Crushed by poor life choices, Kimberly simply wants to collect her inheritance and escape the prying eyes of Colton’s residents. But her parents’ many failed business attempts left no cash, a dilapidated farmhouse, a stressed-out brother, and two chunky bulldogs who may hold the future among their wrinkles.
Smoke from the grill fills Colton’s Cottage out on Highway 9, bacon and fried potatoes by the smell of it. The usual smattering of overalled old-timers jawing on about weather, crops, and the deceased occupy the blue-padded chrome stools. All the booths are empty. Midweek, and most Colton residents are sitting in classrooms, tending to phones and registers in various businesses, or driving any number of farm implements. Harvest would come quickly. Busy times in Colton. Busy times.
I slide into the far corner booth. The one that I’d sat in for eons of breakfasts and dinners growing up. Me, Mom, and Dad in this booth. I bet if I cared to, I could get down on hands and knees and look up at the underside of the table to find my engravings. During more than a few of those many grueling family meals, while I smiled and joined in polite, mandated conversation, I’d scratched out “suck this” and other such vents with the pocketknife I’d palmed from Dad’s dresser. I’d have been about middle school-aged, maybe a freshman, but not much older. And I longed for my cousin, sitting with Aunt Trudy and Uncle Ike, to join me in our booth. But that was never the case, as Bradley was their prized possession and they clung to him like they clung to life itself.
My brother could join them, though. Justin and Brad, laughing it up, joking. Heck, I’d even taken my brother’s company at the table as opposed to being front-and-center with Mrs. and Mr. Arnold. But that wasn’t the picture. My place was across from my parents in the corner booth of Colton’s Cottage.
Discussing business and numbers and tallies. When you’re in the family business, every mealtime is a board meeting.
I’m tempted to run my hands along the underside of the table but thought better of it since I surely wasn’t the only wild child in Colton, and others likely stowed gum or other substances previously stored in some body part in the darkness under the booth. And if the eye-level state of the diner was any indication, the undersides of anything could be a biohazard. I keep my hands on the tabletop.
A twenty-something, pregnant-bellied girl brings me a plastic-coated menu. I smile at her. She’s ready already, pen poised over that tiny square of an order pad, waiting. “I’ll need a minute.”
She shrugs and retreats to the counter, tending to the old men in overalls and straight-billed hats and work boots dripping mud and manure.
I flip open the menu. I don’t think it’s changed one bit since I last ate here. A page full of the standard breakfast choices. A half-page of quick-and-easy-to-grill burgers and fries on the other side. They’re not serving the “specialty” items on the lower half-page yet. If I want fried chicken or turkey and dressing, I’d have to come back after five p.m.
I spot a combination that sounds good and hope the short order guy in the back makes the order in short order. Some of the old-timers have noticed that I’m here. I don’t really recognize any of them, but I don’t let my gaze linger.
As my waitress returns, pen poised, I close the menu and flip it to the backside. Maybe I don’t want the black-and-white sketch of Main Street Colton that graces the front of the thing staring at me. Reminding me I’m sitting in this ancient place in a town I’d rather forget.
But the backside is worse than the front.
“O, cap M, cap G!” My waitress brings my attention to it. I follow her wide eyes down to the table.
On the back of the menu, there’s my family. Our famous portrait. Dad in his straw fedora, trimmed with a sage green band, his hand resting on Justin’s shoulder. Mom stands behind me, hair pulled up in a paisley blue do-rag, her hand not so much resting on my shoulder as clawing into it.
And there’s me. Kimberly Arnold. About a senior. Maybe a little older. Playing along. Counting down the days I could leave Colton and the ridiculousness that small towns bring. And dutifully holding our then-alive-and-drooling but now long-dead bulldog, Chip.
“Oh, Oh!” She bobs up and down, and I’m afraid her unborn child may suffer severe consequences if she doesn’t stop. “Can I have the recipe? We cannot figure it out!”
It takes me a second to process. I look back down at the caption: Arnolds’ Amazing Cookies: Get ‘em Straight Outta the Oven!
My family’s side business. Why we spent so many mealtimes here in the Cottage and not at home around our table. Her and Aunt Trudy in our huge farmhouse kitchen. Baking, cooling, and packaging cookies until the countertops and fridge top and tabletops—and sometimes even the seats of the dining room chairs— brimmed over with steaming cookies. Then the driveway filled with neighbors and gawking out-of-towners, and it would start all over again the next morning. The baking and cooling and packaging.
“Seriously, right? You’re Kimberly Arnold, yes?” The Cottage staff and all the old men collectively stare as the waitress beams on. “How’d y’all make ‘em? The whole town talks about it.”
“Uhm, yeah. I don’t have the recipe. I’ve been out of the picture a while. So, I’ll have bacon and—"
“Seriously? You were part of the operation. You have to know your own family’s recipe.”
I shake my head. “But I do know I’ve come a long way and that I’m hungry.”
“That sucks. I haven’t had anything like those cookies since I was a little girl.” She rubs her belly. “I’d sure love to share some with this little booger when he’s old enough.”
She jots down my order. As she slinks back to the kitchen, I see one of the old guys with his flip phone. His gruff voice carries through the whole diner.
“Yup. As I live and breathe. It’s Kimberly Arnold.” A pause. He’s staring at me. “I swear. Nichole just took her order.”
Fabulous. I’ve only been in town fifteen minutes.
I cross my arms over my chest and wait for my breakfast. Unfortunately, Nichole forgot to remove the menu from the edge of the table. The Arnold Family stares at me. Accusing. Judging.
Even I look unhappy with me.
The dog does, too.
Oh, how I wish I had that pocketknife.
***
I inhaled my country breakfast within mere minutes of the plate sliding across the table. All under the watchful eyes of the other diners. I paid my bill and tipped Nichole more out of pity than of duty. I kept my head down, wishing I had one of my father’s old fedoras to blind my gaze from the onlookers. A couple of old men wanted to chit-chat. Talk about the cookies. And are we finally ready to start baking again. I smiled and said I was in a hurry.
And I was so in a hurry.
With all four windows down on the rental car, a squatty little Honda that’s a little short on leg room, I let the gusts shoot through the car and blow the bacon and the encounter at Colton’s Cottage out of my hair and from my clothing. I’d forgotten after all those meals here with the family that you continued to smell like the Cottage’s offerings for hours afterward. I’d gone nose blind to it, I guess.
I’d also gone nose blind or plumb stupid to how small towns operate. It doesn’t take much to make a name for yourself when the population is a whopping two thousand four hundred. You also can’t escape family name connotations for who-knows-how-many generations.
The Frasiers? They’re the ones that raise pigs. Always smell like pigs, too. And their son did this and that and got so-and-so jailed because of it three counties over.
The Coopers? They’re too good to work in Colton, so they commute. All of them. That’s why they’ve got no money and have had so many divorces. Not enough quality time around the dinner table.
The Arnolds? Their daughter fled the family, fled Colton, head full of cockamamie ideas just like her mother. But man, could Mrs. Arnold bake cookies…
That’s why I’d left all those years ago. Small-town connotations.
But at the thought of the cookies, my mouth waters despite the churning in my stomach from eating too much grease too fast. As my car aims for my childhood home, I note less has changed with the countryside than at the Cottage. Tall corn stalks wave in unison on one side of the road, with the first hints of brown along the edges. Squatty soybeans on the other side. A road in need of repair that makes me glad I don’t own this vehicle.
A few more miles to go until the old home greets me. The bright white two-story farmhouse standing tall atop a rolling lawn. Large front porch overlooking the endless gravel driveway. But first I’ll see the metal mailbox attached to a wooden fence post. I wonder what color it is today. I’d routinely been sent out with the paint bucket to put a fresh coat on it. White, black, red. One time it was neon green. Then I’d have to affix the weatherproof letters. A. R. N….
That had been the last task I completed for my mom. She’d handed me the paintbrush and bucket. White that time. I completed the job. Stuck on the letters, and after I cleaned up, I said goodbye. She’d not said much. Neither had Dad or Justin. I’d said my goodbyes to Brad and Aunt Trudy and Uncle Ike the night before at the Cottage.
I’d made up my mind.
California was the place for me. I’d answered an advertisement in the back of a crossword puzzle magazine that Grandma had bought after my senior year. Promises of steady work and the opportunity to own your own franchise selling snow cones and funnel cakes on the beach to tourists.
And no winters ever come to California. Or so I’d thought.
And there would be a never-ending line of customers to buy from me while they stroll sunny Cali’s beaches. Or so I’d thought.
And a last name wouldn’t carry so much shoulder-hunching burden in such a populated area.
Or so I’d thought.
I see the mailbox first, rusted and flaking off layers of paint. Three letters are missing from our last name, indicating Arno gets mail here.
The house doesn’t greet me. Instead, it hangs its head, ashamed of the grimy windows and drooping gutters. White paint turned beige in some places, the north-facing walls green with algae growth. Screen door swings loose in the breeze, the hinges barely doing their job. The grand wicker patio sets, three of them, that dotted the massive porch are gone. The only furnishing is the porch swing, but its bottom is firmly on the wooden plank floor, its chains drooping loosely around the armrests. It’s as gray as the rest of the place.
I slow the car down until the popping of the gravel on the metal stops. I kill the engine and stare. What has Justin been doing all this time?
He made it sound like things were fine. Like after Mom and Dad passed, he had a handle on the property. No need for me to come home. Stay in the sunshine. Live my life.
I look at my watch. I’m right on time, but I don’t see Justin’s pickup. I stand and stretch my legs.
I assumed the property would be in the best condition ever, given the impending sale. I look back toward the edge of the yard, in case I missed it. In case I missed the realtor’s sign or an auction house’s banner. Something to indicate that Justin was doing what he said he’d do. Something to ease the acid in the knot the bacon had started back at the Cottage.
But I hadn’t missed any signs because there weren’t any. The money is tied up in the property. In the land. No sale, no money. No money, no plans.
I walk behind the house, where the state of things is no better. The yard needs mowed and re-landscaped. The roof needs repairs, in addition to the gutters. Windows washed. Junk cleared out.
On the back porch, I sift through a leaning pile of plywood signs. Mostly faded-out cookie announcements from back in the day covered in bird droppings and dead leaves and spider nests.
One sign held the likeness of an English bulldog. Arnolds’ Amazing AKC Bullies: Get ‘em Straight Outta the Oven!
Wow. Way to recycle the slogan. I wonder if this venture took off. I’d been out of the picture for so long, I had no idea what new plans Mom and Aunt Trudy had concocted.
My plan had been to sell everything I owned. Which I did.
My plan was to pitstop in the middle of the Midwest to pick up my portion of the inheritance. And I’m here now.
My plan was to take that inheritance, book my ticket to New York, find lodging, and start my new life. Head to the opposite coast. Another opportunity. Another promise of stability and happiness and a name free of connotations.
That was my plan.
Tires rolling over gravel signal someone’s arrival. I leave the signs, step further into the backyard, and look up at the house. I hear a vehicle door slam. Then another.
Two waddling English bulldogs run shoulder-to-shoulder to greet me from around the corner. My brother comes from the other side, his head as droopy and as ashamed as the house’s.
I bend to the dogs, and they cover my hand in slimy kisses before running back to Justin. I think those wrinkled creatures may be the embodiment of my inheritance.
The knot in my stomach gives birth to more knots.
My plan was so solid.
Or so I’d thought.
***
I haven’t walked through the house yet. After the shock of the exterior and the stark emptiness of the living room, I’d frozen in place. So we sit in the living room on a tripled-up blanket and lean against the wall facing the fireplace. As if we’re waiting for gathering family to celebrate something. Waiting for the fire to pop to life as Dad stoops over, tips his fedora back on his head so it won’t fall into the embers, and coaxes the sparks and logs to do their job.
But this is no celebration. Justin had sold everything he could to satisfy the creditors and buy more time to think. More time for me to arrive to put my worthless two cents’ worth in. And that’s what I’m feeling now. Worthless.
The dogs snort and explore the downstairs level as if they’d not been in the house before. I wonder if their stubby legs could scale the steps. “They’re worth a few hundred, right?” I nod to the dogs.
“They’d have been worth a few thousand if Mom and Dad could’ve parted with them as pups. Now they’re old and stink. Not everyone finds the adult versions so charming.” One of them comes and lies longways next to Justin’s legs, drooping drooling jowls over his shin. “I can’t do it. Relocate them. Can we, Meg? Can we, Meg?” He reaches down and smacks the dog on her rear. She looks back at him and her tongue rolls out of her mouth, dragging a trail of slobber with it.
“Good grief, Justin.” The other dog, the male, joins me on my side of the blanket. He’s a wrinkled bowling ball with legs. He lies down, head facing me, thank goodness, because I think he’s got some stomach issues. Justin’s gone nose blind to them by now, no doubt. Our old Chip used to smell like a compost pile most of the time. Sweet dogs, though.
“That one’s Tartar. Meg and Tartar.”
“Like stuff you dip fish in? That’s fitting. He smells like it.”
“No. Cream of Tartar. Must be the coloring or something. Mom named him before…”
Before she died and I didn’t have the funds nor the mental functioning to come home for the service. They didn’t have the money to bury her, either, so Justin and I agreed to do something with her ashes once I came back this way. Dad’s were scattered at the edge of Colton at the fishing pond. Mom hated that fishing pond, but maybe that’s where she’d have to go…
I take a deep breath and try to relax my shoulders against the wall. I try to think. But that deep breath brought the ever-so-faint aroma of cookies. It hangs in the air. The entire house used to smell of brown sugar and melting chocolate. It still lingers above the dust and dog and sad emptiness.
“At some point, we’ll have to go over the paperwork. We’re upside down. Even auctioning the property won’t solve much. Then I’m left with nowhere to live because I sank all my cash into trying to bail them out of their last enterprise.” He puts “enterprise” in air quotes.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Just?”
He shrugs. “You’d escaped. I didn’t want to bother my kid sister with stuff I should be able to handle.”
“I didn’t escape.” I draw my knees up to my chest. “Maybe I escaped the town and the atmosphere here, but I’m my mother’s child. Grand ideas, poor execution.”
“So no sources to tap for funds to get us out from under this?”
“When I pulled in the drive, I had a plan and two bags of clothes in the trunk. Now I have two bags of clothes in the trunk.” I study my brother’s face. Crow’s feet and worry lines and a smattering of gray. I see my features in his facial structure. Square jaw, thin lips. Old and stressed.
“How pathetic. How did relatively intelligent middle-aged humans get done in by Arnolds’ cookies and bulldogs?” Justin shakes his head, and Meg, with perfect timing, lets one rip that lasts two seconds. We can’t help but laugh. Then we had to stand to get away from the fumes.
“Well, let’s see the rest of it. Grand tour, Brother?”
He gives me his arm, like we’re going on a date, and leads me up the staircase off the side of the living room. To my surprise, the dogs pop up and lead the way, their butts and curly stubbed tails struggling on the wooden planks.
The family photos of fedoras and bulldogs and cookie-baking still line the stairs. I run my hand against the bumpy plaster and tug on the wooden frames. The last few eight-by-tens only have three humans. Several dogs. No Kimberly. I wasn’t in the picture for those.
Mom and Dad’s room is as barren as the living room. One Rubbermaid tote sits next to the wall. I pop the lid off and will myself not to fall to my knees. “I just couldn’t get rid of those. Maybe a few hundred bucks’ worth, but that’s what I kept of Dad’s. Take what you want,” Justin says.
Dad’s fedoras. Dumb hats. Having them all in one place and closed up, when the lid came off, I could smell him. Over the dogs. Over the brown sugar. His aftershave mingled with sweat. Faint but lingering. Straw, felt, wide and short-brimmed. I could see him grinning from under them all.
I try to focus on something else. “Speak to Bradley?”
“Got two kids. He and his wife aren’t much better off. Trudy and Ike, well…”
I nod. Somehow, the four most prominent adults in our lives all had the get-rich-quick and pie-in-the-sky genes. Ventures and investments and businesses. And it all went down in those booths in the back of Colton’s Cottage.
“Needless to say, Bradley’s become a commuter now. Spends most of his time at a job he hates—or driving to it.”
I peek into Justin’s room. A double bed, unmade. Boxes of clothes. No dresser. No nightstand. A black radio with extended silver antennae is plugged into the wall and sits on the floor. Meg and Tartar scale the bed and take nest, one near the head, the other near the foot.
“You live like a hobo.”
“I have about as much money as one, too.”
“Likewise.”
We continue to my bedroom. I open the door. The hinges still grunt with the effort. “I saved personal stuff. Everything else, well…” Justin shuffles his feet and hung his head. I hate seeing my brother this way. He and Bradley had been so carefree. So full of orneriness and vigor. Now…
I put my arm around him and squeeze hard. “I know. It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.”
“I’ve thought about Mexico.”
“Canada’s closer.”
We stand in the hallway and peer into my bedroom. Three cardboard boxes with “Kimberly” scrawled across the tops were the only three things in the room. Even the curtains were gone.
“You can take my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor with the mutts.”
I look across the hall to his bed. The dogs raise their heads and look back. “I don’t think so.”
We go downstairs to the kitchen. The dogs preferred to stay upstairs for their mid-morning comas.
The cookie essence is strongest in this room. The massive farmhouse table is gone. The fridge stayed. I pop it open. Sodas and a gallon of milk. I pull out the lunch meat, looking for an expiration date.
“I wouldn’t trust it.”
Justin tells me of his job helping Mr. Frasier with the farm and the swine. Their family is as much of a mess as ours. In return for a meager wage, Mrs. Frasier pumps Justin—and the Bullys—full of home-cooked goodness. For which he is truly grateful. He’s not home much, it looks like.
I pop open one of the cabinets. Shiny, stainless steel colanders and mixing bowl sets nearly topple out. “Justin! These were high-end. Why do you still have them?”
“I put them in the personal property auction. No one would bid.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. All the farm wives and even the Cottage would’ve wanted Mom’s cooking gear.” I pull out more and more pieces. Mixers, food processors. Another cabinet had measuring cups, cooling racks, spatulas, and industrial-sized mixing bowls. I empty the cabinets onto the countertop and floor to take stock.
“The locals refused to bid. Ticked off the auctioneer. They said we’d need it again. They said we could figure out the recipe and start over.”
I open a long drawer next to the sink. Mom’s well-loved aprons lay neatly folded and stacked. “Those I didn’t offer. I kept those on purpose. Didn’t even unfold them.”
I take two from the drawer, the green one with little strawberries all over and the cream one with Cookie Monster embroidered on the pockets. Two wooden stools missing most of their red paint are nudged against the cabinets and I take the one nearest me. I stretch out the strawberry apron and shake it hard, then slide the strap around my neck and tie the waist. The pockets along the front are stained and fraying at the edges, so I try not to toy with them. “Okay. So we have mementos no one cares about. Aprons. Fedoras. Cooking gear. Two dogs and a shell of a house.”
“And don’t forget the expired lunch meat.” Justin leans against the fridge.
I smooth open the Cookie Monster apron and slide off the stool. I drape the strap around Justin’s neck and spin him away from the fridge so I can tie the strings in the back. He pats the pockets.
“What’s this?”
He pulls out a folded piece of lined notebook paper and hands it to me.
I take it from him and flick it open. “Does anyone ever ask you about the cookies? The recipe?”
“Yeah. Not a day or two goes by that someone doesn’t ask me. Beg me sometimes, especially around the holidays or someone’s birthday.”
“Ever find it? The recipe?”
“Found lots of them. Not the recipe, though.”
We examine the paper as I uncrease it. Mom’s handwriting. The title at the top of the shorthand, coded recipe says: THIS IS THE ONE.
Justin’s eyes widen and he snatches it from me.
“Careful. It’s fragile.”
“I don’t know what this stuff means. Do you?”
“No. But get that bowl.” Justin reaches for the small one on the counter. “No. The big one. I’ve got an idea.”
I bound up the stairs to retrieve two more pieces of the puzzle before meeting Justin in the drive where I plop one of Dad’s fedoras onto his head, and another onto mine.
“Where are we going?” Justin helps me pack the industrial mixing bowl, two farting dogs and, donning aprons and fedoras, I instruct him to point the pickup toward the Cottage.
“Suddenly I’m in the mood for fried chicken.”
***
I tie Meg to the grocery store’s bike rack while Justin ties Tartar. The dogs had fared well with similar treatment at Colton’s Cottage while Justin and I ate dinner. Everyone knew Meg and Tartar. They were Arnolds, after all. And, according to my brother, regulars down at the Cottage.
The drive to the supermarket one county over had been punctuated with moments of silent contemplation and other stretches of intense processing of the “I can’t believe they went for it” variety while the dogs snored in the back seat. The industrial-sized mixing bowl clanged on the floorboard, overflowing with bills in every denomination. Mostly fives, but all presidents represented well.
Nichole had taken an extra shift, my waitress for the second time today, and served Justin and I more than our fair share of fried chicken. She’d even made a sign for the bowl, which she displayed proudly on the counter, front and center: Help Arnolds’ Cookies Come Back in the Picture. The sign also explained, so we wouldn’t have to repeat ourselves quite so much, that we’d be giving away our first attempt—so don’t get your hopes up—in two weeks at the Cottage as a way to say thanks for helping.
Before tying up the dogs, we lost the hats and aprons and stuffed our pockets with the cash so as not to look like our parents. Too much.
“Which aisle?”
I skim the signs hanging overhead for baking supplies. Justin grabs a cart while I fish out Mom’s scribbled recipe.
We find the aisle and get to work. We could assume some of the shorthand was straightforward. Fl for flour. CC for chocolate chips. BS for brown sugar and not the alternative, though we did have a good attention-drawing laugh discussing how maybe BS really was the secret ingredient. MDU v WN, after much consternation, we agree must be macadamia nuts versus walnuts, so we get both. And we can afford it for this first trial run, which I’m still in shock over.
This morning, the Colton locals were rude and pushy and a little too in-your-business. Or so I’d thought.
This evening, after the outpouring of support, endearing is the only way I could describe them.
Now, two ingredients left, NM and COT. We scan the spices twice and venture two aisles in either direction on the chance we are way off base.
“Don’t you remember?” Justin’s impatience mounts. He’d been to the front of the store twice to check on the dogs. One time he came back with an extra twenty bucks when he’d run into another Colton family shopping here.
“I never helped measure stuff out. They did that, Mom and Trudy. I only stirred and cooled and packaged and painted the mailbox.”
“Tartar’s getting grumpy. It’s past his bedtime.”
“It’s probably always past that dog’s—” I stop myself and grab my brother by his weary shoulders. “What’s that dog’s name again?”
“Tartar.”
“No. The whole thing.”
“Cream of—” Justin facepalms.
“COT,” we say in unison. We found the tiny container. The measurements listed for a giant batch were also tiny.
“Some of these things are expensive. I hope she knew what she was doing.”
“One more. NM.”
“Does the female have a middle name?” I joke as I begin scanning the spices once more.
“No.” This time Justin grabs my shoulders, laughing. “Her name’s Nutmeg.”
***
Three months after my arrival in Colton, and I’m a true Arnold again. Baking. Stirring. Cooling. Packaging. The freebie thank-you batches down at the Cottage were a success and brought in even more donations. I have a mattress with sheets and everything. And there’s a couch in the living room. Mr. Frasier even built us an oversized farmhouse table. We declined a television, preferring to listen to Justin’s old radio over the screen. Who has time for TV?
Busy times in Colton. Busy times.
After we’d hit the right balance with tastes and textures, Justin and I brought in Bradley’s wife to help. Bradley’s even thinking of cutting back hours on his commute job to do some special deliveries, but we’re trying to be smarter this time. Take it slow. Don’t add too much too fast and get in the same mess our parents had.
We will be adding Nichole part-time once she’s up to it, though. She’s been a key instrument with her enthusiasm and bubbly personality. Bubbly is something the Arnolds lack. And I promised myself I wouldn’t make her do ridiculous tasks like paint the mailbox. Unless she wanted to, that is.
I finish cleaning up the day’s baking and secure the front door, latching a brand-new screen. Nutmeg and Tartar snore on the couch. They’ve yet to adjust to their new fast-paced cookie-baking lifestyle. “Up to bed, you two, or we’ll sell you to the first customers in the morning.” They stretch and tumble off the sofa. I follow the four-legged butterballs up the steps and run my fingers across the frames of the Arnold family history that guards the staircase.
I pause at the most current frame. Justin, Bradley and his wife. Their two kids. Nichole, who’d protested, but we forced her. Nutmeg and Cream of Tartar, smiling and slobbering as they look up at the humans. And me.
Contented peace settles deep in my stomach. The knot is still there sometimes—probably too many board meetings at the Cottage. But mostly, it’s peace.
I’m in the picture.
