“You could pick worse clichés.”

  “So true.” Janet rolled her eyes. “Doting grandmother is an upgrade from bitter divorcée.”

  “Always.”

  Janet left with a wave and Jeremy followed her departure with a lingering smile. He’d heard rumors about her. Something about that bitter divorcée she spoke of and a wicked temper to go with it, though he’d never witnessed it. From what he’d also heard, he had arrived a month too late and might not ever meet that Janet. Something had happened in February to turn the lion to a lamb.

  All Jeremy could say for certain was that from day one she’d supported his shop and welcomed him to Winsome. And today she’d given him his first congratulations and had been the only person to show genuine enthusiasm for Andante.

  Turning back into the store, he noted the line had grown a few customers longer. It wasn’t the grand party he had expected, but it wasn’t nothing. And a steady stream of customers kept filing in. Some clearly pleased. Some discomfited. But customers nonetheless.

  He glanced around the shop and considered every aspect of his venture. This could work. He knew coffee, he knew what he wanted, and he knew the way forward.

  It would just take a little time.

  Chapter 3

  “This card’s been refused. Do you have another?”

  Alyssa thought the pump’s screen read See Attendant because it was faulty—not because she was. Her eyes stung and she blinked, unsure if it was actually tears or exhaustion. She suspected exhaustion, as Wyoming and Nebraska had absorbed all the tears.

  She dug in her wallet and flipped past her Saks Fifth Avenue card, a priority black card for Marriott, and her platinum XGC American Express. A derisive chuckle escaped. No need, or money, for any of those anymore. She pulled out an old Capital One Visa—the first card she got when she left home for college.

  Back to the beginning. Thirteen years later.

  “Try this one.”

  The gas attendant swiped it. “Forty on pump three?”

  Alyssa shook her head. “Better make it twenty.”

  He raised a brow but didn’t comment, only offering a “Have a nice day” as he passed back the card.

  She nodded and turned away, sure the tears were about to start. Again.

  After filling the tank with twenty dollars, Alyssa dropped into her car and tossed her purse onto the passenger seat. The police report crinkled under the pressure.

  It was hour forty and she was wrecked.

  Hour one had been consumed with recriminations. How did I not see? Was I stupid? Gullible? Greedy?

  She had asked herself the same questions every interviewer either asked or implied and, in doing so over six months, could admit to a few answers. She recognized that, at the start, she’d been running from something rather than running toward—and hadn’t asked nearly enough questions or done a fraction of the due diligence she should have. She groaned at how cliché that answer sounded. Blame someone else. But she knew exactly who, and that was another problem.

  There was no way to avoid her mom in Winsome.

  That thought naturally stretched into hour three with a trip down Memory Lane to her last real day at home. Three years ago she drove up from Chicago to shove some boxes into her childhood closet on her way out of town. Her mom had just taken a job at the local bookshop and shouldn’t have been home.

  But she was.

  “Why are you moving? You always said you wanted to live here. Get married and move back from the city. That was the plan. It was perfect.”

  Perfect. Oh, how that word had crawled up her spine that day, reached around her throat and almost choked her. It was the first time Alyssa understood the term silent rage. She had actually been so angry, and without air for a few heartbeats, that neither a breath nor a sound could escape.

  Yet her mom was right. That had always been the plan, and it had been perfect. After all, it was her mom’s plan—which meant it was flawless. Zero chance of failure. Her mom’s plans never failed, and this one she’d modeled so well.

  That was the lie Alyssa had believed.

  She had swallowed the Kool-Aid like everyone else: her parents were the ideal life partners, never disagreeing on even minor details, much less wasting time fighting about them. They experienced wedded bliss to the enviable degree that after almost thirty years they still called each other “darling” and “my bride.” Their home was perfect; their cars clean; their yard perfectly manicured; her mom’s garden varied and impeccable, maintained by herself, of course. But don’t worry—despite volunteering around town daily, she would still have dinner on the table on time and at the ideal temperature.

  In her impotent anger that afternoon, Alyssa had shoved a box into her closet with such force she’d pulled off an edge of the doorjamb. The rip in the wood tore something within her as well. It brought a sense of release with a wellspring of vitriol.

  “Your warped idea of a perfect life doesn’t fly with me anymore. You made it look good, I’ll give you that, but the emperor hasn’t got clothes. Right, Mom? Or should I say she took them all off?”

  It was a low blow, and even as the words flew from her mouth, Alyssa was surprised at her own courage . . . insolence . . . despair.

  The words and the icy blast that carried them clearly shocked her mom. Always one with a firm grip on her demeanor, if not every attitude behind it, her mom, wan and red-eyed, sank onto the corner of Alyssa’s bed. “That’s not fair. If your dad and I divorce, I’m not the villain. You always believe he can do no wrong, but—”

  “Don’t even talk about him.” Alyssa shoved in the last box before turning on her mom. “I’m done with you. You. Cheated. On. Him. Of course he’s going to divorce you, and please consider this a family affair—only I don’t have to wait for a judge. I can leave you right now.”

  “Alyssa.” Her mom’s bark had morphed into a squeak as Alyssa stormed down the stairs and out the back door.

  Revisiting those last moments at home made her stomach turn, so at hour five, Alyssa shifted her memory to the day when the FBI cleared XGC’s offices and shut it down. How, once people realized it wasn’t a joke, they became scared and wary of each other. After leaving Chicago, Alyssa had wanted family, a connection that felt like home had once upon a time, but one that wasn’t based on a lie, one she formed herself. You don’t have to be born into a family, she told herself during that initial thirty-six-hour drive, you can create one. And she’d chased it—she’d envisioned a better, truer life, and everyone at work seemed wired the same way.

  Yet the illusion didn’t withstand a few months at XGC. People she hoped could become close friends became strangers within her first six months, enemies in the last six, and vanished altogether once the company folded. In fact, the first advice her lawyer gave her was “Trust no one.”

  Hours six, seven, and eight recounted each and every moment of the seventeen failed interviews, including the one time Alyssa had essentially begged for an entry-level number-crunching job. I’m overqualified for this. You won’t have any problems with me, and even though I can’t answer these questions, I’m honest and I’ll be out of all this someday, and I’m smarter now. You won’t find a more dedicated employee. She’d stopped just short of tears that time, and far from getting hired.

  Hour ten questioned the Pulse and how many times the same song could be played within a one-hour period. Hour eleven questioned why she hadn’t canceled her Sirius XM account and how much money that might have saved.

  Hour thirteen was spent listening to a podcast on best interview practices, which proved singularly unhelpful. Didn’t everyone know to look an interviewer in the eye and offer a firm handshake? What about if you’re involved in the Scandal of the Century? The one that some pundits quipped made Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos look like amateur hour . . .

  Hours sixteen through twenty-three were spent crashed on a lumpy mattress in a Motel Six in Rawlins, Wyoming.

  Hours twenty-four through twenty-seven were spent filling out a police report and staring into her empty car.

  “You didn’t unpack your car, ma’am?” was the officer’s first question. “There’s no sign of forced entry; did you even lock it?” was his last.

  That was when the tears started.

  Hour thirty-two was spent in a full-on self-lecture—out loud. “Everyone takes some time off during the summer. This is a summer break. By fall you’ll be cleared, back on your feet, back in Silicon Valley if you want, and back to work. You can do anything and go anywhere. You’re okay. This will not defeat you. Do not let this defeat you.”

  Several hours after that were spent pondering the inconsistency between Subway salads as Alyssa found herself unable to focus on anything else.

  And after another few hours of fitful sleep at a Comfort Inn, hour fifty found Alyssa, wilted in defeat, at a stop sign and a bed of daffodils at the edge of Winsome.

  She stopped at the intersection and pondered the conundrum that was Winsome. None of the affluent suburbs stacked upon Chicago’s North Shore had stopped the city’s traffic, busyness, and development from creeping through them on the city’s ever-outward expansion. But little Winsome—not affluent or optimally situated—had. It sat just out of reach of those nineteenth-century carriages carrying summer residents to their holiday homes and remained a little too far north for twenty-first-century commuter comfort now.

  In high school they all called it “Lose-some,” but today her heart lifted at the sight of the stop sign at North and Westover. She felt hungry for Winsome’s stability and familiarity. Nothing ever changed in Winsome. Not the stores. Not the traditions. Not the people.

  She could find her footing here. She could live with her dad at his apartment, get a job, perhaps waiting tables at her best friend’s restaurant, and build up a cushion while looking for work. She shook her head, wondering why she’d waited so long to come home. It was perfect—an unchanging, welcoming, soft landing spot.

  The plot of grass surrounding the fountain, still flowing strong, looked lush and green. To the left, the Printed Letter Bookshop, J. Barlow Antiques, Winsome Bank, Olive and Eve Designs. Even Jameson Sports, where every high school team purchased their gear at a 15 percent discount, stood in its usual place.

  Then an incongruence caught her attention. She pressed a fist to her stomach. The Daily Brew’s hand-painted sign with its red poppy border had been replaced with burnished wood and black lettering. Andante.

  Alyssa slowed and found a parking spot. She got out, stretched, and glanced toward the bookshop. Her mom still worked there, and Alyssa wasn’t ready to see her. But coffee? That she needed.

  She pushed open the glass door and stalled. The interior knocked her off balance. Gone was the kitschy, comfortable world of the Daily Brew. The sights, smells, sounds, and even the tastes of honey and walnuts from Mrs. Pavlis’s baklava that filled the air and enveloped you upon entering had been scrubbed away by orange-scented cleaning oil. She wondered how Winsome was handling a coffee shop that rivaled any in San Francisco—and one without a pillow in sight. She wondered how she would handle it.

  She let her eyes trail from the scored cement floor to the exposed beam ceiling and back again, hovering midway. Gone were the family photos and the big bulletin board where Mrs. Pavlis pinned Polaroids of customers. When the shop was packed and no one waited at the counter, she would weave her way through the tables, camera in hand. Customers clustered and grinned, then pored over themselves, laughing, as they stood in line ordering their coffees the next day.

  Now the walls stood bare, except for a series of several small portraits near the front plate-glass window. Their broad strokes and abstract design gave just enough definition to hint at character and physicality, but not identity. They reminded Alyssa of Picasso’s Cubism works and her favorite class in college.

  She tilted her head, staring at one with the sense that if she gazed hard enough, long enough, she’d recognize the subject.

  “May I help you?”

  Alyssa startled to find herself at the front of the line. “A medium drip coffee, please.”

  She tipped her head back, noting how odd the motion felt. At five eleven, she rarely needed a full head tilt to see eye to eye with anyone.

  “I’ve got the San Roque from Colombia or the Yirgz from Ethiopia. Which would you like?” The man’s voice was all eager friendliness, which somehow pulled Alyssa’s already frayed nerves.

  “Your house favorite.”

  While a valid question in San Francisco or Palo Alto, where coffee was bathed in unicorn tears and roasted on coals from Pompeii, it didn’t fit in Winsome. Alyssa let her tone tell him that.

  “The house doesn’t have a favorite.” The man batted the tone back with a stiff smile. “Do you prefer clementines and cherry cola or lemon zest and vanilla?”

  “You’re teasing.” Alyssa floated a quick smile to smooth his ruffled feathers.

  He didn’t accept her smile, and his disappeared. “Not today.”

  “Lemon zest.”

  “Yirgz it is. Grab a seat and I’ll bring it over.”

  “To go, please.”

  Alyssa slid her card in the reader resting in front of her, then perched against the side counter to wait. There was now a fireplace! Although part of her wanted to scoff, she had to admit, even in June, the effect was appealing. It almost made her want to run three stores down and buy a book to curl up with. Almost.

  The man set her coffee on the high wood counter next to her.

  “This is nothing like what I remember.”

  “I bought it a few months back, closed it for renovations, and reopened two days ago.” He lifted his gaze across the shop. “The style is a little different, but I hope it still feels welcoming.”

  Alyssa noted how his voice lifted. Everything in her that chafed before melted in empathy. Not sympathy, as if she understood or pitied him, but true empathy—she identified with him. To try to make a home in the world, a spot that’s truly yours, yet still yearn for approval and acceptance, was tough stuff.

  Yet his home had changed hers—and left her unsettled.

  “It’s Winsome. You hardly needed to go to this much effort. You could pour swill and this town would come running, because there aren’t other options.”

  He studied her, eyes widening.

  “No, I mean . . . I grew up here, and this place was always packed, despite the fact that Mrs. Pavlis’s coffee wasn’t— Never mind.” She glanced around. Andante was decidedly not packed. “It may just take time.”

  Embarrassed to linger longer, she grabbed her cup and fled the shop. She’d been rude—beyond rude. But she’d been surprised too. Sure, there were a few obstacles to a summer of relaxed bliss—no money, no job, and who knew what her dad would say when she landed on his doorstep? But even with all that, she had convinced herself she could make it. She could find sanctuary here.

  But something about Andante had undone her carefully fabricated lie.

  Chapter 4

  Dropping back into her car, Alyssa watched customers come and go at the Printed Letter Bookshop. Her dad had taken her and her brother, Chase, there almost every Saturday when they were young to buy a book from Mrs. Carter, the owner.

  Charlotte’s Web. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Pippi Longstocking. The Phantom Tollbooth . . . She grinned, remembering them all, especially The Phantom Tollbooth and Milo. The literature of math, she thought with a sigh as she started her car.

  At North and Chestnut she turned west, away from town and away from the lake. A Pilates studio still stood next to Winsome Realty, and a new yoga place resided two storefronts away, beside the hardware store. After another right turn at the Presbyterian Church and a row of Craftsman-style houses, Alyssa pulled into the parking lot of a large redbrick apartment building.

  There was no buzzer, no lock, just two quick flights of stairs opening from the lobby. Within minutes she stood outside 3E. She knocked. She waited. She knocked again before the door opened.

  “Hello?!” Seth Harrison’s voice lifted and arced as he stared at his daughter. It was 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning and he looked as if he’d already run, read the paper, and probably cleaned his small apartment. He also looked as if caught between an exclamation and a question, but something in her eyes must have stopped him from saying more.

  He stood silent for a beat, then lifted his hand. “Honey?” he whispered.

  Alyssa bit her lip. She’d been wrong. The tears weren’t all gone. She stepped into his arms and got out only one word as they started again.

  “Dad.”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  Of all the words Alyssa thought her dad might say, after hearing about all she’d been through, those four never occurred to her.

  Seth Harrison had hugged his daughter, welcomed her inside, poured her another cup of coffee, and then settled into his one armchair to face her as she curled into the corner of his couch and relaxed for the first time in months.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” She tucked a foot beneath her.

  “Nothing ever turns out quite like we anticipate.”

  Alyssa expected her dad’s voice to carry the same sad derision she’d heard for three years. She expected to find a fellow soul wallowing at the bottom, had imagined the two of them spending the summer commiserating over old-fashioneds, ice cream, and Cubs games. But something in his voice told her that reality was as altered as the Daily Brew to Andante. There was a resilience and an energy, a note of excited anticipation that, for the second time that morning, left her both surprised and unsettled.

  Seth continued. “You believed in the mission and it was a good one, and while a lot went wrong, this will pass and you’ll be fine. When is your interview?”

  She knew he wasn’t referring to any of the seventeen job interviews. Nor was he talking about the latest three resumes she’d sent to companies in Atlanta, Charlotte, and Minneapolis. He was talking about the only interview, in the end, that mattered. The one with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

 

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