Threading The Needle Part 4

Sterling wasn't committed to the marriage, but the image it projected to the world suited his purposes and fed his ego. Sterling was having his cake and eating it, too, taking me with him to Broadway premieres and charity galas, smiling as we posed for the cameras, then sneaking away after for a late-night rendezvous with his blonde of the moment. Why would he want a divorce?

Why would I? Until recently, Sterling had been too rich to divorce. Yes, his serial unfaithfulness humiliated me, but you'd be surprised what you can learn to put up with when the price of humiliation is a lifestyle that, once upon a time, I hardly dared dream of-vacations to Tahiti on private islands, beachfront property in the Hamptons, a penthouse, a maid, a cook, a personal secretary, trips to Paris to view the spring couture collections and a blank check to buy whatever caught my eye. Shoes, and bags, and furs, and jewels, and, and, and . . . Anything and everything I wanted was mine simply by signing those two little words, "Madelyn Baron," on a check or credit card slip.

Did it make me happy? For a time. Sterling understood the arrangement and so did I. Yes, I had to turn a blind eye to his infidelities to maintain my lifestyle, but in my shoes, who wouldn't have done the same?

And even if I'd suddenly woken up one morning and decided that I could not tolerate this shameful farce of a marriage anymore (and there were many mornings when I did), a brief reflection on the chain of events that would follow if I presented Sterling with divorce papers quickly convinced me to think about something else.

Sterling is vindictive, and he hates to lose. If I tried to divorce him, I had no doubt he'd sic the legal wolves on me, with Gene Janders leading the pack, and wouldn't call them off until they'd ripped me to shreds financially and personally. And Sterling was not the only one who strayed during our marriage. The frequency and intensity of my a.s.signations were minuscule compared to Sterling's and in every case my infidelity was a direct response to his. I don't believe in romance and I'm not interested in s.e.x. I haven't been for a long time, if I ever was at all. I took lovers not for love, but to exact revenge on Sterling and, I suppose, to prove to myself that I was still desirable-to someone.

If I had tried to divorce Sterling before the arrest, I had no doubts about the outcome. Sterling would come out smelling like a rose and I would be left with nothing but a shredded reputation and a pile of legal bills, and all at an age when the odds of staging a second act range from remote to impossible.

Of course, that's exactly what happened anyway. Don't tell me that G.o.d has no sense of irony.

And so, now that Sterling has been rendered powerless to harm me, at least in court, I'm too poor to be free of him. I have all the attorney's bills I can handle at the moment. Divorcing Sterling will have to wait until I can beef up my bank account.

And the best way to do that, the only way I can see, is to focus on sprucing up the cottage so it will sell quickly and I can leave New Bern, this time forever. I want no part of this place. I never did.

But fortunately for me, other people feel differently. For some people, a quiet little village in New England is their dream location. Soft market or no, it couldn't be that hard to sell the house. Gene said there was no chance of it, but lawyers are always pessimistic; imagining worst-case scenarios is part of the job. Gene might be a good attorney, but that didn't make him an expert on Connecticut real estate, did it? Besides, he'd never even seen my grandmother's house.

Down market or no, as I drove in the direction of Oak Leaf Lane, I felt optimistic. Even in a bad economy, a beautiful house can always attract a buyer, and no matter the memories connected with it, Beecher Cottage was a truly beautiful old house.

Once.

Sitting behind the wheel of the new, very used Volvo wagon I'd purchased with eight thousand dollars from my fast-dwindling bank account, I drove up and down Oak Leaf Lane twice before pulling to the curb and realizing that the place with the broken fence posts, missing s.h.i.+ngles, and overgrown hedges really was Grandma Edna's old house-now mine.

Dear G.o.d. What had happened?

I climbed out of the car, took my suitcases out of the back, and stood looking at what had once been the prettiest house on the block.

The gra.s.s hadn't been cut in months; the flower beds were choked with weeds. Two windows were broken and the shutters were missing slats. One window was missing the shutters entirely. And the roof . . . the only thing that appeared to be holding the remaining s.h.i.+ngles in place was a thick layer of blackish green moss.

If this was what the exterior looked like, I could only imagine the condition of the interior. My plan to spruce up the old place and resell the house in short order crumbled-and my confidence with it. This was going to be a huge project. I stood on the sidewalk making a mental to-do list and growing more discouraged by the second.

Next door, at a house that used to belong to the McKenzies but was now a dental office, a door opened. A woman walked out, glancing curiously at me as she got into her car. Oak Leaf Lane was busier than it had been when I was a child. Half the houses on the street had been turned into offices. Lying low was going to prove harder than I'd imagined. Of course, standing out on the sidewalk surrounded by a pile of Louis Vuitton luggage wasn't exactly helping me fly in under the radar.

I opened the creaky garden gate and carried my bags up the pathway to the porch, noting that many of the bricks were either missing or crumbling to dust and that a web of weeds was growing between the others. The steps were sound. A couple of the boards were unpainted, as if they'd been replaced recently. The porch was a different story. The wooden planks felt soft under my feet, squashy and waterlogged. I walked carefully, testing each board before I stepped, wondering if they would support my weight.

The key stuck in the lock, but after I jiggled it a few times it gave way with a metallic click. I carried my bags over the threshold and dropped them on the floor, raising a cloud of dust.

The foyer was exactly as I remembered: dark, gloomy, cheerless. The wallpaper, with its rows of hideous brownish pink cabbage roses, was as ugly as it had been when I was a child, except now it was peeling in spots. A moldy smell permeated the room and made me sneeze. I reached out to flip on the light switch. Once. Twice. Three times. Nothing happened.

"Great! That's just great!" I kicked one of my suitcases as hard as I could. "Sterling Baron! It's a good thing you're locked up in a nice, safe jail cell! Because if you were here I'd kick you into next week, you stupid, worthless, selfish son of a-"

Maybe I imagined it, but somewhere on the upper floor of the old house, I could have sworn I heard a door slam. In my mind I heard the echo of her voice, her shrieking, incongruously loud and piercing graveled voice, dripping disapproval, as it always had.

"Watch your mouth! I will not put up with that kind of filthy talk, do you hear me? Come here. I'm going to slap you into next week. Don't you dare back away when I tell you to come! If you can't clean up your mouth, then I'll just have to do it for you."

My cheek burned hot and angry from the memory of those slaps and an acrid taste filled my mouth, the flavor of humiliation, soap, and hatred.

I spun around, grabbed an edge of peeling wallpaper, and pulled as hard as I could. A wide, jagged strip came away from the wall with a satisfying rip, exposing a patch of white amid the th.o.r.n.y stems and leaves of hideous brown.

4.

Tessa After breakfast, I walked Lee to his truck, a beat-up green and white heap named Mustang Sally he'd bought for eight hundred dollars and a she-goat.

The tires were newish and there was only a little rust on the bed, which is why Lee thought it was a steal, even though it didn't run. The man who sold it to him towed it to our place. After spending three weeks under the hood and three hundred and fifty dollars in replacement parts, the engine ran, loudly. Idling, Mustang Sally sounds like a s...o...b..ower on steroids. When she's in gear it's worse. I think Lee likes it that way.

He also likes Spitz, our black-and-white border collie, who was sitting up in the back of the truck, tongue out, eyes bright, excited about taking a ride. Spitz is another of Lee's quirky finds. He bought her as a pup with the idea that she'd help in rounding up the other animals; border collies are bred to have strong herding instincts. Spitz spends hours pacing back and forth outside the goat enclosure, eyes glued to their every move. But inside the fence, she has no clue, just zooms around the pen, barking at the goats as though challenging them to a race. At first they were scared of her, but now they just ignore her. Poor Spitz. She couldn't herd her way out of a paper bag, but she's a good dog.

Spitz barked as Lee climbed into the truck cab, turned the key in the ignition, and pressed the gas pedal a few times, coaxing the engine to catch.

"Six o'clock! Our bedroom!" He shouted to be heard over the rattle and knock of Mustang Sally's engine. "You, me, a bottle of champagne, and a night to remember!"

I curled my fingers over the edge of the open window, raised myself up on my toes, and puckered my lips for a kiss.

"Six o'clock!" I shouted before stepping onto the sidewalk. He winked as he s.h.i.+fted gears and hit the gas, his engine so loud that people on the street turned to look as he drove off.

Sometimes I find it hard to remember that this manly man in the beat-up pickup, his handsome face tanned by wind and weather, his hands capable and calloused by work, is the same man who used to spend his days sitting behind a computer screen tallying up debits and credits under the sickly glow of fluorescent lighting. He is now, as he was then, a good man, a hard worker, faithful and responsible and the true love of my life. But he's changed since we moved to New Bern, and though Lee may not realize this, it's a change for the better.

Leaving two secure corporate jobs with benefits to grow tomatoes and sell potpourri might sound crazy and impulsive, but it wasn't something we did on a whim. Lee and I discussed it for months before we took the plunge, planning everything out carefully, making budgets and timelines and lists both pro and con. But if it doesn't work out according to our carefully laid plans, I'm worried that Lee will blame me. We made this decision together, but I was the one who started the ball rolling.

Fall's official start was still a few weeks off, but as I walked east on Commerce Street, the morning air felt crisp though the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly. Looking across the street toward the Green, I spied a squirrel scurrying through the gra.s.s, pus.h.i.+ng aside a spa.r.s.e blanket of yellowed leaves in search of nuts, finding none, then sitting up on its hind legs and staring up at the branches of the tree expectantly. And just in case I'd missed the signs of impending autumn, an ancient yellow school bus pulled up at the corner and opened its doors with a mechanical sigh. It was the first day of school. I'd forgotten. When I was a child, school didn't start until after Labor Day.

I stopped to watch the kids with slick-combed hair and new backpacks pile onto the bus. One little guy in particular caught my attention. He had freckles and a cowlick, like Josh did when he was little. Judging from the number of times his mother blinked her eyes as she waved to him through the window and the way she clutched at the hand of his baby brother, this was Freckle Face's first day of first grade.

The doors sighed and closed as the last tiny scholar climbed aboard. The mothers waved frantically as the bus shuddered and pulled away with its precious cargo. After Freckle Face's bus rounded the corner and was safely out of sight, his mother's face crumpled like discarded tissue paper and she bent down to pick up her youngest, a chubby, dimple-kneed toddler, and crushed him to her breast. The tiny boy squirmed in her arms and protested, "Mommy! Yer squas.h.i.+n' me!" as the other mothers encircled the woman to offer Kleenex and comfort.

If I wasn't already late opening the shop, I might have crossed the street and joined them. I knew just how she felt. I've stood at the bus stop and the airport, proud and bereft, smiling through tears and waving for all I was worth as my child set out on adventures of his own with barely a backward glance-just as he should.

It all goes too fast. I don't blame her for clinging to her remaining baby as though she'd never let him go. If I could, I'd have done the same.

Josh was supposed to be one of three. That was the plan. But we decided to save up for a nicer, larger house before starting our family. It seemed like the responsible thing to do and, after all, we had plenty of time. But it took longer to get pregnant than we'd supposed, a lot longer. I had one miscarriage before Josh was born and two after.

By the time Josh started kindergarten, I knew there would be no other children. I was disappointed but not bitter. We had Josh, and I absolutely loved being a parent. So did Lee. My only complaint about motherhood was that it pa.s.sed too quickly. When college catalogs started showing up in the mailbox with Josh's name on them, I had to face facts: Our nest would soon be empty. Those were hard days for me, thoughtful days.

I spent a lot of time sitting and thinking in the two always-empty bedrooms of the four-bedroom house we'd put off having children to buy. What if we hadn't been so careful? What if we had followed our hearts instead of our heads and begun our family sooner? Might those empty rooms have been occupied by another son? A daughter? Twins?

It was too late to do anything about it, but . . . what if? How different might our lives have been if we'd taken a few more chances? Stepped on the cracks in the sidewalk? Not all the time, but sometimes. Would we have been happier? More successful? Cast a bigger shadow? The past was past, but what about the future? On the backside of fifty, was it too late to change?

At the time, I believed it was. But one day, as I was cleaning out a closet in one of those empty bedrooms, I came across a box of memorabilia that changed my mind. Inside, I discovered a picture of Madelyn Beecher and myself, sitting on the steps of my parents' front porch on the day after the pig rescue. My legs were covered with itchy red splotches, but I was grinning from ear to ear. It was such a little thing, but I could still remember how good it had felt to do something wild and unpredictable and just a little bit dangerous.

I dug the picture out of the box and when I went to bed that night, I showed it to Lee and told him all about my wondering and worries, my questions about what if and what now. I was surprised to learn that Lee had many of the same questions, that like me, he'd been wondering what comes after the empty nest. But the biggest surprise came when my husband, the mild-mannered and rational accountant, man of sharpened pencils and creased trousers, admitted to a secret and seemingly irrational desire.

"A farmer? You want to be a farmer?" I laughed, looking at my husband's solid-citizen blue blazer and sober striped tie hanging neatly over the back of a chair, mentally replacing them with dirty denim overalls and a flannel s.h.i.+rt. "Seriously?"

"I used to spend every summer up in Vermont, on Uncle Dwayne's farm. I'd pick apples and milk cows, hoe corn and onions. I loved it. And," he said, looking a little offended, "I was actually pretty good at it."

"I'm sure you were." I'd never pictured Lee as a farmer, but I was sure if he decided to be a farmer, he'd be a good one.

"Uncle Dwayne used to talk to me about taking over the place after he died."

"Why didn't you?"

"Dad convinced me that farming was a dead-end profession. I suppose he was right, but," Lee said wistfully, "I kind of wish I'd given it a try, just to see for myself. . . ."

Doesn't that just take the cake? Lee and I were even more compatible than I'd suspected.

I'd never considered farming as a dream vocation, but I loved gardening, especially herb gardening. A few years previously, I'd begun experimenting with blending the herbs into sweetly scented concoctions and oils to infuse all kinds of soaps, lotions, and creams, but I considered it a hobby. Just like gardening.

Nothing was settled that night. Even at our most impetuous, Lee and I needed time to take the leap. But after months of late-night discussions and dream spinning, we reached a decision.

Lee loved farming. I loved working with herbs. If we combined those two loves into a reasonable business plan, we ought to be able to figure out a way to make a living doing them-not a handsome living, but enough. Josh's college tuition was safely tucked away, and once he was launched, we wouldn't need as much income, especially if we moved to the country, where the cost of living would be lower. After doing the math and working out a plan, we finally decided to make the break.

We began spending weekends driving around New England, looking for a small farm on a few acres of good soil, with room enough for me to grow my herbs and Lee to grow his crops, plus keep goats and chickens. The farm had to be near a town, someplace I could open a shop. It didn't have to be a big town but it needed to have a real downtown area with good walk-by traffic and well-located storefronts available at an affordable rent. Sounds easy enough, but it wasn't. Lee and I must have visited twenty little towns without finding what we were looking for.

We were just about ready to give up when I received an invitation to a cla.s.s reunion at my old high school back in New Bern. After my graduation my folks, lured by warm weather and low taxes, had moved to Florida. Consequently, I hadn't been back to New Bern in years or kept in touch with any of my old cla.s.smates.

Thank heaven for Sandy Janetta, chair of the New Bern High reunion committee, and her determination to track down every member of our graduating cla.s.s. If not for her, we might never have gone to New Bern and never have met Sandy's husband, Bob, a Realtor who knew of a perfect farm on the outskirts of town with sixteen acres of good land, a three-bedroom, two-bath antique farmhouse with a wood-s.h.i.+ngled roof and a beehive oven, plus a barn and a big sunroom that would serve as my workshop. Bob also knew that the owners of an antique shop on Maple Street were planning on retiring and the storefront would soon be available to rent. We couldn't believe our good fortune.

As Lee and I drove back to Ma.s.sachusetts, we laughed and sang along with the radio. Lee reached out to squeeze my hand and said, "I think all those years spent nose to the grindstone are about to pay off. I think we're about to find our happy ending."

I thought so too. And in my heart, I still believe it. Things are bound to get better. Charlie Donnelly said they would, that we were just in a down business cycle. We had a plan, a good one. The bank had increased my line of credit based on that plan, all printed out in colored ink with pie charts and spreadsheets and month-by-month sales projections. Not that we'd met any of those projections since our third month in business, but we would. Eventually. We just had to stick to our plan. I'd never failed at anything and I wasn't planning on starting now.

As I rounded the corner, I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked down, deliberately stepping on every crack in the sidewalk, only lifting my head when I heard someone call my name.

5.

Tessa Wouldn't you know it? The first time I come to work late is also the first time I have customers waiting for me to open.

"There you are, Tessa!" Reverend Tucker waved and his face split into a wide smile, his teeth as white as the clerical collar around his neck. "Good morning! Beautiful day, isn't it?"

The woman who was with him had been standing with her face close to the shop window, hands cupped near her eyes to block the sunlight as she peered through the gla.s.s. She was blond and wore a pink and green paisley skirt with a matching pink sweater set. It wasn't until she unfolded herself to her full height, probably close to six feet, and turned her sparkling blue eyes on me that I recognized her.

"You know Margot Matthews, don't you?"

"Yes, of course. Nice to see you again, Margot."

I do know Margot, but not well. She works at Cobbled Court Quilts with Evelyn, but I'd met her at the New Bern Community Church. On my first Sunday there, she invited me to the coffee hour and introduced me around. We exchange greetings and small talk every Sunday. Last week she'd told me about her quilting cla.s.s and urged me to sign up. I'd promised to think about it but hadn't committed. Soon Evelyn would tell her I was in, but I simply had to wiggle out of it. No matter what Lee said, I didn't have enough time, money, or talent to take up quilting. I'd explain that to Margot, but another day. She seemed so nice. I hated to disappoint her.

Reverend Tucker was nice too. He's about my age, with steel gray hair, gla.s.ses that are always slipping to the end of his nose, and a friendly, natural way of expressing himself in and out of the pulpit. But I've always been nervous around ministers, even ones as nice as Reverend Tucker. Seeing a clergyman always makes me think about things I shouldn't have done but did and things I should do but haven't.

What did they want? Were they part of the church welcoming committee? Or the finance committee? Maybe, once you'd attended a certain number of times, they expected you to start paying a t.i.the to the church? I hated to disappoint them, but right now, ten percent of my annual income was a negative number.

"It's good to see you again, Tessa. Reverend Tucker and I are out doing a little church business and we thought we'd start with you. Do you mind if we come in?"

"Sure. Just let me unlock the door." I fumbled around in my purse, feeling awkward for keeping them standing there while I hunted for my keys, which, naturally, meant that it took me forever to find them.

Margot turned toward my display window. "You've got such a sweet shop, Tessa. I dropped in to see you a couple of weeks ago. You were out, but someone else helped me." Margot screwed her eyes shut and tapped a finger against her lips, trying to jar her memory. "Emily? I think that was her name."

"Emily," I confirmed, grateful for the cover of Margot's chatter. Where were my keys? This was becoming embarra.s.sing. "She's been helping me out over the summer." I didn't bother to add that when Emily returned to college in a couple of weeks, I wouldn't be replacing her. I couldn't afford to.

"Well, I just loved the lavender body lotion and peppermint lip balm she sold me. Reverend, have you been in Tessa's shop before? She has the most wonderful products made from herbs she grows herself. Isn't that right, Tessa?"

"Oh?" the good reverend replied. "Sharon's birthday is coming up. Maybe I can get her present here."

"Found them!" I nearly shouted with relief as I yanked my key ring out from a side pocket of my handbag and held it aloft.

I opened the door and walked through the shop, turning on lights. One of the things I love about this s.p.a.ce is the large, many-paned windows that face the street. They give the shop a homey, old-fas.h.i.+oned look and a lot of natural light. My feeling is, the more light the better. That's why, before we opened for business, we took down all the old dark paneling and replaced it with a rough-textured white plaster, restained the dark floors with alternating eighteen-inch squares of white and mossy green in a checkerboard pattern that let the natural grain of the wood show through, then painted all the wood and gla.s.s display cabinets white. Finally, we'd removed the fluorescent lighting and replaced it with lots and lots of spotlights in ceiling cans, which flooded the room with clean, white light. Walking into this room is like walking over clouds on a clear day, surrounded by sunlight above and around, with glimpses of the green earth below.

Reverend Tucker stopped in the middle of the room, next to the candle display, and looked around. "I remember this shop back when Edwin Hargrove had his antique business here. Everything was so gloomy. The place smelled like mold and wet dog."

The reverend wasn't the first person to mention this. Apparently, Mr. Hargrove had a shop dog, a golden retriever who liked to roll in mud puddles.

"What a difference," he continued. "It's so bright and it smells so fresh. Not at all perfumey," he said in a slightly surprised tone.

"I use real plants and herbs for my products, no artificial perfumes. Lavender is our most popular scent, but I make products using rosemary, peppermint, lemongra.s.s, bergamot, clary sage, roses, gardenia, and all kinds of spices and citrus peels too."

"Smell this!" Margot said eagerly, taking the cap off a tester of lavender lotion and holding it under the minister's nose. "Sharon would love it."

He sniffed at the bottle. "Very nice. Does this come in some sort of gift basket? I'm not very good at wrapping things."

Three minutes later, I'd made my first sale of the day. Mrs. Tucker would be getting a Lavender Luxury Basket for her birthday, a bottle of lavender body lotion with matching glycerine soap, lavender sugar scrub, and a candle, prettily arranged in a white wicker basket and tied with a purple tulle bow.

"This is perfect," Reverend Tucker said as he shoved his change into his pocket. "Last birthday I bought Sharon a coffee grinder. Didn't go over well."

Margot looked at me with eyebrows raised and lips pressed together, trying to suppress a smile. I had to look away to keep from laughing. Under his starched clerical collar, Reverend Tucker was a man like any other, one who hadn't heard the "never get your wife anything that plugs in" rule.

"Feel free to come back anytime you need a gift, Reverend. I'm happy to help."

"Thank you, Tessa. I will." He picked up his shopping bag and walked away from the counter, getting halfway to the door before Margot stopped him.

"Reverend? Aren't you forgetting something?"