Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe

by Heather Webber

  Hands full, I headed back to the kitchen, to drop the dishes at the sink and take a minute to simply breathe. It was overwhelming to be the focus of so much attention.

  “You’re doing fine, just fine,” Bow said from his spot at the stove. His normally pale face was infused with redness from standing over the stove all morning, and concern flashed in his light blue-gray eyes.

  “Especially seeing as you have no restaurant experience,” Jena added. “I’m impressed.”

  I decided she impressed easily, because I was a hot mess. I knew my way around a regular kitchen—cooking and baking were second nature to me—but I knew nothing about working in a commercial kitchen or waitressing.

  I’d already broken three plates, spilled more water than I cared to admit, and was limping—my feet burned like the devil. “Is it always this busy?”

  “It’s a sight busier than usual.” Bow pulled a basket from the double fryer. “Between the birdwatchers and … you. People are curious.”

  There was a slight arch to his back, and I wondered if that’s where his nickname had come from. His body looked like a bow missing its arrow. He emptied the basket onto a paper plate. Crispy hash browns spilled out, glistening and steaming, and I dashed them with salt before they cooled.

  “I know they are.” I’d expected a crowd. But not quite one this size.

  Bow flipped a row of pancakes on the built-in griddle on the top-of-the-line six-burner gas range. It was clear Zee had recently done updates to the kitchen and had spared no expense.

  “We can close up early if you want,” Jena chimed in. “You’re the boss. Nobody’s going to argue.” Hope sparked in her brown eyes as she cut biscuits from thick dough. She stood at the marble-topped prep island, which was covered in a thin coat of flour. Jena, too. The white powder dusted her dark, plump cheeks and thin, straight eyebrows. Black hair threaded with silver was pulled into a high, coiled bun.

  “That’s okay. I can handle it.” At least I could for another four hours.

  Jena dusted off her hands. “You’ve got Zee’s spunk, that’s for sure.”

  Jena and Bow Barthelemy had welcomed me to the Blackbird Café with wide open—if not floury—arms. While they seemed to know everything about me and Mom, they tended to reveal their past to me much like they cooked. A dash of this, a dollop of that. A light-handed sprinkling of history. They were in their midfifties and both had worked here for decades, coming on board after my mom left town. Their job titles were a bit vague, but it seemed to me that they were everything. Cooks, cleaners, gardeners, servers, cashiers, and maintenance.

  I glanced out the double windows over the deep farmer’s sink, across the yard to the mulberry trees. Fluttering leaves made it look like the trees were fanning themselves in the morning heat. Mulberries, still pale and unripe, hung from thin stems. Bow referred to the fruit as the blackberry’s skinny cousin—they shared the same pebbled skin and coloring. Never having eaten a mulberry, I’d picked a pinkish one a few days ago and had winced at the sourness. According to Jena, the berries wouldn’t be fully ripe for another three weeks or so, when they turned fully black. Only then would their sweet yet mild flavor shine through.

  “Zee would be right proud seeing you in here, working your tail off.” Jena’s smile was bright against her dark skin as she glanced over at me.

  She had a slow, melodious way of speaking that I found slightly mesmerizing. Swallowing back a sudden rush of emotion, I said, “Thank you for that.”

  I tended to keep people at arm’s distance because it was easier—emotionally—for me when I had to eventually leave them. It seemed as though Mom and I had always been packing up our lives and moving on. But somehow, in the short week I’d been in Wicklow, Bow and Jena had already slipped past my defenses. Maybe it had been the way they’d welcomed me whole-heartedly, or perhaps the kindness in their eyes, or their endless patience as they taught me to run the café. Or maybe it was me, too spent with grief and the mental toll of having to run a business I knew nothing about, in a place where I knew no one, to put up much of a fight where affection was concerned. They were the closest thing I had to family right now.

  Jena made a noise that sounded like a trill as she put a tray of biscuits into one of the wide double ovens. “I call it like I see it, sugar.”

  I appreciated that. Taking a moment to collect myself, I breathed in the various aromas spicing the air. The dark-roast coffee, vanilla, green onion, lemon, cinnamon, thyme, and a hint of yeast underneath it all. The scents reminded me of Zee and soothed my aching heart.

  Pulling back my shoulders, I grabbed a fresh pot of coffee for top-ups, and headed back to the dining room and into the line of fire, trying not to slosh coffee all over the customers.

  Faylene Wiggins had come in while I’d been in the kitchen and now sat next to Mr. Lazenby. I had met her at Zee’s funeral and guessed her to be in her late fifties or early sixties. She had short dark hair, inquisitive blue eyes, and a way of speaking I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to. At Zee’s funeral, she kept close to me, fending off the nosiest of questions from others, and had gifted me with not one but three zucchini loaves.

  She held out her mug to me and said, “It’s so strange. I’ve known Zee Callow my whole life long. We grew up together, us two. I’ve seen her through an ill-fated marriage with your granddaddy, her opening this café, her birthing your mama, and probably saw her most every day of my life … yet she never said a word about you.” She looked at me expectantly.

  I topped off Mr. Lazenby’s mug, not sure if there had been a question to answer, but I noted that she was the first person to mention my grandfather. He’d been a traveling salesman who’d stopped in town to hawk insurance plans. Zee claimed she’d been swept off her feet by his charm and good looks, and it hadn’t been long before they drove up to a chapel in Gatlinburg for a quickie wedding. It had taken only a few weeks for the enchantment to fade, however, which happened to coincide with his itch to hit the road again. He’d given Zee an ultimatum: him or Wicklow. He’d left town soon after the divorce was finalized, never to be seen again. By that time, he’d known that my mother had been on the way but had driven off anyway.

  Zee had often said my mother’s desire to travel the world was in her DNA, but insisted her roots were here, in Wicklow, and that this town was where she belonged.

  Anna Kate darlin’, promise me you’ll never marry a man who doesn’t respect the importance of your roots. For where your roots are, your heart is.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it, Anna Kate?” Faylene said. “That we didn’t know about you?”

  I knew exactly why no one in town, other than my mom and Zee, had known of my existence. The Lindens. Instead of answering, I shrugged.

  She frowned. “If you don’t mind my asking, honey, where’ve you been hiding all these years?”

  That I could answer. “A little bit of everywhere across the country, mostly up north,” I said, refilling mugs as I went around the table. “I moved around a lot growing up. Mom was a traveling nurse.”

  A lot was an understatement. I’d moved at least twice a year from the time I was born until I turned eighteen and started college. After that, it stretched to a year, a year and a half. Mom had tried to stay put many times, create a home, but old habits had been hard to break. Endlessly restless, she wasn’t one to ever sit still for long.

  “Up north?” Pebbles said, her lips pursed. “Bless your heart.”

  I wasn’t sure why it seemed like she was offering condolences. “I’ve been in Boston for the past two years,” I added. It was the longest I’d ever lived anywhere, even though I’d changed my living situation four times during that time. “Finishing up my degree.”

  In-state tuition fees were the only reason I was still in Massachusetts, or I would have moved on by now. I’d yet to find a place that felt like home, something I wanted very much.

  “I heard that,” Faylene said. “I thought you’d have more of an accent, truth be told.
I fully expected you to sound like a Kennedy. I always did like them Kennedys. Especially that John-John. He was just the cutest thing. Those eyes…” She sighed. “But you don’t talk anything like them.”

  The disappointment in her voice amused me. “I’ve never stayed long enough in one place to develop an accent of any kind.”

  Pebbles said, “My sympathies on Eden’s passing, Anna Kate. It was a sad day around these parts when Zee shared the news. A blood clot, I heard.”

  That’s what the doctors had said, but I always suspected that Mom’s broken heart had finally given out on her. It was honestly quite amazing it had lasted so long—I suspected a big part of it had died along with my father that fateful day so long ago. The rest of it finally caught up.

  A round of murmured condolences swept across the room, and I tightened my grip on the coffee pot. “Thank you all.”

  “I’m not the least bit surprised Eden became a traveling nurse,” Pebbles said, sipping from her mug. “She always had wanderlust in her heart, that one, even when she was a bitty thing. She forever had her nose stuck deep in travel guides.”

  Faylene said, “True enough. Everyone around here knew she wasn’t long for Wicklow. She and AJ had such big plans for their future…” She slid an appraising look toward me. “No one was shocked when she left town so soon after the accident.”

  “Ooh, especially with the way Seelie Linden behaved toward her,” Pebbles said, tsking loudly.

  My heartbeat kicked up, and I fought the urge to pull out a chair and sit down. All my life, I’d longed to know the real story behind my mother’s leaving this town. The juicy bits. The gossip behind Seelie accusing my mother of murder. All the things my mom—and Zee—would never tell me. Whenever I pressed them for more information, for details of why Seelie would make such an accusation, all I ever heard was the crash had been an accident and that was that.

  It didn’t help matters that my mother had no recollection of that day at all—she’d suffered a head injury in the accident that had wiped out her short-term memory.

  But—and it was a big but—I always noticed on the rare times my mom talked about my dad and the accident, she always had a distant look in her eye, and the corners of her lips would tip downward, like they did when she wasn’t quite telling me everything.

  I suspected there was more to the story of the crash, and now that I was here in Wicklow, I realized I wanted to know the whole truth of what happened the day of the wreck.

  Most of all, though, I wanted to know more about my father. Mom had kept a lot of him to herself as well. It had been too painful for her to share much, and I’d never pushed hard, because seeing her cry tore me apart. But now? Now, the time had come.

  “Order up,” Bow called out, thumping his hand on the countertop. He preferred that method to using a bell, a sound he claimed to despise.

  “Excuse me,” I reluctantly said to the table.

  I picked up the plates Bow had set out and turned to see an older woman outside the door, staring in. Big hat, sunglasses. She didn’t look like she planned to come inside—even though she blocked the entrance. She simply gawked.

  Probably another local, curious to lay eyes on the mysterious Anna Kate Callow. It seemed I had my own rubberneckers. I bit back a smile as I set plates in front of a pair of birders, who’d come in for a snack.

  “What kind of doctor are you thinking to become, Anna Kate?” Pebbles asked as I passed by. “A family doc, like your granddaddy?”

  I wiped my hands on my apron. “My granddaddy?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.

  She forked a piece of ham slathered in red-eye gravy and said, “Doc Linden? One of the finest doctors this town ever did see. It’ll be a darn shame when he retires.”

  A hush fell over the restaurant, except for the table of birders who seemed oblivious to everything except their eggs and sweet potato hash.

  Pebbles suddenly turned ghostly white and dropped her fork. “I, ah, I mean…” She glanced around, obviously looking for someone to take the foot out of her mouth.

  According to my mother, I was the spitting image of my father, Andrew James Linden, with my curly dark ginger hair, wide downturned eyes, and deep dimples. It was no surprise at all that everyone here saw the resemblance too, especially the older folks who would have known him personally. My likeness to him was one of the many reasons Wicklow had been off-limits my whole life long.

  “I’m not sure what I’ll practice just yet. I have some time before I need to decide,” I answered, dancing around the massive elephant in the room. Everyone might suspect I was a Linden, but I wasn’t ready to confirm the rumors quite yet. Not until I figured out how to deal with the Linden family, something I’d been worrying about all week long. I still didn’t have a plan.

  When my mother left Wicklow, she packed everything she could fit into her car, including an all-consuming hatred for the Lindens. We’d carted the animosity from town to town, unpacked it, and lovingly tended it until we moved again. After she died, I started carrying the load for her.

  As much as I was curious about my father’s side of my family—and I was—I couldn’t simply forget how they had treated my mother. Of how they had accused her of murder, even after the car crash had been ruled an accident. How they had shamed her. How they had barred her from my father’s funeral, not allowing her to say goodbye to the only man she’d ever loved.

  And how she had vowed the day she left Wicklow that they’d never hurt me the way they had her. Which meant no contact with me. Not ever.

  But now, I was here.

  Avoiding the Lindens while I was in Wicklow these next couple of months wasn’t feasible, considering this town was roughly the size of a postage stamp. I had tried to imagine what I’d do or say when I finally ran into them, almost to the point of driving myself crazy. Finally, to save my sanity, I decided I’d wing it. Because there was simply no way to prepare for a meeting like that.

  Mr. Lazenby banged a hand on the table. “But what about this place? The café? As Zee’s heir, you’re the new owner, am I right to think?”

  Everyone—including the birders—watched me expectantly.

  I didn’t quite know how to answer him. I wasn’t the heir … yet.

  Not waiting for a reply, he kept talking. “What’s going to happen to the café if you’re headed off to become a doctor?”

  A sorrowful Mr. Lazenby had awoken me at the crack of dawn these past few days while the café had been closed, yearning for blackbird pie. As I studied him, I was grateful not to see oceans of tears in his rheumy eyes, but there was no mistaking the apprehension lurking in the murky blue depths as he worried about the future … and the sweet connection he had to his wife, who’d died more than a decade ago.

  “Will there still be pie?” he asked, running a handkerchief over his bald head.

  My chest ached. I simply didn’t have the heart to break the news to him that I planned to sell the place as soon as my mandatory two months of running the café were up and put any proceeds toward the cost of medical school.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know if there will be pie.” I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  Mr. Lazenby narrowed his cloudy gaze on me. “Are you sure you’re Zee’s granddaughter? I’m starting to have my doubts. You didn’t even bake the pies!” he said, his words harsh and cutting.

  Jena rushed to my side, a pot of coffee in hand. “Where’re your manners, Otis? Hush now. Let the girl alone for a minute. All these questions have my head spinning and they aren’t even directed my way. Anna Kate, why don’t you take your break now? Get off your feet for a bit, get some fresh air.” To the table, she said, “Who wants more coffee?”

  “Hmmph.” Mr. Lazenby crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Thanks, Jena.” Fresh air was exactly what I needed to clear my mind, to remind myself why I was here and putting myself through this torture. I headed for the garden.

  Bow held open the
back door for me. “You want a snack? I can whip something up real quick.”

  “No thanks, Bow. I’ll be right back. I just need a minute to myself.”

  “Take as long as you want. Jena and I can hold down the fort.”

  Stepping outside, I closed my eyes and leaned against the screen door frame.

  The scent of mint was strong, undercut with another fragrance I didn’t recognize at first. Then it came to me: honeysuckle. Strange only because I hadn’t seen any growing in the yard.

  Puzzled, I opened my eyes and nearly jumped out of my skin when I spotted a young woman sitting on the deck steps.

  She jumped too, leaping gracefully to her feet. “Sorry, ma’am! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Not the damned “ma’am” again. My God.

  “Are you one of the bird people?” I asked. I didn’t think so—not with the way she was dressed in threadbare Daisy Dukes and a black tank top, her feet bare and caked with dirt.

  Tall and thin as a willow, she stared with big blue eyes from a deeply tanned face dotted with freckles. Long dark hair was pulled back, braided along the crown of her head. The rest hung in loose waves down her back. Cradling a twig basket in her skinny arms, she held it as if it were a fragile newborn. An embroidered tea towel was tucked protectively inside the basket.

  Those impossibly big eyes blinked in confusion. “The bird people?”

  I guessed her to be fifteen or so as I gestured to the side yard. “They’re birders, watching for a glimpse of the blackbirds.”

  She turned, and I realized the honeysuckle scent was coming from her. A lotion or shampoo.

  “Oh! No, ma’am. I’m not one of them.” She glanced toward the mulberry trees. “I’m so sorry about Miss Zee.” Tears pooled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. “She was a good friend to me.”

  “Thank you…?”

  “Oh! I’m Summer. Summer Pavegeau.”