This, as it turned out, wasn’t a good day.
“You’ll never guess what Stella told me last night,” Sawyer Alexander said, strolling into the kitchen just as Julia was finishing the apple stack cake she was going to take to Vance Shelby’s granddaughter.
Julia closed her eyes for a moment. Stella must have called him the moment Julia left her last night and went upstairs.
Sawyer stopped next to her at the stainless steel table and stood close. He was like crisp, fresh air. He was self-possessed and proud, but everyone forgave him for that because charm sparkled around him like sunlight. Blue-eyed and blond-haired, he was handsome, smart, rich, and fun to be around. And he was disgustingly kind, too, as all the men in his family were, filled to capacity with Southern gentility. Sawyer drove his grandfather to Julia’s restaurant every morning just so he could have breakfast with his old cronies.
“You’re not supposed to be back here,” she said as she put the last layer of cake on top of the dried-apple and spice filling.
“Report me to the owner.” He pushed some of her hair behind her left ear, his fingers lingering on the thin pink streak she still dyed in her hair there. “Don’t you want to know what Stella told me last night?” he asked.
She jerked her head away from his hand as she put the last of the apple and spice filling on top of the cake, leaving the sides bare. “Stella was drunk last night.”
“She said you told her that you bake cakes because of me.”
Julia knew it was coming, but she stilled anyway, the icing spatula stopping mid-stroke. She quickly resumed spreading the filling, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “She thinks you have low self-esteem. She’s trying to build up your ego.”
He lifted one eyebrow in that insolent way of his. “I’ve been accused of many things, but low self-esteem is not one of them.”
“It must be hard to be so beautiful.”
“It’s hell. Did you really say that to her?”
She clanged the spatula into the empty bowl the filling had been in, then she took both to the sink. “I don’t remember. I was drunk, too.”
“You never get drunk,” he said.
“You don’t know me well enough to make blanket statements like ‘You never get drunk.’ “ It felt good to say that. Eighteen years she’d been away. Look how much I’ve improved, she wanted to say.
“Fair enough. But I do know Stella. Even when she drinks, I’ve never known her to lie. Why would she tell me that you bake cakes because of me if it wasn’t true?”
“I bake cakes. You have an infamous sweet tooth. Maybe she got the two tangled up.” She walked into the storage room for a cake box, taking longer than necessary, hoping maybe he’d give up and go away.
“You’re taking a cake with you?” he asked when she came back out. He hadn’t moved. All the crazy-hot activity in the kitchen—waitresses going in and out, cooks going back and forth, the constant thump of barbecue being hand-chopped— and he was so still. She had to quickly turn away. Staring at an Alexander man too long was like staring at the sun. The image became imprinted. You could close your eyes and still see him.
“I’m giving it to Vance Shelby’s granddaughter. She got in last night.”
That made him laugh. “You’re actually giving someone a welcome cake?”
She didn’t realize the irony until he pointed it out to her. “I don’t know what came over me.”
He watched her as she put the cake in the cardboard box. “I like this color on you,” he said, touching the sleeve of her white long-sleeved shirt.
She immediately pulled her arm away. A year and a half of avoiding this man since she’d been back, then she had to go and say to Stella the one thing that would draw him to her like gravity. He’d been looking for this excuse since the moment she came back to town. He wanted to get closer to her. She knew that. And it made her angry. How could he even think of picking up where they left off after what happened?
She reached over and closed the window above her table. It was always the last thing she did every morning, and sometimes it made her sad. Another day, another call unanswered. She picked up the cake box and took it with her out into the restaurant without another word to Sawyer.
J’s Barbecue was plain, as most genuine barbecue restaurants in the South were—linoleum floors, plastic tablecloths on the tables, heavy wooden booths. It was an homage to tradition. As soon as she’d taken over, Julia had pulled down the tattered NASCAR memorabilia her father had tacked to the far wall, but she’d been met with such protest that she’d had to put it all back up.
She set the box down and picked up the chalkboard on the diner counter. She wrote the names of the day’s cakes on the board: traditional Southern red velvet cake and peach pound cake, but also green tea and honey macaroons and cranberry doughnuts. She knew the more unusual things would sell out first. It had taken nearly a year, but she’d won over her regulars with her skill with what they already knew, so now they would try anything she made.
Sawyer walked out just as she set the chalkboard back on the counter. “I told Stella I’d come over with pizza tonight. You’ll be there?”
“I’m always there. Why don’t the two of you sleep together and get it over with?” Sawyer’s Thursday pizza courtship of Stella had been going on ever since Julia had moved back to Mullaby. Stella swore there was nothing going on, but Julia thought Stella was being naïve.
Sawyer leaned in close. “Stella and I did sleep together,” he said into her ear. “Three years ago, right after her divorce. And before you think that sounds indiscriminate, I try to keep my actions regret-free these days.’’
She gave him a sharp look as he walked away. His casual, almost flippant, mention of it took her by surprise and made her feel cool and tart, like tasting lime for the first time.
She couldn’t blame him for being a scared teenager when he’d found out she’d gotten pregnant from their one night together on the football field all those years ago. She’d been a scared teenager, too. And they’d made the only decisions they were capable of making at the time. For better or worse.
But she resented how easily he’d gotten on with his life. It had been just one night to him. One regretful night with the freaky, unpopular girl he’d barely even talked to at school. A girl who’d been madly in love with him.
Oh, God. She wasn’t going to fall into this role again. She couldn’t.
Six months and counting and she would leave this crazy place and never think of Sawyer again.
With any luck.
Also by Sarah Addison Allen
Garden Spells
THE SUGAR QUEEN
A Bantam Book / June 2008
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2008 by Sarah Addison Allen
Excerpt from The Peach Keeper copyright © 2011 by Sarah Addison Allen.
Excerpt from The Girl Who Chased the Moon copyright © 2010 by Sarah Addison Allen.
Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Allen, Sarah Addison.
The sugar queen / Sarah Addison Allen.
p. cm.
1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Food habits—Fiction. 3. Life change events—Fiction. 4. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 5. Female friendship—Fiction. 6. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 7. Adult children living with parents—Fiction. 8. North Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3601.L4356S84 2008
813'.6—dc22
2007048178
www.bantamdell.com
&n
bsp; eISBN: 978-0-553-90524-3
v3.0_r1
The Sugar Queen Page 26
