song.”
“Close. It’s a line from a story I used to perform. You didn’t know that about me, either?” He shook his head. “Sad, sad. I can tell Ivy didn’t talk about me nearly enough. A sure indication I should have spent more time here. That you still think of me as Mr. Berry is another. Please, it’s John.”
“Not Yarn?”
He laughed. “The legend, yes. It really isn’t much of anything. Believe it or not, Yarn was my mother’s maiden name. She was Rose Eleanor Yarn, she became Rose Yarn Berry, and she named me John Yarn Berry. She always told me Yarn was a variation of Arne and meant sea eagle, and I suppose that might be true. And maybe between that and growing up in landlocked, backwaterDry Creek Cove, Tennessee, I was destined for the three things I love best.”
I knew I was supposed to ask. “What are they?”
“Sailing, storytelling, and knitting. My mother was a great knitter. She knit anything and everything we needed. If we’d lost the roof off the pig shed in a windstorm, she would have sat right down and knit us a new one, and more pigs to go under it. She had no girls, though, so she passed her love of knitting on to me along with her maiden name. I was the apple of her eye until I broke her heart and left to join the navy. She died while I was at sea, too.” He was quiet for a moment, then smiled sadly. “She had a wonderful sense of humor. Ivy reminded me of her.”
A waitress brought our dinners—piping hot French onion soup with browned and bubbling Gruyère for me and a slice of fresh tomato tart with a side of the roasted beet salad for John Yarn Berry—and two glasses of a local winery’s cabernet.
“To absent friends,” he said, raising his glass, “wise and warmhearted. To Ivy McClellan, our dear departed.”
It may have been more than two months since Granny’s death, but there were still words and gestures that closed my throat, and I found I wasn’t immune to hokey toasts, either. The glint of tears in John’s eyes and our simultaneous reaching for tissues and blowing of our noses helped get me past it. Then, while my soup cooled to a safer temperature, I told him some of my ups and downs since Granny’s death and about my decision to keep the Weaver’s Cat.
“Do you enjoy being at the helm?” he asked.
“I’m really more of the cabin girl.”
“You’ll grow into it. Don’t doubt yourself. Ivy never doubted herself or you.”
“Sometimes, in the middle of the night, what I worryabout more is that I’ll grow out of it instead of into it. That I’ll get tired of small-town life, small-business headaches, the lack of professional stimulation…” I stopped and thought about that. Out of all my worries, in all the world, that wasn’t one I’d put into words to anyone else. But that wasn’t true. There were quite a few worries I hadn’t put into words to anyone else. Worries about the existence or nonexistence of secret dye journals. What those journals meant if they did exist. The weird sense of transferred emotions I felt from time to time when I touched a sleeve or shoulder. But, first and foremost, the worries about seeing and believing in a ghost. I shook my head to dislodge those last words before they had a chance to leak out. John was kind and easy to talk to, but I wasn’t about to share too much with him.
“You know that’s a perfectly legitimate worry, though,” he said.
“What is?” My words and worries about ghosts hadn’t leaked out after all, had they?
“Outgrowing Blue Plum. I won’t tell on you, though.”
“Oh good. Thanks. Ardis has enough on her plate without having to worry about me jumping ship, too. What about you, though? From what Granny said, you leave and come back and leave again. I don’t even remember the last time she mentioned seeing you. How long have you been away this time?”
“Guilty as charged,” he said. “Personal experience is exactly how I know your worry is legitimate. Coming and
“Close. It’s a line from a story I used to perform. You didn’t know that about me, either?” He shook his head. “Sad, sad. I can tell Ivy didn’t talk about me nearly enough. A sure indication I should have spent more time here. That you still think of me as Mr. Berry is another. Please, it’s John.”
“Not Yarn?”
He laughed. “The legend, yes. It really isn’t much of anything. Believe it or not, Yarn was my mother’s maiden name. She was Rose Eleanor Yarn, she became Rose Yarn Berry, and she named me John Yarn Berry. She always told me Yarn was a variation of Arne and meant sea eagle, and I suppose that might be true. And maybe between that and growing up in landlocked, backwaterDry Creek Cove, Tennessee, I was destined for the three things I love best.”
I knew I was supposed to ask. “What are they?”
“Sailing, storytelling, and knitting. My mother was a great knitter. She knit anything and everything we needed. If we’d lost the roof off the pig shed in a windstorm, she would have sat right down and knit us a new one, and more pigs to go under it. She had no girls, though, so she passed her love of knitting on to me along with her maiden name. I was the apple of her eye until I broke her heart and left to join the navy. She died while I was at sea, too.” He was quiet for a moment, then smiled sadly. “She had a wonderful sense of humor. Ivy reminded me of her.”
A waitress brought our dinners—piping hot French onion soup with browned and bubbling Gruyère for me and a slice of fresh tomato tart with a side of the roasted beet salad for John Yarn Berry—and two glasses of a local winery’s cabernet.
“To absent friends,” he said, raising his glass, “wise and warmhearted. To Ivy McClellan, our dear departed.”
It may have been more than two months since Granny’s death, but there were still words and gestures that closed my throat, and I found I wasn’t immune to hokey toasts, either. The glint of tears in John’s eyes and our simultaneous reaching for tissues and blowing of our noses helped get me past it. Then, while my soup cooled to a safer temperature, I told him some of my ups and downs since Granny’s death and about my decision to keep the Weaver’s Cat.
“Do you enjoy being at the helm?” he asked.
“I’m really more of the cabin girl.”
“You’ll grow into it. Don’t doubt yourself. Ivy never doubted herself or you.”
“Sometimes, in the middle of the night, what I worryabout more is that I’ll grow out of it instead of into it. That I’ll get tired of small-town life, small-business headaches, the lack of professional stimulation…” I stopped and thought about that. Out of all my worries, in all the world, that wasn’t one I’d put into words to anyone else. But that wasn’t true. There were quite a few worries I hadn’t put into words to anyone else. Worries about the existence or nonexistence of secret dye journals. What those journals meant if they did exist. The weird sense of transferred emotions I felt from time to time when I touched a sleeve or shoulder. But, first and foremost, the worries about seeing and believing in a ghost. I shook my head to dislodge those last words before they had a chance to leak out. John was kind and easy to talk to, but I wasn’t about to share too much with him.
“You know that’s a perfectly legitimate worry, though,” he said.
“What is?” My words and worries about ghosts hadn’t leaked out after all, had they?
“Outgrowing Blue Plum. I won’t tell on you, though.”
“Oh good. Thanks. Ardis has enough on her plate without having to worry about me jumping ship, too. What about you, though? From what Granny said, you leave and come back and leave again. I don’t even remember the last time she mentioned seeing you. How long have you been away this time?”
“Guilty as charged,” he said. “Personal experience is exactly how I know your worry is legitimate. Coming and
Similar Books
