The Fortune Cafe (A Tangerine Street Romance)

by Wright, Julie

  “Are we talking about the same mom who is probably listening to your girlfriend sob about you right now?”

  He laughed as if that image didn’t bother him as much as it bothered her. “Yeah, that one. And she isn’t my girlfriend.”

  He started walking up the stairs in spite of the fact that she hadn’t confirmed his direction. With little other choice— unless she planned on wrestling the bike away from him— she followed him up.

  At the top of the stairs, he set the bike against the wall and waited. She pulled out her keys and wondered if she should open the door and just go inside, or if she should tell him good-bye first and wait for him to leave before she opened it. The trouble that sprang from being a recluse was not knowing what to do in social situations where everyone else on the planet felt perfectly comfortable.

  “Do you know what time it is?” he asked out of nowhere.

  She pulled out her phone to check the time, but he held out his hand. “Mind if I see?”

  She handed her phone off and felt confused as he tapped the screen. She jumped when his phone rang from inside his pocket. He checked his phone while handing hers back to her. “Oh look!” he said. “You sent me a text. Must mean you want me to have your phone number.”

  She laughed. “Well played, Harrison. Do you do that to all the girls?”

  “Honestly, that was a first. But worth it, I think.” He watched her with a curiosity that made her shift uncomfortably. But she was glad that he appeared to be a little nervous too. “I’m in town for two weeks,” he said. “My parents’ anniversary party isn’t until the weekend after this one. I don’t know why I took so much time off. I just... guess I wanted to be home for a bit.”

  She nodded, not sure why he was telling her any of this.

  “So I wondered if maybe you had plans tomorrow night.”

  “Oh. Oh!” She blinked, startled at the implications of this question. “I work tomorrow night.”

  “What about the next night— or the night after that?” He quickly added the last part when he saw that she was about to decline.

  “I’m kind of booked solid this whole week,” she said. The LA Comic Con was that weekend. She had a lot of preparation left to do before Friday, and then she had the entire weekend, which she hoped would be a flurry of selling books and growing her fan base.

  “Oh.” He looked down, obviously disappointed. “You’re dating someone then? In a relationship?”

  “Relationship? Me?” She barked out a laugh. “No. I don’t really have time for—” She broke off her typical commentary on people being time-takers and her not having room in her life, because for the first time in forever, she wanted to make room. “Maybe you can come to the café tomorrow night. I can take my dinner break, and we can eat together.”

  He brightened. “Sounds like a great idea.”

  She grinned. “I’ll treat you for dinner. Since your previous experience was so... you know I can’t come up with a word that doesn’t sound like I’m making fun of you, so we’ll just say your previous dining experience was simply so.”

  He laughed.

  She liked it a lot when he laughed.

  “What time?” he asked.

  “Five.” Emma scrunched her nose. “Is an early dinner okay?”

  “Seeing you again is okay.”

  Her heart pounded so hard she worried he might hear it. She honestly never remembered any guy making her feel wobbly-kneed and cloudy-headed. She couldn’t stop staring at his lips. Why couldn’t she stop staring at his lips?

  She forced her eyes back to his but found he was staring at her lips too. She swallowed hard and jangled her keys to break the tension between them; not that the tension was unpleasant, but it was so full.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said and jangled her keys again.

  He leaned in, his breath warm and minty, and settled a slow, lingering kiss on her cheek near her ear. “Yes, you will,” he whispered.

  She closed her eyes and soaked the burn from his lips touching her skin until it filled her completely. When she opened her eyes again, he’d already gone. She didn’t remember hearing his footsteps descending the stairs. She didn’t remember feeling him leave. All she felt was the flare of possibility igniting in her core.

  Harrison couldn’t believe he’d dared. He’d kissed her— granted it was only a cheek and he’d kissed dozens, if not hundreds, of cheeks before. The design business was cordial like that. A kiss on the cheek meant friendliness and social comfort.

  But he hadn’t meant anything like simple friendliness in that contact. And it had been hard to keep from straying over to her mouth where she kept biting on that lower lip in a way that made him near crazy. He raked his fingers through his hair as he walked back to his car.

  Emma Armstrong. After all these years.

  The guarded look was still there, the one that had held him at bay during all of his high school years, the one that said, “Back off— I bite.” But he wasn’t an insecure sixteen-year-old any longer, and the fortifications she’d so carefully built around herself didn’t intimidate him.

  Emma’s reserved nature was totally unlike the challenge he had yet to tackle once he arrived back at his parents’ house. Harrison considered avoiding the home scene by booking a hotel, yet staying anywhere but under her roof would irreparably hurt his mom’s feelings.

  He had to go home to deal with the mess that came from dating girls who’d managed to buddy up with his whole family while he wasn’t looking.

  He reached his car, drove to his parents’ place, and thought back to high school, to that first day when Emma had shown up in his life. He hadn’t hit his growth spurt and pretty much everyone towered over him. He’d felt like his parents had sent him to a special school for giants.

  Biology. He’d walked into class late with his class schedule nearly turned to pulp in his sweaty hand, and the teacher had directed him to sit in between a pretty girl and some guy suffering from gigantism. As they went through the class syllabus, the frog dissection unit became a hot topic of conversation. When one of the other girls mentioned being horrified over having to touch a frog, the giant next to him had laughed and in an abnormally low voice said, “Don’t worry, we won’t use real frogs. This kid they put next to me is small enough; we can use him instead.”

  It wasn’t a huge deal— not looking back on it— but at the time when he felt so small physically, he had been devastated to be made to feel emotionally small.

  That was when he really noticed the pretty girl, because she turned to the giant and said, “Sadly, we won’t be able to use you for the unit where we study the brain since you’re obviously lacking in that area.” The pretty girl, who he later learned was named Emma, gave a half smile and with it, the gift of self-respect back to Harrison.

  The other girl had laughed at Emma’s joke, and the giant grew sullen and thankfully left Harrison alone after that. He’d only survived high school because she’d kept him from becoming a target right there at the beginning.

  He’d pretty much worshipped her in silence ever since.

  Emma Armstrong.

  He’d gotten to know her without ever asking her a question through the personal essays and poems they’d traded for correction and peer review during the four years’ worth of English classes. He remembered the personal essays about Emma’s mom being painful to read.

  He truly believed he’d never see her again. But he smiled at the fate and fortune that led him back to her. His smile didn’t drop until he walked into the front foyer of his parents’ house and his dad gave him a look over the top of his old man reading glasses. “Your mother wants to talk to you, and your girlfriend just left.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Harrison said for the hundredth time that night.

  His dad gave a pained expression that was echoed in the big entry hall mirror. “I’m not getting involved. I’m only delivering the message.”

  “Coward,” Harrison said to his dad.


  His dad nodded with exaggerated movements. “Cowards live longer. And that, my son, is your life lesson for the day. Be Switzerland to your mom and live to tell the tale.”

  “Harrison? Are you home?” His mother called from the general direction of her studio. He’d inherited his design savvy from his mother’s artistic nature. People paid a lot of money for her paintings. What set her apart from the other painters was the social commentary found in every single work. The world loved her satire fused in oil and canvas.

  “Yep,” he answered.

  “Come here so we can talk.”

  “Be neutral! Remember Switzerland!” his dad whispered.

  He glared at his dad while moving to do as his mom asked.

  He leaned into the doorframe of his mom’s studio where he breathed the familiar scent of turpentine and linseed oils. If he actually crossed over the threshold, he would be forcing himself into a position of child-being-scolded. As a self-made man, he really felt no inclination for regression.

  “Andrea was here.” His mother started in before even turning to look at him.

  “I’m sure she was.”

  “And crying,” she said.

  “Not surprising.”

  His mother finally turned to face him, her bun pulled back tight enough to make her look severe, her painting smock a smattering of raw colors. “Andrea was crying? And all you have to say for yourself is that it isn’t surprising?”

  “Did she tell you what she did to me?”

  His mom narrowed her eyes at him and pointed one of her painting knives at him. “Blame shifting?” She tsked. “She said you provoked her.”

  “Telling someone you don’t want to marry them isn’t a good enough reason to throw a temper tantrum in a restaurant.”

  His mom frowned. “You really don’t want to marry her? Why not?”

  “She assaulted a waitress.”

  She considered this new information before shaking her head as if the idea was absurd. “She did not.”

  “She did. Threw a plate at her.”

  His mom smirked. “Same waitress you flirted with?”

  Harrison laughed, but his face heated. “That would be the one.”

  “She said it was some old flame from high school. Is she right?”

  Harrison squinted at his mom, trying to decide how best to answer. “Flame is definitely the right word.”

  “So when are you going to bring home this new-old flame to meet us?”

  Harrison relaxed and decided his mom wasn’t actually on Andrea’s side enough to merit him getting scolded too much, which meant it was safe to enter the studio. He gave his mom a hug, not even caring that she had her painting smock on, and he’d likely ruin his clothes. He felt a lot of gratitude in her taking his side instead of Andrea’s.

  She released him and turned back to her work. “Honestly, Harrison, I really do like Andrea, and she practically planned my entire anniversary party. Can you do me a favor and keep the peace until after the party?”

  “I’m not going to agree to marry her to keep the peace,” he said.

  “And what will we tell Kristin?”

  “Why is who I date or marry any of my sister’s business?” He fiddled with an old palette knife abandoned on the work table.

  “Andrea is Kristin’s friend.”

  He grunted and flipped the knife over. “So why doesn’t Kristin marry her?”

  “Don’t be sassy. Now hand me that knife before you flip it into the paints. Tell me about this other girl.”

  He told her everything he could remember about Emma, and she listened while she worked. Talking to his mom in her studio reminded him of all those years growing up when he got home from school and went straight to her studio to tell her about his day. A lot of life found its way to getting resolved in that studio.

  She finally sighed, patted his cheek with a multicolored hand, and said, “Seven years is a long time to be away from anyone. Be careful. People change. You don’t really know this girl at all. You only know your memory of her. And if you decide you like her the way she is now enough to have me meet her, I’ll make my judgment then. If I don’t like her, we’ll just lock you in a tower until you agree to marry Andrea. The Rapunzel story isn’t just for girls, you know.”

  “May I remind you that I’m only twenty-six? It’s not like I’m rushing into anything,” he said. She laughed and then kicked him out of her studio so she could get real work done.

  He went to his old room that his parents had turned into a very nice guest room, propped himself up on the half-dozen decorative pillows, and opened his laptop. Emma had been awfully evasive during their walk home. He hoped she had some sort of online presence where he could spy on her at his leisure.

  He grinned when her name pulled up dozens of websites. Not only did she have a web presence, but she maintained prominent visibility.

  “Still doodling dragons, Emma?” he said out loud to his laptop screen. He clicked around her site to get the feel of the layout. He stopped when he arrived at the preorder page for the first book released in the Dragon’s Lair Universe. “And turned it into a business,” he murmured. “Good girl.” She had an impressive fan base. Every new installment of Dragon’s Lair reached thousands of viewers. Every blog post incited hundreds of comments.

  She earned her fans’ loyalties, he decided after reading through a few months’ worth of comic strips. Emma was funny, smart, and satirical in a way that made the reader feel in on the joke. He laughed out loud at many story lines and got emotional with several others.

  His mom had warned him that people changed over the course of seven years. And she was right. Emma had changed, but as far as he could see, she’d only changed for the better. He stayed up late into the night, reading her blog posts, her comics, and doing the entirely creepy, stalker thing by figuring out her posted schedule of events.

  He reasoned that she wouldn’t have put it online if she didn’t want people to know her whereabouts. She’d meant it when she said she was booked for the week. Unfortunately, Harrison only had two weeks before he had to head back. Two weeks to get Emma Armstrong’s attention.

  He closed his laptop and squirmed down under the comforter. He needed some sleep because his sister would be showing up in the morning for some planning meeting or whatever. Kristin would likely have Andrea in tow to try to fix what they would undoubtedly see as something Harrison broke. He needed to be well-rested to face them, and well-rested for his dinner plans as well. He’d get to see Emma again in less than twenty-four hours.

  He tucked an arm under his head and stared at the dark ceiling, pictured Emma’s face, and smiled. He wasn’t one to believe in anything prophesied on a white strip of paper inside a cookie. But he’d felt the jolt when his eyes landed on that fortune and then another jolt when he’d looked up to see Emma just across the room.

  The girl he’d experienced unrequited love for back in high school stood before him. She remained beautiful. She remained kind. “Tonight, you are reunited with your soul mate,” he whispered out loud to the dark. He grinned to himself, feeling like life had finally thrown him a bone.

  He’d let her slip away due to the fear and insecurity of youth. But he had no intentions of losing track of his soul mate ever again.

  “Did you take your medicine?” Emma tried not to growl out the question as she wedged the phone between her shoulder and her ear and searched her desk for her hands-free headset. With all the work on her comic, she’d let everything else— like organization, regular meals, and health code ordinances— fall to the wayside. This meant she’d likely locate her headset only after it became outdated technology. She gave up, straightened, and sucked in several deep breaths before responding to her mother’s excuse for not taking her medication.

  “Mom! The doctor prescribed them to keep you from becoming sad. If you took them like you were supposed to rather than throwing away the prescription I paid for, then you wouldn’t feel sad right now.”

&nb
sp; She covered her eyes with the heels of her palms, drummed her fingers on her forehead, and listened to the rantings and rumblings of how some lady had stolen the grocery cart her mom had wanted when she’d gone to the store and how she ended up not buying anything at all because it hurt her feelings so desperately that anyone could be so rude and how she followed the woman around the store intending to give her a talking to when they left the store.

  Emma’s head snapped up as she palmed her phone. “Wait. What? You stalked a customer through the store? Mom, you can’t do that. You cannot do that to people! You could get arrested.”

  Her mom couldn’t understand how following someone might equate to being arrested.

  She finally did let out the growl she’d been trying to hold back. “Because it’s creepy, Mom! You scare people! Okay, you know what? Never mind. Let’s move on. Tell me what happened.” She needed to find out the important information— like if her mother really had been arrested.

  With her eyes closed, Emma bit into her lower lip so hard it actually caused pain as she shook her head and listened to the rest of her mom’s exploits through the grocery store. The trip had ended up with a fruit display being displaced and rolling all over. Her mother was too distraught to remember which kind of fruits and spent a good three minutes fretting because she couldn’t come up with the name.

  By the end of the story, Emma discovered that the police hadn’t been called, but store security had. “What does it mean,” her mom asked, “when the security guy says he invites me to never return to his store? Am I invited or not?” She sniffled out the question with a pathetic burble noise.

  “He doesn’t want you to come back,” she told her mom, which only elicited wails and protests. “Look, you’re going to be fine. Please take your medicine. I’ll stop by tonight after work, but right now I have to go to work or I’ll be late.”

  She shouldn’t have mentioned work. Emma knew what came next: snorts of mockery about how waitressing wasn’t really a job along with jabs at how scribbling pictures online was an embarrassment to the family.