First Frost

by Sarah Addison Allen

  She walked back to him. He seemed smaller, frailer, sitting there as she stood over him. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I told you. I’m going to Florida.”

  “How are you going to get there?” She glanced at his polished shoes with the holes in the soles.

  “By bus.”

  “I have a car. I could take you,” she said, the words out of her mouth before she realized she’d said them. But once they were out, she thought they sounded wonderful, like the first time you hear what will become your favorite song.

  Russell shook his head. “I don’t have a heart anymore, Anne.”

  “And I don’t have expectations anymore. What?” she asked with a laugh. “You thought I wanted a love affair? You’re old enough to be my father.”

  He clutched at his heart dramatically. “I’m wounded.”

  She scoffed as she sat back down. “Hardly.”

  He considered her for a moment. “If not a love affair, then what?”

  “I want stories,” she said. “And I don’t care if they’re lies. I’m tired of picking around in other people’s lives, making things up on my own. I want to hear everything you have to say. I’ve lived here all my life, and all the stories are the same. Every one of my husbands, the same story. But you’ve been everywhere, haven’t you? I want to follow you where you go, and see what you do. I think you’ve been on your own for a while, haven’t you? At some point, you’re not going to make it on your own. I could be there for you. I’m a decent cook. I could take early retirement and get a little money in the mail every month. And there’s over six thousand in the inn safe that my brother won’t miss until he discovers I’m gone.”

  He hesitated for just a moment. Then he shook his head dismissively. It was ridiculous, but she was offended, offended that she wasn’t deviant enough for him. “Too messy,” he said. “He’d call the police.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed by now, I’m nosy,” Anne pointed out. “That’s how I know my brother has flash drives full of video chats he’s recorded, showing him having virtual sex with some woman in Finland who calls herself Karma-licious. He spends hundreds of dollars a month on her. I could take one of the flash drives and then leave one in the safe so he’ll know I know. He won’t call the police.”

  That tempted him. She could tell. Food. Money. Those were his weaknesses. He took a deep breath and exhaled with a long, drawn-out sigh. He stared into the smoldering ash of his failed attempt at cash. “Oh, Anne, it’s not as glamorous as you think it is. You have a good life here. I’m going to a charity camp for retired circus workers.”

  “Do I look like someone who wants glamour? I think that sounds fantastic.” She reached into her jeans pocket and brought out the flyer she’d taken from him. She unfolded it and showed him. “What do you say, Great Banditi?”

  He studied the flyer, looking at the old photo as if through a telescope pointed back in time. “You can keep that, if you’d like. But on the condition that you remember me fondly. There are so few people who do.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Who could forget you?”

  He smiled derisively. “Oh, many people remember me. But not fondly.”

  Anne pushed the flyer into his hands. “I’m not keeping it. I’m going with you. Meet me in front of the inn at five o’clock, after tea. All the new guests will be checked in by then. My brother won’t know I’m gone until the morning.”

  She felt her nerves tingling and her stomach jumped with excitement as she walked away, even though Russell called sadly after her, “It’s been a pleasure, Anne.”

  * * *

  “Checkout is at eleven, Mr. Zahler,” Andrew Ainsley said, sitting at the front desk like a large, lazy sentinel.

  “Thank you. I am aware. I’ll be down shortly,” Russell said as he walked up the staircase after making sure the ashes of his Lorelei Waverley file were cool. He reached his room and closed the door behind him. He’d left the curtains open and warm autumnal sunshine was covering the bed, making it glow. He wanted to lie down, to absorb the softness of the mattress one last time.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed and waited for sounds of other guests leaving for checkout. He would sneak out behind them and avoid Andrew Ainsley at the front desk.

  He took the photo out of his pocket, wondering why he had saved it at the last minute. He certainly didn’t like being reminded of his failures.

  He was usually good at reading people, and he’d been almost certain Claire Waverley wouldn’t tell anyone about his visit to her, that she wouldn’t immediately call her family for support. Everything he’d learned about her had pointed to a singular, contained person who liked her mysterious air. She wasn’t the kind of person who would risk others thinking there was nothing special about her.

  He’d obviously pegged her wrong.

  And then there was the moment she’d leaned in and said, Take a bite. I dare you. He’d had such a clear image of Lorelei that it had startled him and he’d felt a cold chill go down his spine.

  He hadn’t expected that, either.

  But in everything else, in every other detail, he had been meticulous. It should have gone so smoothly. He’d spent countless hours in libraries over the past few decades, when he couldn’t find a place to stay in towns he’d drifted to. He would charm librarians into helping him search for information. Because of his time with the carnival, there were thin lines connecting him to so many people that, if the lines were visible, Russell’s life would look like a string map. He stored away secrets and collected photographs, always on the lookout to add to the folders he’d amassed on people he’d once known. Stories formed this way. Angles.

  He looked at the photo of himself, Lorelei, Ingler, Barbie and the child. It all made perfect sense, the story he told. Barbie and Ingler and their solemn little girl. Lorelei and her wild streak, stealing the baby away. Russell an innocent bystander, watching the drama unfurl forty years ago. Naming the child Donna had been a nice touch.

  But that was all it was. A story.

  The truth was, Russell had met the beautiful, tragic Lorelei at that bar in the photo the very night the photo had been taken. She’d waltzed in with her child, a daughter, Claire. No one told her to leave, to take the baby out of the bar. Lorelei could charm anyone. Russell had bought her a beer and invited her to sit with him and his new friends Ingler and his wife, Barbie. They were drifters, newly hired at the carnival as ticket takers. Barbie had wanted to hold the toddler Lorelei had on her hip, so Lorelei handed her over, and at that moment the bartender had taken a photo with the new camera he’d been showing off.

  Later that evening, Russell had taken Lorelei back to his travel trailer. She’d smiled as she’d shown him the camera she’d stolen from the bartender. For the three weeks the carnival was in town, Lorelei had stayed with him, her quiet little girl sleeping in a corner. Russell often forgot she was there. He and Lorelei had fun. She was sly, with a sleight of hand that impressed even him. She was also beautiful and charming and could make everyone love her. She was just the kind of restless soul, the misfit, the society runaway that carnivals attracted. She could have stayed and fit right in. But Russell knew she wouldn’t. At the time, she had been too young to realize you can’t outrun your demons.

  On the day the carnival broke camp and hit the road again, Lorelei disappeared with her silent daughter in tow. She stole a few hundred dollars from Russell, but left the camera for him.

  In some ways, she had been no different from the many women he’d picked up to share time with in every town. But in other ways, she’d been wholly unique.

  He remembered once, one night when they’d gotten drunk in his trailer, she’d told him the story of her strange North Carolina family and their apple tree and the vision she’d had when she’d eaten an apple. He remembered her reaching over and grabbing an apple he’d had on a small plastic table. She’d touched it, and a thread of white frost had snaked over the apple, eve
ntually covering the entire thing. She’d then tossed the cold apple at him with a laugh. “Take a bite. I dare you.”

  And he remembered thinking, Everything I make up is nothing compared to her reality.

  They’d woken up the next morning, hungover, and she’d never said another word about the incident. Sometimes he wondered if he’d dreamed the whole thing.

  He heard some voices in the hallway, the shuffling of luggage. The couple in the room next to his were walking downstairs to check out.

  Russell tucked away the photo, then picked up his suitcase and looked around the room, making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

  He thought of Anne Ainsley, and he really did hope she would think of him fondly. That was unusually important to him right now. For once in his life, maybe he would leave something good behind, a few conversations and stories she’d remember with a smile, the Autumn the Great Banditi Came to Visit.

  He took out the folded carnival flyer she’d given back to him and he set it on the bed.

  Then the Great Banditi did what he did best.

  He vanished.

  14

  Before homeroom that Friday morning, Bay went to the main office in the rotunda to drop off a note from her mom, confirming that she knew Bay had missed school yesterday, that way Bay wouldn’t have an unconfirmed absence in her file. No one liked going to the main office. It smelled like feet, and the secretary, Ms. Scatt, was unfriendly and put too much white concealer under her eyes and everyone was afraid to tell her how unnatural it looked.

  Bay had just walked out of the office when she heard Phin call to her, “Hey, Bay!”

  She looked down the hallway to see Phin at an open locker, his backpack at his feet. She walked over to him. She hadn’t known his locker was on this floor. Then again, almost no one in school knew where their lockers were, which was why everyone had such heavy backpacks. In every building, the lockers on the left side were painted red, and the lockers on the right side were painted black—the school colors. But, over the years, the red lockers had faded to an unmanly pink, so none of the boys liked to have those lockers, and they traded with girls who didn’t like the black lockers, and everyone eventually forgot where they were supposed to be.

  “Hi, Phin,” she said, enjoying the oddity of seeing him out of context. She almost never saw him in school. They didn’t have any of the same classes or even share the same lunch period.

  “You haven’t been at the bus stop all week,” he said, closing his locker, which was pink because he obviously couldn’t get anyone to trade. “What’s going on? There’s some ridiculous rumor about you and Josh being caught on the green on Wednesday.”

  She leaned against the lockers beside him. “My mom grounded me because I caught a ride home with Josh the night of the dance. Then I went out with him without her permission on Wednesday.”

  Phin eyed her flatly. “With Josh Matteson.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  He shouldered his backpack, which was heavy enough to make him lose his balance a little. It probably weighed more than he did. “If he’s leading you on, he’ll have me to deal with.”

  That made Bay laugh. “Phin? Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously.”

  She sobered as she pushed herself away from the lockers. “I don’t think that will be necessary. Apparently, he owes you a debt of gratitude. Something about a video of the fight at the Halloween dance.”

  “Have you seen it?” he asked.

  “No. My mom has my phone, and now my laptop. Because of Wednesday. What’s on this mysterious video?”

  “Nothing.” Phin looked over her shoulder. Pink blotches appeared on his cheeks and neck.

  Bay turned around to see Riva Alexander walking down the hall. She was one of those girls who looked good with weight on them, although she wouldn’t know it until she was older. The scarf around her waist today had tiny bells on it that made a ting, ting, ting sound as she walked. Seniors generally kept to the senior building, where most of their classes were, so it was unusual to see her here.

  Instead of walking by them, on her way to somewhere else, she stopped in front of Bay and Phin. “Hi, Phin. Am I interrupting something?”

  “No,” he said immediately, which made Bay smile.

  “I saw the video. I just wanted to give you this,” she said, handing him a folded piece of paper. “I wrote you a note.”

  “Uh, thanks,” he said, taking it from her.

  Riva walked away, head high.

  “What was that all about?” Bay asked.

  “I have no idea,” Phin said. “Is it just me, or is everything getting weird around here?”

  The warning bell rang for homeroom, and everyone scattered.

  “It’s not just you,” Bay said with a smile as she backed away, then ran to homeroom before the final bell.

  * * *

  The first buses had just left and Bay was sitting on her familiar step in front of the school that afternoon, when she heard a car horn. She looked down to see her mother’s Mini Cooper pull in front of the school.

  So much for waiting to see if Josh would appear. She hadn’t seen him since Wednesday, when her family had shown up en masse on the downtown green, which was enough to scare anyone, let alone a poor eighteen-year-old who had done nothing wrong. She had no way of contacting him and, short of going to hang out in the senior building, she didn’t know how to talk to him at school, either. She’d only been in the senior building twice. Once on her first day of school, when she’d gotten lost and had seen Josh for the first time, then when she’d gone back to give him her note.

  Bay trudged down the steps and got in her mother’s car without a word. Her mother was wearing her hip apron, which meant they were going back to her salon.

  “Claire said she wasn’t working on candy today, so I thought I’d pick you up,” Sydney said, pulling away from the curb, making someone honk at her for darting in front of them.

  “Oh,” Bay said, feeling a little guilty for acting so surly. “I thought this had something to do with Josh.”

  “We’ll figure out Josh some other time,” Sydney said.

  “How is Aunt Claire?” Bay asked, thinking about yesterday and how seriously Claire had taken the question of her heritage. If someone had ever said to Bay that she wasn’t a Waverley, she would have laughed. She never would have taken it seriously. But that was because she’d never been left to figure things out on her own, with only a few clues to lead the way.

  “She said she took care of it,” Sydney said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But I trust her.”

  They passed the businesses and offices that shared the same thoroughfare as the high school, then Sydney took the highway loop that led downtown, which was quicker than cutting through the neighborhoods. Bay could close her eyes and still know where they were. She knew this place by heart.

  “Did you mean what you said yesterday, that you wanted to meet that man just because he might be able to tell you more things about your mother?” Bay asked. “Even if they were bad things?”

  “Yes,” Sydney said. “She will always be a big mystery to me. But I think she’s an even bigger mystery to Claire. I’d want to know, if just for Claire.”

  As Bay looked out the passenger side window, she said, “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. I have you and Dad, and that’s more than you and Claire ever had. I know you came back so I could grow up here, even though you didn’t want to. You never left me, or let me believe I was anything but myself. I’ll never have the doubts or questions you and Claire have. You’ve done a good job, you know that? You and Claire both. You’ve done a good job.” Bay felt herself getting choked up, which embarrassed her.

  “Wow,” Sydney said, turning her head briefly to look at Bay. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “But you’re still grounded.”

  Bay leaned her head back against the se
at and smiled.

  * * *

  Once they got to the beauty salon, Bay manned the phones, figuring, since she’d lost her candy job with Claire, this was going to be her after-school employment until her mother found another receptionist.

  She sat behind the desk and tried to read Romeo and Juliet, but the book was falling apart. She hated when this started to happen. She hated letting go. But it was time to put the cover of the book on her ceiling, and start something new.

  She reached down and stuffed the book into her backpack. That’s when she noticed the photo that the old man had tried to blackmail Aunt Claire with. Bay had kept it with her.

  She took it out and studied it in detail, then she looked up and stared out the salon’s window, mulling things over. The day was growing darker, sending shadows across the green. Horace J. Orion’s head looked like he was about to take a long winter’s nap.

  It had been at this time of day when she’d first seen the old man standing on the green, a suitcase by his side, no form of transportation nearby.

  A suitcase.

  The next time she’d seen him, he’d been taking a stroll down Pendland Street.

  There was an inn within walking distance of the Waverley house on Pendland Street.

  He’d been staying at the Pendland Street Inn.

  Bay immediately stood up and hurried to the door. “I’m going to stretch my legs,” she called to her mother. “I’ll be right back!”

  * * *

  Parked in front of the inn, Anne Ainsley sat and waited behind the wheel of her old Kia SUV, a relic from her last marriage, but at least it was paid off. It was well after five o’clock now. She’d almost been late because she’d forgotten that Halloween was tomorrow and Andrew had wanted her to buy candy, the expensive kind, so they’d have it for the trick-or-treaters that always came to the inn. Anne had raced to the nearest drugstore, bought the candy, and had arrived back with three minutes to spare.

  But she’d been waiting in her car ever since.

  Russell wasn’t coming.

  She leaned over to look up at her old family homeplace, and she knew she couldn’t go back in. She’d packed all her clothing and her few belongings. Then she’d taken some things from the inn she thought they might need. A card table and folding chairs from the basement. Some of the good linens, pillows and towels. A digital radio. Some cookware. In addition to the cash from the safe, she’d also taken a few good pieces of her mother’s jewelry, pearl necklaces and ruby earrings, to sell in case she needed to. Andrew kept them in a cigar box in his closet. He’d probably forgotten about them. The only reason he kept them was because he hadn’t wanted Anne to have them.