Leaves

by Michael Baron

  Deborah found this fascinating. “She gave up the food truck?”

  “She had to. This is ramping up very fast. When I spoke to her at the fair, she told me that she’s already in twenty-three states.”

  Deborah reached for the chutney and read the statement of purpose on the back of the jar. Adding new tastes to time-honored favorites…. Complete dedication to the fullness of flavor. Deborah had the feeling she would like this person. Maybe she would go with Sage to the next food fair he attended. If she could get the time off from the River Edge.

  Sage took the jar from her hand. “Isn’t this what you should be doing with your sauces?”

  He completely surprised her with the suggestion. “Bottle sauces?”

  He put the jar back on the shelf. “Your sauces are uniquely yours and people travel from all over to taste them. We could get the food blogosphere talking about this in ten seconds.”

  Deborah put a hand up to her nose, still trying to reconcile something so completely different from what she’d been considering for her next career move.

  “There’s nothing ‘safety school’ about it,” Sage said.

  She glanced over at him, and a smile blossomed on her face. “There isn’t, is there?”

  “Nothing in the least. You could fail spectacularly.”

  “I could,” she said, her smile broadening. She gazed skyward and then looked toward the door. “They’re going to be so furious with me when I tell them I’m not taking the job.”

  “They’ll get over it.”

  **^^^**

  Tyler had surprised himself with his reaction to losing Patrice, especially since there was little question that it was final this time. There was no way back for them after what she’d said to him. Still, less than a minute after her car had backed down the driveway, he was back at his computer, working on images. First, he cracked the code on the Rhode Island shots and then he started refining photos he’d left unfinished for a year or more. He didn’t even stop to go to the bathroom until two thirty in the morning, when he finally left his studio for the night.

  Whatever had spurred that burst of productivity was absent today, though. He didn’t get out of bed until after eleven, and making coffee easily took him ten minutes. At this pace, he wouldn’t be showered until Saturday.

  Sitting with his mug at the dining room table, he could see the couch where Patrice had kissed him goodbye. He’d known that his marriage proposal had not gone well, even if he’d been a little reluctant to acknowledge it consciously. He’d even prepared himself for Patrice suggesting to him that they set the conversation aside for the immediate future. He might have even been fine with that, as long as it didn’t become an issue between them.

  If he hadn’t asked Patrice to marry him, would they have kept going the way they had been going since their reunion? Did he inspire her departure – and her candor – by raising the bar? Or had he merely hastened the conversation by a week or so? Maybe Patrice had already had it in her head that she was going to end things without committing to a timeline.

  Tyler realized that this kind of conjecture didn’t matter, even though he couldn’t prevent himself from continuing with it. Right now, nothing seemed like a better option than sitting at the table, staring at the couch, and wondering about alternative ways in which Patrice might have dropped the bomb on him.

  Tyler’s cell phone started playing his ringtone, the opening notes from Fun.’s “We are Young.” For a split second, he thought about letting the call go to voicemail, but curiosity prevailed, even in his torpid state.

  The call was from an area code he didn’t recognize, and the number was one he didn’t know. Having already expended the energy to rise from the table to see who was trying to get in touch with him, he decided to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, I’m looking for Tyler Gold.”

  “That would be me.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tyler. My name is Joe Elliott, and I run the Aperture Photo Gallery in Columbia, South Carolina. First of all, let me tell you how much I love your work.”

  Tyler shook his head briskly at the incongruity of this call. “Did you say you’re from South Carolina? How did you even see my work?”

  “From your site, of course. Beautifully designed, by the way.”

  “Yeah, I figured you saw my stuff on the site, but how’d you find the site in the first place? Don’t tell me that search engine optimization thing I did actually worked.”

  The man on the other end of the call chuckled. “I don’t know anything about that. A gallery owner in Silver Spring, Maryland told me about you.”

  Tyler had no idea how the guy in Silver Spring knew about his work either, and he assumed that asking Joe Elliott was pointless. “Well, thanks.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about my carrying some of your photos in my gallery.”

  “Really? You think there’s a market for pictures of New England leaves in South Carolina?”

  “I think there might be a good one. There are only so many photos of palmettos you can sell.”

  Tyler hadn’t once considered this kind of merchandising possibility. He’d always assumed that the only market for his current work would be relatively local and that he’d have to change his style if he wanted a broader reach. It hadn’t occurred to him that people might gravitate toward his images precisely because they weren’t local.

  The idea popped into Tyler’s head so quickly that he barely had time to consider it before he started speaking.

  “I can’t believe how great your timing is,” he said. “I happen to be flying down to…Charleston next week.”

  “Wow, that is great timing. Charleston’s not around the corner, but it’s only about a two-hour drive away. If you feel like taking a ride, let’s get together.”

  Meeting Joe Elliott in Columbia, South Carolina sounded exponentially better than anything he was going to be doing in Oldham next week.

  “Sounds great. I’m just printing some new shots. I think you might like them.”

  Sixteen

  Saturday, October 23

  Eight days before the party

  Corrina put the grocery bag on the kitchen counter and started getting the produce into the refrigerator. With the door still open, she checked the pantry to confirm that she had enough rice for tonight’s dinner, even though she could wind up eating alone, given how things were going in her household. Still, it would have been a complete hassle if she had to go out again.

  She turned back to the canvas bag and noticed the logo imprinted on the front. “Delson’s Corner Market.” Delson’s? The store had gone out of business when Corrina was a teenager. It really was a great place back then. Sawdust on the floor – why did old stores do that? – and a faint mustiness that said, “We’ve been here for decades” and, “You can feel comfortable here” at the same time. The store was small, maybe a few thousand square feet, but it was packed with fresh fruits and vegetables, a deli counter decorated with hanging dried sausages, a bakery section that always tempted her, and the coolest candy selection around that had stuff you couldn’t find anywhere else like Gold Nugget bubble gum and Pixy Sticks. Mr. and Mrs. Delson ran the place for forty years until the big Stop & Shop opened outside of town and drove them to retirement. They were in Florida now if Corrina recalled correctly.

  None of which explained how the Delson’s logo got on the grocery bag she could swear she purchased at the farmer’s market a few months ago. Was the Delson’s logo some kind of nostalgia thing she’d somehow missed when she bought the bag? Certainly, there were enough people who loved the old store that there’d be an available audience for such an imprint.

  Corrina remembered how her father used to go to Delson’s early every Saturday morning. If she was up in time, he’d take her with him, and he’d invariably let her buy one of those cool candi
es. Tyler was the only other one who ever got up early enough to go with them, and it became something of a ritual, the siblings talking about which treat they planned to buy during the entire trip there. One Saturday, both of them had overslept and Dad went off without them. He always said he wouldn’t wake them because if they were sleeping, that meant they needed to sleep. Still, the entire weekend felt wrong to Corrina because she’d missed the trip to Delson’s. She knew Tyler felt the same way.

  The next Friday night, Corrina and Tyler came up with a plan: they would take turns “standing guard” to make sure that Dad didn’t leave them behind again. That first weekend, it was Corrina’s job to listen and wake Tyler in time to get both of them downstairs. Of course, she barely slept the entire night. The next Friday night, it was Tyler’s turn. They didn’t miss a single trip with their father again until the store closed.

  Corrina couldn’t remember the last time she had a Jujube, one of the candies she regularly bought at Delson’s. Maybe Patrice knew where she could find one.

  Corrina put a can of white beans away and then set aside the grocery bag – a bag that prominently displayed the logo of the Oldham Farmer’s Market. She laughed when she looked at the bag a second time.

  She wondered what made her think of Delson’s.

  **^^^**

  The opportunity was too good to pass up. Maxwell and Joey were on their way back from their stroll through town when they came upon an enormous pile of leaves at a curb three blocks from their house.

  Joey had been surprisingly mellow since they left the deli where they’d had breakfast. Maybe he’d worn himself out pinballing from the sandwich counter to the chips display to the refrigerator to various diner-filled tables, and under a newspaper stand he never should have fit beneath. Maxwell knew there was a risk that taking his son out of his stroller right now would toggle his on switch. Still, there was the pile.

  It was time.

  “Joe, here comes today’s rite of passage,” Maxwell said as he unclipped the boy’s safety belt. He pulled Joey up into his arms and then placed him next to the pile.

  “Do you know what you do with one of these?” he said, pointing to the enormous collection of leaves.

  Joey looked up at him and shook his head vigorously.

  “You do this.”

  Maxwell hoisted the boy and placed him into the pile, splashing him with leaves as though they were in the community pool. Joey laughed and started pushing leaves in Maxwell’s direction, jumping up and down as he did.

  Maxwell pulled his son out of the pile and set him at the edge of the curb. Joey was still jumping.

  “Jump,” Maxwell said, pretending to jump into the pile.

  Joey jumped higher.

  “No, jump.”

  Maxwell repeated the gesture, but Joey just kept bobbing.

  “Like this,” Maxwell said before jumping into the leaf pile himself. The leaves were mid-thigh-high on him. Joey thought this was hilarious and jumped in to join him. The leaves came up to his chin.

  They tossed leaves at each other for a minute or so until Maxwell looked up from the pile of leaves at the curb to the house beyond. From a window, a woman looked out with a perplexed expression.

  She thinks I’m out of my mind. Maybe I should cross this house off my list when I go canvassing for votes.

  Feeling a bit sheepish – but only a bit, because Joey was having such a good time – Maxwell extricated himself and his son from the pile, straightening it out after he did so. He brushed off the two of them and tried to get Joey back in his stroller, but the boy wasn’t the least bit interested in doing so. Maxwell pushed the stroller while his son bounced ahead yelling, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

  Annie still wasn’t around when they got back to the house. She’d gone to bed right after dinner last night, and she was gone by the time Maxwell and Joey woke up in the morning. Something was obviously going on with her, but she had rebuffed all attempts Maxwell made to discuss it. She’d had moments like this in the past, and she’d been equally closed during those times. Maxwell had learned that the only option he had was to continue to let Annie know he was available to talk and to otherwise let her deal with the funk on her terms. Eventually, the cloud would pass.

  Joey finally stopped jumping by the time they got to the living room. That did not mean, though, that he was calming down. Within thirty seconds, he’d pulled a truck, two balls, and a wind-up clown from his toy chest.

  “It’s nap time, Joe,” Maxwell said when Joey started digging into the chest again.

  Joey stopped, turned, said, “Catch,” and threw a yellow toy football to him. The kid’s accuracy was improving; Maxwell only needed to stretch the length of the couch to get the ball. The boy thought it was hilarious to see his father sprawling to grab it in flight.

  Maxwell gathered Joey up in his arms and headed toward his son’s room. It took three lullabies to soothe him, but Maxwell finally got the pinball down for his nap.

  Maxwell had been on the couch reading for about fifteen minutes when Annie entered. He got up to kiss her, and their lips barely touched before she moved into the kitchen. She hadn’t suggested she wanted Maxwell to follow, but he did so anyway.

  “Joey’s sleeping,” he said as he watched her fill a large glass with water and drink it down quickly. “You were gone early.”

  She put the glass on a countertop and looked in his general direction. “I wanted to get out for a while.”

  “Yeah, I figured.”

  It was clear Annie wasn’t interested in offering details about where she’d gone. Again, experience told him that asking would be counterproductive.

  “Listen,” he said, “I decided I’m going for it.”

  Annie looked at him as though they’d just met. “Going for what?”

  “The mayor thing. I’ve decided that I want to run.”

  Annie’s eyes clouded instantly. “Isn’t that fantastic.”

  “I was hoping you’d be a little more excited than that.”

  Annie laughed darkly. “Really? You really thought there was any chance that I was going to be excited about this? Why the hell would you possibly think that?”

  “I know you have some concerns, but –”

  “– I don’t have concerns, Maxwell. I have something much bigger than concerns. You want me to be the happy little supportive wife? It’s not happening – not for this. I want to go back to work. I want to spend less time strapped to Joey. I want to be something, and by that, I don’t mean that I want to be the freaking First Lady of Oldham. I want to be doing something with my future that’s a little more meaningful than going to a bunch of public functions with my husband pretending that our family has the perfect little life.”

  The outburst set Maxwell back on his heels. He knew Annie was going to have some issues with his running for public office, but nothing she’d said before prepared him for this tirade.

  “This obviously doesn’t have anything to do with my running for mayor,” he said after the silence between them extended for an uncomfortably long time.

  “You can think what you want.”

  Maxwell took a step toward his wife. “Talk to me, Annie.”

  Annie headed out of the kitchen. “I don’t want to talk. And while it seems that what I want doesn’t matter much these days, if I want to not talk about this, there’s nothing you can do about it.” She grabbed her purse. “I’m going out again.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I haven’t decided yet. Have a good afternoon with your son.”

  **^^^**

  Since she had gotten to the kitchen an hour and a half ago, Deborah had been working on variations of Béarnaise to go with the roasted pork she was serving at the inn tonight. If you took out the tarragon, could you technically call it a Béarnaise? She decided to flout convention by switching out green pepperco
rns in one batch, sorrel in another, and even lavender in a third. The latter didn’t work at all, but the other two were delicious. For the next batch, she was going to try both tarragon and green peppercorns, walking the line between traditional and daring.

  She’d been thinking about sauces nonstop for the past day, running endless combinations in her mind. This was a variation on the nonstop thinking she’d been doing about what to serve for the last meal at the inn. Or the nonstop thinking she had been doing about where she was going to work starting in November. Deborah wasn’t sure you could be thinking nonstop about multiple things, but it certainly felt as though she’d been doing that.

  If this tarragon-green-peppercorn Béarnaise works, will I be able to figure out a shelf-stable version of it that still has the right flavor profile?

  She had just started chopping tarragon for the new trial when Tyler came into the kitchen. He’d called this morning saying he wanted to stop by for lunch, which he used to do all the time, but hadn’t been doing for the past few months. She smiled up at him while she continued to chop.

  “Yum, tarragon,” he said, “one of my favorites.”

  “Too bad. You’re not getting any of this.”

  “You can be very cold. Did you know that, sis?”

  Tyler said this lightly, which surprised Deborah, since she wasn’t sure there’d be anything lighthearted about their conversation today. Deborah assumed her brother was hurting badly over Patrice’s leaving him and that lunch would involve quite a bit of hand holding.