Gigi made a face as she ripped into dress number three. “ ‘Well made’ hasn’t made a whit of difference before this morning. Let’s try for ‘stylish’ and see what happens. Sixty dollars!” Her eyes sparkled as she said the number. “The last time I paid sixty dollars for a piece of clothing it was for the dress I wore to your parents’ wedding, and I fretted about it the whole time. But that young woman paid sixty without a second thought!”
I reached for a dress and hoped Gigi couldn’t read on my face just how many times in the last few years I’d paid sixty dollars for a T-shirt.
We worked in silence for a while, Gigi tackling another collar while I inspected the construction of the dress in my hands. “Good grief, Gigi,” I said, admiring the inside of the bodice. “Your sewing is perfect. You would have made some of my classmates at FIT weep in envy.”
Gigi snorted and set another collarless dress aside. “That’s the easy part. Any monkey can make even stitches and count inches.” She shook her head. “No, your mom and I always had a deal: she’d pick the style and I’d read the map. But you, my dear.” She winked at me, hands still working. “You’re the real talent, Gracie girl. Your mom was right about you.” She smiled at me, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “She said from the time you were little, ‘Gracie has the hands and the mind of an artist.’ ”
“She said that?” I searched Gigi’s face. My curiosity won over my knee-jerk reaction to push away thoughts of my parents as far and as fast as possible.
“She absolutely did. For years. I’m surprised you don’t remember it yourself. She was hardly quiet about her admiration of your creative bent.”
I ran my hand over the floral print I was holding. “You know, Gigi,” I said slowly, “I really don’t let my mind wander to Mom and Dad too much.” My words caught in my throat and I stopped talking.
“I understand that,” Gigi said, and I knew she did. She had mourned a husband when I was still too little to remember him, and she’d grieved the loss of her only child and a son-in-law she’d fiercely loved. She’d earned a spot at this table.
“Grief is hard. And it doesn’t obey any normal rules of time. I still find the funniest things to stop me in my tracks.” She glanced up from the dress she was dismantling and looked at me. “Your hair right now is just the color, just the same long waves your mom wore in her hair when she was dating your dad.” She smiled. “You look more and more like her.”
My heart ached, a tender mix of pain and loss and pride that I looked like a woman I so admired, loved, and missed. “Gigi, I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t bring up those memories every time you look at me.”
She frowned, her face abruptly stern. “Grace Eliza Kleren. Never, ever apologize for reminding me of the daughter I loved and love to this day. You’re giving me a gift. Even if it’s a gift that hurts a little, it’s a sweet and precious gift.” She returned to her work. “You also remind me of her when you pout. That part isn’t quite as sweet and precious.”
I laughed out loud. My heart still felt heavy, but it wasn’t making me double over, the way I used to feel when thinking about Mom and Dad. I touched the waistband of the floral, fingering Gigi’s perfect stitching while lost in thought. I wondered why I had pushed Gigi away so much in the year after the accident. She was deep in her own grief too, but she knew things, things about sorrow and loss and heartache and survival. I’d been too young and foolish to realize what a help she could have been as I sorted through all my own pain.
I was so deep in my reverie, I didn’t realize I had taken apart the waist and sleeves of the dress and was piecing out a new version on the coffee table before me. Gigi cleared her throat and pointed. Sometime while I’d been lost in thought, she’d brought her sewing machine down from the upstairs bedroom and had placed it next to where I sat. I chuckled.
“Thanks. Did I have the look of a girl who hankered for a sewing machine?”
“You were definitely hankering.” Gigi walked to the kitchen and I could hear her open the fridge. She returned with two glasses of lemonade. Handing one to me, she said, “Honey, I want you to know that it’s completely understandable that you avoid talking about and thinking too much about your mom and dad.”
I held the glass, feeling it start to sweat into my palm. Gigi’s brow furrowed before she continued.
“But it’s also okay to talk and think about and cry about and laugh about your mom and dad too. All of those things are okay. I don’t want you to get stuck forever in the avoidance part.” She reached out to brush my hair away from my face. “The loss never leaves entirely, you know. We’ve been warned. There’s a verse that says God has placed eternity in our hearts. We weren’t built for this to be the end, so death will never feel quite right. It chafes against the way our souls are wired.”
I was still, letting the coolness of the glass seep into my palm while I digested Gigi’s words.
“Sorry,” she said, pecking me on top of the head. “Bible stuff again. Don’t mean to offend the sensibilities of the cosmopolitan among us.”
I rolled my eyes, knowing she was not one bit interested in not offending me. Before I could form a reply, she continued.
“Though you might just consider the age and reliability of said Bible. I mean, it has sold a few copies.”
I snorted as I returned to work.
“In a few languages, I might add,” Gigi said as she ripped through stitches. “Staying power and historical veracity have to mean something, right?”
I arched one eyebrow. “Did you just use the word veracity?”
She pursed her lips in annoyance. “I sure did. I watch Jeopardy! too, you know. I sure wouldn’t get that from the idiots on Wheel,” she added. Then, pointing her seam ripper at me, she said, “And one more thing before I let you go back to your spiritual denial.”
I was laughing at this point, and the laughter felt good.
“The Bible will sure as shooting outlast all those horrible ‘girl’ books Goldie keeps yammering on about. Orphan girls, girls on trains, girls in cabins, girls gone and not even in the books.” She wrinkled her nose. “Give me a good passage from Song of Songs any day of the week.”
I choked on my lemonade and came up sputtering. “Oh, dear Lord, have mercy,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“Ha! Now I’ve got you praying!” Gigi crowed. “I am good.”
Just then the doorbell rang, startling us both. Gigi had moved to taking out a pair of cuffs and was midrip, so I walked to the foyer and, falling right back into Silver Creek etiquette, didn’t even look through the side windows before opening the door. I stepped back a bit when I saw Tucker waiting, freshly shaved, no ball cap, and toolbox in hand.
I swallowed hard. “Hey,” I finally said.
“Hey,” he said gruffly. “You’re blushing,” he said, and I thought he looked pleased at the fact.
I put my hands on my cheeks, defensive. “It’s not because of you. It’s because of the Bible.”
Tucker didn’t seem to hear me. He shifted and stole a glance at his truck in the driveway behind him. “I can come back, Miss G,” he called behind me. “I thought you said this would be a good time to measure that bit of your roof that needs to be reshingled, and these longer days are giving me extra daylight for odds and ends. But I can see you two are busy.”
Gigi came to stand next to me, hand on hip. “We most certainly are busy.” She gestured toward the living room, which looked a little like Chernobyl. “Grace is helping me with my dress business.”
I raised my eyebrows to Gigi at the word business. One sale made a business?
Tucker kept his eyes on Gigi, serious, but a slight upturn of his mouth betrayed his intent to tease. “I hear congratulations are in order. The town’s all worked up about Georgina Hanson selling a dress.”
Gigi tsked. “This town has too little to talk about if they’re worked up about my business affairs.” She frowned. “Besides, the goal was never to make a million dollars. I do it for the social a
spect.”
“So we’ve heard,” Tucker and I said in unison. Tucker laughed but caught himself and cleared his throat. I added quickly, “Maybe you’re not out for a million dollars but sixty would work, right?”
Gigi launched into her story with Tucker, including the bit about her own overpriced mother-of-the-bride dress and tossing in some extra advice to millennials. Before she could move to the mortgage crisis, I interrupted.
“Perhaps you can call Tucker later about the roof?” The poor man didn’t come by to rehash 2008. “Or even better, I can call Roger down at the hardware store and he can come take a look. I hate to have you bother with this.” I was having a tough time not looking at Tucker, so it was a relief to actually speak to him.
“It’s no trouble at all.” He looked at me for a beat, his own expression unreadable, before turning to where he’d stacked replacement shingles and a toolbox at the top of the porch stairs. He hefted them and said, “I’ll just leave these in your garage and come back another time.”
I raised an eyebrow at Gigi but she pursed her lips and stepped past me onto the porch, following Tucker’s long strides to the garage.
“When were you going to mention he was coming over this evening?” I whispered frantically when I caught up to her.
She ignored me, which perfectly answered my question. “Tuck, I know I promised you a homemade dinner for the paint touch-up you did a few weeks ago since you’re stubborn as a mule and won’t take regular old American dollars as payment.”
Tucker propped the shingles against one wall of the garage and turned, brushing his hands on his jeans. “No dollars, Miss Gigi. Dinner sometime is more than enough.”
“Well”—Gigi drew out the word, and I could practically hear the wheels clicking as she formed her reply—“tonight won’t work so well, I’m afraid. These old bones need a break after the wild day at the market.”
“No problem at all, Miss Gigi. I wasn’t expecting a dinner tonight anyway, what with your out-of-town company and all.” His lips turned up in a small smile, eyes on Gigi. “I hope you’ll let me win this round by just calling us even.” He nodded at me. “You ladies enjoy your evening.”
“Not so fast,” Gigi barked, startling me enough to make me jump. “I mean,” she said more smoothly, “my daddy always said, ‘Fast pay, fast friends.’ I don’t like to have a debt unpaid. So you’re getting that dinner.” She turned and started for the house at a clip. “Just wait here,” she called.
Tucker looked at me, the question on his face.
I shrugged. “No idea. The woman marches to her own beat.”
Tucker sniffed. “Funny. I haven’t seen that character trait elsewhere in your gene pool.”
I narrowed my eyes and was readying myself for a zinger of a response when Gigi pushed open the back kitchen door with a vengeance. She’d slung her purse over her shoulder and had grabbed my soft yellow cardigan, which she shoved in my direction.
“Now, Tucker Van Es, I don’t want to hear one word from you. It doesn’t matter a whit to me whether you approve of this transaction or not. Respect your elders, young man.”
Tucker’s eyes widened. “What’s your proposition, Miss Gigi?”
She pushed the money into his palm. “I want tacos. From La Condesa.” Gigi nodded at me. “Grace, you’re hungry too, right?”
I stammered a response. “Yes. I mean, no, not really—”
“Of course you are. Tucker, you’re driving.”
She turned and marched for Tucker’s truck.
Tucker’s eyes flickered to mine and I could see in his face the same nerves that I felt at Gigi’s mention of a shared dinner. The conversation at the flea market was one thing, but dinner? Tucker looked just as uneasy with the idea as I was.
After a beat, he cleared his throat. “Seems we have our orders from the general.”
“Watch your mouth, Tucker Van Es! My tortillas won’t cook themselves. Now come on, you two!” Gigi hollered from the open window of the passenger seat.
He laughed. “Sorry, Miss Gigi,” he called, and shook his head at me. “I hope you’re in the mood for tacos.”
nine
I looked at the clock on my phone. Two minutes had passed since I last checked. “I had no idea it could take so long to mail a letter.” I could hear the irritation in my voice even as I tried injecting a lightness to my tone. I glanced to my left.
Tucker sat one chair away from mine in the tiny waiting area of La Condesa. He’d propped his elbows on his knees but didn’t look any more comfortable than he had in the myriad other seated positions he’d tried out in the last half hour. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think your grandmother got lost.”
I snorted a laugh, then covered my mouth in embarrassment. Tucker raised one eyebrow at me.
“Or we have been ditched.”
“Let me call her again,” I said, swiping to redial on my phone.
Tucker came to stand in front of me. He took my phone gently out of my hand and pulled me up. I stood before him, too close, but neither one of us backed away. I felt my cheeks start to burn. My stomach growled, betraying me.
“Tacos, then?” Tucker said, stepping aside and opening his arm to the dining room. He nodded at the hostess. “Thanks for waiting, Sofia. We’ll take that corner booth now.”
I followed Sofia and tried to rein in my scrambled thoughts. First, I was going to kill Gigi. She was the furthest thing from subtle, and I was going to kill her. Second, what on earth would we talk about over an entire dinner? We probably had absolutely nothing in common anymore other than our shared affection for cinnamon doughnuts, I thought as I scooted into my side of the booth.
We took turns thanking Sofia for our glasses of ice water, and then fell to silence. I took an in-depth study of my menu and ordered quickly. Tucker followed suit and then added two tacos for Gigi’s carry-out order.
I frowned. “I’m not sure she deserves that kindness.”
He chuckled, then ran a hand across his chin while turning playful eyes on me. “You know the mighty have fallen when they need a grandmother to set them up.” He cleared his throat then shifted in the booth. “Not that this is a setup.”
“Of course not,” I agreed quickly.
“Just two old friends,” Tucker said, one side of his mouth finding a lopsided grin. “Catching up. Does that sound about right?”
“Yes. Absolutely,” I said with a decisive nod. “We’ll have to be the adults in this situation since my grandmother seems to be having trouble with that role.”
He smiled, a real, down-to-the-roots Tucker smile. “About time. As I recall, she deserves a break in trying to keep us in line. We can take a turn.”
I smiled back, feeling some of the knots in my stomach start to unravel. We started to chat, tentative at first, then falling into the easy and familiar cadence of conversation that we’d perfected so many years before. By the time I was tucking into my second taco, I closed my eyes and murmured, “This is ridiculous.”
Tucker chewed thoughtfully and waited for me to have my moment. I’d had a lot of moments since my first bite.
“The tortillas,” I said, dabbing the corners of my mouth with my napkin. “I’m having a hard time getting over the tortillas.” I reached to the middle of the table. “And the salsa. Give me a break. It’s delicious. And bottomless! New York doesn’t really do bottomless. I’m so happy.” I scooped up a healthy dollop of salsa into a warm, sea-salted house-made tortilla chip and had another moment.
Tucker looked amused. “I’m glad it meets your standards. I haven’t been to New York but rumor has it there are a few restaurants. La Condesa could compete, then?”
“Oh my gosh, yes,” I said through a mouthful of chips before having the manners to chew and swallow. “This place is the real deal. I had no idea Silver Creek had grown in its culinary tastes.”
He shrugged slightly.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” I said carefully. “What keeps you here?”
He finished a bite of a taco al pastor that, earlier, had given me one of my more vocal moments. “I love this place. And the people. I love the people here.” He spoke simply, his face open. After a pull on his soda, he added, “Sometimes I get sick of the fishbowl and everyone in each other’s business. But usually a long drive in the country takes care of that. Preferably as the sun is setting over the fields with a mixtape of eighties music playing on the awesome, tinny speakers in my truck.” He smiled, and I noticed a left-side dimple, deep in his cheek, that I’d forgotten.
“You do not still have that tape,” I said, disbelieving. “And how in the world are you still even playing a cassette tape?”
“Retrofit, thank you very much.” He looked smug as he dunked a chip in salsa. “The car dealer looked at me like I was nuts, but I have a very important cassette collection. The stuff needs to be played, sis.”
I shook my head slowly. “There’s nobody like you, Tucker Van Es.”
His smile faded a bit and he busied himself squeezing lime over another taco. “And New York?” he said with a quick change of subject. “Other than your recent and total failure, how did the city treat you?” He grinned before taking a bite.
I scowled. “It wasn’t a total failure,” I offered weakly, but with the raise of his eyebrows I conceded. “Okay, it was pretty total.”
“Nah, it wasn’t; I’m just giving you grief,” Tucker said. “You made a home for yourself there. That, in itself, is wild success. I sure couldn’t do it.”
“Yes, you could,” I said. “You’d have it conquered in a week.” I smiled at him, knowing his strength and the way hard work fit naturally on him, and I knew I was right.
He shook his head. “Nope. I tried.” He took a swig of Coke and the words hung in the air.
“Wait, what?” I finally said. “What do you mean you tried?” My mind raced to keep up with his words.
“Not New York. Chicago.” He popped the final bite of taco into his mouth and chewed, too slowly for my taste, before continuing. “I moved there the year after finishing school. Drove the truck right into downtown with enough money in the glove compartment for two months’ rent. ‘Boy with broken heart seeks to understand the pull of city life for the girl he loved.’ ” He winked at me, no trace of anger or hurt on his face. “It was all very poetic.”
Heart Land Page 8
