The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe

by Mary Simses

  The meat loaf came, and it was fantastic. I savored every bite, trying to figure out what they had put in there to make it taste so good. We lingered over dinner, ordering coffee at the end. Finally, Roy looked at his watch.

  “It’s almost eleven. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.” He left his hand on the table. I wanted to touch it, just brush my hand over his for a second.

  “Me, too,” I said. “I’d better get back.” I was still feeling a buzz from the drinks. “I think the walk will do me good.”

  “Walk? No, don’t do that. I’ll give you a lift.” Roy slid out of the seat. “That is, if you want one.”

  Yes, I wanted one. I didn’t want the evening to end. Not just yet. I felt too good. “Sure, that would be great.”

  We walked toward the door, through the aisle, where people were clustered in little groups, past the tables, where customers were drinking and telling stories, past the bar, where couples were turned toward one another on bar stools and where Skip was pulling wineglasses from an overhead rack.

  Skip nodded to Roy and then did a little double take as he saw that I was walking out with him. He shot us a big, wide, missing-a-molar grin.

  “Hey,” he said as he gestured for me to come over. “Don’t forget this.” I walked to the bar and he handed me my copy of Forbes.

  I almost laughed, recalling my thoughts when I’d put it in my purse. So I wouldn’t be bored.

  “Oh, yeah, thanks,” I said, tucking it back into my handbag.

  A salty breeze was blowing outside, and the street was quiet except for the waves crashing on the beach by the seawall.

  “I’m just down a couple of blocks,” Roy said as we walked past the storefronts, all closed for the night.

  The sky was pulsing with stars. “I can’t believe how clear it is.” I pointed straight up. “Look, there’s Orion.”

  “I see it,” Roy said. “The three stars are the belt and those are his arms and legs.” He traced the outline with his finger.

  “The stars seem so much brighter and closer here,” I said. They dangled over us like a net, holding us in place.

  Roy looked back at me. “Maybe they are, Ellen. Maybe they are.”

  He opened the passenger door of the truck and I sat down on the bench seat. He got in the driver’s side and tossed his jacket in the back. We drove in silence through the town, past the beach and the construction site where he worked, up the side road, and down the street to the Victory Inn, where the porch lights glowed a soft yellow. Then he pulled the truck to the side of the road.

  I was holding my leather purse in my lap and Roy began to stare at my hands. I could feel him staring and all I could think about was Hayden and what he would think if he knew I was sitting in this guy’s truck, having my hands stared at. And why was I sitting in this guy’s truck, having my hands stared at? I knew I needed to get out of there, but I couldn’t move.

  And then Roy started tracing his fingers over mine. Over the knuckles, over the joints, up and down each finger. I felt as though I had been wired for electricity and plugged into a wall socket. A surge of heat moved through my whole body. I could barely breathe.

  He turned his face to me and then he leaned in. He took his hand off mine and started to put his arm around me. Then he stopped.

  “Can we move this tote bag out of the way?” he asked, nudging the purse on my lap. His dimples were showing again.

  “Sure,” I said in a breathy, barely-able-to-speak way. “I’ll put it on the floor.”

  But he had already begun to pick it up. Except that he grabbed it by the side and suddenly the whole purse turned upside down, spilling out half the contents. Lipsticks and pens tumbled to the floor. My cell phone and a bucket of loose change scattered onto the seat. My wallet and iPod fell out, along with a handful of dollar bills. And, finally, the envelope from Winston Reid—the one that said MR. CUMMINGS on the outside and held my grandmother’s letter—flew to the floor.

  “Sorry,” Roy said as he began to help me gather up the pieces. “Guess I don’t know how to handle a purse.”

  I started to laugh. Then he picked up the envelope with my grandmother’s letter in it and I saw his grin disappear and a look of alarm come over his face.

  “What’s this? Winston Reid Jennings, Attorneys at Law?”

  “That’s the law firm I’m with,” I said, picking up my iPod.

  “Your law firm.” He sounded angry. The man who had traced Orion’s belt with his fingertip was gone, and I had no idea why.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I know what you’re doing.” His eyes had gone cold. “I should have known this would happen all along.”

  I clutched my cell phone and a lipstick. “Should have known what would happen? What are you talking about?”

  He waved the envelope at me. “This is what I’m talking about. Suing me over the dock—falling off.”

  The dock. Suing him. I couldn’t get my mind around this.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would I be suing you over the dock? I fell off, you helped me in.” I was about to add that even if I wanted to sue someone over the dock I’d be suing the owner of the property and the construction company—the deep pockets—not someone who just worked there. But he never gave me the chance.

  “You big-city lawyers,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re all alike. Nobody takes responsibility for themselves anymore. It’s always somebody else’s fault. And you lawyers have made it that way.”

  We were all alike? I’d made it that way? Why was he attacking me and my profession? “I still don’t understand why you’re angry,” I said, “and I really don’t appreciate you criticizing me or what I do.”

  He pointed to the envelope. “You’re a lawyer. Lawyers sue people. You said yourself somebody could get sued because of the dock.”

  “The dock?” I said. “Oh, my God. All I meant was that it needed to be fixed.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what you meant.”

  I could feel the blood rush to my face. He was trying to put words in my mouth. Who did he think he was? “You’re completely wrong,” I said. “What’s in that envelope has nothing to do with you.”

  Roy glared at me. “Oh, it doesn’t? Then why is my name on it?”

  “Your name?”

  “Yeah, my name. Cummings.”

  Cummings? Was his name Roy Cummings? Oh, my God, he had the same last name. It was beginning to make sense. Now all I had to do was explain that he wasn’t Mr. Cummings. Not the one I needed to see, anyway. And that I wasn’t there to sue anybody. I was there to fulfill my grandmother’s dying wish. That’s what I should have done. But by then I was too angry. Way too angry. I grabbed my purse and got out of the truck.

  “You don’t know anything,” I said, my voice shaking as I stood by the open door. “Not about lawyers, not about lawsuits, and especially not about me. And I’ll tell you this—I’d rather be a big-city lawyer from New York than a narrow-minded guy from Maine who jumps to conclusions.” I tossed back my head and looked him straight in the eye like a missile locking onto a target. “See you in court,” I said, slamming the door.

  I was fuming as I walked up the path to the Victory Inn. I hoped he believed I was going to sue him. I hoped it gave him nightmares. What a supercilious bastard. God, I was lucky I didn’t let him kiss me. What the hell was I thinking?

  The door creaked as I stepped inside. The lobby was empty except for the soft glow of two sconces and the blue haze of Paula’s computer screen. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm myself.

  And then I thought, Let him kiss me? Wait a minute. I would not have let him kiss me. That was never going to happen. I would have stopped him. I was about to stop him. I was engaged, for God’s sake. My ring was upstairs in room 10—or room 8 or whatever it was. I had a fiancé whom I loved dearly and who was back in New York waiting for me. Yes, and he was brilliant—there wasn’t a problem he couldn’t solve, and he was re
fined, and he was a great dresser, and he was handsome, and he was about to be a rising star in the world of politics. I had a sudden vision of Hayden, at his desk in one of his Savile Row suits, maybe the charcoal gray with the tiny pinstripes, and a starched white shirt and Hermès tie—probably the blue one with the little Hs all over it that were so small they didn’t look like Hs.

  There never would have been a kiss.

  Chapter 7

  The House on

  Comstock Drive

  A car horn wailed outside…two long blasts. Then silence. Then another long blast.

  My eyelids lifted until my eyes were half open. The room was dim, with just a slice of light peeking from beneath the window shade. I turned over and tried to go back to sleep, but every muscle hurt and my head ached.

  Margaritas.

  I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry.

  Margaritas.

  A clump of hair was stuck to my forehead, a few strands glued to the corner of my mouth.

  A chair. Someone was standing on a chair, yelling.

  I pulled the hair away.

  It was me on the chair. Oh, God.

  People were cheering. People were raising their glasses. To me. I was standing on a chair, pointing to some guys playing darts.

  Some guys playing…

  Ohhh.

  My stomach swerved like a planet veering off its orbital path.

  There was a hundred-dollar bill and a hole in Ben Franklin’s nose and a bet and I threw darts and Roy threw darts and…

  Roy.

  He was there. I remembered now. We threw darts and we danced a two-step and talked about Trimmy Taylor with the face-lifts and the frame and we ate meat loaf and Skip kept giving us drinks and Roy drove me home and kissed—

  Hold on a minute.

  My eyes burst open as I recalled my purse falling over and everything tumbling onto the floor of Roy’s truck. And then he was waving an envelope at me. The envelope with my grandmother’s letter in it. He thought I was going to sue him. And his name was Cummings. And he was trying to kiss me.

  Outside my room, the horn went off again, and I wanted to run to the window and yell, And they say New Yorkers are rude! but it would have required too much effort.

  I put the pillow over my head and moaned. Thank God it didn’t happen. I must have been really drunk. Was I somehow seduced by his ability to use a nail gun or run PVC pipe? He’d been horrible to me. Just plain rude. Where did he come up with the idea that I was going to sue him? And all that talk about big-city lawyers. Please…

  I turned to look at the alarm clock. The numbers burned with a painful brightness: ten thirty. How could it already be ten thirty? And what day was it? It took me a minute to figure out it was Thursday. And I had planned to be up at seven.

  My head felt heavy as I righted myself to a sitting position, sat for a moment, and then eased my way into the bathroom. The sight in the mirror was frightening, especially under the yellow-green glow of the ceiling light. Large, dark smudges of makeup lay caked under my eyes. Had I looked that way last night?

  I scrubbed the makeup off my face, swore off liquor, and then got dressed. Taking my cell phone into the bathroom, I put down the toilet seat and dialed Hayden’s office. His secretary, Janice, told me he was in a long meeting. Disappointed, I hung up and listened to the two voice-mail messages my mother left while I was at the Antler. Did you drop off the letter yet? What happened? When are you coming back?

  I started to dial the house number and then thought better of it. I couldn’t handle a long, tangled conversation with her right now, and if I was worried about her sixth sense kicking in yesterday I really needed to worry today. She’d know before I said hello that something was wrong. I texted her another message: All is well. Haven’t connected with Mr. C but going to try again now. Leaving today for sure. Will call soon. XOX.

  I hope that will appease her, I thought as I grabbed my purse and car keys from the bureau. I’d be able to give her a full report soon. I walked down the two flights of stairs and through the lobby, where Paula was deep in conversation with a man holding a tub faucet and a wrench. She gave me a little nod as I went by.

  The front seat of the car was warm. I put down the windows and was about to turn on the GPS when I realized I didn’t need it. I knew the way to Chet Cummings’s house. It wasn’t long before I turned onto his street and pulled into the driveway behind the green Audi, which was still in the same place.

  No one answered when I knocked on the door. I waited a minute and knocked again, but there was still no response. I peeked in a couple of windows, but didn’t see any signs of activity. Where did this man go every day? Did he have a job? I wondered if there was a McDonald’s around somewhere. I heard they hired a lot of elderly people.

  From my purse, I pulled out the envelope with my grandmother’s letter in it. I ran my finger over the name—MR. CUMMINGS—as I stood on his front porch trying to decide what to do. All right, I thought, you just have to leave the letter here. You’ve got to leave it, check out of the inn, and get on the road. You’ve come as far as you can with this. Gran would understand.

  A car pulled into the driveway next door—the neighbor with the white Volvo. I gave her a little wave, but she didn’t wave back. She got out of her car and began walking across Mr. Cummings’s lawn. She was wearing a black tank top and skinny white jeans, and I noticed that she had a nice figure. She strode right up onto the front porch and put her hands on her hips as though she owned the place.

  “Are you looking for somebody?” she asked, crinkling her forehead, bearing down at me with dark brown eyes.

  I was so surprised I could barely speak. “I’m looking for Mr. Cummings,” I finally stammered.

  She glanced at the envelope in my hand. “And what business do you have with him?”

  This was too much. I couldn’t believe how nosy she was. “My business with Mr. Cummings is my business,” I said.

  She leaned in and I caught the scent of a spicy perfume. “Well, I’m his neighbor…and his friend. I look out for him.”

  “That’s very nice,” I said, hearing my voice take on an edge. “But this is a personal matter and I prefer not to discuss it with anyone else.”

  I put the envelope back in my handbag and marched down the porch steps. Who did she think she was? I look out for him. There was no way I would leave the letter there now. I could just see her holding it over a teakettle, steaming it open, reading it. I’d mail it from the Beacon post office or drop it in a mailbox on my way out of town, but I would never leave it on his door.

  Back at the inn, I packed all my clothes in my overnight bag. In the bathroom, I assembled my toiletries, pulled the cell phone charger and laptop cord from the outlet over the sink, and checked my makeup in the mirror.

  I took a final look around the room, noticing a little hairline crack in the china pitcher on the bureau. Funny I hadn’t seen that until now. I peeked into the bathroom once more to make sure I’d taken everything. The last thing I noticed was the print of the sailboat coming into harbor at dusk. I had never bothered to look at the name of the boat, but now I did. On the hull, in blue script, were the words JE REVIENS. I return. I closed the door to the room and walked downstairs.

  The dining room was doing a brisk lunch service when I passed. Paula came through the swinging door from the kitchen.

  “You leaving us?” she said, glancing at my overnight bag.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling bad that I hadn’t fulfilled my mission. Not the way my grandmother had intended, anyway. “It’s time for me to go.”

  I followed Paula to the desk and signed my name in the book under a column marked DEPARTING GUESTS. Then she ran my credit card.

  “Hope our little town wasn’t too dull for you,” she said as I slung the strap to my laptop case over my shoulder. I saw the glimmer of a smile on her face, like a spark about to ignite.

  “No. It was fine.”

  She picked up a pen and put it
behind her ear. “Well, maybe you’ll be back sometime.”

  I shrugged and tried to smile. “I think my business here is over.” I rolled my bag out the door, closing it behind me.

  The air was cool, and I cracked the car windows to get a breeze. I set the GPS for home and chose the scenic route. I drove past green fields, pine trees, and yards where children played tag and, as I drove, I imagined how I would photograph each scene if I had my camera. I went by blueberry farms where roadside stands sold baskets topped high with berries and where fresh flowers were arranged in colorful bouquets on tables. I thought about Gran and her blueberry muffins and how she was able to make the tops just a little bit crunchy while the insides were perfectly moist. Just the thought of those muffins made my stomach rumble from hunger.

  After fifteen minutes I came to a stone wall on the left. It seemed to go on forever, but I occasionally caught a glimpse of a field on the other side. Faded NO TRESPASSING signs appeared at seemingly random intervals, their once-red letters now pink. The field continued and the wall accompanied it, stray boulders and rocks lying by the side. “Good fences make good neighbors,” I said aloud, recalling the line from the Robert Frost poem.

  Then the wall ended and houses began to reappear. I passed a driveway smeared with the blues and pinks of hopscotch chalk, and then a sign that told me the highway was straight ahead.

  Another hundred yards down the road I saw a small store. The sign said EDDY’S FOOD MART, although the R was gone from MART. You could see the outline of where it had been, though. Mat, I said to myself. Eddy’s Food Mat. It sounded the way someone from Maine would say it. A single antique red-and-white gas pump stood in front of the store. I glanced at my gas gauge, saw that I was down to a quarter of a tank, and pulled in. A teenage boy with freckles and red hair ambled over to the car.

  “Fill it?” he asked, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked at me.

  “Yes, thanks.” I turned off the engine. “I’m going into the store for a minute, okay?”