What Comes After Dessert

by Ren Benton

  The question sailed past its target. “The kind of mischief he got into was harmless, so I never thought much about why he did it. I left him alone too much.”

  If she was vying for a terrible mother award, she’d need to step up her game. “You had to keep a roof over his head and food in his mouth. He knows that. If there were any hard feelings, he’d be happy to leave you over a thousand miles away and see you once a year.”

  “I feel bad enough about telling him no without you rubbing it in, thanks.”

  The breath caught in Tally’s chest. “You did what? When?”

  “Told him I’m staying here, and frequently for the past four or five years. He didn’t accept it until right before he left, though.”

  Oh god, poor Ben. Rejected twice. He could replace Tally, but not his mother. “Why are you so hard on him?”

  Janine blinked as if startled by the question. “Because he will gently and lovingly bulldoze anyone who doesn’t put up a fight, and he doesn’t give much thought to what comes after he gets his way. He means well, always, but he can’t expect things to work out according to plan when there is no plan.”

  He had good ideas and would do anything to make them happen, but figuring out the steps bored him to distraction. “He needs help making the plan, not obstruction for obstruction’s sake.”

  His mother’s eyes narrowed, and Tally braced for a don’t-tell-me-how-to-handle-my-son attack — by digging in her heels, not looking to be conciliatory. She wasn’t the only one who’d made Ben’s vacation miserable. She wasn’t sure he’d give her a chance to do better, but she wasn’t going to be shy about telling the woman with a permanent place in his life to be less of a bitch to him.

  Janine surprised her again. “The last year of high school, he brought his grades up, made all-state, put in extra hours at work to save money, and there wasn’t a different girl on the phone every five minutes for the first time since third grade. I thought he took a break from girls to get his act together, but it was you, wasn’t it? He did all of it to impress you.”

  Tally’s face heated. “He did it to get into college. All I did was help with his grades.”

  “He has a nice house to show for it now. Two cars. He makes good money. And look at your face, like you took a bite of something rancid and want to spit.”

  Tally got the message. “While I live in my father’s house, drive my father’s truck, and sometimes don’t have enough money in the bank or my pocket to buy toothpaste. I don’t need you to tell me he’s out of my league.”

  “I’m trying to sell him to you.”

  “Well, you’re a lousy salesman.” There was much more to recommend Ben than his net worth. “He’s thoughtful and kind and will give you the shirt off his back, literally. He’s creative and smart and hardworking, and he cares what happens to people even when they don’t care themselves.”

  “He sounds amazing.”

  “He is.”

  “Then why did you let him go?”

  Tally wasn’t going to recite an itemized list of her insecurities. She gave his mother the distilled version. “Out of my league.”

  “Did he tell you about his wife?”

  “Ex.”

  A wry smile twisted Janine’s mouth. “Right. He mention why she’s ex?”

  “I got an impression. I’m less clear why she married a man she didn’t like.”

  “She saw a man who’s successful just by playing his way through life, and she thought with an ambitious woman to motivate him, he could rule the world. Literally. She told me she had political aspirations for him.”

  Ben wasn’t the rule-the-world type. Not the student council president. Not the quarterback. He’d never had any interest in bossing people around or taking all the credit. While he had the charm and good looks to seduce voters, he was far too honest for politics. “Did she ever meet him?”

  Janine snorted. “Evidently not. He doesn’t even want to rule his own office, much less run for one.”

  “I assumed Will ruled specifically so Ben could play at work.”

  “You’ve met him, then. Does that bother you?”

  Tally’s brow furrowed. “That he was smart enough to partner with someone who takes care of the paperwork so he’s free to do what he’s good at and loves doing? He made any excuse to avoid a page of homework. He never even would have applied for a business license on his own. The people he works with have as much to do with his success as he does.”

  “Ellen couldn’t stand that about him. Said he was shiftless and irresponsible. Thought marriage to her would fix him.”

  What a bitch. “He’s not broken. He doesn’t need fixing.”

  “She wanted him to be something he’s not.”

  If he could have been what she wanted him to be, he would have changed. Ben would do anything to make someone he loved happy.

  And every change would have been a crime.

  Janine crossed her arms. “So what do you want him to be?”

  Tally didn’t hesitate. “Happy.”

  “Then why do you keep breaking his heart?”

  “I didn’t think I was good enough for him.”

  “The fact that you’d even consider the possibility you’re not makes you infinitely better than someone who thinks she’s too good for him.”

  “At least his ex didn’t take her clothes off for money.”

  Janine took a sudden interest in the zucchini on display. “I watched the video.”

  Tally recoiled as if slapped.

  “The beginning, anyway. If I looked like you and could move like that, I wouldn’t have applied my high-school education to minimum-wage unskilled labor, either.”

  That... wasn’t the worst thing she could have said. If Tally tried really hard, she could almost squeeze a compliment out of there. “You’re not of a mind it would be better to starve?”

  “There’s no dignity in starving, which everyone around here should know by now.” Janine’s lips pursed but failed to restrain her next words. “The last time Ben’s father left, he ran off with a stripper.”

  And he’d run off a dozen times with women who had other occupations before that. “Would it have been better if she was a Sunday school teacher?”

  “Not for me, but I might have been less of a bitch to you if that hadn’t been stuck in my craw for years before I could take it out on you, and I’m sorry for that.”

  An apology was the last thing Tally had expected to come out of this conversation, and being hit with it stunned her. “Okay.”

  “I haven’t forgiven you for breaking my son’s heart, though.”

  “I’m not thrilled with myself, either.”

  “Good. You’re not perfect, but you’re better than the ex-wife. Or the one who took his cat to a shelter because she didn’t want white hair on her all-black wardrobe.”

  Ben liked cats? She’d barely come to terms with the golf, and now this. “Please tell me he dumped her and got his cat back.”

  “He got his cat back. She said he was insensitive and selfish and left him.”

  They couldn’t all be nutcases. Or was it true he picked bad ones so he wouldn’t get attached? He seemed so well adjusted compared to her, it was hard to imagine he’d engage in any of the self-destructive behaviors she knew by rote.

  She didn’t want to imagine it. She hated the thought of anyone hurting him — including himself.

  His mother shrugged. “And so what if he is too good for you? You need to learn to be selfish, hon. If you both want the same thing, go for it, even if you think it might be bad for him. You might be wrong, but even if you’re right, let somebody treat you decently until it’s time to say, ‘I told you so.’”

  Of course her dad supported her following her heart, but she’d never expected to get an endorsement from Ben’s mother. That was an encouraging sign, and she needed all the encouragement she could get right now. “You don’t think it’s too late?”

  “He’s a good boy and he loves you. You’d
have to be pretty determined to make that add up to too broken to fix.”

  “Would you approve if I did fix it?”

  “I’d have to see you do something other than hurt him before I could say that, but I don’t disapprove. Maybe your second thoughts will slow him down enough that he doesn’t plunge over every cliff to see what’s at the bottom so I can worry less about him. That’s a start.”

  The start had been a long time ago, when she met a boy so different from her, bold and enthusiastic and unafraid, she couldn’t help but be drawn into orbit around him. After thousands of wrong turns, she’d ended up back at the starting line. Now, she was making sure her shoelaces were tied so she didn’t fall on her face when she took the next step. Then, she’d worry about following the correct route this time. “Did you just come in to be a meddling mom, or did you need something?”

  “Mostly the meddling thing.” Janine looked over the wares. “Do you have any of those ginger cookies? I blew my chance to try one the other day.”

  “Sorry. I can put Jules to work on them if you want to come back later.”

  Janine leaned to her left to look into the kitchen. “Training your replacement?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Plan E. Better late than never.

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Maybe I was testing how easily I could be discouraged.” So far, those affected had been cooperative. Tally was unnerved by how smoothly the plan had gone up to this point. She’d been looking for a minor challenge to see if she could stay the course when she hit a bump. Janine Fielder was nothing if not a challenge.

  “How did you do?”

  She wavered a few times, but that was okay. She was making big, scary changes after years of stagnation. It was natural to second guess her steps. As long as they were taking her in Ben’s direction, though, they were good steps. “C-plus.”

  Failure to be perfect wasn’t failure at everything. C-plus was good enough to pass. Better than having learned nothing and getting every answer wrong. There was room for improvement but no danger of flunking out when she made another mistake or two.

  She sent Janine off with a dozen peanut butter and a dozen apple-oatmeal cookies and a promise to drop off some ginger cookies on her way home.

  Having survived that encounter, she went back to the kitchen to check on Julie.

  Two dozen cinnamon-free snickerdoodles cooled on a wire rack, glittering with a crust of sugar. Julie pointed with pride. “They’re pretty even without color.”

  “True. Taste one.”

  She did, then ran her tongue around her teeth as if scrubbing off the taste would be that easy. “How can a warm cookie suck this much?”

  “Live and learn. The whiter the ingredients, the weaker the flavor.”

  “So these are pointless without the cinnamon.”

  Pointless was harsh. “I bet a bunch of lemon zest in the dough would put a point on them.”

  “I can’t fiddle with recipes like you do.”

  Tally said the same thing two years ago. Then she learned, mostly by forgetting to add an ingredient or follow a process, how baking worked, and from there, she started experimenting to relieve the tedium of preparing the same menu on the same schedule every single day. “Sure you can. Just write down every change you make in case it’s brilliant. Sucks to do something that makes your eyes roll back and not be able to replicate it.”

  Julie went to the sink to wash her hands. “Voice of experience?”

  “Cookie dough cheesecake. Not bits of dough sprinkled in the cheese, either. The filling itself was buttery, brown-sugary goodness.” Her delusions of becoming a celebrity cheesecake chef had lasted right up until she couldn’t make another one like it. “I have to get going. Put a batch of ginger cookies on your to-do list. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  Julie twisted a towel between her hands under the pretense of drying them. “What if I screw something up while you’re gone?”

  “Then we’ll have something to talk about when I get back.” Tally had none of her worry. If she left and never came back, the bakery would be in good hands. “If anyone gives you a hard time, tell them to go to Sterling and see what asking for free food gets them.”

  Julie snapped the towel at her butt. “Why did you wait until now to grow a spine, when I won’t get to enjoy watching you use it?”

  Tally grabbed her backpack and headed for the door. “If this meeting doesn’t go according to plan, you might be seeing it for a while yet.”

  A nurse escorted Tally from the lobby of the assisted-living facility to Stella’s room.

  After the nurse left, Stella blew a stream of smoke out the open window. “I was beginning to think you’d turned into a vampire. I haven’t seen you during daylight hours since you took over the shop.”

  “You know better than anyone what the job is like.”

  “It didn’t take me two years at it to figure out the necessity of taking a day off once in a while.”

  “Well, back in the old days, people could hitch their mules across the street and buy food at the general store if the bakery was closed.”

  “Sure, pick on an old lady to make yourself feel better that your twenties are over. Sit your aging ass down. Hovering makes me nervous.” She waited until Tally followed orders. “For future reference, your day off shouldn’t include a visit to your boss.”

  “It’s not a day off. I’m heading back when I leave here. I left Julie Diaz in charge.”

  “Did you now?”

  She should have cleared it with Stella before leaving her business in strange hands, but asking opened the possibility of being told no, and she might not have enough momentum to get over that bump. “She can follow a recipe, she has experience with time and inventory management, she has a vested interest in the community, and she gets shit done.”

  “I’m not new in town. I know Jules.” Stella ground out her cigarette and dropped the butt into a Tab can on the bedside table. “That’s some sales pitch, but you know business is too slow to justify two employees.”

  “We were thinking she could be the only employee. Vacation time from the warehouse is giving her a paycheck while she tries it out.”

  “She hasn’t decided if she wants the job?”

  “She said she was interested the first day and hasn’t come to her senses since then, but your bakery, your call.”

  Stella arched her penciled-on brows. “Did somebody make you a better offer?”

  Tally picked at a pill on the chair’s upholstered arm. “I turned it down twice. I don’t know if it’s still available.”

  “Must want you pretty bad to offer twice. You didn’t have to come all this way to tell me you handled everything. I trust your judgment.”

  Tally’s heart fluttered at the praise. “This is the only respectable job I’ve ever had. Can I use you as a reference?”

  “Tell anyone to call me. I’ll tell them they’d be stupid to let you get away.”

  Relief hurt her insides more than the suspense had. “Thank you.”

  “Even Ben Fielder.”

  Her pulse faltered at having her intentions exposed so effortlessly, but she’d get over it. She had nothing to hide anymore. “Not missing any of the gossip out here, I see.”

  “No, but I don’t need gossip to know that boy has loved you forever. Didn’t seem any different when he came to see me.”

  “When was that?”

  “Day or two after the handsome idiot left the keys in it.”

  Probably the same day he went back to his symbolic dead tree and painstakingly carved CRYSTAL CASTLE + BEN FIELDER. Once Tally had committed to plan E, she’d braved possums with the intent of spelling it out herself. She had to settle for etching a heart around their names in order to add her mark to their tree.

  Of course he hadn’t been declaring his love here or there after Tally threw it back in his face. She didn’t know if there was anything left of it now.

  But she w
ould cross that drawbridge — or not — when she came to it. First, she had to get there, and this was the hardest part of the plan so far. Without Stella’s help, she’d need a plan F. “I also came to ask you for another handout.”

  “How much startup money do you need?”

  Stella always understood more than was said and was so matter-of-fact about seeing right through her, it barely stung to be so transparent.

  Tally reached into her bag and withdrew a folded sheet of paper, on which she had broken down her lowest estimate of expenses for the bare necessities for the first month.

  Stella glanced at the handwritten figures and went for her checkbook without comment.

  Tally hated to ask for conditions, but not as much as she’d hate defaulting on the loan. “Can we negotiate repayment terms after I get a job and have a better idea how much I can afford to pay you back each month?”

  Stella scribbled Tally’s future on a check. “Don’t be stupid. I have more money than I’ll ever need. Keep it.”

  “You’re using that money to keep the bakery open. Doing good things for people who don’t have as much as they need.”

  “Such as yourself.”

  Tally was trying to get out of the mire of thinking nothing would ever change. Things could get better. Would get better. One way or another. “I’m going to pay you back so you can help someone who needs it more.”

  “I suppose there are worse ways to be stubborn.” Stella handed her the check.

  Fortunately, Tally glanced at it before shoving it in her bag. She thrust the check back at Stella. “There’s an extra zero on this.”

  If the woman multiplied every number she saw by ten, her calm about the bakery’s finances made a lot more sense.

  “I won’t have you living on the corner of Driveby Shooting Street and Crackhouse Avenue because it’s the thriftiest option.” Stella flipped her hand, refusing to reclaim the check in Tally’s outstretched hand. “If you don’t need all of it, stick it in a CD and let it earn a few pennies before you send it back.”

  Tally held the precious paper rectangle with her fingertips, as if it would evaporate if she revealed herself to be greedy. “I’m overwhelmed.”