Whole Latte Life (46 page)
S
ara Beth’s fear is that the fire took her mother, too. Ravaged her spirit so much that it’s lost.
“So I can only find you here now?” she asks a week later while washing the gravestone with a sudsy scrub brush. “Can’t you come with me a little bit, like before?” She runs the brush over the edges of the stone, then rinses it with fresh water. Once Tom left for work, she dropped the kids at Melissa’s and stopped here before meeting the Fire Marshal. The sun is strong and she stands then, head dropped for a long while beneath the rays. Had it been real? If she can’t recall details from their life together, did her mother even exist? She feels so completely gone, now more than ever. Since the fire, there were no more emails, no cell phones pressed to her ear, no imagined conversations, no gratifying signs. Living was somehow easier when she still had that connection.
“Mom?” she whispers, standing with one hand clutching her velvet beaded bag, the bucket hanging from the other, standing awhile longer before turning to leave.
At the carriage house later, she wonders the same thing: If she can’t remember its details, had it existed? She stands where the building had been, struggling to picture how it looked only a short time ago.
Rays of sunlight shine through the trees, dropping like sparks on the debris. She walks through the rubble, feeling her furniture crunch in burnt bits beneath her feet. One piece, though, doesn’t give. She pokes through the ash, finding a mahogany cabriole leg dusty with ash but untouched by the flames. It feels cool to the touch.
It’s hard to tell what’s left in her life. Sometimes her dreams of the carriage house are so vivid, it’s as real as it was two weeks ago. She walks over to the split rail fence. It still stands, miraculously escaping the flames…the fence she drank tea at, the fence little Slinky sunned on.
“Sara?”
Lately her mind has a way of getting so lost in thought that it shuts out all else around her. But she knows that voice, it cuts right through her sadness.
“I’m so glad I found you,” Rachel says as she comes up behind her. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”
With the mahogany leg still in her grip resting atop the split rail fence, they look at the debris. “The Fire Marshal just left.” It’s all Sara Beth can say without sobbing, now that she knows about the fire’s origins.
“Let’s walk,” Rachel says. Walking means talking. If they’d kept records, there’s no telling how many miles they’ve walked together in twenty-five years. Walked and talked. Probably as many miles as cups of coffee they’ve had. And talk helps. Tom told her it’s therapeutic.
“Any respectable collector or antique dealer,” Sara Beth starts as they move along the fence past the black furniture remnants, “has a basic knowledge of the field of antiques. Then, they specialize. But there is first a broad, general knowledge. One of the most obvious rules regarding antique lamps would be, well, what do you think it would be, Rachel? Tell me.”
“Lamps?” She watches her friend cautiously. “Rewire?”
“You see? It’s so obvious, everybody knows it. Old lamps have to be rewired, and they need new sockets and new plugs. Never, ever, ever are you supposed to take a chance with lamps. Frayed wiring is treacherous.”
“Sara Beth?”
“No. Wait.” She holds up her hand, still studying the charred remains. “Let me finish. I had two antique lamps. A Steuben art glass lamp and my desk lamp, a beautiful brass lamp from 1916 that I hadn’t rewired yet.”
“A lamp caused this?”
“My desk lamp. They traced the fire to it. Apparently I left it on that night when I rushed out to celebrate the new house. The wires ignited and spread to the electric box and the old carriage house walls went up in a flash fire.” Still she looks only into the carriage house remains. “So this is all my fault.”
“But the newspaper mentioned some sort of a flare-up during the fire.”
“Ed March stored gasoline for the lawn mowers on the other side of the center wall.”
“Oh no.”
“It was a small can, and almost empty, but it didn’t cause the fire. Nothing stood a chance once that lamp went. Between the dried out timber and the old electrical circuits, the flames spread so fast.”
For the very first time since the kidnapping junket, their eyes meet, Sara’s hand still gripping the mahogany leg. Rachel gathers her into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
“Oh Rach,” Sara Beth begins. “It’s my fault. I can’t do anything right.” Her fingers have been wrapped tightly around the cabriole leg. She tosses it in the dirt and takes a deep breath. “My antiques, my dream, and oh my God, I thought this summer I’d lost you. My best friend. And now Mom. Everything’s broken. Everything’s gone.”
“You can start over.”
“Oh, please.”
“Is there much left?”
“Bits and pieces. There’s a table and chairs that were in the back. And Tom pulled out a chest of drawers and a few other pieces. They’re in storage now. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Tom told me about the new house.”
“You talked to him?”
“I saw him in town last week.”
Sara Beth leans against the fence. Her shoulders dip, her face is drawn. “I had these plans,” she says. “Like a bridal registry service to the engagement notices in the paper. Wouldn’t that be sweet? Registering to receive a beautiful antique for your home? And I planned to speak at The Historical Society about what I do, how I help bring history and family stories into a home. The same way Mom did.” Her voice drops. “So now what? Everything’s screwed up.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. First my pregnancy. My marriage. Then us. And now this. And, okay, I’d talk to Mom sometimes, all right? And it really felt like she heard me. Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t care. I
felt
her. Now, nothing.”
“You’re not crazy. Come on,” Rachel insists, pulling her friend toward their cars. “There are a lot of people who would disagree. Who really admire all that you’ve accomplished.” She glances at the charred remains behind them, knowing the time has come. If ever a wish was put to the test, this is it. “Let’s go. I’ll follow you down to Whole Latte Life and we’ll talk there. Okay?”
“Any place would be better than here right now. Jesus, Rach. I did this.”
“Shh. Stop that now.” Rachel dawdles in her car as Sara Beth backs out of the driveway. Her new historic home is on the way to the coffee shop. She’ll have to drive right past it.
Please
, Rachel thinks,
please notice the changes and stop there
. All Rachel has to do is give her a few minutes head start before putting her car in reverse.
Sara Beth drives down Old Willow Road, slowing near the covered bridge. Coming out the other end, the view of her new home on The Green is bittersweet. All the happiness it brought turns cruel. She pulls over and pushes her sunglasses on top of her head to get a better look and wouldn’t you know it? A cardinal flies right in front of her. Which is really weird, because it
could
be another one of those signs, that’s for sure.
Her mother used to tell her that when a cardinal crosses your path, it’s like a little Christmas ornament, any time of year. You were in for a treat. That’s how much she’d loved the holidays. So maybe Mom’s not completely gone then. That’s when she notices the new curtains hanging in the paned windows.
Delicate white lace curtains.
She turns into the driveway and sees they are the same type of pretty curtains she planned on hanging with her mom, letting the sun shine through. But shouldn’t the owners be packing up? A cast iron coin bank set on the interior windowsill, framed by those lace curtains, makes her step outside and lean against the car. It looks exactly like the horse bank she donated to the Savings and Loan. She steps closer and looking in past the curtains, sees Melissa’s mahogany double pedestal table, the one that Sara Beth found for her, in the center of the room.
Okay, something’s definitely up, something that makes her walk quickly to the door. It inches open onto warm colors and the lingering smell of fresh paint.
So this is new, this learning what it feels like falling into a dream.
First there are only colors. Browns that never glowed as beautiful as they do through tears. Beneath the mahogany, oak, cherry and pine antiques spreads a sea of gold and burgundy in an old oriental carpet. A huge vase of fresh dahlias and zinnias and small sunflowers, yellows and pinks and reds, graces a hand-stitched white lace runner atop Melissa’s dark table. Beyond that, the three children’s striped tiger chairs from Parks and Recreation stand lined in a perfectly straight row. The library’s oak country table is set beneath the side window, too. Her life flashes before her, every good deed returned in beautiful technicolor.
She walks slowly into the room. There is more. Whole Latte Life’s coat rack stands inside the door, right where a coat rack should be. A painted old mirror from her neighbors hangs beside it. From the top of her white Sotheby’s snake foot candlestand, she picks up the ornate picture frame she gave to her niece during the Fourth of July sale at her antique tent.
Well. She sets the frame down and leans her back against the wall before sliding down into a crouch with her arms wrapped around her knees. Someone pulled off a blessed miracle. Through her tears, her blurred gaze lingers on the heavenly white lace curtains until there is something else. There is Rachel standing in the doorway with her easel under an arm.
Oh her grin is wicked as she steps in and opens the easel, the one she does her best sketching on. It looks perfect set up near the window where sunshine will fall on the paper.
“This is for you,” Rachel says.
“Me?”
“For your shop. Didn’t you want to open by the fall? Lots of leaf-peepers will be passing through. They love to antique, too.”
“What about your sketching?”
“Oh don’t worry. I’ll be your first customer.”
Sara Beth still crouches, leaning against the wall, her long skirt reaching her feet. “You did this for me, didn’t you?”
Rachel turns around. “Do you recognize it? Tom and I gathered it from a lot of people. They’re all paying you back.” She slides into a crouch beside Sara Beth. “It’s the best we could do on short notice. But it looks pretty amazing, don’t you think?”
A collection of brass candlesticks is artfully arranged on a cherry hutch. All the brass in the room glows, the drawer pulls, the door knockers. The woods are polished to deep liquid hues. “Why?” Sara Beth asks, brushing tears from her face.
“It’s simple. Everybody loves you Sara. Don’t you know that? We’re all here for you.” Rachel eyes her closely. “You don’t see it, do you?”
Sara Beth shakes her head no, afraid to talk, to jinx anything.
“Well mostly it’s that you’ve been a best friend, all my life. Ever since that day in eighth grade when I didn’t know anyone in this town.”
Sara Beth presses her fingers beneath her eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears. “But I hurt you this year.”
“Yes, well. I knew, really, that New York wasn’t about
us
. We all knew something else was happening. Tom, and your sister. And anyway, I thought we figured out all that stuff when I kidnapped you. This is what friends do.”
If ever anyone wanted something, she wants desperately this: To believe Rachel. Has her life really been restored? The shop is filled with the touch of love that she could never have accomplished herself because it comes on olive branches and silver platters and in outstretched arms.