I’ve cleaned up the kitchen, shed the chef jacket, and taken Simon’s dinner and put it on a plate for Megan — ravioli and spring salad with fresh herbs. Lemon panna cotta for dessert.
She’ll be working late and will have forgotten to eat, so I tell myself it works out that Simon wasn’t here.
But it’s a lie
I take the steps to the second floor and head down the wing with the office at the end and nearly run into Simon coming from that direction.
He steadies me with a hand on my elbow when I step away from him so fast I nearly trip.
“Hi,” he says, and I refuse to look at his hair, which is doing some kind of mad swoop thing over his forehead like he spent the day with his hands in it.
“Simon.” I smile, politely. “I was just going to see Megan.”
“She’s gone, actually. Left a little bit ago.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was with her in the office talking about my foundation using the inn for a fundraiser. It got late and she had to go.”
How cozy.
“That wouldn’t happen to be my dinner, would it?” he asks, sheepishly. “I had some emergencies with work and couldn’t get away. Looks amazing.”
Emergencies with work explains the hair.
“It is. And you’re lucky — I was about to give it to Megan. So it’s yours again.” I hand him the plate. “Bon appetite.”
I turn and start to walk down the stairs. He falls into step beside me.
“How were the interviews?” he asks.
“Fine. Well, as fine as they can be. Look, Simon —”
“Eat with me,” he says, cutting off what was going to be my good night.
“I’ve already eaten.”
“Keep me company then.”
I try to remember my disappointment. I try to remember how foolish it would be to get, in any way, attached to him. I try to remember how I’m the one who put the kibosh on anything happening between us.
I try to remember all my sound and rational reasons why.
But all I can remember is his finger against my wrist and the way I thought I might fly up to the ceiling.
And he was working. I can’t fault a guy for that.
“Sure,” I say. “But we’re sitting outside and I’m not talking about myself. I’ve done too much of that today.”
“Got it,” he says, that half-grin lighting up the hallway. I feel like a schoolgirl, blushing and looking away.
The moon is full and the sky is clear so it’s nearly bright as day and I lead him through the kitchen to grab a half-full bottle of white wine I served with dinner and two glasses.
Outside between the parking lot and the garden is a picnic table.
“Is this a hidden dining room?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “But that’s not a bad idea. We could do more outdoor dining around here.”
We both sit at the splintered, weathered table.
“This was our first furniture,” I tell Simon. “When Megan and I first started work, this was pretty much our office.”
“Well, it’s a good view,” he says looking up at the moon-splashed sky.
I am wearing a black tank top so I sit here with my sleeves of ink revealed. I feel more than a little naked. How long, I wonder, has it been since I’ve sat this bare in front of someone?
Ages.
The tattoos are not connected to Penny McConnell. They are pure Tina Andreas and it occurs to me that even sitting here in a tank top with a man as clever and intuitive as Simon might be revealing too much.
But I don’t put on the flannel shirt I have tied around my waist.
I do nothing to cover myself up.
Why am I courting disaster like this?
“What’s this one?” he asks, running his fingers over the top of my arm, the tattoo is a black-and-white picture of a girl holding a match. It’s shadows and light and one of the very first tattoos I ever got.
“You know the story of the Little Match Girl?’ I ask, rubbing my hand over the ink, as if to erase the sensation of his finger on my arm. It’s impossible but I try anyway.
“The girl who dies of starvation and exposure while selling matches in London.”
“Yes. That’s part of it.”
“What’s the other part?” he asks with a laugh.
“The part where she watches the family through the window. And the ghost of her dead grandmother comes and takes her away.”
“That’s not cheerful either,” he says.
“I didn’t say it was cheerful. But it’s a story I related to when I was a kid.”
He makes no comment about the unlikeliness of an Iowa farm girl from a big family feeling left out and alone.
“I like this one,” he says, pointing to a rather elegant diagram of a pig with all its parts labeled in Greek on my forearm.
“Thanks. I got a lot of these from an old Greek cookbook my mom had.” I twist my arm to show him a chef’s knife and a sprig of parsley. A drawing of a lamb’s ear. A culinary map of Greece. The bleeding heart of a tomato. They’re stunning in their hand-drawn complexity. “I loved the illustrations.”
“You have ties to Greece?”
“My mom.”
“McConnell is your father’s name?”
“Yes,” I say and now I’ve gone too far. I feel the fear of having revealed too much and I stand up and untie my shirt so I can pull it on.
He cuts into his dinner.
“There’s an egg in this ravioli!” he cries like I’m just blowing his mind all the time. It’s exceedingly flattering.
“You don’t get out much, do you?” I ask him.
“No.” He laughs. “I really don’t. Half the time it’s protein bars and airport food.”
“Gross.”
“I know.”
“Do you like travelling?” I ask, sitting on the wooden bench.
“I don’t really think about liking it.” He takes another bite of the ravioli and closes his eyes.
“That’s too bad,” I say. “I couldn’t do so much of something I didn’t like.”
He watches me and swallows. “Have you always wanted to be a chef?”
I nod and remember the script. The thing I’m supposed to say about learning how to make pie at my mother’s elbow. I said it about five times today, and maybe that’s why I can’t say it again. I can’t force the words out.
“My grandfather used to kill a pig every spring and he’d roast it and invite every person he knew. Family. Friends. Neighbors. Some enemies. Our house would be full with people. And there would be wine and singing and fights sometimes, kissing all the time. And I was just a kid so I didn’t know I wanted to be a chef, but I knew I wanted THAT.”
“Who wouldn’t want that?” His smile is crooked, endearing. Sweetest thing I’ve seen.
“Right?”
“And you’ve found it here?”
“I love this farm,” I say unable to hide my smile, my pride. My happiness. “It’s exactly what I hoped it would be.” His silence and attention make me again feel naked. Like I’ve exposed too much of myself. All my simplicity. “But, I’m not talking about me right now. I did that all day. Tell me what’s your favorite place from all your travels?”
“Currently, it’s my bed in my condo in Los Angeles.”
“Very exotic.”
“It feels that way.”
He takes another bite of the dinner I’ve made and I sip my wine and the quiet is…soft. Kind. Taking care of each other with it. The night is a beautiful blanket we’re wrapped up in.
It’s a whole different kind of intimacy being silent with another person. And normally I feel terribly compelled to fill silence. To yammer away. To push this level of intimacy away, because it’s so freaking honest.
But this is different.
Simon is different.
“The people almost always are the best and worst things about any of the places I’ve been,” he says like he’s been thinking of
it all this time. “And sunsets. Sunsets are stunning all over the globe. I forget that, a lot.”
“Sunsets?”
“That people can be beautiful. Mostly, I just see the bad stuff. The disaster. The shit bad people do to good people. Or strong people do to weak people. But that’s not all there is in the world. It’s good to be reminded of that.”
“I forget that, too,” I say. “My mother raised me to see people as stepping stones or road blocks. Something I can use or something I have to get out of my way.”
“My parents saw friends in everybody. Even my father, who experienced brutal racism in his day, saw people as generally good. I think about it now and I don’t know how he managed to do that. To stay so kind.”
“That’s a nice way to grow up.”
“It was. It really…was.”
His plate is empty and we both take a sip of our wine as if to slow ourselves down. Like we were hurtling towards something.
“I know you don’t want to talk about you,” he says. “But it sounds like you had two different childhoods.”
My stomach drops. How careless was I? How reckless with the truth?
“Pig roasts with your grandfather and a mother who was manipulative. They don’t quite add up.”
“I guess they don’t.” I say. “We lived with my grandparents on the farm until I was seven.”
“They died?”
I nod instead of telling the truth, which was that my mother moved us to San Francisco on the whim of a man who was, in all probability, setting her up to take a fall for him.
Mom was a better person around her parents. Her scheming was minor, her disappointments manageable. Once we were funded by my father’s millions, her appetite for displeasure was endless.
“I need to go,” I say. And I do, tomorrow is a big day. All the days are big.
But the words sound like a lie
Because I don’t want to go.
I want more of this intimacy.
“Where do you live here?” he asks.
I tilt my head, wondering if he’s coming onto me.
“It’s just a question,” he says, his hands up. But his smile says otherwise. And the smile combined with this silence we’ve shared, this intimate dinner, these little truths. Well…it’s dangerous. My heart beats hard and begins to race. I suddenly don’t know what to do with my hands.
“We have trailers down the road,” I say. “Some staff are using them until they get apartments in town. Megan moved out of hers and lives in Piru.”
“But you’ve stayed in the trailers?”
“Very glamourous, I know.”
He laughs, low in his throat. “You don’t know the places I’ve lived. A nice trailer wins, hands down.”
“It suits me.”
His eyes touch mine and I can’t look away. I don’t want to look away.
I imagine him in far-flung places. I imagine him the son of two people raising him right. I imagine him a boy of a hopeful father. A firebrand mother and I want to kiss him so badly it’s hard to stop myself.
He’s looking at my mouth like he’s thinking the same thing.
“I need to go,” I whisper.
“I know.”
And still we don’t move. His hand comes up and strokes my cheek. It’s like being brushed with fire and my skin rises in goosebumps. I feel every callous on his long elegant fingers.
“I want to kiss you,” he says and my lips part as I gasp for air. “The only thing stopping me is you said no.”
I did. I said no.
And I said no for good reasons that seem totally distant now.
“Good night,” I say. “Leave your dishes. I’ll handle them in the morning.” And I leave him there in the moonlight on the old picnic table.
I don’t know if this makes me brave or a coward.
Maybe both.
Thoughts of him follow me all the way home.
FOURTEEN
Penny
ON WEDNESDAY I’m touring a local brewery. Sunset Brewery. What are the chances of that? Well, pretty good, I suppose. Sunsets aren’t at all rare. But Simon was just talking about them and now…
Stop. Just stop.
I’m that girl who meets a guy and suddenly my entire life seems to reflect how perfect he is for me. How easily he would slot right into my life.
Gross.
But still…Sunset. That’s a coincidence.
“Good morning!” It’s Simon at the back door of the kitchen.
“You missed breakfast again,” I tell him and slide the plate I’ve set aside for him across the stainless-steel table. We’ve fallen into a routine the last few days. He misses every meal. I save him a plate. We sit together while he eats.
It’s beautiful. And nice.
Tuesday, he helped me repair the irrigation tubing in the garden. The guy is handy with duct tape.
“I’m sorry,” he says coming into the kitchen and it’s like a game I’m playing with myself. How long can I not look at him? How long can I resist?
Everyday it’s a little less.
Today, all it takes is the sight of his shoes out of the corner of my eye and I turn to face him. Because willpower has never been my strong suit.
“You run every morning in your regular life?” I ask, trying to sound cool. Friendly. Not at all breathless.
Pretty sure I fail.
Because he’s stunning. And not having him is starting to feel worse than having him.
He shakes his head, still breathing hard. He does the thing with the hem of his shirt across his forehead and I greedily take it all in. The muscled stomach. The bit of hair. The flex and pull of his wrist.
The flop of his hair over his forehead.
“I’m sorry about missing the meals.”
“You are not very domesticated, are you?” I say as a joke. But the look in his eye is…feral.
Even his silence is wild.
“Well, you can eat here or take this up to your room,” I say, too loud. Too brisk, maybe. “But I can’t eat with you this morning. I’m leaving in a little bit.”
“Where are you headed?” he asks, leaning against the table.
“I get to tour a brewery this morning,” I say with a far too excited smile. I feel like I’ve been here so much without a break that I’ve grown roots. I’m far too happy about leaving for a few hours.
“A field trip,” he says, nailing my enthusiasm. “A field trip with beer, even.”
“I know, right?” We’re grinning at each other like two fools in my kitchen.
“Do you want to come?” I ask, overcome by the smiling. “I mean, I know it’s really early for beer. But it’s a pretty drive and I’m getting a tour of the brewery and the hop field. Plus the sampling —”
“Yes,” he says. “I’d love to come. Breakfast beer is my favorite beer.”
I laugh because this tickling joy has to go somewhere, or I’ll explode. I glance at my watch.
“Go get changed. You can eat breakfast on the way.”
“Be down in a second,” he says and takes off at a jog.
Simon
I CAN’T GO. I can’t…what am I thinking?
I’m not. I’m not thinking at all.
That I want to go is a problem.
That I like her is a problem.
There is no Penny McConnell. She is a lie. She is not real.
She is a problem.
I have to keep reminding myself of that.
The story about her mother and father, her brothers back on the farm, it is just that, a story. And when pushed by internet searches into her history, the story pops like a soap bubble.
But this woman who calls herself Penny McConnell is the realest thing I’ve ever known. She’s genuine and funny. Prickly and sarcastic. Shy and bold. Sexy and reserved.
And I feel alive around her.
Humans have grown unable to believe two opposing things are true at the same time. We want things to be black and white. Right and wrong. It’s
comforting. It allows us to keep our moral superiority. Our righteous outrage.
But I’m living in the gray area these days. I have no moral superiority. I’m awash in guilt.
I can’t see a way around this without hurting her. Unless she tells me the truth. But every time we talk I find myself revealing more about me than asking about her. I’m losing focus.
And every minute I spend with her I feel that sense of dread. Like from St. Jude’s.
So, I do what I did at St. Jude’s. I concentrate on things that are true. Real.
First of all, they don’t lock up a damn thing around this place. The night of the party things were shut up tight. But since then nothing has been. I’ve been through the office. Twice. Penny’s car. Megan’s car. Every room in the inn. All parts of the kitchen.
The laptop in the office on the second floor is not Marianne’s laptop. It’s a new computer, mostly full of recipes. Penny’s not on Facebook or Pintrest. There isn’t even any banking information so I can’t prove that she’s funding the inn with her money or Simpson’s money.
Maybe she is telling the truth about the third-party investor.
Maybe she is telling the truth…except I know she’s not. And I have to keep reminding myself of it. I have to stop hoping she is as kind and decent as she seems.
Because I know she’s not.
I can’t tour a brewery today, because I have to use the fact that she’s gone to break into her trailer and see if the laptop I need is in there.
Every time I’ve gone to check the trailers, there have been people around. Staff moving in. Staff moving out. Someone running back from the inn to get something. Today is quiet. Lots of staff have taken the morning off.
I will never get another chance like this.
I need her gone so I can betray her.
So I can end this.
Back into the kitchen I go and her smile at the sight of me waivers.
“I can’t go,” I say and her face falls. “I forgot I have a conference call at ten o’clock.”
“We could be back by then,” she says, trying to rearrange her life to accommodate my lie. I want to tell her to stop. To stop being so fucking easy all the time. So sweet.
“But I need to do some prep work before. I’m sorry. No breakfast beer for me.”
Ruin You Page 12