You Don't Know Me (5 page)

Once upon a time, Tucker Newman had a family waiting for him when he came home. A mother who set a tuna casserole in the middle of their scratched pine table at six o’clock. A father who sat in the frayed green recliner, channel surfing. A brother who might drag him into their room to check out the newest boards in
Snowboarder
magazine.

Once upon a time, Tuck didn’t open the front door to a cold, dark house, with creepy shadows that lurked in the corners and the smell of old milk in the air, evidence that someone—aka him—had forgotten to take out the trash. When he flicked on the light, it spilled into the kitchen, over the pile of mail strewn in the center of the table, across sticky, egg-encrusted dishes in the sink.

“Mom!” he called but didn’t really expect a reply. His mother had pulled a couple double shifts down at the Deep Haven Tavern—working as a waitress, then her regular position as bartender. She’d probably be out past two again tonight. But they needed the money.

Maybe this year they wouldn’t be eligible for the community church’s Thanksgiving basket. He hated answering the door, accepting the basket from Pastor Dan and his wife. Like they were poor or something.

They weren’t poor. Just . . . just . . .

Hungry. Tuck found a box of generic macaroni and cheese in the cupboard. He pulled out a pan, filled it with water, and set it on the stove to boil.

Then he toed off his shoes and lifted Rusty off the table, setting the old tabby on his lap, running his hand over the cat’s back as he sifted through the mail. The folks at Midwest Ski Supply still hadn’t
figured out that his brother died three years ago. Nevertheless, Tuck opened the catalog, checking out the new equipment for the season. Rusty settled into a rumble of pleasure on his lap.

What he wouldn’t give for a Burton Nug. His board was heavy and longer, and by the looks of the Nug, he could get by with a 142, cut down from his 150. And with the V-Rocker reverse camber, jumper cable suspension, and frostbite edges, it could still perform in every condition—through the woods, in spins, jumps, boxes. He could probably land in the Sugar Ridge Free Boarding finals with it.

And it cost a mere $400.

He closed the catalog. Picked up Rusty around the shoulders. The cat stretched out his body, yawning. “Who am I kidding? I’ll probably spend my whole life here, busing tables, shoveling, and taking out the trash at the Sugar Ridge Resort for $7.25 an hour.”

It wasn’t like his grades were going to land him any scholarships. Reading gave him the most trouble—he just couldn’t figure out the words. The letters lifted off the page and rearranged themselves. He’d rather skip class than read aloud.

They’d probably keep him in high school until he hit thirty.

No, he’d drop out long before then.

He set the cat on the floor, and Rusty curled around his legs. Tuck tried not to accidentally kick him as he returned to the stove and poured in the macaroni. The water bubbled up, then flowed over the side onto the white cooktop.

He turned down the heat a little, stirred, and dropped a lid onto the pot.

Then he pulled the dishes out of the sink, stacking them on the side so he could fill it with hot water, and let Colleen tiptoe into his head.

He’d caught her today practicing her serve in the gym, her blonde hair pulled into a long, beautiful tail, her blue eyes like the sky on a crisp winter day. They could hold him captive, make him forget his name.

Just like that day when he’d seen her watching one of his competitions. It took him a full eight months to ask her out. But who could blame him? She was a Decker.

Colleen had stopped her warm-up this afternoon to run over to him. He’d plucked the volleyball from her arms, twirled it on his finger.

She snatched it away. “Show-off.”

He grabbed her around the waist, pulling her to himself as he leaned against the wall. “This is showing off.” Then he ducked his head and kissed her.

He’d kissed his share of girls—after all, he was a senior—but none of them like Colleen. She tasted like pure sunshine, and kissing her made his entire body feel golden. She wound her arms around his neck and leaned into him.

The memory of Mrs. Decker catching them at the park on Tuesday had vanished.

Colleen broke away, and he nuzzled her neck, drew in her smell—something floral lingering on her skin—then landed a kiss by her ear. “You’re going to annihilate them tonight.”

Biting her lip, she glanced at the door to the locker room. “Technically we don’t have to be in warm-ups for another twenty minutes. Wanna drive me downtown for coffee?”

He considered her. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. Smiled.

“Let’s go.”

He’d parked out back by the gym doors, and since she didn’t
bother to grab her jacket, he turned the heat on as soon as he fired up his ancient soft-top Jeep.

“I heard that it’s already snowing in Montana,” Tuck said as he pulled out of the lot. “What I wouldn’t give to be on the slopes.”

They drove to the Java Cup and were pulling in when she put a hand on his arm. “Wait. There’s my mom’s SUV.”

He scanned the coffee shop but couldn’t see Mrs. Decker through any of the front windows.

“I don’t need coffee,” Colleen said, stiffening.

He frowned. “Just because your mother is here? Listen, Colleen, I know she freaked you out when she caught us kissing—”

“My mother is paranoid I’m going to get pregnant or something. Wreck my life.”

“With me.” He hadn’t wanted it to leak out quite like that. It sounded a little too vulnerable.

“So what they don’t like you. I don’t care,” she said, shrugging.

And then he made it worse. “You know, it wouldn’t be terrible if they liked me.”

He knew she didn’t mean for her laugh to be so harsh, but it cut a swath through him. “Oh, Tuck.
Really
?
”

He tightened his jaw a bit. “Right. What was I thinking?” He put the car into gear. “Let’s go to the harbor. I’ll give you a pep talk.”

Then he winked because he needed her smile.

Colleen played an outstanding game that night, and he cheered her on, despite her words burning inside him. Especially as he watched the entire row of Deckers eating popcorn, laughing. Like they belonged together. Like they were happy. Mrs. Decker had surely seen him as she entered the gym, but she didn’t invite him to sit with them.

He wasn’t that unlikable, was he?

Tuck set the egg-crusted plates in the hot, sudsy water to soak. Added water to the egg pan and set it on the counter.

Once upon a time, their dishwasher worked. But that was when his dad lived with them, when he could fix nearly anything.

Except his marriage.

Tuck had stopped trying to figure out which weekend he might spend with his father. Truthfully, it seemed his old man couldn’t care less. Sure, he gave Tuck a free pass to Sugar Ridge, where he worked maintenance. And Tuck had seen him on the sideline at a few of last year’s competitions. But only because he worked the lifts or the snowmaking equipment or ran the graders.

Tucker’s memories of the life they’d once had were fading.

Behind him, the lid on the pot rattled. By the time he turned around, more milky foam covered the stove. The air reeked of burned pasta.

He turned off the heat and moved the pot away to let it sit. Then he dove back into the dishes. The water scalded his hands as he scrubbed at the egg residue.

So what they don’t like you. I don’t care.

He couldn’t erase the words, that expression on Colleen’s face, from his brain. As if she might be dating him to spite her parents.

Yeah, that felt good.

What he really wanted was to knock on their door, hold out his hand, and apologize for what Mrs. Decker saw going on in his Jeep in the lighthouse parking lot at lunchtime on Tuesday. Not like he hadn’t gone farther with a few other girls. But they weren’t Colleen Decker, daughter of the almost mayor, part of one of the most respected families in town. Everyone knew Nathan and Annalise Decker. And the fact that their daughter liked him almost made him feel . . . like he wasn’t such a loser.

He rinsed the plate, set it in the drying rack.

It wasn’t like he expected them to invite him over for Thanksgiving dinner, but . . . okay, that might be nice. A real family dinner like the kind he used to have.

Sheesh, he was turning into a Hallmark commercial. He rinsed the next plate.

So what they don’t like you. I don’t care.

Someday he was going to show them that he wasn’t what they saw—an irresponsible board bum trying to steal their daughter.

He rinsed the last plate and grabbed a towel, wiping the dishes dry before he added them to the cupboard. He drained the water from the sink, then grabbed a colander for the pasta. It fell out into the colander in one rubber lump.

When he rinsed it, the pasta loosened. He added it back to the pot, then opened the fridge. Sure enough, the milk smelled like it had gone bad a week ago. He found a container of old margarine, cleaned it out, added some water, and managed a weak replica of macaroni and cheese. Scooping it onto a plate, he took it to his bedroom.

He’d kept his brother Jazz’s Tom Sims posters plastering the room as a way of keeping him alive. Tucker straightened the blue denim comforter before he sat on it. Probably he should clean his room—at least try to separate the clean laundry from the dirty, now a jumbled mess on his floor.

He hit the Play button on his old television/VCR unit, and up popped an old snowboarding video, the kind that his brother ordered every month, with tricks and spins and excellent snow. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Tuck lost himself in the freedom of the board as he shoveled dinner down.

When he finished, Tuck returned the plate to the kitchen, ran
some water over it, added it to the drainer. Then he washed the stove of the residue. He drained the milk from the carton, smashed it, and tossed it in with the recycling.

He turned off the lights in the kitchen, leaving the outside light burning for his mother, a glow over their weathered porch and the now-yellow hosta overgrowing the stone walk.

This time of night, with the house so quiet, his room echoed with memory—his brother, on the other side of the room, telling him stories of snowboarding or the girls he’d met in Colorado when he’d hitchhiked out to work one summer.

Tuck lay back with his head on his hands. Stared at the poster of the glistening white snow, the spray of a boarder as he did a McTwist.

How he missed his brother.

Hopefully he had gone fast when the avalanche took him. Hopefully he hadn’t lain there entombed for days until he finally suffocated. He hated to imagine what that might feel like, suffocating.

Or maybe he already knew.

He closed his eyes, listening to the silence.

Yeah, Colleen was hot, but he wanted more than just her in his arms.

He wanted her perfect life.

Any day now Helen Decker might wake to a frost, and all the apples on her Honeycrisp tree would be ruined. But picking them early meant she’d never get that perfect crunch.

Helen stood in the yard, the sun just cresting over the lake, testing the scent of the air, smelling the loamy briskness of autumn. She pulled an apple from the overladen tree, checking it for brown spots, wormholes, disease.

The Honeycrisp sported a perfectly speckled red skin, with shades of yellow and lime green, hinting at the delicious sweet-sour crunch that sucked the moisture from her mouth and left it tingling with a refined tartness. Perfect for apple pies and apple crumble and caramel apples, and the pride of her corner lot on Third Avenue and Sixth Street for the past forty years.

Yes, today she could harvest.

She would take the first barrel to Nathan’s house. Thankfully he lived just across the street, kitty-corner—his idea of keeping an eye on her. Maybe Colleen and the boys would want to take one to school. Later, she’d make a pie—or three. Bring one to her sister Miriam’s, another to Nathan’s. She’d keep one for herself, although she’d end up freezing most of it. A pie might last her two months if she cut it up and froze the pieces individually.

Still, she always netted enough apples to make twenty quarts of applesauce, enough apple crisp to outfit church potlucks for the winter season, holiday pies for her sister and her family, and sometimes even apple cider for the annual Mad Moose community dance.

She could probably manage hauling out the apple press by herself. It wasn’t heavy, just bulky, and Nathan had enough on his plate today.

She’d have to make sure she listened to the radio show this morning. Maybe call in with a question that Nathan could brilliantly answer. She’d also call Miriam, remind her to tell the ladies in her apartment building.

Nathan would be the best thing that ever happened to this town. He’d certainly been the best thing that ever happened to her.

Helen worked on her gloves, then began pulling the apples from the tree, checking for only the ripest. She’d harvest them slowly over the next few days, even week, praying away the frost, although she guessed they’d have real snow on the ground before Halloween.

Those with bruises or worms or bird dings she dropped into a paper bag. The good apples she placed in the red wicker bucket, working her way around the tree, filling it until the apples brimmed the top.

The first harvest of the season.

She couldn’t wait to show Annalise and the grandkids.

And maybe Annalise’s uncle Frank, if he was still in town.

Not that she noticed him really, but to have one of Annalise’s relatives turn up after so many years . . . Helen could admit to her curiosity.

And he wasn’t a chore to look at, with that short salt-and-pepper hair, blue eyes that seemed to take her in with one gulp. He’d met her gaze without guile and shaken her hand.

She liked that kind of frankness in a man. Made her want to trust him.

If she ever had a mind to trust a man again.

Lugging the apple basket to the porch, she set it on the steps, avoiding the broken boards, then pulled off her gloves and went inside.

The coffee had finished, so she poured herself a cup and added some almond milk and sweetener. She used to take it black but over the years began to soften the bitter edge with milk. Sometimes she even went down to the Java Cup and had one of those lattes. She’d noticed a new flavor this season—pumpkin.

Maybe she’d give that a taste.

She jumped into the shower. The phone was ringing when she finished. Dripping wet, she grabbed it, wrapping her bathrobe around her.

“I left a message. Where have you been?”

Miriam had gotten more demanding after her husband, William, passed three years ago. Helen hated to think that she might have done the same thing after Dylan died . . . but no, he’d been gone months before that.

Helen had since spent her life making sure she demanded nothing from anyone, thank you.

“It’s apple day. The Honeycrisps are ready. I was out in the yard. Where did you think I was?”

“I didn’t know. I saw you at the game last night, talking to some man.”

“And what? Did you think I took off dancing with him or something?” Helen put her on speakerphone and wiped cream on her face.

“What’s got into you, Helen? Of course I didn’t think that. You’re used to being alone.” Her tone changed, turned quiet. “It’s not like being widowed. There’s always that empty place on the other side of the bed.”

Helen stared at herself in the mirror, at the lines etched around her eyes. Right. She knew
nothing
about the emptiness on the other side of the bed. She shook her head. “It’s Annalise’s uncle Frank. He’s visiting her for a few days.”

“He’s Annalise’s uncle? I thought she didn’t have any family.”

Helen sawed her makeup drawer free. So it had been a few years since she’d dug through it. She found some blue eye shadow—or how about pink?—and layered it on.

No, that didn’t look right. She took a tissue and wiped it off. “He’s just back from some overseas trip. Or maybe he lived there. I didn’t get all the details.”

When she found the mascara, she pulled out the brush. It clumped like paste on the end. She dropped it back into the drawer, shut it. “He’s not in town for long, I don’t think. Listen, I meant to tell you—Nathan has a radio show today at nine o’clock. He’s answering questions on some community issues. I know he’d be grateful for an audience.”

“I can’t believe he’s running for mayor. Jerry was doing a fine job. I don’t know why he’s quitting.”

“Miriam, Jerry wants to retire. And Nathan’s your nephew. Vote for him.”

As Helen towel-dried her hair, she considered herself again in the mirror. She’d aged, yes, but her eyes were still young. At least today.

Maybe she should color her hair. Imagine, showing up again as a blonde, especially after all these years. Her battle with cancer had stripped the color from her hair way too early. Painfully early. She’d aged a decade or two practically overnight. In fact, she’d looked about sixty for twenty years.

“Of course I’ll vote for him,” Miriam said. “Say, I might stop by and pick a few apples off Mama’s tree. You don’t mind, do you? I want to make a pie for Janice and the boys.”

“That’s fine.” Never mind that her mother had planted the tree when Nathan was born. That she’d sold her house to Helen after her divorce. That Helen had owned the bungalow free and clear for twenty years. Miriam still thought the house belonged to her, too.

“I’ll see you later.” Helen hung up before her sister could drive her to her final nerve.

Miriam never could forgive her for throwing Dylan to the street. Well, she hadn’t been there that night he’d come home, tanked up and angry.

Or rather, Helen had been angry. And kept being angry. She closed her eyes against the memories swelling in her mind. So long ago. And yet she was still paying the price.

She had no doubt Nathan’s bid for mayor would drag up a few dormant accusations. But she’d become calloused to them.

And frankly, Miriam was right. She wasn’t going to find anyone to marry this late in the game. Besides, the divorce label still hung over her head, despite Dylan’s passing so long ago. Divorced . . . not widowed.

She combed her hair, then changed into jeans and a clean denim shirt with a pumpkin stitched on the lapel. She looked for earrings and found a couple matching pumpkins Colleen had given her a few years ago.

She caught her image again in the mirror.

She looked frumpy.

But maybe that’s what she was. Old and frumpy.

A grandmother.

Well, that wasn’t such a terrible thing. She should count her blessings.

She could too easily be dead.

Pulling on a jacket, Helen turned up the collar, added a pink scarf—Annalise had purchased it at one of their local street fairs this summer—and grabbed fresh gloves.

The sun had cleared the horizon, brilliant and burning off the lightest haze of white from the tips of the grass as she descended her steps.

She heard the crack on the third step and swung her hand out to catch her fall. Her foot went through the board anyway, and she stumbled, pitching forward off the step.

“Oh!”

Helen landed on her hands, rolling out into the yard and coming to rest faceup under the apple tree.

Nice. So very nice.

“Are you okay?”

She heard the voice from across the street, coming toward her, and closed her eyes.

Perfect. Yet she couldn’t help a laugh. Oh, how graceful. If she had any lingering thoughts about impressing Uncle Frank . . .

She sat up, icy dew saturating her jeans. “I’m fine!”

But of course, the man, wearing a baseball hat, a pair of worn jeans, and that leather jacket, came trumpeting into her yard as if he were playing fullback for the Vikings.

She scrambled to her feet in case he had a case of overblown chivalry and decided to scoop her up.

“I saw you fall—”

“I just tripped. My front steps are in need of repair.” She turned and checked the damage. The board had broken all the way through, and worse, her bushel of apples had spilled down the steps, into the grass.

She hated bruised apples.

“You could have gotten hurt.”

“What, I look that old?”

That comment worked some color into his face.

She smiled. “I’m kidding. You’re sweet to run over here, really. But I’m fine. What are you doing up this early?” She rescued the bushel basket and began picking up apples, checking them for bruises.

“I’m an early riser, and I saw you out here picking apples this morning.” He bent beside her to retrieve the apples. “What kind are they?”

“Honeycrisp. They’re a delicacy.” She handed him one and he cleaned it on his jacket, then took a bite.

She grinned at the way his eyes blinked, the twist of his face.

“Sour,” he said between chews.

He had nice eyes. Grayish-blue, with a touch of humor.

“They make for great pies. And caramel apples.” She finished picking up the apples and hoisted the bucket.

He took another bite before tucking the apple in his pocket, reaching for the basket.

She held on. “I can carry this.”

“I’m sure you can, but indulge me.” He smiled, one half of his mouth tweaking up.

“I was bringing them over to Nathan’s—”

“Perfect. I’m going that way.” He winked.

She didn’t know what to do with that.

And then, she wasn’t sure why, but the words just sort of erupted from her, like she’d been holding them back for years. Like they’d been waiting to ripen and were suddenly ready to harvest. Before the frost came and destroyed them.

“Would you like to come in and I’ll make you an apple pie?”

He just meant to explore Annalise’s world and meet the people in her life. Frank didn’t really mean to stay for pie.

But what was a guy to do? Helen had a laugh about her—the way she rolled out from under that tree, bouncing up as if she were twenty-three.

Cute little pumpkin-shaped earrings dangling from her ears.

And the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg drifting from her kitchen as she sang Sinatra while he fixed her front porch step . . . Yes, he liked her.

It felt good to work with his hands, pry up the broken board, cut a new one, replace it, and while he was at it, patch two more. Helen wouldn’t be falling through her porch anymore, at least not while he was around.

And when she invited him into her kitchen for a slice of crisp, tangy, warm apple pie à la mode, for a moment his life stopped spinning and settled into a sweet, perfect place.

He’d been unmoored since Margaret died. But sitting in Helen’s
kitchen, letting her tell him about how Nathan and Annalise met and fell in love, and about the early years of their marriage, felt like coming home after a long stint at sea.

“It seemed to be love at first sight. The minute she walked in the door, I knew she was right for Nathan. She looked at him like he was her hero. And she’s treated me like a second mother.”

Helen set coffee in front of him alongside a carton of milk, then slid back onto her chair. “So sad she had to lose her own family. I’m glad Annalise has you.”