The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe

by Mary Simses

  “Guess I’m first,” Roy said after we threw to see who would begin and his dart landed much closer to the bull’s-eye than mine. No surprise.

  I took my hundred-dollar bill and folded it in thirds to reveal Benjamin Franklin’s face. Then I slid the bill under the double ring, the wire closer to the outside of the board, over the four-point segment, which was roughly in the two o’clock position of the dartboard.

  Please, let this be over with soon.

  “Okay,” I said, in a cheerful, upbeat tone. “I’m ready. One shot each, until somebody hits Franklin, right?”

  Roy nodded. “Has to hit the face.”

  Yeah, the face. I just wanted it to hit the board. Somewhere. Anywhere.

  Roy took a dart, aimed, and missed the edge of the bill by about an inch.

  “Wow,” somebody said, and there was murmuring among the group around us.

  Beads of perspiration formed above my lip as I looked at how close his dart had come. “Not too bad a shot,” I said in my most casual tone.

  Now it was my turn. I held the dart, trying to relax my grip. My stomach clenched like a fist and I was so nervous my skin felt prickly. Hold it together, I told myself. Hold it together.

  Roy leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets. I looked at the tiny green face on the board. It seemed to wiggle in front of me. I looked down to clear my head. Just throw it. Just let it go. I raised my head again and lifted the dart to my ear. Then I let it fly. It made a soft arc and landed with a solid thud. For a moment there was complete silence and then a woman screamed, “She hit it!”

  I stood rooted to my spot while the group around us yelled and cheered.

  “She did it!”

  “One shot; she got it in one shot!”

  People ran up to me, clapping and laughing. I stared at the board, feeling like my knees were going to buckle under me. I walked to the board and saw that I had not only hit Franklin but I had punctured his nose. I couldn’t believe it. If I tried ten thousand more times, I would never be able to do that again. I pulled out the dart and the bill and gasped at the mutilated face.

  Somebody began chanting, “The Swimmer is a thrower! The Swimmer is a thrower!” Pretty soon the whole place picked up the phrase. People were clapping and saying it, slapping the tabletops and saying it. I was surrounded by the chant.

  Roy came over, holding five twenties, the noise around us almost deafening. He had lost the smile but his eyes were as blue as ever. In his jeans and button-down shirt, with his jacket over his arm, he suddenly looked so handsome I couldn’t turn away. He shook his head as though he, too, didn’t believe what had just happened.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place.” He smiled as he held out the money. “You’ve earned this. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  I looked at the bills in his hand. Like a magic trick after you’ve learned the secret, they had lost their allure. I didn’t really want to take his money anymore. It didn’t seem right, and he seemed so…I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  The crowd continued to chant, making a circle around me and Roy. The people moved in closer. “The Swimmer is a thrower. The Swimmer is a thrower.” It began to get very hot, and the noise…I wanted the noise to stop. Everybody was getting too close, and it was so hot. I needed to sit down.

  I saw Roy put the money into my hand. It didn’t feel like money. It felt like dried leaves. The room began to swirl around me. I looked at Roy and tried to speak.

  “I’ve never seen…” I wanted to tell him I had never seen anything like it, either, but my mouth stopped working and all I could do was point to myself, as though we were playing charades. Black spots began to appear around the room, removing people and objects from view as though they were being sucked into a void. My legs sagged under me. The black holes were everywhere, swallowing up the room. For one last second I saw Roy’s face. And then it vanished.

  Chapter 6

  A City Girl Cuts Loose

  Get another wet towel.”

  I heard a woman’s voice.

  “It’s okay, she’s coming around,” a man said. His voice was close to my ear.

  I opened my eyes. I was lying on my back, on something hard, looking up at a crowd of people peering down at me. Bits of conversation floated by like pods of milkweed.

  “Is she all right?”

  “She fainted.”

  “Should we call nine-one-one?”

  I heard music. Maybe I was in the middle of a square dance. Fiddles and banjos swirled around in an upbeat tempo.

  “All right, give her some room, please. Excitement’s over.” It was Roy’s voice. I turned my head and saw him crouching by my side, his forehead creased with concern, his eyes soft. I could smell his aftershave, something fresh, like the outdoors, but I wasn’t sure what it was. The group began to disperse.

  “What happened?” I asked, glancing at a copper ship’s lantern that dangled from the ceiling. Something cool was on my forehead. I touched the spot and found a wet towel.

  Roy scratched his chin and gave a slight smile, prompting the dimples in his cheeks to appear again. “I’d say you fainted.”

  I groaned. Then I started to get up.

  “Whoa, not so fast.” He put his hand under my back and helped raise me to a sitting position.

  I looked around and saw a crowded room with people eating at tables, clustering around a bar, and throwing darts. The Antler.

  “You all right?” He gave my arm a little tap.

  I took a deep breath and nodded. “I think so,” I said. “I just want to get up.”

  He took my hand and slowly I stood up and brushed off my clothes. I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to smile.

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” he said. “Let’s get you to a chair.”

  We walked to a table against the wall while I tried to figure out what had taken place. Did I faint in his arms? Oh, God, please tell me that wasn’t what happened. “Did you, um, catch me when I fell?”

  He nodded.

  I could feel my cheeks burning. First the kiss and now this. I couldn’t seem to stop embarrassing myself with this man. “Well, thanks…again,” I said quietly.

  I sat down on a red leatherette banquette and pressed the wet towel to my forehead. Roy pulled out a chair opposite me. “No problem…again,” he said.

  The fiddle music was still playing and I realized it was John Denver singing “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”

  “Just sit for a minute, get your bearings,” Roy said.

  “I’m fine, really.”

  He motioned toward the door. “Maybe we should go outside and get some air. Do you want to do that?”

  What I really wanted was to stop making a fool of myself in this town. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m really okay. I don’t know what happened.”

  A waitress came by and put two glasses of water on the table. “Seems like you’re always coming to my rescue,” I said.

  “In the right place at the right time, I guess.” Roy dug a hand into the front pocket of his jeans and produced a folded hundred-dollar bill with five twenties inside. “This is yours. You dropped it when you, uh…”

  I looked at the folded cash, the little puncture mark on Franklin’s nose. I didn’t want it.

  “Here,” he said, putting the money in my hand.

  I stared at it for a moment, and then I took out my wallet and tucked the bills into the back. “Yeah…thanks.”

  John Denver ended his song and the thrum of an electric guitar took over, a handful of notes followed by a woman’s sultry directive: “Let’s go, girls.” Shania Twain’s spunky voice filled the room as she sang, “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”

  We sat there for a minute while the dance floor began to fill up, and then Roy said, “Maybe what you need is to get out there. Sounds like your kind of song.” He motioned toward the dance floor, crowded with gyrating bodies. “How about it?” Shania’s voice echoed all around u
s. Some line about women having the prerogative to have a little fun.

  A dance with Roy. Did I really want to do that? Oh, what the hell, I thought as I stood up. “All right.” I felt my face flush.

  “You know the two-step?” he asked as we found a spot on the floor.

  “I know the Texas two-step.”

  “That’ll do.”

  He used one of his hands to hold mine and put his other hand on the back of my shoulder, creating the proper space between us—the frame. I felt as though I were twelve years old and back at Trimmy Taylor’s, the dance studio that used to be in Pine Point when I grew up there.

  Trimmy, with her petite dancer’s body and multiple face-lifts, which made her look forever awestruck, would always tell us, Make the frame, make the frame. I could still see her dark hair piled high in an endless bun and smell her floral perfume as she whirled about, always keeping her partner at the perfect distance.

  Thank God for Trimmy, I thought as Roy began guiding me around the floor. He was so smooth I could have had glue on my shoes and it wouldn’t have mattered.

  “I knew you could swim, but I didn’t know you could dance,” I told him as we tried a couple of turns.

  “Well, swimming’s not my only talent,” he said, twirling me.

  I noticed that we were the only couple doing a two-step. Everyone else was just making random movements. We circled the floor, doing turns and moves I couldn’t believe I remembered.

  “They have places that teach dancing way up here in Maine?” I asked, pretending to be surprised. Roy twirled me again and then we twirled together; our hands interlocked for a moment, and the room held us in a soft embrace.

  He put his hand back on my shoulder. “Maybe they do and maybe they don’t.”

  “Ah, he’s being mysterious.”

  Roy looked at me and smiled and I smiled, too, and then I started to laugh. It felt great to be dancing. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had danced.

  “Looks like they’re all afraid of us,” Roy said as my feet glided through the moves.

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked around and laughed. “They’re all leaving.”

  I saw that only a few couples were still dancing. Everyone else had gone to the edge of the floor and was watching us.

  Roy turned and then took my hand again. “I didn’t know city girls could cut loose like this.”

  “I’ll bet there are a lot of things you don’t know about city girls.”

  “Well, I know one thing,” he said as he guided me around effortlessly. “It’s a good thing you can’t swim, because—”

  “Wait a minute there.” I let go and stopped, pretending to be insulted, feeling a little electric spark go up and down my arms. “I object to your characterization of that incident. I clearly can swim, and I was doing it when you got to me. I was just a little tired from the rip current, that’s all.”

  “Okay, okay,” Roy said, waving his hands. “May I rephrase my statement, counselor? Isn’t that what you lawyers say in court—can I rephrase the question, or something like that?”

  He took my hand and we began dancing again. “Yeah, something like that,” I said. “Okay, permission granted. Rephrase.”

  “All right, what I meant to say is that it’s a good thing you were having some trouble swimming because otherwise we wouldn’t be dancing right now, and you’re a decent dancer.”

  The song ended and the people standing at the edge of the dance floor actually applauded. Roy stepped back and clapped for me and I laughed and made a little bow. Then a few lone notes on a piano signaled the beginning of something much slower. It was that awkward moment when I never knew whether to stand there and wait to see if I’d be asked again or say thanks and sit down.

  “Thanks,” I said as I turned to walk away. A number of couples were coming back onto the dance floor.

  Roy grabbed my hand. “Wait, you can’t leave yet, Swimmer. This is a good song.” He smiled. The dimples were showing again.

  I wondered how he could tell what the song was from only the first few notes, but then I realized I could do that, too, with songs I loved. “All right,” I said.

  He took my hand again, but this time he moved in close and pulled me against him. I put my other hand around his neck as Willie Nelson began singing “Always on My Mind.”

  Oh, God, this was starting to feel weird. Slow dancing to a love song with somebody who wasn’t Hayden. Somebody who had saved my life. It was weird, all right, but it was also kind of nice. I felt small, like a ballerina, against him. His arm seemed so strong around me that I thought he could have picked me up with just that one arm. I didn’t even know what my feet were doing. I was coasting along, his hand resting on my back. My face was close to his. His aftershave smelled a little bit like cedarwood, and it smelled nice.

  Roy leaned his head down. “So are you always that lucky?”

  “What do you mean? Lucky that I didn’t hit the floor and crack my head open?”

  He laughed. “Well, that, too, I guess. But I meant with the darts.”

  He moved his hand, just slightly, on my back, and a prickly sensation went all the way down my body. I was dancing with someone who wasn’t Hayden and I was feeling…well, pretty good about it.

  “Oh, you thought that was luck?” I gave a cavalier laugh. “I’ll have you know I used to play darts all the time when I was in college at Oxford.”

  “Hmm…Oxford…and you still play?”

  I laughed. “Not really, unless you count tonight.”

  “Well, maybe you should. Maybe this could kick off a new career.”

  I was about to say that playing darts wasn’t the kind of thing Hayden would enjoy, but I stopped myself.

  “It’s hard to find the time,” I said. “With work and all…” I thought about Roy’s job as a carpenter and how nice it would be to work an eight-hour day and be done with it. No staying late, no bringing work home, no working on the weekends.

  “You must play darts a lot,” I said. “You’re good.”

  He shrugged. Then he whispered, “Not good enough to beat you.” His breath was warm against my neck.

  “We’re back to luck again,” I whispered back. I closed my eyes and we danced in silence for the rest of the song.

  “Would you like something to eat?” Roy asked when we returned to the table. “Help soak up the margaritas?”

  I wondered how he knew what I’d been drinking. “Actually, I would.” I realized I’d been cheated out of dinner again and wondered if I’d ever actually ever get a full meal here. “I’d love the meat loaf.”

  “You should try the chowder, too,” he said, pronouncing it the same way Paula did—chowda. “It’s really good here.”

  “Okay, sure,” I said, figuring I might as well go for a third bowl. Maybe this time I’d actually be able to finish it.

  He got up and spoke to the waitress, who was a few tables away, and I saw her write something on a pad. Then he came back and sat down.

  “So where did you learn the two-step?” he asked.

  There was a little white container full of sugar, Sweet’N Low, and Splenda packets near me. I spun the bowl around in the middle of the table. “Trimmy Taylor.”

  “Who?” Roy had a funny smile on his face, as though he thought I was making this up.

  I began rearranging the packets by color. Sugars on one side, Sweet’N Lows in the middle, and Splendas on the other side.

  “Trimmy Taylor. She taught all the kids in Pine Point to dance. That’s in Connecticut, where I grew up.”

  Roy nodded, but I couldn’t tell if that meant he knew of the town or not. He took one of the Splendas and moved it to where I was putting the others. His hand almost touched mine.

  “Pine Point is in Fairfield County,” I said. “Close to New York State. Do you know where Greenwich is? Or West—”

  “I know where Fairfield County is,” he said. Then he got up and for a moment I was afraid he was going to l
eave—that I had insulted him or said something stupid and he wanted to get away. But he came over to my side of the table and sat down on the banquette next to me.

  I felt goose bumps break out on my arms. “Well,” I said, trying not to let him hear the tremble in my voice, “Trimmy had a studio and she taught ballroom dancing.” I laughed. “She was a million years old. She taught everybody in town to dance.”

  Roy smiled. “We could have used Trimmy up here.”

  The waitress came back with two bowls of chowder and a basket of rolls. “Where did you learn to dance?” I asked, unable to picture anything like Trimmy Taylor’s in Beacon.

  He passed the basket of rolls to me. “Well, that particular dance…let’s see…a girl taught me that.”

  “Oh,” I said, taking one of the rolls. “A girlfriend?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  He nodded. “Yes.” Then he added, “But that was a while ago.”

  I felt a little sense of relief and then I caught myself again. What was I doing, flirting with this guy when I had Hayden waiting for me back in New York?

  Roy stirred his soup. “So what are you doing in Beacon?”

  I tore off a small piece of the crusty roll and spread some butter on it. “I’m here because of my grandmother. She asked me to take care of some business for her.”

  “Here in Beacon?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She used to live here.”

  “Really? When was that?”

  “Oh, a long time ago,” I said, tasting the clam chowder and liking it even better this time. Something about the little sprigs of fresh dill made it just perfect. “You know, this soup is really good.”

  “They’re known for it here,” Roy said, and for a few moments we concentrated on eating.

  I finished the bowl without stopping. “I guess I was hungrier than I thought,” I said as I put down the spoon.

  He looked at me and smiled. “Dancing will do that. And darts.”

  I could smell the beer on his breath, and it smelled bitter and sweet. He sat so close that his arm brushed against me twice. I wondered if he knew he was doing that.