The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe

by Mary Simses

  “And besides,” he added as he began to change clothes, “guess where Tally, the photographer, grew up?”

  “I don’t know, Hayden.”

  And I really don’t care, I thought as I shook the bottle of nail polish again and began to apply a second coat. Why were these people dictating our whole evening?

  Hayden buckled his belt. “Right down the street from my uncle Greer in Locust Valley. She knows my cousin Debbie.”

  He walked into the bathroom before I could say anything. I could see him combing his hair in front of the mirror.

  “Oh, you’ll love Jim and Tally,” he called out as he buttoned his shirt. “And it’s just one night. They’ve picked out some place called the Anchor.” He began to run the water in the sink.

  The Anchor. “I hope it’s not far,” I said. “I’m really not up for a long drive.” Maybe, if we got finished early enough, we could wedge in half of a romantic evening together.

  “I think they said it’s in Beacon.”

  I thought for a moment, the nail polish brush in my hand. “The Anchor? Never heard of it.” That meant it could be twenty miles away. I wasn’t happy.

  Hayden appeared in the doorway, drying his hands. “Oh, maybe it wasn’t the Anchor. But something like that.” He paused. “The Antler? Yeah, I think that’s it.”

  The brush fell from my hand, depositing a bright red glob of nail polish on my ankle. “The Antler?”

  I wasn’t going back to the Antler! I couldn’t go back to the Antler. What if the bartender recognized me? “I’ve heard their food’s not that good,” I said, trying to rub out the spot with my finger. “Why don’t we try some other place?”

  “Tally really wants to go there,” Hayden said as he glanced in the bathroom mirror and fussed with his part one last time.

  Tally again. Why was she calling the shots?

  He turned to me. “She said she wants to pick up some of the local flavor, and the Antler looked like a good place to do it.”

  Local flavor. Who did she think she was, Margaret Mead?

  I could see I was fighting a losing battle. “Yeah, all right,” I muttered, trying to convince myself I had nothing to worry about. After all, they had to have more than one bartender. Maybe it would be Skip’s night off.

  A poster board outside the Antler announced LIVE MUSIC BY THE RIPCHORDS & KARAOKE NIGHT! Mom followed Hayden inside, and I followed Mom. She had shed her country club attire for a pair of cotton pants and an Indian print tunic I’d never seen before, and her gold bracelets were gone, replaced by a simple beaded cuff.

  Even before my eyes adjusted to the muted light and orange glow I knew the place was packed. People were laughing and shouting, and a steady buzz of conversation hummed around us.

  Hayden glanced at me. “Looks packed for a Tuesday night.”

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  “Do you see the people we’re meeting?” my mother asked.

  Hayden looked around. “No, but let’s keep walking toward the back. We’ll find them.”

  We passed crowded tables loaded with food and pitchers of beer. About halfway across the room, I thought I heard someone say the word swimmer. Don’t get paranoid, I told myself as we squeezed through a cluster of people.

  Someone called Hayden’s name, and a tall man in his early forties waved to us from a table in the corner.

  “Come on,” Hayden said. “That’s Jim.”

  I walked toward the table, staring at the woman sitting next to Jim and suddenly feeling underdressed in my white cotton pants and tan sweater. Tall and lean and wearing a powder-blue dress that intensified the color of her eyes, she reminded me of a sleek sports car. Her chin-length hair, very smooth and naturally blond, looked like it had been cut and then pressed into place one strand at a time, it fell so perfectly around her face.

  On the other hand, Jim seemed the complete opposite—laid-back in his khakis and polo shirt, his hair a little disheveled, his tortoiseshell glasses slightly askew on his face. Hayden made the introductions, and when Jim shook my hand and smiled I noticed he had a crooked upper front tooth that gave him an endearing look.

  Mom sat down next to Jim, and Hayden and I took seats on the opposite side of the table.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the name Tally before,” I said, turning to the photographer. “Is that a family name?”

  Tally smiled and blinked her long eyelashes. “Not in the usual sense,” she said. The pitch of her voice was low, and she spoke slowly, as if she were choosing every thought from a long-established repertoire. She emphasized the u in “usual,” drawing out the sound to take up more than its initial place in the word. “My real name is Sally, but my younger sister always called me Tally and it just stuck. You know how those things go.”

  Never having had siblings, I wasn’t sure I did, but I nodded. “Hayden tells me you grew up in Locust Valley, near his uncle.”

  “Until boarding school,” she said. “I knew his cousin Deborah.” She smiled at Hayden. “Good tennis player.”

  “Yes, she still is,” Hayden said.

  “I beat her in the club finals, though,” Tally added with a beaming smile and a flick of her hair.

  “Well, then…” Hayden said, giving a little laugh. He turned to Jim. “Have you been here before?”

  “Do you mean Maine or Beacon?” Tally said, ignoring the fact that Hayden had directed the question to Jim. “Or,” she whispered, a faint smile on her lips, “the Antler?”

  “Maine or Beacon,” I said, looking at Tally and then at Jim and then at my mother, who wore a polite smile but who, I knew, was taking all of this in.

  Tally placed her long manicured fingers around the stem of her wineglass. “My family has a little place in Kennebunkport so I know a few things about Maine, but I’ve never been to Beacon.”

  Jim laughed. “A little place in Kennebunkport?” He let out a low whistle.

  Tally elbowed him. “Don’t you start in on me now.”

  Jim took an olive from his martini glass and popped it into his mouth. “Well, it’s not little. I think you have to agree with that.”

  Tally waved him off and then adjusted her gold necklace so that the pendant, a sailboat, lay flat against her skin.

  “This must be a very popular place,” my mother said, glancing at the crowd standing two deep at the bar.

  Jim raised his martini glass. “Good thing I made a reservation.”

  Hayden looked around, eyeing the hanging lanterns, the sepia-tone photos of Beacon in its early years, the heavily varnished bar with its orange hue. “Yes, good thing,” he said, a look of bewilderment on his face as he glanced at the moose and deer heads on the walls.

  A waitress descended upon us with a stack of menus and an order pad. She had a pen behind her ear. “Skip, the baa-tendah, told me to get you a round of drinks on the house.” She shot me a grin. “After all, you’re famous here.”

  I turned toward the bar and caught Skip looking straight at me. He waved and smiled, dimples forming in his round cheeks. “Hey, Swimma, welcome back!”

  Hayden looked from Skip to me. “What did he call you and why is he giving us a round of drinks?”

  I saw Mom’s face go slightly ashen.

  Tally raised an eyebrow. “You’re famous at the Antler?” She let out a little laugh and then leaned toward me. “And just what does one have to do to become famous here?” she said, half whispering. Then she smiled in a conspiratorial way, as though we were old friends sharing a secret.

  I shook my head and tried to give a casual shrug. “I guess I look like someone else.”

  Hayden glanced at Skip again and turned back to me. He was about to say something when the waitress interrupted.

  “So what’ll it be?”

  For a split second I saw a look in Hayden’s eye, the kind of look people get when they suspect they’re not in on the joke, but then it vanished and he turned to my mother. “Why don’t you start, Cynthia?”

  “All
right, then,” my mother said. “I’ll have a Bacardi daiquiri.”

  “I thought you quit drinking rum,” I murmured to her, a frightening visual of my mother dancing at her neighbor’s anniversary party coming to mind.

  “Oh, it’s fine,” she muttered back, waving me off.

  “Sure thing,” the waitress said, scribbling on her pad. Then she turned to me. I was about to order a glass of wine when she added, “Hey, I’m real sorry I missed the big night last week.” She gave me an apologetic look. “The dart game and the Dead Presidents. Way to go!”

  The dart game and the Dead Presidents. I could feel my throat start to tighten up.

  “Dead Presidents?” Hayden asked. “Who are they? A band?”

  The waitress laughed. “That’s funny, pal. You got a sense of humor.” She clapped Hayden on the back. He coughed and then turned to me, startled.

  The waitress placed coasters in front of us. “You know you got a ringer here?” she said to Hayden. “She’s good. Wow.”

  Hayden, Mom, Jim, and Tally all stared at me. “A ringer?” Jim said, smiling. “What’s this all about?”

  I glared at the waitress. “I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

  She glanced toward the bar. “But Skip said you were—”

  I held up my hand. “Yes, I know, but I think Skip needs glasses.”

  “He wears contacts.”

  “Well, new contacts, then.”

  “He has new contacts.”

  “Well, something,” I said, now totally flustered. The last thing I needed was for Hayden to find out what happened, and she was about to blow my cover.

  “Look, could we just finish up the drink order here?” I said. “I’d like a diet cola, please.” No way was I going to have anything with alcohol in it. I needed to keep my wits about me. That was certain.

  “Yeah, all right.” The waitress shook her head, mumbled something, took the other orders, and walked away.

  Hayden leaned toward me. “Did she just say you should have kept drowning? What in the world was she talking about?”

  “Hayden, I think your hearing’s going. And you’re not even forty.” I forced a smile.

  Jim laughed, but Hayden kept staring at me, as though he knew something wasn’t right. All of a sudden it felt like the temperature in the room had risen twenty degrees. I could feel my face flush, and now everybody at the table was looking at me, waiting for me to say something more, but my mouth wouldn’t move.

  Then a miracle happened. The back door opened and the band members came trooping in, carrying guitars, drums, an electric piano, and some other instruments, and the whole restaurant erupted with applause and hoots.

  “They must be popular,” Hayden said, looking surprised.

  “Let’s hope they’re decent,” Tally said, tipping her chin up slightly, as though she were resting something on it. “We’re a little far from civilization here.”

  The band started tuning up, and after a few minutes the waitress returned with our drinks and then went around the table, taking the dinner orders.

  I hadn’t even looked at the menu, but there were two things I remembered from my first night here, meat loaf and lobster. I didn’t want the meat loaf again, so I blurted out, “Twin lobsters with drawn butter. Oh, and fries.” I snapped the menu shut and put my hands in my lap.

  Hayden’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Drawn butter? Fries? Have you lost your mind? I thought you were always so worried about your cholesterol, Ellen. You’ll need a prescription for Lipitor before you leave this place.” He shook his head, stared at me a moment longer, and then turned to Tally. I heard him ask her something about Kennebunkport.

  Here goes, I thought. I took a drink of my diet cola and tried to hear what Tally was saying, but it was impossible because at that moment the band broke into a rendition of the Johnny Cash song “Ring of Fire.” Several couples got up to dance, including a husband and wife with matching “I ♥ Maine” T-shirts. I watched the husband lead his wife around the floor, occasionally stepping on her feet. The band finished “Ring of Fire” and then went into Van Morrison’s “Wild Night.”

  Jim leaned across the table and asked me how long we were planning to stay in Beacon. I tried to have a conversation with him, but it was hard shouting back and forth, and after a little while I gestured that I couldn’t hear anything.

  I looked at the dance floor, which had turned into a mass of gyrating limbs under the dim light. Then I glanced toward the door and, as I did, I saw Roy Cummings walk in. He was wearing a blue Windbreaker, and he moved slowly through the crowd, occasionally tipping his Red Sox baseball cap or pointing to someone and smiling.

  Oh, no, I thought, feeling a breath of air lodge in my lungs like a trapped bubble. Roy and Hayden in the same place again. This couldn’t be good.

  Roy saw me and waved. Then he walked to the table. “Well, this is a surprise, Ellen.” He tipped his hat. “Guess you’re a real fan of the Antler.”

  I could feel Hayden staring at me. I said hello and made some clumsy introductions to Mom and Jim and Tally, ending with, “You remember Hayden.”

  “Yeah…golf courses,” Roy said, shaking Hayden’s hand.

  I laughed nervously, glancing from Roy to Hayden, my mother peering at me.

  “Would you like to join us?” Jim asked. “We can pull up another chair.”

  Hayden’s face stiffened.

  “No,” Roy said, “but thanks. I’m just stopping in for a minute.”

  “Jim and Tally are from the New York Times,” I said, trying to think of something to say.

  “The Times?” Roy said, turning to Jim. “You should meet Scotty Bluff. He’s over there.” Roy pointed across the room. “He’s the publisher of the Bugle. That’s our local paper.” He glanced at me. “I think Ellen is familiar with it.”

  I could feel a red glare slide across my face.

  Roy put his hand on the back of my chair. “Hey, Ellen, could I talk to you for a minute?”

  I looked up at him. He didn’t have the razor stubble. His face was smooth. He had a glint in his eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve got guests here, and—”

  “I just need a minute.”

  “Hayden, do you mind?” I whispered. “This is probably about my grandmother and his uncle.”

  “Do what you’ve got to do,” he said, putting his hand on mine.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told him.

  I followed Roy as we elbowed our way through the crowd to the door. Outside, he led the way down the street, past a half dozen stores, and then stopped in front of Frank’s Tailoring. I could see racks of clothes inside, hanging in gossamer plastic sheets—skirts and dresses in summer colors and men’s suit pants and jackets. In the front window a vintage wedding gown was on display. I imagined for a second the bakeshop that had been there for so many years, cookies and cupcakes in baskets on a counter, and the promise of something warm and delicious when you opened the door.

  “Thanks for stepping out a minute,” Roy said.

  “Yeah, well, fancy meeting you at the Antler.” The little tremble in my voice was back again.

  Roy took off his Red Sox cap and ran a hand through his hair. “It wasn’t a coincidence. I went to the inn looking for you.”

  I didn’t think I’d heard him right. “Pardon?”

  He put the cap back on his head, giving the brim a little tug. “I went looking for you at the Victory Inn.”

  He went looking for me. I felt like I was going to melt.

  Inside the shop, a ceiling light flickered, sending out a soft glow, like heat lightning. “Paula said you’d be at the Antler.”

  He had asked Paula where I was. He had gone there to find me. He must have found something else of his uncle’s, something more about Chet and Gran.

  “Why were you looking for me? Did you find something else?” I stared at the B on his baseball cap until the letter dissolved into a blur.

  He shook his head. “No, it
’s not that.” He paused. “I’m leaving in the morning. I have to be away for a couple of weeks…some work stuff.”

  The light inside the tailor shop flickered again, and my heart began sinking at the thought of him being away. He was leaving in the morning. And I was leaving in the afternoon, once the interviews and photo shoot were done. That meant I’d never see him again. I felt like I was plummeting into a hole.

  Roy leaned against the window. “I really wanted to talk to you before I left,” he said, and then he stared at the pavement for a full half a minute, rubbing the back of his neck.

  Finally he took a small bag from the pocket of his Windbreaker and handed it to me.

  Whatever was inside wasn’t very heavy.

  “Open it,” he said.

  I put my hand in and pulled out something square, tiny. Holding it up to the window light, I saw what it was, and my heart stopped. It was a miniature wooden house, exquisitely crafted. Painted white with sky-blue trim, the house was no more than five inches in width or depth or height. It had a wraparound porch, three chimneys, two dormers, wooden shutters, and windows made of real glass. I had never seen anything so small and yet so beautifully detailed.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked, my voice dissolving to a whisper.

  Roy smiled. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s beautiful.” Mesmerized, I turned it over, studying it from all angles.

  “I made it,” Roy said.

  I couldn’t believe it. This was the kind of thing that could only be made with tweezers and toothpicks and the kind of patience I couldn’t fathom.

  “It’s amazing,” I said, marveling at the tiny porch railing and the red-painted chimney bricks.

  “Ellen,” Roy said as I held up the house and peered through the miniature windows. “I told you if I ever found the right girl again I’d build her a palace. It’s not the Taj Mahal, but it’s the kind of palace I could build for us.”

  He had built me a palace. He was saying I was the right girl. I gazed at him, with his dimples and his smile, and he looked so handsome and so confident and so accomplished.