Chapter 19
It Hurts Having You in My Life, and It Hurts Not Having You in My Life
Aria
My fingertips are frozen stiff. And I’m not just saying that. They’re red, even a little blue, and literally stiff. I move from one leg to the other and blow on my palms.
Over and over my eyes flit to the shop window with the antique tea service, cutlery, and pastry stand decorated with little flowers.
I’m standing in front of the window for the seventh time today already and peeking through the narrow crack of the rose-colored drapes when finally—finally!
—the back door of the pastry shop opens and Patricia scurries out in her white-and-purple dress with frilled sleeves and her old-fashioned apron.
Her watery eyes look to the window and meet my inquisitive gaze.
A few seconds later she pulls the curtains to the side before undoing the chain on the door and opening the shop.
“Child,” she says as I storm past her into the warmth of the shop. “Every day I tell you to stop staring into my shop.”
“And every day I tell you to open on time.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a spy trying to get ahold of my secret butter-tart recipe to put online.”
I shake out my numb fingers and wait for them to come back to life before taking an apple turnover from the counter. It’s still warm. “I’m not spying,” I say in between heavenly bites. “I’m begging for help in the ice-cold night, and you refuse to let me in.”
Patricia disappears behind the counter and turns on the coffee machine. “You’re not The Little Match Girl, Aria.”
“How do you know? Have you ever seen my fingers? I bet they’re just as cold as hers were.”
Patricia gives me a disdainful look before disappearing into the kitchen and returning with a handcart piled high with three boxes of rolls, quark balls, and cinnamon buns.
“You know,” I say as I take the handcart from her. “If you don’t start opening on time, maybe we’ll have to terminate our contract with you.”
Patricia erupts in laughter. “I’d just love to see your guests when you serve them your homemade pastries.”
“I’m not bad at baking.”
She bends over the counter, her old-fashioned dress squishing her ample breasts upward, opens her mouth, and takes out her dentures. Just like that, right in front of me! I can hardly believe it. God, is that nasty! Saliva and everything, right here on the counter!
“You see that?” Patricia points to an empty space stretching between her molar and canine. “I lost that three years ago biting into one of your Christmas cookies.”
“That really was worth showing me right now, wasn’t it?” I make a face. “Now you’ve got to disinfect the counter.”
With another laugh, she puts her dentures back in, grabs a bottle of disinfectant from a shelf, and sprays down the counter. “Get out of here, Aria. I don’t want any Little Match Girl in my shop scaring away my guests with her pitiful eyes.”
“There you have it! Denying me, the poor, poor little creature longing for refuge!”
She shoos me off but smiles. And I return it because I love this woman and know I’ll be a wreck the day heaven decides to have her back.
It’s just before seven. Not a light in the sky.
Finally, the time of year when things turn magical.
A few of the city’s streetlights, like the ones on our street, are gas-powered and date back to the 1930s.
The state of Colorado wanted to get rid of them and replace them with modern stuff, but William fought back as if his life depended on it with I don’t know how many PowerPoint presentations, petitions, and even his horses, which he put out to protect every single light…
In the end, they were allowed to stay. Will doesn’t mind turning every single streetlight on and off two times a day, mornings and evenings, on his stubborn mare Sally. He loves it. Says it keeps him young.
The butter-yellow glow lights up the asphalt as I push the cart across the street and the sound of its wheels travels through the cold morning air.
The bell tower chimes seven o’clock. Smoke is coming out of the chimney on our roof—Mom must have started the fire.
It’s a simple moment, nothing particular, but it awakens so much magic inside me, so much beauty.
The crackling of the fireplace greets me as I step into our B&B. My mother is bustling about in the room behind the stone arch setting up the breakfast buffet.
“We need to fire Patricia,” I say, walking over to her and maneuvering the handcart next to the table. “She wanted to let me freeze to death.”
Mom begins lifting rolls and quark balls out of the boxes with stiff fingers and dividing them between the baskets. “Daniel would be disappointed.”
I nod, bring the cinnamon buns into the kitchen, and come back with the cutlery tray. “And she pulled out her dentures to show me some missing teeth.”
Mom opens a package of napkins and puts them next to the rolls. “The ones she lost thanks to your Christmas cookies or Wyatt’s elbow?”
“The ones… Wait, what?”
She raises her eyes and laughs when she sees my confused expression. “Patricia used to take care of Wyatt pretty often when his dad was stationed overseas for longer periods of time. When he was two, he had a meltdown, and she got an elbow to the teeth.”
The corners of my mouth twitch. “Even when he was little, it was obvious he’d become a hockey player, huh?”
Mom grins. “Wyatt was always a rebel. He got his first pair of skates when he was three and then just shot off across Silver Lake. Fell over a thousand times, sure. But always got up again.” Her smile grows warmer.
“I can still remember how confused you were in kindergarten by all his energy. ‘Mommy,’ you said, ‘he runs after me every day. It’s annoying.’”
“For real? I don’t remember that at all.”
“Wyatt was in love with you from the moment you joined his red bear group.”
I’m filled with a sense of infinite sadness.
A large part of me longs to be back in that little group where our biggest problems were who got to have the crayons or whether we’d have those terrible veggie burgers for lunch again.
My heart begins to race when I think back to him pulling me behind the bell tower and pushing his weight against me, his hot breath on my skin, the scent of mint and pine right before his lips brushed mine…
“Everything okay, Aria?”
“What? Oh, yeah. All good.”
“You sure? You’re red.”
“It’s hot in here, right?” I push the napkins to the left, to the right, left, right, left, and then pick up the bread knife to pretend to inspect it for spots. “The fireplace is really going today.”
“It’s only got two logs.”
An uncomfortable silence springs up while my mother waits for me to explain, when all of a sudden the door opens and guests come in.
“Welcome to Ruth’s!” I call out enthusiastically, put the bread knife back down, and go into the next room to the welcome desk. “Aspen is delighted to welcome you. You’re in luck, we still have—”
I look up, and the words stick in my throat. A big pair of honey-colored eyes is staring back at me. Liquid amber. Those very same honey-colored eyes I’ve been rigorously avoiding for fourteen days.
“Wyatt…” Behind him, Camila steps to the side. With pinched lips, she stares past me up the wooden stairs.
Wyatt pulls off his hat, sheepishly runs a hand through his unruly hair, and then puts it back on, backward. Warning, warning. Déjà vu at its finest. He used to do that so often that the gesture invariably burned itself into my brain.
“Hi, Ari.”
Mom appears in the archway. Blinking continuously, she looks from me to Camila to Wyatt as if this were the most absurd thing she had ever witnessed. But she doesn’t say a word. She simply stands there looking at us before TURNING AROUND AND WALKING OFF.
Speechlessly, I watch her go. I mean, hello, this just isn’t possible!
She’s my mom, and my ex has just shown up at our house as if that was something he could do.
She knows I can’t handle this. She knows that she’s got to take over because I’ve just turned back into a little kid who wants to run off into her corner.
I can’t cope with this. But she just walks off as if she had to reset the plates, as if that required some kind of sorcery. Come on, THEY’RE JUST PLATES!
I try to clear my throat, for suddenly there seems to be a whole lot of mucus in it. “What do you want?”
Wyatt comes a step closer. His feet are touching the oriental carpet, which means that he’s only about two and a half feet away. After making every effort over the last two weeks to make sure that the distance between us was at least half the city, this is too close, definitely too damn close.
“We’ve got a problem.”
Heat crawls up my throat all the way to my ears, and when he notices, he realizes what he’s just said.
His cheekbones turn red. “I don’t mean you and me. Well, yeah, we do, too, but, no, I didn’t phrase that right… I mean, I don’t want you to think I’ve got a problem with you right now or something because, well, what I wanted to say…”
“God, Wy.” Camila sighs. “We need a room, Aria.”
At first I think I’ve misunderstood. But when the two look at me with serious expressions, I’m overcome by a feeling of bafflement. The situation is so grotesque I have to laugh.
“You all need a room.”
Wyatt nods.
“Here. With us.”
Another nod.
In a stiff movement, my head turns sideways to look for Mom, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
There they are in front of me, looking like two supermodels: Camila slim and tall, fine features, snub nose, slanted eyes.
Wyatt tall and broad, even broader than before, well-toned legs, muscular arms hidden under his Hilfiger jacket. And his face, God, that mouth…
“Why do you need one?”
“We’ve got water damage in our kitchen,” Camila says.
It’s hard to keep my composure. My nails are scratching beneath the reservation book. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure that Knox…”