Chapter Twenty-Four
The following couple of weeks passed in a blur, each punctuated by the morning’s rush.
One day Cardoon brought three vans. Another morning, due to an ordering snafu, we were out of bacon.
After the AC at the nearby daycare went on the fritz, resulting in a crowd of kids, I’d stopped trying to prepare myself for whatever chaos awaited me. There was just no way.
“Eighty-six chocolate chips,” Clark said, just as I was about to stick a ticket with three orders needing them.
“What?” Lana said. “Half my tables just ordered those in their pancakes.”
“As did others,” he replied, stirring batter.
Ben was back by the grill, head bent, flipping bacon.
Thank God Clark had stocked up at Bly Supply.
The day we were out, people were losing their minds.
“Normally we hardly need chocolate chips for anything. But now we’re a grade school cafeteria, I guess. So…”
“At least it’s just one day,” Kasey said as she slid behind me, carrying a tray of dirty dishes. “And things went a little better with the buses, now that we’re getting some advance notice.”
“Thanks to Lana.” Clark stuck two plates in the window, slapping a ticket on top of one. “Now that Cardoon’s got her number, he’s sure using it.”
It was true. He’d actually texted her twice. Once about fifteen minutes before arriving, then again with a count of the first bus, just as the passengers disembarked.
“Our contact is strictly business,” Lana told him. “Seasonal professional to seasonal professional.”
“You sure about that?”
This kind of bickering was, in truth, nothing new.
What I did track was how, as it happened, Ben looked over his shoulder—today’s shirt was a cool red and said, SOTO HIGH JUDO two figures grappling beneath—and our eyes met.
A silent exchange, during which all I could think of was kissing him, his hands in my hair.
It was not the first time I had wondered if I should reconsider that passionate moment he’d offered by the bus pan.
But there was still something so attractive about keeping what was happening between us. As if Girl with an Extended Agreed Nighttime Meetup was yet another layer of myself I was discovering here, one I could only have achieved by passing through each of the others.
These considerations—and the snatches of remembering us, entangled—could easily have taken up all my time. But there were other things to think about.
Like my mom. With her recuperation going well and Nurse Geralin checking in, we were now staying on for Anne’s wedding. By this point there had been so many plan changes, it felt like I’d never go home. Which I didn’t exactly mind.
“Well, I think it’s absolutely the right choice,” Liz had said the day before, when this was decided.
She and I were in the kitchen, pretending not to eavesdrop as my mom, in Juvie, had a call with her Timlee doctors and the ones from Bly General.
“Cat is looking better and better, and here we can all help her out.”
She said this so confidently, as if my mom was going to suddenly shift course and let her, Kasey, or even me do anything but stand at arm’s length. Maybe she knew something I didn’t. But I had a feeling it was the other way around.
Now back at the Egg, the door sounded again.
I turned, braced for more children, but it was Hector, the guy from Ben’s not-band.
The fringed vest I’d come to associate with him was, thankfully, nowhere to be seen.
Instead, he wore black pants and a button-down shirt with a stitched logo reading EDWARDS HEATING & AIR.
His hair, which I’d only seen purposely tousled, was combed back neatly.
“Hey,” he said to me. “Is Ben Cross working?”
Lana, passing by with the coffeepot, whistled toward the kitchen. “Ben!” she called. “Visitor.”
“Okay,” Ben said, moving eggs around. “One sec.”
Hector slid onto a counter seat, then looked at me. “I’ve seen you at the Pavilion, right? You were watching us play.”
“Um, yeah,” I said. “A couple of times, actually.”
He smiled, looking delighted. “Awesome! Thanks for your support. It’s always great to meet a fan.”
I did not reply as I slid a menu over, then turned to fill a glass. As I placed it in front of him, Ben appeared beside me. “Dude. I’m working. What do you want?”
Hector grinned. “Is that any way to talk to the person who just got your band a gig?”
“Wait,” Lana said. “You guys are an actual band now?”
“No,” Ben told her.
“Need bacon,” Clark reported from the window.
“It’s at the Tides!” Hector added. His enthusiasm was palpable. “Can you believe it? I was dealing with a coolant issue in some guy’s office and turns out he manages the entertainment there.”
“But I told you I wasn’t interested in anything like that,” Ben told him. “Remember? When we had that discussion about the importance of listening to other people talk?”
“It’s the happy-hour slot! Guaranteed crowd,” Hector replied. So that was a no. “Once we wow them, word will get around fast.”
Lana stuck another ticket. “What do you know?” Clark said, peering at them. “Bacon.”
“And you already committed to this?” Ben asked.
“They had a last-minute cancellation for tonight! It was fate. The rock-and-roll gods smiling on us.”
Kasey came back, carrying another tray of dishes. “Where’s my bacon?” she asked, peering at the empty window.
“Ask the band,” Clark muttered.
“Dude, I gotta work,” Ben said, turning back to the kitchen.
“It’s going to be awesome!” Hector called out after him. No reply. Unbothered, he added to me, “Hey, can you let him know he needs to be there at four to tune up? A little earlier, even, might be good.”
I nodded. It wasn’t ten yet. Four was a world away. Plus the phone was ringing again. I found a pen and answered it.
“Well, I don’t think you have to,” Liz said, pacing back toward the windows. “It sounds to me like you were more than clear the other night.”
It was that afternoon. My mom, Liz, and Kasey were at the table, preparing for a VizUL with their lawyers.
At least until Anne had started texting, then calling, and Liz had to step aside to talk her down from yet another crisis.
It occurred to me it was rare that I’d seen my cousin anything but upset since I’d landed here.
My mom sighed. “We really need to get through these documents.”
“Honey, I’ll call you back,” Liz said. “Okay, fifteen minutes. Perfect. Talk then. Love you.”
“We’ll still be doing this in fifteen minutes,” my mom pointed out.
“Too bad,” Liz replied. “She’s my daughter and she needs me.”
Maybe it was the way she pulled out her chair as she said this, hard. Or that she didn’t look at my mom as she sat, deliberately picking up her own stack of papers. Clearly, even Liz had her limits.
Just then, the house phone rang. Beside me, Lana jumped. “Good Lord,” she said. “That is loud.”
“Who even has that number?” Kasey asked.
“Aunt Betsy,” Liz replied.
“Finley,” Lana said at the same time.
I pushed back my chair, getting up, and went into the living room, where the phone was sitting on the floor. “Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Ben.”
For some reason, I looked behind me, as if everyone was watching. They weren’t, instead all focused on the screen as the VizUL began. “Hey,” I said.
“What did Hector say this morning?” he asked. “When I had to go deal with the bacon.”
“That you should meet them at the Lodge at four to tune up,” I told him. He sighed. “Wait. Are you going to do it?”
“The whole thing’s already in motion,” he said, sounding defeated. “I don’t have much of a choice.”
On the porch, my mom’s screen was now filled with little squares full of people in suits. “It’s kind of exciting, you have to admit. A real gig.”
“Be even better if we were a real band,” he grumbled. “Also, do you not remember the whole Visceral Pantylines thing?”
“Maybe you should tell Hector that story.”
“Why? He wouldn’t listen.”
I smiled. “This could be different, though. I mean, it’s not death metal. Or a sorority event.”
“No, it’s local, which means the news of our inevitable humiliation will make it around the lake before we’re even done.”
Always the optimist.
“On the other hand, if it’s local,” I replied, “you could have someone you know in the crowd to be your visual barometer.”
A beat. “Like, say… you?”
I exhaled, loudly. “Whew. If you’d picked someone else, that would have been really embarrassing.”
Now I was the one immediately saying what I thought. Another layer. I wondered how many were down there.
“You really want to come?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“Okay.” A pause. “I’ll, um, pick you up in a few.”
It wasn’t like an actual date. But it wasn’t the loading dock at two a.m., either. And where else to let something play out than at an actual gig?
“Do you want me to stare at you adoringly?” I asked. “I mean, just so I know ahead of time.”
“I’m counting on it,” he replied. I smiled. “See you soon.”
Then he hung up. I was heading back to the porch when I heard someone say, “Hello? Anyone home?”
I turned: A man in a white button-down and khakis, holding a file folder, was standing at the screen door. “Hi,” I said. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Kasey Woods? I’m from the Tides eco-design team.”
“She’s kind of tied up at the moment,” Lana told him as she walked up.
“Oh, that’s fine,” he assured us. “I’ll just take a quick look around the property, if that’s okay.”
At the table, my mom and her sisters were all studying their packets, while a man’s voice droned on about tax law. I looked at Lana, who shrugged. “Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”
He brightened. “Thanks! I’ll try to be quick.”
With that, he turned and started down the stairs. As he crossed the grass, I heard another car crunching up the gravel. Nurse Geralin, arriving for her daily check-in.
“Who was that on the phone?” Lana asked.
“Ben,” I said. “He’s doing that gig at the Tides. I’m going with.”
She raised an eyebrow, appraising me. “Wait. Are you going with, or going with?”