Butternut Summer (39 page)

“September twenty-first. That's less than a month away.”

She nodded.

“Do you have the money?”

She shook her head.

“Can you
get
the money?”

She shook her head again. Jack stared at her in disbelief. “Look,” she said, defensively, “I've done the math. Backwards, forwards, and sideways. I've added up my worth a hundred times over, meager as it is. I've even thought of selling the few things of value I own, like Grandma Pearl's wedding china.”
And my wedding ring
, she thought, but didn't say. She'd often wondered, over the years, why she'd kept it, in its little black velvet box, in her top dresser drawer. Now, of course, she didn't want to examine that question too closely.

“Are you sure they won't let you refinance your mortgages?” Jack asked.

“No, I tried, believe me. But John Quarterman can't help me. He would, if he could, but three years ago, the bank was bought by another, Chicago-based bank. And they said I'm not a good risk.”

“And you don't have any other ideas?”

“Well, my employees, I mean my
employee
, Frankie, would like to help. He's willing to give me everything he's got. But everything he's got still isn't enough.”

“Did you . . . did you ever tell Buster about any of this?” Jack asked hesitantly.

“No, thank God. Because if Buster had known, he would have loaned me the money.
Given
me the money, more likely. And then when I ended things with him, I mean, when we ended things with each other,” she corrected herself, quickly, “it would have been . . .”

“Awkward?” Jack supplied.

“Awkward,” Caroline agreed.

“But, Caroline, business has gotten better, hasn't it?”

She nodded. “It has. But it's all I can do now to keep up with the monthly payments on the two mortgages.”

“So what happens when you miss the balloon payment?”

“I'll try to negotiate an extension with the bank that will give me time to sell the building and pay off the mortgages. After that, I should just about break even, I think.”

Jack massaged his temples now. He looked like he was having trouble taking this all in. “So you're just going to give up?” he said finally. “You're just going to let Pearl's go without a fight?”

“Without a fight?” she echoed, feeling a pulse of anger at her temples. “Jack, I've been fighting for Pearl's my whole life—every single day. But this . . .” She paused. “This has got me beat.”

“But . . . there's something I don't understand. I asked Daisy, last year, how the two of you were doing. Financially, I mean. And she said you were doing fine.”

“That's because we
are
doing fine, as far as Daisy knows. I've never told her about any of this. And you're not going to either, Jack,” she added warningly.

He shook his head slowly. “So many secrets in one little family,” he said, a bleak smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “But you can't keep this from her for much longer, Caroline.”

“I know. She'll find out about it. But
after
the fact, after she's back at college.”
Safely
back at college, she added to herself.

“Caroline—” Jack started to say, but she waved his objection away.

“No. She's not going back to Minneapolis with this hanging over her like some dark cloud. I'll tell her when I have to tell her. But by then, she'll be almost home free. The first member of my family to graduate from college. And the first member not to be saddled with debt from the get-go. Think about it, Jack. Three generations of us—me, my parents, my grandparents—have spent our whole lives trying to stay one step ahead of the bank. Daisy's life is going to be different. That's why she can't slip up now. She thinks she's in love with Will, I know. This all seems so wonderful to her, so magical. But it's not enough.”

“No,” he said quietly. “Not from your perspective, it isn't.” He paused then and seemed to struggle with something. “But what will
you
do, Caroline, when Pearl's is . . . is gone?”

She flinched at those words. Because no matter how much that place had felt like an albatross hanging around her neck for the last several years, she still loved it, of course. How could she not? She'd spent so much of her life there, had so many memories there. Not all of them were good, of course, but many of them were. And it tore at her heart now, thinking about Pearl's belonging to someone else—or, worse yet, ceasing to exist altogether.

“Butternut without Pearl's,” Jack said out loud, as if reading her mind. “I can't picture it. And I'm not sure anyone else in town can either.”

She didn't say anything. What was there, really, to say? There wasn't a single person who'd grown up in that town who hadn't spun on the red leather stools at the counter, memorized the menu inside and out, and ordered the Butternut Burger five hundred times over.

But Jack, apparently, was less worried about her customers than he was about her. “What will you do, Caroline,” he persisted, “if you have to . . . let it all go?”

“I'll be fine,” she said, quickly. “I can always waitress. Or manage a restaurant.”

“But could you work for someone else? You've never done that before.”

“Well, there's a first time for everything,” she said, with a nonchalance she didn't really feel.

“And where would you live?”

“Oh, some place,” she said vaguely. “Frankie rents a apartment over the Laundromat, and I was thinking about doing the same thing. But they're tearing that building down; he'll have to find a new place to live now, too.”

Jack sighed, and Caroline watched him as he picked up a little plastic creamer and, peeling the lid off it, poured it into his cup of coffee. The coffee would be lousy, Caroline knew, and ice cold to boot. Jack seemed lost in thought, though, as he stirred it distractedly, and Caroline was free to look at him,
really
look at him, and marvel once again at how much she liked looking at him, even in her current mood. God, he was something else. Even under the cafeteria's fluorescent lighting, and even with a day's growth of beard, and a line of worry between his eyes, he looked better than any man had a right to look. And as she watched him take a sip of his coffee, she wondered, if he'd been just a little
less
good-looking, would any of what had happened between them still have happened? Would they, for instance, have had the daughter who right now was lying upstairs in a hospital bed?

No, she decided, Jack's looks had only been part of the draw. His charm had been the rest, his charm and his all-the-time-in-the-world smile that she'd never been able to resist. That smile was nowhere in evidence today, she realized, as Jack put his cup of coffee down and started to systematically shred his paper napkin. No, he didn't look like he was even close to smiling. He looked . . .
he looked angry
, she realized with surprise. “Jack, that's not fair,” she said, her own temper flaring.

“What's not fair?” he asked, looking up at her, and leaving a little pile of pulverized paper napkin on his tray.

“You're being angry at me. You promised you wouldn't judge me.”

“I'm not judging you. And I'm not angry at you either. I'm angry at myself.”

“Why?” she asked, taken aback.

“Because it all makes sense to me now, Caroline,” he said, leaning closer. His voice was quiet, but urgent. “I've known since the first time I saw you at Pearl's, at the beginning of the summer, that there was something wrong. I saw it—the exhaustion, the stress, the worry—but at the same time, I didn't see it. Instead, I saw what I wanted to see, which was that you were still the same woman I'd fallen in love with. And you are. In so many ways, you are. But in one important way you're not. Because the woman I fell in love with wasn't carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she didn't feel as alone as you feel now, as alone as you've felt for a long, long time. The woman I fell in love with actually thought, crazily enough, that she'd found someone in her life who would help her, and support her, and—”

“Jack, stop,” Caroline said, stunned to discover that there were tears in her eyes. “Just stop, all right? I mean, what's the point of dredging all of that up now? What happened, happened. We both did our best.”

“
You
did your best. I did . . . I did something less than my best.”

“It doesn't matter,” she said, blinking back the tears that still wanted to come pouring out. “None of that matters now. Can't you see that? What matters now is Daisy. And we need to be there for her, again, in a little while, and we can't bring all of this”—she waved her hand between the two of them—“with us.”

“You're right,” Jack agreed.

And Caroline took a deep breath, relieved that the urge to cry had passed, though in its place was an aching sadness that didn't feel much better.

“You go ahead upstairs without me, all right?” Jack said now. “There's something I need to do first.”

Caroline nodded, uncertainly. He wasn't going to have a drink, was he?

But he caught the expression on her face and shook his head. “I'm not going to a bar, Caroline. There's someone I need to see.”

She nodded, embarrassed that her thoughts had been so transparent. “That's fine, Jack,” she said. “I'll hold the fort down here.” She stood up, and, taking her tray with her, she started to leave the table. But Jack stopped her.

“Caroline?”

“Yes?”

“Could I . . . could I see the bank documents?”

“Which ones?” she frowned.

“All of them, anything having to do with the loan.”

“Why?” she asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Because I might have an idea you haven't had yet, a fresh perspective on the situation.”

She wavered.

“Look, it can't hurt, can it?” he said. “Just let me take a look at them, all right?”

“All right,” she said finally. “But I've read the fine print, Jack.”

“I know. But you'll still get all the papers together for me? By, say, early this week?”

“Why not?” she said, turning away again. After all, Jack was right; it couldn't hurt. It couldn't
help
, either. But it couldn't hurt.

W
hen Will walked into Daisy's hospital room that evening and saw her wearing a hospital gown and propped up on pillows on a hospital bed, he felt a jolt of fear. Even by Daisy's standards she was pale, and her blue eyes were shadowed with fatigue. As soon as she saw him, though, her whole face lit up and she looked better, much better. “Will, you came,” she said, sitting up.

“Of course I came,” he said, and as he walked over to her bedside he felt a rush of protectiveness for her. She looked so fragile somehow, so helpless in that gown, and in that bed.

“How did you even know I was here?” she asked as he leaned over and kissed her, very carefully, on the cheek.

“Your dad came over to the garage,” he said, pulling a chair over to sit down on.

“He did?” she said, her eyes widening with surprise. “He didn't tell me he was going to do that. I would have called you, Will, but I didn't have my cell phone. I was hoping that after my parents left I could use the phone at the nurses' station. But I'm so glad I didn't need to. I have to thank my dad later.”

“So do I. But, Daisy, when I opened the door to my apartment, and I saw him standing there, I swear to God, I think my heart stopped beating. I knew he wouldn't be there unless something was wrong. And when he told me you were in the hospital . . .” He paused, unable to put the way he'd felt into words. “Just, just promise me you won't do something like this again, okay?” he said.

“I won't. I promise,” Daisy said, looking faintly amused. “I mean, I only had that one appendix.”

“You know what I mean,” Will said seriously.

“I do, Will. And I swear, no more medical emergencies. Now, are you going to give me the flowers you brought or not?”

Will looked down at the flowers in his hands, which he'd completely forgotten. He gave them to Daisy.

“They're so pretty,” she said admiringly.

“There wasn't much of a selection in the hospital gift shop,” he said. “I'll do better next time.”

“Next time, Will? Is bringing me flowers going to become a regular occurrence?” she asked, smiling and looking so much like herself again that Will felt his stomach begin to unclench.

“Daisy, if it'll make you happy,” he said. “I'll bring you flowers every single day.”

He took the flower arrangement from her then and put it down on her bedside table. There was another arrangement there, too, as well as a teddy bear. A “get well soon” Mylar balloon was floating in the corner of the room.

He reached for one of her hands and held it in both of his, then worried that it felt cold.

“Do you want me to ask the nurse for another blanket?”

She shook her head. “No, I'm fine. But, Will, did you see my mom when you got here?” she asked.

He nodded. “She's in the visitors' lounge.” He didn't tell Daisy about the icy reception he'd gotten from her.

“She's really mad, Will.” She sighed. “She said we needed to talk later, which is always a bad sign. I think . . . I think she's going to blame you for this somehow. Which is ridiculous, obviously. And do you know what else is ridiculous?” she added indignantly. “The fact that I'm old enough to drive, and vote and drink and gamble and own a firearm but, according to her, apparently, I'm still not old enough to spend the night with my boyfriend.”

Will didn't say anything. He didn't want to take sides, especially since he thought her mom's anger at him was not entirely unjustified. He'd known there was something wrong with Daisy on the drive back. He should have pushed her harder to tell him what it was. In fact, he should have taken her straight to a hospital. Yes, she'd gotten to one eventually, but what if she hadn't gotten to one in time? No sooner did he have that thought, though, than he dismissed it. It was too terrible for him to even contemplate.