Chapter 13
THE LUNCH DATE
The last person I ever expected strode through the Cricket’s front door the following Tuesday.
Grandpa.
Immediately, my blood went cold and my heart dropped down to my toes.
What was he doing here? How dare he have the audacity to come in?
This was my waterfall, and Grandpa’s presence felt like an invasion, a violation, a defilement of something sacred.
I had a visceral urge to run at him and shove him right back through the door.
“Hello, good sir!” Midas chirped before I could say anything. “What can I get you today?”
Grandpa glowered at him. My pulse sped up, as I worried that Grandpa might be rude or outright bigoted—
“Hey, Gramps,” I cut in, leaning casually against my mop. I struggled to make my tone sound casual and sunny. “What brings you in today?”
“Cut the Pollyanna nonsense, Louisa,” Grandpa said impatiently. “I’m here because I’m taking you to lunch.”
Midas glanced at me, clearly confused. “Wait—you’re poly?”
I ignored him, momentarily distracted by Grandpa’s invitation. “What?”
“Lunch,” Grandpa repeated. His eyes swiveled from one side of the bar to the other, full of disdain. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
He strode out the door before I could argue.
“Sorry—just—that was your grandpa?” Midas asked, shaking his head.
“The one and only,” I said grimly.
“I was gonna say,” Midas muttered, “he looks almost offensively straight.”
“What’s this about?” I asked Grandpa fifteen minutes later. We sat across from each other at Tambrie’s Café, me in another one of my messy work T-shirts, Grandpa in a pair of corduroy pants and a dress shirt.
“Your father let slip that you’ve been … staying out late.” He pursed his lips. “Working and partying at that bar.”
I deflated in my seat. Why on earth had Dad told him about me working at the bar? I had thought we had a mutual understanding about keeping Grandma and Grandpa far away from my arrangement with Hatch.
“Louisa, being part of this family means there are certain expectations on you,” Grandpa went on.
“People in town, they look to us as examples of what it means to be from Rustin. You can’t be running around, staying out late, cavorting with riffraff without someone noticing.
” He gave me what he probably thought was a compassionate look.
“It’s not an easy mantle to take up, I know.
There’s always someone who needs something.
A donation, a referral, sometimes just peace of mind that the heavy hitters in this town are good people.
It wears on you. But our family has been blessed with an abundance of talent and leadership, and it’s a wasteful sin not to put that to use. ”
“Riffraff,” I repeated. “Do you mean the people from the bar?”
He didn’t answer. “Can’t you hang with your other friends, what’s-their-names, the dumb one and the Black one—”
I stiffened. “Their names are Emma and Candor and you’ve known them since I was five.”
“You don’t need to get snippy,” he said, swatting like I was an irritating mosquito.
“Anyway, I have news. The athletic foundation has invited the family to their summer fundraiser. They’ll be presenting us with a plaque in George’s honor.
We’ll all be going, and I want us to look sharp.
” He looked pointedly at my torn, baggy jean shorts.
I twisted my napkin in my lap. “Is Hatch invited?”
Grandpa narrowed his eyes like I had said something forbidden. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on. You can’t start a conversation about me working at the bar and then act surprised when I mention Hatch.”
Grandpa threw me a hard, scathing look. “No. That man doesn’t need to be there.”
“Of course he needs to be there.”
Grandpa blinked rapidly, like maybe he had misheard me. “What the hell makes you say that?”
I stared hard at him. Then I spoke slowly and deliberately, like Grandpa was the one who was slow on the uptake. “Because he was Uncle George’s partner.”
Grandpa laughed a dark, foreboding laugh. He leaned back in his chair and widened his shoulders, crossing a leg over his thigh like he was settling in for an interesting debate. The challenge in his eyes was clear as day. “You fancy yourself Marion’s protector, Louisa?”
“He prefers ‘Hatch,’ but I think you know that.”
Grandpa sputtered out a laugh. “I would too if I had a woman’s name.”
“Hatch was important to Uncle George,” I continued, ignoring him. “We didn’t include him for the funeral, so it would be nice if we included him for this honor.”
“George couldn’t stand that man,” Grandpa said, still laughing.
“What are you talking about? They were in love.”
Perhaps it was my use of love that shut him up.
“Louisa,” Grandpa said in a tone that suggested how childish I was, “my brother was never in love with that hillbilly barkeeper. George took one look at Marion’s ridiculous ultimatum and shut the door.
He saw Marion for what he truly was: a pathetic hanger-on trying to drag him down. ”
“By ultimatum, do you mean Hatch’s request that they get married?”
“‘Married,’” Grandpa mocked. He threw his napkin down and sneered. “Don’t be so profane, Louisa.”
“Uncle George was your brother, Grandpa. How could his love life be so offensive to you?”
“George always intended to stay in Rustin. His whole life was here. His business, his family, his legacy! Marion just couldn’t stomach all the attention George got.
He was hell-bent on taking that away from him.
Jealous as Cain, and I’ll tell you what, I’ll swear to every last soul in this restaurant that it was the stress of dealing with him that sent George to his early death. ”
I pictured Hatch in his nondescript clothes and jangling keys, telling Hannah that he refused to dress up and make a speech at her wedding. I couldn’t imagine him wanting any attention on him at all.
“You’re wrong,” I said, looking my grandfather square in the eye. “And I don’t want any part of your stupid little plaque presentation.”
“Oh no, no, no, no, no,” Grandpa snarled, pointing a shaking finger in my face, “you’ll be there to represent the family, and you’ll dress appropriately in a dress and stockings, or you can forget about that handy tuition money your grandmother and I set aside for you.”
“I don’t need that money anymore,” I reminded him. “Uncle George made sure of that.”
“Oh, did he? Because it’s my understanding that you won’t make money until the sale goes through.” A wicked smile spread across his face. “Which it hasn’t yet. And which I’ve heard you don’t want to happen.”
He had me there, and he knew it. I fell silent, my chest heaving like I’d just fallen off the mechanical bull. All I could focus on was getting away from him.
I pushed back from the table just as Ms. Tambrie arrived with dessert. Her voice was high-pitched and performative as she trilled, “All right, then! A fresh batch for you all!”
I scooted around her, shot one last glare at Grandpa, and hustled out of the restaurant.
“My family is the most evil, fucked-up, delusional set of humans I’ve ever met,” I huffed, dropping into the passenger seat of Aubrey’s Audi ten minutes later. “I swear they must be inbred.”
“Hi to you, too,” Aubrey said, shooting me an amused look. “Why does this feel like a prison break?”
“Because spending time with my grandfather is cruel and unusual punishment.” I leaned my head into my hands and breathed. “Thank you for getting me. You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“I told you, I was out and about anyway.” She turned around to back out of the parking lot and her arm accidentally brushed mine. Both of us jerked away.
“Sorry,” I said hastily.
“Sorry,” she said at the same time.
We turned onto Main Street and zipped through a green light, and I tried to ignore my tingling skin.
“So … what happened?” Aubrey asked.
I sighed and stretched out in the seat. “My grandpa just informed me that we’ll be going to the Rustin Athletic Foundation’s summer banquet to be, like, emissaries of Uncle George’s stupid football legacy.”
Aubrey’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I’m going to that, too.”
“Wait, really?” I brightened, temporarily forgetting the injustice of it all.
“Yeah, of course. My dad wouldn’t miss a chance to parade our family in front of the bigwigs. Why don’t you want to go?”
I drew up short, remembering she didn’t know the truth about Uncle George. “I just … I feel like my grandparents try to capitalize off my uncle’s legacy without … um … truly loving him for the person he was.”
Aubrey nodded in a way that meant she didn’t quite follow me, but she was trying to be polite about it. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” I looked ahead of us, at the back roads golden with afternoon sunlight. “So … where are we going?”
“Dorm room shopping.” She glanced over at me, those seashell eyes gauging my reaction. “I figured focusing on the next four years will be helpful for both of us.”
“Both of us? Why, what’s wrong with you?”
Aubrey licked her lips, seemingly bracing for something.
A full minute passed before we turned into the Target shopping center and parked in an open spot—not near the door, but far off in an empty section of the lot.
Aubrey unbuckled her seatbelt and thrust the gearshift into park, but she kept the car running and stared through the windshield with her jaw clenched.
I frowned at her, unnerved by the swelling silence. “What’s going on?”
“The Rustin alumni magazine interviewed me today,” she said without preamble. “They wanted to do a story about, you know, growing up as Coach Calhoun’s daughter.”
I waited.
“It was fine at first. I gave my usual scripted answers.” She picked at her manicure and took a slow, gathering breath. “But then the interviewer asked if I knew any of Dad’s players, and what he would do if I dated one of them.”
My pulse raced beneath my skin.
“The thing is…” Aubrey took a deep breath. “I’m never going to like a football player. I’m never going to like a … guy.”