Kate Jacobs (27 page)

nineteen

Georgia woke up to a burst of light on her
face.
"What the!?"
"Half the day is done, love, it's gone ten," said Gran, standing next
to the curtains she'd just pulled open.
"C'mon, Mom, it's time for breakfast—I made muffins. And shortbread for
tea later."
"Oh, she's a delightful one in the kitchen, Georgia—she's got the knack.
Just like my own mother, who could take a practically empty larder and turn out
a brilliant feast."
Dakota soaked up the compliments. And the connections. She'd spent a
fascinating morning with her old granny, as she creamed the butter the old
woman had left out the night before, mixing in flour and sugar and vanilla.
Then they'd rolled the dough into a long tube, slicing it off into thick
rounds, giggling all the while. Baking in pajamas! Then they'd sat down to a
quiet breakfast, just the two of them. Soft-boiled eggs with salt and toast
fingers, watching the sun come up as they stood on the step at the back door,
Dakota still in pajamas but bundled in an old emerald-green cardigan of
Gran's
. It had been early, but Gran hadn't ever lost the
habit of rising with the sun—an old farm habit—and Dakota's body clock was all
crazy. She'd fallen asleep the previous night shortly after tea and her mother
had decided to let her sleep. This resulted in her waking up early and raring
to go. Good thing her great-grandmother was prepared.
"I don't think I've ever seen a sunrise," she told Gran.
"It's something your eyes never tire of," said her white-haired
counterpart.
They gazed at the streaks of pink and gold for a while; then Gran broke the
silence.
"Your mother tells me you're looking for your roots."
"Yeah." Dakota stared down at her hands. "I need to know where I
come from."
"Indeed. That's a big thing in America. Where you've come from." Gran
nodded sagely.
"Well, you've come to the right place, Dakota my dear. We're your people
here."
"I don't really look like you, though, Gran."
"Ach, that's only on the outside, little one."

* * *

The pair walked off the step to inspect the
backyard, the manicured bit of lawn, and the very large flower patch to the
right—the irises, clematises, and rare blue poppies in bloom—and the even more
substantial vegetable garden to the left, Dakota salivating over early
strawberries and tender carrots she could use to make muffins. The fields
surrounding the house stretched back over a mile, bordered on all sides by
fences made of hard stone, all shapes and sizes packed in place with skill and
worn together by age. The stones, Gran said, were plucked out of the ground by
the ancestors of her husband, Tom Walker Sr., all those Walkers working their
way up from a past as tenant farmers to finally having a spot of land to call
their own. When she was a girl, the Walker name had been well known in these
parts, and young Tom was considered quite a catch, she told her
great-granddaughter. And they had been very happy together.
"But then he went off to fight in the war and he just never returned
home," said Gran simply, a fact she'd long ago accepted. "My
father-in-law ran the farm for years and years until my oldest son stepped up
to the work, and my youngest boy—that's your grandpa in Pennsylvania—helped him
at it until he caught the bug for America and sailed away."
"So my mom never knew her grandfather?"
"No, she knew him, Dakota. She knew him through me. But she never
met
him, which is a different thing altogether."
Dakota tilted her head for a moment, considering.
"So all these old Walkers I've never met…" she spoke slowly, thinking
it through, "…are still people I
know
."
"In the very essence of your soul. Quite right you are. Because they
are
you."
"Gran?"
"Yes?"
"I think you probably know pretty much everything."
"You may be on to something there, little one."
Hours later, the two of them were dressed, still in cardigans knitted long ago
by Gran, she in her favorite red and Dakota in green, making the two of them
look distinctly Christmassy when they stood side-by-side. As they were doing a
lot, quite taken with their matching height.
Georgia raised herself on one elbow.
"The two of you have been making muffins?"
"And watching a sunrise and picking the poppies and sneaking into Cat's
room to get the knitting bag—"
"Being very careful not to disturb your guest who seems to have a penchant
for snoring," interjected Gran. "But I think we'd do best not to tell
her she's such a noisy sort."
"And now we're here to wake you up, Mom. Hurry and get dressed—
Gran's
going to teach me how to knit a Fair Isle
pattern."
"What's the chance I can get breakfast in bed?"
"The same chance there's always been, Georgia dear," said Gran.
"None at all."
Georgia laughed and made as if to get up, which appeased her daughter and
grandmother enough to leave the room. But she lowered herself back down into
the bed once the door was closed, her back sore—from the plane ride, no
doubt—and her stomach nauseated. It was only five A.M. back in New York, and
she was desperate for a few more minutes of rest. But she couldn't seem to
drift back as she lay there, her mind swirling over the events of the past few
months, the reappearance of James and Cat, the fighting with Dakota, and the
sheer fun of hosting the knitting club in the store. A bright spot in a crazy
spring. It had been a crazy night, over a month ago, when Cat had lurched into
the shop and demanded they all do something that scared them. And what did
Georgia do? Spent a few hours with James, kissing him, being stupid. Pretending
to the club that she was meeting Cat's dare.
But that was a bit of a con, wasn't it? Because she wasn't really scared of
James now—she was angry with him, sure, but it wasn't the same as when she was
younger. When he trashed her heart and wandered off without a care.
No, Georgia was afraid of James from back then. Afraid of what she didn't know
about his affairs. The lying. All the nasty things he probably really thought
about her.
She was afraid of those unopened letters. The ones she'd kept in the box in the
closet all these years, careful never to give in to the urge to read them.
She'd just check on them, every year or so, reassuring herself they were still
there. She thought of them as the answers, James's reasoning for his actions,
and the idea of them had always felt, in the back of her mind, as a sort of
closure she could go get when she was ready.
Someday, she would tell herself, someday she would read them.
It hadn't been strange, really, when she was pulling out her suitcase from the
closet in New York and fretting about taking a trip with Cat, to take down the
box and reread that old yearbook passage. To see the two letters. What had been
unusual had been the impulse to bring the letters.
She had given in, tossed the envelopes into the bottom of the case. Maybe.
Maybe not.
Did she really need all the details? The great last gasp of blame and
retribution?
Yes, she did. She did. Now.
Georgia padded in bare feet across the carpeted room and went to her suitcase,
began rooting around calmly through the piles of clean panties and tees. She
knew she'd packed those damn letters. Where were they? With increasing stress,
she began to dump clothes and shoes out of the case onto the bed, searching
through zippered pockets, flipping through books, sorting through her
toiletries case. Where were they? She went over to her carry-on bag and
rummaged through, came up with nothing. What if she had lost them? After all
this time?
She was barely able to breathe as she sorted through the pile of clothes on the
bed a second time, frantically folding and refolding shirts, pants, pajamas.
And then, from the leg of her favorite jeans, the letters shook out. With a fit
of frustration and relief, she slid her thumb under the flap and ripped away at
the edges.
Standing in her
sleepshirt
, legs bare, she braved
herself to read James's letters from Paris.
Georgia—
It's hard to find a place to start. I was wrong. I made a mistake. I know I
hurt you and that's just not right. I don't know why I did it—it just happened.
But I want you to know that I quit my job and I won't see my former boss again.
I took a great job in Paris, one that should have lots of room for growth. And
I think we should try again, make a fresh start. Maybe we could all live
together here? I really do love you. I feel so good when I'm around you.
Happier than I've ever been. Maybe I was just testing you? Anyway, it was
stupid. I know that now. I really want—need—to hear from you.
Love,
James
P.S. And I was stupid not to bring you to Baltimore. I'm ready to take you
anytime you want to go.
I, I, I. God, it was all about him, wasn't it? Georgia bit her lip, feeling
uncertain, and then tore into the final note, anticipating—hoping, even—that
this would be the nasty letter she'd always assumed he'd sent.
G—
I'm truly sorry. I love you. And I love our baby.
Please get in touch.
J.
What? Where was the blame, the demands, the lies? She'd spent years nursing her
resentment of James. Not just the cheating—that was beyond wrong—but the lack
of concern for her and the baby, for the way he just walked out of their lives
without a second thought. Off to Paris. With great glee, she'd assumed.
And now, to learn he'd cared! Her stomach was in a twist; panting for air,
Georgia dashed out into the hall to go to the bathroom, splashed cold water
from the sink on her face, and held on to the counter for support.
Wishing, just wishing, she could purge all her regret away.

* * *

After enduring a breakfast that had morphed
into brunch—and suffering an annoyingly perky Cat refreshed from her sleeping
pill–induced evening of rest—the women pulled on their shoes and light jackets
and headed out to the rental car.
It was time, said Gran, to take her guests to town and show them off to the
locals. No one noticed that Georgia was quiet, assuming she was merely
jet-lagged. She made a mental note not to ruin her grandmother's big trip to
town with long-ago problems that were too old to be resolved. "I've been
bragging about the two of you for years," Gran explained to Dakota as they
buckled into their seats. "Just for fun, we can say Cat is a
celebrity—she's so thin and pretty they're sure to believe it."
Cat beamed at Gran from the back seat.
"Hurry up now, Georgia; I want to make sure we've done the rounds by
teatime."
The drive to town—all one street of it—took a good three minutes, four with the
need to slow down for the tourists jaywalking across the street.
"Where to, Gran?" Georgia marveled at the main street of
Thornhill
, a collection of artisan boutiques, pubs, a
separate fishmonger and butcher, and one very fancy dress shop. And, of course,
a store for knitted woolens.
"Start at the top of the street and we'll walk our way down."
"So this is it?" Dakota hadn't quite realized, when they drove
through the afternoon before on the way to
Gran's
house, that these few blocks of main street were simply part of the road they
called a highway. Georgia found all sorts of images coming back to her, could
recall walking the trip to town when she was a young girl, ever hopeful of getting
an ice cream for the return stroll.
"I can't believe the designer dresses in that window," Cat was
saying, crunched in the back with Dakota. "Gran, I am totally impressed. I
thought this was going to be hicks in the sticks."
"Thank you, dear, I think," said Gran.
Georgia parked the car and let out her passengers, offering her arm to her
grandmother.
"Don't need that," scoffed Gran, who was moving briskly into the
first store facing them. "Now, Muriel always works on Mondays and I know
she'd love to see you."
Georgia followed behind, a vague memory of a girl she'd played with long ago, a
feeling of homecoming enveloping her. They walked into the boutique, past the
display of Camilla-style headgear, and found themselves warmly greeted by women
who knew all their pertinent details and seemed overjoyed to see them. It was
fantastic.
Dakota looked back at Georgia, a bit thrown to be immediately surrounded by
strangers clucking with approval and complimenting Gran on everything from her
great-granddaughter's posture to her height.
"Aren't you two the vision of twins," the shopkeepers said, as Dakota
and Gran stood just as they had been doing since they met, arm-in-arm and
permanently joined at the hip, dressed in their coordinating knitted cardigans.
"Not quite identical…" began Gran.
"But that's only on the outside," finished Dakota, laughing. The two
of them were a veritable comedy team, thought Georgia. And it was a delight to
see her little
muffingirl
so happy, the Penn Station
adventure long forgotten.

* * *

They made their way along the street until Gran
declared it was time for a spot of refreshment. The teahouse—really just a
little room attached to a shop selling a hodgepodge of soups and scones and
toasted sandwiches—was kitted out with standard-issue frilly curtains and
doilies under the sugar bowls on the tables. But a display shelf at the back of
the store held handmade wooden carvings—all available from the Web site, of
course—in a variety of distinctly non-Scottish themes, from fat-bellied
Buddhas
to a replica of the Twin Towers. The corners of the
room were filled with iron sculptures of a sort, confusing twists of metal with
tags attached offering, by way of explanation, names such as
"Conundrum" and "Hullabaloo." Gran followed Dakota's eye.
"Local artists," she said simply. "It's not all porridge and
tartan around here, you know."
"I'm really surprised by how sophisticated it all is," said Cat.
"I've been thinking about what I should do with my career and I just feel
so inspired."
"Good to see that twenty-four hours is all you need to figure out your
life." Georgia was feeling a little tired of Cat's exclamations of every
store and person as "darling" and "so authentic!" Gran gave
Georgia's knee a little pressing, inclined her head for Cat to continue. Always
the good manners, thought Georgia. Maybe she'd been in New York too long.
"I'm going to move to Scotland," declared Cat. "After I saw that
dress shop, I realized there's really an upscale clientele here."
The old woman looked alarmed. "We're rather downscale on the upscale
ladder, I assure you."
"I bet you could stay with Gran," Georgia offered, trying hard to
keep her face straight, pressing her knee back into her grandmother's under the
table. "You might even be able to move out of the sewing room."
"Georgia, really, I'm serious," said Cat. "I think I should
bring an organic foods store to the area. Introduce healthy eating to the
Scottish people."
Dakota looked up from her menu, which she had been studying intently, trying to
decide between cakes or scones. She tapped her finger on the paper.
"You might want to check this out, Cat," she said, her voice not
giving anything away but her eyes laughing. She was becoming a wit, Georgia
realized.
The women glanced down. "We use locally grown, organic ingredients
whenever possible" was displayed at the bottom of the menu.
"Oh." Cat looked crestfallen. "I really thought I was on to
something. I even wrote down a few ideas," she said, pulling out of her
purse a piece of paper on which she'd written the following: tomatoes,
cucumbers, cheese, milk, vitamins.
"I think, Cat, that's what most people know as a grocery list," said
Georgia, not unkindly. "Maybe not so much of a business plan there.
Besides, I imagine it might be difficult for an American to introduce being
green to a country of people who drive tiny gas-efficient cars."
"Georgia, I'm just trying to figure out what I'm meant to do in this
life." Cat shoved her list into her handbag.
"A commendable goal, Cat," said Gran, with a tone that meant the time
for Georgia's teasing had passed. "Let's get ourselves some sustenance
because we've still to make our way to see
Maudie
at
the woolen shop. She'll want to know all about your yarn shop in New York City,
Georgia. Well, I've already told her, of course, but she'll want to hear you
tell it again."
The ladies sipped PG Tips and nibbled baked goods and tried jams and cream as
Dakota thought up treat ideas for the club back home and Cat threw out more
ideas for her new career. (Yoga instructor? Nope, too spiritual. Personal
stylist? No, too frustrating having to do all that shopping and hand it over to
someone else. Antique dealer? Hmmm, maybe there was an idea…) She could do
anything she set her mind on, Gran told her confidently, as long as it wasn't
in Scotland. Or in New York, added Georgia, laughing. Cat looked hurt, then
relaxed a bit as her old friend assured her she was only joking. Sort of.
It was nice, thought Georgia, just wasting away a Monday afternoon with these
women she really cared about. Yes, even Cat, she had to admit it. She bit into
a crumbly, buttery scone, savoring the burst of sweet raspberry jam and the
cooling silkiness of the clotted cream, when she heard Gran give a little cough
of annoyance.
"So who's this now?" Georgia looked up to see two dour-faced biddies
at the table.
"Hello, Marjorie, Alice," said Gran. "This is my granddaughter
Georgia Walker, her friend Cat Phillips, and my great-granddaughter,
Dakota."
"Your great-granddaughter? My
my
, that's quite
something," said one to the other.
"Most unusual," replied the second woman.
"Oh?" said Gran, her voice like ice. "Whatever do you
mean?"
"Just that we've never met the little one before."
"Gran, those women are staring at me." Dakota looked devastated,
having heard her mother's stories and imagined Scotland to be some kind of
Utopia.
"I wouldn't want you to get a big head, but you are incredibly
beautiful," Gran said matter-of-factly, as the two women continued to
hover over the table. "Absolutely gorgeous.
"And if anybody is staring for some other reason"—she raised her
voice—"then they can kiss my
arse
."
Georgia nearly choked on her drink. If she was ever going to need an enforcer,
she'd be sure to call Gran.
"Now make room for some cake, girls, because we're not moving a muscle
until we're good and ready to go."
And they settled into their chairs, feeling strong together, encouraged by the
other tea takers' murmurings of "Quite right!" and "Good on you,
Glenda," and staying put until Marjorie and Alice were
tsk-tsked
right out of the tearoom.