A Measure of Happiness

by Lorrie Thomson

  Luke spooned a glob of blue frosting onto his bat. “I like frosting ’cause it smells like Celeste.”

  “No way, really?”

  The tip of Luke’s tongue peeked from the corner of his mouth, as though he were preparing to create a culinary masterpiece. With one hand, then the other, he pressed the blue frosting into the bat’s wings. “It’s true. Smell my hands.” Luke held up two equally blue palms, and Zach bent to take a sniff.

  “Yeah, maybe a little. But it’s not good manners to go sniffing girls.”

  Luke opened his mouth as though he wanted to swallow the cookie whole and took a bite. Blue smudged the tip of his nose and lined his mouth. He chewed, and his gaze slid from side to side, like a clock pendulum. “Is he a good guy or a bad guy?” Luke asked Celeste.

  “I don’t know,” Celeste said. “Too soon to tell. I’ll let you know when I figure it all out.”

  Luke licked his lips and then went in for a second widemouthed bite.

  Abby placed a hand on the arm of Celeste’s sweater. “Come talk to me,” Abby said to Celeste. The seriousness of Abby’s tone, so Abby-like, and the dash of pleading, not usually like Abby at all, told Celeste the subject of the requested talk was Charlie.

  “I’m working,” Celeste said, even though at the moment her only customer was Luke and he seemed to be doing just fine.

  Abby scrunched her face and held up a finger, as if she were scolding Celeste. “One lousy minute,” Abby said.

  “Go ahead,” Zach said. “I used to do kids’ birthday parties. I can handle the cookie table. No problem.”

  Abby jammed her hands into her pockets. Her gaze wandered over to where Charlie stood talking with Katherine.

  Shame on Celeste for pushing Abby further than her three-year-old, Luke, could. Celeste wished she had a neura-lyzer from the movie Men in Black, so she could wipe out her own memory and forget everything Charlie had ever done wrong to Abby and Luke. Celeste wished she had another device to make her remember what had happened with Matt the Rat.

  “Okay, let’s go talk,” Celeste said, her heart like a wild thing, caged, and Abby gave her the slightest hint of a smile.

  That wouldn’t last long.

  Celeste loved Abby, but she refused to pretend she was happy about Abby getting back with Charlie. She wasn’t going to lie.

  Because the thing about telling a lie, even a lie that saved someone else’s feelings? You had to first make yourself believe the delusion. You had to buy into the fantasy. You had to forget everything you knew. And what the hell? Sooner or later, everyone, Abby included, needed to face the truth.

  CHAPTER 8

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .

  Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” echoed through Katherine’s head, simultaneously bringing her back to her seventh-grade English class, where she’d sat amidst a roiling sea of fidgeting kids and bulging backpacks, light-headed and nauseous from hunger, and anchoring her in the present, where she stood before her bakery’s booth of pies and cookies and she never went hungry.

  “I don’t understand women . . .” Charlie Connors told her.

  Abby Stone’s off-again on-again boyfriend and the father of her three-year-old son, Luke, let his statement dangle, as though hoping Katherine would both represent and explain her gender.

  Katherine followed Charlie’s gaze to the side of Lamontagne’s booth, where Abby and Celeste were embracing, after having looked anything but pleased with each other. You might be able to school your face into a desired expression, but body language never lied. Abby had jabbed her finger at Celeste, Celeste had folded into herself, and Katherine and Charlie had watched some kind of sisterly drama unfold. The subject of which was most likely Charlie.

  Celeste had supported Abby through all of her Charlie breakups. Unlike Charlie, Celeste had been present for the birth of their son. On that frigid day, a late winter storm had blanketed Hidden Harbor, one of the few times Katherine had closed Lamontagne’s due to weather. The next day, Celeste had staggered into work, as devastated by lack of sleep as by worry for her best friend.

  If Katherine knew Celeste, she’d right now be waiting and worrying Charlie would, once again, take Abby out at the knees.

  Past behavior was the best predictor of future outcomes, and all that jazz.

  Yet the second Charlie graduated from college and returned to live and work in Hidden Harbor, Abby had taken him back. The same town gossips who’d four years ago frothed at the mouth at the delicious news about “sweet as pie” Abby’s pregnancy and then declared, “Like mother, like daughter,” had risen up and cheered.

  For the child’s benefit? Or for Abby’s? Did Abby still believe the fallacy that a single mom’s love was second best, even after having herself been raised by a loving, capable single mother?

  From Katherine’s experience, being raised by married parents guaranteed nothing.

  When no general explanation regarding women was forthcoming from Katherine, Charlie continued, “I don’t even know why Abby’s ticked at Celeste. She asks me whether she should stop by her booth or ignore her. Then she goes and does whatever she wants to do anyway. Why’d she bother asking?”

  Here Katherine had some expertise. “She didn’t want you to tell her what to do. She only wanted you to listen, so she could figure it out for herself.” Katherine’s masculine ex-husband, the very man who’d returned a button-down he claimed appeared more pink than red, made his living listening like a woman. Dear lord, had Katherine only now figured this out?

  “Huh,” Charlie said. “That’s weird. Why didn’t Abby talk to herself, then?”

  Katherine considered her audience. Charlie might look like an adult—he taught at the high school, he took responsibility for his son, he played the part. But inside, most men and women in their early twenties were still children, finding their way.

  “Because she didn’t want the Briar Rose guests to think their innkeeper was a crazy person,” Katherine said. “That’s generally bad for business.”

  “Ah, good point,” Charlie said.

  A woman in a French-blue fleece, who could’ve passed for either Mrs. Jenkins’s daughter or a youthful doppelgänger, passed before the popcorn booth and slipped into the crowd.

  “Hey, I thought you said you weren’t hiring just for weekends!”

  Katherine startled and turned to find Blake, the kid she was never going to hire, staring in the direction of her newest hire. Blake’s slender hands were clean, but he wore the same attitude that had put her off from hiring him months ago: the proverbial chip on his shoulder. He expected to be treated badly. In Katherine’s experience, you always got what you expected.

  Katherine shook her head and breathed through the boy’s negative vibrations. “First of all, you may call me Katherine. You may not call me hey. Second of all, I didn’t hire anyone just for weekends.”

  Beneath her glare—she was trying not to glare—the boy’s eyes watered.

  The boy was rude and spoke out of place, but she had the urge to hug and console him. The impulse thrummed like a hollow ache in her belly. “Blake,” she said, “come have a piece of pie with me.”

  “I don’t have any money,” he said, his tone an accusation.

  She inhaled deeply, intending to calm herself. Instead, the stench of cigarette smoke caught in her throat, dank and distinct. Secondary smoke from Blake’s parents or personal use? “On the house.”

  “I don’t need your charity, Katherine. I need a job.”

  Blake turned his skinny self around and stomped across the green.

  “Blake, wait!”

  “You didn’t hear it from me,” Charlie said, “but he’s having a rough time of it at home.”

  The back of Blake’s black hooded sweatshirt slipped between the popcorn cart and the bandstand and disappeared.

  From the time Katherine was ten, she’d needed a job, too, for so many reasons. To prove herself capable. To have worth that her father couldn’t dispara
ge. To get out of the house and away from the loud, damaging chip on her father’s shoulder. The chip that worked tirelessly to prove her incapable, worthless, and damaged.

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .

  “Is Blake in one of your classes?”

  “No, but I wish he were.” Charlie shrugged. “Maybe I could help him,” he said, debunking Katherine’s assumption about men in their early twenties in general and Charlie in particular.

  Over at the cookie table, Luke licked his palms. When Zach handed Abby a stack of napkins, Luke slid from the stool and ran toward his father. And some women in their early twenties, like Abby, had been born old. Abby was just like her mother.

  The summer after Katherine had given up her son, a long-legged sixteen-year-old blonde had come to Hidden Harbor for a job at Hermit Island, gotten pregnant, and stayed. Abby’s mother, Lily Beth, was one of the most self-reliant women Katherine knew.

  And yet here Abby was, back with the man who’d caused her so much grief.

  How was Lily Beth taking the news? How did you keep your children safe from heartbreak? How could you stand back and watch them fail?

  Could Katherine have gone it alone, been that self-sufficient single mom, and shown herself the way? She’d been pondering that question since the day she’d given up her son. And over the years, whenever Lily Beth had come into Lamontagne’s with Abby, Katherine had silently offered up a heartfelt huzzah! Then she’d spent the rest of the day restless, contemplating the nature of fate versus self-determination and whipping up key lime pies so tart they’d stung her eyes.

  Now Abby and Luke drew tears to Katherine’s eyes. What was wrong with Katherine? She’d made her choice and so had Abby. Huzzah!

  Charlie bent down and Luke scrambled up onto Charlie’s shoulders.

  Abby waved a wad of napkins in the air, even though Charlie’s fisherman sweater had taken the brunt of the frosting mess. Luke’s blue handprints climbed the pale knit, from Charlie’s midsection to his shoulders.

  Luke held on to Charlie’s ears. “Whoa, buddy,” Charlie said. “Mom wants us over there. Steer me back to the right.”

  “I want to play in the corn maze!”

  “After you get cleaned up.” Charlie faked to the left, pretending to wander in the direction of Luke’s steering, before heading over to Abby.

  “This car doesn’t drive right. I want to play in the corn maze!”

  Charlie bent down and set Luke in front of Abby and Celeste.

  “Gotcha!” Celeste scooped Luke up and deposited him on her hip.

  Abby nabbed Luke’s hands and swiped off the remaining frosting. Luke hugged Celeste around the neck and rested his head on her shoulder.

  “Aw, sweet boy,” Celeste said.

  Luke raised his head and turned to Zach. “I didn’t really sniff her. I only smelled her on accident.”

  Zach gave Luke a thumbs-up. “Good job,” Zach said, as if he understood what Luke was talking about. “Manners are hard to remember,” he added, and Luke nodded, his little face serious.

  Zach and Luke seeming to connect. Celeste holding Luke on her hip. Zach and Celeste sharing an unmistakable, as-yet undefined connection. The sight made Katherine feel light-headed and uneasy and lost in time.

  “He wants to go to the corn maze,” Charlie told Abby.

  “First we’re visiting Gran’s booth, then we go to the corn maze. Remember?”

  “I never played in a corn maze,” Luke told Zach.

  “Yeah? Me neither. Looks like fun, though.”

  “It does look like fun. Someday I should go, too,” Katherine said.

  “You’re kidding.” Celeste looked from Zach to Katherine. “My brothers used to take me every year and try to lose me in there.”

  “Oh, very nice.” Katherine grinned, but a tremor ran through her lips, electric with the notion of getting left behind.

  “They couldn’t get rid of me that easily. They would’ve gotten in wicked trouble. Besides, I have a great sense of direction. And taste.” Celeste nibbled Luke’s cheek. “Yum, yum, yum.” Luke giggled, and she passed him to Abby.

  “You can walk,” Abby told him. She set him on the grass and took his hand. “Call me,” Abby told Celeste. “Okay?”

  Celeste nodded and drew a cross over her heart.

  “Pinkie swear!” Luke said.

  Abby dropped Luke’s hand and held up a pinkie before Celeste. “You heard him.”

  “Fine!” Celeste clasped Abby’s pinkie in hers and set her face in a campy sneer.

  “Ow!” Abby said. “You can let go now.”

  Celeste held up her hands. “Have it your way.”

  Charlie and Abby took Luke by either hand. Luke bent his legs and swung between them, yanking Abby sideways. “And we’re off!” Abby looked to the sky and shook her head. “See you later.”

  “Bye, Luke,” Katherine said. “Take care,” she told Abby and Charlie, sending up a silent wish that they’d make it this time. That Abby would get the perfect little family unit she so richly deserved. “Tell your mom I said hello.”

  “Will do,” Abby said, and they headed into the thickening crowd.

  “I cannot believe you two have never walked a corn maze.” Celeste lowered her head and raised her gaze to Zach. An impish grin tweaked her lips. She gestured from Katherine to Zach. “You guys should, you know, go together.”

  Quick as a wink, Zach mirrored Celeste’s impish grin.

  If Katherine didn’t know better, she would’ve thought Celeste was trying to set them up on a date. Payback for Katherine intimating Celeste had started something with Zach?

  Every Harvest Festival, Katherine had driven by the Johnson Farm maze, noting the SUVs and minivans parked alongside the road, the families unloading picnic baskets and strollers, retrievers on leashes. She’d wondered whether her son was with another family at another corn maze in another state. She’d wondered whether he was helping his folks unload brown-bag lunches and water bottles. In recent years, she’d even wondered whether the boy she’d given away was unloading an SUV and a family of his own.

  Her sinuses swelled. Her jaw ached. Her heart kicked hard and fast, the way her son had once moved inside her. “Sure, why not, later, after we shut down?” Katherine asked. “If Celeste doesn’t mind starting cleanup without us.”

  “Not a problem,” Celeste said.

  “You up for it, Zach?” Beneath the weight of trying to be light, Katherine’s voice cracked.

  “Why not?” Zach said, his voice sounding equally strained. Or was Katherine projecting, a mother imagining similarities between herself and her son?

  She wasn’t Zach’s mother.

  Zach turned his attention to a preschool boy headed their way, dragging his mother by the hand. On their heels, a woman pushed a double stroller. An infant in a blue bunting occupied the backseat, snoozing beneath the awning. The front seat was vacant, but a dad with a soft-looking middle took up the rear and carried a boy on his shoulders.

  Customers converged on the pie side of the booth, and Celeste and Katherine moved into their practiced roles: Celeste taking the money and the orders and Katherine scooping vanilla ice cream onto slices of apple pie, dropping dollops of cinnamon-nutmeg whipped cream onto the pumpkin. Their first ever cookie decorating table was a hit, due to Zach’s extra set of hands and his ease with the little ones. In between customers, every time Katherine looked at Zach, she caught him either looking her way, his expression narrow and impossible to decipher, or checking out Celeste’s bottom with a look Katherine reserved for a steaming-hot pain au chocolat. No deciphering necessary.

  In between customers, Zach and Katherine sampled pie. Apple for Katherine and pumpkin for Zach. But Celeste, the keeper of the impish grin and obvious digs? All morning and into the afternoon, she didn’t eat a damn thing.

  In between customers, Katherine caught Celeste staring off into middle space, wearing a hungry expression Katherine hadn’t seen since the days when Celeste ha
d starved herself, as though trying to make her exterior reflect what was eating her away inside.

  No denying it, at least not to herself. Katherine had found her biological son, the child she had not raised. But her favorite girl, who didn’t share Katherine’s DNA but had nevertheless grown inside her heart? That child was at the center of a maze, left behind, and lost.

  Children were everywhere.

  In the parking lot skirting Johnson Farm. Running in circles around their harried parents. Sitting atop stacked bales of hay leading to the Johnson Farm corn maze and kicking their feet. Requesting juice and treats. Pick me up, put me down.

  To the left of the maze, pumpkins sat in tidy orange rows, awaiting selection. On the right, the corn maze opened up to a grassy plain that slid out to the ocean.

  Katherine focused on her breathing, attempting to calm the self-conscious voice in her head that chanted my son in the direction of Zach.

  Curtis Johnson, the owner of the farm stand, wore his characteristic straw hat, uncharacteristic rainbow-colored suspenders, and organized the chaos into two jagged lines.

  Katherine dug in her purse for her wallet. “My treat,” she said, “since I asked you.” Her words echoed back to her and sounded very much like first date lingo, as though Celeste’s snarky voice had embedded in Katherine’s gray matter. What had Celeste said? You two should go together? Why was it that the last thing you wanted to say was often the first thing that spurted from your mouth?

  Zach shook his head and took his wallet from his back pocket. “I’ve got this,” he said, and strolled up to Curtis Johnson.

  When Zach slipped into the back of the line beside Katherine, Curtis held a finger to his lips. “I’ve got a riddle for you today,” he said, and waited for the crowd to quiet. “A maze turns and twists. It leads you by the nose and pushes you into corners. It twirls you in circles. It leads you astray. Your exit may be close to where you begin . . . or far away. But no matter where you exit, you always end up . . . Where?”

  Kids stared at Curtis with their mouths open.Their parents offered Curtis patient grins.