Whole Latte Life

by Joanne DeMaio

  Rachel hasn’t said a word and hasn’t taken her eyes off him. So Sara Beth looks back at him to be sure. He wears a heavy watch, one with the chronograph dial like Tom bought, and he’s tanned, but oh boy, it’s him. There’s only one way to rescue Rachel. She swiftly kicks her under the table. And it’s just right, that perfected girlfriend kick, she can tell by the way Rachel jumps and slides over, and when he sits beside her, her hand reaches to his face.

  “Michael,” Rachel says into his smiling kiss. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe what?”

  She pulls back. “That you’re here!” She touches his cheek before looking across the table. “Both of you are here. Sara Beth? This is Michael Micelli. Michael? My best friend Sara Beth Riley.”

  “I think we’ve had the pleasure before.” Michael extends his hand.

  “Oh please.” She shakes his hand, surprised that it’s cold with nerves. Cold while a bead of perspiration slips down his temple. “It would mean so much to me if we could start over?”

  “You bet.”

  “Oh, you are so nice. No wonder my friend here is smitten. Coffee?”

  He nods and turns to Rachel beside him. “Smitten?” he asks with a wink, his cap in his hands, which haven’t stopped turning it over and over again.

  “Huh,” Rachel says while Sara Beth motions to the waitress for another cup, then fills it from the carafe. “Maybe a little,” she admits.

  Michael sips the coffee and Rachel touches his cheek again. “You haven’t shaved it off?”

  “Not yet.”

  She looks at his forehead. “You’re sweating. Is everything okay?”

  “Just a little warm,” he says, shifting in his seat, glancing at Sara Beth.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Rachel asks.

  “I haven’t gone back.” He picks up his cup and sets it down without drinking any.

  “Is everyone all right? Summer is okay?”

  “She is,” he says, snagging a piece of her cake. “She got in to the Marine Studies Program, so she’s pretty psyched.”

  “Wow! Go Summer! And Joe and Lena?”

  “Everyone’s fine.” He spears another hunk of cake, so Sara Beth takes his cup off the saucer and slides a fresh piece of cake on that. He nods at her, then turns back to Rachel. “I had something to take care of.”

  “Oh,” Rachel says, sounding left out of things. Absence has a way of doing that. She told Sara Beth just the night before that the time came to decide which absence she’d prefer: Addison or New York.

  “Sara,” Michael says. “I was sorry to hear about the fire. It must have been tough.”

  It takes her a moment to get her thoughts about the fire together. She’s still sizing up Rachel’s new guy. But something seems off; he’s perspiring around his hairline, which he keeps dabbing at, and he’s tapping his foot.

  “I lost everything,” she finally says. Sometimes something is too huge to put into words, like this, right now. “I can’t say how grateful I am to have Rachel as my friend. She saved me in more ways than one.”

  “Here, here,” Rachel says, forking a piece of chocolate cake. She sits back straight and eyes Michael sitting with them at their coffee table, pressing his fork into the cake crumbs. “And you. What are you doing here today? And how did you track me down?”

  “Tracking you down was the easy part. I stopped at your house first, and when you weren’t there, I thought coffee.” He turns to Sara Beth. “Now for the hard part. Sara. Would you mind if I borrowed your friend?” He clears his throat and rolls his shoulder. “Just for a little while, outside?”

  “Actually I’ve got to run,” she answers. “I promised the kids some shopping.”

  Michael turns to Rachel. “Can we take a walk?”

  Sara Beth motions for Rachel to go. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to finish my coffee.”

  “You’re sure?” Rachel asks as Michael slides from the booth, sending his fork clattering to the floor. “What about that painting you wanted to show me?”

  “Painting? Oh we’ll go see it later. Really, it’s all right.”

  “I’ll call you,” Rachel says. “Promise.”

  “Have fun, you two.”

  “It was good seeing you again, Sara.” Michael picks up his sunglasses from the table. “And good luck with that shop.”

  “Come and visit when it’s opened.” She stands and gives him a hug so that Rachel can’t hear her whisper to him. “You take care of her.”

  He nods, looking closely at her. And what she figures, with her wrap sundress, cork sandals, makeup, and, okay, feather earrings, is that she must look a lot different from the sorry state she was in walking into The Plaza that May morning.

  “Thanks for the cake,” Rachel says. She gives Sara Beth a quick kiss. “And happy birthday, sweetie. Forty’s a good year. Don’t worry! You’ll see.”

  The couple walks outdoors and when Sara Beth catches sight of them on The Green, it feels like she’s holding on to her friend a little longer, but a little less. Then, reaching into her hobo bag, she pulls out her leather journal.

  Dear Mom,

  I know, deep down, Tom’s not to blame. I do know. But if we’re going to make our marriage work, there’s got to be some changes. For starters, I’m definitely buying him a pair of those aviators.

  Michael does have a reason for being here. Seeing her now, he knows Coach was right. Make it special. They stop at his pickup to retrieve a package, then cross over to The Green and sit on a bench near the fountain.

  “You really haven’t been back to work?” Rachel asks. She touches a drop of perspiration on his face. “You’re still warm.”

  “I had to extend my vacation a few days. Something important came up.”

  “Important?”

  “It started with your phone call last Thursday.” He stands then, looks at her, and sits again. There’d been a few uncomfortable silences in that talk, that’s what he remembers now.

  “My phone call?”

  “Yes. When you said you needed to help Sara Beth and weren’t sure when you could make it to the cottage. Then you had your meeting for new teachers this week. I understood about helping Sara. Mostly it had to do with the meeting.”

  “The meeting’s this afternoon. One o’clock.”

  “Well, you need to go, but maybe under a different pretense. Because,” he takes a long breath, slow exhale, “when you told me about the meeting and about your job, I got to thinking about how you’re starting a new career and making changes in your life. And I realized it’s time I made changes too. There’s something I’ve been putting off.”

  “You’re not quitting your job?”

  “Nothing like that. And it’s not school either. What I’ve been putting off is taking chances. I haven’t taken one in years. That bullet had enough chance to last.”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  “Now it’s time.” He pulls his cap off his head and resettles it twice. “Here.” He hands her the small, flat box. His foot starts tapping, his baseball cap is pulled low against the bright sun, his aviators shade his eyes.

  Rachel lays her open hands on top of it. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

  “I’ll know in a minute. Open the box.”

  Rachel shakes the box a little before pulling off the cover and moving the white tissue.

  Michael leans forward, his elbows on his legs, hands clasped between his knees, and after a long moment, looks back at her.

  Her fingers lightly trace the wooden oval cottage sign, painted deep navy blue, the color of the twilight sky above Long Island Sound. A gold shooting star curves across the top of the sign, a trail of glittering gold stardust sparkling behind it.

  But it is after she reads the name, Wish I May, painted in gold below the shooting star, when Michael looks away. If the answer’s no, he doesn’t want to see her face shift to sadness or regret. Doesn’t want to remember that moment.

  “Is this what I think
it is?” she asks.

  “What do you think it is?”

  “A cottage sign?”

  “That’s right,” he says, pulling off his cap and fidgeting with it between his knees.

  “For me?”

  “Yes. For you.”

  “But…I get the feeling a really big something goes along with this.”

  He studies the stitching on the Yankees cap and clears his throat. “It does.”

  Rachel leans on her knees, too, and watches him. “This is really for me?”

  “Well, there is one condition.” He pulls off his sunglasses. Perspiration is running down his cheek now. He knows that. He knows his heart is beating fast. He knows he’s at a loss for words, and that he’s afraid, too. Afraid of her answer. He’s so aware of every single damn thing right now. No deep breaths, no self-talk are going to stop this fear.

  “A condition?”

  “Yes. If you don’t mind a modest diamond, because, well, my finances are a little tied up with that.” He nods at the sign. “But I wondered if, I don’t know, maybe instead of having this long-distance thing, maybe you’d consider marrying me.”

  Rachel looks at him, then drops her gaze to the Wish I May cottage sign and doesn’t speak.

  “I know I have issues to work out, and I am. I’m getting regular therapy, and doing my exercises.”

  Still she’s silent, still looking at the sign.

  “Help me out here, Rach,” he finally says, his voice low. “I’m having a tough time.”

  “I’m the first chance you’re taking since the night you were shot?”

  He nods.

  “You bought that cottage, didn’t you? Little Gull.”

  “I haven’t closed yet, but the contract’s signed. Oh, and I painted it.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing this week, instead of working?”

  “Yes.” He thinks how the whole time he painted the little cottage, every second on the ladder, every bit of sanding the window trim, every eave he dabbed the brush into, he wondered if she would say yes, if he could change, if he should go back to school, which he decided no on that one, and then worried if that would make her say no.

  “What color?” She can’t take her eyes off of him now.

  He nods at the sign. “Pale yellow. The color of a star.” That night in the rowboat when she closed her eyes on the first star, that’s when he knew he had to do this.

  “You didn’t,” she says.

  “I did.”

  “And you want to marry me?” Rachel asks, moving her hand to her heart.

  “More than anything, Rachel. Okay? When you told me about the teachers’ meeting today, I thought I’d better hurry. Before you got yourself settled in the position. This way the Board of Ed would have enough time.”

  “Time?”

  “Yes.” He stops. “It shouldn’t be so hard for me to say this, except I guess I’m really afraid of your answer, which, by the way, I’m still waiting for. But yes, time. The Board of Ed will need time to find your replacement. Because this is what I want, you and me. Every day, every night. At home, at the beach. I thought maybe I could ask you to marry me and come to New York instead of starting your new job here. I’m working on changing things, you know, with my nerves and all. I know it’s a problem. But I’m trying. So if you need to think about it, I understand. I mean, it’s a lot all at once.”

  Rachel runs her fingers across the painted sign that means a little summer cottage. “You want to do this right away?” she asks.

  “The sooner the better.”

  “Yes.” Her tears won’t stop.

  “What?”

  “Yes, yes, a million yeses. I’m going to take that chance right with you.”

  He takes her face in his hands and caresses her cheek with his thumb.

  “And yes, I’m crying,” she says, laying her hand on his checking hand. “I’m crying.”

  “That’s why I’m wondering if you’re sure. Because you know it would mean leaving your home. I didn’t know if you could do that. I just didn’t know.”

  “A pretty house, a coffee shop, that can’t keep me here. I want to be there with you, I’m so ready. But it’s important that you know something else.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “This cottage. My piece of heaven?”

  “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Well. I thought it was, but really, I’ve found heaven all summer long. Bowling, in the city, at the beach, even here.” She stops and kisses him once, then again, longer. “I love you.”

  “That’s what matters, sweetheart.” He kisses her tenderly, never believing that she’d settle for a regular guy like him, quirks and all, nerves and all. Rachel slips her arms around his neck and it takes him back to the Empire State Building, eighty-six floors up, gazing out at the Manhattan sky on a cool, May night. It seems so long ago now, waiting for a wayward friend to return.

  And as he stood with her then, eighty-six floors up, as close to heaven as you can get in Manhattan, one thought moved him. It was the same thought that bothered him right after he’d been shot. Standing with Rachel on the observation deck of the Empire State Building worrying for Sara Beth, that What if crossed his mind.

  What if? What if the gunman’s hand was minutely lower? What if Sara Beth had never run away? What if she came back and Rachel took her home the next day? Whether he imagined the bullet’s deadlier path or losing Rachel from his life, both questions scared him the same.

  Wishes? On a star? He never believed in wishes and all that sentimental stuff. Fate is predetermined, some people say. In the stars, is how they put it.

  Picturing the Manhattan sky, remembering that May night behind his closed eyes now, he pulls Rachel a little closer on Addison’s Green, kisses her a little deeper and loves her a little more.

  Epilogue

  Fall came early this year. Thick sweaters are pulled out of storage, storm windows dropped in place, even the furnace kicks on at night. Sara Beth looks past the lace curtains and wonders where the summer went. What has taken a lifetime to accomplish seems compressed into the past eight breathless weeks, the days slipping by like sand through her fingers.

  Circa 1765’s Grand Opening went off without a hitch on the first of October. They served hot apple cider, cinnamon pastries and fresh apple pie. Nature painted the maple trees red and yellow, a hint of woodsmoke floated past, and the sunshine was October gold. Fall tourists flocked to the shop, coming inside on the chilly weekend like relatives overstaying a holiday visit. Which is all she ever really wanted.

  Except now she’s missing Rachel. From a tabletop of framed photographs, she picks up one of her and Rach on the day of Rachel’s Bachelorette Party, laughing, heads tipped together, eyes sparkling with mischief as they finally got their paintings.

  “Are you nervous?” Sara Beth had asked that September afternoon.

  Rachel winced, but watched still, riveted. “A little bit.”

  “Not about this! About your wedding!”

  “Oh, no. Everything about it is so right. I can’t wait.”

  “Good. You two are perfect together.” Sara Beth watched the needle shape a nautical star on Rachel’s wrist. They sat in the studio, a big silver lamp shining brightly on Rachel’s laid-out arm, the artist bent intently at her wrist. “But I wasn’t sure if you’d be game for this.”

  “I always wanted a tattoo, you know. Just a tiny one. But then I worried about if it would hurt. And I wondered what people would think. And there’s the health risk. So I’d just plain chicken out. And now, I’m really doing it.” She turned her head away a little, but kept her eyes on the needle piercing her skin. “I never dreamt this was the painting you meant.”

  “You okay?” the tattooist asked, lifting the needle. “Deep breath.”

  “Feels like a sunburn,” Rachel said.

  “That’s normal. Actually, that’s pretty good. Some people feel it worse,” he reassured her.

  “I want the
same star done on me,” Sara Beth said. “Like our own constellation.”

  “Sometimes I wish it would never end, these good times, you know?” Rachel asked.

  Sara Beth watched the artist overlap the color lines. What he told them is this: The ink actually goes into the second layer of skin, the dermis, below the epidermis. This skin layer is sensitive, containing many nerve endings. But it doesn’t shed layers like the epidermis does, so the tattoo ink will stay permanently in place, with little fading, for life.

  And what she knows is this: Everything is permanent, particularly the sensitive things, the ones we feel. The scrapbook memories. Her friendship with Rachel. The star on her wrist, the star in the sky, heavy with endless wishes.

  So she has that now. Every day ends with her leaving a brass lamp turned on. She’s always on that boat with Rachel, leaning on the rail, crossing Long Island Sound. Tom is ever on his knee in the bright sunlight, slipping a diamond ring on her finger. She walks daily out of that Manhattan restaurant. Her heart will always drop with Owen’s pregnancy. Claude’s fingers forever weave daisies and wildflowers together outside the horse stable at Chateau du Masnegre. Her mother, oh her dear sweet mother, tucks a key into tissue paper and thinks of her eternally.

  She’s here in this moment because of all of it, every experience, every smile, every thought. Her wrist is washed and prepped. Every whisper, every tear, every love. The ink cups are filled. Every look. Every touch. Each one comes together to form an image as permanent as her star.

  Acknowledgments

  I’m raising my coffee cup in a toast to Senior Publishing Consultant Stephanie Robinson and Team Fusion at CreateSpace for bringing my book’s vision to life. I’ve loved having this team behind me.

  To all my fellow bloggers who’ve chatted with me at Whole Latte Life’s blog. I couldn’t ask for a better bunch of friends to brew great conversation with. Coffee cheers to living your choice lives.

  Sometimes a place is so special, it becomes a part of who we are. Thank you to Point O’ Woods, a little beach nestled in a crook of the Connecticut coast. With its sandy boardwalk, whispering lagoon grasses and sweet salt air, it has wound its way into my heart, and onto the page as well.