Chapter 23
Before Travis, Keely had never understood how heartache could manifest as physical pain. She wanted nothing to do with a man who couldn’t be honest with her… and yet the thought of not seeing him again made her feel physically ill. Her bones ached.
It felt uncomfortably similar to going through withdrawals. Short of the acute misery of that, nothing had ever affected her quite this strongly.
She hardly slept at all that night. She tossed and turned, occasionally checking her phone to see if Travis had texted her with some explanation. But he didn’t send her a single message. He didn’t call.
Good, she told herself. Good riddance.
But it didn’t feel good. It felt like torture.
After a night of tossing and turning and futilely trying to sleep, she finally crawled out of bed at dawn. She walked into the kitchen, sandy-eyed and irritable, and started a pot of coffee.
Though she had no appetite at all, she forced herself to eat one of the strawberry-lemon muffins she had made a couple of days before. Today was market day, the start of her trial week with Frances, and she needed to be able to function. Skipping breakfast on top of a sleepless night wasn’t going to do her brain or her body any favors.
More than once, as she had tossed and turned throughout the night fighting off thoughts of Travis and futilely trying to sleep, she had considered calling in sick and asking Frances if they could postpone their trip to the market. But she couldn’t stomach the possibility of losing this job on top of everything else.
This was her chance, an amazing job right here in town that would give her the resources she needed to pursue this nebulous dream she had of making a living by making food.
She felt jittery just sitting in the house and waiting for her appointment with Frances, so she bundled up and went out to walk the sea cliffs. It was a bright and blustery day. The blue water was checked with whitecaps and shone yellow-white where the sun glinted off the waves.
Thinking back to her day on the beach with Travis was downright painful. She tried not to think of him, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. Each time she cleared her mind or managed to get it going down another track, some new memory would emerge.
Twelve-year-old Travis laughing at her parents’ kitchen table.
His arm against hers as they sat in the cove eating macarons.
The warmth of his smile.
The picture of him and Rachel. The lies and obfuscations. The way he had dodged her and ignored her texts for weeks before finally taking her out to dinner.
Had he ever even been interested in her? She didn’t understand it. After all of the mixed signals that the man had sent her over the past few months, she should want nothing to do with him.
And yet there was nothing that she wanted more than for things to be right between them.
All she truly wanted was for him to track her down and explain everything, lay it out so clear and simple that all of her worries disappeared. She wanted him to tell her that he was madly in love with her, that she was the only one for him.
Sappy, soapy ideas. She did her best to squash them.
She wanted to believe what he had said about that girl, that it was just a brother and sister kind of bond. She certainly looked young enough that the thought of anything romantic existing between the two of them made Keely feel queasy.
But she had already been proven to have terrible taste in men. Adam had presented her with a charming fa?ade, and she had fallen for it. She had believed lie after lie.
So as much as she wanted to believe Travis – and she did believe him, deep down – she knew better than to trust herself.
Maybe romance just wasn’t for her. Certainly most people in recovery would tell her that it was too soon, that she had more healing to do before she should put any energy into a romantic relationship. Maybe she would never be ready. Maybe she would just be the quirky aunt devoted to her career with a beautiful life and plenty of friends and no husband ever.
Would that be so bad?
Regardless, she needed to stop thinking about Travis. She needed to focus on the present, not on some man who refused to be fully honest with her. It was a ridiculous way to spend her time and her precious energy.
It was a waste of headspace, that’s what.
She needed to be nurturing new friendships and repairing her relationships with her family, not worrying about what was going on in Travis’s head.
She needed to be building a solid foundation for her life, learning new skills and exploring career paths, not losing sleep over some guy.
She resolved not to give him another thought.
It didn’t work, of course. But her intentions were in the right place.
Finally, when she had frittered away enough time pacing back and forth along the coastline, it was time to walk up to Frances’s house. She arrived a few minutes early and stood admiring the view of Pelican Point for a moment before knocking on the door.
“There you are!” Frances said as she opened it. “I’m nearly ready. Come on in. We can leave in just a minute.”
“There’s no rush,” said Keely as she followed her inside.
“There most certainly is. You know how quickly the best produce disappears. I just can’t find my market bag. It has wheels, you see.”
Through the living room window, Keely could see the white-topped farmers market tents clustered in front of the Pelican Point lighthouse. Frances left the room for a few minutes, then came back with a frustrated look on her face.
“I just can’t find it anywhere.”
“We don’t need it,” Keely said. “I can carry everything.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course.” She pulled off the backpack she wore and showed Frances how big it opened up. It was empty aside from an assortment of other bags inside. She smiled at the nonagenarian and said, “I’m stronger than I look.”
Frances laughed. “You and me both. Okay, let’s go.”
Keely waited patiently as Frances buttoned up her sweater and picked up a fine wooden cane. Simply being in the presence of the older woman eased Keely’s troubled thoughts. She found it easy to be fully present when she was with Frances.
Frances didn’t lean on her cane as they made their way down to the market, but she did use it for stability now and then. Mostly its purpose seemed to be to prevent her from tipping over face first, particularly on her way downhill. The old lady was an enigma, robust and delicate at the same time. Her white hair whipped this way and that in the breeze. Luckily the sun was out, beaming warmth down onto their upturned faces and balancing out the chill of the breeze.
When they reached the market, Frances headed straight for a tent that sold no less than a dozen different varieties of apples.
“I have a hankering for apple pie,” she said to Keely. “What do you think of that?”
“I would love to make an apple pie.”
“That was another staple in our house growing up. We would go inland to the mountains and pick our own. Then we would store the whole lot down in the food cellar for months and months. All winter long, my grandmother would bake an apple pie nearly every day. It wasn’t considered a dessert, in our house. It was our favorite breakfast.”
“I love that.”
“Of course, my grandmother didn’t load them with sugar like some do. Just a touch, to bring out the natural sweetness of the apples. And plenty of spice.”
Keely looked over the apples, unfamiliar with these local varieties. “Which ones are best for pie, do you know?”
“Oh, any of them will do,” said Frances. But she looked each bin over carefully before finally pointing to a box full of red and yellow speckled apples the size of her fist. “But I would say these are the best ones. They’re good and tart, with a strong flavor that bakes up nicely. Gather up enough for a pie, would you?”
“Yes ma’am.” Keely collected a bag full of apples, feeling completely in her element and fully content for the first time since Frances’s party. Had that only been a couple of days ago? Goodness. She put the intervening events out of her mind – well, all but Sunday’s magnanimous job offer – and turned to look at Frances. “What next?”
“That chowder of yours was phenomenal. I could eat it every night. Would you make it again?”
“Of course.”
“Gather up whatever you’ll need for that, then. I’ll just have a look at these flowers.”
Keely went across to a vegetable stand to stock up on onions, potatoes, and carrots. She chose a few other likely-looking vegetables as well, then hunted Frances down to seek her approval.
“I have the veggies I’ll need for soup. I can get the other ingredients at the market in town.”
“That’s breakfasts and dinners covered,” Frances said happily.
“You really want to eat the same thing every day?”
“If it’s as good as that chowder I do! You can make, oh, say four days’ worth. Then you can drive me down to the big farmers market in Santa Cruz and we’ll shop all over again, try something new.”
“Sounds good,” Keely agreed. “But what about lunches? I could roast these delicata squash one day, and maybe another day make a salad using these endives. Aren’t they gorgeous?” She held up the pink and purple leaves for Frances to inspect.
“I’m not terribly fond of endives.”
“Have you ever had them charred, with a sweet balsamic? They’re amazing.”
“I suppose we could give that a try.”
“I’ll make something else for the same meal, so that you still have food if the endives aren’t to your liking.”
Frances smiled at her. “I have no fear of running out of food, Keely girl.”
“Good.”
“How about a roast chicken to go with all of those vegetables? A woman needs her protein.”
“Sure thing.”
“This stand over here has the dearest little birds, not like those factory farm monstrosities they hawk in the big grocery stores. These are the real thing, pasture raised. Of course, just one will still last me a week’s worth of lunches. You’ll roast it with lemon for me.”
“I’d be happy to. Here, let me buy some of those Meyer lemons before we walk over to the other stand.” Keely paused to select a few glowing yellow globes, breathing in their sweet fragrance.
“You know what else?” Frances handed her a bundle of fresh sage. “I have a craving for some paté. They sell chicken livers too, that farm. Have you ever made paté, Keely?”
“I have. My parents love it.”
“Good. Let’s have a batch of that as well. And that should be enough for the week.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Keely?” Frances looped their arms together as they walked through the market.
“Yes?”
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“You know what?” She smiled at the dear old lady. “I think so too.”
They walked arm in arm, enjoying the market. Keely felt perfectly content.
She definitely wasn’t thinking of Travis.
…much.