“The place really does look great,” Lara says later in the evening as she surveys Emily’s living room. “Jackie, you did a bang-up job in here. Don’t you love it, Em?”
“That’s right!” Robin says, hand outstretched in amazement. “This is your first time seeing it since you got back, hah, Em?”
“Yup,” Emily says with a grin. “And I love it. Jack, you did a brilliant job.”
Jackie runs a hand through her pixie-cut, bleached hair and says in a self-congratulatory voice, “Oh, it was nothin’. Just a few hard months of work, nickel-and-diming to manage with the minuscule budget Em set for me…” She titters complacently.
“I love it.” Emily gushes. “It’s an awesome surprise!”
I can see Jackie and Robin exchange glances, Jackie mouthing something mutely to her. Robin quickly shakes her head, then begins to root about her deep canvas tote.
“What’s going on?” Lara asks. She eyes Jackie. “What did you do, Jack?”
“Nothing, nothing, spoiler-alert,” Jackie teases.
“Emily,” Robin says. She withdraws a gift-wrapped rectangular something from her tote. “I don’t know if you can handle more surprises in a night, but…” She hands the large gift to Emily.
“Omigod,” Emily breathes. She looks like she knows what’s behind the wrapping. “Is this?”
“I don’t know,” Robin says in an unconvincing tone. “You’ll just have to unwrap it and find out for yourself.”
“Omigod!” Emily begins to heatedly tear at the paper, revealing a coffee table book entitled Through the African Lens: Photography by Emily Saunders.
“It’s finished?!” Emily runs her fingers across the glossy cover, an image of a dry, barren African landscape, save for a small oasis off to the left.
“Ta-da!” Robin sings. “A one-thousand print circulation in Seattle and the greater Seattle area, starting first quarter next year.” She looks at Emily with a proud and excited expression. She tucks a long, blonde, wavy piece of hair behind her ear, then pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Congratulations, honey. I hope it’s what you wanted.”
Robin looks to Jackie, then to me, and shrugs, saying, “It was difficult to manage proofing with someone on the other side of the planet who checks their email once in a blue moon.”
“It’s perfect,” Emily breathes out happily.
She peels back the hard book cover and pours over one page after another, all of us craning to take a look at the project Robin’s been working on for a long time at the publishing house where she works. Through the African Lens is a coffee table book filled with a variety of photographs Emily has taken over the years on the continent.
“The house loves it,” Robin says, electrified. “Forster & Banks says it’ll get its own feature spot on the local authors table at Elliot Bay Book Company for a week, maybe two, and on the local artists table. I figure we can do the promos back-to-back or something. Really maximize the visibility to sell this awesome book.”
Tears begin to spring to Emily’s eyes as she pages through.
“Robin,” Emily says, pausing through her euphoric trip down memory lane, “it’s beautiful. You did a perfect job.”
“You’re the photographer,” Robin says. “I just worked with the genius pieces I was given.”
“Unbelievable,” I say as I look at an up-close shot of a baby elephant. “Emily, Robin, you girls are talented.”
“Well what a fantastic surprise to come home to!” Emily pants, wiping her moist cheeks and eyes. She looks around the room. “A whole new apartment, this amazing book,” she lifts up the corners of the heavy book, “and you girls all here!”
“Almost all here,” I point out.
“We’re doing another get-together when Claire gets here on Thursday, right?” Emily asks eagerly.
“Oh yeah,” I say. “You know it. It has been months since we’ve all been together, and I don’t know when we’ll have another chance.”
“Okay, don’t make me cry,” Robin says, waving a dismissive hand at us. She pulls a tissue from the nearby Kleenex box and dabs at the corner of an eye.
“Are we sure someone is not pregnant again?” Jackie says with a giggle.
“Ha ha.” Robin folds the tissue neatly in half and dabs at the other eye.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Sophie, how are we honestly going to get through the holidays when we’re one oven short?” Evelyn queries as she flips through the box of recipe cards. “It doesn’t seem feasible to make all of these peppermint macarons and the bûche de Noël logs.”
She claps her hands over the box and looks at me with a deflated expression. “You saw what a mess I made of that last try at those logs! And I have no talent for macarons! It’s not going to happen. I’m useless.”
“As long as you show up when you’re scheduled to work this week,” I say serenely, padding across the café’s kitchen to the one functioning oven, “you are anything but useless. Besides, nothing and no one will keep me from making my spectacular peppermint macarons. It took me forever to nail that recipe, and it’s a Christmas must-have.”
“Fair enough.” She finds the recipe she’s been looking for and begins to pull out bowls, measuring cups, and utensils. “When’s that oven part supposed to come anyway?”
“Called the repair guy again this morning,” I say with a sigh. “Today, tomorrow, next week. Who the hell knows?” I adjust the oven’s dials for the upcoming batch of cinnamon-pecan twists. “It’s anyone’s guess with the holidays here.”
“Next week?” Evelyn’s eyes grow large. “Next week is Christmas!”
“I know, I know.” I tighten the tie of my apron. “Look at it this way: You, lucky lady, have the rest of the year off as of the end of this week.”
“Oh, the privileges of being part-time and a student.” Evelyn flutters her lashes. “At least Gatz and Emily are back. Maybe they can help?”
It’s true. Though Gatz is only here for two weeks, Emily is staying through the first week-and-a-half of January, and she’s promised to lend a hand around the café now and then.
I told her the other night during our reunion that she was absolutely not expected to show up and feel guilt-tripped into helping out her desperate friend. (Although, of course, if she wanted to I wouldn’t deny her the pleasure.) She said working at the café would be part of the fun of her trip. “I get to hang out with you, Sophie!” she’d said.
Plus, what with Gatz leaving town before Emily and all the girls busily working, it’s not like sitting in her apartment all by her lonesome, no matter how chic and inviting it now looks, was all that appealing.
“Good morning,” I greet the two college-aged guys strolling to the front counter. “What can I get for you guys?”
They’re in the middle of placing a coffee order to go when Dean walks in. He’s carrying that messenger bag of his, striding over joyfully with that thin-lipped grin he seems to be wearing any time we’re in the same room.
“Good morning, Sophie,” Dean says, exuberant, as the two college guys temporarily occupy a table.
“Hey, Dean.” I close the cash register.
It’s been a few days since Dean and I had our first date. When we’d parted that night neither of us said, “I’ll call you,” but rather, “I’ll see you at the café. We’ll do this again.”
I just know what’s on the tip of his tongue right now, and I’ve been dreading it. Honest to goodness, I’ve been dreading having to go in for this second date. I knew it would be coming at some point, but this soon? I know I said we would go on another date, and I know I said I’d try to take a chance and get myself out of this love rut, but now with Emily in town and Claire coming soon…and what with me trying to get through the crazy holidays with a broken oven, not to mention trying to have a holiday for myself, I’m distracted. Too distracted to date.
“Study break or session today?” I ask Dean casually.
“Today it’s neither,” he replies w
ith a smirk.
“Oh?” I feel an unsettling churning in the pit of my stomach begin. I know what he’s going to say… I know it. I just know it!
“Today I’m here to ask you about that next date.” And he goes in for the kill.
Dean rests one hand on the bridge of his messenger bag and strap. “And I’m here for a coffee,” he adds, leaning in, rocking on the balls of his loafer-clad feet.
“Espresso? Cappuccino? Latte? Latte macchiato? Drip—” I rap, keeping my focus on the business side of this uncomfortable exchange.
“Let’s go for a caffe mocha.”
“Comin’ right up!” I immediately turn my full attention to the espresso machine, silently willing him to take a seat and not mention the other part of his order.
But I’m just not that lucky.
“And that date,” he says. “How about tonight? Dinner at one of my favorite sushi places here in Capitol Hill?”
“Oh,” I say in a far-off voice.
“Or, if sushi’s not your thing, there’s a great Asian fusion place downtown, near the Sorrento.”
“Uhh…”
“Okay,” he says, “I get it. We don’t have to do Asian. How about the Metro Grill? Or we can go casual and get some burgers, or pizza, or—”
“Dean,” I interrupt, “tonight won’t work for me.”
“Oh.” His face turns down. “Tomorrow?”
“My best friend’s coming into town tonight,” I say with a small smile, relieved I can use Claire as an authentic excuse. “She lives in Spokane, and it’s kind of a big deal, all of us getting together again…another friend just got here, all the way from Australia and…” Please catch my drift, please.
“Ah, I got it,” he says with a wink. Thank you! “No problem. Maybe when you have time…”
“After the holidays?” I finish his open-ended sentence. “I’m just so busy, and…”
“Great.” He claps a palm down onto the counter, sealing the deal. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”
I measure out into a teacup a tablespoon of chocolate drinking powder. “Me, too,” I half-lie, prepping the espresso.
I’m relieved Dean didn’t press the matter, didn’t want to engage in much chit-chat, and left the café relatively quickly. The baking isn’t going as well as I’d planned, the amount of customers streaming in proving to be far too much for the speed with which one oven and two bakers can prepare everything needed. I need to pay full attention to the café, and, let me tell you, that is not that easy considering my best friend is on her way to Seattle right now, as I speak.
Claire and I are going to meet for drinks or dinner or something—anything!—tonight, and we’ve got three more fabulous days together. I’m ecstatic! Granted, the days are filled with some work, but, like Emily, Claire said she’d be lending me a hand at the café because it’s an easy way to spend some time together.
“That’s it,” I say to Evelyn as the usual five o’clock crowd begins to stream in shortly after their offices close up and the sweet-tooths can no longer be held at bay. “I need to call in reinforcements. The repair guy said he’d call by five if he had the part, and he obviously doesn’t.” I blow a large puff of air up, flying my large curl of bangs about. “I’m getting stressed. This is no good.”
“I can see if Chad wants to come in and help out,” Evelyn kindly offers.
“Oh, no,” I rashly say.
The last thing I need around here is Chad Harris. Whenever I see him or talk about him lately, my mind begins to get all fuzzy with memories I’d really rather not remember.
There was an odd feeling in the air—a puzzling expression on each other’s faces, a bone-chilling silence between us—when Chad was last here attempting to fix the oven. I could have sworn that silence between us was very similar to if not the same silence we’d shared on the bridge looking out at the Eiffel Tower two years ago. It’s that kind of silence from which only trouble comes.
At first I’d blamed the silence and quirky feeling on the tickling and the sheer awkwardness of that. Then, the more I thought about the way Chad held me, the way he fixed me with that deep gaze, how we both uncomfortably wriggled out of the situation wrought with so many repressed memories…a history—the more I realized it wasn’t just the tickling. Chad and I had shared a moment together the other night. We’d shared a moment that didn’t need words. And those kinds of moments are, like secrets, the most dangerous kinds of all.
I don’t know how I feel about Chad. I mean, I know he’s a friend…and one who really grates on my nerves sometimes. But there’s a side to him that’s alluring, comforting, familiar, and genuine.
God, what am I saying? Chad has a girlfriend. I shouldn’t even be thinking about the allure, the comfort… I would never be that girl. I’ve been on the other side of that adulterous coin. It’s a bitch. Oh, listen to me! There are plenty more reasons I should dismiss these mixed and strange feelings for Chad than his having a girlfriend. It’s not like I’d want to act on them! Hell no. I don’t really understand any of this; I sure as hell don’t know why I’m revisiting all of these memories, having these emotions, reflecting on all these secrets. I’ve even been thinking about what it’d be like to actually talk to someone about these feelings.
But I know the best way to get over this awkward phase and find a way to return to repressing the secrets is to distance myself from Chad. The past is the past, after all.
“I’m sure he won’t mind,” Evelyn presses. “Chad said things are slow at work right now. The holidays aren’t too busy a time for him. You said you need reinforcements—”
“And an oven.” I purse my lips to the side.
“I can call him.”
“No,” I say curtly. “Thanks, but—” I snap my fingers and immediately retrieve my cell phone from my purse, a brilliant idea coming to mind. “That’s it! I know just the man to call.” I roll on my heels and look at Evelyn. “Tell me if you think this is tacky or not.”
“Hmm?” She slices into a stick of butter.
“Calling Katie’s Kitchen, where I used to work, for a favor? Maybe I could rent out their ovens or something!” I roll my eyes at the slight absurdity of the idea. “Or, or!” More finger-snapping. “I know! I can hire Oliver for a day or two! He would probably be willing to help in his off-time.”
Evelyn looks to be considering the request.
“For a friend,” I quickly add. “He’s a macaron-making machine and obviously knows all about the bûche de Noël, being French.”
That’s exactly what I’ll do! There’s no harm in asking. If Oliver or Katie’s Kitchen can help me out with a few batches of baked goods for the holidays then I’ll surely be able to survive the next few days until that damn oven gets repaired.
“This is a fabulous idea,” I say giddily as I scroll through my phone’s contacts list.
I’ll only need a few days worth of goods baked anyhow. Halfway through today and all its busyness I kind of cracked under pressure. I made up my mind that I’m going to Santa Barbara for Christmas. And not just for Christmas Eve and Day, but for a couple days prior and after—a Christmas vacation.
I’d tentatively planned to close the café for a few days because I thought John would be back from London, but even though he’s not (and maybe in spite of it), I’m going to get out of town anyhow. I need to clear my head, relax, get out of Seattle, and not think about men, dating, and love. (Yes, Mom would have to do without watching Love, Actually with me this Christmas. My nerves just can’t take it.)
“Hi, Oliver?” I say into my phone. “It’s Sophie. Sophie Wharton.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“You’ll never believe what I found out, Evelyn! I rang Oliver, and guess what?” I call out, rounding the corner to the front of the café. I tuck my iPhone into my apron pocket.
As soon as I look up at Evelyn, my jaw drops to the floor. She’s in the middle of the café, with Chad, standing on her tiptoes giving him a kiss. And next to them are
Conner and…Claire!
“Omigod!” I cry loudly, causing the handful of customers to look my way. “Claire!”
Claire wraps me into a big hug, turning me from left to right, squealing in delight.
“Surprise,” Chad says, his hands crammed in his back pockets.
“What? What are you doing here?” I look to Conner. “I thought we’d meet for dinner or drinks. I didn’t expect you to come here.”
“Which is so why we did,” Claire yelps. “I’m impatient. Instant gratification, you know me.”
Conner snickers as he runs both hands through his short, dark blonde hair. “Tell me about it,” he says. He then envelopes me in one of his bear hugs. “Good to see you again after centuries apart, Sophie,” he teases.
Claire smacks him on his thick arm and says to me, “How could we fly in and not make Sophie the first stop in town?”
“For the baked goods,” Conner says with a laugh, which results in another playful smack from his wife.
Instead of wincing or rolling his eyes or responding with a jesting remark, Conner just looks on at Claire in an endearing sort of way behind those smiling blues of his. As long as I’ve known Conner he’s been positively smitten with bubbly Claire. The two make a perfect match—they’re a pleasant reminder that everyone’s got their special someone out there…somewhere.
“You guys want something to drink?” I ask. “Eat? Come in, come in.” I wave them all further on in, and Evelyn retreats to the kitchen to get back to work.
“Place still hopping?” Claire asks as Conner and Chad sit at a table.
I quickly fill her in on the latest shenanigans, including the update with Oliver.
“How is that possible?” Claire gasps.
When Girlfriends Find Love Page 19
