“Don’t take this the wrong way, but it seems to me that crowd-pleasing has not generally been a huge priority for you.” He thought back to her gender-swapped Death of a Saleswoman. And to that time she’d gotten Pearl and Eiko to do Waiting for Godot-ette, which had turned out to be a wee bit too experimental for the town of Moonflower Bay.
But that was Maya. She had visions, and she didn’t rest until they were realized. There weren’t a lot of people like that in the world.
“I know. I just…” She heaved a sigh and tilted her head back so it bonked against the wall. Then she did it again. That heaviness he’d been seeing in her eyes recently was back.
“What?” he asked quietly, wanting—needing—her to finish her thought. It was all he could do not to lift his arm and float it around her shoulders.
“I really need this play to do well.” She sighed again, but it was a small, almost defeated one this time. “Like, financially.”
“Ah.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. It seemed to him that her plays were popular. Pretty much everyone in town went to them, even the weird ones. But he supposed the town was not that big. They didn’t fill all the seats in the theater.
She pulled her legs, which had been extended along the ground, up so her knees were bent and her feet were flat on the floor. He was in the same position, so now their upper thighs were touching, too. The entire left side of his body was tingling now. Maybe he was having a stroke?
They sat in silence for another minute until she said, “So, Lawson’s Lunch, eh?”
“Yeah.” Okay, here was his chance. That anger he’d been trying to rustle up earlier was completely gone, so he just asked her. “Did you tell Eiko about that?”
“No!” she exclaimed, whipping around to look at him, and her indignation seemed genuine. The move broke the contact between them, and he regretted the question.
Maybe Eiko didn’t know. Maybe her You’ll want to come to this meeting directive hadn’t had any deeper meaning. “You really didn’t tell anyone?”
“I promised you I wouldn’t. So why would you think I would? I mean, I know you hate me, but I like to think you also know me. A little, anyway.”
Aww, shit. He felt terrible. And she wasn’t even yelling at him, like he would expect. She just sounded quietly hurt. Also, he didn’t hate her. She annoyed the crap out of him a lot of the time, and he found his ever-simmering attraction to her wildly inconvenient, but he had never hated her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t do that. It’s just that Eiko’s been acting extra coy lately, and I thought…” What? What had he thought? He had jumped to the worst conclusion. It didn’t make him proud. “I’m…” Why could he not finish a sentence?
“Currently being manipulated and gaslit by Pearl and Eiko and Karl and maybe even the usually lower-key Art as they ask you to perform increasingly absurd ‘favors’ to such an extent that you’re questioning your very existence?” she suggested cheerfully.
He laughed. “Pretty much.”
“I didn’t tell them. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Nora or Eve. I promise.”
She was still being uncharacteristically subdued, which made him feel like even more of a jerk. “Well, I told Sawyer and Jake, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Eve and Nora know, and— Oh, hang on.” He groaned.
“What?” she said.
“I just remembered I also told my firewood supplier. I wanted to find out if she could handle an order that was double the usual size on an ongoing basis.” Shirley lived on a big parcel of forested land and he never saw her in town other than when she was doing wood deliveries, so he hadn’t hesitated to tell her about his restaurant plans.
Maya made a theatrical noise of irritation. “So what you are saying is that a ton of other people know about your plans but you jumped to the conclusion that I’m the one who told on you. I mean, you irritate the hell out of me, Benjamin, but I would never carry out such a betrayal.”
Her emphasis on the I there, intimating that he would carry out such a betrayal, gave him pause.
“Lawson’s Lunch,” he said, going back to her original question. “I have this vision for it.” Why not tell her, since she already knew about his plans in the broad sense? And she was creative and entrepreneurial. She might have some good thoughts.
Which she probably wouldn’t deign to share with him, but whatever.
Mostly he felt like he should tell her something real. To make up for having assumed the worst about her.
“I want it to be a proper restaurant. More than pizza at the bar.” He braced for her to yell at him about the pizza oven. When she didn’t, he kept going. “I’m calling it Lawson’s Lunch because of the L thing, obviously, but also because I want it to have a casual vibe. Like an old-school lunch counter. Except with better food.”
“That’s a great idea.”
He blinked, surprised by her easy praise. “You think so?”
“Yeah, everyone loves your sandwiches at the festivals. And your stupid pizza, too. Not that I would know. I’ve never had it.” She sniffed as she returned to her original position with her back to the wall. Except this time, no part of her was touching him.
“Do you have any advice for me?”
She swiveled her head to look at him. The fading orange light was now making her skin glow like copper. “Why would you want my advice? You have a loan already. You might have a town grant. It sounds like you have a great plan. Everyone in town is going to be thrilled.”
He was kind of embarrassed. But why? Because everyone was going to be happy with his new venture? Why would that embarrass him? He was being stupid.
“This town is getting fancy!” she added.
“I do sort of worry about that,” he admitted.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Am I a gentrifying force for evil?”
“No! Why would you say that?”
“Well, the bar has been around a long time. I’ve made some changes, but I’ve tried to balance that with keeping the core of it the same. But sometimes I’ll be pouring a summer cocktail for a tourist, and I’ll think, Why am I messing with what works? Am I getting too pretentious?”
“Well, your fancy pizza aside, I don’t think I’d call the bar pretentious.”
“And probably no one has noticed, but even though I’ve futzed with the wine and beer lists, I’ve kept several taps the same, along with their accompanying prices. A pint of Labatt’s has been five bucks for a decade. I do that on purpose. And I haven’t changed anything about the decor. I want the bar to be a place where everyone is welcome.” He needed to stop talking. He sounded like he was making a case in court, but no one had accused him of anything.
“Why do I feel like you’re talking to me, but you’re really talking to someone else?”
Yep. She’d hit the nail on the head, which shouldn’t have been a surprise. Maya was as smart as they came. It stung a little that he was so transparent, but he huffed a sigh of acknowledgment.
“Who?” she asked. “Your dad?”
“It’s more like the idea of my dad. And my grandfather.”
“A legacy.”
“Yes.” It was the exact word he’d been using in his head. “The bar opened in 1943. It’s been through some serious milestones with this town. And my parents almost lost it in the 1990s. I remember that a little bit. I was just a kid, but…I remember it.” That day he’d seen his stoic father cry—something he’d never seen before or since. “They laid off the employees, and my parents started doing everything themselves.”
“Is that why your family moved to the apartment?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder if they ever thought of closing it. Just giving up and doing something else.”
“I never asked them, but my dad wouldn’t have. They’d have had to drag his cold, dead body out of there. He has this idea of Lawson’s as a kind of community center. A place where anyone can come and sit for a while, even without
having to order anything. You remember when we did frozen pizza in that toaster oven behind the bar? Before I put in the wood-burning oven?” He expected some sass from her about the oven, but she just nodded. “You might be too young to remember this, but Sawyer worked at the hardware store across the street when he was a teenager. He was still living at home with his dad, technically, but really, he and Clara were fending for themselves. On the days he was at the store, my dad used to heat up a pizza and run it across to the store, all low-key like. It wasn’t a big deal, but Sawyer told me years later how much they relied on those pizzas.”
“This is a good town,” she said quietly.
“I feel the same way about the restaurant,” he went on, because now that he had started running his mouth, he couldn’t seem to stop. “I want it to have good food but not fancy food, you know? Tables but also counter seating, so it’s less of a big deal for someone to pop in and eat on their own. I was even thinking…” He was getting carried away. He’d spouted off long enough about his anxieties. He didn’t need to have a monologue about his business plan, too.
“What?” she prompted, with seemingly genuine interest.
“I read about this restaurant in Toronto called the Ladybug Café that does this thing with tokens. Anyone can buy a token, and it goes into a bin by the cash register. Then anyone who needs a token can take one and use it toward an order. That way, people—” He cut himself off. He sounded like Pollyanna.
“That’s a really good idea. I could imagine someone like, say, Sawyer’s dad taking advantage of that.”
That’s exactly who he’d been thinking of. Sawyer’s dad had had a long battle with addiction and unemployment and had burned a lot of bridges in town. But he’d recently started trying to get his life back on track. “Thanks,” Law said, relieved she wasn’t mocking him but also a little embarrassed that he’d just laid his ambition out so plainly for her to see. There was no guaranteeing she wouldn’t mock it later.
“Well, Benjamin, as much as it pains me to say this, I think your plan sounds excellent.”
“I know it’s a big leap,” he went on. “I’ll need a staff, a chef, and I’ve been thinking it’s finally time to get a manager for the bar. I need to free up some time to work on the plans, and once the restaurant is open, I’ll have to go back and forth between the two spots. I mean, I love the bar. I grew up there. In a lot of ways, it will always be home. But I don’t want to stand behind it slinging drinks until I die. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he added quickly. “My grandpa and dad had good lives. It’s just that…” Ugh, he was rambling again.
“You have ambition. That’s allowed, you know.”
Yes. That was well put. Not that he needed her blessing.
“It’s hard to be the inheritor of a legacy,” she added.
She knew. Well, of course she knew. “Does your dad want you to take over the flower shop?”
She was silent for a long time, her lips pressed together like she was angry. The rest of her body didn’t telegraph “angry,” though. The way she was slumped against the wall suggested defeat. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, quavery. “No. He’s been remarkably supportive of both me and my brother. I think he’d be thrilled if one of us wanted the store, but he would never push it. I mean, all he ever wanted to do was flowers, and there was no precedent for that in his family. And let’s face it, not a lot of little boys grow up wanting to become florists, so he had to work pretty hard to get what he wanted. So he respects that we have different dreams. I’m just—”
“What?”
“I’m starting to wonder if I should just hang it up and take over the store.”
Everything started shifting in his mind. Her comment about needing Much Ado about Nothing to do well. How upset she’d been the other night at his place, before Holden called. Her competitiveness when it came to the grant.
“But my dad is selling and retiring,” she went on, “so if I want to do that, I gotta make the call now.”
Wait. What? He’d heard that Mr. Mehta was retiring, but it would never in a million years have occurred to him that Maya might want to run the store.
She turned her head away from him, but he didn’t miss the hand that darted up and swiped at something on her face. Holy crap. Was that a tear? What was happening here?
He had no idea what to say. Maya was normally so fearless. His first impulse was to say, No, no, you shouldn’t take over the flower shop! She was so clearly meant to be doing what she was doing—murder mysteries and Shakespeare and teaching ten-year-old campers stage combat on the town green. But he checked himself. He didn’t know what kind of pressure she was facing, and she didn’t need empty platitudes. If she was seriously thinking of taking over the store, she must have her reasons. “Well, A Rose by Any Other Name. Who doesn’t love roses?”
He had been trying to lighten the mood. It must have worked, because she did one of her little eye rolls. And he must have imagined that tear before, because now she looked fine. “A wise man once said every rose has its thorn,” she said.
“I think that was Bret Michaels from Poison.”
“Exactly.”
He laughed. One of the best things about Maya was how funny she was.
“The thing is,” she said, turning thoughtful, “I do like flowers. And I’m actually good at running the store.”
He’d thought their jokey exchange would signal an end to the conversation, but clearly she wanted to keep talking. That was a little unprecedented, but he was here for it. “You say ‘actually’ like the default position would be that you’re not good at it. You’re the one who had the idea for me to start selling flowers at the bar. Your dad and I worked out a deal on that, by the way.” She hadn’t been around the past few weeks, so she hadn’t seen the small fridge he had sitting on one end of the bar.
She ignored the compliment. “It would be easier, in a sense, if I hated the store. If the idea of spending my life there felt like a death sentence.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Well, it’s not like death by firing squad. It’s an okay way to pass the time.”
“But maybe death by a thousand cuts? Death by a thousand thorns?”
She nodded.
“You have ambition. That’s allowed.” He paused, unsure if he should go further. “A wise person once told me that.”
She smiled, a small one, but it felt like a triumph. “Benjamin, are we having a truce without football?”
“I think we might be.”
“Well, don’t get used to it.” She stood up, and she was back to herself. He could tell from her posture. Her confidence had returned. “Now come over here and help me scream.”
In the end, no one heard them scream. Ha. That sounded like a line that belonged in one of her Murder at the Mermaid shows. No one heard them scream because they didn’t have to scream. As soon as Maya stood up and shook off her melancholy—she had spoken uncharacteristically openly to Benjamin and put herself into a little funk—Pearl and Eiko burst through the door.
“Oh my goodness!” Pearl said. “We wondered if you two had gotten locked up here!”
“I told you to prop the door open,” Eiko said to Benjamin.
He looked confused. “No you didn’t.”
“All’s well that ends well, right?” Pearl trilled. “I’m actually glad you’re both here. I have something to ask you. I was at Whispering Pines the other day, and they want you to do a pretheater talk, Maya.”
“Of course.” She often visited the old folks’ home to do an orientation for whatever play was coming up.
Pearl transferred her attention to Benjamin. “Also, a few of them were talking about how they miss getting out on the lake.”
Benjamin chuckled. “I’m happy to offer a boat ride if that’s what you’re getting at. I’ve actually been thinking about how I so rarely get out on the lake these days.”
That was true. But probably that was partly down to her. Maya was, histori
cally, the one who organized boat rides among their friend group. And her friend group and Benjamin’s friend group severely overlapped—that was the downside to life in a small town. She had gotten so busy and stressed lately she’d let that kind of stuff drop. But she’d missed the boat rides, missed the lake. Missed the company. Well, some of it—no need to get carried away.
“Great!” Pearl said. “Because I was thinking, what if the theater talk happens on the boat?” She waved her hands around in front of her excitedly.
“Oh my, what a wonderful idea!” Eiko said, and you didn’t need to be a theater director to recognize how bad an actor she was.
“Sure,” Benjamin said. “It’ll have to be after the Raspberry Festival, though. I’m going to be busy at the bar this week getting ready. And Karl has me on a Junior Achievement panel later in the week.”
Hmm. Karl had her on a Junior Achievement panel later in the week.
“Monday?” Pearl asked. “The day after the festival? Say yes because I kind of already told them.”
Benjamin met Maya’s gaze and raised his eyebrows. He was asking if she was okay with this plan so they could present a united front. She nodded. This was another of those scenarios in which it was easier to go along with what the old folks wanted. Still, it was nice to be in solidarity with Benjamin. Weird, but nice. She sent him a sympathetic eye roll as she said, “Yeah, Monday works for me.”
“Monday’s okay on my end, too, as long as we’re done by five,” he said. “So maybe we start at three? Can you get the Whispering Pines shuttle to drop them at the marina?” he asked Pearl. “I have life jackets for eight.”
“You got it!” Pearl said. “Thanks, you two!”
They made their way down to the main level and said goodbye to Eiko, who was headed back to the newsroom. Maya was kind of glad Pearl was with them as they took off down the street. Things might have gotten awkward if she and Benjamin had been left alone. Because they had, like, bonded for a second there? And she’d shed an actual tear in front of him. Though she was pretty sure he hadn’t noticed—thank goodness.
Sandcastle Beach--Includes a Bonus Novella Page 11
