Sweet Girl

by Rachel Hollis

  I nod, in a total daze.

  “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said those chefs would hire you. In fact, I’d be willing to wager Marcus would take you in a second himself if he wasn’t locked into a contract with me for the next however many years. Whether you recognize it or not, you’re in a rare position in your life.”

  Her words are so eerily similar to what Landon told me this morning that I lean in closer.

  “Right now you get to decide what’s next. Being the executive pastry chef in a five-star restaurant might be what you’ve always dreamed of; in fact it might be what’s perfect for you. It’s what I dreamed of and what I’ve enjoyed for the majority of my life. A dedicated team of artists, the space to be creative, the quiet to do it without having to deal with the public. The odd hours mean that you can interact with the rest of the world as much or as little as you’d like to.” She sighs deeply and points to herself. “But that’s what this looks like, OK? I’m sixty-two and I’ve never been married. I don’t have children; I don’t even have a cat. I don’t regret my life or the choices I’ve made, because that’s a waste of time. I just wish I’d gone in with my eyes open. You’re in a rare position to decide what you want to do next.” She picks up her remaining crackers and stands up to leave. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

  Through the rest of the shift, my mind starts to pick up speed. I think back over every moment in the kitchen and all my interactions with Avis. When I realize the recipes she gave me are saved in the front of the binder with all the others, I go over each one in detail. Looking through them with new information, I am able to recognize the truth in what she said. They were all scribbles. Taylor had once called the writing gibberish, and he’d been absolutely right. It was like Dumbo and the magic feather.

  I laugh at the absolute absurdity of it all.

  I can’t wait to tell him this news! I can’t wait to—

  But that isn’t an option now, is it?

  I think about it throughout the rest of the workday and as I walk to my car that night. Maybe Landon is right; maybe if I just try to . . . I don’t know, but I have to do something! I don’t know what to say or how to apologize, but I can’t let another day, or even another hour, pass without telling him how sorry I am for what I said. I run the rest of the way to my car.

  Taylor is sitting on the hood.

  He stands up and walks over to me without a word.

  I open my mouth, but he holds up a hand to silence me.

  “I really thought about not ever speaking to you again.” He looks down into my eyes. “Can you understand that?”

  I nod. He shoves both his hands into his pockets.

  “But last night I kept thinking about what I said. I told you I was your friend, and I told you I wasn’t going anywhere.”

  He looks away, out at the other cars, and continues speaking.

  “I’m so sorry that you were hurt. I’m sorry that you’ve been hurting, and that you haven’t told anyone about it. I understand why you lashed out at me. There was a time I would have done the same thing.” He looks back at me. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

  “I don’t deserve your friendship,” I tell him, because it is true. “Not after everything I said. But I’m so sorry, Taylor. You have to know how sorry I am for the things I said.”

  A friend shouldn’t ever use your pain against you. Even when I was so vicious to him, Taylor never did that to me.

  “Do you know much about grace?” he asks.

  “Who’s Grace?” I ask, totally confused now.

  “Not who, what. My mama always said that grace was offering someone the opposite of what they deserve. Life’s just full of opportunities for that.”

  “But—”

  “You said you were sorry, Jennings,” he tells me sincerely.

  My shoulders slump as I sigh.

  “It doesn’t seem like enough,” I tell him.

  He looks away and then back at me with a slight grin on his face.

  “What if you paid me for it?”

  I smile back at him.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I say, pushing at his shoulder playfully.

  All of a sudden I am in his arms. I let my bag drop from my fingers and wrap my arms around his waist. I am so thankful to be there that I feel light-headed.

  “I want you to pay me, like I said,” he whispers into my hair.

  “OK,” I mumble to play along. “What do you want?”

  “I want your bracelet.”

  I push back to look up into his face in confusion. His eyes are fierce, determined.

  “I want the bracelet,” he says again. “I want you to take it off and give it to me. I don’t want you to wear it anymore.”

  I continue to stare at him, totally mute.

  “Maybe it’s wrong and maybe it’s not my place, but I hate that you have it. You haven’t forgiven yourself for a mistake you made six years ago. Whether you admit it or not, you wear it to hurt yourself. I can’t be friends with you and watch you punish yourself anymore. I won’t do it.” He holds out his hand. “Please give it to me.”

  I look down at my wrist, utterly shocked to find my fingers already messing with the clasp. I drop it into his outstretched hand, and we both stare down at it without speaking. Without warning his fingers close around the chain, and he steps back from me and throws it, seemingly as hard as he can, into the darkness of the surrounding garage. I don’t have time to think about its absence, because he is hugging me again.

  I don’t know how long we stand there, but it is long enough that I am aware of every single place where his body brushes against mine. I can’t help but think about that night on his couch, and my lips tingle at the memory.

  He pulls back to look at me, and I am surprised to see him looking playful and relaxed. Clearly he isn’t concerned with thoughts of kissing or anything else like that.

  “Jennings, I realized I probably pushed you too hard. But I understand now why you’re not . . .” He rubs a hand along his jaw. “Why you’re not ready to date.”

  I start to protest, but he holds up his hand.

  “I don’t want this to be weird, OK? I really care about you, and I don’t want to lose you as a friend. We’ll just be that, OK? You don’t have to worry about any, uh . . . advances from me.”

  “I won’t?” It comes out sort of strangled.

  “No,” he says, dropping his hands. “It’ll be better this way.”

  He is right; of course he is right. I am a mess, and I’ve done nothing but emotionally vomit all over him since the moment we met.

  He will be my friend, and I should be—am—so grateful for that.

  I nod.

  “It’s better this way,” I agree.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “And then you add nutmeg, right?” Joey asks as she stares down into the bowl beside me.

  “Exactly,” I answer. “But not until the very last step.”

  It feels a little weird at first to be teaching her the recipes we’ve added to the menu in the time she’s been gone. But after a few days it is just par for the course. It is my last day at Dolci, and the entire team threw me a little party in the kitchen this morning to celebrate. Now I just have to finish out this recipe with Joey and update some paperwork, and my work in this kitchen will be done.

  I am not any closer to knowing what my next step will be, but I have a little money saved up, at least enough to survive for a couple of months until I figure it out. I’ll get to that whole “what the hell am I gonna do with my life” thing later. First I need to show Joey how to make this crème fraîche.

  “Yo, Chef,” Ram calls from across the room, “it’s for you!”

  There is an awkward moment when we both turn, and then I try to laugh it off nervously. Joey waves to him that she’ll be right over and then turns to me with a smile.

  “It’s probably the nanny calling again. I’ll just check to make sure everything is OK.”

  I nod and she hurri
es away.

  She comes back a few minutes later with an odd smile on her face.

  “It’s actually for you,” she tells me.

  “The phone?” I ask, confused.

  Nobody calls me here. In fact, very few people know I am here at all, and those who do would have just called my cell.

  “No.” She smiles again. “There’s a customer who wants to give their regards to the chef. They loved the dessert sampler.”

  “But that’s—” I try.

  “That’s all you, girl, and you know it. Now get up there. They’re waiting at the front.”

  I run my hands down the front of my chef coat, feeling more awkward than I have in years. I watch my shoes as they eat up the distance between the back and the front of the house. Why does this make me so nervous? So some customer wants to tell me they liked my dish; it isn’t a big deal. I will just smile and say thank you, and head back to where I came from.

  I look up just as I come through the swinging door. I can see Haven, one of our servers, is at the bar talking to a customer. Since it is an odd time of day, the lobby is fairly empty, so I assume the person with Haven must be who I was meant to find. Just as I get close enough to ask, the server moves out of the way, and I look into my mother’s face.

  “Kenzie.” She gives me a tight smile. “Perhaps we should talk.”

  When I nod in agreement she spins on her heel and walks away. She is all polish and shine in a typical weekday outfit of silk and cashmere and whatever other textiles DVF has put in her line this season.

  I follow her back to a table in the corner, which has empty plates and the remainder of an espresso with my mother’s lipstick stamped on the side. I sit down quickly, feeling very much like a five-year-old who is about to be scolded. I play with the untouched place setting in front of me, unsure what else to do with my hands.

  “Liam told you,” I manage to get out.

  She raises her eyebrows nearly to her hairline.

  “Liam,” she says his name carefully, “said to tell you that you had a deal. Since I have called you exactly seventeen times over the last eleven days and you couldn’t be troubled to answer the phone even once”—she glares at me—“you forfeit your right to secrecy.”

  I don’t even know where to begin.

  Apparently my mother does, because she keeps going.

  “Am I so horrible? Am I really so meddling and terrible that you can’t share such a big part of your life with me?”

  She reaches into her purse for a tissue, which makes me feel like the very lowest kind of scum.

  “Mom, that’s not it at all—” I try to explain.

  “You lied. To my face.”

  For a moment I don’t understand her meaning, which is to say, I don’t know which lie she is talking about.

  So actually I was wrong before; now I feel like the very lowest kind of scum.

  “How many times have I asked you about the bar? How many stories have you made up to keep this from me?” She swings her hand around to encompass Dolci’s empty seating area.

  “I was still at the hotel,” I say weakly. “I didn’t lie about that.”

  “That’s just semantics,” she says fiercely.

  My shoulders slump in defeat.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  She opens her mouth, I’m sure to yell some more, but she closes it again quickly and looks away from me. Twenty-five years of advice and lectures, and for maybe the first time ever, my mother doesn’t know what to say to me. The thought makes me uncomfortable.

  The urge to argue or to make an excuse, or even to leave, is strong. Then I think of Landon and how she told me I was immature. She is right; I need to try to stop acting like a child, and the first step, the biggest step, is to stop lying. I have to stop lying to my friends and my family, but most importantly, I have to stop lying to myself.

  “I wanted to tell you,” I say quietly.

  She looks back my way.

  “Did you?” she asks.

  It isn’t a question; it is an accusation.

  I start to reach for the bracelet, an old bad habit, and then stop myself when I realize it isn’t there anymore.

  “Not all of it, no,” I answer honestly. “Everything that happened . . . that happened in DC and afterwards . . . I didn’t want to tell you about that.”

  She opens her mouth to argue, but I cut her off gently.

  “I was ashamed and embarrassed,” I explain.

  “But you know how much we love you; you know,” she says emphatically.

  I nod.

  “I do know. I also knew how much you expected of me, how high the standard was. That’s why I was so afraid of letting you down.”

  Her lower lip starts to tremble, and when she does finally speak, the only thing that comes out is a broken, “Oh, Mackenzie.”

  I don’t want to make any more of a scene. I try to steer us back to an easier topic.

  “But about this.” I point at the kitchen to our right. “This, I wanted to tell you about so much.”

  “So why didn’t you?” she asks, her voice sounding stronger again.

  “Because you were worried enough after everything that had happened in December, and I knew you’d freak out about my diet and the hours and—”

  “I wouldn’t—”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Oh fine,” she says primly. “Yes, I probably would have. But we could have worked together; we could have found some way for you to—”

  “Mom, I love you so much, and I am so thankful, and . . .” I search for a better word, and choose one of Landon’s favorites. “. . . and blessed to be your daughter. But I am twenty-five years old. My life is not something that we work on together anymore. I know you care about me, and I know that you worry, but I’m not a little girl. I have to be able to make my own decisions and even my own mistakes. Fighting about them with me is only going to alienate me more.”

  She looks ready to argue the point. I reach out for her hand and tell her as gently as I can, “You can continue to be a big part of my life, but that means you have to accept me as I am. You have to stop trying to manage me.”

  “I’m your mother. Of course I’m going to offer you advice,” she says, sounding a little exasperated.

  I refuse to rise to her level, because that will only lead us into an argument we’ve had a hundred times already.

  “Of course you’re going to offer advice,” I agree, “but there’s a difference between offering advice on big things and judging everything from what I wear to what I eat.”

  She looks distraught. “Is that what it feels like to you?” she asks. “That I’m judging you?”

  I hate how hurt she sounds, but I need to be honest.

  “Sometimes, yeah.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, I never meant it that way. I thought I was being helpful or looking out for you. Sometimes you forget to eat right or you . . .” Understanding dawns on her face. “Oh good grief. I’m doing it again!”

  Her eyes fill with tears, but her grin is self-deprecating.

  “I think I’ve always been more protective of you,” she says. “You were my first baby, my first real responsibility, and I wanted so badly to do a good job. When you were diagnosed I was devastated. I know it could have been so much worse than it is, but I hated that you had something wrong and I couldn’t fix it. I think I thought if I could just keep a close enough eye on you, I could keep you from being hurt or getting sick.”

  “That’s impossible,” I tell her gently.

  “I know that, Mackenzie. On a rational level I do know that, but I just get . . . carried away sometimes.”

  I snort in response to the understatement.

  “I’m going to work on it. I’ll get better, I swear,” she promises sincerely.

  “OK.” I smile at her.

  I know she won’t be able to flip a switch and turn into a different person, but she will try.

  “So if I’m allowed to advise you on
the big things, then I have some thoughts,” she says, sounding businesslike.

  I can’t help laughing. She has tried for exactly forty-seven seconds.

  “Kenzie,” she chides me, “you said I could give you advice on the big stuff.”

  “OK, you’re right.” I fight the urge to laugh again. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s only two things,” she says, sounding a little hurt.

  I smile at her with genuine love.

  “OK, Mom. Go ahead.”

  “It’s OK to ask for help,” she says succinctly.

  “I know, Mom. I—”

  “You don’t know. I’m not sure why you don’t understand that, but I’m positive that you don’t. So I am going to say it to you over and over in a thousand different ways if I have to. It’s OK to ask for help. We love you. Your friends love you. You are the most self-sufficient person I know, and I’m so proud of the independent woman you’ve become. But you can’t be so independent that you run yourself ragged trying to prove you can do it on your own. No one will think less of you. Leaning on another person and allowing yourself to be vulnerable sometimes is its own kind of strength.”

  I think of her relationship with my dad, and I can remember so many examples of them leaning on each other over the years. Times when they were sick or overworked or stressed out, times when one of them shouldered more of the burden for a while. It never made them weaker; if anything, that kind of trust is what makes their relationship so strong.

  “OK,” I sigh. “I’ll try to ask for help when I need it.”

  Her face splits with a grin, and I can feel her pride in me from across the table. She reaches into her purse for a second tissue—the first one has been mangled to death—and a mirror and starts dabbing at her eyes.

  “What’s the other thing?” I ask as she runs a finger under the line of her mascara.

  “Hmm?”

  “You said there were two pieces of advice. I’m wondering what the other one is.”

  “Oh.” She puts both hands on the table. “It wasn’t advice; it was just a comment. This,” she says, tapping an empty plate that had once held the dessert sampler, “was incredible. I’m so happy to see you find your place. This is exactly where you should be.”