Take the Long Way Home

by Judith Arnold

Maeve shrugged. She’d been whatever the opposite of school-spirited was. “I never went to a game. Or a dance.”

  “Aw, you poor thing,” Joyce said, but her tone was bright with laughter. She clearly didn’t think Maeve had missed much. “High school dances are awful. Someone’s always breaking up with someone. Girls are in tears. Boys are drunk. Someone spills something on your new dress. Pfft.” She fluttered a hand through the air, dismissing the entire notion as if it were nothing more than a dust mote she was brushing away.

  “Well, here’s what I’m wondering,” Maeve said, doing her best to shake her head clear of the haze Quinn’s kiss last night had left behind. “Saturday is opening day for us. Can we promote Cookie’s at the game? All those people—not just the students but the locals, and the returning alums. Maybe they’ll want a cookie before the game, or afterward.”

  Joyce stopped filling the napkin dispenser on the counter and gave Maeve a thoughtful look. “They’ve got a snack bar at the stadium, so during the game, anyone who wants a snack will buy it there. They used to sell the absolute worst hot dogs in the world. Boiled instead of grilled.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “But before or after the game…why not?”

  “Do they have programs? Maybe, if it’s not too late, I could buy an ad.”

  “They never used to have programs,” Joyce told her. “They’d just hand out a sheet of paper with the Brogan’s Point roster on one side and the opposing team’s roster on the other. I don’t know if that’s changed.”

  Maeve pondered the situation. “Maybe we could print up some fliers and hand them out to people arriving for the game. Except we’ll be here, working…” More thought. “We could hire some kids to hand them out. Or pay them with cookies.” She needed to watch her bottom line. She’d budgeted for one staffer—Joyce. Not a team of kids. What was the minimum age for workers, anyway? Could she hire middle-school students, like Joyce’s daughter? Her daughter might have friends. What were the legalities?

  Her father might know. He was in charge of enforcing the law, after all.

  She pulled her cell phone from the hip pocket of her jeans, then hesitated, her thumb poised above the screen, and contemplated the implications. Turning to her father for advice was something she hadn’t done in a decade. More than a decade—once her mother had died and her father had fallen to pieces, she’d realized she could no longer depend on him for anything. The man had been unable even to put together an evening meal. Or eat one. Maeve had cooked a decent dinner a couple of times—grilled chicken or minute steaks, baked potatoes and green beans—and he’d just picked at the food, lavishing much more attention on the glass of whisky beside his plate. She’d given up, lived on soup from cans and salads, asked him for grocery money when she needed it, and, when he was off on a bender, experimented with one or another of the cookie recipes in the loose-leaf notebook she’d found in the cabinet above the stove.

  He’d been useless. Grieving, of course—she couldn’t blame him for that—but he’d had a daughter who was also grieving, and he’d completely abdicated. When she’d told him, the day after graduation, that she was leaving, his eyes had misted up, but all he’d said was, “I don’t blame you.”

  So now, all these years later, did she really want to pick his brain?

  She couldn’t think of any other brain to pick. Sighing, she speed-dialed his number.

  He answered almost immediately, delight filtering through his gruff voice. “Maeve?”

  “Hi, Dad. I’ve got a question. You know there’s a homecoming game at the high school on Saturday. Is there any law against handing out flyers about my store’s grand opening there?”

  That she’d rushed into the purpose of her call without pausing for small talk or how’ve-you-been’s seemed to take him aback. He was silent for a moment, and then said, “Not as far as I know. The school might have some rules about it, but there’s no law.” He paused, then added, “To be on the safe side, I wouldn’t distribute anything inside the stadium. But lots of people will be crowding around the gate to get in. You could probably hand something out there.”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea?” Her throat clenched and she had to force the question out. She wasn’t sure if she was asking for his advice or fishing for a compliment.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” he said, gratifying her more than she’d expected. “We always have a patrolman stationed at the gate when there’s a game. I can tell him to let you alone.”

  “It won’t be me handing out the fliers,” she said. “I’ll be at the shop. I was figuring I’d get some kids to hand them out.”

  “Good idea.”

  Damn. His approval shouldn’t make her so happy, but it did.

  “So you’ll be officially open on Saturday?”

  “Ten a.m.”

  “I’ll stop by.”

  “I’ll give you a freebie,” she said.

  “No need.” She heard him inhale a deep breath. “Any chance I can get you to come for dinner before then?”

  She’d called her father for advice and it hadn’t destroyed her. Maybe she could eat dinner in his house without being destroyed, too. “I don’t know. Tomorrow doesn’t give you much time to plan, and Friday’s the night before the opening. I’ll be kind of nervous.”

  “All the more reason to come. You don’t want to be worrying about fixing dinner the night before your big day.”

  She wouldn’t have worried about fixing dinner. She would have satisfied herself with some fruit and cheese, or a cup of yogurt. Or her old standby, soup from a can. “Okay,” she said. “But I can’t stay late.”

  “Of course not. Listen, honey, I’ve got to go. Come around six on Friday. We’ll see you then.”

  We. His girlfriend would be there, too. Probably not a bad thing, Maeve thought. Gus could be a buffer. She could dilute the tension, like ice cubes in hard liquor. And she had been the woman who’d put Maeve’s father back together again. If Maeve’s life was truly in Brogan’s Point now, Gus Naukonen was going to be a part of it.

  She disconnected the call, stuffed her phone back into her pocket, and allowed herself a brief shudder. Then she squared her shoulders, smiled at Joyce, and said, “Let’s design a flier.”

  Chapter Eight

  A gray drizzle softened the edges of the city. Quinn huddled under the overhang, savoring the chill in the air. At the far end of the overhang, two other residents, both in blue scrubs like him, smoked cigarettes, their voices muted. He pressed his cell phone to his ear and listened to the rhythmic purr of the phone ringing on the other end.

  After a few rings, a woman’s voice reached him: “Cookie’s, how can I help you?” He recognized her voice. She’d answered the last time he’d phoned, too—and that time she’d identified the store as Torelli’s by mistake. She must have rehearsed her lines since then, because she said the right name this time.

  “Hey. Is Maeve there?”

  “Just a minute.”

  He waited, watching tiny raindrops glisten like dewdrops in the hair on his forearm. Then the voice he wanted to hear reached him: “Hello?”

  “Maeve. It’s Quinn.”

  An SUV cruising down Cambridge Street hit a puddle, spraying water toward the sidewalk. Quinn took a quick step to the left and the water missed him. Years ago, he’d been able to evade linesmen racing toward him on the field; now he evaded cars hitting puddles. He still had the moves.

  “Hi,” she said. He might be imagining it, but her voice sounded warm and welcoming.

  “Those cookies you gave me last night were great. No, better than great. The best cookies I’ve ever eaten.” That was no exaggeration. It had taken him nearly a half hour to eat them. He’d nibbled them slowly, one luscious bite at a time. Like a wine expert, he’d tasted them mindfully, trying to divine the mix of flavors in each mouthful: sweet, spicy, crumbly, crunchy, chewy.

  “Can I put that in an advertisement?” she asked.

  “Sure. I’ll be your pitchman. Give me a sandwic
h sign and I’ll march up and down Mass Avenue.”

  “I’m not planning to sell my cookies in Boston,” she said.

  “Not yet. Wait until word spreads about them. You’ll have to set up franchises. You’ll be bigger than Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks combined.”

  She laughed. Her laughter reminded him of that tinkly little bell above the door of her shop. It reminded him of the blended colors of her eyes, green and gray and gold. It reminded him of her kiss.

  Then again, pretty much everything reminded him of her kiss.

  “So,” he said, “I’m on call in the ER tonight. It’ll probably be a busy night. Bad weather means car accidents, and car accidents mean broken bones. But I’m getting sprung Friday night, and I’m off through the whole weekend. I was hoping we could do another late-night run to the Lobster Shack on Friday.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  He refused to be discouraged. “Doesn’t have to be Lobster Shack. We could go someplace else.”

  “I’m having dinner Friday night with my father,” she said, the bell-like tinkle gone from her tone.

  Another car cruised by, and he once again skip-stepped sideways to avoid getting splashed. “You don’t sound too excited about that.”

  “It’s going to be stressful,” she predicted.

  “Maybe we could meet afterward and do something stress-free. Grab a drink or something.”

  “I’d like that.” Over the dull din of traffic and rain, he heard her sigh. “But I can’t make a late night of it. Saturday is my grand opening. I’ve got to get up really early to bake the final batches of cookies before ten a.m.”

  “No problem. I’ve got a big day Saturday, too.”

  “Right.” Now she sounded subdued. He wished he could see her. Did she know how expressive her face was when she spoke, how much her eyes told him?

  “So…I can get to Brogan’s Point by around nine on Friday. How does that work for you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Where should I pick you up?”

  Another pause, and she gave him an address on Atlantic Avenue. He patted his pocket for something to write on but came up empty. “Why don’t you text your address to me?” he suggested, and recited his cell number. He doubted her store phone would have caller ID.

  “Okay.” She repeated his number back to him.

  “That’s it.” He pictured her, her hair pulled back, her slim body protected by an apron, a smudge of flour powdering her cheek as she wrote down his number on one of her Cookie’s bags, or a Cookie’s napkin, or the inside of her wrist. He recalled her hands, her slender fingers ending in clipped, unpolished nails. No fancy manicure, no long claws and flashy enamel. Like a surgeon, she had hands that worked, not hands that were pampered and elegant.

  “I’ll see you Friday, then,” he said.

  “Okay. I’ve got to go. ’Bye, Quinn.”

  “Good-bye.” He had to go, too. The smokers at the other end of the doorway had finished their cigarettes and headed back indoors. The duration of a cigarette seemed to be the standard by which residents, even those who didn’t smoke, measured their breaks. If things were calm, you might be able to take a two-smoke break. When the place was hopping, though, the length of a break rarely exceeded the time it took to smoke one cigarette.

  He’d taken one-cigarette’s worth of break, and he ought to get back to work. But he lingered outside, standing in the shadowed doorway, inhaling the cool, fresh air and staring at the cell phone in his palm. After a minute, it dinged and the text-message light flashed. He swiped the screen, and there was her address. And her cell phone number.

  Grinning, he wiped a raindrop from his cheek and headed back inside.

  ***

  Gus spotted Ed as soon as he swung open the door and stepped inside. He ran a hand through his rain-damp hair and smiled at her. With a nod, she reached for a mug and carried it to the coffee maker. Three-thirty was his usual time to stop by for a cup of coffee, if he wasn’t off somewhere chasing a perp or solving a case, or in Salem testifying in court.

  By the time he reached the bar, she had the mug filled and waiting for him. He leaned over the polished wood to brush her lips with a quick kiss. She wasn’t a big fan of public displays of affection, but the few customers scattered around the room in the middle of a sleepy, drizzly Wednesday were busy talking or staring into their drinks. She doubted anyone noticed.

  Ed settled onto a bar stool and grinned. “I got Maeve to agree to come for dinner.”

  “Really?” That was a major accomplishment. She knew how hard he was struggling to stitch the frayed threads of his relationship with his daughter back together. “When?”

  “Friday night.”

  Gus raised her eyebrows. “Then you’ll be on your own.”

  His grin faded. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t be there on Friday. It’ll be too busy here. All the TGIF people.”

  “You could take an hour off,” he said, his tone pleading.

  But she couldn’t take an hour off, not on a Friday evening. She couldn’t leave Manny to cover the bar by himself. “Sorry. Can you change the date?”

  “Are you kidding? If I suggest changing the date, she’ll change it to sometime in November. I got her to agree to come. I’m not giving her the chance to back out.”

  “Then you’ll have dinner with her yourself. That might be for the best, anyway.” Gus didn’t have to repair her relationship with Maeve. They didn’t have a relationship to repair. She’d met the girl once. She cared for Maeve because Maeve was Ed’s daughter, but the Nolan family difficulties, the wounds and the scars, were theirs alone. As a bartender, Gus had long ago learned that she could not fix other people’s problems. She could listen, she could console, and she could occasionally point someone in the right direction. But she was no therapist. If some patrons thought she was, that was because she was an excellent bartender. She knew enough to keep her mouth shut and her customers’ glasses full. Usually, the act of talking and unburdening themselves was enough to help them find their own answers and solutions.

  Ed wasn’t drinking anything harder than coffee, and his problem with Maeve was not going to be solved over the bar. He’d hurt his daughter—not deliberately, not with evil in his heart, but because he’d been hurting so badly himself. She’d fled. Now, ten years later, she’d come back. How they learned to be a family once more was up to them.

  “I can’t cook for shit,” Ed muttered, focusing on the one thing he’d undoubtedly thought Gus could fix—an edible dinner for his daughter.

  “Pick up one of those rotisserie chickens at Shaw’s. And a tub of mashed potatoes, and a deli salad.”

  “I finally get my daughter to agree to come for dinner, and I’m going to serve her a meal that was cooked in a supermarket?”

  As opposed to a meal that Gus had cooked. She loved Ed, but he could be a little dense sometimes. “If you’d rather cook something for her yourself,” she said pointedly, “then take off from work early and go home and cook.” If Gus had done the cooking, that was what she would have had to do.

  He sighed. “She’s so thin,” he murmured. “She should eat some potatoes. I don’t know if she will, though.”

  “You know, Ed…” She gave his hand a gentle pat. “She didn’t accept your invitation for the cuisine.”

  Ed gave her a long, stark stare. Then he nodded. “Yeah.” He sighed again, looking pensive, even a little afraid. Her big, strong police detective, a guy who went head-to-head with criminals on a regular basis, was actually scared about having dinner alone with his daughter. He didn’t want Gus there so she could be some sort of domestic hostess, preparing a feast. He wanted her there to help him connect with Maeve, to provide a buffer or a bridge. To pick up the pieces if he and Maeve both wound up shattered.

  She’d do that for him if she could. She’d do it much more willingly than she’d cook dinner for him. But she couldn’t do it on Friday.

  So he would have to do it himsel
f. He’d have to man up and be the father he hadn’t been for his daughter so many years ago. Damage had been done, but Maeve had come back to Brogan’s Point, and she had agreed to have dinner with him. It was time for them both to heal.

  Chapter Nine

  Maeve was nervous. She could think of several reasons why, but she couldn’t decide which of those reasons was making her itch and twitch as if tiny anxiety bugs were nipping at her heart.

  Everything in the shop was ready for tomorrow. With Joyce’s help, she’d designed and printed a hundred fliers announcing Cookie’s grand opening and offering a buy-two-get-one-free promotion to attract first-day customers. Joyce’s twelve-year-old daughter and two of her friends agreed to hand out the fliers at the high school football stadium before the homecoming game in exchange for ten dollars apiece, plus free cookies.

  Maeve had posted her commercial license and inspection notice on the wall. She’d contacted the Brogan’s Point weekly newspaper and invited a reporter to report on the store’s opening, and she’d bought a month’s worth of ads in the paper in the hope that this would encourage the reporter to say nice things about her establishment. She’d completed the price board, stocked up on beverages, checked and double-checked her inventory and mapped out which special cookies she’d be adding to her standard offerings each day for the first week. She’d set the alarm on her phone to wake her up at four a.m. Saturday morning, so she could get to the shop and bake batches that would be fresh and chewy once the doors opened.

  Millions of things could still go wrong, and she would be justified in fretting about all those millions of things. Or she could assume everything related to the store’s opening would go perfectly—which left her free to fret about her dinner with her father that evening, instead.

  Then again, she could assume their dinner would go smoothly—fat chance of that—and instead fret about meeting Quinn after dinner. She was encouraged by the thought that her cookies were tasty enough to make such a smart, accomplished, ridiculously hot guy take an interest in her, but she already knew her cookies were that good. They had been tasty enough to cause an elderly tycoon to leave her the shop and a hefty chunk of start-up money in his will, after all.