Chapter Ten
Ten
CHARLIE WAS SHOWERED AND DRESSED by the time Bernie joined her the next morning in the small kitchen. Even though he often went up to the lodge for breakfast, she wanted to do something to thank him for his kindness and willingness to let her show up without much warning.
“Mmm. Is that pancakes I smell?” Bernie ran a hand over his hair, making what little he had stick up on his head.
He wore striped pajamas and his glasses sat on the bridge of his nose like they might fall off.
A sharp pang vibrated in her chest. What would her dad have looked like as an older man? What had her grandfather looked like?
She nodded when he looked at her, then went back to flipping the ones in the pan. “Buttermilk. From scratch. I figured cooking for you was the least I could do. Though Levi probably has pancakes, French toast, and waffles for the guests.”
Bernie shuffled to the table she’d already set and sat down. “Levi is a fantastic cook but I’m happy to sit right here and get to know you a little better. Pancakes are just a bonus.”
Turning off the burner, she set the fresh pancakes on a plate, brought them to the table, then went back for the berries she’d found in the fridge.
It was nice to cook for someone else. To have someone to sit down and share a meal with.
Sharing one with Grayson last night was a bit too nice.
Bringing the berries, she sat down across from Bernie at the small two-person Formica table.
“Dig in,” she said, lifting the plate of fluffy, golden-brown pancakes toward him.
Using his fork, he stabbed three, and then she served herself. This felt weird. Nice, but weird. At home, she usually had some yogurt, granola, and berries. She ate them, alone, on her deck overlooking the small park by her apartment.
They ate in a fairly comfortable silence for a few minutes.
“These are delicious. They remind me of my wife’s pancakes. Calla was a wonderful cook. She’d have wanted to make you a big roast beef meal with all of the fixings. She loved cooking for people.”
Charlie heard the hint of wistful sadness behind the love in his voice. She recognized it easily from when her mom lost her dad.
She smiled at his memory. “Do you cook at all?”
Bernie laughed, pausing his fork by his mouth. “I do. But that doesn’t mean I do it well. And now I’ve been spoiled by the Keller family.”
Moving her bite around her plate, soaking up the syrup and fruit juice, Charlie looked at him through lowered eyelids. “Are they really as great as they seem?”
“They’re a special family. Every one of them.” He helped himself to another pancake. “Speaking of, maybe it’s time you told me more about why you’re really here.”
Her stomach cramped. “What do you mean?”
Bernie chuckled, looking at her with both amusement and affection.
“I was clearly born many yesterdays ago, my dear. Your phone hasn’t stopped buzzing since you arrived, and you haven’t asked anything about your dad’s side of the family, which was the reason you said you wanted to connect.
You made contact over a year ago and then I heard nothing from you until now. ”
God, well, that made her sound horrible. She set her fork down. “I’m so sorry, Bernie. It was never my intention to take advantage of you. I’m happy to pay for a room at the lodge or even pay rent while I’m here.”
The table was small enough for him to reach over and place his weathered hand over her own.
“That’s completely unnecessary, Charlotte.
I’m thrilled you’re here. But I’ve been around a long time and I recognize hiding when I see it.
And I’m not as inept as I feel when Ollie challenges me to those video games. I know how to use the internets.”
She started to smile but the realization of what he meant hit her. “You saw the video.”
Shame filled her like water in a vase. Closing her eyes, she pulled her hand back. “Not my finest moment.” Opening her eyes, she stared at Bernie. “Not to make excuses, but not all of that is real. They edited some of it to make it worse.”
“I figured as much. I’m sorry. That must have been very hard to have them betray you like that.”
She sighed, staring down at her now-soppy pancake.
She relived the memory as she shared the whole truth with him.
Dani and Coraline, her soon-to-be stepsisters, were in the living room of her mom’s home when Vivi told Charlotte about the wedding and asked her to be the maid of honor.
Until that moment, she’d thought the two women were becoming her friends.
That maybe she’d have that big-family vibe she sometimes dreamed about.
It had vaguely registered that they were recording on their phones but Charlie didn’t think anything of it.
One of them, she couldn’t remember which, worked in commercial editing.
She figured they were making keepsake videos, capturing all the moments.
And then her mom announced a bombshell bigger than the wedding.
A network wanted to do a reality-television show with Vivi, her new husband, and their family.
Charlie had seen the video online more times than she could count, so every time she thought about it, her own shocked image popped into her brain.
Her mom was so excited, she didn’t even realize that Charlie was floored by the news.
She kept going on and on about how This is finally it, my big break and Isn’t it something that they’d want to do a show about Bryce Colter’s widow who finally found love again?
And of course, his daughter would need to be part of it.
All grown up with a new family? What had happened to the little girl the rock legend had called his starlight?
Vivi’s new fiancé, Eddie, had swaggered into the room like he’d timed it to assure Charlie that he wasn’t cashing in on her dad’s legacy. But if it happened to shine a spotlight on his own band? And her dad’s? Didn’t she want that for all of them?
No. No she didn’t. Well, actually, she didn’t care if they did it, but she wanted nothing to do with the show or the exposure.
Vivica cried in the way only Vivica could do and told Charlotte she hadn’t raised her to be selfish.
Charlie lost her temper at that point. Now there was a meme of her face contorted in rage, with everything from the actual words she’d said—“You didn’t raise me at all”—to ridiculous phrases like “What do you mean, there are no more tacos?” Charlie was so upset with her mother’s behavior and presumption that she’d do the show—and that she’d given the producer Charlie’s contact information—she hadn’t even realized Coraline and Dani were still recording.
It was bad enough that the twins had recorded the entire awful event, but they’d added graphics, text, and voice-overs, talking about the irony of a child therapist not wanting to be part of her own new family.
It was all completely misconstrued and taken out of context, but thanks to the beauty of social media, it didn’t matter what was true or whom the video hurt.
She didn’t even realize she was crying until Bernie got up, grabbed a box of tissues off the counter, and brought it out to her.
“It’s easy for someone to say this will pass and everyone will forget about it, but you won’t. This has changed you.”
More tears filled her eyes. How did he get it so easily? “It’s changed everything. I can deal with the embarrassment, with the betrayal, and even the lies. But I lost my dream job because of optics and they weren’t even true.”
Bernie patted her hand. “I know. Forgive me if this sounds trite, but I’ve often found that some of the worst things that have happened in my lifetime led me down a path I didn’t expect to travel. And that hasn’t been all bad.”
She could see, from the shine in his own eyes, that he was talking about his wife.
Charlie wasn’t sure she’d ever know that kind of love and loyalty.
Her own ex had seen the video and promptly contacted her, trying to guilt her into using her connections to help him get a gig.
She’d laughed, thinking he was joking while drastically overselling his hobby of playing open-mic nights.
In turn, he’d harassed her and shared the video on his own social media.
“I know this is hard, Charlie. When something like this happens, we want everything to return to the way it was, but that version of normal isn’t there anymore.
So, you have to let yourself wallow a bit.
Enough to have ice cream, Calla always used to say.
Then you figure out where you go from there. Who you are as you move forward.”
Using a tissue to dab her eyes, she sniffled. “Thank you. I haven’t actually told anyone the whole story like that. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t share it. I’m not on social media, my mother doesn’t know where I am, and I’m just not ready to actively face it.”
He gave her a soft smile. She hoped it was just her worries making her see disappointment beneath it. “So you are hiding.”
She nodded. She could admit that much. “For now. Yes.”
“The Kellers are a safe and lovely bunch. You don’t have to keep secrets. They can grow heavy. They actually learned that lesson themselves a couple of summers ago. They might understand more than you’d expect.”
She shook her head, curiosity, once again, piqued.
She shut it down. None of her business. She’d told herself the same thing last night when she wanted to ask Gray about his divorce, about why she was the first woman he’d felt compelled to ask out after so long.
“I just want to pretend it didn’t happen.
I can do that here but not if everyone knows. ”
He frowned but nodded. “Why don’t we do some dock fishing this morning?”
Charlie sat straighter, a real smile on her face now. “Actually, I’m helping Jilly out today.”
Now, Bernie’s face brightened. “That’s wonderful. I think being here will be good for you, Charlie.”
Getting up, she started clearing plates, not surprised when he began helping. “I do, too.”
“And who knows, maybe you’ll learn things about yourself you never would have otherwise.”
She nodded. That was part of the plan. “I hope so.” She wasn’t ready to ask about her dad’s side of the family just yet but she had a feeling Bernie only knew how to be honest. When she was ready to hear about him, he was exactly the man to ask.