Chapter 9
T here was only one way to describe the vibe of dinner: tense.
I stayed quiet while Mom and Benny discussed various details of their life together, like who needed to go to Whole Foods and if they should have a party for Halloween.
They didn’t ask me whether I’d be here for it.
It was clear they assumed I’d be leaving soon, which I was definitely now planning on.
After devouring our pizza and saying a quick goodbye to Ali, Benny took the front seat and I sat in the back behind her. Mom turned up the volume on her playlist and didn’t sing.
“Should we get ice cream?” I asked, the first thing I’d said in maybe twenty minutes. We’d just passed by McConnell’s.
“I’m full,” Benny said back, tonelessly.
“Me, too,” Mom said.
Okay .
The rest of the drive up the canyon was silent, save for the music.
The dark got even darker as Mom drove up through the winding road.
The only thing that signaled we’d made it to the house was the twinkling string lights.
When she parked at the end of the gravel drive, she shut off the car and walked off quickly without saying anything.
Benny did the same and I stayed behind at the driveway, trying to figure out when I should go back to San Francisco—tonight, or tomorrow morning.
When I finally made it to the landing with the Adirondack chairs, Mom was sitting on one next to a guy that couldn’t have been older than twenty-five and who looked like he’d stepped off the pages of a magazine spread.
He had light brown skin and curly hair and wore an oversized pastel pink hoodie.
His head was dipped with Mom’s, deep in conversation.
Passing by them both, I went inside the house and through to the kitchen where I could hear Benny loudly opening and closing cabinet doors.
“Who’s that guy out there?” I asked. Her back was to me and she was at the sink, filling the teakettle.
She didn’t turn around when she said, “That’s Jasper.”
It didn’t surprise me that people still did that—show up here unannounced. It had been happening since I was a kid.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“He’s an actor,” Benny said. “He comes over to ask Mom for advice. Some people think she’s amazing. Some people would kill for a mom like her.”
“Okay,” I said, picking up on the subtext.
Benny put the teakettle on the stove and ignited the gas. When it was set, she finally whipped around toward me and glared. “What was that, by the way? At pizza?”
“What?” I knew exactly what.
“You haven’t been home in years and the very first thing you do is insult Mom. I mean, really, Charlie, just because you’re miserable, doesn’t mean everyone else should be, too.”
The words hit me like a slap and I doubled back.
“What’s going on with you?” she continued, her voice rising with each proclamation.
“What has been going on with you? Are you okay? Is this about Noah? I still think you should tell Mom what happened. She has no idea. And you asking me to keep this big secret from her hasn’t been easy, but I’ve given you as much space as possible.
But that wasn’t just a bad breakup, Charlie.
You need to talk about it. For years, you’ve been making excuses, saying you can’t come here because of work.
Is that really it? You’ve been busy? Or is there more to it?
I hoped that all the work you were doing made you happy.
But you’re not happy, are you? And apparently you don’t think anyone else should be, either.
We had a good childhood, Charlie. Mom was loving and encouraging to us.
Why did you even come here if all you’re going to do is criticize? ”
I stood there, frozen, wordless. My mind was a blaring siren and I couldn’t figure out if it was telling me to leave or if Benny’s words had hit the bull’s-eye.
“You know what?” Benny finally said when I had no reply. She turned back around to turn off the stove. “Never mind. I can’t even look at you right now, Charlie.”
Benny had never once been mad at me before.
She walked out of the kitchen and I heard her footsteps on the old stairs. My breathing was labored and that siren was even more pronounced now. Gripping the kitchen island tightly, I tried to stop a fresh scene from playing out, but it was too late.
“I’m not like other girls,” Charlie said, and then added quickly, “And I don’t mean that in a derogatory way against other girls.
I mean it only in a derogatory way against myself.
I am prickly, guarded, and biting. I get irritated very easily.
I never get over anything. I want to be right too much.
I’m not easygoing or upbeat. I’m the killjoy of my family, like the black cat that crosses your path and you groan because it’s supposed to be bad luck.
My sister...” She trailed off, and finally met eyes with him, thinking he’d be cringing, but he had his hands cradling his face, watching her, rapt.
“Your sister, what?” Noah asked, like she was about to reveal the end of a mystery novel, all eagerness and interest.
“She’s one of those girls. She’s a Golden Retriever or like a Pomeranian. And I love her. I do. But it’s like she took all the fairy tale for both of us.”
“But surely it’s not just about believing in fairy tales, right? That’s not a flaw. One might venture that it’s a good thing...”
“I’m saying this all wrong.”
“No you’re not.”
“I am. That’s what I do.”
“You’re way too hard on yourself.”
Her laugh was sharp, and too loud for the restaurant.
She cleared her throat. “Overstatement of the century.” She thought her words would come out light and self-deprecating, but instead they tasted bitter on her tongue.
“Okay, here’s a stupid example. My mom and my sister could be out for hours shopping for clothes, hair stuff, makeup and then come home and obsess over new outfits. ”
“They wouldn’t invite you?”
“Oh, they would, but I’d be miserable, so I’d tell them no.”
“What do you like to do instead?”
She bit her lip. “Read books. Study. Listen to music on long walks.” She wondered if she should say the next thing out loud, even though it wasn’t that revealing. But to her, it was. “I... well... I like to bake.”
“Like cakes?”
“No, like bread. When they’d finally leave, I’d have the whole kitchen to myself, listening to music, waiting for the bread to proof, getting the crust just right. I liked being alone.”
“Your face just brightened when you talked about baking bread.”
She touched her cheeks. “Did it?”
“It sounds like you felt like your true self was rejected by your family.”
“They don’t mean to!”
“You love them.”
“I really do.” She paused, and he gave her space to say more, like he was acutely attuned to her emotional landscape already. “I just didn’t feel seen, I guess. It was lonely.”
“I mean, what you haven’t considered is that maybe all the things you think aren’t like other people or your sister and therefore aren’t good enough are the things that make you unique and interesting?”
“I don’t dislike myself. Actually, I think I’m pretty great. It’s everyone else...”
“I know.”
“I just feel...”
“Like an outsider? Like the black sheep of your family? Like the one that doesn’t fit?”
Her eyes met his with recognition. It made her rib cage expand to ten times its normal size, like someone was forcefully pumping air into her lungs.
“It’s not like I can relate or anything,” he said, laughing sharply.
“Yeah...” She shook her head. “What am I doing?” It was a whisper to herself. “I never talk like this. I don’t like to feel sorry for myself.”
“You don’t?” he asked, with a charming sideways smile. “Oh, I do. My pity parties are incredible!”
She laughed.
“It’s fascinating,” she said. “I grew up with the cheeriest mom you could ever find and I’m frequently in a bad mood. You grew up with withdrawn and harsh parents and seem to always be in a good mood.”
He nodded.
“Maybe we’re all just doomed to want to be the opposite of our parents.”
“Not my sister. She’s my mom’s best friend.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger, by about five years actually.”
“Aha,” he said, like eureka . “She got the reformed mom.”
She stopped, gripped by fear for a moment.
“What is it?” he asked. It was an intimate question for what could only be described as a first date. He was reading her feelings, which she painstakingly tried to hide.
“It’s nothing,” she replied, trying to mitigate the intimacy. She played with the napkin on the table, wondering why it was taking ages to get their drink order.
“It’s something,” he said as he stilled her hand with his.
She hadn’t even noticed he’d reached for her, and his hand was so warm and soft and achingly pleasant over hers.
She was awfully aware that it had been a long time since she’d been touched so gently like this.
“You can tell me. I will protect your secrets as if they’re my own. ”
She took a long breath in. “I was a pretty anxious kid and when Benny came along, Mom seemed much happier to have an easygoing child. Or maybe that’s my perception of things. I guess I carry that with me. That I’m too much for everyone. Not easy enough. Not lovable enough?”
His eyes softened. “Thank you for telling me that.” He paused. “I seem to like you exactly as you are. I think you’re just enough, if that helps.”
Her heart rate pattered senselessly. She needed to change the subject.
“Do you have secrets?” She threw her other arm up in an open-wide gesture. “By all means... feel free to make yourself vulnerable.”
“Do you want that?”
She wasn’t expecting her wry sarcasm to be met with such earnestness.
He was arresting in that way, not falling into her little tricks of avoidance.
His hand was still in hers, torturously small strokes of his thumb on hers.
The feeling went straight to her core, where something switched on like a pilot light.
“Want what?” she asked, a little breathlessly.
“Me, to be vulnerable with you?” His voice was so low that his words sent a flush of heat all the way down her body.
“I guess?” she rasped out. The stroke of his thumb slowed down, and he added a purposeful amount of pressure, almost as though he were imagining the skin of her hand was something else entirely.
“I’ll be vulnerable with you, if you’ll be the same with me.” She could hardly look at him and when she finally did, he was leaning forward across the table, brown eyes darkened.
“We just met each other,” she said, and pulled her hand from his and set it on her lap.
“It doesn’t feel like that to me. Does it feel like that to you?”
He was asking questions he already knew the answer to.
“I don’t do this,” Charlie insisted.
“Do what?”
“Open up. Fall for people.” She’d only had one big crush before, but it had been unrequited and painful. Alex, in high school, and that one had hurt. That was before she knew how to protect herself.
“You’re falling for me?” Noah asked, his words brittle and hopeful.
She stammered, and wanted to lie, but she couldn’t. “There’s a connection. I’ll give you that.”
“A connection? That’s what you call this? I feel like I’ve been hit by lightning.”
Charlie couldn’t help but melt. “You say that to all the girls,” she quipped.
“No, I really don’t,” he said, so serious she couldn’t do anything but believe him.
With a grunt, I pushed myself off the kitchen island quickly and found the downstairs bathroom.
I doused my face in cold water, trying to escape the story, the movie, the scenes that I pretended didn’t exist. When I lifted my eyes to the mirror and dried my face with a hand towel, I noticed the flurry of Post-it notes stuck onto the glass.
You are magic.
Have faith.
You are lucky.
Believe.
Everything always works out in your favor.
Prepare for the best-case scenario.
I almost screamed at their proclamations, but instead I ripped them down one by one, bundled them into a ball, and threw them in the trash. Immediately, though, I felt bad about it, and I pulled them out and tried to smooth them, but they wouldn’t re-stick.
There was no way I would sleep tonight—it wasn’t even worth trying and the idea of being in my head for hours only made me panicked. Tomorrow, I told myself, I would go home. It was too late in the evening to leave now, even as I itched to escape.
Instead, I ventured back into the kitchen, turned the teakettle on, and pulled down a mug.
When I went in search for the teas—the kitchen had been rearranged at some point over the years—I found a pantry full of baking supplies.
My hands reached for the bread flour automatically.
Without thinking, I placed kosher salt, flour, yeast, and a large glass bowl on the counter next to the hunter green electric mixer.
Making the dough was as natural to me as breathing, even though it had been a long time since I’d done it.
The evening passed with me in a trancelike state. By the time the dough had been rested, proofed, scored, and placed into the oven, the sun was coming up through the trees and I could see just the smallest hint of a burnt orange sunrise through the windows.
I cleaned up the kitchen and did the dishes and when I was finished, the timer pinged and I pulled the perfect country loaf out of the Dutch oven, tapping the crust to make sure it was crunchy and stiff.
When I looked up, I saw Mom and Benny in the doorway in their pajamas, their hair messy and eyes still half-closed with sleep.
They were both up earlier than expected.
My heart yearned, like I was twelve years old again and waiting for them to wake up so we could go on our next adventure.
There were so many good times. It was terrifying how easy it was to forget them, when all you’ve done is hold on to your resentments.
I decided I’d try an olive branch, in the form of carbs.
“I made bread,” I whispered. It was still too early to speak normally, like nothing and nobody had woken up yet, like time was outside of us. “And whipped up some honey butter. Does anybody want some?”
Mom and Benny exchanged a look, like a silent conversation.
“I could make French toast,” Benny said.
“And I’ll French press some coffee,” Mom added.
“How very French of us,” I said, tentatively, like me being in on the joke was a truce for now.
“Oui,” Mom said, with a flourish. “Très bien!” Her accent was flawless. Ever the actress.
“Charlie, can you get the eggs out?” Benny asked. Mom set to work on the coffee, and I fetched the eggs, and for that morning at least, Triple Quinn was at peace.