Maple Sundaes & CIder Donuts

by Olivia Gaines

  “Bless my eyes, Evan. Did you come for a bowl of my hearty chicken noodle soup?” Hazel asked, her feet shuffling in a deliberate effort to close the distance between the door and the walking path behind the counter. “And who is this lovely woman?”

  “Hazel, this is Leta, my wife,” he said with pride, placing a hand over her shoulder.

  An arm of ownership wrapped around Evan’s waist and a possessive hand pressed to his belly. The heat from her fingers soaked through the cotton of his shirt, speeding up his heartbeat. Her touch soothed him like a healing balm over a wound that had previously refused to close. A calmness covered him as he listened to the interaction between the two women.

  “Mrs. Murray, my husband has been raving about this soup and turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce, and I’m rather anxious to try it myself,” Leta said, giving a warm smile.

  “You’re just cute as a button,” Hazel said. “I want to hear all about how you two met and fell in love.”

  “Mrs. Murray, we’re going to have to save that for another day,” Leta offered. “We’re newlyweds, and you know how that goes. I’m already torn between sitting here in your café or getting that turkey sandwich to go, so let’s not press our luck today.”

  “Lord, I hear you. When old Hank Murray and me first got married, I swear that man and me didn’t come up for air until we conceived our first child,” Hazel said. “He finally slowed down on these hips after the birth of our fourth one. So, yes, I know what you mean. Come on, have a seat and let me get you served up.”

  “Thank you,” Leta said, planting a kiss on Evan’s cheek before removing the warmth of her hands to find a seat.

  Like a lovesick puppy, Evan trailed along behind his wife, pulling out a chair for her to be seated. Planting himself in an uncomfortable seat across from Leta, he said no words as she pulled out an eyeglass case to secure the expensive shades. Calmly, she took a small spray bottle of hand sanitizer, asking for his hands. Spritzing his palms, Leta sprayed her hands as well, rubbing them together to cleanse away the touching of items in the market.

  “You have quite a way with people, Leta,” Evan said, rubbing the cleanser on his hands. “I personally don’t like most folks.”

  “Most people, in my assessment, like to feel as if they matter,” Leta said, putting away the cleanser. “The problem is, the beautiful people of the world are accustomed to having others fawn over them and ignoring the small guy. The real power is when the small guys get together and all those fingers ball up and make a huge fist.”

  “Is that what you’re doing here? You came to help me make a fist?”

  “Sure beats you spending lonely nights using that fist all by yourself,” she said with a coy smile. She looked up as Hazel brought over two large bowls of steaming hot soup, capped by saucers with thick turkey sandwiches on homemade white bread. “Thank you, Mrs. Murray.”

  “Oh honey, you’re family now. Call me, Hazel.”

  “Thank you, Hazel. This smells amazing,” Leta said, lowering her face to inhale the smell of comfort. The love for the bowl of nourishment ended as the doorbell jangled, ushering in a man of the cloth. Leta somehow knew he was looking for them and set the saucer over the bowl of soup, praying the pastor wouldn’t be long-winded. Her stomach was now growling and she really wanted the food.

  “Evan,” the pastor said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Well, you found me, Reverend Goodson,” Evan said. “This is my wife Leta.”

  The pastor turned to actually take a good look at Leta. The expression on his face altered slightly at the notice of a non-white woman, then went to her hand for the wedding ring. Thin lips formed a straight line ready to spew words built on Bible verses, which more than likely came forth out of habit versus by heart.

  “A pleasure to meet you,” the pastor said, “I hope, truly, that I will see you in church since you didn’t see a need to get married in one.”

  “Aren’t we judgmental on a Saturday morning, Rick,” Evan said to the pastor. “Please don’t get snippy with me in front of my wife. It won’t stop me from socking you in the collar that seems to be squeezing the common courtesy from your neck.”

  Leta’s brow furrowed at the sound of her husband openly threatening a pastor in the middle of a café. She reached across the table and touched Evan’s hand. The corners of her mouth softened as she shifted her gaze to the pastor.

  “Reverend Goodson,” she said, taking a deep sigh. Before the man could react, she slipped her hand into the pastors. “Although we were not married in your church, you can bless this meal before it gets cold as well as our union. I would really love a quick prayer of thanksgiving and a blessing for our marriage.”

  “I can do that,” Rick Goodson said, squeezing her hand and lowering his head. The words flowed from his mouth with ease and assuredness, blessing the meal and the couple in one fell swoop. He closed the prayer quickly, letting go of their hands as he took a hard look at Evan. “I’m sorry. I came at you wrong.”

  “Rick, you’ve always come at me wrong. If you want Leta and me in the pews on Sundays, it would be nice if you just give us a frickin’ invitation,” Evan said.

  “Fine, you turd blossom! I’m inviting you and your wife to church tomorrow! Are you coming or not?” Reverend Goodson said.

  “Probably not, because if I have to sit there and listen to one of your dry ass sermons, I’m probably going to kill myself and end up in hell for committing suicide,” Evan said, uncovering his soup. The spoon slipped inside of the bowl and scooped up a large egg noodle.

  “Evan, honey,” Leta said. “I’m not understanding the adversarial relationship with the Reverend here. Please cue me in on this animosity between you two.”

  “Rick’s my cousin,” Evan said. “See, I know where the skeletons are in his closet, so, no, he can’t be my emissary for my journey between here and the afterlife. This joker will not be in charge of guiding my soul when I know what he did in 1998 at Summer Camp.”

  “Man, we were kids! Will you let that go?”

  “Nope. I am not even going to mention your current life choices,” Evan said. “Plus, I don’t like your church of sour-faced people who sit in the pews rendering judgment against their fellow man. We thank you for the blessing, but I’m not sitting in your pews. Have a good day.”

  “The Lord is forgiving, Evan. I wish you could be more Christlike in the understanding of human nature,” Pastor Goodson said.

  “I am understanding of human nature and I know yours,” Evan said. “Good seeing you, Rick. Say hi to Aunt Evelyn for me.”

  “You’re not going to even wish my wife well, Evan?” Rick asked, waiting for a response that did not seem to be forthcoming.

  Leta watched her husband bite into the turkey sandwich, dismissing the pastor as if he hadn’t said a word. She didn’t know the story. Right now wasn’t the time to ask. The pastor left, saying nothing more, and she started to eat her lunch. There were years to come in their relationship. The need to know everything today wasn’t necessary. Therefore she let it go.

  “This is a good sandwich,” she said. “I’m anxious to try the soup.”

  “What? You don’t have any questions about Reverend Rick?”

  “You’ll tell me when you’re ready, but we’ll need to find a place to attend church. I’m Methodist, so there’s that,” Leta offered. “Plus, after the birth of our first child, we will want the little one baptized.”

  Evan started to laugh. She was refreshing in many ways. He didn’t know many women who wouldn’t dig through his pockets or search his phone for clues of knowledge on his differences with his cousin Rick. Either Leta was stone-cold crazy, or she truly understood human nature on a level he had yet to master.

  “I was raised Protestant, but if need be, we can go to church in Manchester,” he told her.

  “This is our community. It is where we live and where we work; therefore it should also be where we worship,” she said. “We have time.”
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br />   Evan continued to eat, pausing briefly to look at her again. “Everything in me wants to believe you’re nuts, but you have this calming effect on me. Normally, I would have come close to punching Rick. Today, I didn’t even curse at him, so there’s that,” Evan said.

  “Progress is a slow train,” Leta said. “Each time the locomotive stops, someone gets off. The load appears as if it’s lightened, but three more unseen people also climb on board.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” he said, unwittingly scowling at her.

  “It means, husband, that as we go along, there are going to be issues you need to unload to make room onboard your heart for our children and me,” Leta said. “The train can come into the station, but if it’s loaded with crap nobody wants, then it’s really of no use. I’m not getting on a train to nowhere. I gave up my life because in your letters, I read the words of a man who wanted to move forward. The train has left the station, Evan. We are moving forward, so any unnecessary baggage needs to be stored or thrown off the choo-choo.”

  “Simplistic, but it makes so much sense,” Evan said, wrinkling his brow.

  “Honey, my logic is often flawless,” Leta said. “I see us having a great life. That’s what I want, a husband and a family that is based in love.”

  “Love?”

  “Yes, that thing that’s going to happen to you in the next few weeks,” she said, winking at him. “Your A-Game needs to climb aboard the train as well and get moving if that’s going to occur.”

  “Don’t you worry, Leta,” he said. “I’m going to step up and stoke that fire in the engine in a massive way.”

  Evan watched her eat. Her entire bearing reeked of Southern gentility. He wondered if Claudia had been at the table, would the same pleasantness have occurred with Hazel and dealing with his cousin? Maybe there was a reason to go back to church after all, since fate had dealt him the hand of Leta versus spending his life married to Claudia.

  CLAUDIA TACKET WANTED off the slow-moving roller coaster that epitomized her relationship with the hunky boy toy known as Kevin. As great as he was in bed, it did little to compensate for the lackluster performance in conversation. Once the sex was over and the lights came on, it was like binge-watching a lousy science fiction series where you could see the lines from the green screen animation. She was no longer amused, especially after he gave her a good licking and went to the beach for a pickup game of volleyball.

  She was alone again, watching the lacquer dry on her nails. The three or four people at the pool seemed reasonably uninteresting, and boredom set in.

  “Shit, where is Leta when I need her?” she asked the cosmos, wanting to pick up her phone, but the wet nails prevented her from doing so at the moment.

  Leta had been her best friend since the age of nine when they were the only two Methodist kids in St. Mary’s Catholic School. The two oddballs were small, single entities roaming the hallowed halls amongst generations of practicing ash wearers in varying ages of stair-stepping rosary rubbers, which meant they needed allies if they were to survive. Pairing up for self-protection, Leta and Claudia became inseparable throughout middle and high school. However, Claudia never viewed her gal pal as an equal, only as a sidekick.

  Risking the damage to the finely painted nails, Claudia picked up her phone to call her best bud. If nothing else, she could complain about all the mind-blowing sex with Kevin, and they could commiserate on the mind-numbing conversation held after the copulation.

  “She loves to hear about me getting some,” Claudia chirped into the air at no one.

  Leta really wasn’t one for dating. Her romantic life paired on the same level as conversations with Kevin, non-existent with blips of possibilities. At least amongst the three of them, Claudia prided herself on being the most interesting. The last thing she ever planned to do was to get married to a town clerk in a suburb with the population of an outskirt city of Atlanta. Plus it was cold and covered in snow six months of the year. A body like hers didn’t deserve hearty helpings of potato soup and thick slices of white bread.

  The phone rang three times, and on the last one, she received Leta’s voicemail.

  “Odd, she always takes my calls,” Claudia said. Her eyes scanned the beachfront, looking for Kevin. Ending the call and not leaving a message, she sighed in boredom. “Life sucks and I don’t speak Mexican well enough to even go shopping.”

  THE BRIGHT RAYS OF the sun were dappled with hues of blue, gradient in colors that blended into soft grays as the sun set behind the thick copse of trees. The evening ended without much fanfare, bringing a rolling of dark clouds which meant heavy rainfall for the evening and also equaled a drastic drop in temperatures.

  Evan knew the spare bedroom’s heater had yet to be cleaned of creosote in the chimney pipe, so firing it up would be more harm than help. Thus far, the only one he’d cleaned was the one in his bedroom and living room. The couch was no place for a lady to sleep, which left only one option.

  “Leta, the temperature is going to drop tonight,” he said, bringing in wood from outside. “You will need to sleep in my room.”

  “Well, that was less than subtle,” Leta said, hearing the buzzing of her cell phone.

  “No, I haven’t cleared the stove pipe from last season,” Evan said, thinking a bit more. “Honestly, I haven’t cleaned it in a while since no one really uses that room. Starting up that fireplace will more than likely fill the house with smoke. I mean, you could sleep on the couch if you wish, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “Yeah, that couch is pretty sad,” she said, twisting her lip.

  The phone buzzed again. Leta pulled the device from her purse and, seeing Claudia’s face, pressed the button to send the call to voicemail. It was just like her friend to call and take all the attention away from Leta to make the moment become the Claudia Show. Not today. Not tonight. She’d passed on the opportunity to be a wife to Evan and he was now hers, minus the Claudia contamination.

  “Mine alone,” she whispered, then turned to her husband. “So much for dating first, huh?”

  “Oh no,” Evan said with a smile. “You sleep on your side and I sleep on mine. When we have our wedding night, you’re going to want to rip off my clothes to get to Hercules.”

  “I tell you what, I’ll take my chances in the other room with an extra blanket,” she said. “It’s still only June. How cold can it be?”

  Two hours later, shivering so hard the bottom row of her teeth clacked against the top of her lip, Leta wrapped herself in a blanket. Her feet in warm socks, she padded down the narrow hallway to locate Evan’s room. A red glow seeped from under the door from the burning of wood, which smelled like a cozy bit of heaven. Tapping lightly, she slipped her head through the door, calling his name.

  “Evan?”

  “Got cold, huh?”

  “Yes, can I...I was wondering...,” she started as he flung back the covers on the empty side of the queen-sized bed. Leta felt like it was Christmas morning and time to wake her parents to open presents. Gleefully, she moved to the bed, slipping under the covers and making a small ball with her body. The shivering didn’t stop until her husband rolled over and cradled her body with his warmth. The faint scent of his cologne tickled the fine hairs in her nostrils, inciting her senses. Leta pressed her bottom closer to Evan, loving the feel of his arm around her body.

  “Cut it out, Leta,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “I’m trying to be a good man.”

  “You are a good man, Evan. That’s why I’m here,” she said, running her fingers across the back of his hand. “A good man deserves a good woman. I’m a good woman and plan to be a good wife and mother to our children.”

  “Of that, I have no doubts,” he replied, adding a small kiss to the side of her neck. He exhaled slowly, then inhaled the soft scent of her skin. The feel of Leta in his arms brushed aside the years of loneliness, sadness, and desire to rise above his name and circumstance. She’d come to him to make a difference, and a differ
ence they would make once they figured out how to navigate a few bumps in the road. Evan and Leta Eaton, the new toast of Meredith, New Hampshire, would easily be on the dinner invite roster of all the powers that be in town. He looked forward to turning them all down.

  Evan slipped into a deep slumber with a smile on his face.

  Chapter Six - Agreeability

  Evan didn’t sleep much of the night. The few hours he did get to rest were beleaguered by a raging hard-on which kept waking him up begging for attention. At one point, he wanted to leave the bed and take his chances of sleeping on the worst couch in the world. However, when she turned over, snuggling closer to him, the gentle exhalation of soft breathing caressed his skin, sending goose pimples up and down his arms. The erection was ready to poke a hole in all of his good intentions and the sleeping angel next to him.

  “Jesus,” he mumbled, trying to slide away from the warmth of her embrace. Each time he moved, Leta slid closer, holding on to her husband around his midsection. After an hour, he gave up, allowing the tender moment between husband and wife to continue.

  His thoughts pinned him to the mattress, wanting what he had yet to earn and craving the thing his body needed. His wife’s respect meant more than his husbandly rights, therefore he wouldn’t press the issue. Instead, he began to think of local contractors who could do the work on the house. Over the next hour where others would count sheep, Evan chose to count the number of ways to spend the money Coraline owed him for the no-show mail-order bride.

  A calloused fingertip ran across his wife’s cheek, wondering how she knew Claudia. Evidently, she knew her well enough to know that Claudia had been playing a game with him, and he could lose everything his family worked for, including the 10,000 acres of land which he tended with genuine care. At times he wanted to leave the cozy town of Meredith and set sail on the open seas to venture out to see the world, yet this was his home. The place where he and Leta would raise their family.