Kernel of Truth (11 page)

He laughed. “Lots of ladies stopping to stare at that guy.” He pointed to two-dimensional Antoine. “He sure is popular. Want me to show you where we shelve his sauces?”

“Th-that's okay,” I stammered out and practically ran to get my butter and leave. At least that kid didn't know who I
was.

I squealed into
the alley behind POPS, nearly colliding with a black SUV on my way in. I ran into the store through the back door with Sprocket on my heels. “I'm here,” I called out.

“I'm outta here,” Susanna called back. I heard the bells on the front door jingle behind her before I even managed to set down the sugar and butter on the kitchen table. I'd made it just under the wire for her to leave and still get to practice on time.

I put the butter in the refrigerator, the sugar in the cupboard, washed my hands and was tying on my apron when I heard the bells jingle again. Sprocket growled low in his throat. I walked into the front room saying, “Can I help you?” Then I saw who it was.

Jessica. She had on a skirt and a sweater set and heels. I looked down at my jeans and tunic top and scarf and felt somehow diminished before Jessica even opened her mouth.

“Can I get you something?” I leaned one denim-covered hip against the counter.

She sniffed and gave the tiniest shake of her head. “No. Thank you. I wanted to stop by and talk to you. Alone.”

“Seriously, Jessica? Not even my coffee is good enough for you?” I was still stung by the funeral snub.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. A cup of coffee, then.”

I gestured to the table and chairs. “Make yourself at home.”

She hung her purse off the back of one of the ice cream parlor chairs, then sat with her tiny little feet barely brushing the ground.

I went into the kitchen to get the coffee. I'd just finished warming the cups when I heard a shriek, then Sprocket shot by, leapt into the dog bed I kept in the corner of the kitchen and hid his head. “What did you do?” I whispered to him. He kept his paws over his nose, so I went into the shop to find out what crime he'd committed now.

“Keep your filthy dog's nose out of my purse!” Jessica screamed at me, clutching her Coach knockoff to her chest.

“He's not in your purse and he's not filthy. He's quite clean.” The nerve of some people!

“Well, he was in my purse and I don't care if he's sterile. I don't want his slimy nose in my purse. Seriously, Rebecca, can't you even control your dog? You are so irresponsible.” She put the purse on the table, wiping it down with a napkin like it had been soiled. “And don't you know that Sprocket was a sheepdog? Who names a poodle Sprocket?”

I did not dignify her question with an answer. If there was someone who would never understand the spirit of Sprocket, it was Jessica James. Instead I shook my head and went back into the kitchen to get the coffee. I put a couple of popcorn balls on a plate and brought them, too, for good
measure. Right before I left the kitchen, I whispered to Sprocket, “You are not helping.”

He harrumphed and kept his back turned to me.

I set the plate and cups down on the table and sat down across from Jessica. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked.

“I've been going through Auntie Coco's papers. I didn't know she'd lent you money, Rebecca.” Jessica took a tiny sip of coffee. She didn't say anything, but I saw the look on her face. I made a nice cup of joe.

My face flushed. I hadn't wanted to take any money from Antoine, but I hadn't had enough to start POPS the way I thought it should be started. Coco felt strongly that it was the right thing to do and had offered to make up the difference. “Then you'll have also seen that I've been paying her every month.” I only had a few more months to go before the whole loan was paid off.

“Yes. I saw that, too. When do you think you can have the balance paid off?” She pulled a tissue out of her bag with her bandaged fingers and brushed at her nose.

What I hadn't considered until that moment was that I no longer owed Coco the money. Now I owed it to Jessica. The idea of being beholden to Jessica was enough to make me want to run around in circles screaming while banging the top of my head with a wire whisk. “I can have the money to you by the end of the month.” It wouldn't be pretty. I'd be running lean here, but with some artful shifting of resources and perhaps eating a few more—or maybe all—of my dinners with Haley and Dan, I should be able to pull it off.

“Excellent. That's all I wanted to talk about.” She stood up and wobbled for a second.

I grabbed her elbow to steady her. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, Rebecca. You don't have to be so dramatic.” She pulled her arm away from me and swayed again.

I took a harder look at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and sported bags too big to carry on a commercial flight. That wasn't why she was swaying on her feet, though. Now that I was close, I could smell it. Someone had been putting a little something extra in her morning coffee and it wasn't me. Jessica smelled of booze. Even though it might not have been the right time, I couldn't stop myself. I had to ask her. “Why are you telling everyone that Coco wanted to retire?”

Jessica sighed. “Rebecca, Coco was seventy-two years old. How much longer did you think she was going to keep working?”

“At least a few years longer. She wasn't planning on retiring any time soon. She wasn't planning on winding things up. She was planning on starting new things. With me.” I couldn't keep the heat out of my voice. I fought to turn down the flame since I wanted a favor. “We were making some plans for a business we were going to start. Would you let me look in her office for the notes? I'd really like to have them.”

Jessica walked right up to me, so close I could smell the strawberry scent of her shampoo over the perfume of bourbon. “No. I won't let you rifle through her papers. And I won't have you spreading lies about some business she was starting with you.”

“They're not lies, Jessica. We had plans.” They had been big plans to me, too.

“Can you prove that, Rebecca?”

Her voice was so cold it made me shiver. “I could if you'd let me look for the plans we were making in her papers.”

She shrugged. “Then I guess it would be your word against mine about that. And who would care anyway?” Now she looked up at me, a sly smile on her face. Suddenly
her face twisted. She sniffled. Her big blue eyes welled up with tears. One spilled over her bottom lashes and ran down her cheek. “Someone out there made sure that Coco wasn't going to do anything more, ever. Whatever she was planning is never going to happen now anyway.”

I felt terrible. Whatever else I thought about Jessica, I knew she was genuinely distraught over Coco's death. Those puffy eyes. The day drinking. I could at least be sympathetic. “I'm sorry, Jessica. You're right.”

Her face returned to normal as fast as if she had some kind of hidden switch. “I am right, Rebecca. And don't you forget it. Have you considered this? If you hadn't been pushing Coco to stay in business, maybe she wouldn't have been there so late that night. Maybe she'd still be alive!” Then she stomped out of the shop.

My heart raced as I watched her walk out the door. I turned to Sprocket, who had come back into the shop, and said, “Did you see that?” The way her face had changed as if she'd flicked a switch chilled me. How much of what she showed to the world was an act?

He licked my hand, which I took to be a yes.

“No one will believe us, you know.” I patted his head. “No one ever.” The whole town believed the face she showed them. Somehow they never saw her when her mask slipped.

But damn it, I was going to make my point. I flipped the shop sign to Closed and barreled down the sidewalk after Jessica. I caught sight of her as she turned into Bob's Diner. By the time I got there, Jessica was already seated in a booth.

“You know that's not true about Coco. Whether I was here or not, she wasn't planning on retiring. If anyone was pushing anyone, it was Coco pushing me to do something more with her.” I slid in across from her.

“What I have to ask—what everyone is asking—is why on earth would Coco go into business with you?” Jessica leaned back and tilted her head to one side.

“She wanted to start something new.” I thought about what else Coco had said when she'd first approached me about it. “She wanted to do something new and she didn't want to do it alone.”

“You're still not answering my question, Rebecca. Why you?” She smiled. “I mean, we all know you're okay in the kitchen.”

“Okay?” I started to rise up.

Jessica held her hand up. “Hear me out, Rebecca. You're okay in the kitchen, but clearly not good enough to have made it outside Grand Lake. I mean, you had Antoine Belanger vouching for you and you still couldn't make it in California.”

My mouth dropped open and I started to sputter. “Antoine didn't back me. I was on my own.”

“And didn't cut it. The only thing you did was marry someone famous and you didn't even manage to do that well.” Jessica set her coffee down. “Coco was kind. I'm sure when you came to her with this crazy idea of yours she didn't want to hurt your feelings.”

“I didn't come to her. She came to me,” I protested.

Jessica snorted. “Sure she did, Rebecca. Because that's what all businesswomen in their seventies do. They go to younger broke people who owe them money and ask if they want to go into business with them. That's totally how the world works. You know, if you hadn't been hounding her maybe she would have already retired. Maybe she would have already handed the shop over to me and she wouldn't have even been there that day and she'd still be alive.”

“Jessica, I'm telling you. Coco came to me with an idea to combine our businesses. She wasn't going to retire. I don't know why you're telling people that, but you're wrong.”

“Rebecca, you're going to have to keep your voice down.”

I whirled around. Megan stood behind me, wringing her hands.

“I have to keep my voice down? What about her?” I pointed at Jessica.

Megan winced. “Her voice isn't raised. You're the one who's yelling.”

“Yelling?” Now I actually was. “You call this yelling?”

“Rebecca, please,” Jessica broke in, her voice sickly sweet.

I turned back to Megan. “You're actually still buying this act? All these years and you still think she's all sugar and spice and everything nice?”

Megan pursed her lips. “You mean because she stayed here in town and helps teach preschool and run the youth group at the church while taking care of her aunt? That act?”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Yes. That act. Because that's what it is. An act.”

“Well, it's a pretty convincing one.” Megan shrugged.

I was about to explain why it wasn't a convincing act when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around. It was Dan. My shoulders slumped. He gestured toward the door with his head. I followed. At the door, though, I turned and pointed my finger at Jessica. “This isn't over, and you know it.”

“Are you threatening me, Rebecca Anderson?” Jessica asked.

“Yes. I mean no. I mean, stop telling people Coco was planning on retiring when you know it's not true.”

Jessica shook her head. As we went out the door, I saw people already starting to cluster around her.

*   *   *

I strode down
the sidewalk toward POPS, the fire of indignation fueling the fire of my pace.

“What the hell was that, Rebecca?” Dan took a couple of long strides to catch up with me.

“That was me telling Jessica to stop telling everyone that Coco was planning on retiring when she wasn't.” I pulled the keys out of my pocket and opened the door. Sprocket sprang up from where he'd been sitting beside it. I gave him a quick pat on the head. “Good boy.”

“No. I'm pretty sure that was you publicly threatening a fellow business owner.” Dan flipped one of the chairs around and straddled it. “What's gotten into you?”

As my anger ebbed away, something else took its place. I brushed at the tears that were forming in my eyes. “Did you hear what she said about me, Dan?”

He nodded. “I did. It wasn't nice. It wasn't true. You've got people lining up here in the morning for your popcorn bars. It wasn't anything you should let get to you. You know that.”

“No. I don't think I do know that anymore. Let me tell you what Jasper wanted to talk to me about.” I filled Dan in on that fun conversation. “So basically the whole town thinks I'm a loser. The whole town thinks I'm a failure. Jessica is probably right. The whole town probably thinks I'm making up a story about Coco wanting to start a new business with me.”

Dan dropped his head.

I sat back in my chair. “You, too, Dan?
Et tu?
”

“Oh, come on. Don't start with the Brutus stuff. I'm not stabbing and it's a long way from March. You have to admit, it does seem kind of farfetched that Coco would want to start something new at her age.” He looked at Jessica's mug
on the table. “What does a hardworking cop have to do to get a cup of coffee around here?”

“He has to follow me to the kitchen.” I went into the kitchen, dumped out the old stuff and started a new pot.

“Hey! That would have been fine if you microwaved it for a second.” He leaned against the counter.

“No. It wouldn't have. It would have been bitter and boiled and nasty. We deserve better. Or at least you do. You're not a loser.” I rinsed the grounds out of the French press, rinsed the whole thing again with hot water and ground fresh beans.

As soon as the noise stopped, Dan said, “You know this is part of the problem.”

“Decent coffee is never part of the problem. It is always part of the solution. Always.” There were few things in life I was certain of, but that was one of them.

“That's not what I mean. You always have to make things harder. Let things be simple. Let the stuff about Coco go.” He was almost pleading.

I poured the boiling water in and set the timer for four minutes. “That's easy for you to say, Dan. The whole town isn't calling you a loser.”