by Molly Harper, Stephanie Haefner, Liora Blake, Gabra Zackman, Andrea Laurence, Colette Auclair
I hear the television turn off and heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs. A floorboard creaks outside my room, followed by a knock on the door.
“Baby girl?”
“Yeah?” I say, preparing myself for another one of my father’s infamous surprises.
“Oh good, you’re here.” He pokes his head around the doorway. His graying hair is sticking up at all angles, and the skin around his eyes is dark and wrinkled as a raisin. “You know better than to run off like that. The Spoons doesn’t wait for anyone.”
“Neither does my career.”
“Then it’s time you reprioritize. And don’t think I didn’t recognize Wes tryin’ to distract me. I may be aging, baby girl, but I’m not stupid. Now before you get buried under quicksand with all this diner business, mind doing your old man a favor and meeting me at the lawyer’s office tomorrow afternoon? There’s some paperwork I need you to look at.”
I sigh. “Sure. Leave me a note with the address.” What’s the point of arguing? He doesn’t listen to me anyway.
“I scheduled myself for the early shift tomorrow, and there’s some banana pudding in the fridge if you feel so inclined. Sleep tight.” He winks before shutting the door with a soft click.
“Don’t let the sour candies bite,” I finish, reciting our old nightly bedtime ritual as I listen to him pad down the hallway.
Outside, the moon hangs low in the sky. The overgrown oak tree scratches against the bedroom window, the wind rustling its leaves. My eyes land on the stone mansion beyond the fence where Nick used to live.
Do you want to count the licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop with me?
Those are the first words I ever spoke to him, hours after his family moved in next door, the moment he slipped into my heart. We were an unlikely pair from the start. I was the spunky five-year-old girl who spent her time fooling around in the diner’s kitchen, while he was the golden boy—two years older and son of the beloved Dr. Greg and Charlotte Preston—who attended private school with Wes and dressed like he belonged in a yuppie children’s clothing catalog.
Kneeling on the bed, I touch the thumbtack wedged into the windowsill, once a part of our secret messaging system consisting of a pair of recycled soup cans and a long piece of yarn that ran between our windows. My mind flickers to a memory of a gap-toothed boy and a pigtailed little girl, soup-can phones pressed against their ears in the dead of night, trying not to laugh too loudly so they wouldn’t get caught.
Pieces of Nick are scattered everywhere. My eyes lock on one of the photos pinned to the bulletin board. With shaking hands, I pull it free. An ache spreads through my chest.
The picture was taken at the base of Turner Falls, the lush Arbuckle Mountains flowing with clear, spring-fed streams behind us. Annabelle was piggybacking on Wes, hands resting on his shoulders, a cheek pressed against his. They were bright smiles and freckled noses and neon sunglasses. Beside them, Nick and I were wrapped up in each other’s arms, not a gap between us. His eyes were closed as he kissed my forehead, while mine were squinting against the sun, a silly, stupid grin on my face, my blond hair dancing in the breeze.
I remember that Labor Day camping trip so clearly. Wes had driven the four of us north in his Jeep until SMU and the Dallas city lights faded into Oklahoma country sky. The guys constructed two tents while Annabelle and I unloaded the car. For three days, we splashed around in swimming holes and explored caves and hiked the trails that ran through the park. At night beneath the stars, with the sounds of waterfalls and the wilderness surrounding us, we told ghost stories and sang along as Nick strummed on my father’s old Taylor acoustic guitar and roasted marshmallows around the campfire. And when bedtime came, Annabelle and Wes crawled into one tent while Nick and I retired to the other, spending the hours we should have been sleeping memorizing every inch of one another’s skin.
The version of me in this photo would tell you without hesitation that Nick and I would last forever, we’d been so swept up in each other.
There was a time when one look into his deep blue eyes would make me feel like I was drowning, when a smile from him would send my heart skittering in my chest, when a feather-light touch from his calloused hand would ignite a fire inside me.
When I believed he would never let me go.
But that was the love of youth and idealism. All-consuming feelings like that could never keep a relationship together—they certainly weren’t enough to save us. There’s something to be said for stability, companionship, comfort.
Everything I have with Drew, I tell myself as I pin the picture to the board and take a deep breath, the ache in my chest dulling. Everything I want.
FOUR
THE NEXT MORNING, armed with an arsenal of binders and papers I stole from the diner’s office, I return to the Prickly Pear. It’s busier than yesterday, but I’m still able to snag the corner table near the windows. With its purple-painted brick, cascading chandeliers constructed entirely from recycled eyeglasses, and vintage movie posters decoupaged onto the floor, there’s a coziness to this place that helps me concentrate.
If I plan on overseeing diner business from Chicago, I need to devote some time familiarizing myself with the diner’s records. Otherwise my father will be badgering me with phone calls every two seconds while he recuperates from surgery when my focus should be on executing the product launch for Kingsbury Enterprises.
I order my usual chai and get to work. Only everything is disorganized. Payroll records are outdated and incomplete. Daily sales figures are missing for weeks at a time. Purchase order requests are only partially filled out, and even then, with incorrect shipping instructions. Distributors’ catalogs are ripped with chunks of pages missing and several suppliers have sent outstanding payment notices for deliveries made months ago.
So much for the diner running on autopilot, I think as I flip through page after page of chaos. How does it even function with record keeping like this? Is it even turning a profit?
The sound of hollering yanks my attention away. I glance around and see four guys that look like they stepped straight off a bus from Nashville—guitars slung across their backs, cowboy hats pushed down low over their eyes, tattoos covering their arms—jabbing each other’s shoulders and laughing as they walk into the back room, where the stage is set up.
I recognize them as members of the Randy Hollis Band from the various posters hanging around the Prickly Pear. They must be performing tonight. I remember in high school and college watching musicians shuffle through this place, paying their dues, living off tips stuffed in empty coffee mugs, cutting their teeth trying to make their dreams a reality.
The same way Nick did, I think as sudden images of him playing the songs he wrote to a crowded room crash into me. I shake them away. I don’t want to remember him. Or what happened between us.
I turn back around and continue sorting through the diner’s files, keeping my focus where it belongs. Three hours later, I’m still trying to make sense out of something, anything, in this mess. My father’s chicken scratch, haphazardly scribbled in the margins of almost every page, mocks me. Claiming defeat, I toss my pen onto the table and stretch my arms above my head. A bowl of teeth-rotting cereal calls my name.
In the room adjacent to the café is Couch Potato Corner, the perfect place to catch a quick mental break and where I spent many late nights with Annabelle after all-day studyfests. Distressed leather sofas surround old-school televisions, complete with built-in legs and rabbit ears. A breakfast bar flanks the back wall filled with glazed doughnuts, cereals reminiscent of childhood, and Eggo waffles begging for a toaster oven and a bath in Mrs. Butterworth’s. Six dollars and thirty-five cents for all you can eat.
I pay my admission to the barista behind the counter and contemplate my choices. After pouring a bowl of Lucky Charms, I curl up on one of the couches, flipping the television to cartoons. I’m so distracted by an anvil being dropped on a coyote’s head I nearly miss my cell phone vibrating. Catching it on
the last ring, I grab it off the side table and answer without bothering to look at the name on the screen.
“Hello?” I say, shoving of spoonful of pastel marshmallows into my mouth.
“You better be kidnapped by Goonies.”
And out comes the mouthful of marshmallows.
“Annabelle!” I say, scrambling to put the television on mute. “Hey!”
“Cut the bullshit, Lillie. When were you going to tell me you were in town?”
I bite my lip. “It was a last-minute trip. I got in yesterday.”
The sounds of Dallas traffic filter through the phone. From somewhere far off, I can hear the ringing bell of the McKinney Avenue Trolley. I imagine her strolling around Uptown, carrying glossy bags overflowing with linen swatches and stationery samples, phone pressed to her ear as she pops in and out of boutiques.
“You’re lucky I love you,” she says, then changes the subject with her usual abruptness. “Your fairy godmother, Sullivan Grace, woke me up at the ass crack of dawn this morning.” In Annabelle terms “ass crack of dawn” means any time before ten. Welcome to the cushy life of a wedding and event planner.
“Okay,” I say. “And?”
“And she knows you’re in town,” Annabelle says, her voice turning muffled. I hear her shouting at someone in the background.
“Please tell me you’re joking,” I say, louder than what is appropriate for any indoor space in an attempt to talk over whatever squabble she’s having.
Seconds pass of more muffled arguing. Finally she sighs into the phone and says, “Sorry about that. A damn bike messenger nearly decapitated me. Anyway, if you’re at the Prickly Pear, you better run and hide while you can. You know how pushy that old woman can be.”
As if on cue, a voice as sweet as southern tea drawls my name, emphasizing each syllable. I’d recognize that Charleston accent anywhere.
I cringe. “Annabelle, she’s here. I need to call you back.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “We’ll catch up later at the committee meeting. Don’t be late.”
Huh?
Plastering a smile on my face, I set the cereal bowl aside and haul myself up from the couch. Sullivan Grace Hasell—better known as Ms. Bless Your Heart for her uncanny ability to insult the sin out of someone but mask it as a compliment swathed in a little southern flair—stands before me in a floral couture dress. Her caramel-colored hair is styled in an elegant bun that accentuates her long, graceful neck.
“There you are!” She encases me in a hug. I breathe in her perfume, a mix of pears and freesia, the same scent she’s worn since forever, as she drawls on, “Where Annabelle said you’d be.”
Of course it is.
“Hello, Ms. Hasell,” I say with exaggerated cheer.
“I hardly recognized you, dear. You look stressed. Are you stressed?” She cups my face in her hands. “Oh, you know what I think it is? It’s the way you’re wearing your hair now, all pulled back tight in that ponytail. But never mind about that,” she says, peering at me through long, full lashes. “You’re looking lovely as ever, even with those fine lines around your eyes, bless your heart. It’s nice to see you haven’t let those midwesterners pressure you into the Botox craze.”
“Actually, I opted for liposuction instead,” I deadpan. “Sucked the fat right out of me.”
Sullivan Grace ignores me. “Though you really should try a lighter color palette, Lillie. That black sweater makes you look haggard. Not to mention it dulls out the soft blue of your eyes.” She collects an imaginary speck of lint between her thumb and pointer finger and discards it to the floor. “Elizabeth would throw a fit if she knew you’d abandoned your apron for those drab pinstripes.”
My heart does that dropping-into-my-stomach thing again as anger swirls inside me. I rub my temples in slow, precise circles as I battle the headache forming from the mere mention of my mother’s name.
Sullivan Grace was my mother’s college roommate and closest friend before my mother went out for butter on my third birthday and never came back. But that didn’t stop Sullivan Grace from sticking around. Growing up, I think she saw me as some kind of charity case. Or maybe she was worried that since I no longer had a female figure in my life, I’d end up shaving my head and joining the circus. Or perhaps, in some convoluted way, she felt like she owed it to my mother to make sure I turned out on the right side of normal. Whatever the case, Sullivan Grace has always been there, lingering in the background, pushing my buttons with her veiled reprimands and meddling ways.
“Oh well, it’s not important now. It’s marvelous to see you,” she says, gushing like a shaken soda can. “Jackson said you’re moving home.”
“Actually, I’m only here for a short visit.”
“Nonsense,” she says, waving me off with a flick of her wrist. “You’re needed here.”
“That’s kind of you, but the diner is better off without me.”
“I’m not talking about the diner, dear, though Jackson did make me the most delectable eggs Benedict this morning. He really is the sweetest man,” she says, smiling like a coy schoolgirl. It’s no secret that Sullivan Grace has always liked my father. “No, no. I’m talking about the Upper Crust.”
“Upper what?”
“Honestly, Lillie, have you heard nothing I’ve said? Sometimes I don’t know where your head is at,” she says, adjusting the strand of heirloom pearls around her neck. “The Upper Crust is Junior League’s annual charity baking competition. You’ll make Elizabeth’s peach cobbler recipe, of course.”
Baking competition?
Peach cobbler?
“Are you crazy?” I say, my voice rising. “I’m not doing that.”
“Don’t be silly, dear,” she says. “Jackson already signed you up!”
My mouth drops open and a disbelieving laugh spills out. The jingling bell above the door interrupts my protest. A voice I never thought I’d hear again flitters into the Prickly Pear. It’s a voice I heard nearly every day for twenty years until the night everything broke apart. Nick’s voice.
The blood drains from my face, and panic bubbles up in my chest, crushing my lungs. My heart pounds a two-beat bass line, so loud I’m sure even the barista can hear it. A roaring, rushing noise fills my ears.
When I left Dallas, he was a second-year resident at Baylor Medical Hospital, sleeping on cots, living in scrubs, and eating cold cafeteria food. All so he could someday call himself a surgeon. Now he’s here, in the last place I expected.
Inhaling sharply, I keep my focus on Sullivan Grace’s pearl necklace. Don’t look at him. I peek anyway. I can’t help it. He looks exactly as I remember, but older and somehow even more handsome in that striking way I’ve always found devastating. A hum of electricity runs through me.
He’s standing in the doorway chatting with Candy Cotton, a diner regular from my high school days. Hovering at least two heads over her, he nods politely at something she says. Candy must be pushing ninety and almost deaf by now. I watch as she pats his cheeks with gnarled fingers, then pulls him down by an earlobe, yelling something in his face that brings out his signature crooked grin, followed by a laugh.
My breath catches as I gape at him, mesmerized. Somewhere in the background I hear Sullivan Grace droning on, her words a monotone “wah-wah-wah” like Miss Othmar from the Peanuts comics. I’m too fascinated by the sound of his laughter to speak. It comes from deep in his chest—full and real.
That laugh was once my favorite thing about him. The warmth of it. How it made the world seem limitless and bright. But like everything else that fell by the wayside once he started medical school, that laugh eventually faded away into silence.
A weight settles on me and I jump, blinking at Sullivan Grace’s hand resting on my arm.
“Are you paying attention, dear?”
When I don’t answer, she snaps her fingers in front of my nose and scrutinizes me like I’ve stuck my head inside an oven and turned on the broiler.
Maybe
I have. Nothing else makes sense.
Sullivan Grace sighs. “Lillie Claire?”
My name hangs in the air. Nick’s gaze shifts in my direction, and the smile disappears from his face.
A down-home, feel-good Southern romance, From Scratch explores one woman’s journey back home to Dallas, Texas, where her family and friends are cooking up a plan that doesn’t quite suit her tastes . . .
From Scratch
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CHAPTER ONE
See a New Resilience Emerge
Wow, she looks just like your ex-girlfriend, doesn’t she?” the casting director said, a little too loudly, as I walked out of my last audition.
I knew right then that I didn’t have the part.
I was always told that not getting parts wasn’t personal. But how was that not personal?
That familiar pang of disappointment twisted through my stomach, though I was only auditioning for the role of “star chicken” in a traveling children’s show. It wasn’t that I wanted this particular part so badly. I had spent so many years chasing my dream that any role would have validated my status as a professional actress. Even a floppy chicken.
Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. My last two roles had been a potato in an experimental theater production, and a polyester-clad fern in a commercial for plant food. At this rate, my tombstone would read Highly Trained Performing Salad. At least in this case, I wouldn’t have to endure the agony of waiting for a phone to ring and the implied “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
It was a warm day in April, and the streets of New York City were buzzing with people who actually worked during the day, rushing to get their lunches. I decided to walk off my disappointment, since my only obligation that afternoon was to sell subscription packages at Manhattan Theatre Club. Of my various odd jobs—the others were market research focus groups, Sex and the City tour guide gigs (hey, it was performing), and dog walking—theater fundraising was the most professional. But I needed all of them to piece together my rent.