by C. L. Ryder
“My dreams?” Jackson asked.
“You probably don’t want to work in a place like this forever right? There’s things you want to do eventually?”
“I’m already forty-six,” Marcos said. “I ain’t got no real family. LeFlorette’s—this place—is my home. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
“And I couldn’t either,” Bethany said. “It’s… almost impossible for me to imagine not having this place. But…”
“But?” Marcos seemed alarmed, and Bethany didn’t blame him. He’d never once heard a “but” come from Bethany when it came to keeping the café running.
“I’m starting to think about what I’d do if I wanted a family,” Bethany said. “It’s something I never thought about before. Never thought I’d want to think about.”
“You have a family, and then you have our family,” Marcos said. “What’s so hard to decide about that? You can start a family. Your folks did. They were here with nothing but me and a couple other guys and you in a crib in the back.”
“Things have changed, though,” Bethany said. “We’ve gone over the numbers together before. You know as well as I do that we’re just hanging on right now. And barely.” She stabbed a finger at the air. “With that fucking place as competition, what can we do?”
“Then we fucking maintain!” Marcos said, his voice tense. “We keep doing what we’re doing.”
“If Bethany wanted to start a family, she couldn’t maintain raising a child with the income coming from here,” Jackson said softly. “Plus with the uncertainty… let’s face it, we’re circling the drain.”
“Oh, come on, Jackson,” said Marcos.
“It’s true, though. Bethany is right. We’ve gone over the numbers together. I want to keep being positive, but the way things are going… we’re completely at the mercy of The Standard right now. And I’m still young, but I am thinking a lot about my future lately, too. I might want to start a family too, and, Bethany, when you asked about our dreams—I’ve been dreaming of traveling. I want to see other countries. But I can’t do that…”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Marcos said. “Especially coming from you, Bethany. So, what? You’re talking about shutting down?”
“Shutting down is the last thing I want,” Bethany said.
“I agree that we should prepare for the worst,” Jackson said. “We need to know when to quit.”
Marcos looked back and forth between them. His mouth opened and closed as if he was trying to say something but couldn’t get the words out. Eventually all he could manage was a strained, “Jesus Christ,” as he pushed past them into the kitchen. They winced when they heard the back door slam.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jackson said. “But Marcos should’ve known this conversation would be coming. It would’ve, even if you hadn’t met Jane. It’s not your fault.”
“I’m going to go talk to him,” Bethany said.
“Are you sure? I can go.”
“Of course. I’ll be back.”
Bethany went through the kitchen and out into the back where the acrid-sweet smell of a cigarette greeted her. Bethany had always hated cigarettes. The smell was overpowering to her overly keen sense of smell and taste, and though she wouldn’t tell Marcos to quit, she was never quiet about giving him a hard time whenever he snuck out for a smoke.
Marcos was sitting by the back door, his knees up against his chest, cigarette dangling from his lip. He looked up and saw Bethany, and moved to put it out.
“No, it’s okay,” Bethany said. “I’ll deal with it.” She sat down next to him.
“I just don’t get it, Bethany. You meet this girl and all of a sudden you want to give up on your parent’s shop? On our shop? You’re not thinking straight. What would Callie… what would your mom think?”
Bethany said nothing. Marcos stood up and brushed his pants off. “This ain’t the Bethany I know. This ain’t my LeFlorette’s anymore.”
He turned and started to walk away. Bethany stood up. “Hey, Marcos, wait…”
“No, Bethany,” he shouted over his shoulder. “I’m going home. I need to make sense of all this shit.”
“Marcos… She would’ve supported this,” Bethany said. “Believe me when I say that.”
Before he turned the corner and disappeared, Marcos threw his cigarette at the wall where it popped into a plume of sparks. It landed onto the ground, a trail of smoke still wafting from its tip.
Ten
Jane sat with Lyle in her office, which had been fully set up over the past week. Outside the door, the San Diego team worked away at a small open desk plan that sat in the middle of the office’s roomy floor space, and the whole place bustled with productive energy.
“These numbers look fine to me,” Lyle said. “If you want this company to source our foods, then I think it’s a fine idea.”
“It’s Paul’s advisement,” Jane said, her voice marked with unenthusiasm. She drummed her fingers on the desk. “What do you think?”
“I told you, I think it’s fine.”
“No, no. What do you think about his idea? About the food.”
Lyle sat back in his chair, lacing his fingers cross his stomach. “I think that you know what’s best for this company. And that as the CEO, you should do what’s best—while remembering the spirit of this company.”
Jane thought about this, and then nodded. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about,” she said. “An idea I had.”
Lyle leaned forward slightly, waiting for Jane to continue.
“LeFlorette’s. The café I’ve been bringing lunch back from.”
“Hella great sandwiches,” Lyle said. “What about them?”
“What if we acquired them?”
“Acquire them? Buy their property, you mean?”
“No,” Jane said. “They’re a family owned business. Their recipes are family recipes. Completely unique. And like you said, hella great.”
Lyle crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. “I see what you’re getting at. Well, it’s an interesting thought. Sure as hell vibes with us more than outsourcing some random company to mass produce shitty quality food. But it’d never fly with Paul. Too much of a risk.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s just a thought. I’ve never even met the owner of the place.” She looked at her phone. It was time to go home, and she’d spent nearly the entire day trying to keep her mind focused and off of the events of the night before. She’d repeatedly checked her cell phone in the hope that maybe, somehow, when she wasn’t paying attention she’d missed a message from Bethany. Of course there was nothing. She’d told herself that she would put off contacting her as long as possible, but she just couldn’t keep herself patient. She needed to talk to her. She needed to know how she felt about what had happened between them.
An entirely unfamiliar voice of doubt nagged at the back of Jane’s mind, telling her that Bethany would’ve contacted her by now if she felt the same way about her. The silence only meant she regretted what they’d done, that she’d never hear from her again…
“Thanks for your thoughts,” she told Lyle, getting up from the chair. Lyle followed her lead, and the two of them walked out into the main office where the staff was tidying up and heading out.
“Have a good evening, everyone,” Jane said, waving. “I’m out for the day.”
Lyle stayed behind to manage the café, and Jane walked to her car parked out in front. Once inside, she pulled out her phone, opened up the address book, and then Bethany’s contact info. Her finger hung over the call button, her heart racing hard. Finally, she pressed call.
“Hello?” answered Bethany. Jane smiled at the sound of her voice.
“Hey,” she said. “It’s Jane.”
“Hey.”
“Are you busy? Can you talk?”
“Yeah, I can talk. Where are you? Can you meet me?”
Jane hadn’t been expecting that. “Yeah. Yeah, I can meet you. I just got finishe
d with work, actually. I can come pick you up. We can go somewhere.”
“I’m at home right now,” she said. “I’ll text you my address.”
Just a few minutes later she was out in front of Bethany’s house, standing by the side of her Tesla while she waited for her to come outside. She admired the property—it was a quaint one story house surrounded by tall bushes of a shocking purple color, with a white gated fence in front that was crawling with ivy and vines. It looked like a cottage she could’ve expected to find out in the countryside somewhere, like it’d been plucked from some painting.
She straightened up when she heard the front door shut, and quickly brushed back her hair, even though she’d already checked it a dozen times and knew it looked fine. Bethany appeared at the front gate, fumbling with the latch to get it open. Jane couldn’t help but smile.
They hugged, and both Bethany and Jane felt an exhilarating rush of desire so overwhelming it nearly made their heads spin. Bethany, who had still been on the edge of doubt about how she felt about Jane, now could no longer deny that being with her was what she wanted. How could she ignore this? Her gaze met Jane’s, and she wondered for a moment if they might kiss again—but Jane released her and walked around to the driver’s side of the car.
Bethany’s gaze electrified Jane. She’d wanted nothing more than to pull her in close and taste her lips again, but she resisted. Go slow, she thought. You don’t want to push her away.
“I love your house,” Jane said as they got into the car. “It looks like a home with history.”
“It is,” Bethany agreed. “It was my parent’s house. I grew up there.”
“And your parents?” Jane pulled the car out from the curb and started down the street. She had a spot in mind that she wanted to take her to, a special place that she hadn’t been to in years.
“My parents passed away,” Bethany said. “So the house is just mine, now. It can be a little sad sometimes, surrounded by old memories. But I do like it. It makes me feel close to them, and it reminds every day of the hard work they did to provide such a beautiful home for me.”
Jane glanced over at Bethany. She expected to see sadness in her expression, but instead she saw strength. Her blue eyes sparkled with resolution, that same fighting spirit Jane had seen in the ring. It was that look—that energy—that drew Jane in the most.
God, that look.
Just that alone was enough to get her heart racing. She thought she could drown in that look and be happy forever.
At the mention of her parents, Bethany’s thoughts went back to the café, and though her expression didn’t betray it, she was feeling melancholic. It was what they’d built that she was trying so hard to keep alive, after all. Their memory, their legacy. It’d been the most important thing in her life—almost an obsession—and now, after meeting Jane, she’d finally come to understand what Mom had told her during her last days. But it still tore at her, even with these newfound realizations, even understanding Mom’s wishes… there was still something that anchored her down and kept her from full acceptance. It just wasn’t so easy to let go of an idea that had come, in her mind, to represent her parents.
Bethany was fighting to identify that last remaining tether that was fastened somewhere in her mind. It would be the only way she could move forward…
Jane pulled onto the freeway, driving west towards the coast. They’d been sitting in silence, and Jane finally gathered the courage to speak about what was on both of their minds. “About last night,” she said quietly. “Have you given it any thought?”
“Of course,” Bethany said. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about. How could I not be thinking about it?”
“You’re right,” Jane said with a sheepish smile. “Dumb question.”
“The truth is that I’ve never felt this way about anyone before,” Bethany said. The toughness in her voice had retreated, leaving a quiet vulnerability behind. Jane could hear it clearly. She could sense what a fragile state Bethany was in, and she wondered what could’ve been causing such a conflict within her. Was it just that one kiss?
“So I don’t know. I don’t know how to deal with my feelings right now,” Bethany continued. “How I feel about you.”
The silence descended over them again, neither one of them feeling the need to break it. They were both sitting in their thoughts. Jane exited the freeway towards the beaches. The sun was nearing the horizon, and the sky had taken on the dim bluish light of early dusk. House lights and street lamps were starting to come on. It was Jane’s favorite time of day. She took the left onto the neighborhood side street that wound up into the hills overlooking the La Jolla beaches, past multi-million dollar mansions that she’d once considered moving into, but over extravagance had never been her style.
Jane again was the one to break the silence. “Can I ask you one question?”
“Of course,” Bethany said. “Please.”
“Are you still in the closet?”
Bethany had expected Jane would ask this question. It made sense, given how she’d acted. “No,” she said. “I’m out. It’s just that I’ve never really been with anyone seriously before.”
“Because you were focused on your business?”
“That’s right.”
Jane nodded. “We talked about this. I never could’ve thought I’d feel this way about anyone either.” She thought about this for a moment before speaking up again. “My mind has always been focused on legacy. Ever since college. No, even before that. My father was a drug addict. He was never in my life. My mother could barely afford food. We lived in a cockroach-infested apartment. So, the motivation was always there. I swore I would amount to something more than my dad. I’d become rich and never have to worry about going hungry. I’d leave my mark. I’d leave behind a legacy. But now I ask myself… what kind of legacy is a company? Is that really all I want to leave behind?”
“You talked about your friend’s daughter and wishing you could have a family,” Bethany said.
“Yeah. I’d never felt that before. So, I explored it. Looked deeper.” She swung a right and pulled the car up a steep and winding hill. “We’re here,” she said.
They were on a residential street, and Jane pulled the car up to the curb and parked. They both got out, and Bethany found herself blown away by the scene that lay before her. The street was on the side of a mountain, with a perfect view of the ocean stretching out in the distance. Directly beneath them, now blanketed in the velvety pastel colors of full dusk, twinkled the lights of La Jolla. Jane leaned up against the hood of her car, and Bethany came next to her.
“This view is amazing,” Bethany breathed.
“Fantastic, isn’t it? I used to come here all the time back in high school. It was one of the only places I could go that would clear my mind. I’d ride my bike up here and stand here until the sun went down, watching the light on the sea out there. Sometimes I’d stay for hours.”
The two of them stood silently for some time, their hands resting closely together on the hood of the car, cool ocean breeze teasing their hair and clothes, pricking up goosebumps on their flesh.
This time, it was Bethany’s turn to break the silence. “What did you end up discovering? When you dug deeper.”
Jane’s eyes sparkled in the waning sunlight. “I thought that a business was the perfect legacy. It meant wealth. It meant something lasting, something impactful. Something that could live on past me. I realized that something was missing from that equation. My mom worked hard to provide for me. She showed me that even when the world is stacked against you, you don’t go down without a fight. She truly made me.
“In the end, when the money is gone and the company’s traded hands… what do you really have left? True legacy is about family. It’s about passing on what you’ve learned, to make the world a better place. It’s about love. That’s what lasts forever.”
A shiver ran through Bethany’s body.
True legacy is about family.
/> The final knot around her heart loosened. All it needed was to be pulled free now.
Jane was surprised to feel Bethany’s warm touch on the back of her hand. She turned over her palm and took Bethany’s hand into hers, squeezing it gently. Bethany looked over, and Jane’s dark eyes met her ocean blue gaze. They leaned closer, and the last rays of sunlight were shut between them as their silhouettes became one, highlighted by that radiant glow.
There was no hesitation in this kiss, no resistance, no questioning. They both gave themselves to it, feeling a bond and desire that neither had ever experienced before. It was both powerful and painful, and it took their breath away.
Bethany felt her heart open in a way it hadn’t done since both her parents were still alive, ready and pining to love and be loved. It rocked her. This sudden bombardment of emotion had been slowly simmering behind the locked doors of her heart and mind, and it was so powerful that she was having trouble getting a handle on herself. The way she felt towards Jane was like nothing she’d felt before. How could she feel this way for someone she hardly knew? Someone she’d just met? The attraction had been there from the moment she set eyes on Jane, but still… what she felt now was much more than that. It was a deep and aching yearning to be closer to Jane, to know her, and to have her.
