Bittersweet (12 page)

I stare ahead silently. She’s right. And what would he want with some local waitress anyhow? A one-night stand, that’s what. I should count myself lucky, I guess.

“Cathy, are you OK?”

I pull into the parking lot at JJ’s and switch off the van’s engine, sighing. “Well, I feel pretty damn stupid,” I say, focusing on picking at the foam coming out of a hole in the steering wheel. “Honestly? That night Greg and I had… It felt like maybe…” I glance over at Max and she frowns in concern, but lets me go on. “I thought maybe we connected, that’s all. I should have known this would happen. What did I think, he’d abandon the bright lights of New York City to come live in
Dogwood
, happily ever after?” I pick harder at the steering wheel, until Max reaches over to stop me.

“Cathy, this is what life’s all about. Trying things, seeing if they work out—”

“If they work out?” I laugh mirthlessly. “I am surrounded by failed relationships.”

Maxine pulls back and folds her arms. “Excuse me? Me and Todd are very happy.”

“Yeah, OK, Mrs. Lincoln,” I retort, though I know it’s a bit of a low blow. But because she’s Maxine, she lets it slide, rolling her eyes.

“Honey, a couple of bad apples don’t mean the whole orchard should be … burned to the ground, or whatever? You know what I mean. Greg’s an asshole, so what? That doesn’t mean all men are.”

I know she’s still trying to pick me up, but I’m too far into my funk right now to let her. “I’m just sick of people up and leaving when something better comes along. Jeff. My … my freaking
mother
? And how ironic,
she’s
a so-called actor too.” I shake my head. “No. I’m done with all that, and I’m sure as hell done with Greg the Mendacious Asshole.”

“Mendacious?” Max raises an eyebrow. “Wow. Nice. Well, good—you’re done with
mendacious men
.” She smiles and holds out her hand like we’re shaking on an agreement. I pump it, but then hold on for a while.

“Maxi? Thanks. And thanks for helping out today.”

She shrugs. “It was fun to rub shoulders with the beautiful people for a while. But I guess they’ve got their world and we’ve got ours, huh?” She smirks devilishly as she opens the door and swings her legs out. “For now at least.”

I watch as Max slings her purse over her shoulder and strides away, waving over her shoulder.

Maybe our worlds
are
separate. I really did mean what I said about not wanting to make bad decisions any more, but… But then I think about the way Greg looked at me, even today, and how just his hand on my arm sent chills all over my body. The way he really seemed to wish things were different.

My head is telling me to forget him.

But my body? And my
heart
? They’re total traitors.

* * *

I lean against the counter and smile at Mr. Mendelsohn as he slowly spoons his scrambled eggs into his mouth. He chews carefully and then smiles back.

“Thank you, Cathy, sweetheart,” he says.

“You’re welcome, Mr. M,” I say, straightening up and swiping a cloth over the surface. He’s a sweet old guy. Next birthday he’ll be eighty-eight, and he always tells me it’s his lucky number and that he’s going to take me on a date.
How come I never see you with a young man?
he always asks. But I don’t think it’s polite to talk about the cluster-fuck that’s my love life to such a nice gentleman.

The breakfast rush is just about over when I hear the bell ding over the door, and look up to see Blaine Denton striding over to me with his blinding grin.

“Cathy, hi,” he says. “Just thought I’d come get a little more of that delicious JJ’s grub—and also give you this.” He hands over a check, and I blush a little. “You were in such a hurry to head off yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to pay you the rest of your fee. Thanks a bunch for coming through for us on that. Great job. If we ever need additional catering I’ll know where to turn, huh?”

I smile and thank him for bringing the check over, then take his breakfast order, swallowing down a chuckle when he orders an egg-white omelet. I know Bobby’s going to laugh at the very idea, but the menu does say “Eggs Any Way You Want ’Em.”

I hear my dad bustling through from the back, and he comes over to us, grinning broadly when he spies Blaine’s Screen/West baseball cap.

“Hi, I’m Joe Johnson,” my dad says warmly.

“Ah, Joe, yes, hi—we spoke on the phone,” Blaine says, reaching over to shake my dad’s hand vigorously. I look between the two of them, feeling uncomfortable. Did my dad call to make sure I didn’t mess things up or something…?

“Yeah, that’s right,” Joe replies. “So the kid’s gonna start on…”

“On Monday, if that’s all right with you?” Blaine says.

“Of course, of course.”

OK, what the hell are they talking about? “Did I miss something?” I ask, smiling cautiously as I look at them both questioningly.

“Oh, yeah, Cath—Blaine and his colleague, uh … Tiffany, was it?” Joe asks. Blaine nods, and my dad continues. “Yeah, they wanted to arrange for one of the actors to come shadow here at the restaurant for a week, seeing as his character works in a diner?”

Blaine nods again. “Yes, that’s right—since I’d already reached out to you guys about the catering, Tiff got me to liaise with your dad here about having Greg Moran come get a feel for work in a small-town restaurant, you know?”

Oh. God.

Joe chuckles. “I kind of figured that was why they called it acting, you know, but apparently the director thought it would help. It’s a
method
thing, I guess, like Brando and his buddies, huh?” he booms, laughing. “Still, if it’ll help…”

Blaine smiles. “Well, we’ll have another check for you next week, Joe.”

“That’ll
definitely
help,” my dad retorts, and they both laugh, seeing who can outdo the other for most ear-splitting, it seems.

I’m still trying to process what’s happening.

“Greg Moran … one of the actors … is coming here to work for a week?”
Greg
Greg? The expression on my face clearly sucks some of the mirth from Joe.

“Yeah. Is that all right?” He smiles a little anxiously at me, and I know he’s still thinking about that check.

“Uh, of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” I say quickly. I can hardly tell Joe why I find the very notion of Greg “shadowing” here incredibly awkward. Somehow I doubt my dad wants to hear about his daughter having one-night stands with soon-to-be-famous actors. Oh god, this is going to be terrible. “Great!” I hear myself add.

Yeah, just fantastic. I head off to place Blaine’s egg-white order, and start to frantically think of avoidance strategies. It’s bad enough I can hardly sleep at night without thinking about Greg. I don’t need my waking, working moments filled with him too.

But a tiny part of me, the part usually shouted down by the cautious voice of reason in my head…? That tiny, hopeful part of me is jumping for joy.

I pull a face at the little kid outside the ice-cream shop as I slurp loudly at the bottom of my milkshake, and he giggles. It feels even hotter in Bakersville than it did an hour ago in Dogwood, but the farmer’s market is the best in the area. Since I’m getting used to driving the van now anyway, and we had a lunchtime rush keeping most of the rest of the staff busy, Joe wasn’t too suspicious about my volunteering to go and pick up some supplies. But in reality, of course, it’s because it’s day one of Project Humiliation, with Greg helping out at the restaurant to get a feel for us little people and our quaint small-town eateries, all the better to convey it to a teen TV audience. I couldn’t wait to find an excuse to get out of there.

I suck on my straw again, but come up with nothing, so drop it into the trash and push my sunglasses up on my nose as I walk slowly and reluctantly back to the van. At least I managed to pick up some organic baby eggplants and home-made salted ricotta—I’m planning to collude with Bob and sneak a new dish onto the menu. Joe may not like it, but I’m pretty sure we can win his taste buds over.

I wind down the windows before I load the bags of groceries from the market into the back, because the air-con doesn’t do shit and a half-hour in the sun has made the van more like an oven. I get in the driver’s seat and pull out a compact from my bag, trying to take some of the shine off my forehead, and shaking my head in dismay at my reflection in the rear-view mirror.
Stop caring, damn it.

It’s not like Greg even gave me more than a nod hello when he arrived at the restaurant this morning, and Joe said he wouldn’t be doing a whole shift. He should be fairly easy to avoid. But just in case… I want to at least feel confident that I don’t look like a sweaty, shiny mess when I get back. I spent twenty minutes more than usual getting ready this morning too, with this same nervous-yet-irritated churning in the pit of my stomach.

I start the engine and hope that by the time I get back to the restaurant, Greg’s “acting prep” will be done for the day. It’s actually a pretty nice drive back, and I crank up the radio and sing along loudly to old Motown hits as I zip along the open road back toward Dogwood. Well, as much as this old heap
can
zip along. By the time I pull into the parking lot of Joe Johnson’s, the sun is taking on the amber hue of late afternoon, and my hair has been well and truly buffeted by the wind. I’m distracted, still singing with the windows down as I park, until I look up and see Greg leaning against the wall out back, just by the door. He’s obviously taking a break, and he glugs from a glass bottle of Coke, his eyes closed and the sun on his face, an apron tied around his waist. I stare, because, well… He looks like something out of a TV ad. No wonder they plucked him out of that play. I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his muscular throat, and his lips parting as he pulls the bottle away, a slight smile on his lips, his eyes still closed. His dark hair and stubble glow a warmer brown in the sunlight, and then his eyes open and he lowers his gaze and… Catches me staring. Of course. He grins widely, but then his face begins to fall, like he remembers he’s not meant to do that around me.

I look away and quickly jump out of the van, slide open the door, and start to haul the bags of fruit and vegetables out of the back. But then, suddenly, I see a pair of strong, tanned arms reaching in next to me to grab another sack.

“Let me help you,” Greg says, glancing at me as if to check it’s OK.

“Uh, thanks,” I say. We carry the bags in through the open back door and set them down in the kitchen. Bobby looks over at the two of us and I see a little smile playing on his lips that I deliberately ignore. Instead, I head back out to get the last of the sacks, and hear Greg follow me. I turn to say something, just because I feel like I should, and notice him staring at my hair. My hand reaches up and I remember how windy it was in the van. My hair’s all over the place and I rake my fingers through it while he watches me.

“Had the windows down,” I volunteer, squirming under his gaze and wishing I didn’t sound so weird.

“No, it looks … good,” he says, then looks at the ground. “I think I’ve seen it look a little like that before.” He says it quietly, but there’s no mistaking what he means when he looks up again and I see his blue eyes twinkle. I bite the inside of my cheek.

“I think that’s a topic best avoided,” I say, my voice sounding too husky. I clear my throat. I wanted to say something more scolding, but I’m too busy trying to calm down the need his words spark inside me. We both reach into the van and grab the last two sacks without saying anything else.

Fifteen minutes later I’m filling up jugs at the drinks station when Joe reminds Greg he can finish up for the day. I glance up at the clock—I’m only halfway through my shift, even though he started at the same time as me.

“Yeah, really getting that authentic experience,” I mutter to myself, and then blush as I realize Greg’s walking past me. He chuckles a little, overhearing me, and I blush even more. He comes to a stop beside me, undoing his apron.

“I know. It’s dumb,” he says, pushing his hand through his hair. “I thought it was ridiculous when they suggested it—I mean, I worked at the bakery all through high school. But then when they said this little method-acting exercise was going to be here at JJ’s, I thought… Well, it started to sound a lot less dumb, I guess.” He looks at me for a beat longer, twirling the string of his apron around his fingers. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Cathy.”

He walks through to the back and I nearly spill the water jug I was filling as I stare after him. Why does he keep doing that—making this weird, intense
thing
crackle between us? I jump as I hear the phone ring, and then snap out of it and go to check on the orders for my tables, trying to push him out of my mind. Anyway, Greg’s wrong—I won’t see him tomorrow, because I deliberately took the day off. I still have a lot of vacation time to take, and I figure as many days as I can find a reason to avoid him, the better. Then Torture Week will be over and I can relax again, and he can go off and be this big actor, and we can all get on with our lives.

But when I walk past the office, I see my dad checking over the schedules and frowning.

“What’s up, Joe?” I ask, leaning against the doorframe.

“That was Helen on the phone. She’s got the flu, so she’s going to be out for a couple of days.” He sighs, his big bushy eyebrows rising up. “I know you had the day off tomorrow, but—”

“Of course,” I say quickly, holding up a hand. I hate the stressed-out look on his face, and I feel a stab of guilt at even thinking I should take a random day off just to avoid stupid mistakes and … crackling intensity. “Don’t even worry about it. I didn’t have any plans anyway.”

Joe smiles at me, and I wink and head back onto the floor. As I set up another table, I frown to myself. I noticed something else on my dad’s desk—usually he doesn’t leave paperwork lying around because he doesn’t want me or anyone else snooping, but I’m pretty sure the bill I saw had the unmistakable red stamp of “past due” on it.

I sigh and look around the restaurant. It
is
kind of quiet, even for a Monday night. Getting that money from the
Bittersweet
producers definitely won’t hurt. I think again about Greg agreeing to do the shadowing, even though working in a diner is obviously not that different from working at his dad’s bakery. He said himself it was ridiculous, and I’m sure he could have easily refused. Even if he’s kind of, maybe, sort of, coming here because of me, he’s also doing us a real favor. And the fact that he recommended us for the catering too…? I get the feeling he really understands that small businesses like ours need all the extra dollars they can get.