Sea Glass Cottage (26 page)

F
or four decades,
A
p
r
il to mid
-N
ov
e
mb
er
,
the Taggert Farms fruit and vegetable stand stood on the side of the road to town, open
ra
in or
shin
e
, enticing travelers to stop and sample the produce.

Any resident over the age of five knew you could fill your basket here with crisp apples, tasty pears, or sweet cherries. In the mood for a salad or fresh kale? No problem. They offered five different kinds of lettuce to pile on your plate.

This year, parents themselves, Gavin and Maggie Kendall had made a few changes to the traditional fall event. With Nick and Jordan’s approval, they’d added a slew of activities for the kids. An inflatable bounce house in the shape of a magic castle offered the kids several hours of jumping up and down. Gavin had talked Cord and Keegan into providing whatever animals they could spare for a petting zoo. The Bennetts had shown up with a goat, a couple of lambs, a litter of piglets, and plenty of rabbits to play with. They’d provided a pony from a nearby ranch so parents could snap photos of their little ones on a horse. For babies, parents could choose the pumpkin patch as a backdrop. Maggie had persuaded Abby Bonner into setting up a face-painting station.

Izzy took in the scene, looked up at the tall scarecrow at the entrance and announced, “It’s like fruit-stand-meets-fall festival.”

Thane agreed. “I’m sure somewhere outside Manhattan they grow pumpkins but there’s nothing quite like this. Jonah will go wild here.”

This morning they’d left the house, dogs included, with one goal in mind—to help Jonah search for the best, the fattest, the biggest pumpkin he could find. There were so many to choose from though that the six-year-old ran from pumpkin to pumpkin unable to make up his mind.

“Which one? Which one should I pick?”

“Tell you what,” Izzy suggested. “How about we take a stroll through the corn maze first so you have time to consider your options? After that you can take your turn inside the castle and bounce until you’re able to come to a major decision.”

Jonah responded by pumping his fist in the air. “Yessssss!”

Thane watched his boy take off in a rush and head straight to where the animals were located surrounded by a circle of hay bales.

“You have a way with him,” Thane commented. And should he mention that it triggered a memory of his own mom’s enduring patience? Probably not.

“I like kids. They’re usually the most honest and boldest little souls around.”

The couple watched as Jonah shifted gears into the farm pen where he ran around like a wild man tagging after a baby pig. When the boy grew tired of that, he segued to getting his face painted and then went on to wander through the maze before finally getting to bounce around in the castle.

“He’s a ball of energy and cute as a button.”

“Mischievous.”

“That too.”

When the bundle of energy came running up, Izzy suggested, “Let’s pick out that pumpkin and  head back to your house. How about we pop in a movie? Maybe one with a Halloween theme to keep the topic consistent?”

“Shrek, I want Shrek,” Jonah said.

“Then Shrek it is.”

The last day
of October Bradford Radcliff took down the chain on his car lot next to the bank and made it official. His place was open for business. He’d re-paved the lot, transported his ten-car inventory up from L.A., and had a small four-hundred-square-foot prefab house delivered to use for an office. The little clapboard building sat at the corner of the property, and now for the first time that morning, Brad walked outside to take in what was happening on Main Street.

Brad didn’t have to wait long before Thane Delacourt brought him his first customer, a beautiful woman with a good eye for detail and color. The couple had a little boy with them who ran around opening all the doors so he could crawl into the interior and sit behind the wheel. Brad didn’t mind, he liked kids. Besides it was Halloween. He’d be pretty lame if he didn’t have candy on hand for the kid.

Brad went back into his office, picked up the bowl full of mini Snickers and Milky Ways, and brought it back outside.

“Is it okay if the boy has candy?”

Thane called to Jonah who hadn’t yet put on his costume. “One, you can pick one and eat it before lunch,” Thane cautioned.

“Yay! Chocolate! I get more tonight when I get dressed up,” Jonah told Izzy as she rubbed her hand across the hood of a 1970 gold Karmann Ghia, a vintage ride to be sure. “Ninja, right? You plan to wear the ninja outfit tonight?”

“Ninja!” Jonah said as he sent several karate chops through the air.

“What do you think of this one?” Thane asked, standing beside her at the Volkswagen. “Brad says this one he restored himself.”

“I really like the style.”

“The style is classic with the bug headlights and rust-free,” Brad pitched. “I can vouch for the engine and the drivetrain, starts the second you turn the key.” Brad dangled them in front of her. “Take it for a spin, judge for yourself.”

“Let’s go,” Thane said, opening the driver’s door for her. “Let’s see how it handles. Hey, Jonah, climb into the backseat. Isabella’s taking us along for a ride.”

They cruised through town, made a turn at Crescent, headed over to the pier and circled the block. By their second trip down Ocean Street, Isabella declared, “Oh, I love how it drives!” She looked in the rearview mirror and asked Jonah, “What do you think?”

“It’s a lot smaller than Daddy’s car.”

She guffawed with laughter. “It certainly is, maybe a tad too impractical.”

“No such thing if you like it,” Thane said eyeing the joy on her face. “Just out of curiosity, how long has it been since you’ve driven?”

“He wouldn’t let me have a car. I mean, I had a car when I married him, but he made me get rid of it. Some days I felt like I was barely getting permission to breathe.”

“How did you put up with that? And why did a woman like you let yourself be controlled like that?”

“Lack of self-confidence, I suppose. I don’t know.”

When she pulled into the lot, Brad was waiting for them. “Well?”

“I don’t have a trade-in. What’s the best price you can give me?”

Brad threw out a figure.

Isabella countered with a thousand dollars less.

“In honor of you being my first sale…” Brad shoved his hand toward her and said, “We have a deal. Let’s do it.”

They went into the little office—a tasteful clapboard building with white trim on the glass-paneled door that matched the shutters—to sign the papers.

To celebrate car ownership and before taking Jonah trick-or-treating, they stopped in at Longboard Pizza to grab a bite to eat. While stuffing his face with pepperoni, Jonah announced he’d changed his mind about dressing up as a ninja.

“I wanna go as Dracula and wear a long black cape and fangs.”

“What about the ninja? It’s more appropriate for a first grader to be a ninja turtle than a Dracula,” Thane pointed out.

But Jonah shook his head.

Somewhere between lunch and dinner he’d gotten it into his head that Halloween was all about scary and the ninja wasn’t terrifying enough. In order to make a convincing Count he needed a long black wig on his head. He claimed the costume wouldn’t be complete without smearing his face with white face paint so that he’d look “dead.”

Thane wasn’t all that convinced about the white makeup, especially since it denoted the “lifeless” look. But Isabella persuaded him not to make a big deal out of it.

Fischer backed her up. “He’s at that awkward age where he wants to make sure he isn’t a baby and emulate the older kids.”

“And I’ll need drops of blood dripping out of my mouth, too,” Jonah proclaimed.

Thane stared at Jonah. “Did someone not like the ninja turtle outfit?”

“It’s a little kid costume.”

“Uh, I hate to point this out to you but you are a little kid,” Thane told him.

“But I want to be so scary that the other trick-or-treaters run when they see me.”

“I run when I see you now,” Fischer retorted.

“Ha. Ha. Just wait till you see me all made up and you’ll run all the way to Santa Cruz,” Jonah fired back.

“Good one, sport,” Fischer said, rubbing the kid’s head. “What do you think, Izzy?”

In a voice that resembled Count Dracula, with her hands held out toward Jonah, fingers moving like she intended to weave a spell, she mimicked, “I see the night ahead. I see Jonah’s carrying a bag weighted down with lots and lots of candy. I see it’s cloudy with a chance of Halloween. Bwaahahahahaha!” With that, she began to tickle his belly and ribs until he roared with giggles.

Once they got back home, Thane decided to compromise. “I’ll tell you what. You can make up your face but since we’ve already bought the ninja outfit, you have to wear it tonight. Deal?”

“O-kay.”

Thane took out the pumpkin they’d bought for carving. While he cut out the top, scooped out the goopy guts, he turned to Isabella. “Why is it I get this messy job when there are three of us here?”

“Uh, because it involves a sharp instrument and one of us is six,” Isabella tossed back. She watched as he whittled out a pair of eyes and a nose. “You do know there’s a way to do that without all the slicing and dicing.”

“Now you tell me. Take over here, will you, while I go check to see if he’s getting into his costume.”

She did a mock salute and said, “Aye, aye, sir. I’m on it, sir. You betcha, sir.”

“Funny, very funny,” he countered, wiping his hands before heading into Jonah’s room. Thane found his son struggling to get into the ninja top and pull-on bottoms.

“You gotta take your shoes off first.”

“Oh, I forgot. Is Izzy ready to make up my face?”

“Just about. I wanted to talk to you about trick-or-treating. You know we’re going to businesses only tonight. And you have to stay with us and not go darting across the street by yourself. Understand? There’s traffic out. The sidewalks will be crowded and a lot of people milling around town. So, stick to us like glue. Got it?”

“I got it.”

Later, Thane watched from the bathroom doorway as Isabella spent half an hour coating Jonah’s cherub face with a film of milky-colored grease paint. While his little boy disappeared before his eyes and slowly became a walking monster, Thane couldn’t help noting the easy way Jonah responded to Izzy.

“I hope that stuff comes off,” Thane groaned as the paint began to cover up skin.

“The label promised it would easily wash off with soap and water.” She hoped that was true. After smearing red tint in the form of drops at the corners of the boy’s mouth, she went to work on his hair. Using gel to make it stick up at the top, she sat back, turned him around to face the bathroom mirror. “There. How’s that look?”

“I look…fierce. Don’t I, Dad?”

“You look absolutely terrifying.”

“What do you think, Izzy?”

“You look like the scariest ninja turtle I’ve ever seen in my life or maybe a mad scientist. I’m not sure which.”

“I do?”

“Yep, you look positively ghoulish.”

“Do I get to wear the fangs?”

“Trust me, you won’t like wearing them because they make your mouth feel funny,” Thane told him. “But go ahead stick them in your mouth.”

Sure enough, after five minutes having them clamped on his teeth, Jonah made a face and spit them out into Isabella’s hand.

“We have to go. We have to. I’m meeting Tommy at the corner.”