Chapter Text
It’s a spoon, clinking against the side of a mug. Rinsing the last of the breakfast dishes, Hellen can hear the clinks over the water running in the sink. It’s annoying. The clinks are accelerating, like a heartbeat anticipating fight or flight, with the decision in the offing. She glances towards their source, the table.
Willy is the only one left. Son Charlie has gone to school, and hubby Hector has gone on a maintenance round in the Factory. The grandparents are just… gone, but that’s been a while. There’s a hole where their bed used to be, and they’ve left holes in hearts, but, Hellen sighs, it’s best not to go there.
Willy’s hunched over, his shoulders tense. Staring into his mug, the tip of his nose is peeking out from his curtain of gleaming, chocolate-hued hair, hair that otherwise hides his face. The speed of his stirring deepens the whirlpool he’s intent on creating, the bothersome clinking heralding frenzy. Hellen dries her hands on a tea towel and brings it with her as she seats herself opposite him. “Willy,” she says, deadpan, “you’re going stir-crazy.”
“Probably,” he easily agrees.
He doesn't look up, but makes the spoon a brake, watching the fluid back up. The chocolatey froth nearly spills over. Hellen stays quiet. Willy’s hit a dry patch, but it’s not her job to tell him how to fix that. Avoiding eye contact, he removes the spoon from the hot chocolate and licks it spotless with the tip of his tongue. As daintily as he does it, it’s like watching a cat, Hellen thinks. Surely he has better uses for his time. “Have you plans for the day?” she asks.
“Probably,” he says again, this time making eye contact. “But I’m hiding them from myself, and that’s going pretty good.”
There’s a bare smile at the corners of his mouth that makes her think a suggestion would be tolerated, if not welcomed. “Maybe a change of scene would do you good,” she offers.
“Probably,” he again easily replies, “but what scene in what room would I change?”
Hellen clutches the tea towel. “I meant go out. See what’s doing around town.” She smiles brightly at him. “Check out your competition.”
He leans towards her. “A, I have no competition, and B, are you completely crackers? I’d be stoned on sight.”
Hellen shakes her head as she straightens away from those intense, amethyst eyes. “Don’t you mean mobbed?”
“Stoned, mobbed, neither alternative seems sweet.” He leans away. The fire in the grate at the end of the room crackles as a sap bubble pops.
“Don’t go as yourself.”
In the grate, another sap bubble pops. “If not me, who then? I’m myself, twenty-four seven.”
But Hellen isn’t fazed. He’s relaxing. He’s warming to the idea. He’s taken a sip of the cooling chocolate. “Go as boring,” she tells him.
“My dear lady!— There’s a ghastly thought!” But now he’s tapping his teeth with the tip of the spoon, thinking it over, and Hellen can see he’s made up his mind to give it a try. “It’s early. Few folk about. If I left right now…”
“After you’ve changed clothes…”
“After I’ve changed clothes… Well, if this doesn’t work it’ll be your fault,” he pouts, but then he’s grinning, he has a plan, he’s rising from the table, he's halfway to the door, and then he's there. “Toodles,” he calls to her, with a flip of his wrist. The door creaks closed behind him.
But it’s not toodles, because Hellen doesn’t trust him to know how boring boring should be. She meets him at the side door she knows he prefers (because he does go out when it suits him, though usually at times when he is likely to meet only vampires), and sure enough… “Lose the top hat,” she tells him.
“But that’s my trademar— Oh, I see.” He hands her his hat. She feels honored for some reason. “See that Eshle gets it.”
She nods to herself. That’s why. It’s a short list as to who can touch the hat, and, until this minute, she hasn’t been on it. Hellen holds out her other hand for the next holy relic. “And the cane.”
“It’s not a cane, it’s a walking-stick, canes have handles, and it’s my first line of defense!”
“No one cares to split the hairs you do over calling it a cane or a walking-stick, and today your ‘first line of defense’ will give you away.” Hellen is adamant. “We all know you don’t need it, hand it over!” Reluctantly, he does. She stands back to give him the final once-over. “The rest is good… coat, the scarf’s okay…” She frowns. “That brooch isn’t under that is it?” Willy shakes his head. “Good. Give me the sunglasses.”
“What’s yer beef with those?”
“They’re too round. They look like goggles.”
“Too bad, so sad, tough toggles, they stay.”
Willy’s lips are pursed in a firm line, jaw set, and Hellen decides he may have a point. His skin is so pale, he can use all the covering he can get. Without his hat… “Alright, then,” she smiles, “out you go!”
Out I go, like a cat for the night, Willy thinks, except it’s the day, so there’s that, but out he goes. It’s a short walk to the wall and the hidden door, and then he is out, in the street, and no one cares. Hellen may be on to something, he decides, and he points his feet in the direction of Fourth Street, because his plan is to visit the empty lot there, his empty lot, the lot where his house once stood, and the place where he last saw his mother. Mothers can be inspirations.
He cuts over a street or two, and heads downhill. No use not changing up the route. Isn’t change the point of this exercise? His arm expects the weight of his walking-stick, and without it his rhythm is thrown off. It makes him look odd, and looking odd isn’t the point of this exercise. He can fix that. Hands in pockets, he walks on.
He’s had dry spells before, but this one is lasting forever. Maybe a person is only born with so many good ideas, and he’s used up all of his. Probably. Probably that's exactly how it works. Oh, well, Charlie will take over, it’s not that big a deal, and… and who is he kidding? If he’s out of ideas it will kill him, and he knows it.
At this moment he looks up. And sees a sign, hanging. It reads ‘Probably’ in whimsical script. Willy glances at the lettering on the window, and at what lies beyond the glass. It’s a bakery. A bakery! Sweet things inside!
Probably.
He’s been saying that word all morning. Probably, this is a sign (because it is a sign), and probably, no, undoubtedly, this is his mother’s doing. Aren't mothers wonderful? Even when they’re unreachable, they can reach you.
Willy can see café tables behind the window. A place to sit and enjoy a thing he hasn’t made himself. That would be a treat. The smaller letters say it’s opening time, and twisting the handle and leaning against the door, he finds that's true. A bell tinkles above his head. So much like his Cherry Street shop! Those were the days… starting out… struggling… gosh, that was eons ago…
To see to him there’s a man up to his elbows in flour, and no one else. Sole proprietor? And no staff? Staff arrives later? Willy tucks the thoughts away as he surveys the selections. “I’ll have the lemon meringue,” he says. The man blinks at him, but lemon meringue is a simple request, and Willy is pretty sure he won’t have to repeat it. Oops. Willy resists putting his hand over his mouth. He’s forgotten to say please. Instead, his hand already tracking in that direction, he takes off his sunglasses.
That act seems to mellow this man. The slice he’s plating is a generous one. Oops. This man is going to want money for this. Do I have any? Willy has no idea. He feels around in the pocket of his coat and finds a dinky plastic card. Thank heavens for Doris! I’ll bet all my coats have credit cards in them. Wouldn’t cash be better? But maybe not. Maybe, he’d want to buy rocket engine parts, and that would be a lot of cash!
Willy hands over the card—this will do his anonymity in!—but it doesn’t. The man tells him “Four twenty-three”, and that’s an end to it. Willy can feel an eyebrow climbing. What has Doris got for a name on that card?
Plate and card in hand, Willy takes them as far from this man as he can get and tucks in. And immediately wants to know more from this man. “White chocolate?” he asks.
“Probably,” the man answers, and it’s all Willy can do not to giggle. There’s that word again! Instead, Willy closes his eyes and takes another bite of the unexpected surprise. And ideas flood his brain! “You could put little chocolate shavings on top with the lemon peel,” he says, his hands, of their own volition, making the motions of doing so as he speaks. “That’d make it easier to tell.”
The man agrees with him, but not in a way that convinces Willy the man truly agrees. No matter. He has a pie slice to finish, and a Factory to get back to, and he has the most wonderful idea for a candy!
“Charlie! You dear boy! How was school?” Charlie opens his mouth to answer, only to close it again as Willy prattles on, the Oompa-Loompas in the Inventing Room, where Willy hasn’t set foot in weeks, beaming along with him. “Don’t tell me. I don’t care. Try this!” Willy hands him a fluted-edged, pie-shaped, medium-sized, hard-candy drop.
“What is it?” asks Charlie.
“It’s plagiarism,” laughs Willy, “pure and simple, complete and unadulterated! Wha’ d’ya think?”
Charlie pops the confection in his mouth and sucks, Willy eagerly standing by, his keen eyes glued to Charlie’s expression for its slightest change. Charlie graces him with an out-loud inventory. “Lemon, meringue... And white chocolate... And, and… pie crust?”
“Yeah,” says Willy, rubbing his gloved hands together. “Pie crust with a hint of sea salt. That took forever. Getting the pie crust taste in without making it gritty, or messing with the brightness of the lemon meringue or white chocolate parts.”
“Well, you got it done,” says Charlie. “This is delicious.”
“Yeah, not mine, though. I went to a bakery today and had pie. This is that pie in candy form.”
“You went to a bakery?” Charlie’s eyebrows climb. “In town? This town?”
“Don’t look at me. It was your mater’s idea. Well, not to go to a bakery. To go out; get a change of scene. Blame her. But it was a good one, her idea, so far. I’m gonna go back. I'll see if he wants to do business with me with this. I’m no spy. In the meantime, I just wanted to see if I could transform the pie.” Willy rubs his curled fingertips back and forth across the velvet of his lapel, a smug grin lighting his face. “And I can.”
That goes without saying, thinks Charlie, but he smiles all the same. “Let me know how it goes,” Charlie tells him, reaching for another candy.