Chapter 15 #2
“I thought I’d sit here tonight.”
Tess put both hands on the bar. “Anything you want to tell us?”
Emma laughed. “Actually, yes. I took a leave of absence from my firm this morning. Two months, maybe longer.”
Tess clapped once. “Emma. That deserves a drink.”
Before Emma could answer, Leah set a glass in front of her and poured a small measure of tequila.
“On the house.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m a co-owner. I’m allowed.”
Emma picked up the glass. “Then thank you.”
Lloyd raised his beer from the other end of the bar. “Welcome to Key West.”
Connie came through from the kitchen carrying a stack of clean towels. “Did I hear that right? You’re staying?”
“For a while.” Emma smiled. “I don’t know exactly what I’m doing yet.”
“You don’t have to. Take it a day at a time.”
“That seems to be what everyone keeps telling me.”
“Maybe everyone’s onto something.”
Connie disappeared into the kitchen.
Leah waited a moment before looking at Emma. “Can I give you one piece of advice?”
Emma glanced toward Tess. “Is this official bar-owner advice?”
“No. It’s Leah advice.”
“That sounds more dangerous.”
“It probably is.” Leah leaned one hand on the bar. “When you do go back to Chicago, even if it’s only for a week, don’t leave the way you’d leave after a business trip. If there’s someone here you plan to come back to, make sure he knows it.”
Emma was quiet.
She didn’t ask who Leah meant.
After a moment, she took a small sip of tequila. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
From farther down the bar, Tess said, “Not in the matchmaking business.”
“I’m giving travel advice.”
“That’s what we’re calling it?”
“Yes.”
Tess came over with a bowl of plantain chips and put it in front of Emma.
“These are for staff,” Leah said.
“I know.” Tess looked at Emma. “But if you’re going to sit at the bar instead of the window, there are privileges.”
“Am I officially a regular?”
“You are.”
“What does that get me?”
“Nothing formal. Plantain chips when I’m feeling generous. Lloyd tolerating you. Leah’s good tequila when she decides you’ve earned it. The right to give me unsolicited advice when I need it.”
“When will that be?”
“Constantly.”
Emma laughed.
“I tolerate everyone,” Lloyd said.
“You don’t,” Tess told him.
“I do.”
“He doesn’t,” Tess said to Emma.
“Understood.”
Lloyd lifted his beer again. “Welcome to the bar, Emma.”
“Thank you, Lloyd.”
The screen door banged hard enough to make Tess turn.
A young woman came in carrying a cardboard box under one arm. She wore shorts, a Paradise Harbor House T-shirt and sunglasses pushed into her hair.
“Aunt Tess. Aunt Leah. I need eleven wine glasses by Thursday.”
“Hello to you too,” Leah said.
“Hello. I love you both. Eleven wine glasses.”
“What’s Thursday?” Tess asked.
“The donor evening. Elena ordered forty glasses and thirty-one arrived. The woman on the phone told me the other nine are in Fort Lauderdale and ‘in motion.’ She said, ‘in motion’ twice, which is how I know they aren’t.”
Tess took the box from her and put it behind the bar. “You’ll have fourteen. Kaitlyn, this is Emma. Emma, this is our niece. She does outreach for Paradise Harbor House and will tell you all about it if you give her the smallest opening.”
“I will,” Kaitlyn said. “It’s worth hearing about.”
Then she looked properly at Emma.
“Wait. You’re the cottage.”
Emma put down her glass. “Apparently I am.”
“Everybody’s been talking about it for a week.” Kaitlyn held out her hand and shook Emma’s with both of hers. “I’m glad things are going your way.”
“I’m not sure I’d call it that yet.”
“I would. Lloyd said you were going to win on Saturday, and Lloyd’s never wrong except about boats.”
“I’m never wrong about boats,” Lloyd said.
“Where’s Will?” Leah asked.
“Out with Patrick. They left at six this morning. He told me Sunday, but I forgot.” Kaitlyn pulled the sunglasses from her hair. “He’s been buried in an edit for two weeks anyway. He gets weird when he’s working.”
“Weird how?” Emma asked.
“He goes quiet and answers questions forty minutes after you ask them. The last time it lasted two months and turned into a film, so I leave him alone now.”
“Eleven glasses,” Tess said. “Thursday.”
“Fourteen. You promised fourteen.”
“Right. Fourteen.”
“I love you.” Kaitlyn was already backing toward the door. “Emma, come Thursday if you want. There’s wine, a woman playing cello and it’s over by nine. That’s my best sales pitch.”
Then she was gone.
“That’s our sister Gretchen’s daughter,” Leah said. “She came down for a week two years ago and never left. She works too much, but so does Will.”
“Kaitlyn and Will are the perfect couple,” Tess said.
Leah looked at Emma. “See what I live with?”
Emma smiled. “I’m beginning to.”
Joey kept playing while the screen door opened again and another group came in from the street. Tess moved toward them, Leah reached for clean glasses, and Lloyd settled more comfortably onto the stool he claimed he didn’t spend all his time on.
Emma stayed where she was at the bar. She had told someone in Chicago that she wasn’t coming home yet, and nothing had fallen apart.
Her job was still there. Her apartment was still there.
Everything she’d built over twelve years was waiting for her return.
She wasn’t surprised when she realized she didn’t care one bit.