Fireside (12 page)

“I can’t call him,” AJ said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know his number.”

Son of a bitch. Bo bit his tongue. What kind of loser just fell out of touch like that? He flinched, feeling a sting of guilt. He liked to think he’d have stuck around, but would he?

He grabbed a thick Irish fisherman’s sweater and put it on. His best friend’s wife, Sophie, had given him the sweater for Christmas. Bo wasn’t Irish and he wasn’t a fisherman, but she had told him there was some quality of the wool, from blue-face sheep, that kept a man warm and dry. The pattern of cables and other fancy stitches used to be the knitter’s signature, surrounding the wearer with her spirit, protecting him from harm and bringing him luck.

He hoped like hell the sweater would bring him luck today. He and AJ were going to need it.

“Damn, this thing itches,” Bo said, running his index finger around the neckline of the sweater.

“Then why are you wearing it?”

“Because Sophie gave it to me. And we’re going to see her about your mama today and it’s always a good idea to wear something a woman gave you when you’re going to see her. Women like that. Yeah, that’s a good rule. One thing I know for sure is that when a woman gives you a sweater, you’d better by-God wear it.”

“Even though it itches.”

“I’ve suffered worse than that to please a woman,” Bo said, with a flash of memory he’d thought long gone. “Do you know, I used to eat hominy grits for breakfast every time my mama fixed them. You like grits?”

AJ clutched at his throat and made a gagging sound.

“My thoughts exactly. Speaking of food, let me get you something to eat.” He went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “We got that pie we brought home from Friendly’s, and…You like pepperoni pizza?”

A nod.

“Then get over here and eat. You sleep okay?” he asked the boy.

A shrug. “It’s kind of noisy around here, so—” A loud beeping from outside drowned out the rest of his words. The racket came from a garbage truck backing up, and the beeping was followed by the hiss of hydraulic lifts and the crash and bright clatter of the Dumpster being emptied.

When the racket subsided, Bo said, “At night, the bar downstairs can get pretty rowdy, especially on the weekend.” Living over the bar used to feel like the best of all worlds. Now it made him feel…inadequate, somehow.

“Tell you what,” Bo said to AJ, trying to sound cheerful, “how about you get dressed and we’ll head over to Sophie’s, and she’ll get to work figuring this out.”

AJ grabbed some things out of his suitcase and headed into the bathroom. The shower hissed to life.

Then, a few minutes later, he emerged from the bathroom, backlit by a cloud of steam from the shower. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, the garments wrinkled but clean-looking. His hair was slicked into place, parted on the side with knife-blade sharpness. His olive-toned skin glowed from a vigorous scrubbing. In the diffuse light, he looked like an angel, so beautiful Bo was momentarily speechless.

Their bellies full of cold pizza, apple pie and Orange Crush, which was the closest thing to juice Bo had, they headed downstairs. It had snowed all night, and the car’s windshield was crusted with ice and dusted with snow.

Bo swore, then caught himself in mid-cuss, inventing a new word on the spot. “Fuuu—dge-a-mania,” he improvised, retrieving a scraper brush from the trunk of the Z4. “Hard to believe people choose to live in this sh—stuff.” He shut up, realizing AJ wasn’t listening at all.

The boy was scuffing his feet across the crusty surface of the parking lot. His eyes shone with fascination. Steam rose from his still-damp hair and puffed from his mouth. There were tall heaps of snow from the plows, blanketed by a fresh coat. The snow had nearly buried a couple of cars, which had been left by regulars who knew better than to drive themselves home after they’d had a few too many. From the hilltop vantage point, there was a long view of the town below and the lake in the distance, the rooftops dusted with more snow.

He tried to imagine what this world was like for AJ. No one had asked his permission to pluck him from the southern metropolis of Houston and plunk him down in the small snowed-in town of Avalon. He was a stranger in a strange land.

“Crazy, huh?” Bo said. “All this snow.”

“It’s so cold,” AJ said. He all but disappeared inside Bo’s olive-drab parka, size Large–Extra Tall. The parka reached AJ’s knees, the sleeves hanging well below his hands.

“Damn cold. Especially for a Houston boy.” Bo wondered if saying “damn” was okay in front of a kid. “Be careful on the ice,” he added.

AJ slid his feet across the crusty surface of the parking lot. His low-top Chuck Taylors had no traction at all, and he held his arms out to steady himself. “I’ve never seen snow before,” he said.

“Yeah, well, you’ll see plenty of it in this town,” Bo assured him. “Can’t stand the stuff, myself.”

AJ scooped some off the hood of a parked car, flinching at the cold as he watched it melt from the palm of his hand.

“We’ll get you some warm clothes and boots right away,” Bo promised. “And I need a cup of coffee, bad. Then we’ll go see Sophie and figure out the best way to help your mom.” He finished brushing the snow off the roadster and they got in. He showed AJ the button to push to heat the seat. The boy’s startled expression when he felt the heat come through made Bo smile.

“Can we have the top down?” asked AJ.

“It’s freezing out.”

“I’m plenty warm in this coat.”

Bo hesitated. It was the boy’s first snow, he reminded himself. Bo had never had a “first snow” as a boy. He’d had hurricanes and hail storms, floods and plagues of fire ants, but he’d never seen the snow until he was an adult. “Just remember,” he warned, blasting the car’s heater, “you asked for it.” He pushed a button on the console, and the canvas top of the convertible retracted, neatly folding itself away. He steered out onto the street and headed toward the center of town. “People are going to think I’m outta my gourd,” he muttered.

It was worth it, though, to see the way AJ’s eyes sparkled. It was one of those rare winter days that was as clear as the air was cold. The sky shone with a depth and clarity that seemed sharp enough to shatter. The sun laid golden fronds over the brilliant white landscape. Too bad it was so freaking cold. The heated seats and warm air blowing from the vents kept them from freezing to death as they rode with the top down on and the radio turned up loud, playing Stevie Ray Vaughan.

They garnered a few looks from shoppers in the town square as Bo trolled for a parking spot. For a few minutes, he felt…kind of glad. He hadn’t been expecting that. The happiness. The feeling of connection. It was a terrible thing, what was happening to AJ, and Bo was going to do everything in his power to fix it, but for these few moments, driving along in the sunshine with his boy, he felt happy.

“It sucks that we’re meeting because of what happened with your mom,” Bo said, “but I always wanted to meet you.”

“Then why didn’t you?” AJ asked. The question was simple, direct and devastating. “It’s not hard.”

“Your mom didn’t think it was a good idea, and I had to respect that.” There was a lot more to it than that, but he didn’t think AJ needed to hear all of it, not now.

He turned up the car’s stereo. As he came around the corner, his gaze was drawn to a long-legged redhead in the distance, coming out of women’s shop called Zuzu’s Petals, carrying a big shopping bag. He felt a flicker of interest. Could it be…? Nah, he realized. Just wishful thinking.

Seven

T
he thump of a car stereo caught Kim’s attention as she exited the clothing boutique. She’d armed herself with the basics—thermal underwear, wool pants and a couple of sweaters. She was already wearing new jeans and boots and a new jacket, and was ready to embrace winter. This was something she’d missed, living in southern California. Crisp white winters, ice-skating and snowboarding.

She had never worked with winter-sports athletes. Well, there was one, almost. She’d been assigned to work with a hockey player named Newton Granger, and he’d been missing so many teeth, he sounded like he had a speech impediment. Despite facing the myriad perils of the hockey rink, he had a pathological fear of dentists. Kim had tried to create an image of the strong, silent type, but the guy had a goofy, spontaneous and gap-toothed grin that spoiled the effect every time.

Athletes,
she thought. Never again. She was forging ahead to bigger and better things. She wasn’t sure what things, but they would definitely be bigger and better.

Parcels in hand, she spotted the source of the thumping stereo. It was a low-slung sports car—with the top down—just rounding the corner into the main square of town. Sunlight flashed over the convertible, which looked as if it would be more at home in Malibu than upstate New York in the dead of winter.

The car swung into a parking space in front of the Sport Haus, a shop that specialized in winter garments and gear. Its black canvas top arched up and over, obscuring the driver and passenger. A moment later a tall man got out. For a second, recognition flared, but she couldn’t quite place him. A moment later, a half-grown boy exited the passenger side. The kid looked as cold as Kim felt, huddled into an oversized jacket, no hat, hands shoved into his pockets. He kept looking around with an expression of wonder, like the groundhog poking his head out. The guy looked—all right, she was not completely numb—like the type proper girls weren’t supposed to like. He had an easy way of moving that hinted at a bit of an attitude. Kim had made a study of these things. It was her job to observe the image a person projected, and—in the case of her clients—to hone that image into a public persona.

While she was shopping, Kim’s appetite had kicked in. It occurred to her that she hadn’t felt hungry since the black-tie affair in L.A. The fare that night had consisted of tiny samplings of baby vegetable timbale and field greens dressed in champagne vinaigrette and truffle oil.

Screw the diet,
she thought, and went into the Sky River Bakery, one of the oldest and indisputably the most popular establishment on the square. Kim always visited the landmark bakery when she was in Avalon.

The moment she stepped into the glowing warmth of the crowded bakery, it felt like the only good decision she had made in a long time. Sweetness literally hung in the air here, the scents of sugar and yeast and butter filling her until there was room for nothing else. The warmth and smells were nearly unbearable—cinnamon, chocolate, brewing coffee, baking bread. The hiss and gurgle of a cappuccino maker punctuated the sound of laughter and conversation. The place looked wonderful, too, with its checkerboard tile floor and funky, eclectic decor.

Kim perused the gleaming glass cases, abundant with a dizzying array of baked goods—kolaches and butterhorns, croissants stuffed with marzipan, raspberry or chocolate, gorgeous cakes with hand-crafted sugar-dough decorations, rustic loaves of bread. She ordered a cup of tea and an iced maple bar. As long as she was going to go off her diet, she might as well go big, as her mother might phrase it. In her old neighborhood in L.A., consuming a pastry like this would be considered a felony.

She browsed the bakeshop while waiting for a seat to open up. Maybe she was just hyperaware of happy couples, but they seemed to be everywhere—smiling at each other across the café tables, holding hands as they waited in line for their orders, sharing intimate glances. So soon after the demise of her relationship with Lloyd, she should not feel a twinge, but Kim couldn’t help herself. She didn’t like the feeling of being alone in a crowd. Didn’t like the feeling of being alone, period.

Good thing I’ve got a house full of people to keep me company,
she reminded herself.

The weekenders and day-trippers from the city looked delighted to be heading to the great outdoors of Catskill Park, a natural preserve designated as “forever wild.” Winter sports abounded in the area, where the pristine snowfall could always be counted on to cover the landscape in a picture-postcard blanket of white. Bundled in their colorful parkas and hats, people talked in animated fashion about the perfect weather—new snow, clear skies. She imagined some were headed to Deep Notch for ice climbing, others to Saddle Mountain for a day of skiing. There was also skating on Willow Lake, snowshoeing or snowmobiling in the backcountry. Everyone seemed excited about spending the day out in the bracing cold, away from cell phones and e-mail, firmly in the raw grip of Mother Nature. They all seemed so…content. It was a feeling that had eluded Kim in every relationship she’d ever had. She’d stopped even believing it was possible.

I used to love the winter,
she thought. Perhaps she still did. Lately, she hadn’t paid much attention to her own likes and dislikes.

A seat opened up at the counter, facing out the shop window. She settled down at the window bar with the newspaper, her pastry and mug of tea. The moment she sank her teeth into the soft, rich pastry, she saw stars. It tasted like pure ecstasy. It was all she could do not to moan. In those few moments, she forgot about Lloyd, and her exploding life, her crazy mother and uncertain future. If everyone would start the day with an iced maple bar, she thought, we would have world peace.

She noticed a display of art photographs, beautifully matted and framed, showing off Avalon, Willow Lake and Catskill Park at their best—bathed in golden light, the colors soft and muted, as though painted by a master.

Near the cash register, there was also a stack of books on display marked, “Just published! Signed by the author.” The title of the oversized book was
Food for Thought: Kitchen Wisdom from a Family Bakery
by Jennifer Majesky McKnight. The book’s cover image depicted an older woman’s flour-dusted hands, working a pale globe of bread dough.

An array of daily papers lay on a side counter. While waiting for her tea to cool, she paged through the
Avalon Troubadour.
In addition to the bakery book, Jennifer Majesky McKnight had a regular column; today’s topic was a deep meditation on the attributes of black cocoa.