CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Allie
“Oh, for...”
I swore angrily at my suitcase as it careered off the sidewalk for the third time. It was raining in my neighborhood in Asheville, a slow, steady rain that soaked through my jacket and trickled down my collar and made the sidewalks into skating-rinks, injurious and unpredictable.
“Whoops, sorry, ma'am,” a boy called out, bumping into me as he hurried past, a newspaper-flier held over his head against the rain. I sighed.
“I'm just mad,” I told myself angrily. I meant it in each sense: mad as in angry and mad as in downright barking insane.
What was I thinking? I asked myself coldly as I marched down the sidewalk from the bus-stop and toward my apartment. That Drew Liston would actually want me in his life? Just me? Little old me who was a small-town bakery owner, with no special glamor and no real sense of style?
“You're an idiot, Alexandra Hendricks.”
I reached my apartment building, slammed the key into the lock and turned the handle. As I marched into the lift and the doors closed behind me, I burst into tears.
“How is she?” I repeated what Drew had said on the phone. Who was she?
That's what I wanted to know.
“Get real,” I snarled at myself as I dragged my things across the slippery wood of the hallway floor to my front door and slammed the key into the lock, wrenching the handle down. “Maybe she was just his sister or something.”
I sighed. I knew very well that Drew Liston only had one brother, who lived in Florida and owned a prosperous business. As far as I knew it wasn't his wife who was sick – if it was Drew's sister in law – did he even have one? I had no clue – there would have been no reason not to tell me.
“No. She's a girlfriend.”
Why else, I told myself savagely, as I threw my case onto the bed, had he been so quiet?
I started to unpack, dumping everything on the floor and then grabbing it to ram into the washing-machine. I turned it on fiercely and then started sniffing. How could he have deceived me? It would even have been one thing if he'd just told me. I could have understood if we'd met up, gotten carried away that one night, and then he'd told me the full story. But no.
He decides to lead me down the garden path and then drop me.
I took off my wet clothes and stood under the shower, letting it sluice away the cold and the rain and the weariness. I sighed, thinking back on the day together.
I didn't know why I had just held my tongue. Why hadn't I asked him what he thought he was up to? I should have confronted him. It wasn't like he'd hidden it.
“What's wrong with you?” I asked myself. I dried my hair, feeling frustrated and tired. I should have asked him then and there.
I blow-dried my hair, finally feeling warm, and slid into a comfortable pair of old slacks and a sweater. Then I resumed tidying up.
“This should go in the hallway...” I said, lifting my suitcase and carrying it through. As I did so, something slid out and caught my eye. I grabbed it. It was a pearl drop.
“Oh, for...” My heart twisted with pain as I looked at it, rolling on my palm. Like a song whose lyrics were stuck in my head I heard his voice. You look exotic, exciting and elegant.
“What bull,” I whispered. I closed my fist around the earring, half-tempted to throw it out the window. I was so hurt, so irate. The words cut into me now, their sweetness ridged with glass shards now. I sighed.
Maybe you could sell them, I decided. They were quite pricey. You never know.
I fished around for the other earring and slid them into the drawer at the back. I sat down on the bed.
“Work tomorrow, Allie,” I told myself. “You should have dinner and then get some sleep. You're wrecked.”
I stood up and gave myself a long slow look in the mirror. My skin was pale, my eyes rimmed with gray. My hair fell down in thin strands, glossy in the light, the only source of animation. My eyes were blank. Miserable and gray-brown, they were like holes to nowhere. I sighed.
“Cheer up, woman. You had a holiday.”
I couldn't talk myself out of being sad, though. Not this time. Six years ago I'd managed it. But now that he'd gone and betrayed me again, I found my sense of humor was slightly less acute.
I cooked myself supper and went to bed. I was so sad as I lay there, feeling the emptiness all round. I cried myself to sleep.
“Mrs. Hendricks!” Marcelle greeted me cheerfully when I walked into work next morning. “Great! How was it?”
“It was nice,” I said neutrally. I closed my eyes, wishing her not to pry. “We should get the scones mixed, hey?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “It's so good to have you – I was worried we would run out of premixed dough before you got back...good that you made so much of it! We went through three lots yesterday, and two on Saturday.”
“Wow,” I commented. “That's all of it.”
“Yeah,” she chuckled. “I was scared I'd get stuck with it...but no-one makes scones like you do, Mrs. Hendricks. Fluffy and crumbly and good.”
I chuckled. “Thanks.”
As she complimented my work, I recalled Drew sampling my baked goods. It gave me sweet sorrow. I closed my eyes. Why did the damn man have to keep on popping up in the most unlikely ways?
“Mrs. Hendricks!” Kelsey said behind me, bouncing out of the café part of the shop excitedly. “Welcome back!”
I smiled at her, feeling my heart soften a little. With her big blue eyes and fluffy ponytail, it was hard to feel anything but innocent joy around her. “Thanks,” I said. “I hear you did really well on Monday.” Well, Marcelle hadn't actually mentioned that, but it was worth extrapolating.
“Oh!” I was pleased to see Kelsey blush with pride. “Thanks, Ms. Hendricks.”
“Sure, Kelsey,” I said.
I watched her skip away, visibly more confident. At least I made someone's day, I thought dully. I felt so bad myself. It was nice to see someone else happy when I wasn't sure I could even remember how to be.
I went through to the back to answer the phone. As I wrote down the order I found myself remembering the way I'd met Drew again so suddenly. And our dinner. And everything that came after that.
“Oh, for...” I closed my eyes, every memory of him painful. He had made no attempt to contact me since we returned. Admittedly, neither had I. But I would have thought something simple like, “did you get back safely,” would have been in order.
“You think the buns can go in now?” Marcelle asked quietly from my left-hand side.
“Oh.” I blinked. “Sure. Scones should come out. Thanks for reminding me.”
“No problem, Mrs. Hendricks.”
She had noticed there was something bothering me, I could just tell. Marcelle was a quiet person, sweet and also incredibly perceptive. She was keeping an eye on me, subtly stepping in to help, making sure I didn't forget little things like the fact that the scones were in the oven and might crisp.
I took them out and set them aside to cool, then got straight into mixing the pastry for tomorrow's croissant delivery.
“Whew,” Kelsey said, coming in with a bright smile. “There's a stunning guy out there, Ms. Hendricks.” she was fanning herself, face bright red, and I chuckled.
“Let me see?” Marcelle asked.
“Marcelle!” I said. I shook my head in surprise. Marcelle was always so level-headed. I wouldn't have thought she was the type to go and ogle sexy young guys. I laughed as the two of them peeked round the partition that divided kitchen and front-of-house, like two naughty kids.
“I have to see too,” I said. My curiosity was overwhelming me. What did this guy look like, to have both Kelsey and Marcelle staring round the counter at him like kids seeing the Christmas tree?
I peered round the partition.
“Where is…. oh!” I shut my mouth as Kelsey shushed me, then pointed surreptitiously at the table in the front.
“There.”
There was a boy there of perhaps nineteen, with flax-pale hair and big brown eyes, shoulders like a footballer. He looked up at Kelsey and smiled.
“Oh...” Kelsey made a little high-pitched sound and I wanted to smile. I ducked quickly back into the kitchen and Marcelle did as well.
We looked at each other and grinned.
“Stop smiling, Ms. Hendricks, it’s serious,” Marcelle whispered hotly. We both giggled.
“I'm perfectly serious,” I said, failing dismally to hide my smile. I felt happy for Kelsey. But at the same time, it made me feel a little sad. Wistful, I guessed. I remembered what it was like to feel like that. So innocent and exciting and new.
Come on, Allie, I told myself. Every time you fall in love, it feels like that. Whether you're eighteen or thirty-two, it makes you feel just as silly, just as excitable.
When Kelsey came back in we were both leaning on the partition with admirably-straight faces.
“Guys? Where...oh!” She looked at us and we couldn't help it. We both grinned at her. She went bright red and then started laughing too.
“You guys!” she teased us. “You're just...uh!”
I laughed. “We're not teasing you, Kelsey,” I said. “Promise.”
“No,” Marcelle said fondly. “It's not that. We're happy for you.”
She blushed. “Thanks, guys.”
The growing affection between Kelsey and the footballer-guy was so sweet that I felt my frosted heart start to melt a little. I looked at her flushed, pretty teenaged face and Marcelle, her lovely face soft and full of care as she looked at Kelsey in her love-flushed happiness.
“I love you guys,” I said. I felt my heart expand and my throat closed up, all my emotions blocking it.
“Aw, Ms. Hendricks,” Marcelle said fondly. “We love you, too.”
She gave me a spontaneous hug and I clung to her a moment, feeling indescribably like I wanted to cry. I let her go and shook my head, chuckling.
“It's like family in here,” I managed to say. Kelsey giggled.
“You two are like sisters,” she said. I smiled at her.
“I'm honored, Kelsey. Truly. I would have liked a little sister like you.”
“Aw! Thanks.” She blushed and squeezed my hand and then hurried out to the front-of-house. I guessed she was taking Mr. Football his bill.
I leaned on the kitchen-counter-top, feeling nostalgia and tenderness and sorrow all mix inside me like a strange and poignant cake-batter.
I'm just glad for the love I do have in my life, I told myself. Whatever Drew does. However much I wish I was young and carefree like Kelsey and hadn't learned not to trust.