Bittersweet (3 page)

“All right, then,” my mother said. “I may be at the hospital with Sam when you get there, but you know where to find the key.”

“I could stop at the hospital in Kerrville,” I said. “It's on our way.”

“No, you and Caitie just go on to the ranch and make yourself at home. We'll see Sam on Thanksgiving.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “And Mom, love and kisses to Sam. Tell him we're all thinking of him and hoping he can go home soon.” I put down the phone.

Ruby was lifting a wreath out of the carton. “Is everything okay?” she asked, looking at me with concern. “What's going on with your mother?”

“It's not my mother,” I said. “It's Sam. He's—”

But before I finish answering Ruby's question, maybe I'd better fill in some background. I know that some of you are frequent visitors to Ruby's shop and mine, but this may be a first visit for others. If you're new here and feeling puzzled, a little of the backstory may fill in some of the blanks. If you already know all this stuff, feel free to skip the next few paragraphs.

I'm China Bayles, owner and manager of Thyme and Seasons Herb Shop in Pecan Springs, Texas, a small town at the eastern edge of the Texas Hill Country, halfway between Austin and San Antonio. In my previous life, I was a criminal defense attorney for a big law firm in Houston, living a fast-track, dressed-for-success life that was full of close calls, narrow squeaks, and hair-trigger excitement—both in the courtroom and out. There was always something going on—and enough going for me that you'd think I would have been fully satisfied.

But after a few years, the people around me began to seem superficial, artificial, even phony. Nobody said what they meant or meant what they said, and I began to want something genuine, something authentic, something
real
. I wanted real friendships, a real relationship. And real work, where I could put out my hand and touch real things that had their own real lives, not just briefs and pleadings and court documents, words, words, words. Finally, after months of soul searching, I cashed in my retirement fund, kicked off my Pradas, took a deep breath, and jumped ship.

I landed in Pecan Springs, where I bought the herb business I'd been eyeing for some months—a lovely little shop, which is looking particularly festive at the moment. Ceiling-high shelves along the back wall display jars and bottles of dried herbs, salves, and tinctures. There are dozens of herb, gardening, and cookery books on the corner bookshelves, and on a wooden table, I've arranged essential oils, a display of pretty bottles, and aromatherapy supplies. Along another wall are herbal jellies, vinegars, seasoning blends, soaps and lotions and body balms. Baskets of dried herbs are arranged in the corners, bundles of dried plants are tucked into jars and hung from the overhead beams, and holiday wreaths and swags are displayed on the stone walls of the old building. When people walk in, they go “Ahhh,” very quietly, and smile. I understand. I live with that lovely “Ahhh” feeling all day long.

A few years after I bought the shop, I married Mike McQuaid, formerly a Houston homicide detective, now a part-time faculty member in the Criminal Justice Department at Central Texas State University and an independent private investigator in McQuaid, Blackwell, and Associates. I knew him as McQuaid when I met him, professionally, and that's what I've continued to call him. A hunk of a guy, really, in spite of his broken nose and the knife scar on his forehead, earned on the mean streets of Houston. He had a young son, Brian, and then Caitlin came along. Life has become
very
full and satisfying.

Okay, that's me. The six-foot-plus, red-haired gal with the box cutter in one hand and the wreath in the other is Ruby Wilcox, my business partner. Ruby's nose is liberally speckled with sandy freckles, her eyes are sometimes brown, sometimes blue or green (depending on which contacts she's wearing), and she has Julia Roberts' mouth. She has two daughters, Shannon Wilcox, who coaches girls' sports at Bowie High in
Austin, and Amy Roth, who lives and works here in Pecan Springs. Amy and her partner, Kate Rodriguez, have a three-year-old girl, Grace, a plump, pretty strawberry blonde who is Ruby's joy and proud delight.

Ruby owns Pecan Springs' only New Age shop, the Crystal Cave, right next door to Thyme and Seasons. The Cave is the place to go if you're looking for books on astrology, runes or crystals for divination, or a class in how to throw the
I Ching
. And if you can't read your tarot card layout or your Ouija board won't answer your questions, Ruby is there to help. Her strong psychic sense—her “gift,” people call it, although Ruby herself sometimes sees it as a curse—manifests itself every now and then, as it did recently, when she helped a friend do a little ghost-busting in a mysterious old house way out in the country. I am by nature a logical, rational, skeptical, cut-to-the-chase kind of person, and it's hard for me to swallow most claims of the supernatural. But Ruby has been right so often that when she turns psychic on me, all I can do is shake my head and mutter, “You go, girl.” And then stand back and see what happens.

But Ruby is also a practical businesswoman. Thyme for Tea, the tearoom that's located behind our shops, was her idea, and she invited her friend Cass Wilde to sign on as chef. After that, she came up with Party Thyme, our catering service. Then she thought it would be a good plan for us to partner with Cass in a personal chef business called the Thymely Gourmet. “Bundled services” is the way Ruby describes it: offering related products and services to customers who already know and trust us. It's true that I sometimes feel as if I'm one of a trio of maniac clowns who are juggling a half-dozen pins, balls, and rings, trying not very successfully to keep them all in the air at the same time. But Ruby and Cass and I have learned that the more we do, the more we
can
do, and that if we want to
stay in business in this challenging economy, we'd better have more up our sleeve than a single trick.

“Sam?” Ruby asked with a frown. “What's going on with him?”

“Heart trouble,” I said, and related as much as I knew. “He's insisting that we carry on as usual,” I added, “so there's no change in plans on this end. I'll be back Sunday night—at least, if everything goes okay with Sam.” I paused, not wanting to think what might happen if things didn't go okay.

“I'm so sorry, China,” Ruby said. “Sam has been good for your mother.”

“He's been a lifesaver,” I said fervently. After a moment, I went on. “I hope you won't be needing Mama over the weekend. I have a load of plants to take down to Utopia for Jennie Seale's garden.”

Big Red Mama is the used panel van we bought several years ago to haul our catering stuff, as well as plants. Mama's former owner was a hippie artist named Gerald who was arrested for cooking crystal meth. The Hays County sheriff's office impounded his van, and it ended up in the county's vehicle auction. Ruby and I were attracted to Mama because she was cheap and because of the wild swirl of colorful Art Deco designs that Gerald (probably under the influence of a certain psychoactive herb) painted on her modest red sides. Ruby says that Mama looks like a cross between a Crayola box on wheels and a Sweet Potato Queen float on the way to a parade.

“Nope, Cass and I won't need Mama,” Ruby said. “You can take her.” She turned the large yellow orange wreath in her hands, eyeing it admiringly. “China, I absolutely
love
this. It's the prettiest bittersweet wreath I've ever seen. Just look—it's simply loaded with berries. I'm going to buy it for my front door at home.”

“Hang on a minute,” I said, taking the wreath from her and examining it closely. “This is not so good.”

“Not so good? What are you talking about?” Ruby snatched the wreath back. “It's extra pretty, don't you think? It's kind of two-tone, with all those bright orange berries and pretty yellow thingies. It looks exactly like the one Martha Stewart made on her TV show. I love it. I want it. Your customers are going to want one, too. You just wait and see.”

“They can't have it.” I pulled a second wreath out of the carton and looked at it closely, and then a third, and then the rest. “I'm sorry to disappoint you, but Martha Stewart used the wrong bittersweet. All these wreaths are going back to the woman who made them. I'm recommending that she burn them.”

“Burn them!” Ruby was staring at me, eyes wide, aghast. “But
why
?”

“Because this isn't American bittersweet. It's
Oriental
bittersweet.” I pointed to a berry cluster. “These pretty yellow thingies? They're the capsules that have dried and split open to reveal the orange fruit inside. If this were our native bittersweet, the capsules would be orange, too. And look at the way the fruits are positioned all along the branches, at the leaf nodes. In American bittersweet, the fruits only occur at the tips of the branches.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Orange, yellow—so what? What's so bad about Oriental bittersweet? You're worried that somebody forgot to pay customs duties? Anyway, I thought these wreaths came from Michigan, not Asia.”

“Yep, they do come from Michigan,” I said grimly. I was lifting the other wreaths out of the carton. When I had examined them all, I began putting them back again. “Which is really bad, because it's illegal to sell or ship Oriental bittersweet in or out of Michigan—and several other states, as well. This plant is a thug. A bully. A ruthless, aggressive, nonnative
species that was introduced as an ornamental around the time of the Civil War and escaped into the wild. It loves to climb up shrubs and trees and smother them. And it hybridizes with the native bittersweet, which makes it even more thuggish.”

“Illegal?” Ruby pushed her lips in and out, considering. “Well, maybe. But aren't you overreacting? There's not a chance in the world that this
dried
stuff is going to smother the trees in my yard. It'll just hang quietly on my front door and look pretty.” She picked up the top wreath and smiled at me. “I want this one. How much?”

I pulled off a dried berry and held it up. “See that? What is it?”

Ruby frowned. “So it's a berry. So what? It's not poisonous, is it?”

“It's a
seed,
Ruby. This pretty little package is a genetic time bomb.”

“A . . . time bomb?” Ruby asked warily.

“Exactly. It's not very likely to go off here in Texas, since this isn't the plant's ideal habitat. But what happens if somebody buys this wreath in my shop and decides to give it to her sister, who lives in Arkansas, or maybe Missouri? The sister hangs it over her mantel until the pretty orange berries begin to drop off, then tosses it on her compost pile. The next year, a dozen little green seedlings pop up. The year after that, a dozen not-so-pretty green vines are twining around the nearest shrub. The year after that, Katy, bar the door. Once this hoodlum moves into the neighborhood, there's no getting rid of it.”

Ruby shook her head. “That is too bad. Really.”

“Yes, it is. Very bad.” I put the wreath back in the box and closed it firmly, to keep those genetic time bombs from escaping. “I think I'll email this woman and tell her that it would be simpler and cheaper if I'd just burn these here. It would save her some shipping. And I'm sure the state of Michigan would prefer never to see them again.”

“I guess you know what you're doing.” Ruby gave me a rueful look. “Speaking of bombs, I'm sort of in trouble, and I was hoping you could help.”

“In trouble?” I chuckled dryly. “So what else is new? You're in trouble at least three times a week.”

“Don't be that way,” Ruby said.

“What way?” I pulled my laptop out from under the counter and booted it up.

“You know,” Ruby replied, wounded. “
That
way.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, repenting. “That was uncalled-for.” True, but uncalled-for. And after all, she was babysitting my shop while I was gone. “I've got your back, sweetie. Tell me what I can do.”

“You can go down to city hall and apply for a permit for the yarn bombing on Crockett Street.” She pressed her lips together. “The application was due early last week, but I got busy and forgot all about it. The Six Chix have been knitting up a storm, and we're ready to start bombing, but if we don't get that permit, we could get arrested.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I'd do it, but they don't like me over there. At city hall, I mean. I'm sure they'll like you better.”

“Yarn
bombing
?” I was doubtful. “You have to file an application to bomb yarn? What are you bombing it
with
?
Why
are you bombing it?”

“Yarn bombing is street art. Like graffiti, only with yarn.”

“Yarn graffiti? Like, yarn instead of spray paint?”

Ruby nodded. “Grandma graffiti. Guerilla fiber art. It all started over in Houston, when a boutique owner knitted a pink and blue cozy for her shop doorknob. People noticed. Then she knitted a leg warmer for the stop sign on the corner. A lot more people noticed that one.”

“I'll bet they did,” I muttered. I was looking for the wreath maker's email address.

“She bombed trees and bushes and traffic signs. And then the
New York Times
wrote about her and she began getting corporate commissions to do great big projects, like the Christmas sweater she knitted for a Prius a couple of years ago, and the parking meter cozies she knitted for a downtown shopping district in Brooklyn. Now lots of people are doing yarn bombings.”

“A sweater for a Prius?” I asked warily. “I hope you're not thinking of knitting a pullover for Big Red Mama.”

Ruby shook her head. “No, we're knitting tree-trunk warmers. You know, like leg warmers, except they're for trees. And it's not just me; it's my knitting group. The Six Chix with Pointy Stix. We're going to bomb some of the trees in this block of Crockett as a holiday project. Everybody gets tired of knitting sweaters and socks, you know.”