The Late Bloomers' Club Read online

  It really was a cozy home. Braided rugs in dark maroons and rich purples covered the wooden floors. The bright afternoon sun poured in the living room, filtered only by the lacy curtains that hung from all the windows. The room was as warm as a greenhouse. I opened the two windows that faced front and watched the curtains drift in the breeze. Small ceramic statuettes of dogs of every stripe stood in a straight row on the mantel above the fireplace. The walls were hidden behind bookcases stuffed with oversized books—collections of photographs, exhibition catalogs, books about English gardens. Poetry volumes with cracked and broken spines. Travel guides from Burma and Belize. In between the books there were notebooks, some leather bound, a few black-and-marble composition books, and photo albums as well. And of course there was a large selection of cookbooks, classics like The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book sitting alongside plastic-bound collections from church groups and the Guthrie Garden Club.

  Upstairs, I found a tiny bedroom, the bed made up with an old quilt in the hens-and-chicks pattern, the nightstand and dresser both covered in lace doilies. A pretty flannel nightgown was folded under her pillow, light pink roses on white cotton. There was a jug of water by the bed with an upside-down glass over the top to keep the dust out. They were such intimate things, and I felt shy seeing them. Several library books were stacked on the nightstand as well, a few novels, a book of poems, and a guide to the wildflowers of Vermont. I sat down on the edge of the bed and flipped through the drawings.

  The wall facing the bed was covered in old family photos. It was the classic Vermont farmhouse, untouched in some ways by time. I pulled open one of the dresser drawers. The scent of cedar filled my nostrils. Wool sweaters were wrapped in paper, awaiting winter. There was a large trunk at the foot of her bed covered by a thick, bright red blanket.

  I made my way back downstairs, opening doors until I came to the one that led to the small, attached barn. I stepped into the cool, dark room expecting to find the usual collection of yard tools and summer lawn chairs, and walked straight into something large and crinkly. It felt like a plastic garbage bag. I waded through the room, waist deep in stuff, pushing aside bags and boxes with my feet and hands until I reached the door that faced the driveway and pushed it open to let in the light. A long workbench hugged the back wall under a pegboard that was bursting with tools, the outline of each tool traced in paint. But that was where the organization ended. The barn was crammed floor to ceiling with—everything. I pushed aside the heavy-duty clear plastic bags, like the one I had walked into, that littered the floor, filled to bursting with soda and beer cans, bubble wrap, corks, and bottle caps, all separated by type and brand. The shelf below the pegboard was lined with rusted coffee cans. I dipped my fingers in each can—they contained nails, bits of wire, coils of silver solder, and drill bits in varying sizes. There were stacks and stacks of plastic bins. I opened one to find it stuffed with remnants of old silk ribbon. There were gallon-sized milk jugs overflowing with pennies and a garbage can full of broken shards of ceramics, all white with a blue toile pattern. There was even a bag full of bags. Every inch of space was spoken for. It looked like an abandoned recycling center, only the room gave the distinct feeling that everything was being saved, not discarded. It didn’t seem possible that the person who kept such a tidy house had such a chaotic barn. It felt like I had stepped into the handiwork of two different brains.

  Back in the kitchen, I rinsed out Freckles’s dog bowls, filled one with fresh water and one with kibble, and set them out on the front porch. It was tempting to leave the back door open for the dog, but I didn’t want to be responsible if squirrels or raccoons, or even a bear, decided the little farmhouse would make a nice place to hibernate.

  I was sitting in my car about to turn on the ignition when I heard a deep woof off in the distance. It sounded like it had come from behind Peggy’s house. I kicked off my sneakers, pulled on the pair of hiking boots I always kept in the backseat of my car, tucked my jeans into my socks, and rolled down my shirtsleeves.

  The east side of the house wasn’t too overgrown—cornflowers and yarrow instead of vines. Once I turned the corner, a rough-looking path appeared before me—not an actual clearing, but the grass looked as if it had been stomped down on repeatedly, perhaps by deer. I followed the trampled-down grass into the trees behind the cabin. Maples and oaks, a few tall spruce mixed in—a typical northern New England forest. Another deep woof sounded through the trees, followed by the crunch of paws on leaf litter.

  “Freckles,” I called, whistling a couple of notes for good measure. I picked up my pace, hoping to at least catch sight of him so I’d know he was okay. Maybe he would recognize my scent from the other day behind the diner? I wished that I had a pocketful of bacon.

  I was at least a mile away from the homestead when my foot caught a slick spot on the ground and suddenly I was in the air and then on my back. “Crap,” I said, gently testing my legs and arms to make sure nothing was broken. I had landed on a bed of something lumpy and damp, and the wet seeped through my jeans. The air smelled faintly like red wine that had been left too long on the counter. Above me, craggy branches were covered in hairy leaves and hung with russet-colored fruit the size of Ping-Pong balls. Among the fruit, suspended high up on one of the branches, something glinted, a flash of bright yellow. I hoisted myself up to standing and leaned my head back, squinting into the treetops. It looked like a yellow warbler—not a real one, but a good likeness, fashioned out of some sort of metal. I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of the bright yellow bird against the green leaves. As I walked, the little brown fruit gave way to knobby-looking apples and tiny, bright green quince. Another warbler in one tree, a pair in the next, their sharp, black beaks pointing in the same direction. It felt like they were ushering me forward, inviting me in. The trees were taller than any fruit tree I had ever seen, and had grown wild and close together. It looked as if no one had been cultivating the trees or harvesting their fruit for years. If not for the sculptures, I would have felt that I had stepped into another time, when food was foraged instead of grown.

  When the last warbler was a quarter mile behind me, I stopped to take stock. I had always felt comfortable alone in the woods, but I wasn’t the best orienteer. I still had a couple of hours before sunset, but the woods swallowed the light long before the fields did. I must have walked for an hour at least, which meant I had the same amount of walking ahead of me. Just another couple of steps, I murmured to myself as I ducked under a thick, low branch. There, in the distance, stood a horse. A magnificent bright orange horse in mid gallop. I walked quickly toward it, my ankles rolling as I slipped on the pulpy ground. As I drew closer I saw that the horse’s hair seemed to have a stripy pattern. A few steps more and I recognized the familiar blue-traced white letters. This horse was fashioned out of cans of Moxie. Hundreds of them, their lids and bottoms sawed off, the remaining flat planes molded and shaped into the perfect likeness of a carriage horse. The blue and white lettering on the cans was positioned erratically, adding the illusion of texture to its flank. Its mane and tail were made out of a bright blue fishing line. I ran my fingers through its hair, admiring the silkiness of it, which still lingered despite the wind and rain. “Did Peggy make this?” I asked the trees, and wondered what other secrets Peggy had left behind. I longed to keep going farther in. A breeze kicked up and I shivered, my wet clothes cold against my skin. I wiped off the juicy bits of fruit that clung to me, took a couple more photographs of the horse, and reluctantly turned back toward home.

  * * *

  Jack Hickey and I sat in a corner booth late one afternoon, legal pads, copies of birth certificates and death certificates, Peggy’s last will and testament, the deed to the Johnson land, and a map spread across the Formica table.

  “Now you see here, Nora,” Jack said, tapping on a copy of Peggy’s will, “I’m as surprised as you are. But it looks like you and your sister are Ms. Johnson’s heirs.”


  “What does that look like, exactly?”

  “Two hundred acres, the house, some cleared farmland, and a good amount of old-growth forest. She didn’t have any savings to speak of—or an account with the bank, for that matter. I wouldn’t be surprised if you find cash stashed somewhere in the house. She has to have done something with all of that cake money. Might want to keep an eye on the place until you’ve had a chance to go through it thoroughly. Of course, this will all have to go through probate.”

  I smoothed out the white paper straw wrapper and rolled it into a tight spiral. “How long will probate take?”

  “Well, that all depends.”

  “Would it be all right if I went ahead and took care of the house?” I was worried about the house sitting vacant, uncared for. If it was to be mine, even for a short amount of time, I needed to think about how I was going to heat the place so the pipes wouldn’t burst during the first deep freeze. And I needed to make sure teenagers didn’t catch wind that there was an empty shelter available for late night parties.

  “Of course, go right ahead.” Mr. Hickey cleared his throat. “There is one matter you should be aware of.”

  Mr. Hickey had been my dad’s lawyer, and he had handled selling our house and the transfer of the diner into my name, but he tended to still treat me like a little girl who couldn’t handle all the information. I wished he would come into the diner on a Sunday morning during peak color and see me juggle a rush of hungry tourists while taking in vegetable deliveries and keeping everyone’s coffee cups filled. “Go ahead, Jack.”

  “Well, it looks like Peggy was in the process of selling the place. One of them big-everything stores. They claim they had an agreement, but haven’t provided the documentation.”

  A big-box store in Guthrie. That would certainly be a story above the fold in the Coventry County Record.

  “That seems, I don’t know . . . odd, don’t you think? Peggy selling her home?” I couldn’t imagine her packing up all of her cake pans and life-sized horse sculpture and relocating to a fifty-five-plus community in Florida. “Where would she go?”

  “Hard to say. But she needed money for something. She’s sold off several parcels of land over the last couple of years. This patch of forest.” Jack circled the northeast corner of forestland on the map. “And this little patch of pasture she sold to one of the sheep farmers.” Mr. Hickey shuffled through some papers. “From the looks of it, she owed an awful lot of back taxes. Those don’t disappear, even when you die.” Mr. Hickey gathered up his papers. “There’ll be a lien on the estate.”

  It didn’t surprise me that Peggy owed back taxes. Even if she sold a cake a day, the cost of butter alone meant that she couldn’t have made much of a profit. But a lien took the option of keeping the house and land off the table. It had never really been on—I couldn’t afford to pay out Kit’s half of the inheritance, never mind paying the government as well.

  “The property isn’t zoned for commercial building, but I heard a rumble that Ms. Johnson had already approached the town council about it. It’ll come up during the town meeting, you can bet on that.” Mr. Hickey stood, buttoned his suit jacket. “It could be a significant amount of money, Nora. Something for you and your sister to consider. Have you talked to Kitty?”

  I stood, smoothing down the waitress apron I still had on, long after my shift had ended, its pockets heavy with loose change. The little bell over the front door rang and the door swung open, but instead of the scent of car exhaust that usually blew in, the air smelled sweetly of orange blossoms. I heard the thump of something heavy being dropped to the ground, and before I could turn around, two purple-sleeved arms wrapped around my waist like tentacles, and suddenly I was being lifted off the ground. For a short person she had strength.

  I looked down at Mr. Hickey. “I did talk to Kitty.”

  Kit put me down, spun me around, and kissed me on both cheeks. “We’re home! What’s for supper?”

  I looked over Kit’s red curly head to find a tall, slight-looking man with a mop of thick brown hair sticking out from under a worn silk top hat. It looked as if his nose had been broken at least twice. When my gaze returned to my sister, she was all smiles.

  “That’s Max,” Kit said, as if that explained everything. It didn’t surprise me that Kit hadn’t come alone—she was always surrounded by new and ever-changing groups of friends who came and went like strays.

  Max waved and gave me a slightly apologetic smile. I liked him immediately.

  “Good to see you, Nora borealis.” Kit grabbed my hands, holding me at arm’s length, then pulling me in close for a hug. Even when we danced as kids she always had to lead.

  “Go find an empty booth for you and your friend,” I said, trying to sound unfazed at her surprise arrival, as well as her surprise guest, but a smile teased at the edge of my mouth. “I’ll go see what Charlie has lined up for specials.”

  * * *

  “Let me turn on some lights,” I said as I entered my apartment a few steps ahead of Kit and Max. “Here is the living room, and the kitchen.” I waved my hand vaguely around the apartment from the center of the living room. With the addition of my boisterous sister and her towering friend, it suddenly felt tiny. “Just put your things anywhere, I guess.”

  Max carefully placed his army-issue duffle bag and Kit’s woven Indian-print bag against the wall and took a seat on my green velvet sofa.

  I busied myself in the kitchenette, pulling out olives and a couple of wedges of cheese that Tom Carrigan had given me as a thank-you for comping his lunch when he lost his wallet.

  Kit followed me, nudging me over so she could reach into the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of white wine. “God, your fridge is empty. What do you eat?” Kit tore off the metal wrapper and began to open and close every drawer in the kitchen.

  “You should have let me know you were coming. I would have gone to the store. Besides, you can’t possibly be hungry. You just ate two entrées at the diner.” I took the bottle out of her hand and twisted the tip of the wine opener into the cork.

  “They were small entrées. And I had to finish them. You know how offended Charlie gets if you don’t eat every bite.”

  “Right, so you’re not hungry.”

  “But I’m snacky.”

  I pushed a plate of cheese and crackers into her hand. “Put this out on the coffee table.”

  I watched as Kit settled herself on the couch next to Max. She rested her head on his shoulder and took his long-fingered hand into hers. “Wine, please, sister,” she called. “Stat.”

  Here’s the thing about my little sister: we’re pretty sure that one of us was switched at birth. And I look exactly like my dad, so I know it wasn’t me. Over the years there were a fair amount of milkman jokes. Where my mom and I were quiet and bookish, you could always hear Kit from two rooms away. Where my dad and I were nice but reserved, Kit was friendly, really friendly, like a Labrador puppy. She was all movement and energy and enthusiasm. I loved her dearly. And she could be completely exhausting.

  “The place looks great, Nora. It’s super cute. Do you like your neighbors?”

  Most of my neighbors were widows and widowers who found the apartments easier to keep up than the homes they had grown old in. The hall outside my apartment door had the distinct odor of Pond’s and Aspercreme.

  “It’s fine,” I said, handing them each a glass of wine. “Quiet. I’m sorry there isn’t much space.” I looked apologetically over at Max, whose knees were practically up to his chin.

  “Nonsense. This is like a palace. Max and I just spent the last three months living in the back of his Vanagon while we were on the road scouting locations.”

  Max nodded and reached for the bowl of olives. “It was cool. It has a sink and a refrigerator and a bed and everything.”

  “Locations?” I asked. “Are you working on somethi
ng?” Kit is a filmmaker. Or at least she was the last time we spoke. She has also been a trapeze artist, a novelist, and the lead singer in an all-girls Kiss cover band, so anything was possible.

  “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.” Kit swallowed the wine in two long gulps, then scooched down, laying her head on Max’s thigh. Max reached for the blanket I had thrown over the back of the couch and pulled it over my sister, tucking her in. “For now all I want to do is sleep. It was such a long drive from LA.”

  Max brushed the curls out of Kit’s face. I turned away, feeling a little embarrassed. I knew Kitty was an adult, with adult relationships, but I still always saw her as my little sister.

  “It’s good to see you, Nora,” Kit said sleepily.

  “Well, the couch folds out. Let me get you some bedding. I’ll be out the door early, so you’ll have the place to yourself tomorrow.”

  I walked over to my bedroom, where I kept the extra linen, and pulled out sheets, blankets, and a couple of towels. When I returned, Max was lying on the couch, with Kit stretched out on top of him, snoring gently against his chest. “I’ll just leave these here,” I said, placing the linens on the chair, and switched off the reading light.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Guthrie Front Porch Forum

  Missing Dog

  User: MissGuthrieDiner

  Hey, everyone. Peggy (Peggy the cake lady) Johnson’s dog Freckles has been missing since Peggy’s accident on Wednesday, August 2. Freckles is a Border collie mix (mixed with something BIG), around 100 pounds. He is black with white feet. The tip of his tail is also white, and he has a white stripe running down his muzzle. People who have met Freckles say he is a gentle dog and friendly. If you see him, please contact Nora Huckleberry at the Miss Guthrie Diner. 802-228-0424.

  The afternoon light spilled across the empty Formica counter and made the embedded gold and silver flecks glint. The sugar shakers that stood guard looked as if they were lit from within. I framed the jars with my smartphone camera, taking pictures from several angles, trying to capture the light. No one paid me any mind. Charlie had long since stopped commenting on my taking pictures, even when it was in the middle of a lunch rush. I get an occasional odd glance from a customer, but the regulars will offer to move their coffee cups or rearrange the empty creamers on the counter if they catch my gaze lingering on the remnants of their breakfast.