Maybe she should get a cat.
Or a boyfriend.
The memory of the hurt in Patrick’s eyes when he’d seen her and Sal together under the mistletoe flashed through her mind. Oh well. That probably wouldn’t have worked out. A cat would be a lot easier to maintain than a boyfriend, anyway.
For now, she wasn’t going to worry about it. She wasn’t going to fret over the money, either. Or anything. She was going to have a good Christmas and hope that nothing else bad happened.
After the third preview, there was a sharp click and the world went black.
“What was that?” Erica asked, invisible in the darkness.
Heidi folded her arms. “That was the electricity going out.”
They remained on the couch, waiting for the lights to snap back on. When a minute passed and nothing happened, Heidi got up and started rummaging around for matches. She lit the only two candles she had.
Erica tugged her blanket more tightly around herself. “Is this a blackout?”
“Uh ... I guess so. I suppose something’s happened to the line because of the ice.”
Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. Heidi half expected Erica to sneer at her, but when she looked at the girl’s face in the flickering candlelight, her brow was pillowed in thought. “It was already cold in here, but I can feel the temperature dropping by the second. Can’t you?”
Now that she mentioned it ... Heidi jumped up and walked to the ancient radiator that sat under the front window. The thing was an iceberg.
“Is the heat electric?” Erica asked.
“I think it’s steam ...” She tried to tamp down panic, but any effort to sound knowledgeable failed. She didn’t know squat about stuff like this, and Mrs. DiBenedetto was gone. “Maybe it’s not on because of the boiler ...” She wasn’t even sure where it was, or how to get to it.
After a moment of silence, Erica asked, “So, how cold does it have to get before bad things start happening?”
“Bad things like what?”
“Like ... freezing to death?”
“We’ll be fine,” Heidi assured her.
After another half hour, however, she decided it was time to pack up everybody and find refuge somewhere else. She didn’t get any arguments from Erica.
“Where are we going?” she asked while Heidi loaded a sleepy, fussy Wilson into the stroller.
“The café.” Even if the electricity was out there, at least they could use the fireplace.
Erica shivered. “I might have known I’d end up spending Christmas in Sweetgum, one way or another.”
Chapter 9
“I think my dad’s more angry about the money than anything.”
“I doubt that’s true,” Heidi assured Erica as they trudged toward the café.
Brooklyn had never felt more eerie. Some streets would have been plunged into inky shadow and rendered utterly unnavigable if the world hadn’t been a glistening white. Despite the clouds overhead, there was enough atmospheric light, or spillover from the rest of the city that still had power, to make the sidewalks almost seem to glow. A group of snowmen stood as rigid sentry in the neighborhood park, vestiges of the fluffy snow from the storm’s early hours. No kids played outside now, of course, and trees released groans as the bitter wind hit their ice-coated branches.
At least the sleet had stopped.
The strip of Court Street nearest the café had lights, but the road itself was a mess. Cars people had attempted to parallel park jutted into the street like crooked teeth. The city’s salt was doing battle with the ice, but not always coming up the winner. Only the most intrepid vehicles were still out.
Of the few people they encountered during their trek, the happiest was a man in mountaineering attire cross-country skiing down the unplowed side streets of Carroll Gardens.
Kids might be staying up in hopes of getting a peek at Santa’s sleigh this evening, but Heidi imagined their parents would prefer to see the lights of a Con Edison truck. She wouldn’t place any bets on which was likelier to show up.
Erica edged her way along the sidewalk in thoughtful silence. When she spoke again, her words indicated she was still preoccupied by her family troubles. “My dad spends lots of money, but whenever I want to buy some little thing, he goes nuts.”
“Well, a plane ticket’s not exactly a little thing,” Heidi pointed out.
“No, I guess not,” she admitted.
Erica’s problems led Heidi to think of her own. In the months since the café opened, she’d tried not to dwell on the fact that she owed more money than she’d ever earned in her life, or that the café barely broke even most months. Keeping her head in the sand would become harder now. Eleven hundred dollars didn’t seem like all that much compared to the amount she’d borrowed, but it still left a gaping hole in her finances. What if it proved to be the tipping point? If every journey began with a single step, surely every bankruptcy commenced with a single irretrievable dollar. She had over eleven hundred of them. Perhaps next Christmas there would be no Sweetgum Café.
As they approached the café’s block, Heidi’s heart beat a little faster in suspense. Would there be lights? So much of the neighborhood was dark, she braced herself for disappointment. Even with the fireplace, the café would still be cold with no electricity, but it might keep them from having to seek refuge at an emergency shelter. The idea of crowding into a church basement with a teenager, a toddler, and a dog seemed grim. Plus, a shelter might not let her bring Marcello, and she had promised Mrs. DiBenedetto she would look after him.
She turned the corner onto the street where the café was situated, and almost wept in relief. The entire block appeared surprisingly normal. Tree lights twinkled through windows and from stoops that owners had taken pains to decorate.
In the café they took a moment to absorb the wonderful heat—the sixty-five degrees Heidi had set the thermostat to seemed almost sultry. She released Wilson from his wheeled prison and unhooked Marcello’s leash. Both boy and dog immediately started running.
Erica hopped the feeling back into her feet and then flopped into a chair. “I don’t think I’ve been warm since we left this place four hours ago.” She eyed the fireplace greedily. “Can we have a fire? Please?”
“Of course.”
“I can do it,” Erica said. “I make them at the farm sometimes.”
“Knock yourself out.”
At Erica’s suggestion, Heidi had grabbed several toys and picture books from the duffel Martine had brought down for Wilson. Now while Erica was stacking firewood with scientific precision, Heidi unpacked a clunky Thomas train from a tote bag and let Wilson push it around on the rug running from the door to the cash register.
She fired up the drip coffeemaker for herself and put some milk on low heat on a burner. Despite being pulled away from her place on Christmas Eve, she wasn’t unhappy. In a way, the café felt more like a home to her now than her apartment. She put in a CD, and when Louis Armstrong started singing “Christmas Night in Harlem,” Erica jumped up excitedly.
“I love this song!” she said. “I haven’t heard it since—”
Heidi nodded. She might have known this had been one of Rue’s favorites. Funny, she had never imagined what the farm had been like at Christmastime while Rue lived there in later years. When Heidi had been there as a teenager, during her mom’s short-lived marriage to Laura and Rue’s cranky dad, the farm had been a joy vacuum. But in later years Rue had snapped the place up and given it new life. That’s how Heidi tried to remember it now.
“What did you guys usually do on Christmas Eve at the farm?” she asked Erica.
Erica draped her torso over the counter. “Mom always fixed this really great shortbread. With pecans. It was so good, and it made the entire house smell like butter. I helped her a couple of times, but I wouldn’t remember how to do it.”
Heidi smiled and tilted her head toward a lone shelf on the wall. On it, in a place of honor, sat the recipe box Rue had given to Heidi b
efore she died. “We don’t have to remember. We’ll let her tell us.”
Erica’s face lit up. “Can we make some? Do you have all the stuff for it?”
“Oh, honey, I’ve got enough ingredients here to make all of Brooklyn smell like butter.”
The doorknob rattled and Marcello exploded. He made like a furry bullet for the door and barked himself hoarse at the threatening figure of Clay peeking through the glass. Heidi tried to calm him down and let Clay in.
“I saw the light on,” he said, scooting inside. “You open?”
“Not exactly, but come on in. I’ve got a fresh pot brewing.” She introduced Erica to Clay, adding, “You’ll probably be seeing a lot of him.”
Clay stomped his feet on the carpet. “This is crazy, isn’t it? I hope Di’s okay.”
“Did her train leave on time?”
“It was delayed—she made me take off after an hour. I bought her some sandwiches to take on the train.”
“Sandwiches?”
He shrugged. “Vermont’s a long way. What if the train got stuck somewhere?”
“Then she’ll freeze to death and won’t need the sandwiches.”
“That’s what I figured,” Clay said. “So I also got her one of those cashmere pashmina shawls. And wool socks. And mittens.”
“Clay ...”
“What?” he asked. “Mittens are warmer than gloves.”
“Maybe you should have loaded her up with a portable stove and Sterno cans while you were at it.”
He shook his head as he helped himself to coffee. “They don’t sell anything like that in Penn Station. Place has more magazines than you can shake a stick at, but nothing really practical.”
She laughed. “On trains, reading material sometimes comes in handy.”
He shrugged, then glanced over at the baking project in progress. “Hey—what are y’all doing?”
“Making pecan shortbread,” Erica said. She was getting ready to grind pecans in the food processor.
“Can I lend a hand?”
Heidi zapped a few bricks of butter in the microwave to soften it up. “If you want, you could unload that coffee into one of the thermoses by the sink. And fill one with hot water.” In case the café lost power, too.
“Good thinking!” Clay hopped to it, and in fact filled two thermoses with coffee, which struck Heidi as overkill. It was already after nine. How much could they drink?
It began to seem more practical after a few people filtered in. These weren’t necessarily regulars, but people Heidi recognized from the neighborhood. All came loaded with stories about being stuck in their dark apartments, some without heat, unable to track down friends or family in luckier, less electricity-deprived areas.
Heidi placed steaming cups of coffee in front of them. She turned the television on and switched to the news station, where a man in a parka was standing in downtown Brooklyn with a microphone, announcing that sections of the borough were without electricity, and that people should be careful because the ice was slippery.
“They should stop calling it the news and rename it the obvious,” Heidi said.
The first batch of shortbread came out of the oven as an old man entered the café. He was bundled up and carrying a blanket and a plastic sack that contained his pillow and a dopp kit. He’d been heading to his church to see if they’d set up a shelter yet, but had seen the lights on in the café and decided to stop. Heidi handed him a steaming mug and a plate of cookies.
“How much?” the man asked. “You’ve got a situation ripe for price gouging here, you know.”
What an idea. “I could change the name from the Sweetgum Café to Scrooge’s.”
“You could clean up,” he told her.
“And in a few years, I’d have ghosts giving me guilt trips. No thanks—put your money away.” Eleven hundred dollars plus change, she’d already lost. What the heck—it was Christmas. She’d kick go for broke up to a whole new level.
“Everything’s on the house,” she announced.
A little after eleven o’clock, her cell phone rang. She leapt for it, hoping it would be Wilson’s mom, but instead Dinah’s name appeared.
“Where are you?” Heidi asked.
“Back in my apartment.” She sounded demoralized. “My apartment, where there is no electricity. I was better off in Penn Station with the irate Amtrak customers and the homeless man who smelled like a discarded Styrofoam meat tray sleeping next to me.”
“What happened to Vermont?”
“I got tired of waiting for my train to board. Every other train seemed to leave eventually except mine. I started to wonder if Clay had paid off Amtrak to keep me here.”
Heidi smiled. “You can ask him, if you want. He’s standing right here.”
“Clay’s in your apartment?”
“No, we’re at the café. There’s electricity here. We’re drawing quite a crowd, actually.”
“Really? What is this crowd doing?”
Heidi looked around the room. Wilson had crawled back into his stroller and fallen asleep. Two people were dozing in the comfy chairs by the fire, and about half the tables had people at them. Some were eating, some were watching the movie Holiday Inn on the television, and, at one table, a couple was playing backgammon.
“Mostly they’re just hanging out.”
“Do you need help?”
“I don’t know ...” She looked over at Clay, who had installed himself in the kitchen. “Clay is acting as short-order cook right now.”
“Clay? Clay is a CPA.”
“I know—a CPA who makes a mean grilled cheese.”
“This I have to see.”
Heidi made a tour of the kitchen, checking on supplies. Because she had planned to be closed on Christmas, she hadn’t restocked the perishables that day. She did have a lot of eggs, and two gallons of milk. But as far as vegetables went, she only had onions and two tomatoes. She doubted anywhere in the neighborhood would be open tomorrow ... but hopefully the electricity would be back on by then anyway.
Just in case it wasn’t, she was making dough in preparation for the next morning, when Patrick and Marcus came by.
“What’s going on?” Marcus asked. “You running a mission now?”
“Sort of.”
Patrick glanced around the kitchen for a moment, pausing to squint at Clay, before turning his usual smile on her. She wondered if he’d been scanning the premises for Sal.
“These aren’t your usual hours,” he said.
“It’s not a usual day—well, night. My apartment didn’t have any electricity, so I brought Wilson and Erica over here.”
“Erica?” he asked.
Heidi nodded to the figure curled up in an armchair by the fire. “That’s Erica.” Then she pointed to a picture on the fridge of Erica with her horse, Milkshake. “From Texas. She’s staying with me over the holidays.”
“Kidnapped another one, did you?” Marcus asked. When her mouth dropped, he smiled and added, “Uh-huh. Patrick told me.”
“She just showed up,” Heidi said in her own defense.
Patrick laughed. “Your ‘stay cay’ of solitude is history, I guess.”
“History that never was.”
Marcus studied the people sitting at the tables. “Do these customers plan on staying here all night?”
Heidi shrugged. “They’re not really customers. And I’m not going to kick them out.”
“But you can’t stay open till all the lights in Brooklyn come back on.”
“Why not?” she asked. “Is there a law against it? I’m not selling anything.”
Patrick and Marcus exchanged befuddled glances.
“Why don’t I go ask some of these people if they need help getting to a shelter?” Marcus ambled around the tables to see if there were any takers.
Patrick leaned toward Heidi, close enough that she could smell the woodsy scent of his cologne. She closed her eyes for a moment, blotting out the surge of whatever it was that rushed through
her. Desire. Or delirium, maybe.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine. A little tired.”
He took in the mess of flour and dough on the counter. “What is this?”
“I’m going to make quiche tomorrow morning.”
“You intend to make this an all-nighter, then?”
“I guess so. We’ll see. Dinah’s going to be here, I think. She can take a shift.”
He shook his head. “I’ll check back in on you later. Maybe I can pilfer some blankets from somewhere.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks.”
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
She looked at the clock on the wall. It was a quarter past twelve. “That’s right—Merry Christmas, Patrick.”
He hesitated for a moment, his eyes staring at her so intently that she could see herself reflected in their depths. She swallowed. About Sal ... she wanted to say.
Before she could blurt the words out, Patrick repeated, “I’ll be back.” Then he smashed his cap on his head, and left with Marcus.
Chapter 10
Erica awoke with a start. She’d been up and down all night, but sometime during the early morning she’d fallen asleep in a chair, facedown on a table like naptime in kindergarten. Now bright light poured through the café windows.
“Merry Christmas,” Heidi said, handing her a mug of hot chocolate.
Erica pushed herself semi-upright. The drink looked frothy and warm, and she could barely wait to mutter a Merry Christmas back at Heidi before taking a sip. This stuff tasted milky and rich—not like the watery mix they’d had at Heidi’s apartment. The sugar helped clear her groggy brain. In her dreams, she’d been back on the farm, but now she stared around the café in a daze. One of those old-man singers her mom had liked was singing “O Come All Ye Faithful.”
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Almost nine thirty,” Heidi said.
Erica was stunned. This had to be jet lag. Usually she liked to be up and doing things early. “What time does the café open?”
Over half the tables had people, most sitting with blurry stares fixed on the mugs in front of them, or on their laptop screens, or the television on the wall. Most had lugged items they hadn’t been able to bear leaving in their apartments. A couple was installed at a four-person table, with several overflowing tote bags taking up the spare chairs. A pudgy guy tapping away at a netbook had leaned two violin cases against the wall near the Christmas tree. At another table, an older woman with a carry-on suitcase by her knees sat calmly dipping a tea bag into a steaming mug.
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