Honeysuckle Hollow

by Jennifer Moorman

  Tessa shook her head. “Is that why she called this morning?”

  Paul nodded. “She wanted to know if I’d forgiven her yet.” He refilled Tessa’s plastic cup with honeysuckle wine.

  “Have you?”

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “It still gets under my skin sometimes, but I don’t really care anymore.” Paul looked at Tessa. “She wants to try and work it out. She said she wants to be us again.”

  Tessa’s breath caught, and then she tried to release it in the calmest way possible. She didn’t want Paul to know that her heart raced. “What did you say?”

  “I said hell no,” Paul said, looking at Tessa as though she was silly for asking. “What did you think I said? I don’t want any part of that crazy. I already tried that, and it didn’t work.”

  Tessa struggled to suppress her smile. Her lips twitched. “If you don’t have a job, do you have to leave tomorrow?”

  Paul shook his head. “Not if you need me for something.”

  Oh, I need you for a lot of things, she thought. But she said, “You know what I really need? An architect who can redesign this place the way it was when it was first built. Someone who can walk me through everything that needs to be done here to ensure it’s rehabbed correctly.”

  Paul stared expressionless at Tessa until he smiled so widely that she chuckled.

  “Why are you grinning like that? Should I be frightened?”

  Paul laughed. “Are you offering me a job, Ms. Tessa?”

  “Are you thinking of taking it?”

  Paul knocked his cup of wine against Tessa’s. “I’m the best man for this undertaking.”

  “Again, your humility astounds me.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Do you really want to help?”

  “Without a doubt. But I have to know…what kind of benefits package do you offer?”

  “Free camping whenever you need to leave the comforts of home,” she said, motioning to the space around them. “Free food and lodging, courtesy of your parents. Free use of the Great Pumpkin.”

  “Until you threw in the Great Pumpkin, I wasn’t sure this was the right job for me, but who could turn down that classic ride? Do you have any paper and a pen? I can go ahead and share some of my thoughts.”

  “I went by the library today. Emma helped me find an old book of pictures of historical homes in Mystic Water. I photocopied all the ones of Honeysuckle Hollow. It hasn’t changed a lot, but the photographs might help you with making sure the interior is as it should be too.”

  Tessa dug through her bags and found the papers. When she turned around, Paul was inside the tent unzipping the sleeping bag.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making a pallet for us so we can stretch out.”

  Tessa’s pulse thumped against her throat. The tent seemed to shrink in size so that she and Paul wouldn’t be able to stretch out without their arms touching. Paul opened the sleeping bag and placed two pillows near the tent opening. Then he patted one side of the sleeping bag. “Come on in,” he said.

  Tessa hesitated, wondering what her mama would say. Tessa, you’re a grown woman. It doesn’t matter what your mama would say. She’s not here, is she? Should I ask Anna or Lily if this is okay? No! Just get in the tent. When is the last time a handsome man has invited you into his tent?

  “Never,” she mumbled aloud.

  Paul wrinkled his brow. “What?”

  She shook her head and then crawled into the tent. The lack of useable space inside amazed Tessa. What had seemed like a roomy space when she was alone now felt as though she and Paul had climbed into a potato sack together. Her mouth dried. Paul seemed unaffected. He flopped onto his stomach, propped his elbows on a pillow, and spread out the papers on the floor in front of him.

  Tessa inhaled and then exhaled. You can do this. Then she laid down next to him, praying her heart didn’t thump right out of her chest and into the tent.

  Paul propped on his elbows and tapped his drawings with the pen. During the past hour, Tessa’s head had inched closer and closer to his shoulder. A sheet of paper wouldn’t have fit between the sides of their bodies.

  “That’s all the changes for the house,” he said as he flipped the top sheet to the bottom of the stack. “And the backyard should be cleaned up to look like this, don’t you think?”

  Tessa’s head leaned against his shoulder as she reached out her arm. She slid a couple of the black and white photographs toward Paul’s drawing. She pointed to the winding river and dragged her finger along the curving lines. “Looks like the only thing Matthias changed was the addition of the river, and I think we should keep that.”

  Paul nodded. “We’ll have to restock the pond and tell Huck Finn he can visit anytime he wants.”

  Tessa smiled, and when Paul turned to look at her, their faces were so close she leaned away from him. She stopped breathing.

  “If I get the job for the article in the Cook Islands, you should go with me,” he said.

  The cogs in Tessa’s mind locked up like a bicycle chain in need of grease. “W—what?”

  “You could lie around on the beach all morning while I worked, and then we could spend the rest of the day exploring the islands together.”

  Tessa struggled to connect Paul’s words to reality. “I don’t have a passport,” she blurted.

  Paul shrugged. “We can have one expedited. Is that a yes?” He grinned at her, and Tessa’s stomach fell down to her feet as though she’d been bounced on a trampoline.

  “What about the house?”

  “It’ll still be here when we get back.”

  He reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear. Tessa stilled.

  “When we get back?” she asked.

  His fingers lingered on her cheek.

  “Is that a yes?” he asked, leaning toward her.

  Tessa needed to breathe; she needed to fill her lungs with lots of air because her vision blurred and her head felt as though it had unattached from her body. But she couldn’t breathe. She could only stare at Paul.

  When her lips parted she said, “Uhhhhh.”

  Paul chuckled long enough for Tessa to think, Great, now you’ve completely ruined the moment. But Paul leaned closer, and Tessa’s eyes closed as she waited for the unbelievable to happen. Then Paul kissed her. Her heart thrilled, feeling as though it quadrupled in size and pressed against her ribcage. In that moment, Tessa believed she would follow Paul into an active volcano. When he kissed along the edge of her jaw, her bottom lip went numb, but she still managed to ask, “Do they serve piña coladas on the islands?”

  Paul laughed against her neck. “With little umbrellas.”

  “Perfect,” she said and shivered as Paul kissed her neck and returned to her lips. Perfect.

  The next morning the sound of rattling woke Tessa. She blinked in the feeble green light filtering through the tent fabric. When she rolled her head to the side, she stared at Paul’s back. A slow smile, accompanied by a sigh, stretched across her face. The rattling continued, and Tessa flipped onto her stomach. She parted a tent flap and zeroed in on the front door. The knob jiggled. Tessa’s body tensed.

  Paul grunted beside her. “Are the bats back?”

  “Someone’s trying to get in.”

  Paul flipped over with another grunt and shoved open the other flap. A click sounded like a dead bolt turning, and the front door swung open. Tessa sucked air into her lungs. She heard shuffle, shuffle, clunk. Shuffle, shuffle, clunk. An elderly woman with paper-white hair swept on top of her head in a cotton candy coif stepped into view. She gripped a curved cane in her right hand and looked around. A second shadow stretched across the hardwood, but Tessa couldn’t see the other person.

  The old woman’s gaze found Tessa and Paul peering out of the tent. Her gray eyes narrowed. “What are you doing in my house?” she asked in a brittle, angry voice.

  Tessa’s stomach clenched. She recognized the voice, but she shook her head in response. “Mrs. Steele?”<
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  19

  Eggs Benedict

  Mrs. Steele moved toward the archway leading into the living room. She lifted her cane and pointed it at the tent. “I won’t have squatters in my house. Get out!”

  Her anger seethed across the floor and curled the edges of the papers in front of the tent. Paul dropped the tent flap and looked at Tessa. “The lady who sold you the house?”

  Panic rose so violently in Tessa that when she opened her mouth a squeaky noise squeezed up and out of her throat.

  Paul touched her arm. “You look like you’re going to either pass out or throw up. I can deal with a lot of things, but throw up isn’t one of them. Can you choke it down?”

  The absurdity of Paul’s words caused a giggle to bubble up Tessa’s throat. She slapped a hand over her mouth and laughed like an unhinged teenager into her palm. She glanced down at her bare legs. Her pants were shoved down in a pile at the bottom of the tent with her socks and shoes. What would her mama say?

  She removed her hand and said, “I’m not wearing pants. I can’t go out there like this.”

  Paul grinned at her. “You could.”

  “I can hear you!” The old woman barked.

  An object hit the top of the tent pole, and Tessa flinched. Paul made the move to crawl out of the tent, but Tessa latched onto his arm.

  “You’re not dressed.”

  Paul glanced down at his boxers. He smiled at her. “I’m sure she’s seen all this before.”

  “Not in at least fifty years,” Tessa mumbled.

  “Get out of there!” Mrs. Steele demanded, whacking the tent pole again.

  “Grandma, hold on a minute. Give the people a few minutes. We obviously surprised them.”

  “This is my house, and I don’t have tolerance for people who break into houses and think they can sleep wherever they want and do whatever they want. This is private property.”

  Paul snatched his jeans from the bottom of the tent, yanked them on, and crawled out before Tessa could stop him. Tessa heard the old woman gasp. She scrambled down to the bottom of the tent and tugged on her pants.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Paul said.

  Tessa grabbed Paul’s shirt, lurched out of the tent, tripped over a pillow, and stumbled to her feet. She raked her fingers through her hair. Mrs. Steele’s baseball-size eyes stared at Paul’s bare chest, as did the woman with Mrs. Steele, whom Tessa assumed was her granddaughter. Tessa threw Paul’s shirt at him.

  “Um, hi, I’m Tessa Andrews. I’ve spoken to you on the phone.”

  Tessa stepped toward the older woman and held out her hand. Mrs. Steele turned her gray eyes toward Tessa, and Tessa withered beneath her glare. Tessa lowered her hand and pressed her sweaty palms against her thighs. The broach pinned at Mrs. Steele’s neck sparkled like stars in the light.

  “Making yourself comfortable, I see,” Mrs. Steele said in a voice that warbled like an old phonograph. “And what have you done to the front porch. That sad excuse for a ramp is a hazard. I could have fallen off.” Mrs. Steele toed the empty bottle of honeysuckle wine with her dress shoe and curled her lip.

  Tessa tucked her hair behind her ears. “I’m sorry about that, Mrs. Steele.” Tessa glanced at Paul, and then she looked at the woman with Mrs. Steele. Tessa stepped over to her. “I wasn’t expecting anyone from the family to come all the way here, but it’s nice to meet you. I’m Tessa Andrews. I’m the woman who bought the house.”

  The woman shook Tessa’s hand. “Nice to meet you too. I’m Dorothy, her granddaughter. Grandma told me about you buying Honeysuckle Hollow.”

  Mrs. Steele shuddered and pointed her cane at Tessa. “You’re the one who tried to buy the house. But I’m not selling.”

  “Grandma—” Dorothy gasped.

  “Hush, Dorothy. I’ve had enough with this place. Just being inside here makes my stomach turn. I won’t rest easy until this place is a pile of dust.”

  Tessa’s stomach churned. “Excuse me?” She looked at Paul.

  Paul pulled his shirt over his head and stepped toward Mrs. Steele. “You’ve agreed to sell the house to Tessa. There’s no reason for you to detract your offer just so you can tear it down.”

  Tessa’s heart slapped against her chest, and her neck itched. “That’s not how you treat something just because it’s busted up and needs a little work. You don’t toss it out. You work on it. You help it.”

  Mrs. Steele smacked the bottom of her cane against the floor. “It’s my house, and I can do whatever I want with it.”

  Tessa’s throat tightened. “But you agreed to sell it. I sent you earnest money. A lot of earnest money.”

  “And now I’m disagreeing.” Mrs. Steele dug through her purse and pulled out a check. “Here’s your money. Take it. There’s nothing in the world that would make me want to see this house restored.”

  A strong gust of wind blew through the open front door, and the tent shivered and collapsed. Tessa breathed in the scent of lavender. She pressed her hand against her chest and stared at the check, trying to inhale a full breath.

  She looked up at Mrs. Steele’s face. “Can I change your mind?”

  Mrs. Steele ripped the check into shreds and let the pieces fall to the floor. “No. What you can do is leave.”

  Her granddaughter touched her arm, but Mrs. Steele shook her off and banged her cane against the floor again.

  Paul hooked his fingers around Tessa’s, and she glanced at him. “Let’s get our stuff together.”

  “But the house,” she whispered.

  Paul bent to pull the pillows and sleeping bag out of the fallen tent. She knelt beside him.

  “We’ll figure something out,” he said. When Tessa’s eyes filled with tears, he squeezed her hand. “I promise.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything more until they were outside loading her belongings into the back of the Great Pumpkin. Tessa’s thoughts felt as though they’d been blown around in a tornado. Mrs. Steele’s actions were traitorous—a Benedict Arnold-style betrayal. Tessa closed the trunk and stared at the house. From outside, she could hear the clomp clomp clomp of Mrs. Steele’s cane against the hardwood.

  Paul leaned against the side of the Great Pumpkin. She exhaled. “How are we going to fix this? How could an old lady hate a house so much?”

  “I need to think. Let’s go to the apartment,” Paul said, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll drive. I can’t think on an empty stomach, so let’s get breakfast from the diner and then we can focus.”

  Tessa glanced at the fresh layer of dirt where the gardeners had filled the hole created by the bulldozer. The wind tossed her hair into her face and she shook her head. “No,” she said, turning to face Paul. “Crazy Kate. She knows her.” Tessa pointed toward the house. “They were related, she and Mrs. Steele.”

  “By marriage, right? It doesn’t seem like it’s exactly a close relationship.”

  “It’s the best bet we have right now. Maybe Crazy Kate can talk sense into Mrs. Steele. She doesn’t want the house torn down either.”

  Paul shrugged. He walked up the sidewalk and opened the driver’s door on his rental. “Climb in. Let’s go see this Crazy Kate of yours.”

  Tessa navigated Paul to Crazy Kate’s house. As they bounced down the bumpy driveway, Tessa pressed her hands against the dashboard and leaned forward in her seat. Paul reached over and patted her thigh.

  “Relax a little. We’ll figure this out.”

  Tessa swallowed. “I can’t. Did you see her face? I feel sick to my stomach. Maybe everyone was right about me and the house. Maybe we’re both too messed up to be fixed, and everyone should give up on us. Maybe it isn’t meant to be.”

  Paul stopped the car. “I think you’re wrong.”

  Tessa unhooked her seat belt and glanced over at him. “Why do you say that?”

  He pointed toward the windshield. “Cause she knew we were coming, and she’s ready to go with us.”

&n
bsp; Crazy Kate hurried across the yard in a streak of color. She opened the back door of the car as though the pick up had been scheduled and jumped in. “Took y’all long enough,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for an hour.”

  Tessa turned around in her seat to stare at the old woman. “Waiting for what?”

  “Drive!” Crazy Kate demanded.

  Paul shifted the car into gear, reversed until he could turn around, and bounced them back up the driveway. Tessa buckled her seat belt before looking back at Crazy Kate again.

  “Mrs. Steele is at the house,” Tessa said. “She doesn’t want to sell it anymore. She says she’s going to tear it down.”

  Crazy Kate gazed out the window and gripped the door handle with her thin fingers. “I knew she was coming. When I woke up this morning, I knew today was the day.” Her other hand shifted to her chest and she inhaled. “I’ve felt a storm cloud in here ever since she got into town.”

  Paul glanced at Tessa with raised eyebrows. He looked at Crazy Kate in the rearview mirror. “You knew she was coming? Did she call you?”

  Crazy Kate scoffed. “Don’t be stupid. She hasn’t talked to me in nearly fifty years.”

  “This is going to be a fun reunion,” Paul said.

  “Do you think you can change her mind?” Tessa asked.

  Crazy Kate’s expression softened. “I don’t know the ending to this story.”

  “Well, that’s comforting,” Tessa said, turning around in her seat and strangling the seat belt with her hands.

  Minutes later, Paul parked behind another rental. Mrs. Steele and her granddaughter, Dorothy, were still in the house somewhere. Even though Tessa didn’t feel mentally prepared enough to face Mrs. Steele again, she was relieved to know they were still in the house.

  Crazy Kate opened her car door and stared at the front of the house. “Oh, Matthias,” she said, “I’m glad you can’t see what they’ve done.” She shook her head and slammed the door. Then she marched across the yard and up the makeshift ramp.