Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
TINSLEY
S ince coming to Butterbury, I’ve learned several things. I have a knack for baking and decorating cupcakes. After multiple false starts including a baking powder and baking soda mix-up, rock-hard scones, and cookies that spread to fill the entire pan, instead of throwing in the dishtowel, I decided it was time to focus, to up my game.
Oh, and let’s not forget how I almost burned the place down. My repeated failures lit a fire under my butt, no pun intended. I became determined to get really good at baking.
I’ve even impressed Rhondy with my cupcakes, which says a lot if you ask anyone in Butterbury. They even have their own shelf in the display case.
Today’s flavors include vanilla, double chocolate, chocolate and vanilla twist, and my personal favorite, strawberry lemon. My frosting is the real icing on the, er, cake. It’s smooth and silky whipped buttercream in the French style. Who knew I absorbed anything from my time overseas other than living that luxe life with the credit card bills to prove it?
Tammy, Bubba’s wife, also gave me a T-shirt that has a honey bee on it and says “Bee-utiful.” Until recently, I’d never have worn something like that, but I change into it before I head over there for lunch and before my last day of community service.
Speaking of, I’ve learned how to tear up floors, install new ones, and paint a ceiling. It’s not as easy as it looks. I’m definitely not ready to become a member of the Designed to Last crew, but I hold my own on the jobsite.
After I hang up my apron, I update Camellia on the morning and that we’re out of sunrise muffins. Of all the ladybosses, she and I have become the closest, but I can’t deny that Mae and I are officially friends. She had me over the other day, showed me around the farm, and I spent time with the baby so she could shower. We even folded laundry together and if that doesn’t spell friendship, I don’t know what does.
I hurry over to the boutique to pick up Brave before Tammy gets here. Louella Belle rearranges a shelf and Christina clicks away on the computer.
Brave perks up when the bells on the door jingle and his tail wags when he sees that it’s me.
“Who’s a good puppy sweet boy? Who does mommy love so much?” I ask in a baby voice while giving him good pets and nuzzles.
Louella Belle laughs. “You sound like Christina with Gremlin. Remember when you thought he was going to kill you?”
“Gremlin wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Christina scoffs.
“Yes, but when we went to Buck’s for the first time and—”
Christina’s eyes widen as if reliving the memory. “Of course, I remember. I also thought we were going to get hacked to pieces in the woods.”
“Our @DomesticDiva has changed a lot,” Louella Belle says.
“She’s not the only one. I hardly recognize Tinsley in her T-shirt,” Christina says.
“It’s cah-yute!” Louella Belle says, taking a look.
“Tammy got it for me.”
“I have to give you credit for spending time with Mrs. Baskin.” Louella Belle shivers.
“You mean Beatrice?”
“When I was a kid, she terrified me. Still does. I can’t believe she lets you call her Beatrice.”
“Her typical stern expression is a bit intimidating, but she’s as gentle as a honey bee.”
The ladybosses laugh.
“Do you hear yourself?” Christina asks.
“More importantly, have you looked in the mirror lately? I think she’s one of us.” Louella Belle slings her arm across my shoulders and smiles warmly.
I glance at the full-length mirror by the clothing display, wondering what they mean.
My hair is in a ponytail. I’m wearing a modest amount of makeup for a more natural look, and I have the T-shirt on. I guess I look more like a local than a trend-setting socialite who flies all over the world on the private jets of her rich and famous friends.
For a hot minute, I miss that life and the glamour, but these friendships seem to be made of more than passing trends and fleeting moments. And what I have with Aiden fills every hole in my life, my heart, and my world when he allowed me to love him.
All along, I wanted attention and sought validation when getting to the top wasn’t a climb at all. More like a falling...a falling in love.
I guess I have changed. “Do you mean I fit in here?”
“Sure, though you and Christina set the bar pretty high. I can’t just show up to work in a tank top and cutoffs,” Louella Belle says.
We both squint at her.
She looks down at her outfit. “Oh, right. I guess that is what I’m wearing.”
“What we mean is you’re like us because you’re in love,” Christina singsongs the last part at the same time as two of Tammy and Bubba’s kids bust through the door and rush over to Brave.
He’s equally happy to see them. The dog lives for attention. Sounds kind of familiar. At least it used to be true about me. Okay, who am I kidding, I’m definitely still an extrovert, but I also enjoy time alone now. The old me couldn’t spend a second by herself. I always had to be with people or plugged into my social media.
Before the ladybosses can grill me about being in love, I say goodbye and meet Tammy. She and I gab the entire way to her house. She mostly gushes about how lately Bubba comes home a new man. “He no longer slogs through the day at work. Don’t get me wrong, he loves his job.”
“And we love his ribs,” one of the kids says from the back of the minivan.
“Can we have wings for lunch?” another asks.
Tammy answers that they’re having sandwiches with Gramma before she continues. “But every day, something at the restaurant would break or go wrong, taking time away from cooking, smoking the meats, or giving his customers the family-style dining experience the BBQ joint had been known for. Quite honestly, he was in over his head.”
“I’m glad to hear my getting arrested and assigned community service helped,” I say with a laugh.
“I remember when Bubba came home that first day. He said you were like a deer in headlights. He didn’t think you’d survive the week,” she says with a warm laugh.
“And here we are. The project is just about done.”
“Thanks for helping, truly. I don’t just mean with Bubba. Beatrice missed those bees. Without someone to take over for her, I guess she gave up.”
Unlike when I’d audition for a role, play an extra in a movie, or show up at an event all gussied up, a great sense of meaning fills me because I realize I get by living and giving. This is my life and not a performance or film set.
“I’m happy to help,” I say and mean it. Even if it took me losing everything, I’ve gained so much. A sense of purpose, humility matched with pride, and relationships with people who aren’t gauging what they can get from me in terms of popularity—or vice versa. It’s refreshing. It’s real.
After we have lunch, Beatrice and I sit in the rocking chairs on her low front porch. She has arthritis and doesn’t get around much, but knows more about bees, their life cycle, honey production, and troubleshooting than I’ve found online or in books. I fill a binder with notes.
“I always wanted to produce enough honey to provide to Bubba’s, but also jar and sell. Never got around to it. I even made up a design for a label. Let me go find it.” With great effort, Beatrice gets up from her chair and goes inside.
Brave plays on the lawn with the family dog when the kids come out and turn on the sprinkler. They run through it and squeal with delight. Brave jumps and tries to bite the spray of water.
The screen door opens and closes. Beatrice chuckles. “They’re such a delight. But you’ve been smiling since you got here. I know that look. Been a while since I wore it. My Bubba, not my son, and I met at a barn dance in Texas.”
“In Texas?” I ask, my voice lifting a few octaves. “That’s where my mother was from. We visited my grandparents there once. Don’t know the name of the town though.” I should call my mother and ask, but I can’t remember the last time we spoke.
She pats my knee, acknowledging my comment. When I don’t say more, she continues her story, “He was there with his father, uncles, brothers, a whole crew. Us girls were from a small town nearby and having an influx of handsome young men was like Christmas morning. Bubba asked me to dance that night. I fell in love with him the next day when he bought me a soda. At the time, I had a suitor. He was a bit of a bully and would do things like bump into me so I spilled my soda then make a fuss about how it was an accident then try to help clean me up.” She rolls her eyes.
“Sounds like a backward way to get a girl to like you.”
“Oh, Benjamin Bullock was as backward as they come. He once ran his brother over with a tractor.”
I tuck my head back.
“I’ll spare you that story. Suffice it to say, Barney did live to walk again. Anyway, Benjamin must’ve seen Bubba and me talking at the dance the night before. He got jealous and did the old bump-and-spill move. My girlfriends hollered at him because that wasn’t the first time.” She shakes her head.
“That creep.”
“Bubba took one look at my ruined shirt, kissed me on the cheek, and said, ‘Don’t hate me for what I’m about to do.’ Suffice it to say, Benjamin never bothered me again and Bubba replaced my soda. Every evenin’ about nine o’clock, after the restaurant closed, we’d come out here, sip a soda, talk about our days, then do it all over again the next day.”
“That’s so sweet.”
“How about you?” Beatrice asks.
“How about me what?” I ask, knowing full well she refers to my love life, but not knowing that for some reason I cannot seem to speak the words I love you to Aiden.
“You’ve been smiling like you’ve been sippin’ soda with someone.”
“Me? Well, I was, we, you know—”
She smiles like she understands then shows me a piece of paper with two hand-drawn honey bees face to face, kissing, and surrounded by a heart. Across the top, it says, B & B Blossom Honey . Then on the bottom, Butterbury, Georgia .
“ B like Bubba and Beatrice,” I say, making the connection.
“ B like brave,” she says.
“Like my dog?”
“Sure, but also be brave. You might’ve had your misgivings about small-town life, but you’ll never go wrong when it comes to taking a chance on love.”
“That’s just it. I’ve never taken a chance on it.”
“Tinsley, have you ever pondered the miracle of all the things that could happen but haven’t? For instance, we could be struck by lightning in this very spot.”
I glance at the sky. “It is clouding over.”
“What I mean to say is to think about the miracles that do happen. Love is one of them. It would be lucky to go through your life without getting struck by lightning. It would be a shame to go through your life and not open yourself to love.”
My rocking chair goes still when Aiden pulls into the driveway in his truck at that very moment.
Beatrice chuckles and passes me the paper and winks. “How about you hang onto this? I can just picture jars of honey for sale at Bubba’s, Sweethearts Bakery, and the Boutique.” She winks. “Oh, and remember to be brave. I wouldn’t object if you changed the name to that. Still works with the B’s.”
I smile and hug her. When we part, we watch Brave, the wet and muddy dog gallop in Aiden’s direction before giving him a doggy version of a hug in the form of a full body press. Brave nearly knocks him over.
When I meet him with a smoosh, he says, “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I’m going to a worksite.”
On the ride to Bubba’s, I tell him about Beatrice and Bubba Senior meeting at a dance in Texas.
“I know it’s not a competition, but our first-time meeting is better. We met in jail.”
“Would we really tell that to our kids?” I blurt, and my heart thrums at the notion.
Aiden chuckles as the truck rumbles down the Baskin’s driveway.
I can’t help the way my gaze objectifies how good he looks. From his tousled brown hair, to the stubble along his masculine jawline, to the powerful muscles hiding under his shirt, and the way the ones on his arms flex as he shifts gears.
This man kills me with how he looks as good in a suit as he does in a pair of boots. I’ve said and done all the things that a girlfriend who loves her boyfriend would do except speak those magic words.
“Last day. You ready?” Aiden says, pulling me from my thoughts as he pulls into the parking lot at Bubba’s BBQ.
I’m not ready because I don’t know what’s next. We haven’t talked about it, and I’m afraid Aiden thinks that things will continue as they have been with me staying in Toby, working at Sweethearts, and tending the bees.
I can’t live in his trailer in perpetuity. What about my life before? What I left behind? My future?
The answers to those questions feel slippery. Ones I don’t want to hear, but if I let go of my old life, where does that leave me? In Butterbury forever?
This was supposed to be a blip on my way to Miami. Sure, I had some figuring out to do after the whole thing with Puma, whose number I have now blocked after his texts turned threatening.
But what would I amount to if I stay here? Could Aiden and I really sip soda together at the end of the day...every day forever?
What about the future? My name in lights? The glamour and luxury? I wanted to become someone. A household name. The kind of woman that girls envy.
I linger by the truck as thunder rolls in the distance.
I’m not sure if this would be the part of the movie with a shot of the main character sitting by a rain-streaked window while she ponders her life or a montage of befores and afters, highlighting the restaurant makeover. The place went from a dingy hole in the wall—literally, there were several in the plaster—to having a fresh and welcoming exterior with a wide front porch with craftsman-style beams overhead. The walls are white shiplap, the same as inside, with black trim and a red awning. Even the sign is new along with the menus on the wall. The shiny plank floors, the bar stools with blue cushions, and family-style dining with wooden tables and benches fill the dining room. A wall of family photos Tammy and Beatrice shared completes the experience.
The sky opens with rain and I rush undercover. I spend the afternoon helping finalize things in the kitchen, including attaching drawer pulls, filling salt and pepper shakers, and organizing napkins, cups, and silverware.
I’m about to ask Aiden where to put the dish rags when he gets a phone call. His posture instantly changes from being a relaxed but helpful worker and into a dangerous dude. His expression turns stormy like the weather outside. Without a word, he blusters out the door to the car and peels away.
Bubba and I exchange a look of concern and I immediately call Bess, worried something happened to Mae or the baby.
She answers, but the connection breaks up. I gather that she’s at a meeting for her new program on HLTV. It’s a ‘Complete’ makeover show, including a home remodel plus making over the residents for a style upgrade, and an overhaul of various aspects of their lives with leading experts and life coaches, resulting in the complete makeover concept.
“Do you know if everything is okay with Mae and the baby?” I ask.
“I can’t really hear you, but yes, I’m okay. I can’t wait to tell you all about the show.”
When I hang up, a truck pulls up in front of Bubba’s. Minutes later, Mae, Taylor, and the baby come in, half-drenched.
“You guys are alright?” I ask.
Taylor’s eyebrows ripple.
“Yeah, we’re fine. Heard you guys were wrapping up here,” Mae says.
“Looks fine.” Taylor whistles low.
Bubba exits the kitchen and greets them.
“I was thinking we should do a little feature on the Designed to Last social media accounts of the new and improved Bubba’s,” Mae says.
“Think of it like a nod to the man who fed us during production,” Taylor adds.
“I’d love to give you a tour.” Bubba smiles proudly.
“And we’ll come back with the crew and a few cameras when the weather isn’t so nasty,” Mae adds.
“Couldn’t have done it without Tinsley, Aiden, and his guys,” Bubba says.
“Speaking of Aiden, where is he?” Mae asks.
“I was going to ask you the same thing. He was just here, got a call, then left without a word. I got worried about you guys.”
Mae and Taylor exchange a look. My stomach twists.
The baby makes a gurgling noise, drawing their attention to him.
“We’re just hungry. Missed lunch.” Taylor’s voice sounds unusually stiff. Then again, I’m not exactly his favorite person, but I don’t think he hates me anymore.
“I can help with that,” Bubba says and returns to the kitchen.
I finish up my projects and by the time Taylor and Mae are done with their late lunch, I have officially completed my community service.
A crestfallen sigh escapes because I wanted to celebrate this moment with Aiden. We did it, finished our community service and Bubba’s. However, he’s not back yet. Brave and I get a ride into town with Mae and Taylor.
Mae points to the second floor over the bookstore. “Looks like the light in his office is on.”
“Maybe something happened to the cat and that’s why he had to leave suddenly.” My shoulders knot with nervousness as I thank them for the ride.
Brave and I rush upstairs to Aiden’s second-floor office. We burst inside and instead of some kind of cat astrophe, I find Aiden seated at his desk with Cindy Clawford in his lap, looking at images of...cute cats.
Instead of swooping, my belly tightens. He ran off the worksite to browse pictures of cats...with a cat? Something about this is fishy and it’s not the smell of the food in the dish by the door.