“You polished off the last slice.”
“Are you gonna make more?”
“Not today.”
“You should make more.” He studied her newest accessory, a gorgeous dragon tattoo that curled from her collarbone around her neck with its fiery mouth pointing toward her earlobe. “How old are you anyway?”
She started to tell him she was eighteen, then stopped herself. If she wanted him to be truthful, she had to be straightforward. “Thirty-one.”
“That’s old.”
They moved outside, and Toby held the stepladder while she pulled away the vines that had grown over the den’s only window. Once this room wasn’t so gloomy, it would be a good place for her to start writing.
Through the window, she could see the warm, honeyed tones of the hardwood floor. From the moment she’d stepped through the doorway, the house had called out to her. Panda didn’t deserve this place.
BREE UNDRESSED IN THE TINY laundry room at the back of the cottage and dropped her dirty clothes directly into the washing machine, right down to bra and underpants. The smoker she used to calm the bees had left her smelling like she’d spent the day around a campfire. She wrapped a towel around herself and made her way to the bathroom shower. She’d never worked so hard in her life, and every muscle in her body ached.
For the last few days, she’d been outside from dawn until nightfall getting the hives ready for summer. Following the directions in the manuals she’d read, she moved frames, checked for queens, replaced the old brood comb with fresh comb, and added more brood boxes. She’d also cleaned the honey house from top to bottom, wiping the dust from hundreds of jars filled with last summer’s harvest. When that was done, she’d attached Myra’s labels.
Bree had once dreamed of being an artist, and the illustration of the gaily beribboned carousel on the labels came from a watercolor she’d painted when she was sixteen as a birthday gift to Myra. Myra had liked the watercolor so much she’d asked to use it for her labels.
Bree dried herself off, working gently around the numerous bee stings she’d accumulated, the oldest of which were itching like crazy. But she hadn’t gotten stung once today. It was nice to feel proud of something.
She found Toby sprawled on the living room couch playing with the Nintendo portable game player she’d brought as a gift when she’d arrived. The room had changed little over the years. Peach walls, a blue and navy floral carpet, overstuffed furniture, and a pair of ceramic Siamese cats on each side of the fireplace mantel. She and Star had named them Beavis and Butt-Head.
It was almost eleven. Toby should be in bed, but if she mentioned it, he’d pretend not to hear. She picked up a dirty cereal bowl. “I’m going to open the farm stand tomorrow.” It sounded more like a question than a statement.
“Nobody’ll stop,” he said, without looking up from his game.
“It’s on the main road to the south beach, so there’s plenty of traffic. If we fix it up a little, I think people will notice.” She had no idea whether they would or not. “I’ll need some help, so you’d better get to bed.”
He didn’t move.
She had to be firmer, but she didn’t know how, so she escaped to the kitchen. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but even though she wasn’t hungry, she made herself open the refrigerator. The shelves held only milk and lunch meat. She shut the door, glanced toward the pantry with its supply of canned goods, cereal, pasta, and beans. Nothing tempted her. Nothing except…
The single jar of honey she’d brought inside sat on the counter. Golden amber in the sunlight, it looked dark as maple syrup in the kitchen’s artificial light. She picked up the bottle and studied the fanciful carousel label. Finally she twisted the lid. It opened with the lightest pop.
She touched the honey with the tip of her index finger. Shut her eyes. Brought her finger to her lips.
All the summers of her childhood came flooding back. She tasted the faintest hint of cherry blossom; a dash of dandelion, clover, and strawberry; a whisper of honeysuckle and touch of sourwood, all the flavors clean and fresh as a June morning. She dipped her finger again and tasted the days of summer growing longer as the bees gravitated toward lavender patches and blackberry brambles, bringing a complexity to the flavor notes. Then August arrived with summer nearing its end. The honey became rich and buttery from thistle, sage, and alfalfa.
Her weariness faded, and for a moment she felt as if all life’s secrets clung to the tip of her finger.
THE NEXT MORNING, SHE COULDN’T get Toby out of bed, so she set to work alone. Her arms ached as she piled the old wheelbarrow with the brushes, rollers, rags, and paint cans she’d found in the storage shed. She maneuvered it awkwardly down the drive. The farm stand sat gray and weathered in the shade of a hundred-year- old oak. A sloping roof and rudimentary floor supported its three walls, and a pair of splintered shelves ran beneath a long wooden counter. With the exception of a small storage shed attached to the back, the whole thing could have fit inside her old kitchen pantry.
A blue Honda minivan whizzed by, followed by another just like it, both bearing families heading for the still- chilly waters of the south beach, the island’s best swimming locale. She made two more trips back to the house for tools, the temporary poster-board sign she’d painted, and a dozen jars of last summer’s honey. This year’s crop wouldn’t be ready for harvest until August. She hoped she’d be long gone by then, although she couldn’t imagine where. She stomped to wake Toby up and discovered a deserted bedroom.
Her spirits lifted when the first car stopped just as she was sticking her poster board sign in the ground. “It’s about time you opened up,” the woman said. “We finished our last jar of Myra’s honey a couple of weeks ago, and my arthritis is starting to flare up again.”
They bought two jars. Bree was giddy from her success, but her euphoria gradually faded when no one else stopped.
She filled the time sweeping away cobwebs and old bird nests and nailing loose boards back into place. Finally she was ready to open the first of two cans of exterior paint she’d found in the shed, a buttery yellow shade she suspected Myra had chosen for just this purpose. She’d never actually painted anything herself, but she’d watched painters work, and how hard could it be?
Harder than it looked, she discovered after several hours. She had a crick in her neck, a splinter in her hand, and a nasty gash in her leg. As she swiped her forehead with her arm, smearing herself with even more paint, she heard a car slow. She turned to see a late-model red Cadillac come to a stop. Her excitement at finally having a customer faded when she saw who it was.
“You putting any paint on the wood or is it all ending up on you?”
Mike’s obnoxious hardy-har-har laugh felt like fingernails on a chalkboard, and she snapped at him as he came toward her. “I’m doing fine.”
Instead of leaving, he inspected what she’d done. “Looks like you’re going to need more paint. The wood’s really soaking it up.”
Something she’d already noticed, but she didn’t have money to waste on more paint, and she hadn’t figured out what to do about it. He nudged one of the almost empty paint cans with the toe of an expensive cordovan loafer, then stepped away to examine the sagging shelf. “Why isn’t Toby helping you?”
“You’d have to ask him.” She dropped the paint roller into the tray, splattering even more yellow paint on her only decent pair of sandals.
“I just might. Where is he?”
If her resentment hadn’t gotten the best of her, she wouldn’t have answered. “Next door with his new best friend.”
“He should be helping you.” He chose a bottle of honey from the carton on the ground, tossed in a bill, and returned to his car with it.
As he drove off, she realized she was shaking. Just the sight of him flooded her with painful memories. Nothing in her life had ever really gone completely right since the night he’d spied on her with David.
Even though she left the rear of the farm stand untouched, she still ran out of paint. As she worked her brush around the bottom of the can, the Cadillac reappeared with a sullen Toby sitting next to Mike in the front seat. Mike rolled down the car’s window as Toby got out. “He forgot he was supposed to help you today.”
Toby’s angry door slam indicated he hadn’t forgotten anything.
Mike got out and walked around to the trunk. “Come on, boy. Grab these for me.”
