Leaves (5 page)

Now, once again, Ryan was shoveling attitude at him.
I'm just going.

“I meant that after I talk to Corrina, I would give you a ride if you wanted,” Tyler said, attempting to take the high road.

Ryan shrugged and continued to walk down the drive, tossing, “Don't need ya” over his shoulder.

Tyler shook his head and started toward the house. He rang the doorbell and waited, then rang the doorbell again when there was no answer.

“She's not there,” Ryan said.

Tyler turned to see the kid standing on the street. As he did, Ryan walked away.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Tyler said to his back.

The River Edge Café had been open for business since the late nineties, when a husband-and-wife team made a killing during the tech stock boom and decided to “chuck it all” and follow their passion for fine food. Located on the water between Oldham and Essex, it was popular for its ambitious menu, its beautiful setting, and its attentive staff. However, it had recently lost two executive chefs in quick succession, leading to rumors that the owners were impossible taskmasters and maybe even a little abusive. Deborah didn't necessarily believe these unsubstantiated stories, but they made her wary through the entire interview process, and even now in her third meeting with the couple, she wondered if there was something less than genuine behind Jenn Cristy's ubiquitous smile or Ray Graffia's persistence.

“We want you here, Deb,” Ray said. People didn't really call her “Deb,” but Ray seemed to insist on it. He had been doing so since they first met half a decade ago. “There are maybe two dishes on the menu we think we need to keep. The entire rest of the menu would be yours.”

“It would be like having your own restaurant without the hassle of ownership,” Jenn said. Deborah had been in precisely that situation her entire adult life, so she wasn't sure why Jenn thought this was a selling point.

“I'm completely willing to wait until the middle of November if you want to take a couple of weeks off between jobs,” Ray said. “Trina's an excellent sous chef and she's doing a great job of holding down the fort for us. To be honest, if we weren't so intent on recruiting you, we'd give her the job right now.”

“That's very flattering,” Deborah said, wondering how resentful Trina would be of her if she decided to take the position.

This wasn't the first offer Deborah had received, though it was certainly the most aggressive. She'd gotten a couple of calls as soon as word got out about the sale of the inn. The people buying the Sugar Maple even made her an extremely attractive offer to stay precisely where she was. She never considered it seriously, though. It was hard enough cooking there now that both of her parents were gone. It would be impossible to take direction there from someone else, though, and even harder to watch the inevitable changes they made. Deborah imagined herself collapsing into tears the first time they replaced a table lamp. She was convinced that when she walked out of the inn at the end of the Halloween party she would never again set foot in the place just so she could remember it forever the way she wanted.

None of the offers she'd received so far had seemed very appealing. She knew she was running the risk of seeming like a prima donna and she also knew she should be eternally grateful for the attention, but she couldn't allow herself to take a position unless it sang out to her. She even considered trying to find a job in a diner or a coffee shop somewhere – something completely one-dimensional with little or no room for personal investment – just to recalibrate. But of course that was ridiculous. How long could she flip burgers before she started slipping exotic ingredients into the ground beef? She had enough money saved to get by for about six months, and if it took that long to find the right spot, that was fine with her.

“I'm not trying to flatter you,” Ray said. “I'm trying to hire you. Your customers will flatter you every time the wait staff delivers one of your inventions.”

Deborah smiled. The “Deb” thing aside, she'd always liked Ray and she wished the rumors weren't causing her to question his sincerity. That was the pernicious thing about rumors.

“The package you're offering is great,” she said, nodding to both Ray and Jenn. “I've always been fond of this restaurant, and you have a great kitchen. I just need a couple of days.”

“Of course,” Jenn said. “Take as long as you must.”

Ray patted her hand. “We're here for you, Deb. Call me anytime if you have questions. I gave you our home number, right?”

“You did, yes. I just want to take a little longer to think. I'll call you on Monday.”

Deborah stood and shook their hands. In reality, though, she had already made her decision, but it didn't seem polite to turn them down flat. The River Edge Café was a fine restaurant and it did have a sensational kitchen. The more time she spent there, however, she realized there wasn't anything about this place that felt like home.

She drove through downtown Oldham on the way back to the inn. Waiting for a couple of pedestrians to cross Hickory, she noticed the sign for Sage, the gourmet shop that had opened a couple of weeks earlier. She couldn't believe she hadn't visited it yet. When a car pulled out of the parking space across from the store, she decided the time was right.

The store was in a moderately large space between a music store and a bookstore. Deborah had a hard time remembering what was in the space before (there had been several shops there over the past few years), but the new owner had done a great job of remodeling it. Lots of blond wood fixtures, warm lighting, and handwritten signage. There was a refrigerator case housing artisanal cheeses and sausages in understated, small-production packages.

Deborah liked being here immediately. Maybe it was the slack-key guitar music coming from the sound system or that one of the front tables was dedicated to the small Tuscan pasta manufacturer she had “discovered” a couple of years ago and had used exclusively at the inn ever since. Deborah knew this would be a place she'd visit often. She'd been to all the gourmet shops in the area, and was frustrated by the sameness of them. It was almost as though some food rep came along and set each one up based on some model. This place had a decidedly individual point of view, though. The shelf of spices was an asymmetrical jumble of bottles and tins of different sizes. Next to it was a card that read:

Deborah agreed about the mustard seed, the za'atar, and the smoked paprika, but she would have chosen a different Telicherry peppercorn.

A man walked up to her while she was standing at the display. “Find anything you like?”

She turned to look at him. He was a little over six feet and lean. And he had very expressive eyes. “Krendahl has better peppercorns,” she said.

“You're right, but they only sell from their catalog. I tried, believe me. They also import this fabulous five-spice powder, but again, I couldn't get it. Think I should change the card in the spirit of full disclosure?”

Deborah laughed. “Your secret is safe with me. You're the owner?”

He extended his hand and Deborah took it. “Sage Mixon.”

“Deborah Gold. So the store is named after you and not after” – she reached for a bottle – “Brookfield's hand-rubbed Albanian.”

He smiled. “You obviously know your spices. Are you in the food business?”

“I'm the chef at the Sugar Maple Inn – at least I am until the end of the month.”

“Moving on to bigger and better things?”

Deborah rolled her eyes. “That part isn't at all certain at the moment.” She turned toward another display. “I've never seen these preserves before.”

“They're incredible. They're all made by a single dad out of a barn in New Hampshire. He sweetens them with a ‘proprietary blend' of fruit juices and balances each with some kind of spice or infusion. The lemon marmalade is mind-boggling.” He picked up a jar and handed it to her. “He adds a touch of Thai basil. It's amazing what happens.”

Deborah examined the jar in her hand. If nothing else, Sage was an excellent salesperson. Of course she would buy this. Before she did, though, she spent another half hour in the store walking from display to display. Sage stayed with her when he wasn't helping other customers, and it became obvious that there was a story behind everything he carried. She hoped the visitors who flitted in and out appreciated the thought that went into every selection in this store. More important, she hoped that – appreciative or not – the visitors were plentiful. Oldham needed more places like this one.

By the time she'd finished shopping, Deborah had the marmalade, a salsa from Nogales, a bottle of raspberry thyme vinegar made a half-hour away, and a package of stroopwafels made in Montana, of all places. She didn't need any of it. She certainly had access to just about everything she wanted from the network of suppliers she'd developed over the years. But it was fun buying here and she definitely wanted to support the establishment.

“Come again soon,” Sage said as he packaged her purchases.

“I will. Definitely. Hey, come by the inn for dinner sometime in the next month.”

“I might just do that. I mean if you know this much about food, you might actually be able to cook.”

Deborah laughed. “Yeah, it's a possibility.”

He smiled and his eyes danced. Deborah would definitely be back soon.

Maria couldn't remember the last time she was in McGarrigle's Music Center. She figured it was at least a whole McGarrigle ago. When she was seven, she came here every Wednesday and Saturday for guitar lessons. The elder McGarrigle seemed like an old man to her then, though at that point he was probably only a few years older than she was now. With his closely cropped grey hair, thick waistline, and fascination with old jazz tunes, she would have guessed him to be sixty, if not a hundred. He gave her the lessons himself for the first six months, talking to her like she was a baby and making her play inane songs. It was a real chore to get through the sessions and even more of a chore to practice this music that seemed so pointless to her at home. As much as she loved the sound of the guitar and enjoyed picking out her own rudimentary melodies, she probably would have quit if Roger hadn't become her teacher. He went to Yale, and he had gorgeous long golden hair, and he taught her how to play the Beatles, and Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor. From that point on, Maria practiced at least an hour a day, more than that on Tuesdays and Fridays because she wanted Roger to keep telling her how much better she was getting.

It always seemed funny to her that Loudon McGarrigle's youngest child Martha was the one to take over the family business. Martha was a year ahead of Maria in school and she constantly complained about how “dead” her father was. Yet when it was time for him to retire and everyone thought he was going to sell the store, Martha stepped in and did her old man proud.

The store had an utterly different vibe now than it had when Maria was a kid. Back then, everyone came here to get their school instruments, and Mr. McGarrigle drove the point home by featuring a large display of brass and woodwinds up front. Now Maria needed to peer all the way into the back of the store to find those things. Up front were keyboards, guitars, amplifiers, and quite a bit of the kinds of electronic equipment that Maria often saw on television but still barely understood.

In addition, of course, there was the DJ stuff. This was a business that hadn't even existed for McGarrigle's Music Center when Maria was growing up. Now, though, if you were having a party and you wanted dance music, this was where you came. Martha could even provide dancers to motivate your guests onto the floor if you wanted that sort of thing.

Maria tried to remember when they started having a DJ at the Halloween party. Somewhere along the line, it stopped being enough to simply play music from a portable stereo, even though there was no official dance floor. “It's more exciting, don't you think?” she remembered her mother saying. Of course she was right, and another frivolity became a necessity. Now it was Maria's job to make the arrangements – and as Corrina so succinctly reminded her, time was getting tight. So she came to see Martha, a woman she'd barely seen in the past few decades. As it turned out, she wasn't going to see her today, either. Business had taken her out of the store and Martha's manager was going to handle the meeting instead. The only issue was that the guy was with a supplier. He asked if Maria could wait a few minutes. It was a few minutes that stretched to nearly a half-hour.

To entertain herself, Maria walked over to the guitars and picked up a Martin acoustic. A sign said this was the “Eric Clapton Model.” She positioned the guitar on her propped-up leg and wrapped her left fingers around the fret board. The act made her think of the music store scene in the movie
Wayne's World
and she halfway expected to turn to see a poster demanding “No Stairway Allowed,” a joke about amateur guitarists' propensity for playing the opening chords from “Stairway to Heaven” when trying out an instrument.

Now that this was in her head, she couldn't think of anything to play, and she just plucked a D chord randomly for a moment. She hadn't picked up a guitar since Olivia was in fifth grade and lost interest in hearing a song at bedtime. Finally, Maria started playing Joni Mitchell's “The Circle Game,” botching the third chord change a couple of times before remembering it. There was no question she was out of practice, but she felt comfortable with the instrument. Whether Eric Clapton ever played one of these or not, she could see why he'd lent his name to it. When someone came up to her to tell her that the manager could see her now, Maria stopped the song, but she did a couple of runs before putting the guitar down. She flubbed them, of course, but it felt good to use her fingers this way, to have the sound and sensation come back to her. Her fingers tingled from the friction of the strings. It was like the excitement of running into a sorority sister after a decade apart.