First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen

filmy things, like party dresses from the 1920s. I think they might have belonged to her mother.”
    Sydney smiled, as if remembering something she’d almost forgotten. “I used to think you were the only person in the family to ever throw parties in the garden, like your first frost parties, but now I remember that Grandmother Mary once told me about picnics she had in the garden. She would invite people in and dress like a garden nymph.”
    â€œThat’s what I’ll be, then,” Bay said quickly, definitively, wanting to put an end to this. “I’ll wear a Grandmother Mary dress and be a garden nymph.”
    Claire and Sydney exchanged glances. This was a big step for Sydney, accepting this about her daughter. Bay was a Waverley who wanted to dress up like a Waverley, and not in jest, like the time when they were kids and Sydney dressed up as Claire one Halloween, wearing a long, black wig that covered her face and an apron that said KISS THE COOK , which she’d thought was funny, because no one had wanted to kiss weird Claire. Of all the things Bay could be, a Waverley is what she’d chosen. That’s who she was. It wasn’t really a costume at all. Sydney gave in, ultimately lured in by the possibilities of styling Bay’s hair. Bay had only let Sydney trim it for years.
    â€œFine,” Sydney said, pumping up the chair. “Claire, will you pick up some flowers at Fred’s so I can put them in her hair?”
    â€œI’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    â€œWait, get me some pie, too, will you?” Violet called as Claire passed the reception desk and walked out.
    *   *   *
    When Claire stepped outside, the autumn light was slanted and orange, like the noontime sun had fallen to the ground somewhere far away in the flat distance. The light at this time of year had a different feel to it, like a beacon slowly fading.
    She was about to turn right, toward the café and Fred’s market, but to her left she caught the glint of something silver, and she turned to see two ladies standing outside of Maxine’s clothing store, speaking to an elderly man in a gray suit.
    It was him. The old man she’d seen outside her house, twice. She hurried up the sidewalk toward them, bypassing a group of college students who had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to take a group selfie, as if the act of walking on the sidewalk itself needed to be documented. Claire hedged around them, losing sight of the old man for a moment.
    When she looked again, he was gone.
    Puzzled, Claire approached the ladies. She knew them well. Claire used to cater all of Patrice’s anniversary and birthday parties. Patrice was with her sister, Tara, who often visited from Raleigh. Claire had gone to school with Patrice. Sydney put a lot of emphasis on her own high school years, how pivotal they were to her. And Sydney wanted so much for these years to be good for Bay. But Claire could honestly say she didn’t remember much of her own high school experience. She went, kept to herself and waited to go home in the afternoons so she could join her grandmother in the kitchen. It was, like most things in Claire’s experience, something she glossed over in favor of better memories. Sydney called it her revisionist history.
    â€œClaire, we were just talking about you,” Patrice said. She was in her early forties and fighting it. Her hair was long, super-blond and shiny. Facial fillers kept her mouth from moving too wide, so she spoke with a slight fish-face expression. Her blue eyes were deeply rimmed in black eyeliner, a look she wasn’t young enough to pull off, and her pupils were always a little dilated from taking one too many anti-anxieties, though she thought no one noticed.
    â€œThat man, who was he?” Claire asked, trying not to sound like it was urgent, because it wasn’t really urgent. At least, she didn’t think so.
    â€œWhat