Chapter Eight #2
Alex turned onto South Ocean Boulevard, and I looked out the window, watching Palm Beach pass in a blur. “So a minivan, huh? Interesting choice.”
Alex raised his eyebrows. “What? Are you too cool for the van?”
“No, I only meant . . . I was just wondering.”
He squinted at me a moment, then turned back to the road and nodded. “You are obviously the right amount of cool for the van. Grey calls it the man van, like a man purse, but a van.”
That sounded exactly like something Greyson would say. “If I were you, I probably wouldn’t go around advertising I drive a man van.”
Alex patted the steering wheel. “I’ll have you know I’m proud of my man van. This thing is top of the line. But if you really want to know, the van is great for catering gigs.”
“I guess that makes sense.” I turned over my shoulder. The van was kind of dorky, but with three rows and leather seats, it was way nicer than my beat-up Kia. “Do you do a lot of catering?”
“Not really, but I might. When Greyson’s mom was still around, we lived in New York, and the restaurant I worked at catered occasionally.”
Though we’d talked a lot about the girls, Greyson’s mother had never come up. I turned over the words still around in my mind. What did he mean? But I didn’t feel it was my place to ask. “But then you moved to Florida.”
We made our way through a roundabout, and the ocean burst into view, sparkling beside us like a coin catching the morning light.
Alex looked past me and out the window, the corners of his mouth turning down a fraction.
“Things got a little out of control when it was just me and Grey. After a few years we needed a change of scenery, so I got my first yachting gig, thanks to Xav, and it’s what I’ve been doing ever since. ”
“What do you like better, working at a restaurant or being a yachtie?”
Alex shot me that almost smile. “You and your tough questions.”
“Sorry. You don’t have to—”
“It’s hard to say,” he said. “I have a complicated history with the restaurant business, but I loved it. Yachting has its pros and cons too. What I’d really like to do is open a place on the beach—like Benny’s, that brunch spot you told me about.
You were right, they have the best chocolate chip waffles. Greyson loved it.”
I imagined Alex and Greyson at Benny’s, a stack of waffles between them as they watched seagulls out by the pier. “Why don’t you open a restaurant now?” I knew Alex had money. The rent across the parking lot wasn’t cheap, and the van looked brand-new.
“Don’t have the time. Running a restaurant is like having three full-time jobs, and I don’t want to miss out on being there for Greyson.
Charter season is rough enough, but it makes it possible for me to only work twenty, twenty-five hours a week tops the rest of the year.
In five years she’ll hopefully be off to college, and maybe that will be the right time. ”
I imagined Alex running his own restaurant. It would probably be casual, like him, but a little quirky, perhaps with funky old Florida decor and an eclectic menu. “I envy your cooking skills. Mine are nonexistent. I’m a microwave enthusiast.”
Alex gave me a skeptical look.
“No, really. I caught boiling water on fire once. I live off of microwaved dinners.”
Alex shook his head. “That’s a sad existence.”
“I’m going to learn, though. I have to host a dinner party for my list.”
“Now that I’d love to see.”
“Consider yourself invited, but you aren’t allowed to judge. You have to leave your chef’s hat at the door.”
“I wouldn’t dream of judging.”
I took a long sip of coffee and watched him as he drove, head bobbing to the music. “Did you always want to be a chef?” I asked.
“Pretty much. Growing up in the RV, I got to try food from everywhere. It was hard always being a stranger, but food made it easier.”
“Greyson said your parents are musicians.”
“Yeah, that’s why we traveled so much. They play folk rock. They weren’t big or anything, but they had a following. Sometimes they had me and my siblings play too.”
“You play an instrument?”
“A few.”
“Such as?”
“Mandolin, banjo, guitar. Not very well. I was always more into food.”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as the road pulled away from the ocean, and we slipped beneath a canopy of mangrove trees.
Shadow and light danced across the dashboard.
The silhouettes of leaves flickered over Alex’s face, casting him in a green glow.
I tried to imagine him as a little boy traveling the country in an RV with his musical hippie family.
It explained a lot about him, really. It seemed like a life that would make a person relaxed, open to new people, and maybe a little weird too.
“And you?” Alex asked. “Did you always want to be a yacht stewardess?”
I laughed. “Not exactly. I didn’t even know yacht stewardess was a thing until I got this job. But it’s about as close as I can get to my childhood dream.”
“Which was?”
I turned to him. “Promise you won’t make fun of me?”
“Promise.”
“My dad was in the Navy before I was born, and he used to tell me and my sister stories about all the places he’d seen.
” I smiled, thinking of Dad, who was soft-spoken and private, with the rigid habits of a military man.
He’d had a love for opera and poetry and was a poet himself.
The three of us, Mom, Beth, and me, adored him.
Sometimes at dinner, he’d read poems he’d written for us, and we’d laugh ourselves silly.
“When I was in kindergarten, I didn’t really understand what the Navy was, and I thought my dad had been a pirate.
I was always telling people I wanted to be in the Navy, but I really wanted to be a pirate. ”
“There are actual pirates, you know,” Alex said. “You don’t have to settle for being a yacht stewardess.”
“You promised no teasing.” Alex held up a hand in apology.
“I just like being on the water,” I continued.
“My dad was always as close to it as he could get, so it makes me feel like I’m with him.
He died when I was twelve. Brain aneurysm.
” There was more to it than that, of course.
My guilt. How my mother gave up on everything, including me.
Beth getting pregnant and moving in with Mark.
“I like the job, though, even if I’m just a maid on a fancy ship. ”
“Hey, maids are great. And you aren’t just a maid on a fancy ship. You’re more a maid/bartender/waitress/party planner on a fancy ship.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. People tended to have one of two reactions when they heard about my job: they either thought it was super glamorous (as if I were the one enjoying all the amenities the yacht had to offer) or looked down on me for having a service job.
It was hard to get it unless you were in the yachting world.
Shitty Peter never seemed to understand how exhausting my job could be—the constant cleaning and serving and entertaining.
Whenever I was too tired to go out, he’d say that if anyone should be tired, it was him.
You get to have fun all day, while I’m stuck at a desk making sales calls for eight hours.
Whenever I’d call him out on trying to guilt me, he’d tell me I was crazy and high-maintenance, which only made me more upset.
I’d end up in tears, and he’d pull me to him and say something like I just want to show off my beautiful girlfriend.
So I’d get dressed up and spend my Friday nights at whatever bar or club we were meeting his friends at, when all I really wanted to do was binge-watch the shows I’d missed during charter season or have a vintage board game night at Nina’s.
After swapping celebrity guest stories (Alex had cooked for a Kardashian, though he wouldn’t say which one, mine was JLo), we pulled into the marina.
I was surprised how quickly the drive had flown by.
It always seemed longer when I was by myself.
But at least my fears of awkward silence had amounted to nothing.
“Regret being my carpool buddy yet?” Alex asked after he cut the engine.
Buddy, I thought, a safe, friendly term for what we were. That was what I’d tell Nina and the girls when they teased me. We were buddies! Or maybe buds? Bros? No, definitely not bros.
I squinted at Alex. “Too soon to tell. The coffee was a nice touch, though.”
Alex grinned, but then his phone rang. He looked at the screen, all the humor draining from his face in an instant. “You go on ahead. I better take this.”
“Sure.” I wondered who could strike such a sudden change in him as I exited the van.
At that moment, Nina stepped from her convertible a few spaces away.
She spotted me, then glanced at the van.
When I caught up to her, she pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and made a big show of looking around the parking lot.
“No car? What’s this, Josephine?”
“It’s nothing. We’re carpool buddies.”
Nina laughed as I dragged her over to the dock. “It sure doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
—
“You’re having a what?” Nina said when we set the table for lunch.
“A Zac Efron movie marathon,” I repeated. I draped one of many colorful leis over a chair, decor for the luau-themed lunch we were throwing. We’d pulled out grass skirts for ourselves and the guests and made Alex promise to wear one when he came up to check in with them after the meal.
“He’s the guy from those singing basketball movies, right?”
“Yup.” I was grateful Nina had latched on to the subject. She’d done nothing but tease me about carpooling with Alex all day, despite my insistence that we were buddies. I know exactly what type of buddies you two are going to be, she’d said with a wink.
“Oh, I am so in.” Nina fanned out palm fronds on the center of the table. “He’s as dreamy as they come. Though maybe he isn’t your type. You’re more into guys with minivans, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, and it’s a man van, by the way. Why do you have to be such a horny old lady?”
“Who’s a horny old lady?”
We turned to find Alex standing behind us, hands in his pockets.
“My nieces and I are hosting a Zac Efron movie marathon,” I explained. “And where’s the skirt? We’ve got ours on.” I swished my hips, and the grass skirt rippled around me.
“Ah, yes, the Zefron-a-thon,” Alex said. “Greyson told me. Still doesn’t address the horny old lady thing. And I’ll wear the skirt, I promise. But I don’t think it’ll be as good if I catch it on fire while I’m cooking.”
“A Zefron-a-what?” Nina said.
“A Zefron-a-thon,” Alex repeated. “Zac. Efron. Movie. Marathon. Zefron-a-thon.”
Nina and I looked at each other, trying to hold in our laughter.
“I love that guy,” Alex said. “I mean, Greyson loves that guy.”
“Stop,” Nina said, shooting Alex a glare that dissipated into laughter. “You are a public nuisance, Chef.”
Alex turned to me. “If you wanted, I’d be happy to cook for everyone. You could have it at my place. Easier access to the fancy chef tools.”
And more space, I thought. The units across the parking lot were all two-bedrooms with wide kitchens. That, and I wouldn’t have to clean up Mia and Kitty’s mess before the event.
“I’m going to take you up on that. I hadn’t even thought about food. This . . . Zefron-a-thon has turned into a whole production. Your daughter and my nieces are making decor, and who knows what that will entail.”
“Then it’s a deal.” Alex’s eyes met mine, but then he stepped over to Nina and grabbed a lei from her hands, putting it over her head. “You’re coming, too, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” Nina said, uncharacteristically flustered. “I was planning on it. Wherever Jo goes, that’s where you’ll find me.”
“Cool.” He rapped the table with his knuckles. “The guests want lunch at one, right?” he asked Nina.
“Yup.”
Alex flashed her a smile, then nodded to me before leaving for the galley.
I raised an eyebrow at Nina once he’d left. “What was that? Doesn’t he know you hate him?”
Nina clutched a lei to her chest. “What? I love him! He’s so easy to work with. Finally, a chef without an ego. I don’t miss Ollie at all.”
I snatched a palm frond from the table and fanned it in her face. “Oh, really? Because only a few weeks ago you hated Alex for simply existing.”
Nina waved me away. “What are you doing?”
“Wafting away the smell of your bullshit.”
“Am I sensing jealousy, Josephine Walker?”
“Not at all.” I tried to keep my tone light, but Nina was starting to get on my nerves with all this Alex stuff.
“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I’m not interested.
Not in Alex. Not in anyone. He’s just a flirt, and I’d be more than happy if he were interested in you. Then maybe you’d get off my case.”
Nina pressed her lips together and looked toward the galley. “Maybe. But he doesn’t really seem like a womanizer to me.”
The voices of the guests floated over to us, cutting off our conversation. In an instant, our bickering was set aside, and with ready smiles and perfect posture, we transformed into our stew selves. I poured water and took drink orders, while Nina left to bring out the food from the galley.
I muddled mint and sugar for mojitos and wondered what she and Alex were talking about in the galley.
Was Alex singing out the names of each dish as he passed them into her hands, like he did with me?
Or maybe he was asking about her dream job as a kid?
(Celebrity dolphin trainer.) Not that it mattered what they were talking about.
Really, it would be a weight off my shoulders if there was something between them.
My annoyance was more for Ollie than for anyone else.
I looked down at the muddler. The mint leaves were crushed into too-tiny pieces that would stick in the guests’ teeth and taste bitter.
I sighed and dumped them into the trash before beginning again.