With a clatter, Claire set her plate on the coffee table and stood. “Did you all happen to miss the fact that my livelihood is at stake, that my entire identity is being questioned?”
Sydney rolled her eyes. “Your identity isn’t being questioned. What’s yours is yours. No one can take that away from you. You can only give it away. Are you going to give it away to some stranger?” Sydney leaned over and took Claire’s hand in hers. “Claire, listen to me. You’re being conned. I know what that looks like. Why do you think this man has been asking around town about you and the family? He saw an article about you, recognized your name and the town, and remembered a photo he had of Mom that he could use. He mentioned your financials. That means he did his research. He found out all he could about you, which means he found your vulnerabilities. But he had nothing, until you believed him. Then you gave away your magic, just like that.”
“No. It started happening before that. I stopped using flower essences from the garden in the candy, and no one noticed.” Everyone but Bay, who had known all along, seemed vaguely surprised, but again, not like Claire expected. “I don’t understand it, I don’t understand how people can say they’re still affected by what I do when it’s not from the garden.”
“That’s because it’s you, not the garden,” Sydney said. “It’s always been you.”
Claire sat back down. She looked at each of them, one by one, then covered her face with her hand. She felt drained and abashed, like when you completely overreact to something—a spider, a misunderstood comment, someone walking up behind you.
“Tell this man to go, and he’ll blow away like smoke,” Sydney said. “You’d be surprised how much is bluster.”
“How do you know all of this?” Bay asked her mother suspiciously.
“That’s a story for when you’re older,” Sydney said.
“He said my birth certificate was probably forged. He said if I had to take a DNA test, it would prove I wasn’t who I say I am.”
Sydney, Bay, Evanelle and Fred all exchanged glances. And, well, yes, when Claire said it out loud, it did sound a little absurd. But he’d been so convincing. Magnetic. He’d known exactly what it would take to get her to buy what he’d been selling.
“Claire, don’t take this the wrong way,” Sydney said. “You make beautiful candy, but you didn’t come over on the Mayflower. No one cares about your DNA.”
Claire rubbed her forehead. “I was really scared,” she admitted.
Sydney shook her head and looked at Claire fondly. “Then you should have asked for help sooner.”
*
“Who would ever believe Claire wasn’t a Waverley? That’s ludicrous,” Fred said, buckling himself up behind the wheel of his Buick and starting the car.
“No one,” Evanelle said as he pulled away from the curb. She was holding the empty casserole dish in her lap like a pet. “But those girls are always trying to prove something, prove that they’re worthy of the happiness their mother and grandmother didn’t have, like being miserable is the only way to be a Waverley.”
After a few minutes of driving, Fred adjusted the heat to the level he knew Evanelle liked, then said, “What did you mean when you said I had your gift of anticipation?”
“I meant just that. You’ve got my gift.”
“I’m not a Waverley.”
“Sure you are. You’re one of us.”
That made Fred smile.
“And being a Waverley means you have to find someone who loves you just as you are, like my husband did with me,” Evanelle continued, not missing a chance to critique his love life, or lack thereof. Next to watching sci-fi movies, it was her favorite pastime. “I’m leaving you my house, you know. You’ll have your own home and your own business. You’ll be quite a catch.”
Fred shook his head. It had taken him a long time to realize that the best relationship he’d ever had was with her. “I spent thirty years with James before he left me. I’ve known for a while that I wasn’t going to do that again. Fall in love. I’m not good at it. I’ve been happier by myself, living with you, than I have in my entire life. That’s the biggest gift you’ve ever given me.”
She gave him a skeptical glance, one of her sagging eyebrows lifting. “Better than the mango splitter I gave you?”
“Better.”
“Better than the colored pencils?”
“Better.”
“Better than that tarp I gave you before the big snowstorm? The one you used to cover your car so all you had to do was take off the tarp and all the snow was gone and you didn’t have to scrape your windows?” She laughed to herself. “Ha! That was a real handy gift, if I do say so myself.”
“Nope. Even better than that. You’re my best friend, Evanelle Franklin.”
Ten years ago, after his breakup with James, Evanelle had picked him up and brushed him off and had ultimately convinced him that, if he could choose to be like anyone, it would be Evanelle. He would choose to be the person who knew what you needed and gave it to you and didn’t expect to be thanked. He would choose to be accepting and funny and he would take in old gay men when they had their hearts broken and would mend them with peals of laughter and long talks at the kitchen table.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a best friend before,” Evanelle said thoughtfully.
“Me, either.”
“Well, aren’t we a pair?” she said, reaching over to knock his knee with her bony knuckles.
Fred drove home, feeling that awful sense that she was fading away, right before his eyes, and he had no power to stop it. He pulled into the driveway and cut the engine, then sat there as the car ticked as it cooled. He turned to Evanelle and said suddenly, “Don’t leave me, okay?”
Evanelle just smiled, making no promises.
Then she got out of the car.
*
Evanelle walked to her bedroom and sat on the bed. Fred came in and exchanged her portable oxygen for her at-home oxygen.
“Thanks, BFF,” she said to him, a term she’d learned from Mariah. Evanelle pronounced it Biff.
That made Fred smile. Then he left her alone for her nap.
Evanelle took off her shoes and rested her head on the pillow, all thoughtful now, her thoughts zipping back years and years.
She couldn’t get her mind off her Mary, how it had all turned wrong, how all this Waverley unhappiness had started with her.
Mary and Evanelle had been only a few months apart in age. Being a Waverley female, growing up in that house, Mary had always had something magical about her. It was expected. But Evanelle’s gift was, frankly, a surprise. She was from a distant line of Waverleys from across town, with no special talents to speak of, until the day young Evanelle gave the postman a stick of Blackjack chewing gum before his wife unexpectedly showed up to say hello to him at work. He’d told his wife he’d stopped smoking and the gum helped mask the tobacco odor. Then Evanelle gave a spool of dark thread to the preacher’s wife a week before she tore her dress sneaking out the window to go dancing in Hickory.
Evanelle walked to the Waverley house on Pendland Street every day for years to see Mary. They grew up together, Evanelle always making the effort, and Mary slowly growing used to the fact that Evanelle would always be around. At one point, Mary even referred to the two of them as fig and pepper, which was what she always called any two opposite things that made perfect sense together. The truth was, Evanelle was Mary’s only friend, because Mary was arrogant about her looks and her talent, and often treated others callously, but Evanelle was never one to get her feelings hurt easily. She’d learned that early on. You can’t be a giver of sometimes unwanted presents and be sensitive about it.
Mary grew up to be as beautiful as Evanelle was plain, the kind of beautiful that made you stare too long, as if in disbelief. Women stayed clear of her, and told their husbands to do the same, though the women always came to her back door when they wanted something to make their parties special, to make them the envy of their friends, something made with marigold and dandelion and sometimes rose petals hidden in pats of butter. Mary was not only a beauty, she had a pretty Waverley gift, too, working with flowers and food. But if the women who wanted her goods were nasty, or spoke down to Mary, there was always a catch to what she gave them—a dish that was supposed to make other women at parties jealous also made them resentful, and the more they ate, the less they wanted to be friends; a dish that was supposed to make a husband more affectionate also made him unable to lie, so all past discretions would be revealed.