First Frost

  Evanelle and Fred went everywhere together now, and most people referred to them as a single entity, EvanelleandFred, which tickled Evanelle.

  “Evanelle, I didn’t know you were coming by!” Claire couldn’t leave the pot, but she wanted to go hug her. Evanelle was like a favorite story she didn’t want to end. She’d known Evanelle, a distant Waverley cousin, most all her life. Her childhood memories were full of strange gifts Evanelle would give her that Claire would always need later, and of how Evanelle and Grandmother Mary would sit in the kitchen and share stories and laugh. It was the only time Grandmother Mary ever laughed, with Evanelle.

  Evanelle’s health had been declining lately, and every time Claire saw her she seemed smaller, like she was slowly burning away and soon Claire would hug her and step back with only ash in her hands.

  “I have something to give you,” Evanelle said, holding up a paper bag. “It came to me the other night.”

  “Would you like some coffee?” Claire asked Evanelle and Fred. “I can get Bay to make some. I don’t think her mind’s on candy today, anyway.” Bay had been staring at her shoes, a slight smile on her lips, but looked up, blushing, when Claire said that.

  “No, that’s okay,” Evanelle said. “We were just on a drive and thought we’d stop by. Fred said I needed to get out of the house for a little while, that I needed airing out.”

  “I never said that,” Fred said.

  “Okay, I added the airing-out part,” Evanelle amended.

  “How was your doctor’s appointment last week?” Claire asked.

  “He gave me some bad news. I’m old.”

  That made Buster laugh. He walked over to Claire and took the spoon from her. “I’ll take care of this. You visit with Evanelle.”

  Claire lifted off her apron, then took the bag from Evanelle, finally getting to hug her. She smelled like Fred’s cologne, which always amused Claire. Evanelle said it was just because she spent so much time with him, but Fred and Claire had a theory that she would dab some on her neck when Fred wasn’t looking. She always said she liked the way men smelled. “Come to the sitting room with me, Evanelle. Bay, you come, too.”

  “Stay here and talk with Buster,” Evanelle told Fred when he started to follow them. She took her portable oxygen purse from him and stage-whispered, “He’s a cute one. You should flirt with him.”

  “Evanelle!” Fred said. “He works for me at my market!”

  “I’m just saying it can’t hurt. You’re a little rusty.”

  “I’m currently in a short-term relationship with someone in my bread class, but you can practice on me,” Buster said. “I don’t mind.”

  Fred clasped his hands behind his back awkwardly, not looking at all happy. “So this is what you do before you come to work at the market in the evenings,” Fred said, eyeing Buster warily. “You said you couldn’t work afternoons for religious reasons.”

  “Candy is my religion.”

  Claire led Evanelle out of the kitchen. Once in the sitting room, Bay went to the window and stared out as Claire sat beside Evanelle on the couch. As small as Evanelle was becoming, her large tote bag containing things like paper clips and plastic flowers and red ribbon and vinegar, all things she might feel the need to give someone, seemed huge now in comparison, like it was now carrying her. She set her tote bag and portable oxygen on the floor with a sigh.

  It seemed like just yesterday the old woman was energetically walking around the college track every morning, ogling fine male posteriors, then stopping by for coffee and cake here at the Waverley house. That was before the Year Everything Changed, when Claire met Tyler, when Sydney came home, when Fred moved in with Evanelle. Claire wouldn’t trade her life now for anything, but sometimes she thought fondly of that time before. Things had been so much simpler, clearer, than they were these days.

  “Go on,” Evanelle said, pointing to the paper bag. “Open it.”

  Claire opened it and pulled out an old wooden-handled spatula.

  “That belonged to your grandmother Mary,” Evanelle said. “She gave it to me one of the times she tried to show me how to cook. When she was younger, she didn’t want anyone to compete with her in the kitchen, even though she was so talented no one could compare. She was mesmerizing, wasn’t she? The way she would pour and stir and chop. It was like music. She even danced to it, remember?”

  Claire smiled, staring at the spatula. “I remember.”

  “In her later years, she didn’t mind so much, sharing what she knew. I think it was a little vanity on her side. She wanted to pass her gift along, so she would be remembered. But I didn’t care for cooking, so she liked having you in the kitchen with her, to teach. I had a dream about Mary the other night. I knew I had to give that spatula to you.”

  “Thank you, Evanelle. I’m sure it will come in handy,” Claire said, though she knew it wouldn’t, not right now, with all this candy. Maybe later, when everything calmed down. “You know, I was thinking recently, why didn’t Grandmother Mary ever do anything big with her talent? Why did she keep it at the back door?”

  “Mary didn’t do big because it would have been too much work,” Evanelle said with a smile. “She just wasn’t motivated. She liked when things were easy.”

  “So she never thought she needed to prove anything?” Claire asked. Like me.

  Evanelle’s eyes, magnified by her glasses, blinked twice, as if a memory had suddenly come to her. “I wouldn’t say that. She had her share of insecurities, especially after her husband left.”

  “But she never cared what people thought of her,” Claire said. “She was confident in what she could do, right?”

  Evanelle shook her head. “She thought too much about what other people thought. That’s why she became such a homebody.”

  Claire was skirting around what she really wanted to ask: But her gift was real, wasn’t it? Not some hoodoo she used to trick locals into thinking she could affect their emotions by using flowers from her garden? Not something she kept small, because her secret could stay small that way?

  But she didn’t ask. It would sound ludicrous, and it might even offend Evanelle and Bay, two of the most clearly gifted people she knew. Of course Waverley gifts were real. At least, theirs were.

  Evanelle looked over at Bay, silhouetted in the window. “How’s your mama, Bay? I need to make an appointment with her to get a perm.” Evanelle patted her frizzy gray hair.

  Bay turned and smiled at Evanelle. “She’s fine.”

  “Bay went to her first Halloween dance on Saturday night,” Claire told Evanelle. “She dressed as Grandmother Mary. She wore one of the old dresses from Grandmother Mary’s fairy picnics. We found some old photos. Why don’t you go get them, Bay?”

  Bay left the room and went upstairs.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Evanelle leaned over and whispered in her loud nonwhisper.

  Claire turned to make sure Bay was already up the stairs before she said, “She’s in love, and her mother isn’t happy about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s Josh Matteson.”

  “Hoo-boy,” Evanelle said. “He’s a cute one. But that’s tough luck for her. Mattesons and Waverleys have never been a good combination.”

  “I know,” Claire said unhappily as Bay brought the shoe box downstairs and handed it to Claire, then went back to the window.

  “I remember these,” Evanelle said as she and Claire went through the box. “Your grandmother was so pretty. All these men loved her. They were her boarders. She had a waiting list a mile long.” Evanelle hesitated when she saw one photo. She took it out of the box and held it up. “There’s Karl. Never thought I’d see him again.”

  “Who is he?”

  Evanelle made a clicking sound with her false teeth. “He’s your grandfather. Didn’t you know that? Mary got rid of him when she was pregnant with your mama. Cheating son of a gun. She was never the same after that. He changed her.”

  “Changed her? How?”
Claire took the photo from her and looked at it. Karl was standing outside the garden gate. There were apples at his feet, as if the apple tree had been throwing them at him. He was smiling, his hands in the pockets of his striped suit. He looked jaunty and a little smug. As many times as she’d seen this photo over the years, finding the box of photos always when looking for something else, she’d never known.

  “People like us will never really understand,” Evanelle said. “We fell in love with the men we were supposed to be with right off the bat. But women with broken hearts, they change.”

  Evanelle took a few deep breaths through the tubing at her nose. A slightly alarmed expression came over her face, the way she always looked these days when she thought she’d been out too long and might run out of oxygen.

  “I should go home. Fred?” Evanelle called in an airy voice.

  In a few steps he was there, as if he’d been waiting close by. “I’m here.”

  “Did that boy teach you a thing or two?” Evanelle asked as she stood.

  Fred took the portable oxygen tank from her. “Evanelle, I’m forty years older than he is.”

  “I’m just saying you need practice.”

  Claire set the photos and the spatula aside, then she and Fred walked Evanelle to the front door. The air was as sharp and cool as lime ice when they stepped onto the porch, and they all stopped with the invigorating shock of it.

  “It’s getting colder,” Evanelle said, pulling her fuzzy black coat up around her neck. “First frost should be here soon.”

  “On Saturday, according to the almanac,” Claire said. “Halloween. I’ve been going out to check the tree every day. I think it’s almost ready.”

  “Are you going to have a party?” Evanelle asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I can’t wait. You know, I’m a little antsy this year.” Evanelle shivered. “I don’t know why. Have you had any unexpected visitors?”

  “No,” Claire said. “Why?”

  “Autumn winds bring strangers. That’s what my daddy used to say. He wasn’t a Waverley. He was a Nuguet. Nuguets know their weather,” Evanelle said as Claire and Fred helped her down the front steps and into Fred’s Buick, parked at the sidewalk.

  “I worry about her,” Fred said, once they’d gotten her inside the car and closed the door.

  “I know you do,” Claire said, folding her arms across her chest against the chill. “She’s getting a little off track. But still doing great for eighty-nine.”

  “I don’t know what I’ll do without her,” Fred said pensively. “It’s like I miss her already.”

  Claire waved good-bye and waited until the car was out of sight before finally going back inside. Bay was still at the window and followed her to the kitchen.

  “It’s about a boy,” Buster announced when they entered.

  Claire looked at Bay, who had just washed her hands and was putting on clear plastic disposable gloves to funnel the hard candies into jars. “You told him?” Claire asked with surprise.

  “She didn’t have to,” Buster said, shaking his head. “I always know when it’s about a boy.”

  “You know that old man in the gray suit I saw a few days ago?” Bay said, changing the subject quickly. “I just saw him again when I was standing at the window.”

  9

  “Mr. Zahler?”

  There was a small tap at his door that night, and Russell’s eyes flew open. He was lying on the bed in his room in the inn. Only a single bedside lamp was on, cutting through the soft, warm darkness like a moonbeam. It was one thirty in the morning. The digital radio that came with the room was playing something light and classical. He didn’t know much about music. Most of his life, his ears had been stuffed with the tinny sounds of carnival rides. But this was nice. It had lulled him to sleep when he’d only meant to nap for a while before meeting Anne in the kitchen at midnight for food, as had become their custom.

  He slowly rose, his joints popping. He took his old magician’s robe from where he’d carefully laid it at the bottom of the bed and put it on to cover his old pajamas as he walked to the door.

  Anne Ainsley was standing in the hallway, holding a plate that contained chicken salad, potato chips and a pickle. She had a cold, unopened can of beer in her other hand. “For when you get hungry,” she said, handing him the plate and drink.

  She wasn’t upset that he’d stood her up for their midnight meeting. Hers was a life that accepted disappointment as inevitable. She was bored, and he entertained her. It was her curious streak that had led her up here with the plate she’d prepared for him, nothing more. She’d been drawn to his door to find out what was wrong. Perhaps she thought she might find him dead in his bed. That would certainly give her the excitement she was looking for. He wondered if she would mourn him, if that happened, if she would feel genuine sadness.

  He wondered if anyone would, which was a new thought to him, and he took a moment to examine its weight and its edges. He didn’t like this new thought, he decided, yet seemed incapable of tossing it away.

  “Please, Anne, call me Russell,” he said as he took the things from her. “I’m terribly sorry. I must have fallen asleep.”

  “You’re tired. You’ve been doing a lot of walking lately,” she said. “Listen, I’m sorry to remind you, but the original reservation for this room, the one I canceled for you, is through Friday. New guests are coming in that day for the room. They’re regulars who come every year, so I can’t cancel without my brother hearing about it from them.”

  “I understand,” he said genially. “Truthfully, I wasn’t planning to stay this long, but I found I enjoyed the company. I’ll be gone by Friday, for sure.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked, leaning against the doorjamb.

  All he wanted to do was go back to that soft, warm bed. But, don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and all that jazz. “Florida. I spend my winters there every year.”

  She smiled. The lipstick she’d just applied was smeared on her yellow front teeth. “That sounds nice.”

  Nice wasn’t what he would call it. “It’s warm, at least.”

  “It was unusually hot for October around here before you came. I guess you brought the cold with you,” she joked.

  “That’s not the first time someone has said that to me.”

  She laughed, then looked down the hall, afraid she might have woken the other guests, asleep in the night.

  “Anne, you’ve made this old man more comfortable than he expected to be here. Your kindness has not gone unnoticed. Thank you,” he said, politely telling her to go away.

  “You’re welcome, Russell,” she said, as he closed the door on her.

  The fact that she’d been snooping in his room when he was out had not gone unnoticed, either, but he didn’t mention that. He always kept a strand of hair draped over his folded clothes, a strand from a long, blond lock that one of the peep-show girls named Bountiful Belinda had given him. It was his way of telling if someone had been looking through his things. Anne had been meticulous about putting things back, except for the strand of hair.

  And, of course, the Great Banditi flyer she’d taken.

  He kept waiting for her to put it back, not because it was dangerous for her to know who he was, but because he only had those three flyers left. They were his only mementos of his carnival days, along with his deck of tarot cards, his hypnotizing crystal and his robe. He had his memories, of course, both good and bad, and he never forgot anything, his mind like a movie on a screen, constantly running. But it was nice to have things he could touch, too, things that reminded him that it had all been real. The line between real and story was a very, very thin one sometimes.

  He walked back to his bed and sat on the edge. He put the plate on his lap and ate, enjoying each bite.

  Five days, he thought with wonder. He’d been here five days.

  Two days—in and out—was how it used to be. He’d been quicker back then, after he’d left the carniv
al. The stakes had been higher back then, too. He’d had bigger marks and there’d been more money involved, so leaving quickly had been a necessity. These days he was strictly small-time. He had fewer files, and they were worth less money, so the sense of urgency was almost gone. Food was his main motivating factor these days. Food, and a soft place to sleep.

  Luck had been with him when he’d met skinny, sneaky Anne Ainsley. He hadn’t realized how tired he’d been until he had this pillow-top, queen-sized bed to sleep in. The purple room was quiet and luxurious and he felt almost … dare he say it? Safe here.

  Which meant he had to leave. Anyone who had ever worked the carnival circuit in his day knew that feeling safe meant sloppy, and sloppy led to bad things.

  So he would get money from Claire Waverley, and be on his way.

  Florida was waiting.

  The campground where he spent his winters was called the Circus Tent, a place where retired circus performers who were down on their luck could stay for a few months at a time and get free meals and medical care. It had been founded by a former circus performer who had struck it rich later in life. It was for old circus and freak-show folks, mainly, but carnies were welcome, too. Only a few from Sir Walter Trott’s group were left. Russell would see a barker or a mechanic from the old crew every once in a while down there, and they’d smile and nod at one another. They all knew what had happened to the original Banditi in that field in Arkansas. A lifetime of keeping tabs on people, stockpiling secrets until he could make a buck or two off them, and yet the one secret that could ruin him everyone else kept.

  Sometimes it’s difficult to tell what side of the moral compass we are all on. There are so many things to factor in.

  No one knew what the original Banditi’s real name had been. Rumor had it that he’d been there from the start, at the Chicago World’s Fair. His skin had been as tough as leather and he’d had one glass eye, but he’d been oddly handsome in an exotic way. He’d been a big draw for the ladies, who had liked when he leaned in close to get secret clues about them, what they’d last eaten, what tiny initials were engraved on their lockets. He’d always given them just enough for them to believe he really was a seer, then he told them what they all wanted to hear: that their futures were filled with jewels and beautiful children.