by Marcelo, Tif
“This sounds pretty serious.” Geneva took a step closer.
“It is.” Worry etched lines on Beatrice’s face.
“Tell me.”
“I want to do Beachy full time.”
Geneva opened her mouth, then shut it. She tried once more and shut it again. Then she reorganized her thoughts. At how serious of a declaration this was.
Beatrice, above all, never strayed from family. That light touch was like superglue that kept all the Puso men together, and she knew it. Beneath her constant smile was a resilient woman placed under enormous pressure.
But trailing these thoughts was pure pride. It was pride and joy, and everything that one felt for a sister who had found her love.
Beatrice’s love was her business.
Geneva reached out and clutched Beatrice’s hand. Then she started to laugh. Beachy’s rise was fast—driven by Beatrice’s determination, by this love of entrepreneurship—and inside, Geneva again felt that yearning. She wanted to be like Beatrice—exactly like this, in love with her business. “Bea . . . Beatrice Cayuga Puso. Are you serious? That is fantastic, and bonkers, and oh my God.”
Her eyes watered. “Oh God. What did I just say? Tell me I’m being completely irresponsible.”
“What? No. Never. This is just going to be . . . oh shoot, your family!” Because there would be consequences. Scrape off the glue, and everything might fall apart.
Beatrice cupped her mouth with the other hand.
“Tell me. How did you get here? When did you decide?” Geneva asked.
“I don’t know. I started Beachy as a side thing. You know how I am with that. But then the first customer came in, and then the next, and then came the business plan . . . and it just changed.”
“Beatrice,” she said pointedly, though inside was not surprised that the business plan had come after the actual business.
“I know. I love Beachy. Love it, and every part of it. The seasonal looks, the buying, the selling. The joy it gives people who wear clothes that fit well and comfortably. I have a feeling about this.” She retrieved her hand from Geneva and ran both over her hair. “Earlier, when you mentioned me going retail in front of the girls, I pooh-poohed it, but it was only for show. I already thought about it. I have been thinking about it for a while. You reflecting it back to me was a sign. But I said the same thing about Heart Resort, remember?”
Geneva nodded. She’d gotten the phone call a few months after Tito Joe and Tita Marilyn had passed. Beatrice had been on a solo vacation, in Hatteras, and read in the local paper about a heart-shaped peninsula abandoned by a couple who’d passed before opening a resort. With her parents’ substantial legacy, Beatrice had been looking for an investment property.
It’s heart shaped, Geneva. I have a feeling about this. It’s a sign.
It had seemed so far fetched, but just as Geneva heeded Beatrice’s advice, so did the rest of the family. Her idea was so good that Chris had taken it an extra step and decided to follow through with the couples resort concept. The negotiations for the property’s sale had gone without a hitch.
“I believed in you then, and I believe in you now,” Geneva said.
“Heh. I’m not so sure the rest of the family will feel the same way. Not with how much we’ve lost. The cost of rebuilding after Maximus—”
“Beatrice, no one blames you for a tropical storm’s murderous wind speed.”
She laughed. “I know, but if I hadn’t brought up the resort at all, then we would—”
“You would what? Not have a business that has a mission of healing relationships? Not infuse the local economy with business and jobs, even during the pandemic? Not have gone into business with your family and who you now spend every day with? Heart Resort was one of the first businesses to open after the pandemic, if I remember, because it was already well suited for social distancing. Don’t even go there.”
“Well, I’m so glad you feel that way, that you feel strongly about this, and me. And this house. Because I have something to propose.”
Geneva braced herself. Every proposal thus far since her arrival had involved a secret and a pivot. “What is it?”
“I propose that you move here to the Outer Banks to live and work with me.”
Geneva was stunned. “I . . .” With so much to unpack, she grabbed onto the thing that jumped out the most. “You mean live in this house? Here, in North Carolina?”
“Yes, here.” Beatrice’s arm shot out toward the beach, and she sported a bright smile. “With all this. Ocean air, every day. Vitamin D just outside your bedroom door even when it’s gray out. The water steps away, which I know you love.”
The squeals of beachgoers took Geneva’s attention, and she looked out. The beach was packed at the moment, but it wouldn’t always be so. There would be nights and early mornings when the crowd would be sparse, and from fall till spring it became a ghost town. And oh, did she love putting her feet in sand and in water every day.
A gust of wind woke her from her trance, reminding her that there was one problem with this proposal. “But you sell dresses, and I’m—”
“The best designer I know. Your work on Heart Resort sealed it for me. It’s not just about space for you but feeling, vibe, spirit. It transcends. It can transcend.”
Geneva shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean?”
“Besides coming to design our retail space, I want you to be my partner. To expand Beachy to house decor and housewares.”
“Do you mean—”
“You get to design for yourself.”
Myself. Designing for herself was never something Geneva had considered. Her whole mission was to please the customer, to exceed the client’s expectations. Most of Geneva’s hours weren’t spent buying furniture or laying out rooms. They were spent getting to know the client, feeling them out, weighing what they said versus what they actually showed in their Pinterest boards or magazine cutouts. She believed in this mission through and through, never settling in wherever she laid her head to rest, and only living with the barest of things.
Yes, these were her choices, and she didn’t regret them. But here she was, presented with another choice, a pivot.
“Geneva,” Beatrice said, drawing her full attention. “I propose that you and I make Beachy a lifestyle brand.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Brandon pressed on the button, and the metal measuring tape slunk back like a slithering snake. “I think we can definitely fit a six-by-five-foot island here.” He stood from a half-kneeling position, then took his place next to Lainey, who held an iPad and wore a serious expression on her face. Brandon pointed at the empty area in the digital drawing. “What do you think?”
Lainey nodded. “I think that will do. But let’s do a trial run, shall we?” With the digital pen, she dragged the island icon to the empty area in the drawing, completing the full picture of the future kitchen of Hapag, Heart Resort’s restaurant.
Seeing the plans on the screen, Brandon breathed a sigh of relief. He relied on experts, even with his residential flips. He employed kitchen consultants because he wasn’t a cook, and the pressure to get the kitchen right was real. It had to be functional, practical, but attractive and inspiring. It was, at times, the one thing that either made or broke a sale. And a commercial kitchen? That was an entire animal unto itself.
Lainey stood at the kitchen entrance. “Watch the production.” She took Brandon step by step from order retrieval, to the refrigerator and freezer, to where certain meals would be made, to the dishes and sink areas. Brandon followed along and nodded and took more notes on his iPad.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He all but dropped the iPad on the ground as he fished his phone out.
Geneva:
We need to chat at dinner, somehow.
His body deflated, staring at the words. There were no emojis, nary an exclamation point. So much was lost in text messages. Was Geneva upset? Regretful?
“Ahem.”
B
randon glanced up. Lainey was still holding the imaginary plate. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” She heaved a breath. “Now, once plated and garnished, it goes up here to heating lamps, where the waitstaff grabs it and . . .” She backed against the swinging door, then stepped in as it opened inward. “Voilà! Happy customers.”
Brandon annotated final notes into his iPad. His head started to spin with his to-do list of kitchen-equipment brand names, as well as a woman completely beguiling to him for reasons known and unknown. “Voilà,” he repeated back. “Right.”
“Knock knock?” Chris entered through the swinging door, accompanied by Tammy, and both had smiles on their faces.
“Perfect timing. More photo ops,” Tammy said.
“Photos?” Lainey’s eyebrows rose.
Tammy held up her camera. “I’m shooting in-progress photos. Do you mind?”
“Actually”—she winced—“I do. I just . . . like my privacy. I hope that’s all right.”
“Oh, of course.”
Lainey turned the watch on her wrist. “And it’s actually time for me to head out. I want to walk through the houses.” She shook Chris’s and Tammy’s hands, and then to Brandon said, “Let me know if you have issues finding materials and appliances—I can hook you up with contacts. I also found out that I’ll be in the area next week and can arrange to be here for installation, if needed.”
“Sounds good. I’ll walk you out.”
“Thanks for your fantastic work, Lainey.” Chris waved as Brandon shut the door behind her. With the click of the lock, he added, “What was that about appliances?”
Brandon grinned. Of course his brother couldn’t help but micromanage. “She had some suggestions on reliable appliances and restaurant equipment that could serve us pretty quickly, because, you know . . . we have a deadline coming up.”
“Just watch your cost. We don’t need to have anything fancy.”
“Fancy and reliable are completely separate criteria. And they both entail money.”
“Hapag is going to serve ten couples at most at one time. The kitchen we had before the storm was good enough.”
“Maybe that’s something you’ll need to ask your chef. At the very least, you’ll want a commercial kitchen that can provide your chef the comfort to make high-quality special meals. If we’re building from scratch, why not make it better? And . . .”
Chris hiked a hand on his hip. “And what?”
“The restaurant needs a paint job, inside and outside, and possibly new dinnerware.”
“That’s ridiculous, Bran.”
“It’s not when everything is a hodgepodge mess. Your house behind the gates has more modern-looking dishes. I was there this morning, remember?”
Tammy cleared her throat as she stepped up; Brandon had forgotten that she was there. “Shall I reschedule the pictures for another time?”
Between them, the tension was thick, but Brandon didn’t budge. Chris might have had a say when it came to most everything in their lives, but with this, Brandon knew better.
Chris’s face was rigid as he spoke. “No, this is fine, Tammy.”
“Yeah, it’s all good.” Brandon heaved a breath, knowing full well this was the first round in the discussion. Chris was twelve times worse than Brandon’s pickiest boss and client, holding the power of that intangible position called big brother.
“All righty then,” Tammy said, voice lifting in faux enthusiasm. “Let’s have you both stand in the middle of the room.”
As she backed into the corner, Brandon took the moment to address his brother once more. “You have to let me do my job, Kuya. I’ve no issues working within the budget. But you have to trust me with my judgment. We want the same things.”
“All right, you two, put an arm around each other,” Tammy said, with half her face hidden behind the camera.
Chris wrapped an arm around Brandon’s shoulder. It was a strong hold. It was unthreatening, but a reminder that Chris was formidable. That he was the CEO of Heart Resort and, ultimately, who was in charge. “Sometimes, I don’t know if we want the same thing. And sometimes, I think it’s simply because you’re looking for a fight. And that is what renders your judgment faulty.”
Tammy peeked from behind the lens. “Brandon, how about an arm around your brother?”
He slung an arm around Chris and smiled as instructed, but all he felt was the sting of the little razor cuts of his brother’s words.
“Are you giving me the silent treatment too?” Chris said from the driver’s seat of his black Chevy Suburban.
From the passenger seat, Brandon gave his brother the side-eye, then quickly glanced to the back, where Eden was speaking into her phone, headphones over her ears.
“She can’t hear us,” Chris said. “She’s in first-draft mode, in what she calls brain dumping, and she’s dictating. Those noise-cancelling headphones are state of the art.”
“Ah. That’s interesting.”
“It saves her wrists for editing. It’s how she can write so much. But anyway. We need to continue our conversation.”
“What conversation?”
Chris snorted a laugh. “Look, I didn’t say anything in the restaurant that I wouldn’t have said to anyone else on the team. Am I not allowed to give you feedback?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you understand where I’m coming from.”
“I understand that you can’t help but correct everything I do, despite the fact that this has also been my industry the last decade.”
“Bran, I gave you my professional input. It’s what I have to do. The problem here is that you don’t want to move on from our fight. I’m trying, if you can’t tell.”
Brandon looked out onto the road. The scene flipped from sand dunes to glimpses of the Atlantic Ocean to lush greenery. Golden hour was probably a half hour away.
He tried to put his mind there, where all those colors were, away from their bleak conversation. Yes, his brother was trying. But it wasn’t as simple as accepting his professional opinion. It was everything—the fact that Chris controlled every part of their family. No one should have that much power.
“You’re always like this. You clam up. You bundle up all of your thoughts and keep it all inside.”
“And you’ve got a way of spewing yours without the thought of others,” he snapped.
Chris’s face lit up. “There you go. I thought for a sec that I had a cardboard cutout of my brother next to me. Was it so hard to give me something? Try me again.”
Brandon shut his eyes and let his anger take the words from his chest. “You chose that influencer over me.”
Chris frowned and glanced at him for a beat, before whipping his gaze up front. “What do you mean?”
Brandon dug deep, to the source of his anger, and scooped it out with his voice. It took a breath, effort. “For all your talk about family and loyalty and our name. When all that went down, and it got out that the woman and I slept together, I was the one canned and shipped off.”
“Bran.” He shook his head, and remorse laced his voice. “It was a tough situation.”
“Right. I get it. She was the customer, and nothing can be changed now and all the rest, yada yada. So I don’t need a lecture about moving on, or how to act, or my crap judgment. You don’t make it easy for me to be here. How can it be when I feel like you don’t have my back.”
“Damn, Bran. I do have your back.” He repositioned his hands on the wheel. “And I didn’t say your judgment was crap. I . . . look, I’m sorry. About what happened.”
That isn’t a true apology, was what Brandon wanted to say. He nodded instead, because what else was there to discuss? Though he did notice that the tension in his chest lessened; for all the trouble it was to express his emotions, he knew it was good for him.
They were a few miles south on 12, and the car crossed over Bonner Bridge.
“We’re going pretty far,” Brandon noted after a few minutes.<
br />
“The restaurant is in Rodanthe.”
“Rodanthe.” He snorted a laugh, with one image popping up in his memory. “God, that movie was depressing.”
“I know. But Mom loved it because it was the only movie that mentioned our spot, so by default . . .” Chris shrugged. “Though I think she liked everything.”
“It’s because our father liked nothing at all.”
Chris laughed. “Do you ever think about their relationship?”
Brandon nodded. His parents’ relationship was what he gauged all others by. While he wasn’t rushing to the altar, he eventually wanted what they’d had. “Thirty-five years was a heck of a long time.”
“This year would have been forty-two years. They would have been close to retiring.”
“Ma would have never retired,” Brandon declared. “And she would have gotten sick of Dad at home.”
“Truth. She can’t sit still.” Chris paused. “Couldn’t.”
The car slowed as they crossed the Rodanthe city limits. Chris flipped his blinkers on and drove into a parking lot. Gil’s minivan and Beatrice’s Tesla were already present.
Brandon was glad for their arrival, needing some food in his belly. There was never really enough time to eat during the day, not in a way that he wanted, and after his conversation with Chris, what he needed was comfort. Apparently, this restaurant was supposed to provide it.
He hopped out of the SUV and opened Eden’s door for her. She took off her headphones. Her eyes were glassy as if in a daze. In the zone, was how she’d described it in the past.
“Got some words in?” he asked.
“Mmm? Yes. Sorry. I’m under deadline and just had a breakthrough and had to dictate it before I forgot.”
He offered her his elbow. “No worries. Everything going okay?”
“It’s going to hell in a handbasket.” Her face scrunched. “My characters are going rogue. Why can’t they do what I outlined for them to do? What’s the point of me outlining ahead of time?”