by Wendy Tyson
Luke bit his lower lip, a habit that was making his lip red and swollen beneath his beard. He stared at the lotions and creams on the sale table, his eyes settling into resignation. “Merry said to invite you and Bonnie to tea tomorrow. She’s having some women over to introduce Becca’s products.”
“She still wants to have that, even with your dad…?” Megan’s voice trailed off. The pain in Luke’s eyes softly echoed the pain she’d felt when her husband died, and the rest of the words wouldn’t come.
Luke’s smile was apologetic. “Remember, this is for Becca. My sister is already angry that Aunt Merry coordinated his homecoming. Aunt Merry can’t very well cancel based on Dad’s death. She’d be furious.”
Megan watched Luke leave the store. His words about Becca rang true. Becca’s anger seemed genuine—and while aimed at her father, she didn’t seem too pleased with her aunt either. Warranted? Megan didn’t know. But thinking of her own mother, and her newly discovered grandfather, Megan understood that some feelings defied explanation.
Megan was about to head back toward the café when something caught her eye. It was the bright pink of Aunt Sarah’s scarf twirling behind her in the wind as she walked down Canal Street. Twenty yards behind her was Luke Fox, deep in conversation with a tall man whom Megan had never seen before.
Seven
Bibi had a bridge tournament on Sunday that conflicted with Merry’s high tea, so Megan went alone. She pulled into Merry’s driveway for the second time in a week. The snow that had blocked her steps and littered her drive was now piled in three- and four-foot heaps along Merry’s property. But snow and ice couldn’t stop Merry Chance from celebrating Christmas properly, and all of her yard ornaments and house decorations were clear and clean.
“Megan, I’m glad you came. Becca will be happy to see you.”
Megan followed Merry through an expansive foyer and into an elaborately decorated living room. A thick white carpet covered the floor. Two damask loveseats faced one another across a coffee table, near a brass-ensconced gas fireplace. Queen Anne chairs in matching material flanked an antique round conversation table. Everything was decorated for Christmas. There were wreaths and candles and angels and Santa and sprays of white and red roses. The air was scented with pine and cinnamon. A catalog come to life.
Merry walked through the living room and into the dining room. A twelve-person table dominated the center of the vast square room. A Christmas tree done completely in white lights and Victorian ornaments stood in one corner. An ornate buffet stood against a far wall, and on it were tiered trays of crustless sandwiches, scones, cookies, and an assortment of china teacups.
Merry sure liked her English teatime.
“Lovely,” Megan said, feeling suddenly underdressed in jeans and a sweater.
Merry thanked her. “The ladies should be arriving shortly, and Becca will be down any minute.”
“Let me help you in the kitchen, then,” Megan said.
Merry hesitated. “I’m just filling teapots.” She sighed, evidently letting go of whatever unwritten rules caused her to push away the offer of help from invited guests. “I could use an extra hand or two.”
Merry’s kitchen was awash in teapots. Megan counted nine, and each had a label identifying a different type of tea. Merry had also created small thank you notes for the invitees, each with a different tea bag and information about Becca’s business. “Tokens of thanks,” Merry called them.
Megan was impressed.
“You really want to help her succeed, don’t you?”
Merry was removing wet tea leaves from the inside of a ball strainer. Without pausing, she said, “Becca has no one else.” Merry looked up. “What did you think of her perfume?”
What did she think? Megan had to admit that people had been nicer to her while she was wearing it, if nothing else. “I think I need to try it out a few more times. See what happens.”
Merry nodded. She looked distracted, even slightly agitated. She wore a red sweater embroidered with tiny holly leaves and berries, black pants, and a lot of gold jewelry. Her reading glasses were red, white, and black and they hung from a red rope chain around her neck. She slipped the glasses on to read the label on a box of loose mint green tea leaves.
Megan said, “I’m so sorry to hear about Paul’s passing.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry too.” She frowned. “To come to Winsome and then have that happen.” She shook her head. “I feel responsible. If I hadn’t been sticking my nose in their business, maybe he’d still be alive.”
“How could this be your fault, Merry?”
She shrugged. “I know it could’ve happened anywhere, but it didn’t. It happened here in Winsome. Under my watch.”
“He was a grown man. Capable of making his own decisions. And if it was a heart attack or some other natural event, it would have happened regardless of where he was staying.” Megan paused. “Any more information from Bobby?”
“Not yet. But frankly, Paul didn’t care for doctors. It wouldn’t surprise me if they found a latent heart issue.” She looked at Megan over her readers, her guard back up. “That’s what killed him. Denial.” Merry put the box on the counter and tilted her head, as though listening for the presence of her niece in the other room. “I’d been hoping to give Becca some closure with this trip. She’s angry that I invited Paul, but I thought maybe enough time had passed that she could see her father for who he is. Was. A good man, but not a perfect man. A man who tried to do what was best for his family.” Merry shook her head. “I wasn’t always there for Blanche the way I should have been.”
“Were you and Blanche close?” Megan remembered Merry from her own childhood in Winsome, but she couldn’t recall more than a ghostly image of Merry’s sibling.
Merry nodded. “Blanche was my older sister. She had Luke when she was young, soon after she and Paul got married. She worked for a while to help put Paul through graduate school and to start his practice, and then she stayed at home with the kids. It wasn’t an easy life. He was often short-tempered and a penny pincher, and my sister was…well, rather passive. She was kind at heart, but never liked making decisions. Paul suited her in the sense that he was happy to take the lead and she was happy to be led. I think he liked that about her—her warmth, her faith in him.”
“Becca resented their relationship?”
Merry poured water from a tea kettle into two of the teapots. She sniffed the spout, and seemingly satisfied, wiped the bit of water that had pooled beneath the pot on the granite countertop.
“As much as she will never admit it, Becca is her father’s daughter. While Luke was willing to take his father’s rules and proclamations in stride, Becca fought everything. I mean everything.” Merry’s smile was tinged with sadness. “Paul could be funny and smart. He had what some might call charisma. People wanted to be around him.”
Megan found that at odds with what others had said about the late psychologist. Instead of pointing this out, Megan said, “Becca insinuated things weren’t good between Blanche and Paul in the end.”
Merry leaned against the counter. “Have you ever witnessed what happens when two people have extreme parenting styles? When one is exceedingly permissive and one exceedingly authoritarian?”
Picturing her permissive father and her strict paternal grandfather, Megan said, “I’ve had some experience.”
“Then you know that each pushes the other to further extremes. The authoritarian parent cracks down overly hard, causing the child to react. The permissive parent then attempts to sooth by loosening reins, perhaps spoiling the child. This angers the authoritarian parent, who perceives an undermining of his or her authority, a threat to his or her control. That parent acts in turn in an even more punishing manner, and so on.” Merry paused, thinking. “This was the dynamic I saw with Blanche and Paul. First with the kids, and then later in their own relationship. Sh
e became more passive and depressed, and that made him more angry and controlling. I think each was blind to their role in the dance.”
Megan thought it interesting that Merry seemed to unconsciously lay the blame at her sister’s feet for starting that pattern. But Merry’s characterization of Blanche as depressed matched Becca’s description of her mother. “And Becca witnessed the dance, as you say, between them?”
“Becca lived at home for part of college. I’m afraid she saw more than she may have liked. She’d always been close to Blanche in a way Luke never really was. And where Blanche’s passivity angered Paul, it made Becca fiercely protective. She never understood the complexities of her parents’ relationship, or the ways in which they balanced one another.” Merry frowned. “It was easier to blame poor Paul.”
Megan thought that was unusually insightful for Merry. It made her wonder how closely Merry had witnessed her sister’s downward spiral. “Did your sister get help for her depression?”
“Oh, I tried to get her to see someone. I’m sure Becca did as well.”
“Not Paul?”
“We never talked about it. I’d like to believe he did.”
Just then, the doorbell rang. Merry looked relieved. “I need to get that.”
A teakettle whistled. Megan pulled it off the stove with an oversized Christmas mitt and began filling a china teapot, her mind on all the ways people could destroy the very things they loved in another person.
Megan was glad Bibi had chosen bridge over this. Her grandmother was frugal, and her brand of frugality meant not wasting money on what she viewed as unnecessary things. Bibi would have rolled her eyes at the way the ladies of Winsome were opening their wallets for a chance at love.
But Becca presented her love potions with aplomb, calmly explaining the purported science behind her products. As women passed around the scents and dabbed pheromone-laden perfume behind their ears and on their upper lips, Becca read testimonials written by happy customers and encouraged attendees to “live life a little more fully, love a little more deeply.”
At one point, Becca caught Megan’s eye and winked. Megan wasn’t sure if Becca was simply pleased or if she was sharing a joke with Megan. The joke being the hundreds that were flowing into her small cash box.
Megan excused herself before it was over, while the attendees were drinking tea daintily from the mismatched china cups. She had chickens to attend to and goats to feed, and if she didn’t spend adequate time with Heidi and Dimples, her Pygmy goats, the pair would find some mischievous way to show their displeasure. A swallowed cord. A stolen boot. A goat stranded on a barn roof. Megan had been there before.
Becca met her at the door and thanked her for coming. Megan hugged the box of rose-scented love potion she’d purchased as a gift for Emily and thanked Becca for inviting her.
“Did it work for you?” Becca asked. “The perfume, I mean.”
Megan told her people seemed nicer, friendlier.
“Ah, yes, that’s often the first thing you notice. Men and women pay you more attention. Keep wearing it and you’ll find men hitting on you more frequently. You might even have a better and more active sex life.”
Out of curiosity, Megan asked, “Do you use it, Becca?”
Becca laughed. “Me? Nah. I don’t actually like attention all that much.”
“That’s ironic, don’t you think?”
“I suppose. I’ve never felt the need for male attention. Or friends, for that matter.”
“Then how did you come up with this idea?”
Behind them, Merry called out for Becca to come back and answer questions for their guests. Becca smiled apologetically. “That’s a story for another day.” She brightened. “How about I meet you for coffee one day this week? You can tell me how things are going with the pheromones, and I’ll share their origin.”
“Better yet, why don’t you come to the farm?” Megan said. “We can talk freely there, with only goats and chickens to disturb us.”
“Goats and chickens?” Becca turned back toward her aunt and held up one finger in a “be right there” gesture. “Sure, that sounds fun.” She said, “Coming!” to Merry, who was calling her again. With a last glance at Megan, Becca rolled her eyes. “And peaceful. I bet there’s no one to bother you on a farm.”
Eight
Becca arrived unannounced at the farm two days later, her tall frame ensconced head to toe in a puffy black coat. It was snowing lightly, and when Becca knocked on the door, a fine layer of white flakes covered her wild hair and the shoulders of her bulky coat. She apologized for showing up without calling first, but she seemed tense, and although Megan had been ready to help Clay pick greens for the café, she agreed to that coffee date—as long as Becca would help her collect eggs first.
“Are the chickens always in their coop?” Becca asked. She watched as Megan reached into the beds to gather the eggs, her body pressed against the frame of the chicken tractor. “And why are the eggs so many different colors?”
Megan glanced down into the basket she was holding. The farm raised a variety of laying hens, and the eggs reflected that diversity. Within the base of the basket were brown, light blue, green, and white eggs of varying sizes. She explained this to Becca—along with the fact that her chickens had access to the outdoors, but they often preferred the heated interior of the tractor to the below-freezing temperatures of winter. In fact, given the recent weather, Megan was surprised her girls were still laying at all.
Becca seemed to only be half-listening. She glanced around at the chickens and then over her shoulder, toward the barn. “Aunt Merry told me someone died there.”
Megan stopped mid-bend and turned to her guest. “That’s true, someone did.”
“Aunt Merry also said the police suspected your grandmother—and you.”
“Perhaps. But the killer was arrested and is in prison now.” She gave Becca a hard look. “Didn’t Merry tell you that?”
“She did. I was just wondering.”
Returning to her chore, Megan said, “You seem preoccupied, Becca. Did something happen?”
“No, no. I just thought it was interesting. A murder in your barn. Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would happen in Winsome. That’s all.”
Megan headed back toward the farmhouse, Becca trailing behind.
Becca said, “How about a tour?”
“Sure. And then some coffee?”
Becca nodded. Megan led her through the greenhouses and down to the goats’ pen. Both girls were standing on their hay bales waiting for someone to feed them. Becca gave them only a cursory pat, even when Heidi nuzzled the newcomer and tried to pull a tissue from Becca’s pocket.
“Cute,” Becca mumbled. She patted the goat on the head as though she were a dog.
Odd, Megan thought. The goats loved people and most visitors found Dimples and Heidi irresistible. They left the goats’ enclosure and Megan walked Becca through the old barn, stopping to show her the portion that marked the original barn from the 1700s.
Becca glanced around, taking in the dirt floor, the thick stone sills, and the murky light pouring through leaded glass. “Is that where the man was murdered?”
“No. Simon died in a newer portion of the barn.”
Becca rubbed her hands up and down her arms. Condensation from the cold air blew from her mouth. “I can almost feel it, the presence of death.” Becca bent down and touched the earthen floor. “It’s weird to think about, isn’t it?”
“Do you want to talk, Becca?”
Becca straightened, her eyes rounded in surprise. “No, why?”
Because you seem preoccupied with death, Megan thought. Instead she said, “How about that coffee?” She no more wanted to dwell on Simon’s death than she wanted to think about nuclear disaster or a zombie apocalypse. “Bibi’s at the café helping Álvaro make Christmas cooki
es, so we have the house to ourselves. Well, other than the dogs.”
Becca nodded. She still had a faraway look in her eyes, but she made her way out of the barn ahead of Megan and didn’t stop until she reached the house.
Megan placed two cups of steaming coffee down on the table. She opened a tin of Bibi’s gingersnaps, gave one to each of her begging canines, and placed the tin on the table alongside a plate of banana nut bread. “So, you were going to tell me the story of how you got the idea for The Love Chemist. I’d love to hear about it.”
Becca added cream to her coffee and stirred it in with languid circles. “I guess in an odd way, I can credit my dad with my business idea.”
“Oh? How is that?”
Megan settled in across from the younger woman. Sadie and Gunther laid on the floor next to Becca, forever hopeful.
“He expected me to fail.”
Megan waited while Becca placed two cookies and a slice of banana bread on a small plate.
Picking at the edge of her bread, Becca said, “During college I studied animal science, eventually focusing my research on pheromones. You know what they are, right?”
Megan nodded. She knew pheromones were chemicals animals released into their environment to affect the behavior of other animals, especially when it came to mating behavior. She also knew the existence of pheromones for humans was still a topic of debate.
“Well, after college I worked for a fragrance manufacturer, Tempest—I already told you that. Tempest creates the tastes and smells for food and fragrances. Quite literally. The flavored corn chips that are so popular? Tempest manufactures the exact spice blend that makes them irresistible.” Becca gave Megan a wan smile. She took a sip of coffee and replaced her cup in the saucer before continuing. “The scientists there can make you want anything. Anyway, it was a fine job and I learned a lot, but I was bored. And kind of sickened by the ways companies manipulate, if you know what I mean. So I quit after two years.”