Copyright © 2022 by M. Arbon

First Thirteen Flowers Press ebook edition 2022

ISBN: 978-1-989089-18-7

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the author’s prior written permission.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover copyright © 2022 by Laura Skye Kilaen & M. Arbon

about this book

When next-door neighbours Carey and Edd’s slowly blossoming romance starts to fray, both of them will need to use their talents for fixing things to save it.

Edd’s self-expression through pretty dresses and sparkly jewellery leads some people to misjudge him, and his soft spot for strays has bitten him on the keister in the past. But when his shy new neighbour Carey, who turns threadbare fabrics into works of art, seems to need help settling into their new town, Edd can't help but offer a hand.

Rebuilding their life after a crushing divorce, Carey buys a little house in queer-friendly Clover Hill. Their cute neighbour, Edd, keeps bringing them delicious baked goods, and soon even the sound of his knock on their door makes Carey happy. But Carey’s breakup made it obvious how unworthy they are of a relationship, and anyway, Edd's probably just being kind. Isn’t he?

Yet Carey begins to flourish in their new life as cheerful, patient Edd shows them around town. Edd finds in Carey a gentleness he's always craved, and a slow, sweet attraction takes root between the two of them.

Then news from Carey’s ex shatters their fragile confidence. How can they be a good partner to Edd when they failed so badly the last time? Edd is torn between giving Carey comfort and keeping the distance Carey says they need, even when it’s making them both miserable.

Can Carey and Edd work together to mend their relationship? Or can some things just not be fixed?

content warnings

Past divorce, related grief

Elderly community member with dementia

one

The tomatoes in Mrs. Bianchi’s garden were red and juicily ripe, hanging there on the other side of the chain link fence between the yards like a Bakelite necklace in an antique store window, and it was killing Edd.

Okay, so they weren’t Mrs. Bianchi’s tomatoes anymore. But Edd had planted them in the spring under her exacting direction, since she hadn’t been up to doing much more than sitting and pointing by then. As they’d grown, he’d watered them and pulled up the weeds and pinched off the shoots that threatened to turn them into bushes rather than vines, and he felt a certain responsibility towards them.

The few times he’d glimpsed the new owner, they’d had the air of being profoundly worn out. Edd had had enough roommates in and out of his extra bedroom to understand how much moving took out of a person. Still. Those were toasted tomato sandwiches practically on the hoof, and it was a crime that they were going to waste.

As Edd turned away from the kitchen window, he heard the thunder of Ozzie’s car pulling up to the curb. He grabbed his bag and keys from the table, and went to the front door to put on his shoes.

“Let’s shake it, O’Leary!” Ozzie yelled from outside.

Edd went out on the front stoop. Ozzie was standing by the open driver’s side door, feet on the sill so he was just tall enough to rest one elbow on the roof of his car with his round chin propped in his palm. Harriet, in the front seat, had her arms folded on the well of the open window. Her straight, dark bangs dipped down to a point over the right side of her cat-eye sunglasses, very mid-Sixties Hepburnesque.

“Cool your jets, Kovacic, it’s not even ten yet.” As he came down the steps, Edd heard the familiar squeal of Mrs. Bianchi’s screen door. When he looked up, he saw his new neighbour stop dead on their own front stoop.

Edd waved, his bracelets clacking. “Oh, hi! We haven’t met yet. I’m Edd.”

His neighbour raised a tentative hand. Their eyes were hidden behind large sunglasses, their smile tired-looking and a little forced. That might have been because of Ozzie, or at least Ozzie’s car; it was certainly something to see, although it was best viewed when you had time to properly take in the colourful plating of trinkets and baubles glued to it. Or it might have been the sight of Edd himself, a five-foot-eleven adult man in a knock-off Marimekko cotton print dress and half an armful of plastic bangles. If the latter, he and they weren’t going to be the best of friends, which Edd could live with, but it would be too bad.

“Hi,” his neighbour said. They were of indeterminate gender, with a black and white checkered cotton shirt worn untucked, dark jeans, pale skin, a haircut grown out into shapelessness. “Carey. Um, hi. Again.”

“Hi, Carey!” Ozzie sang out, and wiggled the fingers of his free hand. Carey bobbed their head in his direction.

“Hello, Carey,” Harriet called. “It’s nice to meet you.” Carey nodded again.

“Anyway, I’m on my way out, but see you around, I hope,” said Edd.

“Me too. I mean. Yes. I hope so.” The door made a noise of protest as Carey vanished back into their house.

Edd jogged down his driveway and slid into the back seat of the car. Ozzie gunned the accelerator and pulled away.

“So that was your new neighbour?” Harriet asked from the front seat.

Edd dug the latch of the seatbelt out from under the laundry basket full of art that took up the other side of the seat. “Apparently.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “I hope we didn’t scar them for life.”

“Nah, we’re teddy bears,” Ozzie said.

“Sure, they could tell that by the gentle and compassionate way you hollered at me.”

“Is it just them?” Harriet asked.

“So far as I can tell.”

“Pronouns?”

“You know what I know.”

“Any good furniture?”

“So many questions! It’s only been three days!”

“Are they new in town? They need to meet people,” Ozzie said. “You should invite them to Sunday Dinner.”

Harriet put a hand on Ozzie’s arm. “Let’s let them unpack and catch their breath before you subject them to the Circus, Oz.”

“She’s right, Ozzie. Sunday Dinner is varsity-level socializing.” From the sixty seconds he’d seen Carey hesitating on the stoop, Edd felt comfortable speculating that meeting a bunch of unfamiliar artists with no personal boundaries en masse wouldn’t be her, his, or their preferred introduction to town.

“Hey, but you could start with—”

“I will start with cinnamon buns,” Edd said solemnly, and Harriet clapped genteelly as though she were watching a golf tournament.

Downtown was predictably lively for a sunny July Thursday. They lucked out and found a parking spot in front of Tea & Cupcakes, where Paxton was dropping off a rideshare. Ozzie honked and swooped in, and Paxton tapped the horn as he drove off.

Edd got out of the car and dragged the laundry basket to the edge of the seat. The iridescent plastic capsules inside shifted like a bowlful of bubbles. Inside them Edd recognized some of Violet’s polymer clay button earrings and Amita’s origami mandalas, as well as pendants Ozzie had made via the ironic use of old magazine ads. Ozzie tucked the basket under his arm, and Edd and Harriet followed him into the tea shop.

“Merrill!” Ozzie did have an indoor voice, but generally had to be reminded to use it.

“Hi, Ozzie,” Tea & Cupcakes’ owner said from where they were transferring cupcakes with swirled purple and pink frosting into one of the display cases on the long counter.

“I come bearing art.”

“Go ahead.”

The vintage vending machine sat in the back corner. On its metal top were balanced a pink piggy bank and a sign, hand-lettered by Harriet, stating that the price of a one-of-a-kind piece of art was $5.25. Arrows indicated where the money went, five dollars into the piggy bank and a quarter to persuade the vending machine to release a random capsule. The clear jar and capsules gave you an idea of what kind of thing you were going to get, but not the exact thing, which according to Ozzie was all part of The Project. The setup also allowed unscrupulous people to grab three dollars’ worth (wholesale) of art for twenty-five cents, which Ozzie claimed was also part of The Project.

Ozzie started to unlock the machine. This tended to be a fiddly process, and Edd had only had half a cup of tea with his breakfast. “Caffeine?” he asked Harriet.

“God, yes.”

They went to the counter, where Edd perused the chalkboard menu. “What’s the monthly special?” he asked Aspen, who was returning tea tins to their places on the former pharmacy’s grid of wooden shelves.

“The Lavender Pocket Square. It’s a lavender honey tea latte.”

“Awesome. I’ll take that, please.”

They snagged a choice table by the window and watched Ozzie juggle machine parts, cash, and capsules as if they were a logic puzzle.

“Edd,” said Harriet.

“Yes?” After the silence had stretched out for about fifteen seconds, Edd asked, “What’s up?”

She leaned forward, hands clasped on the table. “What would you think if I—”

Aspen appeared and set down two takeout cups. They thanked him, and Edd took a sniff and sip of his latte.

“What’s that like?” Harriet asked.

“It’s about what you’d expect. Milky, sweet, a little flowery.” Edd wouldn’t necessarily order it again, but one of the minor delights of having money was ordering ridiculous drinks and tipping waitstaff lavishly.

Ozzie came over to drop the laundry basket beside their table, and went to the counter. “Merrill, do you want your share of the profits now?”

“Sure, why not.”

Ozzie handed over a fan of bills with a bow.

“Four dollars.” Merrill shrugged. “I won’t say no.”

“That right there is your passive income stream,” Ozzie declared. “All hail capitalism.”

“Sarcasm end tag,” Edd and Harriet both chimed in at the same time.

“You know it. Okay, gang! Let’s motor!”

They followed Ozzie along his usual route through cafés and gift stores, bumping into a few dozen people they knew—which was half the fun of Thursdays—then doubled back to the car to switch out the laundry basket for a Rubbermaid bin from the back.

“Morning,” called Gord as they walked into the Garage. Gord Lawson looked and dressed as though his chief delight in life was to describe to you what was wrong with your carburetor, but he’d run a commercially successful art gallery for over two decades. He painted delicately detailed watercolour landscapes in his spare time.

“Here for a reup.” Ozzie went over to the converted cigarette machine that dispensed his miniature collages and a variety of other small-scale art.

“Harriet, I owe you some cash,” Gord said, taking an account book stuffed with envelopes and torn bits of paper from beneath the counter. “I sold a piece of yours.”

“Mine?” She joined him at the cash register. “I thought you gave me all those back, what, a year ago?”

“I missed one. It was framed and hanging on the wall in the back room, that’s why.”

“Whaaat?” Ozzie dropped what he was doing and barrelled over to them, beaming. He caught Harriet up in a bear hug. “Way to go, girl! I told you there were people who would love your stuff!”

Gord hit a button on the cash register, and the drawer banged open. “Twenty bucks. Put your initials here.”

“Ooh, I guess it’s the large salad for me at lunch today,” Harriet said, working a hand out of Ozzie’s embrace to accept the pen Gord handed her.

Ozzie let her go with an emphatic squeeze. “You should think of doing some small pieces for the machines. People are more willing to spend five or ten bucks than forty. It’s not much per piece, but it can add up and give you some space to work on larger things.”

“I have a job,” Harriet reminded him.

“Sure, but it would let you cut back on that, spend more time on your creative work.”

She made a noncommittal sound. “Maybe we can talk about this later.”

“Yeah, Ozzie, finish up and let’s go. I’m starving,” Edd put in. Harriet busied herself with depositing the bills in her purse.

They dropped the bin back at the car and walked up to the Sunrise Diner on the next block. It was noisy and packed, and they put their names on the list for a lunch table. With some time to kill, they strolled over to Kreg’s Thrift Store.

“Half an hour,” Ozzie said, checking his watch-free wrist dramatically, and they went in.

Kreg’s was the old Kresge’s, a modestly sized department store that had opened at least as far back as the Forties. It had been a thrift store for a while now, its name taken from the surviving letters of the old sign.

“Should I keep an eye out for anything in particular?” Edd asked Harriet, as Ozzie made a beeline for the magazine section, where vintage copies of Life and Good Housekeeping sometimes turned up.

“Not really. It’s not like I have a lot of room for new things.”

Edd stopped twirling the circular rack of newly arrived clothing and looked at her, but she seemed absorbed in the flow of fabric. She pulled a hanger out, made a critical face at the argyle cardigan, and hung it back on the rack. “Oh, look at this.”

“Wow.” Edd had to restrain himself from making grabby hands at the jacket—no, suit; there were trousers too. A print of enormous crimson flowers on a white background, with bright bursts of yellow stamens and electric blue pistils. Harriet clicked her tongue, and then Edd saw it: a large stain splashed across the front of the jacket. It looked like someone had taken a full glass of red wine to the heart.

“It could be salvageable.” He pushed the jacket aside to check the trousers, which were dotted with tiny scarlet spots.

“Be my guest.”

Edd slipped the jacket on. The linen was cool and light against his bare arms. He rolled his shoulders, and the jacket settled smoothly onto them. He turned towards the wall to find himself in one of the many mirrors randomly hung around the store, already imagining pairing the suit with strings of pearls, maybe a white lace shirt.

“It’s a good fit,” Harriet said.

“It feels amazing.” The person in the mirror looked like he owned the world, even if the blot of wine was a little gory. Dry cleaning stains out was always chancy, but if the price was right... Edd checked the paper tag dangling from his cuff. He could maybe—he glanced over to see who was working the register—yeah, Nilima was one of the long-time employees, with authorization to barter. “I need this suit. You know what, I’m going to pay for it and take it over to Rose’s right now so I don’t have to carry it around. I’ll meet you and Ozzie at the Sunrise?”

“No problem.”

“Thanks. You find the best stuff.” Edd gave Harriet a quick one-armed squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. She shooed him away with a smile and a roll of her eyes, and he took his treasure and went to line up at the register.

two

So that was their neighbour.

Carey let their tote bag slide from their shoulder onto the floor. Their neighbour, plus—Carey hesitated. His? Her? Their? Something else? Anyway, plus their neighbour’s friends, who seemed interesting. Carey wouldn’t mind hearing the story behind that car.

They already regretted scurrying back inside like a startled mouse, except that that was more or less how they felt. The street had been weekday-morning quiet, an ageing neighbourhood of small post-war homes with mature trees and a sleepy summer vibe. And then Carey had stepped out into sound and glitter and a bunch of strangers. It hadn’t been unpleasant, just unexpected, and unexpected was exhausting, these days.

The house was still and cool, the only noise the comforting hum of the fridge. Carey didn’t have to go downtown. They had already done most of the unpacking—not that there’d been much to do—but there was always work, answering emails or updating the website or...

No. Not that it wasn’t glorious to have an entire house to themself, even if it was no larger than the condo that—

Ugh. “Just leave the house, already,” Carey said aloud.

Carey had explored the main street when deciding whether to move to Clover Hill, but being a tourist was different from actually living here. Living here meant a need for groceries, for one thing. The care package that their sister, Kennedy, had brought over on the morning of moving day was almost empty and, as much as Carey would have liked to, no one could live on tea alone. And the packages of emergency paper plates and plastic cutlery wouldn’t last forever, so that was an excuse to spend some time in the thrift store. Carey needed to drop into the dry cleaner’s, too, and find the post office.

Just thinking about it all made them want to lie down on the hardwood floor. Rebuilding a life had a lot of moving parts.

“You don’t have to do it all today,” Carey reminded themself, as they had regularly over the past year.

They needed an achievable goal. Okay: start with the dry cleaner’s and the post office, because Carey would need those for work, hopefully sooner rather than later. And then find a place to grab lunch, or at least a cup of tea. After that, they could come home and work.

The thought of work was both steadying and comforting. Carey took in and let out a breath, and stepped out of the front door.

Downtown wasn’t too far to walk, but there was a bus stop on the busier street two blocks over. Carey only had to wait five minutes, standing in the shade of a cherry tree, before the bus came along. They spent most of the short ride fumbling in their change purse for the fare. It would probably be a good idea to get tickets, and maybe find out if there was some kind of taxi service.

The bus dropped most of its passengers off in front of the Town Hall and sat there while its destination sign flipped rapidly through the names of streets Carey had yet to learn. Carey stood by the curb, trying to match the reality of the main street to their memories.

Across the road, something colourful caught their eye. Their neighbour’s friend’s car; it could hardly be mistaken for anything else. There was no one in the driver’s seat, so Carey took the opportunity to stare.

It must have started life as a station wagon. There was probably fake wood panelling underneath all of the...stuff. Buttons—both political and clothing-related—and swizzle sticks and dice and googly eyes and plastic dinosaurs and cookie cutters and Pez dispensers and fake flowers and at least one rubber duckie and on and on. No theme, no colour scheme, just a wild array somehow making a coherent and fascinating whole.

“It’s something, isn’t it?”

Carey turned to face the bus driver, a plump white woman with a long grey braid wrapped around her head, who had come down the bus stairs and was sipping something out of a travel mug. “It really is. Where did all of that come from?”

“About five years ago Ozzie was taking donations from the entire town. There’s some of my grandson’s old plastic farm animals on the other side.”

“He’s just been driving it around like that for five years? Is it an art piece, or...?”

The bus driver laughed. “Everything Ozzie does is an art piece, hon. If you’re in town for more than five minutes, you’ll meet him, and you’ll see.”

“No, I already have.” Was their intriguing-looking neighbour an artist too? Carey wondered.

“Like I said.”

Carey looked up and down the street, still not quite oriented. “Sorry to take up your time, but there’s a dry cleaner’s around here, isn’t there?”

“Oh, yeah, you want Rose’s. That way, about a block and a half.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. You have a good day, hon.”

“You too.”

Carey set off, passing an old theatre with the progress pride flag painted behind its neon sign, an art gallery, a hardware store that looked as if it had been adding things to the stack in its front window for a century and a half—there was an actual tin washboard, next to an Instant Pot and more kinds of tape than Carey had known existed—and a store that sold both comics and books. The streetscape was mostly Victorian red brick stores with a few storeys of apartments or offices above, and some more modest neighbours or newer infill where the originals had probably burned down or fallen over.

Rose’s Dry Cleaning was a narrow one-storey building that might have been a garage at one point. A metal sculpture of roses and thorned vines trailed along the side of the building like a trellis. The shop had placards in the window describing its environmentally friendly processes, and, like many of the other businesses, flyers advertising community fundraising dinners and bands coming to a local bar. Carey walked in, and an old-fashioned bell above the door jangled.

“Hi, what can I do for you?” asked the dark-skinned young woman behind the counter, putting down what looked like a travel magazine.

“Hi.” Carey extended the business card they’d gotten out of their pocket before coming in. This was not Carey’s favourite part of the job, but at least they only had to ask at each place once, and then it was over one way or another. “I don’t mean to bother you, and if you’re busy I can come back another time.” The woman made a gesture that could have meant Go ahead, or at least wasn’t obviously Stop talking and get out of my store. “I just moved to town. I do visible mending. If that’s not a service you already provide, would you mind if I left some cards here? I completely understand if you’d rather I didn’t.”

The woman took the card. “We send our repairs out to a place in Baymill. Visible mending? I don’t know if we get a lot of people asking for that, but sure, you can leave some cards on the bulletin board.”

The curtain behind her wavered and an elderly Black woman stepped through, clicking her tongue. “We do our own mending. You won’t find anyone to do it better, not in town or out of it. Tell her, Chrissy.”

“I’m Sharon, Gran,” the woman said gently. “Remember how we talked about this? We want you to enjoy your retirement, not have to work all day.”

“Hmph. I’m not ready to be sent out to pasture yet.” Gran frowned at Carey. “What did you say you do?”

“Visible mending.”

“Visible mending?” Gran sniffed. “Why would you want to do that?”

This was part of the job that Carey did like. “Instead of trying to hide the mend, I make it into something new.” Carey gestured at the checkered cotton shirt they were wearing, where a series of small holes on one side had been covered by calico patches shaped like balloons.

Gran bustled out from behind the counter, grabbed the hem of Carey’s shirt, and turned it up to peer at the inside. Caught off guard, Carey froze with their arms half-raised. Getting into a physical tussle with someone’s grandmother hadn’t been on their mental list of embarrassing things that might happen while introducing themselves around town.

“Gran!” Sharon yelped, standing up.

Gran dropped the hem. “I see. That’s fine work. We don’t need help, but you keep at it.”

Carey took a discreet step back, slowly exhaling. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m glad you think so.”

Sharon reached down to a shelf behind the counter and took out a rolled-up bundle of cloth. “Gran, this shirt is missing a button. Do you think you could go check the button box and see if you can find anything that matches?”

A gleam of triumph entered the elderly woman’s eye. “You see,” she said to Carey, “they think I’m too old to be useful, but if I weren’t here nothing would get done.”

“Thank you, Gran. That’s a big help.” Sharon helped the woman navigate the curtain into the back of the shop. When Gran was gone, she turned to Carey and cupped hands over her own cheeks. “I am so sorry,” she said in a lowered voice.

“It’s not your fault.” Carey took a steadying breath and felt the heat on their face begin to fade. “She surprised me, but she didn’t do any harm.”

“She’s kind of losing her filters. I really apologize for her getting grabby like that.”

Carey shook their head. “My grandad had dementia. It’s hard to go through, but you can’t control everything they do.”

Sharon gave Carey a crooked smile. “Thanks for understanding. But anyway, yeah, you can leave some cards. And I like your shirt too. It’s a really cute idea.”

“Thank you. My website’s on the card, if you want to see more of my work.”

“Cool, I’ll check it out.”

Carey pinned a fan of cards onto the bulletin board between the ads for dog walkers and babysitters. Feeling relief that that was over, they left, the bell jingling behind them like a cheerful omen, and nearly walked into their neighbour.

“Sorry,” they both said in tandem, each retreating a few steps.

“Oh, hey, Carey, right?” he—he?—added. “Is it Cary as in Grant or Carrie as in Fisher?”

A large paper bag swung from the crook of his elbow. He was wearing white Keds along with the colourful dress. His dirty-blond hair was shortish, held back from his face and up from his neck with a handful of barrettes in bright colours.

“Neither.” Carey spelled it for him.

“Ah. Mine’s Edd, with two Ds. I use he and him.”

“Okay.” Now Carey had even more questions, which they pushed aside as not their business. “Um, I usually use they, but she’s fine too.” Being referred to as she wasn’t upsetting, but Carey had been more comfortable once they’d settled on a different choice to use inside their own head.

“Awesome. I’ll remember. Hey, did you know that your tomatoes are ripe?”

It took a moment for Carey’s brain to parse the sentence. “What?”

“The tomatoes in your garden.”

Oh, right. Carey had checked out the backyard on moving day, though they’d been so sleep-deprived that nothing had stuck except the need to put a lawn mower on the infinite list of things that homeownership required one to buy. Having a yard was a luxury, but they hadn’t bought any lawn chairs yet and had mostly just sat with their work on the concrete stoop by the back door.

“Right now they’re just about perfect,” Edd went on. “They’re Romas, and Mrs. Bianchi used to plant half the yard with them and make gallons of sauce, but they’re great for just eating too.”

“Oh! I think there’s still some jars of sauce left in the basement.” Along with numerous other jars of miscellaneous nails and screws, a few half-rolls of linoleum in patterns that weren’t visible in any part of the house, and a blue plastic rosary dangling unnervingly from a hook beside the ancient furnace.

Edd’s eyes went wide. “Oh, no, the cleaners must have missed a few. Do not, I repeat, do not open any of them. I think some of them predate the turn of the century, and they may have spawned new life forms.”

“I’m not touching anything in the basement that I don’t have to,” Carey said. “I’ve watched enough movies to know that’s a bad idea.” It came out sounding more serious than they’d meant it to.

Edd grinned. “You are so right. I can vouch for the Bianchis, but I don’t know who owned the house before them.”

A pack of summer-feral teenagers thronged down the sidewalk, and Carey and Edd stepped closer to the dry cleaner’s window to avoid being mobbed. Edd shifted his bag to the other arm. “Sorry, I have to drop this off before I meet up with Harriet and Ozzie again. Have you been to Flakey Bakey Hearts yet? Their bread makes amazing tomato sandwiches.”

Carey looked to where he was pointing, a ways down on the other side of the street. “Not yet, but I’ll be sure to go in when I pass it.”

“No pressure, but you might want to head right over there. They close when they sell out, and it’s busy downtown today.”

The thought of fresh bread and ripe tomatoes was marginally more appealing than the canned soup they’d been surviving on. “All right. Thanks.”

“Enjoy. See you around,” Edd said, and stepped into the dry cleaner’s. The chime of the bell rang out onto the sidewalk.

Carey followed the street for another block, to the corner where the stores began to give way to deep-porched houses converted into accountants’ and dentists’ offices, and stood on the corner waiting for the light to change. The street was buzzing, most of the parking spaces taken, people standing outside the café opposite with cups in their hands.

The white Walk signal popped into existence. As they stepped off the curb Carey felt a glimmer of hope, like the first glimpse of a lighthouse through the grey of the last year. They didn’t belong here yet, but they weren’t a complete outsider anymore either. Finally, maybe, all the changes Carey had been through had a chance of turning into something good.

three

Sometimes Edd baked on Fridays, because it was nice to have something to enjoy on the weekend. Sometimes he baked on Mondays, because even his retired friends and neighbours remembered what Monday was like and appreciated a treat to take the sting out of it. Sometimes he baked because he just felt like it, which was often. He liked to change things up, inspired by online videos and TV baking competitions: gingerbread cookies, streusel coffee cake, monkey bread. His specialty, though, was cinnamon buns.

He’d mixed up the dough the night before and let the first rise happen in the fridge. He got up early enough on Friday morning to do the shaping and finish the baking before the heat of the day really dug its claws in. The kitchen still ended up warm, but there wasn’t any way around that. If the weather got too hot, Edd would be spending most of his time downstairs in the rec room anyway.

He made the icing while the second batch baked. He pulled two rolls from the end of the first slab cooling on the rack, settled them into one of the smaller foil pans he used for gifts, piped icing over the top until it drizzled down the sides of the still-warm bread, and covered the pan loosely with one of the matching cardboard tops. By that time, the second batch was out of the oven. Edd took off his apron and went out to call on his new neighbour.

Carey answered the door reasonably quickly, reassuring Edd that he hadn’t gotten them out of bed or taken them away from anything subject to critical timing. They were wearing loose grey sweatpants and a long-sleeved grey T-shirt through which Edd could see the sharp bumps of their clavicle.

“Good morning,” he said, and presented them with the pan. “Welcome to the neighbourhood, formally speaking.”

“Oh! Thank you.” They took the pan. “It’s still warm.”

“They’re ready to eat now, or you can let them cool. There’s an ingredient list on the top in case you have any dietary restrictions, but the only common allergen is the wheat flour.”

“You didn’t have to.” Carey brought the pan up and sniffed it. The expression that crossed their face was the closest Edd had yet seen them come to smiling. “But it smells wonderful.”

“Yeah, there’s nothing like cinnamon buns straight out of the oven. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them.” He turned to go.

“You said—um, do you mind if I ask you—if you’re not busy right now—” Edd turned back, trying to look encouraging. Carey pointed backwards, through the house. “How can you tell when those tomatoes are ready to pick?”

“They’re good when they’re red and slightly soft. Have you tried any yet?” He suspected Carey had, because he’d noticed some of them gone from the vines, but that seemed a little stalkery to say to someone he’d only met yesterday.

“I picked one of the red ones, and it turned into mush when I was trying to slice it. Then I picked one that wasn’t as red, but it didn’t taste any better than a tomato from the store. Everyone says that homegrown tomatoes are amazing, but I must be doing something wrong.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not you. We’re not talking an exact science here, but they’re perfectly ripe for about five minutes. Mrs. Bianchi used to pick them slightly before they were ready and tell me to put them on the windowsill for a few days.”

Carey brightened. “Do you like tomatoes? If you have a few minutes, let me give you some.”

Edd held up his hands. “I swear that wasn’t a hint.”

“I’m never going to be able to eat them all myself, and I’m certainly not going to be canning them. Please, take some. I’d hate to see them go to waste.”

Edd had never seen the point of feigning reluctance to accept something freely offered. Share the wealth, that was his school of thought. “Since you put it like that, I’d love some.”

Carey pushed the screen door further open with their spare hand. “Come through to the backyard, and maybe you can show me the ones that look good? I’ll get a bag to put them in.”

Edd stepped into the hallway. The parquet floors had been refinished to a gorgeous semi-gloss before the house went on the market, and the walls were still a tastefully bland putty white. The living-dining room was devoid of furniture; empty cardboard boxes disgorging crumpled newspapers were stacked against one wall. It seemed worlds away from Mrs. Bianchi’s warm, overstuffed home.

“If I can even find a bag. Sorry.” Carey padded barefoot the five steps down the hall and into the kitchen. Edd kicked off his sunflower-printed slip-on sneakers, picked them up, and followed Carey in his stocking feet.

The kitchen layout was a duplicate of his own, the original 1940s wooden cabinets still in place and the window framed by narrow vertical shelves with curved edges. In the corner stood a card table and two wooden folding chairs. Carey hadn’t replaced the dingy fridge and stove, which were twenty years old if they were a day.

Carey opened the door under the sink, squatted down, and extracted a rustling plastic bag. “Is this one okay? It’s clean, I’ve only had groceries in it.” Edd nodded, and they led him around the corner to the back door and down the steps to the garden plot.

A few tomatoes lay burst in the dirt, but most still hung in clusters. Without someone to pinch the suckers out, the tops of the plants had gone wild and were yellow with flowers that wouldn’t have time to fruit before the first frost. Beyond the tomatoes, the rest of the plot was lush with chickweed and plantain.

“So which should I be picking?” Carey pushed a spray of dark hair back from their pale face.

Edd squatted by the garden and tested the sun-warmed fruit with fingers and thumb. The distinctive citrusy smell of tomato foliage rose around him. He took a breath, sent up a thought of Mrs. Bianchi—wherever she might be now, if anywhere—and let it go. “If they come off the stem easily, they’re probably good to go. See, this one still has green shoulders, so I’d leave it for another few days. This one’s almost too ripe...”

The bag was a quarter-full quickly. Carey filled their hands with tomatoes that were about ready to eat, and straightened. “I can’t believe how many green ones are still left.”

“Yeah, this variety is pretty prolific. Just be grateful she didn’t plant any zucchini this year.”

“I’ll bring some more over when they’re ready. Do you think your friends would like some?”

“Ozzie and Harriet? I’m sure they’d appreciate it. And if you’re really overrun, I know some people who can’t garden like they used to and would be delighted to have some homegrown produce.”

Carey nodded as gratefully as if Edd had solved a complex problem. “Good. Am I supposed to be watering them, or fertilizing, or...something? There are a lot of boxes of stuff in the shed.” They gestured to the structure against the back fence. Mr. Bianchi had built it out of concrete blocks, and it could probably have stood duty as a tornado shelter.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. You could give them a good soaking with the hose once a week, if it doesn’t rain. And if you think you want to have a garden next year, you might want to pull those weeds.”

Carey blew out a breath. “This is all new to me.”

“Gardening? You can just let it go back to sod if you want to.”

“Having a house, let alone a yard.”

Maybe that strain around Carey’s eyes was nothing more than the panic of the new homeowner. Edd himself had ended up buying a house way before he’d thought he’d be able to; without his family’s advice it would probably have rotted away or caught fire by now, or both at the same time.

“I hear you. It’s a lot at first. But look, I know some people, if you need a plumber or a carpenter or whoever. Just let me know.”

“Thank you. I might.”

Edd recognized the done-with-this-conversation-now glance Carey gave to the house. “Thank you for these amazing tomatoes. And I mean it, let me know if you need anything or want to know where something is in town, or whatever.”

Carey gave him a quirk of the lips, something too tired to be a smile. “I will. Thank you for the cinnamon buns.”

The visit with Carey was the highlight of Edd’s day. Things went downhill after that.

He did his rounds, initially dropping off several mini trays of buns with a little chitchat and without incident. But Silvia didn’t answer his texts to buzz him into her apartment. She worked from home, and if Edd visited mid-morning she’d often take a break to dissect the neighbourhood news and help him post-mortem any recipe that had gone wrong lately. They’d taken a pie course together a few years ago, and she had a touch with pastry that Edd could only dream of. He waited for a few minutes with no reply, and decided that he could circle back around if he heard from her. She’d had a bad flare-up of her MS in the spring; he hoped she wasn’t back in the hospital.

Mr. Holtz took his tray with a surly, “At least someone cares about me,” and spent half an hour detailing the failings of his grown children, ageing siblings, and long-dead wife. Mrs. Kivela offered Edd coffee, but her version was instant made with hot water from the tap, so he politely declined.

At Mr. Barker’s house, Edd pulled into the driveway behind an unfamiliar grey hybrid sedan. As he stood at the door he could hear voices inside, but it took several minutes and two ringings of the bell before anyone came to open it.

The middle-aged woman looked as though she’d been clutching her hair, both metaphorically and physically. “Yes?”

“Hi,” Edd said. “I’m Edd O’Leary. I’m a friend of Mr. Barker’s. Is he home?”

“It’s not a good time.”

Alarm skewered Edd. “Is he all right?”

“He had a fall a few days ago. No broken bones, but he’s shaken up and bruised. He needs to rest.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Edd extended the pan of cinnamon buns. “Please give him this, and tell him I’ll drop by to see him in a few days.”

Her gaze dropped to the pan, but she didn’t take it. Her lips thinned. “So you’re the one.”

Not liking where this was going, Edd gave her his most unthreatening smile. “I’m the one what?”

The woman inhaled sharply through her nose. “Mr. O’Leary. My father is an eighty-one-year-old diabetic on a medically prescribed diet. Why are you bringing him”—she gave the pan a glare—“that?”

Edd had gotten an earful from Mr. Barker, on more than one occasion, about the meals delivered to him in weekly frozen bricks. “I didn’t think an occasional treat would do any harm.”

“I don’t think that’s your decision to make.”

“I can’t imagine how stressful caring for an elderly parent can be, but with respect,” said Edd, “it’s kind of his decision to make.”

The skin around her eyes tightened, and he saw a flash of frustration on a level close to tears before her face hardened again. “It’s my responsibility to make healthy decisions for him if he won’t do it himself. If you can’t respect that, then please stay away.” She shut the door in his face.

Edd stood on the doorstep for several more minutes, in case Mr. Barker came to see who had been at the door, but nothing else happened. He took his scorned cinnamon buns back to his car and drove home.

It was a cloudless day, and the house still held heat from the morning’s baking. Edd examined the depleted contents of his fridge and made himself a panzanella salad with some of Carey’s tomatoes and the last heel of bread. He needed to grab some groceries soon, but he didn’t feel like dealing with the Friday afternoon rush. He could probably throw some pantry staples together until the Sunday Market.

He took his lunch down to the rec room and spent the rest of the afternoon watching one of his favourite double bills, Gold Diggers of 1933 and Footlight Parade, for about the eighth time.

In the dimness and cool of the basement, Edd drifted off sometime during the swimming pool dance number and woke up around five-thirty with a plaid pattern from the old couch embossed into one cheek. At least it had faded by the time he got upstairs. He gave himself a once-over in his full-length bedroom mirror. His pink madras shirt with the silver threads and his pink-and-white-striped Bermuda shorts were a little wrinkled, but he’d managed not to get flour or glaze on them. The glittery headband he’d popped on that morning to keep his hair out of his eyes had, as per usual, left twinkles at the roots of his bangs. It was one of the reasons he liked it. He picked up the last aluminium foil pan of cinnamon buns and went out to drive over to his last stop of the day.

Three generations of the Roses lived in a two-storey brick home built a century ago on what had been abandoned scrubby farmland on the edge of the town and was now a comfortable older neighbourhood lush with perennial gardens and mature trees. Sharon lived in what had been the summer kitchen addition at the back of the house, now converted to a cute little self-contained apartment, but when Edd knocked on the front door of the main house, she was the one who answered it. She was wearing a short sapphire dress that Edd would have called flirty, and a harried look.

“Hey, how are things?” Edd asked, stepping into the front hallway and toeing off his shoes.

Sharon drew a breath in through her teeth. “Not so great,” she said in a low voice.

“Why, what’s—”

Mrs. Rose appeared like a thundercloud wearing a flowered apron in the hallway to the kitchen. “I wasn’t in labour with you for twenty-eight hours for you to walk away from me while I’m talking to you, young lady.”

“It’s Sharon, Gran,” Sharon said, enunciating with the attenuated patience of someone who had repeated the same thing several times in a short span of time. “I’m your granddaughter. Your daughter is Chrissy, my mom. She’s not here right now.”

“Is she out on a date with that boy?” Mrs. Rose demanded.

“No, Gran. She’s away on business. I’m the one going on a date.”

“Don’t go out with that boy! He’s trouble! Do you hear me?”

“Who’s trouble?” Edd asked brightly, drawing fire on Sharon’s behalf.

Mrs. Rose’s glare travelled over to Edd. “Who’s she?”

Sharon choked.

“Good evening, Mrs. Rose,” Edd said, stepping forward. “It’s Edd O’Leary. I baked cinnamon buns this morning, and I brought you some. I know you always enjoy them.” He held out the tray to her.

Something flickered behind the elderly woman’s eyes like an old Viewmaster clicking over to a new image. “Oh, Edd. Isn’t that sweet of you.”

“Gran, Edd’s going to stay with you this evening for a bit,” said Sharon.

“That’s nice of him.” Mrs. Rose clicked her tongue. “Offer our guest a glass of iced tea, Chrissy. My goodness, who raised you?”

“A glass of iced tea would be wonderful,” intercepted Edd. Mrs. Rose disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Oh my god,” Sharon said under her breath.

“Bad day?”

“She was looking at a catalogue in the shop, and she saw some model who I guess reminded her of someone and went off. Now it’s like she’s stuck in a time warp. I never know whether I should, like, stream some old sitcom and let her ride it out, or try to bring her back to reality. Some days she’s fine, or mostly fine, and then—” She made a face. “Anyway, sorry about the gross misgendering.”

“It’s fine, I know she didn’t do it on purpose. Is your date picking you up?”

“I’m meeting her at the restaurant. Thank you so much for tonight. There’s macaroni salad and sliced cucumbers and cold cuts in the fridge, and ice cream in the freezer.” Sharon ducked into the living room and came back with a black clutch purse. “I won’t be late.”

“Have a great time.”

She mimed an excited shiver. “I hope so! First date, friend of a friend who’s visiting from the city. I’m trying to keep expectations low, but god, it’s been months since I’ve been out with anyone new.”

“Yeah, Clover Hill can be a small pond.” Back when he’d been dating, Edd had mostly gone out with people he already knew and liked in one way or another. That was what came of living in a small town, and also the way he was wired. He would have said it was convenient, if any of his relationships had ever been both good and long-lasting.

“Chrissy!” Mrs. Rose yelled from the kitchen.

“I’ll get that,” Edd said, as Sharon hesitated.

“Awesome, thank you again, I am out of here.” She slipped out the door, and Edd closed it silently behind her.

He followed the hallway back to the kitchen. Mrs. Rose was standing at the counter with a wooden spoon in her hand. All of the cupboard doors were open.

“Where’s Chrissy?” Her eyes narrowed. “Is she out with that boy again?”

“No, Mrs. Rose. She’s at work.” He decided to ignore the cupboards. “Did you say something about iced tea?”

“I beg your pardon, when did I become your servant?”

“You’re absolutely right. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll get us both some.”

“Hmph.” With a glower, she sat down at the round wooden table. Edd went to the fridge for the jug of iced tea. He located a glass for himself and filled it, then topped up the almost-full glass that sat on the table in front of Mrs. Rose.

She took a deep drink. “That sure hits the spot in the summertime, doesn’t it?”

“It’s delicious.”

The little pan of buns was on the table, and she pulled it towards her. “What do we have here? Oh, cinnamon buns! Edd, you’re such a kind young man. I don’t know why no one’s snapped you up.” Her expression turned crafty. “I have a lovely granddaughter, you know.”

“I know, ma’am. I think she’s a little young for me, though.”

“Pshaw. She’s over thirty. How much longer is she going to wait? I want grandbabies when I’m still young enough to enjoy them!”

Since Sharon had just turned twenty-four, Edd assumed they were back in the time warp. Trying to argue Mrs. Rose out of it would be an exercise in defeat for everyone. “Why don’t I get us some forks and we can test how this batch of buns turned out?”

They were just scraping the last molecules of icing from their plates when Edd heard the front door open and close again. When he went out into the hallway, Sharon was there, pulling her strappy blue sandals off with some force.

“That was fast. Is everything okay?”

“I got bailed on. Via text.”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry.”

“Work emergency. Not her fault. Shit.”

“Language!” Mrs. Rose said sharply from the kitchen doorway.

“Sorry, Gran,” Sharon gritted out.

What a lousy end to Sharon’s rare evening off. “Look,” Edd said, “why don’t you take the evening for yourself anyway. Go have a meal, see what’s playing at the Hollydale—”

“Yeah, the single girl eating out alone on a Friday night, that’s super fun.”

“Binge-watch something, then?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m never going to meet anybody or get laid for the rest of my life, so I might as well get used to it. Thanks for coming over anyway, I appreciate it.”

“I told you that boy was trouble,” said Mrs. Rose darkly.

“But I’m happy to—”

“Edd, I say this with all the love in the world, go home,” Sharon said, and practically pushed him out the door.

four

The corner of the paper map flapped in the hot wind. Carey looked up the road and saw an illusory pond reflecting off the asphalt. Leaving the house had felt like going on an expedition through uncharted desert: water bottle, snack—however unappealing the idea of a granola bar washed down by tepid water might be—sunscreen, wide-brimmed hat. Now, though, they were glad they’d brought something to drink. The early morning had been comfortable in their green backyard, but walking down the sidewalk now was like being under a broiler.

They figured out which way to turn at the upcoming street and folded up the map, which had been in the envelope of coupons and pamphlets for local businesses that their real estate agent had left for them. They could always look up the route online if they got badly turned around, but Carey enjoyed using the physical versions of things.

A few minutes later, a maroon compact car glided into their field of vision and pulled up to the curb. Carey stopped walking, city-sensitized hackles going up. A head popped out of the open window. Metallic blue and green snap clips glinted in the sun.

“Hi!” said Edd O’Leary. “Where are you headed? Do you want a lift downtown?”

The thought of skipping another half hour of walking in the heat was treacherously appealing. “I’m going to the Sunday Market.”

“Us, too! I was going to suggest you check it out, but I didn’t get around to it yesterday. Come with us.”

Carey bent to look through the window. One of Edd’s friends from the other day—Harriet?—gave Carey a wave from behind the wheel. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, jump in,” Edd said.

Carey got into the back seat. Even though the windows were open and there was no air conditioning, being out of the sun was an immediate relief. “Thank you. I appreciate the lift.”

“You’re welcome,” Harriet said, glancing into the rear-view mirror. She was wearing red cat’s-eye sunglasses.

Edd swivelled in his seat. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Some local fruit, I guess. Is it too early for peaches?”

“Hmm. A little, yeah.”

“Strawberries are still around,” Harriet suggested.

“But I mean, is there anything you’re looking for after moving into your new place?” Edd asked. “Like furniture? Daugherty’s usually has a stall—that’s antiques—and Karim’s there most weeks, if you’re looking for something jazzier. He repaints old stuff, and by repaints, I mean, you have to see it to believe it.”

Unease pricked at Carey. “I’m sorry, I might be taking you out of your way. Are we talking about the market at the high school? I thought it was just a farmers’ market.”

Edd grinned. “Oh, boy. No. You’ll see.”

Like most from its era, Clover Hill High School sat like a modernist brick butte in a prairie of cracked parking lots and parched sports fields. Far from having the drowsy atmosphere of a small-town school in the middle of summer vacation, though, it was thronging with vehicles and people. If they hadn’t known better, Carey would have thought some kind of festival was going on. Canopies of all colours stood in rows across one half of the parking lot and trailed out onto the football field, the arrangement losing precision as they left the paved ground. A line of food trucks separated them from the rest of the nearly full parking lot. Carey caught a tantalizing whiff of hot grease.

Harriet cruised past the parking lot driveway and turned into another field beyond it. She drove along an existing row of cars and parked at the end. “Okay, we’re in line with...” She looked over at the houses that backed onto the school grounds. “...the United Federation of Planets flag in the upstairs window. Meet back here in, say, an hour and a half, Edd? Carey, you’re welcome to catch a ride back home if you want.”

“You’re always so efficient,” Edd commented, opening his door.

“I refuse to spend ten minutes circling the parking lot looking for a spot two minutes closer.” Harriet got out of the car and shut the door, leaving the window open a crack. She was as tall as Edd, dressed in a sleeveless navy blue shirt with white polka dots and khaki pedal pushers that might have been vintage but, from the look of the fabrics, probably weren’t. Her flawless lipstick matched the frames of her sunglasses.

“Okay, the booths in the parking lot are the ones that have been around for a while,” Edd said to Carey as they began to walk across the grass towards the market. “Most of the real farmers are there, plus the people who have stores in town, that kind of thing. You never know which food trucks are going to show up. The artists are on the far side. Once you get out on the field, things get totally random.”

“If you see something you like, grab it,” Harriet advised. “It might not be there when you come back.”

They passed the food trucks and wove up and down the parking lot stalls in what seemed to be an established route. Strawberries were in season, Carey confirmed, as well as plums and greens and epic amounts of tomatoes and zucchini. Karim’s painted furniture turned out to be riotous with colour, dots and stripes and waves and checkerboards up table legs and on the seats of chairs; not to Carey’s taste, but they could see the appeal. The antiques booth held mostly small pieces. Carey still hadn’t planned out what they needed for their front room. They’d spent most of their waking hours so far in the second bedroom, fitted out as a workroom in the efficient configuration Carey had been using for years. What did people usually have? Formal dining tables? Matched living room sets? It wasn’t as though they were expecting to do a lot of entertaining. Not for the first time, Carey went a little light-headed over the fact that they owned and were responsible for an entire house.

One booth held racks of vintage clothing. Carey quickly saw that it wasn’t their type of place at all; everything was clean, in reasonably good condition, and conscientiously labelled. Carey had no intention of spoiling anything wearable for their own creative satisfaction. There were more than enough damaged pieces in the world for them to handle.

They stepped back to join Harriet, who was waiting at the corner of the stall, and watched as Edd flicked through the racks and chatted with the fuschia-haired person staffing it. Today Edd was wearing a white eyelet shirt and a gathered sky-blue skirt. He picked out a frothy pink dress, probably someone’s cherished prom dress fifty years ago, and held it up to his body, apparently completely unselfconscious. Was his confidence natural? Carey wondered. And if not, how hard had he worked to achieve it?

“I like your shirt,” Harriet said.

It took Carey a moment to realize that Harriet was talking to them. “This? Thanks.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From the ‘free’ box at a yard sale, originally.” And if Harriet was a snob about that, there wasn’t much point in the two of them trying to be friends.

But Harriet only nodded. “Was it like that, or did you put on the patches?”

Carey plucked at one sleeve, a print of tiny red roses on white. “I was just going to scavenge the fabric, because the front had a lot of paint on it, but the shirt fit me really well, so I decided to cover the paint up.” They’d used large squares with similar designs in different colours, little green hearts and sprigs of lilac. They generally steered clear of anything that felt too girly, but on a hot day like today, the shirt was light and loose enough to make them comfortable with the flowers.

“It’s really well done. I like the way you matched the different patterns.”

“Thanks. I’ve used the same idea for some other pieces, and they sell pretty quickly.”

“You’re a designer?” Harriet’s expression morphed from polite socializing to avid interest.

“No. Not exactly. Well, as a side effect, I guess? I do visible mending on damaged textiles. A lot of the time it’s custom work, but I also mend things I pick up at thrift stores and sell them online.”

Harriet’s expression went even keener. “Only clothes? Or do you do household items as well?”

“I’ve mended a lot of moth-eaten blankets. Did you have something particular in mind?”

Carey got the impression that Harriet was hedging. “I’m an interior decorator. Sometimes people have sentimental items in bad condition.”

“Oh, I love those the most,” Carey said. “Let me give you my card.”

Harriet took it, and seemed to come to some decision. “Would you consider working on a quilt? It’s for a…friend.”

“I could certainly take a look at it,” Carey said, not missing the slight pause before friend. “You could send me some photos, but seeing the piece in person would be better.”

“Thank you. I’ll text you, and we can agree on a time for me to bring it by.”

Edd rejoined them, and the three of them continued to the end of the aisle. “That’s the yard sale district,” Edd said, pointing at what Carey thought at first were people picnicking. Most of them had blankets spread out, kitchenware and clothes and books arranged tidily or scattered with more hope than organization. “And this is the artists’ zone.”

The booths here were familiar to Carey, in type if not specifics: wire racks holding paintings and prints, folding tables laden with glazed pottery and hand-lettered greeting cards and artisan soaps and one-of-a-kind handbags.

As they got further from the parking lot, the booths got odder. One was a sculpture built of stacked wooden chairs, hung randomly with paper tags with writing on them. I hope he likes me back, Carey read on one in thick black Sharpie as they walked past. A little farther on, garlands of origami birds and stars dangled and swayed from a circular clothesline like the skeleton of an upturned umbrella; a woman was folding one out of a scrap of Christmas wrapping paper as they watched. Past that, a purple tent displayed a painting of a crystal ball on a stake beside the door.

“Not in Kansas anymore,” Edd whisper-sang, clearly delighted as Carey’s gaze swung from one side to the other.

He wasn’t just making that up. In front of them, stuck in a bucket of sand, was a pole with labelled arrows pointing in all directions. Not In Kansas Anymore was one, along with Wonderland, Abandon All Hope, Magic 8 Ball Says, and several others.

“Is it an art gallery?” Carey asked. Unlike in the artists’ zone, few people seemed to be selling things.

“More like a shared delusion,” Harriet muttered.

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Edd said expansively.

“It’s a small town. People make their own fun,” said Harriet, deadpan.

By the time they reached the end of the row, Carey had been offered a tarot reading with something called the Clover Hill Spirits Deck, as well as free face painting from a man with butterflies drawn on both cheeks. “Is it like this every week?”

“Just July and August. People get tired of it after a while.”

“Then they start getting ready for Halloween,” said Harriet.

Carey turned to look back at the colourful chaos. “If I wanted to have a booth, where would I apply for a permit?”

“Permit? You don’t need no stinking permit,” Edd misquoted cheerfully. “Just show up and find a spot on the lawn.”

They headed down the next aisle. As they passed an installation of wind chimes made of scavenged objects, a vaguely familiar voice reached Carey over the tinkle of beach glass and silver cutlery.

“Art is life, life is chance! Spin the wheel and take your chance on art! Fortune may come, and money may go! Try the wheel and test your luck!”

“How’s business?” Edd asked as they came up to Ozzie, who was wearing a top hat and striped vest like a carnival barker. He was standing beside a multicoloured lottery wheel. Behind him, a table made of a door set on two sawhorses supported several plastic bins.

“Middling. The tourists haven’t finished brunch yet.” Ozzie’s gaze fixed on Carey. “Carey, right? Care for a spin?”

“Don’t pun at my neighbour, Ozzie, it’s their first time,” Edd said.

Carey looked at the wheel, reading the writing on a few of the coloured wedges. Truth or dare didn’t sound like much of a prize, and they weren’t all that sure about Ozzie serenades you either. They looked at Edd, who gave them a reassuring nod. “How much is a spin?”

Ozzie gave Carey a bow. “A free spin for the new in town.”

“Every spin is free,” Harriet said. “At first.”

An Indian woman wearing a tie-dyed halter sundress stopped beside them. “Hi, Ozzie. I’ll take a turn.”

“We have a customer!” Ozzie stepped back, and she gave the wheel a push. It clicked through its sections, slowed like a dying clock, and stopped on a magenta wedge.

“Okay, Nilima, that’s a five-dollar donation to the Fairview County Queer Youth Revolutionary Writing Circle,” Ozzie said. Nilima pulled some bills from the pocket of her dress and handed one to Ozzie with a smile, then said goodbye and went on down the aisle.

Hoping for magenta or something like it, Carey stepped up to the wheel. It was heavier than they had expected. When they let go of it, it spun in a few leisurely turns and landed on a blue wedge.

“We have a winner! Blue gets you...” Ozzie plucked a bag out of one of the bins without looking at it. “...a handmade talisman bracelet.”

The plastic bag he handed Carey contained a square of newspaper text encased in clear vinyl and strung on a green elastic cord. The word find was coloured with a highlighter pen that matched the elastic.

“Beginner’s luck. I’ve never won any jewellery,” Edd complained.

“Then put your money where your mouth is, O’Leary.”

As Edd gave the wheel a whirl, Carey opened the bag and put the bracelet onto their left wrist. Find settled against their skin. It felt like an omen, or a promise.

“The wheel has spoken,” Ozzie intoned. “A two-dollar donation to the food bank.”

Shaking his head, Edd took a zippered pouch out of the pocket of his skirt and handed Ozzie two ones. “Someday I am going to win one of those paper bead necklaces.”

“That reminds me,” Ozzie said. “Harriet, you know those quotation bracelets you made a few years ago? They were really popular. Any chance you could whip up some more of those?”

The atmosphere went a little tense. Carey didn’t understand why, but felt their shoulders tighten.

“I told you,” Harriet said, “I don’t have time.”

“Even a couple dozen. Please, Harriet, it’s been a busy summer and I’m running out of prizes.” He swung the wheel back and forth so that it made a ticking sound. “The queer youth are counting on us to fund their zines.”

“Then I’ll give them twenty bucks for printer paper,” Harriet said, sounding exasperated.

“You know it’s fun—”

“Ozzie, I swear to god,” Harriet said, and walked—didn’t quite stalk—away.

“Huh,” Ozzie said. He turned the other way and addressed an approaching family. “Spin the wheel and take your chance!”

“See you, Ozzie,” Edd said.

“Yeah. Enjoy the market!” Ozzie said to Carey, and then one of the kids in the family was stepping up to the wheel, and Carey followed Edd away.

“Would you mind if I asked a question?” Carey said.

“Shoot.”

“Are Ozzie and Harriet a couple?” Carey hadn’t been able to identify the vibes between them. Not that Carey was particularly competent at that sort of thing, as it had turned out.

Edd seemed to consider. “I’d call it a platonic soulmate open relationship. You wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell, because Ozzie doesn’t have an off switch, and exasperation is Harriet’s love language.” He pursed his lips. “Though to tell the truth, usually she’d stay and bicker.”

They reached the fruit and vegetable stalls again. The market was getting more crowded now. People walked past with quart baskets of plums, cherries, tiny cucumbers. At the stall next to them, a man was handing out marble-sized balls of watermelon on toothpicks. Edd took one and, automatically, so did Carey.

“That is summer right there,” Edd said, closing his eyes in satisfaction.

The ball of fruit popped gently as Carey bit down on it, more sweet juice than flesh. As soon as they swallowed it, their mouth watered. The sensation had become unfamiliar enough that they had to think to identify it: hunger for more.

“Six dollars, your pick,” said the vendor, gesturing into the huge cardboard box stacked full of green spheroids.

“That’s a lot of watermelon,” Edd said. “I’d never finish one before it went bad.”

They were the regular size, large enough for a family picnic, not the little spherical ones. “Do you want to split one?” Carey asked on impulse. “I mean, only if you want to. It’s fine if you don’t.”

“That is a fantastic idea.” Edd turned the nearest few over. He hefted one and tapped it with his knuckles.

“You want to check its teeth too, O’Leary?” the vendor asked, and winked at Carey.

“Hush your face. My reputation is at stake, here.”

“They’re all good.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The vendor took a few steps away to offer samples to some new customers. Carey took the opportunity to ask, “What are you looking for?”

Edd’s hands moved over the watermelon as if he were displaying a show cat. “Good dark green stripes, dry stem, sounds hollow when you knock on it.”

“All that matters? I always just bought one the size I wanted.”

He looked at Carey in mock dismay. “Tell me you’ve never had a good watermelon without telling me you’ve never had a good watermelon.” He put the fruit on the ground, and they each fished for bills in pockets and wallets and handed them to the vendor.

“Do you need help with that?” Carey asked. “I have a cloth bag.”

“Nah, I’m fine.” He bounced it in his arms. “But let’s take this back to the car. I usually buy some vegetables, but once you commit to a watermelon you’re kind of done.”

Carey winced. Stupid impulsiveness. “Sorry. Let me carry it, and you can go get what you want.”

Edd looked at them and tilted his head. “It’s not a problem, seriously. I can hit the grocery store tomorrow. I’m more excited about eating watermelon for dinner.”

Carey followed him back to the car, where Harriet was already sitting in the front seat with the door open. “Pop the trunk?” Edd asked, resting the watermelon on the back bumper.

Harriet pulled a lever by her feet. “Did you enjoy the market?” she asked Carey.

“It was interesting.” It wasn’t a lie, but as much as Carey had appreciated Edd and Harriet’s company, they were ready to be alone and at home.

Harriet smiled. “It does take some getting used to. You can also just come for the produce and the apple fritter truck, and ignore all the other nonsense.”

Edd closed the trunk. “Just so you know for next time, if you don’t feel like engaging with Ozzie, the best thing to do is to smile and keep walking.”

Carey touched the bracelet, snug on their wrist. “I liked his booth. And the face painter and the woman with the origami, and all of it. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“Awesome. You’re going to love Halloween.”

Harriet dropped them off at the end of Edd’s driveway. He hoisted the watermelon up onto one shoulder. “How about I take this out to my backyard with a cutting board and a very large cleaver, and I’ll bring your half over later? Probably around one-ish? Give you time to have lunch and relax a bit.”

Carey nodded, wondering how desperately they looked like they needed to unwind. Edd gave them a wave with his free hand and headed up to his front door.

Once inside, Carey stood in their hallway, letting the balm of quiet sink into them. The living room’s off-white walls and caramel-coloured parquet floor held the space like cupped hands. Carey had never had such a luxury of space to themself before. Still, on a day like today it would be nice to have a couch to collapse onto for a nap. Something in a deep red, with a broad back to drape a blanket over so it was close to hand for when the evenings got cool.

Carey went into their bedroom. The furnishings were simple in here too, the wooden cannonball-post bed they’d inherited from a great-aunt angling out from the corner to take centre stage. Carey lay down on the crocheted coverlet. They already loved this room, with its warmth and space. But it seemed ridiculous to have a house and spend all their time in the bedroom, even if the alternative was to sit on the living room’s hard floor.

At that thought, they rolled their eyes at themself. As if they didn’t have everything they needed to make the cushiest floor going.

The house’s closets were small, but just wide enough for the Rubbermaid containers in which Carey stored stock awaiting attention and sale. There was a brisk market in secondhand Hudson Bay and Pendleton blankets, and once Carey had finished with them, they were quickly snapped up. Everything Carey had on hand right now was past its best days: moth-chewed, stained, thin in the middle, ragged at the edges.

The top container was nearly full, and Carey lugged it out to the living room. After some thought they turned it upside down against the wall, with all of its contents stacked on top to make a thick platform to sit on. While not as big as a couch, with a pillow behind their back it was a comfortable spot. And it would be easy to move so they could either follow or avoid the shifting rectangle of sunlight coming through the front windows throughout the afternoon. It made the room feel a little more as though they lived there.

Edd showed up when promised. He didn’t stay to talk, just handed Carey their half of the watermelon, encased in plastic wrap. “I was right, it’s a good one.”

Carey could smell the open fruit, cool and fragrant. The scent gave them that feeling again, actual hunger, anticipation of pleasure. It put a catch in their breath, just for a moment. Pleasure still seemed a risky thing to want, too far out of their unskilled grasp.

They took the watermelon into the kitchen to address the prosaic problem of how to cut it. Even halved, it was still a lot to deal with. First they tried to hack off a slice with the cheap chef’s knife that was among the few cooking tools they’d brought with them. When it stuck partway through the tough rind, they decided that that was a bad idea, and managed to wriggle it out before severing any fingers or destroying the kitchen counter.

Edd clearly had a good knife. What if Carey asked him— Carey immediately quashed the thought. Edd was very friendly, but even he wasn’t going to appreciate being bugged yet again by a useless new neighbour who didn’t own grown-up accoutrements like cars or decent kitchen knives. Maybe Carey could pick the watermelon up and throw it down the basement stairs to crack open on the concrete, like their great-aunt had once legendarily done with a hard winter squash she couldn’t cut through. Except Carey wasn’t sure the basement floor was in a state they’d be comfortable eating off of. Could one wash pieces of watermelon?

Carey sighed. Maybe they’d just put it in the fridge and go out tomorrow to spend some money on kitchen gear. Except that they wanted watermelon now, and they could hardly just shovel into it with a spoon.

Wait. Why not? It was their own damn boat-sized half-watermelon. They could do whatever they wanted with it. It wasn’t like anyone else was here with a right to complain.

Carey marched over to the cutlery drawer and pulled out one of the mismatched spoons their mother had dug up from her crawl space storage, the remnants of the set Carey had grown up with. They put the watermelon on the kitchen table, tore off the plastic wrap, and dug the spoon into the fruit’s reddest, sweetest centre.

When their phone rang, they swallowed and hit the Accept button.

“Hi! Just checking in,” Kennedy said. Green blurred behind her; she was probably in the hammock out back of her house. “What is that? What on earth are you doing?”

“Eating a watermelon.” Carey brandished the spoon.

“A whole watermelon?”

“Half.” Carey lifted the phone so that it hovered, drone-like, above their lunch. “I split it with my neighbour.”

Kennedy took a sip from a red straw. “Ooh, is this the cinnamon bun neighbour?”

“Yes. Don’t give me those eyebrows, Denny.”

“Okay, I’m just going to say, if you felt like dipping your toe back into the dating pool anytime soon, your cute neighbour who brings you cinnamon buns would not be a bad place to start.”

“I didn’t say he was cute,” Carey said, and immediately felt oddly disloyal.

“Tch. He wears dresses, how can he not be cute?”

Carey felt their cheeks heat. “Fine, but it is not relevant, because we have known each other for less than a week and and I don’t know what team he plays on, if any, and I don’t care how cute he is, my toes are not—they’re staying in my—look, I don’t want to talk about dating, okay?”

“Okay, gotcha. How’s the new place?”

“I got my workroom set up. The bigger bedroom is perfect for it. The window’s right over the table where I like it.”

“Great, but do you have any actual furniture for your actual life? What do you do, sit on the floor? Carey! Just go get a shitty divorce couch from Ikea like everybody else.”

Carey tipped a watermelon seed out of the spoon onto a square of paper towel. “I want to wait until I see one I like.”

“And then use it until it’s falling apart.”

“Yes, exactly. It’s almost as if you’ve met me.”

They chatted for a while longer. After Kennedy hung up, Carey wiped down the kitchen table, chasing a few slippery seeds onto the floor. Then they went into the living room and settled onto the blankets with their current project, darning holes in a dark grey sweater with rainbow-variegated yarn.

Their bracelet’s square of laminated paper scraped its edge against the fabric as Carey worked, capturing their attention. Find. Carey knew it wasn’t an omen—probably all of the bracelets had words chosen to sound meaningful—but keeping it felt like crossing their fingers anyway.

The morning had been fun. Tagging along with people who already knew each other had felt completely comfortable: no need for small talk or pressure to be interesting. Edd had clearly enjoyed showing off the market, and whatever had been going on with Harriet, she’d been perfectly welcoming to Carey.

Making friends with your neighbours sounded like a small-town fantasy, but maybe it was possible. Cup-of-sugar borrowing, extra-food exchanging, tool-lending friends, if nothing else.

And there was going to be nothing else. Edd was cute, and more than that, he was kind. He was considerate. He was friendly. And he was probably exactly like that with everybody he met. And a guy like that more than likely already had whatever boyfriend/girlfriend/datefriend/hot random lay he was interested in.

And Carey had no business getting involved with anyone.

Anyway, there were plenty of other things to occupy themself with. The mortgage wasn’t going to pay itself. Carey put on a podcast, and got lost in their work.

five

In the backyard of the house in which Ozzie and Harriet lived—formally named the Angel Nishikawa Artists’ Co-op, and referred to almost invariably as the Circus—was a twenty-foot-tall plum tree. It flowered lavishly every spring, but bore fruit about one year in three. This was apparently the year, Edd found, coming out of his front door on Monday morning to find a grocery bag stuffed with purple plums sitting on his doorstep.

He hauled the bag back inside and triaged the fruit. He’d had nothing planned for the day except maybe procrastinating about mowing the lawn; digging out his plum ginger crumble recipe was definitely more appealing.

After filling two large baking pans and popping them into the oven, he still had about fifteen pounds of plums to find something to do with. He washed some and put them into the wooden bowl on the counter, where they’d be in his sight the next time he went rummaging for something to eat. Then he contemplated the rest of the bag.

He could take some to his neighbour. He wouldn’t have thought twice if it had been Mrs. Bianchi. But he’d run into Carey several times already in the week since they’d moved in, and he didn’t want to become the overly friendly neighbour who wouldn’t leave them alone. They looked a little skittish, generally speaking, and Edd suspected that Carey was way over on the opposite end from him on the introversion-extroversion scale.

Instead, he put the rest of the fruit in the fridge for future consideration and did the dishes while the crumble baked. He packed some trays. Then he put his red-and-white-striped bib apron with shoulder ruffles on over his white T-shirt and knee skirt—it was a vintage find, and he certainly didn’t cook in it—and went visiting.

Silvia was at home this time, and she answered the door glowing like someone with great news and trying to be casual about it.

“Hey, Silvia, what’s new?”

“I sold my book!” She did a seated dance in her wheelchair.

“That’s fantastic!” Edd returned her high five.

“Yeah, I guess years of writing fanfic in math class paid off. Who got an advance in the low four figures? This girl!”

“Awesome! Have some congratulatory dessert.”

Silvia held the pan up to her nose and took a deep sniff. “This smells amazing. Thank you so much. I’m sorry I missed you the other day. I choked on a cracker and couldn’t stop coughing and ended up spending half the day in the ER, so that was some bullshit.” She rolled backwards and gestured towards the couch. “What’s up with you?”

Edd sat down. “The new person moved into Mrs. Bianchi’s house.”

“Ooh. Kids? Dogs?”

“No kids, no dogs. Just one person.”

“Do you happen to know if they’re a barista? Reuben’s looking for someone to fill in when Laverne goes on mat leave.”

“I don’t know what they do.” Carey didn’t seem to have a nine-to-five job, but it was certainly possible that they’d taken moving week off.

“Well, if they’re looking for a writers’ group or a paralegal, send them my way.”

It took Edd another few hours to drop off the rest of the trays. He contemplated stopping by his parents’, but in the spring both his mom and his dad had confidentially asked him not to bring them so many delicious treats, each citing the other’s increasing age, future health, and lack of willpower; he wasn’t sure whether a fruit dessert would pass muster. He caught Mrs. Reid just as she was on her way out on her daily walk, poles in hand. Mr. Holtz had fifteen minutes’ worth of things to say about drug companies and cellphone towers. Edd did accept Mrs. Kivela’s offer of coffee, though it went down like sweetened dishwater and he regretted it later.

There were garbage bags in a tidy row out front of Mr. Barker’s house, and a For Sale sign on the lawn. No one answered the front door when Edd knocked. The only car in the driveway was Mr. Barker’s yellow 1964 Ford Mustang convertible, safe under the carport as it had been for the entire time Edd had known him.

Edd got back into his own car and sat there for a while. The scent of ginger and warm sugar hung cloyingly in the overly warm air. He wondered whether Mr. Barker would be moving into an assisted living place in Clover Hill—maybe Cherryville Cottages, where Edd knew a few elderly residents—or if his daughter was taking him somewhere else. Edd wondered whether he would ever again be allowed cinnamon buns or cheeseburgers or Mexican hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. He hoped Mr. Barker would be able to keep his photograph albums and shelves of model cars.

It wasn’t the first time one of his people had moved, or died. Edd struggled to be philosophical about it, but the change always stung. It was hard to accept that no matter how much care you put in, life often came down to this: a room in an institution or someone else’s house, or just so many black plastic garbage bags waiting on a curb.

Being refused a chance to say goodbye smarted worst of all. As if neither his nor Mr. Barker’s feelings mattered, because one of them wouldn’t be around for much longer.

Edd dug in his glove compartment for a notepad and pencil. He jotted down a message and his address, both physical and email. He ripped the page carefully out, folded it, and walked up the driveway to drop it into the mailbox.

One large pan was earmarked for the Circus, which was only fair. Besides, now Edd felt like having some noisy company. He drove over and pulled into the small parking lot beside the three-storey mansion, which had been designed to be imposing and remained impressive for somewhat different reasons. Angel Nishikawa had bought the then-decrepit pile of bricks for a song back in the Seventies and started the commune that had evolved into the artists’ co-op it was today. Several generations of artists had taken the bourgeois pretensions of the Italianate architecture as a challenge.

Edd walked under the arbour, which contained painted tiles of fauns and nymphs enjoying one another’s company, and followed the path of stepping stones inlaid with everything from broken crockery to rusting horseshoes. There was a rocket ship on the back balcony today; papier mâché or working model was hard to tell at this distance. New strings of something shiny dangled from the roof brackets on the third floor, catching the sun.

Edd went in through the back door, which hadn’t been locked in living memory. It opened directly into the kitchen, a room made of windows with three refrigerators, four stoves, and a wall of cupboards. He put the tray down on the woodblock island in the centre of the room.

“Oh!” Violet stopped in the hall doorway, holding at least seven dirty mugs by their handles, a Gothy domestic goddess in a bright pink kimono. “Hi, Edd.”

“Sorry if I startled you.”

“No big deal, I just thought I was the only one around.” She crossed to the dishwasher and began lining up the mugs on the top rack. “If you’re looking for Ozzie, he’s out. I think he’s helping someone clear out an attic or something.”

“I didn’t know that was today. Is Harriet in?”

“She had to go into the city again.” Violet closed the dishwasher and sniffed at the tray. “What did you make?”

“Plum ginger crumble.”

Violet recoiled. “Ginger gives me hives.”

Had he known that? He probably should have. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ve all eaten plums up to our eyeballs anyway.”

“Okay.” Edd looked at the tray. “I guess I’ll put it in the fridge.”

“Sure, why not.” She filled up the kettle at the sink, then took her phone out of a pocket of her kimono and started scrolling through it.

One of the fridges was for communal dishes and free food. Edd had to play some Tetris to fit the tray in. He left a message for Ozzie and Harriet in their group text, and headed out.

His stomach was growling by the time he got home. Edd grabbed a spoon and headed down to the basement. The classic movies streaming service had just posted a Charlie Chaplin retrospective, and while the Little Tramp stumbled into bad luck and out of it again, Edd sat by himself and ate plum crumble out of the tray. Just like lonely Mr. Holtz, he thought.

Of course that was silly. He knew too many people, not to mention had too many siblings, to end up alone. And even if it came to that, he could well afford a room at Cherryville Cottages, where he could play bingo and gossip with the staff and order trays of Flakey Breaky Hearts’ kouign-amann for all the residents like he was buying a round for the bar. He wasn’t going to have offspring who would deny him desserts and throw away all his stuff. Not at the rate he was going, anyway.

But it would be nice to come home to a house that wasn’t silent, once in a while. To have someone to cook dinner for or talk the day over with, or sit in the dark and watch a movie with for the fourth time. Maybe he should think about getting a roommate again. Esteban hadn’t worked out, but admittedly, after the searing itemization of his faults that Shaun had proffered before dumping him, Edd hadn’t been in the best state to be sharing his space anyway.

Edd shook his head at himself and put the empty tray down on the carpet. Ever since he’d felt the relief of accepting the way he was regardless of how it made other people think of him, he’d tried not to hide things from himself. He’d pressed pause on dating since Shaun, because he hadn’t been in a place to be good for anyone else. But what he wanted wasn’t a roommate. He wanted someone to share and build his life with. Someone whose quirks he would put up with as an act of loyalty, because they were worth it. Someone to be intimate with, when he knew them well enough to feel comfortable with it. Someone who would be a friend, but also more.

On the screen, Paulette Goddard, in a straw hat with a very fetching satin bow tied under her chin, walked arm in arm with Charlie Chaplin down the dawn highway. Edd, only partly consoled with slapstick and sugar, turned off the TV and went upstairs to mow the lawn.

* * *

When Ozzie rolled up on Thursday, Edd opened the back door of the car as per usual before he noticed that the front passenger seat was empty. “Where’s Harriet?” he asked, settling into the front.

“She’s on that job up in Baymill again,” Ozzie said glumly.

It had been a while since any of them had missed a Thursday morning. “That sure has been taking up a lot of her time.”

Ozzie was quiet for an uncharacteristic period of time as he cruised away from the curb. “Has she seemed weird to you lately?”

“A little?” Edd recalled Harriet’s truncated question in the tea shop. What would you think if—

“I think her day job’s bad for her.”

“Really? I thought she loved it.” Harriet called herself a decorator, but she had a genius for looking at the stuff someone already owned—the cluttered end tables, the hutches and heavy bookcases left where they’d been dropped on moving day, the mismatched furniture banished to the rec room—and rearranging it with panache and a new eye. She’d made stylish sense of Edd’s mishmash of vintage finds, turning his house from a jumble into a home.

“She might be having a creative crisis.”

“Did she say that? I know she kind of blew you off at the Sunday Market, but—”

“She hasn’t made art in months!” Ozzie burst out, as if it were a secret he could no longer keep.

As close a friend as Ozzie was, Edd was never going to fully understand the whole artist thing. “Is that a big deal? Maybe work’s her creative outlet right now.”

“No, I mean she doesn’t make art any more. She doesn’t get out her sketchbook. She’s barely touched the set of markers I gave her for Christmas. Something’s going on and she won’t talk to me about it.”

Edd’s heart sank a little. That didn’t sound like Harriet. She wasn’t all-colour-commentary, all-the-time like Ozzie, but she was always straightforward. “Have you asked her?”

“Every time I try to bring it up, she says everything’s fine. She’s getting kind of grouchy about it, too.”

That wasn’t exactly unprecedented in people’s interactions with Ozzie, though Harriet had always been good at making her boundaries stick with him. “Maybe you should give her some space. She’ll talk about it when she’s ready.”

“But how can I make it better if I don’t know what it is?”

“Oswald,” Edd said severely.

“What?”

Edd raised an eyebrow.

After a moment, Ozzie sighed. “Fine, fine, okay. I will back off. But I don’t have to be happy about it.”

They found a parking spot downtown in front of the Garage. “I need to pick up my dry cleaning,” Edd said. “I’ll catch up with you.”

He walked down the street to Rose’s and waited his turn while someone dropped off an armload of shirts. “Hey, Sharon. How’s it going?”

“It’s good. Uh...” Sharon wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry I was a little bitchy last Friday. I appreciate you coming over to stay with Gran, I really do.”

“Don’t worry about it. Nobody likes getting stood up.” Edd handed over the ticket. “It’s the flowered suit.”

“Oh, right.” Her expression wasn’t encouraging. She ducked behind the curtain and came out with the suit on one of the recyclable cardboard hangers she’d introduced when she’d taken over the business. “Phil did his best, but we couldn’t get the stain completely out. I’m sorry.” She laid the suit over the counter. The stain was paler but still visible, like a blush behind the darker flowers.

“Rats. Oh, well, it was worth a shot.”

“You could try this.” Sharon came out from behind the counter and plucked a card off of the bulletin board. “They’re new in town, and I can’t vouch for them, but there’s some cool-looking work on their website.”

The card was simple and white, with two colourful illustrations—a multi-hued wool darn and a red and blue plaid cloth patch—beside a name and contact information.

“Carey Dern? That’s my new neighbour!”

“Small town,” Sharon said.

“No kidding.” Edd felt himself smiling. He tucked the card into his pocket, and left to wait for a gaggle of tourists to finish taking selfies with Ozzie’s art project on wheels before he could stash the suit in the car.

“So I found out what Carey does,” he told Ozzie on the way home. “They mend clothes. Sharon gave me their card. I love that about living here. People talk about how claustrophobic small towns are, everybody getting into everybody else’s business, but I like how interconnected things are. I can shop at my friends’ stores and hire my neighbours, and somebody’s always giving away garden produce or ready to make a swap for something, you know? It’s great.”

Ozzie raised three fingers off the steering wheel to wiggle them at Paxton’s silver Honda in the oncoming lane. “Carey’s your new neighbour?”

“Yeah. We keep running into each other. You’re still okay if I invite them to Sunday Dinner, right? They’ve met you and Harriet, so it won’t be all strangers.”

“Yeah, bring them along,” Ozzie said. “I wonder if they’d be interested in contributing to The Project.”

“You could ask. I get a good vibe off them, but they’re kind of hard to read. I get the feeling that they’ve been through something. And they seem pretty shy. Oh, I should ask them if they have any allergies. I wonder if they’re a vegetarian. It would be nice to have another one around. But I don’t want them to think they have to prepare a huge dish or anything. I don’t even know if they cook. Should I ask them over to help make a lasagna or something? That would be fun, and a good way to get to know them better. As long as they don’t think I’m creeping on them. But we had fun at the market. They gave me some of Mrs. Bianchi’s tomatoes, did I tell you?”

Ozzie stopped the car in front of Edd’s house. He turned the key in the ignition, and the car purred down into silence. “Edmund.”

Edd paused in the act of reaching into the back seat for the suit. “What?” Ozzie pursed his lips. “What?”

“I’m just going to remind you at this juncture what your relationship catnip consists of.”

Edd pulled the suit into his lap. “What are you talking about?”

“I am talking about your new neighbour who looks like they could do with a bit of tender loving care and feeding up.”

“What, Carey?” Showing off the Sunday Market to them had been fun, and it was nice to have another close neighbour around his own age, but— “Ozzie, we just met. They’re new to town, and I’m being friendly. There’s nothing romantic about being friendly with my neighbour.”

Ozzie shook his head. “We have swum these muddy waters before, Edd. And it starts with you getting flustered.”

“I am not flustered.”

“You’re a little flustered, O’Leary.”

Edd cracked the door open. “You’ve been breathing printer fumes, Kovacic.”

Ozzie turned to face him. “For serious now, Edd. Remember that saying about not setting yourself on fire to keep other people warm?”

Ozzie had had a front row seat for just how deeply Shaun had twisted him up at the end. “I hear you.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Ozzie said, turning on the ignition. “But be kind to yourself if I’m right, okay?”

Edd clambered out of the car, the suit slung over his back. Then he leaned forward to speak through the open window. “Thank you, but you’re wrong.”

“Yeah, yeah, tell it to the judge,” Ozzie said, and taxied away from the curb.

Edd gave Ozzie a full-armed wave and, to demonstrate to himself how wrong Ozzie had been, refrained from looking over at Carey’s house for the entire walk up his driveway.

six

When Carey answered the door on Saturday, Harriet peered at them around the edge of a large ziploc bag. “Is this still a good time?”

“Yes, please come in.”

Harriet did so, and kicked off her espadrilles. “This is lovely. It’s so spacious.” She put the bag down on the bare floor.

Of course to an interior designer the room must look like a student squat, with the blankets folded against the wall and the last few moving boxes still stacked in the corner of the dining room. “I know it’s a little bleak right now. Would you like to sit down? I can get a chair from the kitchen.”

“No, I’m fine.” Harriet smiled at them. “I mean it. Mrs. Bianchi had wall-to-wall cabinets with about ten thousand china figurines. You could hardly move in here. Seeing it this way is restful.”

Carey felt their shoulders come down a little from around their ears. “I like it this way too. Now, let me see what you’ve brought.” They knelt and worked the quilt out of the plastic bag. “Did you say it was for a friend?”

“Yes.” Harriet went unexpectedly pink. “My, um. My girlfriend, actually.”

“Does she store it in this?”

“For now. She used to have it on her bed, but she was afraid of doing more damage to it.”

Carey sniffed at the dull brown fabric with the faded pink flowers. No mustiness, thankfully. “It’s not a great idea to store textiles in plastic bags. You can get mould, and that’s the worst problem to have.”

Harriet sat tailor-fashion on the floor. “Doesn’t it keep out the moths?”

“Moths can crawl in through any tiny hole. You’re better off folding textiles in acid-free tissue paper and shaking them out once a month or so.”

Carey unrolled the quilt with care, feeling the percolating emotion that the first view of a job always gave them, the Christmas-morning sense of possibility. Every piece had—maybe a soul was going too far, but a personality, something born of its origin and use. When the top of the quilt was revealed in all its flawed glory, Carey felt themself inhale. “Oh my goodness, look at it.”

“I know it’s a bit of a wreck.”

“No, no, it’s beautiful. It’s amazing.”

Whoever had made the quilt by hand might have had a nine-patch design in mind, and the grid was evident enough to keep it from chaos. But within that grid, inventiveness reigned. Cotton prints abounded, but between them were sandwiched cigar band stripes, the ends of silk ties, the embroidered corners of handkerchiefs, a crocheted doily, a deep blue ribbon that still read Fairview County Livestock and Poultry Show in cracked golden ink.

“Do you know who made it?” Carey asked.

“Her great-grandmother.”

Carey passed a hand tenderly over a mess of silk threads. The more they looked, the more they saw, both detail and damage. A few fabrics had rotted, exposing grey wool batting underneath. Seams had failed. Small ragged holes betrayed where moths had had a meal, plastic bag or no. The coverlet had been hand-tied, not quilted, and there were holes where some of the ties seemed to have been yanked out. There were dark spots across one corner, maybe the tail end of a spray from a coffee cup from someone’s breakfast in bed. The quilt had been well loved, and it bore the scars.

“How much work I do depends on what you’re looking for,” Carey said. “If your girlfriend wants to hang this on the wall as it is, I could sew a pocket on the back to put a dowel through. If she wants to keep using it as a quilt, I’d suggest doing more patching, so it’s sturdier and can stand up to more use.”

“How would you patch it? Do you look for matching fabrics?”

Carey’s fingertip traced an embroidered butterfly, possibly the remnant of a pillowcase. “I do have some vintage scraps from this era, but...” The square beside it was a pale green organdy that made Carey think of white gloves and garden parties. “If these pieces were all meaningful, I don’t know if adding to them would feel right.”

Harriet petted a strip of threadbare velveteen. “I wouldn’t have thought of that, but I think you’re right. I know her great-grandmother collected pieces for years before she made the quilt. I’d ask her, but I secretly snuck it out of her closet. It’s going to be a gift for when we—for something we’re planning.”

“Sometimes, with a unique piece like this, I use a neutral colour for the mends, like off-white or light grey. That way, it’s clear what was original and what’s been added. This is such a personal work of art, I wouldn’t want to—oh, I recognize this one!” With a jolt of excitement, Carey leaned over to touch a patch of white Scotty dogs on navy blue. “That’s a flour sack print.”

“What’s that?”

“Flour used to be sold in large cotton bags. During the Depression, women started using the fabric to make clothes and household textiles, because it was free. So the manufacturers started printing colourful patterns on the bags, and flour sack dresses became a thing. I think this might be one too.” Carey poked at green and red and blue dandelion puffs on a white background. “Did your girlfriend’s great-grandmother grow up on a farm?”

“I don’t know. I could ask.”

“And this rabbit might be a Betsy Dean iron-on transfer, they were very popular.” Carey sat back on their heels, trying to take in all the detail at once. “I might be able to find out more about some of these fabrics. There’s a whole community of collectors online.”

“So you think it’s worth mending?”

“Yes, of course. It’s an absolute masterpiece. It would be a crime to let it deteriorate.” Carey heard their own words echo against the hard surfaces of the room, and winced internally. “Um. Please forget I said that. I tend to get carried away sometimes. Your friend can do whatever she wants to with it, including leaving it as is.”

Harriet smiled again. “Don’t worry about it. I live with a bunch of artists. I know how they get.”

“Oh, no, I’m not an artist,” Carey said, flattered but embarrassed. “There are fibre artists who do incredible things with vintage textiles, but I’m not one of them. I just mend things.”

“If you say so. But I like that you’re so passionate about it. This quilt has a lot of sentimental value, and I wouldn’t hand it over to just anyone.”

“I’d love to work on it,” Carey said. “But—” This was another hard part of the job. “But I’m afraid it won’t be cheap.”

“I understand. Good custom work never is.” Harriet pushed herself up off the floor. “How about this: I’ll leave it with you for a few days, and I’ll think about what my budget is and text you. Then you can let me know how much work it will cover, and we can go from there.”

“That sounds fair.”

Carey saw Harriet out, then returned to the living room. Their fingers itched to start mapping everything that made up the quilt, but that was getting ahead of things. They should start with a thorough condition report, documenting what really needed attention and what could be put aside if necessary. That would be the sensible and businesslike thing to do.

Carey’s eye was immediately caught by a red-and-white-striped square with an appliquéd heart. It reminded them of something, but—

Someone knocked at the front door. Puzzled, Carey looked up. A delivery, maybe? They went to the window and peeked out at the front stoop. Their neighbour stood there, holding something on a coat hanger. Carey opened the front door. “Hi.”

“Hi!” Edd said. Today he was wearing a full-skirted sundress in light green and blue plaid, trimmed with white rickrack. His hair was held out of his eyes by a white headband embroidered with daisies. As always, he looked cool and comfortable, and as if his clothing had been designed just for him. “Do you have a few minutes?”

“Of course.” Carey gestured him in, trying to get a glimpse at what he was carrying.

“I picked up your business card at Rose’s. You work with clothing, right?”

“Yes, mending. I don’t do alterations. That’s a whole other skill set.”

“No, that’s great, mending’s what I’m looking for.” Edd swung the coat hanger around so Carey could see what was on it: a suit, the fabric printed with dramatic scarlet flowers on a pale pink background.

“What a fantastic suit.” Carey looked closer, and the pink resolved into a washed-out stain across the entire front of the jacket. “Oh, dear.”

“It’s a lot better than it was, but Rose’s couldn’t get the stain out completely. Do you think you can do something with it?”

Just the sight of it gave Carey the incipient buzz of another professional challenge. “Possibly. Why don’t you come in and let me take a good look at it?”

Carey took the hanger from Edd and went into the kitchen, where they spread the jacket out on the table to examine it. It was unlined, not unusual for a linen summer suit, and made by someone who had known what they were doing. Carey didn’t recognize the label; it might be a small designer, or even bespoke. “Where did you get it?”

“I found it for a song at Kreg’s.”

“The thrift store?” Carey stood back to get an idea of the stain’s scope. “At least whoever it was didn’t just throw it in the garbage. I hope that stain was the result of too good a time.”

Edd laughed, sounding a little surprised. “I know, right?”

“Can you put it on so I have an idea of how it hangs on you?”

Once Edd was wearing the jacket, it was obvious that it had been made for a lanky body like his. “It was love at first sight,” Edd said, sashaying to the kitchen sink and back. “You know how some clothes just make you feel more like yourself?”

Carey tended to dress for comfort and, preferably, invisibility. “It does suit you.”

“So it’s not beyond hope?”

“I don’t like to think that anything’s beyond hope.” Carey moved behind Edd to slide the jacket off his shoulders. “Just because something’s worn or damaged doesn’t mean we should get rid of it. I kind of like things that are imperfect.” They laid the jacket back on the table and did up the three buttons. “This is a beautifully made suit. And even if it wasn’t, even if it wasn’t objectively skillful—like the first sweater someone ever knit or their first attempt at quilting—if it’s something that you like or that has sentimental value, why shouldn’t you keep it going as long as you can? I won’t be able to turn it back into what it was, but I can make it into something different and just as interesting.”

Edd had an expression on his face as if something had just clicked. On a roll, Carey tugged at the sleeve of their T-shirt, where they’d reinforced the worn hem with purple blanket stitch. “And for me, it’s even more than that. This is a plain black T-shirt. It probably cost me more in time to mend it than it would cost to buy a new one. But lots of people’s energy went into this. Growing and picking the cotton, working the machine, cutting the pieces and sewing the seams. And now I have it. I feel like I’m honouring that work by giving this a little love and a little more useful time.”

“Would you like to come to Sunday Dinner with me?” Edd asked.

Carey blinked. “Sorry?”

Were Edd’s pale cheeks a little flushed? Surely it was just the afternoon heat. “That sounded pretty abrupt, didn’t it? I swear there was a thought process leading up to it. At the co-op where Ozzie and Harriet live, they have a communal dinner every Sunday for whoever’s around. Friends are welcome. The people who are into cooking cook, everybody else buys desserts and drinks to bring, and we all dress up. I think you’d fit in.”

“Dress up? Like in costumes?” Carey asked, distracted by a vision of a mishmash of cosplayers and Halloween witches sitting around a dining table.

“No, no, like fancy. I usually wear one of my prom dresses.”

The no was automatic, but Carey bit it back. They liked Edd. They liked Harriet. Edd and Harriet’s friends would probably be nice people. Hadn’t Carey moved away to this small town to build a life that didn’t consist entirely of things they’d once shared with their ex?

“Yes. Yes, I’d like to come. Thank you.”

“Awesome.” Edd’s smile was brilliant, and it went a little ways towards reassuring Carey’s suddenly fizzing nerves.

“And if you let me keep the suit for a few days, I’ll write up some suggestions and an estimate for you.” Some ideas were already forming in Carey’s mind, but they always did better work if they gave things time to develop.

“Sounds great,” Edd said. He stood there smiling at Carey for a few more moments. Then he looked away. “I’ll get out of your hair now. I usually drive over there about six, if you want a lift. Don’t worry about bringing anything, it’s your first time. There’s usually more food than we know what to do with.”

Of course Carey would bring something, but that was tomorrow’s problem. They absently ushered Edd out, and then went to scribble down some notes on the fascinating projects their new town had brought to their door.

seven

Ozzie, Edd was now having to admit, could read him like a vintage copy of Charm magazine.

It wasn’t just that Carey looked like someone who could benefit from some caring for and listening to, which, to be fair, was historically guaranteed to get Edd’s attention. The Carey who had spread Edd’s damaged suit out on their folding card table and smoothed it down with competent hands had been intriguing in their unexpectedness. But it was the Carey who had fervently defended the preservation of worn and broken things who had hooked Edd like a glimpse of a Birkin bag in the five-dollar pile at a rummage sale.

He wanted to see that Carey again. More, he wanted to see Carey comfortable and confident enough to be that version of themself more of the time.

Ozzie had been right. Edd was a little flustered. Now he had to decide what he wanted to do about it.

Edd loved getting to know someone, feeling the gradual rooting of a brief attraction into something more solid. But in the backwash of his last serious relationship ending badly, he’d needed space to think about what early warning signs he’d missed, and time to get himself back in good working order.

He understood himself well enough to know that he wasn’t going to hold back forever. His attraction to Carey was stronger than any of the brief temptations he’d felt in the past months, and everything he’d seen of Carey spoke of them being considerate and careful. Edd couldn’t see them taking advantage of him. If anything, he suspected that it would take some gentle persuading for them to accept more than neighbourly kindness, let alone affection. Something was giving Carey that pervasive tension that only professional-grade enthusiasm seemed able to break them out of.

Edd never rushed from first flirtation to declarations of devotion anyway. He and Carey could both take whatever time they needed to see how and where things were going, he decided. In the meantime, he had several square feet of lasagna to make.

He was hauling a restaurant-size can of tomato sauce up from his basement pantry when he thought he heard a knock on the door. Ozzie would have just walked in and hollered; Harriet would have knocked and entered. “It’s open,” Edd called, but no one appeared. He deposited the can on his kitchen counter and opened his front door to find Carey tiptoeing back down his steps.

“I’m home,” he said. “What’s up?”

Carey whirled on the middle step. “Oh. Sorry. It’s nothing. Never mind. I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

“Hey, it’s no problem. What can I help you with?”

Carey hovered as if caught doing something that needed more explanation than calling on a neighbour. They were wearing a grey T-shirt and black jeans that were a mosaic of patches and patterned stitching. Damn, Carey was cute, Edd admitted to himself. Like a grey mouse: small and tidy, with sharp features and intelligent dark eyes.

“Do you have a little time?” Carey looked as though they were hoping Edd would tell them to go away.

“Sure, I’ve got time. I was about to put together the lasagna for tonight, but there’s no rush. It can cook for anywhere between one and three hours, and it stays hot like lava all evening. What do you need?”

Carey bit their lip. “You know how you said Sunday Dinner was fancy?”

“Yes. Why, do you need some input?”

“I think so. I do have clothes,” Carey said. “Of course. Just not—” They circled their hand in Edd’s direction.

“Not fancy?” Edd supplied.

“Not fancy,” Carey confirmed. “I usually just put on pants and a shirt and that’s it. You have...outfits.”

Edd looked down at his casual Sunday clothes, pink overall shorts and striped yellow-and-white top. The clips holding back his hair had little taffeta roses on them. The jelly bracelets that encircled his left arm were all sorts of colours. “You need some help accessorizing?”

“I guess so. I’ve never been good at that kind of thing. It always feels weird. Like I’m trying too hard.”

“Try too hard is a legitimate style option.” Now that Edd thought about it, he’d never seen Carey wear jewellery or scarves or anything along those lines. “But some people like to keep things simple, that’s fine too.”

For a brief moment, Carey looked relieved. “But you said to dress up.”

“Sure, and most people do. Though Ozzie showed up in a bathrobe once. Granted, it was covered in sequins. But no one’s going to throw you out if you don’t.”

Carey pressed their lips together. “If I’m supposed to dress up, I will. But I want to do it properly.”

Ah. Carey wanted action, not reassurance. “Okay. Do you want me to come over and see what you have to work with?”

Doubt fell over Carey’s face like a cloud. “Could you? Would that be all right?”

“Are you kidding? I would love to.” Aside from his urge to help, Edd was hot with curiosity about what Carey had in their closet. “Let’s go.”

Carey had chosen the smaller of the two bedrooms for their own. Edd caught a glimpse of the other one through the open door as they passed it: a utilitarian work table, stacks of freestanding plastic storage drawers, a wooden rack with a quilt folded over it. Carey’s bedroom was mostly taken up by the double bed. Pieces of clothing lay across the crocheted coverlet, arranged by type, trousers and shirts and a jacket. Even Carey’s disorder was methodical, Edd thought with amusement.

“May I?” he asked, pointing at the open closet door.

“Yeah, go ahead.” Carey folded their arms as if cold. “Would you like some iced tea or something?”

“That would be great.”

Carey disappeared, and Edd surveyed the closet. There was a lot of black, grey, and white; here and there a jewel-toned cuff or collar poked out. More than one suit, and several jackets. No skirts or dresses. The shelf above the hanging bar and the space below it, where usually shoes would go, were stacked with folded knits.

Edd took out a shirt at random and was immediately consumed with envy. It was thick white silk, luxuriously soft, with a turn-down collar and French cuffs. A spider’s web was embroidered in black across the entire front of it. Looking at the inside, Edd could see a constellation of tiny patches that were invisible on the outside. He reached for the next shirt.

He came to himself some time later, when some part of him noticed that Carey had entered the room.

“Did you find anything you think will work?” Carey asked, setting a glass and woven coaster down on the small bedside table.

“Are you having me on?” Edd held up a mist-blue cardigan dotted with moth holes outlined in sparkling silver. “You have an amazing, one-of-a-kind designer wardrobe.”

Carey looked down. “Not everyone gets it.”

“I guarantee you,” Edd said, “every single person at Sunday Dinner is going to be in awe of your style. Here.” He took the two steps to the bed. “I’ve put together two looks for you to try. I didn’t go with the sweaters because it’s July, but I beg you, let me try this again when the cold weather comes. Take your time. I’ll wait in the living room.”

“I’m sorry there’s no furniture. You could sit on the blankets—but they’re wool, I hope you don’t have a reaction to that—”

“I promise I’ll be fine,” Edd said, and exited, picking up his iced tea and pulling the door to behind him.

He installed himself at the kitchen table. He was sorely tempted to snoop while he was waiting, but managed to behave himself. The kitchen was almost as bare as the living room; all of Carey’s colourful artistry seemed to be in their work. Edd wondered what Carey was going to think of his own decidedly not minimalist space, with all the prewar furniture that he loved no less for its dings and bald spots.

“So,” Carey said from the doorway. They crossed their arms over the grey T-shirt, over which the spiderweb shirt hung unbuttoned. Then they uncrossed them to stick them in the pockets of the black tailored suit trousers, then took them out of the pockets again. “Are you sure this is fancy enough?”

“I did picture it with bling,” Edd admitted. “Like, rock-star-at-an-afterparty bling. Silver, I think. Maybe with some pearls thrown in. I can lend you some stuff, if you like.”

One of Carey’s hands worked at the opposite cuff. “I’m not really into jewellery.”

“Okay, no big deal. Go try the other one.”

A few minutes later, Carey emerged again, this time in wide-legged pants of maroon rayon. Their wardrobe leaned towards the soft and loose, and Edd had chosen to play up the loungewear glam with an oversized black shirt dotted with embroidered ferns. He pursed his lips. “I know it’s simple. But if it were me, I’d add a scarf or two and a pair of strappy heels, and presto, nineteen-forties Hollywood.”

Already swimming in the flowing fabric, Carey seemed to shrink. “I don’t think— I’m sorry. I’m wasting your time.”

“What? Oh, no, we’re just having a few false starts. You’re—” Realization hit Edd like a mallet to the skull. “Oh my god, I am doing this totally wrong.”

“I know I’m boring.”

“You are not boring,” Edd said, appalled and irate in equal measure at whoever had put that idea into Carey’s brain. “I, on the other hand, am a fool. No, really.” He overrode Carey’s protest. “I was trying to style me, and I’m supposed to be styling you. Let’s start at square one.” He shooed Carey into the bedroom. The spiderweb shirt lay on the bed. “Tell me about that shirt.”

“This one?” Carey picked it up by the shoulders and gave it a gentle shake. “I got it on the sale rack of a vintage store. I love it because it’s so soft. There were tiny burns all over it, maybe sparks from a cigarette. It made me think of a connect-the-dots picture, so I doodled until I came up with the spiderweb.”

“What about that sweater?”

Carey leaned across the bed to pull the grey-blue cardigan towards them. “Most of the time, I darn holes. With this one, I decided to highlight them. I had some silver thread on hand, so...I guess I was thinking clouds, silver lining, something like that? I varied the length of the satin stitch so they look like little starbursts. I’m pleased with how it came out. I did a black sweater for a client the same way with multicoloured thread, and they said it looked like fireworks.”

“Cool. What about those pants?”

Carey stuck a leg out and contemplated it. “Thrift store. Nothing wrong with them, I just liked them.”

Edd nodded. “Okay. Give me another go?”

Fifteen minutes later, back in the kitchen, he looked up to see Carey standing in the doorway. Edd felt a smile spreading across his face. “There we are.”

Those much-patched jeans, the spiderweb shirt, a waistcoat that was grey and red argyle knit on one side and black velvet on the other. Everything was patterned and soft and subtle, rewarding further study. The jeans were a little too big, but the points of the waistcoat mostly covered the looseness at the waist and lent Carey an old-fashioned charm.

Edd was used to accessorizing the hell out of things, and that clearly wouldn’t do for Carey, but the outfit wasn’t quite done. He wondered if he could hack one of his necklaces into a watch chain and whether Carey would count that as jewellery. He drummed his fingers against his lips. “Do you have any ties?” Carey shook their head. “Scarves?”

“I have fabric.”

“Excellent, let me see it.”

They went around the corner into Carey’s workroom. Unlike most of the house, it looked as though someone actually lived here—tidy to the point of austerity, but inhabited. Carey went to one of the stacks of plastic drawers. “What sort of thing were you thinking of?”

A large cork bulletin board caught Edd’s eye. It was layered with all manner of things—sketches, needles with threads dangling down from them, snips of lace and ribbon, a paper calendar complex with cryptic notes and coloured highlights. Over one corner hung a narrow length of plum-coloured silk decorated with rows of different stitches.

“This,” Edd said, pulling it down and checking it for pins.

Carey looked at him oddly. “That’s just a sampler.”

“Mm-hm.” Edd pulled Carey’s collar up and looped the fabric around the back of their neck.

“It isn’t even hemmed!” Carey protested, as Edd tied the silk in a loose four-in-hand knot.

“It’s perfect.” He pulled the knot another inch down from Carey’s throat. They looked like a Victorian clerk departing the office en route to a secret and louche hobby. “Look.” He took their shoulders and turned Carey towards the full-length mirror that hung on the closet door; Carey hadn’t had one in the bedroom.

After at least thirty seconds, Carey said, “I wear these clothes all the time. I never look like this.”

“Do you like it?”

Carey was blushing. “Yes. But—are you sure it’s fancy enough?”

“Absolutely. You are a walking work of art. Your own art, in fact.”

Carey waved that away. “I’m not an artist, really. But thank you so much for helping me with this.”

“Hey, styling other people is my dream job. I mean it, in October let me at those sweaters.”

Carey smiled their half-smile. “All right.”

And that was a good note to end it on, before Edd muffed the mood by offering embarrassingly more than had been asked for. “So I have to go make a metric tonne of lasagna now. I sent you the address. I can recommend a good rideshare driver if you like, but as I said, I’ll be leaving around six, if you want a lift.”

“Please. As long as you don’t mind?”

“Yeah, it’s no problem. You can help me cart in the lasagna,” Edd said, so Carey wouldn’t feel like he was doing them another favour.

That evening, Carey arrived on his doorstep precisely at six. The evening was still warm, and they’d rolled their shirtsleeves up with precision. It made them look even more clerkish, which was a look Edd had never before realized he appreciated.

“Can I carry anything?” Carey asked.

“For now, you can hold the door.” Edd manoeuvred the tray of lasagna in its thermal carrier carefully out of the house.

“I like your dress.”

“Why, thank you.” He was wearing a silvery sea-green ankle-length confection from the Eighties made of a fabric that would outlast the cockroaches, and glittery silver pumps. He took a step out of the doorway and stopped. “Dammit. Can you get that?”

Carey untangled one of his long strings of pearls from around the door handle. The cloth tote bag they had looped over their arm slid down to their wrist, and something within it clinked.

“Ohh, what did you bring?” Freed, Edd traipsed down the steps to the car.

“You said people brought drinks, and I don’t actually drink, but I have some non-alcoholic botanical mixers and a couple of bottles of tonic water and some iced tea. You know, for mocktails? I thought...” Carey trailed off as Edd put the lasagna on the hood of the car. “I thought it would be fancy. I guess it’s kind of silly.”

“No, no, that’s an amazing idea. The Hollydale has a mocktail hour on Tuesdays, and it’s super popular.” Who had given Carey this reflex to undermine their every decision? It made Edd want to slap whoever it was across the face with a white satin evening glove and demand satisfaction.

“The door’s open,” he said, and went back into the house to get his pearly clutch purse and his keys. When he came back out, Carey was sitting in the passenger seat. Edd put the food in the trunk, and they headed out.

Someone had festooned the Circus’s fence with paper lanterns, and there was a new garden gnome, squat and vaguely menacing, under the spirea bush. “I’ll give you the grand tour once we’ve met whoever’s around,” Edd said, leading the way from the parking space around to the wide front verandah. “It might be a bunch of people at once, so brace yourself.”

As it happened, they came in just behind Gord and someone Edd didn’t recognize. The entranceway was crowded and loud. Edd, still hanging onto the lasagna, accepted hugs from several people and greeted others over their heads before turning to Carey, who was standing to the side looking decidedly tense. He jerked his head towards the dining room. “Let’s go put our food down.”

A long table had been fashioned out of several smaller ones, starting in the dining room proper and extending all the way over to the living room’s exterior wall. The food was set out on the far end. Several of the dishes already there sported coloured flags indicating whether they were meat, vegetarian, vegan, kosher, halal, or gluten-free. Violet, in a black tutu, was taping a green and white flag on the side of her tub of ramen noodle cabbage salad.

“Hey, Violet,” Edd said, unzipping the thermal bag. “This is Carey. They’re my new neighbour. Carey, Violet is one of the artists here.”

“Hi,” Carey said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“I love your jeans,” Violet said. “Did you do them?”

“I did, yes. Thank you.”

Edd nudged a few smaller dishes aside to make room for his tray, and grabbed a green flag from the nearest egg cup. Carey began to take bottles out of their bag and set them on the table.

Violet’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, booze!”

“It’s actually non-alcoholic cocktail mixers,” Carey said, not looking at her.

“Oh,” Violet said, with less enthusiasm. “Well, Ozzie will appreciate that.”

“Drinks go over here on the sideboard.” Edd picked up a bottle in each hand.

Out of Carey’s bag followed a package of plastic swizzle sticks, little cocktail napkins printed with olives, and a couple of index cards. Edd picked them up. “Recipes? These are so cute!” Carey had used coloured felt pens to draw smiling bottles tipping themselves into legged glasses.

“Not everybody knows what to do if there’s no alcohol,” Carey said in a low voice, as if addressing the bottles.

“Is that a subtweet?” whispered Edd, delighted.

Carey looked sideways at him and blushed bright red. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, it’s a fair burn. Come on, let me show you around the house.”

The mansion had been built by some kind of industrial robber baron way back before the turn of the last century, and had gone through its life cycle of family home, upscale apartments, and downscale apartments by the time Angel Nishikawa had arrived on the scene. Nishikawa had made no attempt to return it to its former glory. What they had done was to scoop up the remnants of other demolished houses that hadn’t been so lucky as to have their own angel, and incorporate them into their renovations. Thus, the house sported its own unique geography: the Wall of Doors, the Room of Windows, the bathroom that used to be a porch and still retained a turned-wood railing along its perimeter, the secret passage lined with panels made of old baseboard moulding between the front hallway and what had been the servants’ staircase, all of it decorated and added to with enthusiasm by a couple of generations of procrastinating artists.

Edd loved it. It was a lot, and he couldn’t have lived there, the same way he couldn’t have eaten seven-layer cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But it was one of his favourite places in the world. He found himself hoping that Carey would be at least intrigued enough to want to come back.

“You can’t see it all on one visit,” he said as Carey stopped, predictably, at the ribbon macrame screen that hid the second-floor laundry alcove.

“It probably changes all the time anyway,” Carey said absently, hand hovering above a complex Celtic-style knot and tracing the strands in the air.

Carey got it, Edd thought with relief. “That is very true.”

“Is the person who made this still here?”

“Oh gosh, no. That’s been here forever. Though Ozzie might know who made it. He’s been here the longest.”

A deep gonging sound reverberated from below. “Dinner bell,” Edd explained, and led Carey back downstairs.

The lineup for the buffet had formed along the back hallway, but moved quickly. Edd heaped his compostable paper plate with ramen salad, rice paper rolls, lasagna, and a few slabs of barbequed zucchini. Carey, he noted, took small servings, and nothing with meat in it.

He snagged them both seats halfway down the table. There were about fourteen people in attendance, only half of whom lived in the Circus. He didn’t see Harriet. Ozzie was at his accustomed spot at the head of the table, wearing his blue seersucker suit, a red shirt, and a yellow bow tie.

About ten minutes into the meal, Ozzie clinked his knife against his glass and stood up. The clamour trailed away into silence.

“First of all, whoever brought the swizzle sticks, I love you.” He picked up his glass, two plastic sticks clacking together.

Carey looked at Edd suspiciously. I didn’t say anything, Edd mouthed.

“Thank you all for your presence at Sunday Dinner. We have a few new faces with us today. Fazil, Gord’s cousin from the big city. Excellent potato salad, Fazil.” A bearded, dark-skinned man in a wine-coloured tuxedo jacket half-rose from his seat, and the room chorused, Hi, Fazil. “Carey, who is new to our fair town. That is a fabulous vest, Carey.” Carey quickly pushed back their seat and stood for the Hi, Carey, then collapsed back into their chair.

“Awesome tie, too,” Amita called from the other end of the table.

“Thank you.” The colour was high on their cheeks. Carey, Edd could now confirm, didn’t like being looked at. Edd could understand that, though his own self-consciousness about his appearance was a faint memory, exorcised through stubborn exposure once he’d decided that it was the only road to presenting himself how he liked.

“Eat well, my friends. To Sunday Dinner and the week ahead!” Ozzie raised his glass. Everyone echoed the toast, and drank.

When the meal resumed and about four different conversations began around them, Violet leaned forward from across the table. “So Carey, you just moved to town? Where were you before?”

“In Baymill.”

“Oh, yeah? How long did you live there? Did you grow up there?”

“I moved there for college. Then I stayed.” Carey stuck a fork into a piece of grilled tofu.

“Why did you pick Clover Hill?”

“I’d been here a few times, and I always liked it. It’s small enough to feel friendly, and large enough to have a viable downtown. And I was ready to get out of the city.”

“Yeah? Why?”

Violet waited like a dog watching someone opening a can while Carey popped the tofu into their mouth and chewed. Edd struggled with his conscience and his curiosity.

Carey swallowed. “I got divorced.”

That was the information he’d been waiting for, Edd realized, and immediately felt ashamed of himself.

“Oh, no, that sucks,” Violet said, with every evidence of real sympathy. “Was it a really bad breakup?”

Edd opened his mouth to belatedly tell Carey that they didn’t have to submit to the patented Violet Murray Third Degree. Before he could say anything, though, Carey said, “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Oh, okay, cool. So what do you do for a living?”

Carey launched into an explanation of their business. Edd dabbed a rice paper roll into peanut sauce and contemplated his murky feelings.

Before everyone started on dessert, he excused himself to go to the washroom. When he came out, he heard a Psst. Ozzie was standing in the doorway of his bedroom. He waved Edd over with exaggerated secrecy, and closed the door behind them.

“What’s up?” Edd asked, glancing around the untidy room for clues.

“I think Harriet is seeing someone.”

Edd goggled a little before getting out, “Are you sure? I thought you said she was being weird and irritable.”

“When I try to talk to her, yeah,” Ozzie said, with more than a hint of indignation. “And she’s avoiding me. But with everyone else she’s...”

“Humming? Staring out of windows with a secret little smile? What, Ozzie?”

“Cheerful.”

“Huh.” Edd tried to remember the last time Harriet had dated anyone. There’d been that brief fling with Sydney, and they were still friends, but that had been, oh, four or five years ago now. “You could always just ask her,” he reminded Ozzie.

“Sure, if I can catch her. She’s always busy.” Ozzie threw his hands up. “It’s enough to drive a man to drink.”

“Hey, I have the solution to that. Carey was the one who brought the swizzle sticks, by the way. They made me a virgin Long Island Iced Tea with actual iced tea in it, and it was amazing.”

When they rejoined the dinner party, several people had switched seats, or were standing in clusters holding paper plates of pie and yakking as if they didn’t live together. Carey was where Edd had left them, nibbling at a cookie and looking endearingly waifish.

Edd swept them over to the drinks station, and together they refreshed Ozzie’s glass. Gord’s cousin wandered over to see what they were doing—it turned out that he tended bar in between rep theatre gigs—and with a task to do and something in their hands, Carey softened up and began to look as though they were next door to enjoying themself.

Sunday Dinner went as late as the last ones awake wanted, but Edd wasn’t a night owl, and he and Carey were on their way out the door at nine-thirty. As they stepped onto the porch, Harriet came around the corner from the parking lot, jingling her keys and singing something under her breath.

“Hey, Edd. Hi, Carey.” Harriet was in cropped jeans, with the tails of a men’s shirt tied in a bow over a tank top. Her hair, usually sleek, was tousled and sweaty, and there was a smear of dust on her forehead. “Have a good dinner?”

“Harriet!” Ozzie said, poking his head out the door. “I thought I heard you. Come have some lasagna.”

“Thanks, but I already ate, and I need to do a few things before tomorrow morning,” Harriet said. “See you guys later.” She squeezed past Ozzie in the doorway, and Edd heard her trotting up the staircase to the second floor.

Ozzie pulled a face at Edd. Edd shrugged. Maybe Ozzie was right, but if Harriet really did have things to do in preparation for work on Monday, avoiding being sucked into the post-Sunday Dinner gabfest wasn’t exactly a suspicious move.

“I’ll see you Thursday,” Ozzie said, a little pointed. He turned to Carey. “Thank you for joining us.”

“Thank you for having me.”

“Any friend of Edd’s is welcome,” Ozzie said.

Feeling warm and fuzzy at that acknowledgement, Edd walked side-by-side with Carey back to the car.

eight

When Carey made a quick decision, the results were rarely good. They preferred to contemplate things, turn them over as if looking for snags and failing seams, and wait for their mind to cast up suggestions that weren’t evident the moment a problem was introduced.

Edd’s ruined suit was giving them a lot of ideas. They’d sketched the flower pattern in their notebook, and chosen shades of embroidery thread that would match the print. One corner of their workroom table held a tower of reference books with scraps of yarn marking projects that inspired them. But certainty hadn’t come yet.

Whatever they decided on, it was going to take a lot of work, and partly depended on how much Edd was willing to pay. He could probably buy a new suit for what Carey might have to charge him. Did Edd have a job? It wasn’t a nine-to-five one, if he did. He seemed to deliver a lot of foil trays. Was he a caterer who only did lunches? Or maybe he was a guerrilla baker, supplying cafés with the best cinnamon buns in the county, keeping one step ahead of the health inspectors...

A knock on the door interrupted Carey’s increasingly silly musings. They got up off the floor and looked out the front window. A young Asian woman stood on the stoop, a large cardboard box at her feet.

Carey opened the door. “Deliver for Carey Dern,” the woman said. She was wearing a white T-shirt with a logo and name Carey didn’t recognize: Snapdragon Services.

“That’s me. Do I need to sign for it?”

“No, I just wanted to make sure you got your package. Have a great day.” The woman turned and went back to her van.

A courier who not only knocked on the door but even waited to make sure someone was home rather than dumping the package and scramming? This really was a small town, Carey thought, carrying the box inside.

The address was in Kennedy’s handwriting. From the soft heft of the parcel, it was filled with fabric, and Carey eagerly nicked the tape and peeled it off.

There was a note at the top. Yard sale haul! I hope some of it’s useful. Feel free to toss anything you don’t want. There’s also something you left behind at the bottom. I kept meaning to bring it over before the move, but oh well. Have fun!

That threw a little cold water on Carey’s anticipation. What had they left behind? The few weeks they’d spent in Kennedy’s spare room after Grant had said he wanted a divorce were still an aching blur.

At the top of the box was a Harris tweed jacket that needed patching on the elbows. A beaded cardigan with several threads of beads missing. A fair isle scarf in about thirty colours—Benetton, Carey saw, checking the label. Kennedy had a good eye.

A couple of twin-size blankets, not a famous brand but still thick and warm, and—

Carey picked the sweater out of the bottom of the box, and their hands went cold and numb.

It had been an estate sale jackpot, a cashmere sweater that had probably never even been worn before the moths had gotten at it. Just Grant’s size, the forest green exactly the right shade to light up his hazel eyes. Carey had smuggled it into the condo and hidden it in an overnight bag at the back of the closet, bringing it out to work on during the—in hindsight, increasingly frequent—evenings when Grant was out. Over the holes, Carey had embroidered shooting stars and ringed planets in a maroon yarn of the exact same tone as the green, so that one had to be intimately close to see the detail. And when Grant had told them he was leaving, Carey had dragged the bag from the closet and thrown their own clothes into it and fled to their sister’s. They didn’t even remember taking the sweater out of the bag.

It was all suddenly right there in the room with Carey, overwhelming the pleasure of unpacking an unexpected gift. The vertigo of everything they’d built being ripped away. The aching sadness of having somehow lost their partner and best friend. The shock of their own failure, and how it had knocked them flat for a year.

They dropped the sweater back into the bottom of the box. Tears welled in their eyes. Carey had long ago stopped fighting them.

A few minutes later, they wearily got up to blow their nose and splash water on their reddened cheeks. At least they weren’t still dissolving into tears in the grocery store or on the bus. Kennedy, whose starter marriage had ended by the time she was twenty-five, had assured Carey that the pain would eventually fade completely and they’d know that the breakup had been for the best. Carey had determined months ago to act as though that had happened. They were still waiting for reality to catch up to the promise.

They went into the kitchen and plugged in the kettle for the comfort of a mug of tea. While they were sagging against the counter waiting for it to boil, they heard a knock on the door.

Edd? Carey brought their hands up to touch their cheeks, which felt red and rough. Was it obvious that they’d been crying?

The knock came again, louder and more insistent. It occurred to Carey that it didn’t sound like Edd’s knock. Or like the courier’s, for that matter. Well, whoever it was would just have to deal with whatever they looked like. Carey went down the hall and opened the door.

The elderly woman on the front stoop looked at Carey with some confusion. Then she visibly straightened. “Tell your mother that Mrs. Rose is here to see her, will you, dear?”

It was the grandmother from the dry cleaner’s, Carey realized. “I’m sorry, I’m the only one here. Are you sure you have the right address?”

“I beg your pardon, Francesca Bianchi’s been living here since you were in diapers.”

Bianchi? Right, the house’s former owner. “I’m afraid she’s...not here right now,” Carey said inadequately. Mrs. Rose looked appropriately dressed, in a teal buttoned shirt and khaki skirt. Her hair was brushed into a short, white-peppered afro. Was she here by herself? Should she be here by herself? Carey looked past her, but there was no car in the driveway and no sign of frantic relatives combing the street. “How did you get here?”

“I am more than capable of getting on the bus, thank you very much,” Mrs. Rose said severely.

“Of course. Er. Would you...like to come in and sit down for a while?”

“That’s kind of you.” Mrs. Rose stopped in the doorway to the living room. “Oh, my. What’s she done to her furniture? Is she renovating? Cyrus and I did all the work on our house together, you know. My goodness, that was a job. So many layers of wallpaper, the walls were like counterpanes. May I use your powder room, dear?”

By the time Mrs. Rose had come out of the washroom, the kettle had boiled. “Could I get you something to drink?” Carey asked, when Mrs. Rose appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Don’t let me trouble you,” Mrs. Rose said, though she looked pleased.

“It’s no trouble. I’m making tea, but I have iced tea if you prefer something cold.”

“I do like a cool glass of iced tea when it’s hot. Ah, I see you’ve painted the kitchen cabinets again. White is so fresh and summery, don’t you think? Is your mother in, dear?”

“She’s out at the moment,” Carey said, taking the path of least resistance.

“Mm-hm, at one of her clubs, I suppose,” Mrs. Rose said, settling into one of the chairs. “Bridge and knitting and gardening and what-have-you. It’s good to keep busy when you’re alone. Lorenzo was only fifty-nine when he died. Plenty of men would have her, you know, but she’s a one-man woman. Not like me. Cyrus and I, rest his soul, we said to each other, if one of us goes the other has to keep living. And I did.” She winked at Carey. “I was no spring chicken by that time, but I did have my fun. I sure did.”

She took several satisfied gulps from her glass. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat at this table, all you kids running around in the yard. Now, Deedee, listen to me. It’s good that you’re here to look after your mother. But don’t forget to live your own life too. Find a nice boy, or girl, or whoever you like. Someone like your neighbour. Such a sweet young man. I don’t know why all the men in this town aren’t knocking down his door.”

Carey’s stomach plunged. So Edd dated men. It shouldn’t mean anything about who else he might date, but had he asked them to dinner just as a kindness?

“Go out and see the world and have some fun!” Mrs. Rose urged. “You’ll regret the things you don’t do more than the ones you do, my mother used to say, and let me tell you, it’s true.”

But fun had never been Carey’s goal. They’d always sought comfort more—sunlit rooms, warm blankets, a casserole browning in the oven, shared evenings watching movies with sewing on their lap. All the things that Grant had pretended he wanted too, and then decided weren’t enough.

“Not that you can get by without any regrets,” Mrs. Rose added, putting her empty glass down on the table with a clunk. “You’re always going to have those.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Carey said, with an evenness that took some effort.

Mrs. Rose turned around to look at the rest of the kitchen. “I do like those white cabinets. So nice and fresh. Where’s Francesca?”

“I don’t think she’s going to be home for a while,” Carey said. “Please excuse me for a moment.” They went into the living room and picked up their phone, then realized that they didn’t have the number at the dry cleaner’s. But they did have Edd’s.

Carey hesitated, told themself to get out of their own head, and texted him.

Mrs. Rose just showed up at my door looking for her friend who used to live here. Do you have her granddaughter’s number?

Edd’s reply came within seconds. THANK GOD I’ll be right over

Carey went back into the kitchen. “You young people, always looking at your little boxes,” said Mrs. Rose when they put the phone down on the table.

“Edd’s going to come over.”

“Who’s that?”

“My neighbour.” Mrs. Rose looked blank. “The sweet young man.”

“Ah, he’s sweet, is he?” Mrs. Rose leaned forward conspiratorially. “Do you like him?” Before Carey could answer, Mrs. Rose’s expression changed as if something had just occurred to her. “Oh, yes, Edd. I know Edd. I don’t know why all the men aren’t falling over themselves to ask him out. He cooks, you know. My mother always said…”

Carey tuned out the rest of that bout of advice, listening for a knock on the door. How long did it take to walk from Edd’s house to theirs?

Car wheels sounded in their driveway, and the thump of a door shutting. Carey went to let Edd in. He was wearing white denim overall shorts today, over a pink shirt with puffy sleeves.

“Your text put years back on my life,” he said under his breath.

“She’s in the kitchen,” Carey whispered back, warmth spreading under their breastbone despite themself.

He walked to the end of the hall. “Mrs. Rose, are you ready for your ride home? I’ll be your chauffeur today.”

“That’s so kind of you, Edd.” Mrs. Rose appeared in the hallway, and tucked a hand into the crook of Edd’s arm as if he were escorting her to a ball. “You know, Deedee’s—” Carey had a moment to experience incipient heart failure. “—been very nice to me.”

“Thank you for visiting,” Carey said politely.

“You should ask her on a date.”

Carey’s face blazed into heat.

“Watch your step through the door,” Edd said, as if he hadn’t heard.

There was their answer, Carey thought, heart sinking again. No lighthearted response from Edd, no covert glance of speculation. He clearly wasn’t interested. He was probably as embarrassed as they were.

When Edd and Mrs. Rose had reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked back up at Carey. Carey manufactured a smile.

“Thank you,” Edd said. “I’ll fill you in later.”

“Is Francesca home?” Mrs. Rose asked him as he opened the passenger side door.

“No, not right now, Mrs. Rose. Watch your head, there you go.”

Carey waved as the car backed out of their driveway. Back inside, they folded Grant’s sweater carefully around the still-attached ball of yarn and buried it at the bottom of their stack of sweaters. Maybe someday working on it wouldn’t make them feel about to shatter. Maybe someday they’d be able to sell it without feeling as though they were betraying something.

They didn’t have the concentration right now to pull out Harriet’s quilt, so they picked up their blanket in progress, which they were edging with a stitch they could have done with their eyes closed.

Half an hour later, there was yet another knock on their door. For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Carey got up and answered it.

Edd held out a plastic cup slick with condensation and capped with whipped cream, caramel sauce, and chocolate sprinkles. “I didn’t know if you like fancy tea drinks,” he said, “and if you don’t want it, don’t feel obligated to drink it, but I seriously needed an infusion of caffeine and sugar and I thought you might too.”

Carey felt a welcome jolt of energy just looking at the cup. “In fact, I really do. Thank you. So did Mrs. Rose just leave without telling anyone where she was going?”

Edd nodded, taking a sip from his own cup. “Sharon was frantic.”

“Does she have anyone else helping take care of her?”

“Sometimes. Sharon’s mom travels a lot for work. They were holding down the fort okay for a while, but I think it’s getting harder.” He dabbed whipped cream off his upper lip. “Sharon can’t keep an eye on her every second. I help out occasionally, but there’s only so much help they’re willing to accept.”

“That’s hard on everybody.” Carey imagined Mrs. Rose back when she was Carey’s age—the Seventies, maybe? Energetic and enthusiastic and in charge of her own life. Partnered and loved. “Why did she call me Deedee?”

“Deirdre. Mrs. Bianchi’s youngest daughter. She leads adventure tours in—the Canadian Rockies, I think? I’m sorry I didn’t correct her on your name. I don’t think she’d remember, and sometimes you have to pick your battles.”

He really was considerate, Carey thought. “It’s fine. My family went through that with my dad’s dad. You kind of have to let go of what other people think, and focus on the caregiving.”

Edd gave Carey a half-smile that turned thoughtful. “That is very good advice.” He poked at the slush in his cup with the straw a few times. “Would you mind if I asked you something? It’s perfectly okay if the answer’s no.”

“Sure, I guess.” Carey wondered what might be interesting enough about them to prompt a question. It wasn’t as though they were hiding any exciting secrets.

“Would you like to go to a movie with me? The Hollydale has a Busby Berkeley retrospective on Thursday nights all month. That’s musicals from the Thirties.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of him,” Carey heard themself say, as if this were still an ordinary conversation and their mind had not suddenly seized up tight like a knotted thread. “The choreographer, right?”

“Yes! You’re into old movies?”

Carey nodded. “Sometimes I like to have them on while I work.” Though the subscription to the old movies channel had been in Grant’s name, another thing that Carey had been going without.

“Excellent! It’s Gold Diggers of 1935 this week, if you’re free. We could grab some dinner first.”

Dinner and a movie? Those were definitely elements of a date, Carey’s brain supplied helpfully. Carey’s cute, generous, had-his-adult-life-together neighbour who baked and apparently didn’t only go out with men after all was asking Carey out on a date.

Carey teetered on the excruciating edge between wanting to go and wondering why Edd could possibly want to go with them. They’d met his friends, who were artistic and colourful and fun to be around. What on earth was he seeing in Carey? Unwillingly, they thought again of Grant, gregarious and interested in everyone and everything, who had chosen someone so clumsy at relationships that they hadn’t even realized that their ten-year marriage was ending.

And who wasn’t here, Carey thought with a sudden snap of anger.

“It’s okay if you say no,” Edd said, sounding cautious. “Divorce is no picnic. If you’re not ready to put yourself out there yet, I get it. We’ll still be neighbours.”

What must their face look like? Carey took a sharp inbreath. Grant had done what he wanted. Why shouldn’t Carey? “I’m sorry. Yes, Edd, thank you, that sounds nice. I’d like to go see a movie. With you.”

“Awesome!” His enthusiasm was, as always, uninhibited, and Carey felt a wistful envy. They couldn’t remember ever being so unselfconscious. “How about I pick you up at quarter to six?”

“I can walk over,” Carey said, pointing at his house, thirty feet away from where they stood.

“No, no, let’s do this properly. I’ll pick you up, and if we get to the restaurant by six, we’ll have plenty of time to eat and catch the first showing.”

“I’ll see you on Thursday, then.” Carey felt themself smile, with so little effort that it startled them.

“Fantastic. See you then,” Edd said, and the pink rhinestones in his headband twinkled like stars as he walked down the stairs.

nine

Edd considered dressing down for their date, out of some vague notion that Carey might not want them to attract attention. But it seemed disrespectful, to both himself and Carey, to pretend to be other than who he was. He flirted with the idea of wearing his black New Look-inspired dress with the purple corset bodice, as being suitably glam for what they were going to be watching, but suspected it was a little over the top for a summer movie date. He decided on a peach chiffon calf-length dress with a wide self belt and short bell sleeves. A cornflower blue necklace of celluloid flowers added just the right dash of complementary colour. He completed the outfit with white T-strap heels with decorative teardrop cutouts, and threw his keys and wallet into a white crochet clutch. Perfect for a summer night.

He pulled out of his own driveway and into Carey’s at fourteen minutes to six. They opened their front door as soon as he was on their front stoop. He grinned at them. They were already blushing.

“Look at you,” Edd said. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to put clothes together.”

“If you want the truth? I decided on the suit and then just imagined what you’d wear it with.”

“Okay, I’ll take that credit, because you look fabulous.” They were wearing a fog-grey linen suit, with a black-on-white windowpane check waistcoat over a white T-shirt. On their feet were plain white canvas running shoes. They looked cool and summery in a completely different way than he did.

“You look great too. I love your necklace. You wear a lot of vintage, don’t you?”

“I wish. Jewellery, yes. My clothes are mostly modern, and I have some things that were custom tailored from old patterns. It’s hard to find vintage dresses to fit these shoulders.”

He got the impression that Carey had started to say something, then bitten their tongue; their cheeks got redder. Flirting cut short? Edd took pity on them, though he would have liked to hear what they’d decided not to say. “I like your hair, too.” The newly layered bob softened their thin face. “Where’d you get it done?”

“Her name’s Iris, at that place north of the Town Hall? I texted Harriet to ask if she could recommend somewhere.”

“It suits you,” Edd said, suffused with a warm and fuzzy feeling at the idea of one of his best friends and the person he was going on a date with being on hairdresser-sharing terms.

Carey shut and locked their door behind them. Edd opened the passenger-side door of his car for them with a flourish that made Carey smile and also, he hoped, made it clear that he knew they were perfectly capable of getting into a car under their own steam.

“Where are we going?” Carey asked, buckling up.

“One of my favourite places. You’ll see.”

Weathervane Café occupied an old arts and crafts bungalow south of downtown, with an interior that felt light-filled and spacious despite the porch’s deep overhang. If it were winter, Edd would have angled for a table near the fireplace, but for today he’d scored one near the windows that looked onto the glorious chaos of herbs and vegetables at the back of the property.

“Hi, Fern,” he said to the dining room manager. “We have reservations for six o’clock.”

“Hi, Edd. I love your shoes. Welcome,” Fern said to Carey. “Tonight one of our waitstaff, Lavinia, is offering violin serenades. Is that something you might have an issue with? If it is, we’ll be sure not to do it in the room you’re dining in.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine with it,” Carey said.

“As long as she’s not playing at us,” Edd added. Being serenaded by Lavinia tended to make one the centre of attention, and he didn’t want Carey to feel stared at by a roomful of strangers.

“Of course. I’ll let her know. Right this way, please.” Fern picked menus up from the podium and led them to a quiet table against the wall. “Cecil will be right with you. Enjoy your meal.”

“Would you like to start with a drink? They have a fantastic Baby Bellini made with sparkling cider instead of Prosecco,” Edd said, remembering what Carey had brought to Sunday Dinner.

“That sounds tasty.” Carey pushed the drinks menu an inch towards Edd. “I should say, if you enjoy wine with dinner, please don’t let me stop you. I’m not against drinking, I just don’t care for it much myself.”

“Nah, I can take it or leave it, and I don’t want to fall asleep during the movie.”

Their waiter appeared. “Hey, Cecil,” Edd said.

“Hi, Edd.” He turned to Carey. “Is this your first time at Weathervane? Do let us know if you have any allergies or dietary restrictions, and if you have any questions about what’s in a dish, please feel free to ask.” He recited the specials, and Edd ordered two Baby Bellinis.

“You know everybody in town, don’t you?” Carey asked, as Cecil departed.

“Pretty much. That’s what you get for living in a place for your entire life.”

“I never lived in the same city for more than five years when I was growing up.” Carey sounded a little wistful. “Did you go away to college at all?”

“Sort of. I commuted into Fairview College in Baymill for a couple of years.”

“That’s a bit of a drive to take every day.”

“It was fine except when there was snow. But a beater car and gas were cheaper than living on campus.”

Cecil sailed by with a plate of panko pecan chicken in each hand. “That smells delicious,” Carey said.

“Yeah, everything’s amazing. I don’t eat meat, but feel free.” It wasn’t that he liked watching people gnaw on bones, but if he restricted his dating to the queer non-binary-to-masculine vegetarians in town who were attracted to guys in dresses, Edd’s prospects would hit single digits.

“I don’t eat meat much either. Would it be okay to order an appetizer for the main, or does that irritate them?”

“They won’t say a thing. There’s also the vegetarian plate—that’s a selection of sides.”

“Is it big? To be honest, my appetite hasn’t been the greatest lately. Since the divorce,” Carey added, and plowed ahead before Edd could comment. “What do you usually order?”

“I get the veggie plate,” Edd said, “and then I eat the leftovers for the next two days. We could share one, if you’re okay with that? It would let you try everything.” He was aware as he spoke that he’d been shoving food at Carey from practically the first time he’d met them, but darn it, that was what he did.

“That sounds good.”

Cecil came by with their drinks. Edd ordered, adding an extra serving of the caramelized onion mac and cheese, which took on another dimension of magnificence when heated up in a frying pan the next day.

“It’s funny,” he said, after a sweet, fizzy sip. “I feel like we’re friends already, but I also want to ask you a bunch of first-date questions.”

“I don’t have a problem with that.” Carey gave him a demi-smile from under their eyelashes. The angle was probably just because they were looking down to unfold their napkin, but Edd found it extremely appealing.

“Excellent. As long as you ask some as well. You said you moved around a lot as a kid. How did you end up in Baymill?”

Carey had more or less moved there for school, although Edd got the impression that they were talking around an ex-spouse-shaped hole. They had attended a community college for theatre production and design, which made Edd put down his glass in surprise.

“No kidding? I would not have pegged you for a theatre kid.”

“Well, that’s why I dropped out. The first year of the program had a couple of core courses in performance, which I knew going in, but I didn’t anticipate how much I’d hate them. And it turned out that I wasn’t great at the design part, either. I just wanted to make things. It wasn’t a good fit for me, and I was surrounded by people who loved it, which was alienating. I stuck it out for a year, but I didn’t go back.”

Cecil arrived to fill the tabletop with plates and bowls. Edd inhaled the scents of sesame oil and hot salt.

“How did you get into the visible mending thing?” he asked, helping himself to some sautéed mushrooms.

“It took a while. I went through a bunch of terrible service jobs. I didn’t want to go into commercial production sewing if I could avoid it, it’s just the worst kind of low-paid factory work and I didn’t want to end up hating the thing I loved doing. Then I was unemployed for a while, and I needed to try something new, so I learned to knit, and then I learned to make socks, which was fine, and then I learned to darn socks. It turns out that I love darning.” Carey put a potato and parsnip latke onto their plate.

“Really? What do you like about it?”

They took a modest scoop of mac and cheese. “You start with a jagged hole, and you end up with a little grid and no hole.” They shaped their hands into a square in the air. “It’s just so satisfying.”

“I didn’t know people even did that anymore. Darn socks, I mean.”

“Most people don’t. But I put up flyers in a couple of yarn stores, and I found out that a lot of knitters who will spend weeks on a pair of socks don’t want to spend half an hour darning them when the heels go, but they don’t want to throw them out either, and they’re willing to pay for mending because they know how much work goes into making them in the first place. Then I got some requests for mending hand-knit sweaters, and then for other clothing, and from there it kind of snowballed.” They took a delicate mouthful of mac and cheese and closed their eyes. “Oh my goodness, this is stellar.”

The sight of Carey enjoying something made Edd feel all warm and pliant. Flustered, Ozzie might say. He smiled and helped himself to some roasted baby carrots.

“My bread and butter isn’t really the custom work,” Carey went on. “It’s the second-hand blankets and clothes that I sell on my website. Vintage is hot, but people want things in good condition, and unique mends are value-added. I’m never going to be rich, but I can actually make a living at it, though you wouldn’t believe the paperwork the bank wanted when I applied for a mortgage.”

Edd himself had been able to skip that ordeal. “I’m sure. When Harriet needed a car loan, she practically had to sign away a kidney.”

Carey smoothed the cloth napkin on their lap. “Anyway, I’m sure that’s way more about me than you wanted. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to derail the conversation.”

The last five minutes aside, it was hard to imagine someone who talked about themself less than Carey did. “No, that’s the kind of thing I’m interested in. I didn’t even know visible mending was a thing until, like, three weeks ago.”

Carey spooned some wilted red cabbage with cilantro and sesame oil onto their plate. “What do you do? You said you went to college in Baymill. What was your major?”

The second question was the easier of the two to answer. “Chemistry. I thought of going to culinary school, but one summer of working at a bakery got that out of my system. You can go lots of ways with a chem degree. None of them were exactly my dream job, but the pay is mostly good and they’re as stable as anything’s going to be.”

Carey tilted their head. “That’s not what I expected from you, either. So what do you do now?”

It was always hard to know how early to disclose; things changed whenever he chose to say it. He might as well get it out on the table, Edd decided. Carey would either accept it or be weird about it, and there was nothing he could do about that. “I don’t have a job. When I was twenty-two, I won the lottery and dropped out of college.”

The expression that crossed Carey’s face implied that they weren’t sure whether or not he was telling a joke. A lot of people reacted like that.

“I’m serious,” he said. “I’m not a multi-millionaire or anything, but as long as I don’t blow thousands on Chanel or Dolce and Gabbana, I’m set. I bake, and I keep an eye on some of my older neighbours who don’t have family in town. I usually help out with the Halloween and Christmas community events, too. Nothing glamourous. I’m pretty ordinary.”

“I don’t think you’re ordinary.” Carey addressed this to their plate, then flicked a glance up at Edd and flushed.

“But I am. Aside from dressing like this, which doesn’t even feel strange to me, I am a completely unremarkable person. I’m so average that—“ He stopped himself and shoved Shaun out of his mind. “I basically just want to make people dessert and watch old movies. You don’t get much less exciting than that.”

“But you have so many friends,” Carey said, as if that were an exotic skill.

“Well, like I said, I’ve lived here all my life.”

“You never wanted to try living anywhere else, or even travel, once you had the money?”

Edd shook his head. That had been a refrain from just about everybody, even his own parents—why didn’t he go visit other countries, or start a bakery, or stretch his world into some wider shape? It had taken time to convince them that his goals were quiet ones. “I guess I’m a homebody at heart.”

“That’s why I bought the house,” Carey said, nodding. “To have a place I knew I would want to stay, and that nobody could make me leave.”

After they’d both eaten their fill there was, as Edd had promised, a substantial volume of leftovers. On the way to the movie theatre, he stopped by the car to tuck the takeout boxes into the insulated bag, with ice packs, that he’d brought in the trunk. “That should keep it until I can get it into the fridge. Come on, we’d better get our tickets before they sell out.”

Carey slipped their phone out of their pocket. “Should I try to make reservations online?”

Edd grinned. “No, the Hollydale’s analog only. They actually give you a paper ticket, that’s part of the experience.”

The Hollydale Theatre was older than most of the movies it showed, resplendent with all of the plaster ornamentation that the builder had been able to afford, which was a large amount and of great variety. Edd’s mom had said that when she first started going there, it had still had the original wooden seats. Now the plaster was chipped and the padded fabric seats were getting threadbare in their turn, but it still gave Edd that irreplaceable thrill, the magic of seeing a movie with a crowd.

A couple of times during the show, Edd glanced over at Carey. Some people liked old movies more in the abstract than in the histrionic reality. But they were watching the screen, at least, and didn’t seem fidgety or bored.

When they got out it was just past twilight, one of those warm and endless summer evenings. There were still people window shopping and strolling with ice cream cones in their hands.

“Are you ready to go home?” Edd asked, feeling mellow and satisfied. He was willing to prolong the evening if Carey was.

Carey stuck their hands in their pockets, looking like a gamine movie star. “Was there something else you wanted to do?”

“How do you feel about getting some ice cream? Or coffee, if you’re one of those people who can have caffeine after three p.m. and still get to sleep before midnight?” Food again, but Edd was who he was.

“Caffeine doesn’t bother me and I’m usually up until midnight anyway, but ice cream sounds nice.”

“How about Reuben’s?” Hugh was probably working tonight. It was some kind of sign that Edd was already thinking of introducing Carey to his family, and not just as his neighbour, either.

“I haven’t been there yet.”

“No? You’re in for a treat.”

At Reuben’s, the garage door window in the front was rolled up, and several people lounged at the few outdoor tables. There was a short line-up inside. Hugh was behind the ice cream counter, and when Edd and Carey reached the front of the line, he beamed.

“Hi, Edd!” Then he recollected himself. “Welcome to Reuben’s Hot and Cold. Are you interested in hot coffee or iced coffee, or are you interested in ice cream?”

“Hey, Hugh,” Edd said. “How’s it going? Has it been busy tonight?”

“It’s so busy! I spilled hot fudge sauce on my apron, so I put on a clean one!”

“Good thinking.” Edd turned to Carey. “Carey, this is my older brother, Hugh. Hugh, this is my new neighbour, Carey. They use the pronouns they and them.”

Hugh waved. “Hello, Carey! My name is Hugh O’Leary and I use the pronouns he and him. Welcome to Reuben’s Hot and Cold. Are you interested in hot coffee or iced coffee, or are you interested in ice cream?”

“Ice cream, I think,” Carey said, looking down at the colourful tubs behind the glass.

“We have six kinds of ice cream and we have sundaes. A sundae is ice cream of your choice and sauce of your choice and sprinkles of your choice. There is a list of the ice creams and the sauces and the sprinkles on the blackboard.” Hugh pointed helpfully to the wall behind him.

“They all look so good. I’ll have...a small spumoni in a cup, please.”

“Ooh, old-school,” Edd said. “I’ll have a sundae with chocolate ice cream, marshmallow sauce, and graham cracker sprinkles.”

“S’mores!” Hugh and Carey said at the same time, and Edd might have felt his heart sing a little trill.

As they waited for Hugh to dish up the ice cream, Carey said firmly, “Dessert is on me,” and went up to the till to pay. They both collected their cups and wandered outside to sit at one of the tables.

“Do you have any other siblings?” Carey asked.

“Four in all,” Edd said, and laughed as Carey politely tried to school their expression. “My mom wanted a big family, and she and Dad were having no luck getting pregnant, so they adopted. Bryan and Claire live in Baymill. Jeremy moves all over the place. Hugh needs a little help with day-to-day stuff, so he’s still at home, but he has his own apartment over the garage. I’m the youngest. Mom got pregnant with me when Hugh was seven, and I was like, hello, surprise! How about you?”

“Just one older sister. Kennedy.” There was affection in their voice. “She’s in Baymill too.” Their face dimmed. “I already miss living so close to her.”

Both of them finished their ice cream and walked back to the car. The main street was quieter now; people were either in the Hollydale catching the late show or had gone home. Edd unlocked the car, and drove home with the windows open.

He pulled into Carey’s driveway and escorted them to their front door. They’d left the overhead light on in the living room, and it threw a yellow rectangle through the windows and onto the lawn.

“This is the first time I’ve come home after dark since I moved in,” Carey said, toying with their keys.

“Feels good?” Edd asked.

Carey looked into the room. “Yes,” they said, lips curving.

“I really enjoyed tonight,” Edd said, taking Carey’s free hand.

“So did I.”

There was a lot that hadn’t come up in conversation yet. “I’d love to see you again—in the date sense, I mean,” Edd said. “But I also prefer taking things slow. Is that all right with you?”

Carey let out a sigh that sounded like relief. “That is very all right with me. I’ve always—I like to be friends first, before anything else.”

“Awesome.” Edd squeezed Carey’s hand and released it. “Sleep well.”

“You too. Thank you,” Carey said. “Dinner was wonderful, the movie was fun, and I was glad to meet your brother.”

“The pleasure was mine.”

Edd backed out of Carey’s driveway and drove into his own, then tucked the leftovers into his fridge with a sense of repleteness and well-being. Later, as he checked his front door lock and peered out through the pane of glass before going to bed, he could still see the light from Carey’s windows, casting a golden coverlet onto the grass.

ten

Harriet had replied to Carey’s estimate with the amount she was willing to spend and permission to go ahead with whatever work they thought was most important. The quilt had lain on Carey’s clean-swept floor for several days now, in the dining room out of the direct sunlight, and every time Carey passed it, they stopped and considered their approach. Finally they’d tackled one of the worst squares, backing the rotted silk with cotton and tacking the remaining threads down with symmetrical white stitches. The effect was ghostly, like seeing something through frosted glass, and as Carey finished off the thread with a hidden quilter’s knot, they had the sense that they’d made the right choice.

Someone knocked on their door—not “someone”; they recognized the knock by now—and Carey’s entire being stood up and took notice.

Since their movie night a few weeks ago, they’d had two more dates with Edd. Carey had invited him over for a picnic in their backyard, serving a spread of crusty bread, cheese, and some locally made pickles that they’d found at the sandwich shop downtown. That was a much less risky approach than trying to cook for him, and fortunately Edd had appeared to enjoy it despite the lack of lawn furniture. Then Edd had invited them on a tour of the town’s thrift shops and galleries, followed by a half-pint of local cider at a pub called The Mysterious, which had a laminated wall of tarot cards and savoury fortune cookies on its menu. Clover Hill was full of businesses that Carey hadn’t found yet on their own.

It was too early to be excited, or making plans. They were going to go slow. Carey understood that. Edd’s knock fizzed through them like a sparkler anyway.

“Hey,” Edd said when Carey opened the door. “I just realized you probably don’t know about the town swap.”

“Swap? What are people swapping?”

“You name it.” Carey beckoned him in, and he slipped off his purple flip-flops, each of which had an enormous mesh zinnia on its strap. “People just put stuff out on their front lawn or wherever, as long as it’s still useable, and if you want it, you take it. I thought, if you wanted to keep an eye out for mendable blankets or things, we could drive around together.”

“That sounds like fun. Sure, let’s do that. I just made some iced mint tea, would you like some?”

“Love some.” He followed Carey into the kitchen. “I can only stay about fifteen minutes. I’ve got a batch of peach-raspberry cobbler in the oven.”

“It’s a pretty warm day to be baking.”

“You’re not wrong, but it’s peach season.” Edd accepted the glass and took a drink. As Carey put the pitcher in the fridge, he glanced through the doorway to the dining room. “Oh, that’s cool. Is that what you’ve been working on?”

“Do not go anywhere near that quilt with a drink in your hand,” Carey said, with only half-pretend severity.

“Understood. Do you just replace the torn pieces, or are there other things you do?”

Carey explained the strategy until Edd’s daisy-printed bib apron emitted a strum. He pulled his phone from the pocket. “Got to go. Thanks for the tea. I’ll pop by with some cobbler later on.”

Saturday morning found them cruising through town on a guided tour organized on very Edd-specific principles. “That was my friend Samantha’s house. When we were kids we used to have fashion shows in the old garage out back. That community garden used to be an abandoned factory. Teenagers used to break in to drink and party, but it burned down after someone lit a bunch of firecrackers inside. That house used to give out full-size candy bars on Halloween, they were legendary...”

They stopped several times to investigate goods set out on lawns and driveways. Edd picked up twin ruby wineglasses and a madras skirt; Carey found some lovely crocheted doilies, as well as a handful of utensils to supplement their extremely minimalist kitchen.

“That’s my parents’ house,” Edd said with no warning or particular emphasis. “And that’s where Harriet lived, but we weren’t close friends until later, after she transitioned and moved back from Baymill. If you take that walkway between the houses, you come out on Lea Street, it’s a great shortcut to downtown.”

They circled south of Main Street and through an older residential area that Carey hadn’t been in before.

“I know that couch!” Edd exclaimed. He pulled up to the curb in front of a piece of furniture that was longer than Carey was tall and had probably been a dark maroon in its heyday. Now, spots worn pale and shiny highlighted the edges of the cushions and the places where the fabric met the wooden trim. Carey immediately envisioned it in their living room, a nerve centre they could sew and nap and read and relax on. They’d never had space for something that size before. But Edd had seen it first, they thought, quashing the wish.

Edd nestled himself into one curving corner of the couch and stretched out his arms. “I’m not saying it couldn’t use a bit more padding.”

“Take it, please, I’m begging you.” A woman with vividly dyed red hair opened the door of the old house’s screened-in porch. Her bright turquoise T-shirt and the white stars all over her black capris popped against the porch’s shadows.

Edd swivelled. “Hey, Gina. Are you sure?”

“All morning, people have been pulling up, sitting on it, and driving away again. It’s a vintage treasure! Take it off my hands!”

Edd turned back to Carey. “What do you think?”

Carey sat down on the opposite end from Edd. He was right; whatever padding was left had been crushed to the density of marble by generations of sitters. But some cuts of foam would make easy enough new cushions, Carey thought. And blankets could be thrown over the back until it could be reupholstered. Upholstery was its own skill, and they’d never tried it, but YouTube was a wealth of DIY instruction...

“The structure seems solid.” They tried to wiggle it back and forth; it barely moved. It probably weighed more than they did. “If you like it, I think you should snap it up.”

Edd stretched his legs out and crossed them at his lace-socked ankles. “I was wondering more whether you might want it? Even as a temporary thing until you find one you really want? You can’t beat the price.”

Carey sat upright. “Really? Are you sure?”

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ve got all the furniture I need. If I tried to fit this into my living room, my house would burst its buttons. But you have the space.”

“Thank you so much! This is exactly what I was looking for.” Carey slouched gleefully into the distinctly unyielding embrace of the corner. They eyed Edd’s compact car. “How on earth are we going to get it home?”

“Leave it to me. There are advantages to knowing everybody.”

They didn’t have to wait very long before a couple of people named Flint and Rain arrived with a well-used pickup truck. The four of them wrestled the couch into the truck, and within an hour, it was in Carey’s living room. Turned to face the front windows, it was long enough to separate the dining room from the living room while still allowing natural light to reach the back wall, and it transformed the room from a provisional space into something that looked like a home.

Then Flint and Rain went on their way, Edd promising recompense via baked goods. Carey sat on the couch, drew their legs up, and considered the living room from a new angle.

“Do you want to go back out again?” Edd asked. “Or do you want to declare victory and call it a day? I’m betting the latter,” he said reassuringly, as Carey began to waffle internally between disappointing him and saying what they really wanted.

“Would you mind very much if I stayed in? I want to take a closer look at it.” Carey’s fingers were already itching for their notebook. If the frame was sound and everything else needed replacing, what couldn’t they do with it? Visions of embroidery and patchwork cushions were cascading through their mind like leaves of a calendar in an old movie.

“No problem. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you for finding it, Edd. It’s perfect.” Carey had an urge to fling their arms around him, but they didn’t want to spoil their day together by moving too fast.

Edd looked delighted, as though Carey had done him a favour rather than vice versa. “I’m glad you like it.”

Over the next several days Carey had occasion to spend a lot of time on the couch, collecting projects, reference books, phone charger, and a profusion of pillows. It was certainly worn, but it was clean and didn’t smell at all musty. With a slab of memory foam as a base and liberal application of afghans, it even became comfortable.

It was a good vantage point from which to view the quilt, too, kneeling to lean over the back of the couch and balancing their notebook on the top. The quilt wasn’t the most difficult project Carey had ever undertaken, but it felt personal in a way that bordered on intimate, and they felt a responsibility to treat it with respect. Not knowing much about the original maker, they gleaned clues from some squares to use on others. A long tear got covered with an embroidered feather, for the poultry fair. A deteriorating square of printed cotton was reinforced in a pattern taken from the crochet lace in the opposite corner. They hand-tied lengths of white embroidery thread where the original cotton yarn had been pulled out or stained. It was almost like working hand in hand with the departed artist herself, both honouring what had been and adding something new for the future.

Another advantage of the couch was that now Carey could invite Edd over to stay awhile.

Carey had been over to his house, finally, and it had surprised both of them to realize that Carey hadn’t seen it before. The original plan had been to visit an abandoned orchard on the edge of town that, Edd said, had apple varieties he’d never come across anywhere else. But the day had started drizzly and continued into a downpour, so Edd had suggested grilled cheese sandwiches and a movie at his place instead.

It was the same floor plan as Carey’s, like several others on the block, and furnished with a mix of vintage and modern that Carey thought suited Edd perfectly. Movie posters and framed magazine ads hung on the walls, along with little shelves holding tins and glassware and china flowers. They were astonished at how much furniture he managed to fit in, including two couches and a dining table that could sit eight, but it didn’t feel crowded, just full of things to look at. The entire first floor smelled faintly like cookies, as though the aromas of butter and sugar from everything Edd baked had seeped into the woodwork.

Carey half-expected the second bedroom to have been converted into a dressing room, but it was just an ordinary room, oddly plain compared to the rest of the house. “I’ve had a couple of roommates,” Edd explained. “I’ve been waffling over whether to rent it out to somebody else or just use the space.” His own room had one wall lined with an Art Deco wardrobe and a white enamel Hoosier cabinet out of which spilled scarves and strings of beads. The bed was neatly made with a pink chenille spread.

His finished basement was resplendent with fake wood panelling, a brick fireplace with glowing electric logs, and a built-in wet bar with a top made of pennies embedded in clear acrylic resin. “Not my doing,” Edd assured them. “I just can’t face the idea of breaking up the Seventies time capsule.”

He also had a museum of media players going back to VHS and shelves filled with movies in various formats, though the huge screen that hung on the wall opposite the couch was very up-to-date. They watched It Happened One Night in the cool dark, eating sandwiches gooey with hot cheese and hearing occasional gusts of rain against the basement windows. When the movie’s Wall of Jericho fell to the floor in a metaphorical heap of blanket, Carey became very conscious of Edd, sitting there on the opposite end of his couch. How slow was slow enough? They didn’t trust themself to reach over to him—they were terrible at that kind of timing—and as they were fumbling for the right words to ask the question, Edd rose to switch on the lights, and the moment passed.

Work on the quilt was going quickly now, Carey’s instincts in this arena, at least, being something they trusted. All of the off-white touches seemed to lighten and brighten it, framing and emphasizing the original elements while removing all the frays and rips that had made it look old and worn. It was an immensely satisfying project, and a good demonstration of what they could do. Carey took photographs at every stage, envisioning a new section of their website to complement the fairly outdated before-and-after page.

They tested the highly coloured patches for dye fastness, blessed the maker who had pre-washed them, and gave the quilt a soak in a lukewarm, sudsy bath. The water turned the shade of a November sky. Several rinses and a long squeeze in thick towels later, they left the quilt to dry on a clean sheet on the floor, two fans running all night to move the damp air away.

The last thing they did was to run their hands over every appliqué and square, seeking any loose threads, matted batting, or unsecured edges catching on their fingers. The filling had a few lumps in it, which Carey carefully massaged flat through the covering fabric.

One lump was unyielding. Not just hardened with time and friction; there was something in there. Carey deliberated. Then, acting on curiosity and instinct both, they carefully picked apart a few inches of the edge seam on the red-and-white-striped square and slipped their finger inside to coax whatever it was out.

It had been red, once. Paint flaked off into Carey’s palm as they picked up the little wooden heart. A tiny hole was bored through its centre, top to bottom. A bead, then, maybe rescued from a broken necklace or bracelet to be slipped secretly into the quilt, a hidden charm of love and protection for someone to sleep safely under.

Carey gently pushed the heart back into the quilt and sewed up the seam. They’d taken photographs too, but those, they had already decided, wouldn’t go on the website. Those would be for Harriet and her girlfriend alone.

* * *

The next Saturday night found Carey and Edd on Carey’s couch, tucking into vegetable lo mein and egg rolls, Carey’s laptop on a stack of plastic containers in front of them. A stand of pine trees across the road filtered the lowering sun.

“I thought Netflix had more older movies,” Carey said, scrolling through section after disappointing section. “I’m sorry. I should have checked.”

“No big deal. Is it okay if I log in to my streaming service?” Edd went to crouch beside Carey by the laptop. Some taps and clicks later, a page full of black and white stills unfolded into view. “Ooh, they’re highlighting a Katharine Hepburn series. How about Adam’s Rib?”

Ninety minutes later, Spencer Tracy climbed into bed with Katharine and snapped the curtains closed. “I had such a crush on her when I was a teenager,” Carey confessed.

“Oh, me too. Which was very confusing, because I’d just decided I didn’t want to date women, and then—bam.”

“I think she has that effect on people all along the scale.” Carey stretched, preternaturally mindful of the empty cushion between Edd and them.

“That was true in her time, too.”

“Really? I thought she was married to Spencer Tracy.”

“No, they never married.” Edd turned in the curve of the couch. “They never even really lived together. It was one of those relationships that looks a little odd from the outside. There were rumours about both of them being closeted, but even if that’s true, I think they were two people who figured out what kind of relationship worked for them, instead of just fitting themselves into what was expected. Not everybody’s comfortable with that.” Casual as that last sentence was, Carey suspected that Edd had experience with other people’s uncomfortable expectations.

The room was dimmer now, the sun a halo of orange glow behind the opposite rooftops. The silver threads in Edd’s striped top caught the light, sketching him in flickers as he brought his legs up to face Carey.

“When I got married it felt like that was what we were doing,” Carey said into the forgiving shadows. They moved to mirror Edd, drawing their own knees up. “I just wanted to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. I had plans. A little house with a backyard studio for me, a garden, a spare room so he could work from home. I thought we were making a foundation for that.” They hugged their knees for comfort. “But after a while he just found it all restricting.” Carey shied away from confessing the rest of it, that somehow—it still shook them to think of it—they hadn’t heard what Grant had been saying, hadn’t noticed how miserable he’d been until he’d cut himself out of their life altogether in self-preservation.

“That’s what I was trying for, too,” Edd said. “A home and someone to share it with.” The light from the screen cast him in greyscale.

“But?”

His sigh was louder in the still room than his words. “People see how I dress and what I do with my time, and make assumptions. Some guys have expected me to be submissive, or to do all the shitwork in the relationship. Or they think I’m making an artistic statement, and they get bored when they find out it’s just how I like to dress. My last boyfriend basically accused me of false advertising.”

“What? What a jerk!” Carey said, too loudly, and then cringed. What if Edd was still somehow friends with him?

“That sentiment was expressed at the time,” Edd said lightly. “Needless to say, he moved out of my house, and not long after that he moved back out of my town. Good riddance.”

Carey rested the side of their head against the blanketed back of the couch. “Have you always dressed that way?” Carey’s understanding of their own gender had come gradually, a paring away of unwanted possibilities. Edd was so carefree in the way he presented himself now, they imagined his insight as having come early, or maybe been bestowed upon a young Edd like a queen’s crown.

“No, it took me a while to work it out. The only men I knew who looked close to how I wanted to dress were drag queens, and I wasn’t interested in making it into a performance. I just wanted to wear pretty dresses and things that sparkle.” He smoothed his skirt down his thighs, and the taffeta whispered under his hands.

“Was it that simple?” Carey heard the envy in their voice.

“Not quite. Not while it was still uncharted territory. But once I took the first few steps, I couldn’t go back. I guess to some people I’m gender-nonconforming in a big way, but dressing like this makes me feel like myself.”

“I know you don’t do it for other people, but I think you always look wonderful.” Normally saying that kind of thing would tie Carey up in knots, but Edd and the dark made the words come out easily. “Being around you makes me feel like myself, too.”

Edd stretched his legs out along the cushions. He didn’t quite touch Carey, but they could feel him nonetheless.

The screen had gone to shadow, but the streetlights were on, and yellow light pooled like a rug on the polished floor. Carey let go of their knees. “Edd?”

His voice was low. “Carey?”

“If I kissed you right now, would that be moving too fast?”

They could hear him breathe for a moment. “That would be a perfect speed.”

Carey rolled up onto their knees and waded across the soft distance to Edd. They steadied themself with one hand on the back of the couch and put the other out to touch the gilded edge the streetlight cast on his shoulder. They leaned in, and he moved to meet them.

The kiss was gentle, and progressed into another, and another. Edd put his hand up to Carey’s hair. There was no swelling passion, no moment when the kiss deepened and they got lost in each other. Nothing sexual had ever been like that for Carey, and they didn’t expect it to change now. But it was exactly what they wanted: connection, and pleasure, and a sense of trust and shelter.

By the time they drew apart, Carey was in Edd’s lap. He pulled them closer again, wrapping his arms around their back. “Is it okay if we just sit like this for a bit?”

Carey nestled their face into the side of his neck. “Yes,” they said, and they and Edd rested against each other, breath slowing and coming into a shared rhythm as they held each other close in the dim golden twilight.

eleven

When Ozzie picked Edd up on Thursday, Harriet was sitting in the front seat. That hadn’t happened in a few weeks, and Edd felt his heart lift. Had they finally been able to talk out whatever was going on between them? Mostly to avoid distracting Ozzie while he was driving, Edd sat on an urge to lean between the seats and give them both an encompassing bear hug.

Soon he was glad he’d kept it to himself, because the atmosphere in the car was not that of people who’d made peace. As soon as his foot was on the accelerator, Ozzie launched into a story about a new artist who’d joined The Project, relating every conversation as though he’d memorized it. The few times he paused to draw breath, Harriet made a comment, dry as withered straw. It felt like they were auditioning to play characters based on themselves.

Downtown was hectic. Ozzie couldn’t find a parking spot closer than the grocery store, and had to schlep his basket of art all the way up to Main Street.

“What’s new?” Edd asked in Tea & Cupcakes, as Ozzie wrestled with the lock of the vending machine.

“The Bells of St. Clement’s,” Aspen said. “Cold sparkling orange and lemon iced tea.”

“Sounds good,” Edd said, and sat at the nearest free table while Harriet stood at the counter waiting for her hot black tea. When he saw Aspen putting the lid on his drink, he went back up to save him a trip. Harriet was cradling her drink as if it were the depths of December and not the end of August.

“You want to get some air?” Edd said quietly. When she nodded, he called over to Ozzie, “We’re going to wait outside,” and preceded Harriet out the door.

They stood as close to the window as they could, trying to stay out of the path of heedless pedestrians. Edd took a sip of his drink, and his mouth puckered from the sourness of the lemon. “Are you okay?”

Harriet’s sigh seemed to deflate her. “Oh, god, Edd. Everything’s completely fantastic and completely awful at the same time. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Well...fantastic’s good.” Her smile in response was pallid. “Did Ozzie, uh, have you guys talked? I kind of get the feeling that might be good for both of you.”

She raised her hands in frustration. “I have tried and tried to talk to him.”

“Really?” Edd got the impression he was tiptoeing around eggshells with razor edges. “He seems to have the idea that you’re shutting him out.”

“I’m not. I’m...shit, okay, yes. I was. Shit.” She rubbed her thumb futilely over spilled tea on the cuff of her white linen shirt. “I was being the asshole, I know that. But I’ve been trying to talk to him, and he just, argh.”

“Is he being too much Ozzie?” Edd guessed.

Harriet looked at the sky and groaned. “He keeps saying how we’re BFFs, and he loves me, and it’s us against the world, and we can face anything together, and he just—I can’t—Edd, I am fucking this up so bad.” Her voice thickened.

Edd bit down on You can talk to me too, you know. If she’d wanted to tell him the details, she would have. “Whatever it is sounds complicated and hard. I’m sorry you’re going through a bad time.”

She sighed again. “The thing is, in some ways it’s—”

Ozzie burst out of the tea shop. “Hey, ladies and germs, it’s on to the Garage, let’s go!”

“You know what, I have some errands to do,” Harriet said. “I think I’m going to take off from here.”

“That’s cool, we can meet up at the Sunrise for lunch.” Ozzie’s voice rose in volume and enthusiasm. “White bread! Grease! You know you want to!”

“I’ll see you back at the Circus, okay?” Harriet ducked into the flow of pedestrians as though she were evading enemy fire.

“Okay! Whatever you need!” Ozzie called after her. He hefted the basket. “Let’s do this thing!”

Between Ozzie turned up to eleven and the growing heat of an August day, the rest of the morning was exhausting. Over western sandwiches and coffee, Edd tried to steer the conversation to Harriet, but Ozzie waved his concern away. “It’ll work out. She’s going through a thing, it’s fine, she’ll be fine, we’re solid, we’re good. Do you want to split a piece of pie?”

On the drive home, as they neared Edd’s house, Ozzie said, “I haven’t seen much of you lately. Things are going good with Carey?”

Edd couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face. “Yeah, they are.”

Ozzie rolled to a halt at a stop sign and turned to look searchingly at Edd. “Swear to god? They’re okay with taking things slowly enough for you?”

“Yes. I promise. My days of jumping into bed with someone just because they want it are long over.” Carey had timed the recent kissing perfectly, though.

Ozzie crossed the intersection with a heavy foot on the accelerator. “Good. Because they seem nice, and I don’t want to have to trash their reputation in this town. But I will if I have to!”

Edd laughed. “I appreciate that, Ozzie, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary.”

They taxied into Edd’s driveway. “You look happy,” Ozzie observed, fussing with the parking brake.

“I really like them,” Edd confessed. “We kind of just clicked. It’s been like meeting a new best friend. I have no idea where it’s going to go in the long term, but for now, yeah, I’m enjoying it.”

“That’s good. Say hi to them for me.”

“Will do.”

Ozzie made a shooing gesture. “Okay, get out my car now, O’Leary, I have a hot date with a hot glue gun.”

Edd did so. Then he turned and leaned down to speak through the open window, because he couldn’t stand to walk away without saying something. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with Harriet. But she cares about you, Ozzie. She’s just figuring something out.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ozzie drummed his fingers on the steering wheel with nervous energy. “I know.”

* * *

Of course they’d work it out. Edd knew they would. But the problem still nagged at him. If they weren’t talking honestly, what next step could they possibly take?

The following day dawned in a muggy haze. Stubbornly, Edd baked strawberry custard buns, turning the kitchen into a sauna. Distracted by his thoughts, he forgot to turn on the oven timer for the first batch, and by the time he registered the smell of burning, the edges of the buns were scorched and the tops hardened to a crunchy brown. He glared at the second batch throughout the bake. They turned out golden and smelling heavenly, but gave him a painful blister by dripping molten jam on his thumb as he was prying them out of the trays.

After lunch, he drove his usual route. At Cherryville, Gina’s Aunt Ophelia was drowsy in the heat, so he didn’t stay long. He dropped a tray off with Mr. Holtz, but cut off the man’s complaints with as cheerful an excuse as he could muster. Edd wasn’t up for listening to a tirade about the ungratefulness of the world right now.

As he walked into Rose’s, he saw Sharon sitting at the counter with her head sagging in her hands. When the bell sounded, she jerked upright.

“Hey, Sharon. Is everything all right?” Edd asked, proffering his tray.

Sharon twisted the heels of her hands over her eyes. “Gran went walking in the middle of the night. It’s okay, Mom heard the door open and brought her back in, but nobody got much sleep.”

“Oh, no. Did she have a bad day yesterday?” Being upset sometimes sent Mrs. Rose out in search of something they had never quite identified.

Sharon grimaced. “Mom floated the idea of Gran going over to Cherryville for their day program a couple of times a week, just to give us a little breathing room, and Gran hit the fucking roof. Plus, Aaron can’t come in today because his kid is sick, so I’m here alone, and—” She broke off with a yawn.

“Is there anything I can do? Why don’t I come over tomorrow and sit with her for a while, give you guys a little time off?”

“No, it’s okay. Mom’s home for the weekend, everything’s under control.”

Edd didn’t doubt that, but it was at the cost of Sharon looking like a dishrag washed and wrung out too many times. “You know that you can call me whenever you need anything. I could do errands, pick up some groceries—”

Sharon was shaking her head. “We already ask you for too much. This is our problem, and we’re dealing with it. It’s fine.” She opened the laptop at her elbow.

“I don’t mind,” Edd said helplessly.

“You can’t fix this, Edd,” Sharon snapped. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. “Shit. Sorry.”

The bell tolled, and a customer walked in with an armload of bulky plastic bags. Edd nudged the tray of buns towards Sharon across the counter. “Don’t forget to eat, okay?” He made his escape while Sharon was counting wrinkled dress shirts.

Back in his car, he sat and let his forehead rest on the steering wheel, feeling as if he’d failed some kind of test but unable to untangle how. Probably by trying too hard; that was his usual method.

He had a few more stops on his route, but he probably shouldn’t inflict his mood on anyone else right now. He didn’t feel like being alone, either. Edd got out of the car again and lost himself in the main street bustle, desultorily window shopping and flipping through racks at Kreg’s that he’d already looked at once this week. After a while he went back home and, since he was crabby anyway, knocked off some half-assed cleaning and laundry.

He checked his phone a couple of times, not realizing he was looking for a message from Carey until he felt disappointed because there wasn’t one. He thought longingly of their spare house and restful presence. He wanted to nestle into their deep couch with his arms around them and watch a ridiculous movie and forget about the day. But he probably wasn’t the best company at the moment.

It was past five when it came to him like a thunderbolt that he’d promised to cook dinner for Carey. He’d had grilled eggplant and zucchini in mind, but he’d forgotten to buy any, and even after that the eggplant would require salting and rinsing and the whole rigamarole. The thought of doing it now was exhausting. Maybe they could order in? Though Carey had said something recently about having to watch their budget until their busy fall season kicked in, and Edd pulling out his money to get his way had been a problem in relationships before.

Texting Carey and begging off was tempting, but Edd missed them and wanted to see them. He could keep up a bright front for fifteen minutes of apologetic chitchat, couldn’t he? Probably. Possibly.

A fine end to a crappy day, he thought sourly, and went to change out of his crumpled dress and see if he could salvage something from the evening.

twelve

With Harriet’s quilt finished and folded up on top of one of the boxes near the front door, waiting to be wrapped for pickup, Carey’s mind turned again to Edd’s suit. It was turning out to be more of a puzzle than they’d expected. Embroidery, patching, darning—every effective technique in their toolbox seemed merely adequate, too pale and pedestrian for Edd and their vision of him wearing it.

They’d stuck a removable hook onto the dining room wall and hung the suit jacket on a hanger from it, where it caught their attention in different lights and at different times of day. Sometimes the stain blared out, all they could focus on; sometimes it seemed to fade into the clump of crimson flowers that surrounded it. Whenever they looked at the suit, their brain cast up the same old solutions, and Carey patiently set them aside and waited for something they hadn’t yet consciously realized to become clear.

They hadn’t seen or heard from Edd yesterday. That was unusual for the last few weeks, but Carey supposed the two of them couldn’t be together every single day. They’d almost texted him several times, but had forced themself to hold back. He was undoubtedly busy with deliveries, or spending time with some of his dozens of friends. Carey didn’t want to wear out their welcome. Edd had trusted them enough to reveal how his ex had demanded too much of him, and Carey wasn’t going to make that mistake.

But he was coming over with dinner tonight. At the thought, warmth and anticipation fizzed inside Carey. Dating had never felt like this, ever; it had seemed an alien ritual, filled with depth charges of gendered and extroverted expectations. Edd was thoughtful, caring, romantic, but also Carey’s friend. They had been comfortable with him from the start.

Almost, it occurred to them now, the way they’d felt falling in love with Grant.

The idea didn’t sit well, considering the way they’d failed their ex-husband. They shoved the thought away and concentrated on perfecting a tricky line of French knots around the neckline of a sweater.

Over an hour later they blinked and stretched. It was after five. They checked their phone—no messages—and went into the kitchen to get something cool to drink, glancing through the front window on the way. Edd’s car was in his driveway. They’d wait until five-thirty, Carey thought, and then text him.

At five-thirty-three they were standing in the kitchen with their phone in their hand, wondering whether they should wait another few minutes, when Edd knocked on the door.

“Hi,” he said, stepping just barely into Carey’s house and holding out a foil tray. “Here. Strawberry custard buns. I’m sorry I didn’t get them to you yesterday, but they’ll reheat.”

“Thank you.” The washed-out yellow shirt he wore made him look wan. “How are you?”

Edd gave a little shake-shrug gesture, truncating both as though he didn’t have a follow-through in him right now. “Things got away from me. I’m really sorry, I know I said I’d bring over dinner, but I forgot. Raincheck?”

“Oh. That’s okay, that’s fine. Why don’t I make dinner instead? I didn’t get any groceries because I thought—um. But I could make us something. I have...” Carey tried to remember what was in their cupboards that they could serve to someone else. “Pasta? I have pasta. And butter. And garlic. That’s at least three food groups, right?”

Edd was shaking his head. “No, no, don’t go to any trouble. I’m not great company right now anyway.”

He looked disheartened. Carey wanted to put their arms around him and hold him until he unbent. “Did something happen? Did you get bad news?”

He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “No, it’s just hard to watch people I care about have problems I can’t solve.”

“That is hard. Well, if you don’t feel like eating, I have ice cream. Or just come sit, and we’ll watch a movie or something.”

Edd’s gaze went longingly to the couch. “No, I’d just bring you down.”

Carey drew breath to protest, then stopped themself. Edd was telling them what he wanted, and they needed to listen. “Okay. Whatever you need.”

Paradoxically, now that that seemed settled, Edd didn’t leave. “Enough about my boring problems. How have you been?”

“I’m good. I put a bunch of things up on the website this week and I’ve already sold two blankets.”

Edd’s eyes roamed the room and alighted on the folded quilt. “Is that that amazing quilt you’ve been working on? Did you finish it? Who’s it for, anyway? Anyone I know?”

“Yes. Let me show you what I did.” A glow of pride suffused Carey as they opened it out a few folds. “It was such a wonderful project. You know how sometimes you feel that there’s something bigger behind the work, inspiring you? It was like that.”

Edd’s tired smile warmed them. “And you say you’re not an artist.”

“I’m not,” Carey protested. “But Harriet said she loved the pictures I sent her. I suspect it’s a housewarming present. I hope her girlfriend likes it.”

“Harriet’s—what?”

The world slid into gelid slow-motion. “Her—” Carey’s mouth went dry.

“Harriet has a girlfriend? And they’re...do you mean they’re moving in together?”

Carey put their hands up to their mouth. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was a secret.”

“It’s...it’s not your fault. Wow.” Edd blinked. “Harriet has a girlfriend.”

“I’m so sorry,” Carey repeated, appalled. They’d always thought of themself as someone a friend could confide in. Apparently they’d just failed at that, too.

Edd’s mouth was hanging open. “Okay.” They both stood without speaking for a few moments. Then he said, almost absently, “I should go. Can I call you later?”

Carey flipped the quilt closed with deadened hands. Of course Edd didn’t want to be around them now. “Sure.”

“Okay. I’ll see you.” Edd gave them a distracted smile as he let himself out.

Carey closed the door behind him, feeling as though the floor had dropped out from beneath them. Not only had they failed at comforting Edd, they felt like they’d slapped him across the face.

They slumped onto the couch. It occurred to them that they needed to text Harriet and let her know that they’d let her secret out. Carey hid their burning face in the cushions and let out a groan.

The moment they sent the text they noticed two typos and a partial sentence in it that made them sound completely scattered. They were staring at the screen when a canned reply popped up: Harriet was on vacation for the next two weeks and would only be checking messages periodically. She’d reply when she could.

That was even worse than a swift condemnation. Carey rolled onto their side and curled into a little lump, chilled despite the lingering heat of the day. With one thoughtless assumption, they’d made practically every person they knew in town mad at them. They pulled a crocheted afghan down from the back of the couch. It fell over their face, and they left it there, staring at the blank opposite wall through the holes in the pattern.

thirteen

Edd walked back to his house like someone in a cartoon after being hit with a mallet, little birds twirping and whistling around his head. Ozzie had been right? Harriet had a girlfriend?

Things he’d noticed but not understood began slotting into order in his mind. Her absences, so common since the winter; her mixture of happiness and worry; the way she was avoiding looking Ozzie in the eye. She’d been trying to keep a secret too big to hold onto, like a helium balloon bobbing her off her feet and into the sky.

Even through the shock, he was delighted for her. She and Edd were at that same awkward stage of their thirties, with a few serious relationships under their belts but still singed by the fallout. Harriet deserved someone who saw how wonderful she was, how kind and tender under her slightly acerbic exterior.

He couldn’t deny being a little hurt that she hadn’t told him, though looking back, he could see how she’d been working up to it. But he could understand that. Harriet and Ozzie had been each other’s shadows for a decade, since Harriet had moved back to town and into the Circus. Now something new had begun for Harriet, which meant that something else was ending, and Harriet was stuck on the prongs of that change.

And thinking of dilemmas... Edd sat down at his kitchen table and rested his chin in one hand. Now he knew the answer to a question that Ozzie had been chewing over all summer. What was he supposed to do about that?

His wish to make things right tussled with the understanding that this was between Harriet and Ozzie. But they were his best friends, too. Maybe he should talk to Harriet. Maybe he should reassure Ozzie that things were going to be okay. Maybe Carey’s slip of the tongue would break everything wide open and they could all settle the hell down already.

He went into Sunday Dinner swivelling internally between option A, option B, and minding his own damn business. The entire night turned out to be off-balance. Harriet had gone somewhere on vacation, apparently with no notice but a brief text to Ozzie. Ozzie was elaborately demonstrating that he didn’t care. And Edd had undercooked the ratatouille, leaving him with a gallon of crunchy and bitter leftovers at the end of the night. He left the Circus determined to wash his hands of the whole thing.

Carey came by the next morning. As soon as he opened the door, they thrust a bouquet of green at him.

“Here. I think this is basil? It was growing beside the tomatoes and it smells good. The internet says basil flowers look like that, which I didn’t know. But if you want it to cook with, there’s more.”

“Oh, yeah, it is.” He brushed his fingers over the leaves and inhaled the sweet liquorice scent. “I love fresh basil. Thanks.”

“I’m so sorry about the other night.” Carey twisted their fingers together. “I’m usually good at keeping secrets. I didn’t mean to let it out.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, these things happen. Come on in while I put these in the fridge.”

“Harriet said the same thing. I texted her right away, and this morning she texted me back and said it was fine, she obviously hadn’t made it clear enough that it was a secret. I feel so bad about it.”

Edd put the herbs down on the counter and turned to find Carey with their arms crossed around their torso. “Hey, it’s okay.” He stroked a hand down each of their arms and captured their hands between his own. “Honestly.”

Carey gave him a wan smile. “Thanks for not being still mad at me.”

“Mad at you?” He squeezed their hands and released them. “You really think I’d be mad at you for a little misunderstanding?”

Carey gave a little shrug and ran one hand through their hair, mussing it. The crisp edge of their haircut had blurred. They were wearing a grey T-shirt and soft lounge pants, oversized enough that Carey seemed to be swallowed in them. “Harriet’s your friend.”

“I swear I’m not mad.”

Carey took a long breath and let it out. “Okay.”

Edd found a glass in the cupboard, filled it with water from the tap, plopped the basil in, and put it into the fridge. “Do you want to watch a movie or something?” Carey hesitated, and he added, “Or do you have work to do?”

“I really should get back to work. Maybe later?”

“Yeah, okay, let’s do that. Text me when it’s a good time.”

There was a moment where they could have kissed each other goodbye, but neither of them moved, and Carey gave him another worried smile and left.

On Thursday morning, to lift his spirits, Edd went big with his outfit: blouse in a loud abstract print, ruffled skirt in a different print of the same colours, wide belt, chunky jewellery, and floral Chuck Taylors. He was waiting on the porch when Ozzie drove up. But Ozzie shut off the ignition, and when Edd came to open the car door, he said, “I’m taking a break from Thursdays.”

“A break?” Edd echoed, as if Ozzie had said he’d decided to stop getting up in the morning.

“Things aren’t going so hot with The Project,” Ozzie said. “I’m going to put it on hiatus until I figure out what to do next.”

“Hiatus? What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t know yet, Edd.” Ozzie turned the key in the ignition. “Today I’m going to go for a drive, do some thinking. Or stop thinking, whichever.”

“You want some company?” Edd offered automatically, and immediately regretted it, because the temptation to blab was going to be excruciating.

“How can I have my personal epiphany if I’m hanging out with you?” Ozzie asked, with a deadpan expression worthy of Harriet. “Don’t look so tragic, O’Leary, I’m coming back.”

“Promise?” Edd wasn’t entirely joking.

“Ah, for sure.” Ozzie gunned the engine gently, then taxied along the curb and away.

Edd considered going downtown by himself, but the idea held all the savour of warm, flat ginger ale. Maybe he should get out of town for the day too, he thought, though he always preferred being a passenger who could take in the scenery to being at the wheel.

He decided to go over to the orchard and see what he could scavenge. Opening his car door, he hesitated and looked over at the neighbouring front window. But Carey was probably working again today, and Edd needed to respect that they couldn’t just drop everything because he was feeling out of sorts.

On the raucous hedge of wild raspberries that lined the driveway into the old orchard property there was still fruit to be picked, dusty in the late-August dry spell. Edd filled a quart basket with early apples instead. It felt transgressive, picking apples in the heat; apples were for fall, for tart days and crisp nights and cinnamon sticks in mulling cider. But the butt end of the summer had overstayed its welcome, and Edd had the urge to hurry it out the door and get to September’s clean new beginning.

He was trying not to think about the thing he knew that Ozzie didn’t, and decided he needed a complex new project to help him keep not thinking about it. He settled on apple strudel, which he’d never made. And never would again, he vowed later, as the dough fought him, clumping and tearing and making a sticky mess of his kitchen table. Kneading bread was therapeutic; this was like trying to iron glue. He gritted his teeth and persevered, disgruntled with the dough, the heat, Harriet, Ozzie, and the way everything felt overripe and off-kilter. When the strudel came out of the oven somehow both mushy and tough, Edd came as close as he’d ever come to pitching a dessert right into the garbage. Today he understood why people had once believed in witches’ curses dulling knives and souring the milk. Sometimes things just went south for no good reason.

He wondered what Carey was doing this evening. He still had some apples; he could make a quick crisp, take it over to them, sit in the restful dark while they stitched away at another reclaimed blanket...

He put the image away reluctantly. Anyone could see that Carey was still papering over the cracks left by their previous relationship. It wouldn’t be fair to subject them to his moping.

Defeated, he went into the basement and turned on the television, where Tony Curtis was rocking an Orry-Kelly frock and strings of pearls like nobody’s business. Maybe that was sometimes the best you could do, Edd thought, letting himself sag into the couch’s lumpen embrace: dodge the mobsters, try not to let your mistakes make things more difficult for anyone else, and wait until you were more pleasant to be around.

fourteen

Edd’s suit still hung on the wall, a puzzle Carey knew they had all the pieces to and yet couldn’t seem to solve.

Like whatever was happening with Edd. Carey had apologized for their witless betrayal of Harriet’s secret, and Edd had said he understood, but he hadn’t brought them baking or come over to spend the evening for what seemed like days now. Carey had texted him once and gotten a reply saying that he was taking care of something and that they would totally get together soon, but after that there’d been nothing more.

Carey was being irrational. They knew that. Edd’s life didn’t revolve around them any more than Carey’s did around him—although they were now horribly aware that not seeing Edd near-daily felt as though a warm blanket had been ripped off. Their brain harried them. Was he not feeling well? Was he going through some crisis he didn’t trust Carey enough to share? Had he realized how boring his mousy neighbour was compared to the rest of his creative friends? Did he not like them anymore? Carey could hardly form the questions.

And whatever it was, what should they do about it? Should they text him again? Go knock on his door? Would that be supportive and caring, or needy or unreasonable? The thought of making Edd feel pressured or taken advantage of was abhorrent. But Carey had left Grant alone to figure things out, and look what had happened there.

Stuck, Carey pondered the empty suit and unsuccessfully tried to detach the unhelpful thoughts that clung and itched like burrs caught on a sweater.

They sold a few blankets via their website, and schlepped the packages downtown to the post office on the bus. They really needed to think about buying a car. It was past time they learned to do basic things on their own.

They stopped at the grocery store to buy some staples that were completely unappealing but that they should probably have around. Back at home, as they were putting the peanut butter and pasta sauce away, their phone buzzed with a missed call notification. Their first thought was of Edd. The relief lightened them like a full breath before it occurred to them that he’d never actually called them before and would probably have texted instead. It must be a client; some people preferred to talk rather than write an email.

The number was one they’d seen before, and it took Carey’s brain a few seconds to slot it into the proper place in their memory. They froze with a box of cereal in hand, staring at their phone, feeling as though a house centipede had just sprinted up their naked spine.

Why would Grant call them?

They pulled the number back up onto the screen: definitely the one that they’d erased from their contacts months ago. Carey sank into one of the folding chairs at the kitchen table, cold all over. Ridiculous, they thought. They had nothing to fear from Grant. Fight or flight was a nonsensical reaction. Calm down, Carey thought, and pressed shaking hands between their knees.

They slept poorly that night, with no dreams that they could remember but waking up every hour to stare into the dark and listen to the house creak and mutter to itself. In the morning they dove into work, simple darns that they could churn through without having to think much about. They alternated between turning their phone ringer up and turning it off, nervously sure each time that they were making the wrong decision.

On breaks to make tea and nibble without an appetite at soda crackers, they glanced out the windows at Edd’s empty backyard and Edd’s car in his driveway. Several times they opened up their message app and tried to think of some non-needy and earnest way to say How are you? Each time they closed it again, resisting the urge to send just a line of scarlet question marks.

Grant called one of the times the ringer was off. This time a little blood-red circle informed Carey that he had left a message.

Carey put the phone face-down under one of the throw pillows on the couch. Then they slid it out again and looked at it. They had the fleeting thought that they could just delete the message, but that would have been like not being able to see the wasp they knew was somewhere in the house.

They drew their legs up and scrunched into a corner of the couch. Poking their phone with one finger, they let their ex’s voice into the room.

“Hi,” he said, sounding just like they remembered him. “It’s me, Grant. Uh, how are you? I hope you’re doing well.”

A pause, while Carey tried to remember how to breathe.

“I should say sorry about not leaving a message the first time. I kind of lost my nerve? So, um. Cliché coming up. Could we talk? I get it if you don’t want to, but I’d really appreciate it if we could.”

What was left to talk about? Their divorce papers had been signed, their assets divided, their life together sundered, Carey’s ineptitude laid bare.

“It’s nothing bad,” Grant added quickly. “I just, I think there are some things I need to say to you that I didn’t before. God, I’m sorry, that sounds ominous.” A sigh. “I don’t want to make this into a big thing for you. I’m going to call tomorrow at...at two. I hope that’s okay. You can answer or not, it’s up to you. If you don’t, I won’t bother you again. But I’d really like to talk to you. Anyway. Bye, Carey. Take care.”

Carey’s fist was curled up by their mouth. They swallowed past a lump in their throat and leaned against the back of the couch, breathing slowly to calm the hammering of their heart. This reaction was senseless; Grant just wanted to talk. But their body thrummed with warning, as if all the doubt and misery of the last year still festered hot and raw under a scab.

The next day dawned with a grey drizzle, too weak to cool the air or water the grass. Carey sat and sewed, feeling as though they were made of blown glass. Two o’clock loomed like doomsday.

At noon, their phone chimed with a message. Carey looked at it uncomprehendingly.

An image popped up from Edd: Three round, naked cake layers resting on cooling racks. And an emoji, a slice of cake with a strawberry on top.

Carey frowned and swiped the message away from the screen. Was it an offer, a suggestion, what? Were they supposed to respond? Why was everyone being so mysterious?

By one-thirty, Carey’s nerves felt like someone had taken coarse sandpaper to them. They stared at their phone, willing the numbers on the clock to advance, and at the same time swinging wildly back and forth on whether they’d answer at all.

The call came, as promised, at two on the dot. Just phone again, no video, and Carey was glad; they didn’t want to see Grant, how happy he looked to be away from them.

Not answering, it turned out, made them feel as though they were drowning right there on the couch. “Hello,” Carey gasped into the phone after the third ring.

“Carey?” Grant said. “Hi. Thank you for answering.”

“Hello,” Carey repeated. Their own voice seemed far away.

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Good. Um. So.” They had rarely heard Grant sound so hesitant. He’d always had such a firm idea of what he wanted and how to get it, every goal clear, every step detailed and checked off. “I won’t take a lot of your time.” A faint shuffling on the other end of the line, as if he were fidgeting. “I want to say that I’m sorry about how I handled our separation.” A long breath. “I wasn’t happy, but I should have communicated a lot better. It wasn’t fair to expect you to be a mind reader. I was going through some things, but I kept it to myself. I just shut you out because I thought I already knew what I should do.”

The world had stopped dead, no sound in Carey’s ears but that familiar voice saying bewildering words.

“I know it was over a year ago, but it took me a long time to sort everything out. I wanted to tell you because...well, maybe for selfish reasons, but I hope it helped you to hear it. I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”

“I see,” Carey said into the pause that followed. Their brain was blank.

“Thank you for listening.” Grant’s voice had lost some of its tenseness. “I heard you moved to Clover Hill and bought a house. Congratulations, that’s great! How’s the business going?”

“I have to go,” Carey said, unable to scrape up enough focus to make casual conversation with the man who’d just hacked their life open all over again.

“Yeah, yeah, of course, don’t let me keep you. Thank you again, Carey. I hope we can be friends someday, but I understand if you don’t want to yet. Take care of yourself, okay?”

Carey ended the call with a dim sense that they should be feeling better, but instead they felt as though the ground were spinning away beneath their feet. They closed their eyes and put their forehead down onto their knees as if shutting out sight would make the whirling come to a stop. All this time they’d thought they’d understood how things had ended, reconciled themself to their own culpability. And now Grant was saying that they were wrong?

Carey straightened up. Their hands were shaking again. How dare he. How dare he barge in and rewrite their understanding with his apology. Carey had just managed a kind of equilibrium, something tentative that was becoming happiness, and then—

They deflated, throat tightening. How weak a person must they be if Grant could topple them again with a few well-meant words? God, they’d been mired in self-blame all this time, and now it seemed they’d even failed to get that right.

Tears were leaking out of their eyes. Carey smeared them furiously away. Shouldn’t they be over crying by now? They went into the bathroom to stem the tide with a splash of cold water. The tissue box on the shelf was empty, another thing they’d forgotten to put on their shopping list. They blew their nose into the cheap, rough toilet paper that they’d immediately regretted buying. Then they went into the kitchen to make tea that they knew they didn’t want, because if they didn’t keep moving, they’d lie down on the floor and never get up again. The clock on the stove said two-twenty. How was this day still going on?

They had just poured the hot water when Edd knocked on their door. Carey went to open it, feeling as though they’d been glared at by a gorgon, hands and legs stiff and clumsy.

Edd gave them a big smile. “Did you get my text? I made fancy cake! Chocolate, lemon, and strawberry.” He was wearing a pink tulle skirt topped with a rose-coloured, puffed-sleeved blouse, the clips in his hair sporting little ribbon flowers. In one hand he held an umbrella made to look like a peony, and in the other a plate holding a thick slice of three-layered, tri-coloured cake. He looked like a confection himself, everything sweet and fresh, and Carey’s heart cracked with how different he was from them.

Edd’s smile faded. “Is something wrong?”

Everything was wrong. “Bad day.”

Edd raised the plate and wiggled it. “Cake?” Carey backed away from the door to let him in. Edd leaned his umbrella against the wall. “Would it help to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked gently.

“Are you all right?”

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine. Why? Oh.” He looked sheepish. “I had a couple of bad days too, and I was no fun to be around, so I kept to myself until it passed.”

Carey went cold at their own obtuseness. They should have insisted on seeing him, showed him that they cared, but they’d been wound so tight in their own inability to comprehend someone else that they hadn’t managed even anything so simple.

They wrapped their arms around themself. “I’m sorry I didn’t come check on you.”

“Oh, hey, it’s not a big deal. It was a me problem, and I’m over it. I texted you I’d come visit soon, right?”

Had he? Carey only remembered the silence. Horrified, they felt the tears gather again, and clenched their teeth. They weren’t exactly fun to be around right now, either. Or ever, to be fair.

“But now,” Edd said, “there’s cake, and that makes everything better. Should I make some tea?” He went into the kitchen. Carey heard the clink of the plate on the counter. “Oh, good, looks like you’ve already made some. Timing!”

Timing? Right now, Carey wanted nothing more than stillness and hush, a place to not feel or think. Out of step, as usual, with everyone they cared for.

It came in a deadening rush, a tangled mess of balled-up frustration and sorrow. They just weren’t able to do this—the guessing and the uncertainty and the shifting sands of other people’s needs. It was beyond them. All they could expect or offer was misery.

They felt the dam break. They became aware that their head was pounding, a rhythm that seemed to fill the entire house. Their chest ached with constriction.

“Carey.” Edd was at their side. His hands were on their arms. “Oh, Carey. It’s going to be okay.”

Carey stepped backwards, out of his hold. Their cheeks prickled with hot moisture. “I can’t.”

Edd didn’t make an attempt to touch them again. “Look, whatever the problem is, whatever’s happened, maybe you don’t need to decide anything this minute. Why don’t you sit down and have a good cry if you need one, and I’ll bring you a warm washcloth and a fresh cup of tea. We can talk about it later if you—”

“No, this, I mean I can’t do this. It’s all—I just—” They sobbed in a breath. Edd looked nonplussed. “You and me. It’s too much, it’s no good.”

“Oh?” Edd said carefully.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—it’s so—” They could feel nothing but pain, jagged edges in every possible word. “I can’t do it.”

They could barely see Edd now, but they could sense how still he’d gone. “You mean this thing we’ve got going?”

Carey whispered, “Please go. Please.”

“Okay, well, this is unexpected.” His voice was very mild. “But I’m not going to force you into anything you don’t want to do.”

“I’m sorry—”

“I am too. I guess that’s it, then.”

And just like that, Edd was gone. Carey’s legs gave way, and they ended up kneeling on the floor. They leaned against the hard doorjamb and cried until their face was swollen and their mouth was sour. They hadn’t expected to feel any relief, which was good, because none came.

fifteen

It was convenient that Edd had cake on hand. Now he also had a pear pandowdy, cranberry bread, cinnamon buns, and pumpkin pecan bars. And that was just the weekend.

He took samplers to all his regulars, including his parents; Hugh could eat them if his mom and dad didn’t want to. When he arrived, his dad was doing something with rocks and soil in the landscaped front yard and, to Edd’s secret relief, followed him into the house.

“Ooh, what have we got here?” His dad looked at the full tray and then, searchingly, at Edd. “That’s a lot of baking. What happened, honey?”

Edd let out an exasperated sigh. His dad clicked his tongue and enveloped Edd in a hug. “Do you want to talk about it? I could make us a pot of tea.”

Edd shuddered. His diet had consisted of white flour, sugar, and caffeine for the last several days, and he was about at his limit. “No tea.”

His dad released him. “Does it have anything to do with why we haven’t seen you much lately?”

“Yeah. Crappy break-up,” Edd confessed. “Unexpected, anyway.” He’d been planning to introduce Carey to his parents soon. Now he was glad that he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry to hear that. You’re happier when you’re with someone. I don’t mean everyone, I mean you. Not that you should stay with someone who’s not right for you,” he added. “But generally speaking.”

“Finding the right person is the tricky part, apparently.” Edd scraped at a stray droplet of icing on the side of the tray.

“You just keep on living your life. Things sometimes work out in surprising ways.” His dad ruffled Edd’s hair. The metallic thud of a car door closing came from the front of the house. “That’ll be your mom. She went out to get some corn on the cob. Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

The thought of gathering around the family table with his parents and brother gave Edd a bittersweet pang. “I’m not the most fun to be around right now.”

“Oh, Edd, honey. We don’t expect you to entertain us. Stay.”

“Nah, I still have some deliveries to make.”

“Suit yourself, but the offer stands. Take care of yourself, all right?”

Edd dredged up a smile. “I’ll be fine.”

And he would be. Even if it took every iota of willpower and pride he had not to camp out on Carey’s doorstep with a basket of sticky buns, waiting for them to open the door so he could demand Why? and What happened? and Are you all right?

Whatever had happened, they clearly weren’t all right. Seeing Carey in that state had made Edd ache to hold them, solve whatever it was, bring back the Carey with the shy smile and artist’s spirit. But not only had Carey rejected the comfort he’d offered, they’d pulled away from him like he was a threat and unequivocally told him to go. What else was he supposed to do?

The days melted together, muggy August slipping into Labour Day weekend. Edd felt as though he’d lost the sight in one eye, trying not to stare at Carey’s place every time he stepped out his front door. The last tomatoes in their back garden were so ripe that they were falling and bursting on the ground.

One morning, Edd sorted through the municipal government flyers and unsolicited junk in his mailbox to find a postcard of a white-capped mountain between a cerulean lake and azure sky. He turned it over half expecting it to be an ad, but the back was filled with slightly wavering handwriting in blue ballpoint pen.

Dear Edd, This is the view from my window, haha, just kidding. The food here’s decent and a couple of the other guys used to be engineers so we have a lot to talk about. I see my grandkids more too. I miss your cinnamon buns but otherwise it’s not so bad. With best regards, Floyd S. Barker.

At the bottom was the address of what sounded like a seniors’ residence in a small city in Oregon. Edd stuck the postcard on his fridge. At least someone was happy.

He did the dishes and sorted the morning’s baking into pans, then changed into a pleated plaid skirt and white blouse. There was just enough of a September edge in the air that he threw a beaded cardigan over his shoulders. It reminded him how he was never going to see Carey in a cozy cocoon of fall sweaters and scarves, and he shook his head as if he could physically dislodge the thought.

Edd loaded the car and made his rounds, dropping off carrot cake and cream cheese brownies. His town still had plenty of people in it who appreciated what he had to offer: a little comfort or pleasure, the reassurance that they weren’t alone.

He was contemplating that thought as he reached Main Street, and instead of turning into the little parking lot beside Rose’s Dry Cleaning, he kept going. As he drove, he mulled some ideas over, and when there was only one tray left in his trunk, he doubled back and pulled into the lot.

Sharon was at the counter, rattling the keys on a laptop that was probably older than Edd’s car. “Hey, Edd.” She looked as though she could do with a treat. Edd slid the tray towards her. “Oh, gosh, is that carrot cake?”

“It sure is.” Edd folded his hands on the counter. “I’ve come to ask a favour.”

Sharon pushed the laptop closed. “What kind of favour are we talking about?”

“I want to borrow Mrs. Rose.”

The expression that crossed Sharon’s face made her blood ties to Mrs. Rose devastatingly clear. “I know you’re not going to do anything that would cause any trouble.”

Edd made a broad crossing motion over the pearl buttons of his blouse. “I promise.”

“Are my ears burning?” Mrs. Rose pushed her way from behind the curtain. “Oh, good afternoon, Edd.”

“Good afternoon. How are you today? I was saying to Sharon, I need some help, and I knew you would be the perfect person to ask.”

“Me? Oh, I’m sure that would depend on what it was,” Mrs. Rose said, with unconvincing demureness.

“The thing is,” Edd said, “this fall they’re running a disco dancing class at the community centre on Tuesday mornings. I think it would be fun, but I have no one to go with. Do you think you might come with me? And maybe we could go out for lunch after class, and catch up.”

A broad smile blossomed across Mrs. Rose’s face. “Disco? That brings me back.”

“You were the first person I thought of. And you know what, we’re going to need to buy some clothes to look the part. How about we make a day of it sometime soon, and you can show me what we should get?”

“Well. If it would help, I would be glad to,” Mrs. Rose said, an attempt at queenly graciousness ruined by her evident delight.

“Gran, look what Edd brought us,” Sharon said, snatching up the tray. “I know there are paper napkins in the cabinet over the sink back there. Do you think you could go get some?”

When Mrs. Rose had retreated behind the curtain, Sharon turned back to Edd. He could see that she was struggling to work herself up to protest. He took both of her hands in his, noticing the nails chewed down to the quick.

“I know I can’t fix it,” he said quietly. “No one can, and it sucks, and I’m sorry. But you don’t have to deal with it all by yourself. And it really would be a favour, Sharon. I’ve had a crappy week, and I need to be of some use to someone. Will you please let me help?”

Sharon pulled one hand free to wipe at her eyes. “Dammit, Edd. You have to tell me if she gets to be too much, okay?”

“I promise.”

“Thank you.” Sharon embraced him over the counter. “Thank you, Edd.” And Edd hugged her back, grateful that there were at least some things he could do right.

* * *

The next morning, Edd was whipping buttercream to fill the whoopie pies that had just come out of the oven when he heard frantic honking out front. He frowned. It wasn’t Thursday. Wait, was it Thursday?

He opened his door to find Ozzie coming up his front walk. “O’Leary!” he yelled. “Why aren’t you ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“Didn’t you get my text? Let’s move it!”

By this time Ozzie was halfway up the concrete steps. “Why are you shouting?” Edd asked.

Ozzie clapped his hands together. “Harriet wants me to meet her downtown and she said to bring you too. We’re already late! Come on, go put a dress on!”

“Why? What’s happening?” Edd fumbled with the strings of his chocolate-dusted apron. “Let me at least put the icing in the fridge.”

Ozzie followed him into the kitchen. “Awesome, whoopie pies! And are those chocolate chip cookies? And is that—” He looked at Edd. “Edd, my dearest and oldest friend, what’s wrong?”

Edd ripped off a section of plastic wrap. “I kind of got dumped.”

“Oh, no.” Ozzie pursed his lips. “Are you sure?”

“Oh my god, Ozzie, yes, I’m sure.”

“By Carey?”

“I haven’t been seeing anyone else, Oz.”

“Well, that’s a shame. I’m sorry. Not that I’m an expert, but seemed like it was working for you.”

“Mm-hm.” The icing bowl clattered against the glass shelf as Edd stashed it in the fridge.

“What did they say was the reason?”

Edd wiped icing off the side of his hand. “They just said they couldn’t do it.”

Ozzie clicked his tongue. “That’s hard. I sympathize. But Uncle Ozzie is here to help. Go get something pretty on, we’re going for ice cream.”

“I thought we were meeting Harriet,” Edd said, going into his bedroom.

“We’re meeting her at Reuben’s. She said she wanted to show us something.”

Edd paused with his hand on the zipper of a powder blue sundress with white piping. Had Harriet finally decided to come clean? He could feel his shoulders loosen a bit at the thought. He hadn’t exactly been lying to Ozzie, but he hadn’t been telling him the truth, either. And the idea of Harriet and Ozzie reconciling—that felt like the best thing that had happened to any of them for a while.

In the car, he couldn’t help asking, “What do you think she’s going to show us?”

“You know what,” Ozzie said, “it doesn’t matter to me, as long as I have my girl back. I just want her to be happy and trust me with who she is and what she needs. Even if that’s different from what it was before. I miss her, Edd.”

“Yeah,” Edd said, watching the houses go by, front gardens showing a few fall chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies already budding among the fading summer flowers. “I miss her too.”

On this midweek September morning, downtown was quiet, the tourists gone and the kids in school. Ozzie found parking down the street from Reuben’s. He turned the car off and sat looking at the tables in front of the ice cream shop. There were two people sitting there: Harriet, and someone they didn’t know.

“Here we go,” Ozzie said under his breath, and they got out of the car.

Harriet and her companion stood up as they approached. The other person was short and muscular, dressed in a plaid shirt, new jeans, and a grey flannel suit vest. Harriet glanced at them; they squeezed her arm and released it with a little smile and a nod.

“Ozzie,” Harriet said, taking a few steps towards Ozzie.

“Harriet, how are you?” Ozzie said easily.

“I’m good.” Harriet threaded her fingers together. “Ozzie, I’m so sorry for how things have been lately. For how I’ve been acting.”

“You know you can tell me things,” Ozzie said. “You can tell me anything.”

“I know. It’s just—I—” She waved a hand backwards. “Ozzie, Edd, this is Noelle. We’ve been—She’s my girlfriend.”

There was a moment of stillness. Then Ozzie’s face opened, astonishment and then jubilation rolling across it. “What? What? Girlfriend? You have a girlfriend? Oh, honey!” Ozzie spread his arms, and Harriet fell into them.

Edd felt the tension in him ease. He looked at Noelle, who lifted her eyebrows at him. He put out a hand for her to shake.

“Edd O’Leary.”

“Noelle Rockton. Good to meet you.”

Harriet and Ozzie pulled apart. “Sweetie, why did you think you couldn’t tell me?” Ozzie asked.

Harriet sniffled. “Things were changing and I wanted them to and I didn’t want them to and I was happy and scared and it all got mixed up in my head and—I didn’t want to hurt you, I just, I didn’t, it was—god, Ozzie, I don’t know!” They embraced again, tears on both sides.

“I knew someday you’d find someone,” Ozzie said, rubbing her back. “Did you think I wouldn’t be happy for you?”

“There’s more, Ozzie. Noelle and I found an apartment together. In Baymill. That’s where her job is.” Harriet wiped her eyes. “I’m not saying we’re going to be there forever. We might come back to town later.”

“It’s not the worst commute,” Noelle offered.

Ozzie’s expression went bittersweet. “You’re moving out of the Circus.”

“Yeah. Yeah, Ozzie, I am. But I’ll be back for Sunday Dinner, and Halloween, and the New Year’s party, and some Thursdays.”

“You’re moving out of the Circus,” he repeated.

Harriet took his hands in hers. “It’s time, Ozzie.”

“I get it.” Ozzie freed a hand and smoothed Harriet’s hair. “I get it. Things change. It’s all part of The Project.”

“You know I love you, Ozzie.”

“Oh, honey, I love you too.”

Watching them, Edd felt himself mist up a little. God, he loved them both. He’d never consider either of them romantically for a second, but they were his favourite people in the world, and their bond was what he’d always wanted. Someone who could give him the space to be his eccentric, enthusiastic self. Someone he liked so much that they could each make mistakes and be forgiven because what they had together was worth the pain of neither of them being perfect. Someone willing to create a relationship that suited them both, however unconventional it looked from the outside.

He’d hoped that that might be what he was building with Carey, before everything had suddenly crumbled for reasons Edd still didn’t understand.

It doesn’t matter to me, as long as I have my girl back. I just want her to be happy and trust me with who she is and what she needs.

I can’t do this, Edd.

It occurred to him, standing there in the sun with the scent of caramel sauce drifting from Reuben’s open door, that Carey hadn’t actually said what it was they couldn’t do. What impossible thing were they expecting that Edd would demand from them?

“Edd,” Ozzie said, and he looked up to see them all looking at him. “You’re coming to the Sunrise with us, right?”

Edd nodded, and they trooped to their respective cars. All through lunch, as Harriet and Noelle sat close enough to lean on one another in the padded booth and Ozzie kept them both laughing, Edd replayed that last conversation with Carey in his mind.

Carey had told him to go, and in the moment, Edd could have done nothing else. But now that some time had passed, might they feel differently? Couldn’t he ask for the chance to talk about what they really meant to and wanted from each other, and was there a possibility that Carey also wanted that by now?

He wanted Carey, he realized, watching Harriet steal a handful of french fries off Ozzie’s plate. He wanted back what they’d had, and whatever else Carey was willing to give him.

Maybe the answer would still be no. But Edd wanted to know that he hadn’t let someone so important to him slip through his fingers because they were both too scared or stubborn to talk to each other.

Now he had to figure out how to say all that in a way that Carey would listen.

sixteen

Carey’s days went on. They worked. They ate without pleasure. They remembered the difference between being comfortably alone, which they’d always enjoyed, and being lonely, a state that the last few months had erased but that now came back like a tidal wave.

This was their life now, they told themself. Time to reconcile themself to it and find whatever dim satisfaction they could unearth.

In the dry cleaner’s they saw a flyer for a board game night at the library. Sharon saw them looking and talked it up so much that Carey found themself promising to drop in on Friday night. The evening was fine and everyone was friendly—including the organizer, Gina, the previous owner of Carey’s couch—but Carey felt as though they were looking at everything through the wrong end of a telescope.

In the afternoons, when the wind was right, they were sure they could smell something baking. Everything in them yearned for a knock on their door, a smile, a plate of something warm and sweet. But all that was over. Some people weren’t cut out for love, or maybe weren’t good enough at it to deserve it.

On Sunday, Kennedy called. Carey ignored the first call, but got another, and then a text half an hour later. Are you around? It’s important. Not urgent! But can we talk?

Bowing to the inevitable, Carey tapped her number. “Hi,” Kennedy said, and then her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

“Edd and I broke up.”

“Oh, no! What happened?”

“I don’t want to get into it.”

“Aw, I’m sorry. You really seemed to like him. But look on the bright side. You’ve got your rebound relationship over with, and now you can seriously move on.”

“I guess.” Carey didn’t feel like explaining why they were done with all of that. “What did you want to talk about?”

Kennedy hesitated. “Okay, this isn’t the best timing all of a sudden, but I heard something about Grant, and I didn’t want you to find out on social media or whatever.”

Carey closed their eyes for a moment. Why didn’t they get to decide when things were over? Why did the universe keep throwing their failure back in their face? “Fine, tell me.”

“Well. He’s getting married.”

Carey’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

“I know, right? To—”

“I don’t want to know,” Carey interrupted. So that was why Grant had called them—to tie up a loose end of his past before he sailed into a new future. Leaving Carey a mass of frayed edges.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll live.” The blow was numbing, an almost refreshing displacement of the pain that Carey had carried for the past several days.

Kennedy shook her head. “Fuck that guy, am I right? I know you were with him for a decade, but fuck that guy. Hey, you know what we should do? A movie marathon. I’ll order dinner and ice cream for both of us, and we can have a long-distance Netflix date.”

That was like jabbing a bruise. “I appreciate the thought, but I think I just need some time alone for it to sink in.”

“All right,” Kennedy said skeptically. “I’ll check in on you tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure, okay.”

Kennedy ended the call. Carey sat back and rubbed their face, realizing that their marriage was really, truly over, with a finality that signing the papers hadn’t quite brought. Grant was with someone else, and Carey...was not. Grant got to have joy and companionship and love, and Carey...did not.

Why did he get to get married again? a smothered part of Carey’s brain demanded. It wasn’t like Grant was perfect. He could be rigid and self-centred and he was terrible at communicating, except at the worst possible time.

Carey screwed their face up and smacked their head against the padded back of the couch. No, they couldn’t blame Grant. His call had been bad timing, but Carey had shattered the best thing that had happened to them in the entire last year all on their own.

And that door was shut. They’d shut it themself with their own cowardice on top of ineptitude. It was time, they told themself yet again, to accept that and move on.

Exhausted with thinking and feeling, Carey turned off the lights and went to bed, where they fell asleep like a stone sinking into deep water.

They woke up at dawn on Monday feeling light and hollowed out, as if their capacity for emotion had been scoured out of existence. They stood at the kitchen sink and looked over the backyard, drinking their breakfast tea. The sunlight had that thinned quality it got when the mornings turned cool. Time to start thinking of winter.

They settled down to work and within ten minutes felt as though if they had to stitch around another tattered blanket they’d shred it and throw it into the backyard composter. They put it aside and went into their workroom. In a wicker hamper were the next few things they’d planned to work on, scarves and warm hats with snags and tears. They tossed everything onto the floor and then back into the hamper. Everything felt stale.

They roamed the circle of their small rooms. In the living room they stared at the couch, shrouded in afghans. The need for a new project scratched at them, but not that, they decided; they weren’t willing to give up their one piece of comfortable furniture to what would be a long gestation. They fell as much as sat onto the couch and lay there.

Their gaze fell on Edd’s suit still hanging on the wall, lushly ripe and stained. An ache twinged behind their breastbone, and Carey turned from it as best they could. Best not to think about things they wanted but were never going to have.

They’d told Edd they’d do something with it, though. It was the only promise they’d made to him in words. The idea of giving the suit back to him still damaged didn’t sit well. They lay there looking at it, mentally paging through potential techniques. Nothing seemed to quite fit. Everything was possible, but not right.

After a while they got up and went back into their workroom. The corner of one shelf held several hardcover sketchbooks, swollen with stapled-in fabric samples, leftover buttons, printed-out photographs, yarn ball bands. Carey kept an inventory of projects on their laptop, but the real records were here, messy and tactile.

They took the notebooks into the living room and flipped through the pages, catching their needle-rough fingertips on loops of yarn and coils of embroidery thread. Ghosts rose from the pages: the weather the day they’d darned the last mittens someone’s grandfather had ever knit, the smell of the vintage satin they’d found to mend a friend’s mother’s wedding dress, the way the sun falling through the wavering old glass in the first apartment they and Grant had shared had cast river-current shadows on an old linen pillowcase. For a time they forgot what they were looking for, ambling through successes of the past.

Then they came to the notes they’d made about Harriet’s quilt, and the solution came to them like invisible ink unfading into clarity.

It took Carey a long while to find what they needed. They opened every plastic drawer, every box on every shelf. They rummaged in the old accordion sewing box that they’d long since outgrown. They unstacked storage bins, unpinned samples from the bulletin board, rescued long-forgotten scraps from the vintage suitcase where they stowed bits and pieces that didn’t fit anywhere else. They brought their full-spectrum lamp into the room to help them see the suit’s true colours. And, eventually, they started to work.

They woke up the next morning already thinking about the suit. They threaded the next needle before breakfast, eager to see what they were bringing to life, curious about where the next choice would take it. Because the solution wasn’t one thing. It was everything.

Every technique Carey knew, every embroidery stitch and patch and embellishment. Fabric, lace, ribbon, buttons, variegated thread, metallic yarn, sequins. Leftovers, random fragments, flotsam that they’d saved from a hundred previous projects. A cascade of colour and shine flowing over the stains, texture fanning out along the lapels and hems, winks of glitter dripping down over the trousers. Red and blue and yellow and white still, but new, as if the flowers had mutated into ever richer versions of themselves.

It would suit Edd perfectly. Carey wished they could be there to see him wear it.

The work was like eating an endless banquet, every course different but complementary to the one that went before, choice upon choice. The next night Carey dreamed of a sewing chest they’d never known they owned, spilling abundance onto their bare wooden floor.

It wasn’t that everything went without a snag. Carey swapped one fabric for another, made a cut or two that they regretted. Close to an hour’s work with variegated thread had to be picked out when it didn’t look the way they had seen it in their mind’s eye. Sometimes they got stuck, the flow dammed until they could put their hands on the right shade of ribbon. Sometimes what the suit needed next wasn’t what they expected, and they struggled with themself before they tried it and it turned out right. They pricked their finger more than once, adding a few drops of crimson to the stain.

But that was all part of the work, the path to joy as well as frustration. Try, do, undo, see what happened. Make mistakes, make the right choice, make mistakes again. There was little that was irreparable, and the results would be worth it.

Oh, Carey thought, freezing with the needle halfway through cloth. If only that were true of everything.

Part of expertise was knowing when to stop. Carey worked a little beyond that point, picking up and rejecting a remnant of velvet, a single lace motif, this piece and that, until it occurred to them that they were done. Anything else they added would be a subtraction from the marvellous mess.

They went over the suit with hands and eyes, checking for loose threads and forgotten pins. Even though they’d set every stitch themself, it was like looking at something new, something more than they could have imagined when they started.

They couldn’t wait to show Edd, they thought, and then remembered why they couldn’t.

It was hard to stop touching the suit and put it down, like holding onto the last reluctant wisps of a dream. It felt, more than anything else they’d ever mended, as though they’d put a piece of themself into it. Edd would have said it was art.

Carey closed their eyes and laid their cheek down on the front of the suit, feeling the smooth satin and the edges of sequins against their skin. How wrong was it to so badly want something they knew they would probably ruin again?

That terrible afternoon felt like a dream now, a nightmare of running from something that they’d feared without even being able to see it clearly. Was it possible that they could explain to Edd how they’d felt? That Edd might give them another chance? That the two of them could somehow move forward, not knowing what the outcome would be but willing to trust each other enough to take the leap together?

As Carey hung the suit on its hanger, their throat closed on the smothering thought of never seeing Edd wear it. Of never again ending a night with calming grey flickering over them both, never again admiring whatever exuberant outfit Edd had chosen for the day or feeling his large, deft hands tie a knot that turned a scrap of waste fabric into a finishing touch. Of this colourless stasis, mending things for others but living with a hole at their core.

They were probably grasping after something they didn’t deserve. But, it occurred to Carey, thinking of all the long years to come, while they would have to bear the pain if Edd rejected them in turn, they might be ended by not being brave enough to ask.

seventeen

Edd must have gotten out every cookbook he owned, and he owned a lot of cookbooks.

Whatever he chose, it had to be just right. Something that Carey would enjoy eating. Something that wasn’t so grand and complicated as to make them feel any kind of obligation, but not so casual that it would feel like the type of thing Edd baked every day. A cake, a pie, something like pull buns that were designed for sharing? A classic recipe, something vintage, something avant garde? Complex beauty or simple perfection? It had to taste good, look inviting, make the gesture seem heartfelt while making it clear that Edd would take Please go for a final answer if that was what Carey wanted, to somehow both demonstrate Edd’s feelings and convince Carey to listen to him spell them out in detail.

Edd stuck a torn piece of paper between two pages to mark a recipe for strawberry swirl cream cheese pound cake decorated with piped whipped cream, and pushed the book away. It was a lot to ask of a single dessert.

He got up from the kitchen table to pour himself some iced tea, and glanced out the window. The grass in Carey’s backyard was getting long. He hadn’t seen them go out for a few days, though he knew they were bringing in their mail from the mailbox, and at night their living room light was still on when he was heading for bed. He hoped they were eating properly.

He sat down again. Maybe something homey, like a streusel coffee cake with a little powdered sugar shaken over the top.

He heard Carey’s front screen door bang shut. Were they going out? Good; that would give him time for icing or glaze. As soon as he decided what he was going to make.

The screen door banged again. Edd turned the page over to a chocolate blueberry cheesecake. No, there was a little too much going on there, he decided.

The screen door banged a third time. Maybe Carey had forgotten something. Maybe they had visitors, though he hadn’t heard a car.

His willpower eroded, Edd went into the living room and looked out his front window. He couldn’t see Carey’s front door, but it didn’t matter, because he could see Carey themself, standing on the sidewalk at the end of their driveway. They had something draped over their arm, white like a sheet.

As he watched, Carey took a step towards his house and paused. Their lips moved, as though they were talking to themself.

Two things occurred to Edd. One, that there was an opportunity in front of him that he needed to take despite not being ready for it. Two, an idea that was either brilliant or absolutely ridiculous. He ran into the kitchen, grabbed something from a cupboard, shoved his feet into the worn pair of running shoes he kept by the door to take out the trash, and stepped out onto his front stoop.

He wasn’t being deliberately quiet, but his door didn’t bang like Carey’s. He was halfway down his driveway when they looked up, first at his house, as if checking something, and then at him.

Edd approached with an easy pace, as if nearing timid wildlife, and watched Carey’s face flush. “Hi,” he said.

Carey bit their lower lip. “Hi.” They looked as though they’d been working hard and forgetting about meals. He wanted to wrap them in a duvet and hold them until they relaxed. “Um. How are you?”

“Been better,” Edd said, aware that he wasn’t dressed the way he liked to present himself. He’d woken up on and off all night, thinking about baked goods, and upon getting out of bed he’d thrown on an old T-shirt and a green dirndl skirt with a rip in the hem. He hadn’t even shaved. He’d planned to do all of that later, once his still-theoretical perfect creation was out of the oven and cooling on the rack. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m—” Carey swallowed. “I’m sorry about how I acted last week. It...wasn’t a good day.”

“I kind of gathered that. Is it something I can help with?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” In what seemed a non-sequitur, Carey lifted the sheet—no, a garment bag, Edd realized. As he watched, they unzipped the opening and folded back the front. “This is for you.”

It took Edd a moment to recognize what he was being shown. Flowers on fabric, the damaged suit he’d found in Kreg’s—but where the blotches of wine had been, a river of vivid texture, as if the flowers had bloomed to three-dimensional life out of the stain.

“This is incredible,” Edd breathed. He put what he was holding down onto the concrete so that he could lean in and touch it. Up close, it was a riot of shades and materials, a scrap collage: a work of art made from things that otherwise would have been thrown away.

Carey took a long breath, capturing his attention. “I’m—I’m not good at big romantic pronouncements or at relationships at all, probably. Or, you know, words. But this summer has been wonderful, and it’s because of you. I miss you like—like all the colour’s gone out of things. I know I screwed up by freaking out instead of talking to you about what was going on, and if you never want to see me again, I understand. But if you think you might—if we could possibly start again—”

Edd felt hope rising, emotion buoying him up.

Carey swallowed. “I really, really like you, Edd. The suit is yours. No strings attached. But I’d love a chance to see you in it.”

Edd knew he was grinning, and the answering joyous relief that burst out on Carey’s face was like a sequin flashing in the sun.

“Hand it over and let me try it on, then,” he said.

Carey pulled the jacket off the hanger and motioned for him to turn around so they could slide it up his arms. Edd shrugged his shoulders and felt the jacket settle into place. Even without a mirror, he knew he looked like a million bucks.

He turned back to Carey. “This is a work of art, and you are more wonderful than you give yourself credit for. Yes, Carey, one hundred percent yes.”

And because Carey had always been so careful and respectful of his wish to take the physical part of their relationship slowly, Edd knew he had to be the one to make the next move. He leaned down to take Carey’s face in his hands and kissed them, lightly, softly, closing his eyes against how safe and right it felt.

And then they were wrapping their arms around each other, there on the sidewalk, and in Edd’s mind everything narrowed to the feel of Carey’s body in his hold, like the end of the movie when the music swelled and the focus shrunk into a circle with the clinching couple at the centre.

When they drew back, Edd’s foot knocked against something metallic on the ground with a clank.

Carey looked down quizzically. “Is that a cake pan? Why were you carrying a cake pan?”

Edd leaned down and picked up the pan. “Now it’s my turn for the romantic speech I’m not good at. No, no, let me do this.” Carey closed their mouth obediently. Edd held the empty pan in both hands. “I wanted to make you something really special to show how much I wanted you to give us another chance, but I couldn’t decide what to make. And when I saw you out here I realized, you know what, I can’t decide by myself.”

He watched Carey’s expression turn thoughtful. “I don’t know what you were upset about that day,” Edd continued, “and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, except that you seemed to be panicking about something. And I want you to know that this relationship is whatever we both decide it will be. I don’t want you to be afraid that I’m expecting something you don’t want to give.”

Moisture had gathered in Carey’s eyes. “I’m not ready to go into it yet, so this might be a lot to ask, but—Edd, promise me that if there’s anything bothering you, you’ll let me know? I don’t want to crowd you, just—talk to me? If there’s a problem, I deserve a chance to help make things better.”

“That might be something we both need to work on together,” Edd admitted. “But I promise that I will do my absolute best.”

Carey ran their hands down Edd’s lapels, as if the beads and embroidery were something to swear on. “I’m so sorry, Edd. I will too. I’ll try, but I’m probably going to screw it up more than once.”

“I think screwing up is kind of inevitable. As long as we’re both willing to keep trying.”

“I am if you are,” Carey said, and this time they were the one to reach up and pull Edd down for another kiss.

“Are you in the middle of anything right now?” Edd asked as they parted. “Aside from necking on the public thoroughfare, I mean.”

Carey smiled. “Nothing in particular.”

“Will you come help me decide what to bake for you? I’ll make your favourite. Or something new, whatever you want. Though I should warn you, my kitchen’s kind of a disaster. I got out cookbooks I didn’t even know I had. There’s a few vintage ones you might get a kick out of, too. Oh! And I just had a fantastic idea of what I can wear with this suit, do you want to see it?”

“I would love that,” Carey said. “All of it.”

The two of them reached out for each other’s free hand at the same time, and with Carey holding the garment bag and Edd hanging on to the cake pan, they went up Edd’s front walkway together and into the sweet-smelling shelter of his house.

epilogue

The sun was only a crimson flush on the horizon by the time Ozzie dropped them off at home. Carey, who had been given the front seat as a courtesy, slid out. “Thank you again for the ride, Ozzie.”

“My pleasure,” Ozzie said. “Did you have fun?”

Faintly buzzed from an excess of sugar, Carey smiled. “Yes, I did.”

Edd wriggled out of the back seat where he’d been crammed in with Harriet and Noelle, who had come out from Baymill for the Fall Festival weekend. “I’ll see you at Sunday Dinner, yes?” Harriet asked through the open car door.

“Dinner? I’m never going to eat again,” Edd said, putting a hand over his stomach as he staggered theatrically onto the lawn.

“Agreed, but those deep fried brownie Oreo things were totally worth it.”

“Yeah, there was at least one more dessert in there than I thought was going to work, but wow. It’s a good thing they’re only available once a year.” Edd shut the car door. “See you tomorrow!”

He and Carey walked up Edd’s driveway and paused at the sidewalk. “Do you want to come in,” Edd asked, “or do you need some quiet alone time?”

Carey considered. “To be honest, I do need a little quiet alone time.” The Fall Festival had been hugely entertaining, but everyone in the tri-county area seemed to have been there.

“Okay.” Edd took their hand and reeled them in for a kiss.

“Movie later?” Carey suggested. “Say, an hour?”

“Sure, or...” He didn’t release them.

“Or?” He smelled of powdered sugar and doughnuts.

“I was thinking.” His thumb stroked Carey’s palm, making the hairs on the back of their neck rise. “Katharine Hepburn said this thing once, about how men and women should maybe live next door to each other and visit now and then. And I know neither of us is a woman and I’m out on the fringes of generally accepted male parameters, but I was wondering if you’d care to, ah, visit me tonight?”

Carey looked up into Edd’s face. He looked hopeful and a little shy. “I would love to.” They kissed him. “Are you sure?”

“I am completely sure.” Edd threaded his fingers through theirs. “I was waiting for a romantic moment. What’s more romantic than eating our weight in fried dough under the festival lights?”

Carey laughed. “Then I guess I’ll be over in an hour.”

When they knocked on Edd’s door later, he opened it wearing flannel pyjamas with cupcakes on them. Carey stepped into the house and put their arms around him, snuggling their face into his chest and feeling a warmth that wasn’t physical envelop them. “You are the best, you know that?”

“I am?” They felt Edd stroke their hair. “Why?”

“Everything.” Carey tilted their face up and kissed him.

Kissing in the front hallway became kissing through the kitchen into the back hallway. In Edd’s bedroom they undressed each other slowly. Edd had thrown a red scarf over the lampshade by the bed, and it filled the room with a rosy glow.

Bare-chested, Edd shivered. “I guess I should have turned the furnace on. I did not think this through.”

“Bed?” Carey suggested, and together they hastened under the covers.

Making love with Edd turned out to be all the things Carey liked: gentleness, hands, words, comfort. Taking it slow, it seemed, meant drawing it out, until Carey trembled under his touch and Edd, in turn, breathed a moan into their mouth. They lay together with limbs tangled until their heartbeats slowed.

Safe and at rest, Carey found the courage to say what they hadn’t said before. “I really love you, Edd.”

Edd propped himself on one elbow and smoothed the mussed hair back from Carey’s forehead. “Carey, you know what, I love you too.”

They snuggled together into the warm den of the bed, Edd’s chest to Carey’s back. Carey reached out to pull the covers up to their chin, and a tuft of wool brushed their finger. A few stitches around the edge of the blanket were ravelling loose.

Carey smiled and shut their eyes. Tomorrow, they’d have to do something about that.

* * *

Thanks so much for reading Carey and Edd’s story! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or on Goodreads. Reviews help new readers find indie authors.

Want more Clover Hill? Check out Winning Move, Rooting For You, and The Heartbreak Handshake, or visit CloverHillRomance.com to learn more.

Want more contemporary romance from M. Arbon? Try Another Pair of Hands. You can also sign up for their mailing list at:

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acknowledgments

I’d like to thank Skye Kilaen, Roz Alexander, Lauren Edwards, and April Irick for their perceptive beta reading and suggestions, as well as their stellar typo-detection skills. Thank you also to J.R. Hart and Skye Kilaen for inviting me into this delightful small town, and the rest of the Clover Hill authors for making it a fun place to write about.

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about the author

M. Arbon writes stories, mostly queer, often sexy, about people who try hard not to be jerks. M. lives and works in Ontario, Canada. M.’s stories have been published in the anthologies His Seed and Best Gay Stories 2017.

Thanks for reading!

Website (including free reads!):

marbonwrites.com

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