The Late Bloomers' Club

by Louise Miller

  I leaned closer to Fern. “Did Charlie hire someone when I wasn’t looking?”

  We glanced over our shoulders at the two men, who were giggling behind the counter.

  “That’s the karaoke guy from Burlington.”

  “Karaoke guy?” I asked, stealing another glance.

  Fern nodded. “He’s a sweetheart. They’re sickening together. You’ll adore him.”

  “Hey there, ladies,” a warm voice said. I turned around to find Mary Beth from the Pudding Hill House. “Nora, do you have a minute?”

  I glanced at Fern. She squeezed my arm and turned back to her duties at the burger table. “Let’s go to the coatroom—it might be quieter there.”

  We closed the coatroom door behind us. The scent of mothballs and wet wool was dizzying.

  “I’m sorry to bother you during this celebration, but I just got word this afternoon that there is a bed available for Elsie over at the nursing home down in Middleton. Should I start the paperwork?”

  I should have felt relief, but instead my heart felt heavy. “Do I need to make the decision right away?”

  Mary Beth looked at me with sympathy. “The beds get filled so fast.” She hesitated. “I don’t usually offer my opinion when it comes to this sort of thing . . .” Mary Beth stood a little taller. “You’ve shown Elsie such kindness, Nora. But she isn’t your responsibility. She’ll get good care over in Middleton. I’d just hate to see—I’d hate to see you get dragged down by something like this.”

  I reached out and gave Mary Beth a hug. “Thanks, Mary Beth. I really appreciate it. Do you think we could wait until Monday? I’m signed up to lead a sculpture workshop over at the Pudding Hill House then. I can come early.”

  Mary Beth looked relieved. “They won’t fill the bed over the weekend anyway. There’s paperwork to be done. Monday is fine.”

  We opened the door and stepped out into a crowd that had gathered in the front hall. “It must feel good to see all these people come out for you.”

  “It really does,” I said, and I meant it with my whole heart.

  “Your parents would be proud to see how much you mean to everyone.”

  I followed a group of teenagers back into the grange hall, and made my way over to take a look at the bake sale table. There must have been one hundred plates. Tea breads and coffee rings, stack cakes and fruitcakes. Platters and platters of cookies of every stripe. There were crumb pies and double-crust pies, and pies covered in whipped cream and meringue. I found Erika with a Baggie full of buttercrunch toffee in her hand, over by Margaret Hurley, who was handling the cashbox.

  “There’s my boy,” Erika said, leaning down to scratch Freckles behind the ears. He jumped up on her and placed his two front paws on her shoulders.

  “Freckles,” I said, giving him a tug on the harness.

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” Erika said. “He’s looking great, Nora.”

  “I brought him down to the groomer in Littleton to get all the burrs out.”

  “He’s like a new dog. Mind if I take him for a walk around the parking lot? I could use a breath of fresh air.”

  I handed Erika the leash. “Be my guest.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t run off with him,” she said. It was good to know I had a backup in case I couldn’t find an apartment that would accept dogs. We had been staying at Peggy’s.

  “There you are,” a gruff voice said. “What did you think about that news article? Surprising, right?”

  I turned around to find my neighbor Pat. His white hair was standing on end, and he looked a little like those troll dolls we had as kids. “I’m so sorry, Pat,” I said. “I didn’t get around to reading it.” The residents of the Victoria were always sending me coupons they had clipped from the Pennysaver that they thought I might need, or stories from Parade magazine about some diner in Wisconsin.

  “It’s just one of many. She left boxes and boxes in her storage unit in the basement when they moved her over to Pudding Hill. Full of this sort of thing. Like that little bird I left you. Peggy said she would come get them, but you know how she always had her hands full.”

  Realization washed over me. “Wait. You left the little bird? Made of twist ties?”

  Pat nodded. “There must be eight dozen of them. They’d look good on a Christmas tree. You could wire ’em straight onto the tree. Do you still decorate for Christmas? I’ve found since my wife died I’ve lost interest. Too much work.”

  I fished through my giant handbag, looking for the letter he had given me weeks before, at the last town meeting. My fingertips caught the edge of a piece of paper at the bottom of my purse.

  The envelope looked worn. My name in Pat’s shaking handwriting had been smudged. I tore open the flap. Inside was a faded newspaper article. I unfolded it carefully, trying not to tear it in two.

  ART STAR DISAPPEARS AFTER MUSEUM RETROSPECTIVE OPENING. POLICE HAVE NO LEADS.

  I flipped the article to face him. “Elsie?” I asked Pat. He nodded, and took a bite of a large molasses cookie.

  Critically lauded sculptor Elspeth Coleridge, recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant, has not been seen since the opening of her one-woman retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Attendees reported that Ms. Coleridge had appeared agitated and left the event early. Art consultant Franklin O’Connor, who runs Ms. Coleridge’s business affairs, said that there appeared to be a few items missing from her apartment, among them a pair of dark red cowboy boots that she had possessed for over forty years and “wouldn’t go anywhere without.” Mr. O’Connor has filed a missing persons report with the New York City Police Department. Police say they have no leads.

  “She was famous?”

  Pat shrugged. “Looks like it. I remember when she first came to town. She was a real recluse. Didn’t even come out for the Harvest Festival.”

  “I never saw her at the diner,” I offered.

  “They were going to toss all those old boxes once her apartment was rented out. That’s your unit, you know.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know.”

  “Seemed a shame to have some whippersnapper toss all of those old memories, so I took them. You can have all the boxes, if you like. I figure they’re more yours than anybody else’s. Stop on by. And if you could come tomorrow morning, would you mind bringing a stepladder and a couple of lightbulbs?”

  I folded the article back up and placed it carefully in its envelope. “Sure thing.”

  Sean walked across the stage then, and tapped the mic. The Hungry Mountaineers stepped offstage and made a beeline for the Miss Guthrie table.

  “Hey, folks, sorry to interrupt. Thank you all for coming out tonight to help support my oldest friend, Nora Huckleberry, and the Miss Guthrie Diner.”

  The crowd burst into applause. Margaret Hurley came to stand beside me, and patted my shoulder in support. “Just smile and wave,” she said in my ear. “You’ll have time to cry later when you have some privacy.”

  I obediently smiled and waved at the crowd.

  “That’s a good girl,” she said.

  “Now, before the Beagles start their set, I wanted to say a few words. Nora could have sold the Johnson land to that big-box store for a good chunk of money, but she didn’t because she had all of you, and Guthrie, in mind. Nora loves our little town, and she shows it every day through her kindness and generosity at the diner.”

  “Nora,” yelled Frank Fraser. He and his wife, Bonnie, brought both sets of parents in for breakfast every Saturday morning.

  “Not many of you know this, but Nora has been struggling with a lot more than just the fire at the Miss Guthrie. She needs to tie up some unfinished business of Peggy Johnson’s. Now I know none of us have the funds to buy the entire Johnson place, but I think if everyone in this room chipped in and took on an acre or two, we could make this happen. That way we would be keeping Gut
hrie small,” Sean nodded to Burt Grant, who tipped his hat in response, “while helping out a friend. Oona, would you come on up here?”

  Oona, the new science teacher, climbed up on the stage, holding a large-scale map of Peggy Johnson’s property. She propped it up on a wooden easel that Sean had set up. It showed the farm and land broken down into small parcels. One of the lots was colored in red.

  Sean continued. “So I am happy to announce that the town of Guthrie has authorized the purchase of two acres of land, to be used for the newly formed Manure Compost Project, which will be run by Oona Avery.”

  The crowd applauded, and Oona took a small bow. She leaned over into Sean’s mic, their heads touching briefly for a moment. “We should have the compost sites set up within a few weeks, once the sale has gone through. Farmers, if you have manure to donate or are looking for manure, shoot me an e-mail. We’ll have a website up with more information soon.”

  “Thanks, Oona,” Sean said, smiling at her as she walked off the stage. “Now, as you can see, we chose a spot far away from any houses, so the smell won’t be a problem. So what I want to ask you is, do you need a little bit more land? Is there a crop you’d like to grow but you have no space? Do your cows need more grass to graze on? Who here could commit to making an offer on a small piece of the Johnson property?”

  The young farmer John Hammond raised his hand. “My wife has been wanting to start a pick-your-own-flower garden, but we didn’t think anyone would want to come to our farm because of the pigs. We would take a couple of acres.”

  Sean wrote down the farmer’s name on the map. “We’ll work out the details about who gets which parcels when we find out who needs what. Now, who’s next?”

  Tom Carrigan raised his hand. “We just added dairy goats, and we can’t keep up with their appetites. We could use an acre or two to plant clover.”

  Lewis, a logger who came in every day for breakfast, called out, “I don’t need land, but I’d be interested in doing some selective cutting in the old-growth forest. We wouldn’t have to clear-cut.”

  “Perfect. That’s the kind of thinking we need. Who else?”

  Acre by acre, farmers and loggers and community garden groups made offers on the Johnson property. By the end, more than half of the farmland was spoken for, and hunting rights and logging rights were on the table.

  Sean beamed at the audience. He was joined by Amy, the Realtor who had been showing the property.

  “And we’ve just had an offer from a conservation group that wants to preserve the orchard and the woods surrounding it,” Amy said into the mic.

  Dotty McCracken gave a whoop, and the whole town laughed and clapped their hands.

  “This is all pending the Huckleberry sisters’ approval, of course,” Amy said. “I’ll meet with them to discuss the details. In the meantime, if you have expressed an interest tonight, come see me at the check-in table by the coatroom so I can take down your contact information.”

  “All right, folks. Now it’s time to let your hair down—here are the Beagles!”

  Tom Carrigan flicked on his amplifier, and the band, which had filed onto the stage as Sean talked, broke into a jaunty bluegrass version of “One of These Nights.”

  Sean wove his way through the crowd until he reached me. He looked uncertain for a moment. I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed tightly.

  “Was that okay? You can say no to any of it. But it’s a start.”

  “It is more than a start. It was brilliant,” I said, breathing in his wood-chip scent. “Thank you for arranging all this.”

  “Anything for you, Nora. You know that, right? We’ll always be family.”

  I rested my head on his chest for just a moment, and then pulled out of his embrace. “So, the science teacher, huh?”

  Sean shrugged. “The intern was a little young.”

  I punched him in the arm. “You think?”

  Fern came over to us and offered me her plastic water bottle. “We ran out of burgers. Shift drink?”

  I laughed. “Not tonight. I have to get up early and help a neighbor with a few chores.”

  * * *

  There were fourteen cardboard boxes in all. One was filled with gallery notices and beautiful glossy postcards of Elsie’s larger works and site-specific installations. Another held copies of catalogs from various shows, leading up to her retrospective. There was one box of newspaper clippings. Some were reviews—one called her work “a refreshing meditation on the idea of impermanence.” Others were about her disappearance. She had followed the story in the newspaper. I imagined she must have had the New York Times delivered—it wasn’t carried at the White Market or at the gas station. After I did a bit of Googling, I found a long piece about her work and disappearance that had run just a couple of years before in Vanity Fair.

  The other boxes held treasures from her life here in Vermont. Well-read children’s books that were stained and dog-eared. Sketchbooks filled with drawings, with plans for the sculptures in Peggy’s woods. And one was filled with love letters. Even though they lived only a few miles apart, they sent each other the most marvelous letters, filled with sketches and poems and made-up stories. A photograph had slipped out of one of the envelopes. It was a Polaroid of Peggy and Elsie that they had taken of themselves, leaning into each other, their hair slick with pond water, the trees with the clementine-net Victorian dresses dancing behind them. And in another box was a pair of well-worn cowboy boots the color of the oxblood stools in the Miss Guthrie. I pulled them on. They fit perfectly.

  It took most of the afternoon, but I finally found the crumpled business card in the pocket of one of my work aprons. Sonya Bellwether. HG Corporation. Art Curator.

  “Ms. Bellwether? I don’t know if you’ll remember me. I own the Miss Guthrie Diner, up in Guthrie, Vermont. That’s right, Elliot’s friend.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve discovered something about the sculptures, and, well, I thought you might be able to help.”

  * * *

  The back of the Subaru was stuffed to the ceiling with bags of wine corks and pipe cleaners, bits of old ribbon and lace and spools—soft things that wouldn’t bite into the seniors’ delicate skin. I left just enough room for Freckles to sit in the backseat. I drove carefully up Pudding Hill Road, unable to see out the back, until we reached the nursing home.

  One of the volunteers met me at the back door, and I left her to unload the car. Freckles and I slipped inside and headed straight for Elsie’s room.

  Elsie was sitting up in her bed, listening to the radio. I knocked lightly on the door.

  “Elsie, I have a surprise for you.”

  Freckles took a tentative step into the room. The nursing home smelled like disinfectant, a little too much like the animal hospital, I imagined, and the waxed floors were difficult to walk on.

  “Freckles!” Elsie cried out.

  Freckles barked, then sniffed, then flew across the room and onto Elsie’s bed, and began to lick every inch of Elsie’s face, his tail wagging furiously, knocking a water glass and a vase of mums off her bedside table.

  “Come on, you sweet old boy,” Elsie crooned, her delicate hands wrapping around Freckles’s ruff.

  Freckles turned around and around in circles on her bed, his tail whipping Elsie’s face. She giggled like a schoolgirl.

  “There’s a good dog,” she said, her hands stroking his thick black fur. Freckles leaned his whole body against hers and sighed.

  An attendant came in searching for the source of the crashing sound. He looked at Freckles on the bed and shook his head.

  “He’s a certified therapy dog,” I lied. “His vest is in the car.” I fished a twenty out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Could you keep an eye on these two for a few minutes? I have a meeting with Mary Beth.”

  * * *

  Mary Beth waved me into her office, cradling the telep
hone between her head and her shoulder. Just one minute, she mouthed, and returned to her conversation.

  I pulled out the printouts of the e-mails I had received from Sonya Bellwether. She had put me in touch with the head of a nonprofit devoted to caring for elderly visual artists, as well as Elsie’s manager, Franklin O’Connor, who continued to oversee her business dealings. They explained that there had been a lot of interest in Elsie’s work lately—several of her pieces had recently been sold at auction for more than double the expected price—and that the sculptures in the woods were potentially worth a lot of money. They set in motion a plan to collect and auction off the sculptures. All proceeds would go into a trust that would pay for Elsie’s care, along with the money that Mr. O’Connor had safely invested over the years. It was all very hush-hush—no one wanted the press to catch wind of the fact that Elsie had been found before the sculptures were secured. We were concerned for Elsie’s privacy at the Pudding Hill House. And I certainly didn’t want to be bothered with a bunch of newspeople and art seekers trampling all over Peggy’s land. Franklin O’Connor called me late one night to confess he had hoped this had been Elsie’s fate. “She always wanted to live a simple life. She detested New York, even though it loved her. When I noticed that her boots were missing, I knew not to worry. I knew she was off living her dream.”

  “Sorry about that,” Mary Beth said, putting the phone back in its cradle. “I have the state paperwork right here.”

  “No need,” I said, handing her the e-mails. “Tell them to give the bed to the next person. Elsie can stay right here where she belongs.”

  * * *