I nervously reapplied another coat of lipstick, adjusted my top, and checked my reflection in the visor mirror. Nervous butterflies flitted around in my stomach. Smoothing a few stray hairs, I took a deep calming breath and released it slowly.
Warwick had told me to stay away, but I was never good at doing what I was told.
Noah’s gaze flicked to me as he pulled his Ute up to the curb. “You look…amazing. I’m sure Warwick will agree,” he said with a tight smile. In the last ten minutes his mood had taken a turn for the worse.
“I’m sorry I’m mucking you about today, Noah. I’ll be quick and then we can head home.”
“It’s fine.” He pushed his hair back from his face. “I don’t mind. It’s been nice.” He turned to me, his eyes full of vulnerability.
My stomach flipped. “I’ve really enjoyed today. Thank you.”
I opened the car door, the cupcake box already in my hand.
“Do you want me to leave you here for a while?” He looked down at his knuckles as they gripped the steering wheel.
“No, it’s okay. I’ll be quick,” I promised, hopping off the seat and closing the door behind me. I noted Noah’s gaze as I tucked a stray hair behind my ear and straightened my skirt with my free hand, then nervously made my way down the path.
Warwick stood over a foot taller than me, his hair and his eyes were dark, and as he opened the door, they matched his expression.
“Tilly?” His frown faded the second we made eye contact. I’d been concerned that things between us would feel weird after our break up, but his smile settled the jiggling nerves.
“Before you say anything, I know I shouldn’t be here, but I wanted you to have these.” I pushed the box toward him.
“Always thinking of someone else.” His eyes were soft as he looked down at me.
I smiled. “I thought they’d make you feel better, even just for a little while.”
“They’ve already made me feel better. Do you want to come in?” He pushed the door all the way open.
“No sorry. I got a lift today.” I pointed toward Noah’s Ute with my bandaged hand.
“What happened to your hand?” he asked, his fingers reaching to gently grasp mine.
“Oh, nothing much. Just burned it.” I explained, waving my hand in front of me dismissively.
“It’s not serious, though? Will you be alright?”
“Sure will. Look, it’s almost better already. I can wave and everything.” I demonstrated continuing to wave like a mad person. “What’s more important is how are you doing?”
“Better now that I have these cupcakes.” He grinned. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in? I know I told you to stay away, but...”
“I know,” I replied, completely understanding his unspoken words. “We said we’d still be friends, right?”
“Always.” We stared at each other in silence and genuine disappointment sat heavy in my gut.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“I’d better not,” I said, once again glancing toward Noah, only this time I remembered the shift in his mood and I didn’t want to annoy him anymore than I already had. “Maybe another time.” We both knew they were empty words.
Warwick smiled sheepishly. “Well, thanks for these. I will love them and enjoy every crumb.” Placing the box on a stand he had inside his door, he gently took my hand and pulled me in close. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for us,” he whispered.
“Me too.”
His fingertip gently pushed a hair from my eye. “You really are beautiful. Inside and out.” With that he lowered his head, and his lips found mine in a tender kiss goodbye.
The trip back to the farm was a silent one. Noah concentrated on the road and I didn’t want to press him with annoying questions, so I listened to the country tune playing on the radio and thought about the theme I wanted to create for the Littlebrook Craft and Fine Food Fair.
When we reached Littlebrook, Noah pulled to a stop outside Monty’s. “I’m just getting a pie for tea. Do you want anything?”
A pie sounded good. It was now just after 5.30, it would serve as my dinner.
Noah was striding across the road before I could even close my door.
“Noah, what can I get you?” Monty’s voice boomed toward me.
I bustled between the grocery aisles toward them, my shoes not made for wonky timber floors. My heel got caught in a crevice between the boards and stuck. Trouble was I had momentum on my side and I lost my balance, falling into one of the metal shelves. Tins of tomatoes, vegetables and spam, clashed against glass jars of jam, relish and tomato paste, some of which hit my foot before rolling onto the floor with a giant smash.
I heard Monty’s quiet curse as Noah sighed. To add to my embarrassment, Janie just happened to be there to witness the entire thing. She sneered gleefully as tomato paste dripped all over the bow of my not-quite-Kate-Spade’s, ruining them.
I stifled a cry at my now throbbing toe and straightened myself up.
Monty strode toward me, scratching the back of his neck as he snapped, “Leave it!”
I stepped back as if I was scalded. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, hanging my head low, unable to look him in the eye. “I’m really sorry.”
“Just...just leave it.”
Janie stepped up to Noah and whispered something in his ear. He gave her a small smile, and my throat bobbed as unexpected tears stung.
Callie stepped up behind them both, her nose crinkled with disgust. “Some people shouldn’t be let off the chain,” she sneered.
Janie stifled a laugh, and anger pushed my humiliation aside. Sure, I’d made a mess, but that didn’t mean they could treat me like that.
I bit my retort as Monty stepped behind the counter to get something to clean the mess up with and I heard him mutter, “Take her home, Noah.”
I gulped and pushed past Noah. “I said I was sorry and I meant it. I’ll pay for everything that I’ve broken.” My glance flicked to Janie and Callie. “And I’ll bake you as many cupcakes you want as my way of apologizing.” That seemed to satisfy Monty, so I tossed my hair over my shoulder and strutted out of the store, careful to avoid aisle two.
I heard Noah’s footsteps as he crossed the road, but I was unable to make eye contact with him as I slipped my shoes off before getting into his Ute, not wanting to spread the tomato paste any further than I already had.
As soon as he closed the car door, he broke into fits of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, still mortified by humiliation.
He had trouble responding as tears spilled from the crinkles around his eyes. “You never cease to make life interesting,” he said once the laughter had finally died down.
Was that a compliment?
Whatever it was, his laughter had definitely lightened my mood.
A week later I kept my promise to Judy, the teacher’s aide, and made her the two dozen cupcakes she had ordered which was easy now that the large bandage on my hand had been replaced with a smaller one.
Noah had given me directions on how to find Judy’s property and I had Wally along for company. The news from Wally’s procedure was all good, and he happily reported a clean bill of health, with insides as clean as a whistle.
“Wally, I think I’m lost.” I stopped Matilda’s Ute in the middle of the road. There were no cars as far as the eye could see, so it didn’t pose a problem.
“No, you’re not. Noah said to turn at the Pepperina tree and travel west for two kilometers.”
“And therein lies the problem.”
“Which bit?”
“First of all, what does a Pepperina tree look like? And second, which way is west?”
“West is the way the sun sets.”
“Well, I know that, but as it’s nearly lunchtime, that’s not really helping me right now.”
Wally sighed.
“Well, which way is it?” I asked him, slumping back against the vinyl seat with defeat.
“Let me just get my bearings,” he mused, winding his window down.
Three flies flew straight in and I silently cursed him. Okay, it wasn’t silent. “Wally, shut your window!”
“I need the window down to see what I’m looking for,” he explained.
I stared through the insect splattered windscreen. The straight bitumen road leading ahead cut through acre upon acre of corn crops which gently swayed in the hot breeze. “What exactly are you looking for, Wally?” I asked, after a minute of silence.
“The Pepperina tree.”
That made sense, I guess. “What does it look like?”
“It’s tall and droops a bit.”
There weren’t any trees as far as my eye could see. “So, I should keep driving along this road?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I followed Wally’s suggestion and after only three more wrong turns, we found what we were looking for. This would never happen in Westport where street signs existed.
Judy’s mum, Rae, and her friends loved the cakes almost as much as they loved Wally.
When they asked us to stay for a cup of tea, he jumped at the chance. “What?” he asked me, shuffling his way into the lounge room. “Can’t an old man have a few pleasures in his life?”
I rolled my eyes and reluctantly followed him. Turned out it was a good move. The cupcakes with Irish cream were a hit, and every one of the ten women in attendance placed orders. By the time tea was served I had a recurring order for two dozen cupcakes every Thursday for the next three months. I bit my lip and considered whether I should accept it, still unsure about starting back up in business.
“How’s the farm going without Matilda?” Rae asked me.
I placed my cup in its saucer and nodded. “Clifford misses her but I believe she’s still around.”
“How so?”
“Have you ever had the feeling someone is standing behind you and looking over your shoulder?” I asked. When a few of the women nodded, I continued. “I get that feeling a lot when I’m in the house. I keep waking up feeling like someone is watching me sleep. It’s not creepy, though. It feels reassuring.”
Rae’s friend Eileen patted my hand, her smile encouraging. “I believe those who love us stay around for a while to make sure we’re okay.”
“But that’s just it. I don’t know why Matilda loved me. I didn’t know her.”
“She obviously had her reasons,” Eileen replied.
“Do any of you know Bronwyn Brown?” I asked, thinking of the executor of Matilda’s estate, and how I really should connect with her.
“Oh yes. She lives in Westport now. Moved in with her daughter a few years ago.”
“Do you know how I could contact her?”
They shook their heads.
“Matilda was as close to her as she was to anyone around here,” Rae said. “Matilda never had too many close friends. She was a hard lady to figure out. One minute she would be yelling at Monty for not ordering the right brand of tea, and the next she’s picking up every stray animal she could find.”
“Yeah, she was cantankerous, but she had a heart of gold,” Wally said.
I smiled at him. I liked that description.
“Every year she would donate a crocheted blanket for the large raffle we held to raise money for the children’s hospital. Excellent work she did. I’ve never seen anyone who could produce quality like she could.”
“Oh, and she loved art,” said Eileen. “For the last twenty years I’ve been on the committee at the arts society, and every Wednesday Matilda would line up at the hall to collect her pension at the mobile bank that arrived, then make her way out to us and spend a good hour in the art museum just looking at the paintings.”
“Did she like some more than others?” I asked, intrigued.
“Oh yes. We have a local artist Lester Montgomery. She loved his work. She would study it for hours. One year the arts society produced a book of local artists and Lester was on the cover. Matilda was the first one there to buy her copy.”
“What happened to him? Is he still in the area?”
“He lives in a nursing home in Westport now,” Eileen said. “But if you’re interested it should be easy to find information about him. His family is very prominent and influential in the Littlebrook area. He did a lot for the farmers back in the day.”
“It was because of him the railway line came to town,” added Rae.
“Tragic what happened to his family,” Eileen tutted.
“Awful,” Rae added.
Seeing my quizzical expression, Eileen elaborated. “His only child died about twenty years ago from cancer, his wife died from a broken heart, and then both of his grandchildren, along with their partners were killed in a car crash on the highway about fifteen years ago. They’d been at a wedding for the day and on the way home a drunk driver swerved across the road and hit them. Thankfully the great grandchildren weren’t in the car, but it left Lester to raise them.”
I gulped as a sadness for Lester and his family hit me.
“He only moved to Westport once he could no longer look after the property,” Eileen finished.
“If I remember rightly,” Rae said, “Matilda was the one who set up the memorial on the highway for his family. Before you make the turn off for Littlebrook, you can see it on the side of the road.”
I did remember seeing that memorial and had wondered about it at the time.
Lost in thought as the women continued to chat about Lester Montgomery’s family, I digested what they said about Matilda. I wondered what her connection to Lester was and why she loved his work so much. I thought after this I would get Wally to show me where the arts museum was, as I wouldn’t mind having a look at Lester’s work. And maybe I could even learn something about Archie, the man who painted the mural.
“Do any of you know why Matilda always wore a key on a chain around her neck?” I asked, interrupting their discussion about which of Lester’s grandchildren worked where.
Eleven sets of eyes stared back at me blankly.
Hmmm, well that wasn’t much help.