Christine Flynn - The Sugar House

She seemed to know that he wouldn’t want to eat at a community dinner himself. Or maybe she was thinking more that he wouldn’t be welcome there. From Emmy’s flat tone when she’d said everyone knew he’d bought the acreage next to hers, he’d be willing to bet everyone at that dinner would have an opinion about that acquisition, too. No Travers had been able to do anything right by the time they’d moved. He was getting the distinct feeling from this woman that no Travers could do anything right now, either.

What bothered him even more was the surprising depth of her apparent disapproval of him. He’d barely known the woman. Yet, her censure felt as fresh as what he’d felt from others when his family had left.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’ll get something on my own.” The burger he’d grabbed at a drive-through five hours ago had long since worn off, but he wasn’t about to put her out. “What about the burger place?” A little repetition wouldn’t kill him. “Is it still here?”

“Closed for the winter. Most everything around here is.”

Hunger seemed to increase in direction proportion to his diminishing culinary options. “How about the general store?” He’d seen the lights on inside when he’d driven past it a few minutes ago. “How late is it open?”

A child’s voice grew louder. Another matched it, insisting on the return of the video game controls. After aiming a weary glance toward the doorway, she shifted it to the old-fashioned cuckoo clock near the antlers. “’Bout another five minutes.”

“One last thing.” Not wanting to keep her any longer, he picked up the room key she’d set on the counter, stuffed it into his coat pocket. “Do you know Emmy Larkin?”

Quick curiosity narrowed the woman’s eyes. “Of course I do.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know her full name, would you?”

With a Travers asking after a Larkin, curiosity turned to distrust.

“Why would you want to know that?”

“There’s something I need to take her.”

“Then, I suppose you can ask her yourself when you see her.”

Faced with that protective and practical New England logic, Jack picked up his receipt, slid it into his pocket. With a resigned nod, he lifted his hand as he backed toward the door. He wouldn’t be getting any information here. “I suppose I can. Thanks for the room.”

“She’ll be sugarin’, so I wouldn’t think she’d have time for you tonight.”

“I’m not going until morning.”

“She won’t be there then. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Services don’t get out until eleven.”

He couldn’t tell if the woman was trying to discourage him or be helpful. “Thanks,” he said again, leaning heavily toward the former.

“Checkout’s at noon.”

“Got it,” he replied, and escaped into the cold before he had to deal with any more of her “friendliness.”

The gray of dusk was rapidly giving way to the darkness of night. There were no streetlights in Maple Mountain to illuminate the narrow two-lane road that served as its only thoroughfare. Rather unoriginally called Main, the road curved on its way through the sleepy little community, a ribbon of white lined by four-foot banks of snow left behind by a plow.

It was barely six o’clock on a Saturday night, yet the dozen businesses and buildings that comprised the core of the community were closed and as dark as the hills above them. The only lights came from the general store down near the curve of the road and the headlamps of two cars that turned onto the short street that ended at the white clapboard community center.

Hunching his shoulders against the evening’s deepening chill, he crossed the packed snow of the motel’s parking lot and headed to the store. He could grab something there to take back to his room for dinner and breakfast. With any luck, he could also get Emmy’s full name. He would have asked at the post office, had it not been closed.

When he finally stepped inside the store, he could see that the place had hardly changed. It smelled as it always had, faintly of must and burning wood from the potbellied stove in the middle of the room. A wooden pickle barrel topped by a checkerboard sat a comfortable distance from that radiating warmth.

The dairy cooler still occupied the back wall. Rows of groceries filled the four short aisles to his left. The walls themselves still held the same eclectic mix of sundries. Snowshoes competed for space with frying pans. Spark-plugs were stacked above empty gas cans and saw blades.

The only staple missing from his memories of the place were the old men who’d routinely congregated around the game board to discuss local politics, play checkers and lie to each other about the size of the fish they caught in their fishing shacks on the frozen lake. Either they’d all died or they’d gone home to supper.

The short, squat owner hadn’t changed much, either. Agnes Waters’s short brown curls were now half-silver, and the laugh lines around her eyes looked deeper than they’d been when he’d played high school sports with her youngest son. But her hazel eyes looked as sharp as ever and, even now, her memory rivaled an elephant’s. Seeing who her customer was her expression registered clear disapproval.

Jack could practically feel his back rise at the suspicious way she looked him over. He hadn’t counted on the defensiveness he would feel in this place. But then, he’d been so focused on his promotion, moving and acquiring the property to give back to the Larkins that he hadn’t thought about how resentful of other’s attitudes he’d become by the time his family had left there.

The feeling, however, had wasted no time coming back. “Mrs. Waters,” he said, forcing an intentionally civil nod.

Geese in flight were silk-screened across the front of her heavy green sweatshirt. Obliterating half the flock as she crossed her arms, she gave him a tight little nod. “Hello, Jack. Been a while.”

His tone remained even. “A while,” he agreed, refusing to let old resentments get the better of him. “I just need to pick up a few things,” he explained. “I know you’re getting ready to close, so I’ll hurry.”

“I saw you come through town earlier,” she told him, stopping him in his tracks. Ignoring any need she had to close up and go home, she checked him over from haircut to hiking boots. “You seem to have done well for yourself.” Her sharp eyes narrowed. “What is it you do?”

“Do?”

“For a living.”

“Commercial development.” By noon tomorrow everyone in the community would know what he drove and what he did to earn his keep. He’d bet his new corner office on it. “Why?”

“I was afraid it was something like that,” she claimed, managing to look displeased and vindicated at the same time.

“Excuse me?”

“Your occupation.” Looking as if she couldn’t imagine what he didn’t understand, she tightened her hold on the geese. “I had the feelin’ you were going to develop that land the minute I heard you’d bought it. I can tell you right now that you can forget about whatever it is you’re plannin’ to put on that parcel, Jack Travers. We don’t want commercial development here. The community council won’t stand for it. I know. I’m on it.”

His voice went flat. “I’m not building anything,” he assured her, and hitched his thumb toward the back wall. “I’m just going to grab what I need and get out of here. Okay?”

Pure confusion pleated the woman’s forehead as he turned toward a display of chips, grabbed a bag and headed for the back wall.

The woman was getting herself all worked up for nothing. The old bat had taken a fragment of information, thrown in a lot of supposition and dug in her heels to oppose him without a clue about what was actually going on. Unfortunately, while telling her to can the attitude would have made him feel better, it wouldn’t do a thing to help him get the information he needed.