Chapter 32
The diner smelled like coffee and cinnamon, the way it always did.
But also, after the past couple of weeks, like fresh cuts of wood, and Cort’s aftershave, which had already settled into the surfaces the way sunshine settles into old floors.
He was by the counter, a pencil tucked behind his ear, safety glasses pushed up into his hair, making a note in the Moleskine he carried around, to keep track of measurements and other little details.
“Morning,” he said, in a voice so carefully neutral it made her chest ache.
“Morning.” She tried to smile but didn’t know if she managed it.
She had the sudden impulse to tell him about her trip to the orchard the day before, and how she felt so much better after talking to James.
This time last week, she could have told him.
This time last week, he would have really understood.
But that was over now. She couldn’t say anything.
The friendship they had both confided was so important now felt like a language they’d forgotten.
It was amazing how much could change in just a few days.
“Coffee?” she asked, out of habit.
“I’m good. I brought my own today.”
Why did this sting so much? It was just coffee. All she could do was look away, nod, and make coffee for herself.
For the rest of the morning, they moved around each other like people practicing a dance they used to know. Steps remembered, music wrong. She purged cutlery out of a drawer. He measured trim. The clink of his tape measure, the whisper of sandpaper, it had felt so natural, and now it didn’t.
In the narrow run between counter and wall, they almost collided. He caught her elbow, then dropped his hand as if burned. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She stepped back first. The old pull toward him, the urge to be in his arms, to press her lips against his, rose inside her, and she wondered if he noticed.
How could you stand so close to someone and feel so much for them, and have them be unaware?
It had been like that between them before, though.
She would just have to get used to this again, and the feelings would fade. They had to.
Her work in the diner was done now anyway, the kitchen cleaned out, ready for whatever came next.
It was a relief to go upstairs to the apartment, away from Cort and her confused, hurt feelings.
Yet, up here, the air felt even heavier, she felt even more lonely—but still, grateful to be alone.
She started working on purging the kitchen up there, moving familiar old kitchen tools—a potato ricer Lenore always used at Thanksgiving and Christmas, serving trays used only at home and not in the diner, an antique china pattern that had once belonged to Lenore’s own mother, Rebecca’s great-grandmother, a woman named Charlotte who had died when Rebecca was almost too little to remember her.
She set one of the platters aside to take back to the city with her.
She couldn’t keep all of them but didn’t want to let them all go.
Later in the afternoon, when she had filled a few boxes and her heart didn’t ache at every single sound from down in the diner, her phone buzzed.
Sabrina: I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off! Come with me to Barrie to shop for an autumn gala dress?
Rebecca typed an enthusiastic “yes” right away. She wasn’t sure she would go to the dance, but she did want to get out of the apartment, away from the diner, and shopping with Sabrina was always fun. Sabrina said she’d pick her up in twenty minutes, and Rebecca freshened up quickly.
Downstairs, Cort was using a band saw and didn’t hear her. She paused in the doorway, and he seemed to feel her watching. He stopped the saw and looked up.
“I’m heading out with Sabrina,” Rebecca said. “Dress shopping for the dance.” She wasn’t sure why she had added that, and wished she hadn’t. Something flickered through his expression, gone before she could decode it.
“Enjoy,” was all he said, quietly.
—
With the Audi windows down and a late-2000s playlist on, Rebecca could feel the weight she was carrying in her heart lighten a little.
“Okay,” Sabrina said, turning the volume down as they hit the highway. “How are you actually? Don’t do the thing where you smile and say ‘fine.’ ”
“I’m terrible,” Rebecca said. “But upright.”
“Terrible upright is still upright,” Sabrina said.
Rebecca hadn’t been able to find Sabrina before she left the orchard the day before, but her friend had called her as soon as she could.
They had talked, about the disaster with Cort, and about Rebecca’s conversation with James, and the resolution there.
“And now our mission is to make you look as hot as possible at the dance,” Sabrina continued. “Devastatingly hot. Cort will not be upright when he sees you.”
“I’m not even sure I want to go at all,” Rebecca admitted. “Really, I just wanted to get away from the diner, hang out with you. That’s why I said yes to dress shopping.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Sabrina said. “Of course you’re coming. You’ll be my date. And as my date, I demand you wear red and look like a smoke show.”
“Red is not practical,” Rebecca said. “And I don’t really do ‘smoke show.’ ”
Sabrina side-eyed her. “Since when?”
“Have we met?”
“I know you better than anyone. And, Becca, what happened with Cort, even if it’s painful right now, even if it stays that way, it revealed a passionate side of you that was also you.
Don’t leave that behind just because this moment hurts.
I’ve waited a long time to finally see you let go like this. ”
“And look what it got me,” Rebecca said. “I can’t figure out what happened. I felt like myself around him but…I was also afraid this was going to happen.”
Sabrina changed lanes. “Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?”
“What if that’s part of it? Two people who like each other so much, who run away from a situation like their tails are on fire at the first sign of trouble—that sounds like two scared people to me.”
“Okay, but even if it is true, we did both run. Neither of us did anything to try to work it out. We both agreed we were doing the right thing. His life here, and Pip, and all of that—I can’t commit to it. No matter how much fun we had together. No matter how good it felt.”
They were pulling into the mall parking lot. “Let’s finish this conversation later,” Sabrina said as she reversed into a parking spot. “But for now, you are buying a dress for the gala. If you really do decide not to go, you can return it. But you need to be prepared.”
At the mall, they went to the food court first, the way they had as teens, for New York Fries and gravy, because shopping hungry was always a bad idea.
Then they hit the stores. Rebecca picked a navy sheath dress off a rack out of habit, and since Sabrina was not there to tell her to put the boring dress back, she tried it on.
Sabrina emerged from the next cubicle in a sky-blue gown with a plunging neckline that looked fabulous on her just as Rebecca emerged in her demure sheath.
“You look great,” Rebecca said reverently.
Sabrina spun once, admired herself, then focused on Rebecca’s navy. “Absolutely not. Your grandmother had sexier clothes on when she baked cookies.”
“Rude. Also true.”
Sabrina hunted the racks with purpose, still wearing her gown, and came up with an apple-red dress with a corset top and full skirt. “Don’t argue. What is the harm in at least trying it on?”
“It’s completely impractical,” Rebecca said, but she was reaching for it because it was also beautiful.
“Try it on before your brain talks you out of it.”
In the changing room, the dress fit like it had been custom-made for her. When she stepped out, Sabrina’s face lit up.
“Twirl.”
Rebecca twirled. The skirt swirled around her like it was made of water.
“I bet your mom would have loved that on you,” Sabrina said. “Sorry. Emotional manipulation.”
“It’s okay.” Rebecca looked at herself in the mirror. “I think you’re right. She would have loved it. She loved red.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve never owned anything red.”
“A crime. Buy it now.”
“But I might not even—”
“I know, I know. But look at me. This is a great dress. And there are no likely prospects for me currently living in Bramley Hollow. Unless I want to go with Eli Walsh. I need you to be my date. Meaning, you can’t stand me up for the Autumn Gala.
I won’t make you stay too late and I promise, we’ll have fun. ”
Rebecca wasn’t so sure, but she still bought the dress, and Sabrina bought hers.
They looked for shoes next. Rebecca found strappy gold flats that Sabrina called “Lenore core” and Rebecca called “the only way I’m not breaking an ankle,” while Sabrina bought silver stilettos she insisted she could walk in with ease.
They drove home with the windows open and the music up just enough to drown out any of her less welcome thoughts. By the time they pulled into the diner lot, the sun had shifted low and honey-colored. Rebecca had expected him to be gone by now, but Cort’s pickup still sat in its usual spot.
She turned to her friend, but she didn’t have to speak. “Of course I’ll come in with you,” Sabrina said. “You don’t have to face him, and your feelings, alone. And I’ll stay. We’ll order in, try on our dresses, have the most fun it’s possible to have on a Tuesday night in Bramley Hollow.”
“But you have so much work—it’s the Autumn Festival this weekend.”
“Exactly. This weekend. It’s only Tuesday, and I’ve been working hard these past few weeks precisely so there wouldn’t be a stressful rush in the lead-up. I have time. Let me spend it with you.”
“As long as you’re sure,” Rebecca said.
Sabrina bit her lip. “Actually, I was going to ask if I could come in, anyway. There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about, something that’s going on with me.”