by Terri DuLong
“I know what you’re saying, and this one is extra nice.”
Corabeth nodded. “It is. I understand that those e-readers are convenient and certainly decrease space needed for print books, but for me, nothing will ever replace the feel of a book in my hand.”
“My sentiments exactly,” I said, and caught sight of a table display with Lacey Weston novels. “Are you getting aggravation from Raylene on that display?”
“Actually, no. She popped by yesterday, glanced at the table, sniffed, and proceeded to ask if the book she’d ordered had come in.” Corabeth laughed and shook her head. “I guess she figured she’d tried her best to get that poor author banned, but it didn’t work in this shop. I know I’m probably wrong, but she seems to be mellowing a bit lately. I wonder what could account for that.”
“Strange. I bumped into her this morning and was pleasantly surprised with her attitude. It did seem a bit less nasty.”
It wasn’t until later that afternoon when I was in my kitchen pruning my plant that I recalled my conversation with Corabeth, which made me remember customers to our shop in Salem. As I clipped little pieces of the leaves, I recalled some of the regulars to our shop.
Mrs. Potaski, a Polish woman who visited our shop for chocolate twice a week. She showed up one morning all excited and told my grandmother she was convinced it was the chocolate witches’ hats that had changed her husband from a grumpy old man into a very pleasant spouse. She laughingly accused my grandmother of putting special potions into her chocolate.
And Mr. Pelletier, another faithful customer. I was assisting my grandmother the day that he came in and proclaimed it had to be the chocolate. Over the past few months that he’d been purchasing it for his wife, her romance meter had notched up a couple of levels. My grandmother had laughed and said, “Ah, but chocolate has very special properties. I don’t think most people realize that.”
But now I recalled bumping into Raylene that morning and what Corabeth had said about her. Could it just be the chocolate? Silly, of course it was. Unless—I snipped off another leaf and held it to my nose. It did have a very distinct aroma. Something that I couldn’t describe and had never smelled in another plant. And after it was ground with the mortar and pestle, it was always an essential ingredient used by my grandmother, and now me, for the making of our chocolate.
Maybe I needed to start paying more attention to my regular customers. I thought of Ava Wells. She had begun coming to my shop the week I opened. Mid-thirties, she lived out by the airport. Her husband was a professor at the university, and I recalled hearing something at the knitting group about her. How sad it was that after ten years of marriage she still had not become pregnant, and the couple was still desperately wishing for a child. Apparently, there was no medical reason as a cause.
What was it she’d said the other day? Something about feeling confident that my chocolate just might work the trick. Surely, she couldn’t have meant that my chocolate would actually assist her in getting pregnant, could she?
I let out a deep sigh. So many things in this life were unexplainable. Most of which people chalked up to coincidence. But was it?
15
Mr. Carl was my first customer when I opened the shop on Friday morning.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he greeted me.
“It certainly is,” I said. “May is a beautiful month here on the island.”
“That it is. I’ll have my usual, Miss Berkley.”
After I boxed his chocolates and took his cash, he remained standing on the other side of the counter.
“Anything else I can get you?”
He shuffled from one foot to the other, cleared his throat, and said, “Well, I was wondering . . . that is, I’m really out of practice . . . and . . . how does a man ask a woman out these days?”
Oh, my goodness. This man in his late seventies was asking me for dating advice?
“Hmm, well . . . I don’t think the proper procedure for that has changed much over the years,” I told him. “I would say, just ask her.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. I mean, what if she said no?”
If the woman in question was who I thought it was, poor Mr. Carl was taking a risk and probably headed straight for a major disappointment.
“Well, yes. That’s always a possibility. So maybe you need to take it slow. You know, get to know her a bit better.”
“Oh, I know her mighty well as it is.”
“Yes, well . . . what exactly did you have in mind for taking her out?”
“Maybe a dinner. You know, one of them early bird specials that they have in Gainesville. Then we’d be back to the island before dark.”
Good thinking. Driving on SR 24 in the dark could be a bit dicey with deer sometimes running across the road.
“Okay. That makes sense. Well, is there someplace this woman goes where you could kind of... just show up? This would give you a chance to have some conversation with her. You know, spend some time with her in a social atmosphere before you ask her to go out with you.”
Mr. Carl thought about this for a few moments and then snapped his fingers. “Yeah, the lunches.”
“The lunches?”
“Sure enough. The Senior Lunches over at the church that they have every day. I haven’t gone to those in years, but I know that she does.”
“Well, there you go,” I told him. “Going there might be just the thing to break the ice for you.”
A huge smile crossed Mr. Carl’s face. “Thank you, Miss Berkley. I think I’ll mosey on over there for lunch today. Thanks again.”
When he turned to leave the shop, I could have sworn I saw an extra zip in his step.
I shook my head and laughed as I recalled the quote, In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Perhaps Alfred, Lord Tennyson should have left out the word young. When it comes to love, there are no restrictions on age.
Chloe was the first to arrive for dinner. She placed a Tupperware cake plate on the counter.
“My contribution. Pistachio cake.”
I lifted the cover to take a peek. “Yummy. It looks great. Thanks, Chloe. The guys should be here shortly,” I said at the same time there was a knock on the door.
This time Saxton didn’t have just a bottle of wine but also a beautiful bouquet of spring flowers, which he passed to me.
“Thank you so much,” I said, inhaling the wonderful fragrance. “Welcome, Doyle. Come on in.”
He passed me a covered bowl. “I thought we might enjoy some of my mullet dip with crackers before dinner.”
“How nice. Thank you.”
“I’ll put these in water for you and you can get the crackers,” Chloe said, as she reached into my cabinet for a vase.
“Have a seat,” I told Saxton and Doyle. “The corkscrew is on the coffee table.”
Chloe placed the vase in the center of the set table and joined us in the living room.
“Nice place you have here,” Doyle said, looking around. “It’s changed a bit, but not much.”
I looked at him with surprise. “Oh, you’ve been in this apartment?”
He laughed. “I guess growing up here, I’ve probably been in most of the houses and apartments at one time or another.”
Chloe had spread a cracker with mullet dip and took a bite. “Delicious. Seems there was a man on the island that was famous for mullet dip years ago.”
Doyle accepted the glass of wine Saxton passed to him and nodded. “That would be Saren. Saren Ghetti. Born and raised here, and he was also an artist. And actually, this here is the recipe that Saren shared with me years ago.”
“Oh, Saren,” Chloe said. “That was Monica’s grandfather, right?”
“Yup. He passed away a couple years ago. Was in his late eighties.”
“Right. Grace had told me the story. Now there’s a love story that endured over time and probably into eternity.”
I took a sip of wine and nodded. “Yes, I remember you tellin
g me that story. Sybile was Monica’s grandmother. Although they never married, from what I heard, what Sybile and Saren shared came full circle in their later years.”
“Right,” Doyle said. “Saren had loved her most of his life, but she spurned him at age eighteen when she left the island to seek her fortune in New York as a model. But years later she returned and in a roundabout way, they were reunited before she died. At least they had that bit of time together before she was gone.”
I was sure I detected a note of wistfulness in his tone. Maybe Saxton was right—everybody had a story.
My lasagna, salad, and garlic bread proved to be a hit. The four of us were relaxing with coffee on Chloe’s porch.
“Thank you so much for a great dinner,” Doyle said. “I really enjoyed that.”
“My pleasure. We really enjoyed the day out on your boat.”
“Well, then, we’ll have to do that again. Maybe go up the Suwannee next time.”
“Oh, that would be fun,” Chloe said. “And can’t you go from here by boat over to Shell Mound?”
Doyle nodded. “Yeah, you can. Shell Mound is one of my favorite places. We’ll go sometime.”
He now directed his attention to me. “How’re you doing trying to solve your puzzle?”
I took a sip of coffee and shook my head. “Not very well, I’m afraid. Nobody can seem to recall a Jeanette Whitmore that spent a summer here. I do think, though, that there was a particular incident that caused her to come here.”
“Why do you say that?” Saxton questioned.
“Well, I was going through the postcards again the other evening, and in one of them she said she was doing as well as could be expected. As well as could be expected. That makes me think something had happened which caused her not to be well.”
“Hmm, like maybe she was ill? You’d mentioned before you thought perhaps she was sick when she came here,” Chloe said.
“I had briefly thought that, but she also mentions that her job is going well. If she was ill, I don’t think she’d be working here. And that’s another thing—what kind of job did she have? Who did she work for?”
“Yeah, you have a point there,” Saxton said. “If she worked here on the island, you’d think somebody would recall that.”
Doyle leaned over to take a refill from the coffee thermos. “Not necessarily. We have many people who come here briefly, they pick up a bit of work, and then they’re gone. You had mentioned your mother’s sister. Was she any help to you?”
“Not yet. She’s supposed to come next month to visit me, but I haven’t heard back from her. I didn’t want to ask a bunch of questions on the phone. I figured I’d wait till she gets here. But to be honest, I’m not sure how much help she’ll be. Once she left home she didn’t stay very close to my grandmother or my mother. Her husband was in the military and they were always traveling around the world.”
Saxton nodded. “Yeah, that’s a shame. If families don’t stay in touch, sometimes a family member ends up losing a significant part of their history.”
I knew he was thinking of his daughter.
“True,” Chloe said. “I’d been estranged from my aunt and my sister for quite a few years. When we did finally reconnect, I was amazed at some of the things that I found out. We never really ever know somebody completely, but when we lose touch, it’s even less.”
“I agree,” I told her. “I always felt that something was missing with my mother. Except for that summer that she was gone, we were together a lot, and yet . . . more and more I feel like I probably never knew her at all.”
“The most mysterious part of human nature, isn’t it?” Saxton said. “I’ve always believed that we’re very complex creatures. The picture we project to the public may be entirely different from the person that we are inside. I think that’s why I enjoy writing my novels—it allows me to attempt to discover what, exactly, we’re all about.”
I smiled. “I think you’re right. Look at that author Lacey Weston. Nobody knows who she is. Only that she writes erotic stories, and yet people like Raylene Samuels can judge her very harshly.”
Doyle nodded. “You know what they say—never judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.”
I wondered if the discovery of my mother’s secret and the reason she came to Cedar Key might cause me to end up judging her.
16
June first is the official start of hurricane season in Florida. I noticed that much of the talk on the island during that month involved debates on the predictions from meteorologists. Overall, everybody agreed that Cedar Key had a fifty-fifty chance of being hit until the season officially ended on December first. With this fact generally accepted, it was forgotten and conversation in the coffee café, post office, library, and other gathering spots shifted to the economy, politics, local gossip, and fishing.
Just when I didn’t think I’d hear from my aunt I received a phone call from her in mid-June.
“Berkley, I’m so sorry not to get back to you sooner,” she told me. “I was all booked and confirmed to come visit you next week, but I’m afraid I’ve had an accident.”
My annoyance was replaced with concern. “Oh, no. Are you okay?”
Stella Baldwin laughed across the line. “Well, I guess that depends. You’d think at sixty-eight, I’d have more sense. I signed up for salsa dance classes. The first two went really well. By the way, those male instructors are pretty hot. Anyway, I was wearing my fancy pair of those really high, strappy heels and, well . . . I . . . slipped and took a tumble.”
I was beginning to see that there was more to Stella Baldwin than I was aware of. Salsa dancing? Stiletto heels?
“And unfortunately, I ended up in the hospital with a broken leg. I’ll be in a cast for the next eight weeks or so.”
My hand flew to my face. “Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry to hear this. Are you still in the hospital?”
“No, I’m now in a rehab facility for a while. I think I’ll be going home by next week, but then I’m afraid I’m facing some physical therapy when the cast is removed.”
So much for finding answers about my mother, I thought, and then felt guilty for only thinking of myself.
“Is there anything that I can do? Maybe I should come up there?”
My aunt’s laugh came across the line again. “As much as I’d love to see you, no, no. That’s not necessary. There’s truly nothing that you could do. I’ve already hired a companion to be with me constantly when I go home. I just feel terrible, though, about having to cancel my trip to Cedar Key. But I’m hoping you’ll allow me to come in October or November, when I should be back on my feet again. Literally.”
“Oh, of course. Any time would be fine. I hope you’re not in too much pain.”
“No, the pain is minimal, so that’s a plus. It’s just darn annoying knowing my social calendar has gone down the drain. Although the bridge club assures me that we’ll meet at my place while I’m laid up. But no golf for me, and my daily exercise class is out of the question. My book club said we could meet at my house also, so that was nice of them. But I guess this is the end of my salsa dancing days, I’m afraid.”
I shook my head and smiled. Bridge? Golf? Book club? This aunt of mine was a social butterfly and had a social agenda that put me to shame.
“Well, give me your address and I have your home phone. You probably don’t go on the Internet; otherwise, we could also exchange e-mail addresses.”
“Oh, but of course I go on the Internet. I’m very involved in quite a few chat rooms. Actually, I’ve met a few gentleman friends via those chat rooms.”
Yup, Aunt Stella was a definite surprise to me. I didn’t dare ask if she’d actually met them in person. We exchanged information with the promise to keep in touch. Hanging up the phone, I was hit with the thought of how very different my mother and my aunt were. My mother had always isolated herself from both people and events. My aunt sounded like somebody who stayed constantly active. Even a broken le
g didn’t seem to faze her very much—except for the limits it now put on her socializing. I smiled as I jotted a note to call a florist the following week and have flowers delivered to my aunt’s home.
The hot and humid days of June and July morphed into August, when the mornings and evenings showed promise of the cooler air to come.
Saxton and I were spending most of our free time together with dinners, day trips into Gainesville, a movie in Crystal River at the mall, and always enjoying each other’s company.
I was just settling down to get some spinning done for recent orders I’d received when the phone rang.
“What’re you doing?” Saxton questioned.
“I was just about to start some spinning. Why?”
“Well, put the spinning aside. Let’s drive over to Manatee State Park and take a dip in the springs.”
I laughed. “Oh, I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t.”
“And why not?”
“Well . . . uh . . . I have to get this spinning done. Then I have to vacuum and do a bit of cleaning. And I really should get some more knitting done on the Christmas gifts I’m working on. I also . . .”
Saxton interrupted me. “You don’t have to do any of those things. What you need to do is be more spontaneous. It’s a gorgeous day. I’ve packed us a picnic lunch, and you need to take advantage of the moment. Lighten up, Berkley. Come with me and Lola.”
I recalled how he’d once referred to me as rigid, and felt annoyed. I didn’t think it was being rigid because I had a schedule. And I kept to that schedule.
Silence filled the line as he waited for my answer, and my annoyance gave way to concern. Was I being inflexible? Did it really matter if I cleaned today or tomorrow? I knew I had plenty of time to fulfill the orders and get my knitting done.
“Well . . .” I said, and cleared my throat. “I suppose . . . I suppose I could go.”
Without hesitation, Saxton said, “Great. Be out in front of your shop. I’ll pick you up at twelve noon.” And with that, he hung up.
