Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans (24 page)

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Chapter Twenty-Two

K
yle sees the dawn sunlight streaming through the windows, the sand pails and minnow nets set near the door, and realizes he spent the night on the front porch. The sea air smells sweet. The last thing he remembers is Lauren leaving to drive Taylor home from babysitting. He’d sat on the wicker lounge chair, all his worry lifted and he fell immediately asleep. Lauren must have draped a light blanket over him and he slept soundly for the first time in months.

But as he stretches the kinks out now, anxiety creeps right back. Today is his last day working at the diner. After that, a big empty nothing stretches before him. No job, no money. He takes a quick shower in the outside cabana, then looks in at the kids and Lauren sleeping upstairs. When he bends to kiss Lauren goodbye, he knows it wasn’t a dream. Last night on the beach really happened. She wraps her arms around his neck and meets his mouth with a long, lazy kiss. But he can’t be late for Jerry. “Have a good day,” Lauren tells him as he backs away, holding her hand until it slips from his.

With a coffee-to-go on the seat, he drives in to work. Jerry, tanned and relaxed, scrambles eggs and fries sausages alongside him all morning. The radio is tuned to a local talk show and the waitresses keep the orders coming. It is too busy to talk shop until Jerry closes up early, placing the red
Closed
sign in the door right after one o’clock.

“Owners can do things like that,” he tells Kyle.

“Are you sure? We can talk later, after the lunch crowd.”

“It’s my first day back. I’m tired. What I want to do is review what happened here while I was gone.” He pours them each a cup of fresh coffee. “And I want to tell you about my vacation.”

Kyle sits on a stool. At least he’ll get back to the cottage early and get a head start on his vacation, such as it will be. It is warm in the diner and his shirt clings to the center of his back. His fingers toy with the bent corner of a black binder on the counter. The binder holds the bills and supply orders he processed during the past weeks, clipped and sorted by date and category. He flattens the binder corner and tries to press out the crease.

“I really don’t need to see those.” Jerry sits on the stool beside Kyle and moves the binder back to him. “Not if you accept my offer.” He slides a legal sized manila folder in front of Kyle.

Kyle looks up from the folder to Jerry’s face.

“Open it.” Jerry nods toward the folder.

Kyle doesn’t believe the words he reads until Jerry explains.

“Twenty-five years in the business is long enough, Kyle. This vacation, not to mention my wife, convinced me that it’s time to retire.”

“Retire?” Kyle tears his eyes from the sales contract bearing his name and squints at Jerry.

“From owning the business. My family planned my vacation as an enticement to slow down. The kids even pitched in and bought me that used boat I’ve always dreamed about. Imagine that? My boat. Nothing big, just enough to tool around out in the Sound, do a little fishing. But I’ll need some part-time work to keep me out of trouble, too. Do you think you could use me here?”

“Wow.” The shock of it moves Kyle right off the stool in a frantic walk around the diner. His hands light on different objects in the room. A booth back, a stack of menus, a chair that needs straightening. He can’t stop touching pieces of the diner. “Do you realize what this means?”

“Of course I do. No one else will keep this ship afloat the way you will.” Jerry watches him with a knowing nod. “I’m leaving her in good hands, Captain.”

Kyle walks to the door and looks out at the parking lot.
His
parking lot. He turns back and sees the fishing net Jerry had hung on the side wall years ago. And the anchors and buoys placed here and there.
A big, shiny silver ship
, Kyle once said to him.

“Now get out of here,” Jerry tells him after they discussed the financial details for an hour, “and talk it over with your wife and your attorney. Enjoy your vacation and take that time to really think about buying this place before you give me an answer.” He stands and closes the folder.

“You’re kidding, right?” Kyle asks. He grabs Jerry in a long hug, slapping him on the back. “There’s nothing to think about. I’m in.”

“I know, kid, I know.” Jerry walks him to the door and they shake hands. “Talk to your wife anyway. I’ll see you in a week, okay?”

Kyle doesn’t even remember the drive back to Stony Point. Only one thought fuels his trip there. The Dockside. Its every visual detail runs through his mind: the chrome stools, the red padded booths, the beautiful stoves, the boat décor. When he passes the Gallaghers’ home, he pulls into the driveway, jumps out of the pickup nearly before it stops moving and walks right into the house with a quick knock at the door. He walks through the porch, through the newly papered living room, heading to the kitchen unable to contain himself. “Gallagher?” he calls out.

Matt, reading the paper at the kitchen table, looks up to see Kyle standing there, jangling his keys. “Kyle. I thought you were Eva. Make yourself at home, why don’t you?”

“Thanks.” Kyle swings a painted chair around backward at the mahogany table and sits down, leaning his arms over the top. “You are never going to believe this. Shit, I can’t believe it.”

“What’s going on?” Matt asks. He moves the newspaper aside.

Kyle jumps up and grabs two cold cans of beer from the refrigerator, setting one in front of Matt. “Cheers, guy, to The Dockside. We have to christen my new boat.”

“What? The diner?” Matt opens his can and takes a swallow of the beer.

“It’s like I won the friggin’ lottery. It’s too damn good to be true.” After a long drink, Kyle keeps talking, all the while walking around the room. “I was glad that Lauren and I were working things out, you know? That was enough. And then, shit, Jerry put this on the table.” He looks up at the ceiling, laughing. “I know that place inside out, Matt. It’s my second home. I can’t believe it. I mean, I thought his kids would take over, but they’re not interested.” He runs his hand over the new granite countertop. “Never have been, according to Jerry. They’ve got big careers and are glad to see the diner go to me. Imagine?”

“What a break. Congratulations.” Matt holds up his can in a toast. “You’ll do right by that old diner. What did Lauren say?”

Kyle sits down again and takes a breath. “Okay, here’s the thing. She doesn’t know yet. I want to surprise her. Can I leave my truck here for a while?”

“Sure, why? What’s up?”

Kyle shakes his head. He doesn’t want to tell. “Does Eva have any shopping bags around? Big ones, like from a department store?”

Matt searches the broom closet off the kitchen. “I don’t know, how’s this?” He holds up a big square bag with heavy looped twine handles.

“Perfect. Everything’s perfect, man.” Kyle finishes his beer before spinning his chair back in place. “Thanks, guy. When you see Eva, tell her
do not
tell Lauren. I want to surprise her. And listen, I’ll be back for my truck in an hour or so.” Kyle walks out of the house, the bag folded in a neat square under his arm as he walks toward the far end of the beach.

“I still can’t believe you’re doing this,” Taylor says. “Are you sure?”

Eva flashes a grin. “Do you want to try, too?”

“No way.” Taylor drops into a seat and reaches for a magazine, all the while keeping an eye on her mother.

When Eva sits in the salon chair, her damp hair toweled dry, she touches its length distractedly.

“Okay, Eva,” her hairdresser says. “So you’re taking the plunge. How short do you want to go?”

“To my shoulders. With lots of layers. To about right here.” She motions with her hand up along the side of her head, at the same time searching for the reflection she saw this morning when Matt stood behind her and pulled her hair back. She really noticed her cheekbones then, and her eyes. Women say there comes a time when they look into the mirror and see that they’ve actually become their mother. Does she look like hers? “It has to all be off my face, and I want these colored ends cut off.” She needs to find her mother this way, too. To know she is seeing something of her in the reflection. The hairdresser runs her fingers over the ends still holding on to the ash blonde dye. Eva wants that feeling back now, that spark of recognition that she did get when Matt pressed her hair back and said how it was funny that more than anyone, she looked a little like Maris around the eyes.

Maris spends the afternoon on the beach, hidden beneath a straw cowboy hat, watching the families around her. Young or old, it is the mothers and sisters who draw her eye with the way they speak to each other. The way they sit together. The way they touch. She had all that for only the briefest time, which makes her miss it all the more right now, sitting among it. So instead she pulls a novel from her beach tote, but the words swim out of focus until she shuts the book and sets it aside.

She reclines in her sand chair at the water’s edge, her own saga opening in her mind; there is no need to read one on the page or watch those around her. With her cowboy hat pulled low and Attorney Riley’s appointment only days away, the questions keep coming. Did a baby die in the car accident that took her mother? What family motive kept her existence from Maris? And then there is the empty Italian jewelry box she found in the carton with the 8mm home movie. Is there another pendant meant for a sister? Did her aunt in Italy know the secret then, too? Is the box from her? And where is Elsa? Where are the answers?

By late afternoon when the sun’s shadows fall long, she packs her lotion and book and comb into her canvas bag. The rays are weaker now and she tips her chair back and closes her eyes behind her sunglasses.

“A dinner for your thoughts?”

She sits up to see Jason standing there wearing an old concert tee, wrinkled cargo shorts, a paint scraper still in one pocket, his face unshaven. Even needing a shave, she notices the scar slightly raised above his jawline. “Hey, Jason. That sounds an awful lot like an invitation?”

“It is.” He leans an arm on the side of her chair, balancing as he crouches. “So you free for dinner? Maybe a minigolf rematch after?”

“Oh, am I ever. Being alone with your thoughts is so overrated.” She stands and picks up her tote. “I’m ready to head back. Let me change and feed the dog first.”

“Okay. We’ll keep it easy, maybe go out for a pizza.”

They walk back to Maris’ cottage together, but Jason continues on. Maris has just enough time to shower and slip on a denim skirt and black tank with leather flip-flops before he picks her up for dinner.

Now a hot chicken and eggplant pizza cools on a raised silver platter between them. More than a decade has passed since she’s been at Ronni’s Pizza, but nothing’s changed. It is one of those pure time-machine places, always a full house of people and noise, of wooden chairs scraping about, of pizza trays sliding from the big ovens, of the telephone ringing with take-out orders, and of talk.

“This is the best seat in the house.” Maris slides a pizza slice onto her dish. “I used to come here with Eva twenty years ago and it was always a contest to spot the train first.” She turns to the large window at their table. Across the street, behind patches of scrubby grass, the railroad tracks run by. Beyond those are East Bay, then Long Island Sound further out. Train tracks and water extend for as far as the eye can see.