First Frost (7 page)

As the sisters walked ahead, Tyler and Henry lagged behind. The tall, lanky art professor and the shorter, muscular dairy farmer didn't have much in common except their wives, but that was enough. Sometimes one big common bond is stronger than a dozen tiny ones. They frequently got together on their own, Henry meeting Tyler at the college for lunch, or Tyler stopping by the dairy after work. When Claire asked what they talked about, Tyler always said, “Man stuff.” She wanted to believe that meant electric shavers, athlete's foot and maybe golf. But she was pretty sure “man stuff” meant “you and Sydney.”

“Thanks for letting Bay stay over at your house tonight,” Sydney said, looping her arm through Claire's as they walked.

Sydney was sparkling tonight in a beaded navy dress that looked like something a tiny, pampered housewife would wear to a cocktail party in the 1960s. Her hair was in a French twist, and her blue wrap fell off one elbow and fluttered behind her. Claire's hair was in a sleek bob, and she was wearing a red floral dress, one of Sydney's, but it was a little too short and tight on her tall frame. Claire had long ago accepted that she would never have the fine bones and blue eyes most Waverley women had. She was tall and dark-eyed and curvy, genes probably donated by the father she would never know.

“You know it's no problem. I appreciate her baby-sitting Mariah tonight,” Claire said. It had been a much-needed night out, with wine and laughter, and yet Claire's mind kept going back to the business she needed to take care of at home, the extraneous things that had nothing to do with making the hard candy itself: email to check, labels to print, boxes to unfold, orders to track.

“I'm looking forward to spending some time alone with Henry,” Sydney said with a wink.

Claire looked over her shoulder at their husbands following them. She wondered if Henry knew what Sydney had in store for him. Probably not. Sydney had been secretive lately.

“Maybe tonight we'll finally…” Sydney let the words trail off. Claire knew what she was going to say. It came and went in cycles, but never fully went away, Sydney's desire to have more children. It had taken a while, probably five years of living back in Bascom, married to Henry, life going well, for Sydney finally to trust it, to realize she was back for good. And with that realization came the desire to make it
more,
more stable, more settled, more to keep her here, as if she were really afraid she might leave again and never come back this time, just like their mother had done.

“Maybe tonight,” Claire agreed. “Love your red hair, by the way.”

“Thank you. I can't seem to help myself. I just look at it lately and it gets more red.”

“You're going to have to tell Henry what you're doing,” Claire said in a low voice. “He's going to figure out what the red hair and all these nights you're spending alone together mean. And he's going to be hurt that you didn't come to him.” Secrets were in the nature of the Waverleys. The men they chose never expected to be totally enlightened. Claire's husband Tyler's way of dealing with this was to be unfailingly patient, in addition to his good-natured disbelief of anything odd. Henry was different, though. He'd been born in Bascom. And he was a Hopkins. All Hopkins men were born with old souls. It was his nature to be depended on.

“I know. I will,” Sydney whispered back. Once they reached the parking lot, she changed the subject and said, “You're not going to let Bay work for you tomorrow, are you? Saturdays should be spent doing something fun at her age.”

“Don't worry. I'll shoo her out of the kitchen,” Claire assured her, though she'd never understood why Sydney never wanted Bay to spend too much time at the Waverley house. But she didn't question her. Motherhood is hard enough without judgment from others who don't know the whole story. And the way the sisters mothered was as different as they were. Their own mother had abandoned them here, the names of their fathers long forgotten, to be taken care of by their agoraphobic grandmother, Mary. Claire and Sydney were, the both of them, forging new ground with their own children, having no firsthand knowledge of how to do it right. Just the fact that Sydney wanted to do it again made her seem so
brave
to Claire.

“And the backyard,” Sydney added.

“And the backyard.”

Sydney shook her head. “I'll bet you a million dollars she's out there right now, with that tree.”

“You'd win that bet.”

“She's doing okay, isn't she?” Sydney asked.

“I think she's doing fine. Bay knows herself. She likes herself. She doesn't care what other people think.”

“But I want her to have a good time in high school.”

“You want her to be popular,” Claire said. “She doesn't want to be popular. She just wants to be herself.”

“She doesn't date, or go out with friends, or anything. Has she talked to you about anyone she likes?”

Claire hesitated. She didn't want to keep this from her sister, but it was Bay's secret to tell, not hers. “She's mentioned a boy once or twice. You'll have to ask her about that.”

“You're never going to have this problem with Mariah when she turns fifteen,” Sydney said. “She's so social. That child is your husband made over.”

“I know.”

“Ever get the feeling our daughters were switched at birth, six years apart?” Sydney joked. Meaning to Claire:
Ever get the feeling your child isn't anything like you?

“All the time.” Mariah had no interest in cooking. Like Tyler, she didn't seem to notice when doors opened on their own, or mysteriously stuck in their frames in the house. When she went out to play, it was always in the front yard, not the garden, though the tree loved her and seemed hurt by her inattention. It morosely threw apples at her bedroom window at night in the summer. And then there was this new best friend, Em. In a period of five days, Em had become everything to Mariah. Em told her what books to read and what games to play and to brush her teeth before going to bed and always to wear pink. It drove Claire crazy. In her mind, Em was a deranged ballerina-child who smelled like bubble gum and only ate McDonald's Happy Meals.

But it was all misdirected frustration, Claire knew. Because Claire didn't have time to meet Em. She didn't know anything about Em's parents. But Tyler probably did. Over the past few months, Claire had been so busy with Waverley's Candies that Tyler had taken over most of the parenting duties. Tyler knew all the particulars that Claire used to. Homework. PTA meetings. Ballet and gymnastics moms by name.

Grandmother Mary had always had time for the day-to-day minutia of raising her granddaughters. She had memorized school schedules. She'd ordered notebooks and pencils and new shoes and sweaters when the sisters had outgrown their old ones, and the supplies had been delivered (back when downtown stores still delivered). She'd cooked and gardened and ran her back-door business and still made sure the girls were tended to.

Claire had always assumed the reason Grandmother Mary hadn't branched out, hadn't made more money with her special food, was her painful introversion. Now, Claire wondered if Grandmother Mary hadn't wanted the public to know about her curious recipes because it wasn't really about the recipes at all, it was about selling the mystique of the person who created them. She also wondered if maybe, just maybe, Grandmother Mary had taken into consideration the effect a growing business would have on her ability to care for her granddaughters, too.

Which made Claire feel worse.

And yet, how could she stop? She'd put so much effort into getting her name out there in the world, success making her like a crow collecting shiny things. There was so much to prove. Was it ever going to be enough? Giving up, especially now with all these doubts, would feel like conceding that her gift really was fiction, a belief contingent upon how well she sold it.

“Hey, are you okay?” Sydney asked when they reached Henry's truck in the parking lot and Claire had fallen silent.

“Sorry. I'm fine.” Claire smiled. “You know what I thought of last night for the first time in ages? Fig and pepper bread. When I woke up this morning, I could have sworn I even smelled it.”

Sydney took a deep breath, almost like she could smell it, too. “I loved fig and pepper bread. Grandmother Mary only made it on our birthdays. I remember she always said to us, ‘Figs are sweet and pepper is sharp. Just like the two of you.' But she would never tell us which one of us was fig and which was pepper.”

“I was obviously fig,” Claire said.

“No way! I was fig. You were pepper.”

Claire sighed. “I miss fig and pepper bread.”

“You're burned out on candy. You need a vacation.” Sydney hugged Claire then got in the truck with Henry. “See you later.”

Tyler put his arm around Claire as they walked to his car, a few spaces away. When Tyler hesitated getting in the car, Claire looked up at him, his curly hair in need of a cut, his beloved Hawaiian shirt almost glowing in neon under his blazer.

“What's wrong?” she asked, because sometimes he did that, just stopped and daydreamed. She loved that about him. Her own sense of focus never ceased to amaze him. She wasn't magic to him. She never would be. What she cooked had never had an effect on him, either. Years ago, when they would argue, she would serve Tyler chive blossom stir-fry, because Grandmother Mary always said chive blossoms would assure that you would win any argument, but it never seemed to work on him.

Tyler gestured behind her. “I'm just waiting for Henry to start his truck. Do you think anything's wrong? He was talking about winterizing his truck. I had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he did it wrong.”

Claire looked over to Henry's king cab. The windows were beginning to steam and a faint purple glow was emanating from inside. “Nothing's wrong.”

“Wait,” Tyler said. “Are they doing what I think they're doing?”

“Voyeur,” Claire teased, getting in the car. “Stop looking.”

Tyler got behind the wheel and grinned at her. “We could give them a run for their money.”

“And risk getting caught by one of your students? I don't think so. Stop it,” she said, when he reached for her. “Let's go home.”

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Home. Okay.” He started the car. “But I have plans for home now.”

“Oh no,” Claire said with a smile. “Plans.”

The road leading off campus was lined with hickory trees, their leaves so bright yellow they shone like fire, as if the road were lined with giant torches. Claire rested her head back as Tyler drove, his hand on her knee. Houses in town were decorated in full Halloween regalia, some more elaborate than others. Jack-o'-lanterns flickered on porches, and red and yellow leaves swirled. This wasn't her favorite time of year, but it certainly was gorgeous. Autumn felt like the whole world was browned and roasted until it was so tender it was about to fall away from the bone.

Stop feeling so anxious, she told herself. It was just this time of year making her feel this way, making her have these doubts. First frost was almost here. If she could make it until then without a big drama, she felt sure everything would be okay, everything would fall into place and feel right again.

Tyler turned down Pendland Street with its winding curves, uneven sidewalks and sloped yards, which suddenly made Claire remember her grandmother Mary walking her and Sydney to school on this street on autumn mornings. Mary had become anxious in her old age, and she hated being away from the house for long. She'd hold the girls' hands tightly and calm herself by telling them what she would make for first frost that year—pork tenderloins with nasturtiums, dill potatoes, pumpkin bread, chicory coffee. And the cupcakes, of course, with all different frostings, because what was first frost without frosting? Claire had loved it all, but Sydney had only listened when their grandmother talked of frosting. Caramel, rosewater-pistachio, chocolate almond.

Claire settled back in her seat, starting to relax a little from the wine that evening. She began to wonder, if she had the time, what she would make for first frost this year. Fig and pepper bread, because she'd been thinking about it. (Of course
she
was fig. Sydney was
definitely
pepper.) And pumpkin lasagna, maybe with flowers pressed into the fresh pasta before she cooked it. And—

She sat up straight when she saw him again, out of nowhere. The old man on the sidewalk. And not just his gray suit this time. She saw his skin and his eyes and the tiny smile on his lips. He was standing near the corner, his hands in his pockets, like he was on a summertime stroll.

Tyler drove right by him.

“Wait. Did you see that?” she asked.

“See what?” Tyler asked.

Claire looked behind her and he was gone, as if he hadn't been there at all.

But if that was the case, how could he leave behind that scent, like a smoky bar, now coming through the car vents?

*   *   *

When Tyler parked in front of their house, his wife got out quickly. She stood on the sidewalk and looked down the street from where they'd come.

Tyler got out and locked the car with the remote, then he walked over to Claire, who was silhouetted by the light from the street lamp, her curves like a map that took him to a different place every time he consulted it. He put his arms around her from behind and bent to rest his chin on her shoulder. Her arms were cold, so he rubbed them.

“What do you see?” he asked.

She stepped away and turned to him. “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Why don't you go inside and check on Mariah and Bay? I think I'll take a quick walk around the neighborhood.”

One side of his mouth lifted into a half smile, confused. “At this time of night? In those heels?”