The Rules of Love & Grammar (11 page)

I have a vague recollection of this. “Maybe they've created some new hybrids that will work,” I say, sounding as though I know something about trees when I don't know a thing. I guess it's no worse than my father pretending he knows about cars.

“I'll see if I can find somebody to help us,” he says, and he walks away.

I stare at the pear tree, wondering how tall it will be in a year or two. Or in another seventeen years. On the first anniversary of Renny's birthday, my parents planted two holly trees—two because you need a male and a female to cross-pollinate and create the berries. Mom thought the red berries would look cheerful in the middle of winter, and they did. Those trees are huge now. It always makes me a little wistful to see how much they've grown since that first year Renny was gone, and to know that they're still here and thriving.

Dad walks toward me, a tall man in a Martin's Garden Center polo shirt in tow.

“You're looking for a fruit tree?” the man asks. “And you're on the water? I'll tell you what should do pretty well.” He walks about ten feet down the path, extends his hand, and grabs the trunk of an eight-foot tree as though he's making its acquaintance. “This black cherry here. They're pretty salt tolerant. It'll be another several years before it bears fruit, and the fruit's a little tart, but the animals love it—especially the birds and the squirrels.”

“Black cherry?” I look at Dad.

“Your choice,” he says. “We could get something other than a fruit tree if you want to.”

“No, I like this. And Renny would have loved the idea of fruit for the animals.” Every winter she put out seeds and nuts for the birds and squirrels.

“Okay,” Dad says, and he tells the man we'll take it.

We walk toward the store—a white, shingled building with pots of flowering plants lined up against the outside. While Dad goes to the counter, I browse through the aisles, looking at the hoses, bug sprays, and aprons, picking up pruning shears and gloves. I stop at a display rack filled with seed packets—beets and string beans and squash and corn. I pick up a packet of carrot seeds and look at the picture of the bright-orange carrots on the front. I can see myself at eight years old, standing at the edge of a patch of dark soil, a little vegetable garden Renny and I once had in our yard. We're sprinkling carrot and zucchini and cucumber seeds into the shallow troughs we've dug with our trowels.

Dad walks up to me. “They're going to deliver the tree this afternoon.”

“That's great.”

“We can plant it later—the three of us. We'll pick out a nice spot. The man says it needs a lot of sun.” He looks at the packet of seeds in my hand. “What have you got there? Carrot seeds?”

I nod. “It made me think about that garden Renny and I had.”

He smiles. “You were so proud of that garden. You used to go out there every day and water those plants, pull the weeds.”

“I guess I got that from Mom.”

“I remember one morning, you went out there and came back in tears. You said you saw a rabbit and he'd eaten all of the little string-bean shoots that had just come up. You were so upset. And then Renny told you rabbits had to eat, too, and after you thought about that for a little while, you stopped crying.”

I'd forgotten all about that. I place the packet of seeds back in the display. “Didn't I write a story about it? I think I did. And I drew a picture of the rabbit.”

Dad looks at me and smiles. “You did. We probably have it somewhere.”

I'm sure they do.

I
'm back at the Bike Peddler at eleven thirty Monday morning. The young guy with the hoop earring is there. His hair and beard are the color of espresso, and his face is reminiscent of the lead singer's in an old British rock group called Hedgehog. I walk to the counter and wait while he rings up a man and a woman who are renting bikes and then opens the door as they push the bikes outside.

“Need some help?” he asks, walking toward me. I notice a tattoo on his left wrist, but I can't tell what it is.

“I'm Grace Hammond. I dropped off an old Schwinn a couple of days ago. A.J. called me earlier this morning and told me to come in. He said Mitch wants to talk to me about the bike.”

“Yeah, I'm A.J.,” he says, grabbing a Dunkin' Donuts coffee cup from the counter and taking a sip. “Hold on a sec. I'll see if he's back.”

A.J. walks through a doorway to the left of the counter, and I hear muffled voices. When he returns, he's trailing not only Mitch but also an older man who looks well into his seventies.

The older man's hair is thin, and what's left of it is white. He's wearing a blue chambray shirt and khaki slacks that seem to hang on his lanky frame. His face is grooved and wrinkled with cracks and lines that run in every direction, as though they're trying to escape their owner. There's something about him that looks familiar. Maybe he just reminds me of a character actor I've seen in movies or on TV.

“Morning,” Mitch says with a little smile as he comes around the counter, the older man behind him. “Found any good typos lately?”

I feel myself blush. “There
are
no good typos.”

He gives me a nod. “Touché.” Then he adds, “I'd like to introduce you to my dad, Scooter. He loves old bikes, and he wanted to see who was fixing up the Paramount. That's why I had you come in.”

Now I know why the older man looks familiar. He owned the store when I was a kid.

“I remember you,” I tell him, happy to make his reacquaintance. “I'm Grace Hammond.” I extend my hand. “You owned this place when I was growing up.” I look at Mitch again, and now I see the resemblance—matching brown eyes, smiles that tilt upward a little more on one side than the other, and hair parted on the right, although Mitch's hair is thick, and a section of it always seems to want to fall onto his forehead.

Scooter clasps my hand and gives it a warm shake. “I still do own it,” he says. “Mitch just works for me in the summer, when he's not teaching.”

Teaching. This catches me off guard. I glance at Mitch, who is headed to the door, where a delivery man approaches with a hand truck piled high with cartons. “You're a teacher?”

“At Thatcher,” he says, opening the door.

I wonder what he teaches. I've never been to Thatcher Academy, even though it's only forty miles west, but I've seen pictures of it over the years, mostly in magazine ads. The copy always includes the phrase
One of the oldest preparatory schools in the country,
or something like that, and there are photos of old redbrick buildings, wide, green lawns, and eager, smiling students.

The delivery man wheels the hand truck toward us, slides off the cartons, and waits for Mitch to scrawl his signature on an electronic pad.

“I just do this over vacation,” Mitch says, “to help Dad out a little.” He glances at his father and then adds, “Not that he needs it.”

“Oh, I sure do need it.” Scooter laughs and puts his arm around Mitch's shoulder.

“What do you teach?” I ask as the delivery man wheels his empty dolly out the door.

“History,” he says, placing one of the cartons on top of the counter and taking out a box cutter. “Mostly American history. You know, the world wars, the Civil War and Reconstruction, government and culture, history and myth.”

“He's always been a history buff,” Scooter says, wheeling a bicycle toward the front of the store.

Government and culture. History and myth. That's not what I expected. I expected that a guy working in a bike shop might teach something like woodworking or engineering. Something that involves putting parts and pieces together. I'm guessing they don't offer those subjects at Thatcher. I feel a little embarrassed, thinking of how I stood here with my Sharpie, correcting his flyers.

“You look surprised,” Mitch says as he positions the knife at the corner of the box and expertly slices through the top.

I pick up a battery-operated headlight from a display on the counter and pretend to look at it as I try to shake off whatever surprised expression I might be wearing. “Oh, no. It's just that—”

“It's just that you figured me for a jock.” He smiles. “And you'd be right. I do happen to love sports, especially biking, of course. And soccer. And tennis. I thought about coaching, but I really didn't want to be a coach. I'd much rather teach history. Where we've come from, who we are.”

I look away, avoiding his eyes. “I didn't figure you for a jock. I just…” I pause, because I'm not sure how to word what I'm really thinking or if I
can
word it. He doesn't fit the mold of any history teacher I've ever had. “Frankly, all the history teachers I've had were either intellectual snobs or kind of goofy,” I say.

Scooter laughs as he slides the bike into one of the racks.

“So you don't consider me an intellectual,” Mitch says, opening the top of the box.

I can't tell if he's kidding or not. “I didn't say that.” I put the headlight back in the display.

“Oh, so you
do
think I'm an intellectual.” His expression is completely serious.

“Well, I don't know,” I say, feeling a little flustered. “I mean, I only just met you.”

He pulls a sheet of paper from the box, followed by a half-dozen cycling shirts made from bright, stretchy-looking fabric. “Or maybe you think I'm—how did you put it? Kind of goofy?”

“No, no,” I tell him, wishing I could take it all back. I hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. “What I was trying to say is that you don't fall into either of those categories.”

He removes the last of the shirts and glances at me. “You thought I was a jock.”

I'm about to protest again when he adds, “And when you said you only just met me, that's not exactly true.”

Oh, no. I hope he's not about to tell me I've been introduced to him several times at Dad's poetry readings or something like that.

“I remember seeing you in here a couple of times when we were young,” he says. “I used to come in and help out. One day you were looking at the baskets.”

“Really. When was that?”

“Oh.” He tilts his head and glances toward the door. “I was probably sixteen. I'm thirty-seven now, so you can do the math.”

I do a quick calculation. “I would have been twelve.”

“You took about a half hour trying to figure out which basket to buy.”

I laugh. “That sounds like me.”

“I guess that's why it stayed in my mind all these years. That, and the freckles. I remember your freckles.”

“So you helped me with the basket?”

“Yes, I did. You said your name was Grace, and you told me you'd ridden from Salt Meadow Lane.”

I have no memory of this other than a vague recollection of a white wicker basket.

Scooter taps me on the arm. “Would you like to come with me and we'll talk about your bike? She's in the workroom.” He glances at Mitch. “We'll be right back. Oh, and can you call Marge Ellis and see if she still wants that Cannondale?”

Mitch gives his dad a thumbs-up, and then, just as I'm about to leave, he says, “By the way, I've been checking the mail, but I still haven't gotten that party invitation.”

I'm not sure if he's kidding or serious. “Oh, right.” I snap my fingers. “I was going to add you to the list.”

I follow Scooter into a cluttered, windowless room that smells like oil, old parts, and WD-40. It's a small, rectangular space with a wooden workbench that runs along the left and back walls.

The bench is covered with wheels, pedals, gears, and other bicycle parts, along with cans of spray paint in dozens of colors, and tools piled on top of one another. Above the bench is a row of plastic boxes with little compartments for storing small parts, and above the boxes, shelves packed with cans and jars and plastic containers reach almost to the ceiling. “You've got a lot of stuff in here.”

“This is where the work gets done,” Scooter says.

I look around the room, and I'm almost dizzy from the clutter—the high tool chests with their metal drawers, the plastic bins overflowing with bike parts, the pegboard with rods that hold small bags of parts and pieces. Clusters of silver wheels gleam in overhead racks, and bicycle frames dangle from hooks. Four coiled yellow air tubes, connected to an unseen compressor, snake from the ceiling to the floor, and in the middle of the floor are two bicycle-repair stands. One holds a black mountain bike; the other holds Renny's red Schwinn.

“How can you find anything in here?” I blurt out, trying to imagine working in such a mess. “I could never function in a place like this. I'm such a stickler for organization. I'd go crazy in five minutes.”

Scooter nods solemnly, as though he's heard this before. “Occupational hazard,” he says. “We're good with fixing things, not so good at keeping things in order. Especially in this room.”

We walk to the bike stand, where Renny's Schwinn is suspended a couple of feet off the ground. “Okay, let's talk a minute.” Scooter rests his hand on the cracked leather seat. “Mitch looked up the year she was built, from the serial number. Nineteen seventy-seven.” He scratches his head. “Were you even born then?”

“Well, no,” I say, feeling a little embarrassed that I'm younger than the bike.

“This bicycle was made at the Schwinn factory in Chicago. That's back when Schwinn owned the company.” He rubs a rust spot on the metal tube that goes from just below the seat to the handlebars. “Back when they made their bikes right here in the good old U.S. of A.”

I nod, trying to imagine what was apparently a golden age, as far as Scooter is concerned.

“I'm guessing Mitch already told you this was a top-of-the-line bike for its time.”

“Yes, he did. That's how we got onto the subject of doing a restoration.”

“The restoration. Right.” He looks as though he's about to say something, but then he checks his watch. “Tell you what. It's almost lunchtime. Why don't you and I go out and grab a sandwich? Then we can talk more about the bike. My treat.”

The bagel I ate this morning is still sitting in my stomach, but Scooter's offer is so sweet, and his eyes have such a kind sparkle in them, that I can't say no. “All right,” I say. “But you don't have to treat.”

“Nonsense,” he says, straightening the collar of his shirt. “How often do I get to take a beautiful lady to lunch?”

This makes me smile. “Okay, you're on.”

“Is Tulip's all right?”

“Tulip's is fine.”

Tulip's, a little deli with a handful of tables inside and another cluster out front, has been around forever. When I was young the rumor was that Tulip, the owner, got her name by being conceived in a bed of tulips. I found out years later that her parents were just avid gardeners.

“We could walk over there, grab some food, and take it across the street to the green,” Scooter says.

“That sounds great.” I follow him from the workroom into the store, where Mitch is standing next to a young boy, discussing a flat tire on the boy's bike.

“I'm taking Grace to lunch,” Scooter says. Mitch looks up, his eyes flicking from Scooter to me and back to Scooter.

“You want to join us?” Scooter asks.

Mitch checks the clock above the counter. “I'd better not. I've got to get those Zullos finished for Watson and Crick. They're coming in this afternoon.”

“Watson and Crick,” I say. “You know people with those names? Like the guys who figured out the DNA double helix?”

“Well, kind of,” Mitch says. “It's a husband and wife. Their last name is Creek, but they do some kind of medical research, so we nicknamed them.”

“Yeah, but we don't call them that to their faces,” A.J. says as he stands behind the counter, looking alarmed.

“No, not to their faces,” Mitch says.

“Come on.” Scooter gestures toward the door. “We'll let these guys keep working while we goof off. That's the advantage of being the owner. You can tell everybody else what to do.” He winks at me.

Outside, the sun is bright, casting crisp shadows, like alter egos, on the sidewalk. We walk past Ellis Antiques, Hayes Florist, and Ames & Trodden, CPAs, with their mullioned windows and perky dormers. We approach a small, whitewashed brick building with a yellow awning, where a clothing store Mom loved, called Tracy Callen's, used to be. When I was here last fall, the place was full of construction workers. Now the new business is open.

I read the sign. “Paradise Day Spa. Don't we already have a couple of those?”

Scooter shrugs. “Guess they think they can make a go of it.”

“Like that gluten-free bakery that opened in the spring. I can't believe there are enough people around here with gluten problems that we needed a gluten-free bakery. I mean, how many people in Dorset have celiac disease?”

A little farther down is Tulip's, a tan, shingled building with white shutters. On the bulletin board inside, I spot an ad for the Dorset High School summer theater production of
Legally Blonde.
Next to it is a photo. A note scrawled in the corner says:
To Tulip, A Rare Flower Indeed. xox, Sean Leeds.