Of Literature and Lattes, page 13
“I love you, b—” Janet stopped and swallowed. “And. I love you and I want you here, but this . . .” She flapped her hand between them. “It’s a roller coaster and it isn’t going to work. It’s not what you need right now, not after all you’ve been through. I’ll buy a mattress and have it delivered to your dad’s apartment. He wanted you to live here, for my sake, and for yours too, I think. He believes there is something between us worth saving, but not like this. I’m only causing you pain.”
Alyssa shook her head. But Janet didn’t take it as disagreement. It looked more like her daughter was clearing away all the discordant words and notes in her head. The cacophony she had put there.
“I’ve followed you, by the way, as best I could, searching the internet for all that happened with XGC, peppering your dad with questions because you wouldn’t talk to me, wondering if you were okay, wondering if you were scared or lonely, or needing help or simply a hug. I didn’t know about all the interviews or the companies. I didn’t know jail was an option for you. I hope that’s not true.”
Alyssa didn’t reply, so she continued. “But I did know about Jasper’s. He’s a wonderful man and you can learn a lot from him, maybe even a little about cars too.” She smiled.
Alyssa opened her mouth, but Janet raised a hand to cut her off. She wanted to get everything out before another wave of vitriol or something worse hit her.
“And I’m so glad you felt you could come home, even if it wasn’t to me.” She clasped her hands together to keep them from trembling. “Your dad is thrilled, by the way. He didn’t want you to see that. He wanted to respect that you’re an adult and, as I said, he was trying to give me time with you, but he’s missed you so much. To have his little girl home safe and sound is a big deal. For both of us. I hope someday we can talk, really talk and listen to each other, but until you’re ready, it’s best you go back to your dad’s. After dinner with your grandmother, of course. She’s excited to see you too. And don’t let her belittle Jasper and your work there, if you don’t mind. He really is a good man . . . And for when she starts in on me . . . I’m not so bad, Alyssa. At least not anymore, I hope.”
With that, Janet walked out of the kitchen.
Moments later she heard the back door open and shut.
Her daughter was gone.
Chapter 18
Jeremy took a deep breath. He needed to fire Ryan.
Rather than help, in the two weeks since Andante’s reopening he found Ryan nipping at his heels, making things worse with his constant complaining and doubts. Jeremy knew the place was a mess, but being reminded of it every single moment wasn’t helping. One foster mom used to quip when her kids complained, “Be a problem solver.” He’d grown to hate that line—yet he had used it on Ryan just that morning.
An hour earlier, Brendon had been “loitering” in the alley when, according to Ryan, he should have been clearing tables.
“It’s hardly a capital offense. You know kids, they move in packs. They just started summer break—it’s probably separation anxiety.” Jeremy had laughed.
“He’s not respectful, and that’s not good for business.”
“He’s a kid and he’s fine. Ryan, man, you gotta grow up. You don’t need to come to me for this. Be a problem solver. Mention it to him, but coming down on him isn’t helpful. He was gone only a few minutes. We’ve dealt with worse than this.”
That was a low blow—one Jeremy regretted the moment the words flew from his mouth.
It was passive aggressive. No, it was worse than that—it was mean. He knew it, yet he couldn’t stop himself. Despite his best intentions, he couldn’t seem to let go that Ryan had only been weeks out of rehab when they’d started working together, and that Ryan had been a mess back then. And now, rather than feel grace and understanding from him about his own weaknesses, Jeremy felt condemnation. How fair was that?
They used to laugh about their personalities and their pasts. They’d howl at the disaster Ryan was in those early days and what a challenge Jeremy could be on his best day. But ever since Andante opened, everything had changed. Jeremy felt it. With every mistake he made, rightly or wrongly, Ryan let him know it. And, rightly or wrongly, Jeremy held it against the younger man.
Jeremy had then motioned out the back alley door. “They’ll give up coming around soon and it’ll all be over. It’s not that interesting back there.”
Before Ryan could reply, Becca had pushed through the swinging door and his face split into a grin. “Becca Boo, how are you?” He scooped her high into his arms as Krista followed her daughter into the kitchen.
Krista took in the sight of Ryan holding Becca, smiled, and turned to Jeremy. “You good for the whole weekend?”
“I am. I’ve got fun planned and some time off work.”
Krista surveyed the space. The kitchen and office combo was small, and a little messy this morning. Jeremy had stayed last night to go over the books and ended up making batches of muffins deep into the early hours when none of the numbers made any sense to him.
He followed Krista’s scan of the place, trying to imagine what she saw and thought. He hadn’t cleaned well, not that it would have mattered if he had. Nothing he touched ever projected the world Krista wanted. Heck, Andante, front shop or back office, didn’t project the world he wanted.
Jeremy shrugged. “She won’t spend the weekend here. I promise.”
“That’s probably best.” Krista dropped Becca’s Anna and Elsa bag on the floor next to his desk and left without another word.
Jeremy left Becca and Ryan chatting Polly Pockets and books and pushed through the swinging door. In the four months since he and Ryan had moved from Seattle, Jeremy often wondered who had gotten to know his daughter better. On the one hand he understood that Ryan had no parental responsibilities—he could be Becca’s friend. On the other hand, their easy friendship pinched at him. The little voice that often whispered his failings chatted up a storm whenever Becca and Ryan were together.
Yes, it was time they parted ways.
Jeremy stalled and counted the customers. Ten. The tiny fissure in his chest cracked wider.
He walked to the register. “What’s the take this morning?”
Brendon tapped a few buttons. “It’s been a little slow. $410.”
“So, what? A hundredish customers?”
Brendon shook his head. “Someone from the bookstore came and bought six muffins and three coffees, so it’s not that many individual sales, if that’s what you’re after.”
Jeremy stepped back and ran his hands through his hair.
“I can tell you what everybody ordered if you want.” Brendon tapped the tablet.
Jeremy pushed off the counter. “No. Thanks, though.” He turned away as a customer approached Brendon. “You get back to work.”
In his periphery he noticed Alyssa tucked into a corner table. He pulled an espresso shot, added a little steamed milk, grabbed one of the last muffins from the display case, and crossed the store to slide them onto her table.
“I didn’t order anything,” she commented without lifting her head.
“I thought you could use a pick-me-up.”
That got her head up, straight up. “You’re really tall. Did you know that?”
“I’ve heard it mentioned.” He laughed and felt his first moment of ease. “I’ve noted you’re pretty tall yourself.”
She stretched her back, nodded to the gifts, and with a thank-you she reached into her bag and shook a few Tums from a large plastic bottle.
“My food isn’t that bad.”
She laughed. “It’s not at all. My last job gave me ulcers and you’d think they’d be gone by now, but this has me in knots.” She pointed to her open laptop.
“What are you working on?”
“Your numbers.”
“So that’s what’s bad . . . At least it’s not my food.” He leaned forward. “How bad is it? You don’t look pleased.”
Alyssa shrugged. “I’m not not pleased and I’m beginning to get a good picture, but there are some questions.” She followed her two Tums with a corner of the muffin.
“Such as?”
“Inconsistencies. Let me play around more before we talk, though. I want to follow the trails myself. Anything you say can prejudice what I find.”
“It’s not a court of law,” Jeremy laughed.
“But once you tell me a story, that’s the one I’ll see. It will influence how I interpret what I find. But do you have any other accounts you didn’t give me? Anything at all?”
He shook his head. “I gave you everything.” He pointed to one of her spreadsheets. “I hope you noted how much I trust you. I didn’t even delete the account numbers.”
She smiled. “I deleted them for you. You’ve got to keep that information secure.”
He scrunched his nose. “It seemed like a nice gesture, but you’re right.”
Alyssa laughed and tapped his forearm. “I caught it. My nice gesture was to delete them.”
“Why’d you ask that? About the accounts? What’s wrong?” He leaned back and her hand fell away.
“I’m not sure . . . Something.” She glanced first at her computer, then at him. “Hey . . . It’s going to be okay.”
He leaned forward again, his face inches from hers. “I hardly know you, think you’re most likely wrong, but I love that you believe that.”
For one moment, everything stilled. He vaguely recalled having said something similar to her when they first met and wondered what was up—with him. He opened his mouth to recant, cover, or say something to backtrack, when he looked into her eyes. They were just about the most beautiful blue he’d ever seen.
She leaned back in her chair and studied him. Rather than downplay his words or brush them away with embarrassment, she seemed to absorb them. “I need it to be true too.”
He nodded.
She held his gaze a beat longer before she broke eye contact and looked around the coffee shop.
He followed her line of sight and landed on the customer chatting with Brendon. “Do you know George Williams?”
Alyssa twisted around, using the motion to stretch her back again. “Of course, everyone does. One of his kids was in my high school class. Devon, I think.”
“He must have been a super-old father.”
“Devon and his siblings were adopted long after his own kids graduated. He and Mrs. Williams got all three of them at once. They were in foster care or something and were about to get split up. We were probably in seventh grade then . . . They had grandkids our age too. One was a year or so behind us and used to call Devon ‘Uncle’ in the hallways.”
Jeremy looked at the man more closely. “The first day he came in, he was upset about the pillows, and everything else too.” Jeremy rested his arms on the two-top. “In fact, a few customers still grumble about them.”
“That’s because their kids and grandkids made those pillows.” At his expression, Alyssa laughed. “Mrs. Pavlis should have told you. Someone should have. The middle school has an eighth-grade home economics class and you make pillows, or we did back then. A few kids gave theirs to Mrs. Pavlis and it became a thing. I bet at least ten kids gave her their pillows each year. Some got too old to keep, some kids took them back after a while, but there were always at least seventy or so in here.”
“One hundred twenty-three.”
“No way. That’s crazy.”
“And it explains a lot.” Jeremy sighed. “When we first opened, before the renovations, it was business as usual . . .” He pointed to her computer. “I didn’t see a difference between her numbers and ours. But now . . . I doubt I’ll make it.” He looked around. “All because of some homemade pillows.”
“Your changes are amazing. I was pretty rude the first day I was in here.”
“Nah . . . You had a point, but not the one you thought you were making. It wasn’t about the coffee, was it? People felt at home here, and I took that away.” He turned and pointed to the two ancient espresso machines. “See those? I wondered how those could be so gorgeous and the rest of this place such a cluttered mess. I thought Georgia had gone batty, but she knew what she was about. She kept her machines pristine. She respected her business. Her seating area? That was for everyone else. And I destroyed it.” He dropped his head and felt a hand, soft and light, on his arm.
“Don’t give up the ship yet. You’ve created something wonderful. Besides, the machines are still here.”
“A new machine should be here any day. The last vestige of the Daily Brew gone.”
Right as he looked up, she glanced past him and wagged a finger to her right. “Someone’s calling you.”
That’s when the chaos began, and somehow in the following few minutes Alyssa ended up volunteering to take Becca to the park, with a “You can run next door and ask my mom for a reference if you need one.” Ryan stepped behind the register because Brendon had gone MIA again, and Jeremy started a verbal showdown with the courier delivering his new espresso machine.
“What do you mean you’re loading it back on the truck?”
The man pressed his foot down on the pallet jack. “I shoulda looked before I unloaded, but your check didn’t clear.”
“Of course it cleared. I sent it last week.”
“I got my orders. Call my boss if you want, but it says right here that it’s going back.” He slid his phone from his pocket and flashed the screen to Jeremy.
“Don’t move. Do not move until I talk to your boss.” Jeremy dashed back into the office, grabbed his cell phone, yelled, listened, waited—then stood in the alley and watched as the driver reloaded the machine and drove away.
He felt rather than saw Ryan step next to him. “How did this happen?”
“Brendon’s back,” Ryan replied.
“I don’t care about Brendon.” Jeremy balked, then lowered his voice. “They took the La Marzocco back—he said the check didn’t clear. What’s going on here?”
Ryan pulled back. “How should I know? You’ve called me off giving any real help.”
“You know what? I can’t do this right now.” Jeremy looked into the coffee shop’s back office. It looked like a dark hole that was about to swallow him. “I need out of here. I have to go get Becca at the park.”
“It’s quiet today. Why not take the rest of the day off? Be with Becca?”
“It’s quiet every day. Which is exactly why I can’t afford a day off.”
Chapter 19
Jeremy stood at the edge of the park, scanning the playscape for his daughter. He finally spotted her atop the ladder helping a younger kid prepare to slide. In her bright red T-shirt and ponytail, she looked just like Krista.
While the reminder carried a little sting, the sight of Becca’s head thrown back in laughter brought a smile too. Those early days had been good—raw and frantic in many ways, but good. Laughter, walks, holding hands, Seattle sunsets. Falling asleep tangled up in each other and heading out early to watch the sunrise.
Everything felt so heightened he couldn’t let go. So sure he’d finally found a home, not a place, but a person, he proposed after only three weeks. And she accepted. They hopped a flight to Vegas and he’d even found them an Elvis chapel. After all, if you were going to be a cliché, you had to go all the way.
Only once did he detect any hesitation. While Krista recited her vows, dressed in a white minidress, she hesitated. Her voice hitched and her eyes flickered away. But even now he couldn’t be sure. He thought he saw it, thought he remembered that it had pulled at him, thought it was the first crack in the idyllic façade, but it was smoke. He couldn’t catch it and maybe it was revisionist thinking anyway. Maybe she’d been, in that moment, as committed as he was, and things only unraveled later.
But it wasn’t the wedding he remembered most, it was their one-month anniversary. The frenzy of their time together had cooled and he hoped they were settling down, finding level ground. Then she told him she was pregnant, and he soared. That wasn’t revisionist thinking. He felt the pulse and joy of that moment, even now, watching his daughter laugh in the sunshine.
He had pulled Krista tight and assured her that their baby was everything he hoped for, that everything would be just fine.
Five months later, she was gone.
Becca was helping another kid climb the ladder to the slide. He could imagine her soft, encouraging words. It was the same voice she used on him when they played a game and he didn’t understand the rules. And rather than point out to her that he’d never learn the rules if she didn’t quit changing them, he would listen as she explained her new and proper way to play school, restaurant, doctor, or Candy Land.
It always astonished him how quickly kids made friends. It’d been only a half hour since Alyssa asked if she could bring Becca to the park, and already his daughter had found another couple kids her age and teamed up with a few younger. He laughed as all six launched from the slide and clambered over the playscape. She’ll remember these days, he thought. She’ll remember this laughter. And she would remember him.
Jeremy tried to summon a memory of his own childhood. He couldn’t. Tragedy will do that, each and every therapist said. But it never helped. Over the years he had worked to push his mind back to his mom, to his dad, to their life together—to recall his mom’s hair color, height, smell, or voice; his father’s laugh, occupation, hobbies, or height. Did he have a beard? Was he thin or stocky? And every time Jeremy was met with the impenetrable wall formed at their deaths. He thought about the photos and albums he knew his aunt had packed away when she came to clear and sell the house. She came for it, not for him. But he never searched for them, afraid that when looking at them, he’d only find the faces of strangers.
So when a friend commented that he was a stranger to his own daughter, he vowed she would remember him. No matter what it took. He would not become that faceless, voiceless void in her life. Because no matter how involved Krista purported him to be on social media, it wasn’t true. He knew marginally more about his daughter, while living in Seattle, than he knew about his parents. But he could change that. Whereas the other, he could only regret.
