Chapter 9
NINE
“My Thomas was quiet and serious and deeply devoted.
He saw the me I didn’t let others see.”
—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,
Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes
On Monday, the Sit-n-Eat was especially slow.
By one thirty, the place was empty and I thought we might get to close early.
That was fine with me. I hated the slow days, especially lately.
It turned out when I wasn’t busy doing my job, it left me with entirely too much time to think—especially about my future.
Or lack thereof.
I pulled out my phone and searched: how to choose the right career.
The first article that popped up sounded optimistic: “Finding a Career that Speaks to Your Soul in Five Easy Steps.”
The first step was to make a list of things that brought me joy:
Chocolate
Classic movies
Old people
Thrift shopping
My family (most of the time)
Two things were abundantly clear: I needed to find more joy and a career as a chocolatier was not out of the question.
The bell above the door chimed. A little girl skipped into the diner and made a beeline for the counter. After she climbed onto one of the red vinyl stools, she grinned, revealing more than one missing tooth. She was dressed in purple jeans and t-shirt, her hair in twin braids.
“Hi.” She grinned and a dimple popped out. “I’m Hallie.”
Ah, Abe’s daughter.
I slid my list in my pocket and smiled back at her. “Hi. I’m Iris.”
“I know. I was at your birthday party.”
“Oh, that’s right. But we haven’t been formally introduced.” I held out a hand. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Her hand was small and sticky. “I like your hair. Do you think my dad would let me get stripes in my hair? Except purple ones. I like purple. It’s my favorite color.”
“Purple is a nice color. But you probably need to ask your dad about the hair.” I glanced out the front window but didn’t see Abe anywhere. “Where is your dad? Did you drive yourself?”
Hallie giggled. “No, Dad stopped to talk to somebody. He said he’d be a minute.
He picked me up early from Grandma’s and said I could come with him to run some errands.
But I think it was mostly because Grandma called him and said she wanted to take me to the animal rescue place and get me a dog and Dad said it wasn’t a good time to get a dog and then Grandma said that he’d had a dog when he was my age and then he came and picked me up. ”
“Got it. No dog.”
“No dog. But”—she leaned closer and lowered her voice—“Grandma said the same thing Aunt Ali says, ‘Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,’ and then she winked at me. Do you think that means I’m getting a dog?”
The bell above the door tinkled again.
“Don’t tell my dad,” Hallie whispered.
Abe halted, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of us. Slowly, he slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, his expression suspicious.
“Don’t tell me what?” he asked.
“Nothing, Daddy.”
I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I just work here.”
He made a small noise of disbelief as he sat on the stool next to Hallie. Abe ordered lemon meringue pie and iced tea for them both.
“Any luck on finding a sitter?” I asked as I wiped down the laminated menus for tomorrow.
Abe nodded. “There’s a teenager in the neighborhood who might be available. She’s watched Hallie for a few hours here and there.”
Hallie scowled. “I don’t even like her.”
“Mackenzie is very nice.”
“She forgot to feed me lunch last time.”
“You didn’t tell me this,” Abe said. “What was she doing?”
“Her and her boyfriend were having a fight, and she was on the phone the whole time. She kept telling me to go play in my room. Then she got off the phone and cried a lot, so I got her some ice cream, and she told me all about her problems.” She shrugged and shoved a piece of pie in her mouth.
“Mackenzie sounds pretty entertaining.” I leaned an elbow on the counter across from them. “Why were they fighting?”
“I can’t remember. I was hungry. I just wanted lunch,” she said glumly.
I turned my head to hide a smile. But Abe’s request for babysitting services had been stuck in my head all day.
Hallie did seem sweet and fun to hang out with.
I fingered the list in my pocket to remind myself what this summer was for—figuring out my life—not babysitting in my spare time.
Still, a tiny bit of my resistance chipped off anyway.
“I’ll tell her she’s not allowed to use her phone while she’s watching you, okay?” Abe tugged one of her braids. My mind conjured up an image of him carefully weaving Hallie’s hair, a look of concentration on his face. Adorable.
“And that she has to feed me?”
“And that she has to feed you.”
“And she just can’t send me to my room for the whole time.”
Mackenzie was sounding less entertaining by the second. I didn’t know a lot about kids but ignoring them for hours didn’t seem the way to go.
Abe frowned. “She did that, too?”
“Uh huh.” She put her elbow on the counter and rested her chin in her hand. She stared at her father with unwavering eyes. Then she sniffled. “I think she forgot about me.”
“I’ll figure something out,” he said, putting his arm on her shoulders and pulling her in for a hug.
After a moment, Hallie sat up and said she needed to use the restroom. We watched her trudge off, her head hung low.
“You know you just got snowed, right?” I gathered up their empty plates. “She’s good.”
A frown tugged at his mouth. “You think?”
“She really played it up. I thought the sniffle was a nice touch.” I grinned. “I like her.”
“She knows she’s got me wrapped around her finger. I probably spoil her, but I didn’t even know she existed until she was four.” His smile was sad. “I have a lot to make up for.”
I wanted to ask him a million questions.
He was a mystery and familiar to me at once.
I’d known of his existence, but I didn’t know his story.
Why hadn’t he known about Hallie? Where had he gone for those years that his parents didn’t hear from him?
Why choose now to move back to Two Harts? What did that tattoo say on his arm?
“Does she get to see her mom?”
“They talk on the phone. She left Hallie with her mother when she was a baby and went to find herself in Arizona. Her mom started having some health issues so she tracked me down. Just showed up on my doorstep in Colorado one day.”
“That must have been…”
“Terrifying? Yes, yes, it was.” He stared into his glass of iced tea. “I had no idea what I was doing. But now I can’t imagine my life without her.”
I cleared the lump in my throat. His whole life changed in a matter of minutes, but he’d stepped up. “A lot of fathers would have run far away. Hallie is lucky to have you.”
“Nah. I’m the lucky one.”
Hallie skipped back to her seat. She’d managed to get the front of her shirt wet, and her hands weren’t quite dry. A bit of pie crust was floating in her hair.
“Iris, can you be my babysitter?” Hallie folded her hands and put them under her chin, “You would probably remember to feed me.”
I winced. I did like Hallie and I owed Abe a favor or two.
But I hadn’t expected this favor to take up the entire summer, and the black hole that was my future reminded me that I had no idea what I was doing with my life.
That’s what I needed to focus on. Except, the guy was literally going to Aidan’s wedding with me.
Let’s be honest—that was like volunteering for torture.
I owed him. I owed him big time. Guilt edged its way into my brain.
“I promise I’d be real good. Please.”
“No pressure,” I muttered.
“Hal, that’s enough.” Abe stood and held out a hand to her. “We need to get out of Iris’s hair so she can close up the café.”
Hallie must have sensed my hesitation. Her big brown eyes gazed at me with such hope. I was now witnessing the full force of her considerable persuasive skills. “Say yes. Please say yes.”
“I’m sorry about this,” Abe said with a grimace.
“It’s okay.” I rounded the counter and crouched in front of Hallie. “I don’t think this is a good time for me.”
“But why?” she asked.
I winced. Was her bottom lip trembling? Maybe I was a monster.
“I have a lot on my plate. I need to google how easy it is to become a chocolatier and then prepare for my ex-boyfriend’s wedding and that’s going to take up a lot of my time. Plus, I have to work during the day and then—”
“Hallie,” Abe said firmly, “she said no and what do we say about no?”
“It’s a whole sentence,” Hallie said. Were her eyes glistening with tears now? “I understand, Iris, but if you change your mind, I will owe you a thousand favors.”
At the word favor, my eyes darted up to Abe. Had he put her up to this? He held up his hands and shook his head, looking as flummoxed as I felt.
“Hallie. That’s enough.”
She tapped my shoulder. “I won’t ask anymore. But could I give you a hug to say I’m sorry?”
“Of course.” She fell into my arms, her head landing on my shoulder. She smelled like I’d expect a little kid to smell—sweat and grass and sunshine. But what I hadn’t expected was how good that hug felt.
Hallie pulled back and smiled, that dimple popping out…
just like her father. I opened my mouth to tell them I’d think about it.
That was the plan. But those eyes were looking back at me with so much hope, and the words must have gotten tangled up traveling from my brain to my lips because the next thing I knew, I was saying, “Okay, yes, I’ll do it. When do I start?”