Part 15 (1/2)

I'll just let the facts do that for me.

Oh, by the way, just disregard the Gazette's reference to Jayne's trouble with the nursing home. No charges were ever filed. You'll appreciate the prank, being English and a tea drinker. In the end, it all worked out. It always does, in Mossy Creek.

Your friend with the upturned pinkie, Katie.

Jayne.

The Naked Bean.

I arrived in Mossy Creek in late November, possibly the worst time of year to open a new shop. The tourist traffic is spa.r.s.e then, and the locals hunker down for the winter holidays. Icy rain soaked my new hometown, and fog rolled in from the mountains. Half the citizenry went into hibernation the week I arrived, and I felt alone in a ghostly world. I looked at my name on the shop's lease. ”That Jayne Reynolds must be an idiot,” I said aloud, as if someone else had signed the paperwork. Indeed, I didn't know who I was anymore. My husband had died only two months before, after a long illness. I was only 34 years old, but felt ancient. I couldn't bear to tell anyone in Mossy Creek about my widowhood, my grief, or the nouris.h.i.+ng secret I had brought with me to my new town; it was easier to live silently among strangers, pretending I was brand new.

I knew only this much: My future depended on beans.

Coffee beans. And human beans.

”G.o.d brought us here as naked human bein's,” my grandmother lectured when I was a child growing up with her in a small town south of Atlanta. ”And low or high, naked human bein's we all remain.” Grandma's country dialect was abetted by tobacco chaws and a thick drawl, so I thought she was saying naked human beans. I studied the intricate, twining pole beans that climbed her garden stakes every summer. Finally, I understood. Like beans, people were all the same under their tough green hides.

”Promise me,” my husband Matthew said, ”that you'll do something crazy and full of joy after I'm gone. Remember what you've told me. We're all just naked human beans.”

This was that crazy promise-moving to a new town, giving up my safe job as an insurance adjuster down in Atlanta, opening a coffee shop. The joy, however, had not yet come. I cried quietly and often behind the doors of my lonely new business and in the tiny apartment above it, where I lived with my cat Emma.

Next door, the town's bakery seemed just as gloomy. The owner, Ingrid Beechum, had gone on vacation after Thanksgiving. I heard she was a widow, too. BEECHUM'S, her large, white sign said, as if the whole world knew that name meant fine baked goods. Her sprawling turn-of-the-century brick building made my little two-story clapboard shop feel like a doll's teacup sitting next to a latte mug.

I wandered over during dry spells and peered through the dark windows. Her bakery was beautiful, with handsome white counters, scrubbed yellow linoleum floors, old-fas.h.i.+oned display cases, and a large menu board listing mouth-watering selections. It radiated a homey success I envied. Inspired, I pasted a handwritten Grand Opening sign to my shop's wavy gla.s.s doors.

Gourmet Coffees And Teas. Pirollines. Biscotti. And A Friendly Cat.

Mayor Walker came by several times to see if I was doing enough business to pay the rent, I suspect, since she was my landlord. ”You'll be fine when the weather clears,” she told me. ”Plus the Christmas shoppers will begin to come through town. And you'll have more traffic after Ingrid reopens her bakery. It's always crowded.”

”I'm really looking forward to meeting Mrs. Beechum. I'm sure we're going to be good neighbors. Maybe we can do some advertising together. That'd be perfect. A bakery and a coffee shop.”

Mayor Walker pulled a cashmere scarf higher above the collar of her trim wool jacket, as if protecting her throat. Her mouth flexed. She seemed to be considering some frank answer to my naive hopes, but then she simply smiled. ”Sometimes we Mossy Creekites are a little standoffish at first. Let me know how you get along with her. And don't worry.” She left without offering another word.

I should have realized that was a warning.

The rain ended, and the skies over the mountains turned a bright, cold blue. My spirits rose a little. As I cleaned the cappuccino machine in the shop's small kitchen one afternoon, I looked out the front windows and saw a rusty van pull up. Mossy Creek Woodworks. My sign had arrived.

I slung one of my hand-knitted shawls around my tie-dyed sweats.h.i.+rt-I had learned to knit, quilt, and tie-dye to keep my mind occupied each time my husband, Matthew, was in the hospital-and rushed outside. The handsome hardwood trees of the town square cast sharp, leafless shadows across the van. A s.h.a.ggy old man wrestled a large, canvas-wrapped rectangle from the van's open back doors. ”Howdy do, good-lookin',” he drawled at me.

I smiled at his grizzled flirtation. Foxer Atlas was a harmless lady's man. He looked like Popeye. ”I can't wait to see my sign, Mr. Atlas!”

”It's almost as pretty as you are.” Foxer tugged at the canvas, and it fell to the ground with dusty drama.

Gooseb.u.mps ran down my spine. I gazed lovingly at the walnut wood outlined in white trim around large, scrolled letters in a cafe-au-lait color. Coffee colors.

The Naked Bean.

”You did a good job, Mr. Atlas,” I said softly. He toed his grimy work shoes together as if Olive Oyl had kissed him. I wiped my eyes. ”Would you like a cup of coffee to help me celebrate?”

”Well, sure. I never turn down a treat from one of my girlfriends.”

I hurried inside and fixed him a French blend in a heavy ceramic mug, then poured some for myself in a delicate china cup Matthew had given me one Christmas. When I returned I set a tea saucer full of cream on the sidewalk for my cat. Cats should never be left out of celebrations. They have known since the ancient Egyptians wors.h.i.+ped them that their feline approval equals a blessing from the G.o.ds. Fat, irascible Emma did not seem very divine as she slurped from the saucer.

Foxer and I raised our cups to the new sign.”Here's to The Naked Bean,” I said hoa.r.s.ely. Oh, Matthew, I miss you.

”Here's to The Nekkid Bean.” Foxer chortled.

”The what?” a high-pitched Southern female voice demanded. ”You named this place what?”

I blinked and looked around. Emma hissed. A wiry woman stood in the open doorway of Beechum's. Her flour-dusted pink ap.r.o.n swathed her blue jeans and checkered blouse. She planted her fists on her hips. Cold blue eyes didn't blink beneath a spidery hair net that flattened her thick, graying, brown hair into a stern hair beanie. She made me think of a tightly braided voodoo doll I'd seen once during a New Orleans vacation.

”I beg your pardon?”

”You can't put up that tacky sign on the town square.” She waved her hand toward Main Street. ”What next? Maybe Pearl Quinlan should rename her shop 'Bare b.u.t.t Books.' And maybe Rosie can change the cafe's name to 'Mama's Shake Your Booty Lounge.'”

Heat rose in my face. Beside me, Foxer shuffled from one foot to the other. ”Afternoon, Miz Beechum,” he said lamely.

”Don't you 'Afternoon' me, Foxer.”

”It's just a funny little sign. Nothin' wrong with nekkid.”

”Your judgement doesn't count for much, you dirty old man.”

So this was my neighbor, Ingrid. ”Mrs. Beechum,” I said in a strangled voice. ”I think you're overreacting. Let me explain the name. And let me introduce myself-”

”Oh, I know who you are. The famous author.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice. ”Miss Jane Austen!”

I groaned. My mother was a high school English teacher and a lover of Jane Austen's novels. ”It's Jayne with a 'y', and Austin with an 'i',” I explained tightly. ”And my married name is Reynolds. So I'm Jayne Austin Reynolds. Jayne Reynolds.”

”I don't care if you're Wilma Shakespeare, you're not putting up that p.o.r.nographic sign next to my bakery.”

”If you have a problem, take it up with Mayor Walker. She approved my sign.”

”I don't believe you.”

”That's too bad.” Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I saw Emma crouch. She crept toward the open door of Ingrid Beechum's bakery. I leapt to catch her before she launched herself at whatever was inside the building. I was too late.

Ingrid yelped as Emma zoomed past her. I heard the shriek of a small animal being walloped inside the bakery. A pale brown Chihuahua shot out the doorway, with Emma behind him. She chased him across our side of Main Street, which circled the town square. A pickup truck braked just in time to miss both animals. Emma rolled the tiny dog like a champion wrestler. She boxed him around the head, then pranced with every hair on her considerable body fluffed out and her tail bowed like a cobra's neck. The Chihuahua, yelping, hid under an azalea shrub.

”Oh, Emma,” I groaned as I ran after her, with Ingrid close behind. I threw my shawl over my maniacal calico cat and hoisted her into my arms.

Ingrid, cursing, pulled her s.h.i.+vering little dog from under the shrub. ”Bob, Bob, its all right, Bob, it's not a hawk, you're not going to be carried off again,” she crooned. She hugged him to her chest then turned to me furiously. ”You're nothing but bad luck. You and your d.a.m.ned sign and your d.a.m.ned cat don't belong here.”