Flavor of the Month

by Georgia Beers

  Charlie nodded.

  “It’s gonna be okay. Take a breath. Just breathe.”

  “This is not what I expected when I came home, you know?” A tear spilled over and coursed down Charlie’s cheek. “I was going to take a few weeks, lick my wounds, get myself situated, and go back to New York. But now…” She shrugged in a gesture of not knowing what to do because she really did not know what to do. She sniffled, then looked at Sandy and wondered if the horror she suddenly felt was visible on her face. “I haven’t thought about my ex in days.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “I don’t know!” It was almost a wail, and she thought she saw a ghost of a smile pass across Sandy’s face.

  “All right. First things first, take a break.” Sandy took the butter Charlie needed for the pie crust and put it back in the fridge. “Go back to my office in the corner. Take a seat. Have some water. Like I said, just breathe. Okay? Give yourself some time. Bethany and I have got this. When you come back out, we’ll talk some more. Or we won’t.” Her gentle smile brought out her dimples, and Charlie was suddenly so grateful for this new friend in her life. Sandy touched Charlie’s cheek. “Everything will be okay. I promise.”

  Though she didn’t necessarily believe that, she nodded, wiped her hands, and headed back to the corner where the desk was. She dropped into the chair like she’d been carrying boulders all morning and blew out an enormous breath.

  “Just breathe,” she whispered to herself.

  She actually did feel the slightest bit better. Maybe she’d needed to get some of that stuff off her chest, out of her head. Though she harbored some guilt about spilling Emma’s private life and details about her father, it wasn’t enough to make her feel awful. Instead, she felt a sense of relief.

  As she sat back in the chair and forced herself to relax her shoulders, which felt like they’d been up by her ears for days now, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. Lily. She must’ve been texting rather than calling because it was the middle of the workday.

  They loved you! Talked to my friend and they will want to do a second interview soon, in person, but he said it’s really just a formality! They’ll likely offer you the job! Way to go!

  Charlie blinked at the phone. At all the exclamation points. Read the text again.

  How the hell was she going to get a job offer? From a big marketing firm in Boston? Yes, the interview had gone well, but she’d been sure once they called Darcy’s company for a reference, she’d end up on the reject pile. This was huge. Really huge. It was awesome. It was exactly what she’d been waiting for.

  So why wasn’t she thrilled? Why wasn’t she jumping up from the chair and flossing a victory dance? What the hell was the matter with her?

  * * *

  It was her mother’s lunch out with the girls, as she called her little group of friends, and everybody else was working. Looking forward to having the house to herself for a little while, Charlie was surprised to see her father’s truck in the driveway and even more surprised when she walked into the kitchen and saw him standing at the stove, spatula in hand.

  “Hey, Dad,” Charlie said, dropping her bag.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” her father answered. He wore his usual summer work clothes: jeans, a T-shirt, and work boots.

  “Are you trying to get murdered by your wife?” she asked playfully with a pointed glance at his boots. The ones he wasn’t allowed to wear in the house and tromp dirt and sawdust all over my kitchen, according to her mom.

  He gave her a wink, flipped what looked to be a grilled cheese sandwich, and Charlie approached him, nose in the air.

  “How come you’re home already?”

  “Just taking a quick late lunch–early dinner break. We have to finish up a job today, so might be working late.”

  “Oh my God,” Charlie said when she got close enough to notice the fresh tomatoes from her mother’s garden, one on the counter already sliced. “Grilled cheese and tomato? Can you make me one, too? I’ll pay you. I swear to God.”

  “Keep your mouth shut about the boots, and you’ve got a deal.” Charlie laughed and her father slid the finished sandwich onto a plate and handed it to her. Then he picked up a knife and sliced more tomato, constructed a second sandwich. “How was pie?”

  Charlie sat down at the table, the sudden realization that she had her father all to herself warming her heart. It hadn’t happened often when she lived here before she’d left for New York, and it hadn’t happened at all since she’d been home. It was a strange feeling to unexpectedly miss somebody who was standing right in front of you, but she missed her dad deeply right then and decided to embrace the moment. “Pie was hard.”

  Her father didn’t turn to her, kept his eyes on the frying pan. “How come?”

  “Because my brain wants to focus on everything except pie lately.” Charlie took a bite of the sandwich and closed her eyes. The blend of melty cheese and tangy tomato was like a symphony in her mouth, and she was pretty sure she could hear sweet baby angels singing.

  Her father plated his own sandwich, grabbed a Diet Coke out of the fridge, and sat down at the table across from Charlie. “You want to talk it out? I’ve got another forty-five minutes before I need to get back to the job site.”

  The look on her dad’s face then—open, loving, ready to listen—filled Charlie with emotion that tapped gently at what remained of her resolve to keep everything in, knocking the final bricks away one by one. Between Sandy that morning and her father in that moment, she felt like a dam had crumbled and her story would pour out continually. Endlessly. To everybody. As if she had no control.

  And she felt like she didn’t anyway, so…

  She chewed her sandwich as she collected her thoughts.

  “Is it about Emma?” Her father’s question wasn’t accusatory. It wasn’t snarky. It was simple, matter-of-fact. And took Charlie by surprise.

  “Why does everybody ask me that?” she asked.

  He simply shrugged, bit into his sandwich, and waited her out.

  She gave in. “Some, yes. Some about work. Some about my future.” She hadn’t told anybody—not her family, not Emma, not her friends—everything that had happened. Now that she thought about it, everybody knew bits and pieces. Sandy knew about Emma, yes—and apparently, so did her father—but she didn’t know about the other job offer that was coming. Her family didn’t know about Sandy’s offer to her or about the incoming Boston job offer, though they knew she’d done the Skype interview. Not surprisingly, she was starting to feel a bit scattered, and as she sat there trying to sort through things in her mind, looking for a good place to begin, something stopped her. She looked up at her father and asked quietly, “Do you think people can change, Dad?”

  “Change? What do you mean? Like, their opinions? Their values? Or just as a person in general?”

  Charlie picked up the second half of her sandwich and bit off a corner, thinking as she chewed. “As a person in general. Like, do you think a person can make mistakes or poor decisions and then come back from them? Have people look at them the way they did before they made the bad decisions?” It felt like her bite of sandwich had decided to park itself halfway down her throat, and she set the rest down, fiddled with her napkin as she held herself in check. When she finally dared to look up, her father’s expression was gentle. Sympathetic, even.

  “Yeah,” he said with a slow nod. “Absolutely, I do.”

  “You do? Oh, good.” The relief that washed through Charlie right then was inexplicably strong. She’d had no idea this was something that had bothered her so much, but she felt like a weight had been lifted, just from her dad giving her a little encouragement. “That’s good.”

  “Look,” her dad said, picking up his can of soda, dwarfing it in his enormous hand. “I don’t know all the details here. You’ve never been a share-the-details kind of girl, especially with your parents, and I get that about you. I respect it. We don’t all have to know every little thing about e
ach other. But I know you, Charlotte. I know you. You’re my daughter. My firstborn child. And you’re struggling. I can see that.”

  So much for keeping herself in check. The tears began to flow, and she realized right then that she’d been holding them in for days now. It was simultaneously awful and wonderful to finally let them go.

  “What would your mother tell you to do?”

  Charlie met her father’s gaze, puzzled, not following.

  “When you were confused about your sexuality. When you weren’t sure which college to attend. When you were undecided about New York, what did she tell you to do?”

  It was clear then, and she answered with a smile. “She told me to follow my heart. Every time.”

  “Exactly. Follow your heart and things will work out the way they’re supposed to.”

  “My mother is Mary Poppins, isn’t she?”

  Her father’s laugh boomed through the kitchen. “I’m not allowed to comment on her secret identity. But she’s usually right.”

  “She is.”

  “I mean, you followed your heart to New York.” He used the last bite of his sandwich to hide his grin. “And look how well that went for you.”

  “Hey!” Charlie grabbed a dish towel and threw it at him, laughing while half faking a pout. “Don’t make fun of me. Can’t you see I’m a mess over here?”

  Her dad caught the towel and when their laughter died down, he said quietly, “No, you’re not. You’re great. You’re amazing. You always know exactly what to do. You grab life by the balls. You’re kind of my hero, you know.”

  What? Had her father just said she was his hero? She sat there. Blinking. Speechless. Her heart swelling with love and gratitude for both of her parents. She’d left them behind a few years ago and now, strangely, felt like she had them back, as if she’d lost them at some point. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  He lifted a shoulder and half shrugged like it was no big deal. “You’ll figure it out, sweetheart. You always do. It’s one of your best qualities.” He stood, gathered their plates, and put them in the sink. Then, as he walked past her, he dropped a kiss onto her head. “Back to work for me. Love you, kiddo.”

  “I love you, too.” She watched as he grabbed his keys and plaid flannel shirt and left the house. She stayed sitting at the table until she heard his truck start, back up, drive away, and his words echoed through the empty kitchen.

  You always know exactly what to do.

  Maybe he was right. Because right then, she did know. She knew without a doubt. She had to talk to Emma. No more waiting for Emma to come to her. No more being okay with the excuses of being too busy. No more. They’d had sex, for God’s sake. They’d spent an amazing, very intimate night together, and she finally let herself admit what she’d been keeping inside for a week.

  That it meant something.

  She inhaled, let the breath out slowly. Yes, it was well past time to talk to Emma. If nothing else, she needed to know where she stood. It was more than likely that Emma still didn’t trust her, was keeping herself protected against her. And Charlie hated that, but also understood it. So if Emma said it was a one-time thing and nothing more, she would have to find a way to deal with it.

  But she didn’t believe that. She couldn’t make herself believe that. Time might have passed and people might change, but she still knew Emma, and Emma was the same person she’d known and loved since high school.

  The question was, did Emma think Charlie was the same person, too? Because the fact of the matter? She was not.

  She was pretty sure she’d shown Emma that, but maybe she needed to come right out and say it. Talk about it. Communication was good, right? It was something she’d decided she needed to work on right after Darcy left her because she and Darcy obviously hadn’t done it well. At all.

  Emma had avoided talking to her, though. She’d been either absent or busy during every pie delivery that week, making it pretty clear that having any kind of in-depth conversation with Charlie wasn’t high on her priority list. Charlie had sent several texts, and the ones that Emma had responded to consisted of short phrases and noncommittal answers. Scratching at a spot on the table, Charlie knew she had to admit to her own complicity, given she hadn’t really done much to force any sort of communication. She’d told herself Emma had a lot on her mind with her father’s death. She reminded herself that she was not Emma’s BFF, Danielle was. She used the crazy pace of running a restaurant as an excuse as well.

  “Goddamn it, I’m important, too,” she said quietly to the empty kitchen. Her eyes went immediately wide, and she sat with the words for a few minutes. Held them up. Studied them from different angles. And for the first time since before Darcy had dumped her, she actually believed them.

  * * *

  Anytime, Emma. I mean it. Your brothers would love to get to know you.

  Emma sat back in her chair and exhaled. She’d been communicating with Zaya off and on since last week, after she’d sent a message to apologize for not going to the funeral services. She knew she didn’t owe Zaya an explanation, but she felt bad for just leaving without saying good-bye. It was the right thing to do at the time, but now, almost a week later, it felt weird, and while she’d expected to get an icy reply, she’d gotten the opposite. Zaya seemed to understand exactly how this all felt for her, and she wasn’t sure how to react to that.

  Tonight, Zaya had extended an invitation for Emma to come back for a visit any time she wanted. According to her, Calvin and Trey were very interested in getting to know the big sister they’d never had the chance to talk to. And Emma could admit that it was kind of a cool discovery to find out she had siblings.

  “I have two little brothers,” she found herself whispering aloud every now and then. “I have two twin brothers. Calvin and Trey. My little brothers.”

  It was late. Thursday. It had been a week since her trip to Nashville. She’d seen Charlie a couple of times since they got back, but there’d been no time for discussion. She’d been so busy at the restaurant, and her late nights and mornings had been spent on…

  Stop it.

  She halted her thoughts—no, excuses—because that’s exactly what they were. Excuses. Reasons she was hiding behind so she didn’t have to face the reality of what had happened in Tennessee. So she didn’t have to face the reality of Charlotte Stetko and her return to her life and what that might mean. What she might hope it meant, might want it to mean.

  With a snap, she closed her laptop and glanced at the clock: 1:27 a.m. She really needed to get some sleep. Too bad sleep hated her lately and had been avoiding her like a jilted girlfriend.

  Speaking of jilted girlfriends, with Sabrina gone, she needed to hire a new bartender, pronto. And also go see her mother, have a very serious talk with her, but that was going to be a big one and she needed to be ready for it. There would be much gearing up needed. Right now, she just couldn’t. She also had to start thinking about her fall menu for the restaurant…

  The ringing of her phone startled her. Who the hell was calling at one thirty in the morning? A glance at the screen told her. Dani.

  “Hey, everything okay?” she asked by way of greeting.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Dani said, and she could tell by the background noise that she was in her car. “I just drove by your place and saw your lights on. You all right?”

  She sighed and moved into her bedroom, stretched out on top of the navy blue comforter. That was the question, wasn’t it? Was she all right? “I’ve got so much in my head, Dani. So much.”

  “I know, babe.”

  She’d risked Dani’s wrath by filling her in on everything that had happened last week, every detail, and surprisingly, Dani hadn’t blown up at her. In fact, she’d done the opposite. While Dani’d lamented being out of town, insisting she’d have taken her to Nashville without a problem, she’d been sympathetic about Emma’s dad and almost supportive of the Charlie situation. Which made her feel like her world had slanted a bit,
and things were slowly sliding out of place, because what the hell? Hadn’t Dani been all about listing every issue Emma had ever had with Charlie in the past? She had been too exhausted to argue about it with her, so she put it on her pile of Things to Deal with Later, which had grown into a mountain at that point.

  “Zaya wants me to come visit, meet the boys, spend some time.”

  “What do you think of that?”

  “I’m considering it, which is so weird. I mean, I’ve known about them for more than a year. Why am I considering it now? Why not six months ago when I could’ve actually seen my father?” It was a question that had rolled around and around in her head for days now, driving her a little nutso. “The timing just sucked.”

  “All right, don’t get mad at me, but I’m about to lay out some cliché on your ass.” She chuckled and Dani continued, “They say everything happens for a reason. Maybe it was supposed to be like this.”

  Emma groaned. “But so much? All at once? My dad dies? I meet my stepmother and little brothers at his calling hours? I find out my mom is partly responsible for my having no contact with him? Charlie is suddenly amazing, and I sleep with her? It’s a lot. It’s so much. Why now and why all at once?”

  “Have you talked to her yet?” Dani asked.

  “Who?”

  “You know who.” Dani’s tone said she knew Emma was stalling.

  “No. I’ve been too busy.”

  “You’ve been too scared.”

  She couldn’t lie to her best friend, but she also didn’t have to admit to the truth. She was too tired to fight Dani on it. She was too tired a lot lately. Everything she’d listed to Dani felt like it weighed hundreds of pounds and had parked directly on her shoulders.

  “You need to talk to her,” Dani said, and her voice was gentler now. “You need to make some decisions, one way or another.”

  “I do? Why?” It was a snarky question, but it was late and she was frustrated and tired, and she’d been carrying so much around since her return from Tennessee, it was flattening her. Her coping skills were in the crapper.