Garden Spells (11 page)

“Sydney?”

Sydney opened her eyes with a start. She was back in Bascom. Claire was beside her, shaking her arm.

“Sydney?”

“I forgot to take them with me,” Sydney said. “The photos. I left them.”

“Are you all right?”

Sydney nodded, trying to get a hold of herself. But she had a bad feeling that David would know she’d been there. He’d know she’d been thinking about something she left behind. She’d opened a door. Even now she thought she could smell his cologne near her, as if she’d brought him back with her. “I’m fine. I was just thinking of Mom.” Sydney shrugged, trying to get rid of the tension in her shoulders. David didn’t know where the photos were.

He wouldn’t find them.

That evening Evanelle put on a short-sleeved robe over her nightgown and walked into her kitchen. She had to step around boxes full of Band-Aids and matches, rubber bands and Christmas ornament hooks. Once in the kitchen, she went searching for microwave popcorn. She pushed aside toasters in their original boxes and aspirin she’d bought in bulk.

She didn’t want any of this stuff, she didn’t even particularly like having it around. She tried to keep it all in corners and unused rooms, but some of it always managed to spill out. One day someone was going to need it, so it was better to have it around than to go looking for it at three in the morning at the all-night Wal-Mart.

She turned when she heard a knock.

Someone was at her door.

Now, this was a surprise. She didn’t get many visitors. She lived in a small neighborhood of old arts and crafts houses, an area that had become a little more fancy than when she and her husband, who had worked for the phone company, moved there. Her neighbors were mostly couples in their thirties and forties without children and commuter jobs that brought them home after dark. She’d never even spoken to her next-door neighbors, the Hansons, who moved in three years ago. But the fact that they’d told their lawn man to “keep their neighbor’s lawn neat too, for the sake of the neighborhood” spoke volumes.

But it got her lawn mowed for free, so who was she to complain.

She turned on the porch light, then opened the door. A short, square, middle-aged man with sharply cut dark-blond hair stood there. His slacks and shirt were wrinkle-free and his shoes shone like firecrackers. He had a small suitcase at his feet. “Fred!”

“Hello, Evanelle.”

“What on earth are you doing here?”

His face was drawn, but he tried to smile. “I…need a place to stay. You were the first person I thought of.”

“Well, I can see why. I’m old and you’re gay.”

“Sounds like a perfect relationship.” He was trying to be upbeat, but in the glow of the porch light he was as shiny as glass, and one small shove and he’d break into a thousand tiny pieces.

“Come in.”

Fred picked up his suitcase and entered, then stood in the living room looking like a little boy who had run away from home. Evanelle had known Fred all his life. He won the county spelling bee two years in a row, then he lost to Lorelei Waverley in the fourth grade. Evanelle had come to see Lorelei compete, and afterward she found Fred crying outside the gymnasium. She’d given him a hug, and he made her promise not to tell his father that he was so upset. His father told him he should never cry in front of other people. What would they think of him?

“Shelly came in early today. She caught me in my pajamas in my office. It’s been easier just to stay at work. I know what to do there,” Fred said. “But word is probably out now, and I can’t stay in a motel. I don’t want to give James that kind of satisfaction. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s noticed I haven’t been there. He hasn’t called to ask where I’ve been. Nothing. I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you talked at all?”

“I tried. Like you said. After that first night I slept at the store, I called him. He was at work. He said he didn’t want to talk about it, that just because I finally noticed something was wrong didn’t mean I could make it right now. I told him about the wine I bought from Claire. He said I was crazy, crazy for wanting things the way they were when we were first together. I don’t understand what happened. One moment we were fine. Six months later I suddenly realize I can’t remember the last time we had a regular conversation. It’s like he’s been leaving me by degrees, and I didn’t even notice. How does a person not notice that?”

“Well, you can stay here as long as you like. But if anyone asks, I get to say my undeniable womanliness turned you straight.”

“I make terrific Belgian waffles, with a wonderful peach compote. Just tell me what you want me to cook and I’ll cook it.”

She patted his cheek. “Not that anyone will believe me.”

She showed him to the guest bedroom down the hall. There were a few boxes of first-aid kits and three kerosene heaters in the room, but she’d been keeping this room mostly clear and the bed made with fresh sheets every week for over thirty years. There was a void—which still existed, just better concealed these days—left in her home after Evanelle’s husband died. During those sad days following his death, Lorelei would spend the night with Evanelle, but she stopped as she got older and wilder. Then Claire would stay the night sometimes when she was young, but she liked to stay at home mostly. Evanelle never imagined Fred would be staying here one day. But surprises were nothing new to her. Like opening a can of mushroom soup and finding tomato instead; be grateful and eat it anyway.

Fred put his suitcase on the bed and looked around.

“I was going to make some popcorn and watch the news. Want to join me?”

“Sure,” Fred said, following her, as if glad to be told what to do. “Thank you.”

Well, isn’t this nice, Evanelle thought as they sat on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. They watched the eleven o’clock news together, and then Fred washed the popcorn bowl.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Evanelle said as she took a can of Coke from the refrigerator. She liked to open it and leave it on her bedside table and then drink it flat first thing in the morning. “The bathroom’s down the hall.”

“Wait.”

Evanelle turned around.

“Is it true that you once gave my father a spoon when you were kids? And that he used it to dig a quarter out of the dirt when he saw something shiny? And he used the quarter to go to the movies? And that’s where he met my mother?”

“It’s true that I gave him a spoon. I don’t have the power to make things all better, Fred.”

“Oh, I understand,” he said quickly, looking down and folding the dish towel in his hands. “I was just asking.”

Evanelle suddenly realized the real reason he was there.

Most people tried to avoid her because she gave them things.

Fred wanted to move in to be closer, on the off chance she was going to produce something that would make sense out of everything happening with James, that spoon that was going to help him dig out of this.

Sydney, Bay, and Claire sat on the porch that Sunday, eating extra cinnamon buns that Claire had made from her regular Sunday order to the Coffee House. It was hot and things were out of whack. Doorknobs that everyone swore were on the right side of the doors were actually on the left. Butter melted in the refrigerator. Things weren’t being said and were left to stew in the air.

“There’s Evanelle,” Sydney said, and Claire turned to see her coming up the sidewalk.

Evanelle walked up the steps, smiling. “Your mother had two beautiful girls. I’ll give her that. But you two don’t look so chipper.”

“It’s the first heat wave. It makes everyone cranky,” Claire said as she poured Evanelle a glass of iced tea from the pitcher she’d brought outside. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you in a couple of days.”

Evanelle took the glass and sat in the wicker rocker by Claire. “I’ve had a guest.”

“Who?”

“Fred Walker is staying with me.”

“Oh,” Claire said, surprised. “Are you okay with that?”

“I’m fine with it.”

“I guess the rose geranium wine didn’t work.”

Evanelle shrugged and sipped her tea. “He never used it.”

Claire glanced over to the house next door. “Do you think Fred would let me buy it back?”

“I don’t see why not. Got another customer for it?”

“No.”

Sydney piped in and said, “She probably wants to use it on Tyler.”

Claire gave her a look, but it was only halfhearted. She was right, after all.

Evanelle put her tea down and rooted through her tote bag. “I came because I had to give you this,” she said, finally bringing out a white headband and handing it to Claire. “Fred tried to talk me out of giving it to you. He said you use combs, not headbands, that headbands were for people with short hair. He doesn’t understand.
This
is what I had to give you. It’s been a while since I’ve lived with a man. I forgot how stubborn they can be. They smell right nice, though.”

Sydney and Claire exchanged glances. “Evanelle, you do know Fred is gay, don’t you?” Claire asked gently.

“Of course,” she said, laughing, looking happier and lighter than Claire had seen her in ages. “But it’s nice to know that you two aren’t the only ones who like having me around. So tell me, Sydney, how is work?”

Sydney and Bay were sitting on the porch swing, and Sydney was using one bare foot to gently rock them back and forth. “I have you to thank for it. If you hadn’t given me that shirt I returned, I never would have gone into the White Door to see if they had an open booth.”

“Fred said he saw you a couple of times last week, getting lunch for the girls. And once he saw you sweeping up.”

“That’s all I’m good for right now.”

“What’s the matter?” Claire asked, aware that Sydney had been mopey lately. She’d been so excited about her job at the White Door at first, but as the days wore on she came home earlier and earlier, smiling less and less. Claire had mixed feelings about Sydney’s new job. Claire liked working with Sydney, liked having her around. But Sydney had a light to her when she talked of hair. She left every morning with so much hope.

“The clientele at the White Door all seem to know the Clarks and the Mattesons. I had a visit from Hunter John my third day. Apparently some people—and I’m not naming names—aren’t happy with that and spread the word. Not that I was busy before, but there seems to be a reason for it now.”

“Did you cut his hair?”

“No, he wouldn’t let me. It’s a shame, because I do great men’s cuts,” Sydney said. “I was the one who cut Tyler’s hair.”

“You were?”

“Uh-huh. And Bay’s and my own.”

“So…so people have been snubbing you?” Claire asked. “Not even giving you a chance?”

“If this keeps up, I’m not going to be able to keep the booth. But maybe it’s just as well,” Sydney said, putting her arm around Bay. “I’ll get to spend more time with Bay. And I’ll be free to help you anytime you want.”

Claire had been in a hair salon three times in her adult life, only when her hair would get too long to control and she needed a couple of inches taken off. She went to Mavis Adler’s Salon of Style on the highway. Mavis used to make special house calls to cut Claire’s grandmother’s hair, and if Mavis was good enough for her grandmother, she was good enough for Claire.

Claire didn’t consider herself a rube, and she’d passed by the White Door countless times, but when she walked in and found leather couches and original artwork and a gaggle of some of the more wealthy women in town, some of whom she’d catered brunches, lunches, and teas for, she suddenly felt frighteningly out of place.

She spotted Sydney in the back, sweeping hair from around another stylist’s chair, looking beautiful and self-contained. She looked so alone, which was all well and good for Claire, but not for Sydney.

Sydney saw her and immediately walked to the reception area. “Claire, what’s wrong? Where’s Bay? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. I asked Evanelle to watch her for an hour or two.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to cut my hair.”

A crowd of stylists and patrons gathered around Sydney and Claire. Rebecca, the owner of the White Door, stood like an instructor, waiting for Sydney to begin. Whispers of Claire’s beautiful long hair and Sydney’s untested abilities floated around like dust motes.

“Do you trust me?” Sydney asked as she pumped up the chair after she’d washed Claire’s hair.

Claire met her sister’s eyes in the mirror. “Yes,” she said.

Sydney turned her around, away from the mirror.

Over the next few minutes, Claire’s hair felt lighter and lighter as wet chunks of dark hair fell onto the smock she was wearing, looking like thin strips of molasses candy. Every so often, Rebecca would ask Sydney a question and Sydney would answer confidently, using words like
beveled cut
and
wisps of bangs
. Claire didn’t understand what it meant. It made her think of bevel-cut crystal bowls and wisps of steam rising from curried rice.

When Sydney finally turned the chair back around, the people around her applauded.