Chapter 7
Tessa
Of course it had been him.
Of all the people in Havensworth, the one person who pointed out that my eyes were different was the one man I didn't want noticing my eyes. Cole Weston. The universe had a sense of humor and was using it on me.
I don't see why you hate them.
I'd been hearing his voice for two days.
The line came back to me at random. While I was walking to school, while I was waiting on the kettle, in the middle of a sentence I was saying to someone else.
The way he'd said it. Lower than he'd meant to.
Like he hadn't planned on saying it, and had said it anyway.
I'd felt the heat come up in my cheeks at the counter when he'd said it. I was feeling it come up now, alone in the kitchen, with no one to perform for. That was the part that was getting to me. I didn't need a witness for it. It was happening either way.
He hadn't given me his answer yet.
He'd told me he'd come find me when he had one.
He'd come back to the bakery a few days later.
But not for that. He'd come in, looked at me in a way I couldn't name, said the thing about my eyes, paid for a loaf he hadn't come for, and walked out.
He hadn't said yes. He hadn't said no. Whatever he'd come in for, it wasn't to give me an answer.
Every time the bell went, my head came up before I'd told it to. I'd been counting. Customer after customer all morning, all afternoon, the next morning, too. Every time, it wasn't him.
I knew what that meant.
I wanted him to come back.
Not for the case. Not for what Miranda had said about a stable male figure, not for the strategy, not for any of the things I could put into a sentence and defend. For him.
I didn't have room for this. I was running from a husband.
I had a son to raise on my own. I was about to file a custody case I couldn't afford to lose.
I'd built every part of my life in Havensworth around staying invisible, and wanting a man back into my bakery wasn't a thing the rest of it could hold.
I wanted him to come back anyway.
I'd been getting recognized more. The cashier at the grocery store had said, "Oh," under her breath when she'd seen my face on Monday, and then hadn't been able to look at me again.
The woman at the gas station on Tuesday had stopped halfway through, “Aren't you the one in the—” The barista at the coffee shop had written my name on the cup the way she'd written a name she already knew.
None of them did anything. They looked.
I had it worse at the bakery because I couldn't move out from behind the counter.
Customers kept coming in. They came alone.
They came in pairs. They had their phones in their hands.
They asked me the careful questions strangers asked when they wanted to confirm something they already thought they knew.
I bagged what they bought. I smiled. I went to the back when I could.
Miranda had called yesterday. We were almost there.
The last thing we were waiting on was the rent records—proof we'd been at the Westbrook house since the spring.
Mr. Whitaker, our previous landlord, was dealing with the fire.
He was cooperating, but he was also handling insurance, displacement, and the rebuild.
Miranda said she'd push him gently. Pushing harder wouldn't get the records faster.
I needed it to come soon.
I checked the clock. Two-forty.
I wiped my hands on my apron and went out front.
Benjie was at the register, leaning on his elbows, looking at his phone. The shop was empty.
"Hey, Benj. I'm heading out to get Noah."
"Sure thing."
The bell jingled.
A woman came through the door. Late twenties. She already had her phone in her hand. She looked at me the way the others had been looking at me all week. Then she smiled, and the smile was too big for what was happening.
"Hi. Sorry—are you Tessa?"
I looked at Benjie.
"Yes," I said.
"Oh my gosh. Hi." She came up to the counter.
Phone still in her hand. "Sorry, I—I run a little account, it's not big, but when I saw the video, I cried?
I'm a sucker for a love story. I drove down from Greenville this morning.
I just had to meet you. Could I—I just want to ask you a couple of things about—the firefighter—"
I hadn't given my last name to anyone. I hadn't given the address of the bakery to anyone. I was Tessa M. in the local directory.
She'd found me anyway.
She lifted her phone toward me.
"Do you mind if I—"
Benjie was at my elbow before I'd registered him moving.
"Hey," he said, easy. The voice he used with customers he didn't want to upset.
He took a half-step in front of me, between her phone and my face, and put both hands flat on the counter—taking up the space her camera wanted.
"We don't actually do interviews here. I get it, though.
The video's everywhere. You came all the way from Greenville.
What's your account, by the way? I follow a lot of food creators—always looking for new ones. "
"Oh—it's sweethavensworthstories, but I'm not really a food account. I do mostly love story stuff."
"Love stories. Oh, you'd love this place. My grandma started it forty years ago. There's a story behind that brick oven you wouldn't believe."
He held her eyes. He glanced at me—half a second, no expression—and tipped his chin a quarter inch toward the swing door.
"Did you see the photos by the door when you came in?"
I stepped back from the counter. Slowly.
"You missed them? They're right there by the front. That one on the left, that's my grandma in 1985—"
I turned and walked through the swing door into the kitchen.
I could hear Benjie behind me, still telling her about the photos, still pulling her attention toward the front wall, away from where I'd been.
I grabbed my keys off the hook by the back door. Pushed it open. Slipped out into the alley.
I picked Noah up at three, the way I always did.
He was waving at Penny on the bench when I pulled up, his backpack slipping off one shoulder.
He climbed in. He told me about a boy in his class who'd gotten in trouble for putting glue in his own hair.
He asked me what was for dinner. He didn't notice anything was wrong.
I drove us back to the bakery the long way, both hands on the wheel, my eyes on the rearview every other block.
The influencer was gone by the time we got back. Benjie was at the register, bagging a loaf for an older woman who'd come in for the end-of-day discount. I held the door for them on the way out, then went up to the counter.
"Thank you, Benjie. For—what you did."
"Don't mention it." He waved it off. "Honestly, every time one of those people walks in here, I'm just gonna take it as free advertising for my grandma's bakery. I'm thinking about getting business cards printed."
I laughed before I'd registered I was going to. It came out shorter than a real laugh and longer than a polite one. He laughed, too, which made me laugh again, and for a few seconds, it felt like a regular Wednesday.
"Go home," he said. "Get some rest. I'll close up."
"Thank you."
I drove Noah home.
I didn't tell myself I was watching the rearview the whole drive. I just was.
The apartment was the most dignified place we'd lived in since I'd walked out of Nicholas's house.
It was a unit Mrs. Thompson owned in the same building she lived in.
She was in 4B. We were in 2A, one floor down on the side that got the morning light.
Her tenants had given notice the week after the fire, and she'd decided not to look for new ones.
Stay there. Take it.
I'd told her I couldn't afford the rent.
Don't think about that. She'd waved her hand the way she did when she'd already decided something. We've been getting more loyal customers because of you. Think of it as a raise.
I hadn't known what to say. I'd thanked her. She'd waved that off, too.
It was a real apartment. Two bedrooms. A kitchen with enough counter space to actually cook.
A living room window that looked out onto the parking lot, a parking lot I'd come to like, because it was ours.
Noah had his own room with a door that closed.
I had my own bed. We had a kitchen table where we ate dinner like people who had a kitchen table where they ate dinner.
I turned onto our street.
The news van was parked at the curb in front of the building.
It was a local station—one of the smaller ones.
The kind that ran the morning weather and the high school football scores.
A man with a camera on his shoulder was standing on the sidewalk near the parking lot entrance.
A woman with a microphone was beside him, her hair in the kind of low ponytail you wore when you were going to be on camera.
I slowed the car.
Maybe they're here for something else. I thought it before I'd thought of anything else. Not everything has to be about me. There are other people in this building. Maybe one of them—maybe somebody in 3C—maybe Mrs. Thompson. Maybe somebody died. Maybe somebody got an award.
They're here for something else.
I pulled into the parking lot. Parked in my spot.
The woman with the microphone turned.
She'd been waiting for me.
"Mom?"
"It's okay, baby. Stay in your seat for a second."
I sat with my hands on the wheel.
I was thinking about how to do this. I was thinking about what to say to a woman with a microphone who was already walking across the parking lot toward me. I was thinking about Noah in the back seat with his backpack and his after-school cracker bag and his face that had not done anything wrong.
I got out and went around to the back door. Opened it for Noah. He climbed out, his backpack already over one shoulder. He took my hand the way he had in airports, in lobbies, in any room where a stranger was looking at him. He put himself a half-step behind me without being told to.
"Ms. Marin?"