First Frost

by Sarah Addison Allen

  Bay showed up after Claire had called Sydney with a grocery list. Bay lugged in the bags and boxes of food and said her mom had dropped her off because she had a small errand to run, but that she’d be there soon to help out.

  Buster arrived a short time later, looking groggy and confused.

  “I never work on Saturdays. What is this?” he asked, looking around at all the food littering the countertops, where candy usually was. “Am I dreaming? I am, aren’t I? I’m dreaming.”

  Claire had called him to help with the party preparations, but also because he deserved to know. “This is first frost,” Claire said. “I’m quitting the candy business and focusing on my catering again. I thought you should know.”

  “It’s about damn time,” he said. “Who knew you could do all this?”

  Claire smiled and looked around the kitchen. “My grandmother Mary.”

  15

  Dear Josh,

  I know we’ve never talked before, but you probably know who I am already. I’m Bay Waverley, the girl who knows where everything belongs. Nice title, huh? It makes me sound like a neat freak. Which I am, a little. But that’s another story.

  Anyway, have you ever had the feeling that you were waiting for something? I have. I feel that way all the time. I feel like I’m always waiting for things to fall into place, to fall where they belong, so I can finally take a deep breath. When I saw you in the hallway on the first day of school, I got that feeling. I don’t know how, or why, but I know I belong with you in some way. I just wanted you to know. I’m not going to hang around you and demand your attention. I don’t expect anything from you. But we spend all our lives looking for puzzle pieces that will give us a clearer picture of ourselves, of where we’re supposed to go and who we’re supposed to be. And I found you. I can’t explain what a relief it is. Isn’t it a relief? Out of everything uncertain in our lives, at least we know this. I’ll be here for you if you ever need me. I’ll be waiting outside on the school steps in the afternoons for as long as I can, if you want to talk.

  Sincerely yours,

  Bay

  Josh had read the note so many times that the fold creases were getting thin and were about to tear. He was lying in his bedroom, which was still decorated in that pretentious way his mother had designed when he was younger: white clapboard bed frame, nautical blue-striped comforter, the large letter J above his bed. If it weren’t for his messy computer desk and the soccer posters and trophies, it would look like something you’d see in a real estate listing.

  You probably know who I am already.

  Of course he already knew her. Josh had been given the “Don’t Even Consider Her an Option” speech a long time ago. First from his mom, then from his dad, who didn’t know his mom had already said something. So, yeah, he got it. Mattesons don’t mix well with Waverleys. Like glue and ketchup, his dad, the king of bad similes, had said.

  All his life he’d seen her around town, her hair as dark as storm clouds, always flowing behind her because she always seemed to be running. But he kept his distance, and Bay never seemed to notice him, not until her first day of high school. And then she had to blow everything out of the water with this note.

  He’d told her more about his unhappiness than he’d ever told anyone. He couldn’t believe he told her he went to bed at nine o’clock. But she didn’t seem to mind. She was just so calm. Sitting next to her, the world kind of made more sense. Don’t go to Notre Dame. Don’t go into business with your father. Go to work at the soccer arena in Hickory if you want to. But don’t define yourself by what you don’t want to do. Define it by what you do want to do.

  Was this why his parents didn’t want him associating with a Waverley? Because they made you believe there really was a choice? Because they could bewitch you into thinking you could be happy?

  He wished he could stay away. He knew that’s what his parents would want him to do. But his parents weren’t here. They were visiting Josh’s brother Peyton at college, then they were going on an anniversary cruise. They were going to be gone for a whole month. They never would have left Josh’s brother Peyton home alone. And proudly so. Peyton was rowdy and popular—not popular like Josh—king-of-the-world popular. If their parents had gone away for a month when Peyton had been in high school, Peyton would have thrown parties and broken into the liquor cabinet and gotten two hundred girls knocked up (his words). Their parents always called Josh the more responsible one. That irked him. It always had. His brother, who was tall with their father’s broad shoulders, once held him down in the grass on their back lawn and kept calling him “Mama’s Pretty Boy.” “Mama’s Pretty Boy does everything he’s told. Mama’s Pretty Boy should be in a boy band, shouldn’t you, Mama’s Pretty Boy?”

  Peyton had matured a lot since going off to college, but they still weren’t exactly friends. In fact, sometimes it seemed Peyton knew exactly what he was doing when, instead of going to Notre Dame like their grandfather, he went to Georgia Tech. And instead of studying business and taking over Matteson Enterprises like their father wanted him to, he was going to law school next year. He knew he didn’t have to do it, because Josh would.

  It was all just assumed, and Josh had gone along with it, until he’d interned at Matteson Enterprises over the summer. He’d been miserable. The offices had no windows. And, for the first time, it occurred to him how crazy it was that they were constructing entire houses inside a plant. It might have been different if they built houses the traditional way, out in the sun. But this was so … industrial. Everyone walked around with their pale, industrial skin. He couldn’t breathe. The entire summer, he couldn’t catch his breath.

  There was a knock on his bedroom door. Josh hid the note under his pillow as Joanne, their longtime housekeeper, poked her head in. Her hair had turned gray over the past few years, but it was still straight and unmovable. Josh and Peyton used to think she used furniture lacquer on it.

  “There’s someone at the front door for you,” Joanne said.

  “Who is it?”

  Joanne wrinkled her nose. “A Waverley.”

  Josh got up quickly and ran past Joanne and down the staircase. He slid in his socks on the marble floor as he reached the front door and opened it.

  Bay’s mother was standing there.

  She was wearing jeans and shearling-lined loafers that looked like slippers. Her hair was down and sparkled with odd red highlights in the cool morning sun.

  “Mrs. Hopkins,” Josh said.

  “Call me Sydney,” she said, not smiling.

  He opened the door wider. “Come in.”

  “No, thank you.” She took a step back and said, “Why don’t you come out?”

  Josh stepped out in his stocking feet, closing the door on Joanne, who was at the top of the staircase, frowning at him. “What are you doing here?”

  Sydney put her hands into the pockets of her short plaid trench coat. “I don’t know you, Josh. I don’t know anything about you. I just know your dad and your mom from our high school days. And, I admit, what I think of them clouds what I think of you. Your dad hurt me in a way that I didn’t need to be hurt. That’s not going to happen to my daughter.” She looked out over the wide front lawn, the grass still bright green and now free of leaves. The lawn management company had come by yesterday and cleared the whole neighborhood because today was Halloween and no one wanted trick-or-treaters falling in rich neighborhoods and suing people. Because how inconvenient would that be? “Bay doesn’t fit into your world any more than I did. So don’t even try to make that happen.”

  “I don’t want to hurt Bay,” Josh said, meaning it. He didn’t. That had never been his intention.

  “I believe that,” she said, still looking out over the lawn. “I really do.”

  He found himself staring at Sydney, seeing so much of Bay in her. They had the same intense blue eyes, like something forged in flame. Sydney had seen more, though. Her eyes were narrower, more skeptical. Josh’s mother had never liked Syd
ney. His mother was jealous of anyone who took any of his father’s time or occupied any of his thoughts. His dad was her entire world. If she was in the middle of talking to Josh and his dad came home, she would stop midsentence and go to him, as if waves had swept her to sea. And his dad loved it, loved it the way his brother Peyton loved being king of the world. This was what men in his family did. They held court and they broke hearts and they didn’t care. Bay was sweet and kind, and too young to be hurt in a way she would carry around with her years later, like her mother. She had her whole life ahead of her. An extraordinary life, he was sure of it. Josh had just been playing with the ideas she’d put in his head. He’d never really taken them seriously. Maybe he was a true Matteson, after all, with his selfish dalliances. There was no getting out of what he should do. He was eighteen now. It was time to man up, as his father would say.

  “I won’t see her again. I promise.”

  That made Sydney laugh. She turned to him and said, “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. Not seeing her again would just make everyone miserable. Including me and her father.”

  “I don’t understand.” Josh folded his arms over his chest in the chill. He was only wearing his practice shorts and a T-shirt.

  “I can’t make your decisions for you. And I can’t make you or my daughter learn from my mistakes. What I can do is give you an option. There’s another choice you can make. One your father never even considered. But you might.”

  “What choice is that?”

  “Bay can’t live in your world. But you can live in hers. If you decide you want to, then come to our first-frost party this afternoon in the Waverley garden. We’re an odd family, but we’re close. You’re welcome to join us.” She patted his shoulder. “Now, go inside before you freeze.”

  He watched her walk to her Mini Cooper. Before she got inside, Josh called, “Sydney? What made you decide to come out here?”

  “There’s not a lot I can fix for her anymore. Her Band-Aid and bedtime story days are almost over. This, I can fix with a simple Welcome.”

  She got in her car and drove away, and Josh found himself thinking, Was it really that simple? Choosing a life?

  Maybe you don’t have to be led into the future. Maybe you can pick your own path.

  Maybe you don’t fall in love. Maybe you jump.

  Maybe, just maybe, it’s all a choice.

  * * *

  Henry arrived at the Waverley house later that day and he and Tyler set up the large table and the mismatched chairs in the garden, far enough away from the tree that it couldn’t knock them over.

  Evanelle and Fred arrived as the afternoon wore on, and together they all took the food outside. Loaves of fig and pepper bread, of course. But there was also lasagna cooked in miniature pumpkins, and pumpkin-seed brittle. Roasted red pepper soup, and spiced caramel potato cakes. Corn muffins and brown sugar popcorn balls and a dozen cupcakes, each with a different frosting, because what was first frost without frosting? Pear beer and clove ginger ale in dark bottles sat in the icy beverage tub. They ate well into the afternoon, and the more they ate, the more food there seemed to be. Pretzel buns and cranberry cheese and walnuts appearing, just when they thought they’d tasted everything.

  They laughed and talked about trivial things, because it was a relief to have the mood and the energy to talk about the small things now.

  When night began to fall, trick-or-treaters gave the Waverley house a wide berth, because who knew what candy Claire might give out? Something that would make the children embarrassingly honest, or something that would make them listen to their mothers? No, thank you, they all thought. Butterfingers and Snickers bars were much more preferable.

  The family brought out lanterns and halogen heaters when it got dark, and put them all around the garden. They lit candles on the table, all while the apple tree shook and blossoms continued to fall. When the petals hit the flames of the candles, they hissed and popped into ash, leaving behind a scent that was so beautiful and sweet that it smelled like both yesterday and tomorrow.

  Claire thought of all the raking she would have to do over the next few weeks, dragging large bags of apple blossoms to the curb every day, where they would inevitably be taken by women who thought if they bathed in the blossoms, their skin would glow; and men who thought if they stuffed their mattresses with the blossoms, they’d dream of money and fine sons and beautiful wives, all things men were supposed to want, but it really just made them dream of their mothers; and children who would build large white forts in their backyards with them and believe that they could live inside them forever and never grow up.

  She was looking forward to the work. She’d missed this.

  As things were winding down, they all grew tired of brushing blossoms off their hair and clothing, so they just sat there and let the petals accumulate on them, which the tree seemed to particularly delight in. After a while, they looked like they were frozen in time, covered in dust, like a cursed fairy-tale banquet, waiting for the prince to arrive and wake them up.

  Tyler and Henry stood, grabbing beers and going off to the side to have one of their man enclaves. They shook the blossoms off their clothing as they walked, like patient parents or indulgent lovers who had held still and let themselves be decorated.

  Evanelle kept checking her oxygen tank. She gave a look to Fred that it was almost time to go. Sydney kept glancing toward the garden gate, looking more and more disappointed until Bay finally asked her, “Who are you waiting for?”

  Sydney put her arm around Bay and said, “Prince Charming, I thought. I was wrong.”

  And so first frost was almost at an end.

  And Claire knew everything was going to be all right.

  * * *

  The lights of the candles flickered as the Waverley women talked at the table. The men watched from across the garden, watched in that way Bay envied, like they were rare birds. Somewhere on the street, children were laughing, their voices trailing on the wind like smoke.

  “I have something to tell you,” Bay said to her mom, the words suddenly bursting from her, seemingly without context.

  Sydney stopped in the middle of saying something to Claire, and they both turned to Bay.

  “That old man, I saw him yesterday afternoon,” Bay admitted. She’d kept this secret for an entire day, but she had to let it out. And maybe if she admitted it now, she would feel that sense of letting go, the happiness that first frost was always supposed to bring. She hadn’t felt it yet, and she’d been waiting all evening. Soon, they would all go home and first frost would be over and things were always set right by then. That’s the way it worked. “I had an idea that he might be staying at the Pendland Street Inn, so I ran over there. He was leaving town with Anne Ainsley. I asked him about your mom.”

  “You talked to him?” Sydney asked. “Alone?”

  “Just for a minute. He was in a hurry to leave. I asked and he said, as far as he knew, Claire is Lorelei’s real daughter. Then I asked him about Lorelei’s Waverley gift.”

  The sisters just stared at her, quiet now, and still, as still as stone.

  “He said it was frost,” Bay said. “He said she could turn things cold.”

  The barest of smiles reached Sydney’s lips. But Claire looked confused. “Her Waverley gift was frost?” Claire repeated. “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

  “I remember,” Sydney said. “I don’t remember much, but I remember that. The way she could blow flecks of ice off her hand in the middle of summer.”

  “Evanelle, did you know?’ Claire asked.

  Evanelle shook her head. Her entire body seemed swallowed by her big coat, like a heap of clothing sitting in the chair next to Bay. “Maybe it happened when she ate an apple. That tree always did love Lorelei.”

  Claire seemed bewildered. “Frost. That’s pretty amazing, even for a Waverley.”

  Sydney looked at Bay and said, “You’re grounded for another week.”

  “What?” Bay said,
surprised. “Why?”

  “Something I know I taught you. Don’t talk to strangers.”

  Bay rolled her eyes and slouched into her seat. “Mom, I’m fifteen.”

  “Fifteen and grounded.”

  Evanelle chuckled. “I forget how much I like it here with you girls. I’m sure am going to miss this when I’m gone.”

  Fred suddenly got up, to stretch his legs he said, but they all knew he didn’t like when Evanelle talked of dying. He walked over to Tyler and Henry.

  A wave of melancholy hit them, until Mariah, who was by the tree making snow angels in the blossoms, suddenly laughed and said, “My best friend said don’t be in such a hurry to leave, Evanelle. You still have things to do.”

  “We’ve recently discovered that Em isn’t real,” Claire explained to everyone.

  Everyone at the table said, “Ahhh.” Like it suddenly made sense.

  “She is real,” Mariah protested, seeming to be genuinely hurt by the statement. She stood and put her hands on her hips. “You just can’t see her.” The tree reached a limb down and fondly placed a crown wreath of blossoms on Mariah’s head. Mariah didn’t even seem to notice.

  Bay, as she always did, took up for her cousin. “Tell us more about this Emily person,” she said, waving her over.

  “Who’s Emily?” Mariah asked as she walked to the table.

  “Isn’t Em short for Emily?” Bay asked, putting her arm around Mariah. She loved this kid. No one was as good at being herself as Mariah, magic or no magic.

  “No, her name is Mary,” Mariah said. “I just call her M. Like the letter M. She says I’m named after her.”

  Everyone suddenly went quiet. The voices from the street even faded away.

  “Grandmother Mary?” Claire finally asked. She looked over at Tyler, to see if he heard. He hadn’t. “She’s here?” Her voice had gone lower, as if wanting to keep this secret, this extraordinary new bond she shared with her daughter, just between them.