Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Georgie
Normally, I think about Logan the entire drive from Mullet Ridge back to Sugar Maple.
But today, I know I’m rushing back to slide under a microscope.
“I just came by Sugar Maple to visit you,” Marlowe told me on the phone. “Imagine my surprise when there was no you!”
She laughed, but it didn’t feel funny. She wasn’t cold or mean, yet I felt like I was disappointing her and myself. She came by to visit me—something a mother does when she’s thinking about her daughter—and I wasn’t there.
If I’m being honest, I doubt she was really thinking about me. She was thinking of my dad. They probably FaceTimed this morning or he sent her flowers or some sweet texts that made her remember that making an effort with me scores her points with him.
Oh, Dad.
He’s currently in Atlanta, working a territory for a medical-device company that only cares about one thing: closing deals.
He may be terrible with money, but he can close deals, all right.
My father can walk into a room full of surgeons and walk out with a contract, because he’s so vibrant and exciting, when he pays attention to you, you feel chosen.
The company lets him set his own schedule, so he works in concentrated bursts—three weeks of intense, dazzling effort—and then disappears for two, not because he’s lazy, but because he’s already spotted the Next Big Thing.
A franchise opportunity. A development deal.
A friend of a friend with a concept that only needs seed money and the right person at the front of the room.
My father is always that person, in his mind, and he is never wrong about his ability to sell the idea.
He’s simply always wrong about the idea.
He’s as susceptible to flattery as he is to giving it, which is a dangerous combination.
My parents took loans out against the shop when Mama was diagnosed.
My dad was working a sales job as a contract employee, not a salaried one.
It paid better but meant no insurance, and he couldn’t switch to salaried because the company wouldn’t pay medical bills for something that was already diagnosed.
That medical debt had to be paid.
I get that.
But after she passed, Dad was making real money.
Instead of paying down the loans at all, he funneled the money into a crappy restaurant in Columbia that someone assured him would be huge but that only lasted six months before going under.
Then when I needed dental work, he once again took out loans against the shop as trustee instead of paying for the work himself, because he was still paying off the failed restaurant.
It took Marlowe finding out about all of this when I was in high school to make anything change at all.
She’s spent years trying to dig us out of the hole my dad pretended didn’t exist. She made sure I knew about it, too.
After she explained why I wouldn’t be inheriting a thriving shop yet when I turned eighteen and graduated high school, she laid the debt on the line.
The numbers were staggering.
I stared at them in shock.
“Just think about where you’d be without me,” she told me, making me too desperately, painfully grateful to ask any questions.
“Your mother never wanted you to inherit the shop until it was paid off,” Dad added then, putting one hand on my shoulder and one on Marlowe’s. “Once Marlowe tells us it’s paid off, Meant to Bean will be all yours. And you’ll do big things with it, Georgie Girl.”
“She is always sketching in that little notebook of hers,” Marlowe said, looking at my dad and then me. “You are your father’s daughter.”
The thing that scares me is that, sometimes, I get my dad.
It’s exciting—almost addicting—to get a vision of something that doesn’t exist yet and be filled with a hunger to bring it to life.
I’ve known it since I was fifteen and accidentally put cayenne pepper into my hot chocolate instead of cinnamon and loved it so much more.
I started mixing spices and syrups and researching regional flavor combinations, and suddenly, I envisioned Meant to Beans all over the country, each one serving drinks that wouldn’t exist anywhere else, making each more than a coffee spot, but a destination—
Why am I dwelling on any of this? None of it matters right now. I’m pulling into the Sugar Maple Farms factory lot, and my spot is marked by cones with a sign out front.
The espresso machine has been on long enough (and I was gone short enough) that when I park and pull my first test shot, it runs exactly right—deep amber, slow to a stop, good crema sitting on top like it should.
I exhale.
And by the time I breathe in, I have a customer.
***
By ten fifteen the line has stretched to seven, which is good for a Sunday.
After a lifetime of working in a coffee shop, I can read a line like a menu.
The two men in work boots near the front will want black coffee.
That woman in her thirties in a business suit is going to take a while debating before she orders her regular.
The three people on their phones will want as much caffeine as possible, as quickly as possible.
I start the black coffees before the men reach the window.
The woman who always deliberates starts deliberating.
“What to get? What to get?” she asks, frowning at the menu.
She does this every day, and every day, she decides on the flat white. So I start assembling it in the background, locking the portafilter into the grinder to start grinding the beans. If I’m wrong I’ll make something else, but I’m not wrong.
“Ooh, lavender syrup,” she muses. “That sounds interesting.”
I remove the portafilter and tamps the grounds flat.
“It’s really good,” I say down to her.
She looks so torn, I decide to make a decision for her. She wants to be adventurous and safe at the same time.
I can do that.
I pump lavender syrup into her cup before hitting brew, watching as the espresso pours over the syrup.
“Oh, I guess I’ll just have a flat white,” she says.
I pour cold milk into a pitcher and steam it into a silky texture while the brewing finishes. I take the cup, swirl the espresso to dissolve the syrup, and then I set the cup down and grab my steamed milk, tapping the pitcher to pop the milk bubbles before pouring a thin stream into the center.
I smile at the perfect velvet finish and put the lid on, handing it to her.
“That was fast,” she says, taking it gratefully. She smells it and then her eyes zip up to mine. “What is that incredible smell?”
“Lavender syrup. If you don’t like it, it’s on the house and I’ll make you a new one for free.”
She takes a sip that has to be way too hot, but her eyes brighten. “It’s delicious. Thank you!”
I grin and take her payment and then move on to take the next order.
Between customers, I pull out the small notebook I keep on the shelf and make a note to buy more lavender syrup. The notebook has months of notes and adjustments indexed by category the way my supply chain management professor taught.
If Marlowe has ever wondered how I figure these things out, she’s never asked.
I wish she would.
I wish she noticed or cared. I wish she’d tell me she’s impressed by how I’ve managed to make the truck so successful in so short a time.
I would give a limb to hear her say she’s proud of me, even if I try to pretend I’ve grown out of that phase.
I don’t know if a person can ever outgrow needing a mother’s love.
Marlowe arrives at quarter to eleven without fanfare.
She simply walks up to the window in a silk blouse, tailored trousers, and kitten heels.
She looks at the line, where three customers are waiting, then at the setup, then at me.
She waits until the customers are done, her eyes darting around, looking for what’s wrong.
When they flick to me, I feel that familiar sense that I’ve been added to the “wrong” tally.
During the lull, she climbs aboard the truck, her heels clacking on the metal stairs.
“Your numbers were up this past week,” she says, glancing around. I keep the truck clean and the operation as streamlined as possible, but all I can wonder is what did I miss?
“Yes,” I say, keeping my voice as light as I can.
“I’ve gotten the rhythm of the factory down.
I—the VP I’m working with suggested we set up another truck over at Sugar Maple Farms for the workers.
He’s offering to pay a flat fee to make it a perk for their seasonal workers.
” Marlowe’s eyes widen, almost like she’s impressed, so I keep going.
“And we talked about maybe parking a truck there on the weekends for the farm store and for Food Truck Fridays. He thinks it would drive a lot of business.”
Attributing it all to Rusty makes it more likely Marlowe will be impressed.
“What wonderful ideas,” she says, making my stomach flip. But she isn’t done. “If we had two trucks. But you have weekends off.”
It feels like a judgment, not the statement of fact it is.
And it’s the idea that she’s disappointed in me that has me opening my mouth, unable to stop.
“I could start my mornings earlier at the farm to cover the workers and then come back to the factory for the shift-change timing. And then on weekends, I could go over to the farm store after the rush here, too.”
“Early mornings and weekends?” She squints at me, assessing, but not critical, for once. “Do you really think you could do that?”
“Yes!” I blurt. “For now, at least,” I add, a tiny concession to my physical and mental health. “But we’d move through a lot more customers if we had more help on the truck. Eventually, I mean! Some of the trucks at Sugar Maple Farms on weekends have four or five people in the back.”
“Five?” She laughs. “We’re not made of money. We’re still paying off the loans, remember? From your mom,” she says, “but also from you, Georgiana.”
She’s smiling, as if remembering the ER visit, X-rays, antibiotics, and everything that followed is a good memory.
Which it kind of is.
“I’ll make it work,” I say brightly.