Chapter Seven Pancake Capital of the World #2
I gasp and playfully reach behind to push his knee. He’s not exactly wrong, though.
“Well, I think you’re the coolest cat in Elk Grove, sugar,” Dad says, looking at me through the rearview mirror.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“But Griffin Harvey’s here now,” Rob counters.
“And he’s not cooler than your sister.”
“Can we just treat him like a normal person?” I ask, holding up my hands.
“Yes,” Nana responds. “We will welcome him with a smile on our faces and dinner on our table.”
My cheeks heat. “Oh, I don’t think he needs to be with us for dinner or anything.”
I can only imagine Griffin hearing Uncle Greg’s dissertation on how the US imports bananas or enduring Rob’s questions about his next album.
“Yes, he’s coming to dinner,” Nana argues. “While he’s in town, he’s family.”
Dad smiles. “Your boyfriend is moving into town, and we don’t give him dinner? What a scandal.”
“Dad,” I groan.
Rob leans in. “So, like, what’s his real name?”
I shrug. “Griffin?”
“No, his real name,” Rob says, “ ‘Griffin Harvey’ has gotta be fake, right? Like a stage name?”
“I bet it’s something average,” Dad throws in. “Paul? George? John?”
I laugh. “Are you just naming the Beatles?”
“Gotta start somewhere.”
But the question settles in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t even consider that “Griffin Harvey” would be a fake name. Now that I think about it, that name definitely sounds super made-up. Why wouldn’t he have a stage name? He does have a fake girlfriend, after all.
“As far as I know, his name is Griffin,” I say.
“As far as you know?” Dad asks.
“Well, we’re not actually dating.”
“Don’t tell that to Maria,” he says, blowing out a breath. “She was excited you’d finally moved on. Might break her old heart to hear that’s not true.”
My head jerks back. “God, is she still alive?” Maria runs the general store. Those jars of jam and peppers will live on long after she does. Except now I’m not so sure.
Rob stretches out in the back seat. “Alive now. Head is still in 2019.”
“Lucky,” Nana murmurs.
“Be kind to her,” Dad says to me. “She only wants the best for you and whoever your future husband is.”
Nana scoffs. “Oh, who cares about her feelings? She stole my buggy the other day.”
Dad laughs. “Nana.”
Nana leans back with crossed arms and tosses me another secret wink.
“Speaking of—Maria’s planning a town hall soon,” Nana says. “She has plans for some winter farmers’ market thing.” She waves it off. “I don’t know.”
Elk Grove and their town halls…
Rob leans in. “Do you think they need a band to play at the farmers’ market?”
“Wait, since when are you in a band?” I ask.
He shrugs with a sheepish smile. “This year. Me and a couple guys started up one.”
“I’m sure they can get Polished Shoes on deck,” Dad says, smiling in the rearview.
“Polished Shoes?” I ask.
Rob clears his throat. “Yeah, it’s really nothing big.”
Nana nods. “I’ll see what we can do. So, are you up for it, Bevvy?”
I blink back to Nana. “For what? I don’t play an instrument.”
“For the town hall. Maybe even with Polished Shoes.”
Rob holds out his hands. “Wait, no, we’d wanna perform at the farmers’ market! Not the town hall.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I say. “I can do a town hall whenever.”
It feels weird settling back into a town routine. It’s like Elk Grove is frozen in time, up on a mountain, all on its own.
Nana pats my knee, and I jump. She smiles. “Don’t worry. I won’t put you through that yet. Maybe the next town hall.”
After another thirty minutes, we finally exit the interstate. Then it’s miles of brick warehouses, mechanic shops, and car lots, all heading toward a distant silhouette of mountains. We dwindle down from three-lane roads to two then one. Finally, the trees swallow us whole.
Grass.
Trees.
More trees.
There’s an occasional country store. A gas station that may or may not be abandoned.
Winding roads and guardrails.
Out of nowhere, the specter of the mountain range is no longer distant but surrounding us, like we’ve emerged in the middle of an ancient, primeval forest and crossed the boundary to a new world.
Trees stand like walls on both sides of our lone minivan.
There are yellow birches and mountain maple trees with ochre leaves clinging to mostly bare branches.
Pads of melted snow stick to grass. Hills of layered trees give the forest a look of a rising tsunami, cresting up, up, up to the mountain peak with its lone blinking radio tower.
My ears pop when I swallow as we ascend the mountain’s incline. Every switchback has my head swimming. To our left is an open valley, with the drop-off getting steeper as we rise.
“I’m not going down again for months,” Nana says.
Dad chuckles. “Guess I’ll get the groceries, then.”
Nana leans across the van and smacks a kiss on my cheek. “Didn’t you miss this, Bevvy?”
A weak smile pulls at my lips, but my stomach lurches. And one additional switchback doesn’t help.
Griffin: On my way
Three days pass, and time stretches painfully.
It’s weird being home again at thirty-two years old. My childhood bedroom now doubles as Mom’s craft room. Walls that were once neon purple and covered in theater posters are now adorned with pink floral wallpaper and gold-framed cross-stitch art.
The bed—my current makeshift office—is the only space that still feels like it’s mine.
The twin bed is piled with open notebooks and abandoned colored pencils.
Steak, our calico cat with a perpetual stink face, is curled at the end of the mattress.
He hates everyone but my mom, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers when I’m the only one awake.
My ancient laptop is thrown on the sliver of bed space remaining beside me in hopes it’ll cool down from being on all night.
My in-progress Birds on the Block script is brightly lit.
I fell asleep working again and went right back to it once I woke up. I’ve stopped only a couple of times to check my phone.
Griffin: ETA 1 hour
My fingers freeze. I inhale. Exhale. Then send a thumbs-up emoji.
Smooth.
Griffin Harvey is coming over so we can make a production plan for the next two months. It’ll be the first time he sets foot in my childhood home. I look around at my unmade bed. My unpacked suitcase open on the floor. Bernie Bird sitting in my mom’s sewing chair.
I need to clean.
I set my work aside and shuffle to the kitchen. I grab a big mug probably meant for soup and instead pour the leftover coffee until it’s emptied of every drop from my parents’ remaining brew this morning.
As I sip, I notice a small note, scrawled in jagged cursive, on the counter.
At the diner with your parents. Be back later.
Love,
Nana
I sputter into my coffee.
No, Nana was supposed to be here when Griffin arrived. We were supposed to break the ice with him as a team.
Maybe she got the dates wrong. Maybe she forgot he was coming over today.
I feel like I’m burning up.
I slide open the porch door. My toes sting against the chilly wood when I step onto our second-story balcony. A low fog conceals the tops of the firs standing sentry around our log house. It’s so quiet. Only whistling wind and creaking branches.
Normally I’m surrounded by the sound of shoes pounding up and down stairs in my apartment building, or of car horns honking, or sirens from the occasional emergency vehicle turning down the street outside my window.
But in Elk Grove during winter break, Rob sleeps until noon, recovering from long nights practicing with his band, and my parents open their pancake house before the sun rises.
Even Nana is gone, despite usually being in the living room by now.
Nana used to live in the refurbished garage apartment out back. I have distinct memories of her shuffling across the yard in her bathrobe, but after Grandpa died, she moved into the spare room across the hall from mine.
I head back inside and spot the scribbled note from Nana again. I check the time. And then Griffin’s text.
I only have one hour to clean.
Dishes are piled up in the kitchen sink. The floors have little paw prints near the sliding glass door. Dusty family pictures hang in the hall, and I guess they’re not too embarrassing, but then—
Right next to the hallway, there’s a family photo with all of us and Beau.
Or it used to be Beau. Now his face is removed, and a cutout of Pudge is glued in its place.
I look around. There are more pictures of Beau and me—theater camps and graduation—that have become fake memories with Pudge instead.
My mom even added a little scrapbook bowtie.
Despite closing the sliding glass door, I feel colder.
Maybe we could join Nana at the diner. At eight o’clock on a Saturday and with the weather this cold, nobody will be there except my parents and Nana anyway. Maybe Uncle Greg.
We could get breakfast. Gradually get acquainted again.
No problem.
Honestly, it’s even better this way.
I shoot a quick text to Griffin, then head back to my room.
Beverly: Let me send you the address to our local diner instead. Pancake capital of the world!
Elk Grove, North Carolina, is a blink and you miss it type of town. We’re mostly known for bikers zooming through during the summer or tourist families stopping for a bathroom break on their way to a more exciting destination.
Our sort of downtown consists of three brick buildings—a bookstore, a thrift shop / antique store, and a post office—across from a fenced-in lookout. On clear days, the view is stunning. On foggy days, the view is still stunning.
Beyond the brick buildings, a single blinking yellow light indicates the edge of town, where, on a small patch of tiny plateaued incline, my parents’ squat yellow diner sits.
It should be empty.
Except it’s not.
Cars line the makeshift gravel parking spots along the side of the road, and my stomach clenches.
Oh no.
I rumble my rickety station wagon into one of two spaces remaining. I shut off the engine and peer through the windows of Momma’s Pancake House.
My heart sinks.
Because I see everyone. And I mean everyone.