by Tom McNeal
Oh, yes, I remembered the words. I could see them as if that slip of paper were still in my hands. One does not know love until it arrives, and its arrival will always surprise.
My thoughts drifted away, then returned. It was characteristic of Wilhelm to take my subtle confession and convert it to a hopeful prospect. I did not discard the slip of paper. I used it to mark my place in books for several years, until …
But suddenly I was faced with images of my nephew on the dark night that he looked at me with pleading eyes as he searched for another breath.
“Until what?” Jeremy asked.
Until something happened to my nephew and I turned to the work in earnest.
“What happened to your nephew?”
It cannot be discussed.
“But why not?”
I did not answer.
Finally, Jeremy said, “So the surprise that Wilhelm talked about never happened?”
No, Jeremy. I barred the door against surprises. I kept to the work. It was for the best.
But as I spoke these words, I heard them with new ears, and wondered at the wisdom of the barred door and the endless hours of work, of the great dictionary, which, at my death, I had taken only to the letter F. The last word to fall under my scrutiny was Frucht.
Fruit.
From the Latin fructus: to enjoy.
I hovered there in the darkness, debating my course, but finally I spoke.
Jeremy?
“Mmm?”
Perhaps you should take out the note in the table and jot a word or two in response. So she will know that you appreciated … her little gesture.
“Really?” he asked, and why would he not be surprised at such a suggestion passing my lips? The very one who had held the bridle and fixed the blinkers was now the one removing them.
Yes. Really.
And so he unfolded the paper and under the words I was here thinking of somebody, possibly you, he wrote Me too, then folded the paper and wedged it into its place between the table’s planks.
Later that night, as Jeremy settled himself for sleep, he said, “Jacob?”
Yes?
“I’m glad you told me about Dortchen.” He was quiet and then he said, “It makes you seem realer.”
Realer?
“More real.”
Ah.
“Will you ever tell me about your nephew?”
Before I could think, I said, I cannot. I cannot.
A few moments passed. “Okay,” he said. “Good night, Jacob.”
Good night, Jeremy, and sweet repose.
Well, I must tell you one other thing. Later, after I had taken my leave from Jeremy and repaired to my belfry, I spied Ginger Boultinghouse turning from Main Street and walking alone in the moonlight, toward the table in the park.
When the baker built his home, he had his workmen coat it with a paint containing pigment from a mine in the town of Falun, Sweden. This, I had once heard him explain, was the traditional Swedish red.
Sunday morning, standing at the gate and gazing at the house, Jeremy said, “There’s something about the color and the way the sun makes it sparkle that makes me think of gingerbread.”
“It makes me think of weirdness,” Ginger said. “I mean, where on the entire planet would this house fit in?”
“Sweden, maybe,” Jeremy said, and Ginger said, “Or maybe the Twilight Zone,” a term I did not understand but which made Jeremy chuckle.
At this moment, the baker stepped from the front door, smiling and waving them forward. “Hallå,” he called out. “Is it not a great day to be alive?”
“If you say so,” Ginger said, smiling herself. “How’s life in Blixville?”
“Sunny as ever,” the baker said, and stepped aside to let them enter, but they hesitated. “Come, come,” he said, and his blue eyes twinkled. “No one will eat you.”
As they stepped inside, they were at once greeted with the pleasantest smell of baked goods. And on the very table where Jeremy had poured explosive candy into a bowl of cereal, a platter was stacked with fruit-filled pastries.
“Sit, sit,” the baker said, and began pouring coffee for both of them.
“Zounds,” Ginger said, tasting a pastry. “I’d get fat fast living in Blixville.”
The baker laughed and said he doubted that very much.
Though Jeremy had accepted a pastry, he had not taken a bite.
“It is a raspberry cut,” the baker said in a coaxing tone. “People generally find them agreeable.”
“No,” Jeremy said. “It’s not that. It’s because …”
Everyone waited. The baker, at the point of pouring himself coffee, held the pot still in his hand.
“It’s just that before anything else”—Jeremy took a deep breath—“I wanted to say I was sorry for what I did that night.”
The baker’s expression moved from surprise to kindliness.
“Me too,” Ginger blurted. She lowered her eyes. “I was the one who kind of planned it.”
The baker’s blue eyes swung to her. “Ah. The brains behind the operation.” A small chuckle escaped him, and he shook his head. “It did have a gingery flavor to it all.”
He set the coffeepot down and composed his thoughts. “It was a misunderstanding. You meant it only as mischief. At first, I took it as something else, but now …” He waved a hand dismissively, as if to send the whole matter away.
“Really,” Jeremy said, “we didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know, I know,” the baker said in the most kindly voice. “And I trust that you now know that all is forgiven.”
They ate for a time, and the baker again passed the tray of pastries. “Try the lemon,” he said. “You won’t be disappointed.”
And they were not.
As they ate, Jeremy posed the very question that had been on his mind since the morning in the sheriff’s office: “So why did you decide to say it wasn’t me?”
The baker’s gaze turned almost melancholy. “I felt sympathy,” he said. “I saw how glad the sheriff and deputy were to have caught you and I thought, No, this cannot be. The sheriff will look like a hero, but really, he has done nothing.” He turned from the window, and his voice stiffened. “We have young people vanishing without a trace, but instead of focusing on these matters, the sheriff finds it a great thing to catch a boy who has made a small bit of mischief.” He sipped his coffee, and his voice softened. “I suppose you heard that a boy disappeared last week in the next county, a boy not yet fourteen—poof! gone!—and the sheriff there even more clumsy than our own Mr. Pittswort.”
“I heard about it,” Ginger said. “But I didn’t know who he was.”
“He was an idler, according to the newspaper, a truant from school. The sheriff there said what all the sheriffs say. ‘He ran off. He’ll turn up.’ But they never turn up, do they?”
“I guess not,” Ginger said, and Jeremy added rather weakly, “It seems like some of them do, though.”
The baker dipped his head in a gracious nod. “You’re right, of course. Some do.” He sighed. “But enough of that. Let us discuss the work at hand.”
He opened three large, velvet-lined cases containing a massive collection of exquisite silver forks, spoons, and knives.
Jeremy and Ginger stared into the cases as if at jewels.
“It is the Franska Liljan pattern,” the baker said. “I’m not sure what it means, but it has been a favorite in Sweden since the 1700s.”
“French lily,” Jeremy said, after I’d whispered the translation to him. “Or possibly Fleur de Lys. That’s what it means, I think.”
A surprised laugh issued from the baker. “You speak Swedish and French?”
Jeremy flushed slightly and shrugged. “Not really. It’s just that sometimes this stuff kind of comes to me.”
The baker seemed amused by Jeremy’s strange talent, but Ginger’s response was even keener. While the baker went to fetch polish and rags, she kept staring at Jeremy. Her eyes sh
one, and her smile stretched from one ear to the other.
“What’s the matter?” Jeremy said.
“I’ve got it,” she said in a tone of absolute sureness. “I’ve totally got it.”
“Totally got what?”
“The answer to our prayers.”
“What prayers?”
“What do you think?—the ones for finding a way for you to keep your store.”
“I think you lost me,” Jeremy said, and he would stay lost, because at that moment the baker bustled into the room carrying metal polish and soft flannel rags.
That morning, the baker gave Jeremy and Ginger a thorough education in the polishing of silver, and as the hours wore on, the stacks of gleaming silver grew. The baker hovered amiably nearby, helping here and there, bringing a platter and teapot for cleaning, taking the others away.
When the silverware was finally finished, other tasks were assigned—the feather dusting of his collections of nutcrackers and novelty salt and pepper cellars, for example—until at last the noon hour came and the baker set out plates of sandwiches, plump with preserves and cream cheese, their crusts neatly trimmed, and served with a thick fruit nectar that the baker poured from a porcelain pitcher.
Well, I will say it. How delectable it all looked! And how envious I felt!
Ginger sipped from the nectar, then gulped. So did Jeremy.
“Zounds!” Ginger said. “In fact, I’ll go zounds squared.” She grinned appreciatively at the baker. “That’s totally fabulous. What’s in it?”
The baker shrugged. “Whatever I thought might blend well. Banana, strawberries, a kiwi”—his blue eyes twinkled—“the left foreleg of one small frog.”
“Yeah,” Ginger said. “I thought I caught just a hint of froggishness.”
And so it was the pleasantest of little picnics, and when it was done and nothing was left, the baker handed them each an envelope.
“No,” Jeremy said, glancing at the money inside. “That’s too much.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ginger said with a laugh, then looked at the baker. “But we still do owe you for the Prince Cakes that day. Our big We-Owe-You. How about we pay up for that?”
“All taken into account,” the baker said. He was nodding benignly. “You make a very good team. I’ll find another job for you soon”—a merry smile—“something to better utilize your skill and industry.”
Once they were down the lane, Ginger knuckled Jeremy softly on the shoulder. “Ha! Was that gig freakishly fabuloso or what? Less than four hours’ work and we get a great breakfast, a great lunch, and some serious loot in our boot.”
“Loot in our boot?”
“I know,” she said. “Weird phrase. My folks used to use it.” She extended her share of the money to Jeremy. “Here. For the Bookstore-Retention Fund.”
Jeremy shook his head, and when Ginger persisted, he said it more emphatically: “No.”
Ginger raised her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay.” Then, without quite looking him in the eye, she said, “Look, I’ve got some stuff to do. Maybe I’ll catch up with you later on.”
Jeremy nodded. “Yeah, sure … I’ve got some stuff to do, too.”
But as she began to stride away, he said, “Ginger?”
She turned around. “Yeah?”
“So what exactly is the answer to all our prayers?”
“Oh, that.” She teased a strand of hair through her lips. “Can’t say.”
“When can you say?”
“Can’t say.”
“That’s helpful.”
“Let me put it this way. When you need to know, you’ll know.” Then she coated her voice in honey. “Bye-ya, Jeremy Jeremy,” she said, and her words lingered in the air like a sweet scent after she was gone.
The next week brought a series of thunderstorms and several more notices from the bank, which Jeremy put away without opening. Under my direction, he had commenced a summer’s reading list of classic literature, beginning with Beowulf.
When Ginger stopped by to visit, she picked up the book, flipped through a few pages, put it back down, and said, “You know, you don’t have to read weird books like this. You’re already the honorary mayor of Nerdsville.”
She stared at the shelves filled with his grandfather’s autobiography. “That’s a lot of copies of the same book.” She glanced at him. “Is it any good?”
“Not really sure,” Jeremy said. “I was ten and did a lot of skimming.”
On the stiles of the old bookcases, Jeremy’s grandfather had mounted a number of his ancient tools—adzes, mallets, baling hooks, those sorts of things. As Ginger bent close to look at a brass level, she said, “I was in the bakery today. Mr. Blix said McRaven had been in to talk to him about employing us.”
“You’re kidding! For one day? What did McRaven say?”
“He said that the good people of Never Better would feel obliged to boycott the baker if they found out he was giving us work.”
“Us? They don’t want you to earn anything, either?”
“Ever since I got spotted leaving your attic …” Ginger shrugged. “Anyway, Mr. Blix was great about it. He just laughed and told me that we’d have to be a little less conspicuous next time.” She glanced out the window. “The baker’s one of the good ones,” she said, “and believe me, there aren’t that many.”
She sat down at the old desk and began going through its drawers.
“You’re kind of snoopy, aren’t you?” Jeremy said, a question Ginger did not bother answering. By then, she was waving the recent letters from the bank. “What are these?”
“Letters not addressed to you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what are they?”
Jeremy flopped down sideways in the big chair. “Take a wild guess.”
“Don’t you think you should open them?”
Jeremy said nothing.
“Can I open them?”
“Sure. But what’s the point?”
After going through them, Ginger said nothing, but her expression hardened. She put the notices back into the drawer and slid it closed. For a few seconds, she pressed several strands of hair between her lips, and then suddenly, decisively, she said, “Okay. That’s it. We’re doing it.”
Well. These words alarmed me. They seemed to worry Jeremy as well.
“Doing what?”
She barely looked at him. She was striding for the front door. Over her shoulder, she said, “You’ll see.”
A day passed, and another. Ginger did not visit, Jeremy read Beowulf, and I was content.
After Beowulf, I said, comes El Cid.
“After Beowulf,” Jeremy said, “comes my investigation into the most painless method of suicide.”
When Jenny Applegarth telephoned that afternoon to ask Jeremy if he could help her with a painting project, he threw Beowulf down and leapt for the door.
A half hour later, he was sitting on her front porch helping her paint a set of brown chairs green. Jeremy’s mood, for once, was tranquil, and why not? The sky was blue, Jenny Applegarth sang prettily under her breath as she worked, and through the trees, dappled sunlight fell on her brown arms and legs.
Once she interrupted her singing to ask if Jeremy’s father was doing any better.
“Not really. I keep telling him what you said—you know, that we need a plan?—and he keeps saying he’s waiting for inspiration.” Jeremy issued a small, mirthless laugh. “I think the only inspiration we’re going to get is an eviction notice.”
Two elderly women—the Downs sisters—were passing on the sidewalk. They paused to stare pointedly at Jeremy and Jenny at their work. After the women had moved on, Jeremy said, “They’re going to try to get you not to hire me anymore.”
Jenny Applegarth smiled. “Already have. You’d be amazed how my tips have gone down in the last week or so.”
At this, Jeremy stilled his paintbrush. “That’s what McRaven told Mr. Blix after he hired Ginger and me—that if he did it again, the
town would boycott his bakery.” He stood up abruptly. “Really, I should go.”
“Oh, don’t be foolish,” Jenny said. “Sit down and keep painting.” She pushed up her streaky blond hair with the back of her hand. “You can’t let buffoons run your life.” She glanced down the street at the Downs sisters, who were almost to the corner. “Especially cranky old buffoons.”
For several minutes, she brushed long, smooth ribbons of green across the chair, but then she looked suddenly up. “Know what? I have the feeling that things are going to get better soon.”
Jeremy’s smile was dubious. “Yeah? Based on what?”
“Who knows? Gut feeling … Cockeyed optimism.” She smiled. “Applegarth intuition.”
Jeremy laughed and said, “What about ‘none of the above’?”
Jenny Applegarth shrugged and smiled. “You’ll see I’m right,” she said.
And for a time, it seemed as if she was.
“Guess what?” Ginger said.
Three days had quietly passed without a word from the girl, but now she stood at the door of Jeremy’s small garage, beaming.
“What?” he said. To his right, the circular grindstone he had been using to sharpen the blade of his mowing machine still spun.
“Well,” she said, “I want to tell you, but I can’t when you’re wearing those extremely weird safety goggles.”
He took them off. “Okay. What?”
“I’m taking you someplace tomorrow and we’re going to do something you’ve never done before and it’s going to be really fun.” She snapped her cinnamon-scented gum. “It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t really like surprises,” Jeremy said. “In fact, I hate surprises.”
That is correct, Jeremy. We hate surprises. What is more, you need to know exactly where it is she wants to go, and what it is she wants you to do once you get there.
Jeremy said, “So what would we be doing?”
Ginger held the back of her hand to her nose. “Those hot springs are evil. If there’s ever a Totally Gross Smell Contest, I’m putting all my money on the hot springs.”
Jeremy closed the garage door and turned on the fan. “Okay. I repeat: What kind of surprise?”
