Chapter 2 #2
My heart skips. "It's a business. Businesses get deliveries."
"Big deliveries."
"I'm ordering in bulk. It's cheaper."
He looks at me for a beat too long, and I cannot tell if he believes me or if he's choosing his battles carefully. Both options make me nervous in different ways.
I have three days to figure this out because this past week has been nothing but pure stress, and I don't want any more.
The parking lot diagram appeared under my windshield the day after he confronted me.
Tom had drawn it with an actual ruler—I'm still not over the ruler—dividing twelve spaces into seven for him and five for me, using a logic I cannot reconstruct, no matter how many times I look at it.
His spaces were marked in blue pen. Mine were marked in red. There was a legend.
I annotated the diagram with my own corrections, gave myself six spaces, and left it on his front step before opening hours. Then I watched from my window for twenty minutes. Waiting. Watching.
His reaction was worth it. He came outside, looked at the diagram, looked at my window like he knew I was watching, and I swear I saw him snort before he went back inside.
The noise complaints are my favorite part of the whole mess.
Sullivan's gets loud after ten. I didn't mind the music at first. I'm up late anyway, baking, reading, or staring at my business plan, wondering if I've made a catastrophic mistake.
Or, sure that I have made a catastrophic mistake, trying to detect precisely where it is. Is it hiding in plain sight?
But Tom filed a noise complaint about my contractors at 7 AM, which was a legal and reasonable hour, and the city sent him a form letter about appropriate construction times.
So I filed one back about the nightly music, and the city sent him another form letter, and I framed mine and put it on my wall next to the shelves.
Like I said, petty is my middle name.
I eat the second scone and think about the fact that I am in an active rivalry with my neighbor, a rivalry I am maintaining through bureaucratic channels and passive-aggressive gestures, and neither of us is going to be the first to stop.
This is a situation I created, all because I wanted to press his buttons for being rude and arrogant.
I did this. All of it. And I'm choosing not to regret it.
Someone's walking to me, and I look up, expecting Mike, but it's Jason.
He's carrying two beers in glasses cold enough to leave condensation rings on my palm when he hands me one. I take it because it's surprisingly good—some local IPA that's not too bitter—and I'm not going to say that out loud where it might travel back to Tom.
"Peace offering," Jason says, grinning. "From the neutral party."
I like Jason. He's kind and loves talking about his wife, Sarah. I like people who are in love.
"How's Sarah feeling?"
Jason beams. "She's good. Finally over the morning sickness, but now she has this craving for carnitas that is making my life extremely complicated. I've driven to this taqueria thirty minutes from home four times this week."
"You learning to make them yourself, yet?"
"I tried last weekend. She said they were 'fine,' which in Sarah-speak means I should stick to my day job.
" I can't stop smiling because his affection is so visible that it's almost embarrassing to witness.
"But I'm getting better. I've watched six YouTube videos and read blogs. I'm basically a carnitas expert now."
William Shakespurr stretches slowly, front paws reaching forward, back arching. Jason notices and raises his beer in salute.
"The cat's chosen sides, huh?"
"Apparently."
"Smart cat." He says it lightly, but there's something underneath it I can't quite read. "Tom's been running Sullivan's for five years since his uncle left it to him."
I don't know what to do with this information, so I just nod.
"He comes down in the morning, leaves at 3 AM, seven days a week. Tips his own staff out on slow nights when the register's light." Jason pauses and tips his glass from side to side. "He's good at it. The bar, I mean. He's good at taking care of people."
I think about Tom standing in my doorway one week ago, and "taking care of people" does not fit anywhere in that picture. But Beth said something similar, and now Jason's saying it, and I'm collecting these pieces of information about Tom without meaning to.
Sullivan's door opens before I can respond.
Tom comes through it and sees me and Jason on the stop. Something in his expression shifts.
Jason grins. "Come join us."
"I'm working."
"You're always working."
Tom looks at me then, directly, and whatever ease I'd built over the last ten minutes with Jason disappears. Not gradually. All at once, like someone flipped a switch. I know I'm doing it. I watch myself do it.
My posture changes. Something about his presence activates a version of myself I don't particularly recognize—someone who has a response loaded before he's said anything worth responding to.
See, I am naturally sweet. I do not have a sarcastic bone in my body … that I know of.
Tom has somehow located one and is apparently committed to finding it every time.
"Nice poster," he says, looking at the Black Sabbath framed poster by the window. I was supposed to carry it to my apartment upstairs, but it helps keep up the lie. My lie.
"Thanks. It's signed."
"By who?"
"Probably Ozzy or Tony. It’s a scrawl, but an O looks prominent to me."
His jaw does the thing where it tightens just slightly, and I know I've scored a point in whatever game we're playing. "You get a lot of vintage stuff for a new bar."
"Makes it look cool."
"I don't see taps anywhere."
"Yet." I take a sip of the beer Jason brought me and maintain eye contact. "I'm glad to see you're as excited as I am about my own bar."
Jason watches with undisguised fascination and amusement, eyes darting to me, then Tom, then back to me. He's definitely telling his wife about this later. Tom and I are about to become punch lines.
Tom's mouth twitches. "I see you framed the noise complaint."
"I did. Not sure if I should put it beside Ozzy's signed poster or Mick's."
"I'm flattered you find me that important."
"Nah, just a good reminder to always keep winning."
"You haven't opened yet. You're not winning."
"Are you nervous about my opening?"
"If you didn't have beige walls, maybe."
I don't remember moving, but somehow the distance between us has compressed. I'm now standing before him, so close I can see the stubble along the edge of his jaw.
God, why does he have to be an asshole? Can’t he just let my eyes drink in his sexy as fuck veiny hands?
I'm about to say my parting shot before he turns and goes back inside without another word.
Jason sighs. "He's not actually like that."
I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't, so I take the bait. "Like what?"
"Like that." Jason tips his beer to Tom's retreating back. "You make him nervous."
This is the most infuriating possible thing to say because it explains nothing and implies everything.
Jason finishes his beer and waves. "See you around, neighbor."
Friday arrives with perfect weather and catastrophic timing.
The pastry display case is the problem.
It's beautiful—three-tiered glass, vintage-style brass hardware, what all my dreams are made of. It's also the size of a small car.
The delivery guys are bringing it through my front door right now, and Tom's bar is twenty feet away with a clear line of sight to my entrance.
"Back room," I tell them. "All the way to the back, against the far wall, next to the … just back there, please."
The delivery guys are halfway down the hall when Tom walks through my front door.
Jesus. Just my luck.
My heart rate picks up as though I just got caught doing something I shouldn't. I move instinctively to stand in the hallway with my arms slightly extended, trying to block a line of sight without appearing to block a line of sight.
Tom stops, lifts a thick eyebrow at me, and looks past me at the display case.
"Parking lot's blocked," he says. "I need you to move the truck. You're on my space."
"Give me thirty minutes."
"Too long. I need to leave now."
We stare at each other. I'm very aware that I'm standing in a defensive position in my own hallway, and he's very aware that I'm standing in a defensive position in my own hallway.
His eyes go to the display case again. The delivery guys are trying to move it around the corner, and there is no universe in which this looks like anything other than exactly what it is.
"That's a pastry case. Beth has one," Tom says.
"It's storage."
"It has tiered glass shelves and an electric plug."
"For storing things at different heights. The plug is decorative."
Oh God. I've committed to a position and cannot back down from it even as it collapses in real time around me. Nana would be equal parts proud, impressed, and horrified.
One of the delivery guys says, "Where do you want this again?"
"Back room," I say, not breaking eye contact with Tom. "All the way back."
"You're hiding something," he says.
"I'm storing something."
"In the back room."
"I don't know what you do with your supplies, but that's where storage normally goes."
He's quiet for a long moment, and I absolutely hate how I'm suddenly on the spot. My defenses are up, and I'm all ready to pounce when he nods once. "Move the truck. I need to get through."
I palm my chest twice trying to calm my racing heart. And fail.
Here I am, surrounded by Nana's rock memorabilia and my increasingly elaborate lie and the growing certainty that I cannot sustain it much longer. The effort it takes is not worth it. I’m spending more energy trying to cover up than actually preparing the cafe.
I sit on the floor between the two realities—the lie in front, the truth in back.
I think Nana would have opinions about Tom that I would find inconvenient.
He could very well even be her type.