Rhubarb (7 page)

“So how’s FastNCo. holding up through this economy?” Stewart
asked.

“We’ve tightened our belts like everyone,” said Martin. “But
we’re well positioned. Not dependent on the big box stores.”

“Good to hear it,” said Stewart.

“What did you do, Stewart? Before you retired. I mean, I
assume you’re retired.”

“Look at me. Of course I’m retired. I did whatever I could.
A little construction. Worked out at Gephardt’s chicken farm. Stacked lumber
for Lester. Even drove the school bus for a while. And took care of baby
Cheryl. Poor kid; don’t know how you survived,” said Stewart. “County probably
should have taken you away from me.”

“The county should probably take you away from me now,” said
Cheryl. Martin sensed an inside joke.

“You know the story of Cheryl’s mother?” asked Stewart.

“Martin doesn’t need that sordid tale,” said Cheryl.

“I’ve heard the basic story,” said Martin.

“Most likely from Eileen and Lorie down at the Corner,” said
Stewart.

Cheryl shook her head. “I think we can talk about something
else,” she said.

“How’s your car?” Martin asked after a long pause.

“Still waiting for parts from Billings,” Stewart said.

“Should’ve had someone other than Hank work on it, Stewart,”
said Cheryl. This was clearly another sore subject. Martin prepared to crawl
under the table if the dishes started flying.

“Everything’s really good,” he said, waving at his
half-eaten portions with his fork.

“You live down in Billings, Martin?” asked Stewart, breaking
another long silence.

“I do. In the Heights,” said Martin.

“Awful long drive. But you’re probably not there much, are
you? What with driving all over the state. Do you cover Northern Wyoming, too?”

“I don’t work Wyoming, no,” Martin replied.

“That’s good. I can’t imagine. Sleeping every night in a
different fleabag motel. But, boy, I’ve heard some tales from the salesmen who
come ’round town. Most of them not fit to tell in front of the lady-folk, eh,
Martin?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Stewart,” said Cheryl. “No one wants
to hear your lecherous old stories. We’re trying to eat.”

“Just trying to make conversation,” said Stewart.

And shine a harsh light of truth on my job, thought Martin.
He hoped that Cheryl could see he didn’t chase women in every port of call. But
to openly defend himself might insult Cheryl’s real father—a hit-and-run,
up-to-no-good salesman, if the rumor was true—and Cheryl’s mother, who by
implication must have been a bit…scarlet.

Cheryl rolled her eyes, and Martin gave her a weak smile.
The mashed potatoes were too thin to be anything but instant, the gravy too
thick to be anything but canned, and the silences too long to be anything but
uncomfortable. Martin groped for some subject, some question to break the
frost. Unable to think of anything better, he opened his mouth to ask Stewart
if he’d heard last night’s BI when Stewart shoved his half-eaten meal away,
drained his beer, and got up with an epic wheeze, dragging his oxygen line into
the kitchen.

“What are you…? Stewart?” Cheryl asked.

He opened a cupboard, took out a crinkling package, and
shuffled back to the table. He took several Oreos out of the blue wrapping,
then tossed the pack in the middle of the table. “Dessert,” he said.

“I got ice cream,” said Cheryl. “You said you wanted ice
cream.”

“Maybe I should go,” said Martin.

“Sorry, we couldn’t be better company,” said Stewart, wiping
little black crumbs from the corners of his smile. “I gotta get going, too.
It’s bingo night at the Grange.”

He headed to the hall, muttering about shoes.

“Dinner really was good,” said Martin.

“You’re kind to say that,” said Cheryl.

Stewart returned, shod in loafers slightly more substantial
than his slippers, jingling a ring of keys, and with a portable oxygen tank slung
over his shoulder.

“Ready to head out?” Stewart asked.

Martin opened his mouth to answer, but Cheryl spoke first.
“Martin’s going to stay. We’re going to have some proper dessert and enjoy the
nice wine he brought.”

Stewart looked at Martin, then at Cheryl. Martin looked from
Cheryl to Stewart. Cheryl kept her glare on Stewart.

“You run along to bingo,” she said.

“Can’t argue with you any more than I could your mother,”
said Stewart. “You all have a pleasant evening.”

At the sound of Stewart’s car on the gravel drive, Cheryl
shook her head and blew out a sigh. “You’re not compelled to stay,” she said.

“I’d like dessert,” said Martin. She began to clear the
table, and Martin helped.

“I’ll dry,” said Martin, yanking a dishtowel off the handle
of the oven, and Cheryl smiled.

“That man drives me absolutely crazy sometimes,” she said.
“I’m so sorry. This was supposed to be a simple meal.”

“Simple’s boring,” said Martin. “Don’t worry about it.”

A few minutes later, the dishes done and the leftovers
stowed, Martin folded the dishtowel and set it on the counter. “You said you
had ice cream?” he said. “Might go good with these Oreos.”

“No,” said Cheryl. “Everything else has been a mess. I’m
going to make you a proper dessert. But it’ll take a while. How long can you
stay?”

“Long enough to make your neighbors wonder what’s going on
over here,” said Martin. Please take that as a joke, he begged silently as soon
as it fell out of his mouth.

A mischievous grin slid across her face. “Good.” She turned
on the oven, adjusting the temperature precisely, and then dug a huge knife out
of a kitchen drawer. “Wait here.” She grabbed a flashlight from a charger by
the front door and left. Was this how she’d almost burned down her house?
Twice?

Martin peered through the kitchen window but couldn’t make
out anything in the night. A few minutes later, Cheryl returned with an armful
of thick stalks topped with wide, dark-green leaves. Each one looked like the
forbidden love child of a celery stalk and a lily pad.

“What is that?” Martin asked.

“Rhubarb,” said Cheryl.

“Is that really a thing?”

“You’ve never heard of rhubarb?”

“I mean, I have. I’ve just never…experienced rhubarb.”

“So you’ve never had rhubarb pie?” she asked.

“I’ve never even seen rhubarb in a store. It’s weird that
you can step outside and come back with rhubarb. ‘Rhubarb.’ Even the word is
weird.”

“Well, first of all, rhubarb is not weird. And second, who
would want to buy rhubarb from a store when it’s best right out of your garden?
It practically grows like a weed. Pops right up every spring.”

“In that case, I apologize. By all means, let’s have some
rhubarb pie.”

“What you don’t know is that I’m making this pie to spite
Stewart,” Cheryl said as she started in on the rhubarb, washing it and chopping
away the leaves.

“He likes your pie?” asked Martin.

“Are you kidding? He hates it. My mother used to make it all
the time, but he claims I can’t do it justice,” said Cheryl.

“If she taught you, it can’t be that different,” said
Martin.

“That’s what I think.”

“So maybe it’s something else. Maybe it reminds him too much
of her.” The rhythm of her chopping changed slightly. “Sorry. We don’t have to
talk about her.”

Cheryl scraped the rhubarb chunks into a large bowl and
added some sugar and flour.

“Oh, we might as well. Before those waitresses at the Corner
sink their teeth into you. You said you’ve heard the general story?” Martin
nodded. “That she got knocked up by some random dude from out of town?”

“Heard that.”

“That she’d been seeing Stewart at the same time even though
he was about twice her age?”

“Figured that.”

“Well, she ran off with said random dude, and Stewart took
care of me. But she came back. Showed up one night. No call. No letter. Just
walked in.”

“Okay, now you’re getting into new territory. Except—I
should warn you that now I’m expecting to hear something about an alien
abduction.”

Cheryl hung her head over the bowl of chopped rhubarb.
Martin held his breath, but she laughed and said, “Says the Waker with bated
breath.”

“Don’t blame Lee Danvers,” said Martin. “Blame the Brixton
rumor mill.”

“Hold that thought,” said Cheryl. She dug an ice tray from
the freezer and cracked it over a towel. She wrapped up the cubes and
pulverized them with the rolling pin. Then she shook the shards into a cup and
topped it off with cold water.

“Is that a warning not to gossip about you?” asked Martin.

“Damn straight.” Cheryl dumped Crisco, flour, and salt into
another large bowl. “I was four when my mother came home,” she said, mashing
the ingredients together with a fork. “So I never knew her any different, but
she suffered from a serious mental illness. I mean, I wouldn’t have called it
that then. I really didn’t figure it out until later. She died when I was
sixteen. Lung cancer. The woman smoked like a chimney.”

“I’m sorry,” said Martin.

Cheryl tossed a handful of flour on a clear bit of counter
and spread it out. She poured the ice water into the bowl and mixed the dough
with her hands. “Stewart tried to protect me from the worst of it. She’d have
long spells. I remember her crying all day, screaming in the night. She’d go
wandering on the roads alone.”

“Did she get help?”

“She’d go on meds for a while, then she’d stop. She had
periods of lucidity, where I got to know her for real. That’s when she taught
me how to make pie. It’s actually my grandmother’s recipe. My grandmother and
mom used to bake it up at Herbert’s Corner, and truckers would drive hours out
of their way for it. My grandmother taught her, and my mom wanted to teach me,
even though Stewart would tell her it was a waste of time. I never knew my
grandmother. She died in the late seventies. Lung cancer, too. You’d think Mom
would have learned her lesson.”

Cheryl stretched the dough into two rough circles with
short, deft strokes of her rolling pin. She draped the first gracefully into a
pie plate, trimmed the edges, poured in the red and green filling, and then
blanketed everything with the other crust. In seconds, the pie was vented,
crimped, and vanished into the oven. Like a magic show, Martin was sure he’d
missed some sleight of hand.

“You know, everyone told me you have no idea how to cook.”
Martin handed her glass of wine over, and poured her a little more. “You’ve
been holding out.”

“It’s easier to let everyone think what they want to think,”
said Cheryl.

“Why don’t you bake for the diner?”

“One, screw the diner. Two, Stewart says my pie’s nothing
like Mom’s. Three, he won’t let me work anywhere near Herbert’s Corner. Thinks
I’ll wind up like her.”

She sipped her wine and stared at a cupboard. Martin sipped
his own and tried desperately to produce a less prickly topic of conversation.

“Fine,” she said. “Yes, my mother claimed she was abducted
by aliens. She had this elaborate story, all about how they poked and probed
her. The tale got more vivid and ridiculous every time she told it. As a kid,
it didn’t even occur to me that she was making it all up. Now, do I believe she
was abducted? Absolutely not. But do I believe her? I do. I think she sincerely
believed she’d gone through all those things.”

“I’m sorry,” said Martin.

“Now, fair’s fair. I want your most sordid family secret,”
said Cheryl.

“What’s to tell? We’re a pretty normal bunch,” said Martin.

“Nope,” said Cheryl. “Start spilling.”

“Okay…before I was born, my dad totaled a brand-new car. So
he went back to the dealership and bought another one. My mom still doesn’t
know.”

“You can do better,” Cheryl said. “This pie’s going to be in
the oven for forty-five minutes.”

By the time the timer beeped, Cheryl knew exactly why
Martin’s family had been thrown out of SeaWorld. And she was now the only other
person in the world who knew that it was Martin’s Welsh terrier who had torn up
and fouled the First Lutheran nativity scene during that fateful December walk
when he was eleven. Martin finished his last story as she returned to the oven.

“…what could I do? I waited by the back door with a shotgun.
Dad took the front door. I don’t know what he was expecting. As if civilization
would melt down instantly. Like, three…two…one…Happy Looting Zombies! My mom
shouted Dick Clark’s countdown up from the den. Worst New Year’s Eve party
ever.”

Cheryl brought a sweet scent from the kitchen as she set the
pie on a hot pad on the table. Steam vented from the slits in the golden-brown
crust.

“State fair. Blue ribbon. Right now,” said Martin.

“It’s got to cool a minute,” said Cheryl.

“Don’t you usually do that on a windowsill or something?”
asked Martin.

“Only if you like bugs.”

Martin couldn’t believe Cheryl had created this pie for him,
from scratch, with her bare hands. She hadn’t burned it, or burned anything
down. Instead, she’d brought warmth and a sense of contentment to this little
home. Martin felt as if she had set out the Brixton Inn breakfast for him
alone. And yet, in his wonder at the moment, Martin felt like he deserved to be
with her. There was no ego in it. He knew that he was the one who understood
her, who understood that she didn’t want worship or pity, who understood that
she didn’t need to be taken away from anything.

Martin prided himself for figuring all this out as a scoop
of vanilla ice cream melted white into the thin syrup of the rhubarb filling.
The first bite was hot and sour, but lingered as sweet. “I didn’t expect it to
be so tart, but wow—just, wow,” he said. The tender crust gave him something to
sink his teeth into. The rhubarb itself almost dissolved on his tongue.

“It’s not bad for such a quick job,” said Cheryl.