Dreaming August (2 page)

* * * *

Benny twirled her spaghetti with no intention of eating it. Tomato sauce gave her the worst heartburn in the history of heartburn. When she thought no one was looking, she shoved a forkful into her mouth as she rose from the table and headed straight for the garbage can in the corner of the yellow kitchen.

“Don’t even think about it, young lady.” Clarice Irene Grady descended upon her daughter with all the intensity of an Italian mama intent upon feeding her young. She yanked the full bowl of spaghetti and meatballs from Benny’s hand. “You hardly touched it.”

“I’m not hungry. I…I went to CC’s on the way home from the cemetery. Charlie said there were a whole bunch of pie-pies left over. You know how I love them. I’m sorry, Ma. I couldn’t resist.”

“Ah, you should have brought one home for me.” Peadar Grady gazed heavenward, his hands patting his paunch. “There’s no bit of heaven like one of Johanna Coco’s pie-pies. You make me jealous, girl.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Benny kissed his forehead. “Next time. I promise.”

“What am I to do with all of this?” Clarice held up the plate. “I cook a good meal and you stop on the way home for—”

“Give it here, Ma.” Benny’s brother Peter held out his hand. “I’m ravenous.”

“And if you don’t stop eating like a horse you’ll be as big as your father.”

“Then throw it away. See if I care.”

Clarice plonked the plate on the table in front of him, glared at Benny and huffed to the stove, muttering. Benny mouthed,
thank you
to Peter. He winked and tucked into her uneaten meal. Tall and lean and muscular, her baby brother didn’t have an extra ounce on his body and never had. Neither had their father in his younger years, as Clarice was fond of reminding him. Still she fed him as if he’d been starved half his life, and would continue starving for the rest of it if not for her efforts.

Benny headed into the parlor, as her mother preferred to call it, and to the interior stairs leading up to the second-story of the two-family house. Seven years, she and Henny had lived there. Six years alone. She wasn’t sure if the notion that she would never leave her familial home comforted or smothered.

“It’s movie night,” Clarice called after her. “You coming back down?”

“Sure, Ma.”

If having her way were actually an option, Benny would take a long bath, curl into bed, and be asleep before dusk gave way to dark. But—

All ways here, you see, are the Queen’s ways.

The urge to push against every one of Clarice’s shoves had once been automatic. It diminished year by year. It wasn’t only because her mom had been her rock after Henny’s death, Benny just didn’t have it in her anymore. After a shower, Benny would be downstairs again, plopped on the couch she’d been plopping into all her life, to watch a romantic comedy starring one of the British Dames her mother was mad for.

In the privacy of her own apartment, Benny smoothed her hands over her belly. She imagined it rounding, swelling, exploding, and her mother’s extraordinary, if slightly embarrassed, joy after it had.

Clarice had been dreaming of grandchildren since her own brood turned from childhood to adolescence. Grandchildren provided within a year of a wedding and at a rate of every other year thereafter. But Tim married and moved to North Carolina before the first was born. Peter hadn’t even had a serious girlfriend yet. And in the seven years of Benny’s marriage, there had not even been a suspected
oops
. She and Henny wanted to see the world first. They planned to backpack across Europe, to book passage on a cargo vessel sailing from California to Japan, to work the vines in Napa a full season. Seven years of planning adventures they never took.

Then he died.

No Henny. No adventures. No baby.

Until now.

Benny moved like a ghost through her apartment, closed all the windows. The beautiful day was becoming a chilly dusk. Nights were usually cold in Bitterly, even when summer days spiked in the nineties. The trees, the river, the sheltering Berkshire Mountains absorbed the heat, stored it away for the long winter. A winter she would miss. Along with the autumn splash in the mountains. She would be in North Carolina with her brother, Tim, and his family. Where it was hot. Even at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And she would have a newborn Clarice didn’t even know about. A baby born in sorrow, whose daddy was not Henny.

Benny couldn’t breathe. She needed out. Now. She bolted to the door, yanked it open, and pounded down the exterior stairs leading to the yard. She jammed the helmet on her head, kicked her scooter to life, and sped off before her mother could shout her name, even if Benedetta saw her at the back screen door.

* * * *

The bakery was still open. During the summer months, CC’s North often hopped long after the posted six o’clock closing. It was only June and unseasonably cool, but it was still light enough to pass for daytime. The doors of the bakery were open wide.

Benny slipped off her scooter. Adjusting her getting-tight jeans, she followed the scent of baking into CC’s and stopped dead in her tracks.

“Oh.” She forced her feet to walk her into the bakery. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.”

“How are…what have…Valentine’s getting so big.”

“Yeah, I hear kids do that.”

Benny quelled the urge to press her palms to burning cheeks already giving away too much. Dan Greene shifted the toddler in his arms. Waiting? What could he be waiting for? Benny pretended she didn’t know exactly what and instead moved to the counter, her back to him.

“Jo!” he called, startling both her and the baby. “Come get your kid. I have to go home.”

Johanna Coco McCallan pushed through the swinging door, arms outstretched. Flour on her cheek, long hair in a knot on top of her head, she swooped past Benny with a look of surprise and a wave before scooping her daughter from Dan’s arms.

“Sorry, Dan. I didn’t realize—”

“No worries.” He kissed the baby’s round cheek. “Will I see you and Charlie for my niece’s graduation party?”

“We’ll be there. Caleb will be watching the bakery, but we’ll have Tony and Millie with us.”

“I’ll let my sister know. See you, Jo. Benedetta.”

Benny waved over her shoulder, eyes resolutely on the menu board.

“Curiouser and curiouser.”

Johanna’s voice turned Benny around. There were others in the bakery. They sat at tables, sipping coffee out of to-go cups from the coffeehouse next door. It was a deal Johanna struck when first she opened her bakery in Bitterly—she wouldn’t serve coffee if the coffeehouse didn’t serve baked goods. The result was a sort of co-op suiting not only the two businesses, but the town as well.

“What’s curiouser?” Benny held out her arms for Valentine, a chubby little cherub as fixed an icon in CC’s as Johanna’s mud cookies and shepherds-pie-pies.

Johanna handed her over. “Dan. I usually have to pry Valentine from his arms before he’ll give her up.”

“She’s a special girl.” Benny’s heart pounded. “I don’t blame him.”

“Well he was sure in a hurry to hand her off just now.” Johanna pulled the elastic from her hair, piled it high again and secured it in place. “Did someone say something to him?”

“I only just walked in.” She bounced the baby, avoiding Johanna’s eyes. “Dad was hoping for some of your pie-pies. Any left?”

“One or two. Charlie said you turned him down.”

“I did. Out at the cemetery. When I got home, Dad was inconsolable that I would pass up a pie-pie.”

“Then I’ll go grab one for him. You mind holding her?”

Benny clutched Valentine closer. “Try taking her.”

Johanna scooted around the counter and into the back. Valentine watched her mother vanish, but didn’t cry. Smiling a wet, baby smile, she reached for Benny’s turquoise pendant.

“No you don’t.” She tapped it away from the baby’s mouth, but not out of her hand. Valentine studied the blue stone, her baby brow furrowed with thoughts Benny couldn’t begin to guess at. Would she dream in blue that night? Holding the baby closer, Benny closed her eyes and allowed her own tremulous joy rumble through her.

A boy. She was positive. And already, she loved him so much.

“Here you go,” Johanna came at her, the bagged pie-pies outstretched and already spreading buttery patches in the paper sack. “Tell him he got the last two.”

“I’ll trade you.” She offered Valentine, who reached for her mother with a little squeal. Benny grabbed the sac. “Crap. I didn’t bring any money.”

“I’m not charging you for leftovers, Ben.”

“They’re not leftovers until tomorrow.”

“They’re leftovers the minute lunch is over. Seriously, don’t be weird.”

“Thanks, Jo.”

Johanna waved away her thanks. “Now if I can get these laggers out of here, I can go home. I should have gotten Dan to do it before he left. He’s good at clearing a room.”

Benny laughed along with Johanna, even if it made her woozy. Funny man, Dan Greene. Always joking, lightening even the darkest moments. Dependable. Loyal. Kind. Everyone’s favorite plow man in winter, landscaper the rest of the year even if he liked to pretend he was an ornery old bachelor and dedicated grouch. It was part of his charm, and Benny had always liked that about him until she more than liked him for it, which was entirely unacceptable.

“How are you doing, Ben?”

Benny bit her lip. “I’m okay. Just—you know. Same old, same old. I—I hear Nina is coming back to the States for the holidays.”

“You heard right. And she’s bringing back a surprise.”

“Nina? A surprise? That doesn’t sound like her.”

“I know, right?” Johanna laughed. “But she’s not talking. I’m dying of curiosity.”

While those stragglers finished up and left, while Johanna tidied up the front and her stepson did the same in back, Benny listened to her talk and talk and talk. About Nina and the trendy but authentic Curiosity Shop she and Gunner founded in New York City. About the honeymoon Johanna and Charlie finally took, meeting her sister and brother-in-law in Bora Bora, sailing those South Seas islands that never stopped being exotic. As long as Johanna kept talking, Benny didn’t have to say a word. Any wondering about Daniel Greene was safely off topic, even if the conjured image of him so tenderly holding Valentine would not quit. And then there was the way he looked at her the moment she first walked in.

She rode her scooter home in the dark, the only light coming from the stars overhead.

Star light, star bright,

First star I see tonight.

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have this wish I wish tonight.

Benedetta revved the tinny engine, pretended the tears instantly drying on her cheeks came from forgetting her goggles in her rush to be out of the house. They had nothing to do with Dan, or the gentle way he held Valentine, or how her heart had stuttered that moment before she forced it to still.

* * * *

“Don’t come through the kitchen. I just washed the floor.”

Dan Greene grumbled under his breath, pulled his work boots off and tiptoed across the kitchen floor already dry anyway, to the mudroom opening into the breezeway and separating the kitchen from the family room. He made a show of closing the door loudly.

“Thank you,” his sister called as she came through the kitchen carrying a load of laundry.

“Hey! You told me to stay off the floor.”

“My feet are clean.”

“So are my socks.”

“I was afraid you’d walk on it with your boots.” Evelyn offered him her cheek, which Dan dutifully kissed. His sister looked tired, more so than usual. He took the laundry basket from her and loaded clothes into the washer.

“I can do it,” she said.

“You can’t do it while fixing me a plate of whatever’s left from your little scavengers’ dinner.”

Evelyn pursed her lips. “I thought you were bringing home pie-pies.”

Dan shoved the last of the laundry in, closed the door a smidge too forcefully. Benedetta had walked into the bakery and all thought walked out of his head. If he wasn’t sure before, her behavior in the bakery cinched it—Benny wasn’t just avoiding him, she was trying to pretend he didn’t exist.

“I forgot,” he said. “I was playing with Valentine.”

“She’s a sweet little thing. How is Johanna?”

“Fine. Why wouldn’t she be?”

“No reason. Just making conversation. Come and sit. I’ll fix you a plate.”

Dan did as he was told, as he always did what his older sister asked of him. And even what she didn’t. Like putting the laundry in when she was so tired the weariness manifested in deep splotches under her eyes. Like selling the cramped but adequate house they’d bought together after their parents died, to move into hers when Paul left her sick and struggling. Sitting at the table, he tucked into the warmed egg noodles and peas while Evelyn took cold fried chicken from the fridge.

“Not a fit supper for a man who works as hard as you,” she said.

“Better’n what I’d have made for myself, back in the day.”

“Back in the day”—she snorted—“you were young and could eat mothballs on toast and then go out frogging all night long.”

“You saying I’m old?”

“I’m saying you’re older. We both are.” Evelyn sat opposite him. A bulb was out in the overhead fixture, casting even deeper shadows under her eyes. Dan worried about her, about keeping up with the kids, her job, and the constant battle with Lyme disease left untreated for too long. “Eat,” she said. “It’ll be disgusting if I heat it up again.”

“How are the plans for Mabel’s graduation party going?” he asked around a forkful of peas. “Oh, yeah, Jo, Charlie and the younger kids will be here.”

“No Caleb?”

“Someone’s got to mind the store.”

Evelyn grinned. “Mabel’s going to be disappointed. She has a little crush on him.”

“He’s too old for her.”

“He’s only seventeen, Dan. She’s off to high school next year.”

“There’s a big difference in them three years right now.”

“I suppose.” Evelyn sighed. “Plans are going fine.”

“Something wrong?”

“Just tired.”

“Did you make an appointment with your doc yet?”

“I will.”

“When?”