Twenty-Nine. We’re Not in Sweetville Anymore #2
“I know you well enough to know that if things were going well, you wouldn’t be so vague all the time. And I believe something is going to work out—I really do. But, Jill, I don’t want you to miss out on life’s joys.”
“So what are you saying? Beg Grant to take me back and ditch writing because I’m not getting anywhere? Finally stop being a disappointment to you?”
Mom shakes her head. “This is what I mean. You assume you’re disappointing me when I never said that. You put words in the mouths of your characters, but you shouldn’t put words in the mouths of people who love you.”
“Grant doesn’t love me.” But when I say the words, they don’t feel true. He did love me, I can see now, and I was afraid to go all in with him because I worried there’d come a day when he might stop loving me.
“Maybe you should go check,” Mom says.
“I’ll just screw it up,” I tell her. “I need some air.”
Upstairs, I’m vibrating with the urge to do something. I knew I shouldn’t have come home for the holidays. If I’d avoided Powell Park, I’d have never seen Grant and never gone to Sweetville, and my fuckuppery would be limited to only one dimension.
I’m standing dumbly in the foyer, not wanting to go outside but not wanting to stay here, either.
My dad is doing a crossword in his chair as a Heartfelt movie plays on TV.
The couple on the screen are about to kiss.
They know how to function in Heartfelt World.
I barely function in any world. Especially a Christmas one.
All the decorations and lights in the living room seem to be mocking me.
I pull on my coat, so frustrated that I don’t realize it’s upside down until I have my arms inside the sleeves.
I yank it off, put it on the right way, and quietly open the front door.
“Where are you going?” My dad’s now standing with one hand on his chair.
Then my mom slips into the hallway and takes a cautious step toward me. “Jill, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her, wishing I could throw myself into her arms but holding myself back. “I just need to think is all.”
But I don’t think as I tread down the familiar streets of Powell Park.
I will my mind to go blank, telling myself my sole focus should be putting one foot in front of the other.
My life at the moment reads to me like a hopeless draft of a script, one where I know there’s no way to rework the pages as they are.
The only solution is to toss the whole thing and start with a blank page.
But without thinking, I’ve turned onto Ninety-Fifth Street, and I’m hit immediately by the delicious smells of Amano’s and Giovanni’s.
Aromas so familiar it’s like they’re telling me I can try all I want to shake free of my history, but some memories won’t let me go.
I wander toward the Powell Park Green, passing SweetHart’s on my way.
The front window shows me a crowd gathered in front of the bakery cases, all picking up orders for festivities I can’t imagine.
I can’t see Corey through the stacks of people.
Dusk sweeps over the horizon, and I’m still on the move, the sidewalk almost void of foot traffic but the cars zipping by on the way to other places—office parties, friendly gatherings, holiday shopping.
I’m lulled by the whoosh of passing vehicles gliding on the wet road— the thaw has made the snow melt; a sloppy, gray Christmas is afoot—and before I know where I am, I glance up and see the bright sign for Grant’s Place for Drinks.
My heart catches in my throat. Did I know I was coming here? Maybe my mom was right. I could go inside. I could throw out the old draft of Grant and me and try to start on a blank page.
I pause at the corner of the brick building to size myself up in the window. My cheeks are nicely flushed, but my hair is clumped messily on one side.
I rake my fingers through it and stop short.
Grant is behind the bar, his back to me. He’s in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, preparing a drink. I don’t know what I’m going to say to him.
I suck in a sharp breath of cold air and am about to go to the door, when Grant shifts, spins toward the bar, and places a martini on top of it. He grins at the customer.
A customer I recognize all too well.
Fiona Leonard.
Before I have time to tell myself it could be no big deal, Grant reaches beneath the counter and pulls a beer out from the fridge. He cracks it open, taking a sip. He only ever did that when I visited him at work. He said he only had drinks with his favorite customers.
Fiona raises her glass at him, an amused smile spreading across her face.
She says something, and Grant tips his head back with laughter.
Then he’s leaning across the bar, talking animatedly to her.
It hits me that Fiona really was never my adversary.
Grant was right in Sweetville. Back when we were dating, I took one look at Fiona and assumed that she—or someone like her—was much better for the handsome chef I had lucked into dating.
And I cast her as my enemy and avoided talking to her anytime our paths crossed.
But that doesn’t mean that seeing her with him now means nothing.
Sweetville is uncomplicated, but the real world is messy.
Here, I know I’m too late to fix things with Grant.
Here, there’s every reason for him to realize that Fiona was right for him all along.
Because they look perfect together. With the Christmas lights lining the bar’s ceiling shining on their faces, it’s a scene right out of a movie. The kind of shot that makes people want to live inside the movie.
A movie that I’m not in.