Forever Finley

by Holly Schindler

  Now, Jo patted Natalie’s hand. “Don’t worry about Justin. It’s his first signing in front of you. And Damien. And Annie. Especially Annie. I’m sure he wants this to go well in front of his sweetheart. She had an amazing turnout for her exhibition last winter.”

  Yes, the four of them had suddenly started appearing everywhere clustered together: Natalie and Damien, Annie and Justin. Two couples, four friends. Natalie was the newbie, having arrived in town only the winter before, but she had been adopted by the other three who had all grown up in Finley. There was something about them—everyone smiled when the group walked the square together. It was good to see young people who had found their paths: Justin a writer, Annie an artist, Natalie a Channel 27 News videographer, and Damien a teacher. They were where they needed to be in order to be happy. They were with the person they should be with. There was almost a divine order to it all. They seemed less like a corsage and more like one of those daisies—like they were all tiny individual structures that added up to one beautiful bloom. It filled him with excitement every single time he saw them all together.

  Now, though—“Why the dandelion?” Mark blurted.

  Natalie frowned, confused. “Dandelion?”

  He pointed.

  She glanced down. “Ohmygosh,” she said, her words all smashed together. “I picked the daisies myself. I didn’t realize—I must’ve grabbed up a dandelion when I took out the handful of daisies. I wonder how I never saw it—”

  Mark slumped on his stool, disappointed. He’d wanted her to say she had chosen it. The yellow of the dandelion matched the centers of the daisies and the color of her dress, after all—it could have been on purpose.

  “It only makes sense, in a way,” Natalie said, trying to laugh it off. “I’m having the worst luck with flowers lately. The hardest time figuring out my bouquet. For my wedding.”

  Jo clenched her jaw and sighed. As she’d been doing lately, every single time the subject of weddings came up.

  That was Mark’s fault, actually, the clenching. Because he had blurted that, too, just a week ago. A proposal of nearly immeasurable decibels. He hadn’t been able to help himself, not when he and Jo were just walking through Founders Park on a Sunday morning. Not with the birds singing and her hand in his. Not when on the other side of the park, there they were—the foursome, the composite flower, all of them making one beautiful unit: Annie and Justin and Natalie and Damien. Right at that moment, Mark had felt their connection. It was just like the connection he had to Jo, he was certain, and everything was as it should be, a divine order, and he wanted to grow with her, his Jo, the two of them making up a smaller but equally pretty single flower, and it was all too exciting to hold in anymore: “Let’s get married!”

  Jo’s step had faltered. She’d raised her shoulders and ducked her chin down toward her chest, sent her hands into the air like she was preparing for some horrible thing to fall from the sky: a bolt of lightning or a tree branch or an airplane wing.

  He should have known better. Jo’s divorce had been excruciating. She had told him so, as she had whispered her late-night sleepy confessions—the sort that no one had ever trusted Mark with before. He should have expected her to have developed an aversion to the concept of marriage, the same way a person developed a taste aversion after a bad bout of food poisoning. The human being was built to avoid pain.

  Now, though, Mark’s eyes rolled toward Jo. Had she accidentally picked him, too? The same way Natalie had accidentally picked the dandelion? Was her aversion also an aversion to him, Mark Quigley, of the mismatched socks and the muddy nails?

  “I could help!” Mark shouted, in the same emphatic way he’d let out his sonic boom of a proposal.

  “With—what?” Natalie asked.

  “The bouquet! Of course!”

  “You’re going to put together her bouquet?” Jo asked. She was not happy. This hadn’t pleased her. Mark didn’t know why.

  “I can,” he said, softly now. “I can do that. Just—let me try.”

  “I’d love to have something native to Finley. Or Missouri, at least. That’s what I really wanted. But florists just want to give me a bunch of roses. I’d rather have primroses—aren’t those Missouri flowers? Do you know what kind of plants grow around here?” Natalie asked.

  Miriam coughed a laugh. “Does he.”

  Mark shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want to talk résumés. He didn’t want to advertise his PhD status, explain his work at the university. It sounded arrogant to him. He was just someone who liked plants. Who liked the natural order of the world. Couldn’t they leave it at that?

  Only, Natalie would surely ask how he knew about flowers—wouldn’t she? The offer probably seemed more than just a little weird to her. Surely, she thought of him as most Finley residents did—as even Jo had herself, until last spring: as the town eccentric who lived in a tree house, a man who had never quite grown up, who jumped from one silly part-time job to another like they were hopscotch squares.

  Miriam elbowed him in the ribs. She wanted him to say something. Tell her who he was. But even Miriam didn’t see his full portrait—oh, sure, she knew he was Dr. Quigley. She had found that out long ago, when he’d helped her a little too often in her gardens, provided just a little too much scientific knowledge. But she didn’t know the rest of it—she didn’t know, for example, that Mark was actually Amos Hargrove. Only Jo knew that.

  And Mark was determined to keep it that way.

  “Like—what used to be growing on your trellises?” Natalie asked, pointing through the diner’s plate glass window, toward Jo’s store. “Damien talked about it once. Something about how beautiful the front of the store used to be.”

  Jo’s face softened. “Wild roses. Red ones,” she murmured. And offered a soft laugh. “You were just talking about roses. They belonged to my mother. They died around the same time my father did. Something about the phase of the moon, Mom said.”

  “The moon doesn’t have anything to do with the way plants grow,” Mark interjected. “The moon doesn’t even shine. That’s just a reflection from the sun.”

  Miriam immediately challenged, “No, no, you plant your garden according to phases of the moon. Your garden—and blueberries.” She raised her eyebrow at Mark, in a way that insisted science didn’t have a handle on every single aspect of life.

  Mark knew that was wrong. Life was one scientifically predictable pattern. But how did he say that without spilling the beans on his pretentious advanced degree? He didn’t particularly want Natalie to start looking at him like he was someone of prominence: a department head, a boss, an expert, an authority. He was none of those things. He was still learning. Every single day.

  “I’d listen to her—look at the results she gets,” Ruthie announced, tucking her order pad into the front pocket of her apron before pointing to Miriam. “Those are the best blueberries we’ve had in a good five years. I hear she’s had contact from some sort of winery around here. Think they can make something out of her berries. Right, Miriam? Isn’t that really why you’re upset about the overalls? Because you have a giant order to fill? Or are you really even upset about those overalls? Is that just a way to cook up a little sympathy? Maybe even find a volunteer second picker?”

  “Listen, there’s nothing wrong with a sixty-one-year-old woman trying to drum up a little neighborly help…” Miriam started, in a teasing tone that made Mark think her tongue was about to make another appearance. Maybe this time, she’d put her thumbs against the sides of her head and wiggle her fingers for good measure.

  “No—the moon thing is true,” Jo insisted, her eyes zeroed in on the front of her store. “I hadn’t thought about it in years, but Mom said the moon had entered a phase. August moon. Or—Red Moon—I think—it had stolen the color from the roses.”

  “That’s an old Native American name for the moon,” Mark said.

  “The Native American name for the August moon is the Sturgeon Moon,” Miriam corrected. “Or Blueber
ry Moon.”

  When Ruthie raised her eye at her, Miriam shrugged. “What? It is. I’m not making this up.”

  “Different tribes had different names,” Mark started, then redirected himself, claiming, “It doesn’t matter what they called it. The moon doesn’t matter. Not where your roses are concerned. She probably just hadn’t ever noticed the moon taking on a red hue before.”

  “There was something else. Something about August moons. And vegetation. The Native American thing rings true, but…August moon, August moon,” Jo chanted, tugging on her lip. “There’s something else to it. I know it.”

  “Got a red moon now,” Miriam went on. “You notice?”

  Mark only shook his head and drained his cup, discounting completely the old folk tales. They were no more true than the silly tales of Amos Hargrove.

  “You’ll do the bouquet, though? Really?” Natalie asked him. “I’d be willing to pay—well—really—”

  “No charge,” Mark said. “I’d do it for fun.”

  Natalie gushed a relieved sigh. “Oh!” she said, her eyes landing on her watch. “The store.”

  “That’s right,” Jo chimed in. “The signing. We ought to get going.”

  Mark scurried to pay his bill and Jo’s, and to dig enough cash from his wallet for a decent tip for Ruthie, who rarely, if ever, got tips from regulars. He patted Miriam’s shoulder, already brainstorming where he might find a pair of overalls to replace hers. He could get them used and dab the back with red paint, smear the left leg with grease. And hang them on her line.

  He would have to be extra sneaky about it, though, if he wanted her to think it was the work of Amos Hargrove.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Mark was anxious to begin gathering up examples for his first attempt at a bouquet. He planned to present several to Natalie, find out what she liked, what she didn’t. He forgot to ask if she had some sort of color scheme. Most women did for their weddings, didn’t they? Somehow, he had it in his mind that if he created something beautiful, something that made Natalie gasp, it would in turn make Jo look at him differently. She was an open-minded woman, after all. Once she’d found out about his Amos-Hargrove-ing, she had raced to his doorstep. Kissed him. Proclaimed an early kind of love. A bud of love. Maybe, if she saw him succeeding at something weeding-related, it would make her see him as more of the marrying kind.

  He hurried along the outer edges of the river, near his tree house—the same place where he often found and cataloged tropical plants. The sort that technically shouldn’t be found in Finley. But a summer like this one—so humid, so sweltering. Of course that was the main reason for the tropicals to be blooming.

  He had just begun to gather a handful of Amazon lilies when he saw her up ahead: a young woman, obviously admiring the flower display.

  Only, she didn’t pick them. Just squatted to smell a few. Which seemed odd enough. Most people didn’t just admire flowers. They plucked at least one. She’ll pull one to stick behind an ear, he told himself. But no—she simply smiled, tucked her long blond hair behind an ear instead. And stood.

  It was then—the straightening of her legs—that made him realize she was wearing them: Overalls.

  He chuckled, and raced to catch up. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say about the overalls yet, but he would have it figured out by the time he reached her side. She was moving so fast, though—he’d lose sight of her if he didn’t get a move on.

  She finally stopped at a sloppily hammered-together stand made of what appeared to be barn wood. It almost had the look of a child’s lemonade stand. Instead of a sweating pitcher, though, the counter of the stand was filled with blue Ball jars, several lines of them. Every one of them empty.

  He was so intrigued, he completely forgot about the overalls. About how he was going to use them as a way to introduce himself. While he was at it, how was it that he didn’t know this girl? How could there be anyone in Finley he hadn’t met at this point?

  “You come to buy my special moon seeds?” she asked, turning toward him. Her words came slowly, melodically. Something in the tone of her voice reminded him of an antique fiddle.

  “Moon seeds,” he repeated.

  “Sure ’nuff. Grow under the light of the moon.”

  “Actually, they don’t.” How many times was he going to have this silly conversation today?

  “Amazing things happen when you plant a few moon seeds.”

  Mark leaned forward and picked up a jar for closer inspection. “There’s nothing in here.”

  “Sure, there is. Just that the seeds are so tiny, the jars so big. You’re expectin’ something bigger ’cause of the size of the jars. You see what you expect to see. That’s how most folks are.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It’d be nice to have some smaller containers, but those jars are all I can seem to get my hands on right now.”

  He offered a crooked grin. She was giving him a snake oil pitch for sure.

  “Really,” she insisted, reading his face. “Aunt Mary—well, she’s not my aunt, but the name seems fitting, somehow—she’s got a ton ’a these lying around. She’s older now, doesn’t seem to can much these days. She’s not going to miss them.”

  Mark only stared. Did she really want him to buy an empty Ball jar?

  “Tell you what. You take one jar. Spread just a couple of my special seeds. See what they do under the moon.”

  “And then what?”

  She shrugged. “Then you’ll want more.”

  “I will?”

  “Yep. Especially right now. We’re in a Heart Moon right now.”

  Mark shook his head. Again with the moon business.

  “That’s what Pa calls it.”

  Pa. An odd word. Who called their father that anymore?

  “Red Moon. Sturgeon Moon,” Mark added.

  “Nope. Just the Heart Moon. According to Pa. Indians around here knew all about the moons.”

  Indian. Another completely outdated word. Who talked like that? Especially someone as young as this girl? She looked younger than the university students he lectured via Skype from his tree house. Surely she would have grown up listening to different terminology.

  She picked up a jar, placed it in his hands. “Try it tonight. You’ll see.”

  Mark accepted it with caution. He raised the jar, squinting. He still couldn’t see anything inside.

  “Good luck tonight,” she said, and skipped off into the distance.

  She didn’t disappear before Mark saw the back of her overalls—marked with red paint.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Mark was still squinting into the jar when he called Jo that night. The sun had set, but his tree house was too hot for sleeping. Usually, it was not that way. Usually, the limbs covered with giant sycamore leaves kept the house sheltered from the sun, shielded from summer heat.

  In truth, Mark’s tree house was nothing at all like the primitive wooden boxes boys liked to build with their fathers in backyards. His was a true home, complete with screens on the windows and heat and plumbing and electricity. More than that, it was a bit of an architectural wonder, built appealingly to fit in the cradle of the sycamores, with a spiral staircase leading from his wraparound porch to the ground below. He’d also meticulously decorated the house, using furniture he’d found from specialty carpenters.

  Mark held the jar up into the moonlight. Under the night sky, the seeds were visible. They were big, actually. As big as watermelon seeds. And white. He wondered how he could have missed them earlier in the day.

  As his strained conversation with Jo pressed forward in jerky stops and starts—like a car that kept getting the emergency brake pulled—he twisted the Ball jar open and planted the moon seeds, mostly for something to do with his hands. He pushed each seed deep into the potting soil of his one remaining plant-less flower pot on the porch railing.

  Which made him remember his encounter with the strange girl. Maybe that was something they could talk about—something tha
t would get rid of all these awkward silences.

  “Do you know of an Aunt Mary?” he blurted. “Who cans her produce—or used to can it, anyway?”

  “Mary…” Jo repeated softly, obviously thinking. Mark could picture her tugging on her bottom lip as she tried to rack her brain. “No, I don’t—yes! I do. Out there on the old Powell place.”

  “Powell?”

  “Yeah—you know—the old farmhouse. On the edge of Finley. Mary. Oldest resident around.”

  “Powell, Powell…that name.”

  “It should be familiar,” Jo said. “I mean, Powell was actually Finley’s last name. You know, Amos Hargrove’s sweetheart. Finley Powell. The namesake of our town.”

  A strange tingle traveled up and down Mark’s arms. A rash of goose bumps appeared, even in the lingering night heat.

  Amos Hargrove, town founder. Amos Hargrove, the dashing young Civil War soldier who had survived the worst that mankind had to offer only to find, upon his return home, that his beloved had not. Amos Hargrove, the man who spent his post-war years building the town of Finley, creating the kind of home his sweet, perished-too-soon young love would want to return to. Where his spirit and hers would one day be reunited. That was the old story. Good grief, the tale was everywhere. It had permeated the town; it hovered in front of every single resident’s eyes like some sort of photography filter. It made everything they saw seem sweet and rosy and innocent. Why, until the spirits of Amos and Finley were reunited, Amos was still out there, all these decades after his own death, doing good deeds. Bringing residents good luck. Kind of like a town-wide fairy godfather.

  It wasn’t true. No more than good luck was true. But people had to believe in things. It was their nature. They grew toward the impossible-to-prove the same way plants grew toward light.

  “She’s Damien’s relative,” Jo added. Her voice was tight. Like a music box wound to the point that it could break. Maybe it was the mention of Natalie’s fiancé. Which was the same thing, really, as mentioning Natalie. And, by extension, the wedding bouquet. And marriage in general.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to know if you wanted to come over for a while,” Mark said, trying to redirect the conversation. “It’s still so hot. We could make a couple of Long Island Iced Teas and howl at the moon. What do you say?”