Snowflakes and Coffee Cakes

by DeMaio, Joanne

  “No problem, Vera. Any time.”

  “Seriously?” she asks, her hazel eyes squinting at him.

  “What?”

  “Are you serious about any time? Because I actually have a few more things I need fixed, I just never personally knew someone who could do the work.”

  He shrugs. “What kind of work are we talking about?”

  “Come on,” she says, turning back and walking through the doublewide doorway into the dining room and then through to the living room. A striped sofa sits beneath two paned windows on the side wall, facing a large brick fireplace. “They’re little things, really. But a lot of little things. Like this.” She stops at the bottom of the staircase and shakes the large acorn finial on the bannister leading upstairs along a soft cream wall.

  “That’s it?”

  “To begin with. I have a list. Bad windows that stick. A warped door that closes only sometimes. The bannister.” She nods at the acorn. “Loose floorboards. A widow’s walk that needs painting.”

  “Well I can do the work, if you don’t mind sporadic. We’re getting busy at the store with winter and the holidays coming up.”

  She follows him back into the kitchen and sits at the round table, shifting over a bag she’d carried in. “This is good actually. I’m kind of low on funds at the moment, so a little at a time works.”

  He picks up his toolbox and turns back to look at her for a second.

  “What?” she asks, smiling a little uncomfortably.

  “Home cooked dinners work for payment, too.”

  “Ha.” She stands quickly, scraping her chair as she does, then reaches for a glass in the cupboard and pours herself a drink of water. “You might not say that if you tasted my cooking.” She tucks her long layered hair behind an ear, looks around and rushes for the bag on the kitchen table. “And anyway, my sister’s the chef, not me. Here. Why don’t you take these?”

  He reaches for the bag she holds out.

  “They’re coffee cakes. A ton of them. She just gave them to me at that scarecrow thing going on, and I’ll never eat them all. Really. You have them. Those should hold you over until your next repair job.”

  “Your sister.” He sets the bag inside his toolbox. “That’d be Brooke?”

  She nods. “You know her?”

  “Her husband does our books at the store. I was at the wedding.”

  “Wait.”

  And she does it again, squints those pretty hazel eyes at him when his cell phone rings. He glances at it, then up at her. “I can’t miss this call,” he says, picking up the toolbox and coffee cake bag. “I’ll see you around, Vera,” he calls over his shoulder while walking out the side door.

  * * *

  Never bury the lead. The tenets of Journalism 101 always seem the most important, even after all this time. Vera sits in the downstairs office she set up, a brass lamp casting a yellow glow on papers scattered around her computer, her feet tucked into fuzzy snowflake slippers beneath the desk. Okay, so she didn’t really have an assignment from the Addison Weekly. But maybe if she writes a snappy piece on the scarecrows, they’ll use it. And pay her. So she’s kind of making her own assignment. Sometimes you have to take the initiative.

  With fingers hovering over the keyboard, she considers the lead she can’t bury and finds herself instead typing ones that could happen if things don’t change soon, ones she can’t get out of her head: Local Resident Loses Life Savings to Fixer-Upper. Or Addison Native Penniless, Homeless and Jobless.

  “No way. I can’t go there. Not yet,” she says as she opens a new document, sits up straighter and considers her real lead for the intensely competitive tradition pitting business against business, neighbor against neighbor in a friendly contest for the town scarecrow trophy. The winner gets to display the gold trophy prominently, and with bragging rights, until the following autumn when it’s passed along to the next scarecrow-of-the-year.

  “Focus,” she whispers, opening her eyes wide and looking at the blank screen. She thinks long about the title, takes a quick breath and types as if her life depends on it. Which, she figures, it actually does. And so she better get serious.

  Scarecrows Compete for Top Cawing – By Vera Sterling

  Chapter Four

  IT BEGINS WITH THE PUMPKINS. Little by little, they start showing up: on the doorsteps, at the lampposts, with the mums, around the cornstalks. Then come the apples and hay bales and gourds spilling from the farm stands. In Addison, Vera thinks the harvest scene is a sublimely perfect piece of art, a living watercolor painting of rich color applied with brush strokes of sunshine, dabbles of rainfall, and patience of summer heat.

  And the town Apple Festival puts it all on display. She walks through the cove park, passing the tall Ferris wheel reflected in the cove’s calm October waters. Spinning wheels of chance, whirling carnival rides, craft tents, and people everywhere celebrate the annual harvest. She stops at Brooke’s baked goods booth to help her sister keep up with the sales.

  “I’m trying to line these up in order,” Brooke says, sliding her wrapped pastries around on shelves.

  “Wait,” Vera says. “Do you have a marker and paper? If you label them it’ll help your customers know what they all are.”

  Brooke opens her tapestry tote, the one covered in stitched apples of every variety, and pulls out orange cardboard squares. “I was going to label them earlier, but it got too busy.”

  Vera takes the squares from her and begins writing: Mini Apple Pies, Apple Crumb Coffee Cakes. “Derek’s been over to the house, fixing up some of its issues. The wall, the bannister, you know, that kind of stuff.” She takes another label and writes Apple Tarts across it.

  “Derek?”

  “From the hardware store,” Vera says, lining up the Tart sign precisely with Brooke’s freshly baked tarts.

  “Oh, that Derek. It’s good you’re getting some work done. Does he ever talk about his daughter?” Brooke counts out change for a woman who bought one of her apple pies. “Thank you,” she says while handing her the coins.

  “Daughter?” Vera looks over at her. “I didn’t know he had kids. Or that he was married.”

  “Divorced.” Brooke realigns the pies to fill the vacant space she’d just sold. “And he doesn’t have kids now. His little girl Abby died, oh, must be five years ago. Drowned, right here actually. At the cove.”

  “No way!”

  Brooke nods with a glance at Vera. “It was a terrible accident. She went through thin ice one afternoon, walking home from school with her friends. I guess they wanted to see if they could skate that weekend and tested it and, well, a couple kids went through. They couldn’t save Abby.”

  “I had no idea. Oh my God, that’s awful.” When Brooke is busy selling a half dozen mini apple muffins to a family waiting with full appetites, Vera takes another orange label and writes Caramel Apple Cookies across it. But her mind is still grappling with Derek’s loss.

  “Don’t forget napkins!” Brooke reminds the family leaving with their pastries, which they’ve already begun eating. The father turns back and takes a handful from her. “It’s Derek who runs the Deck the Boats Festival every December. That’s when his daughter died, right around Christmas. He gets the decorated boats out there on the cove to commemorate her every year.”

  “Hey guys,” a woman calls out as she approaches the booth. “How’ve you been!”

  “Hold that thought,” Vera quickly tells her sister, wanting to know more about this Derek and getting a little impatient with the interruptions. She looks out at a woman with wavy blonde hair, wearing a long lace skirt, fitted sweater and suede ankle boots, carrying a large leather portfolio beneath her arm.

  “Lauren?” Brooke asks.

  “Brooke. And Vera! How nice to see you both,” Lauren says, leaning over the booth counter to give them a hug.

  “Lauren? Lauren Bradford?” Vera pulls back and eyes her closely. “Aren’t you a blast from the past, bringing me right back to our old beach
days.”

  “And I’ve spent a lot of time at Stony Point this summer. Have you been down lately?”

  “Not this year. I just moved back to town, actually.” Vera hitches her head toward her moss-green Dutch sitting on the edge of the cove property, the white railing of the widow’s walk facing the water. “I’ve been busy with the move. Into that house right there.”

  “No kidding.” Lauren studies the imposing home. “Holy cow, it’s gorgeous. And on the water, no less.” She looks back at Vera. “Still writing, too?”

  “You bet. Locally now.”

  Lauren reaches into her portfolio and pulls out a painting of an historical home done on an antique plank of barnwood. “Any chance you could give my work a local plug? I’ve got a small display set up over beside the carousel if you’d like to see more.”

  Brooke takes the painting from her. “Wow, this is beautiful.”

  Vera looks too, and recognizes the brick red saltbox colonial from a couple blocks down Main Street. “You’ll do well selling these here. A little bit of Addison history.”

  “The antique shop in town is hosting a formal exhibit next month,” Lauren tells them. “I’ve got lots of landmarks and homes I’m working on.”

  “Wait. Circa 1765?” Vera asks. “Sara Beth’s hosting your work?”

  “Yes! Do you know her?”

  “We grew up practically next door to each other,” Vera explains. “Hey,” she continues, eyeing Lauren.

  “Oh, no.” Lauren shakes her head with a smile. “I remember that scheming look of yours from the old summer days hanging out on the boardwalk with nothing much to do. What do you have cooking behind those eyes?”

  “It’s good,” Vera assures her, leaning over and squeezing her arm. “It’s all good, no getting in trouble this time, I promise,” she adds with a wink. And before Lauren returns to her art exhibit, Vera secures her phone number and an interview date for an in-depth profile on her craft of barnwood art. The local historic angle will be perfect for the Addison Weekly.

  * * *

  Today probably wasn’t the best day to get started on more repairs of Vera’s house. But with everyone in town at the Apple Festival, Derek figured the store would be quiet and he could cut out early to chip away at her list. He didn’t count on the traffic, though, and people, and carousel songs and laughter coming in through the drafty windows of her neglected place, muffling the sound of her creaking wood floors and temperamental radiators. It’s not what he cares to associate with the cove.

  After he tightens the new hinges on the pantry door, he hears Vera come in.

  “Hey, Derek,” she says, setting her handbag down on the kitchen table. “What great weather they’ve got for the fair. Just the right nip in the air today.”

  He doesn’t say anything as he runs his hand over the door edge where it still sticks. But he does throw a glance her way, seeing her walk to the counter wearing skinny jeans tucked into slouchy boots. When she reaches for coffee grounds from a burgundy-painted cabinet, a rose-gold watch is visible beneath her sleeve.

  “Have you been yet?” she asks over her shoulder while filling the coffee decanter with water.

  He looks at her again while her back is to him, her long sandy blonde hair fanned out across her black blazer, then pulls out a staple his hand catches on the door edge.

  “To the fair?” she continues while pouring the water into the pot. “It’s mobbed there today.”

  He rubs his knuckle against his jawline. “I don’t really do fairs.”

  “Really? Aw, you should! My sister’s serving up her famous apple crumb coffee cake, Derek. You’d like it.”

  He shrugs, just slightly, and turns back to the pantry door edge he’s preparing to plane. And when he cuffs his flannel shirtsleeves, that’s when he notices how quiet the room’s gotten. So he knows. He knows that she knows. Someone at the fair told her about Abby; nothing else would silence her like that except for the uncomfortable realization of why he doesn’t want to be at a fair at the cove.

  “Vera,” he says. “Maybe today’s not the best day for me to be working here.”

  She nods slightly, that’s it, nothing else.

  So he unplugs the planer and sets it aside, then swings the door to be sure the new hinges are working okay. “You’ll be all set for now with your pantry. The door works, but it still sticks. I’ll finish it up next trip.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  “Do you mind if I leave some of these tools here so I’m not hauling them back and forth? I can store them in the barn, if that’s all right, and come back another time.”

  “Oh geez, the barn.”

  “What’s the matter with the barn?”

  “Well the barn’s okay, it’s what’s in it that worries me. I’ve been meaning to clean it up so I can rent it out for storage. But I think I’ve got a rodent issue.”

  “Rodents?”

  “Maybe a raccoon? When I’ve tried sweeping the place out, I’ve seen it scoot past me, from the corner of my eye. Then I get spooked and run out.”

  “Okay, a raccoon. I’ve got a flashlight in my toolbox. I’ll take a look around and leave my tools there for now.” He grabs his corduroy quilted vest off the table and picks up the toolbox to leave.

  “Wait,” Vera says. “It’s all locked up. Let me grab a flashlight and I’ll go with you.”

  They walk outside, and the noise and festivities from the Apple Fair still linger. The barn sits behind her house, off to the side and nestled in a gently sloping hill. It rises tall in the late afternoon sunlight, its unpainted timber walls aged to varying shades of brown and silver. Derek won’t even glance over at the cove park. He doesn’t want to have a passing thought of what could have been. Doesn’t want to see a girl holding a balloon, or eating a candied apple, or getting off a spinning ride and laughing in the sunshine, a girl with long brown hair who might be about Abby’s age now. He doesn’t want to picture his daughter, had she lived.

  Vera stops at what used to be the Christmas Barn’s main entrance. The red-painted door with paned windows looks as distressed as it sounds, creaking as she pulls the wrought iron door pull and goes in ahead of him. The space is dim and musty, and he feels the damp from it being closed up and unused for so long. He checks his watch, then shines the flashlight beam into dark corners, along the planked walls, beneath empty wooden shelves, up along the ceiling’s hand-hewn barn beams. The empty space definitely could shelter an animal of some sort.

  “It was kind of big, and gray and brown. The last time I saw it,” Vera is saying from off in a corner, “it ran in this direction.”

  Derek scans the floor and loft above while slowly backing toward the rear of the barn. Muffled sounds from the Apple Festival make their way into the shadowy space and it all feels unreal, like it’s some disturbing dream, the commotion and sense of movement outside, and the dusky lighting and dust swirling in the cool, damp barn. It becomes a cyclone, spinning together in an incoherent sensation that he feels from time to time, in the right situation. One that breaks his heart when he fears that Abby felt a similar sensation of movement and blur and dusk and voices beneath the water’s surface.

  He jumps when Vera bumps right into his back, and she jumps at the same time, her hand to her heart, her flashlight clattering to the floor. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

  She quickly steps back and goes to pick up the light the instant he does, their hands touching as they reach for it together. “No harm done,” he says, handing it to her.

  “Now you know what I mean when I get spooked in here thinking of those beady raccoon eyes watching me from some dark corner.” Her flashlight beam sweeps across the room once before she snaps it off. “I don’t know. I’m sure whatever it is, it’s hiding now.”

  Derek gives a last look around, promising to bring traps from the store next time. Heading outside to his pickup truck, if nothing else, he’s glad for their own commotion over raccoons and dropped flashligh
ts and bumping into each other and the momentary distraction of Vera.

  Chapter Five

  MY LATEST NEIGHBORHOOD POLL INDICATES heavy nut-burying activity, more so in the eastern side of town. There’s still time to let me know what squirrel trends you’re seeing on our website because for all the weather technology we have, sometimes Mother Nature knows best. And so far, the squirrels are busy preparing for very cold months ahead.”

  Vera knows before she even turns around that her father is giving his annual Addison Almanac winter weather predictions. It’s the down-home, folksy stuff like this that makes him Addison’s favorite meteorologist celebrity. She tightens the sash on her blue fluffy bathrobe and pours a mug of hot coffee, all the while listening to his winter trivia on the countertop television set.

  “Just how cold will the winter be? By golly, pet your pooch to check. My dog Captain’s coat of fur has gotten so thick, it rivals a beaver’s, correlating nicely with recent squirrel behaviors. And that means only one thing: lots of cold, cold weather is on the way.”

  She glances at her home’s single pane windows and hopes her father is wrong. Cold air will seep right through the glass and keep her drafty all winter. But he’s never wrong. And if he’s busted out his snowflake tie, then she knows they’re all fated to a winter of white, too. She takes a peek at the TV screen, letting out an exasperated breath at the sight of the wide navy blue tie dotted with white snowflakes beneath his suit jacket.

  “Now here’s a secret I’ve kept since summer,” he continues. “For every foggy morning in August—”

  “There’ll be a snowy day in winter,” Vera finishes, smiling as she does. Every snow axiom, adage, proverb and saying is part of her stock vocabulary.

  “So we’re in for a doozy. Gas up the snow blowers, and if the wooly bear caterpillars are any indication, stock up on mittens and hats while you’re at it. Take a look at these viewer photos sent in.” Images of the brown and gold caterpillars fill her screen, some sitting on a leaf, some on extended hands. “Those narrow brown bands of fuzz in the middle mean a cold winter ahead. Which will be ideal for snow-watching. And by the way, you can snow-gaze all you like, but you won’t find two identical snowflakes, folks.”