Chapter 14
14
Eleanor
The muggy afternoon heat blows a hot breath into Rita’s Diner every time the door opens. The other customers here give me loaded glances when they sit down to eat and again when they exit. Is it because I’ve taken up a booth for several hours with no signs of leaving? Or is it that I’m here with a computer and a coffee, disrupting the small-town Americana charm of this place with my electronics?
Maybe they’ve noticed how unpolished I am in my black leggings covered in cat hair and my gray tank with the tragic but faint coffee stain over my left boob. There was very little time for me to pack, and even less time to do laundry before this trip. The other patrons here have gotten ready like the day matters. I look like someone who has lost her purpose.
If that’s what they’re seeing in me, then they are right.
“Need anything else?” my server asks me. Denise, according to the name tag clipped onto her faded blue apron.
“A slice of the apple crumble, please,” I say.
“We don’t have apple crumble,” Denise tells me.
“Really?” I confirm, shocked by the casual way that Carson lied to me. Who lies about apple crumble? “Then the banana cream pie?”
Denise nods.
At least Tatum told me the truth about the desserts in Trove Hills. But I won’t mention her name here like she said to do. I can cover my own slice of pie. There’s no need for it to be on the house.
Denise heads behind the counter, and I return to my laptop. An email draft to Atlas Theatrical, Garber and Link’s main competitor, sits open on my screen. Basically any Broadway PR job that doesn’t go to Garber goes to Atlas. For as large as New York is, the theater scene is not very big in comparison. Working at Atlas would be easy and obvious. I know for a fact they’re in need of another upper-level press agent over there, and I’ve also known everyone on their team for years. We get along as well as I got along with my old colleagues, which is to say, we are perfectly cordial.
My email to Atlas sits with the appropriate address plugged in, the body already written. It’s the title that stops me from following through. The idea of my name appearing in their inbox with something like “Job Inquiry” as the subject feels like a betrayal of Garber and Link, knowing all the meetings I sat in on where Atlas was discussed at great length—the press opportunities they secured that we’d kept track of, finding their work to be insufficient, or the shows they’d gotten assigned to that were offered to us first. It’s not a flashy rivalry. Rivalry is too strong a word—it’s just a constant, competitive awareness of each other. Which is why it still feels disloyal somehow, trying to work for the other side. How I have any loyalty left for a place that fired me, I don’t know. It’s yet another piece of my life I have to unlearn.
Instead of emailing Atlas, I decide to log in to my Garber and Link work email one last time. Maybe it will help me let this go. I can see if anyone’s checked in on me, or if I’ve been accidentally bcc’d on any company-wide notifications about my dismissal.
If they’re rude about what happened, I can feel smug. If they’re sad, I can feel prideful.
My log-in fails. For some reason, I try again, like it’s a matter of faulty passwords. It fails again. It’s been two days, and they’ve already removed my account. When I check my phone notifications for the first time since last night, there are no new texts or DMs from coworkers or acquaintances. Anyone who reached out to me on day one to express their shock about my firing has already gone silent. They were only looking for gossip, and they’ve surely found it through other sources by now.
It’s over. Just like that. All the countless hours sacrificed to talking up rude producers, to finessing the wording to make boring show announcements sing, to battling with personal publicists over what their actors are willing to commit to in the name of promoting their latest theatrical endeavor, to every other thankless task I’ve taken on in my years at that job—none of it matters anymore. This isn’t even counting the endless hours I spent showing up to random events solely to keep friendly relations with other industry people, all in the name of making sure Garber and Link stayed on everyone’s radar.
This is the downside of being the person who does the most. I am the only one who understands exactly what I’ve sacrificed for my work.
I used to believe that knowing my own worth was enough. That I didn’t need it recognized or appreciated by anyone else. But this experience has shown me none of that was true. Now that I’m gone, I can see how long I’ve hoped for someone else to tell me that my work really does matter more than my personal life. That giving everything up is worth it.
The end, though, is just like the beginning and the middle.
There is only me.
Denise drops off my banana cream pie. I take one bite, sighing into the taste. It is good. Tatum was right. It’s creamy and sweet, with just the right amount of banana, and wafer crackers that have gone soft without getting soggy. Closing my eyes, I tilt my head back to think.
Within seconds, someone blocks my light, looming over me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, eyes still closed.
“How do you know it’s me?”
“You’re the only person I’ve met in this entire town,” I say. “Unless you told law enforcement I dared to break every rule by walking here, no one else would have a reason to get this close to me unprovoked.”
I open my eyes right as Carson slides into the booth across from me, taking my fork off the plate and having a bite of my pie. “I was on my way to the station to report you,” they say, chewing. “But I figured I should grab something to eat beforehand.”
“I don’t remember saying you could have some of my food,” I tell them. “And you lied, by the way. They don’t serve apple crumble here.”
“Did you ask Denise?” Carson holds the fork up, staring at me with hopeful eyes until I give a permissive nod. They take another bite of my pie. “Denise doesn’t like to give the crumble out to people she doesn’t know. That’s how good it is.”
“Yet another backward business model in Trove Hills. First there’s no walking, now no one here can enjoy the menu’s best options? I have to say, as someone who works in publicity, this is the worst way to make your town appeal to outsiders.”
“The Eleanor lore expands,” Carson says. “Publicity? That’s cool.”
“It was, until they fired me.”
“You got fired ? I know you said something about a new job earlier, but I assumed you quit and you were here in Trove Hills on some kind of exploratory small-town vacation before returning to your bustling big-city life. How are you not the one who does the firing wherever you worked?”
“Are you about to tell me I have firing energy?”
They swallow back their words.
“You paint such a lovely picture of me,” I say. It’s a joke, of course. These are all jokes. I can dish it out as much as I can take it. So I’m not sure why an edge of truth cuts into my intended playfulness.
“I was just trying to make you laugh,” they say. “I like it when you smile. Feels like winning a carnival prize.”
They have a way of finding the right thing to say that turns me from defensive to impressed. It’s an unfamiliar problem. Most of the time I spend with people I’m sleeping with involves me actively ignoring my own standards in the name of keeping the situation afloat.
With Carson, it’s a matter of finding their weakness. There must be something unappealing about them, some way they would pull up short that would remind me there’s no point in letting them occupy any of my idle thoughts. Anything other than the obvious fact that they live here, in Trove Hills, and I live in New York City.
Once I fix my ignorance on the subject—the subject being Carson—my personal interest will disintegrate, and I will be left with only physical attraction, which is much more manageable.
“What do you do?” I ask. “I’m quite light on the Carson lore myself.”
“I do a lot of things,” they tell me. They take a sugar packet and rip it open, pouring the contents onto the table. “I build furniture, but that’s not consistent. I only make things when people ask.” They pause, staring at me.
“I have no plans to expand my furniture collection at the moment,” I say.
“That’s what you think now. But you’re going to get home and realize you’ve always wanted a credenza , and next thing l know I’m spending my every waking hour carving tree details into cabinets for you.”
“Who says I want trees?”
“I remember the way you touched my tattoo.”
“Maybe that had more to do with the subject than the art,” I say. It’s supposed to be my defense, but it’s really a compliment, and Carson takes it in with visible pleasure.
Their ego could be off-putting, but that’s never been a turnoff for me. I like when people know their value.
“How are you surviving on building a few tables a year?” I ask.
“I told you. I do many things.” They take their pointer finger and begin to rearrange the granules on the table, shaping the pile of sugar into some kind of art. “I’ve been commissioned to do some of the murals you can find around town. If you want to see my work, I painted the side of a shop that’s down the street from here. They asked me to do a gigantic sentient doughnut.”
“Should I credit you with the nightmares it might give me?” I ask.
“Believe me, it wasn’t my idea. But I still think I made the prompt work. You’ll have to tell me if you agree.”
“If anyone could sell me on a sentient doughnut, it’s probably you.”
They smile. “Luckily, that job led to the park district’s reaching out about doing a town-themed mural for their lobby. They’re in the process of a whole revamp over there. It’s still in the early stages, and it could definitely fall through.”
“How does a park district go about revamping?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“Well, our new mayor has kick-started this whole movement around putting emphasis on what makes Trove Hills so special. He wants to highlight local talent, and if you can believe it, he even wants to put an emphasis on the arts.”
I gasp in performed shock, even though it is an actual surprise to know they might care about art. A good surprise.
“I know,” Carson says. “Supporting creativity? Who could believe it? The park district even secured funds to restart our community theater. They could probably use somebody like you to help with that. You know, get the word out.”
“Oh, really?” I say. “Not to fire people?”
“ Anyway ,” they say pointedly. “If I had to sum it up, I’d say I’m this town’s Swiss Army knife of building and crafting.”
“That explains the glitter.”
“I was making something for Brother Ben.”
“With glitter?”
“It’s a surprisingly versatile substance.”
“That wasn’t a judgment,” I say. “Sorry. That came off too harsh. Like, say, a person who fires other people for a living.”
Carson grins. “I’m very sorry about the firing comment. I see now that you would never fire someone. They would fire themselves, because they’d realize you are infinitely better at everything than they are.”
“Correct,” I say.
“I made Ben a snow globe of Trove Hills. My parents fucking love snow globes. We all get one every year for Christmas. I figured making Ben his own was a fitting way to initiate him into the Ward clan, even in July.”
“That’s very cute.”
“Yes,” Carson confirms. “Downright adorable. I used cardboard to cut out an outline of the main street. I spent a few days painting it, making little replicas of places like Rita’s and the doughnut shop. Had to get my own work in there, of course. Then I put the models inside a real glass globe. My biggest mistake. I should’ve used plastic. Or I shouldn’t have used glitter for the snow. When I finished, it looked super fucking cool, though. I was driving over to my parents’ house to drop it off before the big first meeting. It broke in the car. Glitter everywhere. You can’t believe how much.”
“I believe it,” I say, last night once again leaping to the forefront of my mind.
“Denise,” Carson calls out, keeping their eyes on me as they do it.
Denise appears at the table. “You can’t have any more of our old plates. We’re out.” For as blunt as she is to Carson, it also seems familiar. Like how you’d pester a sibling. “And please tell me you plan to clean up after yourself with that.” Denise points to the table, where Carson has dumped out yet another packet of sugar.
“Lucky for you, I don’t need any plates today,” they tell her. “I heard you told my Eleanor that you don’t serve apple crumble here. You and I both know that isn’t true, don’t we?”
My Eleanor is a slip of tongue. I do my best to ignore it, as does every other party in the conversation.
“We don’t have any right now,” Denise maintains.
Carson rises from their side of the booth. “You’re telling me if I walk into the back and I open up the freezer, I won’t find an entire apple crumble in there?” They’re already heading toward the kitchen.
Denise follows at a frustrated clip. “You better not. Customers are not allowed back there!”
Carson breaks into a run. Denise does too.
“Eleanor’s worthy of the crumble! I’m willing to risk my role in this establishment to get it for her.” Carson slides across the counter that separates the customers from the employees. It’s so smooth it looks choreographed.
Denise looks back at my table with unguarded disdain. “You should’ve told me you know a Ward.”
“I know Tatum too,” I say, having fun with this game.
Her face falls. “You’re the one who’s staying in her place.”
“Eleanor,” I offer.
“Why didn’t you mention that? I wouldn’t have put the pie into the system. It would’ve been on me.”
“Tatum told me you’d do that,” I say. “But I don’t need any free pie. I’m happy to pay.”
Carson returns from the freezer, breathless, holding an entire apple crumble. “Where do I heat this up?”
“None of the cooks stopped you?” Denise asks.
“I cannot confirm or deny the involvement of the cooks.”
“Do you really want a piece of the crumble?” Denise asks me.
“I think I have to have it now,” I tell her.
With an eye roll, she takes the dish from Carson. “This will be on the house. But not because of this one. I need to heat it up. Sit tight.”
When she’s gone, I lean in. “What did you do to that woman?”
Carson sits again, returning to their sugar packet creation. “Nothing,” they say. It’s a blameless tone, not at all playful.
“That can’t be possible. She reacts to you like you once toilet-papered her house.”
“Maybe I should. Kind of weird to do as an adult. I could pass it off as an art installation, though. That’s what the plates were for. I was trying to do something about how diner food is the backbone of our society. It didn’t really work.”
“You’re deflecting.”
Carson looks up. “I thought I was the one who gives risky observations around here.”
“That’s also a deflection.”
They lean back, studying the walls behind me. “Can I tell you something honest?”
My instinct to keep it witty doesn’t match the moment, so I shift to genuine. “Yes.”
“Some of the Trove Hillians, love them though I do, don’t totally know what to do with me,” Carson explains. “Which is fine. I don’t know what to do with them either. I can’t relate to being a fifty-three-year-old mother of four who has been married to a pipefitter named Ted for thirty-one years, and Denise can’t relate to being a thirty-four-year-old genderqueer artist whose most serious relationship lasted four months and involved a custody battle over a gecko.”
This gets a belly laugh from me, which incites another glare from Denise as she stands in front of the microwave.
“I think Denise treats me like this because it’s easier than admitting that she doesn’t understand me,” Carson continues. “She doesn’t understand what it means to be nonbinary, though she and everyone in Trove Hills has been very nice about it, all things considered. No one understands my job, though I’m the first person they call when they want to get someone a unique birthday gift or they need, say, a sentient doughnut on the side of their building. They’re in this state of perpetual confusion when it comes to me. For people like Denise, it shows up as annoyance.”
“Why do you stay here, then?” I ask.
“Because I like it,” they say insistently. “People like to think I’m a fan of complicating things. They see some of my personal art pieces and think it’s more proof that I try to make the world as muddled and glittery and weird as possible. And really, it’s the opposite. My art is where I’m trying to iron things out. Put a name to a feeling, or sometimes just put a feeling to rest. Get a thought out of my brain and onto something else.”
They gesture to the view of the town beyond the window. “When it comes to Trove Hills, it’s a place that has always made sense to me. It’s small, and cozy, and just far enough removed from Chicago to feel like it’s somewhere different, but close enough to have access to interesting, big-city things. I make sense to me here, because this is where I’ve always been, and I’m quite fond of who I’ve become.”
“I get it,” I say, meaning it. “And for what it’s worth, you make sense to me too.” Their cheeks redden, and they lose track of whatever they’re doing with their sugar packet creation. “My god, have I done it?” I say. “Have I made you blush?”
They clear their throat. “God no. Sorry. I was remembering how hot the water was yesterday.”
I blush too, heat rushing into my face so quickly that my ears burn. “It was a nice shower.”
“A very nice shower,” they confirm.
This is my favorite kind of flirting. Fun, risky, a little unfamiliar. In general, I don’t flirt beyond the first interaction with someone. There is no need to keep it going once we figure out what our situation is going to be. Carson and I figured that out this morning, so I don’t know why I’m trying to out-charm them still, as if we haven’t already crossed the barrier between us and gotten physical. I’m acting like I still have something to prove.
“How was time with your brother?” I ask.
“He’s really nice,” Carson tells me. “His wife is very cool too.” They pause, slowing. “It makes me sad that Tatum is missing this. She’d like him too, if she gave him a chance.”
Carson’s continued vulnerability catches me by surprise. My instincts to banter have to be continuously rerouted, honoring the spirit of this conversation. “What do you miss about her?”
Carson goes on to describe their sister in such generous terms that all I can do is put my face on my hand and lean forward to listen. They’re not always kind. In fact at least a minute of their discussion gets dedicated to how annoying Tatum can be, explaining how stubborn she is without realizing she’s stubborn. But the love still shines through all of it. And that’s what I appreciate. How much they love their sister while still being acutely aware of her faults.
“Do you have any siblings?” Carson asks me.
“Nope. Just me, myself, and I.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” Carson warns. “Your parents could very well have a secret love child appear at any moment.”
“My parents are currently dead, so any connection to love children will have to happen through me. I’ve yet to take any genetic tests, so all mysterious Eleanor Chapman relatives will be dying before they ever learn about our relation to one another.”
Denise appears with a slice of apple crumble. “If it’s not good, blame this one.” Her eyes narrow on Carson. “It hasn’t been properly thawed out. I don’t know if the microwave reheat process has been as effective as it could be.” She sets the plate down and leaves us, and silence blankets the moment.
“It’s okay,” I say to Carson preemptively. “You don’t have to go through any of the pleasantries. It happened fourteen years ago. I promise I’ve heard them all by now, and I know your heart is in the right place.”
“I’d still like to say something, if that’s okay,” Carson tells me. They do go through the usual fare, albeit with a sincerity that does stir something deep inside me. Then they stop, and they put a hand on mine across the table. “I’m glad they made you.”
To my embarrassment, tears leap into my eyes, so fast acting I have no time to stop them or deny their existence. “Well, thank you,” I say, wiping them away. “Now, stop being nice to me. I need to have some apple crumble.”
“I’ll stop, only if you promise me one thing,” Carson says. “Come to the family picnic on Tuesday.”
I swallow hard, pushing down the last wave of my tears until I’m back to my usual self. “Don’t the people in your family have to work?”
“Ben is a teacher, so he has the whole summer wide open. My job is on a case-by-case basis, as you now know. A lot of my aunts and uncles are of a retirement age. And Dad had everyone else take the week off,” Carson answers. “By the way, the family was asking about you after you left. Even one of my aunts who only saw you for a second. She was like, ‘Who was that knockout?’ I said, ‘Oh, the woman daring to walk in Trove Hills? Is she out of her mind? Does she want to get arrested?’?”
“I’d only believe that she thought I was off to run an HR mediation over someone’s employment status. Maybe audit strangers’ taxes for sport. Certainly nothing complimentary was said.”
“Okay, fine,” Carson says. “My aunt didn’t say anything. But Brother Ben really did ask about you after you left.”
“Was it just to make sure I wasn’t another one of his long-lost sisters?”
“He could definitely tell that you’re not my sister, Eleanor.”
The way Carson says it, so matter of fact, sends my thoughts once again to their mouth on me. It feels a bit like I’m back there, powerless to their ways.
“I know you don’t want to be thrown into this whole affair, but the picnic should be a pretty casual event,” they tell me. “Definitely more casual than the dinner I’m supposed to be at right now. My dad rented out a banquet hall.”
“I noticed you looked nice,” I say.
This makes Carson smirk. “And yet I’ve received no compliments?”
“You don’t need me to tell you that you look good.”
They put their hand on their chest in performative shock. “Of course I do. How else will I go about the rest of my night without you?”
I return their playful look until the joking crystallizes into something deeper. Something real.
“I’ll go to the picnic,” I say, taking a bite of apple crumble to break the pressure of our gaze. It’s every bit as divine as Carson said it would be. “Now, leave me be.”
“I will.” Carson stands up, pleased. After taking a couple of steps, they backpedal, remembering something. “I won’t be able to stop by the cottage later. I have to pick up my sister, Laney, at an ungodly hour. But I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
“Sounds good,” I tell them. “You know where I’ll be.”
They leave me alone in the booth to enjoy the apple crumble. And suddenly, it’s not as enjoyable anymore, being here by myself.
Suddenly, I’m wishing they’d invited me to the banquet.
It’s only later, when I’m standing up to leave, looking back at the table one last time to make sure nothing’s been left behind, that I see what they’ve created with the sugar packets—a portrait of me with my eyes closed, head tilted back toward the ceiling. I look peaceful, somehow. Content. Not at all like the image of me I see in my own mind. And even though it’s just sugar—a quick sketch they’ve done to pass the time here—I like the way they’ve captured me.