The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (87 page)

Claire pondered this as she stood in her kitchen slicing strawberries. Her fingers were stained a deep crimson and her apron polka-dotted with red. Boiled jars filled every inch of available countertop, and a kettle on the stove emitted a fragrant steam. Even so, she felt a kind of panic at the thought of what lay ahead. Tomorrow would be the test run. She’d invited her new friends and family for tea: Gerry and the kids; Aubrey, who’d said he’d be delighted, but would have to duck out early; and Mavis, who’d be here in any event. Not to mention Sam and Ian, Alice and Wes, Laura, Hector, Maude, and Finch. And Matt, of course.

Matt.
She warmed at the thought of him—his large calloused hands, his mustache tickling her. In her mind she saw his clothes at the foot of the bed: jeans and shirt and boots and socks and underwear in a heap that seemed to give off a heat all its own.

They’d fallen into a sort of routine. On days when he didn’t have to pick up his kids he’d hang around after work, and they’d sip beers at the kitchen table until the light had faded and the sun was a rusty streak across the horizon. Matt would pry off his boots, and she would slip out of her shoes to prop her aching feet on his lap. Invariably, they’d wind up in the bedroom.

She grew even warmer remembering the night before. Even her trick of mentally summoning Byron failed to bring the usual cold dash of guilt. It was as though this thing with Matt were happening to someone entirely separate from herself. As if the person she’d been in Miramonte had been discarded like a pair of shoes that pinched or a dress that no longer fit. At the same time, she didn’t want Byron to be cast aside as well. She still wanted the life they’d planned together those summer evenings out on the porch—the house, the kids, the two careers. The question was, where did Matt fit in? If this was nothing more than a case of spring fever, why did she feel so torn?

It wasn’t just Matt—there were his kids. He’d brought them by a few times, letting them play in the yard while he finished up. Yesterday Tara had hung around the kitchen watching her bake while her brother, Casey, helped his dad with the garbage-can enclosure Matt was building alongside the garage. Claire had been making cookie dough for the deep freezer, and the little girl had been so fascinated with the whole process she’d tied an apron around her and let her cut some of the dough into shapes, which they’d frosted with colored icing and decorated with sprinkles once they were baked.

That night after he’d dropped them off at their mother’s, as he and Claire lay snuggled in bed, he’d said softly, “They like you.”

“They’re sweet kids. I’ll bet they like everyone.” She wasn’t going to let him make a big deal of it.

“Tell that to Casey’s teacher. Last week he called Miss Hibberd a butthead.”

Claire smiled. “How do you know she isn’t?”

“You’re missing the point.”

“Which is?”

“That they
don’t
take to everyone.” Matt nuzzled her neck. “The other day Casey wanted to know if I was going to marry you.”

Claire’s heart began to pound. “What did you tell him?”

“That I couldn’t because I was marrying Miss Hibberd.”

He grinned, his teeth a flash of white in the darkness, and she’d felt herself relax. Talk of marriage, even in jest, made her nervous.

Now, in the broad light of day, marriage—to anyone— was the furthest thing from her mind. She glanced over at Mavis, cracking walnuts at the table. Thank God for Mavis—for her crabbed hands in perpetual motion, her cheerful if somewhat off-key warbling, and her steady stream of household tips, like using salt to scrub stubborn pans and milk to remove red wine stains. With Mavis everything had to be done the old-fashioned way.

Claire tuned in to hear her snort in contempt: “Ever see an expiration date on one of those bags?” She tossed another shell onto the growing pile. “Milk, you know what you’re getting. Fruit, you can see when it’s spoiled. But for all you know those supermarket nuts could be as old as the shelf they’re sitting on.” She shook her head. “It never ceases to amaze me what people will put in their mouths.”

“Most don’t know any better.” Claire recalled her revelation, early on in life, that food was more than just three basic groups.

She’d been in the eighth grade. One day she’d been home sick with a cold and, bored out of her mind, had happened to tune in to a cooking show: Julia Child demonstrating the perfect way to roast a chicken. For Claire it had been a turning point of sorts. She’d fooled around in the kitchen before, using the Betty Crocker kids’ cookbook (with recipes like pigs in a blanket) from Gran Brewster, but after that began experimenting in earnest. She’d snipped recipes from magazines and pored over cookbooks. She’d discovered James Beard, Maida Heatter, and Craig Claiborne, along with old standards like
Joy of Cooking
and
Fannie Farmer.
She’d learned the proper way to mash potatoes and to tenderize a roast. She discovered that curry wasn’t a single spice but a number of them ground together, and that parboiling string beans with a teaspoon of sugar will keep them looking fresh picked. Along the way, she found her true love: baking. It was what eventually led her to Tea & Sympathy, which had gained a devout following with such retro desserts as devil’s food cake, icebox cookies, and black-bottom pie.

“Nonsense,” Mavis huffed. “If I’ve told Gerry once, I’ve told her a thousand times: It’s as easy to make macaroni and cheese from scratch as from a box.” She shook her head in despair, her rusty hair floating about her head. “How my daughter, who grew up on home-baked bread, could eat the way she does is a mystery to me.”

“If everyone turned out like their parents, it’d be pretty boring.” Claire thought of Lou and Millie.

Mavis cocked her head, smiling up at her thoughtfully. “Maybe it skips a generation. Heaven knows you’re more like me than either of my children.”

“I guess there’s something to be said for nature versus nurture,” Claire replied, more than a little uncomfortable with the subject.

“Though I’m sure your folks can take their share of credit for the way
you
turned out,” Mavis was quick to put in.

Her parents, who still didn’t know if they were coming. Millie kept insisting she wasn’t well enough to travel, but the other day Lou had let drop that they’d visited Aunt Lucille and Uncle Henry in Monterey. Claire hadn’t pressed the issue, but it hurt even so.

Lifting the lid off the kettle, she said with a wistful smile, “I used to think of families as being made of whole cloth, but they’re not, are they? They’re more like”—she looked up from the simmering contents of the kettle, her gaze falling on the basket of remnants by the sewing machine—“scraps stitched together.”

“Like a quilt. Yes.” Mavis smiled, setting aside her nutcracker to survey the mound of cracked nuts on the table. “Well, now. That should be enough to supply the entire western hemisphere.” She rose to her feet, wincing only a little. The new prescription her doctor had given her must be working, though Claire suspected it had as much to do with her indefatigable spirit—Mavis was not one to go gently into that good night. “While you’re finishing up with that, why don’t I get started on the dough?”

They had three dozen tart shells ready for the freezer by the time Mavis’s friend Olive Miller arrived to pick her up. Claire glanced out the window as they were pulling out of the driveway in Olive’s big blue Plymouth—two old ladies perched on the front seats like a pair of nuthatches on a fence, so busy chattering Olive narrowly missed backing into the mailbox. Claire smiled. These past weeks she’d grown closer to Mavis than she’d been to either Gran Brewster or Nana Schilling. Even with Gerry, she felt more at ease. The only one she wasn’t sure about was Andie. She and her friend Finch had dropped by earlier in the week but hadn’t stayed long—an encouraging sign, though Andie had hung back, letting Finch do most of the talking.

The following afternoon, hours before the guests were due to arrive, Claire was in the kitchen making spreads for sandwiches when she heard the tinkle of the bell over the front door. Thinking it was Mavis, she didn’t stop what she was doing until she heard a polite cough and turned to find Andie poised hesitantly in the doorway.

“Hi. I was wondering if you needed any help.” She was dressed in jeans and a cropped T-shirt that showed her navel—an outie like Claire’s.

Noting how self-conscious she looked, Claire felt a tug of sympathy. She could remember when she’d been that age, feeling like she’d been turned inside out, her every thought and emotion on display.

“Right now, I could use six hands.” She gestured with a laugh toward the loaves of banana bread cooling on the counter, the strawberry tarts just out of the oven, and brownie batter in a bowl. “Check the broom closet—I think there’s an extra apron. Oh, and the good plates and teacups are in the hutch. You can set them on the table out front while I—” She paused, smiling. “Hey, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“No problem.” Andie ducked her head, fiddling with one of the dozen earrings in her ears. She was cutting the crusts from sandwiches and arranging them on the lovely old Meissen platter Sam had given Claire when she looked up and said, “Your kitchen smells like my grandma’s. I used to love spending the night at her house when I was little. We always made sugar cookies. She had all these cookie cutters in the shapes of animals.”

Claire wordlessly walked over to the long cupboard by the fridge, rummaging inside until she found what she was looking for: a battered shoebox that made a faint, tinny rattling as she carried it over to the table. “My housewarming gift from your grandmother,” she said.

Andie pried off the lid, reaching inside to finger a cookie cutter in the shape of a bear. She smiled at the memories it evoked. “They’d be perfect for kids’ parties.”

“Kids’ parties? Now
there’s
an idea.” Claire could envision it: birthday teas for preteen girls, like grown-up versions of the pretend tea parties they played at when they were little. “How would you like to be in charge? We could split the profits down the middle, fifty-fifty.”

Andie’s gaze met hers, still a bit wary. “Sure, why not? It might be fun.” A small smile surfaced. “I’ll talk to Finch. I’ll bet she’d like to go in with us.”

“Your friend seems nice.”

“Finch? Yeah.”

“She’s not from around here, is she?”

Andie stiffened a bit, as if Claire were suggesting she was a misfit. “She’s from New York.”

“That must be it. She seems so”—Claire searched for the word—“sophisticated.”

Andie’s face relaxed. “She’s adopted, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“It’ll be final in a few weeks.”

“How nice for her.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty happy about it.” They went back to work cutting up sandwiches, and after a minute or so Andie ventured, “It must be weird for you—having two mothers.”

“I don’t think of Gerry as a mother.” Claire paused in the midst of chopping parsley. “She’s more like a friend.”

Andie looked relieved.

A little while later, when Gerry appeared with Justin and Mavis in tow, the tables out front were covered in the flowered tablecloths Mavis had stitched and the good china laid out. There were platters of sandwiches, banana bread, gingersnaps, brownies, and strawberry tarts with a bowl of fresh strawberries on the side. Noting Gerry’s look of admiration as she surveyed the room, which Sam had brightened with flowers from her garden, Claire couldn’t help feeling proud. For the first time, she allowed herself to feel the tiniest bit optimistic that Tea & Sympathy would be a success.

“Not so fast, young man.” Gerry lightly slapped Justin’s hand as he was reaching for a brownie. “I want to take a picture first.” She reached into her voluminous shoulder bag for her camera, and after snapping off several shots, herded everyone together for a group photo. Andie hesitated at first, then stepped up alongside her brother, wedged in so tightly against Claire she could easily have given him a black eye with her elbow. “Okay, smile everybody!” Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw Mavis blink and recoil as the flash went off.

Gerry used the rest of the roll on the room itself. “I can’t believe what you’ve done with this place,” she said when she finally lowered her camera. “I hardly recognize it.”

“Matt deserves most of the credit.” Claire felt her cheeks warm, thinking of how handy he was in other areas as well. “Some of it he’s not even charging me for. I think he’s afraid I can’t afford it.”

She glanced about at the wainscoting, and the rows of shelves behind the display case, which she’d picked up for a song from a deli going out of business, on which her collection of vintage teapots was displayed. Another of Matt’s ideas had been the built-in cabinet alongside the counter with its miniature drawers in which different kinds of loose tea were stored: Lapsang Souchong, China Oolong, Blue Flower Earl Grey, and Blood Orange Sencha, to name a few.

Mavis gave a knowing chuckle as she hobbled over to the kettle hissing on one of the cast-iron burners. “From the way that man looks at you, I’d say it’s an even trade.”

Claire felt her blush deepen. Mavis’s eyesight might not be what it used to be, but she saw well enough. Claire was grateful when Andie, seeming to take pity on her, changed the subject.

“Simon might drop by. I hope that’s okay.”

Claire smiled. “The more, the merrier.”

“I’m warning you, he eats like a horse.”

“Which is what we’re all going to look like when we’re through with this,” Gerry joked, eyeing the platters.

Andie looked distracted, as if she were reminded of something. Then everyone was bustling about all at once, trying not to bump into each other as they carried things in from the kitchen.

Sam and Ian were the first to arrive. Watching them stroll in through the door, Claire couldn’t help thinking again what an unlikely couple they made—Sam, so ladylike and perfectly put together even in maternity clothes, and Ian, with his ponytail and stud in one ear.

“Something smells good,” he said.

“I’ll have two of everything,” Sam joked, patting her belly.

“Remember what the doctor said,” Gerry warned.