The Orchard at the Edge of Town

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Lionel and that floozy of his flew off to Aruba together. Rumor has it, they’re eloping.”

  “And this should bother me, because?” she said, even though her heart shook and her stomach churned and everything inside of her just kind of iced over.

  “You’re saying it doesn’t?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Lionel is a loser. What he does doesn’t impact me at all.”

  Lie, her heart whispered, because no matter how much she knew she shouldn’t care, she did.

  “Well, all right then,” Lilac responded in typical Lilac fashion. If she knew that Apricot was lying, she didn’t let on. She wouldn’t, because Lilac believed in parenting by allowing her kids to figure things out themselves. She didn’t believe in the hierarchy of parent-child relationships. For as long as Apricot could remember, she’d been treated like her mother’s friend rather than her daughter. “I’ll talk to Hubert, and we’ll make a decision about whether or not we should still come.”

  “There is no decision to be made,” she said, but Lilac had already hung up. She shoved the phone back in her purse, righted the bike, and would have pedaled away, but the orange-haired woman was suddenly in front of her, blocking the path that led around Riley Lake.

  “Family trouble, huh?” she asked, pulling a cigarette from the pocket of fuchsia sweatpants and tapping it against her thigh.

  “I—”

  “No need to answer. I know all about it,” she continued. “Gertrude McKenzie.” She shook Apricot’s hand. “You know my nephew-in-law, Cade Cunningham.”

  Apricot nodded. This must be the aunt he’d been talking about. The one who’d been pacing around the house driving everyone crazy. “Apri—”

  “I know who you are, doll. Everyone in town does. Heard you got jilted at the altar.” She tapped the cigarette against her thigh again and tucked it in her pocket.

  “I was the one who did the jilting,” she corrected, because she didn’t want everyone in town talking about how she’d been left at the altar. Pitiful was not how she wanted the citizens of Apple Valley to view her.

  Of course, thanks to Handsome, they were probably more likely to think of her as crazy.

  “Really?!” Gertrude cackled in delight. “Perfect. Guy deserved it, didn’t he? He cheat on you?”

  “I’d rather not discuss it.”

  “So, he did cheat. Bastard! He comes sniffing around here, trying to get you back, you kick him in the balls and tell him—”

  “Apricot!” a little girl called.

  Thank God!

  She turned, glad to have a reason to end the conversation. Rori and Evie were loping toward her, their blond hair gleaming in the sunlight, pigtails bouncing as they ran. Simon was walking just a few yards behind, his stride long and brisk. He’d dressed for a day off—dark jeans that looked like they’d been worn many times before, a light blue T-shirt that clung to his chest and flat abdomen. He winked, and her heart just about flew from her chest.

  “So, that’s the way things are,” Gertrude murmured just loud enough for Apricot to hear.

  “We have your sandwich!” Rori called, holding up a Styrofoam carryout container.

  “And I even made Maura give you the chips that are supposed to come with it,” Evie said, panting as she skidded to a stop beside Apricot’s bike. She glanced at Gertrude. “Hello, Ms. Gertrude.”

  “Hiya, doll. What are you and your twin up to today?”

  “We’re going to the dance store.” Rori opened a little purse that hung from her shoulder and flashed some bills and change.

  “Are you? What you going to get there?”

  “I’m getting new shoes,” Rori said shyly. “I wore a hole right through mine.” She handed Apricot the sandwich container and lifted Handsome out of the basket. “Poor Handsome,” she crooned. “Did those mean old people scare you?”

  Handsome purred in response.

  Simon reached the group, tipped his head in Gertrude’s direction. “Good afternoon, Ms. Gertrude.”

  “What’s good about it? It’s nine thousand degrees out here, and I’ve been kicked out of the house. For some reason that I can’t understand, Tessa says I’m driving her crazy.”

  “Could it be you’re getting antsy about that baby?” he asked, tracking his daughters as they walked to the pond and called to some ducks that were floating near the shore.

  Gertrude snorted. “Hardly. I’ve been down this road before with my niece Emily. I coached her through her entire pregnancy with Alex, and then I was at her side when she gave birth. I’ve got no reason to be antsy about this. I’m cool as a cucumber.”

  She took out the cigarette again, smashed it against her thigh. It didn’t seem like the chamomile tea had done her much good. Maybe passionflower would do the trick.

  Apricot dug into her purse. She always carried samples of A Thyme to Heal’s most popular teas.

  “If you’re calm, why are you smashing your cigarette?” Simon asked.

  Gertrude scowled. “What’s it to you? I’m not smoking the damn thing. That should be good enough for everyone.”

  Apricot finally found the tea. “Are you a tea drinker, Gertrude?” she asked, hoping to distract the woman.

  “Well, I’ll be honest,” Gertrude responded, the scowl still plastered firmly on her face. “I usually drink coffee. My mother? She loved tea.”

  “It might be nice to revisit your mother’s habits. Tea is very soothing. This”—she handed Gertrude the two tea bags—“is passionflower tea. It’s wonderful and smooth.”

  “I got to admit, I liked the chamomile you sent home with Cade. I don’t suppose it’ll hurt to try this. Now if you don’t mind, I’m getting out of here.” She tossed her bright orange hair. “I’m going to the diner to get some lunch. Tess doesn’t want me at home, I don’t need to be at home.”

  She walked away without another word, shoulders bowed, head bent. She didn’t look angry. She looked weighted down and worried.

  “Poor Gertrude,” Simon commented as she disappeared from view. “She’s got herself tied into all kinds of knots about the baby.”

  “Do they think there’s going to be a problem with the delivery?”

  “Far as I know, the doctor has given mom and baby a clean bill of health.” He shrugged, his focus on the girls. Rori still had Handsome, and Evie was dancing close to the water’s edge. “Watch it, Evangeline! You fall in, and we’ll have to go home and change. We have to do that, and our trip to the dance store isn’t going to happen.”

  “Okay, Daddy!” Evie sang, her blond pigtails swinging straight out to either side of her head as she whirled and twirled.

  A few other families were taking advantage of the sunny afternoon. Kids on bikes and skateboards, couples holding hands as they walked along the path, all them enjoying the beautiful day.

  Somewhere in the far recesses of her mind, Apricot had always thought of Apple Valley as the perfect place to raise a family. She’d spent a lot of time traveling when she was a kid. She’d gone from town to town and city to city, but she’d never found a place quite like this one.

  “You okay?” Simon asked quietly.

  She’d been staring a little too long, she guessed. Looking at all those families and all that happiness and wondering why she hadn’t found it yet. “Fine. Thanks for bringing me the sandwich. I’m surprised Maura let you take it.” She dug ten dollars from her purse.

  “She was pissed, but Maura is more interested in money than grudges. She did say that if you ever bring that rat-cat back in the diner, she’ll feed it to you for dinner.”

  “Nice,” she responded, handing him the money.

  “Actually,” he said as he tucked it back in her purse, “the girls paid for it, and they don’t want to be paid back.”

  “I can’t let the girls buy my lunch,” she protested.

  “Would you rather disappoint them? They’re trying to do something nice, and I applaud that.”

  She looked at the girls, th
ought about herself at that age. Even then, she’d loved herbs and plants. She’d had a garden and sold the produce on the side of the road. Every cent she’d earned had been used to buy the things her family needed. Shoes for the youngers, schoolbooks for the olders, pencils, paper. “Of course not,” she replied. “But what about the tutu Evie planned to buy?”

  “She’ll get it another time.”

  “Or maybe a friend could buy it? As a thank-you.”

  “For a sandwich?” He smiled.

  “As a thank-you for taking the kittens off my hands and for babysitting Handsome. That cat is a pain in the butt.”

  “Really, Apricot, it’s fine. The girls were happy to buy your lunch. Girls!” he called. “We’ve got to go!”

  Both hurried over, Rori handing Handsome over with a shy smile that made Apricot’s heart ache. She’d always thought she’d have kids one day. Now? She thought she’d probably end up with Handsome.

  Chapter Seven

  Anger did funny things to people.

  It made them do what they normally wouldn’t.

  For example, there was no way on God’s green earth that Apricot would ever have considered following a good-looking guy and his twin daughters into a city she didn’t know if she weren’t pissed out of her mind. There she was, though, pulling into a parking lot behind a small brick building somewhere in the bowels of Spokane. Empire Dance Shop. She checked the directions she’d pulled up on her phone. Yep. She was in the right spot.

  “It’s not like I really followed him,” she said as she got out of Henry III. “I just kind of showed up at the place he was going.”

  Handsome meowed from his box on the passenger seat.

  “What?” she asked, scooping him up and depositing him none too gently into her purse. If it weren’t so hot, she’d have left him in the truck, but it was. Handsome might be a pain in the butt, but she didn’t want to cook the poor thing. “The guys are still making a racket at the house, and I needed to get out for a while longer. This is as good a place as any to go.”

  Handsome meowed again.

  She ignored him as she walked around the side of the building. She knew she should have just stayed home. She didn’t know the girls well, and Simon had made it very clear that he didn’t want her to pay for the tutu.

  Five years of her life . . . five years! she’d wasted on Lionel.

  Five years of loyalty, of monogamy, of explaining to friends and family that Lionel was a great guy even if he did stand her up on dates a time or two and go out with his buddies on a few too many occasions.

  Tears burned the back of her eyes, but she’d be danged if she let them fall. Lionel wasn’t worth it.

  She yanked open the door and walked into the store. The Baylors were there. The girls sitting in chairs in the center of the store, Simon standing nearby, hands in his pockets, a frown line etched in his forehead. He didn’t look all that happy to see Apricot. She smiled anyway, glancing around the store, trying to take in details through the tears she wasn’t going to shed.

  A rainbow of leotards lined the walls. Pink ballet shoes sat on shelves. Tiny little tutus hung from a rack. A display case and counter stood to the right, a pretty blond woman standing behind it.

  “So,” Apricot said. “This is the place where girls come to buy blue tutus.”

  “Among other things,” a man said as he walked out of a back room. He had a small shoe box in one hand and a pink ballet flat in the other. He also had a heavenly accent.

  “Are you looking for something in particular?” he asked.

  “A blue tutu. And maybe”—she looked at Rori and made a quick guess—“a pink one.”

  “For you?” The man knelt in front of Rori and slid the pink shoe on her foot.

  Rori giggled. “She’s not a dancer, Mr. Phillip. She makes potions.”

  “Does she now?” He checked the fit of the shoe, took another one from the box. “What kind of potions would that be? Princess potions?”

  “I’m an herbalist,” Apricot explained, moving deeper into the store and studiously avoiding Simon’s eyes. “And the tutus are an early birthday present for some young friends who helped me out this morning.”

  That sounded good, didn’t it?

  It sounded like a reasonable excuse for buying tutus for girls she didn’t know.

  “Would they happen to be about this tall?” Phillip held his hand to the twins’ height. “With blond hair and pretty brown eyes?”

  “That sounds about right,” she responded, smiling at the guy because it was a lot easier than looking at Simon. Besides, Phillip wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes. She’d have put him in his midforties, his hair touched with just a hint of gray, his body slim and muscular. If she’d had to make a guess, she’d have said he was a dancer.

  “I think my wife can help you with that. Sally, can you grab that blue skirt from the back room?” he said, pulling Rori to her feet and eyeing the shoes.

  “Sure. There are some pink ballet skirts right behind you.” The woman behind the counter pointed Apricot to a rack of multilayered skirts. Most were fairly plain, but one looked like just the thing. Ruffly with tiny pink bows sewn to its hem, it would have been exactly the type of thing Apricot would have worn when she was the twins’ age. If she hadn’t been stuck with her brother’s hand-me-down overalls.

  She turned to carry it to the counter and nearly ran into Simon. Or, to be more accurate, Simon’s very broad, very muscular chest. It looked good encased in light blue, but she had a feeling it would look good in anything. Or even nothing.

  She stepped back, knocked into the rack, sent half a dozen tutus flying.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” she muttered, scooping them up and haphazardly rehanging them, her face so hot she thought her skin might spontaneously combust.

  “Just deserts.” Simon took the pink tutu from her hand.

  “For what?”

  “Being stubborn.”

  “I’m not stubborn.”

  “And yet you’re doing exactly what we agreed you wouldn’t do.”

  “We didn’t agree to anything.” She snatched the tutu back and marched to the counter with it. “You said I shouldn’t buy Evie the tutu as a thank-you for the sandwich. I’m not.”

  “You’re buying early birthday presents instead?” He crossed his arms over his chest, his biceps bulging, his forearms tan and muscular. Lionel had been a runner. Lean and almost too thin, he had long, sinewy lines. Nice enough if you were into that sort of thing. Apricot had been more into his mind, which had been quick and bright. It had also been sneaky and full of excuses.

  “Sure. Why not?” She shrugged, tapping her fingers on the counter and trying not to look into those beautiful green eyes of Simon’s.

  “You don’t even know when their birthday is.”

  “Sometime in the future,” she responded as Sally returned with a pretty blue skirt that looked a lot like the pink one.

  “Here you are,” Sally said with a smile. “I’m sure the girls will enjoy them. Do you need anything else?”

  A new life? New dreams? A concussion that knocked every memory of Lionel from her head?

  She glanced around the shop, spotted colorful hairnets in a little display box on the counter. She chose one pink and one blue and set them next to the skirts. “These too.”

  “Apricot,” Simon warned.

  She ignored him as she paid. Forty dollars down . . . thousands more of the money she’d saved for married life to go. Maybe once she spent it all, the hollow feeling in her gut would be gone.

  “Here.” She thrust the bag into his hands and rushed outside, because she really thought she might start crying. Not so much because of Lionel, but because she had everything anyone could ever want, and she felt like she had nothing at all.

  Which sucked, because she wasn’t the kind of person who liked playing the self-pity game. As a matter of fact, she’d only been wallowing for forty minutes, and she was already sick of herself.

&nbs
p; Sunlight glinted off the pavement as she walked back to the truck. It drilled itself straight into her head, bringing on what promised to be a raging migraine if she wasn’t careful. She put on sunglasses, realized they were the expensive designer pair that Lionel had felt she needed, and threw them onto the ground, smashing them under her heel without even a moment of hesitation.

  Wasteful. That’s what Grandma Sapphire would have said if she’d been around.

  She’d have been right, too.

  Which should have made Apricot feel even more crappy than she already did. Except that she was already just about as low as anyone could be.

  She opened Henry’s door and took Handsome out of the bag, fighting off little claws that snagged her skin and ripped open her thumb.

  “Apricot!” Simon called as he and the girls jogged around the corner of the building. She had half a mind to ignore them. She was sure her eyes were bloodshot from held-back tears.

  The girls looked so happy, their pigtails swinging, their new tutu skirts swishing around their legs. Both wore jean shorts and white T-shirts, and Apricot didn’t think they could be cuter if they tried.

  “I see you’re wearing your birthday presents,” she said, closing Henry’s door.

  “We love them,” Evie cried, nearly flying across the space between them and launching herself into Apricot’s arms.

  Apricot stumbled backward, but managed to keep both of them from tumbling to the ground.

  “We really do,” Rori added quietly. “Pink is one of my favorite colors.”

  “I thought it might be.” Apricot set Evie down.

  “We’re going to wear them on our birthday,” she gushed. “Daddy said we could even if Aunt Daisy wants us to wear those big ugly dresses. Right, Daddy?”

  Simon nodded, his expression neutral. He had something in his hand. It looked suspiciously like the glasses she’d just stomped into the pavement.

  “I think,” he said, holding them out to her, “you dropped something.”

  “I guess I did.”

  “And—” He held them up by a bent earpiece. One lens was completely missing. The other had a few broken pieces still attached to the frame. “It looks like you might have stepped on them after you dropped them.”