Brunch at Bittersweet Café

by Carla Laureano

  Justin slid the door open and stepped onto the back patio. “What are you doing?”

  Rich looked up. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m weeding.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” Justin ambled to his side. “But why? You hate gardening.”

  Rich shrugged. “I’m retired. I only hated gardening because I had other things to do with my time. But now I don’t, so I might as well work on the yard.” He gestured with his spade. “I thought I would put a few more trees into that corner. Maybe a fire pit with some flagstone pavers. Adirondack chairs. It would be a nice place to spend some summer nights.”

  Justin stared at him. “Who are you and what did you do with my father?”

  Rich chuckled. “Retirement makes you do strange things, Son. I enjoyed doing nothing for all of two weeks. And then I got up one morning and realized I was bored to death. There’s only so much time you can spend drinking coffee and reading newspapers and watching TV. So I might as well catch up on those home improvement projects I’ve been talking about for the last twenty years.”

  “Okay, then. Whatever makes you happy and keeps you busy, I guess.” Justin shook his head, repressing a laugh. Domestic tasks were normally Rich’s last inclination. Justin would have thought his dad would buy a project car or a vintage plane and spend his time fixing those up. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  Rich pushed himself to his feet and dusted his hands off on his jeans. “Oh yeah?”

  Justin told him they were about to sign the final papers for the business, that he would soon be the proud half owner of a charter with established customers and three planes. Said aloud, it did sound pretty impressive. Made him feel ungrateful for his ambivalence. “So that means I’ll be gone by the end of the week.”

  “So soon?”

  “I need to find a place to live out there, and the owner is only staying on so long for the transition. I’d feel better if I got out there as soon as possible.”

  Rich studied him, his expression knowing. “And the girl?”

  “Melody? It’s over. It was only supposed to be temporary anyway.”

  Justin didn’t meet Rich’s eyes, and his dad didn’t push. “I’m sorry to hear that. It sounded like you really liked her. But . . .”

  “But guys like us don’t do well with long-term relationships; I know.”

  “I was just going to say sometimes you meet the right person at the wrong time.” Rich’s expression filled with sympathy. “I think you’ll like Florida. I think if I were going to move away from Denver, that’s where I would go. Be one of those old men driving a golf cart to the grocery store in checkered pants and a paddy hat.”

  “A souped-up golf cart maybe.” Justin grinned, cheered by that image. “I’ll leave you to your gardening.”

  “What’s the rush? Grab a spade. As soon as I get this bed cleared, I’m going to the nursery for some annuals.”

  Justin shook his head, now pretty certain that his father had been snatched and replaced with a pod person. But he grabbed a spade, knelt beside his dad, and began to pull up the vines that trailed beneath the surface of the flower bed. He drew the line at selecting flowers, however, so once he’d finished his section of freshly tilled and weeded dirt, he made his excuses and escaped.

  Which only put him smack into the middle of his own thoughts. It was all he could do not to drive to Melody’s bakery, see it with his own eyes. Tell her that he loved her, that he missed her already, that he’d made a mistake. Tell her that he’d stay.

  But he couldn’t. Even if he could somehow abandon his sister and Pete that way, his entire savings was wrapped up in the business. He was on the hook for a very large bank loan, from which there was no way out.

  He’d made his decision long before she said good-bye. This was his doing and he didn’t have the right to be in her life, not even for a last few precious days.

  He should go home and begin packing. But the thought of doing that just made him more depressed. Instead, he turned his car toward the airport, running through potential destinations in his head.

  In the air, he could temporarily forget what he’d done. He could put these feelings aside in the sheer joy of flight. And forget that in keeping his promise to one woman, he’d completely betrayed another.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  MELODY SHOWED UP for Bittersweet’s first full day with bloodshot, swollen eyes and a pounding headache. She was already working on the first batches of cinnamon roll dough when Rachel breezed through the back door, looking deliriously happy and much too awake for the early hour.

  Rachel took one look at Melody and her expression turned to alarm. “What happened?”

  Melody continued to roll the dough, the exertion giving her something to focus on other than her aching heart. “Justin came by last night. It’s over.”

  “Oh, Melody, I’m so sorry.” Rachel enveloped her in a hug, but Melody just stood there stiffly, holding her sticky hands free. She couldn’t let herself sink into the comfort. Couldn’t tell her friend how she felt. She had twelve hours to get through here, and she was afraid that if she let the tears flow, she wouldn’t be able to bottle them up again.

  She cleared her throat, but her voice still came out hoarse. “I knew it was coming. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ll be okay. I’m always okay.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I really don’t.” She didn’t think she could handle the attempts at comfort from her blissfully engaged friend. She didn’t resent Rachel, but she knew all too well how easy it was to give advice when you were on the other side of a problem. Rachel had a man who adored her, who would give up anything for her.

  Justin had proven that she wasn’t worth giving up anything for.

  No, that wasn’t fair. He had an obligation to his sister. To her health. The plan had been in motion long before Melody had come along. She would feel terrible if he left his sister in the lurch because of her. If she got sicker because Justin wouldn’t leave Melody behind.

  Rachel apparently gave up on getting Melody to talk because she got set up for the day, sharpening knives and pulling out cutting boards, then started her prep. Melody went back to the cinnamon rolls, rolling out the huge lump of dough into a great sheet, then mixing together butter and her proprietary cinnamon-spice mixture to be spread as the filling. The familiar movements gave her something to focus on. A way to keep her mind off Justin and the ache that had started in her heart but wouldn’t be content until it crawled through her entire body.

  The worst thing was, she didn’t blame him. It would be so much easier if she hated him. She could hide behind wrath until the worst of the hurt was gone. But Justin was an essentially decent guy who hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just bad timing. It was no one’s fault.

  Except a little part of her thought it was someone’s fault.

  Until Justin had missed Bittersweet’s opening, she’d been convinced that it was going to all work out. Her faith in that was so strong that she had refused to entertain any other possibility. God loved her. She actually thought He had brought her and Justin together. Hadn’t she and Rachel and Ana talked about God dropping the perfect men in their laps since they’d had so much difficulty finding one on their own? You couldn’t get any more ordained than his car breaking down in front of her work, or her grandmother leaving the Hornet to her, when Justin was the obvious choice to help her.

  If He’d done all that, it was like a promise to work things out in the end, wasn’t it?

  “I am such a pathetic fool,” she whispered. “Are You laughing at me, flitting around with this naive belief that You’re going to work everything out for me?”

  The worst thing was that it felt like she was being punished for wanting something permanent. For daring to believe that she could stay here and have everything she wanted. For trying to put down roots with people who loved her in a place she loved back.

  Because people always left, and if you had roots, you couldn�
�t follow.

  Tears slid down her face, and she jumped back just before they could fall into her dough. She swiped a sleeve over her cheeks. If she cried now, it wasn’t only over Justin. It was because everything she believed was muddled. She was lost. In the past, she would have told herself something better was around the corner, but she could no longer believe that was true.

  “Mel?”

  Melody opened her mouth to say she was fine, but instead the words spilled out in something that sounded like a wail. “Why doesn’t anyone ever choose me?”

  Rachel’s face crumpled. She opened her arms again, and this time Melody went into them, her pain pouring out in great, gulping sobs. She held on tight, heedless of her sticky hands on the back of Rachel’s jacket, tears pouring over both of them while her friend held her and stroked her hair.

  “I love you, Melody. I picked you, remember? I couldn’t do this without you. And I know it’s selfish, but I’m glad you’re not leaving. I need you. Bittersweet needs you.”

  “It’s not the same,” Melody mumbled.

  “Well, I hope not.” Rachel’s voice sounded so wry that Melody lifted her head and let out a watery laugh.

  Only then did she realize the kitchen had gone on around them, like water around an island. Both Sam and Talia had arrived, the former picking up on Rachel’s prep, Talia sliding into Melody’s place. She was now rolling up the cinnamon rolls and cutting them with a bench knife to be loaded into pans.

  The pastry assistant flicked a look in their direction, and Melody braced herself. But all Talia said was, “Can I get started on the choux?”

  Melody nodded and wiped her face with her sleeve, embarrassed. “Rachel—”

  “Nope. Bittersweet needs you now. Later, we’ll have cupcake therapy at my place. I’ll have Ana bring the ice cream.”

  Melody’s heart clenched, but this time it wasn’t strictly from pain. She’d missed her friends. Now she wished she hadn’t let her relationship with Justin drive a wedge between them. They wouldn’t say anything about it, not a single “I told you so.” They would let her cry and cut her off after her second bowl of ice cream so she didn’t have a stomachache to contend with on top of a broken heart.

  Maybe not everyone abandoned her after all.

  She wiped her eyes and nose, washed her hands, and dove back into her tasks. Like the pro she was, Talia didn’t even flicker an eyelash at her swollen face, handing off the baked éclair shells for Melody to fill. As the case out front began to fill with all sorts of breakfast deliciousness—cinnamon rolls, plain butter croissants, today’s special Dutch apple croissants—the sick feeling began to ebb from her body. Seeing the raw materials come together into beautiful, tempting, golden-brown baked goods was an ordinary sort of magic, but magic nonetheless.

  A good thing, because it was the only magic she still believed in.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  SOMEWHERE IN THE back of her mind, Melody had been concerned that their first month open would be an endless stretch of dead time and empty tables. She needn’t have worried. It seemed that enough people had made Gibraltar part of their regular route that the opening of Bittersweet had seamlessly slipped into the neighborhood’s morning routine. By the time they reached their grand opening on Saturday, their breakfast pastries were selling out every morning as commuters stopped by for a coffee and a croissant.

  Rachel and Sam were equally busy. While Melody and Talia were turning out tray after tray of croissants and cinnamon rolls, the two cooks scrambled to meet the consistent demand for things like seafood Benedicts, fried-egg hash with chanterelles and garlic scapes, and a challah-custard French toast that was so rich and creamy it could double for bread pudding. Just because they were small didn’t mean they couldn’t produce food worthy of the city’s finest restaurants. Rachel refused to compromise, giving every plate the same attention she had at Paisley.

  Brunch in particular was a hit on Saturday and Sunday, with lines stretching out the door and around the building. They added several benches outside the plate-glass windows to give people a place to sit and drink coffee while they waited for a free table. Melody began coming in extra early to start the bread just so she had time to circulate through the dining room, delivering plates and greeting their new regulars. In those moments, chatting with happy patrons and watching them devour her handiwork with blissful expressions, she felt something she could only describe as joy.

  And yet, paradoxically, that feeling existed totally separate from the ever-present ache in her chest, the constant knowledge of the price she’d paid to have this. She couldn’t stop the leap of her heart when the door opened to a man who vaguely resembled Justin, only to have it crash into her stomach when she realized it was merely a counterfeit. Of course he wasn’t going to walk through the door with the rest of the brunch crowd. He was gone for good.

  She knew this because she had stopped by his building in a moment of weakness and pressed the button for apartment 202, only to hear a child’s voice answer. He’d moved on. Like she needed to.

  She managed to convince herself that she was doing a good job of it when she was in the bakery, working from four in the morning to three or four in the afternoon every day. She smiled and laughed and said all the right things when she saw Rachel and Ana. She helped Rachel with plans for her upcoming wedding, date still undecided. And yet somehow it all took on a sense of unreality, like she was an impostor in her own life, someone who looked and sounded like Melody but didn’t really belong there.

  The real Melody sobbed in her bed each night when the pain she’d pushed off all day came back with unrelenting fury. The little voice in her head whispered ugly half-truths: He left you because you weren’t important. He didn’t care enough. And why should he? You’re unlovable. If you weren’t, your relationships wouldn’t keep ending. Brandon. Sebastian. Luc. Leo. Micah. Justin. A familiar list of names, now longer by one.

  Her Bible stayed firmly in the drawer where she’d left it. She couldn’t summon the will or the enthusiasm to take it out and read. Her Instagram account, on the other hand, expanded exponentially as she baked her way through silent evenings, even after twelve-hour days at the café. She didn’t crack the books that featured prominently in the photos, however; they were simply a painful reminder that she wasn’t a fictional heroine destined for a happy ending. The girl who had collected those volumes felt like a different Melody. A hopeful Melody. One who hadn’t been betrayed.

  The worst thing was, it wasn’t even Justin who had betrayed her. It was God.

  She’d trusted Him to work things out, and He hadn’t. Her faith seemed so naive, so childish now. And even that thought made her feel guilty, because she had what she’d always said she wanted—her own bakery.

  She’d just thought that she could have it all, that she deserved it all. She never expected she’d have to choose, and that either choice would make her feel like part of herself was missing.

  One Sunday after the kitchen closed and she and Rachel were doing their last round of cleanup, Rachel paused and looked at her. “I think it’s time to talk about the Saturday Night Supper Club.”

  Melody stopped her scrubbing. “Oh? What are you thinking?”

  “Well, as much as I love having it at my house, we’ve got this amazing space that’s empty after six o’clock. If we move it here, we’ll be able to open it to the public.”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Melody said. “I know the supper club is getting pretty expensive to host, even though we all contribute to the cost of food. Are you thinking about rolling it into Bittersweet itself?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t want to make any decisions without your input. Obviously it slightly increases our overhead . . .”

  Melody waved a hand. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll have the tickets sold out a month in advance. You’ve still got people begging for an invite on Instagram every time you or Alex post something. It could be a great revenue source.�
��

  “I was thinking maybe we could hold one every couple of months that was invite only. The intimacy was what appealed to me over these past nine months, but I think I’m ready to move on. If I’m putting this much time into it, which will eventually be time away from my husband, I feel like I need to be able to put a price on that.” Rachel grimaced. “Does that make me a horrible, materialistic person?”

  “I think that makes you a very wise person.” Melody squeezed Rachel’s shoulder. “What does Ana say?”

  “I haven’t asked her yet. I wanted to get your okay before I set her loose. You know she’ll have a marketing strategy and a to-do list for us before we get off the phone.”

  Melody laughed. “We’d be lost without her, you know.”

  “I know. That’s why I keep trying to pay her. She just keeps refusing.” Rachel looked up. “Speaking of . . .”

  Melody followed her gaze to where Ana stood outside the glass door and hurried to open it for her. “What are you doing here?”

  Ana slipped inside and exchanged a glance with Rachel, who had stopped sweeping.

  Dread crept into the pit of Melody’s stomach. “What’s going on?”

  Rachel pulled three chairs off the top of a table where they’d been overturned for cleaning. “Sit down, Mel.”

  Melody did as they asked, as cautiously as an animal that sensed a trap. Ana and Rachel seated themselves on either side of her. “Guys, you’re freaking me out here. Did someone die?”

  Ana cracked a smile. “Only the Melody we know and love. We’re worried about you.”

  Rachel reached for Melody’s hand before she could pull away. “We want to know how you’re really doing, Mel. Tell us the truth. Not what you think we want to hear.”