The Wedding Bees (9 page)

17
TH

T
he next time she saw Theo, Sugar was selling ice cream at the Ronnybrook Farm stand at Tompkins Square greenmarket. She'd volunteered at the market information booth three weeks in a row and the market manager had then recommended she spend a while working at someone else's stand before setting up her own.

Marcus Morretti from Ronnybrook had begrudgingly let her help him although he'd had volunteers offer to help out before and generally they went for coffee about nine
A.M.
and never came back. Tompkins Square did not have the glitz and glamour of Union Square greenmarket in the Flatiron District, where hordes of well-heeled Manhattanites picked over fresh courgette flowers as tourists snapped photos of golden raspberries stacked like boxed jewels next to plump strawberries and glistening blackberries. Crowds did not block Tompkins Square mulling over plump eggplants and vegan cookies or queuing for Quaker pretzels and vegetarian wraps. It was unlikely to feature in glossy magazines or popular guide books.

Instead an eclectic mixture of East Village locals ambled up to the half a dozen or so stallholders, who were a butcher, a baker, two vegetable producers, an apple farmer, a lavender grower, plus Marcus and his organic ice cream.

The vibe was laid-back, and most of the stallholders knew most of the shoppers. Further adding to the Alphabet City flavor was the colorful collection of homeless and addicted, who mostly minded their own businesses but, Sugar had been warned, had been known to spend an entire Sunday shouting—or worse, singing—at stallholders and passersby.

On this particular morning, however, no one was shouting at anyone. The daffodils were out in full force beneath the park's famous elms, sprinkled across the ground like gold dust. A group of ancient musicians played gypsy jazz on the benches over by the children's park, while mothers watched their kids and chatted to each other, feet tapping.

It was the sort of day that promised a perfect summer and, in such premium conditions, it took less than an hour for Marcus to work out that Sugar was a natural-born saleswoman. After two hours he did a quick count and realized he had doubled his normal profit. He decided she was just exactly the sort of person you wanted to buy an ice cream from first thing on a sunny morning: refreshingly lacking in tattoos or piercings but with a smile that suggested she could mix a little mischief in with her wholesomeness if she felt like it.

When it dawned on him that the customers were actually waiting for her to serve them even though he stood right there next to her, he gave Sugar full responsibility for the stall and ran off to meet his girlfriend for an early lunch. His girlfriend did not have a wholesome bone in her body, which was pretty much why he liked her.

Once Marcus left, Sugar hardly got to lift her head out of the ice-cream tubs, she was so busy serving people. They crowded in front of her, calling out their flavors, but when someone called out an order for ginger crème supreme in a certain sort of singsong voice, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. She looked up to see Theo standing there.

“Oh, it's you,” she said, her hand suddenly sweaty on the scoop. “Hello.” There was still no point in being rude. There never was. And besides, she could hardly go anywhere.

Theo's eyes had nearly fallen out of his head when he had mooched around the corner and seen Sugar standing there in her pretty blue dress, doling out ice cream.

He'd spent the weeks since he'd scared her away from McSorley's patrolling East Seventh Street at every possible chance, lurking around all its corners in the hope he could find her again, explain himself, repair the damage he had done. He'd even rehearsed a little speech but now wished he had written it down because all he could think about was that faint sweet lime scent that lingered in the air, the curl of her fingers around a half-pint of beer, her teeth biting into her plump lower lip.

“Yes, it's me,” he said.

“Would you like that ginger crème supreme in a cone?” she asked. “Or a tub to take home? Or perhaps you would prefer if I just hung on to it for forty years and gave it to you for our anniversary.”

“Hey, join the queue, buster,” snapped a young mom standing in front of him, jiggling her kid on her hip. “I'll take a pint of vanilla.”

“Coming right up, ma'am,” Sugar said to her, handing her the ice cream. The mom stalked off and Theo moved closer to the counter.

“I know that pretty much everything that comes out of my mouth,” he said, “would appear to be the ravings of a complete and utter lunatic—”

“Yes, it would,” Sugar said, taking another order from behind him, riled that he was forcing her to consider that perhaps sometimes in special circumstances there was a point in being rude which went against everything in which she had long believed. “I'm sorry, but it would.”

“No, I'm the one who is sorry,” Theo said. “Trust me, I am really, really sorry for taking you to McSorley's for a beer when I'd really only known you so fleetingly and for everything else too. For the whole wanting to get married and hold hands thing. I'm so sorry about that too. I was wrong.”

Sugar stopped what she was doing, her scoop raised in midair. “You were wrong about knowing that we were going to be together forever and walking down East Seventh Street in our old age?”

“No!” said Theo. “Not about that. I'm right about that.”

“Then aren't we back to the whole ravings-of-a-complete-and-utter-lunatic thing? There you go, ma'am. Two double-scoop raspberry and white chocolate cones. Enjoy.”

“No, I was wrong to spring it on you like that in a bar where people still spit on the floor,” Theo said. “It was completely inappropriate but please don't for a moment think that I was in any way mocking the seriousness of relationships or marriage. I was married once myself and, even though that didn't work out, I still believe in the institution. I really do. I was just speaking without considering the consequences because, the truth is, you have this unbelievable effect on me and I just can't seem to help myself but if you gave me another chance I know I could prove myself to you. Honestly, please, trust me. I beg of you.”

“You buying ice cream or auditioning for Shakespeare in the Park?” an elderly man agitating at his elbow interjected. “Gimme some of that mint lace, will you, sweetheart?”

“Are you crazy?” pitched in another customer, a plump woman of about Sugar's own age, dressed in sweats. “Chocolate chip, two pints.” She leaned over to the elderly man. “The guy asks her to marry him after only just meeting her and means it? My husband waited fourteen years and even then he burped it out during an ad break.” She waved her hand at Sugar. “Say yes, honey. Look at the guy. I'd marry him myself if I didn't have my in-laws coming for lunch. And he has that cute accent. Like Gerard Butler. Although what's with the shirt?”

“He looks like one of those West Coast bums who smokes pot and writes poetry,” agreed the elderly man.

“I don't smoke pot. Or write poetry, not that there's anything wrong with that,” Theo told them. “And I didn't ask her to marry me. I just said I could see us being married.”

“Now you sound like a lawyer,” the elderly man said.

“Are you a lawyer?” Sugar asked. “Because that would just completely take the cake if you were a lawyer.”

“Never mind that, or being married, or—would you just have dinner with me, Sugar? Please?”

“What does she want with dinner?” the old man said. “You've already told her you're a loon.”

“Any chance of getting some ice cream back here?” asked a man at the back with a baby in a stroller. “Chocolate. One pint.”

“Hold your horses, we have a romance happening here,” said the woman in sweats. “Are you already married?” she asked Sugar.

“You know I would really prefer to stick to the subject of ice cream, if that's all the same to you, ma'am.”

“Got a boyfriend?”

“Regular chocolate or chocolate chip?” Sugar asked the man with the stroller.

“How could you not have a boyfriend?” asked the old man. “If I was twenty years younger, I'd ask you to marry me myself.”

“Make that forty,” snorted the stroller man.

“Go for dinner with Gerard Butler,” the woman said.

“As long as he takes you somewhere nice,” added the old man, “and there's no hanky-panky in the cab on the way home.”

“And make him pay, honey,” said the woman in sweats. “Enough with the going Dutch already. We hate that.” Then she and the old man shuffled off together arguing pleasantly about mint versus chocolate chip.

“I'll just wait over there until you're not so busy, if that's OK,” Theo said, and he retreated to a shady bench as other hot and hungry customers slipped into the space he left. But more than once Sugar felt his thoughtful gaze upon her.

In the meantime, she spotted Mrs. Keschl, who came to the greenmarket every Sunday pretty much just to hassle the apple guy for not having tart enough apples. “Can I get you an ice-cream cone, Mrs. Keschl?” she called.

The old lady shuffled over. “What's that black stuff in the back?”

“That's licorice, not the most popular flavor it would appear.”

“I'll take one of those then,” the old lady said. “And you'd better make it half price since I'm helping you get rid of it.”

Not half an hour later Mr. McNally spied Sugar behind the makeshift counter and pushed his way to the front of the line, ignoring the complaints from those elbowed out of his path.

“So, you,” he said.

“Sorry, y'all,” Sugar told the other disgruntled customers. “This is my neighbor Mr. McNally and he has blood sugar issues.” Sometimes a little white lie went a long way to avoiding a riot. “What can I get you, Mr. McNally?”

“What's that black stuff down the back?”

“That's licorice. Would you like some of that?”

“What do you think I'm waiting for?”

“That's Mrs. Keschl's favorite too,” she said as she handed over a cone. For a moment she thought he was going to throw it back in her face. “Just taste it before you do anything rash,” she said.

He did, and found it to his liking, so he grunted what might have been a thank you and elbowed his way back out of the crowd.

Finally, there was a lull in the queue and, taking the opportunity to catch Sugar on her own, Theo appeared in front of her again.

“Just consider this,” he said. “If I hadn't already mentioned the whole marriage thing, it would not be so weird to be asking you out. It's just dinner, Sugar. Look at it that way. And if, after dinner, you still think I'm bonkers, I promise I will never ask you anything ever again. In fact, I promise you'll never even see me again.”

Sugar had been on plenty of dinner dates since she left Charleston—she liked male company, she had grown up with it—but she restricted her dating to men in whom she was not seriously interested because it was easier to avoid complications that way. On occasion she'd allowed the odd dalliance to develop into something a little more substantial: she'd spent a wonderful winter with a ski instructor in Idaho; and a sizzling summer with a winemaker in Napa.

But she was not in the market for a heart-stopping, pulseracing, knee-weakening, bone-shaking, jaw-dropping love affair. She'd had one of those once before. It had wrecked her life, and a few others besides, and she did not want another one.

Yet there she was standing in a beautiful park in the spring, in New York, ice-cream scoop in hand, her heart stopped, her pulse racing, her knees weak, her bones shook up and her jaw all but hanging on the ground.

She let the scoop fall back into the mint lace.

She thought she'd been so strong all these years, avoiding the vicious thrust of Cupid's arrow, yet, gazing across those rainbow pints of ice cream into the blue, blue eyes of Theo Fitzgerald she suddenly wasn't so sure. Maybe Cupid just hadn't been pointing in her direction all this time. Or he had been and was a terrible shot.

She hadn't been in love with the ski instructor—she'd been drawn by his grief at losing his wife to cancer and knew she could help him. And she hadn't felt anything close to a quiver for the winemaker either. He'd had hay fever, which she'd cured with her California honey, plus he had really nice hair.

All these years without a heart-stopping love affair she'd still been happy. Mrs. Keschl was right: Sugar's glass was always half full, more than half full. Plus she filled up everyone else's glass while she was at it. That was just what she did. And despite everything that had happened to her, despite what had gone so terribly wrong with that one big love affair all those years ago, she had never—apart from a few days when she first left Charleston and that was perfectly understandable—felt lacking.

She'd felt in control.

Until now.

Now, looking across the ice cream at Theo Fitzgerald with his pleading eyes and the thoughtful wrinkle between them, she felt what was missing, right there in the empty space in front of her. She couldn't see it but it nonetheless danced between them like bonfire flames, only twice as hot. She hadn't felt that heat in all these years, had barely registered its absence, but now it was here burning up the oxygen right under her nose, and she just couldn't ignore the yearning it thrust her way.

But she didn't want it.

What she had learned the first time was that this physical desire and the longing that came with it could not be trusted for anything other than to ensure a certain painful sort of torment, which she simply could not bear to suffer again. Theo might be good-looking and have a cute accent and make her laugh and have at least a modicum of gumption, but the way he made her feel scared the living daylights out of her. And her living daylights had long had their fill of being scared.