Leaves

by Michael Baron

  “These are very good,” Deborah said. She read the descriptive handwritten sign Sage had posted next to the display. “They’re from Michigan? How’d you find them?”

  “My sister went to college with the woman who started the company. We’re the first store on the East Coast to carry them.”

  Deborah spooned a final bit of fudge sauce. The after notes were really pleasant.

  “Want more?”

  “Nope,” she said, smiling. “I want a piece of your pound cake with nothing on it.”

  “That almost sounded obscene,” he said, handing her a square. Deborah was a tiny bit embarrassed by that comment, but hid it by popping the cake into her mouth.

  “Pretty decent,” she said. “A touch of nutmeg, some orange peel. What kind of vanilla?”

  “Madagascar. Beans, not extract, of course.”

  “Goes without saying.” Sage really knew his stuff. She hadn’t met many people like him since she left the Culinary Institute. She’d “talked food” with numerous restaurateurs over the years and her staff, of course, and she’d discussed technique with numerous appreciative patrons of the inn, but Sage was a breed apart from all of these. It didn’t hurt that he had such expressive eyes, either. “I guess a few people showed up after all.”

  “They did, yes,” he said, looking around the crowded store. “I’m still getting the rhythm of this place.”

  “Where did you say you came from?”

  “I don’t think I did, actually. I’m from Delaware.”

  “Did you have a shop there as well?”

  He chuckled. “I was Chief Technology Officer for an insurance company.”

  Deborah laughed out loud. She would have been better prepared if he’d told her he was once the bearded lady at the circus. “You’re kidding!”

  “Sort of what I ultimately realized. I decided to follow my bliss.”

  “Good choice.”

  “Not everyone agrees, but that’s a story for another day.”

  His station got busier again, and at one point he needed to go to the back room to get more ice cream, but Deborah stuck around. She told herself she should probably be back at the Inn by four o’clock, but she knew she could stretch that a little if necessary. She liked watching Sage interact with customers.

  When the pound cake ran out, Sage closed down the tasting. Over the next fifteen minutes, the store slowly emptied.

  “The treats are gone and so is my clientele,” he said as he cleaned up.

  “Well, nothing attracts like free food.”

  “I can’t complain. I think this has been our busiest day yet.” He wiped down a counter with a damp cloth and then returned a display of gift baskets there. “I’m really glad you could come.”

  “Me too. Hey, I feel the same way about free food as everyone else. Definitely invite me to these things whenever you have them.”

  “You’ll be the first call on my list.” He looked directly into her eyes, looked down for a second, then looked back up at her. “What if I invited you somewhere else?”

  Deborah felt a little charge. “What did you have in mind?”

  “A drink sometime this week?”

  “I think I’d like that.”

  He smiled. “When are you available?”

  “It would have to be pretty late. Unless you want to go on Wednesday. The dining room is closed that night.”

  “Wednesday would be great.”

  Deborah nodded. She didn’t want to make too much out of this, but she was thrilled at the opportunity to get to know Sage better. She noticed the clock on the wall and that it was a quarter to five. “I definitely need to go. My staff is probably wondering what happened to me. I’ll see you Wednesday?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll give you a call.”

  Deborah waved and then exited the store. She’d meant to buy a couple of the toppings before she left, but thought it would seem foolish if she went back in now. Maybe I’ll ask him to bring me some when I see him on Wednesday, she thought.

  Five

  Monday, October 11

  Twenty days before the party

  Maxwell got up in the middle of the night because he had to go to the bathroom again. Decaffeinated coffee didn’t keep him awake because of the caffeine; instead it kept him awake because he had to pee. Most people learned these things earlier in life.

  He flicked on the bathroom light, closing the door as quickly as he could. He didn’t want to stir Annie, but at the same time, he’d learned from messy experience that he wasn’t very good at doing this kind of thing in the dark. He stood for a second in the room to allow his eyes to adjust. As he looked down, the random pattern of the floor tiles seemed to readjust into a checkerboard. He blinked his eyes and shook his head, but the image held.

  His first thought was what the hell? Then another memory followed it almost immediately. It was of playing checkers with Tyler when Maxwell was twelve and the kid was just four. Some aunt who didn’t know much about what boys played with at that age got Tyler a checkers set for Christmas. Tyler seemed befuddled by the thing, and one afternoon Maxwell saw him with the board out, stacking the checkers on top of one another with no sense of purpose. Maxwell decided to show him how to play the game, which took some doing. The concepts of moving only in diagonals and only in one direction were a little hard for someone Tyler’s age to retain. Tyler seemed to like doing this with him, though, and he regularly brought the board out when Maxwell got home from school, hoping for a game.

  Maxwell let Tyler win most of the time, foregoing obvious opportunities for multiple jumps and being kinged. Then one day, maybe seven or eight months after they’d started playing, Maxwell realized Tyler was winning the game they were playing on his own. In fact, while Maxwell had barely been paying attention, his little brother had pulled off a triple jump. The game was already lost at that point, but Maxwell played the rest of it aggressively, laughing out loud when Tyler’s three kings backed down and captured his final piece.

  “Nice game,” Maxwell said proudly.

  “Thanks,” Tyler said, beaming. He wondered at that moment if the kid knew that Maxwell had been going easy on him. He also wondered if the kid knew that those days were through.

  Over the next few months, they played checkers nearly every afternoon. Maxwell won more often than he lost, but he never won easily. That Christmas, Maxwell found a handmade wooden checkerboard with brass pieces at one of the local craft shops and bought it for Tyler. It was a ridiculously elaborate gift – much more expensive than anything he got for his sisters – but he got it with the money he’d earned doing small tasks around the inn and the expression on Tyler’s face when he opened it was priceless.

  They continued playing until Maxwell went off to Penn and even picked up the game the first few times Maxwell came back during breaks. Eventually, they both had other things going on when Maxwell was around, and the checkerboard became an accent piece in Tyler’s room, covered over with CD cases and photography books.

  Maxwell hadn’t thought about those games with Tyler in years. He wondered if Tyler even remembered they used to do that together and what it had meant to both of them.

  Finally Maxwell moved from the spot in the bathroom where he’d stood fixed. He noticed that the floor was back to normal, the checkerboard some three-in-the-morning illusion.

  He really needed to stop drinking coffee of any kind at night.

  **^^^**

  A year after Janice died, Corrina was in a store with Ryan, who was fourteen at the time. Within Ryan’s earshot, the elderly sales clerk helping them said, “Your son is so handsome.” Corrina smiled and said, “He is, isn’t he?” When she glanced over to toss Ryan a teasing look, though, the expression of reproach on his face was unmistakable. It said, “I am not your son.” It chilled Corrina to see it. She’d never presumed to be his mother and c
ertainly never as much as suggested she could replace Janice. She simply agreed with the sales clerk because it was such a non-moment and it didn’t seem necessary to explain that Ryan was her stepson. Watching Ryan appear so appalled at the notion made an indelible impression on her. She would never make a mistake like that again.

  Her relationship with Gardner’s son had been mostly cordial, but it rarely extended beyond that point. Ryan was three when his parents split up, four when she and Gardner started dating, and five when they got married. Janice moved him to Concord, Massachusetts, and Corrina and Gardner saw Ryan only once a month and three weeks in the summer after that. He was cute, bright, and likable, but Corrina felt that in many ways she’d never gotten to know him. The visits were too brief, and when he was here he was too removed from his normal life to be the kid he really was.

  Then Janice died suddenly. All at once this teenaged boy only seventeen years her junior was dropped into her household. He was filled with grief, adolescent confusion, ambivalence about his father, and reticence about his stepmother. His mother had never remarried. They were a team. In an instant, the team had been broken up forever, and Ryan was cut loose into the world.

  Ryan came into their home all attitude and defenses. He and Gardner had never gotten further than being “buddies,” and given the fact that Gardner had been busy building his law practice for the three years of Ryan’s life in which he was married to Janice, they had no practical experience living together. Gardner’s response to his son’s delicate situation was to heap material things upon him. It was more of a well-meaning gesture than anyone other than Corrina understood, but it left more than a few unfilled spaces. Corrina took it upon herself to try to provide the rest: structure, boundaries, a sense of family, and most importantly a safe harbor. She was still aching from the string of miscarriages that all but guaranteed her childlessness, and while she knew that caring for Ryan couldn’t be a substitute, it soothed her soul a little. And as much as he struggled to project the opposite, Ryan needed people to make him feel at home. In an odd way, that defining incident with the sales clerk had made it easier for Corrina to understand her role with him – he wasn’t looking for a new mother and she didn’t need to pretend to be one. It was enough for her to be the nearest adult female in his life and let him know she was around.

  The past year had been both the easiest and hardest between them so far. Ryan was sixteen and testing his limits. He spent much more time alone in his room. He was out with friends every weekend. His disposition had taken a dramatic change in the past six months. At the same time, though, he was more willing to help around the house, especially in the kitchen. And he was surprisingly sensitive after Corrina’s mother died, asking questions about her, pulling humorous stories from Corrina that made her mother feel just a little bit more alive. Corrina was deeply grateful for these gestures, and for the first time she felt a kind of tenderness toward Ryan that extended beyond responsibility. She doubted this was what maternal love felt like, but it was different from anything else she knew.

  “Need someone to chop?” he said as he came into the kitchen while she prepared the evening’s stir-fry.

  “Yeah, I’d love it. You take the carrots, the peppers, and the squash. I’ll do the garlic, the lemongrass and the onions.” Corrina knew Ryan wouldn’t want to chop the onions because it wasn’t acceptable to have her see him with tears in his eyes, even if they were artificially induced.

  He pulled out a chef’s knife and cutting board and began slicing the yellow squash into half moons. “What’s tonight’s theme ingredient?” They often watched “Iron Chef America” together on The Food Network on Sunday nights.

  “Something especially challenging. It’s chicken.”

  “Ah, the rare delicacy found only in the American specialty shop known as the supermarket.”

  “I thought I’d throw in some of that Thai Basil sauce I found at Sage the other day.”

  “Nice. Way to push the envelope, Cor.”

  Corrina finished slicing the onion and moved the bowl to the other counter, wiping at her eyes while she did so.

  “Tough onion?”

  “Nah. I was just moved by your compliment,” she said sarcastically.

  He grinned. He really was a handsome boy. Lean and angular like his father, but softer around the eyes and mouth. Many girls would fall for those eyes. Many might have already, for all she knew. She wasn’t allowed to ask such questions.

  “So a friend of mine got tickets to the River concert at Madison Square Garden and asked me if I wanted to go.”

  “Madison Square Garden? That’s a hell of a long ride from here.”

  “It’s not that far away.”

  “Doesn’t River play shows that go on for something like four hours?”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “School night?”

  “It’s a Friday.”

  Corrina nodded. If he went to the show, he wouldn’t be home until three in the morning at the earliest. Gardner and she had never let him stay out anywhere near that late before. What she knew of the audiences at River concerts was that they tended to be relatively relaxed – but this was largely because of a liberal use of marijuana. She’d talked to Ryan a couple of times about drug use as casually as she could. So far, she’d gotten no indication that Ryan was taking drugs or even thinking about experimenting with them. Still, she knew the temptation was everywhere.

  “What do you think?” Ryan said.

  “I hear they put on a great show.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard too.”

  “It would be tough to miss out on a show like that.”

  Ryan smiled.

  “You’d have to bring me back a T-shirt, you know,” Corrina said.

  “Maybe. If you’re good.”

  Corrina thought this was one advantage to their relatively small age difference. While Gardner was hardly ancient at forty-five, his pop culture touchstones were vastly different from his son’s. It was Led Zeppelin and George Carlin and Harrison Ford for him rather than the White Stripes, “South Park” and Channing Tatum. Corrina actually listened to River. She even found “South Park” funny, though Gardner thought it was offensive. It gave her another way in which she and her stepson could relate, a topic of conversation they could fall back on.

  “What do you think Dad’ll say?”

  “Depends on how the day went at the firm.”

  Ryan’s expression darkened. “Is that what it depends on?” Corrina arched an eyebrow at him. “I mean, really, is that what it depends on? I always got the impression the code was a lot harder than that to break.”

  Did he really want to get into this? And if he did, what should Corrina say? She had her opinions about the way Gardner and Ryan dealt with each other, but she rarely expressed them to Gardner and never to his son. She looked into Ryan’s eyes to gauge how serious he was about this discussion, but he broke contact with an angry chortle and returned to the cutting board. When he was through chopping, he went up to his room.

  “Thanks,” she said, calling after him.

  “You got it.”

  Corrina finished getting dinner ready. Gardner had a rare early night. The firm’s caseload was building to the point where they were considering taking on another associate – one of these days – and the three of them hardly ever ate together anymore. He came into the house a few minutes later. The first time Corrina met him, Gardner was wearing a fine suit, and she never stopped admiring how good he looked when dressed professionally. He was cute enough in jeans, and he kept himself in the kind of condition where he looked great wearing nothing as well, but a well-tailored suit embellished him. He walked into the kitchen and kissed her tenderly.

  “I’m glad you were able to get out of there tonight,” Corrina said.

  “Me too,” Gardner said, kissing her again. “We’re
starting depositions on the Mansfield case tomorrow, so we might want to enjoy this while it lasts.” He reached over and pulled a spear of pepper from a bowl on the counter. “I’m starving.”

  “We’ll have a nice early dinner,” Corrina said. “Followed by a nice early bedtime?”

  “Are you propositioning me?”

  “Depends. Will you take me up on it if I do?”

  He smiled unabashedly. “I think I just might.”

  “Then I definitely am.”

  Gardner pulled her toward him, at which point Ryan came down the stairs.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, Rye. Good day in school?”

  “The usual.”

  “A lot of homework?”

  “Done. So did Corrina tell you about the River concert?”

  “I just walked in the door. What about a River concert?”

  “Andy Summers got tickets to see them at Madison Square Garden and asked me to come along.” Ryan glanced over at Corrina and Gardner did the same.

  “He’s buying me a T-shirt,” she said, hoping to deflect them away.

  “Madison Square Garden?” Gardner said.

  “Yeah. It’s gonna be a great show.”

  “That’s a long way from here, Rye.”

  Corrina could see Ryan’s face tighten. Certainly, she hadn’t given him permission to go to the concert – that was his dad’s call – and she knew Ryan hadn’t interpreted their conversation that way regardless of how he made it seem now.

  “Andy’s older brother is driving,” Ryan said. “He’s twenty-two and a total grownup.”

  “That’s not really the issue. The issue is that you’re sixteen and going all the way to Manhattan for a rock concert isn’t really appropriate.”

  “A lot of my friends have done stuff like this already and they’re sixteen.”

  “I’m currently trying a case against two sixteen-year-olds who robbed my client’s house and killed her dog. There are many things sixteen-year-olds do that I wouldn’t condone.”