“Do you remember where to go?” she asked.
He nodded. Knapstein’s was the butcher in Athens who’d managed to survive all those years when no one went to a neighborhood butcher anymore, and instead picked up their meat in big cellophane-wrapped packages from Costco and marveled at the value without knowing— really—what they were eating.
Now the world wanted a bespoke butcher experience. And Mateo, like his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him, was there to provide it. “Do you?” he asked. “Alice said you haven’t been back in five years.”
He glanced over to see her lift her chin, her eyes on the road ahead of them.
“I remember,” she said. In the tone that said, I remember everything. And the problem was, so did he. And the tension in the truck was almost too much. And it wasn’t just the sexual tension or all the questions they were afraid to ask or the answers they were afraid to hear. He wanted to roll down the window just to breathe.
“Why?” she asked, popping the tension. “Why didn’t you ever pick up the phone? Just to let me know you were okay.”
They were doing this. Really doing it.
“I was mad.”
“At me?”
“No. God no. At Max. Alice. Myself, mostly.”
“Why?”
Oh god. He really didn’t want to talk about this. Bringing it up made it real. Made it now. And he liked all this stuff in the past.
“Because I’d waited a year, Josie, to tell you how I felt, and I let the whole night get away from me. I was sober. And older. It should have happened another way.”
She opened her mouth and he knew she was going to apologize again. And he didn’t need her being more sorry for something that he didn’t blame her for.
“And I was embarrassed,” he said before she could say anything. “And proud. And being a martyr.” He managed to smile at her very serious face, her auburn hair poking out from under that hat in the most endearing way. “I knew you would get over me.”
“You knew that, did you?”
“You were young, Jose. And beautiful and about to start school in New York. You had everything ahead of you. When I think about it now, it was ridiculous to think there was even a chance the two of us could work.”
He stopped, waiting, maybe, for her to argue. He wasn’t sure. But she turned her face away, looking out the window. And her silence said plenty. It had been ridiculous to think that what they’d felt for each other would have survived. He’d been a sixteen-year-old kid inside a twenty-two-year-old body. He’d known nothing of the world or himself. And she’d been about to set the world on fire.
“And then it was just easier to move on. To forget.”
“Did you?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I wouldn’t think about the Riverview for days.”
And other days it was all I could think about.
“And you must have,” he said.
“Must have what?”
“Moved on. Alice said you haven’t been back in five years.”
“Work,” she said, looking down at her hands, the red mittens they’d found in the closet to match the hat, because all her winter stuff was at Max and Delia’s. “It’s…all-consuming.”
“See? Clearly it was for the best. I mean, look at you, Josie. Look at what you’ve done. You’re so accomplished.”
He was trying to push them out of the past and into the present. The present he could talk about.
Come on, he thought. Let it go. Let who we were and what we were to each other go. Let that night go.
The tension between them pulled taut again, like she was wrapping her feelings around her fists, ready for a fight. But there was nothing to fight about. They were both okay. It had all been for the best. Surely, she had to see that.
And then she took a deep breath, and just like that the tension slipped away.
“I don’t know, you’re kind of a big deal, Cameron,” she finally said with a big smile and he sighed with relief. The muscles of his body loosened.
“Yes, in primitive cooking circles, I am a very big deal.” He smiled, the king of self-deprecation.
“All those chefs you’ve gotten to lure out of their kitchens to your campfire…”
“Well, once Jamie Oliver did it, it wasn’t hard to convince lots of them to try it.”
“Stop downplaying what you’ve done. You always did that,” she said. “Made your accomplishments seem like accidents when I know how hard you had to work for everything.”
He blinked.
“Funny,” he whispered. “You sound exactly the same as you did when we were kids.”
“Bossy?” she asked with a laugh. “Because I’ve kind of made a career out of it.”
“Yes. But I also never had a cheerleader quite like you.”
Yeah. He wasn’t so good at staying out of the past. Not with her. In every other part of his life, his childhood and his time at the inn were in a shoebox he could shove into some far closet corner. But with her, well…the past was very much part of his present.
He pulled the truck into town. A one-road stretch leading down to the Hudson, lined with shops and restaurants and bars. The street was dressed up in its very best Christmas clothes. Lights and greenery wrapped around the black cast-iron light posts. Wreaths were on every doorway. The shops selling last-minute stocking-stuffers and the restaurants offering lunches to those last-minute stocking-stuffer shoppers were doing a brisk business.
There was a fancy olive oil shop and a cheese shop. A shop that just sold…he couldn’t even tell. Lawn ornaments?
“Wow,” Josie murmured. “It looks great, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s really changed in the last few years. It’s…” He struggled to find the word.
“Posh?”
“This was Gabe’s dream,” Cameron said. “He wanted the inn to be the kind of place that would raise the tide for the whole town. All the businesses.”
The main strip used to be dive bars and tattoo parlors. A shuttered shoe shop. The tattoo parlor was still there, but even it had been shined up. And he hadn’t realized until this moment that he’d spent most of his life planning on being there to see all this happen. And he didn’t regret the direction his life had taken, but he wished he could have watched the transformation.
Maybe…maybe I shouldn’t have stayed away. But that was a double-edged sword. If he hadn’t stayed away, he wouldn’t have made his life what it was. And there was no point in regret. Or what-ifs. That wasn’t how he lived. And staying away had been the only way to avoid get sucked back into this place. These people.
He was all about the clean breaks. The simple goodbyes.
If you never loved anyone, leaving was easy.
“You okay?” she asked and he could sense her about to put a hand on his shoulder. And he dodged that bullet by popping open the door, letting the cold air swirl in and banish the warmth.
“Let’s go.”
11
JOSIE
She shouldn’t have come. She’d gotten angry and righteous and she’d made a decision without thinking it through. And now she had all the answers she didn’t really want.
It was for the best.
It was ridiculous to think we could be anything.
You got over me.
No, she wanted to say. She hadn’t. She hadn’t gotten over him one bit.
But he had so clearly gotten over her that she kept her mouth shut.
This is a good thing, she told herself as she followed Cameron into the butcher shop. You got the answers you didn’t know you needed and now you can move on. Yay.
The bell tinkled over the door as Cameron and Josie stepped inside.
Knapstein’s, much like the downtown street, had had a face-lift. It had always been pretty, with original wood floors and ceilings, but the last time she’d been in there the place had shown its age, which was over a hundred years. Mateo, the fourth generation Kn
apstein to take over the butcher shop, had given it some new life.
Dark-stained wooden floors and ceiling. Chalkboard paint on one wall with specials and prices. Staff were serving customers from gleaming stainless-steel cold cases and wearing smart denim aprons with the old-fashioned logo embroidered on the front.
Christmas music played in the background. And the air smelled of roasted chicken and potatoes.
Mateo’s mother, Nancy, was a Portuguese woman his father had met while on vacation, and their marriage had brought new energy to the store. Mateo, it would seem, was running with it.
“My god!” Mateo said from the far counter. He used the back of his wrist to push his glasses up high on his nose. “Is that Five Questions Cameron?”
“Mateo,” Cameron said, smiling. “Look at what you’ve done to this place.”
Mateo, his dark, bald head gleaming under the warm lights, came out from behind the counter, and he and Cameron hugged with much backslapping and smiling. Mateo was several years older than Cameron, but since the inn got all their meat from Knapstein’s, the two had formed a strong friendship.
Had he just walked away from Mateo, too?
“I got your email,” Mateo said. “Sorry I haven’t had a chance to respond. It’s been nuts with the holiday.”
I guess not.
“Look at this place,” Cameron said, taking it all in. “Your parents would be so proud.”
Mateo smiled, his arm still around Cameron. “Thanks, man. Though they’d have an opinion on everything I’m changing.”
“That’s for sure,” Cameron said and then stepped back to include Josie in their circle. “You remember Josie? Max and Delia’s daughter.”
“Of course. The runner. Good to see you. You’re here picking up Alice’s order?”
“We are,” Josie said. “And this place is gorgeous.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Mateo said. “We’ve gotten into some prepared foods. Churrasaco.” He pointed to the display case with the Portuguese roasted chickens in their crispy skins. The potatoes and rice. “Sauces and marinades.” He was pointing at the jars on shelves. The freezer cases full of shepherd’s pie and Bolognese sauce. Jars of pickles. Spice blends and piri-piri sauce, chimichurri, all his mother’s recipes. Which had been her grandmother’s recipes.
It was all the perfect combination of the old and the new.
Inspiration struck.
“You should do five questions with Mateo,” she said, and both Cameron and the butcher turned to look at her. Internally, she winced. It was hard to turn off the good television filter. “Fifth generation butcher? Mom’s traditional recipes?” She shrugged. “Seems like a good one to me.”
Cameron blinked at her and then smiled so wide, that crooked tooth was revealed. She glanced away to read the price of ground beef per pound, her hand to her stomach, which had twisted in the face of that smile.
“What do you say, Mateo?” Cameron asked.
“Come on,” Mateo said, wiping a hand across his shiny head. “No one’s going to care what I’ve got to say.”
“I don’t know,” Cameron said. “I think the television producer might be on to something.”
“Okay,” Mateo finally said, still seeming nervous. But the endearing kind of nervous. Excited and pleased to be asked. “Right now?”
“No, you’re busy,” Cameron looked around at the customers, who were watching them.
“Nah, my kids got it.” Mateo pointed over to the thin young men helping other customers. They looked like teenagers.
“You are too young to have kids that old.” Cameron said.
“Well, me and Mich started young. When you know what you want, why wait? So?” he asked. “You want to go in back? The lighting is good, but it’s not as pretty.”
“Right there,” Josie said and pointed over at the old butcher block that stood between two cold cases. It was the block Mateo’s great-grandfather had used to cut up the cows and sheep and goats that area farmers would bring him.
Cameron gave her a look she couldn’t read. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Cameron and Mateo started to set up.
Adjust that light, she thought just as Cameron reached over and tilted a wall sconce slightly away from Mateo so the light wouldn’t reflect off his glasses. Ask him about the butcher block, she thought, just as she heard Cameron say, “I’m going to ask you about your great-grandfather’s butcher block. Tell me the whole story. Don’t be your usual modest self.”
“I’ll try to get my brag on,” Mateo joked, looking handsome and serious.
This was going to be a good one. The best part, and she wondered if Cameron had figured it out, was that until now he hadn’t interviewed anyone who knew him very well. There had been some female guests who gave the impression that they were going to get to know Cameron real well once the camera was off. But no one like Mateo.
And then Cameron and Mateo started, and they were joking and telling old stories, and the sound of their laughter pulled everyone’s eyes to them. Where they stayed for twenty minutes.
“Can I help you?” One of Mateo’s sons asked.
When you know what you want, why wait?
Funny how that advice could backfire.
“I’m here for the Riverview Inn order,” she said.
A half hour later, after Cameron and Josie made promises to stop in at Mateo’s annual Boxing Day open house at his place by the river, they finally got back out to the truck where Josie had already loaded the turkeys and roasts, the specially cut bacon and the smoked ham.
“I didn’t think you would be sticking around for Boxing Day,” she said. “And since when did everyone around here start celebrating it?”
“Since it extended the holiday,” Cameron said. “Alice got the British Christmas vibe and was able to charge top price for eggs.”
“Come on, really?”
“You know Alice, always looking for a way to make something special.”
“And cost more,” she said. “But you’re sticking around? For the day after Christmas?”
“My plans are loose. And we’re going to do some butchering for the second part of his episode. It’s worth sticking around for. But what about you? Don’t you have to get back to the city?”
She entertained the thought of actually going to that open house with Cameron. They’d take a bottle of wine; he’d put his hand at the small of her back while they talked to people. She’d laugh at his jokes. It would be like an alternate reality. Who they would have been if that night hadn’t happened. “I do,” she said. “I’m leaving Christmas morning.”
“That was a really good interview,” Cameron said as he started the truck.
“You’re a good interviewer.” She pushed the vents to blast their bodies with warm air. The sun had gone down while they were in the shop and the temperatures had dropped hard. They’d had a long, laughing argument over the best cut of steak and how Mateo’s father had taught him to butcher a pig when he was ten. It had been a somewhat bloody conversation.
“It didn’t occur to me to ask him. That was all you.”
“Cameron,” she said. “I do know something about reality television.”
“Congrats on the new job,” he said, glancing sideways at her. “Executive producer.”
“How do you know about that?’ she asked, and all at once she felt every barrier that had been abandoned the last few hours rise back up, ready to protect something she didn’t want to talk about. Protect something, even though she didn’t totally understand why she was protecting it.
“I have been known to cyber stalk you,” he confessed.
“Well, I suppose that’s fair. I have been known to binge your YouTube videos.”
“That’s how you knew Mateo would be good.”
“You have a real ability to click with people. You do a pretty good job of faking it when you don’t have chemistry with a guest—which is rare,” she said. Because Cameron could create a co
nnection with a couch. “But when it’s real, it’s really fun to watch.” There were some things he could do to increase his chances of making a connection. Pre-planning and pre-interview stuff. But his was a bare-bones operation. She got that. His empathy and curiosity were enough to get him through.
“I don’t…I don’t know what to say to that.” He sounded like he didn’t often get compliments. Which was bullshit; the guy was a success, people had to be coming out of the woodwork to praise him.
“There’s nothing to say.” She shrugged. “It’s a statement of fact.”
“How about you? How was your work emergency this morning?”
She opened her mouth and then shut it. Opened it again, shut it again.
CAMERON
Tell me, he thought. Please. Tell me.
It was astonishing how much he wanted her to tell him what was bothering her. How much he wanted to be let into her life. To occupy that space with her—to be someone’s confidant. Friend. Amazing how much he missed that.
And he’d never really realized it until right now. Until being back with her in this damn truck.
Finally, she blurted, “Meaningless. My job really only has meaningless emergencies.”
She shut her mouth again, like she hadn’t meant to tell the truth.
“Meaningless?” he repeated, and she shot him a sideways glance.
“Nice try.”
“What?”
“I remember you told me how all the counselors and therapists you went to when you were a kid tried to get you to open up.”
“I did?” Of course he had. He’d told her all his secrets. The teenage Cameron had been a real blabbermouth.
“Repeat the most important word in the sentence, but like it’s a question.”
“Question?” he asked.
“Stop!” she cried, and he finally smiled. “It’s…you know, a little telling that you thought the most important word in my sentence was meaningless.”
The heater was doing enough of its job that she pulled off her mittens and worried the wrist of one of them with her fingers.
“I’m trying to change things,” she said and then shook her head like she hadn’t been planning on saying that. “Make the show into something else. Something we could all be proud of.”
Christmas At The Riverview Inn Page 11