The Late Bloomers' Club

by Louise Miller

  “I like to take pictures,” I said. “But I wouldn’t call it my passion.”

  “What else?”

  “I haven’t really had a lot of time to do much,” I said. “I don’t—mostly the diner keeps me busy.”

  Elliot looked at me sideways. “So, just Nora the diner lady.”

  “Yup,” I said. “Nora the diner lady. That’s me.”

  “And you like being Nora the diner lady?”

  “No one has ever asked me that before.”

  “Really? I’m surprised to hear that.”

  I shrugged. “I guess people just assume that I do. I grew up in the diner—it’s a family business. It wasn’t my life’s dream, exactly—but it’s been my life.”

  “Do you dream about doing something else?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, I don’t know what other job I would like to do, but . . . do you really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay. I dream about having a little herd of dairy goats. A big garden.” I held my arms out wide. “Really big. An herb bed and rows of vegetables. Berry bushes and a cutting garden made to bloom every week of the growing season. Enough space for a dog or two to roam. A kitchen large enough to put up vegetables, a cozy spot with a fireplace for reading on winter afternoons, and a big sunny room with wood floors just for painting.”

  “So you are an artist, then.”

  I ignored him and kept talking. I hadn’t spoken any of these dreams out loud, and telling them to the trees felt like they might somehow come true. “The room would have to be big enough for large canvases. Big enough so that I could have the space to sit across from whatever I am working on and just look at it for a while. Seeing takes time.” I shrugged, tucking my vision safely back inside me. “Not a grand life.”

  “It sounds like a grand life.” Elliot eyed me carefully.

  “It sounds like Peggy’s,” I said with a laugh. Until that moment I hadn’t really realized how happy Peggy must have been.

  Ahead of us, the sun seemed to burn a little brighter. “Look,” I said, pointing, “I think there’s a clearing over to the right.”

  We walked carefully, Elliot forging the way, warning of wobbly rocks and tree roots in the path. The stream beside us had grown wider, the ground beside it damp and spongy. At the edge of the clearing, knee-deep in the water, was a life-sized moose made of stretched-out wire coat hangers, as if someone had drawn him in three dimensions. The moose was leaning against a tree, head down for a drink of water. When I reached out to touch it, one of the antlers splashed into the water. I quickly grabbed it before it could float downstream.

  “Oh,” I heard Elliot gasp. “Nora, come here.” I followed him into the clearing. Before us was a pond the size of a tennis court, the water dark and cool looking, dotted with bright white water lilies. Someone had carefully cleaned the banks of the pond, and pillowy clumps of moss had grown around the edges. The banks were dotted with flat pieces of rock, and it was free of the usual branches and debris. All around the pond, and in and among the trees, were sculptures. Some were figurative, like the animals that we had found before. A family of turtles made of oyster shells sunned themselves on a rock by the water. On the edge of the tree line, peony bushes with broken-china blossoms were in full bloom. Patches of Queen Anne’s lace made from real lace doilies waved in the soft breeze. A porcupine made entirely of flat-headed tin thumbtacks posed beneath. Some of the trees were wearing Victorian-style nightgowns sewn from orange, netted clementine bags. Wisteria made of clumps of costume-glass beads swung from the branches of another tree. Other sculptures were more abstract—made from materials wildcrafted from where they were—and were less preserved. An arrangement of ombré mosses were put together in a way that played with color and light. Next to it, a twisting labyrinth of fieldstones led back into the woods. Far across the field, there were giant shapes made of woven twigs that looked so light I wouldn’t have been surprised if one drifted up and floated away. Everywhere you looked there was a surprise to be found. It was a handmade Eden.

  I turned to find Elliot removing his fleece and pulling off the T-shirt he was wearing underneath. There were soft wisps of dark hair across his chest, which surprised me, then I found myself surprised at being surprised, not knowing that I had been thinking of his chest at all. When I realized I was staring at him, I felt blood rush to my cheeks. “Um, what are you doing?”

  “Doesn’t the water look good?”

  “But it’s not hot out.”

  Elliot looked up at the sky. The sun was burning bright, and in the clearing it was sticky and growing warm.

  “We found a magic swimming hole. You can’t not swim in a magic swimming hole. It’s bad luck.”

  When Elliot reached for the top button of his pants, I quickly focused my gaze on the ground and didn’t look up again until I heard the soft splash of water and a long sigh. When I peeked I found Elliot neck-deep in the dark water. “How is it?”

  “Cold, and probably full of leeches. Maybe five feet deep. Come on in.”

  I pulled off my sweater and the soft knit shirt I had on underneath it, but left my tank top on. Elliot had the decency to swim away from me as I kicked out of my hiking boots and pulled off my jeans. I was wearing my most grandmotherly pair of underwear. Good for coverage, I thought, but not great for anything else. I slid into the water before I could think anymore.

  The water was cool, but soft against my skin. The pond had a wonderful green scent to it, and the bottom felt squishy from decades of decaying leaves, as if it held all of the seasons at once.

  “I haven’t been in a good swimming hole since I was a kid,” Elliot said, treading water beside me.

  “I haven’t, either,” I admitted. “Fern and I get over to Lake Willoughby from time to time, but it’s always crowded. I never knew this was here.”

  “It’s funny how that is—how you think you know a place, but there are still so many hidden surprises.”

  “Just like people,” I said, thinking of his earlier comment.

  Elliot smiled. “Exactly like people.”

  “What about you?”

  “Do I know any hidden places? I haven’t been here all that long—Guthrie is one big hidden surprise to me. I have come to know the sugar bush behind the inn pretty well, though. There are a lot of owls.”

  I laughed. “No, I mean, what’s your hidden place? What you dream of. Or are you just Elliot the HG guy?”

  Elliot floated on his back for a moment, looking up at the cloudless September sky. “I have a lot of dreams, actually. But I’m a lot like you. Work seems to be the thing that I actually do most of the time.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  “I like scouting for locations. That’s the best part. It’s like a puzzle, trying to match the needs of the company with the needs of the community, and the possibility of the land.” Elliot reached over to one of the white water lilies and brushed the petals with his fingers. “I like meeting the people in the towns.”

  “And if you could have a do-over, right now, what would you do?”

  “I don’t know what that looks like, exactly. Something outside. Something that is connected to the land, that would allow me to stay in one place.” He leaned back into the water and floated. I was relieved to find he had kept on his boxer shorts. “And I write some. I guess sometimes I dream about doing something with that.” He looked over at me and smiled. “Does that make me more than just Elliot the HG guy? Because I really don’t want to be just Elliot the HG guy.”

  He was an artist, too. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but this felt like a surprise. “You’re a writer?”

  Elliot laughed. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

  “Fiction? Essays? Nature guides?” I could picture him being good at any of those things.

  Elliot’s ea
rs burned. He nodded. “Mostly essays, about ecology, and the way all things are connected. If I’m being honest here, I should tell you I’m trying to write a novel. It’s terrible.”

  “That’s amazing,” I said. I loved books as much as I loved movies.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you read it. But it gives me something to do at night in the hotel rooms.” Elliot dove into the water, swam to the edge, then he did a slow backstroke to where I was treading water, trying not to let my feet hit the silty-soft bottom.

  “You don’t feel like . . . I don’t know. Like it’s too late to start something new?” I asked. “I don’t mean to say you’re old.”

  Elliot laughed. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  “Forty-two,” I said, watching his face for a reaction.

  “Why, you’re just a kid. I turned fifty a couple of weeks ago.”

  He had been in Guthrie for at least a month. “What did you do to celebrate?”

  “I spent it with a lovely, kind woman.”

  “Oh.” The water felt a little colder all of a sudden, and I found myself wishing I was dry and warm and alone in my apartment.

  “Under a canoe.”

  Realization dawned. “You should have told me!”

  “I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.”

  “But it was your fiftieth. It was a special day.”

  “It was,” Elliot said softly.

  I gathered up a little courage. “Can I ask you something that might sound a little rude?”

  Elliot laughed. “I’m all ears.”

  It took everything I had to keep a straight face. “Don’t you feel . . . I don’t know of a better way to say this. When you are working on your novel, do you ever feel . . . nervous? To start something new?” I dunked my head under the water, afraid to look at his face. When I came up, he smiled warmly at me.

  “Have you ever heard of a century tree?”

  “The white oak that Peggy crashed into was over a hundred years old. But I’ve never heard that expression.”

  “I saw the scars on that tree. I truly am sorry about your friend Peggy. I really loved the little time I spent with her. She was a sweet old duck.”

  “She really was.”

  “And those cakes. Every time we met she would insist that we sit down and have a cup of tea and a slice of cake before negotiating. She served this one with maple frosting—”

  “The burnt sugar cake!” Elliot hadn’t been in town long enough to be the standing order, but it made me happy to know he had tasted the cake.

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  “She didn’t mention who she had baked it for, by chance?”

  “I assumed she just made it for guests.”

  “I’m going to ask you for a cake-related favor in a couple of days.” I wanted to know how Max’s and my burnt sugar cake stood up next to Peggy’s.

  “Anytime.” Elliot swam a little closer to me, the ripples he made in the water brushing against my skin. “My mom grew up in the Southwest. She used to tell us stories about growing up in the desert. One time both of my brothers ended up on the same whiffle ball team. It was a town thing, you had to try out. I was short for my age and couldn’t hit a beach ball with a bat, never mind a little whiffle ball.”

  “They’re hard to hit,” I said, my tiptoes touching the pulpy bottom of the pond.

  “So that first night my brothers were at practice, my mom told me the story of the century tree. Mom was raised by her grandfather and lived in the house he grew up in. They had a century tree in their yard. Her grandfather told her that the tree only bloomed once every hundred years, and that he had never seen it bloom.”

  “What do the blooms look like? Is there any chance they would miss it blooming?” Maybe the flowers were small, or the same color as the plant, and would go unnoticed.

  “I asked the same question. So one day, my mom went out into the yard and noticed something different. The century tree had a stalk growing out of it. Every day it would grow. Six inches, a foot, two feet.” Elliot slowly stood until he was standing tall, the water only to his chest, his arms outstretched to the sky. “All the way up to twenty-seven feet, and thicker every day. From the stalk sprouted branches, and from the branches bloomed clumps of great green flowers with yellow stamens.”

  “That sounds incredible,” I said, enjoying how the story lit up his face. Of course he was a writer.

  “So, being eight, I asked my mom what a cactus plant had to do with my not being able to play whiffle ball with my brothers. And she said that people were just like century trees. You never know when they will bloom, but when they do, it’s always an extraordinary sight to behold.”

  The story reminded me of my own mother, and the tales she would spin as I was drifting off to sleep. “She sounds like a wonderful woman.”

  “She is. You should meet her. You two would like each other.”

  I smiled shyly at him. “So you don’t think you’ve bloomed yet?”

  “Definitely not yet.” Elliot dove back into the water.

  My fingers were pruney, and the sun felt hot on my neck and inviting. I paddled to the shore and leaned my back against one of the rocks next to the family of turtles. I stretched my arms and grasped on to the rocks, letting my legs float in front of me in the water. I watched Elliot swim, his pale chest a shimmering bright light in the dark water. He moved like an eel or a fish, effortlessly, as if he were a part of the ecosystem. After a few laps, Elliot paddled over to where I was resting.

  “This is an exceptional place,” he said. His voice held a trace of longing, and it felt more like he was talking to himself than to me.

  “All of this work,” I said, petting one of the turtles, admiring the way Peggy had captured the stretch of the neck, the pleasure the turtle must feel in the sun. “I wonder why she never shared it with anyone.”

  “Maybe she did,” Elliot said. “Or maybe she kept it private, just for herself. Either way, it means a lot that you shared it with me. I’m honored.”

  Elliot treaded water just an arm’s length away, facing me. His lips were open slightly, his dark, wet hair glistened in the now-hot sun. I had never noticed the freckles that dotted his nose and cheeks, or the way his eyes crinkled at the edges when he looked happy, like now. He floated a little closer. There was just the leaf of a lily pad separating us. Elliot’s expression was soft, open.

  “Nora,” he said, and his voice held a question I was afraid to answer. I let go of the rocks, took a deep breath, and dropped down into the water until my hair was floating like snakes around me, and stayed there until my lungs felt like they were going to burst.

  * * *

  When we reached the steps of Peggy’s front porch, I told Elliot I was heading back to the diner. My underclothes were still wet beneath my jeans and shirt. Elliot had gallantly let me use his fleece jacket as a towel before I attempted to pull my jeans over my damp legs. We’d had a cheerful walk back through the woods, Elliot telling stories about his childhood in Maine, the trouble he used to get in with his brothers. In the orchard he’d told me the names of some of the fruit trees. He’d picked a goldeny green apple called a Roxbury Russet and said it was the oldest apple variety grown in the United States. It was crunchy, sweet, and tart, and tasted bright like a clear morning. In the woods, it had been easy to be with him. But by the time Peggy’s house had come into view, my usual shyness had flooded back. I waved good-bye from the porch and pushed my way into Peggy’s house with no intention of sticking around.

  Peggy’s foyer was a tangle of black cables. The living room was crowded with lights set up on stands. The cables ran up the stairs and into the rooms beyond. The kitchen felt hot. Two carrot sheet cakes sat on cooling racks on the counter, and when I pressed my palm gently to the top of one it was still warm. I must have just missed Max and Kit. I wondered
what they thought when they saw Elliot’s little car next to mine in front of the house.

  I walked from room to room, wanting to give Elliot enough distance so I wouldn’t be trailing him in my car. Upstairs, Peggy’s room was the only one not littered with film equipment. I lay down on her bed, careful to keep my dusty hiking boots off of her hens-and-chicks quilt. She kept the house so tidy, so spare. I studied the photographs that were hanging on the wall across from me. They were all in black and white, and looked as if they had been on the wall back when this room was Peggy’s parents’, or even her grandparents’. There was a small girl in some of the family photographs that I thought must be Peggy, but I couldn’t be sure. But there were no pictures beyond Peggy’s childhood to give a hint of the life she lived outside of her family.

  * * *

  I woke up to the sound of my sister’s voice, and for a disorienting moment I thought we were back in our childhood home across the way. But then Max’s enthusiastic voice came up the stairs clear as a bell. Still more voices—the actresses in Kit’s film. I got up, crept down the back stairs, which led straight to the kitchen, and slipped through the door that connected the house with the barn. I didn’t want to get enlisted by my sister to hold a microphone or to do hair and makeup.

  The barn door was open, the space light, and a warm breeze filtered in, making the wood shavings scent smell even sweeter. I sat down on a metal stool and spun around, looking at all the piles of raw material. Something colorful caught my eye. In the corner were large spools of old braided telephone wire. Red and white wires twisted together like candy canes. Yellow and green twists that reminded me of pea vines in the garden. I pulled out a long piece of royal blue and lifeguard orange wire and cut it. It bent easily and held its shape. I wrapped it around my arm, then pulled my arm free, admiring the tube the wire made. I twisted and untwisted the wire until I found a shape that I liked. It looked a little like a Viking boat, full and deep in the middle, with the sides high and pointed. Soon I was weaving in other wires, creating patterns of color. I lost myself in the materials, playing with the textures and layering color. I didn’t look up until the late afternoon sun had set low enough to beam its way into the barn, lighting the yellow-painted pegboard ablaze with its raking light. I glanced at my watch—it was past five o’clock. I had been there for hours. I kept working until the piece felt finished. When it was done, I held it up, turning it around, viewing it from all angles. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it felt as if it held some truth about myself that I didn’t yet have words to describe. I slid the sculpture onto the top shelf of the workbench, hung the wire cutters in their designated spot on the pegboard, and slipped out of the barn, closing the door behind me.