nine
I looked at the clock on my phone. Two minutes had passed since I last checked. “I had no idea it could take so long to mail a letter.” I could hear the irritation in my voice even as I tried injecting a lightness to my tone. I glanced to my left.
Tucker sat one chair away from mine in the tiny waiting area of La Condesa. He’d propped his elbows on his knees but didn’t look any more comfortable than he had in the myriad other seated positions he’d tried out in the last half hour. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think your grandmother got lost.”
I snorted a laugh, then covered my mouth in embarrassment. Tucker raised one eyebrow at me.
“Or we have been ditched.”
“Let me call her again,” I said, swiping to redial on my phone.
Tucker came to stand in front of me. He took my phone gently out of my hand and pulled me up. I stood before him, too close, but neither one of us backed away. I felt my cheeks start to burn. My stomach growled, betraying me.
“Tacos, then?” Tucker said, stepping aside and opening his arm to the dining room. He nodded at the hostess. “Thanks for waiting, Sofia. We’ll take that corner booth now.”
I followed Sofia and tried to rein in my scrambled thoughts. First, I was going to kill Gigi. She was the furthest thing from subtle, and I was going to kill her. Second, what on earth would we talk about over an entire dinner? We probably had absolutely nothing in common anymore other than our shared affection for cinnamon doughnuts, I thought as I scooted into my side of the booth.
We took turns thanking Sofia for our glasses of ice water, and then fell to silence. I took an in-depth study of my menu and ordered quickly. Tucker followed suit and then added two tacos for Gigi’s carry-out order.
I frowned. “I’m not sure she deserves that kindness.”
He chuckled, then ran a hand across his chin while turning playful eyes on me. “You know the mighty have fallen when they need a grandmother to set them up.” He cleared his throat then shifted in the booth. “Not that this is a setup.”
“Of course not,” I agreed quickly.
“Just two old friends,” Tucker said, one side of his mouth finding a lopsided grin. “Catching up. Does that sound about right?”
“Yes. Absolutely,” I said with a decisive nod. “We’ll have to be the adults in this situation since my grandmother seems to be having trouble with that role.”
He smiled, a real, down-to-the-roots Tucker smile. “About time. As I recall, she deserves a break in trying to keep us in line. We can take a turn.”
I smiled back, feeling some of the knots in my stomach start to unravel. We started to chat, tentative at first, then falling into the easy and familiar cadence of conversation that we’d perfected so many years before. By the time I was tucking into my second taco, I closed my eyes and murmured, “This is ridiculous.”
Tucker chewed thoughtfully and waited for me to have my moment. I’d had a lot of moments since my first bite.
“The tortillas,” I said, dabbing the corners of my mouth with my napkin. “I’m having a hard time getting over the tortillas.” I reached to the middle of the table. “And the salsa. Give me a break. It’s delicious. And bottomless! New York doesn’t really do bottomless. I’m so happy.” I scooped up a healthy dollop of salsa into a warm, sea-salted house-made tortilla chip and had another moment.
Tucker looked amused. “I’m glad it meets your standards. I haven’t been to New York but rumor has it there are a few restaurants. La Condesa could compete, then?”
“Oh my gosh, yes,” I said through a mouthful of chips before having the manners to chew and swallow. “This place is the real deal. I had no idea Silver Creek had grown in its culinary tastes.”
He shrugged slightly.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” I said carefully. “What keeps you here?”
He finished a bite of a taco al pastor that, earlier, had given me one of my more vocal moments. “I love this place. And the people. I love the people here.” He spoke simply, his face open. After a pull on his soda, he added, “Sometimes I get sick of the fishbowl and everyone in each other’s business. But usually a long drive in the country takes care of that. Preferably as the sun is setting over the fields with a mixtape of eighties music playing on the awesome, tinny speakers in my truck.” He smiled, and I noticed a left-side dimple, deep in his cheek, that I’d forgotten.
“You do not still have that tape,” I said, disbelieving. “And how in the world are you still even playing a cassette tape?”
“Retrofit, thank you very much.” He looked smug as he dunked a chip in salsa. “The car dealer looked at me like I was nuts, but I have a very important cassette collection. The stuff needs to be played, sis.”
I shook my head slowly. “There’s nobody like you, Tucker Van Es.”
His smile faded a bit and he busied himself squeezing lime over another taco. “And New York?” he said with a quick change of subject. “Other than your recent and total failure, how did the city treat you?” He grinned before taking a bite.
I scowled. “It wasn’t a total failure,” I offered weakly, but with the raise of his eyebrows I conceded. “Okay, it was pretty total.”
“Nah, it wasn’t; I’m just giving you grief,” Tucker said. “You made a home for yourself there. That, in itself, is wild success. I sure couldn’t do it.”
“Yes, you could,” I said. “You’d have it conquered in a week.” I smiled at him, knowing his strength and the way hard work fit naturally on him, and I knew I was right.
He shook his head. “Nope. I tried.” He took a swig of Coke and the words hung in the air.
“Wait, what?” I finally said. “What do you mean you tried?” My mind raced to keep up with his words.
“Not New York. Chicago.” He popped the final bite of taco into his mouth and chewed, too slowly for my taste, before continuing. “I moved there the year after finishing school. Drove the truck right into downtown with enough money in the glove compartment for two months’ rent. ‘Boy with broken heart seeks to understand the pull of city life for the girl he loved.’ ” He winked at me, no trace of anger or hurt on his face. “It was all very poetic.”
I shook my head. “What happened? Why didn’t you stay?”
An eyebrow arched. “You mean other than the pervasive smell of urine and black gunk that came out in a Kleenex whenever I blew my nose?”
I made a face. “Okay, so it wasn’t your thing.”
His laugh was easy, his eyes lost in memory. “I found a job easy enough. The money wasn’t bad, and my boss was always freaking out about my ‘small-town work ethic.’ ” He made ironic air quotes with his hands. “I just never caught the bug, I guess. I made a few friends, and I liked being near Lake Michigan. But I realized all I wanted to do was head to the lake. Walk past the skyscrapers, past all the crowds and the gray and the stuff, good and bad, that made Chicago a city, and get myself to the wide open of the lake, even when it was frigid outside.” He stopped when a plump woman wearing an embroidered magenta top hurried up to our table. Tucker stood, towering over the woman, and enveloped her in an affectionate hug while she clucked about how tall he was. They turned to me.
“Gracie, I’d like you to meet Beatriz Molina, the woman behind all the good food you’ve inhaled tonight.”
I winced at inhaled but couldn’t deny the truth behind the word. I stuck out my hand to shake. “So great to meet you, Ms. Molina,” I gushed, feeling a little like I was meeting a celebrity chef at the newest craze in Tribeca. “Everything was absolutely delicious.”
“Gracias, hija,” Beatriz said, holding my hand with one of hers while her other arm still draped Tucker’s waist. “It is an honor to meet you, nena. Tucker only brings his favorite girls to La Condesa.” She spoke with pride, and I stifled a giggle as Tucker frowned.
“Right, only the favorites,” he mumbled, his cheeks reddening. “And so I think we’re ready for the check,” he said more loudly.
Beatriz smiled knowingly. “Ah, yes.” She patted Tucker on the cheek and said, “But this dinner is my treat. Thank you for coming. We all loved how you enjoyed the food.” She smiled at me and nodded toward a row of servers who had gathered along the wall. They waved and grinned, and Tucker laughed.
“I guess you’ve had an audience. You were pretty loud.”
I sighed. “I’m still getting used to the idea that people actually care about what you’re doing around here.” I scooted out of the booth.
“Thank you,” Tucker said, kissing Beatriz on the cheek and taking the carry-out container that held Gigi’s tacos. Beatriz hugged me before she left, waving the servers back to work since the show was over.
“Let’s go,” Tucker said as he opened his arm for me to go first. “I want to show you something. And that mixtape is calling my name.”
I shook my head at him, at where I was in that moment. He turned to leave but not before tucking a very large bill under his plate, quickly so no one would notice. The amount was far too much for our dinner and then some. He walked ahead to get the door and I looked long at the bill on the table, remembering how one of the guys I dated in New York used to drop big cash tips on tables as we were leaving but how he always seemed to catch the eye of the server before we were out the door, nodding as he or she practically curtsied with gratitude. I walked toward Tucker and through the door he held, but my thoughts lingered on his quiet generosity, struck by how the very same act could be so different.
I inhaled a shaky, cold breath as Tucker opened the passenger door of his truck. Warm air and a heated seat met me as I settled in. I turned to Tucker, who had climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Seat warmers and a remote start,” I said. “With a cassette deck.”
He was already doing a very not-smooth car dance to A-ha. “Just goes to prove money really can buy happiness.” He reached for a falsetto “take on me,” and he failed.
I turned down the volume on the stereo a bit. “I want the rest of the story. You were standing on the banks of Lake Michigan.”
Tucker drove us through the quiet residential streets heading out of town. “Right. So the day I realized I’d organized my entire workday around taking a quick lunch and riding two lines of the L to get to the lake so I could glimpse it before heading back to work for the afternoon, I knew I was done. Handed in my notice and was back in Silver Creek three days later.”
We rode in silence, and I watched the town fall away and the still-indigo sky form a perfect dome above us. I knew the restlessness Tucker was talking about, though I didn’t tell him about it, about how, throughout my years in New York, I would develop a sudden and urgent need to walk through Central Park, in all kinds of weather. How, on certain days, the crowded sky above me, littered with buildings and steel and windows and glass, felt like it was closing in and I had to stop on the sidewalk and breathe hungrily until the feeling passed. I assumed these impulses were stress, signs of working too hard or too long. Hearing Tucker’s account of his time in Chicago made me wonder if they were instead a suppressed longing for the wide-open spaces of home.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I’m showing you why I left Chicago,” he said quietly. “So what about you? Tell me about your decade.” He took his eyes briefly off the road and glanced at me.
I must have looked pained, because he nudged my arm with his elbow. “Hey,” he said softly. “You can say as much or as little as you want. No pressure here. Old friends, right?”
I felt a tightness in my chest, the idea of being friends with Tucker a new and disorienting concept. I sighed and made myself relax into the seat. I looked out the window, seeing a few stars start to appear above the horizon. “I really love New York,” I said, “even with all its crazy and nonstop energy and insane rent. It’s a great place. And it’s the place I’ve wanted to prove myself since long before I left Iowa.”
Tucker nodded. “I do remember something like that.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “And your mark out there isn’t over yet. I’m pretty sure of that.”
It was such a small thing, such a tiny, smooth, precious gem of a gift that he gave me with those words. “Thank you,” I said as we rolled to a stop. I turned fully toward him. “Tuck, you’re a good man. You know that?”
He unbuckled and put one hand on the door handle. I could see his cheeks getting splotchy even in the dimness of the dashboard lights.
“I mean it,” I said, anxious to say words that needed to be said. “I know how you’ve taken care of Gigi’s friends when they’ve needed it.”
He glanced at me, wary. “I’ve hardly done a thing.”
I laughed softly. “Really? Because it sounds to me like you’re the on-call maintenance man for the over-seventy set.” I watched his face. “They’re very grateful.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not charity.” His voice was edged with a pride affronted.
“I know,” I said quickly. “It’s kindness. But it’s not just the ladies. I know how you’ve helped your uncle Sal when he’s needed it, how you’ve made it possible for him to keep his farm when he couldn’t do it alone.”
“He’s my uncle and the only dad I’ve had for years,” Tucker said. He pulled on a ball cap wedged under the center console and busied himself tightening and loosening the back. “And it’s not ‘helping.’ That makes him sound weak.”
“Well, he is,” I said, not backing down. “And you’re a good man to help him in his weakness without making him feel small. And here’s another thing: you treat Gigi like gold, and I appreciate it.” My voice caught and I clamped my mouth shut.
Tucker gave me a sideways glance. “How do you know about all this? I thought you cut ties.”
I rolled my eyes, in part as an effort to keep them from filling. “I know stuff. I’m very much in tune with the goings-on of Silver Creek, Iowa.”
“So Gigi had a few things to say during the flea market.”
I frowned. “Maybe.” Then, smiling, “She told me about Sal years ago, but I didn’t know about the handyman work until you showed up today with her latest request.”
He looked at me then, long and full. It had been a really long time since I’d felt studied by a man, not just taken in or evaluated or wanted, but studied. I forced myself to stay still.
He slapped the steering wheel with both hands, making me jump. “All right. Things are getting a little stuffy in here, don’t you think?”
I sputtered a response but he wasn’t listening. He’d opened his door and jumped out, walked away from the truck. After a beat he looked back at me. “Come see.”
I followed him, the cool night air was nippy, coaxing a shiver to break through from me. Tucker took off his jacket without a word and helped me shrug into it. I kept my hands cocooned within his long sleeves and followed him as he walked.
“This is my newest project. Watch your step.” He offered a hand to help me navigate over a pile of two-by-fours. “We’re building a farmhouse, one that looks like the ones our great-grandparents built but tricked out with all-modern everything. Good, clean lines, floors finished with wood from an old barn just torn down east of town, big, soaring windows that will take in sunsets from floor to ceiling.” He was talking fast, gesturing to where each room would land. “A spacious farmhouse kitchen here, light-filled, south-facing, with enough room for a big table and lots of family and friends.” He stopped, lost in imagining the space as it would be, not the empty acres before us.
I said nothing as he led me around the site, pointing out progress here, a roadblock there. We circled back to the truck and he pulled several blankets from within the cab. He spread them on the bed of his truck and offered me a hand to climb up. He took the lead and sat down on the blankets, back against the cab and face toward the sky. I stood awkwardly, uncertain of where I was to go.
“Good grief, Kleren,” he finally said. “You coming down here or what? The stars are a lot easier to see if you’re actually looking up.” He patted the space beside him. “No funny business. I promise.” He grinned and I sank to my knees, still nervous to be so close.
Get a grip, I thought. It’s just Tucker.
I sat next to him, leaning my side into him slightly for warmth. Trying to keep the mood friendly, I asked again the question I’d tried once before.
“So . . . who’s the ‘sort of’?”
“Excuse me?” he asked, laughter around his eyes.
“When I asked if you were single you said, ‘Sort of.’ Old friends should know this about each other.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding slowly. He let out a long breath before continuing. “It should be such a simple question.”
I felt my heart dip, like a buoy getting pulled under a wave. I willed it back up. “What’s her name?”
“Natalie,” he said softly. “It’s still new. We met a few months ago. Set up,” he said, giving me a sideways glance. “Not by Gigi.”
“Thank goodness. I’d hate for her to start thinking this was some sort of calling,” I said, noticing abruptly that I was bouncing my leg and making the truck move. I threw on a smile. “What’s she like?”
He paused before answering. “She’s smart. Kind. Generous.”
“Pretty?” I was trying so hard to sound platonic, it was taking all my concentration. These were new waters for me and Tucker, and I was working like mad to keep him from knowing how choppy they felt.
“Yes.” He sounded sure. “She’s pretty.”
I paused before saying, “She sounds like quite a catch.”
He looked at me quickly, then away. “You’re right. She does sound that way.”
Falling silent, we drank in the hush of the surrounding fields. We watched the stars, more than I’d seen in years, cluttering the sky with an extravagance fit for the showroom of Tiffany’s. The blue-black backdrop filled my vision, from horizon to horizon, and we watched, transfixed, as the moon rose. If only New York had this.
“It’s so beautiful,” I said quietly. “I never would have said that before, but it’s true. You live in a beautiful place.”
I sneaked a peek at him out of the corner of my eye. This Natalie was a lucky girl. Tucker sat in silence, eyes on the sky. After a long while, he said gruffly, “I’m glad you’re here, Gracie.”
I said nothing but nodded, assuming, correctly, I thought, that even across years and experience and heartache, he knew I was glad too.