Chapter Three
Chapter Three
The next morning, dressed in her new Bananarama shirt and old denim overalls, Allie bounced down the staircase and through the back door of the café. She was expecting to start her day alone in the kitchen as usual, but Mindy was already there, looming over the prep counter.
“Shit, you scared me!” Allie laughed. She pulled a yellow bandanna out of her pocket to tie around her hair before Mindy could tell her off.
“I need to talk to you about something.”
Only then did Allie notice the odd look of concern in her aunt’s brown eyes. She went still, her hands gripping the edge of the counter between them.
“What is it? Did someone die?”
Her aunt laughed and shook her head. “Allie, we’re the last two people alive in our family. Who the fuck else could die?”
“Good point.” Allie dropped her shoulders and then pulled a stool over to the prep counter and sat down. “Okay, go ahead.”
Mindy sighed and tugged at the end of one of her tight braids. She shut her eyes for a beat longer than normal, then opened them, leveling Allie with a determined stare.
“I’m leaving.”
“Leaving what?”
“The café. The city. Also the country.”
Allie wondered whether she was the victim of a weird prank.
“What do you mean? You’re going on a vacation? You’ve never gone on a vacation.”
Mindy shook her head. “Not a vacation. I’m leaving for good.”
Allie opened her mouth and then closed it again. Panic washed over her. She pressed her fingers into her temples. “I still don’t get what you mean. Are you sick?”
Mindy leaned back against the wall, her hands shoved deep in the pockets of her gray linen dress. “I’m fine. I should have said that first. I apologize.”
When Allie was eighteen, her mom, Mindy’s younger sister, had died of cancer. But that hadn’t actually been where Allie’s mind had gone. Her mom and Mindy were so different, it took actual effort to remember that they shared genetic material.
“But then…what is happening?” Allie’s stomach churned. Something had to be wrong. Something major.
Their lives had been the same for a decade. And Mindy’s life had been the same for decades before that. Surely only a major disaster could disrupt their careful routines. From the moment Allie had stumbled into the café ten years earlier with a shabby suitcase and a tearstained face, Mindy had been there. Available, helpful, supportive.
Mindy leaned forward. One side of her usual scowl bent upward into a rare half smile. “I’ve never traveled. I’ve never done anything adventurous. I haven’t even been out of the country. I didn’t have a passport until last week. I’m sixty years old. My whole adult life has been here, in this place.”
She looked at Allie and seemed to finally notice the distressed look on her niece’s face. “Not that I haven’t loved it! I have. I have loved being with you and working with you and being here in our space. But my mom was sixty-two when she died. And my dad was sixty-five. And all I can think these days is if I died tomorrow, how would I feel about how I chose to spend my life? I don’t want my obituary to say She owned a café and never went to Paris .”
“Obituaries don’t say what people didn’t do.” Allie couldn’t help herself. Mindy, who normally would have scoffed at the pedantic statement, smiled again sadly.
Allie furrowed her brow, trying not to pout like a child. “So that’s what you’re doing, then? Going to Paris? What about the café?”
“Well,” Mindy said, twisting her apron in her hands, “that’s up to you.”
“What?” Allie felt another shot of panic buzz through her.
“You get to choose. If I did die tomorrow, you’d inherit the building and the café and all my other assets. So if you want to take it over, I’ll sign everything over to you now, without having to go to the trouble of kicking the bucket first.”
Allie could barely process everything that she was hearing. “And if I don’t want it?”
“Then I’ll sell it to someone else. And when I actually die, you’ll get whatever is left in my coffers.”
“And you’ll be in Paris.”
Mindy shrugged. “For a while, anyway. It’s funny, but somehow staying in one place for my whole life has made me a lot of international friends. Lots of people leave New York and go to even more exciting places. And they seem to all want me to come and stay with them.”
“But if you give me the café, how will you have money? Where is your plane fare and food coming from while you’re couch surfing?”
“I’m not a nincompoop, Allie. I’ve been saving for my retirement for years.”
“Retirement?”
“Yes. You know when old people stop working? That’s what we call it.”
Allie took as deep a breath as her tense body would allow and tilted forward, eventually resting her forehead on the counter. “This is a lot to take in.”
“I know.” An unusual tenderness crept into her aunt’s voice. She placed one warm hand on Allie’s back. “But think of it as a good thing. If you take all this over, you’re set. You’ll always have a place to live and a place to work. The building was paid off years ago, so you’re really in a good position. And I’ll come back to visit. At some point.”
Allie did not want to think about any of this. She wanted a time machine to take her back to twenty minutes ago, when she was admiring her hair in the mirror and clomping down the stairs for what she thought was going to be a perfectly normal day at work.
She straightened up and looked at the clock on the wall. “We have to start prep.”
Mindy nodded. “Think about it. We can talk about all this more later. There’s no rush.”
Allie heaved one more huge sigh and opened the knife drawer.
Tomatoes. She needed to cut up some tomatoes.
—
Allie had never been more thankful for a morning rush. The sparkling fall sunshine and their breakfast special—pumpkin almond scone and a large coffee for seven dollars—meant that the café was jammed with patrons. Almost able to ignore the knot of unease in her stomach, she raced through the morning, assisting the counter staff with orders, pulling batches of scones from the oven and fiddling with the playlist Mindy had chosen when it somehow got stuck in a Crosby, Stills & Nash loop. No one needed that much Crosby, Stills & Nash.
By the time the midafternoon lull came about, she was over her initial shock and starting to grow irritated with Mindy for blindsiding her. When Ren arrived to take over the counter, Allie and Mindy ended up side by side, wrapping cutlery in napkins at the prep station.
“So, is this a sure thing? There’s no chance of you changing your mind and just staying here?”
Mindy looked at her with a familiar no-nonsense expression. “Allie. You know me. When have I ever changed my mind after deciding to do something?”
She had a point. Allie hadn’t even been born when her aunt had run away to Brooklyn and bought a whole-ass building with the inheritance she got from her grandfather. Everyone in the family thought that Mindy was out of control. Mindy hadn’t let that change her path. The café had been open and basically thriving since 1985. Stubbornness could carry a person pretty far. Apparently, it was now going to carry Mindy to Paris.
“How long have you known?” The question occurred to Allie suddenly.
“Known?” Mindy kept her head down.
“Yeah. How long have you known that you were going to leave?”
“Oh. I’m not sure, really.”
Allie dropped the fork she was holding and fixed her gaze on her aunt, who was smoothing a napkin around a fork and knife, not meeting her eyes.
“Yes, you do. How long?”
Mindy placed a wrapped set of cutlery on the counter and turned her head slowly. “Six months.”
“Six months ?” Anger churned in her belly. “And you waited that long to tell me?”
Mindy turned her full body toward her niece. “Allie, six months ago, it seemed like maybe you were at a crossroads. I wanted to hang on to see if you’d even want to take the café on. I wanted to give you a chance to explore other options if that’s what you wanted to do.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” Allie sputtered. Her life had been the same nearly every day for the last decade. She was 100 percent sure that she had not been “at a crossroads” six months ago, or at any other time.
“With your music. You were starting that project of yours. I was thinking maybe you’d start playing in a band again, even go on tour.”
Allie recoiled. “That project is just for me. I missed playing music. I give the recordings to George , for fuck’s sake. Did you think he was going to wrangle me a record deal at the seniors’ center?”
“I didn’t know what you were thinking.” Mindy shrugged. “It was the first time I’d seen you playing music since you moved here. I thought you might be ready to make a change. But now I know you’re not looking to get back into music, because, yes, I know you only give the recordings to George. And knowing that you’re not going to be a musician made me think that you were ready to take over the café. You have a real future here. I wanted to make sure you were in a place to accept it.”
Even though Allie had essentially just made the same point, hearing Mindy say that she wasn’t going to be a musician was like a kick to the shin. The whoosh of panic was back, creating a white noise in her ears that blocked out whatever Mindy was saying.
“I need some air.” Supporting herself with one hand on the counter, she moved past her aunt to the front of the café, her eyes locked on the door leading outside.
The door that was suddenly replaced by the hulking figure of Ryan Abernathy.
“Allie Jetski!” A smile split his face, and he held up one hand in an enthusiastic wave. She huffed out a heavy groan of frustration and clenched her hands into fists.
“Shut up .”
She stormed past him, forcing him to jump out of her way. The last thing she needed right now was this weirdo talking to her.
“Hey!” Ryan shouted as she started up the sidewalk. She turned to see him loping along behind her. “Is everything okay?”
“No!” It felt good to shout, even at someone who probably didn’t deserve it.
Ryan caught up to her and matched her pace. “You’re fast for a short person.” He was breathing heavily from the exertion. She noticed that the smooth skin of his cheeks above his beard had turned an attractive shade of pink. He yanked at the sleeves of the gray wool cardigan he wore over his button-down shirt, pulling it off and draping it over one arm. She slowed her speed slightly. To balance out this momentary softening, she glowered at him. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Anything I can do?”
“No.”
“Do you want some company?”
She did, actually, but didn’t particularly want to admit it. She was used to talking to Mindy at times like this, regaling her aunt with whatever injustice had occurred in her life. But now, with Mindy at the helm of this latest grievance, she had no one to talk to.
They walked side by side for two blocks, both silent. The street was clogged with end-of-day traffic. Taxis jockeyed for position with cyclists at each corner, and people wearing earbuds kept brushing past her, moving quickly toward their homes.
She reluctantly acknowledged that there was something comforting about Ryan’s large, good-natured presence beside her. When they came to a stoplight, she paused and looked up at him. Was he ever not smiling?
“Hey, there. Feeling any better?”
“A bit.” She did not smile back.
“Well, that’s good, then. Would you like a soda?”
“Would I like…a soda ?”
“Yeah.” He gestured at the bodega on the corner beside them. “I’m thirsty, and I don’t drink soda very often, but it appeals to me in times of crisis.”
She squinted at him. “Are you having a crisis?”
“Are you ?”
She didn’t want to answer that question, so instead returned to his previous one. “Okay. I’ll have a Coke.”
Ryan disappeared into the store, leaving her alone in the waning light wondering just how exactly she got there. She didn’t have long to contemplate. Ryan appeared quickly, holding two cans of Coke. He pressed one into her hand and opened the other with a satisfied murmur.
“Would you like to go sit somewhere?” He gestured west. “The park’s just over there.”
“I know where the park is.”
Ryan laughed.
“What?”
“You’re prickly.”
She sighed. “Sometimes.”
He smiled. “I like prickly.” He held her gaze, and heat flooded her belly. She looked away.
“Well.” She opened her can and took a long swig of the sweet, fizzy liquid. “You definitely came to the right city.”
“Don’t I know it.”
The conversation faded into quiet. Allie watched a father trying to lock his bike without tipping his preschooler out of the child seat on the back. She started to feel silly for having had such a tantrum. She didn’t like having the focus on her unruly emotions.
She glanced up at him. “So what show are you working on at Solidarity?”
“ Mixtape Universe .”
“Oh!” Allie liked Mixtape Universe . The podcast had different guests every week and talked them through the creation of a playlist based on songs from significant times in their lives. She liked to listen to it during her early shifts. “That’s a good one.”
“I’ll say! I was an actual fan before I even got the job. The job posting didn’t say which show the position was for, but I will admit that I wouldn’t have been nearly as excited if it was Betty on the Left or Know Your Plants. Music has always been my thing. And I majored in journalism at UA.”
“Roll Tide.” Allie couldn’t resist cutting in with a smile. They’d had a barista for a few years who moved to the city after attending the University of Alabama. The school cheer was so catchy all the employees started saying it, which annoyed Mindy in a way that Allie found particularly entertaining.
Ryan shook his head and groaned. “Oh, don’t you say that to me!”
“No?” She fixed her face into an innocent expression. “I thought it was a thing.”
“You really think a fat music nerd on financial aid was a big college football fan?” He was still smiling, but she thought she saw a brief darkening of his expression.
“Point taken.”
“Plus”—he returned to his previous jolly self—“I’ve been in New York for seven years. Haven’t been back once. No tides rolling for me.”
They entered the park and settled at a nearby picnic table. In spite of her foul mood, Allie admired the leaves on the trees turning colors and creating a crunchy layer across the expanse of grass. There was a yoga class happening in a large field west of them, a dozen spandex butts moving into the air in perfect unison.
“So, do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Ryan was studying her face. She averted her eyes.
“No.”
“Maybe you should, though.”
“Why?”
“Sometimes it helps to talk to a friend.”
“I don’t have any friends.”
It was weird to say it out loud, but it was true. She had coworkers. Acquaintances. Customers she chatted with. She’d had boyfriends, girlfriends, dates, occasional crushes. But no real friends . It was too hard to imagine what would happen if she lost her friends again.
“What? That’s bananas. Everyone has friends.”
“I don’t.”
“Since when?”
“Ten and a half years ago.”
Ryan clearly wasn’t expecting such a specific answer. He tilted his head to one side like a German shepherd confused by a rabbit on a TV screen. “How do you figure?”
She’d said it to shock him, but now she was regretting coming out with a statement that she’d inevitably have to explain. But it turned out that Ryan was quicker than she’d expected.
“Wait!” He smacked the top of the picnic table with his large, fleshy palm. “Was that when the Jetskis broke up?”
Slow talker, fast thinker.
It had been almost a decade since anyone had talked to her about her band, and now here was this guy who wouldn’t shut up about it. It made her feel naked. And not in the sexy way.
But he knew . Here was a guy—sitting across from her, buying her soda, smiling at her as if she were the only person alive—who already knew. It was as though she’d lived two lives and now she was sitting at a picnic table with someone from her alternate reality. A sting of stress still pulsed behind her eyes but it was quickly changing into something like relief. She hadn’t talked about it for so long. She seldom considered it safe to reveal herself to strangers, but Ryan’s kind eyes and gentle manners were pulling her in, making her feel like a whole person again.
“Yes.” She felt like a kid standing on the high dive at the community pool. Thrilled and terrified. “That was when the Jetskis broke up.”
Ryan gave a low whistle, eyes wide. “So, y’all don’t keep in touch?”
“That”—she took another sip of her soda—“is an understatement.”
“Do you wanna elaborate?” Ryan fidgeted in his seat.
“Well, to make a long story short—”
“You don’t have to.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, but I want to.”
“Go ahead, then. Just please don’t leave out anything important.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the table.
“Jessi, Ayla and Mimi wanted the band to break up. I didn’t. I was not a nice person about it. They all left our practice space after a big fight, and I haven’t communicated with any of them since.”
Ryan sat back, stunned. “What? Seriously? Like, not even on social media? You haven’t sent them a Christmas card? You haven’t run into one of them in the frozen food section of the grocery store?”
“Ayla and Mimi have some social media. They don’t post much, though. Ayla lives here in the city somewhere, but I’ve never run into her. I tried to send her a message on Facebook once, but I don’t think she uses her account anymore. Mimi moved to Portland, Oregon. She has an Instagram account, but it’s private. And Jessi…”
This was the part that hurt. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Jessi just…disappeared. She’s not on social media or online at all, really. Not as Jessi Jetski or under her real name. She was always the one who wanted to keep our names and identities secret. I guess she kept on doing that. When I search for her online, all I find are old photos of us four from some zine or whatever.”
She’d stopped searching. Every dead-end click and nostalgic band photo chipped away at her heart.
Ryan blew out a long exhale. “You must miss them. Especially Jessi.”
It was a minute before Allie could speak.
“We were best friends. For a long time.”
She couldn’t look at Ryan. She stared past him at the people walking through the park and drained the dregs from her soda can.
Twilight was settling over them. She stood up. “I have to get back to work. There’s some…stuff going on at the café.”
Ryan nodded and rose as well. “I should go, too. I’m sure my dinner is waiting for me at home.”
There was an involuntary churn of disappointment in her belly. But of course. A guy that nice had to have a partner. Not that she’d expected anything to come of these chance meetings. He was cute, really cute, but she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.
“Look.” Ryan turned to her as they prepared to part ways on the sidewalk. “If you want to talk about whatever is going on with you, I’m always around. Can I give you my cell number?”
It was becoming clear to Allie that her own life was all she could handle at the moment. She had to get herself together. None of this waltzing around in her past or drinking soda with men in parks on a whim. Better to cut this off now. “I’m good. Have a good night. Thank you for the drink and the walk.”
“My pleasure, Jetski.”
He saluted her casually, two fingers bouncing off his temple beside those shining eyes.