Buried is an understatement. Deanna has been all over the wedding preparations. Over the weekend, every couple of hours she sent me another recipe from theNY Timesto ask if I thought it would go with the menu we have planned for the dinner.
She sits down on one of the stools and takes another sip of her coffee before pushing some printed-out recipes at me out from under her newspaper. She lays out three different sets of pages that still have the ads from the website interrupting the recipes on them.
“I know we’ve already been discussing the menu, and I hate to bring this up so last minute. I had wanted to get a local bakery to do the cake,” she starts to tell me, then wrinkles her nose in disappointment. “But I wasn’t all that impressed with the selections we tried from them. And before I start driving two hours away to look for a place I like better, I thought I’d ask—”
“I would love to. I’m a great baker,” I tell her quickly, and she smiles.
She pats the recipes. “Let’s start with these and see how they turn out.”
I nod, excited. I’ve never done a wedding cake before. It’s bittersweet, honestly. I don’t really believe in getting attached to your employers or business partners, but I’ve worked here a few years now, and I’ve become fond of the family’s dynamic. Sometimes I feel like a part of it.
Deanna starts to pack up her newspaper and coffee to go back to her office, when it occurs to me that in the years I’ve worked here, I’ve never even seen Logan date anyone. I’ve seen his younger brother flirt with anything that moves.
“Did, um, his fiancée pick out the flavors or recipes? What’s her name, anyway?” I duck my head a little lower and whisper, “I didn’t even know he was dating anyone!”
Deanna pauses for a long moment, a little bit too long to recall someone’s name. At least, someone who I would hope she would know somewhat well by now.
“Celina Carrington, she lives in Boston,” she says. “Neither of them are much for party planning, so it’s going to be a small, private event. But I wanted to make it nice, so they have some pretty photos to look back on.”
That does make sense. Logan often goes out on deliveries; he probably visits her when he does.
I guess I’m not surprised that I haven’t met his fiancée before. He’s the more introverted of her sons, and tight lipped over anything resembling a personal question. But he’s been polite enough and compliments my recipes, so I just kind of accept that he’s a little on the shy side.
I begin clearing the long countertop to begin the task Deanna set before me, when I see a glimpse of the front page of the local newspaper, something about wolf sightings in the area.
My cheeks flare red and my heart slams in my chest when I remember the dream I had this morning. I’d all but put it out of my head.
She pauses as if she heard my heart rate spike, a concerned expression already on her face. “Something wrong?”
“Oh, it’s just that, uh, the newspaper,” I stammer, and try to come up with something that isn’t my really weird dream. “Do you think hiking is unsafe if there’s been wolves around?”
“Don’t worry dear, I’m sure it’s just hikers who don’t know what a coyote looks like.”
I nod as she leaves and get to work. I’d nearly forgotten that dream. Things are too busy to linger over it. I don’t really have time to confront the fact that my subconscious was totally ready to bone a wolf-thing.
4
Shawn
It’s nearly eleven a.m. when I finally get back on the road. I’ve been dragging my feet, taking the long way back home, kind of hoping I’ll get lost.
I brush off most of the leaves before I get in the car. It’s a rental because I’ve simply forgone the headache of trying to find parking consistently in Boston. In the last decade, I haven’t needed one to make the drive to Mystic Falls in the far corner of western Massachusetts, because I’ve also forgone going home until now.
I could have stopped at a motel for the night instead of sleeping on the ground, but it’s better that I didn’t. There’re less damages to pay after scratching the hell out of some trees instead of walls.
And because I’m procrastinating the last couple miles to my childhood home, I take the route through the middle of historic Mystic Falls. I could kill a couple hours at the local diner. The last few times I’ve made a rest stop, there were the Aconite Ales bottles starting to creep up in the refrigerator cases behind gas station counters, along with all the other small-batch labels. There were a lot of other little breweries or distilleries dotted along the mountain. Mystic Falls doesn’t see a ton of tourism, but Aconite’s label has started to spread.
The bell clings as soon as I open the door, and there’s only a few seconds before I feel too many eyes on me. Eight years andstill all the same regulars at the Circle E, and none of them have learned to mind their own business since then either.
Sliding into the diner seat, the leathery plastic squeaks beneath me. I’ve got that wild mushroom omelet they used to make on my mind when I feel someone hovering at the table’s edge.
I look up and it’s Laura with the little waitress apron slung around her waist, and in the next moment she’s plopping down in the booth opposite me. Her hair is twice as big as I remember it, but she’s still wearing just as much makeup as she did in high school.
“Oh my god, I didn’t think you were gonna show up,” she says, eyes wide, post abandoned for the foreseeable future. I glance over the back of the seat, and it looks like she was the only one taking orders.
“Hello to you too,” I return, sighing. It’s hard not to smile when I see her though. Guess I can forget about breakfast. But I’m glad to run into her. A temperature check with my cousin was probably a good idea. Laura was always good for saying the quiet part out loud.
“Shawn,” she says, with more urgency in her voice than a greeting really calls for. She ducks her head, but barely lowers her voice. “Were you even invited?”
