Chapter 17 #2
I’m not sure how long it should cool. If I had internet, I’d google the answer.
As it is, though, I get by fine the old-fashioned way: I wait about half an hour, during which the whole house smells like sweet, baked perfection, then I carefully but eagerly slice into it with a knife from Mabel’s butcher block.
I scoop a square onto a plate, wait a few minutes longer to make sure I don’t burn my mouth, and then, practically holding my breath, I grab a fork and take a bite.
Oh. Wow. It’s ... yummy. Sweet and warm and gooey and bready.
The second bite is just as good. And the third, and the fourth. I smile, pleased with myself. I’m a baker! I wish my mother could see. And Mabel, too. Maybe they can. Who knows these things?
It’s soon dinnertime, so I reheat part of a simple casserole I made last night and eat while peering out the window across the lake, where the sinking sun casts a silver ribbon over the water. The vineyard barn and grapevines become dark silhouettes against a pastel sky.
Afterward, I slice a chunk of cobbler and put it in some Tupperware for Grace, and another chunk gets packed up for Jo and Conrad.
In separate containers, I divide up most of my remaining blackberries for them, keeping just enough for another couple of breakfasts. I’ll deliver them tomorrow morning.
I sort of want to give some cobbler to Matt, too—since without him, there would be no cobbler.
But at the same time, I’m still not wanting to encourage anything more there.
Those moments we shared while picking berries—I felt it too much, a .
.. closeness or something that I’m not comfortable with.
I’ve been pushing it aside since then, not really letting myself think too intensely about it, but creating this amazing dessert from the very berries that those moments revolved around makes it hard to ignore.
And just like with the lost items, feeling is not something I’m good at.
After my parents died, I spent a long time learning not to feel so much—I don’t want to backslide now.
As for what I experienced with Matt ...
I think it was something like ... intimacy.
That sounds weird to me—it was a couple of looks, his hand on mine, a shared moment with a deer.
But it was also more. A thing without words.
My heart beat too fast. I got tingly and kind of breathless.
I’m sorry to say I’ve probably had sex that made me feel less than I did in the berry patch with Matthew Cordray yesterday.
Okay, so here’s what I’ll do. I’ll pack up a slab of cobbler (thank goodness Mabel had a healthy selection of plastic storage containers) and I’ll leave it on his porch. Perhaps after it gets a little darker. Like a thief in the night. Yes, that’s a good plan.
Between now and then, I could wash the dishes. Or I could take a slice of cobbler outside to the rocking chairs and enjoy the rest of the sunset. I’m fairly tired, so the rocker and sunset win.
It’s nice, sitting there eating something delicious I created with my own two hands, from a pretty flowered plate that makes me happy just to look at it, with a soft, warm summer breeze wafting over me as the orangey light in the sky fades to a deep purple.
That’s when I notice a firefly, the first I’ve seen since getting here.
Truthfully, the first I’ve seen in a much longer time, living in the city—so the sight takes me back to my childhood in Wisconsin.
Soon, I realize there’s more than just one—a whole little fleet of them blink across Mabel’s backyard as night replaces day.
“First lightnin’ bugs this year.”
I flinch at the sound of Matt’s voice, as is so often the case, then look over to find him walking toward my back porch, carrying a bottle of wine.
Uh-oh. Nope, this seems like a terrible idea. Once, after our little cookout, was one thing, but twice makes it a pattern, a thing we do together. Drink wine. Wine plus feelings equals a potentially reckless combination.
“We called them fireflies up in Wisconsin,” I inform him. Since I can’t be rude or dismissive to him anymore. And despite myself, I’ve come to like talking to him.
“Is that where you grew up?”
“Yes.” It reminds me how very little I’ve shared with him about myself. “In a small town about an hour west of Green Bay.”
“I brought wine,” he says, lifting it so that I catch sight of the Lost Valley Vineyards label.
Thanks, but I have things to do.
Or: It’s been a long day and I’m planning to turn in early.
Or: I’m expecting a phone call, so I’ll have to pass, but have a good night.
Yet none of those ring true. I’ve managed to turn Bob and Nancy down for similar invitations a thousand times without blinking, but fibbing, at least to Matt, is suddenly becoming harder for reasons I don’t understand.
Yes, it seems like a bad idea, but he’s standing right there, with the wine.
Looking kind of handsome, much as I hate to acknowledge that.
And I do have cobbler to share, after all, and no reasonable excuse to send him away other than: I’m starting to find you attractive and don’t need the complication.
So wine with Matt it is.
“I have cobbler if you’d like some.” My way of saying okay to the visit without having to actually say okay to the visit. I lift my plate of half-eaten dessert to show him.
“How’d it turn out?” He pulls back teasingly, like I might be trying to poison him.
I announce smugly, “It’s quite yummy, if I do say so myself.”
“Well then, sign me up.”
He’s already uncorked the bottle, but we decide to go in together so he can grab glasses while I cut him a piece of cobbler and another for myself.
“It’s my third today,” I confess as I step around him to grab a fork while he pours, “but having become an expert baker, it seems like the right time for such an indulgence.”
He laughs, and I catch the scent of him as we maneuver around the small kitchen. He apparently uses some masculine sort of soap I like the smell of too much.
Although it’s a lot to carry and we struggle and laugh and wonder out loud why we’re not making two trips, we eventually get ourselves back into the rocking chairs.
“All right, here we go,” he says, digging his fork into the cobbler.
He’s talking about the dessert, of course, but I’m thinking about this thing I keep telling myself I’m not going to do, spending time with Police Chief Cordray, and how I seem to keep doing it. Here we go, indeed.
“This is real good, darlin’. Oh my goodness.”
I hear the Southern man in his diction just then, plus the sincerity of the compliment, and I am drawn to appreciate both.
“You done Mabel proud.”
I was acting arrogant before, but getting someone’s praise makes me happier than I anticipated. “You really think so?”
“Absolutely.” He points his fork at me between bites. “You can bet I’ll be back for more of this before it’s gone.”
“If you can’t resist,” I say jokingly, unthinkingly. Like, not even trying to push away the contact now. It’s as if I’m losing all my good senses, bit by bit, as if this place is just gradually washing them all away.
When I ask about his daughter, I get the latest Florida update, and he also informs me he dispersed his blackberries today and even froze some to use later. In turn, I tell him more about my library trip and some of the items I plan to post about in the coming days.
I ask if he wants to see them, and immediately regret having effectively invited him inside, at night.
But to my surprise, he declines. “Think I’d prefer to just sit out here and enjoy the evenin’ with you.
You and the lightnin’ bugs and somethin’ tasty.
” He finishes with his classic grin, his eyes sparkling on me, effectively saying he’s more interested in my company than the lost items. Which I guess I already knew. But it still makes my skin ripple.
We talk more, about random things: neighbors, fresh green beans from a garden, favorite alcoholic beverages, college experiences, his dismay that his daughter is growing up so fast. Then he looks over at me and says, “I really like seein’ your face tonight, Jessie.”
I don’t even react to the name—it’s the other part.
I’m not wearing a hat—I haven’t been this whole time and didn’t even know it.
I, of course, suffer that familiar strangeness because he’s not seeing me as I’ve always been, and as I see myself.
Yet it leaves me warm inside to realize .
.. he’s looking at me the same way he always does.
It takes a minute to summon a response. I finally settle on, “I forgot I didn’t have a hat on.” It comes out more softly than intended.
“Good.” He picks up the wine bottle and tops off both our glasses—before flashing me a questioning look. “But aren’t you gonna yell at me for callin’ you Jessie? Which I swear was still an accident. I don’t know why it just keeps comin’ out that way.”
I take a while to concoct a reply to this, too, and I don’t know whether it’s the wine talking or simply the part of me I don’t recognize that keeps sneaking out lately, but I eventually reply, “No. I lied about that.”
At last, I’ve made Matt Cordray the one who flinches. “Lied about what?”
“When I said no one ever called me Jessie.”
“You did? Why?”
“It’s what my mom and dad called me.”