“You’ll get them.” Aunt Jo made her way to the door, saying as she went, “Scones or no, after I’m gone, if you all don’t mourn me loud enough, I’ll haunt each and every one of you. And I won’t need one of Ava’s grief teas to do it, neither.” Grinning, Aunt Jo waved and left, the door closing smartly behind her.
“I guess we’ve been told,” Ava said to the others. Laughing, she followed Aunt Jo into the parking lot. One problem was solved, and for that Ava was grateful. Now all she had to do was finish her tearoom and find the strength to face the secret that was banging away under her bed. Two out of three problems left. It’s a start.
And yet, even as Ava drove Aunt Jo home, somewhere in the distance, she could hear the wild thumping of the box under her bed. The time was coming. Everything she’d worked so hard to hide would be out in the open for everyone to see. And that was one brutal truth she wasn’t ready, willing, or able to face.
Not yet.
CHAPTER 6 Kristen
A week later, Kristen sat down at one of the two wrought-iron café tables that had been assembled for the tearoom, taking a break after three long hours of unpacking merchandise. “I’m so tired I could sleep to next Christmas.”
Missy, who’d just arrived, sent her a sympathetic look. “Still not sleeping?” She slid a cup of hot chocolate to Kristen, the words MOONLIGHT CAFÉ printed on the paper cup.
“Not a wink. I keep thinking about stuff.” What she really kept thinking about was Mom and the poor plant Kristen had accidentally ruined, but she didn’t feel like explaining all of that to Missy.
Kristen took the hot chocolate and removed the lid, steam curling up. “Grandma Ellen’s not sleeping well either. I hear her walking around at all hours of the night.”
“I’m surprised your wolf pack doesn’t complain about that.”
“They’re used to her now. Well, except Chuffy. He doesn’t like strangers in the house, and Grandma Ellen hasn’t exactly tried to charm him.” Kristen blew on the hot chocolate and took a sip. She waited for the deliciousness to slip over her tongue, but nothing happened. Somehow missing Mom had affected Kristen’s taste buds until food had the flavor of sawdust.
Aware of Missy’s expectant gaze, Kristen forced a smile. “Sooo good.” She was getting good at fake-smiling, even with her friends, which made her feel like a poser.
“It’s the best.” Missy’s gaze swept around the tearoom. “I can’t wait for this place to open. It’s already lit and it’s not even done yet.”
A burst of pride warmed Kristen. “It’s been a lot of work,” she admitted. “But totally worth it.”
A few years ago, when Mom had suggested Kristen ask Ava for a job at her greenhouses during the summer months, Kristen had dragged her feet. She knew the Dove sisters, of course. Everyone did. But it had seemed awkward to ask one of them for a job. Mom had persisted, though, and Kristen had eventually screwed up the nerve to ask. To her surprise, Ava had hired her on the spot.
“How is life with the Frosty One?” Missy asked.
Kristen sighed, her breath rippling across her hot chocolate. “The Frosty One is pretending she has no choice but to fix up my house and sell it, and I’m pretending I don’t care if she does and forces me to move to her ice castle in Raleigh.”
“Still being super nice to her?”
“As sweet as pie. It’s working, too, at least for now. She’s not bringing up the move quite as often, so I have some time to come up with a way out of this mess.” Kristen looked at her cup of hot chocolate. “Of course, I’ve had more than a week and I haven’t thought of a single thing.”
Missy lowered her cup of hot chocolate, looking concerned. “Can she really sell your house out from under you like that?”
“She’s the executor of the estate, and I’m a minor, so yes. Right now, she’s holding off on talking about the actual sale and instead just talks about how much I’ll like Raleigh, the schools there, her big house, yada yada. And in return, I act as if I’m interested.”
“That’s some passive-aggressive stuff right there.”
Kristen shrugged, a little hurt Missy thought that. Kristen wasn’t being passive-aggressive; she was being Diana Prince–level strategic. But Kristen didn’t have the energy to explain herself, not even to her friend.
Mom had said that after she died, Kristen would feel alone at times. What Mom hadn’t mentioned was how bleak and empty that feeling would be. How it would seep through her body and weigh her down like she was trying to swim upstream while wearing a coat stuffed with bricks. That there would be moments when she would feel as if she couldn’t breathe, as if her heart might drop out of its place and—
Missy grasped Kristen’s wrist. “Don’t look like that.”
Her face hot, Kristen gently freed her wrist, picked up her cup, and took another sip. “I’m fine. I really am. I just need to—”
The door swung open, and Josh stuck his head in. He brightened on seeing the two of them and came inside. “There you are! I looked for you all at the Moonlight.” He unwound his scarf as he walked to their table, and Kristen could tell from the way it had been neatly knotted around his throat that his mother had put it on him as he left the house.
Kristen loved his family. Josh’s mom, Juana, was a waitress at the truck stop off Highway 26 that crossed Sam’s Gap near the Tennessee border. She was funny and sharp and ran her household with an iron fist, while her husband, a large man with an even bigger smile who owned his own auto parts store, made sure Josh and his sisters jumped whenever Momma Juana said to.
Josh dropped into a chair next to Missy, his gaze falling on their cups of hot chocolate. “You guys went to the Moonlight.” There was a definite note of disappointment in his voice.
“No, I went to the Moonlight,” Missy said primly. “I would have gotten you something, too, but you never answer your texts, so…” She shrugged.
Josh pulled out his old, beaten-up iPhone. Kristen didn’t think she’d ever seen it when the screen wasn’t cracked.
He scowled. “I don’t have any messages from you.”
“Sure you do. Look.…” Missy had leaned over, ready to prove him wrong. “Huh. They’re not there. I sent you four.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her brand-new monster of a phone, which shone in a sparkling pink case. “See?” She showed him the texts she’d sent. “You need a new phone.”
“Tell me about it,” Josh grumbled as he stuffed his phone back into his pocket. “I’m only making $115.14 a week working for my dad at his auto parts store, and I have to pay for my own gas and insurance out of that.” He slumped in his chair and said sourly, “I’ll be thirty before I can afford a new phone. Heck, I can’t even afford hot chocolate.”
Kristen slid her cup to his side of the table. “You can have the rest of mine.” She couldn’t taste it anyway.
“I’m not taking your hot chocolate. I was just kidding about not being able to afford it. It’s the new phone I can’t afford.”
“Take it.” She got up. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“I guess that means we should go,” Missy said, looking disappointed.
“You all can stay. I’m just unpacking boxes.”
Josh picked up the hot chocolate and looked around the room. “Where’s Ava?”
Kristen went to a row of boxes resting against a wall. “She’s at the post office trying to trace a shipment that never arrived.” She carried a box to a table near her friends, opened it, and began to unpack a number of small, vintage china plates. They were beautiful, all different sizes and colors.
Missy leaned forward. “I like those.”
“Me too. Ava wanted every teacup and saucer to be different, so she bought boxes of them from an antique store in New York City that was closing.”
Missy eyed the plates with envy. “That’s a neat idea. When I have my own apartment, I’m going to do the same thing.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “You and your imaginary apartment.”
<
br /> “Kristen will be my roommate and she is not imaginary. We’re going to Appy State together and are going to join the same sorority. Aren’t we, Kristen?”
Kristen didn’t want to join a sorority, but she decided not to go Godzilla on Missy’s Tokyo. “Sure. Why not.”
“Ohhh!” Missy pointed to the plate Kristen had just unwrapped. “I love that one.”
The delicate eggshell-white saucer had an array of beautiful blue and purple flowers hand-painted along one edge. Mom will love these. I should show her—
A sweeping pain rippled through her. Oh God. How could I forget?
It wasn’t the first time, either. Just this morning, in a hurry to leave for school, she’d glanced through the open door of her mom’s bedroom and said, “See you later!” She’d done it out of habit, but no answering smile had met her. Instead, Kristen had found herself standing in the doorway, staring at an empty bed, her heart breaking all over again.
“Kristen?”
Both Missy and Josh were looking at her, their expressions a mixture of embarrassment and sympathy, neither of which she wanted.
She ducked her head and collected the plates she’d already unwrapped. “I need to take these to the kitchen.” Clutching the plates, she hurried from the room.
Once in the kitchen she let out her breath and set the plates on the stainless-steel counter, angry at her lack of control. It was so embarrassing to break down in front of her friends like that. It seemed weak and needy. “Life is so damn unfair!” For some reason, cursing out loud gave her a tiny release. Grateful even for that, she rinsed the plates and then looked for a dish towel. Seeing none, she went to the storage cabinet, pulled her keys from her pocket, and undid the lock.
As she tugged a new dish towel out of the package, she accidentally knocked over a tea canister that had been sitting behind it. “Oof.” She returned it to an upright position, absently noting that the label had been partially torn off, only the words TO INDUCE SLEEP still visible. That must be Erma Tingle’s messed-up tea. I wonder why Ava’s keeping it?
Shrugging, Kristen locked the door, returned her keys to her pocket, and went back to the sink. There, she soaked the dish towel in cold water, wrung it out, and held it over her burning eyelids. The coolness helped her eyes, but did nothing for her aching chest. She gritted her teeth, refusing to give in to the tears that threatened. Oh, Mom. I don’t know if I can do this. This is so much harder than we thought it would be.
In the months after Mom had gotten sick, she’d begun what she’d dubbed “Life After.” Life After was short for Life After Mom Is Gone. Just like everything she did, Mom had been overly enthusiastic, even making matching T-shirts with a logo she’d sketched of the two of them, arms around each other, facing a beautiful sunset.
Kristen had hated wearing that stupid shirt, but after Mom died, she’d kept it under her pillow. Every night, exhausted and unable to sleep, she wept into the soft folds of the shirt.
Kristen removed the wet dish towel from her eyes, rinsed it again, and hung it over the edge of the sink. Life After was a fail. None of the things Mom had thought would help had lessened Kristen’s grief even a little—not the scrapbook filled with memories, the shadow box of what they thought the afterlife might look like, the discussions about grief and depression, the recipe book of comfort food that consisted mainly of mac and cheese and bacon dishes, or the cards and videos Mom had made to mark the landmark events in Kristen’s future that she would miss.
“This will help,” Mom would say as she tucked another thing into the nearly full box.
As if anything could. Nothing could erase the fact that Kristen was alone. So alone that her bones felt empty and hollow.
She realized she was clenching her jaw so tightly her entire face ached from it. She’d had six whole months to prepare for Mom’s death. Six months and three days from the time Mom had sat her down and told her the treatment for her breast cancer wasn’t working and all that was left was “stretching” time.
But time didn’t stretch. The more Mom had tried to hold on to it, the faster it had slipped away.
“Kristen?” Missy called from the front room, sounding worried.
“Just a sec!” Kristen winced when her voice cracked. She knew what she’d see when she went back into the tearoom: the furtive looks of sympathy and pity, as if they thought she might melt away right in front of them.
She couldn’t blame them, though. Emotions tangled inside of her, knotted so tightly that she could barely function, her anger bubbling inside like a volcano just waiting to blow. If she hadn’t had her friends and her job, she would have been well and truly lost.
But I do have this job. And I do have friends. And Ava is there if I need her, too. Kristen pressed her fingertips over her hot, swollen eyes. I can do this. I just have to keep busy and find a way to convince Grandma Ellen to let me stay in Dove Pond. That’s it. Just those two things. Nothing else matters.
She took a long, slow, shuddering breath and then schooled her expression into what she hoped was a fairly normal one. Squaring her shoulders, she returned to the main room. Just as she came around the corner, she heard Missy say, “You ask her. I’m not going to. I’m—”
“Ask me what?” Kristen’s voice cracked with impatience. Embarrassed at how demanding she sounded, she went back to the crate and pulled out another stack of dishes.
Missy sent Josh a hard look. “Nothing. Josh is just being insensitive.”
“How am I being insensitive?” He turned to Kristen. “I was just saying that we should ask what you’re going to do now. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
“No.” She was grateful for his honesty. “I was telling Missy before you came in that I could use some help trying to figure out a way to keep Grandma Ellen from making me move to Raleigh.”
“Sure,” Josh said, as if it would be the easiest thing in the world.
Missy rolled her eyes but didn’t argue.
Kristen unwrapped a plate, this one a delicate yellow with a silver edge. She didn’t have control over a lot of things right now, so being able to keep Grandma and her demands at bay had been a particularly sweet victory, but it was only a temporary one. “I’m not going to move to Raleigh, no matter what Grandma says.”
“Can’t your grandma move here?” Josh asked.
“She has a job. She’s pretty important, if the number of phone calls she gets is any indication.” Kristen thought about her grandmother’s house on the glossy pages of Architectural Digest. It was beautiful, decorated in shades of white and cream and gray, as chilly as her grandmother’s too-polite smile. It was funny how opposite Mom’s house was from her mother’s. Polar opposites.
“If you don’t want to move, then you shouldn’t have to,” Josh said in a firm tone. He stared at his hot chocolate cup as if looking for an answer there, his brow furrowed. “Hmm. I wonder if…”
Missy waited, her eyebrows raising. Finally, she snapped out, “Josh, spit it out! Can’t you see how shook Kristen is?”
He flushed. “I was just wondering if she could come live with one of us.” He looked at Kristen. “My parents love you. Mom says you’re her otra niña.”
Kristen sighed wistfully. “I wish I could, but Grandma Ellen would never agree to it. She doesn’t know your parents.”
“She doesn’t know mine, either,” Missy said regretfully.
“Can’t you go to court and ask to be…” He frowned. “I don’t know what it’s called, but I know it can be done.”
“Emancipated.” Kristen pulled another plate from the box and unwrapped it. “I called the lawyer who represents the estate and asked.”
“What did he say?” Missy asked.
“Unless Grandma gives her permission, I still couldn’t access the money Mom left me. Not until I’m twenty-five, anyway.”
“Twenty-five?” Missy had stiffened with outrage.
Kristen nodded. “Until then, the money is under the Frosty One’s control.”<
br />
Missy scowled. “Why did your mom do that?”
“I have no idea.”
They were silent a moment, all thinking, when Missy said, “Then do it without the money. You’ve already got a house. What more do you need?”
“Food.” Josh started counting on his fingers. “Gas, insurance, electricity, water, cable, clothes—”
Missy punched his arm.
“Ow!”
“Can’t you think of something positive to say?”
“Not about this, I can’t!”
Kristen put another plate on the stack. “He’s right. There’s still a mortgage on the house, too. It’s a lot of money, a lot more than I make here.”
Missy’s face fell. “I guess a second job wouldn’t be enough then, either.”
“No, and I can’t risk my grades. I’ve got calculus and chemistry next year.” Kristen was on track to be the class valedictorian and she couldn’t give that up. She hadn’t told either Missy or Josh about it, as neither of them cared about grades the way she did, but she and Mom had been excited about it.
Josh rubbed his chin. “I can’t believe your mom didn’t realize this would happen.”
“She wasn’t the best at planning.” Kristen put the empty box on the floor and came to sit with them, sliding back into her chair. “I’m surprised she had a will and set up a trust. Grandma Ellen was shocked by that.” Mom had been haphazard about everything in her life. Kristen couldn’t count the times the electricity had been shut off; not because Mom didn’t have the money, but because she’d simply forgotten to pay it. Two years ago, tired of cold showers, Kristen had set up online payments and had kept an eye on it since.
But somehow, for all of Mom’s inability to pay attention to the details of life, with the exception of whom she’d chosen as Kristen’s guardian, she had been meticulous when it had come to her death.
Josh sighed. “I hate to say this, but it sounds like your only option is to win over the Frosty One.”
“That won’t happen.”
Missy’s jaw set in a stubborn line. “You can’t leave us. We’re all going to junior prom together, and who will eat lunch with us every day?”
A Cup of Silver Linings Page 9
