Mind Your Own Beeswax (2 page)

My name is Story Fischer, christened Melissa at birth and called Missy until friends and family gave me my more colorful moniker based loosely on my ability to fabricate convincing tales. For the record, I never told outright blatant lies. They were more like enhanced embellishments. But I
had
walked a fine line between fact and fiction.

I like to think I’ve outgrown that trait.

At thirty-four years old, I’m trying more for dignified and classy, since I’m a recent divorcée with a ticking clock. But who’s paying attention to age and time? I say to myself often, sometimes sarcastically, other times with more of a moan.

Thank God I was alone at the moment, because I lost my grasp on that dignified and classy thing. It was impossible to watch the rough ground I was running along
and
keep an eye on the honeybees in the air at the same time. I tripped over an obstacle, which turned out to be a fallen branch, and took a header, landing flat out, face-first, before raising up in what a yoga student would call the cobra pose. The swarm of bees crossed the Oconomowoc River. Then they vanished from sight.

From what I gathered after studying volumes of informational resources I collected and referenced often, my bees would find a place to hang out in foliage until worker bees prepared the perfect spot, most likely in the hollow of a tree. Before that happened, I had to find and corral them back to the beeyard, but this time into a larger, roomier home. They belonged in my backyard where I raised honeybees and bottled honey products with my own custom label, “Queen Bee Honey.”

This swarm of honeybees didn’t know it, but their chances of surviving in the wild without my help ranged from zero to none. Something bad would get them for sure—mites, diseases, predators, starvation, hosts of dangers awaited them if they didn’t come to their senses. As usual, I had to do their major survival thinking for them. In return, they supplied all kinds of honey products and a decent profit. What a great partnership. Usually, anyway. When they behaved themselves.

I didn’t have any more time to invest in my jailbreaking bees, though, because I was due back at my store, The Wild Clover. I had taken only a few minutes to walk the two blocks to my house to grab lunch when the traitorous flight occurred. Just my luck, the bees would have to cause trouble on Saturday, my busiest day. The Wild Clover happened to be the only grocery store in Moraine, Wisconsin, and a successful one at that. It specializes in local products and produce as well as more common staples that bring in regular customers. One-stop shopping was my ongoing goal.

My store’s shelves were well stocked with Wisconsin-made brats and sausages, fresh-picked rhubarb, watercress, fiddlehead ferns, maple syrup, my honey products, coffees, wines, cheeses, and Danish kringles—Wisconsin’s exclusive, wonderful pastries composed of flaky dough rolled out thin, filled with fruit and nuts, baked, and frosted. Delicious.

I got to my feet, wearing only one of the flip-flops, found the other, shuffled into it, and assessed the damage to my body and spirit. None really, if you didn’t count being outsmarted by flying insects.

“You have dirt on the side of your face,” my cousin and part-time helper Carrie Ann Retzlaff said when I walked in the door of The Wild Clover. “And stuff in your hair, like branches. That was some long lunch. What happened? You look like you’ve been rolling around in the hay.”

She plucked a twig from my hair and gave me a smirky, knowing grin. Carrie Ann was referring to the recent handholding I’d been doing with Hunter Wallace. He’d been my boyfriend in high school, then not my boyfriend for lots of years. Now? Well, maybe again. As usual, I was in a major state of relationship confusion, a condition I’d displayed most of my dating/married/divorced life.

My cousin grinned. “Come on, share. What kept you so long and who sent you back looking like this?”

“Nothing happened,” I said. “At least nothing worth talking about and certainly not anything hot and sexy.” I hurried to the back storage room, which also served as my office and break room. There, I put myself back together before returning to the checkout counter to take over for Carrie Ann.

My cousin was thin as a honey stick, with spiky yellow hair and an equally thorny drinking problem that came and went at random intervals. Currently, it was gone. I could tell by her work attendance. She was actually showing up on time and doing her job without botching most of it. When dealing with an alcoholic employee who happens to also be a family member—and at times more a charity case than anything else—small steps that everybody else takes for granted are monster accomplishments.

Because of Carrie Ann’s drinking, she’d lost her husband, Gunnar, and her two children. But recently Gunnar had noticed her progress and her continued improvement, and he was letting her see the kids every other Sunday as long as she was sober and supervised. We were all keeping our fingers crossed that this time she would make it the whole nine yards for one last, game-winning touchdown.

By
we
I meant pretty much everybody in town, since our community was too small not to notice things like my cousin’s ongoing battle with booze. But my immediate family was especially watchful. That included my sister, Holly, who owned half of The Wild Clover thanks to a financial bailout during my divorce, my grandmother—aka Grams—and me. My mother, who couldn’t charm a starving dog with a meaty bone, doesn’t believe people can change for the better. Worse, yes. Better, no way. Her philosophy shows in the wrinkles in her forehead and the sour expression on her face. The lines around Mom’s mouth are permanently turned down. Holly says that only happened after our father had a massive heart attack five years ago and died before the paramedics arrived. I say they’ve always been there.

My sister tends to border on delusionally optimistic.

“Holly called in.” Carrie Ann thought to tell me this after I’d already looked down several aisles without finding my sister. “She’ll be late again.”

Figures. Working shifts with Holly was always dicey. But I still had the twins, Brent and Trent, who took as many hours at the store as their college classes allowed. I could see Trent stocking a new shipment of Wisconsin artisan cheeses at the far end of aisle three and Brent was helping a customer select a Door County wine.

I used my cell phone to call Holly. No answer.

“I was hoping you could stay,” I said to Carrie Ann, thinking of the honeybees I’d lost and how I had to reclaim them before their collective brain signaled a move to parts unknown. They tended to operate like robots taking commands from some cloaked mother ship we mere humans couldn’t see.

“Sorry,” my cousin said, slinging a purse over her shoulder, a sure sign she was leaving no matter what I said or how hard I begged. “I have a meeting.”

Which is what she said every time she wanted to get out of additional work or responsibility. That woman had more AA meetings than breaks during her short shifts at The Wild Clover, and that was saying a lot.

“Okay,” I said, resigned, since anything that kept my cousin focused on sobriety had to come first. “See you tomorrow. Or is tomorrow one of your Sundays with the kids?” I hadn’t checked the schedule, which I should stay more on top of. Holly took care of that bothersome chore, but since all real responsibility fell to me I needed to have my fingers on the store’s pulse more than anybody else.

“No, this isn’t my weekend to see them,” Carrie Ann said. “I wish Gunnar would loosen up a bit more.”

“He’s coming around,” I said. “A few months ago, he wouldn’t let you see them at all.”

Carrie Ann looked forlorn at the moment, but she was a survivor and never let anything get her down for long.

After she left, I looked around the store and sighed with contentment.

The building had been an abandoned church with a “For Sale” sign out front for the longest time. Until I had the idea for a market, bought the building, and gutted the interior, leaving the fine maple floors and stained-glass windows, front, rear, and overhead. After a coat of fresh paint and installing shelving units, coolers, and carefully selected stock, the store opened.

The great thing about working at The Wild Clover on a daily basis was the interesting and diverse relationships I developed with my customers. They took an active interest in me and my life, and I reciprocated. It felt good to know so many people cared.

The bad thing about being a permanent fixture at the store was that, along with the good people—most of them fit into that category—came the few that I wouldn’t tolerate if given a choice. Unfortunately, personal selection wasn’t an option as a business owner.

I’d known many of my customers my whole life, and it made me feel like I was part of a huge family. Like my dentist, T. J. Schmidt, and his wife, Ali, who came in for groceries.

T. J. Schmidt had it made, according to the pecking rules of our small town. He had been a local kid at a time when Moraine wasn’t much to look at, then he had gone off to college, which wasn’t a big deal since most of us did. But he’d continued to take advanced studies and actually brought a wallful of certificates back home to put his new skills into practice. Most others who had followed professional paths hadn’t returned, probably thinking they’d be wasting their talents in such a small place.

T. J. was a local boy in his heart and he’d be one until he went to his grave.

Of course, most of his incentive to come back had to do with his wife, since they’d been an item throughout high school and beyond, and Ali liked small-town living just as much as he did.

“Did you remember you have an appointment Monday?” T. J. reminded me. He had one of those pudgy ageless faces, with the coloring and complexion of a newborn.

I nodded. “And I bet you’ll come find me if I happen to mentally block that painful fact out of my mind.”

T. J. laughed because what I said was so true. Nobody got out of cleanings, fillings, and root canals while he was around. “I’ll be gentle,” he said. “You won’t feel a thing. I promise.” And with that big fib, he headed down aisle four where I could see him chatting up customers.

“We just stocked fresh rhubarb,” I said to Ali, knowing she loved the stuff. And off she went.

The other side of the coin—the bad part of such a public life, far removed from any warm and fuzzy family feeling—the forced-to-tolerate, dark side came strutting in shortly afterward. She was a daily shopper. Wouldn’t you know it? That type always is.

“I’m having a horrible time selling your ex-husband’s house,” Lori Spandle said, wearing a certain look of wide-eyed self-interest that screamed
Insincere Salesperson
. Or maybe I thought that because I knew her phony-baloney side only too well.

“That’s too bad,” I said with matching concern.

“Nobody wants to live next to a head case.”

“Thanks, Lori,” I said. My ex’s house was next door to mine. “I appreciate the term of endearment. Your kindness knows no bounds.”

Lori Spandle, besides being our only real estate agent, had slept with my husband. Not that I should have cared, since we had been separated at the time and no way was I going back to
that
jerk. But Lori was married to the town chairman and shouldn’t have been messing around at all. That particular fidelity rule was number one in my personal book of marriage code, conduct my husband hadn’t bothered upholding through our entire marriage—something I only found out much later.

Lori was also a year younger than me and had been after every guy I’d ever dated or even considered dating since middle school. With those big boobs, she’d had her share of successes, too.

“You have all kinds of other places to keep those bees,” Lori said. “They don’t have to be in your backyard where the entire town has to endure the menaces. They’re ruining my business.”

I couldn’t stop the wide grin I felt crossing my face. Wasn’t that a shame? “Patti Dwyre doesn’t seem to mind my bees,” I said, “and she lives right next door to me, too. Neither does Aurora at Moraine Gardens across the street.”

“Aurora lives in some kind of alternate reality. She doesn’t count.”

“Are you here to shop or did you stop by just to complain?”

“Just wanted you to know what kind of problems you’re causing for property values in this town.” With that she flounced down aisle one to squeeze fruit and eat grapes.

What Lori said was true about me having other options for my beeyard. Grams owned a lot of country acreage, and not too long ago when the town was debating banning my bees, I hid them there for safekeeping. After that issue blew over and my honey business expanded, I moved the hives back into my backyard where I could keep a better eye on them.

Besides, one thing people don’t realize is that honeybees do as well and sometimes better in towns and cities where they have more diverse nectar sources and longer flowering seasons. Especially with Moraine Gardens right across the street from where I lived. All those wonderful native species blooming throughout the season. That was like bee heaven.

For the next half hour I worked the register without even a pause. After that, I had a breather—time to look around The Wild Clover with my usual pride and joy. Sales had been climbing steadily ever since day one, thanks to word of mouth, loyal customers, and my honeybee side business, which most visitors and residents really appreciated. Plus, I constantly worked on coming up with new, innovative ideas.

Like the beeswax candle-making class coming up at three o’clock this afternoon in the basement of The Wild Clover, where former church members had at one time congregated for fellowship. I was thrilled to bring my version of fellowship back to the space.

Weekends in Moraine are busy as long as the weather holds, which is always a new adventure in southern Wisconsin where I live. Today was bright and sunny, although the air was still a little crisp. Our unincorporated town boasted a cozy library, a frozen-custard shop, Stu’s Bar and Grill, an antique store, Moraine Gardens, and The Wild Clover, home to Wisconsin-made goodies. The town also sat along a rustic road where tourists could take in some pretty spectacular landscapes—quaint towns, rolling hills, and a boatload of lakes and rivers. Some of our visitors discovered they could put their kayaks in the Oconomowoc River at the dead end by my house and paddle up and down the river. The scenery was all woods, ridges, and marshes.