Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe Read online

  “Careful now,” I cautioned.

  “Oh, don’t worry none. River’s gentle,” the man, Cam, reassured.

  “I wasn’t so much worried for Ollie as I was for River. Ollie doesn’t know her own strength sometimes. She’s almost snatched me bald a couple of times.”

  Cam stared at me for a moment, then laughed as he rubbed River’s ears. “He’ll be just fine.”

  The dog licked Ollie’s hand, and she squealed as she reached out to tap River on his head. “Dog, dog, dog!”

  “Look at that. Fast friends already.” Faylene faced me. “Do you know Cam, our resident mountain man?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Silly me! You wouldn’t, since you only just moved back. Cam moved down here from Tennessee ’bout a year ago.”

  He stood up and stuck out a giant, callused hand. “Cam Kolbaugh.”

  “Natalie Walker.” His hand swallowed mine, and I was surprised at his gentle handshake, considering his strength. It was as if he were taking extra care not to crush my fingers. “And this is Ollie.”

  “Aka Olivia Leigh,” Faylene said to the man. “But ain’t Ollie the cutest nickname you ever did hear? Natalie is Seelie and Doc Linden’s girl. She’s a widow, Natalie is. Lost her husband, Matthew Walker, a little more than one year, seven months, and three days ago. Thereabouts. A tragic boating accident.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Cam’s thick dark eyebrows dipped low. “My condolences.”

  I glanced around for a manhole I could fall into. Head first. “Thank you.”

  He nodded and bent to pet River, who was still being loved on by Ollie. Fortunately, the dog didn’t seem to mind toddler kisses one bit.

  To me, Faylene said, “Cam is Marcy’s brother-in-law. Her husband Josh’s brother. Big bear of a man, Josh is. You have to meet him. Despite him being one of Wicklow’s finest policemen, he has the sweetest disposition you ever did see.” She leaned in close. “Don’t tell him I said that. And Marcy runs the gift shop”—she spun and pointed to a storefront across the street, Hodgepodge—“over there. You need to drop in to see some of Cam’s photographs. He’s a wildlife photographer. Marcy sells his photos on consignment. They’re gorgeous. Stunning. No one can take a picture like Cam. He has quite the eye.”

  I watched Cam’s face as Faylene gushed on, and was amused by the look of utter embarrassment sweeping across his features, tugging the fine lines around his hazel eyes and deepening the furrows on his forehead.

  Looking back at the shop with its bright yellow awning, I wondered if Marcy was hiring. Top of my priority list, just beneath getting that blackbird pie, was finding a job. The shop was closed at the moment, but I made a note on my mental to-do list to stop by later on.

  Faylene added, “Best you hurry, though, seeing as how Marcy’s not sure how much longer she can keep the shop open. She thought summertime would bring more visitors up this way to hike and bike, but it’s been slim pickings so far.”

  “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?” My stomach ached with a sinking feeling as I crossed Hodgepodge off my list of potential employers. Talk about slim pickings—job openings around here were scarcer than tourists.

  Faylene patted my hand. “You sweet thing. We surely appreciate your offer. We’ll get by, we always do.”

  Cam straightened. “It’s been a pleasure, ladies, but I should probably get going. I’m on assignment.”

  “Oh? Do tell!” Faylene rubbed her hands together.

  Cam wrapped River’s leash around his hand. “There’s been a sighting of some rare birds behind the café, and the news is spreading like wildfire through the birding community. A bird-watching friend of mine contacted me to snap some shots. No big deal, but I should be on my way. The lighting’s good right now.”

  “You mean the blackbirds?” Faylene asked. “Shoo, you’ve got time. They’re not usually out in the daytime. Come back a bit before midnight to set up.”

  “You know of these birds?” he asked.

  “Cam,” Faylene said with a cock to her hip, “everyone in Wicklow knows about the blackbirds, not counting you, obviously. You really need to come out of the mountains a little more often.”

  He glanced at me, and I said, “The blackbirds have been here all my life. Midnight till one in the morning. They sing the prettiest songs you’ll ever hear.”

  Suspicion laced his tone. “That’s not normal—the midnight thing, not the songs.”

  Faylene said, “Sugar pie, the blackbirds are normal around here. I can’t hardly believe they’re causing such a fuss after all these years.” She stood on tiptoes. “But I say, never look a gift horse in the mouth. Or birder, in this case. I best let these visitors know that Hodgepodge will be opening at eleven.”

  “Ollie and I should really get going, too,” I said, eyeing the café. “It was nice to meet you, Cam. See you soon, Faylene.”

  “Yes, yes!” Faylene said. “Very soon. And you should get together with Marcy sometime, with the girls. Your little one and Lindy-Lou will be fast friends in no time flat.”

  Friends would be nice. I had suspected coming home would be difficult but thought I’d adjust fairly quickly. Fall into old patterns. Routines. Go back to the way things had been before. Go back to the way I was before.

  I should have realized that was impossible.

  Pain changed people.

  I couldn’t go back to the way I’d been, because I wasn’t the same person who’d left.

  All of which reminded me of that piece of blackbird pie that was so important. I needed the answers it would give me. The peace. Not only for my sake, but for Ollie’s, too. I wanted to be the best mother I could be to my little girl. That meant I needed to find a way to heal my troubled heart and mind, so I didn’t turn out like my own mother, who’d been lost somewhere in a haze of anger and grief for decades, oblivious to anything but her own pain.

  Reaching down, I tucked one of Ollie’s loose fawn-colored curls back under the headband. “Say goodbye, Ollie.”

  “Bye! Dog!” Ollie cried out, waving madly.

  Cam offered a wave and River thumped his tail.

  I spun the stroller around, took a few steps toward the café, and froze.

  I needn’t have worried that Faylene would blab my whereabouts to my mother. Because Mama was here. Arms folded, she stood rooted in front of the café, staring inside.

  Maybe if I backed up slowly, I might be able to make a clean getaway …

  Mama’s head came up sharply, then snapped to the right as if sensing my presence.

  Busted.

  I tried to mask a wince as Mama marched over. Seelie Earl Linden looked perfectly put together, as always. Flowy linen slacks, a crisp white blouse, leather sandals, a large white sunhat that covered most of her shoulder-length wavy white hair that was shot through with strands of her original coppery color, dark sunglasses, and her double strand of pearls. “Olivia Leigh’s eyes are simply precious when she squints just so, and her skin is turning such a lovely shade of brown, don’t you think?”

  Mama never used Ollie’s nickname, claiming it a ridiculous name for a girl, and that people were going to think she was a boy.

  As if that were possible with her long hair, bow lips, arched eyebrows, and button nose. Not to mention the skorts she wore, the pink lace-trimmed shirt with her monogram on the pocket, and matching pink sandals.

  “Gamma! Hihi!” Ollie said, waving.

  I didn’t bother mentioning that I’d lathered Ollie in sunscreen or that she had flung her sunglasses to the ground six times already before I gave up and tucked them into the diaper bag before they broke. It wouldn’t matter. By the end of the day, a wide-brimmed toddler-size sunhat would be delivered to the little house along with the expectation that it be used.

  “Hello there, sweet pea.” Mama bent down to grasp Ollie’s outstretched fingers, then kissed her forehead.

  My heart wrenched at the affection Mama bestowed upon Ollie. It was so
mething that I hadn’t experienced from my mother in a good, long while. While the truth of that stung, I was thankful Ollie didn’t know her grandmother’s coldness.

  And she never would, if I could do anything about it.

  Peace, I reminded myself. Peace.

  Mama said, “You’re out and about early.”

  Even though the statement was directed at Ollie—and wasn’t a question—Mama lifted her head, clearly expecting a response from me.

  “We’re … off to the library.” Not quite a lie. Ollie and I had planned to go to the library this morning. After the pie. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  In all my years, I’d never seen my mother within a hundred-foot radius of the Blackbird Café. Mama took great pains to avoid this section of the street, going acres out of her way so as to not even lay an accidental glance on the old stone building.

  Mama’s hand flew to her pearls. “I was passing by on my way to a Refresh meeting and stopped to see what was causing the racket.”

  It was a good story, but I didn’t buy it. Though Mama was the chairwoman of the restoration committee designed to revitalize the community, nicknamed Refresh, the meetings were usually held at Coralee Dabadie’s house, two blocks away. “Passing by” here required quite the elaborate detour. Besides, Mama hadn’t said one word about my proximity to the establishment. Highly suspicious.

  She gestured to the crowd on the café’s side lawn. “What is going on? Who are these people? Surely they’re not here for the reopening.”

  Amid the chaos of the packed café, a stranger stood out, weaving among the tables with a tray in hand. A woman, about the same age I was, give or take a couple of years. A stranger, yet familiar. Was that Anna Kate Callow? She didn’t look much like Zee, who’d been a tiny blonde with straight hair usually tied into a braid, and who’d had an affinity for flowy skirts, long scarves, and dangly earrings. Anna Kate was tall, maybe as tall as my five-foot-eight, and had chestnut-colored curly hair. She wore jeans, cuffed to mid-calf, and a plain purple T-shirt. Not an earring to be seen. “It’s the blackbirds. The birding community is fascinated with them. Supposedly, they’re rare. The birds. Not the birding community.”

  I was rambling. Mama had that effect on me.

  She glanced inside the café, and her slender fingers whitened as she tightened her grip on her pearls—the pearls that my brother (with Daddy’s financial help) had given Mama for her very first Mother’s Day, more than forty years ago.

  Sadly, I didn’t remember Andrew James Linden, golden child, the pride and joy of my family—and Wicklow. I’d been only three when he died at just eighteen years old in a car crash. Some had called me an oops baby, a surprise my parents hadn’t been expecting so late in life. Apparently Mama had been over the moon at the news of my impending arrival, even though everyone around here knew Seelie Earl Linden didn’t care much for surprises.

  It was a happiness that vanished forever the day AJ died.

  Mama scoffed. “The birds? Foolishness.”

  “Seelie! Knock me over with a feather, seeing you here at the café!” Faylene said brightly as she approached. “I suppose you heard the rumors … Quite shocking, isn’t it?”

  With a brittle closed-mouth smile, Mama stared at Faylene. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Patches of red appeared on Faylene’s neck again. “The rumors about Anna Kate…?”

  Mama kept staring, her lips pressed into a thin, frigid line.

  Faylene glanced between Mama and me, me and Mama. “I, ah, need to be going.” She pointed left, then right. “Good to see you both.”

  “Do give my best to Marcy, won’t you?” Mama said, saccharine sweet.

  “I surely will,” Faylene called over her shoulder as she scurried off.

  “What was that all about?” I asked as soon as she was out of earshot.

  “You know I abhor gossip, Natalie,” Mama said dismissively.

  Baffled, I glanced around. It seemed like everyone stared at us, including the people in the café.

  Mama said, “I’m leaving. Are you coming with me? The library is on the way to Coralee’s house.”

  I swallowed hard. Choices. I could either stand my ground, go inside, and get the piece of pie and answers I craved … or keep the fragile peace in my broken family.

  “We’re coming,” I said, stifling a sigh.

  Peace was worth leaving with my mother right that minute. But come tomorrow morning … I would be back for that pie.

  Maybe then I’d also figure out why everyone was so interested in Anna Kate Callow.

  3

  “When did you first notice the blackbirds?” the reporter asked.

  Bow Barthelemy kicked out long, thin legs. “They’ve been here as long as I have.”

  “How long have you worked for the café?”

  “Twenty-five years, but the birds have been here longer. Nearly a century, I’ve heard.”

  The reporter rolled his eyes and scribbled a note. “Are there always twenty-four birds like in that old nursery rhyme? ‘Four and twenty blackbirds, Baked in a pie—’”

  “‘When the pie was opened, The birds began to sing.’” Bow finished the quote. “I know it. Zee once said those birds were probably relatives.”

  “She was obviously joking. Right?”

  “Zee never joked about the blackbirds.”

  Unsure what to say to that, the reporter tapped his pen, then gestured wide. “You don’t find all this strange?”

  “Not at all, but what’s strange to me could look mighty different to you.” He stood up, pushed the chair in. “I need to be gettin’ back to work. You want a refill on that blackberry tea?”

  “Yes, please. Best damn tea I’ve ever had.”

  Anna Kate

  “I heard tell you’re heading off to medical school soon, young lady,” Mr. Lazenby said. His bottom lip pushed outward and his jaw set as if bracing for a fight.

  Skirting his chair, I picked up empty plates and gathered discarded silverware from a nearby table. I wasn’t surprised by his nosiness, as it seemed to be a community-wide affliction, almost as prevalent as the lack of respect for personal space. People had been giving me hugs all morning, my stiffness not the least bit of a deterrent. Did no one have boundaries around here? “That’s right. Classes start in August.”

  It had taken me seven long years to complete my premed undergrad. Between switching schools twice, taking time off after my mom’s death, and running out of tuition money … it was a miracle I’d graduated at all. Truthfully, I’d have quit altogether, except for a promise I’d made to my mother a long time ago.

  “Hmmph,” Mr. Lazenby said, staring long and hard at me.

  It looked like he had dressed for a special occasion this morning, wearing pressed trousers, a crisp white button-down, and a red-and-white checkered bow tie, but I’d come to recognize it was his normal, everyday attire.

  He’d been here since the doors opened at eight and didn’t look like he planned to leave anytime soon, even though it was now well after ten. Sitting prim and proper, with his back ramrod straight and his napkin on his lap, he glared at his fork.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “This pie doesn’t taste right.”

  “Otis Lazenby,” Jena Barthelemy called out from the kitchen, “I know you’re not insulting my cooking. That’s Zee’s recipe for apple pie, and I’ll have you know it’s a ribbon winner.”

  Jena apparently had bionic hearing, because I wasn’t sure how she’d heard him over the hum in the room.

  “It might be Zee’s recipe,” he said, “but this pie don’t taste like the pies Miss Zee made.”

  “We can’t be changing the fact that Zee’s gone to glory, can we?” Jena walked over to us. “God bless her soul. Times are changing, and we need to change right along with them, don’t we?”

  “But I’ll still dream tonight, won’t I?” he asked, panic threading through his high voice.

  “I don’
t know. Time will tell, won’t it?” Jena said.

  A wave of anxiety washed over me.

  While on earth, it’s the job of us guardians to tend to the trees, nurture them, and gather their love to bake into pies to serve those who mourn, those left behind. You see, the bonds of love are only strengthened when someone leaves this earth, not diminished. Some have trouble understanding that, so it’s the pie that determines who’s in need of a message, a reminding, if you will; it’s the love in the pie that connects the two worlds; and it’s a tree keeper who delivers the message.

  Yesterday, Jena had taken on the task of making the blackbird pies, and I should have known they wouldn’t be quite right. A guardian was supposed to bake the pies. Now that Zee was gone, making the pies fell on me as the only surviving Callow. Unfortunately, I didn’t think Mr. Lazenby would get the message he longed for, but I was hoping by some miracle that he would.

  “Hmmph.” He pouted at the fork before shoving it into his mouth.

  “Now tell all, Anna Kate. Did you always want to be a doctor?” Pebbles Lutz asked.

  Pebbles, her white hair piled high, sat across from Mr. Lazenby at the ten-seat communal table that took up most of the dining room. This morning, I’d seen her cast more than one longing glance his way, but he seemed oblivious to her attention … and affection.

  “For as long as I remember,” I said, dodging the heart of the question, the want part, as I collected more plates.

  The café had once been a carriage house. A long time ago, Zee had converted it into a restaurant downstairs and living quarters up. A glass door and big bay windows at the front of the café let in an abundance of light. The floors were the same dark pine as the stairs, and the walls were covered in whitewashed pine, as was the ceiling. With a fairly open layout—only a half wall separated the cooking and dining areas—it felt as though this were a family kitchen rather than a business.

  The whole space was light and bright and airy, but right now it felt more than a little claustrophobic. All eight tables were full, every seat taken. Several people stood near the door outside, waiting to come in. Some I recognized as neighbors. Some I didn’t, such as the young woman with the baby who kept passing by, staring inside forlornly.