“Number one salesperson in the region, two years in a row.”
“Wow! That’s awesome.” Charlie gestured to the bartender. “Next round’s on me.”
They spent the next hour catching up, talking about their families, other people they knew. Charlie was so far out of the loop, she found it almost embarrassing, but Amber simply caught her up and gave her very little grief about abandoning everything Shaker Falls without so much as a backward glance. Which was pretty much what she’d done.
“So what happened?” Amber finally asked, as Charlie knew she eventually would. “New York didn’t work out for you?”
What had happened? That was the big question, wasn’t it? The one she didn’t really want to answer, but also the one that she needed to, owed it to her friends. Even though Charlie wasn’t sure how to verbalize it all, for Amber, she tried. “I was an idiot.”
A tilt of the head, a look that said Amber didn’t believe her for a second.
“I got caught up.”
A slight nod this time. Happier with that wording, it seemed.
“I fell in love with somebody, and I was ready to do anything for her. Anything. And in the course of doing that, I completely lost my way. Lost myself.” Charlie took a sip of her beer. “I didn’t know it at the time, but…” Big inhale. Slow exhale. “Yeah.” She shook her head as she gazed into her glass.
If Amber was disappointed with such a weak attempt at an explanation, she let it go. “Well, I can tell you that I’m super happy you’re back. And because I love you and have missed you more than you probably realize, I’ll wait until we see each other a few more times before I shred your ass over how quickly you dumped all your friends for your shiny new life in the big city.”
Ouch. Charlie’s head snapped around to her, but she was sipping her beer, looking away. Resignation. Okay. That was a fair shot.
And Charlie was thankful for the waiting period because she wasn’t ready to be hit with both barrels. Fair or not. Not yet. They were deserved, she knew that. In a role reversal, she’d feel the same as Amber. But she wanted to at least be up on her knees when those shots hit, not still lying on the ground in the fetal position. No, they could talk about that another time. So Charlie did what any intelligent person avoiding the truth tended to do: she changed the subject.
“Lots of new storefronts on Main, I noticed.”
Amber nodded without missing a beat. “Right? Doesn’t the gas station look great?”
“It does. First thing I noticed.”
“The pumps take credit cards. We’re no longer living in the seventies.” Amber held up her fists, shook them in victory.
“The J-Cup looks the same.” The local coffee shop was the place the kids of Shaker Falls hung out until they were old enough to come to Chug. “Does the coffee still suck?”
A snort. “Please. Of course it does. Bob will never put a dime into that place to make it look pretty. As long as Shaker Falls stays too small for a Starbucks, he doesn’t have to.” Bob was an old man who grumbled and griped, as if the last thing in the world he wanted to do was run a coffee shop. Yet he’d done exactly that ever since Charlie could remember.
“And the diner’s gone,” Charlie said, then caught something glint in Amber’s eyes.
“Oh yeah, that’s been gone for about six months now. The owners retired and sold. Remember the Jefferses?”
A nod. “The restaurant there now looks kind of fancy.”
Lips pursed, Amber looked like she was thinking. “Not so much fancy as…a little upscale. Nicer than a diner, anyway.” She grinned and looked at her beer. “I’ve eaten there several times, and the food is fantastic.”
“Yeah? I’ll have to check it out.”
“You should. Emma owns it.”
Smack! Was there a glass door nearby? Had Charlie just walked face-first into it? Because that’s what it felt like. All forward progress stopped. All focus brought to said door. In that moment, she realized she’d been avoiding one particular subject without consciously admitting she was avoiding it, and she’d avoided it with everybody. Her parents. Her siblings. Amber.
That subject was Emma Grier.
“Oh,” Charlie drew out and all but slapped her forehead as the restaurant name EG’s suddenly made sense. Emma Grier. Charlie’s first love. The first person whose heart she ever broke. Badly.
Amber seemed to watch all the emotions that played over Charlie’s face intently, at one point even tipping her head to the side in what looked a hell of a lot like amusement.
“She owns it, huh?” Charlie pulled herself together, did her best to act casual and nonchalant, which was probably destroyed when she took an enormous slug of her beer. Amber was doing that half-grin thing, the kind where you didn’t want to laugh outright at a person, but also, you kind of did.
“Yup. She owns the restaurant—well, the whole building—and has an apartment above it. And she’s the head chef. She was working in Burlington for a while for some really well-known chef.”
Charlie had heard that at one point and had just assumed Emma was still there. “And she came back to Shaker Falls?” She said it like that was the stupidest decision ever and immediately regretted it when she saw the flash of anger fly across Amber’s face. “I mean, rather than continuing to work for a well-known chef. Cause that seems like it would be good. For her career. And stuff.” Charlie’s attempt at redemption seemed to work. A little.
“Her mom needed her.”
“Oh.” Charlie nodded, that familiar and intense wave of sympathy splashing up in her stomach. Emma’s mom. Always really nice. Always a little messed up.
“Anyway, you should check it out.” Apparently, it was Amber’s turn to change the subject, and Charlie tried to hide her relief. “So, how long are you staying? What will you do while you’re here?”
There was no solid answer to either of those questions, and how interesting that Amber was the first person to assume she wasn’t going to hang around in Shaker Falls for long. Charlie fudged an answer as best she could, suddenly wondering if she was disappointing Amber somehow. Maybe it was just her, but she felt…weird. Not good enough. They talked about a few more mundane, superficial things before Amber gave her cell phone a glance and claimed she needed to run.
This time when they hugged, that odd sense of falling short was gone, and Amber seemed nothing but happy to see Charlie again. She could admit to being totally relieved, and she squeezed Amber tightly, promised they’d get together again soon.
She actually meant it, too.
Charlie watched her friend leave, then sat quietly and finished her beer.
EG’s wasn’t far from Chug. Nothing was, really, not in tiny Shaker Falls. Walking distance, easily. It was a nice day. Sunny. Not quite the dinner rush yet. Just checking things out, satisfying her curiosity, that’s all she’d be doing. Right?
She scoffed, unsure why she was even bothering with the justifications. She knew where she was headed. She knew why.
There really was no question.
* * *
Ninja-like. That’s how Charlie walked in. Slowly. Quietly. As if she was making some sort of attempt to sneak in unnoticed. Which she kind of was, and the first thing she became aware of was the amazing smell. Garlic. Butter. Basil. Her mouth filled immediately as she realized how hungry she actually was. Well. That was new.
EG’s was small. Intimate was a good word for it. On the left a U-shaped bar. Sophisticated. Made of something nice, something resembling cherry or mahogany—shout-out to her father for teaching her to identify different wood—and burnished to a gorgeous shine. An old-fashioned brass rail ran the length of it, and the barstools had backs and looked comfortable enough to spend some time sitting on. To the right were about fifteen tables, a blend of round and square that kept the small space interesting. White tablecloths covered them, small votives and bud vases in the center of each.
It was barely five. Still a bit early for dinner, unless you were part of the
early bird crowd like the two elderly couples seated at tables toward the wall. The bar boasted seven guests that Charlie could see: a group of four guys in suits and ties, obviously grabbing an after-work cocktail, laughing about their jobs, their wives, their kids, or all of the above. Two women who might have been doing the same thing. One lone gentleman nursing what looked like a Scotch, neat.
Another step farther in, a look around at the décor, trying to take it all in and also not care, both at the same time. It was weird, and she tried not to think about what she was doing as she scanned some of the art on the walls, some paintings, some photographs, but all evoking the same feel, the same mood: relaxation, comfort, home. Charlie found herself wanting to take a seat, settle herself at one of the small round tables, and have comfort food delivered to her. That’s how the atmosphere made her feel.
It was nice.
“Did you want a table?” a gentle voice asked, and Charlie turned to face a young woman. Maybe eighteen. She smiled, and Charlie realized as she took in her black dress that she was probably the hostess.
“Oh.” An unintentional clearing of her throat, as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been, which was almost true. “No. No, I’m good. I was just…um…” The sentence dangled.
“Charlie? Is that you?” The voice was not gentle. It was rough. Booming. Vaguely familiar, and it cranked up from the past like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.
Charlie leaned around the hostess to see the source, and her eyes went wide. Tucked around the corner of the bar, the petite woman had gone unnoticed in Charlie’s initial scan. Charlie knew her, yes, but she’d also aged about thirty years since she’d seen her last.
Emma’s mother.
Damn it.
Charlie had hoped to skulk in and then skulk back out with no one the wiser. Celia Grier had just shot that plan all to hell.
“It is you!” she said, loudly enough that every bar patron turned Charlie’s way. “Come here. Let me look at you.” She gestured Charlie to her with a too large rolling of her too thin arm. Celia had never been about subtlety.
Charlie had no choice. She couldn’t just turn and run—though she seriously thought about it—so she gave the hostess an apologetic smile and then headed toward the bar. She was still two or three steps away from Celia when the woman reached out, grabbed her, and yanked her into a hug. She smelled like cigarettes and gin, exactly like she always had. Some things never changed.
“I can’t believe it’s you.” The usual raspy voice, though extra enthusiastic. Overserved. That’s what Emma always called it when Celia had too much to drink. Loud. Overaffectionate. Embarrassingly proud of her daughter. All signs she’d been overserved. Charlie knew them well because Emma knew them well.
Celia didn’t seem super drunk right then, just at that level of contentment where you’re almost boneless, almost too happy and relaxed, arms sort of flailing, but she looked much worse than Charlie remembered. Alarmingly thin. A gray pallor to her skin that was new to Charlie. A pronounced gray part visible in her reddish-brown hair. Dark smudges under her blue eyes looked like she put them there on purpose in preparation for playing center field. Charlie recalled Amber saying that Emma had come back to Shaker Falls because her mom needed her, and now Charlie thought she understood why. “What are you doing in Shaker Falls?” Celia asked, hauling Charlie out of her memory bank. “We didn’t think you’d ever come back.”
Charlie noted her use of the word we, wondered who she meant, though she was pretty sure she knew. A shrug. Vague was better. “My situation changed.”
Celia nodded as if she completely understood that. “Does Em know you’re here? Lemme get her.” She slid off her stool and disappeared through a swinging double door before Charlie could utter a word.
Crap.
The panic was instant. Charlie’s heart began to pound. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, palms dampened. She hadn’t seen Emma in more than five years. She hadn’t talked to her in more than three, and that’s because the last time Emma called, she didn’t answer. No, that was a lie. The last seven times Emma called, she didn’t answer.
Twenty-three-year-olds were stupid. And selfish. Those were facts.
Looking around frantically, trying to decide if it would be considered rude if she simply fled, ran out of EG’s and never returned, she was stopped by that voice.
“Well, would you look at that? It is you. Huh.”
A hard, hard swallow, a slow turn of her head, and Charlie faced her. Emma Grier. Her first love. The person who used to know her better than anybody in the world. Who probably still did.
“I was sure my mother was mistaken, just saw someone who looked a little bit like you, but…” Her dark eyes raked over Charlie, quickly and not kindly. “Nope. It’s really you.”
“It’s really me.” Charlie’s voice was a croak. Croaks were so impressive. God, she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. With yet another clearing of her throat, she held her arms out to the sides, presenting herself. Let them drop. “Hey, Emma.”
How unfair was life when five years went by and Emma looked like that? Stunning. Head-turning. She always had been. She could stop Charlie in her tracks just by looking like herself. In that moment, she realized Emma still could. Trailing off midsentence was something Charlie had perfected. Happened every time Emma walked into the room. And right then? Charlie realized she still possessed that power. It was one of the many mysterious things about Emma Grier: She never looked rumpled. She never looked tired. Or maybe that had just been Charlie seeing her through the rose-colored lens of young love. Apparently, that lens was still in perfect working order because, much as Charlie hated to admit it, Emma still took her breath away. In her white chef’s coat and hat, there was a sexy air of authority floating in the dining room. Her dark curly hair was pulled back and was much longer than Charlie remembered. And her skin. Charlie didn’t even want to go there because that irresistible urge to touch her was shockingly still a thing. It literally made Charlie’s fingers tingle. Even after so much time, Charlie had to consciously keep her hands at her sides, ball them into fists.
“Well, give her a hug, why don’t you?” Celia must’ve nudged Emma because she sort of took a stutter step toward Charlie, an odd look on her face. Reluctance. There was no way for Charlie not to see it, and man, did it sting. She hated that.
“It’s okay,” Charlie said, holding her palms toward Emma, halting her in place, relieving her of doing something she evidently didn’t want to. “No worries. This place is really nice.” It was a valiant effort at a subject change, the awkwardness reaching unbearable levels. It worked, though. Emma’s face lit up. Charlie’s relief at that pissed her off.
“Thanks. It took a lot of work, but here we are.”
“Best restaurant in town,” Celia offered, and Charlie had forgotten for a moment that she was still sitting right behind Emma.
Emma’s eyes cast downward. “Well, that’s not hard in a town this small.”
“I’ve heard good things,” Charlie said, stretching the truth a little bit. But when Emma brought her gaze back up and that light was back, it was worth it.
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. Hey, can I look at a menu?”
With a nod, Emma grabbed one from the hostess stand and handed it over. It was nice. Heavy. Like a faux-leather portfolio. Only two pages—appetizers, soups, salads on the left, entrées and desserts on the right. A wide variety of dishes, which ranged from simple comfort food to more exquisite cuisine, the small menu had quite a span: lobster mac and cheese and shepherd’s pie to chicken cordon bleu and surf and turf. Charlie’s mouth watered at almost everything. On the list of appetizers, her gaze stopped on the roasted asparagus topped with a fried egg, and just like that, she was eighteen again. In Emma’s mom’s tiny kitchen after midnight, Emma showing her the wonder of roasted asparagus. When Charlie told her she didn’t like asparagus, Emma swore to her that almost anything was made better with a
fried egg on top. Charlie remembered her piling stalks of asparagus fresh from the oven onto a plate, sprinkling a little salt, a little pepper, and topping it with the fried egg. One simple cut and all that gorgeous yellow yolk dripped down and through and around the asparagus. Charlie finished it, every last bite, and wanted to lick the plate clean, it was that good.
She looked up at Emma now and could see that Emma knew exactly which dish Charlie was thinking about. She could tell by her ghost of a smile. “The asparagus,” she said unnecessarily and pointed.
Emma nodded once, her eyes skittering away from Charlie’s in…embarrassment? She wasn’t sure. “It’s popular.”
“Still one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
Emma looked right at her then, finally. A moment. A definite moment. Of sorts. Kind of. Well, for Charlie at least. Emma’s eyes were still the deepest, most intense dark brown she’d ever seen, and for a second or two, she let herself remember how they used to hold her, how she only had to look into them to feel any shift in her world tilt back to level again.
“Emma, can you help me back here? I’m having an issue with the rib eye.”
With that simple request from somebody who peeked his head out of the kitchen, the hint of any spell was broken. Emma’s expression morphed into one of apology—not quite a smile, not quite a grimace, but some weird combination of the two. “It was nice to see you, Charlie.” Polite. Not terribly genuine. Charlie still knew her well enough to know when she was saying what she was supposed to, not what she actually felt. Especially since she said nothing that remotely resembled come back soon or I hope you come in for dinner sometime. Funny how memory worked. It was rather clear Emma wouldn’t be heartbroken if she never stepped foot in her restaurant again.
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