The Next Best Thing. Kristan Higgins

a word.”

      “Lucy, honey, don’t just sit there like a lump, get her something to eat!” Aunt Rose trills, bursting from the back of the kitchen from where she was slathering a wedding cake in her special blend of Crisco and confectioner’s sugar. “Go!” She yanks off her apron and smoothes her hair.

      I do as I’m told, heaping ten of Bunny’s most garish and colorful cookies on a plate and stirring three teaspoons of sugar into a large mug of “staff—only” coffee.

      My mother emerges from her office, applying another coat of lipstick as she does. “Oh, good, she’s here. Lucy, do you want a reading, too? Electrolysis, maybe?”

      “No, thanks,” I say, ignoring the mustache crack. “Mom, Grinelda’s about as a psychic as a fern. And a hundred bucks a pop? I just don’t think you should—”

      “Shh! She’ll hear you, honey. Quiet down and go in the back if you’re such a cynic. Go! Shoo!” Mom takes the plate of cookies from me, and approaches Grinelda with the reverence of a Wise Man nearing baby Jesus. “Grinelda! Welcome!”

      I’ve always found it odd that Mom is as sold as her sisters on Grinelda, since she seems so much more sophisticated, but I guess we all have our weak spots. And though I am indeed cynical about Grinelda’s abilities, I peek from the kitchen. Grinelda may be a fraud, but she’s still fun to watch.

      “Daisy, my dear,” the gypsy croaks, cutting her crepey eyes to me, “it’s so good to see you. I’m feeling a bit tired today, but I’ll do my best.”

      The three sisters cluck and fuss around Grinelda, who doesn’t waste time, shoving two cookies into her mouth at once. Through a spray of crumbs, she says, “I’m getting a letter…someone’s coming.” My aunts and mother clutch hands, crowding around the little table. “The letter is…L. Yes. It’s a man whose name begins with L. Does one of you know a man whose name begins with L?”

      “Doesn’t everyone know a man whose name begins with L?” I ask sweetly. I am ignored.

      “Larry,” Aunt Rose breathes. “My Larry.” As if Grinelda didn’t know Rose’s husband’s name. She’s been bilking the Black Widows for years.

      “Larry…he wants you to know something…he’s still with you. True love never dies. And whenever you see a yellow flower next to a red flower, it’s a sign from him, a sign that he loves you.”

      The fact that Grinelda walks through Ellington Park to get here, and that the park is planted with dozens and dozens of red and yellow chrysanthemums currently in robust bloom and easily visible from this very shop, is lost on little Rose. She clutches her hand to her ample bosom. “Oh, a sign! Larry, honey, I love you, too, sweetheart!”

      Well, I can’t help it. My throat feels a little tight. Sure, Grinelda’s full of garbage, but the expression on Rose’s face is probably worth the hundred bucks she just shelled out.

      “The man is fading…and now there’s someone else. Another man…tall. Limping. Name starts with a P.”

      “Pete! My Pete!” Iris trumpets. “He walked with a limp! Shot in the leg by his idiot brother!”

      Grinelda lights a cheroot and sucks on it, nodding wisely, then exhaling a bluish stream of smoke. “Yep. Limping.”

      While I don’t believe Grinelda can see the dead, I do believe that those who have died visit us. There are those rogue dimes, for example, found in unusual spots…the exact middle of the kitchen counter, or in my sock drawer. Occasionally I’ll dream that Jimmy’s back on earth for a chat. He always looks gorgeous in those dreams, and is always just checking in. The widows group I’d belonged to assured me that this kind of thing was a fairly common experience.

      So it’s not that I don’t believe. I just don’t believe Grinelda.

      My latest batch of bread has twenty minutes to go before it’ll be done. A little air would be nice, so I head out for a stroll down Main Street. The trees have lost their deep green summer lushness, and the sunlight has a mellow, golden softness to it. An elderly couple walks slowly across the green, him with a cane, her clinging to his arm. Beautiful. They head into the cemetery, and I look away.

      The dark, rich scent of roasting coffee wafts out from Starbucks. I could really use a strong cuppa joe…I was up till 2:00 a.m. this morning watching The Hunt for Red October, and my tired brain yearns for a caffeine fix. I can’t go in, of course. Starbucks is my competitor, and it’s run by the meanest girl in Mackerly—Doral—Anne Driscoll.

      Well, she’s not the meanest girl anymore. That’s not fair. She’s the meanest woman. I’ve known her all my life, and she basically lived the cliché of Tough Townie…multiple piercings in her ears, eyebrows, nose and tongue, jeans so tight you could count her pocket change, a surly sneer perpetually spreading across her thin and usually cursing mouth. Tattooed by the time she was fourteen, smoking, drinking, sleeping around…the woiks, as Bugs Bunny would say. And then there was the utter contempt she had for me, a rather meek and shy child who lived to please teachers and sang in St. Bonaventure’s choir.

      Unlike most of my graduating class, Doral—Anne never left Mackerly. She sneered and spat with what we all knew was just envy whenever college was mentioned. She waited tables at a diner in Kingstown, and when Gianni’s opened in Mackerly, she got a job there.

      Well before I met Ethan or Jimmy, Doral—Anne was talking about Gianni’s. Every time I ran into her when home for the weekend, she’d bring it up. How great it was working there. How much money she made. How fantastic the owners were. College—especially my college—was for pussies. She was in the restaurant business. Probably Gianni’s was going to train her to be manager.

      In my “try to be nice to everyone” way, I’d tell her that sounded great, which seemed to make her nastier than ever. “‘That sounds great,’” she’d mimic. “Lang, you’re such a stupid little goody—good.”

      When I met Jimmy, Doral—Anne was still a waitress, no management position in sight. She didn’t dare take potshots at me at Gianni’s, not when the chef himself was in love with me, not when the owners treated me like gold, and man, did she hate it. Narrowed eyes every time I came in. Jerky, hard movements. Overly loud laughter to show how much fun she was having.

      A month after Ethan introduced Jimmy and me, Doral—Anne got caught stealing and was fired. And because I’d seen her in action there, heard her claims of being groomed for manager and because I now held a place of honor in the Mirabelli family, she hated me all the more.

      Doral—Anne’s hostility toward me didn’t waver after I became a widow. Once, four or five months after Jimmy died, I saw her at the gas station; she was obviously pregnant. I’d heard through the gossip that floated into the bakery that the father was some biker dude who’d passed through town.

      “Congratulations, Doral—Anne,” I said dutifully.

      She turned to me, eyes narrowed with malicious glee, she stuck out her pregnant belly, rubbed it with both hands and said, “Yeah. Nothing like a baby. I’m so happy. Bet you wish you could have one, too, huh? Too bad Jimmy didn’t get you pregnant before he died.”

      Wordlessly I’d stopped pumping, though my tank was far from full, got into my car and drove home, my hands shaking, my stomach ice—cold.

      Doral—Anne had her baby—Leo—and a couple of years later, popped out another one. Kate. Rumor had it the father was Cutty, the married owner of Cutty’s Bait & Boat Rental, and though Cutty’s wife left him, he never publicly acknowledged paternity. Doral—Anne bounced from waitressing job to waitressing job. Then a year ago, Starbucks opened in our tiny little town, and Doral—Anne was hired as manager. From the way she acts, Starbucks has found the cure for cancer, AIDS and the common cold.

      Speak of the devil. Doral—Anne appears in the doorway, broom in hand. Seeing me standing across the street, she shoves the broom behind her, the ropy muscles of her thin arms snaking and lean. “What’s