Chapter 14 Now #3
“Right. But not ours. The idea would be to partner with a local roaster that’s ready for another location. Arrange a deal where they’re our exclusive supplier and we buy the beans wholesale. Keep costs low while giving them another revenue stream.”
“The margins on coffee are so high,” I say. “It’d be great for business.”
“And the snack bar was always seasonal,” Sebastian adds, “but the café could stay open for takeaway year-round.”
“Definitely.” Pause. Then I ask the obvious: “Have you showed your mom any of this?”
Sebastian looks at the sketch and shakes his head slowly. “What would be the point? It’s all just stuff I messed around with when I was bored.” He rakes a hand through his curls. “It’s not real.”
“Why couldn’t it be, though?”
Sebastian blinks a few times. (His lashes are offensively thick.) “Money, for one thing,” he says.
“A big part of preparing to sell the restaurant has been helping my mom get the books in order, and the story they tell isn’t pretty.
Honestly, I don’t know how she’s been able to keep things running this long.
Not to mention the fact that the money we get from Diamond Group could go toward her treatments, which are expensive as hell. ”
Hard to argue with that. I find a familiar groove on the counter that’s been there for more than a decade and run my fingers over it, racking my brain for something useful to say.
I settle on: “I’m sorry, Sebastian. The whole situation is beyond shitty.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry I didn’t come over and say hi. And for not returning your messages.”
“I know you’re dealing with a lot right now.” I can hear the coldness seep back into my tone but struggle to warm it. “I totally get it.”
“The way you offered to help out with my mom—it meant a lot. Even with everything going on I should have gotten back to you. Thanked you.”
“It’s seriously okay, Sebastian,” I say, softening. “I offered because I wanted to. You don’t owe me anything.” I tilt my head and manage a slight smile. “Although an email would have been a nice gesture, just so I can wrap up my column and not miss my deadline.”
His eyes narrow, then shift back and forth ever so subtly, searching my face. And in that moment I begin to suspect what’s actually going on, even before he confirms it.
“Claire never called you.” He says it like a realization rather than a question.
I shake my head slowly. “I haven’t heard from her in a while.”
“Me either.” He smiles weakly. “We called the wedding off.”
“Shit,” I say—out loud, apparently.
“She said she’d take care of ‘alerting all of the vendors.’ Sent me a list of names including yours, but I guess she never got around to it.
I should have just called you myself, but honestly I’ve been kind of off the grid since everything happened.
If this puts you in a shitty spot with your editor …
” He shakes his head. “I really am sorry.”
I now see the tiredness in his eyes for what it really is: physical and emotional exhaustion. “Dealing with a lot” was an understatement.
“The last thing you need to do is apologize for that,” I say. “Can I ask what happened?”
He blows out a breath, and I wait to see if he’ll elaborate.
“Claire is a force,” he says finally. “She has her whole life figured out, and she needs a partner who can fit into it. For a long time that worked perfectly for me. Drew me to her, even. I had no idea what to do with my life, and I thought that if I could just stick with someone like her, I’d keep moving in the right direction.
But then everything with my mom …” He drags a hand down his face.
“I realized I was definitely going in a direction, but not necessarily the right one—or even the one that would make me happiest.
“Long story short, I told her I needed to spend the summer out here, and that I wanted to reevaluate our situation after that. Discuss all of our options. Moving to the opposite coast would have been a major change, but her company has a New York City office, and mine is remote-friendly—to me, it definitely seemed in the realm of possibility. We stayed up all night talking, and she absolutely understood where I was coming from, but I could tell she just wasn’t going to consider it.
Her whole family—her entire life, really—is in California.
” He shrugged. “I honestly couldn’t blame her. ”
“When was that conversation?” I ask when he pauses for a beat.
He gives me a sheepish smile. “The night before you showed up at the restaurant and asked if you could write about us for your column.”
I wince, but internally I’m trying to get a handle on the timeline.
“So you didn’t call off the wedding right away.”
He shakes his head. “Her solution was long distance. After the wedding I’d stay out here as long as I needed to, and she’d stay in California.
Try to visit each other once a month. I told her I wanted to take a few more days to think about it, talk it through.
But to be honest I think we both knew where things were headed.
I kept going through the motions that week—going to those appointments with you.
Doing the tasting. Working on the seating chart with Mom.
Helping plan this wedding has made her so damn happy.
I almost could have gone through with it for that reason alone.
” At the worried look I’m no doubt emitting, he adds, “She knows now, though.”
“I’m sure she understood,” I say gently. “Right? A wedding is wonderful, but if you truly weren’t happy, she wouldn’t want you to go through with it just for her sake.”
“She did understand, yeah. I mean, at first she accused me of throwing my life away so I could babysit her, but once we talked more she got it. Claire loved our life together, but in the end I’m not sure that love had much to do with me specifically.
Not exactly the strongest foundation for a marriage. ”
“Damn. That’s …”
“A lot?”
“Yeah.” It is a lot. “I’m tempted to say at least you found out now instead of ten years down the line, but I’m sure everyone is telling you that and it isn’t actually comforting.”
“It was kind of comforting the first two or three times, I guess.” He laughs half-heartedly. “You know what’s funny about the whole witness thing?”
I shake my head once, fighting the urge to groan with embarrassment. I’d be thrilled to never discuss “the witness thing” again.
“She signed first,” he says. When I narrow my eyes, he elaborates.
“She signed the application before you did. She’s the one who made the mistake.
Signed the witness’s line instead of the bride’s.
I’m not saying she did it on purpose, but I don’t think it’s out of the question that something subconscious could have been going on there. ”
She signed first. Of course she did. I’d been so quick to blame myself that I’d forgotten the facts. Silently, I absolve myself of the embarrassment I’ve been carrying around for weeks. If anyone was subconsciously sabotaging this wedding, it was Claire, not me.
We’re silent for a minute or so. I brace for the awkwardness, but it doesn’t come.
“So,” I say eventually, “what happens now?”
“Always with the big questions, Mariano.”
I swallow, cheeks heating, but I hold his eye contact. I want to know the answer.
“I think what happens now is just … this.” He gestures toward the dining room.
“Helping out at the restaurant for one last season. Taking care of my mom. Making her smile as much as possible. Being around people who care about her as much as I do. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.
” He shrugs again. “For once, I’m trying not to think beyond the summer. ”
“Sounds like a perfect plan to me,” I say. And it does.
“What about you?” I cock my head, and he clarifies. “Will you find another wedding to cover in August?”
I wave a hand. “Maybe. I’ll see if my editor wants to take a couple off the backup list.” He gives me a quizzical look. “Weddings get called off more often than you’d think.”
“And here I thought my plight was unique,” he says. “What about after that? I know you said you’ve been wanting to try something new. If you could write about anything, what would it be?”
I barely remember telling him this at the tasting, so I’m shocked he remembers clearly enough to follow up about it.
“Divorce?” I joke. He laughs, but waits for a real answer.
“I love writing about food, actually. Interviewing catering leads and pastry chefs has always been my favorite part of my job. The restaurant scene here is so interesting—so many longstanding institutions like Bubba’s alongside openings from talented newcomers, and everything in between.
The Italian, Greek and Jewish influences run deep, but it’s becoming more and more diverse—some of the best new restaurants are Japanese, or Oaxacan, or focused on soul food.
You can understand so much about a place and its people—and how it’s changing—through the food. ”
My words hang in the air a moment as he considers me. “You should do it, then.”
“Do what?”
He shrugs, not in an apathetic way, but as if the answer is obvious. “Tell your editor you want to shift your focus.”
“I have,” I say. “What I want to do doesn’t seem to carry much weight.”
His brow furrows. “Then find somewhere else to work where it does.”
“You make it sound simple,” I say. “But publishing jobs aren’t exactly easy to come by. I started out in New York City and was laid off after a year. As much as I’m over my job, I’m also grateful to have one.”
“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places,” he offers. “You’re right, I don’t know anything about your industry, so maybe I’m totally wrong here. But I do know that you’re crazy talented, and I think you should work with people who value you enough to give you a say.”
“I do want that, at some point,” I admit. “But you know what? I’m into this whole not-thinking-beyond-the-summer thing. Maybe I can try that out with you.”
He doesn’t push it. “I’d like that,” he says. “We can check in on each other. Give progress updates.”
“Like we’re in a twelve-step program for overthinkers,” I add.
He laughs again, and it’s a beautiful sound.
I can’t help but think of the last time we were alone in the snack bar like this.
The sensory reminders—the coolness of the metal counter under my palm, the smell of fryer oil, the low hum of the air-conditioning unit—are almost too much to bear.
I feel like we’re fifteen and seventeen again, on the brink of a moment that will change everything.
The urge to reach out and touch him hits me like a wave.
I want to comfort him, and words don’t feel like enough.
I imagine covering his palm with mine, or reaching up to hug him.
But the days when we could casually touch each other are long gone.
I settle for the companionable silence and hope he takes comfort in my energy.
The way he’s looking at me tells me that he does.
He’s still looking at me this way when the door swings open and Andre steps through, wielding a half-eaten sheet cake with pink frosting. He looks from Sebastian to me and back again, a smirk forming.
“Are the candles in here?” he asks. “Your mom said we can sing to her now that ‘only the real ones are left.’”
I laugh, glad some things haven’t changed. To Sebastian’s embarrassment, Bubba has always loved adopting what she calls “young people lingo.”
“I’ll grab them from the kitchen,” says Sebastian, lowering himself off the counter. “Come on, Mariano.”
I follow him out of the snack bar and send my past self a mental thank-you for having the foresight to tell Maren to pack an overnight bag so she could crash at my place tonight.
We’re going to need all the debrief time we can get.