Back to the Good Fortune Diner (24 page)

“Please,” he said at her hesitation. He looked so excited, and he had gone to the trouble of packing a lunch. How could she refuse?

It was a gorgeous day for a drive, sunny and not too hot, a few fluffy white clouds in the sky. “First stop, Georgette’s Bakery, now Georgette’s Bakery and Books.”

“She’s still open? She must be in her eighties now.”

“Eighty-two, and still waking up at four every morning. Actually, her grandson, Aaron, moved back to town to help her run the place. I don’t know if you remember him—he was a year or two behind us in school. He was the one who opened the bookstore. I hear he’s looking to expand the business even further.”

“What did he do before that?”

“I think he was a lawyer or something. He lived in Boston before this.”

Tiffany couldn’t imagine why a man would leave a career in law to run his grandmother’s bakery and bookstore all the way out here. But she was glad the woman famous all over the county for her treats was doing well.

It was a solid ten minutes to the roadside bakeshop and, sure enough, the tiny building had a new addition sporting a hand-lettered sign that read Georgette’s Bakery and Books. The parking lot, expanded and newly paved, teemed with weekenders and locals alike.

The bakery was almost exactly as Tiffany remembered it, though the glaring fluorescent lights had been replaced with attractive halogen fixtures. Everything had a shiny new coat of paint, and there was a lot more on display. The rich smells of chocolate and baked goods mingled with fresh brewed coffee. The faintest hint of drywall plaster lingered in the air.

A pretty young woman served customers cheerily behind the counter. Her gold-brown hair was caught in two pigtails, but she had to be closer to thirty than twenty. It took a minute for Tiffany to recognize her. The girl had been a cheerleader at their high school—one of the popular girls whose circle of friends was practically in another galaxy. Her name was Stephanie something or the other.

“Chris.” She greeted him brightly over the counter. “How’s it going?”

“Doing great, Steph. You remember Tiffany, don’t you?”

Tiffany was caught off guard as he nudged her forward. Stephanie’s eyes widened. “Omigosh, it’s so good to see you.” She ran out and threw her arms around her. Tiff squeaked as the former cheerleader’s thick arms smooshed her against her ample bosom. “How have you been? I heard about the accident. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She regretted saying so when Stephanie squeezed her again, tighter this time. Why did people she barely knew keep hugging her? She sent a pleading look toward Chris, who smothered a laugh.

Steph finally let go and gave her an approving look. “Wow, look at you. You’re gorgeous now. I mean, wow.”

“Um, thanks.”

“Listen, I’ve got to get back to work—” she glanced at the customers who’d walked in “—but promise me you’ll call me up and we can go for coffee, okay?”

First Maya, now Stephanie. Hugging and coffee, apparently, was what people did in this town now. Why did everyone think she’d want to “catch up”? What would they catch up on? They’d never spoken to each other.

You’re being pissy,
she told herself. Just because Stephanie had been popular, didn’t mean she was cruel. “Sure,” she finally answered.

She was making way too many piecrust promises. Easily made, easily broken. But surely, no one would miss her once she was gone, so what could it hurt?

“Is Georgette around?” Chris asked. “I have a special order to pick up.”

“She’s working in the back with Aaron. Hang on. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Georgette Caruthers looked almost exactly as she had when Tiffany had last seen her. Her hair was silver with a few darker streaks of gunmetal-gray, but she’d maintained that slender almost ballerina-esque frame. How she stayed so slim while working with butter and sugar all day, Tiffany wanted to know.

“Hello, Chris.” The woman came out from behind the counter and hugged him. She was still as graceful as ever, though she moved much more slowly. “You’re here for your cake, I take it?”

“Is it ready?”

“I have it boxed up for you in the back.” Her smiling eyes canted toward Tiffany. “Hello. You must be the special lady Chris had me make this for. You’re a local, aren’t you?”

“No. I mean, yes,” she corrected, “but I haven’t lived here in a while.”

Georgette closed her eyes briefly, lids fluttering. “Pecan tart and orange soda. Saturdays or Sundays.” She opened her eyes. “That’s when you’d come in. You used to wear glasses. And there was usually paint on your jeans.” She cocked her head to the side. “You won the blue ribbon one year for that gorgeous watercolor of Silver Lake.”

“You remember all that?”

“I remember everyone who comes in, especially a pretty face like yours.”

A tall man with neatly clipped brown hair and gray eyes brought out a small cake box tied with gold ribbons. Georgette introduced them, and Aaron Caruthers nodded to Chris and acknowledged Tiffany with a smile before heading to the bookshop portion of the store where a few customers lingered.

“I’m so glad he’s come home,” Georgette said. “So many of my grandkids left. I don’t see much of my family anymore. But I guess that’s how life is. I wish people would see how things are changing here and move back.” Her eyes moved to Tiffany. She had the strangest sensation of a trap closing in around her.

Before they left, Georgette called, “Wait.” She went behind the counter and put a pecan tart into a paper bag, pressing it into Tiffany’s hands. “For you. For old times’ sake.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly...”

The woman insisted. “Half the reason I keep this place going is to make people smile, and I think you have not done enough of that. And don’t you dare try to pay me. Just promise you’ll come back and visit again soon, won’t you, dear?”

The wistful, forlorn note in her voice made Tiffany think of
Poh-poh.
She thanked Georgette as she clutched the bag.

The sweet scent of pastries clung to them as they climbed into the truck. Tiffany stuck her nose in the bag and inhaled deeply.

“That’s a sound I’d like to hear more of,” Chris murmured.

“Sorry?”

He froze. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?” He chuckled nervously. “You were humming.
Hmm-mmm-mmm,
” he mimicked her soft sigh, then cast her a grin. “I liked the way it sounded.”

“You have to smell this. It must be fresh from the oven.” She pushed the bag and he leaned over and sniffed, repeating her
hmm-mmm-mmm.
She didn’t realize how sensual it’d sounded until he’d said it in those low, sultry tones. It made her very aware of their proximity and the fact she could no longer deny this was a date.

They swung east in the truck, heading back to town. Tiffany had driven these roads herself years ago while finding scenes to paint, though they looked different now. In places, the road had been widened, and previously unpaved or gravel roads now sported new black asphalt.

“Me and the guys used to race our bikes along this stretch, back when it was still mostly gravel,” Chris said. “I took plenty of ugly spills on this road.”

“Whatever happened to your motorcycle anyway?”

He shrugged. “Had to sell it when Simon was born. Turns out diapers cost money.” His eyes grew distant. “I still remember the last time I rode the bike out to Merchant’s Grove. A bunch of us got together and lit this bonfire that was so big, it melted the beer bottles we threw in. I think the glass is still there.”

Tiffany nodded along. She didn’t want to admit how alien Chris’s youth was to her. Even if she’d been invited, her parents would never have allowed her to go to some clandestine party in the woods where people smoked and drank and broke laws.

They cut through the center of town, passing all the monuments to Everville’s beginnings.

“To the left, you’ll see the plaque commemorating the first settlers in Everville,” Chris quipped in an overcheerful tour guide’s voice. “To the right is Everville’s oldest building, now the site of the Everville Tavern. Their menu’s as old as the building, and the food smells that way, too.” He smiled wryly. “Calvin’s probably going to sell soon, though. He’s getting too old to run the place.”

“It’d be the perfect spot for a Starbucks,” Tiffany said automatically. When her comment was met with silence, she looked over to see Chris’s mouth pursed tightly. “Any café,” she amended hastily. “Any new development is good, right?”

He pointed to the statue of the town’s founder, Bernard Howlings Everett, and told her how he and two of his buddies had TP’d it one night and had been caught by the local sheriff. He gestured at a row of vacant storehouses and a dilapidated cinema that sat between a residential neighborhood and an old heavy machinery depot, and described some of the town’s efforts at revitalizing the area. There was talk of turning the space into a farmers’ market to draw more weekenders in, but rumor had it a condo developer was sniffing around the properties. Tiffany had a hard time picturing a monolithic condo tower in Everville.

At a roadside chip wagon, Chris ordered a massive pile of hand-cut fries and gravy. There, they bumped into a couple of high school classmates who’d married, settled down and had two young girls. Tiffany vaguely knew them. They greeted her warmly.

“It must be nice to come home after all this time,” the woman, Annabelle, said. “Joe and I lived in the city for a while, too, but we couldn’t take it. All the noise and pollution and crime...”

“It’s not all that bad.” Tiffany was compelled to defend the place she called home. Her
real
home.

“Well, sure, but it’s no place to raise kids. When we heard how things were changing back here, we thought, heck, Joe can be an optometrist anywhere, so we decided to pick up and move. Anyhow, the housing prices in the city were ridiculous. It didn’t make sense for us to be paying what we were in rent for a two-bedroom apartment when we could own a four-bedroom house and land out here for the same amount.”

“As long as you’re okay mowing farm-size lawns and shoveling snow off a runway-size driveway,” she murmured.

Annabelle laughed. “Oh, it’s worth it, believe me. There’s nothing like coming home.” She glanced between her and Chris speculatively. “You’ll see, as soon as you start thinking about the future, you’ll want the extra space to grow.”

They parted ways shortly thereafter, and Tiffany was once again invited to share a coffee with a high school acquaintance she barely knew.

“You look confused,” Chris remarked. “Are you starting to get overwhelmed?”

“I don’t understand....” She trailed off, trying to articulate her thoughts without coming off as a complete loser. “I don’t know any of these people. Stephanie was just some girl in my class. I know next to nothing about her. And all I remember about Annabelle was that she’s been dating Joe forever. I never talked to her. Why would either of them want to have coffee with me?”

“You act like it never happens.”

She shrugged. “I just don’t see the point.”

“They’re being friendly. They’re taking a genuine interest. They want to reconnect with their youth and find out where their classmates got to. Aren’t you even a little curious about their lives?”

Tiffany honestly couldn’t say she was, and for reasons she didn’t fully understand, that fact made her feel bad. Frankly, part of her remained suspicious. Maybe those women were looking for fodder for the gossip mill. Maybe they wanted to find out what the smartest girl in school was doing with her life after her fall from grace....

Or maybe you’re completely paranoid and simply never learned how to make friends.

She frowned. She didn’t like this negative woman who constantly sought the backhanded insult behind an innocent remark. Growing up with her parents’ philosophy of never praising their children meant she didn’t trust any compliment.

She had to let go of these feelings of mistrust. She glanced over at Chris. She’d never mistrusted him. Well, she had when he’d first asked her to tutor him—she’d seen
Carrie,
after all, and hadn’t wanted a bucket of pig’s blood dumped on her. But once they’d started working together, she’d been...comfortable, sure of herself. She’d known where they stood, and she’d known he would never hurt her.

Mostly because she would never allow him to.

“Hey, why so quiet all of a sudden?” Chris prompted.

She yanked her gaze away from the scenery rushing past. “Just thinking.”

A few minutes later, they pulled onto a familiar turnoff and drove down the short, gravel road that wound through the woods and ended in a currently unoccupied clearing that served as a parking lot. Chris cut the engine, and they got out. He grabbed the cooler and backpack while Tiff carried the cake and fries.

“I know a great spot,” Chris began. “But it’s a ten-minute hike from here and there’s no path. Are you up to it?”

“Sure.” She already had an idea of where he wanted to go.

Not many people knew about the spot. People who came to Silver Lake’s shores were more likely to picnic or swim along one of the more accessible beaches on the north side. Tiffany had only found the swimming hole because she’d wanted a more interesting view of the lake for her paintings and to avoid curious onlookers.

She followed him through the underbrush. Luckily for them both, poison ivy didn’t grow out here, and Chris was courteous enough to hold back any larger branches in their path. She was slightly sweaty by the time they exited the forest, but the view was worth the trek. The egg-shaped cove was ringed by smooth, flat rocks, and pinched off from the rest of the lake by a short spit of land and hidden by tall, thick pines. A sandbar farther out kept the water in the cove calm, and it was deep enough to dive from the embankment.

Chris spread out a blanket on a flat, grassy spot in the shade of a willow and invited her to sit. The sun had that syrupy gold quality, and burned through the swaying branches of the willow. A sweet breeze carried the scent of pine to Tiffany’s nose.

She couldn’t help but glance over to the far edge of the cove to the spot where she’d once spent a whole weekend painting. It had been from that vantage point that she’d captured the magical spot, winning the five-hundred-dollar prize and a blue ribbon at the county fair that fall. Her eyes slid to Chris, crouched by the cooler as he unloaded it, and she allowed herself a private smile.