Chapter 21
Paige moved quickly behind the counter of Tidal Wave Coffee, mixing up a caramel macchiato. Her mind was buzzing with everything that she had been thinking about the past few days—the upcoming party, her scholarship, and especially the way it felt too hard to tell Josie how she was really feeling.
She frowned, abandoning her usually on-point customer service smile. She was struggling with growing misgivings about accepting the scholarship. She knew it was an honor, but it wasn’t an honor she actually wanted. She couldn’t stop thinking about Flourish Baking School, and all of the things that she wanted to learn there. The charming, cozy school had captured her imagination. She kept finding herself daydreaming about going there and being one of the students working in the classrooms.
And it’s more than that,she thought as she handed the customer her caramel macchiato. I love it here, in Blueberry Bay. I feel like I’m falling more and more in love with this town every day.
She bit her lip, leaning against the counter while she waited for another customer to arrive. She also loved her sister, and they were still exploring their new relationship after having spent years apart. She hated to leave right after she’d found Josie. For so many reasons, she wanted to stay as close as possible to Blueberry Bay forever.
“Hey, Paige!”
She looked up and was greeted by the beaming face of Sandy Ryan. Her friend Tommy’s adopted mother was now very pregnant and had flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. Paige offered her a genuine smile, since she was always happy to see the kind older woman.
“Hey, Mrs. Ryan, what can I get for you?”
“Would it be possible to get a Frappuccino, but with decaf coffee?” Sandy asked, frowning a little in uncertainty.
Paige laughed. “Absolutely.”
“Oh, thank goodness! I’ve been craving one since yesterday.”
The teenager grinned at her and set to work on the drink right away. “Happy to help you get what you need,” she said, but the moment the words were out of her mouth her face fell. She wished getting her own needs was as easy as stepping up to a counter and ordering a drink.
Sandy stepped forward, seeming to notice Paige’s troubled expression. “Is everything all right, Paige?”
Paige looked up. She considered just telling Sandy that everything was fine, and she was just tired—but as the mom of one of her best friends, Sandy knew her pretty well. Paige wasn’t sure if she’d be able to hide anything from her.
In that moment, she decided to tell Sandy how she was really feeling—something that she hadn’t said to anyone yet. Even Rita, who knew she wanted to go to Flourish Baking School, didn’t know the whole story.
“I—oh, Sandy, I don’t know what to do.” All at once she started to blink back tears as her confusion and frustration started to pour out of her in a rush. She hadn’t meant for her composure to crack like that, but she couldn’t seem to keep the tears from welling up in her eyes.
“Honey, come here,” Sandy urged her, gesturing for Paige to come out from behind the counter. She opened her arms up for a hug, and Paige obeyed, stepping out into the main part of the coffee shop so Sandy could fold her into an embrace. “What don’t you know what to do about?”
Paige shook her head. Now that the tears had started, she was finding it hard to stop them. She’d been pushing back her emotions for weeks, and now her emotions were determined to be released.
“Come on over here and sit down with me,” Sandy insisted, gently leading Paige over to a table and chairs near the counter. No one was working or reading in the coffee shop just then, and Paige was grateful that they had a little privacy. Sandy tapped the teenager’s shoulders, urging her to sit down in one of the chairs, and once she’d done so, Sandy grabbed a tissue from a miniature tissue pack inside her purse. “I have these ready,” the older woman said, laughing. “I’ve been doing a lot of crying while pregnant. It’s the hormones.”
Paige offered her a watery smile and accepted the tissue gratefully. She dabbed her eyes carefully, and then Sandy asked her again what was wrong.
Paige took a shaky breath, wondering where to begin. “You know I got that scholarship, right?”
“Yes!” Sandy reached out and squeezed the teenager’s hand. “Did something go wrong? Did you lose it?”
Paige shook her head. “It’s—well, the truth is that I don’t want to go to college.” Once the words had left her mouth, her heart felt lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from her. “I don’t want to leave Blueberry Bay. And now there’s something else. There’s a baking school in Providence—Flourish Baking School—and I toured it and I love it so much—but I can’t give up this scholarship, can I? Everyone will be so disappointed in me. Especially Josie. She’s so excited about that scholarship—she’s planning a huge party and everything. She’s so proud of me. I don’t know how I could let her down like that.” The words spilled out of her in a rush. Sandy listened intently and sympathetically, her eyes widened slightly in surprise.
“I know it’s hard, sweetie,” the older woman said gently, squeezing the teenager’s hand again. “But honesty is the best policy. It’s better to hurt a person’s feelings temporarily than go down a path that you don’t feel called to. Josie’s feelings aren’t more important than your future. And I can promise you that she agrees with me on that.”
Paige swallowed. “But it’s complicated, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it is, but it’s still your decision to make. You shouldn’t be making it to please someone else. Remember what Marsha Dunlap did? I know Tommy said you two talked about the story of her and Willis being sweethearts in the past.”
Paige nodded. She thought it was a very sad story—she liked Willis very much, and if she’d had a time machine, she would have gone back in time and given Marsha’s mother a good talking-to.
“And I know this probably doesn’t feel like the same kind of thing, because Josie isn’t trying to make you feel guilty. But Marsha gave up on her dreams in order to give her mother what she wanted. And that wasn’t fair. She wanted to stay with Willis, and she lost a future that she could have had.”
“But—I mean, college isn’t even as serious as being in love.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Education is a gateway to the future. I mean, you’d get an education both ways—at college, or at this baking school. But it sounds like the baking school is the best option for what you really want to do, which is be an incredible baker. Well, even better than you are already.” She winked at Paige. “It’s important to make the choice now that you think is going to lead you to the future you want for yourself. You don’t want to have regrets. I’m sure poor Marsha does.”
Paige nodded, her mind more on Willis and Marsha at the moment than on her own troubles. “Do you think the two of them will get back together?” she asked, smiling a little at the thought.
“I hope so.” Sandy drew in a breath and let it out in a dreamy sigh. “They look so cute together in that photograph. Hannah was telling me all about how Willis was staring at her on the cruise ship, when they met each other again after all those years. I hope they give it a shot.”
“Me too,” Paige said. “It would be really sweet if Marsha’s past mistake could be fixed like that.”
Sandy nodded. “But you haven’t made a mistake. Not yet. And you’re right that the situation is complicated, and I’m confident you’ll be successful no matter what path you choose. But you need to not make a decision that you feel is a mistake, especially if you’re doing that for someone else. You know what I mean?”
“Yes, I do.”
“So.” Sandy placed both her palms down on the table and looked Paige right in the eye. “You need to be honest with your sister.”
Paige nodded, but inside, her heart was sinking. She knew she was going to have a really hard time doing that.