The bakery had the most adorable name, A Game of Scones. Whoever named it had similar humor to Dad, and I felt an instant warmth of nostalgia-fueled affection for whoever this shop owner was.
They probably knew Dad too, the stores were part of the same building so Dad probably leased them the shop.
Before I even got out of the car my mind was working on how I could improve the bakery.
The property was likely in Dad’s will, and he’d be crazy to give it to Jemma. I’d be the likely choice, he was always harping on me coming back and using my “fancy business degree” to get the bookstore up and running again.
I’d be more than happy to work with whoever owned the bakery. My dad had a lot of failings, but a bad judge of character was not one of them. I trusted that he leased it to a good person. Somebody deserving. They probably had no idea how good a deal they got.
There was a knock on my window and I nearly jumped out of my seat and hit my head on the roof of the car in surprise. A tall statuesque woman stood outside my truck, a ruby-painted smile on her face. I smiled back and opened the door. “Beth! What are you doing here?”
She grinned, a little twist of her lips. Her charcoal gray outfit was one of those “I’m a professional businesswoman and I make more than you,” that so many recent grads wore at their first job. With a tilt of her head, she indicated the black Mercedes. “That’s mine. I was just inspecting a property when I saw who was sitting in this behemoth of a car! Why didn’t you call and tell me you were coming, we absolutely must have a girl’s night out.”
“Actually,” I said, climbing down and glad for once I wore sensible shoes instead of heels like Beth. If she tried to get out of this thing in those she’d likely snap her ankle. “That sounds excellent. I’d love to catch up. I’m actually going to be in town at least a week and Jemma’s having car troubles so it’s just me.”
Beth placed a hand on her voluptuous chest - puberty had been kind to her, she definitely had been flatter when I left - and batted her thick eyelashes at me. “That’s horrible! You poor thing, you must be so lonely. No, no.” She grabbed me by the arm. “That simply will not do. Let’s go grab some lunch right now I know a wonderful little place just out of town.”
She practically marched me to her car. I had enough time to grab my purse and shut the door. “What about the bakery over there?” I inhaled the aroma of fresh-baked bread and pastries.
I nearly drooled.
“You don’t want that,” she said with a derisive snort and wave of her manicured hand. When we were inside her car, she wasted no time pulling a sharp U-turn before I could even get my seatbelt on and peeled away down Main Street. “It’s all carbs, you’ll get fat and bloated. We want to keep your figure nice and-“ Beth gave me a sidelong glance and forced a smile. “Well, nice enough don’t we?”
The reply died on my lips as I looked at the figure in the bakery’s door. Beth was driving so fast I hardly had more than a glance, but I swore it was Thomas.
There was no way. I’d know. Right? Maybe he was only stopping in for lunch like I had thought to do. If it even was Thomas.
Buckling my seatbelt I noticed that perhaps Beth’s speed was on purpose. As fast as we were going I couldn’t notice how sad Main Street had become. Everything blurred by until we hit the road out of town and then it was nothing but fields with the occasional farmhouse and cottage.
Beth kept up a steady stream of bubbling dialogue. Most of which I tuned out as I watched the countryside fly by. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I had nothing to say. There was no room for me to insert a word beyond a nod and a non-committal agreement.
The poor girl must be so starved for attention, for anybody to talk to her and hang out with that everything spilled out the moment she found somebody. I got the gist of it about five minutes in.
After graduating she went to college, decided it wasn’t where she belonged - what does that mean exactly? - and instead chose to take her life in her own hands. She got a realtor’s license and began selling real estate. It was slow at first but she quickly rose to the top and has reigned there ever since.
I’m sure her vast family wealth had nothing to do with it. I kept that thought to myself.
She proudly boasted about all the places she’d sold, but what I was most curious about was what happened to them after she sold them. I’ve seen her type before, consultants that gutted a company to boost short-term profitability and pump up the stock so they could sell it at a huge mark-up.
Except it hurt the company and everybody else in the long-run. They didn’t care because they were on to the next company with all the money they received from the sale.
They were myopic and greedy.
Beth sounded a little like that. She earned her commission and didn’t care about it one bit after the check cleared. Didn’t she wonder why Main Street was so dead? If she had sold most of the shops as she said, who bought them and why did they leave them closed?
Maybe I was being too harsh. I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to find the reason for my hometown’s deterioration and it was hard not to at least partly blame Beth. She had a nice car while the average person in Sunrise Valley had something circa 1990.
She talked about herself, but never once asked about me, my father, or anybody else. I hoped I was only seeing a pattern where my mind wanted to. Beth deserved better than that, I vowed to try harder to see her side of things without being so judgmental.
Dad would have.
My thoughts swirled inside my head as we pulled into the eatery she was raving about for the past five minutes. “…the absolute best margaritas and gluten-free tacos.”
“That sounds good,” I replied. “What do you recommend?”
She shut the car off and turned to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so glad you asked! Just let me do all the ordering, you’ll absolutely love it!”
With that, she was gone. I stayed in the car a second to gather myself before stepping out.
It was pretty, I had to admit with adobe façade and wide beams sticking out of the flat roof like a building from the old west. The tex-mex vibe was unmistakable and while the smell of the place made my stomach rumble, I secretly yearned for some fresh scones.
The interior was cool and dark, filled with the intoxicating aroma of Mexican food. The smell made my stomach clench defensively. I’ll be the first to admit that I eat very bland food, but I have a reason. Spicy food and most any new food I try ends up making me sick.
Over the years that has a way of leaving its mark on a person. You stop wanting to try new things because each new thing hurts or makes you hug a toilet the following morning.
The worst was that nobody ever believed me about it either and swore up and down that this food wouldn’t be a problem.
Spoiler alert: it was.
So when Beth hauled me to a table ahead of our handsome young waiter, I was a little nervous. “This here is the best table in the house,” explained Beth, motioning me to sit down opposite her. “It’s far from the kitchen, but close enough that we can see them coming out if we want to get their attention.”
The waiter caught up to us, and to his credit had enough aplomb to shrug off the oddity of a pushy woman seating herself. He immediately launched into the specials, but Beth was having none of that.
“I know exactly what we want, sweetie. We’d like two margaritas, a serving of fresh guacamole for the table, vegan enchiladas, tex-mex pizza, pozole, and your gluten-free quesadillas.”
I hid my cringe by looking away. I wasn’t a linguist, I barely knew enough Spanish to get by with some of my clients, but Beth completely butchered every word. I tried to give an apologetic smile to the young man waiting on us, but a snap of Beth’s fingers had him wheeling around two seconds after he left the table.
“Oh,” she said sweetly, “and please get us some fresh tortilla chips.” She fluttered her fingers at the basket of chips on the table. They looked fresh to me.
“
Yes, ma'am. Right away.”
The poor guy couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Despite Beth’s somewhat off-putting mood, I did my best to enjoy her company and try to understand her. She was a busy woman, with little time for socializing and I knew how hard it was to be a successful woman in a field dominated by men and their massive egos.
Unfortunately, it seemed Beth defended herself by making her ego just as big, if not bigger than her male counterparts.
Now that I thought about it I doubted she even knew my dad was dead. It’s not like she knew him very well. Most of our family and friends had moved out of town before we graduated from high school and what little remained had their own lives now.
Admittedly part of that was my fault. After all the nasty rumors Thomas spread about me I wasn’t exactly eager to answer messages from classmates wondering if what they heard was true.
And I just went and ruined a perfectly nice evening with an old friend by thinking about Thomas and why I left again.
When would I learn?
“Earth to Claire.” Beth waved her hand in front of my face. “Where’d you go? You looked like you just had a war flashback.”
“Something like that,” I said with a wry grin. “It’s not important, just a lot to think about, you know with my dad’s death.”
Beth gave me a sage nod. “Oh, yes I heard about that. Awful news, have you found a buyer for the property yet? If not I know somebody who - and this is just between us girls - offering thirty percent over market value. As-is, Claire. No cleaning or fixing anything, just sign and get your money. I promise it’s the easiest cash you’ll ever make.”
I bristled at her callous pitch.
Did she think I was so eager to get back to my life that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with my dad’s business? I took a calming breath and schooled my face to pleasantness. She was only trying to make a sale, it was probably instinctual at this point.
“No, I don’t even have the paperwork for the place yet.” I gave her my best sheepish smile. “I don’t meet with the lawyer for a few days, and until then I don’t even know who gets the property. He may have given it to Jemma for all I know.”
In between bites of her quesadilla, Beth waved her hand as if she could brush the idea away. “Nonsense. I am sure he gave it to you, the sensible daughter.”
She leaned slightly over the table. “You and me, we’re a lot alike. Both driven women working in a man’s world and doing it better than they ever could. But do they care to learn how we outperform them? Hell no. They just bitch and moan about how we’re stealing their clients.
“Well, I have some news for them. They’d have more clients if they knew how to close a damn deal instead of trying to impress them all the time. Oh, but look at me prattling on. You probably know exactly what I’m talking about. Not like Jemma.
“It’s amazing that your father was able to raise you girls as well as he was after your mother went and ran off. Poor Jemma wasn’t as lucky as you, but-“ She shrugged her shoulders and I felt the heat rise to my face. “Not a lot of people are ready for the realities of the world.”
My therapist says that I’m prone to violent outbursts and fits of anger because I lost my mom at an early age and never learned how to properly socialize with others. That I wall myself off because I think everybody’s going to betray my trust and hurt me.
I would make sure to tell her about this encounter as proof that her therapy was working.
I didn’t yell, slap, or otherwise deck Beth in that dolled up face for the awful things she was saying, but it was the things she left unsaid that really riled me up.
I could be a gracious guest though. I learned how to wine and dine with absolutely boorish people I needed to remain on good terms with. I could handle one over-inflated ego.
Besides, she had the only car for miles and I didn’t fancy sitting here waiting for a car to come pick me up. If I could even get one all the way out here.
There was still organizing and boxing to be done back at Dad’s. I said as much and for the first time, Beth’s face fell a little. Was she actually sorry that I wasn’t going to spend the rest of the day with her?
She was hard to read. Sometimes she was so obviously mean-girling me that I was ready to scream and other times she seemed to genuinely want my company.
High school hadn’t been like this. Beth had been a bit odd, but never so hot and cold. Then again there had always been Thomas and usually Jemma around even though she was a year behind us.
As I took out my pocketbook to pay, Beth raised a hand. “No, no. Let me. I offered to take you out, it’s the least I could do. You’ve got enough to worry about.”
Beth paid, and to my surprise stiffed the waiter on a tip. The meal wasn’t cheap either, even a simple ten percent would have been sizeable. I was used to this maneuver, mostly it was from clients out of the country that weren’t used to the backwards way American restaurants operated. Tipping wasn’t the norm elsewhere.
“Go ahead to the car,” I said, gently touching her arm. “I need to use the restroom real fast.”
Once Beth was gone I turned away from the bathroom and thumbed through the cash in my pocketbook and gave a proper tip, plus a little extra for having to put up with Beth. He deserved it. I caught his eye as I pushed out of the cool dark interior to the bright midday lights.
His look of utter shock on his face as he counted the tip had me grinning the entire ride back to town.
“Thanks for the lovely lunch, Beth,” I said as brightly as I could. “I know you’re busy, but if you’ve got time for that girl's night out I’d love to come.”
We traded numbers and I climbed up into my truck. I noticed with regret that the bakery was already closed and the sun was beginning its early descent, casting a long cloak of shadow across Main Street.
It was a quick trip to the rear lot of the building where I did my best to back up the truck so it’d be easy to load boxes from the stairs into the rear of the spacious cargo area. It was its only saving grace.
The Suburban was massive, drove like a boat, its gas mileage was laughable, and I could barely see out of the mirrors properly. But if I needed to pack up everything in Dad’s apartment I could shove most of it into the back and still have plenty of room.
I’d give it a C. I thought to myself, judging my parking job. Luckily whoever owned the apartment and subsequently the bakery didn’t park their car here or else they might have some choice words for me.
Sometimes it was tough being such a rigorous time-stuffer. I took the steps while I went over the messages I had gotten throughout lunch. Still no reply from Jemma. She’d seen it over an hour ago, why hadn’t she responded? Thinking she probably forgot, I moved onto the work-related matters and kicked off my shoes once I got inside the apartment.
I paused to look at the door behind me, and just to be safe I slid the deadbolt and chain into place. Sometime last night I swore I heard footsteps outside the door, but when I finally got the courage to go check there was nothing there.
It was a little scary, and I was reminded of how alone I was here without Dad or Jemma.
The boxed leftovers went straight into the fridge and I got to work drafting a plan of action for my overall organizational efforts. I’d start in the farthest room first - the guest room Jemma and I usually took - and work my way to the living room.
Dad’s room would be last. It wasn’t the most efficient, but I didn’t know if I could handle it without Jemma. I hadn’t even gone into the room on my initial inspection.
I spent most of the night taping, assembling, and labeling cardboard boxes. Everything went in its rightful place based on the color-coded dots and the three-letter system - no, I’m just kidding. I’m not that much of a neat-freak.
Boxes were labeled by their rooms and further separated into keepsakes for each of us, specific family members, and things to give away or toss. Since the guest bedroom was mostly used by Jemma and me, there wa
sn’t much there to pack up.
I should have slept in the bed last night, I wasn’t going to torture my back another night by sleeping in Dad’s chair. Somebody had replaced the sheets with clean ones, which only deepened the mystery. Who had a key that would do something like that?
Nobody had come to offer condolences - of which I was more than grateful to put off a little longer - and I would have expected it to be one of them.
The plot thickens.
I had finished with the bathroom and was halfway through the living room when I realized what time it was. Jemma still hadn’t messaged me, and I adamantly refused to be the badgering big sister this time. She could be an adult about this on her own without me being the bad guy.
The place was beginning to look bare, everything was boxed up and hidden from view. All of my dad’s shaving things were gone, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how disturbing it was to fit a person’s entire life into boxes. As if we could somehow reduce their experiences and all that they were into something so…mundane.
Memories of him pushing us on the swings at the park, picnics with him, Jemma, and Thomas flooded me with sadness and longing for a simpler time. A time when I still had my father, and my best friend. When my sister used to follow me around like I was the sun and would listen to every word out of my mouth - mostly at least.
Things could still get better, couldn’t they? I could talk to Thomas, maybe we could find some sort of middle ground. I could forgive him, but I wouldn’t ever be able to forget the way he made me feel. Did I even want to do that?
Visions of Thomas and Jemma playing tag in the park while I cleaned up our picnic of fried chicken and buttered biscuits played through my mind like a home movie. I wasn’t sure I was ready to forgive him, but I could at least give him the opportunity to apologize.
We might be able to be friends again. But just friends, nothing more.
6
Kneading You Page 4