The Rules of Love & Grammar

by Mary Simses

  I read the sign. “Paradise Day Spa. Don’t we already have a couple of those?”

  Scooter shrugs. “Guess they think they can make a go of it.”

  “Like that gluten-free bakery that opened in the spring. I can’t believe there are enough people around here with gluten problems that we needed a gluten-free bakery. I mean, how many people in Dorset have celiac disease?”

  A little farther down is Tulip’s, a tan, shingled building with white shutters. On the bulletin board inside, I spot an ad for the Dorset High School summer theater production of Legally Blonde. Next to it is a photo. A note scrawled in the corner says: To Tulip, A Rare Flower Indeed. xox, Sean Leeds.

  “Well, what do you know,” I mumble, pointing to the photo.

  Scooter steps closer to take a look. “Is he that actor? The one all the women are crazy about?”

  “Yeah, he’s the one.”

  “A customer told me she got his autograph the other day. Said she saw him at Thirty-Two Degrees getting ice cream.”

  “Oh, really.” I look at the picture again, and my mind races back to our dance. “Well, I met him.” I wait for that to sink in, and then I add, “At a party the other night.”

  Scooter walks toward the long deli case, and I follow. He doesn’t look as impressed as I thought he’d be. I examine the bowls and platters of prepared foods—tuna salad with green olives and artichoke hearts; Asian sesame noodle salad with shredded carrots and sliced cucumber; chicken salad in a honey dressing with raisins, currants, and walnuts; maple-glazed grilled salmon, the grill marks like hieroglyphics decorating each piece of fish; and beef tenderloin, seared on the outside and, judging by the slices already cut, perfectly rare on the inside.

  Scooter glances at me. “A party? Hmm. So, Grace Hammond, now you’re hanging out with the actors and the movie stars.”

  “Well, not really. But I am a close friend of Peter Brooks, the director. He and I went to high school together. We were kind of in love back then.”

  “Ah.” Scooter smiles. “A high school romance.”

  I gaze at the dessert case, full of coconut squares and maple cupcakes and Tulip’s own apple crumb pie, and I get a feeling of weightlessness when I think that it might be more than just a high school romance.

  We take our place in line, and I study the items written on the three blackboards. One sandwich has a blue star next to it.

  “Leed On,” in honor of Sean Leeds, who ordered it here!

  Fresh-roasted turkey, tomato, avocado, and

  sprouts, with Dijon mustard on twelve-grain bread.

  So Sean’s been immortalized on Tulip’s menu. I can only imagine how Tulip is talking up that visit. I’m surprised she hasn’t enlarged his photo to the size of a billboard and pasted it over the front of the building.

  I’m laughing to myself, picturing this, when Scooter says, “Let me ask you something. Do you remember what your Paramount cost when you bought it?”

  The line moves forward, and I recall again the fat wads of cash Renny and I brought into the Bike Peddler. I can’t remember, however, what the bikes actually cost. “No, I don’t. But it came from your store. I know that. We always bought our bikes from you.”

  Scooter rubs his chin. “We never sold too many secondhand bikes. Only as a favor for a good customer, and only if the bike was in great condition.”

  “Well, that one was in great condition.”

  “I guess so,” he says.

  A girl in a striped apron takes our order—a turkey wrap for Scooter and a chicken-salad sandwich for me.

  “You know,” he says, “Mitch went on the Internet and found the old catalog for your bike. You might not believe this, but that bike cost almost seven hundred dollars new—back in nineteen seventy-seven. Of course, when you bought it, secondhand, it would have been a lot cheaper.”

  I’m shocked. I can’t imagine what the equivalent of seven hundred dollars would be today—probably thousands. “Wow, that’s a lot of money, especially for back then.” I’m guessing the bike must have cost Renny what I paid for my new Raleigh.

  Our names are called, and we grab our sandwiches and walk to the register, where Tulip is scanning items, clicking the register keys, putting food in bags. In her sixties, Tulip is a large woman with dark-gray hair streaked with lighter gray. She’s wearing a pink dress, the only possible tribute to her name, and sneakers. Tulip always wears sneakers.

  “Hey, Scoot,” she says as we get to the register. “How ya doin’, hon?”

  “Just fine, Tulip. Hey, I see you’ve got movie stars coming in now.”

  “We sure do. Movie stars, fellas from the crew, you name it. We’ve been bus-y.” She winds out the word, putting the accent on the second syllable. “I guess all the restaurants have. A friend of mine saw the director and his buddies at Ernie’s last night around eight o’clock, having dinner. The bartender told her they were there the night before, too.”

  “Good for Ernie,” Scooter says.

  “Oh, and the Dorset Review came yesterday and interviewed me,” Tulip says, playfully fluffing the back of her hair.

  “Ah, Tulip. Will you still talk to me after you’re famous?”

  “Scooter, I’ll always talk to you, no matter how famous I get.”

  A blush blooms on his cheeks.

  Tulip hands him the bag. “I threw in a couple of extra pickles.”

  “Thanks. Hey, you know Grace Hammond, right?”

  She looks at me. “Oh, sure. Hi, Grace.”

  “I like the photo of Sean Leeds on the bulletin board,” I tell her. “And the Leed On sandwich.”

  “Oh jeez, that man.” She starts fanning herself with one of the take-out menus. “He’s something else. Whoo! Good-looking, and so nice. Left a big tip in the jar. Oh, and Herbert Tait came in the other day. Saturday, I think it was. You know who he is, right? That old character actor? Used to do a lot of Westerns? Ordered a steak sandwich. A double! With extra fries and my apple crumb pie. I like to see a man with a healthy appetite.”

  Scooter pays, leaving a five-dollar tip.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Tulip calls after us. I don’t know if she’s referring to me or Scooter.

  “I think she likes you,” I tell him when we step outside.

  He looks surprised. “Who? Tulip? Naw, she’s that way with everybody.”

  We cross the street to the village green, where shoppers are buying fruits and vegetables and other goods at the weekly farmer’s market. A banner draped over the gazebo announces the Founder’s Day celebration being held downtown this Saturday, for the three hundred seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of Dorset.

  As I watch children scamper around the lawn, I remember how Renny and I played tag here on the green. It doesn’t seem that long ago that the gazebo, with its filigree railing and gingerbread latticework, was base. Later, in our preteen years, Cluny and I used to sit on the bench inside the gazebo and declare our undying love for our favorite TV stars, John Stamos in Full House and Kevin Arnold in The Wonder Years. And after Peter and I became friends, he and I used to sit there and eat ice cream cones from the Scoop, which was across from the Dorset Playhouse.

  “How about this spot?” Scooter asks, gesturing to a bench.

  “Sure,” I tell him.

  We sit down, and he hands me my sandwich and iced tea. “So, about your bike,” he says. “To refurbish her as a proper vintage bike—that means all the parts and labor—it’s going to be around nine hundred dollars.”

  I’m holding my sandwich, but now I’ve lost my appetite. “Nine hundred dollars?” How could it be that expensive to fix up an old bike? “Are you sure?” Either it’s a mistake, or I’ve been living under a rock for the past seventeen years. There’s no way I can afford that.

  “Oh, yes,” Scooter says, taking his lunch from the bag. “The price can get up there when you’re dealing with a bike they don’t make anymore. First there’s the labor. We have to disassemble it, every nut and bolt. Take it do
wn to the frame.”

  I can’t imagine taking that whole bike apart and putting it back together. It seems almost impossible. And what if they lose a small part that can’t be replaced? The whole idea is giving me a knot in my stomach.

  “After that,” he says, “we have to clean each piece we can salvage and then get the parts we can’t save. Vintage parts aren’t cheap because nobody makes them anymore. And then we have to put her all back together.”

  I look across the green, at the shoppers moving from booth to booth. Maybe it would have been better if I’d never found the bike. What good is it if I can’t turn it back into what it once was? I can feel the plan to restore the Schwinn edge away, like a boat that’s slipped its mooring.

  “I didn’t expect it could cost that much,” I finally say.

  “Well, there’s probably a good eight hours of labor alone,” Scooter says. “You know, with the rust and everything else. Of course, we can’t do it all at once. Just getting some of those parts to shake loose can take a while. But remember,” he adds as he puts the sandwich down and picks up his lemonade, “you don’t have to do a restoration. You can fix it up with new parts for about a third of the cost.”

  Rust. The very thought of it makes me feel guilty. I know it’s not my fault that Renny’s bike was left in the garage, but somehow I feel it’s my responsibility to make it right. Who else understands what the bike means—that the time we spent together on our bikes was the last link Renny and I had before things began to change?

  A third of the cost sounds better, but it’s still a lot more than I expected to spend. And repairing it with new parts isn’t what I wanted to do. “I need to think about this,” I tell Scooter, but I already know I can’t do it.

  Scooter wanders through some of the farmer’s market booths, and I tag along, pretending to be interested but frantically going through the numbers again and again in my head, trying to figure out how I can come up with nine hundred dollars. I’ve got my small savings account, but that’s supposed to be for emergencies. Fixing a bike isn’t an emergency, even if it is Renny’s bike.

  Scooter buys a bag of peaches and picks out a handful of brick-red beefsteak tomatoes. I trail behind him as he inspects bottles of amber honey and loaves of crusty baguettes. I’m more than ready to leave, but he keeps wandering, past a booth selling fabric tote bags decorated with shells, and signs on bleached wood bearing sayings like I’d Rather Be Sailing and What Happens on the Boat Stays on the Boat.

  We come to a little tent where watercolor paintings, many of them seascapes, are on display. Two are set up outside, on easels. Scooter glances and moves on, but I stop and take a look. One painting features a sailboat in a strong wind, the boat heeling so hard, it looks as though it might capsize. In the other painting, an old house is perched on a rocky point above the ocean. They’re both nicely done, and I wonder if the artist used local scenes as inspiration. I step closer to the tent and grab a leaflet from a table out front. Charlene Francis has been painting for more than thirty years…I read the bio, slowing down when I get to the part that says she’s a teacher in the Dorset public school system. Charlene Francis. Miss Francis? My tenth-grade art teacher?

  Two women are in the tent, talking. I eavesdrop until one of the voices begins to sound familiar. It belongs to a woman with a short, bobbed haircut, turquoise earrings, and sunglasses that hang from a yellow cord around her neck. She looks mid-fortyish and a little plumper than I remember, but it’s Miss Francis, all right. Or maybe Mrs. by now.

  I wait for the other woman to leave, and then I step inside, where Miss Francis is straightening one of the paintings. I don’t see a wedding ring, which answers the question of what I should call her. At least I hope it does.

  “Miss Francis? Do you remember me? Grace Hammond? I was one of your students.”

  For a second, she looks dazed. Then she gasps. “Grace. I sure do. You were in one of my high school classes, weren’t you?” She walks toward me.

  “Yes, tenth grade.”

  She clasps my hand and smiles so hard, her eyes crinkle and almost disappear. “Of course I remember. Your dad’s the poet. Sure, sure. But what year was that?”

  I tell her it was 1998.

  “That long ago.”

  I nod. “I was sixteen.”

  “’Ninety-eight,” she says, angling her head as though she’s trying to grab the memory from some rough-edged spot in her mind. Then she laughs. “That was only my second year teaching. You were one of my guinea pigs.”

  Her second year? That can’t be possible. I thought she was so much older when I had her, but she must have only been in her twenties. It’s odd to think that she’s probably not much more than ten years my senior and that she was new to teaching when I was in her class.

  “I never would have guessed you were a new teacher back then,” I tell her. “I always thought you were—well, you know, really experienced.”

  She waves her hand. “Oh, no, I’d made a career change. From accounting, if you can believe that. Because my parents were accountants.” She puts her hand on the side of her mouth as though she’s going to impart some top-secret information. “Rule number one. Don’t ever listen to your parents about career advice.”

  “I already know that,” I say.

  “Well, then you’re in good shape.”

  “Yeah, my father thinks I should be doing something more with my writing. Maybe he wants me to write the great American novel. I guess Mom would be fine with that, too, as long as I’m planning a wedding at the same time.”

  “That’s their job, sweetie. They’ve been through it, so they think they know best. But, really, they’re probably just trying to save you the heartaches of their mistakes.”

  A man stops and looks at the painting of the sailboat and asks how long Miss Francis will be around.

  “Until three,” she says, giving him her business card before he walks off.

  “Do you have any children?” I ask.

  “Not me,” she says. “But that’s because I’m never married long enough.” She gives me a sideways grin. “Been married four times. I practice the catch-and-release method.” She pantomimes throwing out a fishing line and reeling it in.

  I laugh, relieved she didn’t give me some corny line about how the students are really her children. “Are you still teaching?”

  “Still at it,” she says. “Painting and drawing.”

  “Your paintings are beautiful,” I tell her. “I never realized you were an artist yourself.”

  She draws her head in, brows connecting. “Oh, you thought I just taught art?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I say, feeling a little stupid. I suppose I should have known better. It’s like someone assuming my father just teaches poetry, not realizing he’s got several volumes of his own work and a prestigious Northeastern Poetry Society Prize under his belt.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “You don’t always know these things when you’re a kid.”

  “It’s all right,” she says, waving to a couple of women passing by. “I get it.”

  A man in a gray suit comes into the tent and starts to browse. “So, are you keeping up with your own art?” Miss Francis asks.

  For a second, I think she must be talking to the man in the suit, but she’s looking at me. “Who, me?”

  “Yes, you. I always remember the students who were especially talented.”

  She excuses herself and approaches the man, asking if he needs help, prompting a conversation about a painting of a lighthouse. I’m left to ponder Miss Francis’s remark, which hangs in the air like a balloon of dialogue coming from a cartoon character’s mouth. I always remember the students who were especially talented. How can she think I was talented? Especially talented? Sure, I used to sketch and sometimes fool around with pastels, but my drawings were never very good. At least, I didn’t think so. Renny was the one with the talent. She could do almost anything.

  Miss Francis takes down the landscape, wraps it
in brown paper, and writes a receipt for the man, who hands her a check.

  “I think you’re confusing me with my older sister, Renny,” I say after the man leaves. “She was good at everything.”

  Miss Francis looks at the check and slowly folds it in half, creasing it carefully between her fingers. “I remember your sister. I taught her the same year I taught you. Nice girl, pretty, popular, athletic, I think, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uh-huh. I remember that she went for everything. She tried everything. She was—well, enthusiastic, I guess, would be the way to put it. But you were a much better artist. I’m not being critical of your sister, you understand.” Her voice slows, and she looks down. “Especially in light of what happened.” She runs her fingers over the crease of the check again. “I’m just being honest. Effort can sometimes trump talent, but not usually. You had—have—talent. You just didn’t have the confidence.”

  This doesn’t make sense. Renny had staked her claim to pretty much everything except maybe the written word, which was my little domain. I tried art, music, all the creative stuff, but I always felt as if I was following in her footsteps and, even then, that those footsteps were disappearing as soon as I got to them. Could what Miss Francis is saying be true? I don’t know.

  “I always felt kind of afraid for her.”

  I look up. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying this.”

  “No, say it. What do you mean?”

  “Oh, it’s just that…you know, I could see she was hanging around with some kids who were pretty wild. And I had the sense she was a bit lost. I worried about her. All that talent. I’m so sorry about what happened.”

  I feel the chicken salad rumble in my stomach. I don’t want to have this conversation. “Yeah, thanks,” I say. I look at my watch. “I need to go.”