Chapter 32
LUCY
“You have to take the interview,” I tell Enzo for the fiftieth time. “This is a really big deal. Huge.”
“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “But I don’t have to take the interview. I don’t have to do anything.”
I can tell he wants to, though. I saw the ambition flash across his face when he listened to that message this morning.
He was so distracted at the woolen sock race that he barely seemed pissed off when Hudson won.
Afterward, we watched the fireworks with his brothers, Charlie, and a few other friends, but his mind was somewhere else. He was thinking about leaving…
Now, we’re back in my apartment, drinking a final glass of wine at my small table, but he’s still thinking about it.
“Don’t be stubborn over this,” I say. “It’s a big opportunity. They want to do things your way. You could make a real difference.”
The conflict is written all over his beautiful, sculpted face. He wants this, bad. But he also doesn’t want to leave me.
I’m grateful for that, but at the same time…
He’s going to take the job, ultimately.
He’d be a fool to say no, because Enzo is ambitious and talented, and he’s right. If he stayed here without some other job to do, he’d be bored and unfulfilled. Eventually, he’d resent me.
I know this because…
I’m ashamed to admit it, even to myself, but even though I loved my mother with my whole being, even though I was grateful that I was able to be there for her…
I wanted to be like Charlie, able to travel anywhere at the drop of a hat. I wanted to date inappropriate men and make stupid decisions, and act my age.
But I didn’t, and I resented my mom for it sometimes—and resented myself for feeling that way, because I knew it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t chosen to be sick any more than anyone could choose their natural hair color. It had all been a game of genetics that she’d lost, badly.
I don’t want him to resent me.
I don’t want him to wake up every morning and wonder what his life would have been like if only he’d taken the opportunity presented to him.
“Please,” I say, my voice faint. “You have to go.”
“I’ll call him in the morning,” he insists. “I’m not sure I’m interested, though. I have some other ideas I want to pursue.”
“Enzo, this is what you wanted. I remember what you wrote in your notes. I can’t take you from your dream.”
He reaches for my hand, and I give it to him, my heart lodged in my throat, choking me.
“Dreams change, cara. But maybe they’d let me work remotely part of the time. I have to go back to New York anyway to pack the rest of my things.”
I nod, but it’s hard to believe what he’s saying. It already feels like he’s being pulled up by the roots he’s been regrowing here.
“Will you come with me?” he asks. “To New York?”
I consider the possibility, and I can almost see it.
I wanted adventure, and everyone says New York City has a unique charm at this time of year.
Everything’s so big and bright. So…spectacular.
But my heart aches at the thought of leaving, and besides, I’ve already taken the weekend off at the coffee shop.
I shake my head. “I can’t. I can’t leave right now.”
I meant to say I can’t leave Eileen in a lurch, but the last words didn’t come out. Because the truth is I can’t leave Hideaway Harbor.
I’ve always wanted it to be my home, ever since I first stepped foot here, and this past month, it’s started to feel like it finally is.
He doesn’t argue with me. Instead, he makes love to me with quiet intensity, as if he feels it too—the crux in the road we’ve been walking.
Enzo’s interview is set for Wednesday.
He doesn’t talk about it after making the arrangements, and neither do I, but it seems to hang over everything like ominous clouds. It hails on Tuesday morning, which feels like a bad omen.
I tell him as much when he stops in at the Sip before making the drive to New York City. It’s eight hours, but he wants to have his car so he can bring some boxes back from his apartment. Or so he says.
Maybe he won’t want to do that if they offer him the job.
Maybe he won’t want to come back at all.
Eileen, who’s covering the counter, gives me an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up.
I give her one back.
I’ll need to return to work before too long. It’s Whoopie Pie Appreciation Day today, and there’s a line out the door at Making Whoopie. Several people have come from there to here to grab a caffeinated drink, so we’re busy too. Everyone’s abuzz about Audrey’s culinary genius.
It’s been a successful day for her, although she didn’t look all that happy when I popped in earlier. I’m not sure why, but I don’t have the bandwidth to worry about it right now. Frankly, I’m not all that happy myself, given what’s going on with Enzo.
“It’s not a bad omen,” Enzo insists, refusing to acknowledge the hail as anything but bad weather.
“Now, if someone nabbed me in the balls again on that thing…” He nods to the dartboard I made of his photo, which is still hanging on the café wall.
“That would be a bad omen. Try not to worry, all right? I’ll call you when I get there, and again after the interview tomorrow. ”
“I’ll be waiting,” I say. “But I already know it’s going to go great.”
“Look on the bright side,” he says with a huge grin. “Maybe I’ll bomb it. Then we can get drunk at Kippis with my brothers and Charlie and Lars and talk about what assholes they all are.”
“Oh, like you’d actually bomb it,” I say, letting a trace of sourness leak into my tone. “You’re going to charm the pants off them.”
He smooths a hand over my hair. “I’d rather charm the pants off you. I’ll see you on Thursday.”
I kiss him once, then again, then again.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I admit. “I’m worried you won’t come back.”
“I’ll come back,” he insists. “You can’t get rid of me so easily.”
He kisses me again before he gets up and leaves, the door no longer chiming with that awful “Jingle Bells” song thanks to him.
I watch him through the window, so I see when he looks back. When he winks.
It makes my heart hurt.
The next thing I know, a pair of arms descends upon me from behind. I nearly jump out of my skin before I realize it’s Eileen, and I lean my head back into her cloud of familiar light perfume.
“It’s going to be okay, sweet girl,” she says softly. “You’ll see. There’s magic at Christmastime in Hideaway Harbor.”
But he’s leaving Hideaway…
“Bad time to be traveling,” Wayne says from two tables away. “Lots of snow at this time of year. There could be holdups on the road.”
Eileen stiffens. “If we wanted your opinion, Wayne, we would have asked.”
The door opens, capturing my attention and Eileen’s. I’m surprised to see Nonna Francesca. The breach has officially been mended, but this is her first social visit to the café.
She shocks me all the more when she walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “We wait together,” she says staunchly. “Now, make me one of those cappuccinos I taught you to make.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I get up to make the drink, feeling a warmth in my chest even though the fear hasn’t eased. Because I really do feel like a part of this place. Enzo is too, but I’m worried he hasn’t realized it yet.
I tell Charlie as much later, at her house, and she gives me a long hug before saying, “This sounds ridiculous, but why don’t you tell him what you’re feeling in a letter? You don’t need to send it. You can give it to him when he comes home.”
“You’re brilliant,” I say.
“You won’t think so after you see the German shepherd. It looks like that ice sculpture of Nico.”
I smile, because the ice sculpture has melted slightly, making him look even more misshapen. Nico’s been complaining about it to anyone who will listen.
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating.”
“She’s not,” Lars says conversationally. He’s been sitting with us, good sport that he is, drinking some glogg. We all developed a fondness for it last weekend.
She nudges him with her shoulder, he kisses her head, and I ache inside.
I know this is my own doing. Enzo probably wouldn’t have accepted the interview if I hadn’t hounded him about it. But there’s a chance they won’t offer him the job, or he won’t accept, or even that they’d allow him to work remotely.
Except…how likely is that? The internet is hardly reliable here, and—
Don’t borrow trouble, I think to myself.
The next afternoon, Enzo calls my cell phone. The signal is patchy, so I call him back from the main line at the Sip.
“They want a follow-up interview tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll be home on Friday, Lucy. As soon as I can.”
The day before Christmas Eve. That’s cutting things close, especially since his grandmother already has big plans with Nico for the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
We’re all supposed to go. Even Charlie and Lars were invited, but Charlie’s parents are flying in from Asheville to meet his family, so they can’t come.
Eileen will be there for part of the evening, but I know she has at least a dozen invitations.
“Okay,” I say, hearing the choked sound of my voice. “Of course.”
“This is only about seeing what they offer, if anything, Lucia,” he says. “I’m coming home.”
Hearing him call it that—home—makes me hopeful. I want him to see it that way again.
I want to believe it can be true.