What Comes After Dessert

by Ren Benton

  Her budding smile faltered. “Honey...”

  He came around the desk and hugged her tight enough to squeeze the breath and the rest of the words out of her. “It’ll be okay. Second chances are the universe’s way of saying, ‘Sorry about the last time. Try again because it’s meant to be.’”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  The squeeze she returned felt more like resignation than hope, and he knew perfectly well why, but dammit, he would not let the past or worry about the future keep them from celebrating a good thing right now.

  He couldn’t get cell reception inside the building but connected from the front steps of the school. “Can I cut the cord?”

  Will laughed. “It took you two days to find the Internet?”

  “Yeah. Can I? Can I?”

  “Only if I pass out.”

  “In the event you’re unable to perform any of your fatherly duties, I will be honored to take your place.”

  “Stay away from my wife’s hooha.”

  “Don’t pass out. Is Liz okay? Do you need me there?”

  “She’s gestating, not base jumping.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I know. Believe me, I know, but we told you this way because you have to be done freaking out by the time you get home because she absorbs stress like a sponge, even if she doesn’t show it, so we have to be cool. Her doctor’s keeping a close eye on her. We saw a specialist. We’re going to do whatever we have to do.”

  Ben wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “How long did you bawl? Because I’m losing my shit here.”

  “Longer than it took you to find the Internet. Let the girl see you cry. Fool her into thinking you’re sensitive.”

  It would take just a minute to walk his leaky eyes to the bakery. “Is that the kind of courtship advice you’d give your child of either gender?”

  “I’m practicing on you. If you turn out screwed up, I’ll know better with my kids.”

  The sun was warm on his face, colors were surreally saturated, and laughter wanted to burst out of his chest like an embryonic alien. “I love you, bro.”

  “Oh, jeez.”

  “I love Liz. And I love your creepy gray alien blob.”

  “We all love you, too, but don’t ever speak to me like this again.”

  “I make no promises. I’m a sensitive man.”

  “Save it for the girl, dumbass.”

  The bell rang as they broke it up. The door behind Ben exploded and spewed children and noise. The tide washed him down the sidewalk.

  “Ben!”

  The current carried him toward a petite blonde he’d known most of his life. “Hey, Jules.”

  She returned his hug, using him as an anchor against the surge of kids. “I heard you were in town. I didn’t believe you’d stay this long without being shackled in some dirty old woman’s basement.”

  With a dead parrot for a jailer. “It’s been a good trip. All kinds of good memories.”

  She arched a dubious brow. “Sounds like a bad case of absence-itis. Have a cardiologist check it out before it becomes terminal.”

  His heart felt just fine for the first time in ages. A little sore from overuse but fully operational. “What happened to Howdy Hank?”

  “Dad sold him to a collector in Idaho when the station closed. I helped deliver him to his final resting place — Hank, not Dad. The guy has ten acres full of character statues, lined up like an army of the kitschy damned. Gave me nightmares.”

  “Does he do tours?”

  “Every solstice when he needs a sacrifice. I’ll get you his number.”

  Every time Jules had broken up with him, she’d been amicable about it, so he trusted she was sending him to a hellscape for fun, not to feed a bloodthirsty demon lord. “What are you up to, still raising hell with Tally?”

  She grimaced, and he braced for another snide remark. “Tally isn’t... friendly.”

  “The way people have been talking about her, I’m not surprised.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, this building is headquarters for the regional chapter of the Braying Inbred Tally Castle Haters.”

  “I see what you did there.”

  “I hoped that you would. No offense to your mom.”

  “She’s earning it this week. What is their problem?”

  “‘Save the children from bad influences!’” she mimicked. “Pucker-faced old hags should be teaching the children gossip isn’t an acceptable hobby.”

  A dark-haired little girl wearing pink sneakers latched onto her leg and repeated, “Pucker-faced old hags!”

  Julie smiled serenely. “Good thing I didn’t use my first choice of words.”

  This gorgeous little person had once been a creepy gray alien blob, so there was hope for Liz and Will’s kid. “Yours, I take it?”

  “Yeah. This is Angela.”

  “Hi, Angela.” The middle name of an unfriendly baker was an interesting choice to bestow upon one’s child. “I’m Ben. I like your shoes.”

  She hid half her face behind her mother’s hip, but the half he could see flashed him a gap-toothed grin that tested his heart’s holding capacity.

  Julie slanted a look at him. “Great, another conquest. My son came home one day talking about how many tons of bricks it takes to build a murder chute.”

  Ben laid a hand over his heart. “My legacy lives on.”

  “I wish your legacy had been a talent for picking winning lottery numbers or armpits that smell like flowers. I better go before he hot-wires the truck. Tally’s at the bakery if you dare to say hi to her.”

  “Dare?”

  “I was her best friend and she won’t talk to me. She’s hated you since second grade.”

  The twinge kindled in his guts. “What did I do in second grade?”

  She puckered her lips and made kissy noises as her daughter dragged her away, which did nothing to clear up his bafflement.

  It would take just a minute to walk his bafflement to the bakery and ask the source to clear it up.

  “Ben!”

  He turned toward the call and located his mother waving her arm overhead in the staff parking lot. He wove through the thinning trickle of children to reach her.

  “You can pay for the Internet by giving me a lift home.”

  “What’s wrong with your car?”

  “Gas gauge is stuck. I lost track of miles and ran dry.”

  Gas, or lack thereof, was becoming a recurrent problem. His bafflement would have to wait. “Let’s take care of it. Got a can?”

  Chapter 18

  The nagging buzzer summoned Tally to the front of the bakery. Served her right for not locking the door at seven to make sure her cleaning went uninterrupted, but as long as there was food to give away, obligation dictated she should be available to give it.

  And perhaps, this particular evening, she’d hoped a tall, blue-eyed fella who was just passing through would stop by with a hankering for baked goods and a look at her face.

  Julie Acker — subsequently Boyd, currently Diaz — stared up at the buzzer as though it spoke to her. Whatever it had found to bitch to her about, she probably preferred that conversation to interacting with Tally.

  She was a pro at being treated like garbage by people she didn’t give a damn about. It was a strain on her acting ability to pretend she didn’t give a damn about being treated like garbage by the person who had been her best friend for most of the first eighteen years of their lives.

  She rounded the counter to smack the buzzer with a spatula and put an end to that relationship, too. “How may I help you?”

  Julie hefted the laundry basket in her arms. “How do we do this?”

  Tally glanced at the contents, took the basket by the handles, and estimated the weight to be about a ton of zucchini. “I’ll give you twenty bucks for it.”

  Julie stepped on the toe of her sneaker with her other foot. “How much for a pizza?”

  She was never getting home. Served her right for no
t locking the door. “If you make it yourself, it’s free.”

  Julie’s lips thinned. “I’m not looking for charity.”

  Tally wasn’t interested in her pride. “I’m tired. My feet hurt. My fourteen-hour shift was over fifteen minutes ago. You want a pizza, you make it yourself and it’s free. You don’t, take your money and get out so I can go home.”

  She popped open the cash register, removed the twenty-dollar bill Ben had given her on Sunday, slammed the drawer closed, and slapped the money on the counter. She carried the basket to the kitchen and left Julie to follow or not.

  “Where’s the stuff?”

  Tally grabbed a ball of dough from the fridge and chopped it in half with a scraper. “Make two. I’ll take the ugly one.”

  “Now you’re using me for slave labor.”

  She twisted the dial to heat the small oven. “You’re leaving with twenty bucks and a pizza. Spare me the poor, put-upon trip. Throw some flour on the counter and pat the dough out.”

  She stashed the zukes in what was now the produce fridge while her new assistant chef threw a poof of flour on the clean counter and started working the dough.

  After a few minutes of pushing and poking, Julie scowled at her. “It snaps back.”

  The dough was cold and hadn’t been intended for pizza crust and would benefit from another ten minutes of kneading to make it easier to handle, but Tally wasn’t spending all night at the bakery to perfect a free pizza. “Stretch it big enough to shrink to the size you want.”

  One of the crusts turned out egg shaped, the other like Texas — if Texas had a hole in the middle. Julie patted the latter. “This one can be yours.”

  Tally sprinkled cornmeal on a couple of baking sheets. “Throw them on here. Five minutes in the oven while you prep toppings.”

  The oven swallowed the crusts.

  “Where’s the sauce?” Julie wrinkled her nose at the can of tomato paste Tally produced by way of response. “Are you sure?”

  “Do you want to teach me how to make a pizza?”

  “All right. Jeez.” Julie assaulted an onion with a paring knife. “Everybody appreciates the bread at the church suppers.”

  “Thank Stella. Her orders.”

  “Your work. The chocolate cake Thursday wasn’t your best.”

  Tally should have known nobody would give her any credit without taking more away in the next breath. “I have to do something with all the freaking zucchini everybody dumps on me, but if you want to complain about free food—”

  “No! Dammit, Tally, can you go five minutes without putting up your fists? I don’t want to fight with you.”

  She had reached the point where she was both too tired to fight and too tired to do anything else. She put her back to the wall and crossed her arms over her stomach. “Fine.”

  Julie turned the knife to mutilating a bell pepper. “I ran into Ben today. Did he come by here?”

  “No.” Maybe he’d spent another man day with her dad and wasn’t purposely avoiding her today, either, though he’d be justified after the way she behaved last night.

  “I’d tell you how he looks, but only grunting and moaning would do him justice.”

  If she didn’t want to argue, she’d picked a safe stance on that subject. “I’ve seen him.”

  “He’s a good guy. You should have gone out with him.”

  We went out, just not in public. “Guess he was too busy going out with every other girl he ever met.”

  “He was in demand for a reason.” Julie waved a brick of mozzarella, and Tally pointed her toward the box grater. “You know, you can buy this shredded.”

  “For twice the money.”

  “I’d pay it to save my knuckles.”

  “That’s why you’re slave labor and not the boss. They also coat it in starch to keep it from sticking, so it’s not as creamy as DIY.”

  “Is that why my mac and cheese is always pasty?”

  “Maybe. On the bright side, grating it yourself is good for your arms.”

  “One of them. And you’re going to tell me to switch, so I’ll go ahead and do that so I don’t have to listen to you be a know-it-all again.”

  Tally sealed her lips. Having the practical solution to everybody’s problems never made her any friends. Even after she learned to keep her mouth shut, people would fill in the blank with what Know-It-Tal would have said. She eventually came to understand people weren’t looking for solutions — they were enjoying the luxury of complaining, and solving the problem spoiled their fun. Nobody liked a buzzkill, no matter how helpful its intentions were.

  “He has overwhelmingly positive references.”

  Had she missed a pitch to give somebody a job while reminiscing about the bad old days? “Who?”

  “Ben. Four-point-five star average review.”

  The ex-wife who had no business marrying a man she didn’t like anything about was probably largely responsible for the markdown from five. “Why didn’t you keep him if he was so great?”

  Julie looked at her like she was crazy. “We were thirteen.”

  Fourteen. Ben took Julie to the freshman formal. She wore a strapless blue dress and got her first tongue kiss. Tally heard all the gory details when she got back from whatever competition preempted her attendance at that event. At the time, she envied the dress more than anything else.

  She waited three years after that for Ben to be her first tongue kiss.

  “At thirteen, if a boy doesn’t share his fries at lunch, you dump his stingy ass. You break up because you’re thirteen.” A stick of pepperoni took its turn under the knife, uneven disks of meat rolling across the counter. “He was cute. A good kisser. Not pushy. A good starter boyfriend. Especially if... you know.”

  What Tally knew about good boyfriends wouldn’t cover a slice of pepperoni. “No, I don’t.”

  “If you have issues.”

  “Like big tits and a reputation for being a slut?”

  Julie glared at her. “Like flinching at loud noises and when people touch you.”

  Nobody was supposed to notice. Nobody was supposed to see what she was hiding. As far as she’d known, her performance of Normal Girl had been flawless. “Take your crust out.”

  Blessed silence fell while Julie applied a skim coat of tomato paste to each crust and sprinkled too much garlic salt, a patchy dusting of oregano, and a snowdrift of canned parm that got Tally’s full approval, followed by a layer of mozzarella.

  Julie picked a piece of cheese out of the hole in Texas so it wouldn’t burn on the sheet. “What do you want on your ugly pizza?”

  “When I don’t have to chop it, everything.”

  On went the toppings and a blanket of more cheese.

  If not for all the chitchat, this supervising gig would be sweet. “Back in the oven for twenty minutes.”

  “Yay. We can fight three, four times.”

  “Not if we don’t talk.”

  Julie returned the pizzas to the oven and set the timer. “Should have left me up front like a customer and made me a damn pizza if you didn’t want to talk to me.”

  Why hadn’t Tally thought of that? She’d been slow on the draw ever since Ben crashed back into her life — probably a concussion. “I should have locked the door at seven and gone home.”

  “You never go home at seven.”

  “I feel obligated to give indecisive block circlers a fair chance to make up their minds.”

  Julie’s splotchy cheeks confirmed she had been the vulture at least once. “Sometimes I don’t get back from work before you close.”

  Julie hadn’t set foot in the bakery since Stella left — a long time to be too late for bread when there were little mouths to feed. “If the lights are on, I’m open. If the door’s locked, knock. And Stella won’t fire me for cutting you a break in the morning if that’s a better time for you.”

  Julie studied the linoleum. “Pizza’s staring to smell good. I might have to eat it all in the car on the way home. ‘Sorry, k
ids. That mean lady at the bakery wouldn’t give me a pizza. PB and J for dinner again.’”

  “Sure. Add malnourishing children to my list of sins.” She’d steal a PB and J from one of them and earn the entry if she didn’t get something to eat soon. Her breakfast of dry toast had worn off hours ago.

  “No one believes that stripping story.”

  “It has a lot of mileage on it for a story no one believes.”

  It was also true.

  “You wouldn’t take off your clothes in a locker room full of girls you’d known since kindergarten. Every girl can take off her bra with her shirt on, but you’re the only one who can take a whole outfit out from under another one and never show an inch of skin. We’d have made fun of you for being such a prude, but we didn’t want you to whip out your boobs and murder our self-esteem. You would never take it all off for a roomful of strange men.”

  She didn’t have to worry about hiding bruises from the strange men — she hadn’t had any by then, and they wouldn’t have minded if her tits and ass were black and blue as long as they were bare and jiggling. “If I’d known it paid for groceries, I would have been grinding naked on the flagpole in the square the first day people couldn’t stop staring at my chest.”

  Julie’s brow furrowed. “You really did it?”

  Now that the rumor had been confirmed, the near-civility of this meeting would erode landslide-quick. If Tally had expected it to last, her heart would be hurting right about now. “Ability to raise my ankle above my head and having big jugs qualifies me for only so many careers.”

  “I would have thought you’d rather empty portable toilets than... that.”

  She couldn’t even say strip. What was it like to be that sheltered? “If I’d just been paying my own way, I would have cleaned toilets or delivered pizzas or anything else instead.”

  “But ‘it’s your turn to take care of the family.’” Julie’s scowl turned thunderous. “Our folks’ generation had it made. Get cushy jobs with the businesses their parents built until the economy drives them out, then guilt us into paying their bills until they can collect social security we’ll never get.”

  The bitterness was comforting to share, even if the particulars weren’t common. “My dad worked for the prison.”