident in his actions. Even though Annie’s mom had branded him a troublemaker, he was the fastest worker they’d ever had on the mountain. Annie’s mom was friends with Degan Kerry’s mom, and Mrs. Kerry claimed Fletcher was a delinquent who had been expelled from his previous three schools.
And with that pronouncement, the town bad boy was created out of thin air and gossip. It only made Annie more devoted to him. He had promised to come to the sugarhouse after he finished with the last of the spiles. This made her giddy with excitement, because they would have the place all to themselves. The rest of the family had gone into town for a dedication ceremony at the school Beth ran. The Haven had moved into a historic landmark building, newly restored to provide more classrooms and housing for its residential students.
Beth was an awesome sister-in-law. She’d moved to Switchback to work as the director of a local residential school for teens. She had two little kids—Dana and Lucas—a heart of gold, and an empty bank account. After she and Kyle married, the Rush farm became a family farm again. Beth was totally smart about people. She claimed she could read a teenager like a book. Annie hoped Beth couldn’t read her, because she totally intended to make out with Fletcher Wyndham.
Leaving her muddy boots outside, she stoked the evaporator and the boil began. The room warmed with the deep glow of the fire, and maple steam rose up through the vents in the rafters.
Fletcher showed up in the late afternoon. The mud had frozen, and his footsteps crunched on the path to the sugarhouse. Annie opened the door and flung her arms around him, loving the way the strong embrace made her feel—comforted. Cared for.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, pulling him inside and closing the door. “Can you stay?”
“I’m supposed to be helping out at the garage,” he said. “Clients keep showing up. Which is good, I guess, since my dad needs the business. But still . . .” His voice trailed off, and he kissed her, then hugged her hard and lifted her feet off the floor. “I thought about you all day.”
“Same here.”
“I watched your first two races,” he said. “I love watching you swim.”
“Really?”
“You’re good, Annie. Plus, you look totally hot in your swimsuit. I would have stayed for the relays, but Kyle needed my help.” He picked up one of Gran’s scones and dipped it in the syrup pan. “Don’t tell your brother, but I’d work for syrup alone if I had to.”
“You’re totally insane,” she said, feeling drawn to him like iron to a magnet.
“That’s me—crazy,” he whispered, taking both her hands and interlacing their fingers.
She stared up into his eyes, hazel green and reflecting the flames from the wood fire. She felt awkward and shy and breathless with excitement. The coals under the evaporator created a gentle glow in the sugarhouse, and as the light played over his face, she felt a flood of emotion so intense that it made her chest ache.
He leaned forward and kissed her gently. His lips held the flavor of maple, and they were soft and gentle on hers, full of promise.
“I’m nervous,” she whispered.
That half smile of his. “Me, too.”
She touched his cheek. “Really? I didn’t think anything could make you nervous.”
“You,” he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his beating heart. “You make me nervous.”
“I don’t mean to. I don’t understand. Why?”
“Because you’re really beautiful, and I really like you, and I want to get this right.”
Her heart melted. No one had ever spoken to her the way he did or looked at her the way he did. “News flash,” she said. “I won’t know if we get it right or not. I’ve never done this before.”
“News flash,” he said. “Neither have I.”
“Then I suppose,” she said, taking her sweater off over her head, “we shouldn’t worry about getting it right.”
What they lacked in experience, they made up for in enthusiasm. And tenderness. And sincerity. And frequency. As she fell into the relationship with Fletcher, the heady feelings buoyed her up and sometimes she actually felt as if she were flying. He awakened in her such passion that she felt unbalanced by it all. The feelings consumed her.
An elemental shift took place deep inside her. The world felt different in every respect. The very air on her skin felt different. The taste of things changed, colors were more vivid. She experienced the world on a whole new level, all because of the way she felt.
It was addicting, this flood of pure emotion, undiluted by anything so rational as a thought. Her heart was rearranged. She knew this was a physical impossibility, but it was exactly how she felt. She woke every day thinking of him, and fell asleep every night dreaming of him.
In between, they spent every possible moment together. She dove into loving him with a kind of reckless abandon that was utterly unlike her. She used to be a planner, cautiously plotting her course through each day. Not when it came to Fletcher.
Springtime burst over the landscape, and they went hiking together, bringing a picnic lunch to the meadow by the creek that flowed past the apple trees. They kissed as the wind blew a storm of pink and white petals down on them, and she nearly exploded from the beauty of it. He took her riding on one of his dad’s imported scooters. Though she knew her mom would disapprove, she got Fletcher to teach her to operate the scooter on her own. They explored the narrow, winding roads together, and Annie brought her camera along, capturing still photos and video clips, then staying up late to edit them.
They found a quiet spot at the atheneum, in a bright corner amid the 910 section. There was a rolled-arm love seat next to a table with a hurricane lamp. “This has always been my favorite section,” she whispered. “Travel and geography. When I was younger, I used to close my eyes and pick a book at random, and plan a pretend journey to that destination.”
“Where would you go if you could choose anywhere in the world?” he asked, paging through a book of photos showing the salt flats of Uyuni, in Bolivia.
“Oh, no way can I answer that. I want to travel everywhere. I want to see everything in the world.”
“You have to start someplace.”
“I’ve already picked where I’m going to spend my junior year abroad in college. Aix-en-Provence. That’s in the South of France.” She pulled a book from the shelf, one she’d checked out numerous times. “They have these traditional farmhouses, called mas. They were totally self-sustaining farms, back in the day. All the buildings face south to shield them from a wind called a mistral. They raised everything they needed right there—olive oil, fruit, vegetables, livestock, dairy, even silk.”
“Maple syrup?”
“Well, not that.”
“I could never live anywhere that didn’t have maple syrup.”
“Yikes, that’s pretty limiting. Look at this. It’s heaven.” She gazed lovingly at a spread of an eighteenth-century mas, surrounded by vineyards and olive orchards, all bathed in the golden glow of the sun. She glanced at him. “What about you? Where would you go if you could go anywhere?”
“I like it just fine right here.” He never took his eyes off her face.
Oh, boy. “Where’d you apply to college?”
“I didn’t. No way I can scrape together the dough.”
“Oh.” She studied the floor, sorry she’d asked. But she couldn’t leave it alone. “So, um, would you ever want to go to college?”
“Sure. And yeah, I’ve looked into grants and loans and scholarships. It would still be out of reach for me unless I win the lottery or do something radical like join the National Guard.”
“Wouldn’t it make you nervous, joining the military after what happened on 9/11?” she asked.
“What happened that day makes everybody nervous,” he said. “Ms. Elkins says I should look into night school or online classes.”
“Well, okay, then
,” she said, sounding way too bright and chirpy. “It’s a start.”
Someone on the other side of the stacks shushed them.
He grinned and touched his finger to her lips. “Right. If you ask my dad—or your mom—they’d say I’ll never amount to anything.”
“Then you’re asking the wrong people,” she whispered, so only he could hear. “You should ask me.”
“Okay, what do you think, Ms. Annie Rush?”
“I think,” she said, winding her arms around his neck and leaning over to kiss him, “that you are going to conquer the world.”
In AP English class, Annie wrote a poem in the style of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, listing the virtues of an unnamed object of her affection, and how she loved each part of him.
“Wow, you’ve got it bad,” her best friend, Pam, said, scanning the English assignment.
“No, I’ve got it good,” Annie said, totally unapologetic. She regarded her friend with elation. She and Pam had grown up together, the kind of best friends who declared they were inseparable for life, no matter how much time and distance kept them apart. “It’s so unexpected,” she said. “I never knew love could feel this way.”
“What way?”
“Like people are going to feel when they taste these cupcakes.” She and Pam were making and decorating Lady Baltimore cupcakes, their contribution to the upcoming senior social. Working side by side, they filled each one with brandied fruit and nuts, then added a fluffy white cloud of whipped meringue icing.
Pam stepped back and regarded the tray of gorgeous cupcakes. “They did turn out awesome, didn’t they?”
“Indeed. Tell your dad thanks for the bootleg brandy. It’s delicious.” Pam’s father was a master distiller, specializing in barrel-aged small-batch whiskeys and brandies. He supplied fancy bars in New York and Boston.
“I wonder if it feels different every time it happens,” Pam speculated. “Love, I mean. Not cupcakes.”
“This can only come around once in a lifetime,” Annie said with utter confidence. “I could never feel this way about any other person.”
“How do you know?” Pam asked.
“I just do.”
“My mom says I shouldn’t find the love of my life until I’m at least twenty-eight.”
“Why twenty-eight?”
“She says before that, people don’t really know themselves.”
As the school psychologist, Dr. Mitchell carried some authority. But Annie knew there had to be exceptions. She and Fletcher were exceptional. She felt it in the very core of her being. He was the one her heart had chosen, and it was nobody’s fault she had found him ten years too soon, according to Dr. Mitchell’s timeline.
Annie couldn’t wait to show summer in Vermont to Fletcher. They went hiking and trout fishing, the dogs bounding along with them. In town, there were concerts in the park, a farmers’ market every weekend, and a Sunday flea market that drew shoppers from all over. At an antique-book stall, they browsed through dusty tomes. Annie gasped aloud when she found a copy of Lord of the Flies in a fancy slipcase. “It’s my favorite book, ever,” she said. “And you’re looking at me funny. Why are you looking at me funny?”
“Because it’s my favorite, too. No lie, it is.”
“Then we both have really good taste in books.”
“That’s twenty-five dollars,” the bookseller said. “It’s very collectible.”
Annie eyed the book regretfully as she put it back. “It’s a treasure,” she agreed, and moved on to the next booth. She turned to say something to Fletcher, and saw that he was buying the book.
“Oh my gosh,” she said when he handed it over. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“It’s our favorite book. I want you to keep it,” he said.
She nearly fainted with love for him, literally fainted. Then she took the book from him and hugged it to her chest before stashing it in her backpack. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll guard it with my life.”
“I’ve read it twice,” he said.
“I’ve read it three times. I’m going to read this copy tonight. I have a thing for old books,” she said.
“I have a thing for ice cream,” he said, heading for a booth where they were filling home-baked cones with homemade ice cream.
Annie loved strolling through town with him, hand in hand, savoring their ice cream as they wandered along the shady streets.
“I like these big old houses,” Fletcher said, admiring the stately homes of Henley Street.
“Me, too. If you could live in any one of these, which one would you pick?”
He looked up and down the block, then pointed. “That one, with the shutters and the porch that goes all the way around to the back.”
“It’s called the Webster house,” Annie said. “And that’s the one I’d pick, too. But not because of the back porch. I went inside once, to a 4-H meeting, so I know it has an awesome library with a fireplace.”
“If it had a swimming pool, it’d be perfect,” he said, finishing his ice cream. “Man, it’s hot today.”
“I know something better than a swimming pool,” she said. “Switchback has a secret. Let’s grab our suits and towels, and I’ll show you.”
A short time later, they drove along a rural road, bordered by deep woods, to a spot where a few parked cars hugged the grassy verge. Several kids in dripping suits emerged from a nearly hidden trail.
The trail wound through a fern-carpeted forest, lush with the fecund odor of damp earth and trees fed by a network of small, burbling springs. The forest canopy opened up around a quarry formed by smooth rock terraces, spires, and cliffs surrounding a natural pool of the clearest, bluest water in the world, illuminated by the summer sun. At one end, a series of waterfalls fed the pool with a dramatic rush. Rapid flumes created natural water slides between narrow canyon walls. There were cliffs and outcroppings for jumping, and swirling pools hiding in the shadows. The pounding of the waterfall was punctuated by shrieks of glee from the jumpers plunging into the depths.
Fletcher stopped walking and shaded his eyes. “Awesome,” he murmured, taking in the scene. “What is this place?”
“It’s called Moonlight Quarry. They say the pillars of the New York Public Library and the steps of the Supreme Court are made of marble quarried from right here,” Annie told him. “Do heights bother you?”
He grinned. “Depends on the landing.”
They dropped their towels on a smooth, sun-warmed rock ledge and climbed to a spot just below the falls. A curtain of cold, pounding water poured over them as they reached a ledge ten feet above the deepest part of the pool.
“There’s only one way down,” Annie shouted, her voice nearly drowned by the crashing water.
He took her hand. “Ready when you are.”
They stepped to the edge and jumped, letting go of each other as they hit the water. The plunge was long and deep. No one had ever touched bottom here; it was rumored to be five hundred feet deep. She could see Fletcher’s shadow nearby, flickering in a swirling stream of bubbles. Scissoring her legs, she shot up to the surface, and he joined her a second later, his face shining with delight.
“Wow,” he said, treading water and grinning at her. “That was . . . wow.”
Of all the key moments Annie had experienced, this might be the sharpest and clearest of all. In that instant, she knew a sense of happiness so powerful it was almost frightening. She wanted to hold on to the feeling forever.
The water temperature was as variable as the light—ice cold in the deep, shadowed places, and warmed by the sun in others. They found slow streams flowing over half-submerged rock, chutes with swift currents, slicked by deep green moss to form a natural water slide. The sun-heated tiers, where the water flowed down step-by-step, created small cascades that felt like a pounding back massage.
“Let’s come here every day,” Fletcher said.
“For the rest of our lives,” Annie said.
One breezy night as s
he helped her mom clean up after dinner, she decided to broach the topic that had been on her mind all summer long. Kyle was down working in the farm office, and Beth was giving Lucas a bath. Their easy laughter drifted down from the upstairs bathroom. In the living room, Gran was reading Winnie-the-Pooh to Dana. Annie and Gran had made pan-fried brook trout and a salad from the garden—peas and pea shoots, mint and French breakfast radishes. Rhubarb crumble for dessert. There were no leftovers. With two kids and five adults in the house, there never were.
“I’m going to take a gap year,” Annie said. She watched her mother’s face drain of all color.
Annie brought the last of the dishes from the table and set them on the counter.
Her mother glared at her as she loaded the dishwasher. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
Annie realized she probably should have planned this conversation better. On the other hand, there was no good time she could have picked, and at least they had the kitchen to themselves. The kitchen had always been her favorite room in the house. The cabinets and flooring were made of taphole maple with its distinctive markings. After maples were tapped out and no longer useful for syrup production, the trees were harvested for lumber. The patterns were created by the tapping and healing of each season’s holes. Each board had a story, and was a reminder of the enterprise that had sustained the family for generations.
Granddad had made the countertops from old evaporator pans, polishing the stainless steel until it gleamed like the surfaces in a high-end restaurant. When she was too small to reach the counter, Annie would stand on a step stool next to Gran and help with the cooking, caught up in the art and energy of a master in the kitchen. The adjacent alcove encompassed a round table where Gran served the most amazing meals—sweet corn fresh off the stalk, chicken roasted with lemon and rosemary, big dishes of green beans, pies bubbling with fresh Saskatoon berries. The big scrubbed table was the scene of birthday celebrations, ordinary days, serious talks, homework struggles, happy news, the ebb and flow of her family’s life.