Lola
“Whoa, easy with the tomatoes, Lo! Those are heirloom.”
My best friend, Nat, slapped at my hand until I yanked it from the dirt.
“Sorry,” I grumbled, sitting back on my heels.
I had never had much of a green thumb, but I liked working in Nat’s garden.
In theory, digging my hands through dirt was relaxing.
Quite literally grounding. But it was understood that she had to keep a close eye on me, which meant the relaxing qualities of gardening were negated for my best friend.
She let me join her every Monday evening, regardless.
Nat elbowed me. “Got something on your mind you want to talk about? Or do you need to go a round with the weeds in the asparagus patch to let out your frustration?”
I sighed. Did I have anything on my mind? I had everything on my mind. My future, the future of my family’s business, my dad’s health, my brother’s education, being my mom’s sounding board. I wished I could pluck my head from my body like a gardener plucks vegetables from the ground.
“Just the usual,” I said.
I stood up, wiped my dirty hands on the front of my overalls. My water bottle was warm from the evening sun—even warmer than the forecast predicted. I took a big gulp as I swiped sweat from my forehead, pushing frizzy bits of hair back.
I was thankful that, even though our schedules didn’t always match up, Nat and I always found time to hang out in summer, working in her garden. It was a tradition we’d begun last year, right after I moved back home, and the time spent with her and the warm earth was healing.
Nat looked at me with concern. “You know I love that restaurant as much as you do…” she began, letting the rest of the sentence hang between us. I knew where she was going with this. I didn’t want to hear it, but I didn’t stop her from saying it. “But maybe it’s time, Lo.”
Hanging my head back, I closed my eyes and soaked in the sun for several moments.
When I was back in Nashville, overworked and stressed, on the verge of burnout, I went to a therapist for a while.
She told me that humans were like fancy plants; we needed food, water, and sun to thrive.
Ever since then, I’d made it a habit to stand in the sun whenever I could, face turned up like a flower.
And even though the hot days of summer in Tennessee felt like walking through boiling molasses, there was no denying it felt much better to be beaten down by sunlight than the reality of a failing restaurant and the realization that you were disappointing the people who loved you best.
“You know I can’t just let it go,” I finally said, catching her eyes. “It would crush them.”
I paused, took another sip of my warm water, swishing the liquid in my mouth before swallowing.
“For that matter, it would crush me,” I added.
There was a point in my life where I had loved Southern Charm more than anything.
It was so uniquely ours. A Maloney family institution, passed on from mother to son, and eventually to me.
But I’d also thought I would have more time to create a life of my own outside of Roswell Falls, a career and reputation that I’d built from the ground up.
Just like Grandma Gladys had with Southern Charm.
I was a woman returned home too soon, with a duty I wasn’t quite ready to shoulder. What was my other option, though? Let Dad sell the restaurant off? Watch it close down after all these years? I had made my choice with clear eyes; I’d just thought it would be easier to slip into my new role.
Nat’s expression was solemn, dark brown eyes glistening, full eyebrows pulled together. Even under the brim of her wide straw hat, I could tell she was upset, too.
Nat understood, more than most, why I couldn’t throw in the towel on the restaurant.
I practically grew up in Southern Charm, and so did she.
It’s where we would walk together after school, backpacks bouncing as we strolled through downtown.
Sometimes, if we were fast enough, we could catch Margie from the Rise & Grind coffee shop before she poured out the leftover coffee for the day and get free large coffees, loaded with cream and sugar.
Margie always grumbled that it wasn’t right to give children coffee, but she did it anyway.
Then we would slip into a booth at my family’s restaurant and do our homework together until dinnertime.
Whoever was working would bring us a plate of the daily special to share, and a serving of peach cobbler.
When Nat and I were old enough, we both got our first jobs at Southern Charm.
Grandma’s signature was on our first paychecks.
Southern Charm was where we learned some of our hardest lessons, like how to work under pressure and that the customer is always right (even if they’re wrong).
It was also where we both discovered our career paths.
Nat discovered she wanted to be a firefighter back when we still used real candles on the tables for dinner service.
One evening, a tablecloth caught fire after a customer accidentally knocked a votive over.
Without blinking an eye, Nat ran for the fire extinguisher, aimed the nozzle, and put the blaze out, calm as anything.
The very next day, she told me she wanted to be a firefighter. And then she did it.
My eureka moment was less shocking and way more predictable.
Watching my grandmother, then my father, working in the kitchen, I had witnessed the only dance I’d ever wanted to learn.
The grace with which they moved, the way they could do so many things at once, hold it all in their brains and, in the end, create a delicious plate of food.
I wanted to be like them in the kitchen—self-assured, graceful.
Delivering food that would transmute into joy when set down on the table.
I hated that the slog of culinary school and working in kitchens had stripped me of my inherent joy of cooking, until I was a shell of who I’d wanted to be when I was sixteen. I had done the work, gotten the education, but I felt further from my dream of opening my own restaurant than ever.
“How are things looking?” Nat asked, pulling me from my spiraling thoughts.
“Bad, Nat. Real bad,” I said.
I grabbed a garden fork and raked it through the compost pile, turning it to help encourage decomposition.
It was fascinating how compost piles, full of trash and scraps, eventually turned into gold for gardeners.
I wished I could be so lucky, that after a year of stewing and decaying and becoming an abstraction of myself, I’d come out on the other side as good as gold.
“I drove by yesterday on the way home from a hike,” Nat said, patting at the soil around a tomato plant. “It was packed. That’s good, right?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But that’s one good day after months of bad days. We would need, like, every day to be like that for things to turn around.”
Nat grunted, but stayed quiet. One thing I appreciated most about my best friend was that she didn’t always jump into fixer mode.
She did enough of that in her work as a firefighter.
As a friend, she leaned more toward letting someone figure out how to tackle their own shit before stepping in with solutions.
I poked the garden rake into the loose dirt. “Or…”
Nat twisted to look at me, and I could see where her sienna complexion turned pink across her cheeks from the heat. “That sounds like a load-bearing or, Lola Maloney. What are you not telling me?”
“I’ve had a bit of an opportunity fall into my lap,” I said tentatively.
Nat waved her hand for me to continue. I flopped onto the ground, crossed my legs, and explained the upcoming restaurant contest. How it could mean free publicity, an influx of much-needed cash.
And a boost in confidence, I thought, but didn’t say.
I wasn’t sure if even Nat understood how broken down I’d been from working in Nashville.
And how broken I still was, because moving home hadn’t fixed anything—I’d only continued to doubt myself, just in a familiar location.
I left all of that out, as much for my sake as for hers.
I was Lola Maloney, after all. Upbeat, idealistic Lola. It’s how people were most comfortable seeing me.
“You obviously have to do it,” Nat said, snagging my water bottle and taking a deep drink. “I hope you already told them you’re participating, or I’ll have to do it for you.”
“I did,” I said. Then, more sheepishly: “But don’t you think it’s a bit of a long shot? I mean, the chances of getting first place—am I being delusional?”
Patting fresh soil around a seedling, Nat took her time before responding.
“Do I think it’s a long shot? Maybe. I don’t know what your competition will look like. But are you being delusional? No way. You’re the best chef I know.”
“I’m the only chef you know.”
Nat shrugged. “Doesn’t change my answer. And technically I know your ex, so that counts.”
I scoffed and poked at the dirt. “Right.”
I wanted to ask her a question, but I also didn’t.
Seeing Walter earlier today felt like a blow to the gut, and not just because I probably looked like a sweaty bog troll.
It wasn’t that I necessarily wanted to impress Walter, but it would have been nice to remind him of what he’d lost—even though I never, ever wanted him back.
In truth, I just wanted to move on to the part where I was Lola Maloney, strong, independent woman and successful chef.
The opposite of the person I was with him.
The version of myself I’d always envisioned.
Yet, I still felt like I was behind, playing my career on hard mode.
Everything had always looked so easy for Walter.
I think that’s part of what drew me to him, the appeal of life on easy mode.
“But really, how is it?” I finally asked.