Bliss and the Art of Forever (A Hope Springs Novel) (18 page)

More than she could put into words. “It’s none of my business.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“Then, yes. I want to know, but,” she hurried to add, “I’m not asking you to tell me.”

“What happened in the past stays in the past? Is that it?”

Her past . . . it was part of her life daily. She was who she was because of who her parents had been, how they’d raised her, the life they’d given her. Because of the man she’d chosen to marry who was so different from anyone they would have wanted for her, lacking the higher education they prized. Yet he’d been the best man she’d ever known.

Jean Dial’s words came back to her then.
As good a man as your Artie was? From the facts I know to be true, not the ones embellished by his mother, Callum Drake is equally so.
But what about the facts Jean didn’t know?

“Do you want to tell me?” she asked. “Have you ever told anyone? How much
does
your mother actually know?”

“You’re just full of questions today, aren’t you, Ms. Harvey?” he asked as he sat beside her.

She crossed her legs, swinging her foot. Her toes caught the seam of his jeans and she stopped. “I’m an educator. It comes with the territory.”

Elbows on his knees, he leaned forward, rubbing at the heel of one hand with the thumb of the other. “It’s less about where the money came from than where it didn’t.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I started making chocolates after Addy was born. I think I told you I was in San Francisco then.”

“Right. You were bartending. And living with the owners of the bar.”

“Lainie and Duke. They were both in the club. That’s where I met them. Lainie would watch Addy at night while I worked. Not a lot of watching to do when they’re that young. Or so according to Lainie. She said it was no big deal. Anyhow,” he said, lifting his gaze from his busy hands to look across the yard, “I was there with Addy during the day. We bunked in the living room. She had a playpen. I had the couch. I pretty much existed on catnaps. If she was quiet, I slept. When she wasn’t . . .”

He shook his head, as if reliving those days. “There were a lot of times she wasn’t. I walked her. I paced back and forth. I rocked her and bounced her. The TV was usually on, and I got hooked on cooking shows. Don’t ask me why. Maybe having a kid, that little baby girl, and wanting the best for her. No way was I going to be able to give her a good life if I didn’t change mine. Anyhow, I started thinking about what was in the formula I was feeding her. There was so much crap on the Internet about cow’s milk and soy and vegetable oil and all the chemical additives. Not that there was much I could do about what she was eating then. It’s not like I had the right equipment for breastfeeding. But how she ate later . . . that was going to be on me.”

“And that’s where the cooking shows came in.”

“I figure most parents start out swearing to do things right. Then the kids find out about Happy Meals. One day, she couldn’t have been but about four months old, I was sitting and rocking her and about to fall asleep, when this dude came on TV and started making candy. And not just chocolate bars but these exquisite little pieces of art.”

“Like you make for Bliss.”

He laughed. “I’m not sure anything I’ve ever created has come close to what I saw that day. He had a local shop, and I stopped by there on my way to the bar the next day. Spent about fifty bucks I couldn’t afford on the artisan chocolates he had on display. Took them back to the bar and when I wasn’t busy, I dissected them like you would a frog.”

“You didn’t eat them?”

“Oh, I ate them. Duke ate them. Lainie ate them. I told them what I’d paid for them. Asked if they’d mind me using their kitchen to see if I could make some of my own. I bought a couple of molds, some really crappy chocolate, though I didn’t know it at the time. It was a big fat fail. Spent two months researching and experimenting before I turned out something I was proud of. It was nothing compared to what I’d bought from the dude I’d seen on TV. Or compared to what I make now—”

“But you were on your way.”

“I was on my way to being on my way.”

A self-made man. A self-taught man. She pictured a younger Callum in his jeans and his boots and his T-shirts, cooing to a baby Adrianne while tempering chocolate. “How did you end up in Hope Springs?”

“Some shit happened,” he said. “With Addy’s mother. And I knew I had to get out of California or spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Duke made it happen. Duke made all of it happen.”

“He gave you the money.”

“He gave me enough to get out of there and for a new start. It was a lot of money. A
lot
of money.” He went quiet, went back to worrying one hand with the other, frowning and shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have taken it. If not for Addy, I wouldn’t have. I mean, I don’t know all of what Duke was into, we didn’t talk about it, but it wasn’t hard to guess, since I was into some of it, too.”

“Drugs?”

He nodded as if finding no reason to deny what he’d done. It was what it was. “His money got me and Addy here, and that’s all I could think about. I’d saved a lot of what I’d made tending bar. I did other odd jobs for guys in the club. Delivered packages. Picked up packages. They paid good money, and I never asked. Adding what was left from Duke to what I had got me started. And it seemed a lesser evil than being indebted to my folks. The fact that my dad even offered . . .”

Interesting how often he singled out his dad. “Did your mother know?”

“I’m not sure. I hadn’t talked to my folks in a while. I hadn’t seen them in ages. But I sent them a box of the chocolates I’d made in the bar’s kitchen and told them that was what I was doing with my life. And I told them about Addy.”

“They didn’t know about her?”

He shook his head. “We weren’t in touch. I wasn’t married to her mother. We weren’t really even in a relationship besides, well, the one that made Addy happen. Turns out I wasn’t particularly proud of that, but I didn’t know I felt that way until after she was born. Becoming a parent, being responsible for a life . . .” He reached down, swiped a stick off the ground. “It put a new spin on a lot of stuff. Including the whole extended-family thing, and wondering about relatives Addy might one day want to know. I’m surprised I didn’t take up genealogy.” He looked over, grinned. “That was a joke.”

Brooklyn took a deep breath, thinking about the children she and Artie had decided not to have. How different things would be for her today if they had.

“Anyway, they wanted to meet her, and they really wanted me to come back to Texas. But there was a very big chance I’d fail. So it was easier to risk my own money, and what I had from Duke, than to take what my dad offered. I mean, I wasn’t making the type of candy you can grab at the grocery store checkout, and Hope Springs is the size of a postage stamp. You can nearly buy a cheeseburger for what one of my artisan pieces costs.”

“You put a lot of work into them.”

“Work and the ingredients. Quality is not cheap. The chocolate. The liquors. I get pistachios from Sicily. Hazelnuts from Washington State. And every confection includes a touch of sea salt imported from Camargue, France.”

“Sea salt,” she said, and smiled to herself at all the things about chocolates she didn’t know.

“It balances the sour and the bitter and the sweet. You don’t even know it’s there.”

“You’re pretty amazing, this wealth of knowledge you have.”

“Not really. I read an article last year sometime about Cambridge offering a degree in chocolate. To research the melting point or something.” He shrugged. “Not exactly my cuppa, but if I know things, it’s because I’ve made a point to learn them, or had hands-on experience with them.”

Every bit of his story was so clear, so straightforward . . . “Have you ever explained to your mother where the money came from? The same way you just explained it to me?”

He huffed and shook his head. “She wouldn’t listen.”

“Even knowing you accepted it because of Adrianne?”

“Addy is six years old, and my mother is still mad that I deprived her of the first year of her only grandchild’s life.”

“I can see that, I guess.”

“Taking her side now?” he asked, arching a brow.

“It’s not about taking sides,” she told him. “It’s about family. You think she’s difficult, that she’s”—
how had he put it?
—“up in your business too much. Maybe she’s just having a hard time forgiving you for not telling her about Adrianne sooner. That first grandchild has got to be a big deal. All the little booties and tiny sleepers and knitted blankets. She missed out on that.”

“Yeah. I guess,” he said, breaking the stick into pieces then tossing them into the yard. “You and Artie never wanted kids?”

She waited for the catch in her throat to pass before answering. “Not while he was fighting fires.”

“That would’ve been tough. Especially since . . .”

“Yeah.” It was all she could say.

“Shit, Brooklyn. I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.” Though it felt as if it were yesterday.

“Still. I need to learn to watch my mouth.”

“And I need to get back to town,” she said, standing. “I promised Dolly Pepper I’d help her tonight with the refreshment station at the Second Baptist Church’s carnival.”

Callum closed his eyes and chuckled. “And I promised Addy we’d go, and that I’d buy her ten tickets to the cakewalk. She wants to win my mother’s Oreo cake, and since my mother’s in charge of the booth . . .”

“I hope you like Oreos,” she said, leading the way down the sidewalk as they returned to his bike. “Or at least have room in your freezer.”

“My mom . . .” He stopped as he handed her a helmet, frowning down at his own. “She’s not the least bit shy when it comes to sharing her ideas on, well, anything. But especially on how to keep me from screwing up again.”

“Are you going to?”

“And risk losing everything? My business, my daughter . . . what do you think?”

She thought that Callum Bennett Drake would never make a wrong choice in his life again.

Brooklyn couldn’t remember the last carnival she’d been to that wasn’t a work-related event. For thirteen years she’d attended autumn and Halloween carnivals, bobbing for apples along with cakewalks; winter and Christmas carnivals, singing carols along with cakewalks; spring carnivals with sack races and yeah—cakewalks.

For tonight’s refreshment table, she’d baked an old family favorite, a banana cake her mother had made often. The recipe had come from her maternal grandmother, and was just as easily made into a sheet cake as it was layers. The sheet allowed her to cut individual rectangles and wrap them much like the brownies from Two Owls Café.

“Thank you so much for bringing these,” Dolly said, taking the basket Brooklyn carried and setting it against the wall of the church gymnasium along with the rest of the items to be set up for sale. “It certainly wasn’t necessary but it is so very appreciated. Strange as it may seem, not everyone likes chocolate.”

“Anything for the cause,” Brooklyn said, looking around at the decorative streamers and balloons in pinks and reds as if someone had gotten a good deal after Valentine’s Day. “I would hate to show up for the fun without contributing something.”

“You’re contributing your time, and that’s plenty,” Dolly said with a pat to Brooklyn’s shoulder. “Especially since I don’t believe you’re a member here?”

“I’m not,” she said, leaving her purse in a plastic bin next to Dolly’s, which sat on top of the refreshment table’s cash box. “Though I do come sometimes with Jean. My husband was Catholic, so I always went to mass with him. But I haven’t been going anywhere regularly for years. I need to. For the fellowship as much as anything.”

“Then I’m going to be sure and introduce you to everyone, even though teaching here for as long as you have means you probably know as many people as I do.”

“It’s a very real possibility,” Brooklyn said, laughing as she took a stack of red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloths from Dolly’s hand.

“Just spread these out over the tables. I think we’ll set up the goodies on the sides, and we can sit at the one in the center to take payments. And don’t worry about collecting the exact amount for the items. If someone is a dime or a quarter short, that’s good enough,” Dolly said, then sidled nearer to add, “Unless Shirley Drake is close enough to notice.”

After the last week, Brooklyn wasn’t surprised at the comment, just that Dolly had been the one to make it, though she understood—and sympathized with—the frustration behind the words. “I’m beginning to think the Shirley Drake I know from school as Adrianne’s grandmother isn’t the same Shirley you know from church and Jean knows from Pearl’s.”

Dolly took a deep breath, blew it out, pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Brooklyn, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’m still on edge after volunteering with her on Wednesday afternoon, and I’m blowing off steam. I shouldn’t be blowing it in your direction. Especially with you being such good friends with her son.”

“I don’t know that we’re such good friends,” Brooklyn said, snapping the first tablecloth into place and hoping to hide the color she felt in her cheeks. “I mean, we’ve only just met . . .”

Hearing Dolly’s soft chuckle, she let the sentence trail; then Dolly added, “Get Tennessee and Kaylie to tell you about
just meeting
.”

Brooklyn laughed, not quite ready to tell the other woman that she was right. That even now Brooklyn was wondering when Callum would get here, if they’d have time to talk, or if he’d be tied up with Adrianne and her efforts to win her grandmother’s cake. “What about you and Mitch?”

“Well, we’re older, not that age means anything, but we’d worked together and were friends for quite a while before we realized we’d fallen in love.” Dolly stopped in the act of setting up chairs at the center table, and glanced wistfully across the gymnasium.

Standing next to Harry Meadows, Mitch was easy to spot, his salt-and-pepper hair buzzed short, his grin electric. The two men were arranging the station where they would slice brisket and sausage for sandwiches served on white bread with pickles and onions. “Still,” Dolly said, “there was a spark there from the beginning. Hard to ignore when we were stepping over and around each other in Kaylie’s kitchen.”