Best Kept Secret (32 page)

I walk over to Peter’s office, nodding hello to the few people I recognize.

“Knock, knock,” I say, stepping through the doorway. Peter looks up from his computer and his furrowed brow falls smooth. A smile erupts across his wide, round face.

“Hey, Cadence!” he booms. “To what do we owe the honor?” He
hoists himself up from behind his desk and lumbers over to hug me. Beneath a heavy dose of his spicy cologne, he smells of ink and sweat.

I take a deep breath and release it before answering. “I want to talk with you about getting my job back.”

He pulls back and looks at me with large, brown eyes. He has shaved his beard since last I saw him, and his jowls appear bigger without it; there’s no delineation between his jaw and neck. “Have a seat,” he says, and gestures to the chair on the opposite side of his desk. He walks around and sits down, too.

I comply and smile nervously, linking my fingers in my lap. “I know things have to be tight around here, staff-wise. I thought my experience might come in handy. I can do anything you need me to.”

He sighs. “You know I’d love to hire you back.”

“Great! When do I start?” I laugh nervously, feigning a confidence I don’t feel.

He gives me a wan smile. “It’s just not in the budget right now, Cadee. I can’t do it.” He pauses. “The freelance market is tough, I know.”

“Even if it weren’t, I’d still be having a hard time coming up with anything to write about,” I say quietly. “I thought maybe if I got back on the paper, working the old standard stuff I’m used to, I’d get my groove back.”

“Writer’s block is a myth, and you know it. You just sit down and put words on the page. Something will show up. If I taught you anything, I taught you that.”

“I’ve tried,” I say. My voice shakes. “Nothing comes.” I look at him, tears in my eyes. “I really need a job, Pete. I need the money. So I can take care of Charlie.”

His expression falls from a smile to one of compassion. “I understand, Cadee. I wish I could help. But my hands are tied. The economy sucks. And people aren’t buying papers the way they used to. It’s all online. I’m not even sure how much longer
I’ll
have a job.”

I stand up and give him a fake smile. “I understand. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.”

“It was good to see you,” he says. “Keep in touch. And keep writing.”

I nod and head back out of the building. The rain has stopped, so I decide to take a walk instead of going home.
There’s nothing for me there.
I turn down Second Avenue, thinking I might head toward the Pike Place Market and get lost among the sights and sounds of the vendors. I try to figure out my next step. I’ve only walked a couple of blocks when a familiar voice pulls me out of my thoughts.

“Cadence! Hey, girl!”

I stop and look over to the entrance of a small cafe and see Serena standing there in black pants and a white, button-down blouse. Her cinnamon skin glows, and her dark braids are pulled back into a ponytail at the base of her neck. She is smiling.

“Hey, there,” I say, walking over to her. “How are you?”

“I’m good.” She hugs me. “You look like you’ve seen better days, though.”

I give her a half smile. “Yeah, I guess I have.”

“Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.” She takes my hand and leads me inside. “Welcome to Le Chat Noir. The Black Cat.” There are black leather booths along the wall and we end up sitting in one closest to the kitchen. I look around, taking in the aged, red-brick walls and brilliantly hued, Picasso-esque paintings hanging on almost every available inch of space. The tables are a warm-hued pine, accented by royal purple napkins with centerpieces of yellow gerberas.

“This is nice,” I say. “How long have you managed it?”

“Oh, let’s see. Since about two relapses ago?” She chuckles. “That would be ten years, give or take. What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

I tell her about my visit with Peter. “I’m just feeling really discouraged, you know? Nadine, the woman I just asked to be my sponsor, says I need a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Something to
structure my day. Not to mention the fact that I’m practically broke.”

She nods, then sighs and leans back against the booth’s cushioned backrest. “What else can you do besides write?”

“Not much,” I say. “I like to cook, but I don’t have any kind of training or experience where I could do it professionally.”

A sudden grin spreads across Serena’s face. “I need a server. Think you could do that?”

My chin jerks in toward my chest. “I don’t know,” I begin. “I’m not really sure . . .” I don’t want to disappoint her, but it has never crossed my mind to be a waitress. It’s right up there with my barista aspirations.

“You don’t have to be sure. It’s only four shifts, but it’s busy as hell around here. You’d make pretty decent tips.” She laughs. “Nothing you could retire on, of course, but it’d at least keep you occupied. It comes with insurance, too, if you work at least twenty hours a week.”

“Hmm,” I say. Besides my mortgage, my health insurance is one of the highest bills I pay.

“No ‘hmm’ about it. I’m sure your sponsor told you to get out and be of service. Mine always does. Well, ain’t
nothin’
more of service than being a server!” She laughs, and the sound is so infectious, I can’t help but laugh, too.

“Are you sure?” I ask, a strange mix of trepidation and excitement brewing in my gut. “I might be terrible. You might regret it.”

“I don’t regret nothing. And I’m not taking no for an answer.” She smacks the table with open palms. “Now, let’s feed you and get you an apron.”

I spend the rest of the afternoon in training. Serena shows me how to punch an order into the computer at the servers’ station and where it pops up on a screen back in the kitchen for the cooks to get started. I feel awkward at first, but focus on what she tries to teach me.

“Smiling’s the most important skill of this job,” she says. “Even if you don’t mean it, even if you’re having a shitty day, you put that smile on your face and look like you’ve never been happier to see anyone than the people sitting at your tables.”

“I should fake it, you mean.”
Oh, the irony. Wait until I tell Andi.

“Yep. Happiness only, though. Not orgasms.” She grins and I laugh.

“I don’t think I’m in any danger of that,” I say, though my mind flips briefly to Vince’s handsome face. It’s been so long—I’m not sure my body would remember what to do.

Serena has me take an order from a sweet old man who walks in about three o’clock. He uses a cane and wears a plaid fedora. “This here is Samuel,” she says. “He’s one of our regulars. Sam, this is Cadence. She’ll be taking care of you today.”

I give her a panicked look, but she just gives me a little push toward the table.

“Hi,” I say. “What can I get for you?”

Sam pulls off his hat to reveal a pale, shiny scalp, smiles at me, and says, “I’ll have my usual.”

“Um,” I murmur, throwing my gaze over to Serena, who has walked back to the kitchen.

Sam laughs, a broken, coughing sound. “Just kidding you, honey. I’ll take the curried roast turkey wrap with fruit instead of fries.”

I gulp as I scratch down his order on the notepad Serena gave me earlier. “Anything to drink with that?”

“Coffee, sweet and creamy.” He winks at me. “You’re a pretty lady. You’re gonna do well.”

I smile at him, feeling a bit more relaxed. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

Under Serena’s supervision, I take on six more tables over the next couple of hours, surprised by how quickly I pick up timing serving a table’s order and when to deliver the bill. By the time I’m through, I’ve made fifty dollars and for the first time in a while, I
feel like I’ve actually accomplished something. It isn’t rocket science, but it distracts my brain from the custody dispute and how much I miss my son.

“You’re a waitress?” Jess squeals when I stop by her house on my way home to tell her about my new job. “Do you get to wear roller skates?”

“Shut up,” I say, blushing a little. “It’s a nice place. And it’ll get me out of the house.”

She smiles and squeezes my hand. “I’m just teasing you, Flo. I can call you ‘Flo,’ right?”

“I’m going to smack you if you’re not careful.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It sounds like a good plan for you right now.” She pauses. “Have you talked with Mom again?”

I shook my head. “I don’t really know what to say to her right now.”

“I think she’s struggling, Cadee.”

“That makes two of us.”

She sighs and gives me an exasperated look.

I shrug. “I just feel like until she knows what she’s going to tell Mr. Hines, I’m not really sure what else we have to talk about.”

Jess snorts. “Oh, please. Only twenty years of unresolved conflicts.”

I think about my sister’s words on the drive home. I don’t know how to tell my mother how much I need her now any more than I did when I was a child. My mouth wouldn’t even know how to form the words. Still, I make myself pick up the phone when I get home.

“Can I ask you a question, Mom?” I say.

“Sure,” she says, though her tone is guarded. She is waiting for me to grill her about what she’s planning to say to Mr. Hines. But I won’t. I’m going to leave it up to her to tell me when she’s ready. If I push her on something she doesn’t want to talk about, she’ll clam up completely. That’s a trait I know we share.

“I’ve been wondering, since you told me about your mother, how you dealt with how she was. With her drinking . . . and everything.”

“I’ve dealt with it just fine, I think,” she says. “I haven’t let it control my life.”

“Okay, but
how
did you deal with it?”

“I don’t know, Cadence. I just lived. I worked.”

“My counselor at Promises says work can be an addiction, too. A way to escape your feelings.”

“I’m not addicted to work,” my mother snaps. “I’m passionate about what I do. Please don’t psychoanalyze me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, backing down. “I didn’t mean to.” I had no idea how to have these kinds of conversations with my mother. We’ve always kept so much to the surface; trying to connect with her on a deeper level feels like fumbling around for a light switch in a pitch-black room. I decide to take a different tack. “Can you at least tell me what was it
like
for you, growing up with your mom?”

“I thought I already did.”

“You told me what she did, not how it
felt
to be around her. I need to know . . . I want to understand what Charlie might be going through . . . so I can help him.” Tears break up the words in my throat and they come out disjointed.

“Oh, honey.” Her voice softens. “I’m certain you didn’t get as bad as my mother. She really wasn’t in her right mind. She’d been drinking so many years, the doctors called it ‘wet brain.’ She used to swish her mouth out with perfume to keep me from smelling the alcohol on her breath.”

“Oh my God,” I say. “Is
that
why you didn’t let us wear any?”

“Yes.”

“That’s awful.”

“The worst part was more the unpredictability, really. Never knowing what to expect.” I hear her take in a shuddering breath. “I tried to be a better mother than that to you girls.”

“You were.” I realize this is true. She may not have been the most available parent, but we never doubted she was working so hard because she loved us and wanted to give us the best that she
could. She did the best she could with the tools she’d been given.

We are both quiet for a moment, unused to this kind of emotionally charged exchange. She is the first to speak. “I still don’t know what I’m going to tell him,” she says softly, referring, I know, to Mr. Hines.

“It’s okay, Mom,” I say, blessed with a sudden understanding that it isn’t the mature, capable woman talking with me who doesn’t know what she is going to say. It’s the little girl trapped inside her who still can’t stand the scent of perfume.

T
he following Thursday, after
we rehash everything that happened with my mother over the past couple of weeks, my new job and my new sponsor, Andi and I talk about the friendship I’ve started to forge with Kristin.

“Did you really think you were that unique?” she asks. “Plenty of mothers use alcohol to manage their stress. You just happened to get caught. That makes you one of the lucky ones.”

“How do you figure that?” I say, now fiddling with the edge of my cardigan. I can’t seem to keep my hands still. My body feels like lit sparklers are lodged beneath my skin.

“Well, let’s look at the facts. How many times did you go to jail?”

“Never.”
Uh-oh,
I think.
Here she goes, questioning bullets, my name etched on each one of them, no one else to cushion her barrage.
I sink down a bit in my chair, wishing there was a place where I could take immediate cover.

“Okay. How many times did you deserve to?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, locking my hands together, drumming my fingers on the backs of my hands.

“Sure you do.” She is unflappable, leaning forward in her seat. “How many times did you drive with Charlie in the car when you were wasted?”

I squirm. “Okay. I get it. I know what you’re saying.”

“Do you? Charlie’s not dead. You’re not dead. Ergo, you are
lucky.
” She keeps her eyes on me, reading my reactions like a hawk. “Did you ever kill anyone else?”

“No,” I say quietly, now holding my body completely immobile. I don’t want to give her any further ammunition. I want to run away—it’s more difficult to hit a moving target.

“Again, lucky. Women go to jail every day because of their addiction issues, Cadee. They kill people. This disease isn’t picky about who has it.”

“But I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Yet.” She holds my gaze steady with her own. “You haven’t killed anyone
yet.
”

“I hate how that feels.”

“How what feels?”

“That I have a ‘disease.’ “ I hook my fingers into invisible quotation marks in the air around the word “disease.” “It sounds so pitiful.”