Buzz Off

Buzz Off - Hannah Reed


One

If I hadn’t been drinking champagne at noon on Friday, I would have been over at the honey house with Manny Chapman, my beekeeping mentor and owner of Queen Bee Honey, and possibly, just possibly, I might have saved him from what must have been a very painful death. Instead, oblivious to his pending demise and feeling slightly tipsy, I popped open bottle number three and filled more flutes.
I’m the only grocer in the unincorporated town of Moraine, Wisconsin, which has a population base climbing steadily toward eight hundred residents. I work hard to fill the needs of the community. Today, business was brisker than usual at my shop, The Wild Clover, mainly because of the free champagne and the one-day sale on everything in the store, including special bullet items such as:
? Wisconsin prize-winning cheeses
? Cranberries from the northern part of the state, dried and fresh
? Whole grains, including Wisconsin wild rice, which is really aquatic grass seeds
? Wines from Door County wineries
? Thirty-five varieties of organic vegetables
? Apples from the Country Delight Farm just up the road
? And of course honey products: comb honey, bottled honey, bulk honey, honey candy, beeswax, and bee pollen
There’s nothing like the lure of freebies and discounts to bring out the best in people. Everyone in my little hometown made a point of stopping by my store to tip a glass and wish me well, whether they meant it or not.
Well, maybe not everyone stopped by. My ex-husband, Clay Lane, didn’t show up, even though he lived only two blocks away and must have seen the banner tacked to the awning, announcing my freedom party.
“You should call him up, Story,” Carrie Ann Retzlaff, my cousin and very part-time employee, said in her husky chain-smoker’s voice. My cousin had close-cropped yellow-as-straw hair and a toothpick-thin body, since she ingested more nicotine and alcohol than nutrients. “Invite the ex to join us,” she suggested.
I scowled playfully to let her know that was a bad idea. Celebrating a divorce is a lot like celebrating a successful heart transplant. They both hurt like hell, and your quality of life would be much better if the issues leading up to the situation had never happened in the first place. But at least I can say I’m still in the game, still alive and kicking. It’s all about attitude.
“Cheers to all of you from me, Story Fischer,” I called out, placing special emphasis on my last name and noting by the clock above the register that I’d been a free woman for almost twenty-four breezy, wind-at-my-back hours. Fischer. My maiden name. The one I’d reclaimed yesterday afternoon. It sounded so right! Why had I ever given it up?
Story was my nickname, bestowed by childhood friends because I used to be quite the storyteller—in a friendly, silly sort of way, of course. I liked Story much better than my given name, Melissa, which my family shortened to Missy before I could even lift my bald baby head. As I grew up, Missy didn’t exactly shout out strength and intelligence. Besides, the other kids came up with a bunch of variations for Missy that were truly mean and hurtful. Plus, Story has a bit of intrigue to it.
Story Fischer, that’s me.
At the moment, I really missed my most loyal part-timers, twins Brent and Trent Craig, local college students in their sophomore years, working reduced hours at the store around gaps in their class schedules. That left me pretty much alone most days until they eventually reappeared like glorious gifts from heaven.
For this special event, I’d been forced to ask Carrie Ann, smoke-scented perfume and all, to work for me while I hosted the party. “Don’t think anything of it,” she said when I thanked her for the third time. She reached under the counter, then tipped back and drained an entire flute of champagne with one chug. “This is like hanging at Stu’s Bar and Grill, only better because I get paid.”
I plucked the empty glass out of her hand, ignored her startled expression, and said, “No drinking on the job, please.”
“Why not? You’re drinking,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but that’s why I asked you to handle the cash register.”
“Crapola.” My cousin shook her head at the injustice of it all.
I had a hunch that if I didn’t watch the till, Carrie Ann would be giving away the store. How many glasses of champagne had she already had?
The Wild Clover was crammed from aisle to aisle as far as my quickly glazing-over eyes could see. The store’s special sales and free-flowing champagne weren’t just about my divorce. September was National Honey Month and this was our kick-off event. I lifted my head high and gazed at one of the stained-glass windows above me. The panes twinkled with sunlight, beaming rainbow-colored rays that gave the interior a certain magical light.
Two years ago, in more promising times, Clay and I had bought the Lutheran church for a song when the congregation outgrew the building and put it up for sale. The opportunity came about a year after we’d gotten married. What better way to begin our new lives together than to leave the city life in Milwaukee, move to my hometown of Moraine, buy the house I grew up in from my mother, and convert an early-twentieth-century church into a grocery store?
Our marriage had been doomed from the very beginning, but The Wild Clover was a success. Once we owned the building, I had removed the pews and the raised altar and converted the space into shelves, coolers, and freezers, but leaving all those fabulous stained-glass windows, three on each side, two in the back, and one above the massive double doors in front. From that beginning the store was born.
In addition to our house, we’d also purchased the house next door, which Clay had turned into a custom jewelry shop. Wire jewelry to be specific. Handcrafted, unique pieces guaranteed to attract a flock of females. The Wild Clover had been a beginning. The jewelry shop was the end.
I came back to the present and had to blink several times before the store came back into focus, with all its artfully displayed produce and products and its fresh smells. A group of kids were crowded into the corner, picking out saltwater taffy and other treats from old-fashioned barrels. Several customers were planted right next to the champagne table and looked as if they were there for the duration of the party, or at least until the champagne ran out.
“I need a bagger,” Carrie Ann called to me, and I quickly stepped over to help.
“Try the honey candy,” I pointed out to those in line, indicating a honey jar filled with hard candy. “They have soft centers. Try one. They’re free.”
Honey! Sweet nectar from heaven. Most people don’t know that honey comes in different flavors, depending on the bees’ plant sources. Most honey is a blend, but if honeybees have an opportunity to forage in fields with only one type of available nectar, their honey reflects that.
In Wisconsin we have (listed from lightest to darkest):
? Alfalfa
? Clover
? Sunflower
? Cranberry Blossom
? Wildflower
? Buckwheat
? Blueberry Blossom
“Help yourselves,” I encouraged my customers again, taking a piece of honey candy myself, unwrapping it, and popping it in my mouth.
I saw Manny Chapman’s wife, Grace, walk in the front door, which reminded me that I’d promised to help Manny clean up his equipment later today, now that honey-harvesting and -processing season was over.
I’d been intrigued by honeybees as long as I could remember, so last spring when Manny Chapman taught a beginning course in beekeeping, I’d signed right up. Before long, my fascination had become a passion. When the class ended, I hung around to keep absorbing knowledge.
All of last year I helped Manny in his beeyard, extracting and bottling honey, learning every single thing I could from him about beekeeping. This spring, Manny gave me two strong hives of my own as payment for helping him out.
In fact, we worked so well as a team, he’d started talking about a partnership down the line, expanding the honey business with more aggressive marketing and higher honey yields. At last count, Manny had eighty-one hives, each one producing approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of honey, depending on the year. If he wanted to expand his business, he needed help. And I was right there, ready to go.
On a regular Friday afternoon, before the twins went back to college, I used to spend several hours in Manny’s honey house, that sweet-smelling, homey building behind his home where he taught me how to extract wildflower honey and bottle it for sale.
Today wasn’t a regular Friday, though.
“No, thank you,” Grace said with a righteous air when I offered her a flute of bubbly. Grace Chapman was two years older than me, making her thirty-six. She was as plain as a donut without glaze. Her marriage to Manny eight years earlier had been the culmination of a May/September romance. He had at least twenty years on her, but you’d never know it. Manny had a love of nature and a joy for living, while Grace seemed to view life as a chore. “I don’t drink,” she said, glancing at her wristwatch in disapproval. “Especially during the workday.”
I placed the filled flute on the table with one eye on Carrie Ann, who had edged closer. “When you get home,” I said to Grace, “tell Manny I’m still coming out later.”
Grace humphed and went down aisle two toward the cheese case.
“Isn’t Manny coming to our party?” Carrie Ann asked, when I turned back to offer a flute to the next customer.
“You know Manny,” I answered. “When it comes to his bees, he’s obsessive. Although, he did say he’d stop by earlier if he could. Guess he got caught up in whatever bee project he’s working on today.”
Just then, Emily Nolan came in, carrying posters.
Emily, the library director, was Moraine’s second-generation information specialist, meaning her mother had been the director of our library until her retirement. Then Emily, having prepared for this important career move her entire life, took over the position, and slid her own daughter into the wings to wait her turn. Our small library was stuffed with books from floor to ceiling, and although we, the residents, found it cozy and comfortable, the plain truth was that the town’s needs were outgrowing the existing building. Something would have to be done soon.
In my humble opinion, libraries, once considered dusty dinosaurs destined for extinction, were reinventing themselves and emerging as important community centers like they were when I was a kid. I was pro-library all the way.
“Don’t forget about the library event tomorrow afternoon,” Emily reminded me. “A bluegrass band jam in the back. We’ve set up extra picnic tables.”
“How could anybody forget?” I said. “We have posters plastered everywhere.”
Carrie Ann snickered before she repeated, “Plastered,” under her breath with a glance my way.
I was only getting started on the champagne, but that one word spoken the way she said it reminded me to slow down. I didn’t refill my empty flute.
“I’ll find a spot for at least one more poster,” Emily said.
As soon as the library director wandered off, my sister made an entrance.
What can I say about my sister Holly? For starters, she’s beautiful. Add to that, filthy rich at thirty-one after marrying a trust-fund baby the same month she graduated from college, which had been the whole point of higher education, according to her. She’d gone in for a good old-fashioned M.R.S. degree. Max “The Money Machine” Paine had come along her junior year, and it was love at first sight. They now own a Milwaukee condo, a Naples winter home, and a mansion on Pine Lake. They decided not to have children, which means they can keep accumulating as much stuff as they want.
Which is not to say that my sister doesn’t have a generous side—Holly also loaned me enough cash to save the store from certain death during the property split between Clay and me.
Three years separated the two of us, which seemed huge when we were growing up, but the gap was closing as time went by. I liked her in spite of the fact that she was Mom’s favorite and spoiled rotten.
And I couldn’t help comparing us. Here’s me—sort of pretty when I work at it, getting by with a lot of hard labor, divorced, the oldest of two girls, Mom’s problem child. But who’s keeping score?
My sister has so much time on her hands, she’d memorized all one-thousand-plus text messaging acronyms known to humankind. I’ve noticed lately, the abbreviations are creeping into her spoken conversations. That’s what comes with too much money and too much spare time: useless habits. In Holly’s case, she has a text-speak habit.
I try to keep up.
“HT (translation for those more normal: hi there),” she said, making her way over to me and picking up a filled flute. “Cool. A party. HUD (how you doing)?”
“Great. Free. Mellow. Did I mention free?”
“GR2BR (good riddance to bad rubbish).”
“Isn’t that the truth!”
Holly had been in divorce court with me, along with Mom and Grams, so she knew Clay had been rotten to the core right until the bitter end.
“Who brings a new girlfriend to their divorce hearing?” I said.
“What an a-hole.”
“See, you can speak proper English.”
Holly laughed and took a sip of champagne.
We both glanced over at Carrie Ann when she gave a little shout of surprise before saying, “Look out the window. Isn’t that Clay?”
Unfortunately, she said it much louder than necessary. Customers crowded around the front window to see what was happening outside. I saw my ex-husband standing right in front of the store.
He wasn’t alone.
“Faye Tilley,” someone said, recognizing the woman with him, the same one who had been in the courtroom the day before.
I couldn’t help noticing Faye Tilley was younger, taller, and prettier than me.
“How old do you think she is?” a customer asked.
“Mid-twenties,” someone else guessed.
I really hoped Clay and his girlfriend weren’t going to come into the store.
“She’s your spitting image, Story,” someone else said.
That got them started.
“No way, Story’s so much cuter.”
“Look at the resemblance. He’s trying to replace Story with someone exactly like her.”
“You’re right,” someone behind me agreed. “They’ve got the exact same color hair.”
Our hair was sort of similar. The color of fall wheat, I liked to think about mine. But hers was wild and untamed in a way mine never would be. Shorter and wavier. Not straight as a walking stick like mine.
Next to me, Emily Nolan said, “She’s your doppelg?nger, Story.”
“Oh, no! Don’t look at her!” Carrie Ann said to me. “You can’t see your own doppelg?nger.”
“Why not?” my sister, Holly, said.
“It’s bad luck, really bad luck.” Carrie Ann tried to shield my eyes.
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, pushing her hands away.
Right then, Clay’s new girlfriend spotted us at the window. Her eyes scanned, finding me before I could duck or fade into the background. She smiled coyly before turning to give Clay an openmouthed kiss.
I went back for more champagne.