Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
OLIVIA
I finish refilling the last of the salt and pepper shakers just as I hear my mom cry out from the kitchen. “Oh my word . . . Olivia !” It’s not a happy tone, and it punches right through me.
Dropping the industrial-sized box of salt on the table—and spilling plenty of it in the process—I run through the narrow doorway that leads to the back and immediately find her cause for concern: when I set the coffee to brew a half hour ago, it appears I forgot to set the pot beneath the machine. Dark liquid flows off the long counter, down the doors of the cabinets below, and all over the floor.
“Shit,” I mutter.
“Yeah, shit.” Mom nods, her fiery red curls swept up in her usual loose topknot. Even at six in the morning, she’s a burst of color. “What happened?”
I sigh, looking at her. “I’m sorry . . . I guess I was distracted.”
Her eyes soften as they fill with concern. “You okay, honey?”
I plant a reassuring smile on my face. “Of course ,” I practically shout. “I just . . . I didn’t sleep well. Feeling a little tired this morning. You know—” I wave a hand, as if I’ve explained enough.
Her concern only grows. “Would this have anything to do with the letter I found in the office?”
My heart sinks. I’d meant to hide that before I left yesterday—and by hide it, I mean toss it in the kitchen trash where it could be buried beneath all our stinking food waste—but I must have forgotten. “You saw that?” I force out.
“I saw it,” she confirms. “But I didn’t read it. Honestly, I was just surprised. I didn’t realize you’d been communicating with?—”
“I’m not!” I interrupt. “I’m not communicating with him. It just . . . it was delivered with the rest of the café’s mail yesterday. Total surprise. Like always.”
“Oh,” she says lightly. “Everything okay?”
I shrug, wondering how a surprise letter from my long-lost father inviting me to his daughter’s—my sister’s?—wedding can be brushed over as simply okay . “Céline is getting married,” I explain, “and it seems that my presence would be welcomed at her nuptials.”
“Oh,” she says again. Her hand moves up to rest on her chest, and regret spears into me. This is exactly why I wanted to bury that letter beneath the mounds of uneaten potatoes and discarded pork chop bones—it kills me to see that look in my mother’s eyes.
“I’m not going,” I rush out. “Obviously I’m not going.” As if I’d ever choose to subject myself to the man who’d crushed my mother and caused that look in the first place, or any of the other members of his bright and shiny family. Mom had no idea during their year-long love affair that my father had a fiancée waiting for him at home in Charleston, or that, when it came down to it, he was always going to go back.
Unfortunately for him, proof of their relationship was born seven months after he left. When my mom called him the day I was born—what she says was only an attempt to “do the right thing”—I think she’d been holding on to hope that he’d see the light and come running back to finish what they’d started, to choose her. But all he’d done was promise to send her some money and explain that, for obvious reasons, he couldn’t be a part of our lives.
He’d left her to pick up the pieces of her shattered heart and raise the child they’d created together on her own. And while he made good on his promise to provide some financial support, it wasn’t enough. My mother saved every penny she could so she could use it to invest in opening June’s Café. It was her and this business that had ultimately supported us over the last two decades.
Eventually, my father changed his mind about not wanting to be a part of my life. He must have come clean to his new wife at some point, because letters started being delivered to the café, addressed to me. The first one came around my eighth birthday, and I remember being relieved to learn that this man—my father— might actually want to know me. But that first letter was a two-page outpouring of pride for his family in South Carolina, for his three young daughters that he clearly loved very much, and his hope that I could meet them all someday. Instead of feeling any joy or happiness about this newfound connection to him, I was left feeling more abandoned than ever before.
Over the next few years, a new letter came with every passing birthday, each with a new attempt to showcase his dazzling family. Eventually, they slowed to coming only every couple of years, likely because I never wrote him back. How could I? What would I have said that could possibly measure up to his stories of life in that cushy, elegant city with his beautiful French wife and three charming daughters, especially when my life here was nowhere near comparable?
Not that I wasn’t proud to be my mother’s daughter. The café never made us rich, but it was always enough to keep a roof over our heads and plenty of food in our mouths. In my mind, my mother went above and beyond to set aside her own heartbreak and put me first.
And so, to let this . . . other family . . . into my life would be to turn my back on the pain and sacrifice she’d weathered my whole life. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—ever do that to her.
Even if a small part of me is curious.
“You could go, Liv,” my mother assures me, as if she somehow read my mind. Even as she says the words, I can see the hurt that’s embedded in the crevices of her pale blue eyes. “It might be . . . worthwhile to know them. What do you stand to lose?”
I scoff. “No thanks.”
She clicks her tongue, giving me a look like she knows better. But I know she won’t press the issue. Not when my resistance is a relief for her anxious heart.
I reach for a clean kitchen towel from where they’re stacked near the dishwashing station. “Let me clean this mess up and I’ll put on a new pot,” I say. “And then I’ll make us some omelets before we open, okay?”
She smiles, but it’s pulled back, and I can’t help wondering how long it’ll take before she forgets about this latest intrusion into the safe bubble we’ve formed around our lives. The last letter I received came at my high school graduation, and it included a check with enough zeros to make me dizzy. Mom saw the envelope first, and even though I’d promptly sent the check back (still without a response), it took weeks for my mom to stop asking about it.
That was four years ago now, and I think we both figured the letters would stop. I mean, this man has already missed out on my whole childhood—what does he have to gain from seeing me now? And what desire could there really be for me to attend a wedding for two people I know next to nothing about, simply because the bride and I share a smidge of biology?
Even if I can admit to a little curiosity, it has disaster written all over it.
I press the towel into the mess I’ve made and look back up at my mother. “It’s not worth it, Mom,” I say quietly. “It never has been.”
After a moment, she nods. “All right, sweetheart. Whatever you think is best.”
Much later, when I scoot out the back door after a long day of serving what feels like everyone in town, her words still bounce around my mind. Whatever you think is best . I know they’re meant to be supportive, meant to grant me the freedom to move forward however I want to. But the reality is I have absolutely no idea what’s best, because the truth is, if not for my loyalty to her, I probably would have opened the door to this other family years ago.
I wasn’t the only kid in Saddlebrook Falls who grew up with a single parent, but there definitely weren’t a lot of us. Our conservative town cherished the ideals of a nuclear family, and I spent my youth aware of the father-shaped hole in my life, as wide as a canyon for everyone to gawk at. When I was in elementary school, old Maeve used to stop by our house unannounced with a warm casserole for Mom and me, as if we were in mourning over the inadequacies of our lives. Once, when I was thirteen, Mom just about chased Ron Moore off our lawn when she came home from a Saturday lunch shift at the café and found him cleaning out the gutters.
Sure, it was nice of them to worry, but Mom always made sure we had everything we needed, and the extra attention aimed our way felt like that bad dream, the one where you show up to school and realize you’ve forgotten to put on any clothes. After all the defenses we’d had to throw up, how could I think that taking them down to let the man himself—the one who’d left us in the first place—into our lives would ever be best ?
My walk home takes me ten minutes, and after locking the door behind me and flicking on the lamp in the living room, I know what I need to do. The fireplace still holds Wednesday’s half-charred log of wood from when I’d spent the evening watching New Girl reruns with a crisp bottle of Pinot Grigio and a warm bag of buttery popcorn for dinner. It ignites again quickly, and after setting another fresh log in the rack on top of the growing embers, I fish the letter out of my purse where I dumped it on the side table by the door.
It singes in a matter of minutes, until there’s no trace of the heavy scrawl that’s become the embodiment of my father or the words that never fail to slice me wide open. As I watch the invitation to another life burn to ash, I shove down my disappointment and wipe my tired eyes. It serves me well, I know, to safeguard my heart from men like him. Men who’d think of only themselves when things got tricky.
Oddly, the thought summons a new one—one of Rhett and the absurd plan we made. I’d already been a fool all weekend, so intent on getting out of my comfort zone just to feel something new and exciting. I guess I was successful, because two nights running into Rhett sure made me feel something .
My mind snags on his stormy eyes and the low sounds of his frustration. On the smell of his jacket when I wrapped my arms around him on the bike, on the enchanting curve of his top lip.
Anticipation constricts my chest.
And then I do what I can to shove that down too, because feeling anything for Rhett Bennett would be the most foolish mistake of all.
* * *
I’m irritable with hunger and a deep ache has been building in my feet all day. I was forced to skip lunch when old man Gerry strolled in with his youngest granddaughter and ten of her friends to celebrate her thirteenth birthday just as nosy Maeve and the rest of Bridge Club arrived for their monthly card game.
I should have been off work hours ago, but Mom’s been shut up in the office for most of the day working on admin duties and Teresa—a long-time waitress here and Mom’s closest friend—called to say her sick husband had taken a turn for the worse this morning, and she needed to stay home with him in case things continued to spiral downhill. Rick was diagnosed with kidney failure in the fall, and Teresa has done what she can to be by his side as much as possible.
Despite it only being Thursday, the café was bustling with enough patrons that kept me from having much of a break since we opened the doors this morning. I know I could have asked Mom to jump in and help, but the sooner she gets through payroll reporting and vendor orders, the sooner she can come out and relieve me for the night.
I glance at the clock again, hoping Mom gets through all her tasks and soon , just as my stomach audibly rumbles. Taking a quick status check of all the tables in the dining room, I notice Gerry smiling at me, his hand raised in a gentle wave to beckon me over. I smile back and head his way.
“How is everyone doing over here?” I ask when I reach the table. Simone, his granddaughter, beams up at me with a plastic tiara resting on her head.
Gerry chuckles. “I’d say we’re doing mighty fine. But I think these girls need some more sugaring up.”
Simone and her friends cheer in unison, and I join in with a laugh. “How about some strawberry sundaes?” I ask, arching my brow.
The girls squeal and Gerry’s eyes twinkle. He nods in confirmation, and I shoot him a small wink before heading toward the computer to key in their desserts. I don’t make it more than two steps before I hear Gerry ask, “Olivia?”
I turn back to face him. “Yes?”
“Isn’t it about time you found a nice young man to start settling down with?”
My stomach lurches. His expression is kind, and I know he means well—Gerry is an old man from a much more traditional generation—but if I had a nickel for every time someone in this town has asked about my love life, I definitely wouldn’t be working so many shifts here.
The truth is, I can’t fathom settling down right now. From my total inexperience in the romance department to my hesitation to trust anyone with my whole heart, I’m not even sure how— if —I’ll ever get there.
Though, I have to admit the feeling that I’m missing out on something important has been gnawing at me more and more lately. It’s a big part of why I’ve been forcing myself to swipe on the apps and go on dates—I don’t want to avoid something important just because it scares me. I force my face to hold its smile and say, “Not yet, sir, but I’m looking!”
Gerry beams. “Atta girl. You know, I was quite the matchmaker back in my day. If you ever need any help, or maybe some pointers?—”
“I’ll come find you,” I insist, backing away from the table.
The bells over the door ring in the harmonic signal of a new customer, and I turn to find a broad-shouldered man dressed in all black walking inside, a cowboy hat atop his mess of dark waves. Shit— Rhett . The restaurant quiets as everyone’s collective interest narrows on him, and I see the way his back stiffens and mouth falls into a frown. The realization that I forgot about our date swoops through me as I watch him scan the dining room, no doubt looking for me.
My feet bring me to him of their own volition. When his eyes find mine, I see the relief flash through them before they harden into something else. “Rhett,” I say in a low, hushed voice. “I’m so sorry?—”
“You stood me up.”
I shake my head. “No, oh my gosh, no. I’ve been stuck here all day and honestly forgot that—well, and the other waitress called out sick and . . .” I throw a hand toward the tables behind me. “And things got busy. I’m so sorry.”
He simply stares at me. I realize his ears are tinged a bright shade of pink, and I wonder if he’s nervous. Or maybe he’s just mad after trying to collect me from my house for the date we’re supposed to be having only to realize I wasn’t there.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “God . . . I should have realized. I should have called.”
He cocks his head, considering. “You don’t have my phone number.”
“No,” I agree. “But still, I should have.”
His eyes seem to soften as his posture relaxes. Someone at a table coughs, and a low murmuring of hushed voices weaves through the café.
“Do you want to sit down for a few minutes?” I ask, hopeful. “I should be able to get out of here soon, and I’m so hungry I could eat one of Gus’s contest pizzas all by myself.” Gus offers a free T-shirt and hat to anyone who can eat his extra-large, double-stuffed pizza in one sitting by themselves. It’s mostly a thing Mustang’s Pizza does for the high school football team, but occasionally others—like Shirley Tucker’s eighty-two-year-old grandmother—like to try.
For the record, Shirley’s grandmother nearly finished it.
A hint of amusement dances across Rhett’s face. “Yeah.” He nods. “Okay.”
I lead him to an empty booth in the far corner of the restaurant, avoiding the gazes of everyone around us—and their gazes are no doubt locked in. Because not only did Rhett Bennett just walk through our door, but he’s being seated and staying awhile, and even though I pride myself on minding my own business, this is the kind of big deal people in this town trip over themselves to witness. “Here you go,” I say when we reach the table, giving him my best this is totally fine smile.
Rhett scoots himself into the side of the booth that faces the wall, keeping his back turned to the rest of the patrons. “Thanks,” he says, the corners of his mouth turned down. His eyes are still a pair of thunderclouds, and I’m determined to see them clear.
“Can I get you something to drink? A shirley temple? Oh! We have milkshakes . . .”
“Water would be great.”
I nod. “Okay. I’ll be right back—and I promise I’ll be done here soon.”
His eyes seem to come alive at that as they trace across my face. “Soon,” he agrees in a low voice. Anticipation for whatever he has planned builds, and I book it to the kitchen.