six
Early dusk was beginning to fall that night when I sat at Gigi’s dining room table, pushing around the food on my plate. She’d made me her BLAT, a spin on the classic BLT but with slices of tart feta cheese and a sliver of bright green avocado under homemade sandwich bread. The bacon was thick and salty and local, and for years in New York, I’d tried to replicate the simple sandwich on my own without success. But tonight I stared at the food as it grew cold, not feeling any of the affection I’d had for the dish when I was growing up and Gigi would make it especially for me. My return from New York had brought a different girl to this table, I mused as I picked out a slice of bacon and forced a bite. What had once been the most comforting (and delicious) spot in the world was leaving bitter tastes everywhere I turned.
“Bring your own beverage!” Gigi yelled at the screen, poking her fork into the air for emphasis. “How can you not see that?” She shook her head, disgusted, and took a swig of milk from her glass.
Gigi had a long history of berating the dim-witted contestants on Wheel of Fortune, and it was clear that ten years had done nothing to quell her irritation.
“I will never cease to be amazed at the stupidity of people,” Gigi said as she muted the television and rose from the couch. She walked toward my spot at the table, her empty plate in hand. “Any room for seconds?” she asked before glancing at my plate. Her eyes widened. “Honey, are you sick? When I used to make this for you when you were in high school, I had to double up just so I’d get some for myself. You’d down the better part of a loaf of bread out of the oven without a backward glance.”
“If I did that now, I’d look like Tillie Markers,” I said glumly, turning my angst on a woman who worked at Silver Creek’s only gas station and who had spent a lifetime in this town trying to live down the moniker Two-Ton Tillie.
Gigi snorted as she continued toward the kitchen. “Actually, Tillie had gastric bypass not long ago. I’m afraid your prophecy would fall short, dear girl.” I heard her run a brisk fount of water and soap over her dishes and scrub them briefly before stacking them on the drying rack. I didn’t need to see her to know she was wiping down the sink and counter, hurrying to get back to Wheel before the end of the commercial break.
“I know you wanted the Chickadee to work out, but don’t worry. Something else will,” she called from the kitchen.
“Whatever,” I sighed under my breath, feeling like a sulky teenager. Gigi rounded the corner just then and heard my dismissal. I looked up, a bit of repentance peeking through my scowl.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m just having a hard time picturing what’s next.”
Gigi came over to kiss me on my hair. I let my head rest on her waist.
“I saw Tucker,” I said quietly.
She murmured assent. “I know, honey.”
I snapped my head up, disbelieving.
Gigi made a face. “You were standing on a street corner in the middle of rush hour, sweetheart. Everyone knows.”
I groaned. Rush hour? I didn’t remember one car passing by, though that might have had more to do with the distraction of the guy in the ball cap than traffic patterns.
“People in this town loved you two together, even if you wreaked havoc at times.” Gigi sighed. “They will always talk about what might have been, in part because Tucker is much loved around here.”
“Unlike the girl who left town and barely looked back,” I said, my frown deepening.
“First of all, do not self-pity. It’s unattractive in strong women,” Gigi said, annoyance creeping into her voice. “And secondly, people love you too. We just see Tucker all the time, and he’s done very well for himself through lots of grit and hard work. He’s earned respect, particularly after growing up with such a louse for a father.”
Tucker’s dad had been unreliable at best and a mean-spirited drunk at worst. I’d heard that he and Tucker’s long-suffering mother had moved to another small town sometime right after Tucker had finished high school, and while I knew Tucker maintained a cautious relationship with them from a distance, Gigi and the rest of the town had long ago sided with Tucker in the whole affair.
I had picked up a pen and was doodling on the paper napkin next to my plate. A reflex for as long as I could remember, I tended to fill empty spaces with drawings, most times without thinking.
Gigi gestured to the napkin. I focused on what I’d been drawing: sketches of my Milano winter line. The one that had been summarily dismissed by Nancy Strang.
“You know,” Gigi said with a squeeze of my shoulder, “there’s a sewing machine in your old room, along with the rest of that tornado. You’re welcome to it whenever you’d like.” She froze and then shouted, “Diamond in the rough!” She walked quickly toward the television and fumbled with the remote to take it off mute. “These people are blind!”
I looked at the sketch of the dress and added some embellishment to the hem before crumpling up the napkin and tossing it onto my uneaten sandwich. Gathering my plate and silverware, I pushed back my chair roughly and walked to the kitchen. After scooping my food into the trash under the sink, I fished my phone from my back pocket and tapped into Instagram with more force than strictly required. I wanted to see a glimpse into the outside world, the one where people were living real, beautiful lives full of stunning clothes and city streets and Lincoln Center and noise. So much noise, I thought with longing as I started to scroll through the curated images. It was so quiet here, a quiet that was already making my skin itch every time I stepped into the expansive space outside Gigi’s back door.
I jumped when my phone rang loudly in my hand. Isa wanted to FaceTime. Isa, calling from the land of the living! I clicked to accept and grinned when I saw her beautiful face fill the screen.
“Hey, lady,” I said. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Grace!” she squealed. Then she called beyond the camera, “She’s here!” The screen grew blurry and disjointed as she panned to another shot. The view settled on a long table in a crowded restaurant. “Everyone say hi to Grace,” she called over the din. “She’s in Iowa.” She said the last word deliberately, as if speaking a second language.
I waved gamely, forcing a smile on the scene. I recognized some faces from work, though many of them didn’t pause in their conversations to look at Isa. I was particularly happy to see Luca among the revelers. He approached the camera, drink in hand, and kissed the screen. “We miss you terribly,” he said, face suddenly mournful. “Please escape flyover country at once and come back to Gotham. You can sleep on my couch. Yolo won’t mind sharing.”
I smiled and started to thank Luca, but Isa had commandeered the screen once again. “I miss you,” she said. Then looking both ways and pulling the phone closer to her mouth, she said in a slightly lowered voice, “Every one of these people, other than Luca of course, is annoying the life right out of me. How did I not notice before that you were the only woman here who could carry on a conversation?”
“Oh, listen,” I said, leaning against Gigi’s counter, “I could tell you stories. I have seen more unfortunate denim in the last two days than—”
“I can’t hear you, hon.” She pulled the phone closer to her face, which only made me a little dizzy instead of helping her hear me better. Her voice, of course, rang out clearly in the empty kitchen. Pat Sajak was the only distant sound coming from the closed door to the living room.
“I miss you,” Isa said again. “When are you coming back?”
“I’m not sure.” I picked at a tiny bit of adhesive on Gigi’s Formica. “I’m having trouble finding work.”
Isa didn’t hear me. Her face had turned and she was holding up a finger to ask someone for a pause.
“Hey, can you wait just a second, Grace?” she said, nodding to the side, finger still up to ask whoever was beyond the frame to give her a minute. “They are asking for our order.” She smiled. “I think I’ll go with the osso buco. Remember the last time we shared an order at that place in the Village? So ridiculously good?”
I heard every word but I couldn’t take it anymore. “What was that?” I said, hoping concern registered on my face. “Isa? Are you there?” I shook my head. “I can’t hear you. . . . Must be a bad connection. Bad service out here in the sticks,” I added for good measure, even though the service in Silver Creek had been blazingly fast, probably due to the lack of competition. “Can’t . . . you aren’t . . .” I frowned. “I’ll have to call you again some other time—” I clicked off the call before finishing my sentence. The room was suddenly silent again, the only sound the quiet hum of the refrigerator. Even Pat and Vanna had gone dark.
I leaned my forehead against the upper cabinets and closed my eyes. So, so pathetic, I mused. Seeing Isa’s view of laughter and camaraderie and beautiful clothes everywhere the camera could drink in a new image . . . That entire conversation had been lemon juice in all my still-smarting paper cuts.
“Rough call?” Gigi asked, startling my eyes open. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen with her coffee mug. “Sorry, but there really isn’t much privacy in this house, you might recall.”
I nodded, grabbing a sponge to wipe the already spotless counters. No privacy. Another log on the bonfire of my adult shame.
Gigi continued, “Unless you count the root cellar, if you remember from the days when you and that Tucker would sneak down there to make out.”
I turned back abruptly. Eyes wide. “You knew about that?”
Gigi frowned. “I might be ancient, young lady, but I do notice red lips and flushed cheeks when my granddaughter and her date come through the back door, not the front, and the boy uses way too many ‘Yes, ma’ams’ to distract me from his own blushing cheeks.”
I shook my head and turned back to the counters. “Nothing is sacred. And I thought we were being so covert.”
Gigi snorted. “You weren’t. And you still aren’t.” She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You okay?”
I shook my head and stayed put, numb and tired and worn.
“Hey,” she said suddenly. She put her hands on my shoulders and nudged me to arm’s length. Her eyes were alight with a plan. “I know what will make you feel better.”
“An Uber straight to New York and a suitcase with a million dollars in it?” I said, sullen.
Gigi ignored me. “You need to come with me tomorrow morning to the flea market.”
I groaned and tried to slide out of her grasp. “No, thank you. I think I’ve put in my time with you and flea markets, as in every market within a sixty-mile radius, every weekend for the first sixteen years of my life, until I could drive and escape your plan.”
Gigi rolled her eyes in a way that recalled the years she herself was a teenager. She was still rather good at it. “Oh, give me a break. You loved it. You got your first pair of high heels that way, missy. And an impressive collection of purses, if I recall.”
I frowned but held my tongue. She was right. And I tottered around on those rose-red heels with the chunky soles for years, slowly growing into them until I could buy a pair that wasn’t secondhand and had been made for the current decade.
“Then it’s settled,” Gigi said. “Tomorrow’s the first of the outside season. We’ll need to be at the county fairgrounds by six to set up, so bring a sweatshirt.”
A strangled sound came from my throat. “Be there at six? Set up for what? Did you volunteer for the grounds crew or something? Gigi, can’t someone else do that?”
Gigi waved her hand as she walked away. “We can talk tomorrow. We’ll have plenty of time,” she added as she opened the door to the backyard. “I’m going to check on my lettuce,” she said, and I knew she would be lost to her garden until it was too dark to see.