Just One of Those Things, page 20
“It’s this new fish sauce I found the other day. Actually Gabriella brought it to me.”
Emily said to Matt, “Gabriella is Mom’s business partner. She runs the gallery where most of Mom’s work is displayed.” And then to her mother, she said, “What does Gabriella think of the endangered species series?”
“She’s thrilled. She says this could be the sort of thing that really gets some attention. In fact, she has a call in to National Geographic, to see if they’ll sell them in their gift shop. She’s reaching out to science museums, too.”
“That’s wonderful!”
“I’m going to expand the line. Just this week, I figured out a way to do a mountain gorilla. And the black rhino turned out even better than I thought. The key is to find charismatic species.”
Bran looked up from the plate of gai pad gaprow that he was decimating. “I bet you could do a mean snail darter.”
Mom said, “I’m sure there’s someone out there who would buy that. Northern spotted owls, too.”
Bran nodded seriously. “Maybe there are some rare bacteria you could do too.”
Mom finally seemed to realize he was pulling her leg. “Just you wait. Someday soon, you’ll be walking down Main Street, and you’ll see my gourds in the window, and you’ll say, ‘My mother made that.’”
Emily frowned. “You don’t have a gallery here in town.”
Mom flushed with pride. “Well, it won’t be final until the end of next month. But Gabriella is going to take over the old Presley space.”
“The hardware store?”
“It’s not public news yet, but Jake Presley is shutting things down.”
“No!” Emily was shocked. “He loves that store!”
“Maybe. But he never quite got the hang of running things after his father retired. His lease expires at the end of next month, and he’s worried the rent will increase too much for him to make ends meet.”
“But Presley Hardware has been in Harmony Springs forever!”
“That’s where your father had his first job. I used to go in on weekends to buy a bag of penny candy. I’d eat the entire thing, piece by piece, just so I could watch Rob stock the shelves.”
Emily tried to picture her mother mooning over a boy, even Dad, especially Dad, but her imagination failed her. Instead she said, “I can’t believe it. I still go into Presley’s at least once a month to get something!” The smell of those old aisles was like childhood to her. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d wandered down one row looking for something, only to discover another thing she hadn’t known she needed. Presley’s Hardware was the place for old-timey treasures like wooden clothespins and odd-size lightbulbs. Plus it was the only store in town that still sold a Zero candy bar.
“You’ll have to shop at the Ace in Winchester,” Mom said.
“Or the American Discount,” Matt said dryly. Emily shot him a frown. “I’m just saying,” he said, holding his hands up in protest.
“Look at it this way,” Mom said. “Jake Presley’s young enough to build a second career. And I’ll finally have a place in town that sells my work. Charlie will tell you. That’s been part of my strategic plan for the past five years.”
Emily looked at her older sister, who was quietly chewing pad prik king in between voicing loud agreements to Grandpop that the Great Society was the finest civil rights program ever implemented by a US president. “I didn’t know you did a strategic plan for Mom.”
“Using my powers for good and not for evil,” Charlie said. “You know, I could do one for you some time. Consider it a Christmas present.”
Emily grinned. “You aren’t fooling me, big sister. We both know you only want to do my plan so you can get an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. Most Reformed Drifter.”
“Technically,” Charlie said, “That would be the award you’d win.”
“Potato. Po-tah-toe.”
Charlie nodded very seriously. “When you phrase it that way, I realize the task is impossible. You’re allergic to strategic planning. Forget I offered.”
“Deal. That way, neither one of us has to strangle the other.”
~~~
Matt listened to the banter. The Bartons weren’t some fake family, a Hallmark construct where everyone was good and kind and sickly sweet with giving. But underneath all the name calling and teasing, there was a constant current of love.
He couldn’t remember a time when his own family had sat around a table with anything like this level of camaraderie. He couldn’t remember a time when the Dawsons had shown they loved each other.
Instead, there’d always been a tension—the constant, terrifying knowledge that they were disappointing each other. Disappointing themselves. Mom wanted Dad to show a type of emotion he wasn’t equipped to show. Dad wanted Matt to man up, to take care of his brother. Matt wanted Jon to pull his own weight. Jon wanted…
Who knew what Jon had wanted? He’d never held a thought for longer than the time it took to shout it out loud. Didn’t hold a grudge either—that was one of his virtues.
Jon had wanted to join the Army, to go off and fight for his country, to do big things and see distant places.
And in the end, he was the only one who got what he wanted.
As the conversation turned to some obscure paper Bran was writing for an academic journal, Matt helped himself to another serving of spicy chicken with green beans. That was interesting news, about Jake Presley cashing in his chips. It proved the point Matt had made to Em just a couple of weeks back. Things changed. Stores closed. The world moved on.
Last night, Matt had seriously considered giving up. He’d felt like an idiot for coming back to Harmony Springs. Em’s little trick had driven home the fact that he didn’t know this community. The years he’d spent in Raleigh, in the big leagues had carried him so far away he might never actually find his way back home.
His conversation with his mother before Chief Carter pulled her away had just been the final confirmation. Matt was never going to be the son his father wanted him to be. He could never bring back Jon.
But now, in the light of day, he was more determined than ever to succeed. His mother believed in him. Em had stayed by his side.
Matt had never walked away from a competition in his life. And he wasn’t about to start now.
“Could you pass the chicken with basil?” he asked, during a momentary lull in conversation. “And the hot peppers, too.”
Mrs. Barton, no, Maria, beamed. She turned to Em and said, “You were right about this one. He can take what’s dished out to him.”
He spooned on the chili flakes and let the heat in his mouth spread through his body.
~~~
“Thank you,” Emily said when they’d finally climbed into the cab of his truck. The sun was already lowering to the horizon. “I’m sure that’s not how you intended to spend Christmas day.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I was going to finish drafting my quarterly account to Corporate. Do some laundry and fold some socks. Maybe scour my sink.”
She laughed. “It was really nice of you to let Noah knock one out of the park.”
He shrugged. “Chicks dig the long ball. Someone’s got to get the kid started on his ladykiller career.”
“Hmm.” She dug her fingers into his side playfully. “You should have warned me about that ladykiller thing.”
“And given up the element of surprise?” He reached under the truck’s bench seat and came up with a gold-and-silver wrapped box.
“What’s this?” she asked, delighted at the sudden kick of her heart in her chest.
“Open it.”
“But I didn’t get a present for you.”
“Yes you did.” He nodded toward her mother’s house. “Spending time with your family. With normal people, celebrating normal holidays.”
“I don’t think we count as normal. At least Bran doesn’t. Charlie either. And I’m not too sure about Anne and me. Mom? Maybe.”
His smile was gentle. “I’m serious.”
“Yeah,” she said. “So am I.”
“Go ahead.” He jutted his chin toward the box. “Open it up.”
Curiosity was getting the better of her. She tore at the gift wrap, turning the masterpiece to shreds.
“Wow,” he said. “Do you disembowel your enemies too?”
“Just make sure you never get on my enemies list to find out.” She plucked a strand of silver ribbon from her wrist and dropped it to the floor of the cab. The box on her lap was the size and shape of a shirt box, plain white paperboard with neat glued corners.
“If you hate it, you can return it.” He said it like a joke, but she could hear the uncertainty in his voice. For the first time, she glimpsed the power she held over him, more than the promise of a tumble in bed, more than the tease of a lingering kiss.
She raised the cover of the box.
Six skeins of yarn lay inside. The fiber was a color halfway between fawn and grey. Each strand was coated with the faintest fuzz, like the skin of a peach spun into yarn. She hovered her palm above the treasure, sucking in her breath at its softness.
“Qiviut,” she breathed. The yarn was spun from the undercoat of yaks. It was the single most expensive fiber in the world, and she’d coveted it ever since she’d learned to knit. “How did you know?”
“Knitting masters like me have the best sources.”
“Seriously!”
“Rachel told me.” And there was that look again, that glance from underneath his lashes. He was vulnerable. “Do you like it?”
“I love it!” She was already fingering the yarn, imagining how it would knit up, wondering if she should make a scarf or a shawl, maybe a hat and mittens. He’d been so generous; she had so much to play with. But she said, “This must have cost you a fortune.”
He shrugged. “It gave me a chance to underwrite a Lapland herder for a year. I can’t imagine a better use of my money.”
“It’s too much,” she said.
“No.” He leaned over to kiss her. “It isn’t.”
“Matt—”
But she forgot her argument when he made his point that way. She only pushed him away because Noah might be staring out the living room windows, longing for his playmate to come back and toss him another few dozen pitches.
That, and she didn’t want to mess up the yarn.
She made sure to finish the discussion, though, when they were back at Old Man Marshall’s house. And later, when Matt was sleeping under the duvet in his king-size bed, she brewed herself a cup of tea in his massive kitchen and started to sketch a design for a qiviut shawl.
CHAPTER 18
All day long, Emily had felt like something was off. She’d awakened before dawn, tangled in the sheets beside Matt. She’d slipped out from under the covers and made her way downstairs to the kitchen. It still amazed her that one person lived in that gigantic house. Her tiny apartment could have fit into the master bedroom alone.
She’d started a pot of coffee, but she was too restless to wait for it to brew. Instead, she left a note, saying she was heading to the store early. She’d arrived in front of Harmony Skeins as the sun was clearing the horizon.
The store hadn’t offered any cure for her restlessness. She’d straightened a couple of displays, shuffling a few colors to highlight the upcoming holidays—Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day. But it was hard to get enthusiastic about upcoming events when she knew she’d be lucky to see a dozen customers all day. It was the middle of January, the heart of the winter doldrums for sales.
She’d considered going down to the diner to gossip with Anne, but she didn’t want to face her sister’s inevitable good cheer. She’d thought about going to Jenkins Bakery, about smothering her irritability in pastry cream and chocolate ganache, but the idea only made her sick to her stomach.
It wasn’t until she looked at her calendar that the penny dropped. January 8. Jon’s birthday.
She remembered celebrating the occasion in high school, the way all the kids did. It was a competition, like everything else in high school social cliques. Girls baked cakes for their boyfriends, and they decorated lockers.
Sophomore year, Emily had kept things small; she and Jon had only been dating since Homecoming, and she didn’t want to scare him off. She bought a cake mix at the Smart Shopper Food Store, and she slapped on some canned frosting. She shoved a store-bought birthday card through the slots on Jon’s locker, one she’d picked up in a flash, just taking the time to weed out the stupid cards with fart jokes and invitations to get drunk.
Junior year was a little more elaborate. Emily baked a cake by hand, following a recipe she found in her mother’s old Joy of Cooking. She made her own frosting too, not worrying when it turned out a little too thin to cover the cake completely. She put streamers on the outside of Jon’s locker, and she left a card inside, one she’d gone all the way to the giant Hallmark store in Winchester to find.
And then there was senior year. Emily felt a pressure to succeed, to prove to all her classmates that she and Jon were real, that their relationship would last forever. She baked a yellow layer cake, carefully slicing each round in two horizontally, using dental floss like she saw in a video on You Tube. She made boiled caramel icing, discarding two whole batches when she wasn’t satisfied with the texture. She decorated the outside of his locker with paper cut-outs—Harmony Hornets shaped from construction paper and colored in by hand. Inside, she included photos that mattered to the two of them—their picture as Homecoming King and Queen, the one that had run in The Herald, a snapshot of the bleachers to commemorate where Jon had given her the game ball from State, a view of the footbridge at the bottom of Old Man Marshall’s property, the place they went to make out.
Three months later, they’d broken up.
So, yeah. It was January 8.
After another hour of unsuccessful distraction, she finally gave up. She pulled a piece of paper out of the printer drawer and wrote up a sign: Closed for Family Emergency. She started to tape it in the window, but then she realized her neighbors would see it, and someone might call her mother, wanting to know what emergency had stricken the Barton household.
She crumpled the page and just flipped her regular sign around. Closed.
The drive out to the cemetery was actually pleasant. It had snowed on Tuesday, so the fields were covered to either side of the road, but the cleared blacktop had had plenty of time to heat under the winter sun.
The heavy iron gates to Harmony Gardens were open. Emily was surprised to see car tracks in the snow; she suspected that the graves went mostly unattended until spring. She knew where Jon was buried. She’d attended his funeral and watched as the plain military casket was interred next to his grandparents, safe amid a scattering of aunts and uncles, of distant cousins.
The tire tracks led directly to that corner of the cemetery. Emily didn’t recognize the black Buick by the side of the road. She pulled behind it and slipped her car into Park. When she walked by the boxy car, she saw two suitcases jumbled on the back seat.
A man stood at the foot of Jon’s grave. He wore a shapeless black coat and a cheap stocking cap. His hands were jammed into his pockets, and his shoulders were hunched up to his ears.
He didn’t turn around as Emily approached, her feet squeaking on the new snow. When she came to stand beside him, though, he gave her a curious glance. It was Mr. Dawson.
His nose was red, as if he’d already been standing in the cold for a while. His eyes were watering, just at the corners, and Emily couldn’t tell if he’d been crying or if the wind had sparked the tears.
“It’s Emily, right?” His voice was hoarse.
“Yes, sir.” She shifted her weight. She’d only spoken to Mr. Dawson a handful of times. When she and Jon had dated, he always seemed to be at the factory, working extra shifts. It was Mrs. Dawson who ran the house, who checked homework, who made sure her boys had clean clothes and food in their bellies.
“He would have been thirty-one today.”
She didn’t know what to say.
“In my mind, though, he’ll always be sixteen.”
“Why sixteen?” she asked. She and Jon had started dating when they were sixteen.
“That was when he made the varsity football team. Varsity! And he was just a sophomore.”
“He was a great cornerback.”
“I’ll never forget his first game.”
Emily would never forget that game either. They’d played Winchester, a school ten times their size. Jon had spent the summer working out; he was proud of the weight he’d put on, all muscle. But every Winchester player had ten pounds on him at least.
Jon had scrambled to break free, fighting to race downfield. He’d stretched for the ball any time the quarterback got it remotely near him. He’d taken a beating in the process, losing his helmet on one particularly vicious play. Coach had made him sit out the next down, standard penalty for a player who couldn’t keep his gear under control.
And the Hornets had won. It was their first victory in seventeen games, their first in almost three seasons. She’d waited by the locker room door with all the other girls. They’d cheered the team when the boys emerged, hair wet, faces shiny, football pads slung over their shoulders.
She’d cheered the loudest, and Jon had walked straight up to her. “Good game,” she’d said, suddenly shy, but knowing this was her one and only chance to get his attention.
“Thanks.” He’d shifted his pads. “Some of the guys are going to the diner. Wanna come with us?”
“Me?” She’d looked around, as if to make sure no one had sneaked up behind her. But she covered quickly. “Yeah. Um, sure.”
And they’d been dating from that point on. Until Kaylie.
She blinked, wondering how long it had been since Mr. Dawson had spoken. “They beat Winchester,” she said.
“Seventeen, fourteen.” They both said at the same time. They laughed, then both seemed to decide it was inappropriate to be laughing in a cemetery.
