“Can you believe it?” I said. “PopPop had it all the time.”
She shook her head and chuckled. “Graham is right. PopPop is a grump. Why would he keep this from us?” She smiled down at it. “That little box was like gold to your grandmother. She guarded it with her life.” She gave a firm nod. “She would have wanted you to have it.”
“That’s what he said.”
My mother gave me a warm smile. “He’s right.”
“And,” I said, “I’m going to check to see if I can’t make one of her recipes today. Mud pie.”
My mom frowned. “Mother Kay never made mud pie ice cream.”
“She must have,” I said. “I met a man today who told me it was his favorite.”
“He got that wrong,” she said. “Mother Kay used to say that that was what she made as a child, and she wasn’t putting it in her store.”
“I don’t know, Mommy. I don’t remember it either, but he did, and he remembered a lot of other things, too.”
“People always remember our ice cream.”
“He remembered the whole family. Oh!” I said. “You’ll know who he is. He said he was part owner of Clawson’s Bike Shop.”
“Dan Clawson didn’t have a partner.”
“He was a silent partner. Along with Mr. Clawson’s wife.”
My mother narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “What was this guy’s name?”
“Steve.”
“Steve what?”
I shrugged. “He didn’t say. But he’s coming back to get ice cream. Mud pie ice cream, so I have to find the recipe.” I started to open the box, but she put her hand over it.
“What did this guy look like?” she asked suspiciously.
“I don’t know.” I hunched my shoulders. “He had graying hair. Deep blue eyes—”
“And dimples!” Her words came out with fire.
“Uhm . . . yeah. Dimples. Because why?”
“Stephen Bayard! That’s who that was. That no-good scoundrel.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“His name is Stephen Bayard. He didn’t eat mud pie ice cream here. What he did was drag us through the mud!”
“Who?”
“The whole family.”
She was breathing heavily through her nose. I could have sworn I saw fire. “And he wasn’t Dan Clawson’s partner either. What he did was partner up with his wife.”
“I’m not following,” I said. “He seemed like a nice guy.”
She didn’t even let me tell her the part about the puppy before she spat back, “He is not a nice guy!”
“Okay,” I said. “Calm down.”
“He is the one who preyed on your grandmother’s illness and had her sign over the store to him. We had to scramble to get into court to have her deemed incompetent, something that broke your grandfather’s heart, so the contract wouldn’t be legally binding. And before we could do anything about him, he disappeared! With Dan Clawson’s wife!”
“Oh,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Maybe he wasn’t a nice guy . . .
I was twelve when Grandma Kay took sick. When we were kids, we weren’t allowed in “grown folks’” business. They spoke in hushed tones around us or we were told to leave the room. That was probably why he didn’t seem familiar to me.
“What did he want?” she asked.
“Nothing, I guess.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. He had a dog with him and was looking for its owner,” I said. “He was just talking.”
“What did he say?” Her words were quick and stern.
“Nothing, Mom. Just that he remembered the store and all of us. That he was going to stop by and see PopPop.”
“Oh, no, he’s not!” She turned from me and marched over to the wall rack where she’d hung her coat and purse. “I’m calling home right now to warn them about that scumbag,” she called over her shoulder. “Because if he shows up”—she yanked her purse down from the rack and started rummaging through it—“your father might just kill him.”
chapter
FIVE
You girls are going to catch your death of cold down here.” Our family discussion was interrupted by Rivkah Solomon. She was a natural-born intruder.
Rivkah was our store’s second-floor tenant, Maisie’s grandmother, the Jewish owner of the village’s only Chinese restaurant, and the only other person I knew of who could make my grandfather smile.
She was thin and had long, slender hands—my grandmother used to say she had piano fingers. Now, like on her face, the skin that covered them was thin and wrinkled. She wore her all-gray hair pulled back, braided and wrapped around in a bun, but she always had strands that strayed.
“Savta!” Maisie said, a big grin on her face. She wiped her hands on a towel, trotted over and planted a kiss on her grandmother’s cheek. “I was going to come up and see you.”
Rivkah pulled her own sweater close around her, then held up her hands. Her fists were filled with outerwear. “I knew you girls wouldn’t be prepared for this morning’s weather.” She had a sweater for each of us.
How she knew how many to bring, I didn’t know.
“Morning, Savta,” I said, and followed Maisie’s lead. I planted my kiss on the other cheek.
“Hi, Mrs. Solomon.” Riya muttered her greeting. She’d refused to call Rivkah the Hebrew word for grandmother. She’d said long ago that the family she had from both sides of her parents were more than enough relatives to keep up with without picking up any strays.
“I’m going to turn the heat up,” Rivkah said, and headed over to the thermostat. “It’s not good for you not to be warm while you work.”
“We’re making ice cream, Savta,” Maisie said. “It’s supposed to be a little cold.”
“It’s not good to be overheated either,” Riya said. “I can tell you that to a medical certainty.”
“Nonsense,” Rivkah said, and waved a hand. “Is that what they taught you at that medical school?” She spoke to Riya over her shoulder as she fiddled with the thermostat. Satisfied, she turned and looked at us, a gleam in her eye. “I have made you a little something to eat. Maisie, you help me bring it down.” She aimed a finger at her with her instructions. “You girls are too skinny, and you need all your energy to get this place going.