The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe

by Mary Simses

  The breeze ruffled the wildflowers below us. I could feel him staring at me again.

  “The woman was my grandmother,” Roy said, running his hand lightly along my arm.

  I jumped down from the wall, ignoring the tingling feeling that was spreading inside me. “Well, he ended up in a beautiful place,” I said, looking around. “Look at all these flowers.” I tried to pick a tiny blue flower, but the stem was tough and wouldn’t break.

  Roy walked up beside me. “You can’t do it like that.” I could feel the warmth of his body next to mine. We were almost touching. “You’ve got to do it like this.” He snapped the stem in his hand, his arm brushing against my side. Then he picked several more and handed the flowers to me, our fingers briefly touching.

  The sun continued to drift toward the horizon as we walked along the wall, the insect sounds becoming softer.

  “What happened then?” I asked. “To your grandparents.”

  “Oh…well, they bought this property. My grandfather wanted to start a blueberry farm.”

  I watched a grasshopper jump from a thicket of brush in front of us. “That sounds nice.”

  Roy nodded. “Yeah, this was a big area for blueberries way back when. You saw the statue in town?”

  “The statue?”

  “The woman with the pail of blueberries.”

  It sounded like the statue I was trying to photograph when I fell through the dock. “Yes, I think I know the one.”

  “Different, isn’t it?” he said. “Most towns would have a statue of the founder, somebody like that. We have the blueberry lady.”

  “I thought she was holding a bucket of grapes.”

  Roy’s eyebrows shot up. “Grapes? Don’t ever admit that to anybody else from Beacon. They’ll ride you out of town on a rail.”

  I laughed.

  He reached out and touched a spot above my right eye.

  I flinched.

  “You’ve got something on your face,” he said, trying to brush it off.

  “It’s a freckle. It won’t move.”

  He leaned in. “Oh, yes, I can see that now.”

  I started walking again. “So then what happened?”

  “What happened? Oh, with the farm? Well, my grandfather learned everything there was to know about blueberries. Then he figured out what kinds of blueberry plants would be best for this piece of land.”

  “I didn’t know there was more than one type.”

  Roy looked surprised. “Of course there’s more than one.”

  “Interesting,” I said. I wondered how they grew. Somehow I pictured them on vines, in thick clusters, growing over trellises. “They grow on vines, right?”

  He scowled and brushed an insect off his shirt. “Vines? Blueberries? They grow on bushes.”

  “Oh, yeah, bushes. Of course.”

  He picked a black-eyed Susan and handed it to me. “This is nice, Ellen,” he said. “I like it.”

  “Yes, it’s pretty.” I twirled the stem between my fingers.

  “I wasn’t talking about the flower.”

  I gave a nervous laugh and felt the heat rise in my face. I had to get him back to the story. “So then what happened?”

  Roy smiled. “I think my grandfather could have grown anything from alfalfa to artichokes. That’s what Uncle Chet always said. He knew what worked and what didn’t. What made stronger plants, bigger berries, that kind of thing.”

  “Sounds like he found his calling,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess it was his calling.” He brushed a piece of hair off my forehead. “There,” he said. “That was in your eyes, and your eyes are too pretty not to be seen.”

  I looked down at my bouquet so he wouldn’t see me blush. “So they had the farm.”

  “Yeah, they had a good business. They sold to grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, that kind of thing. And my grandmother had a blueberry stand.”

  I thought about all the blueberry stands I’d seen so far in Maine. “And they did well?”

  “Yes, they did all right. Then my grandmother had Uncle Chet. From the time he could walk he was out here running around in the bushes, pulling off the berries, and eating them. He used to tell me he always had purple stains on his clothes. He had all of my grandfather’s talent. Maybe even more. He loved this place.”

  Roy stopped at a spot where several boulders had fallen from the wall into the field. He picked them up and hauled them back in place. “There,” he said, wiping the dirt off his hands.

  I pictured a boy in overalls running through the rows of blueberry bushes under a warm summer sun. “It sounds lovely.”

  “I’m sure it was.” Roy paused. “But nothing lasts forever.” He looked away, toward a robin that landed on the wall and was fluffing its wings. “My grandparents eventually sold it. They just got too old to keep it up.”

  We came to a corner of the farm where a group of oak trees clustered together and one huge oak stood off by itself, like someone at a cocktail party who didn’t want to join the group.

  “Didn’t they have your uncle to help them? If he loved it so much…”

  Roy walked toward the lone oak and leaned against its trunk. “No, he left Beacon when he was twenty and he didn’t come back for years.” He looked up at the canopy of branches and leaves suspended above us like a sculpture. “Something happened—he never wanted to talk about it, but the farm only made him sad.”

  I let my gaze drift from the stone wall at the top of the field, across the meadow, and down toward the pine trees at the very bottom. “I can’t believe he didn’t miss it, though.”

  A spot of sunlight flickered through the trees and landed on Roy’s shoulder. “Oh, I think he did,” Roy said. “In fact, I never heard it from him, but other people told me it was really hard for him to come back and see the farm in somebody else’s hands. Live in this town and have to drive by it all the time.”

  “So why did he come back?” I said.

  The patch of sunlight slid across Roy’s face. “I guess because it was still his home.”

  I thought about that. I wondered if you could ever really get your true home out of your system. Probably not.

  “Who owns the land now?” I asked him.

  “Some guy from Boston bought it a few years ago, but he died and his kids inherited it. They don’t live around here. They want to sell it, but they want to subdivide it first. You know, slice and dice.”

  Slice and dice. Yes, I did know. I had done that very thing for more than one client, and I’d never given it any thought other than what price per acre it would ultimately yield. I never thought about what the land had been or what it might have meant to the people who lived there.

  “Could you buy it?” I asked.

  Roy laughed. “Not really. Besides, what would I do with a hundred acres? I’m not a farmer.”

  “I don’t know. I guess it was just wishful thinking. I was hoping you could get it back into your family. That way maybe you could do something with it one day when you got married. Or you could give it to your children.” I plucked a stem of Queen Anne’s lace and added it to my bouquet.

  “Yeah, well, I doubt I’ll be getting married any time soon.”

  “No? A nice, good-looking, gainfully employed man like yourself? I would think you’d be in demand.”

  Roy stopped and gazed down the hill. “The right girl’s not in my life.” He shook his head. “Gotta have the right girl to get married.”

  I wondered if he’d ever been married. He stopped and I watched in awe as he gently removed a ladybug from his sleeve and deposited it on a stem of purple lupine.

  “Came close to being married once,” he said, as though he were reading my mind. “But I waited too long. She ended up with another guy. They have a couple of kids, last I heard.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  He thought for a moment. “Oh, about six years.”

  “And nobody since?”

  “Nobody serious,” he said as he picked
up a fallen rock and placed it back in the wall. “If I ever get lucky enough to find the right girl, I’m not going to mess it up again. I’m not going to let her go.”

  I smiled. “What are you going to do? Put her in handcuffs?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably not handcuffs.” He scratched the back of his neck and half closed his eyes. Then he smiled. “Maybe I’ll build her something. Maybe I’ll build her a palace.”

  “A palace…now, there’s a thought. Like the emperor who built the Taj Mahal for his wife. How romantic is that?”

  “But didn’t she die in childbirth?” he asked. “Isn’t that why he built it?”

  He was right. That probably wasn’t the best example. “I think she did die in childbirth,” I said. “But putting that aside, what woman wouldn’t want a palace?”

  “I guess I’ll find out someday.”

  We stood in silence for a moment and then Roy said, “I’d better get you back.”

  We walked to the truck, and I turned around to take one last look at the view. “Well,” I said, “if you can’t buy it, you’re not going to be able to stop them from subdividing it.”

  Roy turned to me, his blue eyes quiet, resigned. “I can’t stop them from subdividing it, Ellen.”

  We stood there for a moment as a hawk flew overhead, its wings barely moving, its body suspended like a whisper above us. Then Roy opened the passenger door.

  “Hold on a second,” I said as I noticed something near the truck’s front wheel. Next to the tire track, where stalks of wildflowers lay crushed and matted, a cluster of purplish-blue caught my eye. I pushed back the flowers and pulled on a gnarled branch. It snapped, and I held a piece in my hand. On the branch were three tiny blueberries.

  Everything around me seemed to stop—the insect hum, the breeze, the slow descent of the sun. I held up the branch, my hand trembling. “Look,” I said. “They’re still here.”

  He touched the tip of the branch. “Blueberries can be pretty hardy. They can survive for a long time in the right conditions.” He smiled at me. “Kind of nice to know, isn’t it? Some things keep going no matter what happens around them.”

  I thought about the woody stalk with its three bright berries living on after Chet, after Gran. I held onto it as I climbed into the truck. The sun cast threads of golden-red over the field. The insects had quieted, as if they, too, knew the end of the day was near. Roy started the engine, and we drove out of the farm and onto the main road, the cool evening air streaming through the open windows.

  “You never really explained why you’re still here in Beacon,” he said.

  We drove alongside the farm and then turned left at the intersection, heading back toward town. “Do you remember,” I said, “how I told you I found the house where my grandmother grew up?”

  Roy slowed down to let a squirrel dart across the road. “Yeah. You said it’s on Comstock Drive.”

  “There’s a painting in the attic of that house, done on plaster. The people who own the house found it when they were renovating, when they pulled off the drywall. My grandmother was the artist. It’s really an amazing piece of work, and the painting is of her and your uncle.”

  Roy turned abruptly and stared at me. “My uncle? And your grandmother? She painted the two of them?”

  I nodded. “Yes. They were teenagers, standing under an oak tree. It’s kind of…almost mystical, I guess. And beautiful. Really lovely.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  I wanted him to see it, although I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to work that out. I told him about the painting at the Beacon Historical Society and the Bugle article in the library, and the camera shop, and my meeting with Lila Falk.

  “Wow,” Roy said as the road meandered up a hill and around a bend. “You’ve been busy. And all the stuff you found out—you didn’t know about any of it?” His voice was so animated. It made me feel even more excited.

  “No, we didn’t know any of it,” I said. “And I keep finding out more and more. That’s why I’ve stayed. We never knew Gran was an artist or that she went to art school. And her paintings are so good.” I looked out the window and watched the woods, thick with pine trees, slide past. “I just wish she hadn’t kept it a secret.”

  Roy downshifted and turned a corner. “Maybe she sent you up here to uncover the secret. Maybe that was part of her plan.”

  Could that have been part of the plan? Could she have wanted me, expected me, to uncover all of this? I wanted to believe it, but it didn’t seem likely. “How could she have known I’d find her painting in the Porters’ attic?” I said. “It was buried under plaster until recently. Or that I’d end up at the camera shop and then meet Lila Falk?”

  Roy slowed the truck as we headed toward a stop sign. “Well, maybe she didn’t know exactly how you’d find out, but she might have figured if you came up here you’d find something.” Roy looked over and smiled. “And you did. You found a legacy that might have been lost forever if you hadn’t come.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe, along with delivering the letter, she was hoping I’d uncover her past.

  “I guess you could be right,” I said.

  We drove on without a word, the only sound the hum of Roy’s tires against the road. Then he turned onto Paget Street, and the ocean and the buildings of downtown Beacon came into view. When we got to the construction site, he pulled up next to my car, walked around, and opened his door for me.

  “Thanks for showing me the farm,” I said, stepping down from the truck.

  He stood by the hood. “Thanks for finding the blueberries.” He put his hands in his pockets, and I could see the slight suggestion of a smile on his face, accompanied by the tiniest of wrinkles near his eyes.

  “What?” I asked. The way he was looking at me made me nervous. “What is it?” I clutched the bouquet of flowers and the blueberry branch.

  He took a step closer. “Why did you come here today, Ellen?”

  The question was a lot more difficult than it sounded. Why had I come? I still wasn’t sure myself. Was it just to let him know I’d received the phone message? Or was there something more? Was I falling in love with him? Is that what was happening? I wanted to look away, but I felt trapped.

  “What do you mean?” I said. I could hear the nervous tremble in my voice.

  “I just mean what made you come here?” He moved in even closer. I could almost feel him without touching him.

  “I told you. I felt bad about what happened this morning and…” I began to gesture, my fingers twitching like marionette hands. “I knew you were upset and when you called I figured it would be good if…I mean, I thought maybe I should…that…” I looked away. Oh, God, what was I saying? I wasn’t making sense.

  Roy cocked his head, the smile still on his lips. He stared at me, almost as though he knew that if he looked at me long enough he might get me to do something crazy, like throw my arms around him again or admit that I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Another second or two and I would be totally under his spell. His eyes were so bright and so blue, like the waters of the Caribbean, clear and deep and full of bright yellow fish and purple ferns and red coral, and they were pulling me in, those eyes, and I was going under, ready to hold my breath and take the dive.…

  And then I heard his voice. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “You wanted to make sure we were back to having a clean slate.” He smiled and, with a little shrug, he added, “Okay, done.”

  Was that it? Was he letting me off the hook? But I didn’t want to leave anymore. I wanted to stay there and float away in his eyes.

  Roy opened my car door, and I slid into the driver’s seat in a fog. I watched him get into his truck. I watched him shut the door. I watched while he started the engine and I heard the sputter of the motor. He put up his hand, a motionless wave. I put up my hand, and I could almost feel us touching.

  I took the key with the braided ribbon from my handbag and unlocked the door to the room. I was shocked
to see Paula and a man wearing a white doctor’s coat in the room. What was going on? How long had I been gone?

  Hayden was still lying on the bed, but the man in the white coat, who reminded me of my twelfth-grade physics teacher, was wrapping Hayden’s ankle with a bandage.

  “What’s going on?” I rushed to Hayden’s side.

  “It’s all under control,” Paula said, giving me a confident wave. “Doc’s taking care of him.”

  I looked at the man unrolling the bandage. Then I turned to Hayden. “What happened?”

  “It just got worse,” he said, wincing. “Puffed up like a basketball.” He looked so pale and, suddenly, so small. “I called down for more ice, and when Paula came to deliver it, she took one look at me and rang for Dr. Herbert.”

  “Thank God,” I said, taking Hayden’s hand, wondering how I could have been so callously wandering around Kenlyn Farm with Roy Cummings when I should have been here with Hayden.

  “It’s hard to find someone on a Sunday,” Paula said. “Especially for a house call.” She smiled at the doctor. “But Doc here is married to my cousin, Laurie, so I knew he’d come.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” I said. “I’m Ellen, his fiancée.”

  “Glad to help,” Dr. Herbert said as he secured the bandage with clips. “I’m going to give you a couple of prescriptions,” he told me. “One for the pain and one for the swelling.” He took a pad out of his pocket and scribbled something. “He’s probably torn the ligament, but he should be better in a day or two.” He handed me the prescriptions. “Just keep him off of it for a couple of days.”

  “I will, Doctor. Thank you very much. You’re so kind to do this. Let me give you my card and you can send me the bill.”

  He picked up his black doctor’s bag and I handed him my card. Then he followed Paula out the door.

  I sat on the bed next to Hayden, weighed down by my guilty conscience. “Sweetheart,” I said, leaning over to give him a hug. “I’m really, really sorry I didn’t get back sooner. I had no idea you were feeling this bad.” I kissed his forehead.

  “It’s all right. I knew you needed some time on your own to decompress.”