Chapter 8 #2
I walk back to the Pinecrest on autopilot, Evelyn's cheerful greeting barely registering as I climb the stairs to my room. I need to process what just happened. Need to understand why I'm disappointed that Eli didn't kiss me when relief would make more sense.
I sink onto the bed and pull out my laptop, desperate for distraction. My email loads slowly—the Wi-Fi here is decent but not great—and when it finally populates, one subject line catches my eye immediately.
FWD: Congratulations on your James Beard nomination!
The blood drains from my face.
Someone forwarded it to me. I don't recognize the sender—probably someone from the magazine who thought I'd want to know, not realizing the knife they're twisting. I open it with hands that have started shaking again, but for entirely different reasons.
The original email is there, sent from Mark Ford to Vanessa:
Vanessa,
Just wanted to reach out personally to congratulate you on the nomination!
"The Hoppy Revolution: How Northern California's Craft Breweries Are Rewriting the Rules of American Beer" was such a groundbreaking piece—the way you captured the essence of Northern California's craft beer scene was absolutely masterful.
The judges were particularly impressed by your tasting notes and the depth of your research.
The awards ceremony is in three weeks. I hope you'll be able to attend—I'd love to introduce you to some people who are very interested in commissioning more work from you.
Again, congratulations. This is well-deserved.
Best,
Mark Ford
Editor-in-Chief, Epicurean Monthly
I stare at the screen until the words blur.
James Beard nomination.
My article. My words. My work.
Vanessa's name.
I close the laptop carefully, precisely, like it might shatter if I'm not gentle enough. My hands know what to do even when my brain has gone numb. Click. Fold. Set aside on the nightstand where I won't have to look at it.
The ceiling of my room at the Pinecrest has a water stain in the corner shaped vaguely like a bird.
Or maybe a hand reaching. I've been staring at it for the past three nights, cataloging its edges, the way the brown fades to yellow at the boundaries.
Now I trace it again with my eyes, following the familiar pattern because it's easier than thinking about the email.
Three weeks until the ceremony.
Three weeks for Vanessa to stand on a stage and accept recognition for work she didn't do. Three weeks for her to shake hands and smile for cameras and give interviews about her "process" and her "inspiration." Three weeks for the lie to become truth simply because everyone believes it.
My chest feels tight, like someone's sitting on it. I try to breathe deep but the air won't go all the way down. Just stops somewhere around my ribs and sits there, useless.
The numbness I've been fighting for days crashes over me like a wave.
Not the inability to taste—that's still there, except for the food here in Redwood Rise, which now feels like a cruel joke.
No, this is a different kind of numbness.
The kind that comes from realizing that no matter how far you run, the past follows you.
The kind that makes your body feel like it belongs to someone else, like you're operating it from a distance, pressing buttons and pulling levers but not really feeling any of it.
I should cry. That's what people do when they get news like this, right? They cry or scream or throw things. They feel something big enough to match the moment.
But I just lie here, dry-eyed, staring at the water stain and breathing those shallow half-breaths that don't quite satisfy.
Somewhere in town, Eli is in his cellar with his mysterious beer and his careful restraint. Is he thinking about what almost happened between us? Does his thumb still remember the shape of my lip? Or has he already moved on, filed it away as a moment of weakness he won't repeat?
My cheek still burns where he touched me.
My lip still tingles from the brush of his thumb.
And I hate that even now, even with Vanessa's triumph sitting like lead in my stomach, part of me wants to go back to that cellar.
Wants to feel his hands on my face again.
Wants him to stop being so goddamn controlled and just—
I sit up. The sudden movement makes my head swim, but at least it breaks the paralysis. My phone sits on the nightstand next to my closed laptop, screen dark and innocent.
I pick it up. Put it down. Pick it up again.
The text from Cilla is still there, bright and cheerful:
Dinner tonight? I want to hear all about how the research on the article is going!
The article I'm not writing. The research I'm not doing. The lie I've been telling because the truth—I ran away from my life and I'm hiding in your town and I don't know what I'm doing here—is too pathetic to say out loud.
I should text back. Should make some excuse about being tired or busy or coming down with something.
Should pack my bag and check out of the Pinecrest and drive back to San Francisco where I can.
.. what? Watch Vanessa accept my award? Beg Mark Ford to reconsider an investigation he clearly never intended to take seriously?
Rebuild a career from ruins when I can't even taste the food I'm supposed to write about?
My thumbs hover over the screen.
Somewhere in San Francisco, Vanessa is probably already planning her acceptance speech.
Practicing her surprised face in the mirror.
Deciding what to wear. Maybe she feels a twinge of guilt when she thinks about me.
Maybe she's convinced herself the work really was hers, that her "mentorship" and "guidance" were substantial enough to claim ownership.
Maybe she doesn't think about me at all.
The thought should hurt more than it does.
I start typing before I can stop myself:
Sounds perfect. What time?
Send.
The message disappears into the ether, and there's no taking it back now.
I set the phone down and stare at it like it might explain what I'm doing.
Why I just agreed to dinner when I should be halfway to San Francisco by now.
Why I'm lying to my friend. Why I'm staying in a town where nothing makes sense, where I can taste food that should be as bland as everything else, where a man I barely know makes my entire body come alive and then refuses to act on it.
Here I am, lying to my friend about an article I'm not writing, tasting food I shouldn't be able to taste, wanting a man who won't kiss me even when every cell in my body is begging him to.
I should leave.
Instead, I'm staying for dinner.