How Sweet It Is Read online

  Praise for Alice J. Wisler’s debut novel, Rain Song

  “Ms. Wisler balances small-town North Carolina, eccentric southern relatives, and barbecued chicken with the serene culture of Japan and Harrison Michaels’ Japanese cuisine and koi garden. Her graceful writing had me sighing and reading certain passages over again with pure delight.”

  —Cheryl Klarich, Writing Remnants

  “You will come to love Nicole’s eclectic family and you will cheer her as she makes her very cautious discoveries. I look forward to more beautiful stories from this very talented writer!”

  —Kim Ford, Novel Reviews

  “Wisler paints her characters with sure, vivid brush stokes. We instantly recognize them even as we recognize their uniqueness. Wisler lets us believe that finding romance can be magical, if we only take the time to look and have the heart to experience that great adventure.”

  —My Romance Story

  “Alice’s slow, Southern style, filled with Grandma Ducee’s Southern Truths, will carefully unwind the burial clothes that enshroud us and set us free…. Alice is an author to watch, and to fall in love with.”

  —Deena Peterson, A Peek at My Bookshelf

  “The style of writing just pulls the reader in and connects you with the characters. This was a wonderful debut by Alice Wisler… I am looking forward to reading any future books by her.”

  —Deborah Khuanghlawn, Books, Movies, and Chinese Food

  “Rain Song is a truly wondrous book, funny and wistful and wise and brave at the same time. It’s full of tiny exquisite moments, marvelous descriptions and astute insights…. It’s a book about ties that bind and traditions that truly make a family. It’s a book about true beauty that sometimes lies deep within…. More than anything, it’s a book about love in its many incarnations.”

  —Reader Views

  “In Wisler’s likable debut, a young woman is offered a chance to find romance and make peace with her past…. Faith fiction fans will appreciate the strong faith of Nicole’s influential grandmother, Ducee Dubois, who helps Nicole face her fears.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A worthy first novel with a Southern flair, this title addresses dealing with a painful childhood in a realistic way.”

  —Library Journal

  “Alice is both a talented and gifted writer.”

  —Eugene H. Peterson, author of The Message

  “… a fresh narrative that will be appreciated most by those who enjoy a story with characters real enough to be a neighbor next door, or your own family members. Rain Song breathes hope into our troubled world.”

  —Nancy Leigh Harless, author of Womankind

  “Reading Rain Song is like eating a delicious Southern meal— well-balanced in tastes of family, love, and life.”

  —Stella Sieber

  How Sweet

  It Is

  Books by Alice J. Wisler

  Rain Song

  How Sweet It Is

  How Sweet It Is

  Copyright © 2009

  Alice J. Wisler

  Cover design by Paul Higdon

  Photography © Courtney Weittenhiller

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  Printed in the United States of America

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Wisler, Alice J.

  How sweet it is / Alice J. Wisler.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-7642-0478-4 (pbk.)

  1. North Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.I846 H69 2009

  813'.6—dc22

  2009004739

  * * *

  For all who wish to expand their horizons,

  this is for you.

  When one door of happiness closes, another opens;

  but often we look so long at the closed door that

  we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

  —Helen Keller

  Contents

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one

  thirty-two

  thirty-three

  thirty-four

  thirty-five

  thirty-six

  thirty-seven

  thirty-eight

  thirty-nine

  forty

  Chef B’s Crispy Potatoes

  Jonas’s Favorite White Velvet Cake

  questions for conversation

  acknowledgments

  about the author

  one

  When single people pack up to relocate, they often have a dog. With deliberate caution, they load cardboard boxes into the car, along with a few framed wall pictures, a blender, one or two trusty saucepans, and a tightly rolled sleeping bag. The dog jumps onto the passenger seat, the driver lowers the window a few inches, and as the car slowly backs out of the driveway, the canine shoves his twitching nose over the glass. When the car picks up speed, the wind ruffles the dog’s fur and he opens his mouth as if to lap up the fresh air with his tongue. This animal is as carefree as the day he was born. All he has to do is tilt his head, breathe deeply, and enjoy the ride. No tedious job of consulting the creased road map. No watching road signs. No making conversation. He didn’t earn the title “man’s best friend” due to any special skills in flattery.

  I, however, do not have a dog. I’m allergic to dog fur and men who break hearts. I do own a blender—all chefs should, according to Chef Santiago Bordeaux. Chef B claims that a blender is the most versatile cooking apparatus. “Cooking apparatus” is what he calls any kitchen device, including a saucepan. My KitchenAid blender is packed in a box along with my cake-decorating supplies—all carefully wrapped in T-shirts to protect them during the trip.

  Today I’m leaving Atlanta and all the cooking apparatuses I have grown to love in the kitchen at Palacio del Rey. I’m headed to the green area on the map, right there in the fold—the mountains of North Carolina. But I’m still a Georgia girl, born and bred.

  As I carry a box of faded dish towels topped with oven mitts to my Jeep, my Peruvian neighbor, Yolanda, dabs at her glistening brown eyes and reminds me, “You are Georgia girl, Deena. What will you do in Carolina?” To herself she mutters, “No, no sabe. Ay, ay.”

  I’ve been over this with her before. I’ve already told her the same thing I told my parents who live in Tifton, my pastor at First Decatur Presbyterian, and my boss, Chef Bordeaux: “I’m going to live.”

  “What do you mean?” they have all asked in some form or another. When he questioned me, Chef B had a ladle in his fist that he wave
d wildly, as though he wanted to use it to knock some sense into my head.

  I’ve replied, “I’m going to live. I’m going to North Carolina to live!” I wanted to tell them that just because it’s called North Carolina doesn’t mean it’s a Yankee state. Some consider it as southern as Georgia. I’ve even seen North Carolinians drink sweet tea.

  I’m going to live. That’s all.

  Chef B placed his ladle on the counter next to the restaurant’s stove as the large pot of French onion soup simmered on the front burner. A puzzled expression came over his face. Not since his asparagus soufflé fell the previous October had I seen him so bewildered. He said, “And you tell to me, why can’t you live here?”

  I almost died here, I thought. But that’s not something I would say out loud to anyone. People don’t like to talk about death. If you want to see how quickly a person can change the subject, just bring up the topic of death.

  I’ve no idea what life will be like for me in North Carolina. All I know is I’m ready to say good-bye to Atlanta. Say good-bye to Atlanta—that sounds like a line from a country song. I consider singing as I wave one last time to Yolanda, who is now biting her lower lip and shaking her head in a way that makes her long ponytail swing like a beagle’s tail. However, everyone knows I can’t carry a tune in a double-boiler. And I think in order to be a true country singer, there is one important criterion: You have to own a dog.

  two

  Somewhere outside of Gainesville on Route 23, it starts to rain, and when the drops begin to splatter wildly across the windshield, I pull the Jeep over to the side of the road. My hands tremble; the engine idles. The next thing I know, I’m rocking back and forth, my kneecaps jarred by the steering wheel. As my eyes close, my memory flashes with a vision of crunched metal—ugly and jagged. I hear glass shattering and the shriek of tires. My eyes open; I’m not in a wrecked vehicle. I grasp the seatbelt strap across my chest and swallow three times. My friend Sally taught me to do this. “When you swallow, your body relaxes,” she repeats whenever she finds those deep lines of panic displayed across my face.

  An officer pulls up behind me, and I hear the crunch of the gravel under his heavy shoes as he comes to my window. He uses a gloved hand to knock on the glass and then asks if I need any help.

  I stop rocking, find the button to lower the window a few inches, and clear my throat. “No.” Chilling rain dribbles into the car, streaking the sleeve of my windbreaker.

  “Are you sure?” His breath smells of coffee, which reminds me that I have had no caffeine today.

  I speak to his shiny badge, which I’m sure includes his printed name, but my eyes are too blurry to read it. “I’m fine.”

  Just three and a half months ago, another officer had asked me how I was as I lay in the passenger’s seat of Lucas’s 1987 Mustang. I’d passed out after that. I don’t want to look into this man’s face right now.

  “Well, miss, you will need to move along.” His tone is compassionate, in an authoritative sort of way.

  Nodding, I tell him, “I will.” My voice sounds tinny, like I’m talking through a pipe.

  When he leaves in his red-domed patrol car, I resume my rocking. This time terror rumbles through my head like the wheels of a tractor plowing a dirt field, flattening every stem, every weed. If I look to my right, I’ll see a woman slumped over in the passenger’s seat, blood smeared on her forehead, shards of glass protruding from her arms. Gritting my teeth— a habit I have only recently formed—I look to my right. The passenger seat holds my worn brown suede purse. Jerking my head toward the back seat, I see only the gray upholstery. I’m really all alone.

  Post-traumatic stress syndrome is what the doctor called this. PTSS for short. To me, that sounds like a brand of hair-spray. Or the sound of air slowly escaping from a lidded pot cooking collards on the stove.

  I hear a scream identical to the one I recall hearing during the accident and realize it belongs to me. Clutching my elbows, I try to steady my breathing. But my breath is a series of gasps, and then a loud sob rushes out of my mouth. Tears much larger, I’m sure, than these falling raindrops slide down my cheeks.

  I should have taken Sally up on her offer. She said she’d drive me and my belongings to Bryson City. She’s a doctor— her patients are the kind I’m allergic to. “You don’t do well driving,” she gently told me one evening when we were at Burgalos for dinner. “It’s natural after what happened for you to have fear. Just let me drive you. I’m off next Saturday.”

  I let her comment slide off me like a loaf of bread out of a well-greased baking pan. She must have seen my knuckles turn harder than concrete last Tuesday when I dropped her off at her clinic because her car was in the shop. I was doing well until a trucker in front of me slammed on his brakes. “What is he doing?” I cried.

  “The light’s red,” she told me. “Cars tend to stop at those.” She smiled, but I couldn’t return her smile. It was too hard just to breathe.

  “Swallow, Deena,” she urged me.

  This morning’s rainstorm was not predicted. I wouldn’t have chosen to leave Atlanta on a day with rain. Had I known the weather would be like this, I’d have waited. I would have sat cross-legged in my almost empty, one-bedroom apartment, dressed in a pair of gray sweat pants and billowy T-shirt, and listened to Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. At lunchtime, I would have eaten takeout from the Chinese place down the street and talked to Sally on the phone in between her canine and feline appointments at her clinic. She would have told me how nasty the rain makes pet fur, and I would have remembered again why I chose not to be a vet.

  When the windshield begins to fog, I switch on the defroster.

  “Are you going to just sit here paralyzed forever?”

  Oh no, now I’m talking to myself.

  I reply, “Well, no.”

  “Then get moving, miss.” I make my voice firm, without any hint of compassion.

  “Now?” The sky still looks dark.

  “Now or never.”

  These conversations between my reluctant-fearful self and my trying-to-motivate self have become more and more common since the accident. I’m not sure which self I like—or loathe. Often it depends on the weather.

  As my hands clutch the steering wheel, I consider calling Sally on my cell phone. I’ve flipped open the phone and my index finger is poised to jab at the first number. Instead, I toss the phone across the seat and say, “Think of something pleasant.”

  So I think of a stream with rocks and clear, cool water. Daisies, petals touched by dew, bobbing in the gentle wind. Peach pie with a mound of vanilla-bean ice cream. Rich velvet cake with buttercream icing that melts on your tongue. An autumn morning walk with Dad across the harvested fields, pointing out geese that soar overhead, picture-perfect against a blue sky, and later, just before breakfast, going to the barn to feed the plump piglets that were born in late spring.

  Soon, I’m driving again, visions of piglets prompting a tiny smile. But when the rain gushes over the Jeep like a waterfall, I feel panic set in once more. Cars pass me; some even have the nerve to honk. As their tires spray water against the sides of my vehicle, I mutter, “I’m going thirty miles per hour.” Which, despite the 55 MPH speed limit signs, seems to be the only safe speed for this soggy day.

  Through the torrents of rain, I spot a lopsided billboard with the words Good Eatin’ on it. I am more than ready to stop. I drive another slow mile and then see a small burgundy diner on the right. A few of the letters are burned out in the neon sign that flickers, so it reads God in.

  A place where God is present—what more could anyone ask for?

  ————

  Inside the fluorescently-bright restaurant, I’m greeted by the smell of bacon, hamburgers, and something strong, like bleach. A waitress in a rust smock and matching lipstick seats me at a sticky table in the back. She hands me a menu stained with grease spots. I try to smile as she comments, “Looks like a day for ducks and my petunias.”

&nb
sp; As I study the menu, I wipe my neck, which is moist from my wet hair. Since I couldn’t remember which box I’d packed my umbrella in, I just ran from the parking lot into the restaurant. The rain felt clean and strangely comforting, as though its pellets were trying to bathe away my worries. I even considered standing in the rain for several minutes and getting completely drenched, just to see if nature’s bath could rid me of all my discomfort.

  The waitress waves toward a car parked outside. “Ah, look at that, would you? Someone forgot to roll up the windows. Well, he’ll be in for a surprise.” She clucks her tongue and then chuckles as she walks toward the front of the restaurant.

  I take a few gulps of air, shiver. I know I rolled up my windows. That’s not something I have to worry about. My right arm jerks, and I massage it with my left hand. A nurse gave me a massage in the hospital; I wish she could come over every day and repeat that wonderful, soothing act. If I ever win the lottery, I’ll hire a personal masseur. And a chauffeur, so that I won’t ever have to get behind a steering wheel again.

  When the waitress comes by with a white memo pad and number two yellow pencil, I order sweet tea and French fries. Large for both. I haven’t eaten anything all day, even though Yolanda fried eggs and tomatoes for me this morning. “You eat for to be strong,” she encouraged me. When she was looking for a pair of clean socks for her son, I opened her garbage can and let the eggs and bits of tomato run into the black Hefty bag right next to last night’s potato peelings.

  From my purse I dig out a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. Right after the accident I had prescription stuff—the good stuff—which they freely gave me as I lay in the hospital bed. Upon discharge, I was given a prescription for what must be the world’s most wonderfully strong pain-zapper. When the prescription ran out, although I begged, Dr. Bland told me he didn’t want me addicted to codeine. “You should be feeling better,” he said as he took a moment to study me over the black rims of his glasses. “It’s been three months.”