The Usual Family Mayhem

Chapter Twenty-Four

I filled Gram and Celia in on Harlan’s political aspirations for Jackson the next morning over peach scones. We sat in the formal dining room, sipping our preferred morning beverages, and neither of them showed even a twinge of surprise about my intel.

“You knew.”

My real complaint was that they knew and didn’t tell me. We talked at least every Sunday and texted nearly every day and they never dropped this big piece of juicy gossip.

“Of course, dear.”

Gram sounded surprised that I was surprised.

Celia sipped on her coffee. “Harlan hasn’t been subtle. He’s been all over Jackson, trying to wear down his resistance while building him up as a possible candidate to potential financial backers across the state.”

Gram responded with her famous pfft. “He’s also been working Celia to get her to side with him and put additional pressure on Jackson.”

“That’s not . . .”

Celia sighed. “Okay, it’s true, but Harlan hasn’t been successful. I support Jackson and whatever he wants to do. I’d prefer his goal not be politics, but that has to be his choice.”

“That’s why Harlan has been sneaking in here and bugging you.”

An interesting and annoying tactic, so exactly what I’d expect from Harlan.

Gram shot me her confidence-destroying I’m-on-to-you grandma look. “You think he’s the one sneaking around here?”

An unexpected shot across the bow. Gram had been holding that in and now she launched it when I had nowhere to hide.

Do not take the bait. Do not take the bait. Do not . . . “Are you saying I have been?”

Celia put her coffee mug down as if she needed all of her strength for whatever bit of wisdom was about to come out of her mouth. “Honey, we know something is going on.”

Another opportunity to come clean came . . . and went.

I switch to stall mode. “What do you mean? What kind of something?”

Gram snorted. “You tell us.”

“The surprise two-week vacation.”

Celia looked at Gram before continuing. “You’ve danced around questions and given half answers, but did you get fired? It’s okay if you did, but not telling us makes it hard for us to know how to help you.”

“I have not been fired.”

Yet. It was coming but right at this moment I was not overtly lying. To my knowledge.

Gram and Celia did that mutual staring thing. I wasn’t always the subject of their unspoken communication, but this time I was. No question.

Gram was the first to use actual words. “Maybe not fired, but not nothing. Your visit with only two days’ notice is not a leisure trip.”

She always knew when I hedged and then pulled the truth out of me. That history chipped away at my resolve. I still hadn’t told them about the pitch and the lying and Brock for many reasons but mostly because I didn’t want them to be disappointed in me. I’d had so many restarts and do-overs. I needed them to think I was capable. Not a burden.

Jackson would tell me to spit it out. Come clean.

So, it was good he wasn’t here today.

Not that he was wrong. He wasn’t. I knew the right thing to do. The expedient and mature thing to do. But—and this was a big “but”—if I did come clean Gram and Celia would see me as someone they needed to educate and save. Worse, to protect.

With the poison question hanging out there, I needed them to see me as competent and able to handle difficult news. As an ally. For me to help, they needed to share. I toyed with negotiating a communications truce—they tell me their secret and I would divulge mine. If only I knew how to do that without having one overtake the other.

I needed advice from Jackson but the uncertainty with him on a personal level had me floundering. Him, us, the dinners, his comments . . . it was a whole messy and confusing thing. As if I needed one more unexpected twist in my life.

I stopped my mental wanderings long enough to focus. Celia and Gram continued to look at me. None of us had talked for a few minutes. That made me think I’d missed something. Maybe I’d blacked out in panic and didn’t hear whatever else they said.

I smiled.

They didn’t smile back.

Panic flooded through me. I had to do or say something. Straight-out lying exhausted me. Also made me feel shitty.

“Things are up in the air right now. I hate my job. I’m not sure I like DC. I’m rudderless and it’s very frustrating.”

I didn’t intend to verbally vomit the truth—a truth but not the truth they were searching for—all over my loved ones. But none of what I did manage to spit out was a lie.

My tenuous employment might be ending soon, whether or not I wanted that to happen. But between the poison and Jackson, I had enough questions to dump them in a pile and build a wall around the house.

“Take all the time you need,”

Celia said.

Gram snorted, earning a side-eye from Celia.

“We’re here for you.”

Celia smiled at me. “Always. No matter what has happened or what you’ve done, you just need to tell us.”

Every word made it harder to carry on with the lie of omission. They were wearing me down, those adorable evil geniuses. “What if I said—”

A beeping noise interrupted my near-confession.

“Sorry. I set an alarm.”

Celia took out her cell phone and put it on the dining room table. “We need to make desserts for the film festival’s pre-event party.”

The RiverRun International Film Festival. Ten days of screenings and talks. It kicked off with this pre-festival party thrown by the organizers for volunteers and town bigwigs. Having a regional movie festival in town was pretty cool. It had been around for nearly three decades, but this early party was new and a good gig for Mags’ Desserts.

“No cupcakes or cake of any kind. Cherry, apple, and peanut butter pie in copious amounts,”

I said. All three sounded delicious. While cupcakes were my favorite Gram-made dessert, the pies were the shop’s staple and quite delicious.

Gram frowned. “What?”

A question I could honestly answer. Finally. “Those are the pies that were ordered for the event.”

“How do you know that?”

Celia asked.

“The information was on one of those sticky notes in the office.”

That set off a new round of Gram-to-Celia glances and I was about done with those.

“And you remember which pies were for which event?”

Gram sounded skeptical.

“Let’s not act like I don’t collect all relevant dessert information whenever possible. But yeah. You have six substantial orders for big-ticket special events this week plus orders via the website and your usual deliveries to restaurants and regular customers.”

That sounded big. Not NOI-wants-to-sell-you big but enough to grab Micah’s attention. Unfortunately.

Celia made a humming sound. “Impressive memory.”

Was it? I’d never had trouble memorizing things. It tended to happen when I wasn’t even trying. Give me a list of things and I’d remember it for days. “I’m not totally useless.”

Gram nodded. “Clearly not.”

“We never thought so,”

Celia said at the same time. “In fact, with your organizational skills and memory skills there’s always a place for you around here.”

Every word stabbed into me. She was offering me more business responsibility while I was putting them in the headlights of people who wanted to buy all their hard work.

That’s it. I needed Jackson’s advice. It would come with a lecture and step-by-step instructions on how to do what I should have done more than a week ago. I’d at least have a little help . . . and the fact I had a new reason to see him so soon after our dinner didn’t suck.

Having a plan should have given me confidence. Not yet, but I hoped it was coming.