Garden Spells

  He ran a hand through his hair. “About a month ago. I’ve been meaning to unpack. I was just painting in the kitchen. What time is it?”

  “A little after five. What color are you painting the kitchen?”

  He shook his head and laughed. “No, no. I paint in the kitchen. That’s where my easel is set up.”

  “Oh, you’re a painter painter.”

  “I teach art at Orion.” He moved some newspapers from a chair and set them on the floor. “Sit, please.”

  “How long have you been in Bascom?” she asked as she went to the chair.

  “About a year.” He looked around for another place to sit, running his hand through his hair again, pushing it off his forehead.

  “You know, I could trim your hair, if you want me to.”

  He turned to her with that chagrined look again. “I keep forgetting to get it cut. You could do it?”

  “You’re looking at a bona fide beauty-school graduate.”

  “Okay. Sure. Thank you.” He moved a box off the couch and sat. “I’m glad you came by. I don’t really know any of my neighbors yet. Well, except maybe Mrs. Kranowski, who seems to spend half her day chasing her dog, Edward, around the neighborhood.”

  “I remember Mrs. Kranowski. What is she, one hundred years old now?”

  “And surprisingly fast on her feet.”

  Sydney laughed and congratulated herself. This was a good idea. “I’ll bring my case over tomorrow to give you that trim. Do you mind if my daughter comes along?”

  “Not at all.”

  Sydney studied him a moment. “So, you like my sister.”

  She’d caught him off guard, but it didn’t seem to occur to him not to answer. “You cut to the chase, don’t you? I don’t know your sister very well. But I…yes, I like her. She fascinates me.” He smiled and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, open and enthusiastic. It was contagious, like a yawn. He made Sydney smile back. “I had this dream about her. It was like nothing I’ve ever dreamed before. Her hair was short, and she was wearing this headband—” He stopped and leaned back. “I’m going to stop now before I sound any more ridiculous.”

  He didn’t sound ridiculous. He sounded nice, so nice it made her a little envious of Claire. “My daughter likes her too.”

  “You don’t sound happy about that.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it to sound that way.” Sydney sighed. “It’s just not what I expected. Claire and I fought a lot as kids. I think we were both thrilled when I left town. She didn’t like me very much. I didn’t think she’d like Bay.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “Ten years. I never thought I’d be back.” She shook her head, as if to shake away the thoughts. “Do you mind my coming over? You like my sister, not me, so no pressure. I just need to get out of that house sometimes. Want to order pizza? My treat.”

  “Sounds good. I don’t think I’ve eaten today.” Tyler looked at her thoughtfully. “You can come by any time you want, but ten years is a long time to be away. There aren’t any old friends you want to see?”

  Old friends. She almost laughed. Two-faced, weak-willed backstabbers, yes. Old friends, no. “No. It’s a part of that never-thinking-I-was-ever-coming-back thing.”

  “Burned bridges?” Tyler asked astutely. He wasn’t nearly as oblivious as his lifestyle made him seem.

  “Something like that.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  That night, across town, Emma Clark had no idea her world was about to turn upside down as she got ready for the fund-raiser ball. She was, in fact, looking forward to the evening because of the attention she always received.

  Clark women craved the spotlight. They loved attention from men, particularly. And it wasn’t hard to get, considering their legendary sexual prowess. They always married well.

  Emma Clark’s husband, Hunter John Matteson, was the biggest catch in town and everyone knew it. He was outgoing, handsome, athletic, and heir to his family’s manufactured-housing empire. Emma’s mother, shrewd woman that she was, had positioned Emma to be his wife since Emma and Hunter John were toddlers. Their families mingled and traveled in the same circles, so it wasn’t hard to plant suggestions and nudge them together. Their families had even spent a month together on Cape May one summer when Emma and Hunter John were ten years old. “Look how cute they are together,” her mother said every chance she got.

  The only problem was, despite her mother’s maneuvering, despite Emma’s beauty and social position, despite the fact that she had been amazing boys behind the bleachers since she was fifteen and that any sane man would want her, all throughout high school Hunter John had been hopelessly in love with Sydney Waverley.

  Oh, he knew he shouldn’t have anything to do with her. People of their caliber didn’t socialize with Waverleys. But it was no secret to his friends how he felt about her. They knew by the way he looked at her and the tragic teenage way he would act sometimes, like life without love was not worth living.

  When he turned sixteen, in his one and only act of rebellion, he finally asked Sydney out. To everyone’s surprise, his parents let him go. “Let the boy have some fun,” his father had said. “She’s the pretty Waverley, and she doesn’t seem to have their touch, so she’s harmless. My boy knows what’s expected of him when he leaves school. I diddled around too, before I knew I had to settle down.”

  It was the second worst day of Emma’s life.

  For the next two years, Hunter John’s clique in school had no choice but to accept Sydney into their fold, because she and Hunter John were inseparable. Emma’s mother said to keep her mouth shut and her enemies close, so even though it killed her, Emma made friends with Sydney. She frequently invited her to spend the night. They had plenty of rooms, but Emma always told Sydney that she had to sleep on the floor. Sydney didn’t mind, because she hated it at the Waverley house and anything was better than that. But more often than not, Emma ended up on her bedroom floor with Sydney, talking and doing homework. Sydney was just a Waverley, but she was smart and fun and had the best taste in hairstyles. Emma would never forget when she let Sydney style her hair once, and then everything went right that day, like magic. Hunter John had even commented on how pretty she looked. Emma could never replicate it herself. There was a time when Emma actually liked Sydney.

  But then, on their sleeping bags on the floor one night, Sydney said that she and Hunter John were going to do it for the first time. Emma had almost been in tears. It was more than she could bear. She’d spent years watching the boy she knew she was supposed to be with in love with someone else. Then she’d been forced to befriend the girl who had distracted him from her. Now Sydney was going to sleep with him? It was the one thing Emma knew she was better at than anyone else, and Sydney was going to get to him first. It had taken every bit of strength she had to wait until Sydney fell asleep before running to tell her mother.

  She remembered how her mother held her and stroked her hair. Ariel was in bed, on her white silk sheets. Her room always smelled of candles, and the crystals on the chandelier sent sparkles of light around the room. Her mother was everything Emma wanted to be: a living, breathing fantasy.

  “Now, Emma,” Ariel said easily, “you have been doing it and doing it well for over a year. All Clark women are good in bed. Why do you think we marry so well? Stop worrying. So she has him right now. You’ll have him for the rest of your life. It’s just a matter of time. You’ll always be better, and it’s good when men have a basis for comparison. That’s not to say you can’t spread a little false information. As hard as it is to believe, a lot of women are afraid of that first time.”

  That made Emma laugh. Clark women were never afraid of sex.

  Her mother kissed her forehead, her lips cool and soft. Then she stretched back in her bed and said, “Now, go on. Your father will be home soon.”

  The next day Emma told Sydney all sorts of false and scary things about how it hurt, and she told her all the wr
ong ways to do it. She never pressed Sydney into giving her details after it happened, but the satisfied look on Hunter John’s face the first time he and Emma had sex had been all she needed to know.

  Sydney left town after Hunter John broke up with her at graduation. She’d been devastated to know that school was just a bubble, that she and Hunter John couldn’t be together in real life, that the friends she’d made couldn’t be her friends after they all graduated. They had to step out into Bascom society and do what their parents expected of them, become their family names. And Sydney was, in the end, just a Waverley. She’d been so hurt and angry. No one realized that she hadn’t known the rules. She’d been in love with Hunter John. She thought it would be forever.

  Emma would have felt sorry for her if it hadn’t been obvious that Hunter John was hurting just as much. It took so much effort that summer to get him to come around. Even after they had sex and he’d been blown away, he still talked of leaving for college, sometimes even saying that Sydney had the right idea by leaving. He didn’t need this town.

  So Emma did the only thing she thought she could.

  She stopped taking the pill without telling Hunter John, and she got pregnant.

  Hunter John stayed home and married her, and he never complained. They even decided, together this time, that they should have a second child a few years later. He worked for his father, then took over the family manufactured-home construction plants when his father retired. When his parents moved to Florida, Emma and Hunter John moved into his family’s mansion. Everything seemed perfect, but she was never really sure where Hunter John’s heart was, and that always bothered her.

  Which brings us to the worst day in Emma Clark’s life.

  That Friday night, Emma still didn’t realize something big was about to happen, even though all the clues were there. Her hair wouldn’t curl. Then a pimple popped up on her chin. Then the white dress she’d planned to wear to the black-and-white hospital-fund-raiser ball mysteriously developed a stain on it that the housekeeper couldn’t get out, so Emma had to settle for a black dress. It was a stunning dress—all her dresses were—but it wasn’t what she wanted, what she had planned on, and she felt uncomfortable in it.

  When she and Hunter John arrived at the ball, everything seemed fine. Perfect, in fact. The hospital ball was always held at Harold Manor, a Civil War-era home on the national historic registry and the place for social gatherings. She’d been there countless times. It was a wonderful, fantasylike setting, like something out of time. Men wore suits so starched they couldn’t bend at the waist, and women had handshakes as soft as tea cakes. Clark women were at home in such a setting, and Emma was immediately the center of attention, as she always was. But it felt different, like people were talking about her, wanting to be near her, for all the wrong reasons.

  Hunter John didn’t notice, but then he never did, so she looked immediately for her mother. Her mother would tell her she was beautiful and that everything was all right. Hunter John kissed her cheek, then made a beeline to the bar, where his buddies were gathered. Young men at gatherings like this were like dust skittering to corners, trying to get away from the movement of skirts and the breath of ladies’ laughter.

  She ran into Eliza Beaufort while searching for her mother. Eliza had been one of her best friends in high school. “Keep the Beauforts as friends,” Emma’s mother always said, “and you’ll know what people are saying about you.”

  “Oh, my Lord, I couldn’t wait for you to get here,” Eliza said. Her lipstick was smudged and lopsided from talking out of the side of her mouth. “I want to know all about how you heard.”

  Emma smiled slightly, distracted. “How I heard what?” she asked, looking over Eliza’s shoulder.

  “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Sydney Waverley is back in town.” She almost hissed the words, like a curse.

  Emma’s eyes darted to meet Eliza’s, but she didn’t move a muscle. Was that why everyone was acting strangely tonight? Because Sydney was back and everyone here couldn’t wait for Emma to arrive in order to get her reaction? That disturbed her for many reasons, the most important of which was that people thought she would even have a reaction, that this warranted some kind of concern on her part.

  “She came back Wednesday and she’s staying with her sister,” Eliza continued. “She even helped Claire on a job in Hickory this afternoon. You really didn’t know?”

  “No. So she’s back. So what?”

  Eliza raised her brows. “I didn’t think you’d take it this well.”

  “She was never anything to us, anyway. And Hunter John is very happy. I have no worries. I need to find my mother. We’ll do lunch next week, yes? Kiss, kiss.”

  She finally found her mother seated at one of the tables, sipping champagne and entertaining people who stopped by to see her. Ariel looked queenly and elegant and ten years younger than her real age. Like Emma, her hair was blond and her boobs were big. She drove a convertible, wore diamonds with denim, and she never missed a homecoming game. She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.

  Her mother looked up as Emma approached, and Emma knew right away that she knew. Not only did she know, she wasn’t happy about it. No, no, no, Emma thought. There’s nothing wrong. Don’t make this wrong, Mama. Ariel stood and left Emma’s father with a provocative smile that would have him waiting eagerly for her return.

  “Let’s take a stroll out to the veranda,” Ariel said, hooking her arm in Emma’s and firmly leading her outside. They smiled as they passed some small groups of people who had come out to smoke, because smiling meant everything was okay. Once in a far corner, Ariel said, “No doubt you’ve heard about Sydney Waverley. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”

  “I’m not worried, Mama.”

  Ariel ignored her. “Here’s what I want you to do. First, treat Hunter John extra special. Call more attention to yourself. I’m going to throw you a party at your house next weekend. Invite all your closest friends. Everyone will see how wonderful you are, how special. Hunter John will see how envied you are. We’ll go shopping on Monday and buy you a dress. Red is your best color, and Hunter John loves you in red. Speaking of dresses, why did you wear black? You look better in white.”

  “Mama, I’m not worried about Sydney being back.”

  Ariel cupped Emma’s face with both her hands. “Oh, sugar, you should be worried. First loves are powerful loves. But if you keep reminding your husband why he chose you, you won’t have a problem.”

  Late that night, Emma couldn’t wait to get Hunter John in bed, with a fervency she assured herself had nothing to do with Sydney being back. Once they arrived home, she checked on their boys, asleep in their rooms, and said a distracted good night to the nanny. She started undressing the moment she entered the master suite, then stood naked except for her heels and the pearl necklace Hunter John had given her for her twenty-seventh birthday last year.

  Hunter John entered a few minutes later with a sandwich and a beer. “Ball food,” as he called it, always left him hungry. He did this every time they came home from a function, and while Emma didn’t particularly care for the habit, it wasn’t worth arguing over. He did, after all, come up to bed to be with her and eat instead of doing it alone in the kitchen.

  He didn’t seem surprised to find her naked. Emma wondered when that had happened, when he’d begun to expect it instead of desire it. But he smiled as she sauntered up to him and took the beer bottle and the sandwich plate out of his hands. She put them on the table by the door and pulled him toward the bed, tugging at his dinner jacket and shirt as they went.

  He laughed and let her push him onto the mattress.

  “So what brought this on?” he asked as she pulled down his zipper.

  She straddled him, looking down at his face. She paused for a moment, not meaning to incite his anticipation. But
he expected such skill from her that he naturally assumed it was for his pleasure, and that excited him. His hands tried to coax her hips down and he began to move under her, but she remained motionless.

  She enjoyed sex, and she knew she had a gift, a skill in bed. But was her mother right? Was this all she had? If she didn’t have this, would he still be here? Should she be worried that Sydney was back? “Hunter John,” she whispered, leaning down to kiss him, “do you love me?”

  His laugh ended in a groan as he got himself worked up by what he thought was foreplay. “Okay, what did you do?”

  “What?”

  “Did you buy something?” he asked indulgently. “Something expensive? Is that what this is all about?”

  He assumed this was because she wanted something from him. And to be fair, it was. It always was. She always got what she wanted from him through this. All except one thing. It didn’t escape her that Hunter John hadn’t answered her question. He didn’t tell her he loved her.

  But he had loved Sydney, which meant she had to do what her mother said. Work harder to keep what she had.

  “I want to buy a red dress,” she said, feeling like a bird caught in a briar bush—prickly, scared, mad. “A beautiful red dress.”

  “I can’t wait to see you in it.”

  “You will. And then you’ll see me out of it.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  Monday afternoon, Claire hung up the phone at her work desk in the storeroom, but she kept her hand resting on the receiver.

  When you know something’s wrong, but you don’t know exactly what it is, the air around you changes. Claire felt it. The plastic of the phone was too warm. The walls were sweating slightly. If she went out to the garden, she knew she’d find the morning glory blooming in the middle of the day.

  “Claire?”

  Claire turned to find Sydney in the doorway to the storeroom. “Oh, hi,” Claire said. “When did you get back?” Sydney and Bay had been to visit Tyler again, the fourth day in a row.