*
She tried to watch the video on her phone on the bus ride to her aunt Claire’s, but her battery was dead and she needed to recharge it. It didn’t matter anyway, because she had to give her phone to her mom when she got home.
The initial terms of Bay’s inaugural grounding were as follows:
1) Sydney would take Bay to school in the mornings and pick her up at her aunt Claire’s in the evenings.
2) Bay would surrender her phone, as soon as she found it.
Sydney said there might be more items to add to the list, she just hadn’t thought of them yet. Bay had gone over the terms in her head, finding all sorts of loopholes. Like, there was nothing that said she couldn’t actually sit on the steps of the school and talk to Josh, though the likelihood of such a thing happening was so astronomically slim that her mother probably thought it wasn’t worth mentioning at the time.
Another loophole: Her mom didn’t actually say she couldn’t leave the house for specific purposes, although that was what a grounding implied.
Her mother seemed to be playing this by ear. This surprise grounding, which happened a full twenty-four hours after the alleged crime, was supposedly because Bay didn’t ask permission for someone other than Phin’s mother to take her home. At least, that’s what Bay’s obviously confused father told her, trying to make her mother’s decision make sense.
But Bay knew there had to be more to it than that.
Because as many times as Sydney had encouraged Bay to get out and meet people and date, the moment Bay told her she liked someone, she reacted like this. Which led Bay to the conclusion that it wasn’t the crime her mother had a problem with. It was the boy.
Bay’s mother didn’t like Josh Matteson. And Bay had no idea why.
*
“Claire, you need a website,” Buster said as Bay entered the kitchen in the Waverley house a half hour later.
Claire smiled at Bay. Bay gave her a faraway look in return, perhaps a little too content for someone who had just been grounded for the first time.
“Who doesn’t have a website?” Buster continued. “I can’t believe you still fax.”
“I don’t know how to make a website,” Claire said as she stirred the large copper pot of sugar and water and corn syrup, waiting for the mixture to boil. Once it boiled, she would watch the food thermometer rise until it was time to add the flavoring and coloring. Lemon verbena again today.
The labels on all the lemon verbena candy jars read:
Lemon verbena essence is to soothe,
producing a comforting quiet.
Wise is a voice with nothing to prove.
Everyone should try it.
Buster looked around furtively, then whispered, “Okay, don’t tell anyone this, but there’s a top-secret profession called web designers who will do it all for you. I’ll hook you up, but you have to swear to secrecy.”
Claire shook her head at him. She’d met him last summer at one of her catering jobs, where he’d been a waiter. Later, out of all the applicants from Orion’s cooking school looking for part-time work, she’d chosen him. Sometimes she doubted this decision. He never shut up.
“Okay, forget the website,” Buster said. “You need to accept the offer from Dickory Foods. That business advisor you consulted said you should sell within a year, before you lose momentum. So, you sell the business, but still stay in charge of it. Think of it: expansion, advertising, the plant in Hickory. Can you imagine? Not having to stir every day? Not having to put labels on jars? Not having to assemble mailing boxes? No more of those biodegradable packing peanuts stuck to my butt with static when I leave this house?”
“You like when the packing peanuts stick to your butt,” Claire pointed out.
“I do enjoy the attention.”
“Just crack those molds and get to work.”
The doorbell rang and Bay went to get it. She hadn’t said a word since she’d arrived.
“What’s with her?” Buster asked.
Claire just shrugged.
“You have some visitors,” Bay said, smiling as she walked back into the kitchen with Evanelle Franklin and her companion Fred. Evanelle was eighty-nine now, tethered to oxygen and wearing thick glasses that made her rheumy eyes look huge. Fred, calm and pressed, was always beside her, carrying her portable oxygen container like a purse. He let her do all the talking, content to be her straight man.
Fred had lived with Evanelle for years, and Claire knew he loved the tiny old woman as much as Claire did. He’d become a fixture in their family over the past ten years. He’d been shy and uncertain when he’d first moved in with Evanelle, coming to parties in the Waverley garden with some trepidation, as if worried he might be asked to leave.
Evanelle and Fred went everywhere together now, and most people referred to them as a single entity, EvanelleandFred, which tickled Evanelle.
“Evanelle, I didn’t know you were coming by!” Claire couldn’t leave the pot, but she wanted to go hug her. Evanelle was like a favorite story she didn’t want to end. She’d known Evanelle, a distant Waverley cousin, most all her life. Her childhood memories were full of strange gifts Evanelle would give her that Claire would always need later, and of how Evanelle and Grandmother Mary would sit in the kitchen and share stories and laugh. It was the only time Grandmother Mary ever laughed, with Evanelle.
Evanelle’s health had been declining lately, and every time Claire saw her she seemed smaller, like she was slowly burning away and soon Claire would hug her and step back with only ash in her hands.
“I have something to give you,” Evanelle said, holding up a paper bag. “It came to me the other night.”
“Would you like some coffee?” Claire asked Evanelle and Fred. “I can get Bay to make some. I don’t think her mind’s on candy today, anyway.” Bay had been staring at her shoes, a slight smile on her lips, but looked up, blushing, when Claire said that.
“No, that’s okay,” Evanelle said. “We were just on a drive and thought we’d stop by. Fred said I needed to get out of the house for a little while, that I needed airing out.”
“I never said that,” Fred said.
“Okay, I added the airing-out part,” Evanelle amended.
“How was your doctor’s appointment last week?” Claire asked.
“He gave me some bad news. I’m old.”
That made Buster laugh. He walked over to Claire and took the spoon from her. “I’ll take care of this. You visit with Evanelle.”
Claire lifted off her apron, then took the bag from Evanelle, finally getting to hug her. She smelled like Fred’s cologne, which always amused Claire. Evanelle said it was just because she spent so much time with him, but Fred and Claire had a theory that she would dab some on her neck when Fred wasn’t looking. She always said she liked the way men smelled. “Come to the sitting room with me, Evanelle. Bay, you come, too.”
“Stay here and talk with Buster,” Evanelle told Fred when he started to follow them. She took her portable oxygen purse from him and stage-whispered, “He’s a cute one. You should flirt with him.”
“Evanelle!” Fred said. “He works for me at my market!”
“I’m just saying it can’t hurt. You’re a little rusty.”
“I’m currently in a short-term relationship with someone in my bread class, but you can practice on me,” Buster said. “I don’t mind.”