Cupid’s Confederates

Chapter 10

From a distance, Zach watched Bett at the hives. The morning sun was bright and warm, even though the leaves in the orchard had already turned gold and brown; it was a glorious fall day. Bett wore a red flannel shirt tucked into her jeans and the crazy straw hat that she’d rigged up with netting that dropped to her shoulders.

She was humming, a husky, low love song. As she slid a tray from the farthest hive, a hundred bees whirled up and around her, and Zach unconsciously shuddered. She wouldn’t wear gloves, said she just couldn’t work with them.

She transferred the tray of honey to the bed of the pickup, where others already rested. He made an instinctive move forward to help her-and stopped himself. Zach was as familiar with the intricacies of raising bees as Bett was; he was also violently allergic to the formic acid in bee stings.

Bending over, she accomplished the last stage of the morning’s project-transferring brood combs to the new hive in an effort to balance the overabundant population of the insects. It was a sticky, awkward business. Bett whipped off the straw hat in obvious exasperation at its hindrance, and appreciatively Zach shuddered again. Somewhere between five hundred and a thousand honeybees clouded around her.

Finally finished, she very gently brushed them off her shirt and jeans, then walked toward the truck where he waited, the sun glowing on her face.

“You have that look on your face again,” she teased.

“It drives me crazy, watching you. If I had to choose between handling those bees and a vat of boiling oil, you know what I’d choose.”

“The vat.” Bett chuckled, and tucked her fingers into his belt as they ambled toward the truck. “You’d feel differently if you were female. In the meantime, you realize we’ve got at least two hundred pounds of honey to do something or other with this afternoon.”

“I can see that. What I don’t see is what being male has to do with not loving your bees.”

“It’s a lady’s world, obviously. The queen gets warmed, cooled, entertained and fed the equivalent of honey steaks, all at her whim. Who’d want to be a boy bee? The drones get kicked out of the hive in winter to starve; they never get to do anything interesting in the summer.” Bett swung into the passenger seat, pulling the door shut, and regarded her husband demurely. “The boys are only good for one thing.”

“And how you love that line.”

“Actually, he must be pretty darn good, considering the queen gets as many as a million eggs out of one…um…quickie. And I certainly hope she’s good, since he dies afterwards.” Bett propped one foot on the dash, relaxing against the seat. “I’ve worried for a long time whether he dies happy. Maybe he dies depressed. I mean, he’s lived his whole life for that moment, and then what if the queen’s frigid?”

“Tough luck,” Zach said dryly.

“For the queen, too. What kind of deal is that, to only get to make love once in a lifetime?”

“It wouldn’t suit you by a long shot,” Zach agreed. His wife sent him a sidelong glance and he chuckled. “Is your mother going to survive our honey harvest this afternoon?”

“I doubt it.” There was no reason to expect that life would suddenly take a smooth path after doing hairpin turns all week. Bett had felt worlds better after talking with Zach about her mother, but that didn’t change unalterable facts. When Zach wanted her in the woods to help him cut wood for the winter, her mother expected her to go shopping. When her mother had decided to “fall clean” Zach’s study, half the receipts for the year had disappeared. And on the first free Sunday afternoon they’d had since summer, Zach had sat down to watch a football game. Elizabeth had spent every football game when Chet was alive chattering next to him. Bett’s dad had sort of tuned her out; Zach couldn’t.

“Bett, it’ll go fine this afternoon,” Zach assured her. He added wryly, “We’re not doing too well at matchmaking so far, are we?”

“You’d think my mother would catch on to the odd coincidence that we only have single male friends over fifty.”

Zach chucked, but only half in humor. The Monroe household was used to taking it a little easier by mid-October. The grain harvest was still going on; machinery had to be winterized; wood had to be cut for the cold months; but this was still the time of year he had extra time with Bett. Time to rest, time to fool around, time just to steal an afternoon together. And if Elizabeth miraculously found one more project for Bett to do, he would seriously consider strangling her. The instant Bett sat down and relaxed, her mother got nervous. Easy solutions were proving elusive.

The thing about getting Elizabeth married off…Zach sighed. No matter how irritated he was with her, he didn’t have in mind getting rid of the lady, but getting her involved with other people-something that Elizabeth was curiously shy about initiating on her own.

A handful of neighbors were coming over for their “honey bee” this afternoon. And if a “honey bee” wasn’t a good way of forcing people to let down their hair, Zach couldn’t imagine what was.

“My Lord,” Elizabeth said faintly.

“Now, just relax, Mom. Keep stirring,” Bett ordered cheerfully, as she lugged the huge kettle over to the stove. Elizabeth had come downstairs only moments before, dressed “for company” in expensive green linen slacks with a purple-and-green blouse, having ignored Bett’s suggestion that she wear something old. Bett, in jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, had briskly transformed the kitchen during the half hour her mother had been upstairs.

Honeycombs were stacked on a white sheet on the floor, their sweet smell permeating the entire house. A long table took up half the available floor space, again covered with a freshly washed sheet. On top of that were four five-gallon earthenware crocks and assorted glass jars. The counter next to the refrigerator was covered with cloves, lemon and cinnamon bark, those spicy smells mingling with the sweet one. Bett was wearing a white sweatband Indian-style across her forehead. And she’d immediately put her mother to work on the opposite counter with two bowls in front of her. One contained oatmeal, the other mud.

“My Lord,” Elizabeth said again.

Bett cast a critical eye at the mud mixture. “A little more dirt,” she said absently.

Elizabeth, looking more cowed than Bett had ever seen her, added a handful gingerly. “My kitchen,” she murmured. “My beautiful, clean kitchen…”

“Mother. You are going to have fun,” Bett insisted. “Really. You just have no idea-”

The front door opened. A chorus of laughter and conversation floated through from the living room, and in a moment the group descended, packing into every available space and cranny, Zach trailing behind them. He made the introductions. “Liz, this is Mabel Jordan, Susan Lee, you know Grady, Tom Fellers, Gail, Alice, Aaron, Trudy, Jane-this is Bett’s mother, Elizabeth, everyone.”

“Zach, you pour,” Bett shouted over the ensuing chatter.

The glasses were all set out. Zach started filling them from the last crock of the previous year’s mead. The women moved about the room, aproned and laughing. They were all neighbors, most of them from nearby farms. The first time Bett had mustered the courage to tentatively suggest a gathering of the local clans, she’d been panic-stricken when they actually swarmed in. Farm women were bossy. It came with the territory. The ones who didn’t want honey wine were already fussing through her cupboards looking for instant coffee or tea.

“Less dirt,” Mabel, a tall, skinny woman with iron-gray hair, told Elizabeth, peeking over her shoulder. “The consistency has to be just right when you put the honey in it.”

“I beg your pardon?” Elizabeth was staring in horror as Grady and Tom Fellers took off their shoes in the doorway, then their socks. Both disappeared. Minutes later, they returned from the downstairs bathroom with bare, and clean, feet.

“Got the brew going?” Grady asked Bett.

“I’m getting it, I’m getting it,” Susan Lee told him. “You just set yourself down.”

Bett started the burner under the big kettle and measured in a quart of apple juice, two quarts of water and two pounds of honey. She bumped into Zach, whose arms steadied her as she whipped past him, and knelt to get out a 9-by-13-inch pan from the bottom cupboard. She found two, gave her startled mother a quick hug on the way back up and then poured the mixture of colloidal oatmeal and honey into the two pans. In a moment, both pans were on the floor, and Grady and Tom had planted their feet in them.

When she glanced up again, she was a little afraid Elizabeth was going into shock.

“Bett, what do you want me to do?” Alice shouted.

“Hmm. Cut up three cloves, if you would, then the juice of two lemons for the brew-” Bett popped a large piece of cinnamon bark into the huge kettle and started to stir. The liquid was simmering, wafting a tangy fragrance into the air. Suddenly, she stiffened. “Zach-”

“I’ve got the yeast, two bits. Not to worry.”

She flashed him a smile. Her mother flashed her a panicked look that said, What is going on? You’re insane. They’re insane…

“Mud’s about ready, Bett,” Mabel announced.

“Did you add the honey?”

Dripping a cupful of it across the once-spotless floor, Bett raced to that counter to add the correct proportion of honey. “Ready, ladies?”

The other women were sitting down in chairs next to the tables, scarves tied around their heads to protect their hair, their faces uplifted and brightened by irrepressible smiles. Bett glanced around. She’d planned on five. She was missing one-her mother.

Elizabeth was on her hands and knees, trailing people with a rag. Firmly, Bett took the rag away and maneuvered her mother gently into a chair beside the others. “Wouldn’t you like a mudpack? Come on, it’s fun, Mom.” Her mother didn’t answer. Bett started at the head of the line with her bowlful of mud and honey and stuck her hands in it. She couldn’t help laughing. She was very sorry her mother wasn’t enjoying it, but as she coated each upturned face with honey mud, she couldn’t help but start chuckling. Grady didn’t help matters; he was slapping his knee as he watched the women. She put some on his nose in passing; he only laughed harder.

“Alice and I are widows, too,” Susan Lee told Elizabeth. “Had a terrible time adjusting, both of us. Couldn’t sleep. Didn’t know what to do with the farm. Never thought things would ever work out again, and Alice had kids still in school, didn’t you, Alice?”

When Bett got to the end of the row, Elizabeth’s face was-rather stiffly-upturned. Very, very gently, Bett slathered the mixture on her mother’s face.

The women kept up a steady stream of chatter, looking vaguely like creatures from a horror movie as the mudpacks slowly dried. Bett had never really understood why Aaron came, except for the fun of the chaos and the drink of apple-cider vinegar and honey she always gave him for his arthritis, but he was keeping up his usual monologue. He dragged a chair over by her mother, who had undoubtedly never considered carrying on a conversation with anyone of the opposite sex while sporting a mudpack on her face. Aaron was an old chemistry teacher turned farmer, white-moustached and tall, and his background showed.

“See, the bees secrete an enzyme that breaks down a chemical something like hydrogen peroxide-you know, like you use on a cut. It’s a natural mild antibiotic, honey is, and it’s got a water-drawing property-precisely what it does is draw water from the bacterial cells and make them shrivel up and die. See what I mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Elizabeth said faintly.

“And not that there’s any cure for arthritis, but the vinegar and honey together work pretty well to reduce swelling and take away the pain. It’s a soother, inside and outside. Unpasteurized stuff only, we’re talking about here. Do you have hay fever?”

“No.”

“Well, if you did, honey’s a natural antihistamine as well.”

“That’s very nice,” Elizabeth said.

“The girls like it for a face pack.”

“I can see that.”

“Which is again because of its moisturizing properties…”

“Zach, how’re we coming?” Bett took a second and a half out for a sigh. She’d been running around like a mad thing. Zach tugged her in front of him, with both arms resting on her shoulders, a very awkward position from which to stir the kettle on the stove. Still, Bett relaxed, cradled back against his chest, inhaling that fantastic sweet and spicy smell rising from the kettle.

“I’ll be ready to strain in five or six minutes,” he told her, nuzzling his chin on the crown of her head.

For just an instant, she closed her eyes. The next instant she opened them, startled-and delighted-to hear a different tone of laughter in the noisy group behind them. She peeked around Zach. Her mother was laughing. Her mother was laughing, her mudpack cracking, the women circling around her.

Bett glanced up at Zach. His blue eyes were doing a tango, waiting to meet hers. Bett was honey from crown to toe. He couldn’t see any part of her that wasn’t sticky. He had a wayward urge to lick off the shiny spot on her cheek, but controlled himself.

“Why don’t you come over for coffee tomorrow, Elizabeth,” Susan suggested. “I’ll show you how to do that jelly roll. Takes time, I’m warning you, but it isn’t all that hard if you watch someone else do it the first time…”

Zach didn’t exactly know how their honey harvest had mushroomed over the years. Bett had learned beekeeping from a retired neighbor, and had loved it starting with the first spring, but only realized in the fall exactly how much honey there was going to be to jar and sell. Zach had poked a “bee” in Grady’s ear, suggesting that one or two women neighbors whose farm season was over might like to help her. “One or two” expanded to a wide group, all bringing their old-time recipes for mudpacks and arthritis cures and remedies for fallen arches. Bett had searched out the old English recipe for mead. The neighborhood theory seemed to be that there was no fun in having half a mess; you might as well go whole hog.

Bett, fool that she was, had encouraged them. Bett had the uncanny ability to gather people of all ages together and bring out their spirit of fun. The thought of a formal dinner party would have panicked her-she’d told Zach a thousand times she just wasn’t the type to cope with large groups of people. He let her go on thinking that.

Between the two of them, laughing, they strained the mixture in the kettle, added the yeast and poured it in the big earthenware crocks to cool. Bett disappeared from his sight then, her blond head popping up here and there during the next two hours. The mudpacks were washed off; the washer was started; one crew tackled the floor and another miraculously produced dishes for dinner. Then there were the dinner leavings to clean up.

Zach watched his wife, a very small locomotive in nonstop action. She was humming most of the time. Quick frowns were replaced by quick smiles, her face vibrantly expressive, her body lithe and free in action, totally feminine.

He loved that lady.

Bett was still humming unconsciously as she said goodbye to the last guest at the door. She loved having this gathering every year, but this year had been special. Her mother had joined in, actually joined in. She hadn’t heard Elizabeth laugh so much in well over a year. When Grady had reached out and swatted her mother’s rear end in passing, Bett had thought for a moment that her mom was going to fall over in shock, but she’d recovered. The women had fussed over her like a new hen in the flock. Elizabeth, her pants destroyed, her blouse unrecognizable, her hair flying every which way, had had a very good time.

“The women were so nice,” Elizabeth said from the doorway of Zach’s study.

Bett glanced up from the book in her hand, smiling. “They are, aren’t they, Mom?” She was so tired she could barely see straight, but the steady motion of Zach’s old rocker had soothed that weariness for an hour now. She set the book down, noting with some surprise that Elizabeth was rubbing her hands as if she were cold.

“That Susan Lee asked me over for coffee tomorrow.”

Elizabeth edged into the study, slightly nervous. Bett, perplexed, drew up her jean-clad legs and folded her arms around them. “You’re going to go?” she asked lightly.

“Yes.” Elizabeth sat on the edge of the couch, primly drew her knees together and studied the books on the shelf with an absent frown. “That Grady,” she said disgustedly. “I have never seen a more ill-tempered man. So gruff. I doubt he’s had a woman near him in thirty years.”

“He is a character,” Bett agreed.

“I told him I’d bring him a home-cooked dinner sometime.” Elizabeth adjusted the neck band of her orange blouse. “The old coot. I felt sorry for him.”

Bett nodded, curiosity and amusement reflected in her clear blue eyes. “That was nice of you.”

“He doesn’t deserve it,” Elizabeth said flatly, and then sighed. “I thought I’d do up a pot roast, some of those small new potatoes, maybe an apple pie-”

Bett smothered a grin. “He’ll never recover.”

“The thing is…” Elizabeth stood up and started wringing her hands again. “Grady’s one thing. Of course I’ll take him over a dinner. Brittany, you know I’d do that for anyone. But Grady is not Aaron,” she said nervously. “And Aaron. He actually had the nerve to…”

“What?” Bett asked, perplexed.

“Ask me to dinner. Actually like a date,” Elizabeth said disgustedly. “Can you believe that? At my age? Married for twenty-five years?” She took a book from the shelves, and started leafing through it. “I think I’ll read tonight. I’m just too tired to work on my afghans.”

Pesticide Management? “Now just sit down a minute, Mom,” Bett coaxed.

Elizabeth promptly collapsed in a chair. “It’s ridiculous. What would Chet think? Your father would think I encouraged him. I didn’t do a thing, Brittany; I can’t imagine anything more foolish than people our age-”

“I don’t think it’s foolish at all,” Bett said gently. “Why on earth shouldn’t you go out to dinner with him?”

“Because what would your father have thought?” Elizabeth said unhappily.

Bett’s words were measured, very soft. “I think Dad would have been delighted to know that someone cared enough about you to ask. And he would have been happy to know you were having a good time. You think he would have liked the thought of you being alone?”

Tears welled in Elizabeth’s eyes. “I still miss your father.”

“I do, too, Mom.” Matching tears welled in Bett’s eyes.

Elizabeth stared directly at the bookcase. “They were such good years, Brittany, every one. We didn’t always agree, but that never seemed to matter. It’s funny, how little that’s really a measure of anything. And sometimes…sometimes I get terribly frightened at how very many years I have left. Too many-always to be alone, never to have anyone to do for again, to fuss and cook for, to just be with. I wouldn’t want anything the same. I would never expect or even want to love anyone the way I loved your father, but I…and then suddenly I feel so wretchedly disloyal for even considering…because if you think for any minute I could forget your father…”

“Mom.” Bett pushed herself out of the rocker and went to lean over her mother, folding her close, smelling the same faint rosewater scent she could remember from the time she was a baby. “You wouldn’t be disloyal to go out to dinner with someone else. To see someone else. You would be pleasing Dad very much. You think he would want you never to care for someone else just because he’s gone? You just can’t think that, because Dad just wasn’t like that. Now, you love to go out to dinner-”

“Well, I told him no, anyway.” Elizabeth rubbed nervously at her eyes. “I still think it’s halfway foolish.”

“You can call him back. It isn’t foolish.”

“I’ve never called a man in my life, and I’m certainly not about to start now.” Elizabeth stood up, and picked up her book, staring at it blankly. “Besides, I haven’t a thing to wear.”