My dad ignores the invitation and asks, “Do you want me to take the subway into the airport with you?”
“Dad, I’m thirty years old. I think I can manage it on my own.” The pouty look on his face has me adding, “Unless you feel like you need to.”
“You’re my only child,” he says. “I both need and want to.” He looks at Mom and adds, “What do you say, Regina? Should we make it a family affair?”
My mom shakes her head. “I’ll be in the middle of giving a lecture. You two go and have fun.”
My dad smiles like a kid in a candy shop. “Let’s go early and have lunch at that crab place I love at the airport.”
Bertie Blake is nothing more than a sixty-year-old little boy. His family has lived in New York since getting off the boat from Liverpool and stepping onto Ellis Island three generations ago. He went from kindergarten through art school here before going to work at an advertising agency. That ended when he met my mom. She bullied him into pursuing his dream. She told him on their second date that she wouldn’t consider a relationship with someone who didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to be his own man. My dad quit the next day and hasn’t held a traditional job since.
I hold my parents in high regard even though I have every expectation that I will marry someday and have a traditional relationship, a traditional family. It’ll probably kill my mother and she’ll most likely do everything in her power to talk me out of it, but I’m prepared to stand up for what I believe in. Ultimately, Regina will respect our differing needs out of life and will accept it.
My mom asks, “Will you be staying with Emmie the whole time you’re in Missouri?” I nod my head, so she continues, “I’ll need her address.”
“Why do you need her address? Call me on my phone if you need to get ahold of me,” I say.
“In case her house blows away in a tornado or something. That sort of thing always happens in places like Missouri. I’ll need to know where you are so I can tell the Red Cross where to look for you.”
“I don’t think tornado season is until the spring. The only bad weather-related incident that could occur is a snowstorm or something.”
“Do they get snow in southern Missouri?” she asks.
I don’t actually know. If it happens outside the confines of New York state, I’m pretty clueless. Hence, I may not really know when tornados occur in the South. “I’ll let you know when I get there,” I tell her.
My mom commands, “Watch out for racists.” My maternal grandmother was full-blooded African-American, and my maternal grandfather was Jewish. I think part of the reason Regina never leaves New York City for rural environs is that she’s pretty sure people will line up to lynch her. I can’t say I blame her; I mean, there are some hideous stories on the news, but rightly or wrongly, I have more faith in my fellow man than she does. Also, I’m pretty watered-down in comparison. I have one of those complexions where my ethnicity isn’t obvious. I’m what Bertie calls “exotic looking.”
After my parents are through warning me against eating food that contains the word “pone” in it, we sit down on the floor and open up the containers of curry that Dad ordered for dinner. It was delivered while we were busy addressing their copious concerns.
“They probably won’t have any decent ethnic food there,” my mom warns.
My dad adds, “I think they primarily eat fried chicken and crickets or something.”
“Oh, my god, you two are ridiculous. I’m not going to some third-world country. Missouri is part of the union, you know. They even have big cities. Ever heard of St. Louis and Kansas City?”
“Isn’t Kansas City in Kansas?” Bertie asks.
That’s what I had thought too, but I did a quick Google search on the Show-Me state when I decided to go there. I knew I’d have this conversation with my parents, and I wanted to study up to prove I wasn’t going off to the wilds of Appalachia or something.
“Be careful,” my dad says. “I’m pretty sure everyone carries a gun down there.”
“Where did you get that idea?” I ask, expecting a ludicrous reply.
He does not disappoint. “Artie Feldman, down at the newsstand, told me. Apparently, his wife’s youngest sister married a man from Missouri. She was scared to death to walk the streets for fear of being shot.”
“Would you feel better if I wore a pair of brass knuckles?” I joke.
“Funny you should ask,” my mom says, standing up to walk across the room. When she comes back, she’s holding a brown paper sack. “Bertie and I picked up a few things for you when you mentioned leaving New York to visit Emmie.”
I cautiously open the bag and peek inside. Then I reach in a pull out a pair of brass knuckles. “Really?” You think I’m going to have use for knuckledusters in a place called Creek Water?”
“That’s not all,” my dad says. So, I look back in the bag and pull out a whistle and a small can of mace attached to a keychain. Look out, Missouri; here I come.
Chapter 5
The first leg of my journey is a two hour and thirty-minute flight to O’Hare; it’s the perfect amount of time to plug into a movie and relax. I’m half-tempted to nap as a result of the obscene number of crab legs my dad encouraged me to eat. I’m positively stuffed. Bertie’s worried about me ingesting seafood in Missouri since “it’s so far from the ocean, you might get sick.”
I’m not sure he’s aware that I’ll be on the same timeline that they are and not stuck in the eighteen-hundreds, with seafood being carried unrefrigerated on the backs of pack mules. Bertie would feel much safer having me walk through Times Square stark naked at midnight than visiting our country’s heartland.
I pull up The Wedding Singer on my laptop, adjust my earbuds, and let myself get carried away by one of my favorite vintage romcom movies. Although not cinematographically brilliant, it proves that there’s someone out there for everyone. And while I’m not a wedding waitress and am definitely not looking for a man with a mullet, if those two crazy kids could find each other, surely there’s someone out there for me.
I allow myself a moment of sadness over Tim Sanders and what might have been had he not run off and gotten himself engaged to another. I didn’t even bother to say goodbye to him when I moved out of my building, even though I stood outside his door several times, tempted to knock.
I fall into a crab-leg-induced coma right around the time Adam Sandler starts singing “Love Stinks.” I wake up when we touch down in Chicago. My flight is direct, so I go back to sleep until it’s time to take off again for Missouri. I dream my parents are flying next to the plane on futuristic scooters and they’re shouting words of caution like, “Be careful!” and “Don’t eat any bugs!” and “If they start to play ‘Dueling Banjos,’ run!”
When we land, it’s with no surprise, yet with great relief, that I discover I’m still in the twenty-first century. I let everyone exit before me and send a text to Emmie to let her know I’m here.
Me: I’ve arrived! I’ll meet you at curb pick-up in thirty minutes.
Emmie: Don’t be silly. I just parked. I’ll meet you in baggage claim.
When everyone is off the plane, I grab my carry-on from the overhead compartment and make my way down the center aisle. The flight attendant says, “Enjoy your stay.”
The pilot is standing by the exit. He tips his hat and offers, “Thanks for flying with us.”
Already, the stress of my life is slipping away. I have no idea what this trip holds in store, but I sense that it will be exactly what I need.
I stop by the airport bathroom and make quick work of tidying myself up. My hair looks like I’ve rubbed a balloon across the top of it. Regina claims that I have nothing to complain about as her hair is half-Afro and half-Jewfro. Being that I’m fifty-percent Bertie, my curls are just that, curls—no ’fro.
I wet my travel brush hoping to reactivate my hair mousse to tame it. Then I touch up my face with a little powder and lip-gloss. According to my mother, I look like a porcelai
n doll from the Victorian era. Aside from her wild main of hair, I’m pure Blake. Bertie claims I’m the spitting image of his grandmother when she was my age, but due to a building fire during the seventies, there’s no longer any proof of that. I take him at his word.
Emmie is right where she said she’d be, standing at baggage claim looking like a ray of sunshine with her blonde halo of hair. While I would know her anywhere, she seems a hundred times more at ease than she ever did in New York. When she spots me, she throws open her arms and starts to run. She meets me halfway.
“Lexi, you’re here!” We stand pretty much eye-to-eye and dance around hugging each other for a minute before I realize she’s alone.
“Where’s Faye?” I ask.
“I left her with Zach’s mama. She’s complaining she’s not getting enough gramma time.” Zach is Faye’s dad. Emmie had a very uncharacteristic one-night stand while under the influence of tequila. She got pregnant and wound up moving back to Creek Water to raise her daughter. What she didn’t realize, thanks to tequila amnesia, was that her one-nighter was with a boy from home that she’d met in a bar. But that’s another story … Suffice it say, they are well on their way to cementing their family relationship and according to Emmie, she’s never been happier.
“How’s the new job?” I ask.
“Wait until you see the place. The uncles have turned that old sewing machine factory into the most darlin’ little shopping center you’ve ever seen. I hope you plan on spending a good amount of time with me there.”
“Of course,” I tell her. “I’m not going to sit on your couch all day while you go to work.”
“It’s your vacation, though, so you have to make sure you get good and rested while you’re visitin’.” My friend is sounding more Southern than I remember. I guess being back home is making her revert to her native speech pattern of dropping the occasional “g.” I find it charming.
“Don’t worry about me,” I tell her. “I plan on relaxing like it’s nobody’s business.”
We continue to catch up as we grab my suitcases and walk to the parking lot where Emmie left her car. I tell her, “I’m still not convinced I’m going to take Silver Spoons up on their job offer in Atlanta.”
“I think you’d like it there,” she tells me. “Atlanta’s certainly a quieter city than New York, but it’s got a lot to offer.”
“If it’s so great, why didn’t you move there?”
“Touché, but still you might enjoy the change. Do you want to be like Bertie and Regina, living in Manhattan your whole life?”
“I guess I always thought I would. Until very recently, it’s never even occurred to me to move somewhere else. But now that Jameson brought up Atlanta, I’m wondering if I might put my name in with a headhunter and look at other places, as well.”
“Really, like where?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe Chicago or someplace like that.”
“Chicago has the best pizza,” she declares.
I raise my eyebrows in such a way as to warn her that you don’t mess around telling a New Yorker that their pizza is second rate. Emmie laughs, “It’s different from New York pizza. It’s like comparing tuna and salmon. They’re both technically fish, but worlds apart in flavor.”
When we get to Emmie’s car, I let out a low whistle. “Nice ride.” The vintage red Mustang with black racing stripes is not the kind of car I’d envision my friend in, but it’s pretty sleek, nonetheless.
“It was my daddy’s car. Mama never got rid of his stuff. It’s kind of like she’s pretending he’s still around, only on an extended vacation.”
“But he died when you were a kid, right?” I ask.
“Yes, ma’am. He’s been gone for twenty years.”
“Has your mom ever dated again?” I question.
“Nope. Being widowed at thirty, you would have thought she’d have found someone else long ago, maybe even had another family, but Mama wasn’t interested.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing Grace again. She’s a way more maternal figure than Regina.” Don’t get me wrong, I love and respect my mother, but not once, to my knowledge, has she ever baked cookies. She bought them at the bakery. I don’t recall her ever cooking, either. She did fry eggs for breakfast and she sometimes made sandwiches for lunch, but dinner was always courtesy of one of the takeout menus she kept stashed in the kitchen drawer.
Regina Cohen was too busy building up the sisterhood to be caught messing around a kitchen. My dad once asked if she wanted to take a cooking class together and she replied, “Not if we were starving and our lives depended upon it.” She amended that to, “You’re welcome to take one if you want, but the kitchen is no place for a woman.”
Bertie passed on the offer. He was looking for a fun activity for him and Mom to do together. He didn’t really want to learn how to cook, either, and was just as happy reaching for the endless supply of take-out menus.
Emmie says, “You want to stop by the sewing machine factory on the way to Mama’s?”
“That sounds great,” I tell her. “I’m excited to see what you’ve been up to.”
We drive alongside the rolling foothills of the Saint Francois Mountains, and I feel like I’m on another planet. There is an unshakable feeling that beyond a shadow of a doubt I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
Chapter 6
The old sewing machine factory is everything Emmie said it was. It’s located on the banks of the Mississippi River, which is a pretty impressive sight. The Hudson River, while beautiful, mighty, and the subject of much poetry, has an entirely different feel.
When we walk through the glass door entrance to the old building, I’m blown away by the impact of the space. It’s a design I could see working in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan. It’s very urban feeling with the thirty-plus-foot ceilings. Emmie shows me around, pointing out the “best steak house this side of the Mississippi,” a bakery “so good you’ll live there,” a hair salon, a book shop, and finally her own store, aptly named Emmeline’s. She’s opened the toned-down version of Silver Spoons.
“I’m impressed,” I tell her. “While you described everything in detail, I thought you might be up-selling it a bit. But if anything, you downplayed how amazing it is.”
“Wait until you see the second and third floors. Come on, let’s head up and I’ll get Beau to give us the keys to the model condo. You’ll flip your biscuit.”
I briefly wonder where my biscuit is located.
Getting into the old service elevator, I say, “This reminds me of the elevator in my parents’ loft. You don’t see a lot of them around anymore.”
“It’s part of the charm. The downtown area is mostly inhabited by folks in their twenties and thirties, and while they don’t live in a big city, it gives them the feeling like they do.”
When we arrive at the second floor, Emmie unlatches the gate and opens it as the external doors lift to let us out. The second floor is pretty standard office space, but it has a young, contemporary vibe. The floors are dark wood instead of carpet, and the walls are painted a cool icy blue bordering on gray. It’s very sleek.
Emmie walks through the double glass doors at the end of the hallway with the words “Frothingham Realty” written across the front in a simplistically modern font.
She strolls right past the receptionist with a wave. “Is Beau in?”
“He is,” she says, “but you might want to hold up. Shelby’s in there with him.”
Emmie stops mid-step and I nearly run right into the back of her. She says, “I need the keys to the model condo.”
The receptionist opens her desk drawers and pulls out a keychain before tossing it over to her. “Here you go.”
Emmie grabs it, waves goodbye, and turns on her heel leading the way back to the elevator. She explains, “Beau and Shelby are in the midst of trying to decide what they mean to each other.”
“Are they boyfriend and girlfriend?” I ask.
“They
might have been, but Shelby’s mama forced her into giving Beau an ultimatum, which he did not like, and he stopped seeing her before any feelings were declared.” She continues, “They started to date again after Shelby miscarried their baby, so I don’t know how it’s looking at the moment. I think there might be trouble in paradise.”
“Shelby miscarried Beau’s baby after they broke up? Do you live in a telenovela or something?” I ask.
Emmie laughs. “I know it sounds tawdry, what with me and Beau both winding up with a whoops baby without the benefit of marriage.” She shrugs her shoulders. “I’ve concluded that Frothinghams are incredibly fertile and perhaps a bit impetuous when it comes to members of the opposite sex.”
“It worked out well for you though,” I say. “And thank God for that. I was more than a little worried for you.”
Emmie gazes off as though momentarily lost in thought. “You know I’ve never regretted having Faye, but it sure does make things a lot sweeter having her daddy as part of the story.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t know it was Zach the night she was conceived.”
“It’s always been like that with me and tequila. While I do enjoy it, I have no memory of what happens when I’m under the influence. All I remembered is that I had the only one-night stand of my life with that actor Armand Hammer, ’cause that’s who Zach looks like.”
“I remember. We Googled Armie Hammer and his whereabouts the night of the deed. Remember how disappointed you were to find out he was in France that weekend?”
“Well, now I’m relieved. Could you imagine the horror of having a one-night stand baby with a famous person? The tabloids would have run me through the wringer.”
When we get to the third floor, I follow Emmie down another hallway, this time the flooring is dark-gray slate tile. Its industrial aesthetic fits the building to a T.
Walking through the front door of the model packs such a wallop I feel the breath being sucked out of me. The first thing I think is that my dad would love it here. There’s a twenty-foot glass wall facing us that looks out on the Mississippi River. The actual Mississippi River. My mind is blown by its vastness, by its history. And then I realize the natural light is phenomenal. The top ten feet of the wall is poured cement. Several large canvases are showcased there. They’re up-lit from the windows beneath and indirectly down-lit from skylights. I pull out my camera and start taking pictures.
The Move (The Creek Water Series Book 2) Page 3
