Bliss and the Art of Forever (A Hope Springs Novel)

by Kent, Alison

  “You’ll have to ask your PopPop about that,” came the answer.

  “Okay. I will. PopPop!” Addy called for her grandfather at the top of her lungs and skipped out of the kitchen to find him.

  Callum’s mother shook her head, not a hair out of place, her toweled hand still on her hip. “That girl is one of a kind.”

  He used to think so. “After Thursday’s story hour, I’d have to say she’s pretty much an average six-year-old.”

  “She’s no such thing. She’s a Drake. And no Drake I’ve ever known has been anything close to average.”

  His mother had never been shy, and had always been insistent about what it meant to be a Drake, seeming to forget she’d married into the name and esteem, and ignoring the fact that her only child had failed at living up to her family creed. He’d skipped the prestigious university and the prestigious sports, charging his way through one defensive line after another on his way to a high school diploma and a football scholarship he’d never used.

  Oh, he’d been smart enough for the Ivy League and athletic enough for rugby or lacrosse—sports that met with his mother’s approval. But unlike either of his parents, he’d grown up in Texas. That meant pigskin and Friday night lights and cheerleaders with big hair.

  It also meant Lone Star Beer. And smoking weed under the bleachers. Getting caught with his girlfriend buck naked in the bed of a pickup under the stars and ending up in county for public indecency.

  “We’ll see.” It was the only response he could come up with. Nothing he said to his mother tonight would make a bit of difference. She only pulled out the Drake firepower when she was in a mood, and he was pretty sure he knew the cause. Her next words confirmed it.

  “I didn’t think you’d be doing any overnights for a while with Valentine’s Day behind you,” she said as she got back to doing the dishes. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes and cornbread. The smells of Monday’s dinner, his father’s favorite foods, still lingered—though after all these years, the menu was prepared more out of habit than love.

  Callum heaved Addy’s backpack onto the kitchen table, careful to avoid the vase. He’d stuffed in everything she’d need for school tomorrow, though he hoped to finish up at Bliss in time to get back and take her himself.

  Then he’d need to catch a few z’s before he headed to the title company to sign away his life. Lena could set up for the day and handle things at Bliss till he got there. “I hadn’t planned to. This just came up.”

  “This being . . .”

  How was he supposed to explain Brooklyn Harvey to his mother when he couldn’t explain her to himself?

  He’d prefer his mother not know he’d done more than meet Ms. Harvey when he’d visited her class last week. Of course, since he hadn’t thought to tell his daughter not to share the details of today’s outing, his mother would no doubt know everything about the park and the bookstore and the ice cream before Addy got around to brushing her teeth.

  Ah, well. “Saturday wiped me out of product. I’d like to get in a few trays to have ready for the morning. And I got an idea for a new filling when Addy and I were at the park today. It may get . . . complicated, working out the flavor.”

  “And you couldn’t cook it up in your kitchen at home?” she asked, the sink water sloshing as she worked her way through the silverware, washing everything before loading the dishwasher. “Or here?”

  He could have. He didn’t want to. He needed to think and to pace and to blast the Killers over Bliss’s speakers instead of the licensed jazz that usually played. “I don’t have all the ingredients I’m going to need at home. Or here. I can take Addy with me—”

  “So she can stay up too late and sleep on the couch in your office and be miserable tomorrow at school?” His mother shook her head, yanking at the faucet’s sprayer head to squirt down the now empty sink. “No. She’ll be better off here.”

  And . . . here we go. “Hang on a sec,” he said, grabbing on to the back of the closest chair and leaning into it. “I know you didn’t just say that.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” she said, dismissing him with the wave of one hand, while wiping down the countertop with the other.

  What she meant was he was still making bad choices, working overnight instead of spending time with his girl. “You didn’t tell me how pretty Addy’s teacher is.”

  “Is she?” she asked, though the question, lacking a single bit of inflection, could just as easily have been an offhanded remark.

  He worked his jaw. There were so many things he wanted to say. So many things he shouldn’t. “Surely you’ve noticed. You were there for Halloween, for Christmas. For who knows what else. You know, events I would’ve gone to had I known about them. Funny how the notes disappeared out of Addy’s backpack. I’m actually kinda surprised you didn’t sign yourself up for story hour.”

  “Don’t be silly, Callum.” She was done with the sink and the countertop now, and had found a different cleaner to use on the stove. “It was a story hour for fathers. I’m not Adrianne’s father.”

  Rubbing a hand over his forehead did nothing but spread out his headache. “Not being her parents didn’t stop you and Dad from going with her to parents’ night.”

  She paused in her scrubbing, just long enough for Callum to notice, though she kept her head down, her eyes on her sponge as she asked, “Did Ms. Harvey tell you that?”

  “Actually no. I remember Addy mentioning that you’d gone. I told myself then that I needed to pay better attention to her schedule.”

  Pursing her lips, she went back to the cleaning that seemed to be the only thing at the moment that mattered. “You can log in and see it all online.”

  Oh, well, that would’ve been nice to know. “Give me the URL and user name. I’ll take a look.”

  “Your father has that saved on his laptop.” Finished with her scrubbing, she pulled off her gloves, draping them over a rod inside the cabinet door beneath the sink. “There’s a parent-teacher conference coming up in just over a month.”

  But no date, time, day of the week. He supposed he should be thankful she’d offered that much. Getting anything else out of her, and especially getting what he wanted—an apology, or an acknowledgment that she’d overstepped her bounds—was a fool’s errand. “Is Dad busy?”

  “He’s in his study,” she said with a distracted wave of one arm, having moved to the pantry for the broom. “Talking back to his TV.”

  “Thanks.” Callum made his way from the kitchen through the dining room to his father’s domain. He might never have lived in this particular house, though he’d lived with some of the same furniture, the same area rugs, the same paintings and drapes, but one thing had never changed: Vaughn Drake talking back to the TV.

  “That is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever seen passed off as forensic science.”

  Arms crossed, Callum leaned a shoulder on the study’s doorjamb. “I don’t know why you keep watching that show, or any of the spin-offs. I’ve never heard you say a nice thing about it. Or to it.”

  “Hey, Cal.” Muting the television, Callum’s father turned in his recliner to glance over his shoulder, his wire-framed glasses sliding to the end of his nose. “I didn’t know you were still here.”

  “Thought I’d dropped off the hellion and run, huh?” he asked, coming into the room and sitting on the fireplace hearth at his father’s side.

  “If she’s a hellion, she gets it honestly,” he said, settling back into his chair and leaving Callum to chew on some uncharitable thoughts about Addy’s mother. “She at least asks about feeding the fish. You never did.”

  Callum hung his head and laughed. “I probably owe you a small fortune in goldfish.”

  “I’ve got it all jotted down in my ledger.”

  He wouldn’t doubt it. His father was a CPA who’d grown up charging his siblings interest when they’d borrowed his allowance. “Thanks for letting Addy sleep over tonight.”

&nb
sp; “No thanks necessary. Love having her.”

  “I know you do. But she’s my daughter. My responsibility. This should be the last night for a while that I need to work,” he said, cringing as he did, because no matter what he’d said to his mother, tonight wasn’t about needing to work as much as it was about the candy he wanted to make for Brooklyn.

  “Seems to me you’re handling that responsibility just fine. But it does sound like you’ve been talking to your mother. Or at least listening to your mother, since she’s usually the one to do the talking.”

  “Actually, she didn’t have a lot to say. She was too busy cleaning.”

  His father harrumphed. “She was cleaning when I left for work this morning. She was cleaning when I got home. Maid service comes tomorrow.”

  “I should’ve guessed,” Callum said, the picture from the big TV flickering to light the room.

  His father let that settle, then asked, “You still set to close on the house in the morning?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Even though you’re working all night?”

  “It’s just signing the papers,” Callum reminded him, thinking back to the hell he’d gone through to get to closing. “I was wide awake for the offer and the inspection and the never-ending mortgage process, and damn if I ever want to do that again as someone who’s self-employed.”

  His father chuckled. “That place is big enough that it should last you awhile. When are you going to tell Addy?”

  “That we’re moving?” He shook his head. “I’m trying to decide if it would just be easier to get the whole house set up first. I mean, it’s not like it’s going anywhere. And I can’t imagine a six-year-old hurricane living out of boxes.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who wasn’t jumping with joy to get settled after buying a new place.”

  Callum laughed. “I’ll jump once I’ve recovered from Valentine’s Day. Assuming I ever do. I figure we’ll be moved in before the end of the school year. Addy’s going to want all that space come summertime.”

  “You started interviewing for child care yet?”

  “It’s on my list. Shouldn’t be too hard to find someone. I thought about talking to one of the high school counselors. Or the youth minister at Second Baptist. See if they could recommend someone.”

  His father nodded, then raised his hand and shook one finger, tapping it to his nose as he thought. “You know Billy Bower across the street? He mentioned the other day that his granddaughter was going to need a summer job. She’s sixteen, I believe. I know she’s got a car.”

  With the location of his new place, a car would be a necessity. “Thanks. I’ll give him a call,” he said, pushing to stand. “I’d better head out.”

  “See you at breakfast?”

  Callum reached down to shake his father’s offered hand. “Will there be bacon?”

  Laughing, the older man clasped Callum’s hand between both of his. “If I get to the kitchen before your mother, there will be.”

  Dropping her bag of books on the kitchen table, Brooklyn headed for her bedroom to change out of her pants that were sticky with ice cream and covered in cat hair, only to be reminded of the chore she’d left undone.

  She was more than a little bit tempted to stuff every piece of clothing she’d left on her bed into a garbage bag to drop off later at the Second Baptist Church donation center, but that was just more of her being lazy.

  She’d delayed the inevitable long enough. It was time to sort everything, keeping only what she wore regularly, and what she would need for her stay in Cinque Terre. The rest of the items had to go.

  After she showered and changed, she dug in. Italy. Possibly for a year, or even more, depending on her fit with Bianca’s teaching program. Brooklyn wouldn’t want to take but maybe one or two dressy outfits; Artie’s family were not jet-setters. She didn’t see herself attending fashion week in Milan. There would be Christmas and Easter, and she’d need appropriate clothing for both.

  Hiking, swimming, skiing . . . again, she could get by with very little, and buy anything she didn’t set aside for Jean to send. Then there was the fact that she and Bianca had always worn the same size, so it was possible she could borrow clothing if she found herself in dire straits.

  That made getting rid of her sporting gear and dressier pieces easy to do. She thought about the places she’d worn the outfits as she put them aside, knew the memories would stay with her, and that she’d likely never wear any of them again. Some of them she’d only worn once, when out with Artie, when traveling with Artie, and had been bought with Artie’s appreciation in mind.

  As much as she’d dressed for herself, she’d done so for him, too. He’d been generous with his admiration, and she’d blossomed because of his words. Even now, looking at the items, she could feel his fingers at her nape on the pull of a zipper, feel the heat of his breath as he leaned in for a kiss . . .

  Honestly, she mused, shaking off the sensation. How had she let something like her closet get so out of hand? Though she shouldn’t be surprised. Look at her bookcases. Her garage, though most of what remained out there had been Artie’s, and too many of the tools were too valuable not to find them a home where they’d be used.

  If her book buying—okay, book hoarding—hadn’t gotten so bad that she’d needed the additional bookcase, prompting her to move the books out of the bureau where she’d found the family Bible, resulting in the call to Bianca last summer that had changed her currently rudderless course . . .

  She didn’t even want to think how deep her dull and boring rut would’ve been by now. Maybe her owning so many books hadn’t turned out to be such a bad thing. Tossing a pair of UGGs in with a pair of ski pants she didn’t remember owning and adding a pair of Gore-Tex gloves, she decided the rest could wait for tomorrow, and cleared herself enough room to sleep.

  She was as exhausted as a six-year-old who’d spent too much time on the park playground while her kindergarten teacher, mistaken by a stranger for her mom, had spent too much time growing infatuated with her dad.

  ADDY

  TUESDAY MORNING

  Ms. Harvey has a lot of rules for kindergarten. A lot, a lot, A LOT. Some of the rules are for all day long. Like:

  Talking stays on the playground. (Unless we raise our hand.)

  Other rules are only for mornings when we first get to school and are VERY IMPORTANT. Like:

  Walk to your seat with classroom steps. (This means no running.)

  Put your gloves and your hat in your coat pockets. Hang your coat on the hook in the cubby with your name. (It’s okay if you don’t have gloves. And this is only for winter. NO ONE wears coats in summer.)

  Put your snack in your cubby box, and your lunch if you brought it.

  Put your papers in your cubby sleeve.

  Put your backpack on your cubby floor.

  But Daddy has rules, too. Lots and lots and LOTS of them. Like:

  Bedtime when the little hand is on the eight and the big hand on the twelve. (Or when there is an eight, two dots called a colon, and two zeroes. He says I have to learn both kinds of clocks to be smart.)

  Only one drink of water after teeth-brushing.

  Only one story before lights-out. (This rule is NOT FAIR though he’s nice and lets me keep extra books under my extra pillow.)

  No sugar at breakfast.

  No TV at breakfast. (Daddy really doesn’t like TV except for teaching TV since it’s my job to learn EVERYTHING, he says.)

  Only THREE books at a time when we go to the bookstore.

  No toys left in the big room when I’m done playing.

  Even Grammy follows Daddy’s rules. She always gives me scrambled eggs and ham or bacon and orange juice and toast with grape jam, but she says the juice and the jam are okay because they are made out of fruit sugar, and if Daddy has a problem with that he can take it up with her.

  I don’t know what that means
, but I hope it’s not bad, because Daddy told me to do something when I got to class and when I told him it would break Ms. Harvey’s morning rules he said if she didn’t like it she could take it up with him.

  My stomach feels like a big ache is inside it and I want to burp, but I go to my chair and put my backpack on my table and unzip it. I’m supposed to hang up my coat now but Daddy says I have to obey him first this one time.

  I hope Daddy’s right. I don’t want Ms. Harvey to be mad. And I really don’t want to have to sit in the time-out chair and think about what I did wrong and how to not do it again. That is the WORST. Kelly Webber told me so and she should know. She sits there ALL THE TIME.

  It’s very hard to walk to Ms. Harvey’s desk but I do it anyway and Kelly’s eyes get all wide because I’m breaking the rules. My eyes feel like they’re extra big, too, and when I look at Ms. Harvey’s, hers are NOT HAPPY.

  “My daddy told me it was okay to give you this before I took off my coat so I wouldn’t forget and leave it in my backpack all day and ruin it.”

  Ms. Harvey takes the little box and holds it like she thinks it might break but that’s silly because it’s made out of paper even if the paper is sparkly like glass. “Thank you, Adrianne.”

  “It’s okay it won’t hurt you it’s just some candy Daddy made and it won’t break but he didn’t want it to melt so am I in trouble for not taking off my coat?”

  “No.” She sets the box on her desk very carefully and looks at it while she’s talking to me and I think she might cry and I wonder if she’s afraid of Daddy. A lot of people are afraid of Daddy. Which is just SO silly.

  “You’re not in trouble,” she finally says, looking at me and trying to smile, then looking at the box again. “But now that you’ve done what your father asked, you can hang your coat in your cubby and put your things away.”

  My stomach feels like it just plopped back where it goes. “Okay. I hope you like the chocolate. Daddy worked all night to make it and came to see me this morning at Grammy’s so I could bring it to you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you didn’t get to see him last night.”