21
Kelly
Usually, the bakery was my happy place, the place I could retreat to that was my domain. I could get lost in what I was doing, be creative, and know that I owned what was happening. After everything that went down in the morning, I no longer felt that way. Every time I looked up or tried to concentrate on work, the thoughts would just flash across my mind about how Damian had let me down, betrayed me, taken all I had worked for in one fell swoop. To make things worse, he had captured my heart and then broken it quickly, and I wasn’t sure how I would recover from either of these devastations.
My family did their best to try to make things better for me. They encouraged me to leave the bakery, go home and figure things out. Honestly, I always did my best thinking when I was working so I just kept at it. I voraciously dove into the dough, and made tray after tray of cookies and pastries, crafted pie dough and even made some breads just so I could keep my hands and my mind busy working on something else, anything else but what had happened.
By the time we got close to the end of the day, my body and mind were spent. I went out to the storefront and slumped into one of the chairs, causing a puff of flour to rise off my covered apron. I leaned my head against the wall and covered my face with a sack towel as I closed my eyes. I could hear Alex whisper to my mother, and then the clang of Alex dropping some of the empty trays from the display cases onto the floor. I heard scurrying about and then the kitchen door whooshing open and closed, and the slow, shuffling feet of my mother as she came over and sat in the chair across from me. The familiar sound of a coffee mug sliding across the table was in front of me, and as I peeled the towel from the front of my eyes, I could smell the rich aroma of what Mom had just brewed for me.
I tossed the towel onto the table and picked up the mug, inhaling the smell so it could perk me up a bit before I took a sip.
“We were busy today,” Mom noted, trying to skirt around the real issues that were in front of me. I just nodded to her as I sipped more coffee.
“Kelly,” Mom started, “I know you feel like you got body slammed today by all this. I wish I could do something to take what you are going through away from you. I always hate when one of you is struggling or hurt. I know it sounds cliché, but you will get through this – WE will get through this.”
“That’s easy to say, Mom. It’s a lot harder to do. We’re losing everything, all we worked so hard far, all the money we sunk into this place to get started. We put our souls into this place, and one piece of paper is going to take it all away.”
“Maybe,” Mom said softly, “Maybe we should just take his money. To hell with him and take the buyout. We can start over somewhere else in town. We have a good core of local customers. People will support you, Kelly, you know they will.”
“Even if we took his money it wouldn’t be enough to get started over at a new location. We would have to find a spot, get equipment, and spend months getting set up again. Think of all we would lose in that time. By then, summer is over, all the tourists are gone, and a huge chunk of our business with it. And we’ll never find a spot as good as this one, right on the boardwalk with lots of foot traffic. If we’re off in town somewhere, we get fewer people coming by and less business. I don’t see how we can make it work.”
I took another sip of coffee and then gripped the towel in my hand, squeezing. I was frustrated, angry, and sad all at the same time. I had let myself trust again, let myself get close to someone – let myself fall in love – and it all came back to bite me. Nothing seemed fair about any of it. I put the towel back over my eyes to cover the sting of the tears that were forming in my eyes. I heard myself start to sniffle, and my mother reached over and gently took my hand in hers while I cried.
The bakery front door opened as the bells on it lightly jingled. Mom’s chair creaked as she pivoted to look back at whoever had entered, and she stood up to go behind the counter.
“I’m afraid there’s not much left,” Mom said to the patrons. “It’s pretty near to closing time.”
“I’m actually here to see Kelly… Kelly Barton,” a woman’s voice stated.
I removed the towel from my face, wiping my eyes as I did, and looked at the woman standing in front of me. It was the person I saw in the bathing suit hugging Damian. She looked over at me and turned to face me.
“I’m Shannon,” she said to me. “I think we need to talk about a few things.”
“I really have nothing to say to you,” I said gruffly. I stood up and moved away from her to go back to the kitchen.
“Kelly, wait!” I heard a man’s voice yell. I looked back and saw James just inside the door. “There are a lot of things you’re missing to all this. Let us at least fill you in, and then you can decide what to do, okay? Please?”
I sat back down and crossed my arms over my chest. “Go ahead,” I replied. “Tell me about how Damian screwed me out of my business, and about how he was holding…” I was tearing up again as I spoke. “Holding you in his arms. I saw you with him. There’s nothing you can say that will change what I saw.”
Shannon sat down across from me.
“Yes, you saw him hugging me, but you don’t know why he was doing that,” she explained. “I’m Damian’s personal assistant…”
“I bet you are,” I said sarcastically.
“Kelly, let her explain,” Mom interrupted. “Maybe there’s more to this.”
“Sure, maybe they want the keys to my house too since they are taking everything else away.”
“Kelly, please,” Shannon said to me. I saw she was trying to hold her composure, “I have worked for Damian for a few years now. There is nothing romantic at all between us. There never has been. He was hugging me… well… because James and I had just told him that we are involved with each other.”
James came over and put his hand on Shannon’s shoulder.
“It’s true, Kelly,” James said to me. “I know it looks like horrible timing and coincidences, but you have to believe me. Damian didn’t do anything and has nothing going on with Shannon.”
“Then how come I hadn’t seen her at the house?” I asked, trying to figure all this out. “I saw you plenty of times, James, but I never saw her there.”
“I can’t explain it,” Shannon told me. “Like James said, it’s just timing. I have been there the whole time James and Damian have been there. Please, I’m telling you the truth. Damian… he’s not the type of guy who would do that… see multiple women, or cheat on someone that he really cares about.”
I didn’t know what to believe at this point. Were they just giving me a story at Damian’s urging to smooth things over? Or was it the truth and was a series of bad coincidences that led to a misunderstanding? And did Damian really care about me the way I felt about him? It was all very confusing.
“Even if what you say is true, that doesn’t change the fact about your business forcing me out. The letter is pretty cut and dry about that.”
“I know,” Shannon said to me. “Damian didn’t have anything to do with that. His lawyer has the power to make deals and acquisitions on behalf of the business. Damian came down here to get away from the business for a bit. He hasn’t answered any phone calls, emails, messages or anything since he has been here. Honestly, he has spent more time with you than doing anything else. What happened with the buyout was out of his hands. I don’t have all the details yet, but I am working on getting them. And Damian took off to go back to New York to find out the truth. He’s probably just about there already. I’ve tried calling him, but he’s not answering his phone.”
“Why… why should I believe any of this?” I said softly.
“Because it’s the truth, Kelly,” James said to me. “Look, I know you’re probably confused about all this. Hell, I’m still confused about the business end of it, but I know one thing for certain – Damian wouldn’t do anything that would hurt you in any way. “
I stood up and took my apron off and walked over to Mom.
“What do you think, Mom?” I said quietly. I needed her input now more than ever.
Mom looked me straight in the eyes and gave me her gentle smile. She took my hands in hers.
“It doesn’t matter what I think right now, Kelly. This is all about you. I will say, though, that if it were me, I would want to hear what Damian has to say for himself. You need to have a heart-to-heart with him, so you know what happened, how he feels, and how you feel.”
I hugged Mom tightly, and after we broke the hug, I turned and stared at James and Shannon.
“Okay,” I said, wiping my eyes one last time. “If this is true, then I need to go to New York.”
Everyone in the room said “What?” at the same time, including Jodie and Alex, who had been listening just inside the kitchen doors.
“I need to talk to Damian, face to face. I have to hear it from him about everything – the business deal, what I saw, and how he feels. It’s the only way I am going to be able to decide what the truth is.”
“You’re going to drive your crappy old pickup up there?” Jodie asked. “You haven’t driven that thing more than five miles in years. Who knows how it will be?”
“I’ll take you,” James stated. “We can take the Lexus, and I’ll drive you up there. It’s the fastest way to get there.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” I told James.
“It’s fine, I do it all the time,” James told me. “Besides, I know where to go and the best way to get there in a quicker time. Let me take care of it.”
James wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so I nodded in agreement. Alex had darted into the kitchen to grab my bag. James leaned over and gave Shannon a kiss before we left, and I could see the smile creep across her face as he did. They certainly looked as if they were with each other.
There is more to this that I need to know, I thought to myself.
James held up his keys and opened the bakery door for me, and I walked out onto the boardwalk to head towards Damian’s house where the car was.
I didn’t say anything to James the whole walk to the house. I kept myself focused on trying to figure out what I was going to say and do once I got to New York, and what kind of answers I was going to get from Damian.