Return to Heartland: A Heartland Cove County Romance

by Jacquie Gee

  “Yes. Yes, I understand.” I look up. Tia has finished up the sushi and moved onto stacking a tower of cupcakes on a plate in the front window, next to a rack of spun-sugar hangers, featuring red edible panties. Today’s door-crasher special. “Yes, yes, of course, I’ll be there.”

  Tia looks up, waves, and my heart breaks in two.

  “I’ll be on the first plane out in the morning.”

  Chapter 2

  “Don’t forget to check the temperature on the fondant,” I prattle to Tia, rushing toward the check-in line at the airport. “Oh, and not too much nutmeg in the Cardamom Carrot Swirls.”

  She nods.

  “Promise you’ll only use real maple syrup, not table syrup, in the Cuckoo Canucks! No matter how tempted you are to save money.” I turn, walking backward through the velvet ropes at the airport, leaving Tia on the outside of the gate.

  “Cross my heart.” Tia makes the motion, then waves from her tippy-toes. I stop to wave back, annoying the crowd. “Oh, and easy on the salt in the Chocolate Salted Caramel Surprises, remember! It’s only a topping, not an ingredient—”

  “I remember.”

  My signature bake. I can’t believe I’m leaving her to make my signature bake. “And only a sprinkle of chili in the Hot Chili Chi Chis.”

  “I know! I know!” Tia shouts, shooing me. She moves parallel to the rope along with me, in time with my step. She stops when the rope runs out.

  “And—”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” she answers, launching up onto her tip-toes. “Make sure the fondant on the lace edges of the Chandelier Panties is paper-thin before adding the glider.” She mispronounces glitter, which makes me smile. “And be sure to wash countertops after making the sushi every morning; it’s a financial supporter, not a cupcake flavor, I got it, I got it!”

  “Am I really that bossy?”

  “Worse!” She grins. “Now will you go already? You are going to miss your plane!” She waves me on.

  I should move, but I can’t. My feet stick. I don’t sound that bossy, do I? I don’t mean to sound bossy. I’m just super detail-oriented, that’s all. Which I guess equates to bossy, when I think of it. Omigawd, I’m bossy. I need to reflect on that on the plane.

  “Get going!” Tia waves a hand.

  I turn to see the line has moved. Significantly. I pick up my suitcase and dash. I’m at the front of the line now; this is it. This is really happening. I look around, panicked. I’m leaving New York, and my best friend, my support system, the woman who tells me when I’m being too bossy, the best person I’ve ever known—next to my mom, of course. All for a destination I’d purposely fled just a few short years ago. Wait, no. It’s been more than that. I mentally count on my fingers. Eleven? It’s been eleven years now?

  “Text me when you get in!” Tia shouts over the crowd.

  Emotions choke off my throat. I break from the line and race to the end of the ropes, and stretch over, engulfing Tia in one last giant bear hug. “You know I love you, right?”

  “Same,” she whispers.

  “You know you’re the best, right?”

  “Again, same.”

  “Do you mind?” A man taps my shoulder.

  “Just a minute.” I scowl. Three other would-be passengers roll their eyes.

  “You know I’m coming back, right? This is only temporary.”

  “Temporary.” Tia’s voice cracks.

  “You’re sure you’ll be okay running the store all alone?”

  “Piece of cake,” Tia sniffs. “I mean cupcake.”

  I laugh. “It’s just for one month.”

  “One month,” Tia repeats.

  I hope I haven’t lied to her. Truth be known, I have no idea how long it’ll take to fix this. I don’t even know what’s going on. “You know it can’t be helped, right? I’ve no choice, I’ve got to go.”

  “I know.” She nods. “Duty calls.”

  “I wouldn’t go otherwise. I’m not abandoning you.”

  She bats her lashes and lowers her head. “Of course.”

  “No, I mean it. This is not me abandoning our dream.” I raise her chin and look into her eyes, and I’m struck by a pang of guilt, like she doesn’t believe me. “It’s totally not that, Tia, honest,” I say. I don’t know which one of us I’m trying harder to convince.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we have to keep the line moving.” A customs officer’s hand lands on my shoulder.

  I swing around, startled. “Right,” I say, then turn back to Tia. “I’ve gotta go.”

  She nods, and we share one last look that encapsulates everything we’ve ever shared: the room in my apartment I sublet on eBay which lead to our becoming roommates and friends, our hopes and dreams, the cupcake business—everything.

  “Say hello to your mother for me,” Tia says as I turn, the wheels on my case catching on the base of one of the metal posts, sending it crashing to the floor. I stoop to pick it up, hiding tears, and when I rise again, Tia has gone. A lump of sadness rises in my throat watching her trail away.

  “Are you going, or what?” a man with a bad toupée asks, his hand outstretched toward the checkpoint.

  I cock my chin, show my ticket, and step into the scanner, then collect my things at the other end. My heart sinks as I head toward my gate. Now who will take care of me? Who’ll let me know when I’ve had too much to drink and I’m talking too loud? Who will be there to tell me I have lipstick on my teeth? I look back over my shoulder for Tia one last time. Who’s going to alert me to the fact that I’m acting too pushy? Or save me from the reality of where I’m going? I haven’t been back to Heartland Cove for anything but Christmas in years—and not for at least three now. Even then I only stay the day.

  I bite back the surge of fear and sadness that threatens to show in my eyes. Don’t go there, Becca. Not now. Not yet. But my mind doesn’t listen well. I’ve somehow managed to escape running into him every visit so far—with careful planning—but I’m terrified it’ll be impossible this time.

  I’m gonna have to face the music.

  “A Canadian, eh?” The steward at the gate does a bad imitation of my so-called accent.

  “Yeah.” I smile weakly, remembering how hard I worked to kick the ‘eh’ habit when I first came to America.

  He then busts into an equally horrible impression of Bob and Doug McKenzie’s infamous Take-Off, Eh skit, which of course, all Canadians should embrace as a milestone of their culture, right? He ends the routine with the mandatory toque-pull-down motions and salute of an invisible beer. Why do Americans always think this is so funny? I wait for his manic giggles to subside.

  “Uh-huh.” I nod and take back my passport.

  “Good day, eh?” he adds, snorting as I clear the line.

  “First time in New York City?” the boarding stewardess smiles, as I step onto the plane.

  “No, actually, I live here.” I yank my bag with me across the threshold.

  “First time to New Brunswick then?”

  “No, actually. It’s where I used to live.”

  “So, you’re going home. How nice.”

  “Yeah,” I smirk. “It should be.” I tuck my passport into my bag and shuffle on, wishing it were true. Wishing this visit was for pleasure, not about something painful. I glance back over my shoulder one last time at the JFK airport, my last look at New York, then I make my way down the little loading sleeve and into the plane, where I plop into my seat. An unexplained twinge upsets my stomach. I work hard to push down the tears that spring to my eyes.

  Everything’s gonna be just fine, I tell myself and breathe deeply. Absolutely fine. Except for the part about my mother being sick with an incurable disease, and the fact that the newly-appointed mayor of Heartland Cove—my ex-fiancé—is the very reason I fled Heartland Cove in the first place.

  Chapter 3

  There’s a certain amount of guilt that comes with arriving back home when one of your family members is sick. It’s like a chemical tinge in the
air that you can’t stop smelling. I step from the bus onto the side of the service road outside of town and it hits me—the repressing, stifling reality of being back in Heartland Cove. A strangulating sense of dread takes me over just drinking in the scenes of the all-knowing, all-telling, all-gossiping small town life. I look around. Nothing has changed. The farms; the barns; the sun-faded, hand-painted, outdated roadside advertisements. How could I have left my mother here, alone, to fend for herself in this seriously hellish, going-nowhere, one-horse village? How have I been so selfish? I just packed my bags, walked out the door, and never looked back.

  Not even once.

  I guess I was determined to shed my Heartland Cove roots once and for all.

  All except for Mom. I adore my mom. Everything about her. It was the bad taste of this place I wanted to get rid of, not Mom. The bus pulls away, leaving me behind in a cloud of grime, exhaust, and dust. I wave a hand in front of my face, coughing.

  Heartland Cove, there’s nothing else like it.

  I start the long walk down the side of Route 103 into the center of Heartland Cove, thinking about Mom and how I couldn’t have known this about her. I call every Sunday and try to fly out every Christmas, though I’ve missed the last three. It’s so expensive, and I haven’t been making a lot. I can’t believe in all that’s been going on, I never once thought to ask how she was doing—I mean really ask. Financially, emotionally, all of it. I guess I kind of forgot she was getting up there in age. After all, she did have me at forty-one. I guess that’s why I never noticed her aging. She’s always been the oldest Mom at the school. I guess I just thought she was doing okay, like she’s done for so many years. She’s always taken care of everything—ever since Dad died.

  That’s just it, she’s been taking care of everything. Since I was ten.

  I suppose on some selfish level, I didn’t want to know because then I would have to do something. I never took the time out of my busy schedule to check on her like I should. I’m grown now, she should be able to rely on me.

  And, now here I am, and nothing's changed—except for everything about my mom.

  “Rebecca, is that you?”

  I’ve barely traveled three feet up the road and I’m spotted, by Mrs. Vindictive Vera Williams of all people. She squints a half-blind eye in my direction and curls up her nose. Figures she’d be roaming around out here. Editor in Chief at Heartbeat Pounders Press, and author of Ask Aunt Lulu Anything, the Fredericton Herald’s infamous weekly gossip column, Vera Williams can be found looming around just about anywhere—always on the prowl for a juicy story. As long as I’ve known her, her claws have been out and her pencil sharpened. Looks like today is no exception. I’m half-surprised she doesn’t snap a picture of me to accompany tomorrow’s hideous headline. I can see it now. My fingers splay in my mind: Prodigal Daughter Returns Seeking Redemption. Gobs, I hate that woman.

  “Rebecca Lane, is that you?” She purses her wooly-rimmed lips and squints.

  Like she doesn’t know.

  I nod, regretting every second of the movement, feeling trapped within her accusatory tone. I think about running, but it's too late. Not like she'd be able to catch me.

  “Well, if it isn’t…” She marches toward me, crunching over the gravel shoulder of the road, her eyes getting wider the closer she comes. Her teapot-shaped middle swings back and forth, her plump hips swaying enthusiastically. She fills the air with a guilt-inflicting chuckle as she picks up speed, bearing down on me. Her expression reminds me of the ones worn by the pompous greeters in church, whenever they recognized a face in the crowd that only showed up for Easter and not the rest of the time.

  “Land sakes, girl, look at you,” she chirps lightly.

  “In the flesh,” I say, swinging a clutched fist across my chest. “The chicken. Come home to roost.”

  “I suppose it’s on account of the recent decline of your mama.”

  It’s a statement that sounds more like a question. A dirty, prying question. I’ve no doubt she’s already published an entire spread about Mom in her rotten paper. “I thought I’d come home to visit, yes.”

  “It’s a terrible thing.” She shakes her tightly pin-curled head and tsks. As she does so, she tries to look concerned. “A terrible, terrible thing. But at least you’re here now.” She pokes at me with her voice. It’s clear she means to say, “as opposed to all the times you weren’t.”

  “Yes, yes, I am.” I clench my teeth, trying hard not to lose control. If I lose my temper, it’ll be all over the morning papers: Local Reporter Sustains Verbal Injuries After Run-In With Area’s Famous Deserter. But then, Tia’s not here to stop me, and, well…my father comes out in me again. “Did you want to ring a bell?” I say. “Alert the countrymen? Sacrifice a pig?” I tip my head, keeping my face poker-straight.

  I know I shouldn’t act like this, especially around Mrs. Vindictive Vera Williams, but the woman just irks me. Her artificial sense of entitlement is more than I can stand. She works for an insignificant rag of a newspaper that should be dead by now, not some national syndication. Not to mention our sordid history, which she refuses to let me live down. The one she has never let Mom forget, either. The one that haunts me on quiet nights in my bed.

  What is it her business, anyway, why I’m home? Or what’s happened to my mother?

  Gobs, I hate this place. I hate everything about it. I hate small towns and small-minded people. Especially ones whose goal in life is to earn their income by demeaning the souls of others. “If you’ll excuse me,” I say, and spin around, trying to keep my voice light and my step perky, though just the sight of her has my blood boiling.

  “Well, I never,” she yelps as I leave. “I see nothing with you has changed. Same old Daniel Lane’s ill-tempered daughter—”

  I whirl around. “What did you just say?”

  She narrows her eyes, glaring up the road at me. “I said you’re your father’s daughter.”

  A cinematic montage of my senior year in high school plays out before my eyes. Me, in the back of the only police car in all the area, arrested for chaining myself to the bow of a fishing boat, protesting for women’s rights. Vera, on the dock, snapping pictures. At the time, women on the fishing vessels were paid half what their male counterparts were, for hauling in the same amount of lobsters. I, for one, didn’t think that was fair.

  I remember her hairy lips twitching in anticipation as I was dragged from the boat. Would they or would they not arrest me? My mother was there, too, I remember that—at the back of the crowd, smiling, as the whole town looked on. She was immensely proud of my ‘tenacity,’ and told me as much when she came to spring me from the joint later on.

  I cost my mother two hundred ninety dollars and twenty-four cents that day. Two hundred ninety dollars and twenty-four cents she didn’t have. Not to mention all the other stupid times I decided to take a stand for humanity during my high school career. Darned this stupid town and its backwoods ways.

  “Yes, I suppose I am,” I finally say. “That much hasn’t changed.” I turn around and stride off, crossing over the rural highway, onto Heartland Hill Road and off into town, river stones crunching beneath my high heeled sandals. I should have worn more practical shoes. Good job, Becca, you’ve been home all of five minutes and you’ve managed to piss off the biggest gossip-tiger in the town. How long do you think it’ll take before news of this altercation reaches your mother? Doesn’t she have enough to worry about?

  The thought of that makes my step stagger and my heart sag. Heartland Cove is never going to change, I hear my Aunt Penny say. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you just leave things alone and stay out of trouble?

  I don’t know, Aunt Penny. For some reason, I just can’t.

  Chapter 4

  I round Pratt’s Corner, jog down the hill, and there she is: Heartbeat Bridge. Stretching out over the waters of the St. Smellsofpee River, exactly where I left it—a testament to the finest use of barn wood ever in the world.

>   Crystal green-blue waters trickle over the tops of smooth grey rocks, hovering just below the surface at low tide—worn down from years of the river’s relentless pilgrimage—from here to where it pours out into Heartbeat Bay, at the far end of the town. The waters are strong and bold, and warm as butter in summer, and dangerously frigid in winter. Fall prey to her currents and you’ll be sucked down in seconds. Never to return.

  A lesson every child born in Heartland Cove is taught early in life.

  A parent’s greatest fear.

  St. Smellsofpee is not really the river’s name. It’s just my name for it. I renamed it when I was a kid. I used to hate the smell of the fish in hot summer. Thus, the less than glamorous nickname.

  Heartbeat Bridge marks the last stop on the river that runs like a watery railroad through the picturesque surrounding woodland. A picture of beauty itself, the bridge attracts thousands of visitors every year. Upwards of ten thousand a year when I was a little kid. But those days are over. The numbers have steadily dwindled ever since the new Trans-Canada Highway was built, which allows visitors to bypass the mainland and go straight to the coast.

  It’s been the detriment of many a small town out here.

  Heartbeat Bridge still remains the only attraction of its kind in the area, unless of course you count the other covered bridge down the way— the one we do not speak its name—that boasts it’s the longest covered bridge still in operation in North America, compared to ours—the second-longest bridge in all North America. But our bridge is the only one that is still authentic. Their bridge has had most of its parts replaced over the year.

  Guess my great-granddaddy didn’t build that one.

  Not to mention that its plank wood floor has been paved.

  My father used to joke, only their beams in that thing were still original, and only a few of them at that.

  A part of me puffs with pride at the thought of our heritage, and my link to all of that. Heartbeat Bridge is truly a beautiful piece of architecture, even though it is only an old rickety bridge. Wooden slat sides, slate-shingled roof, all supported by heavy beam trusses. My great-gran used to work for the railroad, so he knew how to construct things to last. He knew how to weave the wood just so. And then there’s the added attraction of the widow’s walk that stretches the length of the backside of the bridge. The old primitive plank and board walkway, with accompanying railing, he attached to the outside of the bridge, back in the eighteen-hundreds, for pedestrian use only, so that ladies wouldn’t have to drag their dresses through what the horses left behind. It instantly became a Saturday night attraction, a popular strolling place for couples, and the site of countless marriages over the years.