Chapter 46 Main Course #2
“—can’t thank you enough for indulging Poppy these past few months,” Dad is saying. “I know how much she can be to handle.”
His words sink in, first slowly and then all at once, with the force of a hammer. My stomach drops through a sudden trap door
in my body. I try to press closer without letting myself be seen. Jack has his back to the walk-in, drumming his fingers against
his arm like he’s itching to get back on the line. Dad, cutting a tall, imposing figure in the sterile white and silver of
the kitchen, reaches out to clap him on the shoulder.
Indulging Poppy plays in my head on repeat, a hellish kind of scratched record. Dad makes it sound as if he saddled Jack with a babysitting
gig he didn’t ask for.
“I told you, the deal’s off,” Jack says.
“Well, Green Street is still . . .” I can’t understand the rest of Dad’s sentence, thanks to the spray of water coming from
the dishwashing station. I scoot a little closer, nearly losing my hiding spot. “. . . discuss details when you’re back in
New York.”
I jerk with surprise, hitting my arm on the storage cabinet. I hiss, cradling my elbow, and turn to see my father and Jack
standing in front of me.
The noise of the kitchen fades away. Dad grimaces, half-reaching for me. Jack, however, stays rooted to the spot. He looks as if someone just sucker-punched him.
“Poppy,” Dad says, looking chagrined.
“‘Discuss the details when you’re back in New York,’ Dad? Seriously?”
“I was worried about you,” he says. There’s a pinched line between his brows, a frown on his severe face. “I wanted to make
sure you were okay.”
“So you thought having Jack spy on me was the way to go?”
“It wasn’t like you were picking up your phone,” he snaps, losing a little composure.
“And why do you think that is?” Hot tears spill down my cheeks. I wipe them away roughly, turning to Jack. “Is it true?”
“It’s complicated,” he says, voice strained.
“Yes or no, Hartman.”
“Yes.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “But let me explain.”
I laugh shortly. “What was the deal, the Green Street job in exchange for keeping me from embarrassing the family?”
“You don’t understand. Let me just—”
“I understand perfectly.”
I inch away from him, from both of them. My elbow throbs. My back hits the kitchen door, and I nearly collide with an incoming
server. In the chaos, I scoot by him, cutting off whatever excuse Jack was trying to come up with.
The dining room sprawls in front of me. It’s still full of diners, each table spilling over with chatter and laughter. Ten
minutes ago, I was so in love with this place, so proud of the decor and curated art and carefully collected fixtures. It
felt like something I built with my own two hands. Now, though, the magic is gone. It looks dark in here, and crowded, and
I can see all the messy parts we couldn’t hide or smooth away.
Jack catches me by the elbow. “Poppy, please. Listen to me.”
“I thought you believed in me. I thought you cared. Maybe even—” I stop, pressing my lips together.
“I do,” Jack says quietly.
I’m making a scene in a restaurant, again, only this time my heart really is breaking. Jack always had a backup plan. All the praise, all the encouragement, was just to keep me from spiraling. To keep
me in one place, in one piece, until Jack could prove his point and Dad could collect me like a runaway pet. A disobedient
child. An incapable loser who needs a hand to guide her everywhere.
I look at him. From the first moment in that bar, I thought he saw something in me that no one else had ever noticed, much
less challenged. He didn’t coddle me. He didn’t treat me like a doll. He pushed against all of my assumptions about myself,
to the point I hopped on a plane to see if I could prove him right.
I was never running away from New York. I was running to Florida. To a place where I could be me, completely, for the first time in my life.
To Jack.
Memories of the past months crowd my mind. They’re stripped of color, of substance, as flimsy as tissue paper.
Was all of it a lie?
“I don’t believe you,” I whisper.
I barely make it outside before I lose the last shred of my composure. The warm Florida night feels like a balm against my
bare skin.
I swallow another sob. The lagoon is up ahead, dark and lush under the moonlight. My gaze snags on the outline of the houseboat.
My things are there, mixed up with Jack’s. Gator is there, probably asleep on his sweater. Our medications are in the same
cabinet above the tiny bathroom sink.
My lip wobbles. I bite the inside of my cheek swiftly, the dart of pain easing the deeper hurt inside for a moment.
It’s so beautiful here, so serene and quiet. I never knew how much I craved quiet until I came here. Now, I just want to disrupt
it. I want to be a hurricane, tearing through town without a thought to anyone.
I take off my shoes and hurl them into the lagoon.
“Good arm,” Jack says.
I turn, breath catching at the sight of him.
I’m torn between shoving him into the water and burrowing against him while pretending the last half hour of our lives never happened.
His chef’s jacket hangs haphazardly, as if he tried to unbutton it and gave up, ripping it open instead.
Even in the dark, I can see the heightened color on his face, the almost catlike gleam of his eyes.
I don’t bother trying to decide on their shade of green.
“You lied to me.”
He grimaces. “I was going to tell you.”
“Really?” I stride down the pathway to the docks, hearing his heavier footfalls behind me. “When, exactly? Before my father
arrived? Because you missed the fucking boat on that.”
“I was going to tonight. After service.”
“You never should have agreed to it in the first place,” I snap over my shoulder. “I told you about my family. Why I had to
do this alone. And the whole time, you were lying—pretending to support me when really—”
“Poppy, I told him the deal was off weeks ago.”
“When?”
“After the hospital.”
“And when did you make it?”
He hesitates.
“When, Jack? Before or after we started working together?”
“After,” he says uneasily. “It was before I really knew you. Not that—I know that doesn’t make it better.”
“Oh, look, a shred of self-awareness.”
“Will you slow down for a moment?”
“Why? Why should I listen to anything you say?” I’m running out of room on the dock, but I keep walking. “Did you ever mean
what you said? Did you care about actually making the restaurant a success?”
“I always care.” His voice holds a note of strain. “My career is all I have, of course I fucking care about doing the restaurant
justice.”
“So, I didn’t mean anything to you.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You lied. The entire time, you were lying.” I turn so abruptly, he nearly crashes into me.
When he tries to steady me, I bat him away.
I hate the quivering note in my voice. I hate how my body yearns for his touch, even though I’m furious with him.
“Was any of it real? The feelings, the sex—Dad would have killed you if I ran off with some random fisherman. But this was perfect, right? Talk about having your cake and eating it—”
“What’s so bad about your father caring about you?” he snaps. “Isn’t that what everyone wants? A family that cares about you
so damn much, they’ll do whatever they need to in order to know you’re okay?”
“Were you ever going to consider keeping Fable?” I fling back. “Or was it another lie?”
He’s silent.
“Jack.”
“No,” he says finally. “You’d want to leave this place, sooner or later.”
I shake my head. “I’m happy here.”
“I know you think that, but I can’t.” His voice, suddenly brittle, cracks under the weight of his words. “I can’t stay.”
“You can,” I say, chest aching with want. “Look at how it’s going. We can do this together. I know you know this place is
special. Sal knew that. It’s what he wanted for you, and I know you want it for yourself. Don’t be someone else’s chef when
you can be your own.” He opens his mouth to reply, but I keep going, desperate to make him understand. To make him see the
future I see for us both. “I’m happy here. I know you can be happy here, too. Your family is here. We won’t have to answer
to anyone. We’ll be able to make it exactly like we want.”
“No, Poppy.”
“If you’d just listen—”
“It’s too much.”
“Stop punishing yourself!”
“Poppy, stop!” he bursts out.
The force of his words startles me. I press my lips together.
“We could still be together,” he says quietly. “We could be together in New York, or anywhere else.”
“But that isn’t what I want.” It’s killing me to drag the words out, but I have to. Hot tears slip down my cheeks. “I want
to be with you here, living our lives here. That’s the future I want.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Sweetheart, please.” His breath drags. “Don’t ask me to do this.”
Frustration surges through me like a jolt of electricity. He’s being stubborn. Too damn stubborn. Hating himself for what
happened years ago, rather than looking to the future. I resent him for coaxing out this side of me, supporting and cultivating
it, then being willing to throw it away. For refusing to see how different things are now, and how much we can gain together.
“Then maybe Sal was right. You are a coward,” I say stiffly. I blink back the film of tears, teeth digging into my lip. “Go
back to the restaurant, Jack. Although just so you know, your career isn’t all you have. Not by a long shot.”
Before I lose it completely, I head for the houseboat. I press my hand against my mouth to hold in everything else I want
to say, everything else I want to scream.
I don’t hear his footsteps.
He doesn’t follow me.