Текст книги "Nuts"
Автор книги: Alice Clayton
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
“Mom? You home?” I called, knowing she wasn’t.
And suddenly I was pissed. I’d driven across the entire country, walked away from my own business (my fury didn’t care about facts), and shown up so she could race around the world. And she wasn’t. Even. Home.
I banged back out the door, jumped into my car, and headed back into town. It was Monday morning. I had a good idea where she was.
When I pulled into the back parking lot of the diner, I swung into the slot beside her car. Wood-paneled cars ran in the family, and there was no mistaking her 1977 station wagon with the Darwin bumper sticker. And the faded Vote Mondale/Ferraro! sticker that still lingered.
I grabbed my purse and barreled through the back door into the kitchen, straight into a scene I’d seen a thousand times. Tickets flying. Bells dinging. Feet running. The door to the walk-in fridge banged as people ran in and out. Vegetables chopped. Pans sautéed. An army of retro-looking waitresses (we had our own Flos) barking orders and bringing food, dressed in pink and green polyester dresses that perfectly matched the seat covers. There was a certain rhythm. There was a certain madness. There was also laughter—and mostly from my mother.
She stood in the center of the Fantasia-like storm, her dirty apron tied back expertly, her frizzy, gray-streaked hair whisked back into a bun, wearing a broad smile as she expedited orders, ran food, and shouted special requests left and right: “For Table 16 I need two dots and a dash, two eggs wrecked, a club high and dry, and a cowboy with spurs.”
She caught my eye over the chaos, and a second later I was wrapped in a bear hug that would take out a quarterback. I hugged back, unable to stop the laugh that popped out. Mostly because all of my air was forced out at once. Mostly.
“Roxie, you’re early! I thought you’d be here this afternoon, or even tonight. When did you get in?”
“Just now—I was so close last night that I just decided to keep going.”
“I’m so glad you got my note.”
“What note?” I asked as she pulled back to look me over, eyes assessing.
“On the front door, that I was working the early shift. How else did you know I was here?”
“I guessed. And there wasn’t a note, Mom.” I shook my head.
“Sure there was. I taped it to the front door on my way out this morning, when I . . . Oh shoot, here it is,” she said, shaking her own head at the piece of paper she pulled out of her apron.
Roxie—I’m working the early shift, come on down. So glad you’re here!
“Oh well, you’re here! That’s all that matters! And not a moment too soon; we are in the weeds. Carla called in sick at 4 a.m. so I had to come down to open up this morning, and one of our dishwashers quit last week and I haven’t had a chance to replace him. Did you bring your apron?”
“Bring my– Mom, I literally came straight here after driving all night and—”
“No trouble, just grab one off the wall. I need to get moving, those beans have been sitting in the window too long as it is, talk when the rush is over? Thanks, sweetie!” she called out, turning to yell to Maxine, one of the oldest waitresses. “Those whistle berries are getting cold, get those out to Table Seven on the double!”
“Stuff it, Trudy! Hiya, Roxie! Great to have you home again!” came the response, and the chaos resumed.
I stood in the center, wondering what had just happened.
“You remember how to peel potatoes? We’re getting low on fries and I’d love to get ahead before the lunch rush,” my mom chirped as she sped by me, turning me toward a mountain of potato sacks.
“I know how to peel potatoes, for goodness’ sake,” I mumbled testily, realizing there wasn’t any way I was getting out of this. My mother was already heading back to the front counter, shouting over her shoulder to “Burn one, run it through the garden, and pin a rose on it.”
“It’s faster just to say burger with lettuce and tomato,” I told the potatoes, which looked back at me blandly. Because they had eyes, you see.
I grabbed a clean apron off the wall, grabbed the least dull and least likely to cut me knife from the block, and started filling a hotel pan with water to soak the cut potatoes. We served steak fries at the diner, thick cut and big enough to fill a hot dog bun, should someone choose. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t be perfect steak fries. So I settled in with my paring knife, peeling and slicing and lining them up with perfect uniformity. I dug out eyes, trimmed away green, and lost myself in the details.
As shouts of black cows, Eve with a lid on, and burn it echoed around me, I concentrated on the slippery right angles, making sure they were perfectly edged before going into the water bath.
My mother buzzed over to grab the first pan of ready-to-go spuds, and she looked on curiously as I concentrated on removing a stubborn peel. “They’re gonna get covered in gravy or dipped in ketchup—they don’t need to be a work of art, Rox.”
“You told me to peel potatoes. This is how I peel potatoes,” I replied, tossing it into the pan as she turned to go.
“Light a fire, or we’ll never get ahead of this,” she instructed, and I rolled my eyes. “I saw that!” she called out.
“I meant you to!” I pulled another pan down and filled it full of water. “Light a fire,” I mumbled.
Now I had a quest: to make a perfect steak fry, fast. I shut out the noise and the clatter and bent my head to the task. Hands flew, pruney fingers danced, and the pan filled with starchy, pointy art. Time flew by as I filled pan after pan, the sacks dwindling.
When one of the other waitresses patted my shoulder in greeting it startled me, and my knife slipped from my hand, landing in the back of the water pan. Leaning across the pan to retrieve it, I overbalanced and managed to submerge my front in cold potato water. “Bleagh,” I said, feeling the cold water running down the inside of my shirt and across my belly. Paused from my fry frenzy, I looked around. There were pans of fries on every work surface in my corner. Huh. Might have gone a little overboard.
“Land’s sake, Roxie, how many fries did you think we need?” my mother asked as she came around the corner.
“They’ll keep until tomorrow—the next day, even,” I replied, a little sheepish.
“It’s fine, I’ll make some room in the walk-in. How about cleaning some sugar snap peas?” she asked, thunking down a big pan of pea pods. “Cut off the end, strip out the stringy part.”
“I know how to clean a sugar snap,” I grumbled. “Cut off the end . . .” I filled the pan with water, huffing, “Strip out the stringy part. No shit, strip out the stringy part.”
“You start talking to yourself out there in Hollywood?” my mother teased, sticking her head around the corner and very nearly getting hit in the face with the snap pea I threw at her. She laughed and disappeared back into the kitchen.
I sighed, stretched, and went to work again. After this, I was taking a nap.
After a while I became aware of a tingling on the back of my neck, and I looked over my shoulder to find the source. Then several things happened within mere seconds, though I saw them in super slo-mo:
1. A man was standing right behind me.
2. He was holding a basket.
3. The basket contained some lovely walnuts.
4. I shrieked, because he was standing right behind me.
5. I dropped my pan.
6. Snap peas shot out in all directions.
7. Some of the peas landed on his work boots.
8. I looked above the boots. Jeans.
9. I looked above the jeans. Vintage Fugazi concert tee. Green flannel shirt.
10. I looked above the flannel. Two weeks’ worth of shaggy blond beard. Mmm. Country hipster.
11. I looked above the beard. Lips.
12. I looked at the lips.
13. I looked at the lips.
14. I looked at the lips.
15. COME ON.
16. I looked above the lips.
17. I was glad I looked above the lips.
18. The eyes and the hair were a package deal, the hair was falling across his eyes in a careless way that said “Hey, girl. I’ve got peas on my shoes, but who cares, because I’ve got these eyes and this hair, and it’s pretty fucking great.”
19. The hair was the color of tabbouleh.
20. His eyes were the color of . . .
21. Pickles?
22. Green beans?
23. No. Broccoli that had been steamed for exactly sixty seconds. Vibrant. Piercing.
24. I stood—and slipped on the snap peas.
25. At his feet, I stared up at him.
26. One corner of his mouth lifted for the tiniest moment.
27. He looked at my nearly transparent wet T-shirt for the tiniest moment before decency dictated that he not do that.
28. He set down his basket of nuts and extended a hand to me. Callused. Rough. Both corners of his mouth now lifted.
29. I took his hand to stand. Slipped again on a snap. Worlds collided when my skin met his. Heads collided when my forehead conked his.
30. One of my pea pods wedged under his boot
31. He fell down too.
32. His nuts went everywhere.
33. Our legs tangled.
34. His head fell into my . . . lap.
35. Sugar snap peas were my new favorite vegetable.
The guy with the nuts was named Leo. I know this because when my mom came around the corner and caught him facedown in her daughter, she cried out, “Leo!” and rushed to help him up. Him. She never could resist a good-looking man. And once the man was extricated from between my legs . . . mercy . . . he reached down once more to try to help me up.
“For goodness’ sake, Roxie, what’re you doing on the floor?” my mother interrupted, lifting me up underneath both arms and plopping me back on my feet like a flour sack.
“I . . . uh . . . well . . .”
“I think I surprised her, Ms. Callahan,” this Leo said, his voice smooth and rough at the same time. How is that possible? “You okay?”
“I . . . uh . . . well . . .” Where was this coming from? I don’t stammer.
He grinned, a look of curious amusement spreading across his entire face.
“She’s totally fine, aren’t you– Oh dear, it looks like the turkey’s done; you might want to cover up,” my mother said, looking at a very specific part of my chest.
I looked down, remembered that I was on full transparent display here, and quickly crossed my arms over my wet chest. Where my nipples had popped like Butterball turkey timers. My mother, ladies and gentlemen.
“Roxie, go get a fresh apron, and then come sit with Leo here and have a cup of coffee. You’ve got time for coffee, don’t you, Leo? It’s the least we can offer you after you ended up on our floor!”
Coffee suddenly sounded like the best idea in the history of best ideas. Coffee? Yes. Lay on top of me again? If you must.
“Sorry Mrs. C, can’t stay for coffee today. I’ve got a truck full of deliveries to make before five. Rain check?” he asked, unleashing the grin of the ages on my mother, and then turned his grin on me. “You sure you’re okay?”
Absolutely okay. I didn’t get weak in the knees anymore just because a cute guy looked at me, even if my turkeys were done.
I looked up at him through lowered lashes, cocked my head to the side, and let loose my own grin. “Sorry about your nuts.” Then I slowly walked toward the walk-in fridge, putting a tiny extra sway in my hips.
Inside the walk-in I allowed myself ten seconds of teenage cute-boy-freak-out, getting caught in a fist pump when my mother poked her head inside to see if I was okay.
“If you’re done in here, there’s a bunch of snap peas on the floor that aren’t going to clean themselves up,” she said with a knowing grin.
Face flaming, I left the walk-in.
But spending the summer back home just got a little more interesting.
Chapter 4
After the lunch rush was over, I sat in the corner booth to take a break. Leo. Who was named Leo these days? And why was he carrying all those nuts?
“He brings me nuts every week, dear. I’m on his route.”
“Pardon me?” I asked, swiveling in my seat.
“You asked why he was carrying all those nuts. I assume you mean Leo, the young man you wrestled to the floor this morning.”
“I said that out loud?”
“You did. It’s either sleep deprivation from the drive, or your trip to the floor knocked something loose, but you’re out here talking to the vinyl seats.”
She came to sit with me, now that the doors were locked and the staff sent home. Monday through Thursday the diner closed after lunch; it was only open for dinner Friday through Sunday. Afternoons at the diner were one of my favorite memories from childhood. It was quiet and peaceful, I could build towns out of the napkin dispensers while my mom worked on her orders and invoices, and I’d get to eat as much pie as I could sneak.
We had this quiet time together almost every day when I was young—my elementary school was just a few blocks up the road and it was a quick walk after the bell. Me and my homework, her and her workwork, and an afternoon in the late-day sunshine. Somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 we’d pack up and head for home, since whichever “uncle” my mother was currently dating would be arriving home soon, hungry for dinner. So in the evenings, I’d lose her a bit. In the same way any child has to share her mother with a dad or other kids or PTA or whatever else take up her time.
She dated nice guys, cool guys, so there’s no need for the Afterschool Special music. But they never stuck around for very long. She’d loved my father, I knew. His picture was on the mantle as long as I could remember, no matter what uncle happened to be circling at the time. He died when I wasn’t even a year old, and she was forever chasing that heartbreak with another one.
Anyways, though, afternoons in the diner had always been nice.
Apparently now they involved me talking out loud to myself. Not even back in town one day, and I was losing my mind.
“You’re not losing your mind, dear,” my mother offered, and I looked at her with wide eyes.
“Did I say that out loud too?” I asked, shrinking down into my seat. “What the hell did you put in this coffee?”
“You didn’t, but I know my daughter. You’re thinking this small town is already making you crazy, right?”
“Possibly,” I allowed. After a moment of inspecting the flecked linoleum top of the table, I nonchalantly asked, “So, what route?”
“Hmm?”
“You said route.”
“When did I say route?”
“A minute ago.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Mother.”
“Oh, you mean Leo’s route?”
“That’d be the one you mentioned,” I said, nodding. Her memory was fine, by the way. Her sense of humor, however, was twisted. “So, the guy with the route . . .”
“Yes, dear?” she asked innocently.
“That’s it, I’m going home.” I started to pull myself out of the booth.
“Oh, relax. Stay and drink your coffee; I’m just teasing,” she said, waving me back down. “So, what do you want to know about the guy with the route? Although I like to think of him as the guy with the eyes—did you see his eyes?”
“His eyes are an interesting shade of green, I’ll give you that,” I admitted, knowing that until I did, I’d get nowhere. “Who is he?”
“He’s from the Maxwell Farm; he sells produce to all the local restaurants. Every week, he brings something special by. This week it was walnuts.”
“The Maxwell Farm?”
“The very one.”
“Someone is actually farming that land now?”
“Oh yeah, they’ve turned that entire place around! He’s got the orchards back on line, the greenhouses, the fields are producing again—oh, it’s just wonderful.”
“When did all this happen?”
“You haven’t been here in how many years, Roxie? Things haven’t exactly stood still just because you weren’t here.” Her face was neutral, but her voice was a little sharper than normal.
“I realize that,” I said, twirling my coffee cup in its saucer. I felt a small tug. I had been gone a long time. But I tamped it down, keeping my attention on the farmer.
The Maxwell Farm was legend in this part of the country. Hell, the Maxwells were legend, in all parts of the country. Old New York. Old money. Old banking family. Have a mortgage? It was probably held by a Maxwell bank at some point. Lease a car? Probably guaranteed by a Maxwell bank at some point. Invested in mutual funds? If it has to do with the stock market, the Maxwell Banking Family of Greater New York is likely involved.
And like all old wealthy families, they occasionally like to leave their Manhattan apartment, or their Hamptons seaside “cottage,” or their Palm Beach winter house, and head up for some good old-fashioned rustic country life on their “farm.”
Farm in the loosest sense of the word imaginable. What do you think of when you hear the word farm? Ten or twenty acres around an old family farmhouse and a weathered red barn, somewhere in one of those states you fly over? Perhaps a lazy barn cat. Perhaps a chicken or two. Perhaps if you’re very lucky, and also adorable, you might even envision a moo cow.
If you’re slightly less romantic and slightly more aware, you might imagine a different vision entirely. Hundreds and hundreds of acres farming one crop, probably feed corn or soybeans, with no old farmhouse or barn. There’d probably been several on this giant property at one point, but they all sold their land in one huge land consolidation, and the structures have been torn down or left to the elements. There’s maybe one large equipment “barn,” and definitely no moo cow.
But Maxwell Farm? It’s an idyllic, look-how-salt-of-the-earth-and-how-cute-are-we-in-these-overalls “farm.” In the late 1800s, when the Maxwells were already firmly entrenched into New York’s social elite, they purchased a large plot of land in the Hudson Valley. This was not uncommon back then: the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Carnegies all owned farms. Enormous acreages, beautiful and elaborate stone “farmhouses” complete with equally beautiful stone barns, riding paths, teahouses, fountains, and gazebos. And occasionally, these farms might actually plant a crop or two.
It started out as a place to get away from the daily grind of being wealthy—as one does. The main house and the barns were situated high on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River. The enormous stone barns were mostly used to house cattle, as it was once a working dairy farm. The land was used for some farming—mostly vegetables and fruit orchards—but most of the acreage was set aside as a nature preserve. Some fields were cleared for hunting, as the Maxwells hosted large parties for their city friends, the men scaring up quail and pheasant, while the ladies visited the gardens and the orchards and the orangerie.
The Maxwells were in residence only a few times a year. The rest of the time the land was worked by hired hands and groundskeepers, making sure it was always ready for the city folk. As time passed, most of the land went fallow, the fields were retaken by the woods, and the house was shuttered for years at a time. I suppose the Maxwells had found other places to “get away” to.
The home and barns fell into disrepair, and the property became a lonely estate on the edge of town. In the 1970s, the new Mrs. Maxwell became interested in the history of the family she’d married into and began a restoration of the house. No one ever lived there for any length of time, but tours were given on special occasions, and my own fourth-grade class trotted up there on a field trip to marvel over the views and the house and the grandeur.
I saw all that land not being used, all those barns not filled with livestock, a cold stone house filled with flowers but no other form of life, and always felt it was a waste.
“Well, I’m glad to see it’s going to good use now,” I said.
“Agreed.”
“And Leo is the guy that delivers all the produce? Well, that’s great. Just great.”
“Agreed.”
“Do they have a stand at the farmers’ market?”
“They do.”
“Well, maybe I’ll check it out. It’s still on Saturdays, right?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Might be a good idea to see what they’ve got in season, for the diner.”
“Agreed.” My mother sipped her coffee, a dreamy look on her face. Must be thinking about her amazing race.
“Let’s go home,” I said. “You can make me some of your vegetable soup, and then I’m going to bed as soon as the sun sets.” I dragged myself out of the booth and grabbed my bag. My jeans literally creaked as I walked, stiff with dried potato and snap pea water, reminding me of the tumble I’d taken with the cutest farmer this side of Little House on the Prairie.
“Why are your jeans creaking?” my mother asked.
Nothing, and I repeat nothing, gets by her. Except final due notices from the electric company. And property taxes. And renewing her driver’s license. But walk in the kitchen and find your daughter spread-eagled on the floor with some random guy’s face in her lap, while nuts and sugar snap peas skate around? She won’t miss that. Or the subsequent jean creak.
“It’s nothing. Let’s go home.”
I’m assuming she also didn’t miss my blush.
I drove in my car, my mother drove hers, and despite my exhaustion, I used the few minutes of quiet (quiet! I’d almost forgotten what it sounded like, after the diner chaos) to take stock. Some things in town had clearly changed since I was home, and I tried to really see it.
It was beautiful, actually. Drive through Bailey Falls pretty much any time of the year and you’ll convince yourself that there’s not a prettier town on the planet. Autumn in upstate New York? Forget it. The flames of orange and yellow and red that raced through the forest and turned everything into a blanket of crispy, crunchy, kicky leaves—there’s nothing like it. Except maybe the winter. When the snow piles for miles, and everything takes on a hushed quality, all stars and silver and moonlight. Then again, spring was pretty extraordinary, when the apple blossoms pillowed out, and the air was soft and warm and filled with that gorgeous growing green scent. Yeah, plenty going for it in the scenery department.
So why was I always so reluctant to go home, and why was I so adamant about making sure my mom knew this was temporary? It wasn’t to be hurtful . . .
My eyes swept over the quaint and cute once again. It was just that Bailey Falls was like quicksand to me. Like stepping into muck in your Wellies, and trying to get out of it left you with a cold, wet foot and your shoe behind you in the puddle. It was like a whirlpool, a black hole, a Norman Rockwellian SuckSpace that was nearly impossible to escape.
That small-town Americana that everyone seemed to want nowadays? I’d grown up in it. And for a shy, dorky, apt-to-trip-over-her-own-feet teenager, I was beyond ready for an adventure when it was time to leave home. And though I hadn’t lived there since I was eighteen, there was like a tiny rubber band tucked into the back of my pants, and no matter where I went or how far I traveled . . . Helloooo, Roxie . . . your past is calling . . . that small town was ready to snap me back eventually. And sure enough, here I was.
I certainly can’t say I had a bad childhood. But I grew up early and fast, and over the years the resentment grew. The classic child-becomes-the-parent scenario. Flaky parent and studious child: watch the disconcerting yet sometimes charming storyline unfold on tonight’s episode of What’d Your Parents Do to You? I knew it, I recognized it, I could see my issues coming a mile away. Especially when I was halfway through my twenties and my mother was halfway through her fifties, and I was still cleaning up her messes.
I was California Roxie now, but I was secretly scared to death that I’d morph back into Bailey Falls Roxie here. I’d defined myself in California, and I was extremely reluctant to live again in a town that defined me only as Trudy Callahan’s daughter, the one who blushes a lot.
This really couldn’t have come at a better time, though . . .
Okay—so I just wouldn’t let it get under my skin. I’d do this for her, but this was it.
“It’s good pie. Really good pie. Lard?” I asked my mother later that evening. She’d brought home the last of a pie from the diner for dessert.
“Pardon me?”
“Is there lard in the crust?” I asked again.
I’d come outside after dinner to clear my head, get some fresh air, and of course, she’d flitted after me like a moth. I realized shortly after I entered the house that my dream of going to bed with the sun was a pipe dream. But I had to admit, there was great air in the Hudson Valley—far better than that in Los Angeles.
“Oh, you’d have to ask Katie about the pie, dear; she makes it.” My mother scraped her plate clean with the back of her fork, getting the last little bit.
“Have you ever asked her why she only makes cherry?” I asked, also scraping the plate clean. It was really good.
“No.”
“Why not? Didn’t you ever think that maybe, since the cherry pie is so fantastic, she might make other pies? Just as good, if not better?” I asked, licking my fork.
My mom just shrugged.
I exploded. “But you run the place! It’s your diner! Why in the world wouldn’t a business owner ask the pie woman if she makes more pie?” I thumped on the arm of my Adirondack chair for emphasis, and my fork clattered to the porch floor.
She looked at me for a moment; my hand was still clenched in a fist. “Just how pissed are you?”
“Pretty pissed.” I sighed, setting my plate on the floor. So much for not letting it get under my skin. Evidently this was a splinter the size of a telephone pole. “I just – ugh.” I set my head down where my plate had been.
“Say it, Roxie,” she said.
“I’m here. And I’m going to hold down the fort while you’re gone. But like I said, I’m not bailing you out again.” I lifted my head to look up at her through tired eyes.
“I hardly think coming to help at your family’s diner is bailing out. Not when I have a chance to go on TV and try something really new and exciting,” she said.
I closed my eyes. I was feeling the effects of my drive, and not up to a fight right now.
“I agree that this time has a different feel to it. CBS programming isn’t usually the method you use to get me to come home, or fix something, or make a call, or literally bail you out when you flood the basement because you forget to turn off the hose. But I’m talking about in the future. When these things happen again? Not going to come running. I’ve got my own life to take care of. I have a career—or I’m trying to, anyway. We clear?”
She opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
“When will you be back?” I asked quietly.
“The main producer said I won’t be able to check in, something about a nondisclosure, but that in an emergency I’d be able to contact you or vice versa, so don’t think that—”
“When will you be back?” I repeated.
“It depends on how well I do, how well Aunt Cheryl does, if we’re able to stay in the game until the end, so—”
I used literally every ounce of patience available to me to calmly ask one more time, “When. Will you. Be back?”
“September. Hopefully by Labor Day.”
Three months. I’d be here the entire summer. Wow. Would I have totally morphed back into my high school self by the time she returned?
I sat up tall. I wasn’t that socially awkward girl anymore. I was a graduate of the American Culinary Institute. A private chef in Los Angeles. California Roxie, a chef so talented I once made a spotted dick so good that Jack Hamilton made a face I’m pretty sure only Grace Sheridan usually gets to see.
I took a deep breath, centered, and nodded. “Okay. The summer. That’s fine.”
“Really?” she asked, looking surprised and relieved.
I forced a smile. “I’m sure it will be just fine. And I’m exhausted, so I’m going to bed.”
I settled into my childhood bed, surrounded by everything important to me as a teenage girl. Instead of posters of Justin Timberlake and Edward Cullen, I had a shrine to Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain. Those two would make a heavenly sandwich for any woman to slip in between. If asked, I’d be their meat.
Instead of cheerleading pom-poms and pictures of the prom, I had framed menus from some of my favorite restaurants in New York City. The NoMad. WD-50. The Shake Shack. Pok Pok NY. Union Square Café. Of course Le Bernardin. See above-mentioned Ripert/Bourdain sammich.
While other girls in my high school were planning which sorority to rush next year in college and what dress to wear to prom, I was daydreaming about chanterelles and geoduck. Of the American Culinary Institute in beautiful, sunny Santa Barbara. A world away from my hometown.
And here I was, back in the house I’d grown up in. I pulled back the comforter, smiling when I smelled the homemade lavender laundry soap my mom made each summer, when the herb gardens in the backyard were thick with spicy scent.
She forgot to leave me a note on the door, but she made sure I had fresh sheets.
I slipped between them, turned off the light on my nightstand, and watched as the shadows became familiar. The glow from the old shed still shone through the back window, making the sequins dance in the blue ribbon I’d won in the pudding contest at the county fair. The dolls on the shelf above the desk were still lined up, their shapes changing a bit as the moonlight settled over them. Blue and silver, they waited to be pulled off the shelf again. I could hear the crickets, ending their first symphony of the evening, but knowing they’d only take a brief intermission before their till-dawn concert continued. I flipped and flopped in the twin bed, taking comfort and a bit of melancholy in the knowledge that nothing had changed.
The nights I spent in this room, fighting to fall asleep, fighting to relax and will myself to get a few hours in before the alarm went off—it felt exactly the same. And right on cue, that last train from Poughkeepsie heading down the Hudson sounded its lonely horn. On its way to Grand Central in the city, that sound marked the beginning of the loneliest part of the night. When I knew everyone else was asleep, and I couldn’t pretend anymore that I wasn’t the only person still awake.
I hated that sound.
I flopped one more time, feeling the edges of pure exhaustion begin to pull me under. I still couldn’t believe I was back here.
But only for the summer. And then I’d take Grace Sheridan up on her promise to introduce me to some better people to cook for.
And if I was lucky, I’d find some company in the meantime.
When I woke the next morning my mother was already gone, and I was immensely thankful not to be officially on the diner work schedule yet, since my brain remained on Pacific time. As I struggled to feel even remotely alert, the specter of high school Roxie emerged again—so I called in reinforcements. Literally.
