The Biscuit Witch

  Doug had gone completely still, body and spirit; his gaze was focused intensely on my face. He stroked a thumb over my brow then over the tears seeping from the corners of my eyes. “How old were you?” he asked gruffly.

  “About six, I think. Gabby was eight. Gus was twelve.” I blinked rapidly, trying to fan the tears away. “This is why I didn’t want to talk about it. I knew it would ruin this lovely night. One of the best nights of my life.”

  “Mine, too. Ssssh. And nothing’s ruined. In fact, it’s even better, now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because now I understand why you look so sad to me sometimes and why you have such a kindness of manner about you. You bring out something in people that’s special. Something in me that makes me better than I was.” He bent his head beside mine, lowering the full weight of his chest onto my breasts. He whispered to me in Gaelic, his tone hungry, his emphasis very specific. I didn’t need a translator to understand the message. When he drew back to study my reaction, he obviously liked what he saw. “You’ve gone all pink,” he said. He moved inside me, hardening. “And you feel wonderfully pink elsewhere, too.”

  I drew him down to me.

  Whatever you are, be a good one

  I WAS LUCKY to have had a father who loved my mother and vice versa. Lucky to have a sister and brother who would always be there for me. Lucky to have a daughter I liked as well as loved and who liked/loved me in return.

  Lucky to have finally found a man I admired, respected, liked, and could not imagine leaving.

  But what if I had to?

  Brooding about the unknown future, I roamed Doug’s house the next morning, pretending it was my home, too. I straightened and dusted. I polished and swept. Then I baked until there was no flour left, a few ounces of milk, and only one egg. Wheat bread, an apple pie, oatmeal cookies, pumpkin bread, yeast rolls and, of course, biscuits. It dawned on me that I was filling his pantry with memories of me. A substitute.

  Doug had gone out the door at six a.m., whistling and kissing me goodbye. He’d be back at mid-morning to drive Eve and I to the café for the day. Our wonderful night had transitioned smoothly into a comfortable family morning. I never wanted it to end.

  Armed with a stethoscope Doug had given her, Eve was checking heartbeats on the pigs. Then she prodded their snouts and solemnly told them, “I need to look at your throats. Say ‘Oink.’” I watched her feed Teasel a crayon snack, and that’s when it hit me. She was happier than I’d ever seen her before. What would it do to her to go back to New York? What if Mark fought for shared custody and won?

  I sat down at the kitchen table with a second scrapbook Doug had given me. I browsed more articles about Clapper bicycles and looked at old photos Doug had collected with the help of Pike Whittlespoon’s elderly uncle. I saw the years go by quickly; the sepia give way to Kodachrome, the clothing changed from victorian to modern. Beards vanished, women’s hair grew shorter, their skirts grew shorter and slimmer, too; they wore cloche hats and showed their ankles.

  But always at the center of it all, with his trademark handlebar mustache, was Arlo Claptraddle. And nearby, if not right next to him, was the redhead, no doubt the one who’d inspired that rose-waving image on the mosaic. I was betting the Spinning Rose bicycle was named after her. I searched for her name but couldn’t find one. I did, however, find the name, and photo, of Arlo’s wife.

  The former Dorothy Seymour of Savannah, Georgia attends the Governor’s Ball in Raleigh, 1926. Known to her friends as “Dot,” Mrs. Osserman is active in fundraising and can often be found hosting parties in Savannah’s historic Seymour mansion, as well as at the Osserman estate in Raleigh. Her husband, Samuel Arlo Osserman, is a noted inventor and manufacturer.

  Samuel Arlo Ossserman? Arlo Claptraddle’s real name?

  Dot Osserman was small, pretty, elegant, and dark-haired. As I read more articles about her society schedules, one thing became clear in a hurry: Dot spent a lot of her time somewhere besides these mountains.

  I went to Doug’s office and retrieved the first scrapbook then spread both it and the other one open on the table. I began skimming, looking for clues to the mystery. Where did Rose fit in? Each time I spotted her in a photograph, I noted the year. She hadn’t appeared in these chronicles of Free Wheeler until the late nineteen thirties.

  A year or two before she was immortalized in the mosaic.

  I turned a page, and there she was ten years later, in a yellowed color snapshot from 1947, not as part of a crowd, but this time . . . just her and Arlo, surrounded by fat dogs and cats . . . sitting together on the . . . the front steps of this house. Someone had scrawled ROSE DOOLEY, ARLO’S COOK AND HOUSEKEEPER across her legs.

  Ping. Something was familiar. Not just the house, but in their faces. He was much older than she, starting to go gray. Something sad had begun to lurk in his eyes. The younger Arlo had looked exuberant, always smiling. This Arlo looked worried. No surprise. The Depression and World War Two hadn’t been good for the bicycle business. In fact, during the war he’d shut down. Materials were scarce. Metal, rubber—all went to the factories building tanks, airplanes, guns. People even sold their kitchen grease. The glycerin in it was needed for bombs.

  Rose Dooley looked . . . young. Comfortable. Down to Earth. She wore dungarees, a plaid shirt, and an apron. Her elbows rested on her aproned knees, and her hands floated in the air between them. Her hair was plaited over one shoulder. She leaned just a little toward him, and he toward her. They sat at least a foot apart, but body language, as I’d proved to Doug more than once last night, speaks louder than words.

  Exactly what did she do with her glycerin?

  An absentee wife from high society. A young mountain girl who came to work for a fascinating older man—a quirky inventor with a big, lonely house—and bed—to fill. Hmmm.

  “Whatcha lookin’ at, Mommy? You’re puckered.”

  Puckered was our word for frowning.

  I sat back, relaxing my squint of gossipy concentration. “There. Now I’m un-puckered.” I started to suggest we explore The Hub again. She sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor with the pigs, Teasel, Leo, Fanny, Peaches and Bebe all sprawled around her. Her red hair trailed over one shoulder in a braid. She toyed with the stethoscope. Her hands finally settled on the knees of her jeans, lighting there briefly, like restless butterflies.

  Ping.

  “You’re puckering up again,” she said.

  “Do me a favor? Go get one of your books, and let’s do Reading Time.”

  “Yay!” She was up and out the kitchen door in a flash, trailed by her menagerie.

  I pulled Doug’s cell phone from my jeans’ pocket, held the phone over the photo of Rose Dooley and Arlo, and snapped a picture. Then I texted it to Gabby in L.A. with the message:

  WILL EXPLAIN LATER. DOES SHE LOOK FAMILIAR? P.S. WE’RE OKAY. I’M IN LOVE. TALK SOON.

  Suddenly I realized it was only seven a.m. there.

  I face-palmed. Gabby worked very late nights. Once again, I’d demonstrated the unending flakiness of Baby Sisterhood.

  No. Not just no, this time, but Hell, No. I saw myself through Doug’s eyes, now. Biscuit Witch, Cupcake Therapist, Mother Who Fights Off Pre-Diabetic Bears. A grown woman who had given herself wholeheartedly to a wonderful man. A man who had given himself to me.

  I earned Doug. I deserved Doug.

  I started to text Gabby again, a pre-emptive strike, something on the order of:

  I KNOW IT’S EARLY THERE BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT.

  My phone buzzed. I stared at the text from Gabby:

  WHERE DID U GET PIX OF GRANDMA WITH SAM OSSERMAN?

  The dogs began to bark. “Mommy!” Eve bounded past the doorway to the front hall. Her entourage galloped after her. “Somebody’s coming! Maybe Doug’s home early!”

  “Go out
side on the porch and see if it’s him. Come back and tell me.”

  “Okay!”

  I texted back:

  GRNDMA? REALLY?

  She answered:

  THAT’S HER—FRM PIX MAMA HAD. I’VE GOT IT. BUT NOT SAM. JUST HER.

  I texted:

  YOU KNEW SAM O?

  She replied:

  OLD SAM WS OUR NEIGHBOR IN WEST ASHVL. HE PAID OUR WAY TO CALIFORNIA.

  Typing feverishly, I texted:

  SAM WAS THE ONE WHO HELPED US RUN AWAY?

  YES. VERY OLD. FRAIL. BIG MUSTACHE. RODE BICYCLES.

  I sat there, open-mouthed, stunned.

  WE HV 2 TALK. I CALL YOU RIGHT NOW:

  She answered:

  CAN’T. I HAD BAD NITE, JMM CRASHED MY CATERING JOB. DON’T BELIEVE WHT U HEAR ON TMZ THIS A.M. I DID NOT STAB HIM WITH PICKLE FORK OK? IT WAS ACCIDENT. SOMEONE GOT ME OUT ON BAIL. MYSTERY FRIEND. MORE NEWS SOON.

  “Mommy!” Eve rushed back, her face pale. “It’s not Doug. It’s a lot of men in a car. They look mean.”

  Showdown at Free Wheeler

  “DOC, YOU’RE not always the most cheerful hoss in the barn, you know? So what I want to know is this.” Burly Evers runs a herd of Jersey milk cows; he and his wife sell cow cheese to gourmet restaurants in Asheville. He pulled the pipe out of his beard hole and pointed the stem at me. “Are you on anti-depressors?”

  I grinned as I finished loading my gear and shut the truck’s compartment. “I’ve found the woman I want to marry.”

  Burly turned and bellowed at the pre-fab metal building where his wife, Gilda, and their daughters, Burl-Ann and Gilda Louise, were curdling a new tub of raw moo. Since the day was sunny and sixty degrees, they had a screened window open. “Gilda baby! Bring the doc a gift for his future wife-to-be!”

  A good deal of whooping came from inside the building followed by a rush of large, round-faced female-hood dressed in white jumpsuits, rubber galoshes, and hairnets. After much hugging and back-patting, they handed me one of the kudzu-vine baskets they used for their gift sets at Turtleville’s only wine shop, coffee bar, and “mountain tapas” café. In the basket were prettily wrapped blocks of cheese mixed with various herbs. Rosemary Cheese and Mint Cheese and Wild Dandelion Cheese, which was my personal favorite even though it always made me want to mow the yard.

  Gilda sent her daughters back inside then pulled another block from the pocket of her jumpsuit. “Special blend,” she said, winking. “Save it for nighttime when you and your lady don’t gotta drive nowhere.”

  Burly hooted. I thanked them but stored that one in the truck’s refrigerator behind a box of worming meds. The first time I ate the Special Blend cheese I spent an evening combing Leo and trying to count all the hairs on his ears. Five hundred twenty-three on the left ear; four thirty-nine on the right.

  I climbed in my truck, waved to the Evers and their cows, and headed down their dirt road to the Asheville Trace. I had one more stop to make then I could head home for a couple of hours. Later that afternoon, I had a worming gig at an angus beef cattle farm outside Turtleville. Tal and Eve wanted to go with me on that one. What a woman! What a girl!

  My cell phone beeped. I thumbed the controls. When Eve’s frightened voice came out of the dashboard speaker, I stomped on the brake. “Mommy told me to stay in your office with the door locked and not make a peep, but Aunt Alberta said that when scary men come to see your mommy it’s okay to call an adult and tell them about it, and a whole bunch of scary men are in the yard with Mommy . . .”

  Five seconds later I was roaring toward home while phoning everyone in the neighborhood to see which of us could get to Free Wheeler the fastest.

  Let go of what you can’t change

  MARK HAD SENT an offer. And reinforcements. The duo from the first night now had three assistants, all of whom were large, muscled, and unsmiling.

  “I’m listening,” I said as calmly as possible, while my stomach churned.

  The five of us stood in the front yard by their rental car. They’d wanted to come inside but changed their minds after I threatened to let the dogs out. “Inside this house are two pit bulls who don’t like strangers in general and men in particular.” Plus a really passive-aggressive little goat. “If you take one step toward the veranda, I’ll let them out.”

  I prayed they’d believe me. Peaches and Bebe had been thoroughly detoxed by Doug’s gentle care and training. They’d probably charge out here and stage a violent hand-licking. I’d have better luck ordering Teasel and the pigs to attack.

  “We’ll stay right here,” the leader conceded.

  I wrapped a thick wool sweater tighter around myself and tucked a fold over the handgun in its pocket. “Good idea.”

  “Mr. Mark is willing to drop the assault charge.”

  “That’s nice to know. My testimony would have embarrassed him. How he cornered me at my shop, threatened to ruin my business, and lunged at me. I punched him in self-defense, and I happened to have a fondant baby rattle in my fingers at the time. He swallowed it without any help from me.”

  “Look, he’s trying to be reasonable. He just wants you to say you rejected his efforts to be part of Eve’s life. That he didn’t even know about her until a year ago.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “And now that he does know, he wants to do the right thing. Be a father. Show his fans that he’s a loving man with a wonderful daughter.”

  “Use her like a new puppy, take her for walks in Central Park, pretend to dote on her.”

  I heard the rumble of big tires on old cobblestone. Doug’s vet rig. My skin chilled. He’d told me the truth about the confrontation at the café. These men carried guns and weren’t afraid to pull them out. They pivoted toward the sound. The lead man fingered a swollen spot on his jaw.

  “I don’t want trouble,” I said quickly.

  “Neither do we. If that’s Doug Firth, you better tell him to back off.”

  “I will. But you’d better worry about me, first.” I lifted my little handgun from the sweater, just so they could see it. I stuck it back in the pocket.

  He cursed.

  The truck roared into the yard. Doug looked furious, no surprise. I held up one hand in a calm down, it’s under control gesture. He shoved the truck into a blocking position near their car. As he stepped down from the tall rig, he brought a shotgun with him.

  “I should have known,” the leader said.

  “Back the feck away from her,” Doug told him in a low voice. He didn’t point the shotgun at the group, but held it in a position that would easily swivel toward them.

  The men stepped closer to their car. Doug planted himself in front of me, facing them. “You’re all right?” he asked over his shoulder. “And Eve?”

  “Yes. They’re here to make a deal.”

  “You want to listen to them?”

  “No, but I have to.”

  “Aw right, then. Hello, boys. How’s the jaw, Fidgety?”

  “We don’t want another fight. We’ve mellowed out.”

  The second in command added, “Yeah, we’ve eaten a lot of shitty chicken burgers for the past two days. We just want this over with.”

  “Is that why you brought extra back-up?”

  “If that hillbilly with the Jesus gun shows up, we’ll need help.” Fidgety turned his attention to me. “All you have to do is say none of this was Mr. Mark’s fault. Just a misunderstanding. Sign over shared custody of Eve. Bring her to photo shoots and family vacations. Just put in appearances then go on your merry way.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “In return, he’ll pay child support covering the past five years and the next twenty. He’ll take care of Eve—and you—in generous style, until she’s twenty-five years old. He’ll even prop u
p your cupcake business with a prime Manhattan location and plenty of marketing support.”

  “No. We’re not going back to New York, and I’ll never share custody of Eve. Isn’t it enough that I’ll never tell anyone he’s Eve’s biological father? He’s not going to be part of her life, and he’s not going to use her as a marketing prop.”

  “You’re forcing him to play rough.”

  Doug said in a steely voice, “If you’re making a threat, that’s a big mistake.”

  “No, pal, you’re the one making the mistake. Let me tell me how things really are. Delta Whittlespoon has a lot to lose in this situation.” He paused. “And so do you.”

  I pushed forward. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Doug pulled me behind him again.

  Fidgety shrugged. “Mr. Mark owns fifty percent of Skillet Stars. I’m just saying.”

  “So if I don’t cave in, he’ll make sure Delta loses the final round?”

  “I never said that, did I?”

  “My cousin would rather lose that competition than hurt members of her family.”

  “Well, then, how about the consequences for him?” He jerked his head toward Doug. “He could get deported.”

  Doug quickly put in, “That’s not going to happen, Tal. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Oh, I’d worry about if I were you,” Fidgety said. “Work visas have to be renewed regularly. His is up for consideration in a few months. What if somebody points out that he was involved in a fight and a shooting the other night? That he hid a woman who has a warrant out for her arrest? Maybe there’d even be allegations that he kidnapped Mr. Mark’s daughter.”

  “That lie won’t stand,” Doug said. He cocked the shotgun. “This conversation’s over.”

  I took him by one arm. “We need to talk. In private. What he’s saying is a possibility, isn’t it?”