Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Amelie
Unable to resist the warm glow from inside the bed-and-breakfast, Amelie followed the handsome Frenchman, gripping both straps of her backpack for dear life.
She could still feel the shadows lurking on the opposite side of the road, where Caraway Fudge Shoppe waited expectantly, as though it had been closed up since she and Willa had left it behind.
“I get the sense that you’ve been to the island before?” the Frenchman was saying, removing his winter hat and reaching for her coat.
“What?” Amelie felt out of sorts. “I mean, yes. I have. But not for years.”
“Well, you know which fudge is the best, which means something around here.” The man hung her coat and gestured for her to give him her bag, which he locked behind the front counter.
Amelie put her hands on the mahogany wood, inspecting the old, ornate keys that hung near where the Frenchman was standing. Each had a number attached to a keychain and was assigned to a room upstairs. It looked like most of the rooms were empty.
The Frenchman read her mind. “People don’t often stay on the island during the winter,” he said.
“They come over for the day, eat and shop, and then go back to the mainland and their cars and their warmth. It means that the island is for us islanders at night. That’s why I started our Jazz Nights.
” He rubbed his palms together and shot out from behind the counter, guiding her into the combination dining room-bar, where a jazz quintet was playing an old classic.
Not many people were watching; just a few older couples, their eyes glistening as they sipped glasses of white wine.
Like everywhere else on the island, the bed-and-breakfast was decorated in a Christmassy style, with garlands, trees, and string lights.
She hung in the doorway with the Frenchman, nodding her head in time to the song.
It had been a long time since she’d heard music like this.
It reminded her of her grandparents, her great-grandparents, and a forgotten era of American culture.
It was funny that a Frenchman had brought it back to Mackinac.
“What do you think?” the Frenchman asked when the song stopped and the few in the crowd applauded.
“It’s wonderful,” Amelie said, surprised at how happy she sounded.
“Should we sit?” He gestured toward a table near the back.
Directly behind it was a window that looked out onto the street.
The snow had picked up again, coming down faster and thicker than it had all evening.
Amelie loved the feeling of being snowed in.
It was cozy. It reminded her of being a child, of being tucked in at night by her mother.
The Frenchman grabbed a bottle of red wine and two glasses and led Amelie to the corner table. By the time he’d poured them two hefty glasses, the jazz quintet had started up again, but quieter this time, allowing members of the audience to turn to one another and talk.
“So,” he said, raising his glass, “to new friends.”
“To new friends,” she said.
“What brings you back to Mackinac?” he asked. “After years away?”
“What brings you to Mackinac? From France, of all places?” She smiled, teasing him.
“I live here! This is my bed-and-breakfast!” he said, throwing his head back joyfully.
“Yes, but you’re so far from home.”
“This is my home now,” he said, his eyes glistening.
“I came to Mackinac in my early thirties. I was on vacation with my girlfriend at that time. Ex-girlfriend now, as you can guess. We went all over America. We started in New York, went to Maine, Florida, Texas, and LA. We ended up in Michigan because she had an old roommate from Detroit. The roommate insisted we come to Mackinac, so we did. When I got off the ferry, I felt something. I knew it would be my home.”
Amelie couldn’t believe the story. It felt fantastical. What did “home” feel like?
“You didn’t leave after that?” she asked.
The Frenchman shook his head. “I told my girlfriend I was staying. We broke up the next day.”
Amelie cackled. This man was slightly crazy, but she liked him all the more for it. He lived on a wing and a prayer like she did.
“It looks like it worked out.” She gestured around the bar.
“I had plenty of difficult years, believe me,” he said. “But things have worked out for me. The island has accepted me as one of its children.”
“That’s a nice story,” Amelie said, her heart sinking. She and Willa were the island’s children, not this man. She didn’t even know his name.
“Pascal!” A man with a saxophone made his way over to their table, answering Amelie’s question.
He bent to say something to Pascal, something Amelie couldn’t hear.
A moment later, Pascal was on his feet, blushing.
“I’m being called to the stage,” he explained.
“I hope you’ll stay a little bit longer.
I didn’t get a chance to pester you enough. ”
Amelie laughed and sipped her wine. It was only when he turned and walked to the table that she realized she didn’t have a place to stay tonight, nor any money to book a room.
She grimaced and stared into her glass. Money was so tight that she’d barely made her way here.
She wondered if she could offer help to Pascal and the bar tonight.
She could wash dishes in exchange for a room, maybe.
At least the bed-and-breakfast was empty. There was space.
She hoped Pascal wouldn’t get the wrong idea. But he didn’t seem like a creepy guy at all. Instead, he appeared bouncy and alive in all the ways she wished she was, or all the ways she had been, when her vagabond lifestyle was at its peak.
Pascal was on stage with his saxophonist friend, his hands on the piano, his head thrown back.
The saxophonist began to play, and Pascal plunked out a tune beneath him, rolling his shoulders in a kind of dance.
There were more people in the bar now, eager to watch the great Pascal—the island’s child. Amelie laughed at how playful he was.
For the entirety of his thirty-minute set, Amelie was captivated, so much so that she didn’t bother to look at her phone.
When the crowd stood to applaud, Amelie went through her pockets, looking for it, because she wanted to take a photograph of Pascal.
She tried to capture the genuine feeling of this moment.
But it was then she realized her phone was probably in her backpack, which Pascal had locked behind the counter.
Suddenly frantic, she stood, abandoning her glass of wine and the remains of the bottle, and went to the counter.
Did anyone else work here? She waited, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, watching as Pascal made his way back through the bar.
He shook everyone’s hand, thanking them for coming out to support the bar.
It was clear that everyone loved and respected him.
When he reached their table to find her gone, he scratched his head, then turned to see her standing at the counter, waving.
Pascal moseyed over with his hands on his hips. “Was it really so bad? You want to leave now?”
Amelie smiled nervously. “It was really great,” she said. “I just realized, um.”
“You need to get going? Someone’s expecting you?” Pascal offered.
Amelie shook her head, her smile faltering. She suddenly felt terribly exposed and on the brink of failure. “No. Actually, I don’t have anywhere to stay tonight.” She winced and looked at the floor. Was this rock bottom?
Had she assumed she would reunite with Willa upon arrival and stay on her sofa? Or had she thought she’d find the strength to go home?
Pascal’s expression of joy didn’t change in the slightest. Instead, he said, “Well, you’ll stay here, of course! Look at all those keys! We have a thousand of them.”
“But I can’t pay you,” Amelie said, spreading her hands out on the counter.
“Nonsense,” he said, gesturing back toward the bar. “It’s Christmas, and it’s cold, and you’ll have a place to sleep. I don’t want you to worry about that.”
Amelie considered her phone and her desire to look at it. What was she so sure she’d find? Her agent had dumped her. Willa had probably decided never to contact Amelie again. Nobody in the world wanted Amelie’s attention, not now, except, inexplicably, for Pascal.
“Let me work for you at least,” Amelie said. “I don’t want to stay for free.”
Pascal waved his hand. “There’s always so much to do after these nights. We’ll put you to work. Don’t worry about that. Now! Come! Up next is the best bassist on the island. You’re going to fall in love with him!”
Amelie let herself be drawn back into the world of jazz, of wine, of good conversation—surprisingly with people she didn’t recognize, or who didn’t recognize her. She’d grown and changed over the years, and it stood to reason that Mackinac Island had, too.
Maybe going back home wasn’t so scary.
Sometime after one that morning, the bar area of the bed-and-breakfast was empty save for Pascal, Amelie, and the bartender, Ralph.
They cleaned up, playing music on the speaker system, then ate crackers with cheese and listened to a final record together.
When Ralph retired to his room upstairs, Pascal unlocked the cabinet up front to retrieve Amelie’s backpack, which she’d nearly forgotten about.
She considered telling Pascal that this was one of the best nights of her life, but she didn’t want to sound pathetic.
He led her upstairs to a bedroom that overlooked the street—and offered a full view of the apartment her mother had once lived in above the Caraway Fudge Shoppe.
It was strange. How many times in Amelie’s childhood had she looked from that other window across the street and into this one?
She tried to remember what the bed-and-breakfast had been back then.
Another hotel, surely. That, or a restaurant.
But it didn’t matter now. It was Pascal’s place.
Amelie got ready for bed and slipped beneath the covers with her phone in her hands.
When she brightened it, she found another text from Willa, sent hours and hours ago.
There was a photograph of their mother’s bicycle in a location that was not their former home.
Amelie sat upright in bed, sure as anything that it was their mother’s. Obviously, it had been sold.
Amelie hated the idea of tourists coming to Mackinac and riding around on their mother’s bike. Something would have to be done.
Maybe because she was tired, and perhaps because she’d decided nothing mattered anymore, Amelie wrote a text back to her sister, threw her phone to the edge of the bed, and fell right asleep.
The wintry winds off Lake Michigan swept down Lake Shore Drive and chilled the bed-and-breakfast to the bone.
But soon, morning would come and cast buttercream light upon the freshly fallen snow, just as it always had before.