She looked at the mannequin in the window wearing a pleated tan skirt and an unremarkable cotton blouse, then walked on. Clothes or her looks no longer captured her attention. She’d buy what she needed later, when she had to.
The scents of freshly baked bread, cinnamon, and coffee lured her to a small restaurant bakery. A big chalkboard on an easel in front announced the day’s specials. Today’s was cinnamon rolls. A little bell over the door chimed when she walked in.
“Be right with you!” The bobbing blond head below the counter rose up to smile perfunctorily toward the door. The head was attached to a robust, middle-aged woman in a pale pink uniform bursting at the buttons against her hourglass figure. Her face was pretty, pink-cheeked, and friendly, but her spectacular blue eyes that sparkled with life drew Mia’s attention.
“Welcome to Shaffer’s,” she said with the drawl of the North Carolina mountains. “What can I do for you?”
Mia’s hungry gaze devoured the rows of freshly baked doughnuts and pastries in the glass display case. There was another long glass case behind it to form an L down the restaurant, and this one was filled with all kinds of bread, cakes, pies, and cookies. Her knees almost buckled at the smell of hot coffee brewing.
“Do you take credit?” she asked.
The woman scoffed. “Cash only, I’m afraid.”
Mia nodded, painfully aware that she only had a few singles in her purse. She glanced up and checked the price of coffee.
“I’ll have a cup of black coffee, please. Large.” Her fingers danced on the glass as she tried to choose. “I’ll have a plain doughnut,” she said, pointing. “No, wait. Make that a cinnamon roll.”
A knowing grin stretched across the woman’s face. “You sure about that?”
Mia returned a hesitant grin. “They all look so good.”
“Looks like you can afford to fatten up a little, sugar,” she said, grabbing the metal tongs and pulling out the pastry. “Not me. I eat one and it goes straight to my hips and stays there. Will that be for here?”
Mia looked to several small tables covered in pink and white checked tablecloths. “Yes, thank you.”
The woman put the pastry on a plate and poured the coffee in a thick white mug. “That’ll be two sixty.”
Mia took out her wallet and carefully laid out three dollars. She reflected on her state of mind when she fled her home yesterday. She hadn’t even realized she had almost no money in her wallet. “Is there an ATM nearby?”
“Over at the bank. Turn right when you leave here and it’ll be at the end of the block. You can’t miss it. Here you go…” She paused before calling her sugar again. “What’s your name?”
She hesitated. “Mia.”
“You visiting our little town, Mia?”
“Yes.” She glanced down at the name tag that was pinned to the woman’s chest like a billboard on a mountain. “Becky,” she replied, taking her coffee and pastry and moving over to the table. She picked up the local real estate brochure from a pile by the door and began leafing through it to discourage Becky from asking more questions. Becky went back to polishing the glass, and Mia knew she was being sized up as just another tourist with dreams of owning a cabin in the mountains.
Mia bit into the pastry and her eyes closed with pleasure. It was so delicious and the coffee so hot and rich Mia almost purred as she lapped it up. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was.
“They’re addictive,” Becky said from the counter.
Mia looked up to see Becky smiling. “I bake ’em fresh every morning.” She patted her belly. “Skipper doesn’t care, though. Says there’s more of me to love.” She laughed again and polished more glass. “Come on back tomorrow morning. I’m making custard doughnuts. I open at seven sharp. I have to be ready for the anglers before they head out. They like their coffee hot and their pastries sweet. You know, I’ve got a little post office in the back,” she said, pointing to a small counter. “You can do your mailing here. You staying in town?”
“No, I’m up the road a bit.”
“Renting? Or do you own the place? Lots of new homes sprouting up on these mountains.”
“Renting,” she replied, looking again at her magazine. She hoped the woman would catch the hint. But it was clear Becky was interested in small talk. Mia suspected that this coffee shop with a post office in the back was the hub for news in the small town.
“I’ll bet you’re renting the Murphy place,” Becky continued. “That’s a fine old house. In need of some fixing up. Mostly cosmetic, though. I heard they were putting it up for rent. Maybe for sale. It would be a good buy.”
“No. I don’t know the house.”
Becky mulled this over, then shifted her weight and asked, “So where are you staying?”
“Actually, I’m staying at a cabin of a friend.”
“Oh. Who’s that?”
“Belle Carson.”
Becky idly polished the glass counter, her lips pursed like she was sucking a sour candy. “Name sounds familiar. Is she from these parts?”
“She lives in Asheville, so…” Mia wiped her fingers with the tiny paper napkin and rose to leave.
“Don’t forget about those custard doughnuts. I’ll put your name on one,” Becky called out in her friendly manner. Mia waved, then headed out the door, the little bell ringing as she left.
A few cars slowly passed, and a young couple with two children prancing at their heels eagerly entered Shaffer’s. Mia smiled to herself when she heard the bell chime and Becky’s hearty hail.
Next door, the hardware store was a sharp contrast to the cheery, feminine pink of Shaffer’s. This was a male bastion filled with utilitarian steel shelves overflowing with cardboard boxes, tools large and small, and rows and rows of plastic bins filled with nuts and bolts and nails and God only knew what else. She wrinkled her nose as she passed; the smell of dust and motor oil was pervasive. She would make a stop here later in the week.
A few stores farther down, Mia stopped before a small shop that carried an eclectic selection of stationery, crafts, paintings, and handcrafted jewelry by local artists. What caught her eye was a sign: We carry a full line of art supplies.
Mia felt a long-buried love of painting tugging at her. She had been an art major in college and had painted a lot then, fearlessly experimenting with different styles and mediums. After she graduated she found a job, then got married, and she never found time to paint. Since her breast cancer surgery, however, she had been looking to do something creative in her life. The myriad blues and greens of the river and the quality of fractured light on water had her itching to pick up a brush. If the river could elicit some spark again…
Mia pushed open the door and stepped into the smell of perfumed candles and oils. She walked through the aisle letting her fingertips run across brushes, tubes of paint, and canvases, not really knowing what she wanted but finding the textures soothing. A young woman about Mia’s age approached her. She was tall and slender, like Mia, and as pale as milk. Her white blond hair floated around her head like a nimbus.
“Hello,” she said, smiling in welcome. “I’m Maeve MacBride. Can I help you?”
Mia’s eyes scanned the long shelf filled with tubes of paint. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Well, what’s your medium?”
“It’s been a long time.”
Maeve sensed her hesitation. “Watercolors would be a good place to start. They’re not as toxic as oils.”
“Perfect,” Mia replied, leaping at this. After her cancer treatment, anything toxic was an anathema.
It turned out Maeve was the owner of the quaint shop. She helped Mia choose a Sennelier starter kit of small squares of color, brushes, and a block of thick watercolor paper. Mia gathered her bundle, cradled it under her arm, and left the shop feeling the first stirrings of possibilities.
Next door was a twin redbrick building that housed the grocer. It looked like the kind of grocery store she’d walked through with her mo
ther in Charleston as a child. Local produce was arranged in big baskets at the front, a butcher in a stained white apron worked in the back, and in between were narrow aisles with original wood shelving carrying everything from salad dressing and cereal to fishing poles and bait.
Becky was standing near the entrance, leaning against a little pushcart that held two paper bags of groceries. She was talking in the manner of old friends to a stout woman in a greengrocer’s apron. They looked up when she approached and from the look in their eyes, Mia guessed that she was the topic of conversation.
“Hey there, Mia,” Becky called out as if they, too, were old friends. She waved her over. “Come meet Flossie,” she said, indicating the woman beside her.
Flossie was middle-aged and plain with a pale, flat face and small, thoughtful eyes. Her graying blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail as though in afterthought. Yet when she smiled the lines at her eyes made her face appear warm and wise. She was clearly someone’s mother, someone’s aunt, someone’s friend. The kind of woman who would wrap solid arms around you in a hug, knowing when you needed one.
“I’m Flossie Barbieri,” she informed Mia. “I own this place, or my parents do. They’re retired but can’t let go of it, if you know what I mean. Everyone just knows the store as Rodale’s, which is my maiden name.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mia replied, and began walking away. “Oh,” she said, turning to Flossie. “Do you take credit?”
“I prefer cash when I can get it, but I’ll take your credit, too.”
She was careful, buying only what she thought she needed for a few days. It must be hard to make a go of a family-run store, she thought, when farther down the road a giant supermarket with flowers and wine selections offered many more choices, and at a cheaper price. She preferred the smaller store and the slower pace. She felt far removed from the city, not just in miles but in years.
As she wheeled her cart toward the checkout, she heard Becky’s voice calling her name. Mia warily turned to see Becky waving and using the pushcart as a walker. Her legs moved awkwardly and she leaned heavily against it. Flossie was a step behind her.
“I knew I’d heard that name before! Belle Carson, you said, right?” Becky was breathless from the exertion and her eyes were bright. She brought a hand to her chest as she caught her breath. “Belle is such a pretty name, not one you’d likely forget.”
Mia waited with an increasing sense of dread.
“She owns some fishing business in Asheville, that right?”
Mia nodded.
“Yep, that’ll be her,” Becky said to Flossie, nodding her head in affirmation.
“I knew I was right,” agreed Flossie.
An old woman with a floral triangle scarf over snowy white hair walked up to them, already a part of the conversation. “Carson, you say? I remember that name. I went to school with a Carson. Isn’t she the one that up and left town soon after she graduated? Ran off to get married. Surprised some, but not me. I’m older than you so you wouldn’t remember. What was her first name?” She tapped the cheek of her wizened face. “Theo…Theodosia something?”
“Theodora,” Flossie replied, and the old woman’s eyes shifted from puzzlement to recognition. “She was a friend of my mother’s, or as much of a friend as anyone could be stuck out there in that ol’ cabin far from anything. My mama still says how she feels badly that she didn’t go out there more often to pay a visit. But it was such a dark place. Not welcoming.”
“I guess it’s no wonder, with what her mama done,” added the old woman.
“What did her mother do?” asked Mia, suddenly interested.
“She killed her lover, that’s what. Some say she done it right in that cabin,” replied Flossie.
“Theodora killed her lover?” Mia asked, struggling to get the story straight.
Becky shook her head. “No, her mother, Kate Watkins, did. She’s the woman who lived in the cabin. The one you’re staying at.”
Flossie sighed with agreement. “Theo quit the place when she got the chance. Never came back, not once in all these years. Not that I blame her none.”
“Belle Carson,” the old woman said, rolling the name on her tongue. “She must be Theodora’s child.”
“That’ll be the one,” Becky said with authority. Then she turned to look again at Mia, her face filled with wonder. “So she’s gone ahead and opened up her grandmother’s cabin, has she?”
The old woman said softly, “I was of a mind that place should be left closed up.”
Flossie nodded. “Let the spirits rest.”
The three women turned their attention to Mia, looking at her with renewed speculation. Mia was unnerved and felt that old tingling on the back of her neck.
Flossie’s eyes glowed from deep in her cheeks. “Imagine. Kate Watkins’s place is opened up. And you’re staying in that cabin alone?”
Chapter Three
Fly-fishing starts with paying attention. It’s about being a good observer.
—BELLE CARSON
Mia sat on a bench at a scenic overlook on the outskirts of Watkins Mill. It was a spit of land just off a narrow road that afforded a breathtaking view of the mountains beyond. The vista seemed to go on clear to the ocean where her sister, Madeline, lived on John’s Island. She had a comfortable marriage with Don, a professor at the college, and their teenage children: a son and a daughter. Mia always thought that Madeline should have had more children. It might have redirected some of Maddie’s worry from her. Her sister was six years older and had been more a mother than a sister since their mother had died of breast cancer when Mia was thirteen. Once Mia’s cancer was diagnosed, Maddie had rarely left her side.
It had been her sister and not her husband who had taken time off from her job to go with Mia to each chemo cocktail party. It was Maddie, not Charles, who held her hand in the sick green hospital room while the nurses poked her veins. Maddie who bore Mia’s complaints and who took her to an upscale wig shop when her hair fell out. Big sister Maddie had watched over her as an adult with her cancer just as she had when she was a child and skinned her knee. It was always Maddie.
Mia leaned back against the creaky wooden bench and dialed the number she knew by heart. She said a quick prayer of relief that there was phone service here.
“Mia!” Madeline screamed with relief when she heard Mia’s voice on the phone. “Oh my God, where are you? I’ve been so worried!”
“I’m fine,” she replied, feeling guilt for causing her sister worry. “I’m in North Carolina. I came home after the retreat but I turned around when…I drove right back.” She paused, then blurted out, “Maddie, I found Charles in bed with another woman.”
Shocked, Maddie launched into a long tirade against Charles and how she couldn’t believe the no-count scum could be so heartless and underhanded. Mia let her carry on, feeling a vicarious pleasure at hearing her husband so vilified.
“Where are you now?” Maddie wanted to know.
“I’m staying at the cabin of a friend.”
“I can understand you needing to escape but it’s not healthy for you to hide out too long. When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Her voice rang with worry, a tone Mia had heard many times before.
“I just don’t know,” Mia said again. “I only know that I can’t come back now.”
“OK, well.” She paused. “I’ll come up there with you.”
“No. Please don’t.”
“Why not? You don’t want me to come?”
“Not yet. I just need to be alone for a while.”
“Oh.” She sounded hurt.
“Maddie—”
“It’s just that I’d think you’d need your friends now.”
“My friends? What friends? Most of them disappeared the minute they caught the first whiff of cancer.”
“That’s not fair. They’re just afraid.”
“Afraid of what?
Me?”
“No. Some people just don’t know what to do when someone they care about gets cancer. Watching you deal with it makes it real. If it can happen to you it can happen to them.”
“Do you know what the survivors at the retreat called friends like that? Tupperware friends.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Because when they hear you have cancer they cook up a sympathy meal and bring it over in a Tupperware dish. By the time you eat the food, wash the dish, and try to return it, they’re long gone. You never see them again.”
“I hope you don’t include me in that group.”
“Never, Maddie. Not even once. I’ll always need you. You’re my sister.”
“I have to tell you something. Sometimes I feel you cut me off, too.” “How?”
“You don’t confide in me.”
“Yes, I do. All the time.”
“For little things, yes. But not in the things that really matter. Mia, don’t you trust me?”
Mia paused, acknowledging that what her sister said was true. “It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
“Then why?”
Mia looked out to the vista beyond the short stone wall that bordered the overlook. Her eye was drawn to the broad horizon of rugged mountains covered with rich forest.
“Maddie, it’s not you. It’s me. No matter how hard I try to explain, I know you could never understand what I’m going through. I know you love me, but you can’t fix this. Being at the retreat with the other women made me realize only I can fix my life.” She laughed softly. “Even though I would love you to fix it all and make it better. I want to try to make it up here on my own. Just give me a little time. Please.”
Time Is a River Page 4