Chapter Twenty-Eight
Another morning, another bus from the Tides. Although now things were a little different.
“Next group? Come on in,” Cardoon said as he held the door for an older couple in matching windbreakers. To those remaining in line he added, “Thanks for your patience, everyone! You will all be seated shortly.”
The kitchen door banged and Kasey came hustling in, carrying a bucket of bright pink flowers. Then she stopped, abruptly, by the register. “Wait. Why is it so calm in here?”
Clark dropped a plate in the window. “Lana’s boyfriend’s alert system was already working. Now it’s getting fine-tuned.”
I looked at Lana, who was passing by with a coffeepot. “Fine-tuned?”
“EBS,” she said.
“What?”
“Early Bird Special,” she explained. “Bus comes at six forty-five, before we even turn on the sign.”
“You guys have acronyms now?” I asked.
Kasey glanced at Cardoon, now busy returning a dropped toy truck to its toddler owner as the parents looked on. “I thought he wasn’t your type.”
“He’s not,” she said. Although I did see a bit of a flush to her face as she began noisily putting things in the bus pan. Then the door was sounding again, a regular table of public works guys coming in.
“We’re going to need more bacon,” I said to Clark. They were infamous for their pork intake.
He peered out, then sighed. “Right. You hear that, Cross?”
“Got it,” Ben replied. Today’s shirt: WEST BAY MUSTANGS ARE WILD, with a pack of horses beneath.
I’d tracked the design as soon as I’d seen him come in just before opening, as well as the way he’d not looked at me.
Our goodbye the night before had been awkward, happening soon after my phone interrupted us when Clark was again awakened and did the same.
Usually we’d just duck into the dark, hiding out another excuse for getting close.
This time, I said I should probably go. He hadn’t disagreed.
The door sounded again. I looked over. It was my mom. With Jeremy.
“Well, I guess it’s not O’Grady’s,” Kasey said. I wiped down two free seats at the counter, waving them over.
“I can’t believe I’ve never come here!” Jeremy said. I gave them both coffee mugs, then silverware. “I already love it.”
“Kasey’s done really well,” my mom agreed. “The Egg is a local institution these days.”
The phone started up again.
“Can someone get that?” Clark barked. “Now?”
I spun, grabbing it mid-ring and fumbling for a ticket. By the time I got the order down— brEK SCRAM, brEK FRIED, NO TOAST —another group had come in the door.
“My goodness,” my mother observed from her counter seat. “Finley, it’s like you’ve worked here all your life.”
“Restaurants. No way to learn but on the fly,” Jeremy told her. When she raised her eyebrows, he added, “I worked summers flipping burgers at a diner in upstate Michigan.”
“Another surprise,” she observed, and he grinned.
“Cat! So good to see you!”
It was Angela, with her partner, Janine. Both of them were in NORTH LAKE ESTATE SALES golf shirts. I wondered if they ever were out of uniform. “Liz said you were on the mend,” she said now. “I was scared to death when they took you away in that ambulance!”
Jeremy, who’d been studying his menu, looked at my mom. “I was fine,” she said, then cleared her throat. “Finley? Can I have—”
She pushed her mug forward. As I grabbed a coffeepot, bending to fill it, Angela continued. “Oh, I understand. But, seriously. You don’t have to be brave! It’s been three years since my mastectomy and chemo.”
Janine nodded, then reached down to take her hand. “Such a hard time.”
“It was. In fact, most days, I still have a good cry about it. Cancer changes you. In all kinds of ways.”
My mom had paled at “mastectomy.” At “chemo,” she’d tried to turn away. By “cancer,” she’d just gone very still. Jeremy was staring at her.
“Order up for Angela!” Lana called out, grabbing a bag from the window.
“That’s me!” Angela patted my mom’s arm. “Anyway. Hope I didn’t overshare. I just… well, take good care, Cat.”
My mom did not reply. As they walked away, Jeremy said, “Cancer? I thought you said the nurse was there because of a routine procedure.”
“It is.” She picked up the mug I’d topped off, taking a sip.
“Catherine,” Jeremy said. His face was so worried.
“Can someone run this food?” Clark demanded from the window.
As I grabbed a tray and began plating, I saw Cardoon hustling more people in the door.
By the time I looked back at the counter seats, two were suddenly empty, a five left behind.
A woman and a teenage girl soon took them.
It was like my mom and Jeremy had never been there at all.
“Thanks for coming with me. Really.”
I nodded as Anne put her car in reverse and began backing up. All I could think of was mail trucks.
“I’ve been meaning to do this ever since I called things off,” she continued as we turned onto the road. “But it just makes things seem so permanent. You know?”
Before I could answer, she’d grabbed a tissue from the clump in the center console, pressing it to her face. She’d been crying when she pulled in, crying when I got in the car, and now crying again. This was also not giving me huge confidence in her driving. But I’d agreed to come, so here I was.
Also, I’d been the only one without other plans.
Clark was headed to Bly Supply with Ben, who was still keeping his distance from me.
Meanwhile, Lana had ridden back on the last bus to the Tides with Cardoon, claiming Kasey had asked her to pick up a check and some vases from the bridal shower.
(Kasey, hearing this after they’d departed, had clearly been surprised.) That left just me when Anne had shown up, again asking for company as she went by her and Jonathan’s place to retrieve a few things.
“He won’t be there,” she told me, for the second time. Repeating things in small spaces was apparently an inherited trait. “He has a work retreat in Eastville. It’s been on the calendar forever. We have this joke that his boss did it on purpose because we didn’t invite her to the wedding.”
“Right,” I said.
Her face crumpled. She picked up another tissue, the used one from her other hand joining the growing pile at her feet, then blew her nose. “I read this book, right when we started all the planning. Your Day, Your Way?”
I had noticed that each time Anne made this kind of reference, it was done as if I might also have read the book as well. Or at least heard of it.
“It’s essentially a series of assertiveness exercises,” she continued, putting on her turn signal. After a minivan with a stack of bikes on the back bumper passed, we pulled out and took a left. “Jonathan and I did them together. Every night after dinner. It was really…”
She took another tissue.
“… helpful.” Another wipe of her eyes. “Then in April, his mom came to visit and just ‘check in on the arrangements.’ ” Somewhat alarmingly, she took both hands off the wheel to form sharp air quotes.
“She was there less than twenty-four hours before she lined up a wedding planner. “ ‘My treat!’ she said.” More quotes. This time the car lurched a bit to the left. “ ‘You’ll enjoy it more,’ she said.”
“So much for your way,” I said, stealthily checking my seat belt.
“Right?” She put both hands back on the wheel. “Personally, I think she’d hired her as soon as we got engaged. But Jonathan doesn’t think so. He always wants to believe her intentions are good. It’s, like, the only thing we’ve ever really argued about.”
“Really?”
She bit her lip, nodding. “We get along great. It’s other people that cause problems.”
We slowed down, then turned into a neighborhood with a sign reading MAINSAIL ACRES. The houses were small and well-kept, many featuring decorative Fourth of July flags. We pulled up to a green house with black shutters.
“Okay.” She cut the engine before fortifying herself with the last of the tissues in the pack. “Let’s do this.”
With purpose—and some sniffling—she strode up the pebbled walk to the door. As she undid the lock, I noted the welcome mat shaped like a heart reading OUR HOME at my feet. As it turned out, it was just a preview of the cuteness inside.
If Lana’s house had felt ominous in appearance even before Shannon arrived, Anne and Jonathan’s was the opposite.
Like a cheery wink as opposed to a sneer.
While the rooms were small—the living room and kitchen separated only by a comically narrow breakfast bar with two stools—it was obvious a great deal of attention had been given to décor.
There was an overstuffed navy couch with white-and-navy striped pillows.
A vintage single red armchair that looked like it had once been Liz’s or in the Woods.
And on the coffee table, next to a bowl of seashells, a framed shot of Anne and Jonathan by the lake in formal dress, both of them smiling wide.
“Our engagement party,” she said over my shoulder when she saw me looking at it. Heavy sigh. “I’ll just be a second.”
With that, she disappeared around a corner, first passing a tiny bathroom with yellow walls.
Two matching hand towels patterned with daisies.
Two toothbrushes side by side in a holder by the mirror.
Of course I thought of Ben. Despite the current state of things, I would have bet there was at least one box of toothpaste, if not a backup as well, in the cabinet below.
When I turned back to the living room, I saw the bookcase.
It was white, like the walls, and directly next to the door, which was why I had missed it previously.
There were three shelves. Novels at the top—a mix of classics and romance, not surprising—then more pictures: Anne in a graduation gown; Liz and Travis as a young couple themselves; a group shot of them with both parents, which also looked to be from the engagement party.
Below that was a row of books in varying shapes and sizes, hardback and paper.
It didn’t take much scanning to recognize some of the titles.