No Grater Danger

by Victoria Hamilton

  “Come out and see the horses sometime,” she said, giving her a farewell hug, then crouching down to hug Jocie and pat Hoppy on the head. “Even if you don’t want to ride. I’m starting up a hayride business on the side with a team I saved from the slaughterhouse. They’re sweet old dudes, a matched set of roan geldings that have been friends for over ten years. Would you like a hayride?”

  Jocie nodded. “Can my friends come?”

  “As many as you want.” She kissed Jocie’s plump pink cheek, a loud smack that made her giggle, then stood and met Jaymie’s gaze. “They used to be carriage horses, but they’re semi-retired now; the hayride business is only for the fall. Hey, Emma is into goats now! I thought she was crazy, but they are the cutest things! Goats in pajamas running around the paddock and leaping over hay bales are the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. She films them for her video channel online, so . . . I have to get some goat chow for them.” She rolled her eyes but smiled, her broad face pink-cheeked with happiness at the mention of Emma.

  Jaymie smiled; that was so Dani, who couldn’t bear to think of any horse being mistreated, and so Emma, who loved anything four-legged. “We’ll make a point of coming out near Halloween.” The stable owner waved and set off back to the feed shop to get the goat chow.

  “Let’s get home, honey,” Jaymie said, taking Jocie’s hand and ascending the hill up to the walkway above with a weary Hoppy lagging behind.

  • • •

  WHEN JAYMIE AND JAKOB GOT MARRIED they decided they’d spend time in Jaymie’s family’s yellow brick Queen Anne home in Queensville, but also in Jakob’s hand-built from-a-kit log home in a corner of his Christmas tree farm outside of town. The schedule had proved to be complicated at times, but they were working on it. This week, while Becca and Kevin were on the last week of their honeymoon, Jaymie, Jakob and Jocie were staying in the Queensville home. Jakob drove Jocie to school each morning and Jaymie picked her up.

  Sunday night was a normal evening of homework check, bath and bed for Jocie, snuggled in her tiny room with Lilibet, the name she had now settled on for her tiger-striped kitten that was quickly growing beyond any kittenhood. Jaymie and Jakob were lying together in the bed she had had since her childhood years, a lovely old iron double bed with a butter yellow quilt. After a little marital fun, Jaymie had let Hoppy back into the room—he had not, so far, taken in stride being banned from the bedroom at certain times, but he’d have to get used to it—and he was now curled up in the crook of Jaymie’s knees.

  She yawned, snuggled under Jakob’s arm around her and told him about her and Jocie’s trip out to the island that morning while he attended an auction out of town. She described what had happened on shore, and all about what she knew about the shops lining the dock.

  “How do you feel about it?” he asked.

  That was a typical evolved-male Jakob question. She gazed up into his slumberous brown eyes in the faint moonlight coming in the window. Sighing, she kissed him full on the mouth and snuggled closer.

  “Mmm, what was that for?” he asked.

  “Just for you being you. I’ve never had a man who always asked my opinion. It’s nice.”

  “Jeez, and here I thought it was because I was somehow sexy when I’m sleepy.” He yawned widely.

  “You are,” she said with a soft chuckle, cupping his bearded cheek in her palm. She had always thought beards were scratchy, but his wasn’t; it was soft and luxuriant thanks to beard oil and beard balm, masculine hair products he used religiously. She joked that he had more “product” than she did for hair! “Now, about the docks—”

  “Whoa, wait a minute, young woman,” he growled. “I want to hear more about how sexy I am.”

  She giggled. They spent a few more minutes kissing. “Mmmm . . . you know, I think a lot about kissing now,” she whispered.

  “Is that so?”

  “I do. Jocie was in a silly mood one day and asked why we kiss with our mouths and not our ears.”

  He chuckled, a rumble of warm, rich sound. “What did you tell her?”

  “What could I say? I gave her an ear kiss.” She paused, then murmured, “But I think we kiss with our mouths because that’s where the sweetest words come from. That’s where we say ‘I love you’ from. And that’s where promises come from, promises to love forever.” They kissed. Jaymie sighed, and he held her close against his body. “You don’t mind staying in Queensville, do you?” she asked after a few minutes.

  “Of course not. I love this room; it’s a part of your life. And I know how much you care about this town. It’s good for you to be so close to all your friends.”

  “I do love Queensville.” Her mind returned to the problem of the marina. “You know, as nice as it would be to have a tearoom and sweet shop down there by the river, it is Miss Perry’s property,” Jaymie murmured. “It’s not fair to try to bully her into selling, like Fergus Baird is doing. Or guilt her into selling, like Haskell was trying to do.”

  “I agree.” He yawned and stretched. “Good night, Mrs. Müller.”

  She made herself more comfortable in his arms, and checked that Hoppy was settled. “Good night, Mr. Müller.”

  Two

  MONDAY WAS BUSY, as usual, getting Jocie ready for school and Jakob hustling her along, since he had an appointment and needed to drop her off first, but it was noisy, too, which was not completely usual. Grant and Mimi Watson, who had owned the house next door to the Leighton home for many years, were having their place fixed up; they had decided to sell and live permanently in their condo in Boca Raton.

  It was the end of an era . . . an earsplitting end of an era. A worker was using a noisy paint gun plugged into an even noisier generator to paint the trimwork on the house. Jakob kissed her goodbye, as did Jocie, and the pair left. Jaymie tried to tune out the noise while washing the dishes and putting dinner ingredients in the slow cooker. The sale was concerning. After so many years it would be strange to have new Queensville neighbors, ones who lived there all the time.

  Would they play loud music? Have a barky dog? Or rent the house out on some vacation rental website? The houses on their street were close together, since they didn’t have driveways and garages to separate them. Instead a parking lane ran along the back separating them from their backyard neighbors, whose houses faced the parallel street. That meant that one could, if so moved, reach out a window and shake hands with their next-door neighbor. It would be a stretch, but technically it was possible. She hoped whoever bought the house would be congenial neighbors, the kind you’d want to shake hands with.

  It was one of her mornings to work at the Queensville Emporium. Lunch afterward with Valetta Nibley, her lifelong best friend—literally lifelong, since Valetta was fifteen years older than her and had babysat her many times—would be a definite benefit of the morning shift. Valetta had recently been instrumental in solving a problem concerning Jaymie’s crabby tabby, Denver. He was set in his ways, and barely tolerated Hoppy, let alone Jocie’s young cat, Lilibet. He would not have taken to moving back and forth between the Queensville home and the log cabin on the farm.

  Valetta had solved that by offering to pet sit him, but that had swiftly changed to a more practical solution: she wanted to adopt him. Jaymie had been uncertain. Was it fair to rehome an adult cat who was perfectly happy with his routine? As Valetta had pointed out, his routine would have changed anyway, and this change was more to his benefit. So they decided to give it a try. In July Denver had moved to her friend’s Queensville cottage home and instantly loved it, adapting more quickly than anyone thought possible. He was king of the castle, almost literally. Valetta had ordered him a pet bed with King of the Castle and his photo on it, and had Bill Waterman, their local handyman, build a catio—an enclosed cat patio—on her back porch with kitty door access so he’d have outside time with no danger to himself. He had his own room, with a super-deluxe cat tree by the window, where he could look out into the bushes and get excited about the birds, or more likely sl
eep the day away.

  It was the perfect solution all around. Jaymie was a touch miffed; she had a feeling she missed the little dude a lot more than he missed her.

  Jaymie had a great morning working in the Emporium, dashed over to Valetta’s cottage for lunch and to visit Denver, who she missed more than she cared to admit, then returned home and wrote her food column, “Vintage Eats,” sending it off to Nan in Wolverhampton. She took Hoppy for a long walk, played with Lilibet for a while, and by then it was time to pick Jocie up at school.

  October in Michigan is gorgeous much of the time. When it isn’t rainy, or windy, or—heaven forbid—snowing, there is, some days, a beautiful balance. This Monday was one of those days, sunny but not unseasonably warm, with the scent of falling oak and poplar leaves on the breeze. She pulled on a long cardigan over her flowered rayon tunic top and peach leggings, locked the kitchen door, then exited through the summer porch, locking that door too. She hoisted her purse over her shoulder and headed down the flagstone path to the parking lane behind the house.

  Trip Findley, thin and wiry, the senior beau to every older lady in the village and a favorite at card parties and Rotary Club dances, was hammering a board onto his back fence. He waved with his hammer, his mouth spiky with nails gripped between his lips ready to use. He spat them out into his palm. “Say, Jaymie, you don’t have that awful noisy white van no more,” he called out.

  “I finally replaced it.” She pulled out her keys and hit the unlock button. Her newer—not brand-new; she preferred pre-owned—SUV, a nondescript white Explorer, beeped cheerily. “Mom and Dad insisted on giving me a wedding present, enough money to buy a better vehicle. They made the point that if I was going to be ferrying around precious cargo like Jocie it was time for me to get something a little safer. I spent the summer looking around. We couldn’t use my van and definitely not Jakob’s truck to drive to Florida, so we rented an Explorer. I liked it a lot, so when we got back I bought this.” She patted the door frame, then slung her heavy purse into the vehicle over onto the passenger seat.

  “Good going. Time you had something better to drive! What did you do with the van?”

  “They’re using it on the farm to move stuff around.” She strolled over to Trip, shoving her hands down into the cardigan pockets. “What did you make of all that fuss down by the docks yesterday?”

  “I kinda wish Lois would sell and be done with it, but that woman never met a fight she didn’t intend to win.”

  “She seemed . . . doughty, I guess I’d call it.”

  “I call it feisty. That’s Lois! Spoilin’ fer a quarrel,” Trip said and chuckled. “Y’know, she got used to running society in this town many years back. But things have changed, and she don’t like it.” He nodded, stuck the nails back between his pale lips, and returned to nailing.

  Jaymie got in her SUV and headed out to Jocie’s school. She pulled into the parking lot of the long, low, sixties-era school just as the school principal, Sybil Thorndike, did.

  “Jaymie, my favorite parent! Don’t tell the others,” she said with a laugh as she locked her sedan. “I’m coming back from a meeting at the county school board.”

  Sybil was a woman about Becca’s age, stalwart, sturdy, and no-nonsense, much like Becca, too, in those traits. She was a dedicated educator who loved kids, and Jaymie had found her excellent to deal with in the short time she had known her. At Sybil’s urging Jaymie had joined the parents’ council along with Jakob, and they met to work on enhanced educational opportunities for the students using local community resources.

  Sybil leaned into Jaymie’s car window. “You’ve got a creative mind; I have a question for you.”

  “Join me in my office,” Jaymie said, grabbing her purse from the passenger seat and tossing it in the back.

  Sybil slid into the passenger seat and turned to face Jaymie. “Have you ever heard of a teaching technique called learning through objects?” Jaymie shook her head. “Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Many kids are visual learners. Tactile objects help to cement things in their brains.”

  “I think we’re all like that,” Jaymie responded. “I learned to cook when I was young because my grandmother had me stir batter and measure ingredients. It became second nature to me, whereas my sister never had that growing up, since Mom isn’t much of a cook and Grandma didn’t move in until Becca was sixteen.”

  “Exactly. That’s the theory behind experiments in science class, to develop hands-on skills. But it hasn’t been applied to reading and history, not yet, anyway. I’d like to develop a program section in history using objects from the heritage house—and, if it works, in other subjects—and I was wondering if you could help.”

  “I’d love to. I’ve got some ideas on how to show history through kitchen tools!”

  Sybil nodded enthusiastically. “Excellent. Could I make a suggestion? I’d like to start with a section on the history of trade routes, especially the spice trade.”

  Jaymie’s mind started working—spices? Spices were good in cookies: cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, even allspice! “So you mean for the spice route, maybe, like, nutmeg graters? Pepper grinders? That kind of thing?”

  “Exactly! Do you have anything in your collection at the house?”

  “Hmm . . . a few, but let me look into it and get back to you,” Jaymie said, as she saw Jocie exit the school, hauling a book bag that looked overfull.

  “You got it. We’ll touch base another day.” Sybil got out of the SUV and greeted Jocie somberly, asking about her progress in her new grade.

  “C’mon, kiddo,” Jaymie said. Jocie got into the backseat, which had a specialized seat meant to protect her small yet sturdy frame in case of an accident. She caught her daughter’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Buckle up! And tell me about your day.”

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING was typical of Jaymie’s new normal. While Jakob made breakfast, familiar now with the Queensville kitchen, Jaymie fed Hoppy and Lilibet, then helped Jocie finish her homework at the trestle table. Together they all ate French toast, and Jocie tried out some jokes on them. “Why are ghosts such bad liars?” she asked.

  “Why?” Jaymie and Jakob said together.

  “Because you can see right through them!”

  They laughed and finished breakfast. She then kissed them both goodbye, making sure Jocie had her lunch and her homework. Jakob was taking Jocie to school then heading out of town. He was going to be late coming home since he had to deliver items from his store, The Junk Stops Here, to customers in Wolverhampton, Marine City, Algonac and Port Huron. He had taken on more work at the store since his partner, Gus, was dealing with some family crises, but he was looking to hire more help. Jaymie was pitching in whenever she could, as was Helmut’s partner, Sonya. Helmut, Jakob’s older brother, was his closest sibling in every way.

  Also, it was the countdown to the Christmas tree season and Jakob had to plan this year’s cut with Helmut, who was also his partner in the Christmas tree farm. This time of year, in early autumn, they marked the trees available for self-cutting, as well as the ones they would cut themselves for sale at local spots.

  His parents were scaling back their farming activity as they moved toward full retirement. Always ambitious, Jakob was going to be partnering with his brother Helmut in a new branch—he made that joke himself!—of his business, growing trees for local landscaping businesses. Jaymie and Jakob were alike in so many ways, not the least of which was a boundless enthusiasm for self-employment and a quick imagination for new ideas.

  But today she wasn’t working at any one of her jobs and had the day to herself. She did laundry, finished up the dishes, then opened her laptop and checked the weather. The internet informed her it was going to be cooler than the day before, so she dressed in a pair of cute, colorful leggings and a tunic top, over which she put on a cool jacket Jakob had given her, with sturdy walking boots.

  Singing a happy tune, she leashed Hoppy and began a long
walk through her village, pausing to say hello to friends and take in the fall scents and sights. After he was good and tired and begging to be carried—poor little tripod pup needed that sometimes—she headed to the Queensville Inn to visit her friend Mrs. Stubbs, who lived in a suite of rooms modified for her by her son Lyle, who owned the inn.

  As Jaymie approached the inn she saw that Mrs. Stubbs was not in her room but out on the flagstone terrace, sitting in her motorized wheelchair in the early fall sunshine with a book, which she set aside as she saw her friend approach. Jaymie bent over to hug her, and Hoppy promptly begged to be set on her lap, then curled up and went to sleep while Mrs. Stubbs stroked him, massaging the scarred area where he had lost his leg.

  “What are you up to today, missy?” Mrs. Stubbs asked, her voice crackly and her tone good-humored, for once. She was known locally as a rather cranky woman, but being ninety-something was, as she often said, not for sissies. Some days were bad, with crippling pain in her arthritic joints. Today was a good day; sun on her hands made them better, she had once told Jaymie, flexing the knotted joints.

  Jaymie told her friend all she had been doing and caught her up on everything to do with her new family. Jakob was good, working hard as always, and with more ideas for businesses than he could keep up with. Jocie was doing better. She had already told her friend about their trip in the summer, when they had gone to a hospital in Delaware for Jocie’s annual checkup to keep an eye on her skeletal dysplasia, a part of her achondroplasia dwarfism. They had also, at the same time, consulted with the geneticist who was keeping an eye on her progress, something always done for children with genetic conditions. She was on track, progressing normally, hitting all her growth markers. Jaymie had been pleased to learn what she suspected, that Jocie was in the highest percentile of intellectual development for her age group, despite occasional setbacks physically that made her miss school sometimes.