again. Bay watches Nan in her brown dress and clogs, her gray hair in an untidy bun, the flesh on her arm shaking as she polishes.
“Let me do that.”
But Nan says she likes polishing wood. “You know what would be a big help? Why don’t you put together the menu?”
Is Nan trying to get Bay excited about the idea of healing with food? She frowns, trying to sort it all out. There’s a chance she is being manipulated; on the other hand, Bay really does enjoy planning menus.
“What do they eat?”
“Oh, everything,” Nan says, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Mavis loves spicy food: hot peppers, garlic, cayenne, and chocolate. She loves chocolate. She loves chocolate so much that she used to send it to herself in pretty boxes with a gift card, and lucky for her, it had no effect on her figure. She loves red wine too. Don’t worry. I have that taken care of. Ruthie, well, Ruthie has a hearty appetite. I don’t think there’s anything she doesn’t like to eat. Which reminds me, we better make sure to put her in the story bedroom. The bed in there is good and solid.”
All of a sudden they are living in a house with titled bedrooms. The pink bedroom is Bay’s old room, and it isn’t pink at all, though the bedspread is. The story room has a bed, a small closet, and a desk, but it is mostly filled with Nan’s books, old-fashioned hard covers with gold-trimmed pages and watercolor illustrations, which Bay was given the task of dusting. It took longer than it probably should have. She managed to confine herself to a paragraph or two for the most part, until she lost a whole afternoon to Hans Christian Andersen. She’d forgotten how sad the stories were, how much love was lost.
When the boy starts appearing in the garden, Bay wonders if he is the wonderful thing she’s been waiting for. Perhaps this is the beginning of a love story of her own, and if so, she wants it to be good. The boy keeps disappearing though, which makes a difficult start to any relationship. How can love grow with someone who doesn’t even want to be seen?
Sprawled across her bed, Bay pages through the cookbooks, paper-clipping recipes. Mavis, the frightening-looking antique lady with the dyed black hair and bright red lips (Nan showed Bay the photo online), is due around nine the next morning. Ruthie, of the hearty appetite, will arrive just before lunch.
“I bet she planned it that way,” Nan says. “Why don’t we eat on the porch?”
Bay loves the idea and has already carried the card table up from the basement. She marks a page with a recipe for something called “chocolate lasagna” (there is a small amount of dark chocolate in the sauce), then pushes the stack of books aside. She stands to stretch, her fingers scraping the slanted ceiling as she walks to the window, inhaling the green scent of summer. All she has to do is get through the next day and a half with her Nana’s friends, then things can get back to normal. After making such a production out of all the cleaning and preparation, Bay thinks it’s strange that they’re not staying longer, but her Nana says it’s long enough.
“We want to see each other again,” she says. “But there’s no reason to go hog wild.”
Bay spends all her spare time in her bedroom, staring out the window; hoping to spy the boy again, she spends a great deal of time staring at the shoe garden instead. Many people love it, even slowing on the curvy road to take photographs, while others think the old shoes, aged by sun and weather, mud-splattered, breaking open at the toes with roots boring out of them like worms, are an eyesore. She wonders what her Nana’s friends will think.
Tiny white flowers rise like clouds from above a purple heel, a man’s old work boot holds black-eyed Susans, an assortment of ladies’ boots compose the hollyhock and mallow garden (though the flowers are beginning to look a little sad), the hostas have blossomed their strange, stalky white and
“Let me do that.”
But Nan says she likes polishing wood. “You know what would be a big help? Why don’t you put together the menu?”
Is Nan trying to get Bay excited about the idea of healing with food? She frowns, trying to sort it all out. There’s a chance she is being manipulated; on the other hand, Bay really does enjoy planning menus.
“What do they eat?”
“Oh, everything,” Nan says, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Mavis loves spicy food: hot peppers, garlic, cayenne, and chocolate. She loves chocolate. She loves chocolate so much that she used to send it to herself in pretty boxes with a gift card, and lucky for her, it had no effect on her figure. She loves red wine too. Don’t worry. I have that taken care of. Ruthie, well, Ruthie has a hearty appetite. I don’t think there’s anything she doesn’t like to eat. Which reminds me, we better make sure to put her in the story bedroom. The bed in there is good and solid.”
All of a sudden they are living in a house with titled bedrooms. The pink bedroom is Bay’s old room, and it isn’t pink at all, though the bedspread is. The story room has a bed, a small closet, and a desk, but it is mostly filled with Nan’s books, old-fashioned hard covers with gold-trimmed pages and watercolor illustrations, which Bay was given the task of dusting. It took longer than it probably should have. She managed to confine herself to a paragraph or two for the most part, until she lost a whole afternoon to Hans Christian Andersen. She’d forgotten how sad the stories were, how much love was lost.
When the boy starts appearing in the garden, Bay wonders if he is the wonderful thing she’s been waiting for. Perhaps this is the beginning of a love story of her own, and if so, she wants it to be good. The boy keeps disappearing though, which makes a difficult start to any relationship. How can love grow with someone who doesn’t even want to be seen?
Sprawled across her bed, Bay pages through the cookbooks, paper-clipping recipes. Mavis, the frightening-looking antique lady with the dyed black hair and bright red lips (Nan showed Bay the photo online), is due around nine the next morning. Ruthie, of the hearty appetite, will arrive just before lunch.
“I bet she planned it that way,” Nan says. “Why don’t we eat on the porch?”
Bay loves the idea and has already carried the card table up from the basement. She marks a page with a recipe for something called “chocolate lasagna” (there is a small amount of dark chocolate in the sauce), then pushes the stack of books aside. She stands to stretch, her fingers scraping the slanted ceiling as she walks to the window, inhaling the green scent of summer. All she has to do is get through the next day and a half with her Nana’s friends, then things can get back to normal. After making such a production out of all the cleaning and preparation, Bay thinks it’s strange that they’re not staying longer, but her Nana says it’s long enough.
“We want to see each other again,” she says. “But there’s no reason to go hog wild.”
Bay spends all her spare time in her bedroom, staring out the window; hoping to spy the boy again, she spends a great deal of time staring at the shoe garden instead. Many people love it, even slowing on the curvy road to take photographs, while others think the old shoes, aged by sun and weather, mud-splattered, breaking open at the toes with roots boring out of them like worms, are an eyesore. She wonders what her Nana’s friends will think.
Tiny white flowers rise like clouds from above a purple heel, a man’s old work boot holds black-eyed Susans, an assortment of ladies’ boots compose the hollyhock and mallow garden (though the flowers are beginning to look a little sad), the hostas have blossomed their strange, stalky white and
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