five
When I woke, I blinked into the sunlight streaming along all the borders of the curtains Gigi had pulled. My nap, it appeared, had yawned straight through the night and into the following morning. I tucked my head under the covers, feeling the warmth of Mom’s quilt and the softness of Gigi’s clean, flowered sheets. Even in my half-awake state, I knew she’d dried them for a half cycle in the dryer and then hung them on her backyard line so they’d smell “like the sun.” I inhaled into my pillow. There were some things about this place that would never be matched in New York.
New York. I opened my eyes. Time to get up. Time to make a plan. Time to start making my way back.
Twenty minutes later, I’d successfully located my dark-wash skinnies from the bottom of one suitcase and a silk top that brought out the green in my eyes. I layered with a large knot sweater in the same hue as my jeans, touched up my hair with a flat iron, and put on a fresh face of blush, eyeliner, and gloss. I took stock of my reflection and smirked. Not exactly what I would have worn for a job interview in Midtown, but it would more than pass in Silver Creek.
Gigi sat at the table sipping her coffee, a Bible open before her, when I entered the kitchen.
“Well, this is a change,” she said, a smile already forming. “The Grace Kleren who last lived in this house would never have darkened that door a minute before eleven. Unless forced. And I do remember a bit of forcing.” She watched me over the lip of her mug.
I crossed the kitchen to the coffeepot. “I thought I’d head over to the Chickadee this morning, try to get a word with Martin before the breakfast rush.”
I poured myself a full cup and splashed it with cream. The dining room of the Chickadee was an easy memory to recall, as I’d spent countless hours there over the years. Silver Creek’s only restaurant not counting Subway, the Chickadee was the place to eat after church on Sunday, when celebrating a birthday, and when entertaining out-of-town guests. It was also where I had worked as a waitress all through high school. I took a small sip of the hot coffee and tried not to focus on the embarrassment I felt to be retracing such old, outgrown steps.
“Ah,” Gigi said, nodding. “Martin will be happy to see you. He always asks about you. Says you were one of his best and all-time favorites.”
I smiled at Gigi, sure that she was fabricating the compliment for my courage but grateful for it all the same. “We’ll see if those fond memories get me a job.”
Gigi rose, her chair stuttering backward on the wood floors. “I have pancake batter all ready in the fridge. Bacon or sausage?” She walked briskly to the sink to dump out the dredges of her coffee.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said, leaning over to peck her on the cheek. “I’m racing the clock. In fact, I’m probably already behind. I forget that farmers get up before the crack of dawn.”
Gigi shook her head. “Honey, it’s seven o’clock. Farmers are ready for lunch.” She handed me a muffin from a tin on the counter. “At least have this. You’ll be more convincing if you don’t look so hungry. You slept through dinner last night, Grace. You need your strength.”
I took the muffin, smelling apples and cinnamon within. “Thanks,” I said. “I guess I won’t be able to pick up a bagel and schmear at the little spot on the corner of Ninety-fourth and Lexington.”
Gigi looked confused. “I’m sure you won’t be able to pick up a bagel and schmear within a hundred miles.” She frowned. “The muffin will taste better anyway.”
I took a huge bite as I pushed my way out the back door and into the bracing cold air of early spring.
The muffin was long gone by the time I had the nerve to actually stop and park. I’d circled the outskirts of town three times, well aware that if I pulled that stunt around the town square, I’d be at best suspicious and at worst stopped in the middle of the block by a concerned citizen who wanted to know who was driving Gigi’s car. I combed every residential street, feigning interest in local real estate and plastic lawn ornaments. I even drove down a few adjacent back roads lining fields newly broken up and ready for spring planting. Thirty minutes of wandering later, I finally gathered the resolve to park a half block away from the Chickadee’s front door, giving myself a few extra steps to square my shoulders and ready myself for what lay ahead.
The bell over the Chickadee’s door announced my entrance and I saw that Gigi had been right: I was about an hour too late for an empty dining room. Nearly all the tables were packed, all of the seats along the counter were full, and even though the noise of the bell barely competed with the volume within the room, most of the heads turned toward me. I smiled weakly, glimpsing familiar faces, but I was unable to greet any of them properly because Martin came roaring from behind the counter and scooped me up in a big bear hug.
“I heard it but I didn’t believe a word of it,” he said as he twirled me around. “Somebody said they saw Grace Kleren sneaking into town with her grandma yesterday afternoon. But I didn’t believe it. Chalked it up to small-town gossip.” He grinned, his eyes crinkling and his thick salt-and-pepper handlebar mustache arching up to full, ruddy cheeks. There was more salt than pepper in that mustache, and the lines around his eyes had deepened a bit, but Martin still looked like my boss from high school. He wore one of his myriad Sturgis T-shirts under his trademark red-and-white striped apron. “And how’s the belle of New York City?”
I forced a laugh. “Oh, you know. Parties all the time, closet full of gowns, lots of Prince Charming sightings.” I swallowed, but Martin didn’t seem to notice.
He shook his head and put out his fist for a bump. “I’m not one bit surprised. Not one bit. I always tell your grandma you were one of the all-time greats around here. Nobody could handle a stacked station, answer the phone, cover for a wayward hostess, and bring in the tips like Grace Kleren.”
I looked over the shoulder of Martin and caught the eye of Erin Jackson, a high school classmate who sat in a booth with a man and two toddlers. She waved before she started cutting pancakes for one of the kids. Erin Jackson, I thought, stifling a sigh. The girl who had egged my car when I’d been chosen as decorating chair for prom because she’d wanted the job for herself. This is what I’d come to, working up the courage to ask for a job where I’d be serving the syrup-sticky offspring of Erin Jackson.
“I’d better get back to work,” Martin was saying as he wiped his clean hands on his apron. “It’s real good to see you, Grace. Stop by for a meal before you head back to the big city. We aren’t any four-star joint, but I seem to remember you had a fondness for my cinnamon rolls.” He started to back away.
“Actually, Martin,” I said quickly, both to halt his progress and to hang on to my resolve. “I’m going to be in town for a while, and I, um, wondered if I might pick up a shift or two. Or more than two.” I smiled what I hoped was a convincing and confident smile but feared was a pained one.
Martin cocked his head and studied my face for a beat. “Taking a break from parties and princes?” he said, not unkindly.
I nodded, grateful Martin wasn’t a person to pry. Most of the people in that room and in the whole of Silver Creek, for that matter, wouldn’t be quite so tactful. “Do you have any openings?”
He shook his head sadly. “Grace, I’m so sorry, but I don’t. I’d love to have you on board again, I would, but the college kids are headed back in a few weeks, and if anything, I’m overstaffed.” The bell on the long counter connecting the dining room to the kitchen sounded three insistent rings, and Martin looked over his shoulder. “I promise to let you know if anything opens up, okay?” He looked genuinely sorry as he gave me one last squeeze. “Nobody works as hard as Grace Kleren. Any business would be lucky to have you.”
I nodded, trying not to show on my face the disappointment I felt. “Thanks, Martin. I appreciate it.”
“And I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” he added as he walked, at a volume I would have preferred he kept for his outside voice. “I’ll call you if I hear anything, all right?”
I nodded, gave a quick wave, and booked it out the front door before Erin Jackson or anyone else could follow up on Martin’s declaration.
No work at the Chickadee, I thought glumly as I walked back to my car. What now? I turned the key in Gigi’s car door and sat down heavily behind the wheel. I took a quick inventory of my other options for work in Silver Creek, trying to remember what people around here did for a living and if I was qualified for any of it. I let my head rest on the steering wheel and struggled to keep calm in the face of a rising panic. I babysat before I started at the Chickadee, but I had a feeling nanny services weren’t exactly in high demand, not for a working wage anyway. I could detassel corn or walk beans, I thought bitterly as I started the car and backed up out of the parking space onto Main. Detasseling was what many of my high school friends had done every summer, rising well before dawn and taking a school bus to be dumped in the middle of endless cornfields to sweat, get charred by the sun, and be devoured by bugs all day. I whimpered aloud and gunned the gas, wanting more than anything to rewind and take back and start over so I could still be walking through the morning crowds in Manhattan instead of driving through the deserted streets of Silver Creek.
I made a hard right onto Maple, eager to avoid Azalea Street this time, and I jumped when I heard a slap on my hood. I slammed on the brakes, adrenaline coursing. I frantically scanned the area outside the car, not seeing anyone at first and hoping against hope that I’d hit a really big bird and not a human. When I craned my neck farther into the windshield, I saw a man in a weathered blue ball cap looking back at me.
Oh, dear Lord in heaven, have mercy on my soul. I gulped as I put the car into park and got out.
I swallowed hard when I looked into his face. Just the person I did not want to run over.
He took a few steps toward the car, eyes fixed on mine. “A little rusty on the brake pedal, Gracie?”
“Please tell me you slapped the hood with your hand. Intentionally. And not with some other limb that I’ve just broken.”
He nodded behind me. “You took that corner at the speed of a drag racer. I had to jump out of the way, but I’m pretty spry. All limbs accounted for.”
I bit my lower lip. “Tucker, I’m so sorry.” I was going to say more, I certainly owed him more, but instead I opened and shut my mouth, not unlike a fish.
He swallowed, holding my gaze for only a moment. “Grace Kleren, at a loss for words? This morning is full of surprises.” His voice was quiet and intense and held a rush of memories. That voice had grown up with mine, first as kids on the playground, then adversaries in junior high, when boys and girls pretended their crushes had cooties, and finally as my first, maybe my only, love. I stared at his face, drinking in the details I’d once known so well and, at one point, loved so well, before I threw it all away, packed a bag, and flew to New York.
I finally found my voice. “How are you?”
He nodded slowly, crossed his arms over his chest. “Good. Things are good. You know”—he shrugged, eyes on my face—“nothing too wild. Things around here tend not to be.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I cleared my throat, feeling my way through a tangle of nerves to be talking to a man who, until now, had visited me only in memory and reluctant daydreams for the previous ten years. “I seem to remember things getting interesting when two bored teenagers decided to set loose a certain sow from Mr. Thiebalt’s farm. Or when armed with a gallon of paint and the blank canvas of the Silver Creek water tower.”
He nodded quickly, frowning. “True enough,” he said. I felt my heart sink, seeing how the concession, the mere acknowledgment of our past still cost him.
Tucker ran a hand across his face, and in the silence between us, I took my chance to stare. The face was the same, the eyes more guarded, not the easy welcome they used to be, just for me, but the cut jaw, the cheekbones, the mouth—all the same. My hands were shaking, I realized, and though he couldn’t possibly have seen their tremors, I shoved them deep inside my jeans pockets.
“You in town long?” he asked. He didn’t look at me when he said this, suddenly absorbed with his cap, which he removed and reshaped before putting it on again.
“No, not long,” I said without pause. “I’m just back for a visit.” I cleared my throat, fumbling for any possible rationale but the truth. “It’s Gigi,” I blurted. “She’s, um, sick. She needs some help while she recovers from . . . feeling sick.”
Tucker’s eyebrows reached for his hairline. “Gigi’s sick? I hadn’t heard.”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t want anyone to know. She’s pretty private about stuff like this. I’m stuck here till she feels better.” I marveled at how convincing I sounded. Perhaps I should forget the Chickadee and instead look into local politics.
“Stuck, huh?” Tucker was taking in the new buds on the trees above us. He nodded slowly. “This place always felt too small to you, didn’t it?” He looked at me then, and I saw wariness there, a wariness I deserved after leaving him with too many questions I couldn’t answer and a heart I’d broken with my own restlessness.
“Not always,” I said carefully.
We were quiet then, and I could hear birdsong in the rustling trees.
“Well,” Tucker said suddenly, giving a sharp rap of his knuckles on the car’s hood. “It’s good to see you, Grace. You look good. Healthy,” he amended quickly. He started to walk away when Martin called my name. We both turned to see him hurrying down the street, apron still on.
“Grace, I thought of something.” We were only a block away from the Chickadee, but Martin’s forehead was damp with sweat. He stopped to catch his breath and nodded upward at Tucker. “Morning, Tucker. How’re things in the construction business? You all are coming into the busy season, right?”
Tucker nodded. “This year has been a nonstop busy season, so I’m grateful.”
I was startled to hear him use that word: grateful. I listened to their easy banter and remembered how Tucker Van Es was not a man eager to recount his victories. After years meeting, even dating, men who peppered conversations with tales of their success, I wondered just what he meant, how fantastic a year it had to have been for him to describe it as a busy one worthy of gratitude.
“Grace,” Martin said, mopping his brow. “You forgot to give me your number so I can call with updates.”
Tucker looked at me. There was a coldness that flashed in his eyes when he said, “She does have a history with that.”
Martin winced, I squirmed, and Tucker met my gaze, almost daring me to disagree.
Silence stretched between us until Martin cleared his throat. “Also,” Martin said, “what about the Anthem? I know it’s twenty miles away, but Winston has had a bit of a boom in the last ten years, and the Anthem had to expand their dining room. Maybe Jim is hiring.”
Tucker raised one eyebrow. “Oh, Martin, didn’t you hear?” His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Grace is only here for a short time. Visiting, you know, because her grandmother is ailing. Isn’t that right, Grace?” He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying my obvious discomfort.
“Ailing?” Instead of sounding concerned, like any self-respecting, mind-your-own-business New Yorker would have, Martin sounded skeptical. “I haven’t heard anything about Georgina feeling ill. She was in just a few days ago and she looked fine to me.”
Tucker tsked. “Scary how fast things can change these days, isn’t it, Martin?”
“It really is,” Martin answered, shaking his head in concern.
“Yes, well,” I said briskly, “I’ll call the restaurant and leave my number for you, Martin.” Climbing back into Gigi’s car, I called through the open window, “I’ll give Gigi well wishes from you both.”
I started the car and pulled away, not wanting to see the look on Tucker’s face as I left.