Chapter 3
Beth sat at her kitchen table with Natalie’s letter on one side and a blank sheet of paper on the other.
Dear Natalie, she’d written an hour ago. Nothing since. Even after what her friends had said, Beth still felt as though she was crazy to take on such an important role. Now the pen lay across the paper, and she couldn’t make herself pick it up.
Spread around her was the evidence of an ordinary evening.
The list of food she wanted to buy for the food bank, the spring class roster for the Welcome Center, and next week’s recipe for her class at the Welcome Center.
She looked straight past all of it. What she saw instead was a woman with no qualifications, no résumé, and a lifetime of reasons to stay exactly where she was.
The phone rang, and Kayla’s name lit the screen. Beth answered on the second ring. “Hi, sweetheart.”
“Hi, mom. I’m glad you’re home. I need your advice.”
Beth pushed the sheet of paper aside. “What’s happened?”
“It’s nothing bad. The opposite of bad, maybe. Chef Aldana called this afternoon.” Kayla took a breath. “Her sous chef is leaving in June, and she wants me to step into the job after I graduate.”
“Kayla!” Beth said excitedly. “That’s incredible.”
“It’s a real restaurant, Mom. A real kitchen with a real line, and cooks who’ve been there longer than I’ve been alive. I’d be the youngest person there by ten years.”
“She’s watched you work,” Beth told Kayla proudly. “She knows exactly how old you are, and she still offered you the job.”
“Maybe she’s desperate.”
Beth smiled. “Maybe she’s smart.”
Kayla laughed, but it frayed at the end. “I keep thinking I should start somewhere smaller. Get a couple of years’ experience, and then—”
“And then what?” Beth asked her daughter. “Wait until you feel ready? Sweetheart, nobody ever feels ready. You feel terrified, and you do it anyway. And one morning, you wake up and discover you’ve been doing whatever you were worried about for a year.”
Kayla sighed. “You’re probably right, but there’s the wedding, too. I’d be studying for my final exams and planning a reception at the same time, and—”
“The wedding is one day, and most of it is already organized.” Beth didn’t have to think about what she’d say to Kayla.
The answers were simply there, the way they always were when somebody else needed them.
“The venue is booked, your dress fitting is on the calendar, and the cake is mine to worry about, not yours.”
There was silence on the line.
“You make it sound so easy,” Kayla said at last.
Beth could feel how unsure her daughter was. She picked up a dishcloth and wiped down the counter. “Somebody has opened a door for you, and the only question you need to ask yourself is whether you’ll walk through it.”
“That’s what you always say.” Kayla replied softly. “Every time I was worried about something, you said the worst thing wasn’t failing. It was standing outside a door you wanted, and telling yourself it belonged to someone else.”
Beth stopped wiping the counter.
“Mom? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” Beth’s own words, coming back at her in her daughter’s voice, had knocked the wind out of her.
Kayla blew out a long sigh. “I knew what you’d say. I think I just needed to hear you say it. I’m calling Chef Aldana in the morning to accept.”
“Good girl,” Beth said.
“What about you? What are you up to tonight?” Kayla asked.
The letter sat in plain view. Beth looked at it and very nearly said, nothing much.
“Paperwork,” she said instead. “Nothing that can’t keep. Go celebrate with that fiancé of yours, and call me tomorrow once your new job is official.”
“I will,” Kayla told her. “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too. I’m so proud of you.” Beth set the phone down and stood in the middle of her kitchen.
The worst thing wasn’t failing. It was standing outside a door you wanted, and telling yourself it belonged to someone else.
She had said those words, or something similar, a hundred times.
To Kayla at sixteen, unsure about entering the state pastry competition.
At nineteen, frightened to apply for a culinary scholarship.
At every step where her daughter hesitated, Beth had been right there, certain and unbudging, pointing at the door.
And here she was, sitting on the other side of the same lesson, with a refusal started in her best handwriting.
I was about to do exactly what I told Kayla not to do.
The thought didn’t arrive gently. It landed like a dropped pan, loud and impossible to ignore.
For twenty-six years, Beth had taught her daughter to walk toward the things that frightened her, and the whole time she’d been practicing the opposite—shrinking a life until it fit safely inside a committee, a casserole, or a day of the week.
Beth picked up the letter she’d started to write to Natalie, and slowly tore it in half.
Then, before she could second-guess herself, she found Natalie’s number and pressed call.
It rang twice.
“Natalie? It’s Beth Kowalski. I’m sorry to call so late.”
“Beth! It isn’t late at all. Is everything okay?” Natalie asked.
“Everything’s fine. I just…” Beth hesitated.
The room seemed very bright and still. There was one last second when she could have stepped back from the edge, but she pushed herself past it.
“I’m calling about the letter you gave me.
If the position at the arts center is still open, I’d like to take it. ”
The sound Natalie made was half laugh, half whoop. It was loud enough that Beth held the phone away from her ear.
“Open? Beth, I haven’t spoken to anyone else. Oh, you’ve just made my whole month,” Natalie told her. “With our funding deadline, I wasn’t sure we’d make it. But I kept telling myself that if you came on board, we’d be open by spring.”
Beth had been worried when Natalie told her the conditions of the grant they’d received from the council. If the center wasn’t up and running by the end of April, all the funding had to be returned.
The words should have sent Beth running. Instead, she’d started making lists in her head of all the things she imagined would have to happen.
After they agreed to meet tomorrow morning, Beth ended the call and stood at the window. The snow had stopped, and the night was sharp and clear, with stars all the way down to the dark line of the mountains.
It was done. By the end of the week, everyone in Sapphire Bay would know she was the arts center manager. After that would come budgets, deadlines, and a hundred new ways to get it wrong in front of the people she loved. Beth’s fear was real, and it wasn’t going anywhere.
But something else had come awake, something with its face turned toward morning. Half terror, half joy. The feeling of wanting something and saying so.
As she switched off the kitchen lights and went to bed, Beth said a little prayer of thanks. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she couldn’t wait for tomorrow.