Of Literature and Lattes, page 17
“You have the right to an attorney. If you—”
“Stop. You’re reading me my Miranda rights? Why would you do that?” Jeremy twisted to face the man again. “I’m coming. Of course I’m coming. I was just saying, I was trying to tell you—” Jeremy’s jaw dropped as something caught in his periphery.
Three customers had drawn closer, most likely to catch better audio.
Jeremy clamped his mouth shut as the officer now holding Brendon in cuffs led the way out the front door.
He stared at the recording phones, oddly unable to look away. Part of his brain knew he was giving them too much; the other part didn’t care.
Andante was finished.
Chapter 24
Nine hours and countless questions later, Jeremy climbed out of Madeline’s car in the alley between the Printed Letter and Andante.
“I’m sorry I called you. I didn’t understand what was happening.”
“They just wanted answers and were following procedure, but it can be unnerving.” Madeline reached for her purse in the back seat.
“Can I be charged with anything?”
“If what you said was true, I doubt it. If it’s determined that you should have known, there may be more questions, but with no communication on company email, computers, or phones, or drugs sold within the premises or during the execution of any of Brendon’s work duties, I can’t see this going further.”
“You’ve lost me again.” Jeremy rested his hands on the top of Madeline’s car.
“Bottom line, I think you’re clear, and when they contact you again, just let me know.” She turned toward the bookshop.
“When? Not if?” He felt his voice pitch high.
She turned back with a small smile. “Yes, when. You’ll be called to testify at the very least, and that’s only after all questions regarding you are laid to rest. I can’t say there won’t be more. They’ll probably reach out to Ryan too, if another officer didn’t already call him today. Let him know I’m happy to walk him through it too, if he has questions.”
“Thank you. What do I owe you? I never asked.”
Madeline raised a hand. “Let’s talk about that another day.”
“Yes, of course, you have to be exhausted.” Jeremy looked around and noticed the light. The sun had dipped beyond the buildings, and the alley was draped in evening’s gray. He slid his phone from his back pocket. “I took your whole day.”
“No worries.” She unlocked the door.
Jeremy felt his pulse race again. It’d been going up and up all day. He began to wonder what a normal heartbeat felt like. “But it’ll be okay?”
Madeline turned. “Do you have anything to hide?”
“Nothing.”
She smiled. It looked worn but genuine. Jeremy felt himself take a full, even, calming breath in response.
“Then I’m not worried, but I will stay on top of it. Now go have a cup of decaf. It’s late.”
She pushed though the alley door into the bookshop, and Jeremy walked to Andante. He expected the shop to be empty, and was surprised to be met with light.
“You’re still here?” He looked around ready to find the kitchen in disarray. If they hoped to recoup the day’s disaster, there was work to do. They were now down one employee, and muffins needed to be made, the area prepped for tomorrow, the accounts reviewed from the day—not to mention a long discussion about those accounts. Yet all was quiet. Still. And clean.
“Did you close out the day? Already prep? Was it horrible? I figure you had to give away coffees after all that, right? Keep customers happy? I mean, could that have gotten any worse?”
Questions raced through his brain and out his mouth just as fast, but Ryan answered none of them.
Jeremy asked one more. “Did you know?”
Ryan pressed his lips together so tight they disappeared, and the edge of his jaw worked a full minute before he opened his mouth to speak. “Something was clearly wrong. I tried to tell you.”
“You did.” Jeremy propped himself against the desk. “And the money?”
“I handled the books through the renovations, remember? I got them a little confused and jumbled, but I also understood them. When you said you were lost, I looked.” Ryan mirrored Jeremy’s posture and crossed his arms. “You thought it was me. You actually thought I stole from you?”
“No. I thought . . . I . . .” Jeremy stopped prevaricating. “I’m sorry.”
Ryan watched him a beat again. “Tell me one thing . . . When did you stop trusting me?”
Jeremy winced. He cycled back through time to give an honest answer. Ryan deserved it. There was nothing left anyway. “When I started failing.”
“You trusted some kid because he looked good and said the right things. You got played and I warned you. I’ve stood by you, came out here to help because I believed in you and in this place, and you think nothing of me.”
“That’s not true.” But as Jeremy said the words he realized that, to a degree, Ryan was right.
He thought back to the men’s group a couple weeks back and the discussion about the plank in the eye or, as one man put it, the beam that held him up. Jeremy had trusted what he imagined right would look like, not what it was—that kid who acted so sure, who had the charisma at eighteen to look you in the eye, shake your hand, and sell you the world—sell you drugs. He’d chosen the counterfeit over the genuine, again and again. He had missed what was going on right in front of him, because he was sure he knew better, sure he could see clearly, and to some degree, because he needed his perceptions to be true.
Jeremy stepped forward. “I was wrong. But it wasn’t as much about you as it was about me . . . I wasn’t sure, I’m still not, that I can do this. That we can do this.”
“I can’t do anything about that, can I? And don’t use ‘we.’ It’s insulting.” Ryan looked around the kitchen. His gaze passed through the open door and into the dark coffee shop. “I closed up a few minutes after you left this morning. Once the police led you out—”
“Arrested me,” Jeremy cut in, trying to lighten the mood.
Ryan continued as if nothing had interrupted him. “The tenor got pretty jazzed with gossip in here. You were on Instagram within seconds, but no one was buying anything. A pack of teenagers approached and hung around in the town square all morning, watching the place. No one came in. I don’t know if they were curious or they were Brendon’s customers, wondering if they were gonna get hauled in too. It wasn’t good. I hope you don’t mind I shut down.”
“No. It sounds like it was the right thing to do. Maybe we should stay closed tomorrow.”
“Up to you.”
There was something in Ryan’s tone that cued Jeremy. More was coming. The three words had the derisive cut of his You’re the boss, but there was an added finality.
“I’m out.” Ryan pushed off the counter.
“What?” Jeremy stepped forward again, then immediately stepped back. It felt aggressive.
“I’m out. I saw us building this place together, but you never did. It’s time for me to move on.”
“Please don’t leave. I . . .” Jeremy stalled with the realization he had no right to ask, even beg Ryan to stay. What man would or could? “Are you leaving Winsome?”
Ryan crossed the kitchen toward him and slid his book off the desk. “I haven’t got a clue what comes next. I only know it doesn’t involve this place, or you.” He then scanned the kitchen area as if searching for what was his and what more he needed to take.
“Give me a chance.” Jeremy stretched out his hand.
Ryan chuffed and waggled his book, drawing Jeremy’s eyes to the worn, bent paperback. “I’m no Candy.” He looked around the kitchen. “Keep your own dream.”
With that he pushed out the alley door and Jeremy stood alone.
Chapter 25
Alyssa flipped through television channels, seeing nothing.
Janet, just returned from the grocery store, had called from the kitchen as she entered the house. “Your dad has work stuff tonight, but Grandma called and would like to come for dinner to see you. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” Alyssa had called back.
“Alyssa?” Janet then materialized at the family room door. Her face was soft, expression almost anxious.
Alyssa stared.
“Don’t believe everything she says about me. If I was ever the person Grandma sees, I’m not anymore.”
Saying nothing more, her mom had rolled off the doorjamb and returned to the kitchen.
Now Alyssa sat. Wave upon wave of emotion, new perceptions grasped but not fully understood, crashed over her until she wasn’t sure what was real and what might have been the “intestinal soothing medications” the doctor prescribed.
She tried to sort through it and felt a hard nugget of guilt sitting at the bottom. She had fed the animosity between mother and daughter over the years, she couldn’t deny it—not to herself, not now. She had played into her mom’s rocky relationship with her grandma, finding safe harbor in her grandma’s critical and exacting nature, relishing that it was directed at her mother and mirrored, even augmented, her own resentments.
But the last eighteen hours had changed that. They had changed everything. And it wasn’t just the diagnosis, though that had been a shock. It was the fact that, stripped bare of every defense, curled into a hospital bed, scared and in excruciating pain, there was only one person she wanted near. She needed only one person not to leave, not to abandon her, but to stick close and endure every step with her. And her mom had done that—and more.
Alyssa clicked off the television, pushed off the couch, and padded into the kitchen. “What are you making?”
“I found a wonderful soup recipe while you were napping. Lots of root vegetables, all cooked in a bone broth. Very healing.” She smiled. “And I hope tasty.”
“Am I going to have to eat like this forever?” Alyssa’s voice cracked.
Janet smiled. “Dr. Laghari said this is for a few days, but it’s where we start, okay? One meal at a time.”
Alyssa nodded and dropped onto the stool. “About Grandma . . . ?” She started it as a statement. It morphed to a question. Then she dropped it altogether.
Janet sighed and picked up the baton. “You don’t need to worry about her, or me. We’re fine and always will be . . . It’s just . . . when you two get together, there’s no winning for me.” She waved a carrot at her daughter. “I’m not complaining. I’m glad you have her, but no matter what she says, please know I’m doing my best for her. Maybe that wasn’t always the case. I’ve been pretty selfish in my time, but I’m trying now. Did you know I originally asked her to come live here, with me?”
Alyssa guffawed.
Janet raised a brow. “That was her reaction too. Laughed, then flat out refused. But I would have loved to take care of my mom.”
Alyssa raised an answering brow.
Janet laughed, and the tension broke between them. “Okay . . . I would have endured it.”
Within minutes the subject of their laughter arrived. Still in a little pain and a lot tired, Alyssa found herself pulling from the center, her usual spot between Mom and Grandma, and watching from the periphery. She noticed things she’d never seen before.
The same push and pull existed between them that existed between herself and her mom, only Janet played the daughter role. She tried to please her mom, yet failed. She tried to engage her, yet got rebuffed. Alyssa kept watching . . .
No. Not the same. Rather than watching an alive and present relationship unfold, it was like watching the skeleton of one that had changed, only one party hadn’t realized that yet. Her grandmother was still playing by old rules. Alyssa recognized it because, she realized now, she had been doing the same for the past three weeks. Not only that, she also admitted that long ago she’d stopped trying to please, stopped trying to engage. She’d been playing her grandmother’s role, the instigator, all while believing herself a victim.
Her grandmother’s voice brought her back to the present.
“I’m sure you thought you were doing what was best, but you pushed that girl too hard.” Grandma wiped the counters behind Janet, putting away things her mom was, in fact, still using.
“You’re probably right. Hopefully she can heal now.” Janet reclaimed her knife from the sink.
“I certainly hope so,” Grandma clucked.
“I’m right here. I can hear you,” Alyssa commented dryly. “And I’m fine, Grandma. I have celiac disease, and it just means a lifestyle change. A big one, but the doctor says I’ll be fine.”
“How’d you catch that?” Grandma asked Alyssa the question, but shot a look to her daughter.
The look’s acidity made Alyssa cringe. “Again, not her fault, Grandma. I gave it to myself.” She cycled through her head all that Dr. Laghari had said and synthesized it into bite-sized pieces for her grandmother. She left out the part of their conversation in which Alyssa’s pain-tinged laughter had morphed to tears. “That’s irony for you. Serves me right.” She had refused to share anything more with Dr. Laghari—such as that her job at XGC centered around predicting such diseases—and certainly wasn’t going to bring it up now.
“The bottom line, sort of, is that I didn’t take care of myself, and my body started fighting itself—my small intestine to be exact. Did you know your small intestine is supposed to look like a putting green? Mine has all these cracks instead, like a cobblestone street.”
“Alyssa, that’s horrible!” Grandma exclaimed.
“But the point is, with proper diet, nutrition, and rest, she said the cracks can heal and get back to a smooth putting green again. I don’t even need fancy meds, Grandma. I can be fine.”
“Well . . . I can’t imagine life around here can be restful. That’s what you need right now.”
Alyssa watched as her mom, without look or comment, turned back to her soup and stirred.
“Watch how much garlic you add, Janet. A friend of mine tells me it’s very bad for one’s stomach.”
Without turning, Janet replied, “I’ll be careful.”
Soon the three sat at the kitchen table, and Alyssa couldn’t avoid the center any longer. Janet set her bowl at the end of the rectangular table, positioned between her mom and her grandmother.
Alyssa glanced back and forth between the two women. They looked so much alike. Probably as alike as Alyssa and Janet. Three generations, Alyssa mused as she tried to follow the conversation between bites. Three generations playing the same games.
After an almost endless barrage of sideways comments and passive-aggressive insinuations, Alyssa wondered why her mom’s head didn’t fly off and how she’d never noticed the unequal dynamic before. Or perhaps it hadn’t been unequal before. Perhaps her mom really had changed. But rather than engage, she poured herself another bowl of soup, and watched, and listened.
After Grandma left, Alyssa slumped at the kitchen island. “I need to help with the dishes, but she exhausted me.”
“Not at all. Sit there and keep me company. No working for you tonight.”
Janet cleared the table, rinsed the dishes, and began scrubbing her large soup pot.
Alyssa sat straight and finally asked the question she had pondered all night. “Did Grandma say you should stop painting?”
“Why would you think that?”
“I just wondered.”
Her mom glanced back then focused on the pot again. “She never said to stop. She wouldn’t do that. A declaration like that doesn’t leave any wiggle room. She did say it was foolish, selfish, and something only a woman in my generation would ever consider.”
Janet paused and her hands stilled, but Alyssa knew she was not waiting for her comment, she was just lost in the past.
Her mom turned on the water to rinse the pot. “My dad was second generation here and was the hardest-working man I ever knew. Grandma thought I was snubbing my nose at him by wanting to study then practice painting. It wasn’t real work, it was even countercultural in her mind. He didn’t think that—at least I never felt that. I’m sad you and Chase can’t remember him. He was up every morning by four and worked until eight each night . . . Anyway, according to Grandma, first I was snubbing him, then after your dad and I married, I think she thought I was snubbing her and the choices she’d made. She definitely thought such silliness, as she called it, would keep me from being a good wife and mom.” Janet turned to face her daughter. “And it did.”
Alyssa quirked her head. That didn’t make sense.
Janet leaned against the sink ledge and dried her hands on a towel. “She thought painting would keep me from being my best, and in the end, she was right. Only it was not painting that kept me from it.”
She laid the towel on the counter and walked the two steps to the other side of the island. She pressed her hips against it, bringing her body closer to Alyssa. “There are things I need to say and things you need to hear, so bear with me . . .
“I’m sorry for the time when I took apart your picture for Mrs. Tuttle’s art class. I’m sorry for when I barged in on your cookie making party and criticized the decorations. I’m sorry I redid your hair prom night when it already looked extraordinary. I’m sorry for all the times I told you to change, to stand up straight, to brush your hair, to study harder, to basically be more, do more . . . I don’t know . . . to be everything I felt I wasn’t. And I’m sorry about last week when I told you not to talk about XGC.”
“How do you remember all that? Not last week, but the other stuff.”
Janet let out a snuffly cough. “You’d be surprised how much I remember.”
Alyssa swiped at her eyes. “There you go. What am I supposed to say now?”
“Nothing, but I think that’s what drawing and painting did for me. It let me be me; and when I wasn’t me I managed your business, everyone’s business, in ways I never should have.” She leaned even closer and spread her palms on the marble island. “And I’m sorry you’re sick. Despite what you might think, I would do anything for you, take this on myself if I could. But since that’s not possible, I will certainly apologize for any part I played in it.”
