Chapter 12 Jack
“T O THE LEFT . M ORE TO the left. I said left, gentlemen! Unless the United States issued some kind of direction revision memo that I wasn’t privy to, then I am correct when I say you are all going to the right!”
Tommy and Luke groan as they drop their side of the bench, bending over to breathe. To Flo, who has no issue with continuing to bark orders at them in their fragile state, they’re just unfit. Like me, they’re so hungover their livers feel like they’ve been used as punching bags.
Being hungover twice in one week isn’t the norm for me and I don’t plan to make a habit of it.
I needed to blow off some steam. I’m so fucking behind at work and it feels like Clara Davenport is constantly in my line of vision with that smile and that attitude and that determination.
Plus, last night I managed to piss off absolutely everyone, which contributed to the decision to move from soda to soda whiskeys.
Tommy and Luke—being the great friends they are—wouldn’t let me drink alone. Flo doesn’t care that we’re feeling delicate.
So here I am, doing manual labor to resolve a seating issue in time for the visitors who may or may not come, when I should be watching my guilty-pleasure show, The Traitors , with Elf on the couch and enjoying the patisserie I bought from Flo’s Fancies this morning.
It was venturing into Flo’s this morning that landed me, and by extension Tommy and Luke, with the task.
My own fault admittedly, because I clearly looked too free and too eager to be bossed around today.
I wouldn’t be so pissed if I hadn’t had the benches ready to go for three weeks and it was Flo who couldn’t find the time to supervise.
The whole town has bought into Flo’s European Christmas dream, which means saying no isn’t an option.
We’re expecting the town to start to get busier right after Thanksgiving on Small Business Saturday.
Everyone has put in effort to improve the town; I even heard Arthur say they’re going to start caroling this year.
“Is there a reason we have paused, gentlemen?” Flo yells from fifteen feet away.
“Because I’m gonna throw up,” Luke mutters.
“What was that?” Flo says, continuing to yell. The yelling has really helped the whole hangover situation.
Just as I get my focus back, a blacked-out SUV turns in front of the gazebo and stops in front of Maggie’s. The engine shuts off but nobody gets out.
“Who’s that?” Tommy wonders, nodding toward the parked car.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” I say, but deep down I know. I blame Tommy’s witch for the connection I seem to have with this woman.
Flo claps her hands at us impatiently. “For goodness’ sake, it’s probably Clara Davenport. Now can the three of you stop moving in slow motion and get back to work?”
“Whose car is that?” I ask, unable to get a better look.
“I suspect it’s the young gentleman who picked her up this afternoon. I thought she might be giving up and leaving, but Maggie said she’d be back and here she is.”
Did I upset her so much last night I sent her to another guy for comfort?
Why does the idea of that bother me so much? Maybe it’s because I genuinely didn’t mean to upset her last night and I know I did. Not only because of how she reacted but because every one of my friends told me so right after she left. Repeatedly.
God, I have too much on my plate to spend this much time thinking about one woman. It’s irritating to let one single person pull so much focus in my day.
“I wish she’d give up and leave,” I mutter. “I’m sick of seeing her everywhere.”
Flo tuts at me loudly. “If I was young and that beautiful, I would be in Monte Carlo or Marrakesh, not here. Yet she is here, and she does seem hell-bent on tethering herself to our little community. She’s been very helpful, in fact.
More helpful than some people,” she says, eyeing Luke and Tommy, both now sitting on the bench.
“We have our own businesses, Ms. Flo,” Tommy says. It sounds more like a cry for mercy than a statement of fact.
Flo waves her hands flippantly. I readjust my gloves and sneak a look back toward the SUV now exiting the road and heading up Main Street before looking at Flo again. I’ll admit I’m curious to see what kind of guy Clara goes for when she isn’t limited to the boundary of Fraser Falls.
“Why don’t you care about her being here? You said Davenport was corrupt. You’re the one who made the video about them.”
“Oh, Jack. I support your vendetta against that company, but I cannot support your vendetta against that woman. If you listened to anything beyond your own internal monologue, you’d know Clara didn’t have anything to do with the doll situation.
She was gaining experience in a different department.
” Flo folds her arms across her chest and tilts her head.
“You are more likely to find corporate greed wearing a suit and tie than designer pumps. You would do well to remember that when you’re upsetting people who are here to help. ”
“I don’t have a vendetta against her.” She raises an eyebrow at me. “And are you suggesting that she can’t be corrupt because she’s a woman? That doesn’t make her trustworthy.”
Tommy and Luke are notably quiet. Flo tuts at me again, probably for the millionth time in my life.
“You’re a ridiculously stubborn man, have I told you that?
Women are capable of all things. Should a woman put her mind to it, she can excel beyond men in anything she sets her heart on, corruption included.
” I interlock my fingers on the top of my head, regretting saying a word.
“Now, I don’t think young Miss Davenport has set her heart on being a supervillain, do you?
I’ve never seen the Joker organizing toy drives and painting nativity sets, have you? ”
I want to roll my eyes at her so badly. I would never, but the urge is throbbing behind my eyelids. “I don’t think we know young Miss Davenport enough to speak on what her genuine intentions might be.”
“Do you really think she would repeatedly bring herself here to be grunted at by you if she was the corporate menace you seem to think she is? Davenport may be suffering in the court of public opinion, but they’re unlikely to be suffering at the bank.
Which is what they care about. It’s highly unlikely that woman needs to be here, and I believe she is in fact choosing to be here to try to make amends with the town. ”
“What lie did she offer you to buy your forgiveness?”
I see Flo’s expression change into something nobody would want to see.
“Do you think so little of my intelligence that you believe I could be led up the garden path by a pretty face and very nice hair, Jack Kelly? Does the fact I have conversed with many experienced businesspeople and lived all over the world mean so little to you, that you think I’m a prime target to be the victim of an elaborate manipulation? ”
Flo was a flight attendant out of Boston in her younger years and ended up meeting and marrying a French opera singer.
She left Fraser Falls for years to live in Paris, then England, and has probably seen more of the world than everyone in this town combined.
She came back here every December, her accent and colloquialisms different from the year before, and shared her European life with anyone who would listen.
I know I won’t win this argument. Not because she’s right when she says she’s met experienced businesspeople or lived all over the world, but because this woman is the most stubborn person I know.
Despite being divorced from the aforementioned opera singer for fifteen years, she refuses to change her name from Girard as she enjoys that it upsets her ex-husband’s new wife.
When she was a teenager in the seventies, she wore a Santa beard every day for two months to protest the town’s exclusion of women in the annual Santa run that kicks off December.
When she introduced an accompanying Santa hat, the town council finally gave in and allowed women to run alongside the men.
There’s a plaque about it in Bliss suggesting that the Boston Marathon may have been inspired by her actions.
Basically, I’m not going to change her mind, and I don’t have surviving a Flo lecture in me today. “Of course I don’t think that about you, Ms. Flo.”
Her hands are on her hips now. “Then tell me, why is she receiving the brunt of your anger? What’s she done to you that’s so terrible?”
“Should we maybe get back to…,” Luke says carefully, but Flo holds up a hand to stop him.
“Don’t you try to get him out of this, Luke Brookdale, or I’ll be calling your mother to let her know you turned up to official town business smelling like a brewery.”
His mouth opens and closes like a goldfish’s. Luke is twenty-six years old, a father, and a successful business owner, but that shuts him right up.
Her attention is back on me, and I don’t have an answer for her that I’m willing to share out loud.
The truth is, that Davenport offer last year got my hopes up that we could turn our small project into something bigger and better for our town.
That I could be the one to contribute something great to my community.
That I could finally put the guilt of being a shitty teenager and always apologizing for my dad’s flaky behavior behind me.
Then the legal papers arrived, and we realized Davenport was trying to screw us and it gutted me.
I can’t move past the feeling that they’re trying to screw us again and using Clara to do it.
Given what we learned last night, they have no problem using her.
“I just don’t trust her. I’m allowed to not trust her after everything that’s happened. After what Davenport did to us.”
“But look at everything Clara is doing for us now. She’s secured funding for the toy drive.
Celia is hosting a book event next month that’s going to bring dozens of people here.
” Flo’s expression softens. Something close to pity.
“You’re allowed to be wary of her and it doesn’t surprise me that you would cling to distrust because you inherited your skepticism from your grandfather.
You would be a fool to fully trust someone you don’t know.
But perhaps you should get to know her and decide whether she’s worth trusting then. What do you have to lose?”
“My sanity.” An apology for my rudeness sits in my throat but I ignore it.
Flo sighs and closes the distance to rub my arm affectionately. “You’re a smart man, Jack. You’ll figure it out.”
“You’re really not upset about her being here?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“Until the business is hers, she’s going to answer to the decisions of her father plus likely many other people. Just like you did with yours. I’m still upset with Davenport but look at everything she wants to do for us. What do I have to lose by giving her a chance?”
I stare at Flo. “Your sanity.”
She bops me on the arm and smiles. “That’s long gone.”