He arched a brow. “I didn’t foresee that you’d drink that first bottle faster than a freshman in a beer-chugging contest.”
“You’re right. My bad. Not your fault.”
“However, I’d love to hear anything you want to tell me. How about something a bit off the main subject, not concerning you being tracked and accused of assault by Fidgety and Shark Eye’s mysterious employer? Just tell me about this beer-making brother of yours.”
Safe enough. I told him Gus was named after Groucho Marx, that he was nearly as tall as Doug with red hair that had gone almost blond from years in the desert sun. That he was a captain in the army, currently stationed in Afghanistan, and that we wanted him to take an offer to come home permanently and teach at Fort Merrill down in Georgia. “It’s where all the army rangers go for their mountain training,” I finished.
Listening intently, Doug said, “And who’s the ‘we’ wanting him to do that?”
Be careful. He’s looking for any careless word. I took another sip of my second beer to settle my shaking hands and uncertain stomach. “Our sister.” I told him about Gabby, named for Greta Garbo, and how she was known as a pickle and relish expert. I mentioned that she owned her own restaurant in L.A. called Vin E. Garr’s. The moment I said that, I chewed my tongue. There’s this thing called the internet. It has search engines.
Doug propped his chin on his hand. “Isn’t that the place that some crazed actor is suing about? I saw something on one of the TV gossip shows.”
I stared at him. “I’d assumed you weren’t gay.”
“Not even close, but what’s that got to do with . . .”
“I don’t know any straight men who watch those shows.”
“It was playing on the telly in a chicken roost. I was there tending the hens.”
“A TV in a chicken house?”
“Not a ‘chicken house,’ a fancy roosting shed where the hens are free to come and nest as they lay their eggs. Missus Katie Dood swears by it. Says her free-range hens produce a third more eggs while watching the telly.” He pointed to the stack of oatmeal cookies he’d set on the table. “Did you not notice the huge brown eggs you used?”
“Yes, they’re fantastic, but . . . if those hens are watching Entertainment 7 every day, they’ll lay rotten eggs.”
“So your sister is the chef I saw on Entertainment 7? Tall redhead who threatened to throw pickle juice in the face of the next reporter who stuck a video cam in her way as she walked from her car to the restaurant?”
He kept peeling me like an onion. “Feck,” I said.
His blue eyes were serious, but one corner of his lips shifted to a smile. “I see I’m teaching you the Scots language. At least the foul and honest bits.”
“You win.”
He raised his beer in a toast. “I’m no’ trying to beat you at a game, Tal. I’m tryin’ to help you. I think it’s time you tell me why those two knee-breakers at the café were huntin’ for you and Eve. Do you have a plan for tomorrow? What if Fidgety and Shark Eyes wise up and back track?”
“I don’t want any more confrontations on my behalf. You almost got shot.” I nodded at the bandage on his knuckles. “You’re hurt.”
“You’re a cousin of Delta’s. You’re family. You and Eve. If I don’t try to help you, she’ll n’er give me another biscuit as long as I live.”
“I’m putting her at risk too.”
“And how could that be? Look, if there’s trouble that could spread to Delta, you need to tell me. It’s only fair.”
I have to trust him. I want to trust him.
I downed another beer.
“Here goes.”
I told him the tangled story of me and Mark Anthony Mark, starting with me at age twenty-three, moving to New York to prove I could make it without Gabby and Gus’s help then struggling to pay for culinary school. I had years of real-world experience—Gus, Gabby, and I grew up working in the Rodriquez’s restaurants—but I wanted to show them, and myself, that I could make the grade in one of the Big Apple’s finest eateries. I wanted to work for Mark Anthony Mark, a bonafide cooking genius, foodie celebrity, and icon of restaurant management.
Even though at first he barely noticed me among his many minions, my natural ability as a baker finally caught his attention. One thing led to another. I thought he was going to be my personal coach and mentor, and I was star struck.
How stupid. He only wanted my baked goods.
When I eventually earned my way inside his inner circle—his penthouse apartment, his two-story gourmet kitchen, and his bedroom with the view of Manhattan, I discovered that his charming public persona was the icing on a layer cake composed of equal parts Bully, Braggart, and All-Around Self-Centered Jerk.
“Eve is a liability to his public image,” I finished. “He wants to stop the rumors that he has a daughter he’s never seen—to concoct a pretty story that hides the facts. I just want him to leave us alone.” I realized I’d downed a third beer. Hugging the bottle to my stomach, I asked, “Am I wrong for not telling Eve who her father is?”
“No. You’re a good mam, the best.” He took a deep breath. “I’m the son of a man who deserted my mother when she was barely more than a girl out of boarding school, and she killed herself not long after I was born. He died of a drug overdose before I was old enough to track him down and kill him.”
“Oh, Doug. I’m so sorry.”
“Eh.” He started to rise. “I’m going to make coffee.”
“Please, don’t. Turnabout is fair play. Tell me more about yourself.”
He settled back in the chair. From the look on his face, very few people asked him.
I listened for the next hour as he described a knock-about childhood in the Scottish countryside, raised by friends of the family and distant relations until his paternal grandmother learned about him and brought him to her comfortable home in Glasgow. Animals were his only trustworthy companions, which led him to become a veterinarian. He met his future wife, an American from a wealthy family, at an international polo competition in England, where he was a student assistant to the Scottish team’s doctor.
They married, and he moved to America, becoming a well-paid private assistant veterinarian for a conglomerate owning race horses at an estate in central Florida. He and his wife enjoyed a glamorous lifestyle among the well-to-do of the racing crowd until Doug realized that his bosses viewed the stable of prime race horses as investments to be “maximized.”
The senior doc on his team was following orders to kill third-rate race horses for the insurance pay-off. Doug blew the whistle on him and brought down the conglomerate’s entire gaming division, including its bid to run a Florida casino. Lawyers for the conglomerate smeared him as a “foreign golddigger,” tried to have him deported and his vet license revoked. His wife divorced him, their friends turned their backs, and he was left with a stack of bills and an aging race horse, Zanadu, which he’d rescued from sure death. Zanadu and his equine buddy, Pammy.
“That’s when Delta Whittlespoon and Jay Wakefield rescued me,” he said. “I think they planned it together.”
“Wait a minute.” I downed my fourth beer. “Wakefield. Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Wakefields own half the state. Very old family. Based in Asheville.”
“Wakefield Department Store! And the Wakefield Hotel on Haywood Street. I remember, now.”
“They own lots more besides that. I met Jay down in Florida. He owns a Thoroughbred farm there. Took my side in the troubles. Tried to help me. Gave me a long-term lease on this property and introduced me to Tom Mitternich, the preservation architect who lives up on Wild Woman Ridge.”
“The one who married the actress, Cathy Deen, after she was scarred in that awful wreck?”
“Yep. Tom and I are talking about some way t
o bring the old Clapper bicycle village back to life.”
“As a bicycle factory?”
“No, not likely that. But something.” He leaned toward me abruptly, scrutinizing my face. “Why are you crying?”
I whipped a hand to my wet cheeks. Exhaustion, anxiety, four beers. “I miss my home. My childhood—before my parents died. No other place has felt like home since I was a kid.” I wiped my eyes. “I cry when I drink too much. I’ll try not to babble about my problems anymore, at least until the morning. Or about my psychic sense of smell.”
He reached across the table and dabbed the delicate skin beneath my eyes with his fingertips. “I’m a Scotsman,” he said. “I believe in leprechauns and banshees.”
His touch melted my skin. “I thought those were Irish myths.”
“You’re dissing leprechauns as ‘myths?’”
I laughed wearily. My eyes drooped.
He stood and cupped a hand under my elbow. “Come along. You’ve got a daughter and a goat waiting for you to sing them lullabies.”
“Bah bah, black sheep,” I sang as he led me down a hall shadowed by old wall sconces and soundtracked by the soothing hum of a central furnace somewhere. “Have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full . . . Why am I singing about sheep?”
“Beats the feck out of ‘Three blind mice.’”
We stopped at the door to a guest room where Eve and Teasel were cuddling on a bed. One of them was snoring. Eve didn’t snore. Must be the goat.
“Thank you,” I said. “For rescuing us from Tagger and fighting the men Mark sent to find us.”
“Thank you for trusting me. Now look, you’ll stay here for a few days, all right? Promise. I’ll call Delta tomorrow and tell her what’s going on. She’ll insist.”
“No! How can she concentrate on the finals of the competition if she knows about Mark? He owns fifty percent of that show! He’s one of the judges.”
Doug groaned. “Ack. Okay, we’ll leave that be. But you stay here. You can’t get more hidden than here.”
“All right.” I wobbled. He held my elbow tighter. I swayed against him. “I’m not drunk,” I told him. “I don’t get drunk. I get delicious.”
His eyes crinkled. “Thank you for putting that thought in my head.”
“How’s your hand?” I reached for it boldly, brought it close to my eyes in the shadowy hall, and studied the bandage he’d put on his knuckles. “You have great hands.”
“Feels much better,” he said gruffly. “Now that you’re holding it.”
I kissed him on the cheek. Right at the corner of his mouth, close enough to taste the difference between light beard stubble and his lips. A breathless moment. He said against my ear, “I’ve n’er met a woman like you, and I want to know you. All about you. All of you. I hope you’ll kiss me again when you’ve not had anything much to drink. Will you?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I promise.” I sleep-walked to a whitewashed metal bedstead where Eve and Teasel were sound asleep under a colorful wool blanket adorned with a fabulous garden of tiny felted flowers. I crawled in and hugged them both.
We are finally back home, I thought.
Chapter Four
Taking the past for as spin
BRIGHT MORNING sunshine warmed my face. Eve was a snuggly human teddy bear inside my arms. A Himalayan cat named Fanny and a giant golden Maine Coon named Leo were curled next to us. Teasel was stretched out on the foot of the bed, and I felt safe for the first time in several weeks. Then I remembered what I’d said, and done, on the way to bed at five a.m.
I don’t get drunk. I get delicious.
Instantly awake now, I eased out of bed, tucked Eve back in, scratched Teasel behind his horn nubbins, then realized I had a larger audience: the miniature pigs and a half-dozen dogs, including Peaches and Bebe, Doug’s pit bulls, which he’d rescued from a fight ring.
The gang followed me to the bathroom and sat in the open doorway watching me. I sat with my head in my hands, trying to ignore them and think. Impossible. I looked through my fingers as the pigs snuffled my toes. Their soft, uhka uhka grunts earned them some petting. “Piggies like skritches? Yes, piggies like skritches.”
I scratched them behind the ears. I’m talking baby talk to pigs. I surrender. Doctor Doolittle has converted me.
After I washed up, the gang followed me to the hall door, which stood ajar. I frowned at it. Had Doug looked in on us while we slept? Not cool, Doug. Leo rose on his hind legs, grabbed the old glass doorknob with both large paws, and pulled the door further open.
“Ahah,” I said. “You open doors. I guess you’re the gang leader? Is your name Peeping Tom?”
I saw a handwritten note taped to the outside of the door.
Tal,
I’m off to my usual long day in the field (and barn, and shed). Make yourself at home (cook something good and save me the leftovers). If you and Eve want to explore the old bicycle shops, there’s a set of keys on the antler hook by the kitchen door. (The antlers are naturally shed during molt season; I don’t shoot Bambi.) Good morning and welcome again to this home. (I promise you, even the pigs are housebroken.)
Doug (who also is housebroken).
P.S. On the table by the front door there’s a spare phone of mine. Call me if any trouble comes by.
I removed the note and put it in my jeans’ back pocket. Okay, yes. As a keepsake.
The mystery of Free Wheeler
BUNDLED UP against the morning wind coming down from the Ten Sisters, Eve and I walked up the lane beyond Doug’s house, holding hands. Zanadu and Pammy ambled along the fence beside us.
“Time to text Uncle Gus,” I said, pulling Doug’s loner cell phone from a pocket of my jeans. It was early evening in Afghanistan. If he were out on a patrol, he’d answer later.
Eve ran to the fence. “Can you send him a picture of me with my friends?”
He’d wonder where we found pigs, a goat, equines, and woods in Brooklyn. “No, sweetie, maybe next time.”
“It smells like Christmas here,” Eve said.
“Lots of big cedar trees and firs. That’s what you smell.”
“Is Santa going to be able to find us?”
“Yes, sweetie. I promise.”
“Will we get on an airplane and go to Aunt Gabby’s house, like last year?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying here for Christmas. I like Doug. A lot.” Oh, no. She was getting attached to Doug and his world.
“Let’s talk about this later.”
I tapped a quick message into the phone:
HI YA BIG BRO. ALL IS WELL. LOST MY PHONE. THIS IS A LOANER. SENDING YOU A PACKAGE ASAP. LUV, TAL AND EVE.
No response. He was probably on patrol. The silences always made Gabby and me nervous.
Eve and I walked on. A few minutes later, the lane broadened. The air stilled. Suddenly, I swore I could smell Mama’s rosewater perfume and the buttery warmth of her apple cobbler. Good spirits had joined us.
“Oh, Mommy. Wow.” Eve raced ahead of me as we rounded a curve into downtown Free Wheeler.
I stopped, gaping in wonder. The lost grandeur of Free Wheeler defied the words factory village. It was easy to see that spaces had been designed for bicycles and cars—or back in the earlier decades, wagons—to park in front of the buildings. The whole village fit into less than one city block. The main avenue was broad and paved in large octagonal stones now fringed in weeds. Doug had removed several large trees that had rooted in the avenue and the sidewalks, heaving up stones around the roots. The bare stumps looked weird, poking up among the pavers.
On the left was a row of small brick shops, connected to one another. On the right was a two-story brick factory building. All the windows were boarded over. Granite trim decora
ted the brickwork. Each building’s main doorway was capped with a half-moon of stone carved with the shop’s name. It was obvious that those names had honored the Clapper bicycle brands: The Asheville Flyer General Store, the Fast Hawk Hardware and Feed, the Red Rocket Infirmary, the Fleet Dasher Movie Palace, and . . . the Spinning Rose Bakery.
“Let’s go look at that one,” I said.
Eve darted to its boarded windows and peered through a hole in the planks. “This is so pretty!” I went over and squatted beside her, cupping my hands around my eyes. Inside the shadowy space I made out pale marble floors and a long marble counter top. Other than that, the interior was empty, dusty, and sad. But how wonderful it must have been. And could be, again. “I agree.”
A bakery. I stood and stepped back, pivoting slowly, taking in everything.
Grand. What a strange word, but appropriate.
The long, two-story factory building did not look industrial, but instead, somehow, friendly. “Bicycles on the walls, look!” Eve shouted. She pointed upward. The building’s rust-red bricks surrounded beautifully chiseled granite spacers, each about two-feet square and each decorated with a carving of a bicycle. In contrast, I studied the ruins of loading docks and the boarded-over windows on the bottom level. My heart twisted. What a forsaken, whimsical place. No, calling it a “factory” wouldn’t do.
Over a pair of tall double doors at the center of the building, an arch of granite was engraved with this:
Enter The Hub of Imagination
The World of Clapper Motion Machines
The Hub. I loved that name.
Just beyond it was what appeared to be a once-whitewashed English cottage. The plaster was cracking and revealed red brick underneath, part of the roof was covered in a tarp, and the rest showed frail, tattered shingles. The empty window boxes sagged.
But over the door was a mysteriously elegant sign:
The Lubritorium
“It’s a fairy house!” Eve squealed, running ahead. I followed her at a trot, feeling awkward. Tall, plus-sized women don’t generally jog like graceful gazelles. Picture me: an overgrown strawberry shortcake kind of gal in Crocs with candy-striped socks showing, faded jeans with forks and spoons embroidered on the legs, my cupcake hoodie, and a pink felt cap crammed on my head with wild streamers of red hair falling out the bottom.