The Sugar Queen

by Sarah Addison Allen

  George led her out of the kitchen. “You said you’ve been to our open houses. Do you go to a lot of others?”

  “No, just this one. Just this house.”

  “Do you have a favorite room?” George asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So quickly she answers. Which one?”

  “The library,” she said softly.

  George smiled. “My wife’s favorite too. Lead the way.”

  There was a fire in the fireplace and it made the dark wood of the ceiling-high built-in bookcases glow. There wasn’t an inch of wall space that didn’t have a shelf occupied by books. The room felt so complete, so warm. She’d dreamed of this room for weeks after she saw it at their first open house.

  George sat in the window seat by the bay window and crossed his legs, resting one ankle on the opposite knee. He was now wearing bunny slippers. “What would you do with this room, if it was yours?”

  “Nothing,” Chloe said as she walked around. “It’s perfect as it is. I have books. Hundreds of boxes of them. They would all go here.”

  “You’re a reader, hmm?”

  She stopped, her back to him. She smoothed her hand over the spines of a row of books. “I have a…special relationship with books.”

  “Books can be possessive, can’t they? You’re walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what’s inside will change your life, but sometimes you don’t even have to read it. Sometimes it’s a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven’t even had their spines cracked. ‘Why do you buy books you don’t even read?’ our daughter asks us. That’s like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course. Here, come here. I want to show you something.” He stood and led her to the hallway and opened the coat closet. It was packed, absolutely crammed, with books. “Look at this. Howard, our realtor, told us that we had to move all the stacks of books out of the bedrooms and hallway in order to stage the house. He said clutter distracted potential buyers. He called books clutter.”

  Zelda came out of the kitchen, the warm scent of charred Thanksgiving trailing behind her. She handed Chloe a cup of coffee. “George, Howard said not to deliberately show people that.”

  “We’ve got ourselves a reader, Zelda.”

  “Really,” Zelda said, looking at Chloe thoughtfully. “Well, you didn’t manage to ruin everything in the kitchen, George. Dinner will be ready in a little while. We can talk books, Chloe. How would you like that?”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “When I first heard your name, I knew it sounded familiar,” Zelda said. “I finally remember why. I remember there being a Finley farm off the highway.”

  “Yes! That was where I grew up.”

  “Whatever happened to it?”

  “My great-grandparents raised me. When they got sick, I had to sell it to pay their medical bills.”

  “That must have been hard for you.”

  “Giving up a house you love is always hard.”

  “That,” Zelda said, “was the perfect answer.”

  Josey had turned off all the lamps in her bedroom so she could stand at her window and watch the snow fall in the darkness, but Della Lee wanted the light on in the closet so she could see to cut photos from Josey’s travel magazines. She was going to make a collage. It was her new thing. Josey had given up trying to make sense of Della Lee, but she figured it really didn’t matter now. As soon as Mr. Lamar’s letter came, she would be leaving anyway.

  It wasn’t as comforting a thought as she wanted it to be, mostly because when Della Lee left, Josey wouldn’t even have Adam anymore. He said he didn’t want things to change, but they already had. She could feel it.

  Well, at least with no more distractions, Josey would be able to focus solely on her mother again, and that would make Margaret happy. Margaret had come in after Rawley had walked her to the door in the snow, and had gone directly to her bedroom. She hadn’t said a word to Josey, and she’d only talked to Helena once, to tell her she would take her dinner in her room.

  Josey could feel her censure like a slap. She didn’t like displeasing her mother, but at the same time she didn’t understand how Margaret could blame her for the weather. She wondered how long it would take to live this down. She could imagine, for years to come, every time it snowed, Margaret would bring up the time Josey had left her at the salon with no way home.

  Good times, good times.

  “You have a message on your cell phone from Chloe,” Della Lee said from the closet.

  Josey turned to her, sitting in a pool of light in the otherwise dark room. “How do you know that?”

  Della Lee shrugged as she carefully cut out a photo of the Eiffel Tower with the scissors she’d filched from Josey’s desk drawer.

  Josey sighed. “I’d be mad about you using my cell, except I never get messages and I never would have checked.” Josey went to her purse and got her phone. She walked over to the closet, to the light, in order to see the buttons to retrieve the message. “Who did you call?”

  “No one.”

  “Was it Julian?”

  “I didn’t call anyone.”

  “Fine. Don’t tell me.” Josey retrieved the message and listened as Chloe told her that she was fine, not to worry about her, and that she’d call Josey on Thanksgiving. She didn’t sound as bad as yesterday, and Josey was glad. Maybe Chloe was over the rough part now.

  Josey put her phone back in her purse. Now, to take care of her rough part. “Della Lee,” she said, turning to her, “I think we need to talk about what you’re going to do when Mr. Lamar’s letter arrives. You don’t have much time, so you need to start planning. I’d like to think that going through all my travel magazines is a good sign. Do you want to travel?”

  Della Lee pointed to the stack of magazines she’d brought out of the secret closet and set beside her. “Obviously not as much as you do.”

  “You’re going to have to leave. You promised.”

  Della Lee made a happy sound when she found a photo of the Arc de Triomphe. She began to cut it out. Apparently Paris was going to be an important part of her collage. Josey had always dreamed of going to Paris. “I’ve got to get you settled, then I’ll go.”

  “But I am settled,” Josey insisted. “So we’re back to figuring out where you’re going when you leave.”

  “It’s all planned,” Della Lee said.

  This was news to Josey. “It is?”

  “Of course. I knew where I was going the minute I left my house.”

  The minute she left her house. The minute she left behind her childhood with a troubled mother. The minute she left behind her criminal record. The minute she left behind Julian. She left her entire life. How did she do that? Josey had only dreamed of that kind of gumption. “Then where are you going? Tell me all about it.”

  “I told you, north.”

  “But where north?”

  “I don’t have to tell you everything,” Della Lee said. “And, really, it’s none of your business anyway.”

  Typical Della Lee. “Why does that line not work on you?”

  Della Lee just smiled.

  For three years now, Adam had been going to Jake’s parents’ house for Thanksgiving, which they always celebrated on Wednesday night instead of the traditional Thursday. This was the first year, however, that he’d gone as Jake’s date.

  “I still think you should have bought me a corsage,” Adam joked as they walked up the steps to the door.

  Jake shook his head. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

  “This just feels strange without Chloe.”

  “Everything feels strange without Chloe.”

  They stopped on the porch and brushed snow off their coats, then stomped off what little was on their shoes. It was still snowing, yet there was no snow on the driveway or the walkways leading to the Yardleys’ large home. Adam had always thought th
is place was inhabited by magically perfect people. Snow didn’t fall on their concrete. Weeds never grew in their yard. The house never needed painting. And there was always shade when you needed it in the summer, though there were no trees around.

  Adam thought it was a fascinating place to visit, cool and otherworldly. But then again, he wasn’t related to anyone inside. Jake hated everything about it.

  “I’m dreading this,” Jake said, going to the door and pushing the doorbell.

  A maid opened the door and they were shown inside. Faith Yardley had outdone herself with the decorations, and apparently at the last minute. There were crystals that looked like snowflakes hanging on strings falling from the ceiling. The cornucopias and the leaf arrangements on the mantels and tabletops had been lightly sprayed with artificial snow. Rims of glasses were dipped in sugar and Jake told him the punch this year was called snow soup.

  “How did your mother manage to do all of this in such a short period of time?” Adam asked as the maid took their coats.

  “A lot of caffeine and paying the help triple-overtime. When I talked to her this morning, she was so excited. She’s been doing this for twenty years, and this is the first time there’s been snow for her Thanksgiving party.”

  They walked into the grand living room with the large fireplace. Despite the snow, the Yardleys’ dinner party still had a good turnout. There were about thirty people there this year, a large enough number to get lost in, which Adam could do with a little more ease than Jake, the host’s son, whom everyone wanted to say hello to.

  Faith was the first to greet them. She was beautiful in a red off-the-shoulder dress. “My baby,” she said, hugging Jake. “I’m so sorry Chloe couldn’t be here.”

  “I am too, Mom.” He gave her the box of candy he brought her every Thanksgiving. She took the box like it was the best gift she’d ever received.

  “And Adam, I’m glad to see you again.” Adam handed her the bouquet of flowers he always brought for the hostess, and she gave him a hug. She smelled like sugar cookies. “I watched you walk in, and I do believe your limp is worse this evening. Normally I can’t tell you have a bad leg at all.”

  “It’s the snow and the cold, Faith. It just stiffens up a little.”

  “Then stand by the fire. I’ll have a waiter bring you a drink. If you’ll excuse me.” She started to turn but then stopped and smiled at Jake. She actually pinched his cheek. “You’re my beautiful boy. I love you so much.”

  “I like your mom,” Adam said as they watched her walk away.

  “She’s a saint.”

  “Jake,” his father called.

  “And that’s the reason why,” Jake murmured.

  Kyle Yardley approached them, smiling and saying hello to guests he passed along the way, kissing women on the cheek, clapping men on the back. He and Jake looked so much alike it sometimes caused people to look twice when they were together. “Jake, I just got a very interesting call from Howard Zim,” Kyle said when he stopped in front of them. He held out his hand to Adam. “Good to see you, Adam.”

  Adam shook his hand. “Kyle.”

  “Who is Howard Zim?” Jake asked.

  “He’s a realtor. I play racquetball with him. I told him about your troubles with Chloe.”

  Jake was instantly riled. “Why in the hell did you—”

  “Just listen to me. He knows about your troubles with Chloe, which is why he thought I might like to know that the Cramdons on Summertime Road called him not an hour ago to say that they were ready to lower their price on the house, and they wanted to give first dibs to someone—a charming young woman named Chloe Finley.”

  The shock of this obviously had Jake reeling. He couldn’t seem to say anything.

  “This is your fault for telling her in the first place. You should have listened to me. But now you have to focus on stopping her from making this terrible mistake. You should consider buying the house out from under her.”

  Jake’s face was tight, growing red. Before he totally lost it, Jake turned and left the room.

  Adam caught up with him in the foyer, getting his coat from the maid. “Jake, you’re not really going to buy it, are you? Anyone who knows Chloe knows she’s always loved that house.”

  Jake jerked his coat on and walked out.

  Adam nodded to the maid and she handed him his coat too.

  When Adam got outside, Jake was on the porch, staring into the snow-covered yard. “He told me to give her space, to let her realize how much she needs me. What a load of crap! He doesn’t know Chloe. I know Chloe. She quit college to care for her great-grandparents. She had to sell the house that had been in her family for generations, and she got a damn good price for it, all on her own. She was just twenty. She moved into the storeroom of her shop and didn’t complain because her great-grandparents were being taken care of and that’s what mattered most to her. She’s as strong as hell, Adam. But she was devastated when her great-grandparents died. They left her alone. I knew she hated to be left alone. And I left her alone.” Jake slapped one of the porch pillars. “I’ve lost her, haven’t I?”

  “No, you haven’t. Don’t go there.”

  Jake grew silent. After a while, he said, stunned, “I can’t believe she’s buying a house.”

  Adam thought of what Josey had told him earlier that day. It wasn’t something he would normally ask Jake. He thought if Jake didn’t want to tell him, that was fine. But for Josey, he asked, “Who was she, Jake? Who was the woman you slept with?”

  Jake shook his head. “No one.”

  “Chloe wants to know. Why not tell her? It might help,” he said, carefully avoiding the Julian issue.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t.”

  “Don’t you think Chloe is more important than keeping this a secret? What’s the point?” Adam said, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets.

  “For the love of God, Adam, you know Chloe is the most important thing in my life. But it’s not my life I’m worried about.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “I’ve messed everything up.” Jake suddenly barged down the front steps. “I’m a fucking idiot,” he said, furiously kicking snow onto the walkway. It was as if he couldn’t take it anymore, as if he didn’t want anyone believing that the Yardleys were so perfect that snow never fell on their concrete. When the snow melted quickly, he made snowballs and threw them at the house. One hit the pillar Adam was standing beside, and he got pelted with icy pellets.

  “Hey!” Adam said.

  “Sorry.”

  Adam walked down the steps. “I may have a bad leg but I still have great aim,” he said, packing a firm snowball and hurling it at Jake.

  Ten minutes of this and their suits, coats and wingtips were soaked. This is why Faith sent Jake and Adam home with their dinner in paper bags, but with no dessert.

  For they had been very bad boys.

  When they got to Adam’s house, they ate in front of the television, which they both agreed was a much better way to spend the evening. But they both admitted they missed the pumpkin pie. Jake went to bed early after trying to call Chloe several times and not getting an answer.

  Adam stayed up. He could still hear the snow ticking, like small bird pecks, against the large front window, but it was slacking off. He’d wanted to stay out in it longer that evening, but between his aching leg and Jake’s mother, he couldn’t.

  He turned off the lights and opened the blinds in the living room. One of his neighbors across the street already had his Christmas lights up. Off in the distance he could see Bald Slope Mountain. He could even make out, faintly, the edge of the lights from the slopes on the other side.

  He wondered if Josey skied at all. She loved the snow, yet she had never made a snowman. He’d been thinking about her all day. It was easy to resent people who forced you to see things in a different way. And that’s exactly what Josey was doing, by telling Chloe that she loved him, by s
tepping outside of the confines of what people expected of her. He supposed he did resent it at first, because her changing meant everyone around her had to change. It meant he had to change, even if it was just his way of thinking. But when he finally gave in to it that evening, staring out at Bald Slope Mountain, he found it was surprisingly easy. He wanted things to stay the same between them, but he knew now they couldn’t and he was almost…excited about it.

  He grabbed his coat and went to the door.

  Josey suddenly opened her eyes. It was unusually quiet. So quiet, in fact, that the sound of something hitting the side of the house had drawn her out of her sleep. She waited to hear it again, but there was nothing. “Della Lee?” she whispered.

  “Yes?” Della Lee called from the closet.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “It sounded like it came from your window.”

  Josey sat up. Her stomach felt jumpy, but she wasn’t hungry. And something else wasn’t right. It was too dark. “Is the power out?”

  “It went out about an hour ago. I was downstairs when it happened. Helena was chasing me from room to room in the dark. She finally had me trapped in the kitchen, but when she tried to turn on the lights, they wouldn’t come on. Saved my ass. You should have heard her curse.”

  “I asked you not to tease her.”

  “It gives her something to do. She’s lonely.”

  She was startled again by the sound, like a wet slap against the side of the house. “What is that?” Josey threw the covers off and went to her window. Had a tree fallen? The wind wasn’t blowing.

  She opened her window and stuck her head out. It had stopped snowing. The world outside looked like it was coated in a thick layer of white cake frosting, like it would stick to the roof of your mouth.

  “Josey,” someone called in the quiet night.

  She looked down to see a figure standing in the yard. His head was tilted back as he looked up at her. He was grinning, his entire face illuminated by the moonlight. “Adam?”

  “Your mailman?” Della Lee asked from the closet, sounding equally surprised.