Leaves Read online

  “Cake,” Joey said from atop his perch as they entered the bakery.

  Maxwell ordered two squares, a large coffee, and a cup of milk, and they settled down at one of the three tables inside the bakery. Joey immediately took to deconstructing his piece, squeezing crumbs between his fingers and occasionally getting some into his mouth.

  “No, look Joe, it’s best if you eat the cake and the crumbs together.” Maxwell took a small piece and fed it to his son. The boy ate it, smiled, and then continued to tear his piece apart. Maxwell shrugged. Everything in time.

  “Boys having a little morning outing today?” elderly Bill Black said as he walked by.

  “Hey, Bill,” Maxwell said. “How are you doing today?”

  “I’m awake and walking around, so I guess I’m okay. So what do you make of that little incident with the mayor?”

  “I think we might want to get a little more information before we cast any aspersions.”

  Bill laughed. “You sound like a real politician.”

  Maxwell jokingly covered Joey’s ears and said, “Please, Bill, my son can hear you.” Joey pulled away from him and took a huge gulp of milk, of course spilling half of it onto his shirt. Maxwell quickly blotted it up with a napkin.

  “Great kid you got there, Maxwell,” Bill said.

  Maxwell swept the littered table with his eyes. “I just wish he wasn’t such a neat freak.”

  Bill patted him on the shoulder. “Well, you two have a great day.”

  A few minutes later, Maxwell had Joey back in the stroller as they walked through town. Maxwell waved hello to Mrs. Crest and Steve Wilkins and his son when he passed them on the street, and stopped into Carl Edwards’ hardware store to make sure that Carl wasn’t still upset about the confrontation they’d had at the last board meeting. It was always good to bring a two-year-old along when you did that kind of thing.

  Afterward, they took a right turn off of Hickory and toward Arbor Elementary School. It was the best playground in town by far, thanks in no small part to the efforts of the Chamber of Commerce. Because the weather was so warm for the season, the playground was packed even though it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. Maxwell waved to a few more people and spent a minute chatting with Elise Fetters while he pushed Joey on a swing. But what he really wanted to do was play. That was, after all, what you did at a playground, wasn’t it? He took his son on multiple trips down each of the three slides (the spiral one was his favorite), rocked with him on the teeter-totter, and tried to teach him how to climb the rope ladder. Joey most seemed to enjoy sliding down the pole with his father holding his butt. After a while, the kid decided it was time to run. Without warning, he took off into the park with Maxwell trailing behind. When Maxwell caught up to him, Joey stopped short, looked up at his father, and then yelled, “Go!” running off again. They did this for several minutes until Joey suddenly sat down to examine an orange leaf. This held the boy’s complete attention for perhaps a minute and then he was off and running again.

  Maxwell remembered reading somewhere that an experiment was once done in which an Olympic athlete mimicked the movements of a toddler for as long as he could hold out. After an hour and a half, the athlete was exhausted but the child was still going strong. As Maxwell slowed to allow his son to run ahead, he sympathized.

  The walk back through town involved a half-hour at the toy store and then a tense couple of minutes when Joey ran into Fruits of the Kiln and endangered every piece of pottery in the shop before Maxwell corralled him. Joey finally agreed to go back in his stroller and they headed home at a moderately leisurely pace. By the time they got back to the house, Joey was asleep and Maxwell settled him into his crib. Amazing kid. One minute he’s the Tasmanian Devil and the next you couldn’t wake him with a marching band.

  Maxwell walked into the den and flipped on the television. The football pre-game show would be on ESPN by now.

  Annie still wasn’t home. “I’ve just gotta get out of the house for a while,” she’d said.

  For the first time, it dawned on Maxwell that she hadn’t said where she was going. Or for that matter, when she would get back.

  **^^^**

  Tyler had tossed and turned most of the night, finally at some point falling into a deep sleep which kept him under until late morning. As a result, when he got out of bed a little after eleven, he felt more rested than he’d felt in a long time. He lounged around the apartment for a while and thought about doing some work on Lightroom. It was too gorgeous a day for that, though. Who knew how many of these were left in the year?

  His walk through town ultimately left him outside the door of The Sweetest Thing, Patrice’s candy shop. He’d passed it so many times, his pace quickening as he did so, over the last few months. But whether it was the Indian summer weather, the panoply of colors dressing Oldham, or the simple fact that he wasn’t as tired today as he’d been lately, Tyler felt compelled to stop into the store this time.

  For most of the five years they had been together, Tyler was more natural around Patrice than he had ever been with anyone. She was amazingly easy to talk to, and because of that it was so easy to express his emotions, his affections, and his desires. Even with his own family, Tyler felt there were certain barriers he couldn’t cross. There were no such obstacles with Patrice – and because of this, he was wide open with her.

  Then at some point in the last year, it all changed. Never having been in a serious relationship before, Tyler had no idea whether this kind of thing happened all the time, but he realized one day that they’d exchanged the sense of intimacy they always had between them for the assumption of intimacy. He thought everything was fine because it always had been. It was then that he realized Patrice was telling him less about what was going on in her life. That they hadn’t had a meaningful conversation for longer than he could remember. Some of this he chalked up to his mother’s illness and his grief over losing her (and certainly, after spending so much time with Mom over the years, Patrice grieved too). But when they began sniping at one another – something they’d never done before – it became impossible for Tyler to ignore the fact that something had been eating away at their relationship from the inside. It meant a lot to him that they still loved each other enough to end it before it got ugly. Still, what remained was a feeling that Patrice had left him behind. That she’d been in the process of distancing herself for a while. That in her mind he was gone before he was gone.

  A customer came out of the store and held the door for him. Tyler considered that an invitation and fought the last bit of trepidation he’d been feeling. He walked in.

  A half-dozen people were in the store. Patrice was attending to a couple of them while the others browsed displays of chocolates, sugar confections, glazed fruits, and boxed assortments. The Halloween display took up the entire front table with marzipan jack-o-lanterns, gummy spiders (and this year’s new addition, sour gummy spiders), white chocolate ghosts, and dark chocolate vampires. Tyler glanced at the displays for a minute before walking over to the counter. Patrice didn’t seem to notice him until she completed the sale she was working on. When she did, she seemed pleasantly surprised.

  “Do I still get free candy when I come in?” Tyler said with a little more tightness in his throat than he’d anticipated.

  “Dark chocolate butter toffee?” she said, smiling.

  The smile warmed him. “With almonds?”

  Patrice walked down the counter to get him two pieces. She handed them to him, reaching over to kiss him on the cheek as she did so. “How have you been?”

  “I’ve been good. Just took some new shots that I really like, doing a bunch of other stuff. How about you?”

  “I’m good. Frantic, a little. You know what this place gets like in the fall.”

  As if to punctuate the point, a customer walked up with two boxes and ordered a pound of truffles. Tyler took a bite of his can
dy while he waited, watching Patrice the entire time. At one point, she looked up to let him know she’d be right back. She never used to do that. Even in the early days when things were insanely passionate between them, Tyler became invisible when a customer showed up.

  “You look good,” she said when she returned. “Lost a couple of pounds?”

  “I think I might have. I’m doing a lot more walking now that I’m closer to town.” The fact that he was also doing a lot less eating and a lot more worrying since he moved out was something he didn’t feel the need to mention.

  “You look good,” she said again.

  “Thanks. You look spectacular, as usual.” Patrice always looked beautiful to him. Even as he packed to move out, he saw her face and thought about how beautiful she was.

  “Thanks,” she said with a demure smile that only made her look more appealing. “You like your new place?”

  “It’s really nice. Older than our place, but really well maintained. You’d hate the kitchen, but it’s fine for me.”

  “In other words, it has a microwave.”

  “You got it.”

  Two customers came up at the same time with two more right behind them. Tyler stepped to the side and watched Patrice’s brow crease as the first customer sent her in multiple directions to choose a single piece of this chocolate and then maybe just one of that chocolate and then quizzed her on several others without choosing any of them. When the customer again took her in his direction, Tyler said, “Do you want me to give you a hand?”

  Patrice faked a swoon and said, “I’d love that.”

  Tyler moved behind the counter and helped the next several people in line. He’d been around the store enough that answering questions was easy. By the time Patrice finished with her first customer, he’d taken care of everyone else.

  “Thanks,” she said when the little rush was over.

  “You’re welcome. Where’s Lindsay?”

  “Ithaca. She’s in college now.”

  “Jeez, I forgot she graduated. So who’s doing weekends with you?”

  “A girl named Marisa. She’s usually here by now, but she needed to come in at one thirty today.”

  “Good thing I stopped by then, huh?”

  “Yeah, good thing.” She smiled again and Tyler realized he desperately wanted to kiss her.

  “I don’t work free, you know,” he said. “This is going to cost you a bag of sour gummy spiders.”

  “Take two.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.” He watched her watching him. He couldn’t remember the last time Patrice’s eyes had lingered on him this long. He felt a little buzzed by the experience.

  He wished they could be alone together. There was no one else in the store at the moment, but he had a much longer respite in mind. Tyler knew it would get busy again soon and a lot busier later in the afternoon, especially given the weather.

  “Want me to stick around until Marisa gets here?”

  Patrice broke eye contact to look at her watch. “She’ll be around pretty soon. I’m sure I’ll be okay. Not that I’m kicking you out.”

  Tyler wasn’t sure if that meant he should stay or go. In the past, he never worried about outstaying his welcome in the store. Certainly Patrice seemed comfortable enough with his being here now. And he definitely didn’t want to leave. It felt good to be here with her.

  Then he thought about the new girl coming in and wondered what kind of introduction Patrice would make. She’d probably just say, “This is Tyler,” like he was someone she hung out with occasionally. That wouldn’t work for him.

  “I’ve got a bunch of things to take care of, actually,” he said. “I was just passing by the store and thought I’d see how you were doing.”

  “I’m glad you stopped in.”

  He reached over and hugged her, kissing her cheek as they separated. He walked around to the front of the counter as another customer came into the store. He turned back to Patrice.

  “You want to maybe have dinner sometime?”

  “I think I’d like that.”

  “What are you doing Tuesday night?”

  “I might be available,” she said with an expression that indicated that she knew she was.

  “I’ll give you a call.”

  “Sounds good.” Again she held his eyes. He loved the way she looked at him when she was paying attention to him. “Hey, I’m really glad you dropped in. And thanks again for the hand. Don’t forget your gummies on the way out.”

  Tyler walked over and picked up a bag. “Got ‘em. Maybe you can bring me the other bag on Tuesday.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  The customer walked to the counter and pulled Patrice away from him. Tyler waved and walked outside.

  It really was a gorgeous day.

  **^^^**

  It was just after noon and Deborah had been at the inn for a little more than a half-hour. She didn’t need to be here this early today. The stock was already prepared for the Chicken Miso Soup that was tonight’s appetizer. She wouldn’t pat the spice rub for the seared tuna onto the fish until an hour before she cooked it. And the pears poached in caramel and Marsala would be cooked while diners ate the rest of the meal. Still, she didn’t have anything going on at home, so she was just as happy to be here.

  She wanted to give some thought to the October thirtieth menu. It would be the final formal meal she served at the inn and she wanted it to be a memorable one. As silly as it sounded, she thought better about food when she was in this kitchen than anywhere else. Maybe it was the ready access to the hundreds of cookbooks she‘d collected and stored here (she was going to have to figure out where she was going to put these in her apartment). Maybe it was that she could smell an ingredient or heft a piece of equipment for inspiration. Or maybe it was just sheer force of habit. This was where she’d always thought about her menus.

  It was never difficult for Deborah to put a menu together. When a dozen German dignitaries talked her mother into an impromptu opening of the dining room for lunch once, Deborah improvised effortlessly. When a shipment of Dungeness Crabs failed to arrive one night, she shifted direction without missing a beat. However, this upcoming menu was giving her fits. All she’d decided so far was that she would serve six courses rather than four and that she would give the diners a little something to have with their breakfast the next morning. It was her way of saying, “To be continued.” Beyond that, she had no idea what to present. Maybe she should throw darts at a list of ingredients and just put a meal together out of that.

  While Gina toasted walnuts in vanilla sugar for tonight’s salad, Deborah sat at the table in the kitchen with a pad and created columns for the six courses: salad or soup, appetizer, fish course, first meat course, second meat course, dessert. Maybe just looking at the columns on a piece of paper would get her started in the right direction. She wrote various ingredients into the columns with the same thing in mind.

  While she was writing, Paul popped his head through the kitchen door to tell her she had a phone call. It was unusual for anyone to call her here on a Sunday. Most of the calls she got were from suppliers, and none of them would be around today.

  “Deborah, hi, it’s Sage Mixon from the gourmet shop.”

  “Oh, hi,” she said brightly. “The marmalade was great, by the way.”

  “I had a feeling you’d like it. Listen, if you aren’t too busy over there, I’m having a tasting this afternoon for a new line of dessert toppings. I thought you might be interested in stopping by. There’ll be ice cream and my homemade pound cake. It’s from two to three thirty.”

  “Sounds great. You hit me on a good day. I’m usually knee-deep by three o’clock, but the menu is easy tonight.”

  “I’m a lucky guy. I now know at least one person will show up.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re giving away food at
the height of tourist season. I just hope you have enough.”

  Deborah was certainly right about how much of a crowd one could draw by giving away free tastes. By the time she arrived at two twenty, there were a couple dozen people in the store, all crowded around Sage and one of his assistants as they doled out little servings. Deborah laughed to herself as she heard Sage tell various customers about where the company that made the toppings got their chocolate and how they made their butterscotch. He was such a foodie. Deborah knew many people who loved to eat as much as she did, but she rarely met anyone who shared her passion for the process of cooking.

  Sage made eye contact with her and she waved, but she stayed on the periphery of the crowd until it began to loosen. Clearly this tasting was good for business. Customers walked up to the cash register not only with a dessert topping or two, but also with several other items from the store. When she got to Sage, he handed her a small scoop of ice cream and two squares of pound cake, each with a different topping.

  “To get the most out of it, you should try the caramel first, then the butterscotch, then the fudge,” he said.

  Deborah nodded as she took the plate.

  “You knew that already, didn’t you?” he said sheepishly.

  She just smiled and took a bite of the pound cake with caramel sauce. The sauce was rich and unusually creamy, almost like a dulce de leche. The butterscotch had the same consistency and the butter flitted over the sugar pleasantly rather than overwhelming it the way so many did. The fudge was robust and dense, edging just close enough to bitter to make the taste memorable.