by Kristy Tate
He snorted.
I carried the supplies to the closet and shut the door. “Seriously. I bet she finds it hard to have a normal, balanced life. She probably longs for a life where random strangers don’t know her face or ask her advice. Maybe she can’t hire a plumber, reserve a plane ticket, or get a mammogram without someone recognizing her.” Not everyone sought her advice, of course, but whenever I went anywhere with my Gram, I found the hushed whispers and long stares unbearable. She was once getting a Pap-smear, her feet in stirrups, bottom to the edge, when a troubled nurse-practitioner unburdened herself. Gram laughed when she told me, but I’d decided long before that to keep my life private. I put my finger back in my mouth because it still hurt, but also because I needed to stop talking.
“I understand,” he said, grinning as he made a guess. “I’d feel the same if my grandmother handed out platitudes and clichés.”
I pushed back my hair and turned to face him. “She’s not a cliché. It’s not a bad thing to offer advice without being overburdened with information.”
He sat a little straighter and then laughed long and hard. “You’re good! You sound just like her! You know I overheard you that day in the grocery store. I read Hailey’s Comments that day. And the next. That lemon line, the one I overheard you say, it didn’t come out until today.” He motioned toward his briefcase. “In fact, I brought in the paper to ask you about it.”
I put my hands on my hips and slipped into my Miss Emma no nonsense art instructor voice. “I really can’t comment on that.”
He laughed. “I get it. Hailey’s Comments—no comment.”
I gave him a weak smile. “You overheard me talking about lemons while standing in the produce section.”
“So you do remember.”
“Maybe it sounded like something Hailey would say, but I’m sure you just…” I faltered a moment, but then regrouped and gathered my wits. “I’m sure you either heard wrong or it was just a coincidence.” More lies. Sticky lies.
He studied me for a long, quiet moment then asked, “What were you talking about?”
“Lemons obviously.”
“Lemons aren’t that interesting.”
I shrugged and squirmed beneath his gaze. “I’m boring.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, this conversation is boring.”
“Really?”
“Yes, look at Savannah.” His daughter stood in front of the dry erase board, drawing flying goddesses. “I’m sure she wants to go home…as do I.”
He cocked his head but didn’t budge from the art table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you.” The dying winter sun back lit his blond hair. “Or offend you.” He sounded sincere, but I knew I couldn’t trust him. Or anyone.
“Offense can’t be given if not received.” The words just popped out. I was spouting platitudes and clichés.
I wondered if I would enjoy his laughter if I didn’t feel it was directed at me.
#
“He’s taunting me,” I complained to Gram over dinner. “He’s following me around and spewing Haileyisms. I see and hear him where ever I go.” Even in my head.
Rain fell on the conservatory’s glass ceiling with a cacophony of tiny pings and streamed down the windows in rivulets. Inside, hundreds of plants and pillows tried to out-do each other in exotic colors. The weather had turned warm, despite the drizzle, and the conservatory felt stuffy and claustrophobic.
“You should bring him to dinner.”
I tried to imagine Mr. Everett among Gram’s Queen Anne furniture, imported lace, and china dolls and failed. Bull rampaging through a china shop came to mind. “He’s an oaf,” I said.
“Mmm, given your reaction probably a very handsome oaf indeed.” Gram tried to maintain eye contact, but I looked away. “Would it be so bad to take him in our confidence?”
I set down my glass and pushed away what remained of my chocolate soufflé.
She held her fork mid-air. “What’s the matter?”
I looked at her perfectly curled silver hair, her glowing seventy something skin, her flawless taste in clothes. For all her relationship rescue know-how, she lived alone.
“No one can know.” No one loves a liar, I squelched the thought before I said it aloud. Taking a deep breath, I continued, “There’s no getting around the fact that lying is one of the Ten Commandments. It’s wedged right in there between stealing and coveting.”
“Oh pooh!” Gram touched her napkin to her lips. “What’s wrong with you? You’re not lying. You’ve been ghost writing the column since you were a child. It’s never bothered you before.”
Which was true. The Hailey’s Comments column had been my primer, and now, many years later, humanity had no idea the motherly wisdom of Hailey’s Comments sprang from a twenty-eight-year old that had only lived life as a spectator, commentator and, briefly, as an unsuccessful illustrator. I rolled my eyes.
“Did you know that in Islamic law lying is punished by eighty lashes?” I said in a rush. “And, maybe even worse, their testimony will never again be accepted, which basically means that no one will ever believe or trust me again?” I pointed my fork at Gram’s face. “And that is certain death to the career of an advice columnist.”
But maybe the lashes and career loss would have been preferable to coming face-to-face with Savannah’s father in the grocery store, realizing that he overheard my stupid lemon remark, and watching comprehension and suppressed laughter light up his brown eyes.
“Harold knows.” Gram ignored my fork.
“Harold doesn’t count.” Harold, Gram’s attorney, was a golf playing, non-person. He rarely spoke, and when he did, he always managed to say something I didn’t want to hear. He blabbed boring legalities that no one, except possibly another dreary attorney, could ever argue. Not that he argued. “He’s not a gossip because he doesn’t talk. He probably drones “fore,” on the golf course. The only loud thing about him is his golf attire.”
Gram looked out the window with a small frown, momentarily distracted. She sighed. “Poor Harold, he’d really be so much more enjoyable if he wasn’t so heavily starched.”
I couldn’t imagine Harold being enjoyable in any stage of the laundry cycle.
Gram turned her attention back to me. “Are you ashamed, Cabbage?”
Her use of my nickname softened me. “Of course not,” I took a drink of the strawberry lemonade. It was too sweet, just like Gram. Sometimes she made my teeth hurt. Who served strawberry lemonade with chocolate soufflé? “But we agreed. You get the lime light and speaking engagements, and I write the column.”
“Why? You’re not shy,” she said, waving her fork at me. “You’ve always been plain spoken and sensible.”
I looked out the window and watched the rain trickle down the glass. Lights caught in the reflection and sparkled at me. It was a perfect evening for curling into bed with a book. Looking at my reflection made me feel cold. I didn’t want to be plain and sensible. “I just don’t want the attention.”
“Especially not from this man.”
I bit my lip as an indescribable something writhed in my belly.
“Someday?” Grammy prodded.
“He’s no Harold. I don’t think he knows anything about starch. He probably doesn’t even do his own laundry.” I used my finger to draw a line on the table cloth. “Did I tell you we workout at the same gym, and he doesn’t even recognize me?”
“Are you wearing those prescriptive goggle things and the black cap?”
I nodded and she looked pained. “You simply have to visit Cleo’s Closet. Ask for Chantal. She’ll make you over from your panties to your eyeliner. They have the sexiest little-”
“Grammy, just stop.”
She studied me as if she could see my plain and sensible white bra and cotton panties. “Do you even wear eye-make-up? Chantal could do wonders…” She shrugged in defeat and then said slowly, “Sweetie, the column is becoming acerbic, less witty. I know prof
undity is always difficult, and in fifty words or less it’s nearly impossible, but we must do something. I don’t want to have to edit! Let’s try again.” She turned to her iPad. “This one is from Lonely Lion in Portland. He says, “Do you believe in soul mates? Meeting new people has never been easy for me, but I hate always being alone. I feel like the whole world is going on without me. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I find myself waiting for love to strike.”
“Just the fact that he calls himself a lion would scare any woman away,” I mumbled.
Grammy frowned at me.
“What? You can’t tell me that if a lion walked in here right now you wouldn’t feel more than a little nervous. In fact, I bet you would scream.”
“Can you be serious?”
“I am. He called himself a lion. That means he has a pride, he’s seeking out territories and wants a bunch of mama cats. And don’t all the lionesses do all the work?”
“You’re not helping.” She pressed her lips together in a straight, unhappy line. “You really need a trip to Cleo’s Closet.”
“Cleo’s Closet can’t solve problems.”
“So, you admit you have a problem.”
“I don’t have a problem!”
“Then why are you yelling?”
I inwardly groaned and returned to the soufflé with more gusto than it deserved.
Gram tapped her nose, something she did while she thought. After a moment she pointed the nose tapping finger at me and said, “I know, we’ll have a recipe contest! Just Desserts! That’s what we’ll call it—Just Desserts! I love desserts. We’ll hire bakers, get judges, run publicity, publish the entries and bind them into books. All the proceeds will go to that new outreach program I was telling you about.”
I stared at her, the only real parent I’d ever known. Her sudden strokes of genius still amazed me. “I love it,” I said.
No one could quote, or kibitz a recipe.
#
But just six weeks later Just Desserts proved to be just a disaster. As I often did when stressed, I tried to run away. Or at least go running. My feet fell fast on the hard-packed dirt. A light sprinkle didn’t penetrate the canopy of trees overhanging the path, but occasionally, a fat collected drop of rain fell with a thud from a pine branch and hit me like a bomb.
Either the night had fallen earlier, or I’d run longer than usual. Dusk, always a prolonged affair in the Northwest summers, comes to the woods first. My shadow had longed disappeared by the time I rounded the corner toward my home. Music piped through my earbuds, drowning out the humming mosquitoes… and the approaching footsteps.
Mr. Everett sprinted past me then whirled to face me, jogging backwards. “What does your aunt—or is she your grandmother—think of your running alone in the woods?”
He looked handsome even with dots of sweat on his forehead. At least his shoes looked well used and his socks weren’t that tell-tale bright white so common to some-time runners. I thought about leaving my earbuds in and pretending not to hear him, but after a few moments, I pulled out the cords and tucked them into my pocket.
“She would tell me to stay away from strange men like you.” I glanced down at my own grayish socks, feeling significantly less attractive…than my socks. I fought the urge to adjust my pony tail and considered running harder and faster, but since he made my sprint look like a stroll, I didn’t bother. I could pretend to sprain my ankle, but looking at his friendly face, I decided that would probably only make him stay longer, and maybe even get closer.
He laughed and my lips twitched, even though I didn’t want them to.
“Do you think I’m strange, or a stranger?”
“You tell me.”
“Your grandmother has caused a cooking nightmare. Some are calling it the Twenty-First Century Food Fiasco, but I prefer the Black Forrest Cake Firestorm.”
“Who is the ominous they?” I asked, but I knew. It was all the media. “Who knew that Chocolate cake had such an enormous inciting potential?”
“Have you tried it?” he asked, interrupting my dark thoughts.
“Tried what?”
“The Black Forest cake.”
“Oh, no. I should have though.”
He gave me a funny look and I corrected myself. “I’d like to try it.” Thousands of angry readers had obviously tried it and disliked it.
“Poor—what’s her name?”
“Belinda Marx.”
He raised his eyebrow at me as if he’d caught me in my lie.
“Hey, just because I’ve heard of Belinda Marx and the Black Forest Fire Storm doesn’t mean I’m in cahoots with Hailey Clements.”
“Where does poor Belinda live?”
I shrugged and hoped it looked convincing. Sedro Woolley, a small, rural community.
“Some tiny town,” he continued.
I sighed. “I can’t believe that there are still actual, thriving communities where you can send a letter without a street address and it will still find the intended recipient.”
“Like Belinda Marx. I hear she’s threatening to sue.”
“It’s ridiculous,” I said with more venom than I should have.
“I saw Hailey Clements on the morning news. She didn’t look like she minded.” His tone softened and I saw concern overriding the curiosity. A part of me wanted to confide in him. In anyone, really, other than Gram.
Because Grammy Hailey didn’t mind, it was Harold who was murmuring and missing his tee-times.
High above us a branch cracked. Leaves and rain drops showered down, followed by an angry curse and a flailing of arms and legs.
I jumped away, smashing into Mr. Everett. He wrapped his arms around me and a tingle went down my back. I disentangled myself and moved behind him.
My neighbor crashed through the tree and landed inches from our feet. He writhed in pain, his corduroy-clad legs splayed in odd angles, his checked collared shirt covered in bracken. Leaves and twigs poked out of his sparse, ash blond hair.
“Ned?”
He turned his bug eyes toward me and blinked away tears. “A Pied-billed Grebe,” he said through white lips.
To most people Ned wouldn’t have made any sense, but I understood perfectly. “That explains the clucking.”
“Are you hurt?” Mr. Everett asked as he bent down to retrieve Ned’s binoculars.
Ned responded by rolling back his eyes and passing out.
Mr. Everett didn’t mention the cake again, even though it took twelve minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive. He even stopped the niggling questions about Grammy Hailey. Instead, we talked about Savannah and the Art Academy.
I almost stopped hating him.
Chapter Two
On the last day of the semester Artie selected a Butterfinger bar from the big jar on my desk. “How will you spend your summer?” she asked, peeling the wrapper off the candy.
Poor Artie, she worried about me. She must have wondered how I supported my house on Lake Sammamish on a teacher’s salary. But since she had begun to fix me up on blind dates with many of her friends and family, I assumed she had decided I was independently wealthy and not involved with drugs, organized crime, or extortion.
“I’m going on vacation,” I mumbled, thinking of the readers Gram and I called the Devil Cake Demons.
Artie’s face brightened, as she ate the Butterfinger with one hand and collected smocks with the other. “Good for you. Somewhere fun I hope. You need some fun.” The paint-splattered smocks matched the bandana Artie tied in her hair which also matched the bandana tied around O’Toole’s neck. O’Toole had a collection of bandanas that rivaled Artie’s collection of men that she’d tried to set me up with. I’d never tell Artie she and O’Toole reminded me of the Coppertone girl and the little black dog pulling off the girl’s bathing suit bottom. Artie wore her hair in pigtails, and she had the same blond-haired, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked look. If someone pulled off her bottoms at the beach, it wouldn’t surprise me if she would sport the same
surprised, sheepish, golly-see-my-cute-bottom expression. I loved her. Everyone did. Maybe that’s why her collection of men rivaled her collection of bandanas.
“This place is plenty fun. I’ll miss it over the summer,” I said sincerely.
The summer sun already burned hot and humid through the windows. The small Wal-Mart fans we propped up in the corners didn’t cut the heat but stirred it around so the hot air blew like a furnace. Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades.
“You know, I’d love to have you stay here help with the show.” The academy was putting on a production of Annie. O’Toole got the role of Sandy, but I wasn’t going to play a part. I wiped my sweaty brow. Going away would be okay.
Artie waved the half-eaten candy bar in my face. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but you don’t look like you’re having fun.” She clucked her tongue.
I smoothed my hair and pulled at my ponytail. “I know. I had a late night.”
Artie bounced on her toes and opened her blue eyes a fraction wider. She resembled a kewpie doll rather than the Coppertone girl. “Oh! Kiss and tell!”
I shook my head and continued to gather easels. “My neighbor--”
“The crazy scientist?”
I sighed and dumped the easels in the closet. “He fell out of my tree.”
“I told you he’s in love with you.” Artie ran her tongue over her teeth. “I don’t know how you can eat these. I’ll be picking out my teeth for a month.” She handed me the half-eaten candy bar and I tucked it in my smock, safely out of O’Toole’s reach.
“Please, he’s twenty years older, one inch taller and probably weighs ten pounds less. Besides, he only loves birds…and computers.”
“The computers made him rich.”
“Well, right now his leg is broken three places. I had to take him to the emergency room.”
“Why was he in your tree?”
I didn’t tell her about running into Mr. Everett, but I did tell her about the Pied-billed Grebe. She looked bored and changed the subject quickly. Sadly, that was the typical reaction to Ned.