Bliss and the Art of Forever (A Hope Springs Novel) (6 page)

“It can,” Brooklyn said, though even when Artie had been alive she’d much preferred the practical gifts he’d given her year-round. Potted hibiscuses to plant along the side of their garage. A brand new cherry-red stand mixer just because she’d mentioned wanting one. Once he’d given her a fountain pen and a stack of yellow legal pads, knowing how she was with notes and lists and ideas she tended to jot on scraps and leave everywhere.

But Jean was just as practical as Artie had been, and rather than dwell on her loss, or Brooklyn’s, or what might have been had death not interrupted, she reached for Brooklyn’s hand and squeezed before pushing back her chair and asking, “Should we fill our plates?” then leading the way to the room set up with chafing dishes and signage—both decorative and descriptive.

The café’s buffet of tossed salad with a selection of homemade dressings, fresh-baked hot rolls with sweet cream butter, local honey and jams, and piping-hot casseroles had Brooklyn realizing she’d skipped breakfast. Visiting Two Owls on an empty stomach was a very big, very bad mistake.

Today’s entrées were vegetable lasagna, chicken spaghetti, and stacked pork enchiladas. Brooklyn knew from previous visits that Kaylie’s father, Mitch Pepper, was the one who smoked the pork for hours before shredding it. His wife, Dolly, used a recipe handed down through generations of her family for the chicken dish. And the zucchini in the lasagna came from the Gardens on Three Wishes Road. The organic farm was owned by Kaylie’s sister-in-law, Indiana, making Two Owls truly a family affair.

Brooklyn scooped up a small serving of each and added a roll to her plate along with a pat of butter and a spoonful of peach jam. She’d come back for salad later. Maybe. If she had room after the bread and the casseroles.

On the brownie bar, along with Cow Bells’ vanilla bean and butter-brickle ice cream, was a new Ultimate Chocolate Brownie Cake and Two Owls’ Number Ten Brownie Special. That one was packed with coconut and pecans, infused with orange zest and cayenne pepper, and topped with
dulce de leche
. Rumor had it Kaylie had been inspired to create the flavor combination by the man who was now her husband—a local contractor named Tennessee whom everyone called Ten.

Jean dished up a small plate of chicken spaghetti, then helped herself to a brownie and a slice of cake, topping each with a scoop of vanilla bean, an unabashed fan of having dessert first. Brooklyn would’ve done the same had she not already planned to spend the afternoon with multiple brownies in front of the TV at home.

“How’s the packing going?” Jean asked, once they were seated again.

Buttering her hot roll, Brooklyn nodded. “I’m getting there. And I’m so glad I gave myself two whole semesters to do this. It’s amazing the clutter that accumulates after twelve years of living in one place.”

“Try thirty-two years,” Jean said. “Curtis and I bought that house in 1983. I don’t have enough time left in my life to go through everything I own. And I honestly don’t want to,” she added with a laugh. “So many things we didn’t need. So much money wasted. I would love to go back and do it over again.”

“You don’t really think that, do you?” Brooklyn asked, having wondered often why she and Artie had bought so many books, only to read them once, and DVDs to replace VHS tapes, then left them sealed in their cases.

“We could’ve spent it so much more wisely,” Jean said, scooting her dinner plate to the side. “Instead of Curtis investing in baseball cards and buffalo nickels and hand-tied fishing lures and electronics, we could’ve traveled like you and Artie did. Though I doubt getting rid of Curtis’s hobbies would’ve funded us farther than Arkansas.”

Brooklyn smiled. “It can definitely be costly, which is why I’m cutting all the corners I can. And if I sell my larger furniture pieces instead of storing them, I’ll have that much more money to work with. Honestly,” she added, reaching for her fork, “I’m debating getting rid of everything but what I’ll need for the trip and the possible extended stay.”

“Which side is winning?” Jean asked, scooping up a bite of brownie and melting ice cream with her spoon.

“I’m not sure.” Brooklyn cut into her lasagna, shaking her head, wishing this decision were as easy as the one putting her on a plane four months from now. “If I knew when I was coming back, or even if I was coming back . . .”

“You have to eventually, don’t you?” A concentrated frown. Another bite of dessert. “You can’t stay in Italy forever.”

Why not?
The words sat for several seconds on the tip of her tongue. “I haven’t thought much beyond June tenth, to tell you the truth.” June 10th. The two-year anniversary of Artie’s death. The date had been creeping up on her for months, and she was so ready to put it behind her.

“And come September?” Jean asked. “You’re not going to miss those cherubic little faces looking up and hanging on your every word?”

Brooklyn thought about Adrianne Drake. And then, because she’d ridden behind him, and he’d given her chocolate, and he’d drunk espresso in her kitchen, holding the tiny cup with his large-boned hands, she thought about Callum Drake, too.

Teaching next year in Hope Springs would mean seeing Adrianne in the hallways and the cafeteria and on the playground, and wondering what had become of her father. “I will. But I’ll have plenty of memories to look back on. And I owe Artie so much for making sure I’d be well taken care of monetarily.”

“He was a good man, your Artie,” Jean said, pointing at Brooklyn with her spoon instead of a finger. “And a good neighbor, checking the fluids in my car every weekend, as if I didn’t know how to do it myself. Asking about the lawn any time my service was late. You remember that day Maxine came by, and you and Artie were outside, and he heard that noise under her hood? He took a look and saved her a small fortune by catching whatever was going wrong before it did.”

The memory had Brooklyn smiling. Seemed like it had been an oil leak. “He liked taking care of things. Taking care of people.”

“That’s part of what made him so good at his job,” Jean said, her gaze drawn to the photos of split-rail fences crossing pastures and prairies framed on the room’s green pinstriped walls. “It’s hard to believe the opening of this place was delayed so long because of a fire. I think about that and Artie every time I come here. Such a tragedy. Such a loss.”

Her gaze on her plate, Brooklyn stilled. She knew the story of the house’s third-floor turret having to be rebuilt after an electrical fire. But unlike Jean, she never thought about the fire when she came here. She did her best not to think about fires at all. As much as she’d loved reading to the crackle of flames in the fireplace at home, she hadn’t used it since Artie’s death, giving away the wood stacked on the patio and never buying more.

“It’s okay that it still bothers you,” she heard Jean saying. “To think about the fire. I can’t pass an accident on the freeway without thinking about Curtis and his mangled car, and nearly losing my ability to breathe.”

Bother. That hardly seemed a strong enough word. “Yes, but I feel like it’s been long enough that I should have moved on.”

Jean set down her spoon, and propped her elbows on the table, her fingers steepled below her sharp gaze, her bracelets tinkling against her watch face. “Why haven’t you? I’m not saying you should have. Lord knows I’m not much of an example of how to get on with things, but maybe if you can put a name to why you’re hanging on, you’ll be able to let go.”

Artie sharing his life with her had been everything that made their marriage fun. Except for going their own way for work, they’d been inseparable. When one cooked, the other came behind and cleaned. While one swabbed the toilet, the other took care of the tub. Brooklyn had weeded the flower beds while Artie had mowed. He’d moved the groceries from the car to the counter. She’d moved the groceries from the counter to the shelves.

They’d spent their days off together, even when that meant browsing different sections of the same bookstore, or one trying on clothes while the other waited outside the dressing room. Brooklyn buying new sheets and towels while Artie hit the hardware store. Meeting at the car loaded down with bags and heading for lunch, his shopping story turning into a whale of a tale between bites of his food. She’d be laughing until she couldn’t breathe.

And there it was. She’d been without Artie for two long years, yet she’d kept his memory alive because she didn’t know how to be alone. She gone from living with her parents until she’d finished grad school, to marrying Artie and living with him.

Was it any wonder she hadn’t let go? She had no one else to hold on to, and wasn’t sure her own two feet were steady. Sighing, she reached for her glass of iced tea. “Maybe I’m just not ready.”

“I’d say the fact that you’re going through and decluttering is a good sign you are.”

“How did you know when you were ready?”

“Oh, honey. I’m still not. But I’m seventy-three years old. I was sixty when Curtis passed. I had forty years with the man in the flesh. Now he’s with me in spirit. And I’m happy about that.”

“You don’t get lonely?”

“I have three children, six grandchildren. I have Maxine, Peggy, and Pearl. And I have you,” she said, and Brooklyn’s eyes threatened to sting. “I wasn’t interested in marrying again. And though I enjoyed sharing Curtis’s bed all those years, I wasn’t terribly interested in sex after he died. Companionship, yes. I missed that. I still do. But I invite Alva Bean over for dinner every so often. He lost his wife four years ago. It’s good for the both of us. Connecting. Laughing. But I’m too set in my ways for romance. You, on the other hand . . .”

“Oh, no. I’m just as set in my ways as you are.”
I’m completely dull and boring. Just wait and ask my future cats.

“But you
are
still interested in sex, I hope.”

Brooklyn nearly sputtered her casserole. “I’m not ready to write off the possibility.” And with that came thoughts of Callum again. Not Artie, whom she’d loved with her body as well as her heart and her mind, but Callum, after whom she lusted. “Actually, I did meet a man—”

“The one with the motorcycle?”

Jean was not a nosy neighbor, but Callum did ride a Harley. “You heard that, did you?”

“Hard not to.”

“He followed me home from school to make sure I got there safely. Then he came in for a cup of coffee. That was it.”

“I hope that was it,” Jean said with a snort. “I heard him arrive, then heard him leave. He wasn’t inside long enough for sex worth calling good.”

“Jean!” Brooklyn laughed, but still her cheeks heated.

“Seventy-three years old, remember? I get to say what I think. Now, what’s his name?”

Brooklyn hesitated; Jean had just made it clear how she felt about his mother. “His name is Callum. His daughter’s in my class.”

“So a little after-hours parent-teacher conference?” Jean asked, chuckling as she moved aside her empty dessert plate and reached for her chicken spaghetti. Then she stopped and looked up, frowning. “Wait a minute. Callum. Do you mean Callum Drake? Shirley’s son? The chocolatier?”

The heat blooming across her collarbone, Brooklyn nodded. “He came to class for story hour yesterday. Then he showed me his shop.”

Jean considered her food. “I’m trying to remember if there was ever a father of a student I wanted to bring home. Of course, I was married all that time,” she added, twirling a fork into the spaghetti. “I don’t think Curtis would’ve liked very much me doing so.”

Trying not to choke on the iced tea she’d just swallowed, Brooklyn said, “And this is why I will never give up having lunches with you, Mrs. Dial. It’s like a meal and a show all in one.”

But Jean’s mind was elsewhere. “Do you know that young man’s story? Why he’s in Hope Springs? Why he’s the one with custody of his little girl?”

“No,” Brooklyn said, cutting into her enchilada. “We only met yesterday. And we talked mostly about his work and his daughter. A bit about his parents. I told him about Artie.”

Jean arched a brow. “That’s a lot of talk for a first date.”

Brooklyn looked down at her plate with a quiet smile. “It wasn’t a date. But no. I don’t know his story. And I don’t need to know.” Though she was
so
very interested. “I assume he has one. Fathers don’t usually get full custody.”

“Shirley gives his history a sordid spin, but she does that with everything, so I’m not sure how much of what she says I believe. And I won’t repeat any of the tales she’s told at Pearl’s because who knows if they’re true. But I will say this.”

Leaning forward, Jean covered Brooklyn’s hand with her own and gave it a pat, her watch face slipping to the side of her wrist. “As good a man as your Artie was? From the facts I know to be true, not the ones embellished by his mother, Callum Drake is equally so.”

Later that night found Brooklyn stuffed with brownies and thinking about good men. Not all the good men she’d known in her life, but Artie. And Callum. And her father, who’d loved her mother dearly, but had been clueless when it came to seeing where she needed help. Leaving her to the dinner dishes while he retired with a scientific journal didn’t make him a bad man. Especially since Brooklyn had seen him pitch in when asked. But he had to be asked. For whatever reason, helping never occurred to him otherwise.