Meg and Jo

by Virginia Kantra

“March?”

  It was only Ray. Damn it. Probably worried I was going to leave him shorthanded.

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve. Tightened my ponytail. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Aaron is here. You’ve got time.” The sous appeared around a corner of the shelving, his white coat dimmed by the shadows. “I brought you stew.”

  That was a surprise.

  “I’m not hungry,” I said. My stomach felt filled with cement.

  “Eat.” He held out a bowl and a fork. “We can’t have you fainting on the line.”

  He watched, a little frown between his brows, as I poked at the bowl’s contents, chicken thighs in a stock of parsley, mint, and onions over rice.

  “He wants too much to impress,” Eric had said. But for the first time, I could see the sous chef’s fussy manner as part of a genuine desire to please.

  “Thanks.” The warm broth soothed my aching throat.

  “What are you going to do now?” Ray asked.

  After tonight, he meant. The realization roused a near-panic in my chest. I had an education I wasn’t using and a studio I could barely afford. My mother was facing surgery, my sister was distracted, and my boss/boyfriend didn’t want to look at me.

  “Go. Just go.”

  “I don’t know.” I swallowed. “I need to think.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Meg

  At five minutes after nine, the sun was shining. The market was filled with people pushing strollers, sampling apples and cookies, carrying bulging bags of carrots and cabbage, collards and kale. The air smelled like Christmas, pine with a hint of cold, as if the tree sellers at the end of the lot had brought the mountain air with them.

  I lowered the Explorer’s rear seats, making a play space in the back of the SUV, spreading out blankets and pillows, unpacking board books and blocks, arranging the twins’ car seats like chairs around a plastic play table behind the cargo net.

  “This is your fort,” I said. Making it a game.

  DJ smiled and crawled under the table.

  “Is a tent, Mommy,” Daisy said.

  I smiled at her in gratitude. “That’s right. It’s your tent to play in while Mommy’s working.”

  “Nice setup,” Carl Stewart said behind me.

  “We camping,” Daisy informed him with pride.

  “Good for you.” Carl glanced at me. “No fair, using your cute kids to sell cheese.”

  I unzipped their jackets, unpacked snack cups and juice boxes for each of them. “You could rent them. For the right price. Sell more sweet potatoes.”

  He grinned. “You should bring them to the buyer’s meeting.”

  I turned. “What meeting?”

  “I mentioned your operation to my buyer at All Seasons. Talked up the family farm angle, said how you were taking over from your ma. He said you should call, set up a meeting. If he likes you, he’ll kick your product profile over to the specialty buyer—their cheese guy. You interested?”

  “Carl, that’s amazing. But . . .” All Seasons? I shook my head to clear the dollar signs dancing in my brain. “We’re not big enough.”

  “They don’t want big. They’re looking for local. Anyway, Abby was talking about expanding. Before she got sick, I mean.”

  “But wouldn’t she need . . .” Inventory. Employees. “A business plan?”

  He smiled. “I reckoned you’d be helping her with that.”

  My mind spun. “I could.” I could. The prospect made me dizzy. “I’d have to talk it over with her first.”

  “Sure. You decide you want to go for it, I’d be happy to walk you through the process.”

  “That . . . That’s incredibly generous of you.”

  He winked. “Hey, you’re helping me. I’m just returning the favor.”

  My mother needed money. Getting into All Seasons was like an answer to a prayer. A solution to all her problems. If I could do it.

  Daisy was feeding Cheerios one by one to DJ.

  “Excuse me, are you open?” a woman asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. What would you like to try?”

  “You’re Coach Brooke’s wife, aren’t you?” she asked as I rang up her purchase.

  “I’m just the car guy,” John had said the night of Sallie’s party.

  I smiled. “Meg Brooke. Yes. Hi.”

  She nodded in satisfaction. “I thought I recognized you from Patrick’s season. I’m Lisa Roberts,” she added. “Patrick’s mom. His brother Jason is a freshman on the team now.”

  “Nice to see you again. Good luck in the tournament today.”

  “Oh, I don’t go to the matches anymore.” She leaned forward confidingly. “I can’t stand to watch Jason compete. He’s so small compared to the other boys.”

  “You do know they wrestle by weight class,” I said.

  “That’s what Coach says. But Jason is my baby. Thank God your husband’s there.”

  “Yes. I mean, thank you. That’ll be fourteen dollars.”

  “So, I’ll see you at the athletic banquet?” she said as I handed her her change. “After States?”

  “I’m not sure. That’s in . . .”

  “February,” she said.

  Months away. I couldn’t look beyond Christmas, couldn’t see past every day’s list of Things To Do.

  “I’ll have to talk to John,” I said.

  At the next break in the line, Connie dashed from her bakery stall with fresh baguettes and cookies for the kids.

  “You have to let me pay you,” I said.

  “No, no. You sent a ton of business my way last week.”

  “Cookie,” DJ said, crawling out from under the play table.

  “Not now, sweetie. You have Cheerios,” I said.

  “No!”

  “Do you want apple slices?”

  “No!”

  “He wants a cookie, Mommy,” Daisy said.

  “And these are for you,” Connie said. She handed me a short stack of her bakery’s business cards. “If you don’t mind putting them out with the samples, maybe?”

  “Not at all. I can put them in the bags, too. They’re pretty.” I fingered the thick card stock, admiring the whimsical font. Made on her home printer, I was sure, but . . . My mind went to the buyer for All Seasons. Wouldn’t I need business cards if I went to meet him? “I was thinking we should get some made up for Mom. As a Christmas present, maybe.”

  Amy had a degree in art. She could design something. Maybe an updated logo. Labels. Branding was important.

  “Abby would love that,” Connie said. “How’s she doing?”

  “She needs spinal surgery,” I heard myself say.

  Connie’s smile dissolved in sympathy. “I’m so sorry. When?”

  “The twenty-third.”

  “Right before Christmas?”

  I nodded.

  “Mama. Cookie,” DJ insisted.

  “You haz to eat your Cheerios,” Daisy said.

  “No!” DJ said, giving his sister a push.

  I intervened. “DJ, do you want some juice?”

  “No! Cookie!” DJ shouted, flinging himself at the cargo net. “Cookie, cookie!”

  I grabbed him before he flipped over onto the asphalt.

  “I should go,” Connie said, backing away. “You have customers.”

  I did. All of them looking at me like I was the worst mother in the world. I gave DJ a cookie.

  “Me, too, Mommy,” Daisy said. “I want a cookie, too.”

  So I gave them both cookies because, you know what? They deserved cookies. “Who wants to watch Frozen on Mommy’s iPad?” I asked.

  “Frozen!”

  Daisy beamed. “Peez, Mommy.”

  For the next hour and forty-nine minutes, they were little angels. With one eye on the b
ack of the Explorer, I offered samples and sold cheese, made change and conversation.

  “Mommy.”

  “Yes, baby?”

  “I haz to pee,” Daisy said.

  Too many juice boxes. My bad.

  I did a quick calculation. The library restroom was too far away. The park was closer, but that would involve a detour to the playground. I looked at my daughter’s anxious face, at DJ, idly rubbing the satin edge of his blanket against his cheek. It would have to be the playground.

  “What a big girl you are. Thank you for telling Mommy.”

  “Meg! I was just fixing to call you.”

  Sallie.

  I snapped the cashbox closed. “Hey, Sallie. I should have called you. To thank you for the party.”

  “You left early. I barely saw you.”

  Ned saw me. Clear to the waist. I stooped to zip DJ’s jacket, hiding my hot face. “Well, you know . . . The kids . . .”

  “I haz to pee bad,” Daisy said, right on cue.

  “In a minute, honey. I’m taking them to the park,” I said to Sallie. “There’s a restroom there.”

  “Oh.” Sallie’s face fell and then brightened. “I could go with you. Like old times.”

  The times when we did everything together, including go to the bathroom. Sneaking off to reapply lip gloss, to check our teeth in the mirror and readjust our thongs. Dragging each other off to compare notes on our dates, for pep talks or a good cry. Always a pair, Sallie and Meg.

  A thirtysomething wearing a knit toboggan hat stepped up, recalling me to the present. “You got any of that cheese from last week? In the jar?”

  I cleared my throat. “The marinated feta? We sure do.”

  Daisy danced from foot to foot. “Mommy.”

  “Sorry,” I said. To the guy in the knit hipster hat? To Sallie? “I’ll be right back.”

  “Let me take her,” Sallie said.

  “I don’t . . . DJ should go, too.”

  “I can take both of them.”

  I hesitated. Hipster Hat was waiting.

  Sallie smiled winningly. “Please?”

  “Peez!” Daisy repeated.

  “They can be a handful. Do you want the stroller?”

  “Do you guys want the stroller?” Sallie asked my children. “No? Let’s go, then. Maybe after we go potty—”

  “And wash our hands,” I added automatically.

  “Go potty and wash our hands,” Sallie said without missing a beat. “Your mommy will let us go to the playground.”

  DJ clapped.

  “I Daisy. Who you?”

  “I’m Mommy’s friend Sallie.”

  I watched her skip off hand in hand with the twins, my stomach squiggling with the usual stupid worries. Did she know to take both children into the stall with her? To make sure DJ aimed up, not down? To wait for Daisy at the bottom of the slide?

  More than an hour later, Sallie brought the twins back. The market crowd had thinned. I was out of singles, out of bread, almost out of fresh chèvre.

  “Sorry we took so long,” Sallie said breezily. “We stopped for cookies. I hope that’s okay.”

  I looked at my babies. Daisy held on to Sallie with one hand, the other rubbing her eyes. DJ’s head rested in the crook of Sallie’s neck, his thumb creeping toward his crumb-streaked mouth. They looked tired. Grubby. Happy.

  “It’s great,” I said sincerely. “Thank you so much, Sallie.”

  “They’re kind of zonked.” She nodded toward the back of the Explorer. “You want me to put Deej in there?”

  I held out my arms. “I’ll do it.”

  His warm weight settled on my shoulder. I inhaled as I buckled him into his car seat, tucking Blankie around him. He smelled delicious, like sugar cookies and little boy.

  “No,” Daisy protested as I lifted her into her car seat.

  I let her lie on the comforter, smoothing back her bangs, kissing her forehead.

  “Thanks for taking care of my kids,” I said to Sallie.

  “Anytime. They’re adorable.”

  I wanted to kiss her in gratitude. I swallowed instead. “Sallie . . . About last Saturday . . .”

  “This is about Ned, isn’t it?”

  “I . . . Well . . .”

  “I knew he had too much to drink. Was he a total asshole?”

  “No.” Oh God, no. “It’s just . . . We were flirting a little, and I didn’t want you to think . . .”

  “That my husband was so insecure about his lousy sperm count that he’d hit on my best friend?”

  I blinked. “Oh, Sallie. Oh, honey. Nothing like that. We were just talking.”

  “He won’t talk to me,” Sallie burst out. “He says all I care about anymore is my fertility cycle. Like I’m the only one who wants kids. He doesn’t even want to have sex anymore. That’s why we’re going to Hawaii. I thought if we went away . . . Like he’s going to get it up after six mai tais.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I hugged her. “I’m so sorry.”

  She sniffled against my shoulder. “That’s okay. You didn’t know.”

  No, you didn’t. Momma said the only people who knew what went on in a marriage were the two people in it.

  And sometimes not even them. (An image of my parents arguing in my mother’s hospital room rose like a ghost in the back of my mind. “If I weren’t sick, you’d never talk to me at all.”)

  I pulled a tissue from the pack I always carried and handed it to her. “Ned loves you. I’m sure he does. You guys will figure it out.”

  “Thanks.” Sallie blew her nose. “Mother says if I’d just relax and stop stressing, I’d get pregnant right away.”

  “Your mother is an idiot.”

  Sallie gave a watery chuckle. “Thanks.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I feel better now that I’ve talked to somebody.”

  “Have you guys tried counseling?”

  “Ned won’t go. He says he’s sick of doctors asking about his junk.”

  “He’s a guy,” I said, thinking of John. “It’s hard for men to talk about their feelings.”

  “You’re so lucky being married to John. You two have the perfect relationship.”

  “Even John doesn’t tell me everything.”

  “At least your husband’s not off getting drunk at parties.”

  “No, he just spent all evening with the waiter.”

  “What?”

  Flushing, I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.” Except it did.

  After Sallie left—with many hugs and promises to keep in touch—I packed up and loaded the SUV with the twins, the car seats, the cashbox, the coolers.

  John was still at the tournament. Maybe when he got back we could talk. Although part of me worried about digging too deeply beneath the surface of our happy life. Because we were happy. Mostly. Right?

  I drove down the bumpy gravel road past empty fields toward the farm. The goats crowded the fence of their hay enclosure as they recognized the rumble of my car.

  An unfamiliar car was parked in the driveway. The back of my neck prickled, and my fingertips. Which was ridiculous. This was Bunyan. My mother still left her doors unlocked. On the other hand . . . Who knew who might have followed or tracked my father home? It would be dark in an hour. I had my babies in the car.

  The back door opened. My sister Jo bolted down the porch steps, letting the screen door crash behind her. “Meg!”

  “Jo!” I fumbled out of my seat belt, tumbled from the car, and she ran into my arms.

  CHAPTER 17

  Jo

  Meg insisted on staying with me at the farmhouse until Dad got home.

  “What about John?” I asked. “Isn’t he expecting you?”

  “I texted him. He said it was fine.” Meg unzipped DJ’s jacket. “He’s busy today any
way.”

  “Working?” I asked sympathetically.

  “Wrestling tournament. He’s been volunteering with the team.”

  Fine by me. Selfishly, I wanted my sister to myself for a while. My sister and the twins. Their welcoming cries of Auntie Jo!, the warm clasp of their little arms, were balm to my bruised heart. Two-year-olds do not judge. I hugged them close, breathing in the scent of their necks, grateful for their earnest self-absorption, their distracting wriggliness.

  While I scrounged in the kitchen for dinner, Meg plucked Daisy away from Weasley’s food dish, prying kibble from my niece’s mouth with one finger. “No, sweetie. We don’t eat cat food.”

  Daisy set her hands on her hips. “But I hungry, Mommy. I a hungry kitty.”

  “Does the hungry kitty want some noodles?” I asked.

  “Yessss! Noodles! Noodles, Auntie Jo.”

  “Noodles,” DJ said.

  “Coming up in two shakes of a kitty’s tail,” I promised. I opened a Tupperware container and sniffed. Tomatoes, peppers . . . Chili? Spaghetti sauce, I decided.

  “I can’t believe he fired you,” Meg said.

  He. Eric.

  “He didn’t fire me,” I said, determined to be fair. He broke my heart. Or I broke his. I dumped the frozen block into a pot and poked it with a spoon. “I quit.”

  “I cook, too, Auntie Jo,” Daisy said, rattling spoons in a pot.

  “I see that. Great job,” I said.

  “I feel guilty, sitting here while you do all the cooking,” Meg said.

  “I’m not cooking. I’m heating stuff up.”

  “Well, thank you for heating stuff.”

  “Don’t thank me. Thank Dad’s church ladies.” I stirred the pot and held the spoon to her lips. “Wine?”

  “It tastes fine to me,” Meg said.

  “I meant for us.”

  Meg laughed. “There’s wine in the pantry. Left over from Thanksgiving.”

  Pinot noir. Trey could say what he liked about his grandfather, but the old boy knew how to buy wine. I opened a bottle and poured some vino into glasses. Splashed some into the sauce.

  “I meant to go shopping before you came,” Meg said.

  “I’m a week early.”

  “Christmas shopping,” Meg said. “I was going to buy a tree.”