The Corner of Forever and Always

by Lia Riley

  “How can I help you this morning?” Delfi asked from behind the counter. She wore a wine-colored crocheted dress that looked like it had last been worn during the Summer of Love. A silver hoop winked in her eyebrow, while a few feather extensions peeked through her hair. The barista had a friendly if aloof demeanor, as if she were in the medical profession and her customers were patients under her care. She treated them with compassion and speed, always keeping the line moving.

  “Double espresso,” Tuesday replied automatically before pausing. “Wait. No. Sorry. Hang on. I want to try something different.”

  Delfi nodded solemnly, as if she understood the gravity of the moment.

  She searched the hanging chalkboard menu, seeking the furthest thing possible from a double espresso. Softly jangling music pumped through the shop’s sound system, all cryptic lyrics and intricate harmonies. The bell over the front door tinkled. More people got into line. The pressure built. “How about a…a…iced salted caramel mocha?”

  “Very good.” Delfi rang her up. “That’s going to be…”

  “On me.” A familiar voice spoke behind her left shoulder. Only one man sounded like he’d coated his vocal cords in honey and then rolled around in gravel.

  Tuesday’s eyelids slammed shut. Her arms went heavy, her knees weak. She’d spent enough on improv classes; why not pretend to be in one? The audience is tossing out possible reactions. Eager Beaver! Cold and Wounded! She dug deep but found that, incredibly, all she wanted to do was err on the side of truth.

  Cautiously Optimistic.

  She turned and caught Beau peeking at her legs, exposed beneath her very flirty, very flouncy skirt. Slowly, he raised his eyes, and they bored into her, the intense expression making her girlie bits go off like a Roman candle. Tingles exploded into new tingles.

  “Long time no see.” Code for I missed you.

  He blinked, swiping a hand over the top of his head, and turned his attention to the community bulletin board. “It’s been busy the last few days.”

  Heat suffused her cheeks. “Ah. I see.” So that’s how he was going to play it. She’d been around the block enough to know a thing or two. Namely, if a guy wants to see you, he finds a way.

  “I’m serious.” He dug out his wallet and handed Delfi a bill. The barista rang up the order, pretending she wasn’t listening to every single word. “My folks are in town.” He motioned out to where a petite, angular woman with an ashy-brown ponytail stood across the street, resting her head against the arm of an attractive fifty-something biracial man.

  “What’s the occasion?” They looked nice enough, although much more casual than Beau. She could never imagine him in a pair of flip-flops or board shorts.

  His gaze returned to her face, resting for a fraction of a second. “My birthday.”

  Her lips parted. “When’s that?”

  “Next week.”

  “Oh.” A beat. “I didn’t know that.”

  He shrugged. “Why would you?”

  Because, you idiot, when people are in a relationship, this is the type of information that is generally shared. But she wouldn’t say that. Nor would she be desperate, smother herself in frosting and sprinkles and invite him to make a wish.

  “It’s not exactly an official day of town celebration.”

  She hoisted a pie. “But I could have made another of these bad boys.” She froze, gripping the pan. So much for her “no desperate acts of approval” rule.

  Bur she didn’t want to play games, or a role.

  She forced her shoulders back, spine straight. His big hands flexed and her skin pebbled. She wanted to be real, and what she really wanted was to fall. Whenever they shared the same air space, her body grew taut, ready to leap.

  But would he want to catch her? She wasn’t perfect: she slept in, could sing the entire soundtrack to Oklahoma! but routinely forgot her account passwords, was genetically incapable of making it anywhere on time, and tended to overshare. She was a tangle of controversy and contradiction. The Hot Mess Express.

  Could he handle her occasional trips to Chaos Town, or would she spend her days apologizing for being who she was?

  “Whipped cream on the mocha?” Delfi asked over the grind of the beans.

  At least that question had an easy answer.

  “I love whipped cream.” She refused to break his gaze.

  Only a slight pupil dilation, the smallest hint of a nostril flare showed how her coy statement affected him.

  Oh, he was good.

  And she was ready to rise to the challenge.

  “I can never resist whipped cream. Don’t you agree, Mr. Mayor?”

  The vein in his temple became more pronounced.

  Why not be wicked?

  Last week she’d kissed her way across his sweat-slicked chest, felt the hard pound of his heart vibrate into her lips. So many nights were the same. Here was someone who could have meant something—everything.

  She sucked in a frustrated breath. They had stood at the corner of Forever and Always, so how had they ended up detouring to What Might Have Been Cul-de-Sac?

  He eyed the flaky butter crust. “You made that?”

  “Yes. Well, Flick helped me.” All morning as they’d rolled dough and stewed apples, she’d told herself that she’d done the right thing in turning down the community theater idea.

  That was his dream, not hers.

  The trouble was that she didn’t know what she wanted. Since leaving New York, life had ceased to be a nightmare, but it was nowhere close to a dream come true.

  It takes a lot of setbacks and self-sabotage to be this chaotic. Right now there was a fifty-fifty chance her underwear was on inside out. And there were enough crumbs at the bottom of her purse to qualify for a meal, or at least a hearty midmorning snack.

  She focused on the crust with a prayer that the fat tear plopping into the filling went unnoticed. If there were questions, she’d blame allergies. Better to appear in need of a Benadryl than be outed as a full-fledged basket case. “It took me two tries to weave the lattice crust. I don’t know if my pie will tip the scales in favor of Everland, but here’s hoping. The apples are some sort of magical.”

  He raised his brows. “Magic?”

  “Mocha on the bar,” Delfi called.

  He turned to the register. “What happened to double espressos?”

  “You know me.” She forced a blithe grin. “Always trying something new.” She picked up the cup and popped the lid. Wow. Delfi hadn’t held back on the whipped cream. If she took a sip, there was a strong likelihood this might make a mess. But so what? Sometimes a girl got a little whipped cream on the tip of her nose. If Beau didn’t approve, he could add it to his list of “Reasons Tuesday Wasn’t a Suitable Girlfriend.”

  She took a careful sip.

  “Good?” He opened the shop door and they crossed the street, heading into the Plaza.

  “Sweet.” Tuesday liked Delfi enough not to want to insult her by tossing the beverage into the trash in full public view. But this was too sugary, even for her.

  What if her judgment was fundamentally broken?

  He waved at a silver car pulling up to the curb. Donna and Angie from the Tourism Commission emerged.

  “Think they’re going to come through for Everland?” she murmured.

  “With any luck.” He held her gaze with unnerving directness, his eyes brighter than the noonday sky. “I want to thank you for the part you’ve played.”

  “Oh geez.” She wrinkled her nose, fidgeting with one of her rings. “It was nothing.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short.” He jammed a hand in his pocket. “You hosted a great tour that day at the park. Karen has been clipping impassioned letters from visitors from the Examiner and scrapbooking them as proof. You were behind that, Tuesday.”

  Hearing him speak her name with that grave intensity and Georgia lilt worked a peculiar effect on her body. Some parts went limp, warm, and languid. Others tightened, tensing into a keen ac
he.

  “Is it enough?” She drew a hard breath. Am I enough? The unspoken question felt like it hung over her head with all the subtlety of a pop-art word bubble.

  And just like that his eyes went to a dark, wicked indigo. “Guess we’ll see,” he answered after a drawn-out pause, as if answering her hidden question.

  “Hey!” Tuesday leaped out of her skin as a pair of skinny arms engulfed her waist.

  “Flick, hi,” she said, setting the pie on the table, giving the girl a distracted smile. “You okay? You look pale.” That was an understatement. The kid could camouflage herself in a snowstorm.

  “My stomach hurts. Probably from scarfing half of that first pie.” She turned to Beau. “The first one we made burned because somebody was too busy singing songs from Phantom of the Opera to notice the timer.”

  “I was teaching this one the chorus to ‘Angel of Music.’”

  “Anyway, guess what?” The kid jabbered on, not sensing the tension. “I talked to Mrs. Boyle, and she said that if you agreed, you could be my foster mom. Isn’t that great?”

  “You?” Beau got there first, his lips setting in a thin line. “A foster mom?”

  “Me?” Tuesday’s voice chimed in, hollow and empty. “What do you mean me?”

  The smile on Flick’s face dimmed to a low wattage. She settled a hand on her lower stomach. “Obviously you don’t have to. It’s not a big deal. I just thought that when you said…” She glanced between them with a little laugh. “Ha, I got you good, huh? You should see your faces. Like I’d live with you. You can barely cook. I’d end up in the kitchen trying to feed us both.”

  Tuesday cracked a smile as relief sank in. “You’d be my own personal Cinderella. How are you at mopping floors? Cleaning toilets?”

  “Hardy-har-har,” she said. “Hey, I got to go, though.”

  “Mrs. Boyle looking for you?”

  “Ha, yeah, something like that.”

  Beau waited until Flick had run off. “She was being serious.”

  “What do you mean?” Tuesday picked up the knife, unable to remain still. “How should I cut this? Into eighths, or sixteenths?” Her insides were unsteady, like she was on a boat in the open ocean.

  “About you fostering her. She tried to play it off as a joke, but did you get a look at her eyes? She meant it.”

  “No way.” Tuesday snorted, trying to shake her unease. “She’s been around me enough to know that I can barely take care of my dog. You heard her. It took me two tries to get this pie right, and she had to help me make the crust because when I did it, the batter ran loose.”

  “You like to say that you aren’t capable of responsibility, but it’s not true. It’s why I nominated you for the role in spearheading the Roxy.”

  She glanced up, and his face was dead serious, no bullshit. He didn’t want to force her to be someone else, or ruin her dreams. He believed in her. He thought she could do it, but what if she couldn’t? What if she was incapable? Tried and failed? Panic nearly suffocated her. She set down the knife and wiped her damp palms on the apple-embroidered apron she’d bought for the occasion.

  “I’m not cut out for that sort of thing. Or for being anyone’s guardian.”

  “Not cut out or plain don’t want to?” he asked with low menace. “See, there’s a big difference.”

  “What do we have here? Apple pie? Thank heavens. If I ate another bite of peach, I declare I’d go batty. I’ve had peaches and cream, peaches and crumble, peaches and caramel, and peaches with sour cream.” Donna stood before them, holding an empty plate and wearing a name tag that read JUDGE.

  Another woman with red hair and the same name tag stood behind her. “And I’m allergic to peaches. And dairy. This means yours is the only entry I can judge.”

  “Donna, Angie. Lovely to see you both.” Beau used his grave formal mayor intonation. Nothing at all like the chastising timbre he’d used a moment before.

  Tuesday cut into the pie, preoccupied, and passed it over.

  “I’m not sure I can handle this.” Donna poked at the pie. “Even if it smells amazing, and it does, I just saw a child getting sick in some bushes. When I see someone sick, then I feel sick, and ugh, it’s a chain reaction.”

  “Good thing I saw nothing,” the redhead interjected. “Anyway, doesn’t matter. My stomach is more steel than flesh.” She wolfed down the pie sampler in four bites. “My word. That’s good stuff.”

  “Shhh. Don’t let the competition hear you,” Tuesday said with a smile. “On second thought, let them hear it and shiver in their boots.”

  She held on to that smile until they walked away, then glanced back at Beau.

  “I’m not what you think that I am,” she blurted. “And as much as you might want me to be something different, I’m not that girl. So you either take me as I am or you don’t take me at all.”

  “You know what I see?” He took a deep breath. “I see a woman who is hiding from her potential. One who could take the world by the tail, but is afraid.”

  “Afraid?” Her dander went up. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Really? Because I think you’re so scared it’s hard for you to breathe. I think you’re so scared of being successful you’ll do anything to sabotage it. Even if that means turning down a position you’d be damn good for, even if that means telling a little girl who thinks you’re the greatest thing since the invention of sliced bread that you don’t want her when it’s plain to me and anyone around you that you adore the kid.”

  “Stop talking.”

  “Or what? What will you do? Quit the act and get real. Who is the real Tuesday? Hell, I don’t even know why your parents called you Tuesday.”

  A small group was beginning to draw close. “They didn’t,” she whispered.

  “They didn’t what?”

  “They didn’t call me Tuesday, okay? Tuesday isn’t my real name.”

  He gave a half snort, shaking his head. “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s a nickname. I never liked my real name.”

  “If you wear a mask long enough, it stops being a disguise and becomes who you are.”

  She stared ahead, unseeing.

  At last he whispered, his plea barely an audible breath, “Look at me.”

  Looking meant seeing, and what would he find if she dared? “No,” she choked.

  “Tuesday Knight, or whatever the hell your damn name is, you look me in the eye or I am walking away and that will be it.”

  He didn’t understand. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t. Because what if all he saw was…her? Just Tuesday. No act. No mask.

  And what if after that he looked away?

  “Three…”

  Her stomach muscles tightened. It wasn’t fair, asking this of her. If he really had feelings, he wouldn’t be doing this.

  “Two…”

  He wasn’t going to catch her if she took a chance and jumped. He was pushing. Pushing. Pushing. And she wouldn’t fall again. Couldn’t fall again.

  “One.”

  “Knock it off!” She picked up the pie and threw it, and the problem with being the star hitter of the Moose Bottom Mavericks was that the talent didn’t extend to throwing. Her aim went wide. Instead of hitting Beau, she nailed Miss Ida May in the face as the woman was busy taking notes on the entire encounter.

  “Tuesday, Tuesday!” Mrs. Boyle broke through the crowd. “Is Flick with you?”

  “Tuesday’s not even her real name,” Lucille Munro cried, causing a momentarily hushed silence before everyone began speaking at once.

  Tuesday pressed her temples with the heels of her hands. She’d lost it, dropped the princess act, the lobbyist role, even the acting-decent act. And worse, the Georgia Tourism Commission judges had watched the whole thing. So much for being a princess kicking dragon tail. She’d single-handedly spoiled Everland’s chances for the whole town. Happily Ever After Land staff had counted on her and she’d ruined everything. She could feel helpless, defeated tea
rs building.

  “For shame,” Phaedra hissed. “You stay where you are until we call the police for assault. This will be going in the police blotter. You can be sure of it sure as I am looking at you.”

  “I’ll help clean up.” Tuesday grabbed at napkins next to the plate, wanting—needing—to do something, however small, to try to put this right.

  “You’ve done enough.” Lucille blocked her path, arms crossing over her formidable bosom.wwe

  “What’s this about Flick?” Beau said in a clipped, tight voice.

  “I can’t find her.” Mrs. Boyle wrung her hands, deep worry lines grooving the corners of her mouth. “Someone said they saw her getting sick by a parking meter.”

  Donna from the Tourism Commission stepped forward, her brow furrowed in concern. “Is she a young girl, wearing a T-shirt that said, ‘I Wanted Pizza—’”

  “‘Not Your Opinion!’” Beau interrupted.

  “Last I saw that poor chile, she was with her.” Phaedra pointed at Tuesday.

  “And she’s not to be trusted,” Lucille said. “We’ve been digging around, ever since poor Mayor Marino was seen with her at the Fall Ball.”

  “We uncovered the truth.” Miss Ida May swiped the crust from her face and reset her straw hat. “We know what really happened in New York City.”

  Tuesday’s knees wobbled as the air left her lungs in one long whoosh. The world seemed plunged underwater. Time slowed. Sounds distorted.

  “She had an affair with a married man,” Miss Ida May announced, pausing dramatically before adding, “Her director.”

  “For shame,” Toots snapped. “The Back Fence now starts fires if there isn’t enough smoke. Our princess would never do a thing like that.”

  “Never.” Even Mean Gene had her back. “Y’all are lying like a no-legged dog.”