Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The sky had deepened to a bruised lavender by the time Stella peeled off from Bea and Luke. Her feet took the familiar curve toward Margo’s cottage without thinking. Dinner was basically a group breakup. With carbs. And witnesses.
“Stella,” Margo said, not surprised, when she opened the screen door. “You look like someone who needs to talk.”
“I think I do.”
Margo handed her a glass of lemonade without asking. “Come in.”
They settled into the mismatched chairs in Margo’s living room, the ones that creaked.
It smelled like paint and lemon polish and Margo—somehow messy and organized at the same time— with shells arranged on windowsills, old photographs of family and friends, a bookshelf that held everything from cookbooks to art history texts.
“What was that?” Stella asked finally, gesturing toward where the dinner had happened. “I mean, what just happened back there?”
Margo sipped her wine. “A family dinner.”
“That was like watching a car crash in slow motion.”
Margo chuckled. “You say that like it’s new.”
“It felt different. Worse, maybe.” Stella paused. “Are you okay? I mean, you just walked out on everyone.”
“I’m fine, sweetheart. Sometimes walking away is the only way to make a point.”
Stella waited.
“I’m eighty, Stell,” Margo said. “I’ve been running the Shack since I was thirty. That’s fifty years of early mornings and late nights and trying to keep everyone happy. And I’m tired.”
“You’re also a little terrifying,” Stella said gently. “Still.”
“Good. That’s kept us afloat more than once.” Margo smiled, but there was something sad underneath it. “But being terrifying shouldn’t be the only thing holding a family business together. There should be love there. Love and spreadsheets. Meg would need both.”
Stella laughed and looked around the room again.
“You’ve been painting,” she observed.
“More than I have in years,” Margo admitted. “I forgot how much I missed it. When you’re mixing colors, trying to get the light just right... it’s different from cooking. Makes me feel like myself again.”
“Is that why you asked them those questions tonight?”
Margo nodded. “I need to know if they actually want to take over the Shack. Not just help out when it’s convenient, but really commit to it.”
“You’re testing them.”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s real and what’s just guilt.” Margo’s voice was gentle but firm. “I won’t be here forever, and I can’t force them to want this life.”
Stella leaned back in her chair, which creaked in response. “What if they don’t?”
“Then I make different plans.” Margo set down her glass and glanced out the window. “Sell to someone who’ll care about the community. Use the money to buy a little studio somewhere. Spend whatever time I have left doing something that isn’t measured in coffee filters and fry orders.”
“You don’t think they can do it.”
“I don’t know. And not knowing is hard.” Margo’s eyes were tired. “They’re all grown-ups with their own lives, their own careers. Maybe the Shack is just something they help with out of obligation.”
“But what if they really do want it?”
“Then they’ll have to prove it. Not with words, but with actions.”
Stella thought about the dinner, how everyone had gotten upset and stormed off in different directions.
“They haven’t exactly been working together lately,” Stella said.
Margo smiled sadly. “No, they haven’t. But the kids—you, Bea, Joey—you’ve been holding things together. That gives me hope.”
“We’re just doing our jobs.”
“You’re doing more than that. You’re paying attention to what people need.”
Stella listened to the wind chimes for a moment, sipping on her lemonade.
“Can I ask you something?” Stella said.
“Always.”
“Why are you letting everything get so messy? I mean, you could have stopped the whole thing tonight before it got that bad.”
Margo was quiet for a moment. “Because fixing their problems for them won’t tell me if they can fix problems themselves. I already know I can keep things running. What I need to know is whether they can.”
“Even if it means watching everything fall apart?”
“Even if it means watching everything fall apart.” Margo let out a big sigh. “I won’t be here forever, Stella.”
“Why now?” Stella asked. “Why push them now, after everything?”
Margo’s eyes didn’t leave the window. “Because this is the first time in twenty years they’ve all been in the same place long enough to be asked.”
She sipped her wine. “And maybe the last.”
Stella thought about Mrs. Walker, who’d been coming to the restaurant for twenty-three years and could sense when something was wrong. About Bernie, about all the regulars who depended on the Beach Shack being a place that felt like home.
“What if they figure it out?” she asked. “What if they actually do want it and learn how to work together?”
“Then I’ll be the happiest eighty-year-old in California,” Margo said, smiling for the first time that evening. “And I’ll paint landscapes and teach you how to mix colors and watch them build something beautiful together.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then I’ll paint landscapes and teach you how to mix colors and hope that whoever buys the Shack loves it half as much as I do.”
Stella looked at her great-grandmother and felt something she hadn’t expected—she wanted to bubble-wrap Margo. Which was new.
“I wish I could fix it,” Stella said.
“You’re already helping more than you know,” Margo said. “Just by being here, by caring about what happens to the Shack.”
“They didn’t learn anything tonight, by the way. They all left still mad.”
“I know.” Margo stood, moving to the window that faced toward the Beach Shack. “But maybe being mad will make them think about what they actually want.”
“And if they decide they don’t want it?”
“Then at least we’ll know.” Margo turned back to Stella. “That’s better than guessing and being disappointed later.”
Stella joined her at the window. Even from here, you could see the glow of the Beach Shack’s neon sign through the trees.
Tomorrow, customers would come in expecting their usual breakfast and familiar faces.
They wouldn’t know about tonight’s drama, wouldn’t care about family problems. They’d just want their coffee and their corner booth and the feeling that some things in the world stayed the same.
“It’s a lot of responsibility,” Stella said.
“It is. That’s why I need to know they really want it.” Margo put her arm around Stella’s shoulders. “And why I’m grateful you understand what’s at stake.”
“Do you think they’ll figure it out?”
“Ask me in a few weeks,” Margo said. “Right now, they’re all hurt and angry. But feelings change. The question is whether they’ll choose to work together or keep fighting.”
As Stella walked back through the quiet streets, she thought about Margo sitting alone in her cottage with her art supplies, finally doing something just for herself after fifty years of taking care of everyone else.
At least now Stella understood why Margo wasn’t rushing to fix everything. Sometimes the only way to find out if people could handle responsibility was to give it to them and step back.
Even if watching them struggle made her want to throw something at the wall. Supportively.
Maybe that was the point. Margo wasn’t done. Not yet.