| |
MERCY
“Surprise!” I announce as soon as Kirsten opens the door. “I’m moving back!”
“What?” Her face looks a mixture of disbelief and thrilled, while frozen in place. “Are you for real? You’re moving back home. Here? To Lacey?”
“Yep.” I give my purse-toting hand a shake. “And I packed light, so I’m hoping to get a room at a charming little B and B until I come up with more permanent arrangements.”
All at once it seems to click into place for Kirsten and she lunges forward, wrapping me into a rib crushing hug and shaking me back and forth as she squeals loudly in my ear. “Oh, my Lord! It’s finally happening! Nettie always said, just wait, she’ll be back. And Tray and I waited,” she leans back so she can look at me without actually letting go, “and waited, and now, here you are, finally coming home.”
She squeezes me close again. “And here I was worried you’d turn me away for being at capacity.”
Kirsten laughs, releasing me from the intense embrace. “That’s about the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Can’t turn you away from your own B and B!”
“I mean, you could,” I point out, because I’m literal like that. “You’ve been running it for years, it’s really more your place than mine. And I didn’t exactly make a reservation before showing up here today.”
She rolls her eyes and scoffs as she tugs me inside and starts to herd me toward the kitchen. “Mercy Rose, you don’t know a thing about anything.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your Grandma Nettie was very specific about a lot of things where this B and B is concerned, and at the very top of it all was your place in the big picture.” Her hand on my lower back guides me into the room and I can tell by the smell of fresh coffee brewing and something sweet baking in the oven, their power is back on and they’re no longer operating on a generator. “Sit. I’ll pour,” she says as we come up to the table and chairs in the corner of the large kitchen.
“Thank you.” I do as I’m told, but I feel weird about it, like somehow I’m not just Nettie’s grandkid who’s always had a free pass to come and go as I please but never had a designated spot because those were for guests, and instead have become someone of importance who has a standing reservation they didn’t know about.
I watch quietly as Kirsten pours us two cups of coffee and brings them over to the table where a pitcher of cream and a bowl of sugar are already placed neatly on a tray at the center. Forever the perfect host, she adds cream and sugar to both cups and stirs, leaving beautiful swirly patterns in my cup as she places it in front of me.
It’s only when she takes her seat cattycorner from me at the table, that Kirsten starts talking again. “You know, Tray and I worked for Nettie for years even before she died. We just adored her, adored The Rose. We were young, no home of our own, no money to afford anything near this nice. It was easy to want to stay here.” She reaches across the table to cup my hand. “But we never expected it to be forever. Don’t misunderstand, we’ve loved every second of our lives here at The Rose, but we’re ready for you to come home and make it your own now.”
“What?” I can’t even compute what she’s saying.
“Nettie had a plan,” Kirsten explains calmly, still holding my hand in hers. “She had a vision for all of us and The Rose. We haven’t just been here holding down the fort all this time. We’ve been building a place of our own in Tennessee.”
“You’ve what? How? Why?” I can’t get past choppy one-word questions. Nothing I’m hearing is helping me make sense of things.
Kirsten smiles. “I forget how young you were when you left. There’s a lot you still have to learn about this family. Things even your mama probably doesn’t know. Like how your Great-Grandma Trudy was born and raised in a small town in the mountains out in Tennessee. Family owns quite a bit of land out there, including the beautiful lot Nettie gifted us when we agreed to step in and watch The Rose until you were ready. She knew you’d show up eventually, but she didn’t want us putting our lives on hold, either, nor did she think it was fair to ask us to put so much into The Rose and walk away with nothing when all was said and done.” She stops her story to lean in and add, “Not that we would have left here empty-handed. What we’ve gained from our time here can never be measured.” She sits up taller again. “Anyway, you know how Nettie was, always going above and beyond. So, she gifted us the land in her will. Said it was ours to do with as we pleased, but she hoped we’d build another B and B and share a little bit of The Rose’s magic with more people.” She releases my hand and picks up her cup of coffee. “So, that’s what we did. It’s been up and running about two years now. Lovely staff keeps it up and running for us, but we visit and check in when we can.”
“You’re serious.” I swear, no one tells me anything. “How come no one’s ever told me this?”
“You weren’t here.”
“They have phones in New York!” I gasp, exasperation getting the best of me. “And internet. Doesn’t anyone in Lacey know how to use either? Good God, even a simple text would have been nice.”
Kirsten leans back in her seat, unbothered by my outburst. “We couldn’t have told you. You weren’t ready. And if you’d known, you might have felt pressured to do something. Something you didn’t want to do yet. Nettie never wanted this place to be a burden to you. It’s your home. It’s where you come back to when you need a safe place to catch you. And it’s where you build your life from when you’re done gathering all the experiences you can only get by living life without a foundation to rest on.”
I sit back in silence. Surrendering to the moment, I take my own cup into my hands and take several sips. It’s hot and sweet and creamy and exactly how I like it.
Slowly, everything begins to trickle its way into order inside my mind and I begin to see clearly the vision my grandmother had, the big picture she painted so beautifully for each of us to live in.
“So, you’re moving.” It’s the thought that stands out to me the most.
“We’re moving,” she confirms. “But you know we have roots here. We can grow as big as we want, reach as far as we can, but we’ll always find our way back here.”
I can find some solace in this. Especially looking at my own life’s trajectory. Even when I never intended to, I found myself returning here. Roots. I’ve got those. Stubborn, and reaching so far back into the depths of Lacey, I realize now, I could never truly be plucked from here.
“This is crazy.” I place my coffee back onto the table as a new, more pressing matter comes to mind. “I don’t know the first thing about running a B and B.”
Kirsten laughs. “Calm down. It’s not like we’re packing up tomorrow. We’ll stay until you’re good and ready. Promise.”
“Huh.” I settle into my seat again, relaxing into the cushions and reaching for another sip of coffee. “I could have weddings here.” Gradually, the memories slip in, images of daydreams I had when I was a kid, imagining the brides and the flowers and the most extravagant cakes.
“You could. And,” she says with a wink, “I do believe you will.”
––––––––
FRANK
“What are you doing here?” Esther asks as soon as I walk up to the bar. “Figured you’d be over at The Rose Petal, helping out.”
“Lunch,” I tell her, pointing at the specials board behind her. “I take it you finally got all your regular deliveries back in.”
“Mostly. Still not serving seafood.” She stops fussing with the glassware she’s been polishing and hanging in the rack overhead and comes to meet me at the bar, only stopping when we’re standing face-to-face. Well, not counting the several inches in height difference, we’re face-to-face. “They serve lunch at The Rose. I know it’s a B and B, but I’ve heard more than once that Kirsten’s buffalo chicken sandwich rivals mine in a way that ought to make me nervous.”
“They’ve got plenty of people helping out over there, Pop included. They don’t need me.” I pull over a stool and have a seat. “Now, can I order or what?”
“Wade said you were being a dumbass. I see what he meant now.” She flares her nostrils at me, then grabs the order pad from the register. “You can have the grilled cheese and vegetarian chili combo. It’s our least popular today and I’m willing to spare it, even for a dumbass.”
“I hate grilled cheese sandwiches.”
She rips the paper from the pad and sticks it up in the kitchen window, grinning from ear to ear. “I know.” Then she whips back around and gets back to polishing her glasses. “Dumbass.”
“Is this a brother–sister thing, or are you deserving of that title on a more profound level?” Cam asks as she scoots herself into the seat beside mine.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Normally, I can hear her click-clacky heels from a mile away. My head must be really out of it to have missed that sound.
“My office, which, thankfully, is perfectly intact and dry.” She smiles, stretching to reach a menu from behind the bar. “To be perfectly honest, it feels a little strange, everything going back to business as usual after the last few days.”
“Uh-huh.” I’m not sure I can agree that things feel all that usual or even remotely like how they did before, but then I’m probably affected by some of the changes in ways no one else is.
“So, are you going to elaborate on the dumbass thing?” she asks, perusing the menu. As if she’s actually using it to decide what she’s having. Aside from the fact she always customizes everything until it no longer resembles anything on Esther’s menu, she’s also limited in the foods she’ll eat depending on the time of day. It’s lunchtime. She’s having a salad. And, given that she’s going to create her own, it’s really just a matter of choosing her protein, which I’m guessing will be chicken in light of the news the LicketySplit is lacking in seafood.
“Can’t we just roll with the fact you think I’m a dumbass ninety-nine percent of the time, no reason required, and move on?”
“Esther?” Cam calls out for my sister, who’s left the bar to go clean a recently vacated table in the dining area.
She finishes wiping the surface before she stands up and turns back. “What?”
“What dumbass thing has he done now?” Cam inquires loudly, as if it’s a perfectly normal question to ask someone while sitting at the center of town’s most frequented dining establishment, during the lunch rush.
Thankfully, Esther has enough kindness in her heart to come all the way back to the bar and within private earshot before she answers. “Running away.” She sets the full bus bin down into the cubby below the bar, the dirty dishes clanging as they move. “Without telling a certain someone.” Then she puts two big glasses on the counter in front of us and fills them with sweet tea from the pitcher she keeps behind the counter.
“I am not running away,” I clarify. I personally don’t think it needs clarifying, but as it seems everyone else has forgotten, I continue, “I took a job in Montana as ranch foreman. Accepted it three weeks ago and, as a matter of fact, was already supposed be there last week but decided to stay here through the storm to make sure everyone was alright before I took off.”
“But don’t you see?” Esther wails dramatically.
“See what?” I see nothing. Except way too many damn women in my life trying to give me unsolicited advice. All the damn time.
“It’s a sign!” Esther looks like her eyes are about to bug out of their sockets.
“Really? Another sign?”
“Yes!” she insists, slamming her hand down on the counter. “How do you keep missing them?”
Meanwhile, Camden’s just sitting here, nodding repeatedly, as if everything my sister is babbling on about makes perfect sense. “It’s true. There have been a lot.”
I stare back at her, somewhat horrified she’s seeing reason in all of this madness. “Are you kidding me? You see signs, too, now? You? The pessimistic ‘glass is half empty because it was going to spill sooner or later anyway’ girl who never fails to see the reason nothing will ever work out anyway? You’re seeing signs?”
She shrugs. “Of course I see signs. That’s how I know nothing will ever work out,” she says, straight-faced and very matter of fact. Then she lights up in a weird, very un-Camden-like way. “Except this time. Things look surprisingly promising. Or they would. If you would stop sabotaging fate and all.”
I really need to increase the levels of testosterone in my life.
“I’m not talking to you about fate.” I turn to stare at my sister. “How long does a goddamned grilled cheese sandwich take around here?”
She scowls. “Gonna take real long, you keep that attitude up. It’ll be burnt, too. And maybe lacking cheese.”
“Esther, speaking of lunch, could I put in an order for a grilled chicken salad, please?”
Esther’s expression doesn’t change much as she redirects her attention from me to Camden. “Would that be the LicketySplit Grilled Chicken Salad? Or some made up salad you’re about to describe to me in great detail while I tell you which ingredients we do and do not have to make your fantasy happen.”
Cam smirks. “The latter.”
“Figured.” She reaches under the bar and pulls out a full-sized notebook actually labeled “For Camden’s Orders,” and flips it to the first empty page she can find. Pen in hand, she looks up at Cam. “Alright, let’s do this, then. I got three tables walking in as we speak, so speed and efficiency will be a big proponent in seeing this salad of yours come to life today.”
Cam doesn’t need to be told twice. In record time, she rattles off a list of salad toppings and possible alternates should her first choices not be available. She ends her order on the dressing she knows my sister doesn’t carry but hopes one day she will if requested often enough, and suggests oil and vinegar as a substitute, knowing full well it’s what she’ll get.
When she’s done, she watches Esther stomp off to the kitchen in her usual annoyed-with-Camden stomp, then places her menu back behind the bar, looking utterly delighted with herself and, likely, her impending lunch.
“How are we even friends?”
She turns sideways to look at me. “No one else will put up with us.”
I could argue that Wade clearly has no problem putting up with me, but then he’s not currently speaking to me on account of my dumbassness. Which leaves me only one argument. “MaryBeth puts up with you.”
“Not today,” she simpers, unrolling the napkin wrapped around her silverware and delicately placing the wrinkled paper across her lap.
“Why?” My curiosity is piqued. I’m not the only one being a dumbass today.
She waves her hand, dismissing the issue as if it’s hardly even worth mentioning. “She caught me declining a phone call. Apparently, it was a rude thing to do.”
My eyes narrow. She’s totally downplaying a big thing. “Who was calling?”
Camden casually goes to take a drink of her sweet tea mumbling, “Lucy,” just as her lips touch the rim of the glass.
“I’m sorry.” I lean in, mostly to terrorize her, because I owe her. “Did you say... Lucy? As in, my cousin, Lucy?”
She sets her glass back onto the counter and purposely stares straight ahead. “That is the only Lucy I know.”
I grin. “Bet it’s the only one you’re all crazy in love with too.”
She scrunches up her mouth in an angry frown and glares at me. “Am not.”
“Liar.”
“Well, isn’t that just the pot calling the kettle black.”
I sigh. Moving back out of her space and sitting in my designated hole of humiliation again. “You’re right. No one else will put up with us.”
As if on cue, Esther moves through on her way to the register, muttering, “Dumbasses,” in passing.