Wild Raspberries

by Connie Chappell

  That was the baritone voice of financial reason Lucius came to expect from Willie. “But it’s a great price,” Lucius appealed, “given the economy.”

  “If you and the buyers are serious, then I’ll ask them for two weeks. You and I can talk about it next weekend.”

  “You’ll be here next weekend for sure?” A note of anticipation clung to Lucius’s question. Willie canceled this weekend’s visit to tend to a needy client.

  “I’m working on getting there Friday, instead of Saturday.”

  That news pleased Lucius. “Either way, you’ll get to see Callie while she’s here. Maybe we should invite the ladies over for dinner.”

  “No offense, but the place really isn’t presentable.”

  “True. That’s why I’ve planned an elegant affair with china and candlelight in our little wilderness camp. We’ll move the table and chairs out. A dinner party on the lawn.”

  “The nights are beautiful this time of year.”

  Lucius snapped his fingers. “That’s my reason for going to Heatherwood tomorrow, to issue the invitation!”

  He filled Willie in on his encounter with the four ladies before giving him the opportunity to discuss real estate ventures. Willie was verbally comparison-shopping the benefits of subletting over renting when Lucius heard a noise outside. He padded the few steps to the open screen door and looked out. “Willie,” he said, interrupting. “I’ve got company. It’s Callie. I’ll call you back.”

  “Make sure you do.”

  Lucius left the phone on the nearby desk and rushed out to the Santa Fe in socked feet. By the time it rolled to a stop, he had the door open and was pulling Callie out. From ten feet away, he saw she was crying. Her face was blotchy and red.

  “Baby, baby, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  “Oh, Lucius, I miss him so much.” She sobbed the words while fat tears streamed her cheeks.

  “I know.” Her head lay on his shoulder. He kissed her hair. “I know.”

  Lucius helped her inside. She kicked off her shoes, then plucked several tissues from the box he offered. The scene was reminiscent of their earlier meeting at the depot. Once Callie’s face was dry, her fight was back.

  “This was supposed to be my week at Heatherwood.” She flung a wad of tissue into the can by the desk. It landed with a soft metallic echo. “I thought I was ready to come here for the first time without Jack. Instead, I agree to sacrifice, and all Arnett can talk about is Beebe showing me favoritism.”

  “The bitch!” Lucius’s ready agreement elicited a smile from Callie. “Come on. Tell Lucius all about it.” He led her to the couch, then backed up to sit on the edge of Willie’s leather recliner. He was absolutely delirious at the prospect of hearing details.

  Fingers laced together in his lap, he stared straight at Callie, his mind absorbing, his thoughts spinning. Callie started with Sarah Prosser, who unwittingly played a part with an offhanded remark. He tried to maintain control of a twitching eyebrow that wanted to arch. Hmm, he thought, Jack referred to Callie as his wife several times. Interesting. He and Sarah would definitely talk. To Sarah, Callie mentioned that the rings were a fifth anniversary gift. To Lucius, she confided how utterly dumbfounded she’d been by Jack’s sentimentality and generosity.

  Rubbing at tension in the base of her neck, Callie described personal attacks: First, Lizbeth grilled her in front of Sarah, then came Arnett’s unwarranted complaint. Lucius could just imagine Arnett storming out of the cabin after Callie. It was his job, he reasoned, to help Callie with perspective.

  “You and Jack were an exclusive, sweet cheeks. You had a once-in-a-lifetime love. Your relationship was wild and daring. I’m jealous.” She looked up. “Others would be too. Take the lead. Tell your story. These women,” he said, pointing an index finger heavenward, “they should hear it.”

  Callie’s shoulders sagged. “I’m so tired of crying. I wouldn’t be able to talk about Jack and me, not in that way, not without crying. I thought I’d made progress with the grief after a year and a half. With all this, it’s starting over again.”

  “If there are a few tears, so be it. Tell them anyway.”

  They sat in companionable silence. With every second, the questions Lucius generated about the women grew exponentially. Selflessly though, he interjected a new subject.

  “I talked with Willie earlier.” He went to her with his hands out and pulled her up off the couch. “He’s had an offer on the house.”

  “You listed it?”

  “No, but we’re considering it.”

  “Willie would move here?”

  “Not right away, but soon. He’s not in a position yet with the firm to leave Cassel.”

  “Where would he live?”

  “That’s the first bridge to cross.” He walked her past the big-screen TV. It was bracketed to the mantel over the fireplace rather than with anchors drilled into the stone wall. He stopped her in what would eventually become a lovely dining room. Currently, the middle of the cabin was a staging area and workshop around a rectangular table and four chairs. Lucius gave the area a sheepish look. “Ever since Willie called the cabin a satellite location for Home Depot, I’ve tried not to overstock.”

  Willie’s and Lucius’s future would not have changed—for the better, in Lucius’s opinion—if not for Jack Sebring and Callie MacCallum. A wealthy West Virginia developer in the Brier Hills region hired Jack Sebring and his talents to design two golf courses. Jack found the nearby Cheat River cabin and employed it as a temporary office and weekend hideaway for himself and Callie. On Callie’s many visits, she observed the restoration possibilities for Baron’s downtown buildings and encouraged Lucius to make the trip and walk Armament Street. The character of downtown Baron breathed new life into Lucius.

  He proudly ushered Callie into his renovated kitchen. The work there was one job from finished. The mosaic tiles for the floor remained boxed in a pantry-sized office off the kitchen that Lucius kept for his business. Callie checked out the office while Lucius turned a couple of oven dials, then went to the refrigerator. They left the Italian bread to warm, cheese spread to soften, wine to breathe, and went up the open staircase that hugged the dining room’s back wall.

  Built-in shelving for Lucius’s extensive music library climbed the wall along with the stairs. The shelves were stocked with albums, 45 RPMs, cassettes, and CDs, along with countless movie DVDs. Carefully hidden wires from the stereo system fed speakers throughout the cabin. They still hummed Bald Mountain.

  Lucius and Callie crossed the loft bedroom. Lucius flipped on the light to a room sectioned off for Willie’s office. It was only roughed in. When Willie finally retired, the office would be transformed to a fabulous walk-in closet with storage.

  A calmer Callie descended the stairs ahead of Lucius. Between the kitchen and couch with their hands full, she began to bring him up to speed on a pair of quilts. Lucius and Callie spread out their repast on the coffee table. Both the bread and cheese were sprinkled with garlic. The basket and tub sat between two half-filled wineglasses. They shared one cloth napkin until Lucius remembered his handkerchief was clean and dug it out of a hip pocket. He was too enthralled with her story to even think of running back to the kitchen for a second napkin.

  Lucius listened attentively while Callie filled him in on all the details. He perceived the tangle unalterably knotted. He offered his assistance for a related cause. Callie seemed anxious about the caucuses. She experienced one rocky caucus and expected more.

  “You know,” he said, “we could practice caucusing. Want to?” Callie wore a pained look, but didn’t answer, so Lucius decided to play both sides of the conversation. “Yes, Lucius, let’s try.” He fluttered his lashe
s. “Really, you’d like that, Callie. Great.” When his playfulness caused her to smile, his demeanor changed to genuine. He leaned close and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “You know I would do anything for you.”

  She tipped her head to his. “I know.”

  Lucius handed Callie her wineglass, then reached back for his own. “To Jack,” he toasted. They clinked goblets and sipped. “You know, kiddo, it seems like you don’t expect people to do nice things for you. You do wonderful things for other people. You’re giving. The quilts, for example. But you don’t expect it in return. Why is that?”

  “No, that’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is. I can tell. You said it yourself. You were genuinely dumbfounded that Jack put such thought into an expression of his love.” He meant the rings. “There had to be other examples.”

  “Jack was very generous.”

  “Jack was thoughtful, and generous about you.” He tapped her knee with the goblet’s base. “That’s the combo that gets you. It’s not a birthday-present-given­-two-days-early kind of surprise. You still feel this, just like it happened yesterday. The spirit of Jack’s gift lives inside you still.” He saw she was struggling with composure, so he moved on. “The offer stands. If you get a caucus question, just come to ol’ Lucius here, and we’ll run your lines.”

  Soon after, he put her in the Santa Fe, then ignored her argument and followed the wandering lamb back to the fold anyway. He just felt better about it. Darkness had descended. The cutback roads could be tricky.

  On the way, Lucius turned off the radio, something he rarely did. He was alone with his thoughts or on the trail of Callie’s; he didn’t know which. He thought how the two of them shared a facet of life that went beyond being born on the same day. They structured their day-to-day lives so that large portions were hidden from the world: his sexuality and her lifelong love affair. Was it second nature, or first, that they would not act before a bead of caution was worked in?

  The missing elements of their lives—a man openly taking her arm, a young woman clinging to his—only made people scrutinize them more.

  Of all the important concepts bandied about that day, it wasn’t honesty or peace that drove him down this thoughtful road. It was acceptance.

  He walked Callie to the door. Someone left the light on. Beebe, he thought. He kissed Callie’s temple. She squeezed his hand. Once she was inside, he turned the truck around and drove home.

  Secrets and Lies

  Sunday morning, Arnett Oldstone Sebring stood inside the cabin’s screen door, looking down to the Cheat River. She would forever be amazed that her unfaithful husband found such an appropriately named landmark to act as a boundary line for his West Virginia love nest.

  It was nearly nine and the sun had yet to climb the stands of tall, thin pines growing on both sides of the river. Bands of diffused light angled through and shone on the water and small dock. Consequently, Arnett had a well-lit view of Beebe and Callie. Their dockside conversation was silent to Arnett, only a bit of laughter made its way to the door on an errant breeze. Beebe led the discussion. Arnett assumed Beebe filled Callie in on what she missed after she went off somewhere last evening to pout.

  Arnett jumped when Lizbeth opened her bedroom door. She whipped a dish towel off her shoulder and hurried to the table so her daughter-in-law wouldn’t catch her spying. She made a show of wiping toast crumbs off the table. She swallowed the pleasantries she’d have spoken to Lizbeth as she strolled into the great room, carrying the quilt and several framed pictures.

  Offering Arnett a cheery good morning, Lizbeth buzzed over to the table by the door. “I’m just going to set these up here,” she said. “Make the cabin seem a bit homier.”

  Lizbeth spread the lap-sized quilt across the table like a cloth, then leaned the frames back on their stands. The first was Chad’s most recent picture, taken when his curls had grown long. Lizbeth set down a five-year old photo of Dan. Arnett looked from Dan’s photograph to Chad’s. Their Oldstone eyes dipped at the corner and would have communicated an ever-present sadness, but for the broad grins that rounded out their faces.

  Arnett was about to comment favorably on the decorating idea when Lizbeth propped up a third frame containing John’s likeness. Arnett’s words stuck in her throat. She knew that photo. John posed for it the Christmas Eve he decided to accept one of Lizbeth’s many invitations to attend candlelight services. That morning, Arnett came down with a mild case of the flu. In her heart, she knew he accepted to get away from her. But his story was that Geoff, thirteen at the time, had a special Christmas Eve gift for him. John returned after services with the necktie he wore out of the house folded into the pocket of his navy suit. Knotted at his throat was a novelty tie: Santa, with his traditional hat and full beard, wore Bermuda shorts and stood ready to putt a golf ball.

  Lizbeth’s decorating idea suddenly took on the qualities of a shrine. Which, in Arnett’s opinion, spoke to her shaky state of mind. “Is that absolutely necessary?” Arnett said.

  “I think we need a constant reminder of the reasons why we’re here. And besides, I miss these guys. I like seeing them all together.”

  A tear ran down Lizbeth’s face as she strode purposefully back to her room. A few seconds later, Beebe zipped in the screen door and passed the shrine without taking notice. She greeted Arnett, crossed the cabin, and stuck her head in Lizbeth’s door. Lizbeth waved her in.

  “Now what are they hatching?” Arnett mumbled to the closed door.

  She scuffed over to the kitchen counter. Her mug of cold coffee sat there. She rinsed the brown liquid down the drain, feeling sorry for herself. And why not? None of them cared about her grief. She lost a son, a grandson hung in the balance. Her life had been tossed around because of John, and now Lizbeth wanted to destroy what was left by keeping Chad out of reach. In the world Arnett enjoyed before she turned John out, he protected her. He at least cushioned the impact. Arnett couldn’t trust these women. She had to protect herself.

  Lizbeth’s door swung open. Grabbing her trusty dish towel, Arnett turned. Beebe exited the room, wearing an expression of intense concentration. She sat down in one of the four ladder-back chairs that ringed the dining room table. Her leather portfolio already occupied the tabletop. She opened the binder and exposed yellow, lined paper.

  Since Beebe talked with Callie, then Lizbeth, Arnett surmised she was the subject of the next caucus. She found that worrisome. Watching Beebe make notes, she folded and refolded the towel, then she smiled. She had a plan that would reveal Callie’s pitted image and defer discussion of whatever started out on the dock.

  Arnett walked straight to Beebe. “I think we need a more orderly approach,” she said boldly. “If I’m supposed to accept this quilt and display it in my home to keep Lizbeth from absconding with my grandson, then I think I need Callie to answer some questions first.”

  Beebe laid her pen down. “Go ahead.”

  Arnett felt a bit of weight lift off her chest. “We should deal with the primary issues first. We all broached this last night. We were all wondering about the same things. I just think this makes sense. I think Callie needs to answer for her actions.”

  Behind Beebe, Lizbeth stepped through her bedroom doorway, wearing a quizzical look. “What’s going on?”

  Beebe’s gray-brown eyes did not leave Arnett’s face when she answered Lizbeth’s question. “I’m going to grant Arnett a little change in plans. Lizbeth, see what’s keeping Callie, would you, please?”

  Arnett could almost see the gears working in Lizbeth’s mind as she silently slipped around the table to do Beebe’s bidding. “She’s coming,” Lizbeth announced, then picked up her pace. She pushed the screen door open. Callie entered, carrying two brown grocery bags bulging with c
lothes.

  “What’s all this?” Lizbeth asked.

  “My next quilt.”

  “Really. Here?” Lizbeth said, surprised.

  “I don’t sleep well. This gives me something to do. And it’s quiet. I won’t wake anyone. I’m still planning the design and cutting squares.”

  Callie turned. Her intention to slide the bags under the entryway table was delayed when she noticed the quilt and photographs.

  Lizbeth said, “I arranged those.”

  “Nice,” Callie said.

  Then Beebe clapped her hands. “Okay, ladies, find seats. We need to get started.”

  Beebe, Lizbeth, and Arnett converged on the couches; Callie headed toward the kitchen.

  Beebe, seated next to Arnett, held up her leather portfolio. “You all know I’m keeping a complete accounting of our caucuses and the topics raised.”

  Callie joined the group with a Diet Coke can in hand. She sat on the periphery, lowered to a large, round, bone-colored ottoman.

  Beebe continued. “Arnett’s made a good argument not to get the cart before the horse. She’s proposed that we need to get a baseline on Callie from her perspective, and I’ve agreed.”

  With pure pleasure, Arnett watched Callie’s face collapse. She separated herself at the outset, dragged in late to the circle, but Arnett worked it so Callie’s evil deeds would be spotlighted.

  “If I might paraphrase—and I think she’s right—maybe we should take things in a more orderly fashion,” Beebe said. “I’m going to let Arnett introduce—well, set the scene might be more apt.”

  Arnett eagerly took the reins. “If I’m going to be asked to concede on my feelings, then in all fairness, you should understand my point of view.”

  “You’re just trying to get me to relax my agenda,” Lizbeth said crossly.

  “I wish you’d keep an open mind. Maybe after you hear a complete accounting—to repeat Beebe’s words—then yes, maybe you will relent.”