Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SOPHIE
Conversation with Unknown Number
Stop coming to The Ginger Station and asking about me.
Who are you?
None of your business.
You do NOT want to piss off Pat.
You’re right. I don’t.
“I’ll have the Silver Star IPA,” Briar says, twirling one of her long locks as she studies the menu. She and Hannah are sitting in one of the booths in my section at Buchanan Brewery. It’s Friday evening, and they’re both here for Rob’s show. It’s Briar’s usual night off, and Hannah’s playing hooky. Each of us are wearing our perfect red lipstick, chosen by Hannah.
“Seriously?” Hannah retorts, giving her the stink eye. “When in Buchanan…”
Briar shrugs. “If my dad found out I tried a Buchanan beer, he’d probably have a heart attack. I’m not ready to run the brewery yet.”
“Live a little,” Hannah says.
Briar glances around as if worried someone’s watching her and chronicling her choices. “Okay, maybe I’ll have a flight.”
“That’s the spirit.” Hannah claps her on the back. “I’ll have the same, and you can choose the beers for us, Mrs. and Mrs. Ginnis. These are your stomping grounds.” Her face puckers as if she’s been sucking lemons. “But no ginger beer.”
While Briar has accepted that GingerBeerBabe is obviously disinterested in being our friend, Hannah is adamant that the message I received from an unknown number could very well have been from Jonah himself. Or a friend of Jonah’s. She’s received a couple of texts that were obviously from Jonah in response to her STD posters. One of them said:
He does NOT have crabs. I know that for a fact.
Which she’d responded to by saying:
I never mentioned crabs specifically, how interesting.
I’m on the fence. Hannah’s right, but so is Briar. It’s perfectly likely that GingerBeerBabe knows all about Jonah’s cheating and still wants nothing to do with us. I mean, I get it. I’m a woman who’s tried to bury the past for over a decade. I understand if she’d prefer to be done with him and everything related to him. It’s her God-given right. But I’d still like to meet her, or at least have confirmation of her existence. Hannah and I started down this path last weekend, and turning back now would feel like giving up.
On her, I mean. I gave up on Jonah weeks ago.
He definitely does not seem to have given up on me yet.
He sent chocolates earlier this week, which were melted and infested with ants by the time I got home from work. Then last night, we came home to a flower arrangement, or at least that’s what Otis and I surmised. Some wild animal must have gotten at it after it was dropped off, leaving a trail of broken blooms and leaves across our front porch. All that was left was the mess and a chewed-up note. The only part that could be read said: nah.
It had felt like my bad luck was asserting itself. First there had been Great-Aunt Penny’s plate, cracked in half, and then this…
I’d admitted as much to Otis. But he’d laughed and said it seemed more like bad luck for Jonah than for us.
Of course, he wasn’t the one who’d cleaned it up.
As I head back to the bar to prepare my friends’ orders, I glance toward the closed-off brewing area. Dottie and her partner came tonight too, but her great nephew River, our head brewer, brought them into the back to try his new Kolsch beer, and they haven’t reappeared yet.
Otis would have come, but someone lost a rare albino pigeon and offered him—and presumably lots of other Honey Do employees—an obscene amount of money to try to catch “Fluffnut.”
“It’s just like what happened in Ace Ventura ,” he’d told me, excited.
He’s still thinking of quitting Honey Do, especially after we did the Myers-Briggs test yesterday and Dottie did a crystal reading for him. Both results were in agreement: he’d do well working with children. Otis was excited and full of ideas. Still, he prefers to drift into new directions rather than force a change, so I expect it will be a while before he does anything about it.
I get my friends their drinks, and the evening carries on with a buzz of activity until Rob and two other guys emerge from the back with some sound equipment and their instrument cases. One of the band members is tall with longish, wavy black hair and a port wine birthmark on his forehead, and the other has reddish-brown hair and bright-blue eyes. I saw their photos when I looked up his songs, so I know the black-haired guy is Travis and the other is Chance Bixby.
A fizzy, excited feeling rises up in me. Because I really, really want to hear Rob sing. These last few weeks, my emotions have been waging a war of highs and lows. I can no longer walk the tightrope I’d gotten so good at toeing across. Watching the wrong commercial can lead to tears or mood swings. Acts of kindness are Superman-killing kryptonite that can send me into a chorus of sobs. It’s like every emotion I’ve tried to suppress has come to the surface at once.
I wave at Rob, and when he sees me, he fumbles his guitar case, and Travis plows into his back.
Huh. That’s strange. He’s not usually clumsy.
I watch as the band members make their way toward the stage, people stopping them every couple of feet to say hello. Then Rob whispers something to them, sets his case down, and approaches the bar with a grin.
“We all came,” I announce proudly, gesturing to the corner booth where I left my friends. But the booth is empty, and now I look like a psychopath.
“Oh, is that your wife sitting over there?” he asks with a lopsided smile. “Give Mrs. Ginnis my best.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you? Hannah and Briar came, but they must have moved. Or maybe Dottie took them into the back.”
“More clandestine brewery missions?”
“No, Dottie’s family runs this place. That’s how I found this job.”
He smiles fondly. “Give her enough time, she’ll be running the whole city. She’s really something.”
“Maybe she should be in charge. Everyone would be a lot nicer.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You know how I feel about people who are always nice.”
“Yes, we’re terrible. We should all start pouring beer on people and then declaring the glasses half empty. Speaking of which, I owe you a drink,” I add excitedly, because I’ve spent the last few days testing out nonalcoholic cocktails. My boss tried a few and agreed it might be a good idea to add them to the menu. It had made me feel useful in a way I hadn’t since before my aunt left on her vacation.
Useful and creative.
“So you insisted the other day,” he says lightly, but I notice he’s giving me a funny look.
Suddenly self-conscious, I shift the skirt of my red dress with its pattern of golden stars. I’ve been wearing them lately. Dresses, I mean.
It’s a hot, humid summer, and normally I’d breeze through it in a series of different cutoffs or khaki shorts and T-shirts, but Hannah and Briar have convinced me to diversify.
I’ve enjoyed trying out new looks. Until recently, I’d never experimented with clothes, the same way I’d never learned much about lipstick. I grew up an only child, and when I was sixteen, I was sent to reform school. The other kids had scared me, mostly, and I’d made friends with the house mother—a forty-eight-year-old woman named Ruth who made elaborate craft projects with me for the other girls. They were about as appreciative as Rob was of that guitar strap.
Ruth was great, but she’d owned the same shirt in twenty colors and wore only blue jeans. She’d never taken me shopping or taught me about makeup, and the girls at school who cared about that kind of thing were frankly terrifying. So I’d never really learned what I did and didn’t like. I’d always been embarrassed to try. It would’ve seemed like I cared, and I’d learned that showing you cared was like throwing blood in the water.
Just ask poor Ruth. We’d spent hours creating handmade Christmas crackers for everyone my senior year, and one of the girls had thrown them into the indoor pool.
I told Hannah and Briar that story last week at a bar, although I described Rosewood Academy as a boarding school rather than reform school, and Hannah had put her drink down and said, “That’s it. We’re going shopping, right now. You don’t have to pretend not to care because you’re worried someone’s going to make fun of you or throw your clothes into the pool. If anyone tries to pull that nonsense, you make fun of them right back, until they cry.”
“I don’t think anyone would try to make fun of you,” Briar commented.
“Oh, they have,” she said with a half-smile.
“And they cried?” I guessed.
She shrugged. “Sometimes they did. Sometimes I did. But if I was the one who cried, my brother Liam would roll in, and he’d turn around and make them cry. So either way they learned a lesson. You don’t even want to know what happened to the kids who messed with our little brother. Now, we’re going to shop, and you’re going to get whatever the hell you want.”
So I went shopping with my friends, and they helped me pick out some clothes that I actually liked. It was fun. But now Rob’s giving me that inscrutable look, and I feel a prickling of the old self-consciousness. Did I overdo it? Do I look like one of those try-hard kids who got mocked mercilessly?
“Is it too fancy?” I ask. “I liked the color, but maybe it’s a bit much. I?—”
“Your dress looks good on you. Really good.”
Something inside me glows at the praise, because I know he’s a man who means what he says.
“Okay,” I say, grinning, then slap the bar with my palm. “So, I’ve been experimenting with NA drinks all week, and I’ve come up with a few options that are really good. Do you want something fruity, aromatic, or fresh?”
“You did that for me?” he asks, sounding alarmed. He runs a hand through his shaggy hair, and I watch his arm as the muscles bunch, my mouth going dry.
“Dylan, um, he thinks we can put them on the menu,” I stammer.
He gives a nod, followed by a smile that lights up his face, making those green-gold eyes crinkle at the edges. It feels like a metaphysical punch. “Surprise me, Not-So-Pollyanna. But I want it to be sweet.”
I huff a laugh, shaking my head. “Sure you do.”
“Heard anything more about your mystery?” he asks.
I tell him about the unknown-number messenger while I mix his drink. Then I pass it over the bar to him, our fingers brushing, and lean toward him in eagerness as I watch him sip.
I’ve never given it much thought, but there’s something sensual about a man drinking. My eyes track his Adam’s apple as he swallows the first taste.
“Well?” I ask. Conversation buzzes around the whole room and there’s a few muted thumps from his friends setting up on the stage, but my attention is firmly fixed on him.
“Terrible.” But his mouth is already twitching with a grin.
“ You’re terrible.”
“It’s delicious, Sophie Ginnis. It tastes like an Aperol spritzer.”
“Is it bad that it tastes like alcohol?” I ask, suddenly doubting myself. “I know, I mean, I guessed…”
“That I had an alcohol problem?” He gives me another half-smile. “I like the taste, but it’s not going to drive me to a liquor bottle. Jonah’s more likely to do that.”
“What did he do?” I ask, horrified. I can tell from Rob’s fixed jaw that Jonah definitely did something.
“I’m trying to become a foster parent,” he says, and if I’d been holding something, I would have dropped it. Rob, a foster parent?
“Yes, I know. It shocked me too.” He grins, shaking his head slightly. “But there’s this kid, Emil, who was in my music program?—”
“Music program?”
“Yeah,” he says, grabbing the lip of the bar and leaning in a little. I see more people coming up to the bar, and I realize there are a few waiting not so patiently. My boss gives me a strained look, followed by a thumbs-up. I’m pretty sure he’s just coddling me. Everyone at work has been so nice . They still don’t know the details of what happened with my engagement, but I suspect the gossip circuit has put forth some pretty creative ideas.
After word got around, Dylan took me aside and informed me they wouldn’t be using Jonah for distribution anymore, effective immediately. It wasn’t his call, but I know he petitioned the Buchanans, who own the brewery, on my behalf. Knowing Dottie, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d had a hand in it too.
I know I’m not pulling my weight tonight, and I feel a familiar thrum of guilt. Still. I really, really want to hear what Rob’s going to say.
“My job, you know?” he says.
“You have a job?” I gasp.
He laughs, strumming his fingers against the side of the wooden bar as if it’s a guitar. “What did you think I did?”
“You’re in a band.” I point to the stage, where Rob’s friends are still setting up. I guess he’s shirking his duty, too, but I can’t bring myself to say anything. I don’t want him to walk away.
“Yeah, but we only do a couple of shows a week. What did you think I did with my time?”
I feel my cheeks flush as I think of all the comments Jonah had made about his derelict brother who spent all day eating corn chips and jerking off, living off their father’s largesse. It obviously wasn’t true.
Well, the jerking off part could be true…
The thought of Rob touching himself, of his head tipping back with pleasure, sends a fresh rush of blood to my cheeks.
Rob swears under his breath, then touches my hand across the counter. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. No one in my dad’s family is impressed by me. Travis—” He points to the guy I’d already identified thanks to my internet stalking. “Travis is my best friend. Has been for a long time. He’s the one who came up with the idea. We run this after-school music program for middle school and high school kids. It’s for kids who want to play music but not the traditional stuff like symphonies performed with woodwinds. We do string instruments. Drums. Rock mostly. But we’ve been swayed into some Taylor Swift covers by a few of the girls.”
“That’s awesome,” I say, so bowled over I can barely summon the words. He works with children. He wants to be a foster parent.
This is Rob , the man who opened my heartfelt Christmas present and made a huh sound. How is this possible?
“I…” My throat feels tight suddenly. “I wanted to open an after-school craft business for kids. Younger kids, like elementary school. I had almost everything ready, but it fell through. The permits first, and then the friend who was supposed to run it with me dropped out, and then my great-aunt got sick.”
“I didn’t know that about you either,” he says, his eyes on mine. There’s something curious and warm in them, and I feel myself melting a little. There are tears pressing at my eyes, which is frankly horrifying.
“Jonah never said?”
“No, but we’re not exactly friends. Something like that would work in Asheville,” he adds, nodding confidently. “You can’t imagine how many requests we get from parents.” He pauses, taking me in. “You’d be good at that. Your relentless positivity would be a plus.”
My old dream tries to flicker to life inside of me, the image hazy. I attempt to shrug it off. “We’ll see. I’ve moved pretty far from that old dream.”
He glances down at his drink, his lips tipping up into a smile. Goodness. Has his smile always looked like that? It’s like it was hand-sculpted by a higher power to make women want him. Surely I would have noticed before…
I focus on the tiny mole to the right of his right eyebrow. At least then I won’t be fantasizing about what would happen if I leaned forward across the bar and?—
“I don’t know about that, Soph. Seems to me you invented a whole drink menu just because you thought I could do better than a soda. Those kids don’t know what’s coming for them.”
“Thank you,” I say, trying to swallow down the neediness that I hate.
It’s just…I want to be the woman he sees when he looks at me. The one who wishes on stars and reaches for her dreams. I am, sometimes, but I’m so afraid of failure. Of being punished.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and he lifts his eyebrows playfully, making me smile. “You were telling me about your job and I hijacked the conversation. I’d like to hear more.”
“Sure, I’ll talk about myself if you insist,” he responds with a knowing look. He understands I’m being emotional, and also that I don’t like it. “The kid I wanted to help, he’s so damn talented. His current foster dad made him drop out of our program, though, and he’s not allowed to practice at home, because the sound supposedly gives his foster mom headaches. Emil needs music, Sophie. I know because I did when I was his age. I could give him that, if I get to be his foster dad. But I don’t think my application is going to be approved. Jonah had some lady call and tell them I’m an alcoholic and a sex addict, and now my caseworker thinks the only way they’ll approve me is if I’m in a serious relationship.”
My mouth falls open in horror. “He did that?”
“Look at what he did to you. He sucks. He’s always sucked. The only reason I have anything to do with him is my dad, but to be honest, I feel pretty done with that whole side of my family. I’ve been thinking about taking a step back from them for a while now.”
“I’m going to help you,” I insist.
“By calling them up and telling them that I’m only a sex addict sometimes?”
“Are you?” I ask, biting my lower lip as I’m assailed by some very inappropriate thoughts. I see him noticing. I see him appreciating, and a shocking wave of heat swells through me.
This is what I felt the night of my wedding to myself. An attraction to Rob. It feels very real, but maybe it’s only transference. I thought I was in love with Jonah up until three weeks ago, and Rob looks a bit like Jonah— except ten times hotter , I hear Hannah say in my mind—so it’s natural I’d feel drawn to someone with a similar appearance. We’ve also been seeing each other a lot, and…
“Sorry,” I say, shaking off that train of thought. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have…”
I trail off as I notice a victorious gleam in his eyes and realize I’m arcing toward him, across the bar.
“You owe me some of those car cookies,” he says.
“They’re stale by now.”
Plus, Otis and I ate them all while watching Golden Girls reruns. It was Aunt Penny’s favorite show, and both of us used to complain about it, but I guess we kind of miss her, because we turned it on by mutual agreement.
“Maybe I like stale love cookies…"
Uh…what? Is he flirting?
I’m about to respond, but my words dry up, because Jonah just walked in through the front door. I haven’t seen him in person since that night at The Ginger Station, and now he’s here. Carrying a flipping boom box. Where did he even get it?