The girls remembered, too. “Can we have hot chocolate today?” Holly asked.
“We haven’t broken anything, this time,” Maddie pointed out.
Mary Jane didn’t know what to say, and Joe seemed to sense it.
“No-o-o, girls,” he said at once, sounding reluctant. “Mary Jane is busy.”
“Are you busy, Mary Jane?” the girls said in unison.
Mary Jane struggled with herself. It would be so easy to make the offer. She almost bit her tongue, holding it back. There was a silence, just a few seconds, but long enough for the girls to realize that the hot chocolate idea wasn’t happening. “I really am busy,” she said.
Their faces fell, and she knew she’d lost ground with them, lost favor. She wasn’t always the fun, friendly lady who’d found a pony camp for them and played mini golf hilariously badly. She was sometimes the busy lady who wouldn’t give them hot chocolate even when they hadn’t done anything wrong. And who knew what other crimes she might commit in the future, if Daddy stayed friends with her?
They were just children, Mary Jane reminded herself, not angels.
And not hers.
“Must get these towels out to the pool,” she muttered. She’d collect the used ones, too. There would be a huge pile.
“Girls, dry yourselves quickly,” Joe said, “so we can put the towels in the towel bin, and let’s not forget to bring yours next time.”
“Just leave them on the porch,” Mary Jane told him, and by the time she’d exchanged her piles of towels and said hi to Lucy, Jess and Simon, who were still swimming, his car was on its way up the drive, too far away for her even to wave.
*
“So do you think the reason Mom and Dad have sprung this visit on us is because they don’t trust how we’re running this place, and they’re checking up?” Daisy asked Mary Jane and Lee.
The three of them stood in the restaurant kitchen, which was clean and quiet at this time of day, following the post-breakfast cleanup, the preparation of lunchtime picnic baskets and the early dinner prep work. It would need to erupt into a hive of activity within the next half hour, however, ready for the evening meal.
Lee simply threw her head back and laughed, but Mary Jane couldn’t take the question so lightly. “Oh, I just bet they are doing exactly that!” she said.
Mom had called from the car, a few minutes ago. “Guess where we are, Mary Jane?”
“Um, Myrtle Beach? Savannah?”
“Saugerties!”
Which was roughly an hour and forty-five minutes from Spruce Bay, on I-87, the direct route up from South Carolina. “You’re coming up? For how long?”
“Just a few days. Maybe a week or so. Depending on how things go.”
“How things go?”
“You know, the weather…” Mom had said vaguely.
“I knew as soon as she called that they were checking up,” Mary Jane told her sisters.
Around two hours from now, Mom and Dad would be unpacking their bags in their old bedroom. Mary Jane had been thinking about stripping it out, redecorating and turning it into her own private space. It was much bigger than her childhood room, which barely had room for the queen bed.
But the Spruce Bay remodel and their parents’ retirement to South Carolina had become so tangled in with Lee’s and Daisy’s personal lives, she didn’t feel on solid enough ground to tackle the project yet. She planned on making her own former room into a spare room, so that Mom and Dad would always feel welcome.
It was three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, and she’d left Nickie in charge of the office and come over to the restaurant so she could alert Daisy and Lee to the impending arrival of the two people who had run this place with modest success and a lot of love for more than thirty years.
Mom and Dad’s last visit was two months ago, now, in April, when the resort had been closed, so they hadn’t yet seen it in its new summer prime, with all the trees and shrubs thick and green, the annuals in bright bloom, the parking spaces filled and guests enjoying the pool, the barbecue area, the restaurant, the dock, the beach and the boats.
“That’s why you came over in such a rush,” Lee said. “In case we have something to hide.”
“Well, no…”
“Relax, I’m kidding.”
“I know, but I’m wondering if we do need to have a meeting before they get here.”
“A meeting?” Daisy said. “Is there something you’re not happy about, Mary Jane?”
Where do you want me to start?
Ugh, that little thread of bitterness was back! And it was made stronger by the fact that Daisy had asked the question so quickly, as if she always expected Mary Jane to be unhappy about this or that.
“Not unhappy,” she said.
Miserable.
Over Joe.
Don’t think about that right now.
She went on, “But I think it’s time for some decisions. Cards on the table, or whatever.”
“I’ll make us an iced chocolate each, shall I?” Daisy suggested.
“Sounds yum,” said Lee, who seemed to be constantly starving these days.
Daisy began to move efficiently around, grabbing tall glasses, chocolate syrup, vanilla ice cream and milk. “But keep talking,” she told Mary Jane after a minute. “Because I can do this and listen at the same time.”
“Okay, well, here goes.” She took a big breath. “We’re in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment, the way I see it, and it can’t last. You both have babies due—” Careful, careful, careful. Don’t make that sound like an accusation. “—which is fabulous, and I can’t wait, but we need to decide how it’s all going to work.”
She paused while Daisy hit the button on the blender and filled the kitchen with noise. When the machine had gone silent again, and Daisy was pouring iced chocolate into glasses, she went on, “Lee, where are you and Mac going to settle after the wedding? Are you staying in Jay? It’s a long way to keep going back and forth, especially once you have a baby. And, Daisy, running the restaurant is a big job.”
Currently, Daisy was squirting canned whipped cream with a practiced touch. She never made running the restaurant look like a big job, but it definitely was.
“How much time off will you take for the birth? Will you be coming back full-time? I know it’s traditionally been a pretty quiet time of year, but we’re trying for more of a winter season now…” Mary Jane heard her voice growing increasingly stressed, not to say plaintive, and trailed off. How would they take this?
“We have been thinking about this stuff,” Lee said slowly. “Mac and I, that is.”
“Tucker and I have been thinking about it, too,” Daisy said.
“So…any decisions?”
Daisy presented Mary Jane with her iced chocolate, and said, “We’re thinking of buying a house, for a start.”
“Oh, wow!” Lee pricked up her ears. “Where?”
“We’ve looked at a couple along the lake, roughly halfway between here and Reid Landscaping HQ.” Daisy and Tucker currently lived in the very nice but not very big apartment over the showroom, which they would have no trouble renting out. “We’re working out an offer on one of the houses now,” she said, “and talking to the bank.”
“So that means—” Mary Jane said.
“It means I’m fully committed to the restaurant. Piri is developing into a great assistant chef, and I have the fall and winter menus planned already.”
“Oh, you do?” Mary Jane felt close to tears suddenly. With the three of them all so busy, they hadn’t made enough time to talk about serious stuff lately. She’d had Joe on her mind so much, she hadn’t realized there was this second undercurrent of concern deep inside her about what was happening at Spruce Bay, or how stressed she’d been feeling about it. What would happen if Daisy wanted to leave?
“Yes!” Daisy said, “Have you been worried about it, Mary Jane?”
“A little.”
“Don’t be. I’ve been making notes ab
out the menus for weeks. I’ll be testing the recipes out over the next couple of weeks and locking in prep methods and ingredients so we have it all going smoothly before I need to stop working. There’s no reason why Piri can’t manage the place while I’m off. Our other staff all want as much work as they can get, and they seem happy here.”
“That’s great!”
Lee took a long pull on her iced chocolate, through the pink plastic straw. “Things are a little different at my end,” she said slowly.
Daisy and Mary Jane both looked at her.
“I love Spruce Bay in a personal sense. We had such a great childhood here. Every stick and stone seems precious to me, but Mac and I have realized it’s not right for me as a career. It’s not a career at all. I don’t have your management skills, Mary Jane, or your vision for the place. Or your creative passion for cooking, Daisy. I’m just filling in where I’m needed, and too much of it is indoors. You know how I love to be out in the open air.”
“So what are you saying?” Mary Jane asked slowly.
“I’m saying you could replace me with any twenty-something woman or man who’s happy to work hard and do anything that’s needed. You’ll find someone easily.”
“You’re leaving, then?”
“Mac and I are looking at buying a place, too—the house we’re renting in Jay, in fact, because the owners have told us they plan to put it on the market soon. It’s pretty and sweet and easy to manage, and a great base for us with his job at Whiteface. I’m not sure how much time I’ll take when the baby’s born, or if we’ll try for another baby fairly soon. We like the idea of two. But when I do go back to work, I want it to be in the area I love—skiing and rock-climbing and mountain-guiding.” She screwed up her face. “What do you think, girls?”
“I—I have to say I’m not surprised,” Mary Jane said. And she knew Lee was right. She hadn’t been doing the kind of work around the resort that would make her hard to replace.
“We’ll miss you, Lee,” Daisy told their middle sister.
“It’s not far for visits,” Lee reminded them. “It’s only far when I’m trying to commute several times a week. Mary Jane, how does all this sound to you? Are you happy about it? Does it fit in with your plans? I mean, you and Joe…” Lee spoke carefully and she was frowning, as if she suspected she might be treading on difficult ground.
“That’s…not happening anymore,” Mary Jane said, and felt the change in atmosphere at once—the tactful silence, the sympathetic disappointment.
Single again? Bad luck, Mary Jane!
Should she have told them sooner? It was nearly two weeks, now, since she’d gone to Penelope to beg for a second chance at pony camp for Joe’s girls, and ten days since he’d caught her with that sheaf of travel brochures in her hands when he’d come looking for towels.
They’d seen each other several more times here at the resort, when he’d come to drop off Holly and Maddie in the mornings, or pick them up at the end of the day. He’d said hi and they’d talked, and each time the talking had lengthened a little beyond the polite exchange Mary Jane had initially planned.
Each time, she’d felt shaken up and miserable for hours afterward, finding every word they said to each other and every expression or piece of body language stupidly important and precious.
Each time, she’d wanted to offer hot or iced chocolate to the girls, so that they didn’t think she was mean, and each time she’d resisted. She thought Joe had begun to notice it, too.
Her sisters were still looking at her, wondering about him.
Lee began, “But, Mary Jane, you looked so—” She stopped.
“What?” Mary Jane prompted gently. “Say it. I’m not that fragile.”
“Good together. Happy about him.”
“It’s—it’s fine.”
“What happened? Can I ask?”
“I think I was interested for the wrong reasons.”
“Yeah, well, that body of his could drive most women to a rash reaction, I admit,” Lee drawled. She was way off base.
“That’s—that’s pretty much it, I guess,” Mary Jane lied through her teeth, because she didn’t want to talk about the real reason.
I didn’t trust myself. I was trying to turn fantasy into reality, and it doesn’t work.
“Anyhow, Lee,” she went on superbrightly, “you asked if I was happy about your plans, and Daisy’s, and I am. Incredibly happy. I knew you couldn’t have been totally satisfied with working here, Lee. I was scared you’d decide to go back to Colorado and I wouldn’t get to watch your baby grow. And, Daisy, if you want the restaurant to be totally your domain, I couldn’t be happier. It’ll become a dining destination for the whole region, I bet, and it means I can concentrate on the rest of the resort.”
“I’m going to cry,” Daisy announced suddenly, and her voice cracked and went foggy on the last word. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t make sense. Must be the hormones. But it seems as if we’ve got everything sorted out and we’re all happy about it, and Mom and Dad will be happy, too.”
“I think so,” Mary Jane said. “Which is good, because they’ll be here pretty soon.”
“You were right. We needed a meeting.” Daisy hugged her suddenly. “You’re a good person. And you are smart!”
Mary Jane hugged her back then shooed her away, because it was all a little too much right now. She could easily have made her pregnant-and-hormonal sisters look like models of emotional control, by comparison. “You’re always hugging me in this kitchen, Daisy.”
“So shoot me. Kitchens are very emotional places for me.”
“I’m crying, too,” Lee said, wiping her eyes. “That is sooo out of character. Don’t anyone dare tell Mac, or he’ll use it against me.”
“So, united front from the Cherry sisters when Mom and Dad get here?” Daisy said.
“Absolutely!”
Their parents arrived on schedule at four forty-five. Mary Jane heard the car peel a little too fast into the parking area in front of the office and knew it was Dad because he always did it, with Mom reminding him that there could be children around so he should slow down.
She went out to meet them…just as another vehicle came down the drive—Joe’s minivan. He’d come to pick up the girls. She waved at him as he drove by, heading for a spot closer to the pool, because the girls were splashing and shrieking in there with Simon and Jess. The late-in-the-day swim had become a regular part of their pony-camp routine, and they hadn’t forgotten to bring their towels lately.
“Who was that?” Mom asked as soon as they’d hugged. She was still watching Joe as he climbed out of the minivan and called a greeting to the girls.
“Oh…Mr. Capelli’s son.”
“Mr. Capelli from Capelli Auto?”
“That’s the one.”
“Which son? Didn’t he have a few?”
“Joe. He was in my year.”
Dad hugged her, too, then said, “He’s staying here at the resort?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Then why are his kids in our pool?”
“It’s complicated. It’s not important.”
But Mom and Dad were both a little too keen on micromanagement, and insisted on hearing the full story.
They didn’t get the full story, of course, but they got the public part of it—the Richardsons, and pony camp, and Joe being a single dad and running the garage while studying for the New York bar.
Dad looked across at the pool, where two dripping, dark-haired peas in a pod were toweling themselves under Joe’s firm direction, making Mary Jane’s heart kick. Maybe she should have offered hot chocolate…. “Hmm,” Dad said. “Sounds as if he’s turned out pretty well.”
So Dad approved.
Mary Jane’s heart kicked painfully inside her rib cage.
All part of the fantasy—her parents beaming at her engagement party and wedding, calling all their friends to announce their new grandchild.
Not happening, Mary Jane.
&n
bsp; Mom was watching Joe and the girls now, too, and both her parents’ attentive interest seemed to mock Mary Jane afresh. “They look like two little bits of mischief,” Mom said.
“Oh, they are! Very energetic. Joe does a great job with them.”
Mom looked at her, and Mary Jane could almost see the speculation in her eyes. So the man was a single father, huh?
“Let me get your bags inside,” she said very briskly, and to her profound relief, the subject dropped.
Last day of pony camp tomorrow, and the Richardsons were checking out of their cottage first thing Saturday morning, in order to load up their horses and start the long drive back to Kentucky. After tomorrow, Holly and Maddie wouldn’t be coming to the resort anymore.
After tomorrow, Mary Jane could start getting over Joe, instead of looking for him morning and afternoon, and falling apart every time they spoke.
Chapter Fifteen
After tomorrow. But tomorrow hadn’t happened yet.
In the morning, Mary Jane saw Joe bringing the girls to deliver to Lucy and the Richardsons for the last time, while she and Mom and Dad ate Daisy’s restaurant breakfast out on the big, extended restaurant deck. Taking herself brutally in hand, she looked away from the sight of those familiar skinny little-girl legs in riding jodhpurs and those bright backpacks bulging with snacks and water bottles and swimming gear, sheparded along by such a caring set of arms and such broad shoulders.
“Do you like the cranberry coffee cake, Mom?”
“Oh! Are you kidding me? It’s to die for!”
So far, the Cherry parents had been full of praise and approval about the changes at the resort and the way it was running. This was in contrast to last Fall, when they’d found it quite difficult to let go, and to believe that anyone else could really care about the place as much as they did, or manage everything so well.
Dad was still a little grumbly at times. “Do people really want coffee cake for breakfast?” He’d ordered scrambled eggs, bacon and home fries, himself.
“Well, judging by how fast Daisy usually sells out of it, yes!”
It Began with a Crush (The Cherry Sisters) Page 17
