Twelve
A s soon as Lauren got home, she jumped in the shower and changed clothes. Not that she hadn’t taken a shower that morning, but the fine flour dust coated everything, even her hair. Since the girls were coming over for movie night later on, she figured it would be better if she rinsed the reminders of the bakery away.
Too bad she couldn’t rinse away her wandering thoughts that predictably led to Scott.
By the time she came back down the stairs, her father was putting the final touches on dinner. She slipped around him in the kitchen and opened the silverware drawer. Her evenings had a routine, just like her mornings. Except instead of cooking dinner, she set the table while her father stood over the stove putting together whatever meal he had decided they needed to try.
After filling two glasses with water and setting them on the table, she looked up at her father. Something wasn’t right.
“Dad, are you feeling all right? You look pale.”
“Fine. Fine. I haven’t been sleeping well, so that’s probably why I look off.”
“Dad,” Lauren swung by him and slid the butter dish away from his immediate reach. There wasn’t a recipe that her dad couldn’t and didn’t add butter to. “Being paler than normal isn’t a sign of not sleeping.”
He spooned the sauteed vegetables onto a plate already holding a grilled chicken breast and handed it to her. “It’s probably a combination of not sleeping and not spending enough time outside. I’ll spend some time tomorrow working on the yard.” He added vegetables to his own plate and joined her at the table. “And I’ll call Judy to go for a walk.”
“Just take it easy. I worry about you.”
“What are your plans this weekend?”
“Tonight, Melody and Elizabeth are coming over to watch a movie. And tomorrow I don’t know. Scott Brandonson stopped by the bakery today.” She dropped the Scott Brandonson bomb into their conversation and waited to see how her dad would respond.
He looked over the table at her and lifted his eyebrows with his eyes wide, but then returned his attention to cutting off a piece of chicken like it was surgery. “He came back for the funeral?”
“He said he wasn’t staying past Sunday.”
“Really? How’s he doing?”
“He seemed okay.”
“You didn’t ask, Lauren?” This question came with another look from her father.
One she avoided by studiously stacking the vegetables on her fork before slipping a piece of chicken on the tongs to keep them from sliding off. “It wasn’t the right time. I was working.”
Her father made a slight noise of disapproval around a sip of water, but didn’t say anything
“What?”
“Honey, you are a great baker, and you have excellent coffee, but Beans & Buns never hits the level of too busy to talk with old friends you haven’t seen in years.”
“Well, why don’t you ask Jake the next time you see him. He was sitting at the table with Scott.”
Her father nodded. It was the same gesture he used when Lauren was a teenager and he knew there was something more she wasn’t saying, but that he would wait until she was ready to share.
“We talked about maybe getting together. I’ll ask him then.”
Another one of his knowing looks.
When Scott left town, her father was well aware of how his leaving affected her. He also knew that for all of Scott’s reputation in high school, he never tried anything with Lauren. Even if she wanted him to. Not that she thought her dad knew that part.
Plus, he never saw Scott leaving town as abandoning her. He saw Scott leaving as an opportunity but had promised Lauren that Scott would be back someday. It turned out her father was right. But she didn’t think her father expected Scott’s return to come almost fifteen years after he left.
She sipped her water, stalling before she said anything more. If she wasn’t careful, she might admit to her father that she still wanted Scott. That she still harbored the schoolgirl crush, even though he never seemed to pay attention to her in a way that hinted he might have had a secret crush on her too.
“Well then, I guess I won’t plan on having lunch or dinner with you tomorrow if Scott’s going to stop by.” Her dad lifted his glass of water and emptied its contents in a few swallows.
“He’s not going to stop by. If anything, he’ll call.”
The conversation shifted to talking about the weather the other happenings around town.
“Did you hear that Camp Naawij closed down?” Lauren asked. When she was younger, she hadn’t gone, but she’d seen the campers and counselors in town. When she opened her bakery, she enjoyed their regular visits to her shop.
“Yeah. Too bad they didn’t find a savior like Camp Pin Oak. You know, your mom was a counselor there when she was younger?”
“She was?”
“She was the arts and crafts counselor.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Her dad nodded. “When Lynn Winton set up the board and trust for the camp, she reached out to your mom to see if she wanted to help run the camp, but by then she was too sick.”
“Dad, how come I didn’t know about this?”
“Because it wasn’t important. They were counselors together. She even came to your mom’s funeral. Don’t you remember meeting her?”
“No.” She stared down at the uneaten food remaining on her plate. Her mom had loved everything about the outside and Lauren never thought of where that love came from. Her mom had taught Lauren how to canoe and even took her and her friends on camping trips. The more she thought about it, she realized her mom would have been great at running the camp and she would have loved doing it.
Lauren found yet another reason to hate the cancer that took her mom’s life.
E lizabeth leaned forward on the couch and reached for a Danish sitting on a plate. Instead of binging on cookie dough or popcorn or ice cream, they had adopted the habit of binging on whatever Lauren deemed passed its sell-by date and destined for the garbage bag that would make its way to the wildlife rehab center to serve out the remainder of its life as treats for the fur and feather covered residents.
“So, who’s turn is it to pick a movie tonight?” Melody asked.
“Mine!” Elizabeth bounced up and down on the couch and fisted her hands in her lap, as though she had to physically stop herself from clapping. She jumped to her feet and stood in front of the TV in Lauren’s living room and waved her hands in front of the TV. Probably the same way she introduced something new to her second graders.
“I thought we’d try something different tonight. Not a romcom.” She looked pointedly at Lauren before shifting her gaze to Melody. “And not a cult classic. All in favor?”
No one raised their hands. Instead, they stared at Elizabeth in confusion.
“I can tell by your bemused expressions that you are unsure whether you should agree. No worries. I’ll just assume that you whole-heartedly agree with me.” She grinned at her friends, then turned to the DVD player. “I couldn’t find it streaming anywhere, so I had to go to the library.”
As soon as the DVD began playing, she joined her friends on the couch. There wasn’t any big intro or opening scene before the credits. The movie began with the stars’ names, Cary Grant, and Rosiland Russel, jumped to the tile, His Girl Friday, flashed through the remaining credits, all done in under a minute, and then opened with a title card explaining the state of journalism at the time the movie was supposed to take place was considered the dark ages. ‘When reporters would do anything short of murder to get a story.’
“I’m not sure anything has changed in the decades since this film came out.” Melody delivered Elizabeth with a side-eyed semi-glare. “Screwball comedies are a close cousin to romcoms.”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
Lauren leaned back on the worn couch that had seen better days and desperately needed replacing. Leave it to her friends to distract her when she most needed it.
“Why isn’t Jake here? I was trying to give him a break from chick-flicks” Elizabeth asked as she wiggled in her spot between Melody and the arm of the couch.
Melody shrugged. “No idea. It’s not like I keep tabs on him.”
She totally did, but Lauren wasn’t about to contradict her. In all her life she never met two people more perfect for each other, and too stubborn to do anything about it. But that was a battle for later, after Scott left and things settled back to normal.
Lauren knew where Jake was. Hunting down Scott because he wanted to protect her from any potential heartache. He probably recruited Trent and Pete to help him run interference too. If they could find Scott and keep him busy, then he wouldn’t unexpectedly showed up at her doorstep.
Except Lauren had no real expectations of Scott even calling her for the lunch he asked her to. When he’d left the bakery without so much as a goodbye, she stuck it in the column of history repeating itself. When they were in high school together, he had always been friendly and even gone so far to suggest she hang out with them, but then never followed through.
Scott now was just like Scott in high school, and the sooner she accepted that, the better off she would be.
“They’re speaking 240 words a minute.” The comment popped out from Melody’s mouth and both Lauren and Elizabeth turned their heads and stared at her.
“Where’d that come from?”
“I have a sister who knows every unimportant fact. This is one of those facts she shared once. I didn’t realize how fast it was until I tried to do it myself and it was almost impossible to understand anything I said.”
Elizabeth and Lauren turned back to watching the movie. Melody’s explanation made perfect sense in that weird Melody sort of way.
“Why’d you choose this one?”
Elizabeth grinned and looked over at Lauren before answering Melody’s question. “Because no one changes. No one is fixed. They’re the same at the beginning of the film as they are at the end. I kind of like the idea that no one has to change who they are to make someone else happy.”
“I was expecting something more along the lines of liking Cary Grant.”
Lauren agreed with Melody. But that was Elizabeth. Every so often she delivered a profound statement that made them all think more than they wanted to. Either that or Elizabeth was sending a possibly subtle, but maybe not so subtle in the scheme of things, message to Lauren.
Don’t expect anyone to change and don’t change for anyone. In other words, don’t expect Scott to become a version of a hero in one of the romcoms she loved to watch.
Ninety-two minutes later the end credits completed rolling, and the DVD switched back to its main menu.
“I’ll admit it, Elizabeth, this was a good choice.” Melody leaned back on the couch as the movie ended. “I still can’t believe you’ve never left Iron Creek.”
“Seriously? I told you before, I’ve left Iron Creek. I just haven’t had any reason to leave and go anywhere else.” Lauren ignored her friend’s nonsensical jump in topics.
“Well, now you have a reason to at least visit Chicago.”
“I can’t leave now. We’re just making headway getting to the root of why the shops are leaving Main Street and can do a better job with bringing in new businesses or bringing old businesses back.” Lauren looked over her should checking to see if her dad was close by. She turned back to the movie and lowered her voice. “And I can’t leave Dad. I’m worried about him. He’s not looking great, and he’s only a few years younger than Mr. Brandonson.”
Her father wandered into the room a few seconds after she spoke. Like he had some kind of special sense and knew when she was talking about him. “So, Scott Brandonson is back in town?”
“Don’t act surprised, I told you at dinner he stopped by the bakery.”
“I’m not surprised. Just making an observation.” Her dad sat down in the armchair that had seen better days that Jake sat in during movie nights and carefully selected a treat from the plate of pastries. “If you told me you were watching a classic, I would have joined you.”
He wouldn’t have joined them. She’d invited him every time they had movie night at their house and every time, he’d said no. He didn’t want to intrude on their fun.
“Well, he might be back, but he’s not staying. Probably won’t be back for another fourteen years.”
“Don’t be so hard on him. Life with Dan Brandonson couldn’t be that easy.”
“Olivia said almost the same thing.” Elizabeth reached in front of Melody and poked Lauren’s leg.
“I’m not surprised. She probably saw it first-hand.”
“But he was your friend…” Lauren’s mind went to the worst-case scenarios. “How could you…”
“Dan didn’t hurt Scott. Or Evelyn. Not physically. No, nothing like that. He just wasn’t there, even when he was. He’d show up at Scott’s games, but only at the end. And he’d make appearances at the block parties and barbecues, but he never stayed long. He wasn’t a bad father. Just average at best, maybe.”
“Scott’s still not staying, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.” She didn’t add the bit about not wanting to relive the hurt and dashed hope of him coming back for a visit that would never happen.
“So you say.” Her dad was possibly more stubborn than Jake and Melody combined.
“Not me. Scott. He said he’s leaving on Sunday and when anyone asked when he was coming back, he didn’t answer.”
Melody leaned forward and looked pointedly at Lauren. “He didn’t say he wasn’t coming back either.”