“I’d like to offer to pay you rent,” Tessa said. “I wouldn’t feel right living there for free.”
“Don’t be silly,” Cecilia said. “It’s a favor for one of my favorite customers. Go get settled in, and Harry and I will bring you food to stock your refrigerator. No arguments,” she added when Tessa opened her mouth to object to more handouts.
“At least let me help you in some way,” Tessa said. “Isn’t there anything I can do to say thank you?”
Cecilia tapped a burgundy fingernail against her lips. “Help me tonight with the garden. That rain nearly destroyed my plants. I could use another pair of hands.”
Tessa’s mouth turned down. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I kill plants.”
“On purpose?”
“No.” Tessa released a laugh. “They just don’t seem to thrive in my care. And by thrive, I mean live.”
Cecilia smiled. “You’ve never had a good teacher. My garden is hardy. It survived the storms, so I think it can handle you.”
After grabbing her bags from the Great Pumpkin, Tessa hiked the stairs to the apartment above the diner and fished the keys out of her pocket. The apartment smelled like just-out-of-the-oven cinnamon rolls and sticky, sweet cream cheese icing. Tessa inhaled deeply and dropped her bags on the L-shaped tan couch. She spun in a complete circle on the walnut hardwood, scanning the living room and attached kitchen. Tessa had imagined the Borellis would have decorated the apartment to suit their more mature, traditional tastes, but the space was modern and trendy with a touch of masculinity.
The living room walls were painted in an earth tone resembling the color of the pages in an old paperback novel. Splashes of sage green complemented the neutral marble countertops and dark cabinets. A large map of the world pasted to a corkboard hung on one long wall. Tessa stepped toward it. Silver pushpins were scattered across the continents. She trailed her fingers across them as though she were connecting the dots of someone’s life, each silver circle a place seen by an unknown traveler. A red, heart-shaped pushpin had been pressed into the spot marking Mystic Water. A gemstone globe sat on a shelf of built-in bookshelves lined with classic novels and travel magazines. She glanced toward the bedroom.
Afternoon sunlight sparkled through the gossamer curtains, dusting golden stripes across the ivory duvet. Tessa dropped her laptop bag on the bed. Dark walnut furniture anchored a soft wool rug to the polished hardwood. A framed photograph of Harry, Cecilia, and two handsome, young men sat on the dresser. She lifted it and smoothed her thumb over the glass, thinking the men must be their sons. Tessa could see the resemblance, and the oldest son stared out at her with his blue eyes crinkling at the corners as if he had a joke he couldn’t wait to tell her. She felt a fluttering in her stomach and returned the photograph to its spot.
Later that day, Tessa bent down and retied her fraying shoelaces. Of all the pairs of shoes that she’d been able to salvage, one of the few pairs had been her ratty, gray tennis shoes left over from her high school days. Her mama had insisted she throw them away years ago, but Tessa had kept them for no other reason except they reminded her of the day she’d sat on the bleachers during after-school football practice. She’d been wearing her new tennis shoes, pretending to take pictures for the school paper while secretly photographing only Jeremiah Lee, the kicker.
During one particularly windy practice, a strong gust yanked Jeremiah’s kicked ball out of its perfect line and rocketed it toward her on the bleachers. Tessa’s face had been glued to her camera, so she hadn’t heard the warning shouts. Jeremiah’s football missile nailed her in the side of the head, knocking her backward off the bleacher. Tessa had been stunned, folded like a human taco between two rows with her legs sticking into the air like cattails in a pond and her arms splayed at her sides. The camera had bounced several feet away.
She had blinked up to see Jeremiah leaning over her, his head haloed in the afternoon sun, asking her if she was okay while he searched her face with his brown eyes. He’d clutched her lucky gray tennis shoes in his hands and tugged her into an upright position. Then he’d sat down beside her, so close she’d felt the heat radiating through his practice gear. Tessa remembered nodding and smiling and telling him she was fine, even though she had to reach up several times to make sure her head hadn’t cracked in half. Jeremiah had looked relieved and smiled at her. She’d fallen in love with that smile. But Jeremiah chucked her in the shoulder with his fist and ran back to practice, cradling the football in his arm. It was the first time he noticed her, and she gave credit to the new shoes.
Sometimes she’d still slip them on and remember a seventeen-year-old Jeremiah smiling down at her. In those daydreams, she pretended she hadn’t been knocked goofy by his football and wasn’t lying wedged between the bleachers. Instead, she imagined they were lying in the grass behind the football field, and Jeremiah was smiling at her like a boy in love.
Tessa blinked down at the worn-out shoes and thought maybe there was still a little bit of luck left in them. They’d survived the flood. As she rounded the corner of the building, heading toward the front door of the diner, she stopped beside a red geranium in a terracotta pot that had fallen from its perch. The pot had cracked in half, and the geranium leaves thumped against her shoe in the breeze. Tessa leaned down and scooped the dirt into a neater pile, trying to cover the exposed roots. The soil tingled against her skin as she brushed the dirt from her fingers.
“Harry has gone to fetch a new pot for that one,” Cecilia said, “and he’ll repot it before he goes in to prep for tomorrow morning’s breakfast rush.”
She handed Tessa a trowel and led her around the side of the building. Wind blew up the alley, rustling through basil leaves, stalks of rosemary, and tomato vines. Tessa closed her eyes and inhaled, breathing in the scent of an Italian pizzeria. The sight of the pummeled garden pulled a sigh from Cecilia. Some plants had fallen over, others had been beaten into the mud, and still others were broken at the stalks, scattering pieces of themselves all across the alley.
Cecilia fisted her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Looks like a slush of mud pies and weeds. That storm uprooted more than half of my garden.” She pointed at a tangle of green, spear-shaped leaves with long tendrils wrapping themselves around one another in a complicated knot. “Start there with the mint. See if the buried pot is still intact. I can’t have the mint taking over the garden, and believe me, it will if we’re not careful. Mint is a traveling plant.”
Tessa knelt and used her trowel to poke around in the dirt. Every time her hands or arms struck the mint, the plant released the fresh scent of Christmas and hot tea into the air. She inhaled, and the clutter in her head began to clear. Soon Tessa heard the sound of metal striking stone. She scraped away the dirt until she saw the dark edges of the buried pot. Tessa slid her hand around the stone vessel, her fingers finding a crack that splintered through the pot. “Feels broken over here.”
“Go ahead and dig it out,” Cecilia said. “I think I have another pot around back.”
Tessa worked on unearthing the mint pot, and when she was finished, she fetched the new container for Cecilia. Once the mint was replanted, Cecilia gave Tessa one task after another. They worked their way down the garden for nearly an hour. Tessa’s worries and anxieties about her present situation lessened as she worked. For the first time in a couple of days, she felt the knots behind her shoulder blades release a little. While Tessa patted the soil around a patch of thyme, Cecilia disrupted the stillness.
“Why did you choose to work in real estate?” Cecilia asked as she tucked dirt around the base of a rosemary bush.
Tessa pushed off her knees and balanced on her toes. She scooped a handful of soil with one hand and sprinkled it into her other open palm, mimicking an hourglass counting time. The wet earth spread warmth from her fingers, up her arms, and settled in her chest. “It’s what I knew. My mama put me to work young, doing odd jobs at the real estate office for her. Filing, answering the phone, sorting through
the mail. I followed her everywhere, to houses, rentals, plots of land, and I learned a lot from her. It seemed natural for me to keep doing it, even after college. Plus, I enjoyed it.”
“What did you study in college?” Cecilia asked.
“Business major,” she said. “Pretty boring stuff. I did minor in architecture, though, because I’ve always been interested in it.” A strong breeze, smelling of cloves, rushed down the alley and tangled Tessa’s hair in her face. She spit strands of hair from her mouth and shoved it out of her eyes. “If I would have known how much I would love studying architecture, I would have majored in it instead. Maybe gone on to receive a master’s degree.”
When Tessa glanced over at Cecilia, she noticed Cecilia scraped her trowel through the dirt in an absentminded way. “Why didn’t you?”
“What? Get a master’s?” Tessa asked. “I guess I never had the drive needed to be an architect. I would have enjoyed learning more, but I love it here. I liked being at the office with Mama before she retired. I like helping people find their homes. It’s a rewarding job. Plus, real estate is what I know. It was a safe and sensible choice, coming home.”
“As if children ever do what is safe and sensible,” Cecilia said with a small smile. “Children do what they want, regardless of what parents say.”
The air swirled with energy, and the soil beneath Tessa’s hands warmed by degrees. She pulled her hands away from the earth. The plants around Cecilia shivered.
Tessa cleared her throat. “Like your sons?”
“Son. Singular,” Cecilia answered. She stood and brushed dirt from the knees of her gardening khakis.
“Paul or Eddie?”
Cecilia exhaled a sigh, and basil leaves fluttered. “Paul. He has a master’s degree, and what does he do with it? Nothing. He gives up a successful job so that he can travel all over the globe writing travel stories.”
Tessa thought of the map in the apartment. “The push pins on the map…those are where Paul has been?”
“Harry’s doing,” Cecilia said with a dismissive wave. “He’s proud of his adventurer.”
“And you’re not?” Tessa stood and brushed her hands against her pants.
Cecilia shrugged and deadheaded a fennel flower. “It’s not that I’m not proud. I worry. I’m his mother. Do you know what becomes of an old adventurer who travels the world alone, never settling down, never having a family?”
Tessa watched a dandelion release its feathery seeds into the air. They danced around her before being swept down the alley. “He sits around telling great stories?”
“And who does he share these great stories with when he is all alone?” she asked. “I don’t want him to grow old without anyone, but more than that, I’d like to see him. It’s been five years. It might as well be a lifetime.” She turned and walked up the alley toward the front of the diner.
Tessa knew the conversation was finished. Plants seemed to lean away from Cecilia as she passed, pushing against each other for comfort. Tessa reached out and pressed a sage leaf between two fingers, releasing the oils onto her skin. She sighed and wished for a man she’d never seen to come to Mystic Water.
4
Mint Tea and Caramel Crèmes
Tessa balanced a pot of mint on her hip while she wiggled the key into the apartment lock. Cecilia, even in her downcast mood, had given Tessa the herb and insisted she take care of it. Tessa worried what would happen to her if she were unable to keep the plant alive. She didn’t want to get on Cecilia’s bad side and find herself wilting beneath the look she’d seen on Cecilia’s face a time or two. Mr. Borelli stood behind Tessa on the landing as she pushed open the door.
“You know y’all didn’t have to do this,” Tessa said. “You’ve done enough already, giving me this apartment for free. Y’all didn’t have to make food for me. I can cook.”
Mr. Borelli smiled and carried two bags full of fresh food into the kitchen, pushing the door closed with his foot. “That’s not how Lily tells it. Seems I remember a story about a turkey catching fire in the oven and a casserole dish exploding on the stove. Last Thanksgiving, was it?” He grinned to show he was teasing.
Tessa groaned and shook her head. “They’re never going to let me forget that.”
“Or cook Thanksgiving dinner again, I suspect.” Mr. Borelli unloaded the box and began sorting foods in the refrigerator.
Tessa noticed a wooden plant stand pushed against a wall, so she grabbed it and carried it into the living room, placing it near the bookshelf and a window. She seated the mint on the stand and glanced into the kitchen.
“Mr. Borelli, you don’t have to put away the groceries too,” Tessa said as she wrenched open the living room window. A breeze slipped in and tickled magazine pages, causing them to flutter and whisper. She listened for a moment and then walked into the kitchen.
“Call me Harry, and I don’t mind helping. Neither one of us do. There are a lot of people in a bad way right now, and we’d like to help any way we can. Plus, you’ve been supporting us since we opened, and we appreciate that,” he said. “Helping you keeps me out of Cece’s way a bit longer. She’s in a mood.”
Tessa bit her bottom lip. “I think that’s my fault.”
“You can’t take the blame for Paul,” Harry said. The wind slipped the scent of cloves through the open window. Tessa breathed it in and exhaled.
“How did you know her mood was because of him?” Tessa asked, putting a few handfuls of tomatoes in a colander on the countertop.
“No one else makes her want to whip up a batch of strawberry pancakes and French toast made with challah bread,” Harry said. When Tessa’s forehead wrinkled, he added, “Those were Paul’s favorites as a little boy.”
Tessa propped her hip against the counter. “And eating it makes her feel closer to him?”
Harry closed the refrigerator and folded the grocery bags beneath his arm. “I think she’s hoping that one of these days he’ll smell them and come home.”
“Do you think he’d think of this as home? You’ve only been here a couple of years. He didn’t grow up in Mystic Water.”
Harry smiled. “Home is where your family is. But I think Paul has forgotten that having a home and stability are good things. One of these days, he’ll remember.”
“He’ll smell those pancakes and come here,” Tessa said, trying to encourage Harry.
He nodded. “I sure hope so.” His gaze drifted toward the map on the wall.
“How do you keep track of where he’s been?” Tessa asked.
Harry walked toward the map and reached out for the red, heart-shaped pushpin and smashed his thumb against it. “Postcards mostly. It’s expensive to call when you’re in the jungle in Malaysia or backpacking through the Andes. I keep hoping he’ll bring me chocolate from the Alps.” He nodded toward the mint plant. “Make sure it gets plenty of water. Oh, and Cecilia packed you a bowl of home fries from the diner. They’re in the refrigerator. You let us know if you need anything else. Otherwise, make yourself at home.”
“Thanks again, Mr. Borelli—Harry,” Tessa corrected. “I really appreciate it.”
Harry showed himself out, and Tessa stared at the map on the wall before poking the mint plant with her finger and thinking, Don’t die.
Tessa stepped out onto the front stoop, and a tornado of warm wind swirled around her, tossing her brown hair into her eyes. She tucked strands behind her ears and hoped the winds didn’t mean bad weather was returning. Once she locked the apartment, she headed down Main Street toward the candy shop. The early evening wind whipped down the sidewalk, causing Tessa to duck her head and keep her eyes to the pavement. She was careful to avoid the cracks in case she broke her mama’s back, and she glanced up now and again to locate the pink and white striped awning.
The closer she got to the shop, the stronger the smell of sugar became. When she pushed open the door to the candy shop and inhaled, the air seemed to be filled with a fine dusting of sugary, pink sparkles. The warmth of
the candy shop wrapped around her, and she pulled her fingers through her short, tangled hair. Tessa stood mesmerized by the rows and shelves of glass jars filled to bursting with candies. The shop was a wonderland of color and memories, taking Tessa back to her childhood. She couldn’t stop the smile that stretched across her face. She heard Lily’s and Anna’s little-girl laughter echo down the aisle, and she watched their huddled shadows ghost around the end of a row, disappearing behind a jar of red-rope licorice.
Gummi bears pressed their sticky paws against a short fat jar, asking to be freed. Red Hots sizzled beside a jar full of Skittles that created a jumbled rainbow. Tessa strolled up the aisle, smiling at ring pops with sugar diamonds the size of a child’s palm. Lily and Tessa had loved to pretend they wore engagement rings, while Anna had wanted to pretend to hock her blue diamond for a plane ticket to anywhere. Pop Rocks were arranged by color, and Tessa brushed her fingers over packets of Big League Chew. She had almost choked on the sticky, grape strands of gum after being dared to chew the whole pack at once. Back then, Tessa was too afraid not to fit in to say no to a stupid idea. And everyone knew no one could turn away from a double-dog dare.
Two teenage girls pushed passed her and went straight for the chocolate section. They leaned toward each other and snickered, sharing secrets and laughing in a way only young girls can. When Tessa found the aisle with caramel crèmes, she noticed an elderly woman scooping strawberry taffy into a pink candy shop bag. Tessa grabbed a bag from the nearest shelf and flipped up the lid on the caramel crèmes. She scooped in the candy until the bag was three-quarters full, then she folded down the bag. When she finished, Tessa was startled to find the elderly woman standing beside her, staring up at Tessa with large, dark eyes that seemed to absorb the light around them.
“Eaten anything from the garden yet?” the woman asked, her cheekbones becoming more prominent when she smiled. Her skin was the color of chai tea with cream, smooth and rich.
Honeysuckle Hollow Page 3
