THERE WERE SOUNDS in the bed & breakfast.
There were never sounds in the bed & breakfast.
Chad rolled over in bed without a spring squeak or a mattress sag. He would have ignored the sounds if not for a stab of pain on his arm where it was scraped and bruised. He sat up blearily.
Female voices drifted up to him.
Leona never talked to herself. She barely talked to him.
The room was bathed in pink light.
And then the smell of cinnamon drifted to him, grounding him in a pleasant reality. He was at the bakery. It was who-knew-what-time of the morning. It was dark and he was suddenly famished, having not eaten dinner last night.
A few minutes later, he’d showered and borrowed Tracy’s toothbrush and showed himself downstairs.
“You...don’t look quite so dead this morning,” Tracy said, handing him a mug of green tea. She indicated he sit on a stool at the island counter. “You’re scabbing over nicely.”
Chad took that as a compliment.
“I’ve got your steak right here.” She had the microwave running on the hold-warm setting.
Soon, Chad was eating his steak, drinking his tea and thinking fondly of his parents.
“We’re using you as a guinea pig,” Jess said, smiling lopsidedly. “Duffy drew the line at tasting these until I had them perfected.” She set a plate of two biscuits next to him, along with two pats of butter.
“What are they?” They smelled like rosemary.
Jess turned her attention back to a mixing bowl. “Sweet—”
“Biscuits,” Tracy finished for her. She was arranging cookies like dominoes on a display plate.
Chad devoured the biscuit, only belatedly realizing both women had stopped working to stare at him. “Did I belch and not realize it?”
Tracy took a step closer. “How do you like the biscuits?”
“Why?” He stopped eating. “Did you poison them? I was going to order you flowers.”
“Forget the flowers.” Tracy glowered at him in that endearing way of hers. “We agreed on your column.”
“The biscuits are a transformation recipe,” Jess explained, ignoring their argument.
“Do...you remember Eunice talking about Horseradish-Doodles?” Tracy’s glower downgraded to a frown, and then one corner of her mouth curled upward. “These are Sweet Horseradish Biscuits.”
“I don’t taste horseradish.” Chad swept his tongue around his mouth. “I taste rosemary, but there’s a sharpness to it.”
“Horseradish,” both women said. They high fived.
“Let’s try them in the case this morning,” Jess said.
In no time, Tracy had the rest of the batch on a plate and disappeared into the dining area with them.
“I feel as if I’ve been conned,” he said, feeling more content in the morning than he had in a long time.
Jessica had a gentle smile that was welcoming. “You shouldn’t complain since you liked them.”
He had and he was still hungry. He finished the second one off as Tracy returned. “So today is setup day for the Harvest Festival. What does that mean?”
“Mostly...it means the townspeople get an extra day outside their home to visit with each other.” Tracy’s sentences were long and strong this morning. “There’s...not much setup to do.” She plated mini carrot-cake loaves and then took the frosting bag and expertly drizzled icing on top. “There’s the stage. And PA system. Chairs to sit on. Tables for activities. Pumpkins to be stacked. The bowling lanes to be marked.”
“Tracy is going to win pumpkin bowling and become the Harvest Festival Queen,” Jessica teased.
“I’m not competing. But you...” Tracy shook her finger at Jessica. “You have to try it. You’ve never done it before.”
Chad had to ask. “Is there a competition for the king?”
Tracy didn’t do a good job of hiding a smile. “It’s the nail-driving competition. You have to drive a nail into a piece of wood with one strike.”
His finger throbbed just thinking about wielding a hammer again.
“Come back in the summer. We...have a contest for the cutest male legs,” Tracy deadpanned.
“That’s more my speed.”
Tracy didn’t roll her eyes, but Chad knew she wanted to.
* * *
“CHAD’S NICE,” JESSICA said to Tracy after Chad left to return to Leona’s house.
“Don’t get ideas. We’re barely friends.” And didn’t that hurt to admit? “He...doesn’t know what he wants out of life.”
“And you do?” Jessica crimped the edges of a sugar-free apple pie Old Man Takata had ordered.
“Well...” Was it just last week she’d wanted desperately to return to the fast-paced world of advertising? These past few days, her life had felt so full. She hadn’t thought about it at all.
Duffy entered, carrying a babbling Gregory. “He’s an early riser, just like his mother.” He strapped Gregory in a high chair, kissed his son on the top of the head and then kissed Jessica goodbye. “See you ladies at lunch.”
Tracy sighed. Two years ago, she’d been at the top of her game in advertising. She’d had a vague idea about family, but couldn’t visualize it. But lately, seeing Gregory with Duffy melted her heart. She could visualize a little boy or two with sun-kissed brown hair. They’d be cheerful, resilient boys. Like their father. And she’d be a good mom, getting them off to school and never missing a dinner for a demanding client’s last-minute deadline. Not that she wanted to be the head cook. Take-out would be nice every once in awhile.
Jess put dry cereal on Gregory’s tray. “You never answered my question.”
“I don’t know.” The challenge of the video excited her, but the actual job? Not so much. She was no better than Chad, not knowing what she wanted out of life.
“I can confuse the issue further.” Jess twisted a dish towel in her hands. “In order to make this place work long-term, I need more business.” Her hesitant smile spoke louder than her words about fragile dreams and the fear of failure. “You increased our sales with your blog ideas. You could help me get more wedding cake business, too.”
“Be your marketer?” Tracy was flattered. But she was also a realist. “Jess...you can barely afford to pay me now.” Her peers in advertising would scoff. And truth be told, Tracy felt a twinge of embarrassment at the idea of introducing herself as a marketing manager for a small-town bakery.
But her peers would already deduct intelligence points for her speech pattern. And she was her own harshest critic. Jess was offering what she’d wished for days ago—a job without a job interview.
“We could work something out—bonuses, commissions—couldn’t we?” She wasn’t looking at Tracy anymore. She was looking at the pictures on the wall. Generations of Martin’s. In a place that didn’t judge.
* * *
“LATE NIGHT, MR. HEALY?” Leona was waiting for Chad when he returned to the bed & breakfast. A few strands of hair were loose in her normally military neat hairstyle.
Was she worried about him? Or did she think he wouldn’t pay her for a night he hadn’t slept here? “Spent in the infirmary. I received better care there than you offered.” She’d been more concerned with her precious furniture than his health. “I hope you didn’t report me missing with the sheriff.”
Her nose went in the air. “You’re too early for breakfast.”
“Already had it, so you can put those store-bought donuts back in their box.”
An expression flashed across Leona’s face that was half hurt, half anger. “You have two more nights, Mr. Healy. Two more nights.”
He went upstairs to change his clothes, but it wasn’t until he came back down and was out the door that the finality of it hit him. His time at Harmony Valley was coming to an end. He needed to figure out his relationship with Tracy.
Correction: He needed to quit screwing up the foundation of what could be a relationship with Tracy.
The town square was already a beehive of activity. The older generation sat in chairs and in walkers beneath blankets and heavy jackets and tried to direct Flynn and Slade, who looked upon Chad’s arrival as one looked upon the cavalry in a foot soldier’s losing battle.
“We’re putting up the stage first.” Flynn gestured to his truck and the big sheets of plywood it held. “How are you with a power drill?”
“Do you ask me these questions just to humiliate me?” Chad had never worked a power drill in his life. “I thought I was banned from power tools.”
“A drill really doesn’t qualify on my list. Slade and I are going back to the mayor’s storage unit to load up the bleachers. I don’t want someone—” Flynn gave the high sign toward the gathering of the elderly on the lawn. “—to try to assemble the stage and fall or have a piece of wood fall on him.”
“I can’t do this on my own.”
“I recruited the best.” Flynn pointed to an old white truck pulling into the square. “Tracy’s dad.”
“Ben hates me.” Chad wasn’t proud of the whine his voice, but he was still working the kinks out of his bruised body. “Take me to the storage unit. Leave Slade here.”
“Sorry, buddy.” Flynn slapped him on the back, causing Chad to flinch. “And sorry again. But the mayor doesn’t let anyone else see what goodies he’s got stored there. He certainly won’t let a reporter—”
“Columnist.”
“—see what’s inside there.”
“Hey, boys.” Ben held a cup of coffee as if in toast. “I thought you’d have everything set up by now.”
“We’ve just got to get the stage unloaded and then you can work your magic.” Flynn hurried over to his truck.
“I’ll be assisting you today.” Chad was determined not to complain about his wounds in front of Ben, or make a fool of himself, or drill a hole in Ben’s appendages.
“We’re not performing surgery.” Ben finished his coffee and tossed the cup into the trash.
“Just tell me what to do.”
And Ben did. They laid out the pieces of the four-foot-tall stage frame and attached the hinges with screws and a drill, until only the last corner was remaining.
“Why don’t you put these screws in?” Ben handed Chad the drill and the bag with the screws.
Chad preferred to decline. But at that moment, Tracy showed up.
“Hey, Dad. How’s it coming?” She kissed her father’s cheek and managed not to greet Chad.
“Good, Sunshine, but I see Rutgar over there fiddling with live wires.” His gaze focused across the square. “Can you two finish while I go prevent a catastrophe?”
They both assured him they could.
“Well.” Tracy peered at the inside of the stage. “What are we doing?”
Chad pretended he knew what was what. “We need to fit the corners together and screw the hinges on.” How had Ben done this? Hinge first on one board? Or one screw on each hinge side? Chad leaned over the three-foot-high particle board and attempted to screw the hinge in upside down. “It went in.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.” Tracy’s blond hair tumbled into her eyes. “I guess...that means you’ve earned the right to put in the next one.”
Agnes called Tracy over to a group of elderly in a row of chairs.
Audience gone, Chad felt relieved. He needed to regroup. Should he invite Tracy to the B&B to read his column? Or ask her to dinner?
He leaned over again and tried to screw the hinge on the other corner board. The screw fell to the ground and the boards inched apart. But Chad was determined to get this. He supported the boards with his knees, leaned upside down and tried to put another screw in. The screw slipped. The drill slipped. The tips of his fingers got drilled.
He shouted. He nearly fell over the side of the walls on his head, but lurched back, only to drag his fingers up the plywood and tumble to his butt to the ground. The back of his head bounced off the pavement.
Tracy’s face swam in front of his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Do I have any fingers left?”
“The fact that you’re joking means you’re okay.” She stood and said to the crowd, “Give him space. He’s okay.” She resumed leaning over him.
“This town hates me. Literally, it’s out to kill me.” Not any of the people specifically. Just the town in general.
“If that were true...it’s doing a horrible job.” She took his arm and helped him up. “But...it might be karma from you trying to write one of your belittling columns about it.”
“I don’t believe in karma.” He looked around at the elderly faces. They reminded him of his parents. This was a community he could simultaneously relate to and be concerned for. The contradictions were there. They’d been there the entire time. This was a place where old traditions contrasted with new ways, and where old people coexisted with the young. This is the story.
That Pollyana story wouldn’t attract any advertisers.
“I’m going to have you sit with Agnes while I finish up the hinges.” Tracy pointed him in the direction of others unable to help setup. Older others.
Chad’s head throbbed. He glanced down at Tracy, wishing he could look at her all day. “You know how to operate power tools?”
“Hello?” She patted his arm gently, as if she knew he was battered all over. “I grew up on a farm.”
Chad walked away, but not to the peanut gallery. He pulled out his phone and dialed Marty.
“I had you on my list of people to call today,” Marty said by way of greeting. His tone was riddled with a bad-news vibe. “That article you sent wasn’t the slam dunk I needed.”
Chad sat on the curb, rubbing a palm over his forehead, trying not to lose his cool, trying to think fast to avoid disaster.
“What happened to you, man? The slick killer instinct is missing in these pages. It’s as if you just wanted to kill the town, nothing slick about it.”
Marty had to have misread the column. Chad stood and headed for the B&B at a good clip. “Give me another shot at it.” He could edit it into something better.
“I’m sorry, Chad. We’re going to have to back out.”
“There’s a cancellation clause, Marty.” Chad’s words snapped with anger. If he lost Marty, the rest of his sponsors would almost certainly bail. “It’s gonna cost you.” Twenty percent.
“You know how this works.” Marty’s uneven rumble smoothed. “You invoke that penalty and I won’t work with you again.”
Chad didn’t need the advertising money as much as he needed Marty’s goodwill. Still, he was mad enough not to bow down. “I’ll let you know what I decide on Monday.”
News of No Wrinkles backing out would travel fast. Media-buying execs were networked tighter than the small town gossip chain.
Chad returned to the B&B to wait out the avalanche of cancellations he was sure would come. And come, they did.
The Lampoon had won this round. If he launched his website on Sunday without sponsors, it’d be like saying, “I’m nobody.” It’d be like saying, “Dad won.”
Or it could be an entirely different statement. “Take that, world, the Happy Bachelor doesn’t need anybody.”
* * *
THE PEBBLES HIT Tracy’s window just as she was thinking of turning off her laptop and starting dinner.
She opened the front window, sticking her head out into the chilly night air. “I should give you my cell phone number before you break a window.”
Chad stood below her, more serious than she’d ever seen him. “Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Come with me to El Rosal. The early-bird-special diners have left. My treat.”
Tracy hesitated. The man standing below her wasn’t just plain Chad. “I’m sorry, but—”
“I still owe you something romantic.” Was that desperation in his voice?
Tracy felt her resolve weakening and shored it up. “El Rosal isn’t romantic.” No matter how much she liked the food.
“Don’t let Mayra hear you say that.” Chad pulled a small tablet from his inner jacket pocket. “I brought my column.”
So much for romance.
A few minutes later, they were seated at a roomy booth and receiving excellent service in the near empty restaurant. If the veterans hall became popular, El Rosal’s business would increase. If the winery succeeded, the town’s population would increase. If Chad wrote a good column, it could be like a perfect storm of fairy dust and rainbows over Harmony Valley.
Tracy took off her rose-colored glasses. “Let’s get this over with.” She raised her voice to be heard above the salsa music and reached across the table. “Were you kind? Or did you unleash your inner beast?”
“I wrote it for my audience.” There was a defensiveness about him that clung like the smell in the veterans hall had clung to her boots.
His audience? “At the Lampoon?”
“I’ve been hoping to draw those readers over to my site, so yes. Lampoon readers.” He drummed his fingers over the tablet case nervously. “My advertising sponsor didn’t like it. In fact, I lost all my advertisers today.” He handed her the tablet.
She hesitated reading it. Sponsors bailing was bad news. Really bad news. Chad looked more beat up than he had after Lilac tried to run him over. But she wasn’t here to give him sympathy.
Tracy read the column quickly, with a sinking heart. While he talked with Enzo about which wine to choose, with the press of a few buttons she emailed the file to herself. “This...reminds me of the cat lady piece. You...make us sound like a town lost in time, one that should stay lost.”
“I praised the winery, the bakery, El Rosal and Giordanos.” He frowned. “Maybe it wasn’t my best piece. But it was interesting?”
Tracy hesitated, realizing he was asking her a question rather than defending his work. He’d never not defended his work before. “I’m sorry. I don’t recognize your voice in this. It’s not clever. It’s cruel, which makes it hard to read. You liken Leona...to a prudish horror-movie villainess. You posted a picture of Snarky Sam...next to one of a twenty-year-old drug addict mid-gurn. And you wrote naked yoga isn’t as pleasurable...with an old naked man as with starlets in Hollywood.”
“I admit...it’s not my best.” He turned his fork over and back, and over and back again. “When you summarize it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It is bad.” She returned the tablet to him. “That piece...won’t help you relaunch the Happy Bachelor. That’ll kill the column.” If that was what she wanted, why did she long to reach across the table and cover his hand with hers? “Change of topic. I finished my video.”
“Really?” He forced cheer into his tone. “What is it that makes Tracy Jackson unique?”
“The usual, boring things—dreck—that make it worth getting up every morning.” It was her turn to fiddle with the silverware, to admit something personal. “This town. My family and friends. My scar. My unique speech. The knowledge that life can change.” She snapped. “In an instant. So why let dreams pass you by?”
“That’s awesome. Look how you didn’t give up on your dreams and things turned around. Have you sent it in?”
“No,” she said flatly. “I’m going to stay here. I’m going to freelance in town. As it grows—”
“You have a college degree and you’re going to waste it here?” His disapproval stabbed at her confidence, threatening to puncture it.
She held on to that hard-won confidence. “I’ve...been looking for a challenge. And I found many. Right here.” She tapped the table with her forefinger. “I’m changing my dream. I want to live here. And do work that is fun. And challenging.”
“That’s quitting.” His lip curled. The man she’d known these past few days was gone. She wasn’t sure she recognized the man sitting before her. “Reach higher, Tracy.”
“I did reach high.” She struggled to keep her voice down. “I succeeded in advertising. I can move on to creating a life that’s important to me. I can ask what if. Maybe you should think about moving on, too.”
He wouldn’t look at her. The happy, smiling man she found so captivating was nowhere to be found. “You’re moving backward. I’m moving on.”
“You’re not.” She did raise her voice then, raised it higher than the pulsing salsa music, high enough Mayra could probably hear her in the kitchen. “You’re...trying to write the same column you’ve written for years. You’re scared of spreading your wings. Scared of seeing what else is out there. You’re hoping this little website of yours will get your job back. But what happens if it does? You’re going to be just as unhappy as you were before.” She slid out of the booth. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
Tracy had known this was what he’d write. She might have hoped it’d be more skillfully written, but she never should have hoped for anything different. And tomorrow at the Harvest Festival, she wasn’t going to be silenced. She was going to let the town know exactly what Chad thought of them.
For his own good.