Buns

by Alice Clayton

  I was freaking out.

  Everyone seemed pumped today, even the staff. This was their family. They had to work on the holiday, sure, but they were always together and there was still a festive feeling in the air. The candles were lit, the flowers were beautiful, the last of the winter fires were burning merrily in the fireplaces, and the beautiful brunch was laid out for everyone. Gorgeous hams, studded with cloves and shimmering with honey glaze. A thousand kinds of potatoes, each one more decadent than the last. The first asparagus. The first peas. Every kind of casserole you’d ever wanted, and every kind of “salad” ever prepared by your aunt Judy or grandma Ruth.

  “Jell-O molds, can you believe it?” Mrs. Banning said as she zoomed by with a tray of quivery red towers. “They still make Jell-O molds!”

  “Oh, they tried to get rid of them a few years ago, but the guests demanded they be brought back, they practically stormed the kitchen with pitchforks,” chimed in Mrs. Toomey as she also trotted out a tray full of the molds. “Well, forks, but you get the idea.”

  “I think it’s that everyone still wants it the way their mom did it, you know?” said Mrs. Banning, pausing beside me and surveying the table. “Everyone just wants to re-create how it was in their childhood. Even if we’re in a hotel, we still want our mom’s home cooking.”

  I nodded and smiled through gritted teeth, feeling a swirling ball of panic begin to rise.

  “But there’s nothing like this family’s hot cross buns,” Mrs. Toomey said, flanking me on the other side and wrapping an arm around my waist. The three of us stood there as they brought out tray after tray of the most beautiful, perfect fluffy buns I’d ever seen. Just the smell of them was incredible. Buttery, cinnamony, flecked with currants and dripping with gorgeous white frosting. “You know, those buns have been in Archie’s family for over a century.”

  So many things I could say right now . . .

  “Tradition,” she went on, not knowing what a land mine she’d just laid out there. “This entire hotel is built on tradition. And family. It’s everything, don’t you think?”

  The panic ball moved out of my stomach, pushing through to my spinal column and was now climbing each vertebra, leaving an icy trail behind. My throat bunched up a bit, and I wondered how it all got so damn thick in here.

  “Oh, listen to me going on, holidays just make me all squishy inside.”

  “Squishy?” a deep voice said from just behind us.

  “There you are, we were just talking about you,” Mrs. Toomey said as Archie stepped next to us, looking around the room. Tall and proud, cleaned up after the egg hunt and back in his tailored charcoal-gray suit. Today the tie was a sunny, springtimey yellow, with a pocket square covered in—

  “Bunnies, Mr. Bryant?” I managed, looking at the little white cottontail butt sticking up out of his suit. My voice sounded shrill, forced.

  “Don’t mock the bunnies, Ms. Morgan. It’s Easter.” He turned to Mrs. Toomey. “Everything is perfect, as always. The guests will love it.”

  She glowed under his praise. Everyone did. He worked hard, he asked everyone else to do the same, and when a compliment came, it was well earned.

  The women excused themselves and headed back into the kitchen, and I willed the panic now blooming upward of my rib cage to stand down.

  “I think we’re ready to let the stampede in, don’t you?” he asked, looking toward the double doors that were still closed.

  “Yeah, everything looks ready, and—”

  “You look beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes darting around the room so as not to draw attention to us, but the warmest smile tugging at his lips was just for me.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, not trusting my voice anymore.

  Run. Get out of here. This is too much.

  “You’ll be dining with us, all of your friends will be. This year we had to stretch out the family table.”

  “Oh?”

  Jesus, it’s too much.

  “It’s always nice when families grow, isn’t it?”

  This hurts. This actually hurts.

  “So listen, I’ve got a bit of a headache and was thinking that—”

  “There you are!” I winced when I heard Natalie behind me. “I’m starving. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “Well said, Natalie. Is everyone here?” Archie asked. I opened my eyes to see the entire gang, plus a child I assumed was Polly, spread out like a picture in a family newsletter. Behind them, a horde of well-dressed guests were streaming in, taking their usual tables and beginning to line up for the buffet.

  “We’re all here. Hey, thanks for inviting us, Arch, I haven’t been up here for Easter brunch since I was a kid. My mother loves it,” Leo said.

  “Of course she does,” Roxie muttered, earning a giggle from Polly.

  “It’s our pleasure,” Jonathan Bryant said, swooping in out of nowhere and shaking hands all around, exchanging names and pleasantries and nice to see yous/nice to finally meet yous/we love your butters (that one was for Oscar) and everything else. Archie took the moment to lean down and whisper, “You were saying something about a headache?”

  I knew this was my out, my chance to slip away and feign a migraine and spend the afternoon either in my room or hiking in the hills. Or running. It was literally my chance to run. I took a deep breath, prepared to duck and dodge, but as I looked around at the assembled group, I really looked. My best friends in the whole world, with their one and onlys. And in Roxie’s case, her one and only’s plus one. My new friends Chad and Logan. The man who hired me, a lovely fatherly figure who loved a Jell-O mold as much as the old biddies and was already pointing out to Polly which one was his favorite. And Archie.

  A man who wore tortoiseshell glasses and a bunny pocket square like no one else on the planet. A man who was currently looking down at me with the nicest and sweetest eyes ever, full of concern but also tinged with hope that I’d be okay and stay. For the buns.

  I could do this, right? It was just a meal, it was just food. Just time spent with friends, what was I worrying about so much? I could do this. I needed to do this. And if there was ever a time to just get over myself and deal, it was right now. “I’m good,” I said, and boy, did I ever want those words to be true. Then I saw how happy my words made him, the smile coming over his face so quickly. “I’m good,” I repeated. Saying the words actually pushed that panic ball down a bit, slipping backward down my spine, the tendrils that had been spreading out and wrapping around me seemed to be recoiling back down to where it was manageable. “I’m good,” I said once more.

  Ohhh, I was so very not good. Brunch was coordinated chaos. Not in the overall dining room but at our actual table. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, everyone was talking over one another, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t focus, I didn’t even know who was talking half the time.

  “Cadbury Creme Eggs.”

  “Gross.”

  “Gross? Leave this table right now for such blasphemy.”

  “Creme Eggs fall under the category of blasphemy now?”

  “If you’re talking smack about them, they do.”

  “Forget the Creme Eggs, you can’t have Easter without Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs.”

  “YES! Oh my God, this, this a thousand percent. Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs are the best!”

  “My mom always made sure I had tons of those in my basket.”

  “A basket covered in ribbons, right?”

  “Totally! And full of that plastic green grass.”

  “Plastic green grass! Oh my God, I haven’t seen that stuff in ages! You’d go to grab a piece of candy—”

  “—and half of the grass would come with it!”

  “My mom used to make a kind of nest out of that green plastic grass in the middle of our dining room table and put a huge chocolate bunny in the middle, then scatter jelly beans all around. And Peeps.”

  “PEEPS!”

  “YES, PEEPS!”

  “How in the world hav
e we not talked about Peeps yet?”

  “Did your mom ever let you put them in the microwave?”

  “No way, she knew I’d burn the house down.”

  “My mom would never let me do it, but at some point when she wasn’t around my Dad and I would sneak over to the microwave and blow up the Peeps.”

  “My mom would’ve killed me. Besides, we were too busy shoving Cadbury Creme Eggs in our mouths to worry about bullshit candy like Peeps.”

  “I told my mom I was having Easter brunch at Bryant Mountain House, and she made me promise to smuggle out some of the hot cross buns inside a napkin. Think anyone will notice if I do?”

  “I could always get you a pan right out of the kitchen, would that be enough?”

  “Maybe? Two, two pans would be enough.”

  “New tradition: we have Easter brunch together up here every year.”

  “I second that.”

  “I third that. More buns, please.”

  “Deal. Every year. All of us together. Now, someone please pass me more of that Jell-O mold before we all turn into a pile of mush.”

  “I have to go.”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Yeah, I gotta go. I’m not . . . feeling well.”

  “No no, don’t go.”

  “She’s not feeling well?”

  “Clara.”

  “I gotta go.”

  Chapter 15

  I thought about what Roxie and Natalie had said all day. That it wasn’t perfect for them, that it was sticky and messy and crazy, but at a certain point they just gave up and gave in. There was a part of me that wanted to give in.

  So give in.

  Brunch just proved I couldn’t. Full of talk of family and tradition and shared memories and common ground. People take for granted the primer that runs like a baseline throughout much of your modern American family. Half the people at the table didn’t know one another a year ago, and yet they all had a similar background, a shorthand when thinking back on their collective childhood and how it just was. I didn’t have that. I didn’t have half of that.

  So they were planning on brunch again together next year. Same time, same place. The idea of this, just the casualness of people making plans without a care in the world. If someone couldn’t make it, eh. No biggie. If Natalie and Oscar decided to spend their holiday in Manhattan with her family instead, no biggie. Plans change, one sweet family vignette can easily be swapped out with another because most people have Norman Fucking Rockwell on tap, ready to serve up at a moment’s notice.

  Plans get changed. And sometimes people get left out and left behind and forgotten without a second thought. But if you didn’t make those plans, see, and you kept it all loose and free and no commitments, no ties, no binds . . . well then. You were the only person who had the power to break your heart.

  I was the only one who could break my heart.

  I sat on my balcony for hours, ignoring the texts I knew were pouring in from Roxie and Natalie, just rocking in my chair, watching the lake, relishing the outside. The air was cool, gentle, soft. Outside. I could hear owls calling to each other, the soft lap of the waves rocking the dock below, the wind in trees wearing their new spring green. Outside. The night sky was clear, a thousand stars twinkling down on this Easter Sunday. Outside.

  It was easier on the outside.

  I heard the knocking on my door, but I ignored it. It came once, twice, then three times, each time a little harder and more insistent. I ignored them all. Things were cracking open wide, and I needed the space outside to handle it.

  But when I heard my front door open, and I heard footsteps walking across the floor inside, I knew who it was.

  “Not a good time right now,” I said, my voice sounding gruff and scratchy even to me.

  “You don’t have a headache, do you?” he asked. From inside.

  “No,” I answered. From outside.

  “I’d love to know what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours,” he said. Inside.

  I let out a watery sigh, squeezing my eyelids shut tight. “No, you really don’t.” Outside. “How was the rest of the day?”

  Footsteps across the floor. When he spoke, he was just inside the balcony door. “Fine. Good. Smooth. Terrible.”

  “Terrible?”

  “It wasn’t the same,” he said softly. “Without you.”

  I wanted to be inside. Oh God, I wanted it more than anything. I wanted my own piece of it, my piece of this American pie that everyone else had. To be included, in step, in touch, cared for and caring, inside. But could I do it?

  I heard him take one more step, his footsteps changing from soft muffled carpet to sharp scraping slate. He was outside now, with me.

  I stood, turned, and saw him standing there. Tall and strong, freckled and bespectacled, his warm eyes connected with mine and there he was.

  “Hi,” he said, his voice low and raspy. He’d worked hard all day, making this day special for everyone he encountered.

  “Hi,” I said, my own voice sounding breathless. I hovered just out of reach, on the balls of my feet, teetering right on the edge. I wanted to turn around, to sink back into my rocking chair and tell him to go away, stay inside, stay safe. But then he smiled, you see. And I ran. What had been cracking open wide all day now completely disintegrated and I gave in and fucking ran. Toward him.

  I threw myself into his arms, and he caught me, half inside, half outside. I was overwhelmed, but this time instead of panic, I felt butterflies and moonbeams and no small amount of straight-up lust.

  I ran to him because I had to. Under a night sky literally on top of the world, where no one could see and no one could hear, and then my mouth was on his and it was everything.

  I hit him with such force he groaned, but he groaned into my mouth, which was a little piece of sexy heaven. In an instant his arms went around me. In that same instant, I wrapped around him, my hands wild and my fingers searching, seeking, finding heat and warmth and smooth skin and a tie goes flying. And then his hands were all over me, pushing at my dress straps, his lips pulling at my skin there, on my shoulders and on my collarbone, finding willing and wanting and wanton flesh there, and my breath goes sighing. Walls are crumbling down and feet are stumbling around and the stars are above and my fingers are below and a belt goes zinging while my skin is singing.

  His fingers plunged into my hair, anchoring me rough and tender as I sank to my knees, cracking my kneecap on the cold slate, but I didn’t even care because his breath is uneven and choppy and his back thuds up against the stacked chimney and tiny bits of sooty brick rain down on me and everything smells like forgotten bits of burn and char and what once was, but under that there is the hint, the promise of underground green growing things and renewal and spring.

  New. Fresh. Clean. Untarnished. Simple.

  And, oh my God, I need to have this man now.

  “Clara. Clara.” He said my name with urgency, scraping the sky with heat and need. I scrambled at his zipper and he’s there, he is heat and need, and as I open my mouth and bring him inside, his entire body stiffens and his hands freeze in my hair and my name becomes the only word he knows because right now, under these stars, I’m the only woman he knows and needs and wants and . . .

  He’s fucking incredible. And he’s fucking my mouth. This man with the pocket square is fucking my mouth. I chanced a look up and good lord he’s silhouetted against blazing stars, his head thrown back and the world is his jawline and it’s the single most erotic thing that I’ve ever experienced.

  Guttural. Frenzied. I released him only to take him back into my mouth again, licking and thrusting with my tongue as he thrust against it, barely in control, and that was more than okay because I love when this man loses control and puts his hands on me.

  And he did. Holy fuck, he did. His fingers dug deep into my hair, tugging and pulling, and why does that feel so empowering when it shouldn’t, but
holy fuck, it did. His hands were large, his fingers long, wrapped around my head, lost, then found again as he moved me on him.

  I grasped him firmly at the base, fingertips trailing up and down as I released him from my mouth slowly, only to take him in again once more, slow and sure.

  “That’s. Incredible,” he murmured, and his fingertips moved, untwisting from my hair, sliding across my face, slow and sure. Sweetly, he traced down over my cheekbones, along my jaw, so gently. “Incredible.”

  And then he moves, pulling me off him and kneeling in front of me, kissing me again, licking at my lips, and once more I opened for him, tasting salt and sweet and Archie everywhere.

  “I need to see you,” he whispered, and both of us scrambled for the buttons on my dress. In a tumble of hands and fingers, my elbow goes one way and his face goes another and his glasses went flying off into the darkness.

  “Sorry.” I chuckled, but marveled at how open he seemed like this, nothing between me and those beautiful indigo eyes.

  He hung his head, laughing himself. “The terrible part is I can’t see a thing without those, everything is literally a blur.”

  His hair tickled pleasantly at my collarbone. “That’s something a girl loves to hear.”

  “Won’t be a moment,” he said, patting around on the balcony next to him. “Now, this is sexy, isn’t it?”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked, leaning up on my elbows to watch him, trousers askew, tie hanging sideways, hair every which way. “It’s ridiculous how sexy you are.”

  “Hmm,” he said, still looking for his glasses.

  “Go right.” I guided him. “They’re right there by the—”

  “Shit.”

  I gulped. “—railing.”

  They were long gone, pushed over the side by Archie’s roving hands. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. “Of course this would happen.”