Leaves Read online

  Deborah pulled back her blankets. “Come on in. It’ll end soon.”

  Corrina slipped in beside her. There was a long roll, followed by a split in the air that seemed to happen inside the room. Thunder never bothered Deborah, but it wasn’t going to be easy to get to sleep with all this noise.

  Corrina nestled a little closer. “I don’t like this stuff.”

  “It’s okay. It won’t hurt you.”

  The storm raged for maybe another fifteen minutes. A couple more times, the walls shook. Then a long period of stillness ensued.

  “Think it’s done?” Corrina said.

  “Sounds like it. Want to go back to your room?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Come on, I’ll take you.”

  Deborah pulled back the covers and reached a hand out to help her sister get up. As they exited the room, a beam of moonlight shone on a field mouse positioned in the doorway. Both girls screamed at once and grasped each other for protection. This must have startled the mouse, because it ran past them into the recesses of Deborah’s room.

  The two girls scurried out, dashing toward Corrina’s bed and diving under her covers. With the blanket over their heads, they chuckled nervously.

  “Did you see where it went?” Corrina said.

  “It’s in my room somewhere.”

  Corrina shivered. Deborah knew her younger sister was as wary of rodents as she was. “Wanna stay here tonight?”

  “Yeah, maybe that’s a good idea. That thing could be in my bed by now.”

  “Ooh, that’s disgusting. Yeah, you stay here.”

  With the blanket still covering their heads, they’d nestled together on Corrina’s pillow. Deborah had thought that the excitement would keep her awake, but she fell asleep in seconds, waking up the next morning with her little sister’s head on her shoulder.

  Now she walked around to the passenger side of the car to try to coax the mouse out. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t have to touch the thing.

  But when she opened the door, the mouse wasn’t there. She was reluctant to search for it, but she was even more reluctant to have the thing appear again in her field of vision while she was driving. She looked under the seats and in every crevice of the car, even checking the glove compartment, though she knew that was stupid.

  The mouse was nowhere to be found.

  **^^^**

  On his way into town, Tyler stopped and picked up a fallen crimson leaf. It was still pliable and smooth, almost rubbery. In a few weeks, it would be heaped under thousands of others in a pile on the street, an ignominious fate for something so lovely – unless, of course some kids jumped in the pile the way he always had when he was younger. Then at least the leaf would serve its final role as the source of a child’s fun. Not wanting to leave such a thing to chance, he decided to take the leaf with him on his walk.

  He was headed toward his first meeting with the guy at Celebrations, the local party store. On the way, he stopped at BrewHaha, intending to get a cup of Sumatra, but deciding to get some warm apple cider instead. While he waited for his drink, he rotated the leaf between his thumb and forefinger, momentarily fixated by the red whirl. It took less to occupy his thoughts lately, which he supposed was a good thing.

  He got to Celebrations a couple of minutes later, approaching the young woman behind the counter.

  “Hi. Is Gene here? I have an appointment with him.”

  “Yeah, he’s in his office. I think he’s waiting for you.”

  “Thanks,” Tyler said, handing her the leaf. She seemed confused, but she took it from him and even offered a polite smile.

  Gene Buffett had come to Oldham a little more than a decade earlier to buy the thriving Celebrations from the widow of the previous owner. Rumor had it that he had been involved in some part of the music business before then, but he’d steadfastly refused to talk about his past. Tyler guessed it was because the truth was considerably less glamorous than the fiction. Still, his salt-and-pepper ponytail and his rheumy eyes suggested that “party” was a term that took on multiple meanings in Gene’s life.

  “Hey, Golden Boy,” Gene said when Tyler knocked on the office door. “How’s it going?”

  “I’m doing all right. How are you?”

  “Nobody’s ever proven that it’s worth complaining.” He stood and shook Tyler’s hand. “So the big fiesta is nearly upon us.”

  “The last one.”

  “Once more with feeling,” Gene said loudly. “Your mother was great, I loved her. Coolest grandma in town. Sucks that she had to die.”

  “Yeah, that’s just what the minister said when he eulogized her.”

  Gene smiled. “You know what I mean. She really was great.” He looked down at his desk and picked up a couple of pieces of paper. “I pulled out the contracts for the last few years. We looking at the same kind of thing?”

  “We can shake things up a little.”

  Gene nodded. “Wanna leave your mark on the event. I can respect that. So what are you thinking? Something darker? How Goth can we go here?”

  “There are gonna be a lot of little kids there.”

  “How about a Goth room – adults only.”

  “Hmm, that might be a tough sell to the rest of my family.”

  “We’re not talking chuckling pumpkins, are we?” Gene said wryly. He seemed genuinely disappointed that Tyler had rejected the notion of the Goth room. That was silly. He’d been to the inn’s Halloween parties. He knew the vibe. Did he really think they were going to change it completely at the end?

  “I was thinking about more motion.”

  “Radio-controlled bats!” Gene said, brightening and leaning forward in his chair. “I’ll throw my nephew in free of charge to handle the swooping.” He pantomimed the arc of a bat’s flight.

  Tyler smiled, following Gene’s movements. “I like it. What else do you have?”

  “Motion? I’ve got a hand that leaps out of the punch bowl, a ghostly mirror, creeping slime – hey, I can get you a skeleton that dances the Macarena if you want.”

  “Yeah, that’s good. No Macarena, but the rest of it. I just want a little more action this year. Fun stuff, not gruesome stuff. But definitely more movement.”

  “Not a bang, but not a whimper,” Gene said philosophically. “You got it. A bunch of the usual stuff to dress up the rooms?”

  “Pretty much what my parents always did in that category.”

  “Same with paper goods?”

  “Can the napkins not say, ‘Happy Howl-a-ween’ this year?”

  “Your father loved that one.”

  “I think he’d understand.”

  Gene made a number of notations on a pad. While they talked, someone, presumably the person up front, put on the soundtrack from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. “Time Warp” assaulted the room at surprising volume.

  “Seasonal music?” Tyler said.

  “It’s in the rotation. We throw on some death metal in the afternoon when the teenagers come in for their costumes. And stuff like ‘Monster Mash,’ though it makes me want to vomit, around lunchtime when the old people show up. I’m just starting to work on my Christmas playlist. Someone told me that Blink-182 did a punk version of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ at a concert last year. Any idea where I can get a bootleg?”

  “Same place everyone else gets them, I’d guess.”

  Gene made a few more notations and then looked up at Tyler. “I think we’re all set for now. I’ll give you a call in about a week and we’ll sit down again to go over prices and finalize the list. I’ll look around a little and see if I can come up with some more fun stuff – stuff that moves – between now and then.”

  Tyler left the store feeling good about the meeting. Swooping bats would certainly be entertaining and he didn’t think anyone else in the family would get bent out of shape ove
r them. Corrina didn’t explicitly tell him to follow Mom and Dad’s template absolutely. If she had just wanted to go through the motions, she could have done it herself.

  He walked back to his apartment and then decided to drive over to Corrina’s to let her know what was going on. He didn’t want Gene going out of his way to find stuff if she was only going to freak out about it. And if she liked where he was taking things, maybe she’d even lighten up with him a little. Walking on eggshells with her was getting a little old.

  As he pulled up to the driveway, Corrina’s sixteen-year-old stepson Ryan walked out the door. Tyler got out of his car and waved to him. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Ryan simply lifted his hand slightly and said, “Hey.”

  “No school today?”

  “Some staff development thing for the teachers.” Ryan seemed to be going out of his way to avoid making eye contact. In fact, he seemed to be going out of his way to make sure Tyler knew he was going out of his way to avoid making eye contact.

  “Where are you headed?”

  Ryan looked at him then, but with an expression that screamed, what the hell business is it of yours? “I’m just going.”

  Tyler tilted his chin upward to let the kid know he didn’t appreciate the dismissive attitude. He wished he could understand what was going on here. Was Corrina’s house built over some kind of toxic substance that slowly turned everyone who lived there into jerks? Ryan never used to be like this. Gardner’s son from his first marriage, he came to live in Oldham after his mother died three years ago. Tyler always liked the kid and once he lived here full time, they really connected. Ryan was pretty messed up about his mom and everyone else in the family treated him with kid gloves. Tyler thought it would be best to treat him like he had the rest of his life to live instead. He talked to him at length about his mother, but he also talked to him at length about everything else – school, music, friends, movies. He let him hang out with him while he worked on pictures (though the kid had no talent for photography whatsoever) and they often went for walks during family gatherings just to “get real.”

  Then during the summer at one of the increasingly rare Wednesday night dinners at the inn, things just snapped. Ryan was expounding on the exploits of a group of vandalizing pranksters in the school, with Maria’s daughter Olivia egging him on. Something in Ryan’s tone – the way he celebrated the thugs as though they were brazen anti-heroes – irritated Tyler enough to interrupt.

  “Gee, do you think these guys want to be role models or are they just in it for the endorsement deals?” he said flippantly as Ryan laughed over another of the gang’s exploits.

  Ryan stopped laughing and turned to face Tyler, his eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I just wonder if these guys realize there are people out there who idolize them.”

  Ryan sneered. “I don’t idolize them, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  Tyler took a quick glance around the table and noticed that all other conversation had stopped. “Sure sounds like it to me.”

  Ryan scoffed and then sat back in his seat. For a moment, it seemed the exchange was over. Tyler figured Ryan got the message and would dial it back, at least in front of this crowd. Conversation resumed, as others pretended they hadn’t noticed the heated words.

  Then Ryan stood up and confronted Tyler. “What the hell difference does it make if I do idolize them?”

  Tyler was a little surprised by how contentious the kid was being. He held up a hand and said, “Ryan, chill.”

  “Don’t tell me to chill. You can’t tell me to chill.”

  “You’re being a teensy bit over the top right now, don’t you think, Rye?”

  “Hey, I don’t tell you what to think and you have no right to tell me what to think.”

  Olivia reached out a hand to calm Ryan and he pushed it away. For some reason, that action set Tyler off.

  “Are you freaking kidding me? Because you’re a big boy now? Because you have an absolute understanding of how the world works? Because you’re old enough to draw your own conclusions?”

  “Damn right I am.”

  “Then you’re doing a pretty lousy job of it. You think it’s funny that these kids are destroying school property, blowing up mailboxes, and breaking windows? Is that some kind of rebellious gesture to you? Some way of sticking it to The Man?”

  “When did you become such a grown-up?”

  “When did you become such an infant?”

  Ryan responded as though Tyler had slapped him. He sat back down in his chair, and glared at him. Tyler glared right back, unwilling to simply let this go away. A moment later, Ryan, looking a little flustered, pulled back from the table and stalked out of the inn.

  Corrina stood up and said to Tyler, “I guess we should all be glad you don’t have kids of your own,” before following after her stepson. Meanwhile, Gardner – the kid’s actual father – just shook his head and the others looked away. Corrina came back a short time later, saying she was taking Ryan home. By that point, Tyler was all out of bluster and didn’t even bother to look at his sister. He and Ryan hadn’t had a civil conversation since, and Corrina was barely polite to him. He still had no idea how he became the villain of this piece.

  Now, once again, Ryan was shoveling attitude at him. I’m just going.

  “I meant that after I talk to Corrina, I would give you a ride if you wanted,” Tyler said, attempting to take the high road.

  Ryan shrugged and continued to walk down the drive, tossing, “Don’t need ya” over his shoulder.

  Tyler shook his head and started toward the house. He rang the doorbell and waited, then rang the doorbell again when there was no answer.

  “She’s not there,” Ryan said.

  Tyler turned to see the kid standing on the street. As he did, Ryan walked away.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” Tyler said to his back.

  **^^^**

  The River Edge Café had been open for business since the late nineties, when a husband-and-wife team made a killing during the tech stock boom and decided to “chuck it all” and follow their passion for fine food. Located on the water between Oldham and Essex, it was popular for its ambitious menu, its beautiful setting, and its attentive staff. However, it had recently lost two executive chefs in quick succession, leading to rumors that the owners were impossible taskmasters and maybe even a little abusive. Deborah didn’t necessarily believe these unsubstantiated stories, but they made her wary through the entire interview process, and even now in her third meeting with the couple, she wondered if there was something less than genuine behind Jenn Cristy’s ubiquitous smile or Ray Graffia’s persistence.

  “We want you here, Deb,” Ray said. People didn’t really call her “Deb,” but Ray seemed to insist on it. He had been doing so since they first met half a decade ago. “There are maybe two dishes on the menu we think we need to keep. The entire rest of the menu would be yours.”

  “It would be like having your own restaurant without the hassle of ownership,” Jenn said. Deborah had been in precisely that situation her entire adult life, so she wasn’t sure why Jenn thought this was a selling point.

  “I’m completely willing to wait until the middle of November if you want to take a couple of weeks off between jobs,” Ray said. “Trina’s an excellent sous chef and she’s doing a great job of holding down the fort for us. To be honest, if we weren’t so intent on recruiting you, we’d give her the job right now.”

  “That’s very flattering,” Deborah said, wondering how resentful Trina would be of her if she decided to take the position.

  This wasn’t the first offer Deborah had received, though it was certainly the most aggressive. She’d gotten a couple of calls as soon as word got out about the sale of the inn. The people buying the Sugar Maple even made her an extremely attractive offer to stay pre
cisely where she was. She never considered it seriously, though. It was hard enough cooking there now that both of her parents were gone. It would be impossible to take direction there from someone else, though, and even harder to watch the inevitable changes they made. Deborah imagined herself collapsing into tears the first time they replaced a table lamp. She was convinced that when she walked out of the inn at the end of the Halloween party she would never again set foot in the place just so she could remember it forever the way she wanted.

  None of the offers she’d received so far had seemed very appealing. She knew she was running the risk of seeming like a prima donna and she also knew she should be eternally grateful for the attention, but she couldn’t allow herself to take a position unless it sang out to her. She even considered trying to find a job in a diner or a coffee shop somewhere – something completely one-dimensional with little or no room for personal investment – just to recalibrate. But of course that was ridiculous. How long could she flip burgers before she started slipping exotic ingredients into the ground beef? She had enough money saved to get by for about six months, and if it took that long to find the right spot, that was fine with her.

  “I’m not trying to flatter you,” Ray said. “I’m trying to hire you. Your customers will flatter you every time the wait staff delivers one of your inventions.”

  Deborah smiled. The “Deb” thing aside, she’d always liked Ray and she wished the rumors weren’t causing her to question his sincerity. That was the pernicious thing about rumors.

  “The package you’re offering is great,” she said, nodding to both Ray and Jenn. “I’ve always been fond of this restaurant, and you have a great kitchen. I just need a couple of days.”

  “Of course,” Jenn said. “Take as long as you must.”

  Ray patted her hand. “We’re here for you, Deb. Call me anytime if you have questions. I gave you our home number, right?”

  “You did, yes. I just want to take a little longer to think. I’ll call you on Monday.”