The Fortune Cafe (A Tangerine Street Romance)

by Wright, Julie

  They formed an assembly line where all Emma did was sign books and take part in enjoyable conversation. This was the family who had wanted Andrea to marry Harrison, yet neither woman acted with malice toward Emma’s obvious takeover. Instead they laughed and asked questions about the web comic. Harrison had to get after Kristin for reading the book instead of packing it away in an envelope.

  “I can’t help it!” Kristin defended herself. “It’s really good.”

  Emma swelled with the compliment until she felt like she might float away. Her own sister had never said anything to her about the comic. Neither had her brother. Obviously her mother thought it was a big waste of time. Emma had not received a compliment on Dragon’s Lair since her father had died unless that compliment came from her fans or her coworkers.

  Kristin’s enthusiasm toward the web comic felt personal as if she’d not only approved Dragon’s Lair, but she had approved Emma. With four people, the workload still took well into evening, but not too late. Everyone would be able to go to sleep at a decent hour. Emma would be able to enjoy a good night’s rest. She’d planned on showing up at the convention red-eyed and worn down, not well-rested and calm.

  Harrison even went so far as to offer his mom’s suburban to help haul the remaining boxes to the convention without Emma trying to figure out how to make it all work in her car. He also informed her he’d be attending the convention with her, insisting that selling herself was hard and that it was always a good idea to have an additional salesperson to add credibility to the brand. The argument was that if you can afford lackeys, then you must have some modicum of success.

  The greatest part of being with Harrison, his mother, and his sister for the entire day was Harrison’s mom. His mom seemed like a thing of myth. She loved her children. She laughed with them, complimented them. Even their bantering insults didn’t feel tense as the insults in Emma’s life always were, but instead they were fun and lighthearted. Lily adored her children.

  Lily also adored art. She spoke at great length about lines and color with Emma, treating Emma as a peer, not a child with a silly hobby, but a professional equal. She offered for Emma to come and see her studio and to let her dabble in oils anytime she felt like practicing with a different medium.

  Then the two women left with all the books to be mailed packed into Kristin’s car to be taken to the post office. Kristin refused to allow Emma to do the mailing because Emma had enough to worry about in getting to her convention.

  Soon, it was only Emma and Harrison left in her apartment that was considerably less crowded with a good portion of the boxes gone.

  “I get it,” she said.

  “Get what?”

  “The word ‘help.’ It means to assist, comfort, aid, relieve, support. I didn’t know what it meant before today.”

  “Kind of nice, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Kind of nice,” she agreed.

  The difference between the feelings in his family and the feelings in her family were so entirely opposite, she could scarcely comprehend how she’d partaken of both in the same day. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

  He drew her in as if he’d been waiting for this moment all day. He kissed her, carefully as if she might break. When he pulled away, he said, “Don’t thank me until we have the rest of these books sold and another printing ordered.” He stretched and glanced at his phone. “Get some sleep, Emma Armstrong. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  It was the strangest thing. She still felt that support, that comfort, that help, even after he’d gone.

  Harrison arrived at her apartment bright and early the next morning to drive her into LA with the books. The three-hour drive gave them lots of time to talk and get to know each other again. But as soon as they arrived at the convention center, Harrison was all business.

  The convention was enormous. People dressed in Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Doctor Who costumes. People wearing T-shirts with dragons and pointed elven ears stopped by her booth. Harrison had done the setup, organizing all the display props she’d brought, and designing the space so it felt inviting. She realized how she never could have pulled it off without him. And she found she said very little to try to sell herself. She’d been worried about the selling part. Emma had never been good at putting herself out there, but Harrison with his earnest appeal called people over to the booth and did all the talking. She only signed.

  But she signed a lot.

  She signed all day, and into the next, and into the next. Sunday night, when they packed the remains away, she found she only had five and a half boxes left. “I nearly sold out,” she kept saying on the drive back from LA. She couldn’t keep the awe out of her voice.

  “Of course you did. And you have a bunch of new contacts on your email list. Even people who didn’t buy this weekend are likely to visit your website and become fans.”

  “I couldn’t have done this without you,” she said.

  “Sure you could’ve. It just would’ve been harder.” He grinned. “But don’t act like I’m all heroic for going. I got some business out of this endeavor as well.”

  He was right. There were many authors and companies needing designs. As they waited in line for Emma to sign their books, Harrison talked to them. He was good at mentioning what he did for a living, which usually ended with the other person confessing how much he hated his logo, or how much she hated her website. Harrison had handed out nearly as many business cards for himself as he had for her. He already had two new clients on board with bigger projects.

  When Harrison left Emma at the door with a kiss that held a promise of a future happiness, she knew nothing could dampen the perfection of the weekend.

  Until she went inside and listened to her voice messages.

  The note was in her sister’s handwriting.

  Emma, Mom won’t take her medicine. She called it poison and flat out refused. So I decided she probably knew what she was talking about. She knows her own body and mind better than any doctor. If she doesn’t feel like it’s helping then she shouldn’t be forced to take it. Just thought you should know. And turn on your phone every now and again. How hard would it be to make sure you’re reachable?

  Rosie

  Rosalee had taken her mom off the much needed medication. Rosalee was an idiot. Emma would be the one stuck dealing with the issue once Rosalee left. She reached into her bag and checked her phone. It wasn’t that she hadn’t turned it on, but more that she’d left it on without charging it so the battery had died. It had died two days prior.

  Feeling trepidation, Emma plugged the phone into the outlet at her counter and turned it back on. The fourteen messages started out mild enough. Mini rants from Rosalee about how Emma hadn’t made sure their mom’s fridge was stocked or how Emma had failed in making sure the gardener edged along their mom’s driveway well enough. They grew into larger rants as they moved on, from the medication to the accusation that Emma was an abusive caregiver.

  The eighth message was where Rosalee’s tone changed from criticism to panic and pleading for help. “Emma! Mom’s freaking out! I can’t stop her from breaking things. She punches at me any time I get close enough to try to hold her down. Why is she doing this? You need to come home right now!”

  “Emma! Where are you? I don’t remember where you said you’d be! I can’t handle this anymore! She’s locked herself in the bathroom and won’t come out!”

  “Emma! Call me!”

  The last one was the one that frightened Emma the most. Rosalee had calmed down considerably, but there was no mistaking the fury in her tone, as if everything she’d been through during the weekend was specifically Emma’s fault. “Emma, I have no idea if I will ever be willing to talk to you again in your entire life so listen good, since this might be the last time you hear my voice. You are entirely irresponsible. Mom should have been placed in a mental institution a long time ago. For you to let her live on her own scraping by from day to day is just cruel. I’ve secu
red her a permanent home at the Gates Mental Center. What were you thinking, Emma? I called Blake, and he agrees with me. Dad would be furious with how you’ve failed. He would be eternally disappointed in you. Call me if you can figure out how to fit other people in your schedule.”

  Emma cradled the phone unsure of how she felt. Her mom was in an institution. Rosalee hated her. Rosalee called her irresponsible. Rosalee called her cruel. All of that evoked little to no feeling at all— just a sort of strange numbness.

  But the last couple sentences ignited an explosive rage in Emma. Dad would be furious? Dad would be disappointed? She didn’t know how to fit people into her life?

  Emma screamed. Screamed until her the sound clawed her throat raw. Then she did the irrational thing. She grabbed her keys and went back out into the night. She drove to her mom’s house to have it out with her sister. She was tired of being stepped on and overlooked.

  She stomped up the stairs of her childhood home and tried not to think about all the times her dad had carried her up those same stairs so that she could touch the peaked porch soffit. She pushed through the front door, which wasn’t locked because Rosalee wasn’t as paranoid as her mother. Emma tried not to think about how her dad used to go outside and knock on the door as a game to her where they spent the better part of an hour sharing knock-knock jokes through the wood.

  “Rosalee!” She called from the entryway— the same entryway where her mom had once laced flowers in her hair before Rosalee’s wedding and declared her a lovely little bridesmaid. Her mother had placed a soft kiss on top of a young Emma’s head and said the words, “I love you, sweetie.”

  Emma froze. The further shouts demanding justice turned to ice in her throat and melted back down into her soul. The day of Rosalee’s wedding had been good. Her dad had made her mom take her medicine. Their family had all been together. They had been happy— for that moment at least. And it was enough.

  Rosalee appeared in the hallway. Her eyes were red, and her face looked grey with grief. “Emmy?” she said, her voice small and as sickly as her skin.

  Emma stared for only a snatch of a moment before rushing to her sister and throwing her arms around her. “It’s okay, Rosie,” she said, calling her sister by the pet name that she hadn’t used since before their dad died. “You’re okay.”

  “She told me she hated me.” Rosalee’s shoulders heaved in her great sobs. “She told me—”

  “I know,” Emma interrupted. “But it wasn’t her. It was the illness. Not her, Rosie. The illness.” The two sisters stood like that a long time, crying and assuring each other that it wasn’t their mom who hated them. Emma breathed air that felt clean going into her lungs and out of her lungs again. Emma was no longer alone. Her burden suddenly felt lighter.

  She wanted to talk to Harrison, to tell him in person that everything had changed for her in that brief moment, but the next four days were a whirlwind of her brother coming into town as well, of the three siblings visiting their mom together to show that they supported her. They packed up many of her favorite things and decorated her mom’s room to look like home for her. She spit out venom and anger while they worked to arrange the care center room, but with each biting remark, Emma’s siblings would exchange a glance of understanding and solidarity. They were in this together.

  Emma had a hard time breaking away from her brother and sister. She went to work only once when Jen had needed to take her daughter out for her birthday and there wasn’t anyone else to cover her shift.

  While at work, a woman sat at her table who had claimed to have ordered takeout. The news was odd because not many people did takeout from the café. She asked the woman about her fortune, curious if Cái’s voodoo extended to takeout. The woman seemed to not believe that her fortune cookie was magical, which made Emma need to duck her head to hide her smile. See, Cái, no magic.

  That had been the only time she’d been able to go into work, and she was grateful Cái cared enough to be understanding about giving time off. She communicated a lot of what was going on to Harrison through text. But text was a clumsy way of having a real conversation, brief and clipped as it was. He didn’t always respond right away, and his responses were fairly brief half the time, but she figured he was likely as busy with his family as she’d been with hers. She worried a little when his texts were one word responses that barely made sense in context to the questions she asked. She worried that maybe after discovering her mom was being institutionalized, he had decided that Emma wasn’t worth the bother. Or maybe he was afraid her mom’s condition was genetic.

  And then she wondered if maybe her mom’s condition was genetic since she was acting stupidly paranoid.

  Friday morning came, and Emma remembered that Harrison said he’d be at the seaside reception center not too far from midtown Seashell Beach. She drove over, hoping to surprise him. She wanted to make his last couple of days count before he left back to Boston. She even toyed with the idea of taking an extended vacation to visit him there so they could explore their relationship further. She had the money now that Dragon’s Lair had sold out and was on back order for the second shipment. At Harrison’s advice, she was looking into getting a distributor. But she wanted to talk about that possibility with him personally rather than over text. The last thing she wanted was to show up in New England and have him horrified to see her there. She needed confirmation that they were still okay, that he wasn’t freaked out by her mom.

  She entered the reception center excited and energized to help Harrison’s family the way they had helped her. But she stopped as soon as she passed through the doors and blinked several times to be sure she saw what she thought she saw.

  Andrea was up on a ladder hanging lights while Harrison held the ladder and looked up at her. They were in deep conversation, one that looked natural and easy. “Oh,” Emma whispered, feeling stupid for just showing up without announcing herself. Andrea was a family friend. She’d helped plan the party. It made sense that she would be there.

  Andrea looked up at that moment, as if sensing someone watching her and saw Emma standing there. She whispered something to Harrison, and he nodded and hurried away. Andrea returned her gaze to Emma as she methodically made her way down the ladder rungs. Emma felt an instinctive need to run— probably similar to what a lone zebra felt when facing down a lioness.

  “Hi, Emma. It is Emma, isn’t it? I think that’s what you said at the restaurant. I just wanted to say that I’m really sorry about what happened. It was a really off-day for me. Harrison and I worked things out. He promised he’d patch things up for me with you. I hear he helped with all the book stuff you’re doing. Congratulations on that, by the way.”

  Harrison had done that to patch things up for Andrea? No. That wasn’t right at all. Emma reevaluated everything she’d believed over the last two weeks. After the convention, his only communication with her was via text, but that was because he was busy... she was busy. Then she looked around the garden themed room with its fountain and lights. Harrison hadn’t even mentioned the reception to Emma as something she should attend. It was always just something he was doing. She had assumed that he’d take her, but now she realized that if he’d meant for her to go with him, he would have at least brought it up.

  And he had been so distant since their weekend in LA.

  It made a sort of twisted sense for him to protect Andrea, to make amends and apologies the way he did. Isn’t that what Emma’s dad had always done for her mom through the years? “Oh,” Emma said, the word starting out deep in her stomach and tearing free from her throat. “I just... I... tell him thank you for me.”

  Andrea smiled. “Of course I will. And truly, I am so sorry about that whole mix up at the restaurant. I have no idea what came over me. You’re a really great person and didn’t deserve to deal with my bad day.”

  Emma nodded and turned to leave. She didn’t know what she felt or thought about the whole situation, but she knew for a fact she couldn’t be there stan
ding next to Andrea. Emma felt flayed and scoured by the ordeal with her mom and brother and sister. Her emotions were so unsteady, it was possible she’d misread Harrison’s intentions. She tugged on the heavy, leaded glass door and tried to squeeze her way through it when she could only make her rubbery muscles open it halfway.

  She made it to the parking lot, but no matter how hard she breathed in and out, she couldn’t seem to get any oxygen. Where did all the oxygen in the world go? “Emma?” It was Kristin, Harrison’s sister, coming from the parking lot to which Emma fled. “You okay?”

  “I just... think I misunderstood. Thank you so much for helping me the other day. I know you don’t owe me anything, and that was a really nice thing to do for a stranger.”

  Kristin snorted. “To hear Harrison tell it, you are the furthest thing from a stranger to our family. Besides, it was fun. And Harrison paid me back tenfold in several days’ worth of anniversary work.”

  “Harrison’s like that, paying off debts.”

  She gave Emma a strange look. “Why don’t you come inside? Harrison will be thrilled to see you.”

  “Oh, no. Andrea...” She trailed off not knowing what to say about Andrea.

  “Oh, don’t let Andrea scare you. I promise she won’t throw any food or dinnerware at anyone. Everything’s been explained. She’s totally fine.”

  “Yeah. She said that.”

  Andrea. She seemed to fit in that garden room with Harrison and Kristin. How had Emma imagined that she could fit into Harrison’s life? Her mom was in a mental institution. Emma was a dragon-drawing waitress.

  “Hon, you look sick. Do you need some water?”

  “Water. Right. There’s water in the ocean. I’ll go to the ocean.” Emma turned and headed to cross the street to the beach. She didn’t know why she didn’t get into her car to leave, other than she felt unsafe to sit behind the wheel. Was this what an emotional breakdown felt like? Is this how it all started for her mom?