In Her Way (6 page)

7

Ribbon Cutting

The next day is full of us working and sweating-the-small-stuff since that's really all that's left. In between, Em and I do a lot of frantic walking around, then stopping, looking about, smiling, deep breathing, and then walking around again. I can't believe this is really happening or that it all feels so right. Kaylee seems to either have healed (miraculously) or realized the crutches were doing shit for her back (more likely) and is back to her pleasant, non-aluminum-monster version of herself.

By the time the sun's dipping behind the mountains, spreading a peachy glow across the water, we've finally tied up all of our loose floss-like ends and the five of us head out to a pre-opening day dinner to celebrate.

"Our treat, of course!" Em exclaims as we walk downtown to The Yellow Chair, a small fancier Italian restaurant, one of the more expensive in the down town area.

The girls whoop and we laugh as we make giddy conversation about tomorrow and are seated by one of the bigger picture windows looking out over the water.

"Good luck tomorrow, ladies," our hostess says before leaving. Em and I came by last week to ask if we could hang one of our fliers on their community board back by the bathrooms, so she knows about our business opening.

"Thanks!" we say in five-speaker-stereo.

A waitress comes to take our orders, which isn't worth mentioning, until she gets to Kaylee. (I can tell you're already cringing. Good.) Our dewy-faced secretary tips her head to the side and looks at the menu as if it's written in Russian rather than plain old English. She also seems to have forgotten the poor woman standing here waiting, surely having seven other places to be at the moment and at least three other tables to be checking on.

Em clears her throat. All of us watch Kaylee.

"Um. Can you tell me what's in the Angel in the Garden dish?"

The waitress sighs, but not in a rude way, more of a happy-to-do-something way. "Its a plate of our homemade angel hair spaghetti tossed in olive oil and mixed with lightly sautéed fresh vegetables from local farms. It's topped with aged Parmesan and Romano cheeses." She watches Kaylee, holding her pen at the ready over her order pad.

Kaylee chews on her bottom lip and scrunches one cheek up so her eye gets all squinty. "Does that have gluten in it?"

Now, we're into the twenty-first century here and we, as a society, are so much more accepting of alternative diet choices than ever (kudos to us). I'm super-all-for people making eating choices that fit their life style. Heck, Nick, my brother's boyfriend, has Celiac disease and his poor tummy can't handle even a bit of evil gluten without going all unfortunate-trip-to-Mexico on him. So don't get me wrong, I'm not a food judger, normally, but I can't help but jump into Judge Julesy mode as I watch Kaylee from across the table. Because, come on. Pasta? Everyone knows that pasta is going to have gluten in it.

"I can't eat any gluten," Kaylee adds with a smile.

Now I'm in supreme-court-justice judging mode. Can't eat gluten? Says the girl who I saw eat a short stack of pancakes earlier this week and almost burned down my office building with her fucking toast before that? The silliness of her statement elicits a loud snort from my nose/throat area.

I'm not the only one, either. Em's eyes narrow like they do sometimes, the times when I think she might actually be capable of stabbing someone. Neve and Sarah raise their eyebrows and watch what happens next. But the waitress, not having seen this girl destroy as much gluten as we have, doesn't seem phased and, after I turn red and try to turn the snort into a throat-clearing, maybe-I-swallowed-a-bug, I-need-a-sip-of-water move, she looks at Kaylee and points out the gluten free options they have on the menu.

"Okay, and what's in that one?" Kaylee asks, even though each item on the menu is followed by a description of the dish in italics.

From here commences a good five minutes where Kaylee goes through just about every dish on the menu (yes, even the ones with gluten in them, as the waitress politely reminds her of each time she asks about one of those) asking for every tiny ingredient and exclaiming after how expensive everything on the menu is. So when she finally decides on a salad, I almost break into applause and Em extracts her fingernails from the table, leaving tiny dents behind.

Finally free, the waitress smiles, spins around the room, checking in on her neglected tables, and comes back with the bottle of champagne we ordered for our celebration. She pours, we cheer, and once the tiny bubbles pop and fizz in my stomach, in my brain, I begin to let go of Kaylee's frustratingly embarrassing ordering and focus on the fact that we're out celebrating our business.

"So have you all lived around here long?" Kaylee asks as we sit back in our seats and clutch our flutes of sparkling wine.

Em answers first. "I grew up just outside of Seattle and was living close to there when this opportunity came up. So I've only been around here for a few months."

I shrug. "Same with me. Though I was already living on this side of the water, not in Seattle."

We look to Neve, who smiles. "I was in dental school over in Shoreline when I saw Jules' add on the internet and applied." She stops, seeing Kaylee's scrunched and confused face. "Shoreline is kind of by Seattle, across the Puget Sound." Kaylee's face doesn't change, though, most likely because she may still think we're living on an island, so Neve gives up and keeps going with her how-she-got-here story. "My husband was looking for a change anyway, so we decided to move down here. He's a teacher and was able to get a job at the high school fairly easily."

Kaylee smiles and nods. Then Sarah speaks up.

"And I'm from here. I was three years in at Dr. Leroy's before he sold out." She makes a thumbs down motion. "But now I get to work with you ladies and I'm pretty excited about that!"

"Heck yeah," Neve says.

"What about you?" Sarah asks Kaylee.

Kaylee's eyes widen as if she's surprised by the question that only makes sense after we've gone through all of our backgrounds. Her eyes dart to me, then Em, then they jump about the room like she's looking for something or someone.

"Oh, me?"

Sarah nods in encouragement. "Where are you from?"

Kaylee licks her lips and then clears her throat. "Not here." She messes with her million bracelets, moving them up and down on her wrist. "Um, Colorado." She says the last part as if it's a question.

Em and I look at each other quickly, the creases in our foreheads questioning her last statement as much as she seems to be.

"Didn't you say you moved from Montana?" Em asks.

Kaylee gasps. "Oh, yeah! That's it! I've moved around a lot. It gets hard to remember where I've been."

All around our table, chins raise, heads tip slightly, and eyes narrow.

I won't burden you with the mind-bending word scramble that follows. Kaylee's words, when they did consist of agreeing nouns and verbs, were confusing at best. She gave us story after story about moving from place to place, but never reasons why and never with correct details about the place she was describing. She talked about lifeguarding at a lake in Montana, in the winter. She told of her experience riding her bike everywhere when she lived in Arizona, in the summer. She even talked about how she missed all the trees there.

Neve winces at the last part. "You mean the palm trees?"

Kaylee sucks in a breath and nods, but luckily, we are all saved when the food shows up. Not that it is hard to do, but we lose ourselves in our dishes, if not only because we desperately want to be away from this confusing and awkward conversation (and very much because the food is steamy and delicious).

So it is quiet at our table for a while, which is so very fine with me.

One by one, as we finish, we lean back and scrunch down into the happiness of having a tummy full of great food and sparkly drink. I'm last, placing my hands on my stomach and patting it blissfully.

"Yummers."

Em snorts. "Jules, what have we said about yummers?"

I tuck my chin. "To not say it?"

She nods, her eyebrows raised seriously.

"Sorry." I scrunch my nose at her. Our waitress comes by to collect our plates and drop off our check. Em gets out her card and slips it in with the charge slip.

I smile a thanks at her and say, "Hey, you staying the night still?" When we'd decided on our opening day a few months ago, we talked about having a sleep over for old time roomies sake.

She points at me. "Only if you promise to keep your cold feet to yourself." Sarah and Neve giggle and Em adds, "Every freaking time we share a bed, this one's feet find their way onto my legs -- or, one time, my back -- by the time I wake up in the morning."

I open my hands and lift my shoulders. "Hey, I can't help it if they turn into heat seeking missiles once I go to sleep." I laugh.

There's only one person not laughing, actually. Kaylee. She's looking really concerned, her forehead wrinkles and her lips press together in a straight line. We stop laughing and look at her.

"You sleep in the same bed?"

Em cocks her head. "Yeah."

Kaylee's cheeks turn red. "Oh, it's just -- I'm not used to...." She looks down at the table.

"We used to share a bed all the time in college if we had parties and someone else was crashing in one of ours," I say, trying to explain the situation (but having a really hard time understanding why I should have to).

"Or when there was a storm," Em adds.

Neve and Sarah look to me, as if to ask, "You?" but I shake my head and point back at Em, who shrugs.

"What can I say? I'm scared of lightning."

The table erupts in laughter again, except for once again, Kaylee.

After Em signs the bill, we head out, walking down the quiet, street-lamp-lit sidewalks, and soaking up the cool breeze coming off the water. She slips her arm in mine and we walk side-by-side. At the parking lot of our building we say goodbye to the girls, but instead of getting into our cars and heading home, we unlock the front door.

We turn on the lights and head into the back, splitting up so we each get to sit in our own dental chair. Separated by a half wall, I can only hear Em as she squeaks around on her chair and then the sounds stop as she settles back. I do the same and take a deep breath. In the silence my heartbeat sounds deafening. I place my hand on my chest and close my eyes.

"Tomorrow." Em's voice echoes in the quiet.

"Tomorrow." I nod.

"I might be seeing your point about Kaylee," Em says tentatively.

I suck in air. "Yeah." My mind cringes as I remember the awkwardness of the restaurant experience tonight. "But there's not much we're going to do about it right now."

"True," she says. "I'll watch her tomorrow. I know you won't be able to."

"Thanks. Yeah, we'll definitely want to keep an eye on her.”

First thing the next morning Kaylee comes bouncing in with her purse in one hand, a balloon in the other, and a piece of toast clutched in her teeth.

She squeals when she sees me and hands me the balloon. One hand free, now, she takes the toast out of her mouth and says, "Happy opening day!"

I smile (no, it's definitely not forced at all) and look up at the bright ball of air. It's shaped like a frog and reads, "Hoppy Birthday!"

"Oh! Thanks!" My right eye squints a little in confusion.

Kaylee slaps me lightly on the arm. "Well, they don't sell any that say, 'Happy opening of your dental practice day' silly!"

Which I get. Totally. It's the birthday of my business. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is when she motions for me to hold my arm out and when I do she puts the toast back in her mouth, tying the balloon to my wrist.

Um... does she think I'm going to wear it around all day?

I laugh and untie it slowly. "Let's put it over here, so we can all enjoy it." I walk to the staff room, Kaylee following at my heels, and tie the balloon onto one of the chairs.

She nods emphatically. "Good idea!"

I point to the toast she's now munching away at. "Aren't you not supposed to have gluten?" I know, I'm being bitchy, but I feel like after the huge stink she made at the restaurant, I just can't let it go.

She chews for a second, then swallows instead of talking with her mouth full like I always do (my mama sure would be proud). She shakes her head. "This is wheat bread."

My head moves forward as I wait for her to say something else, but that's it. "You know wheat bread has gluten, too, right?"

She laughs. "No it doesn't. Only white bread."

My eyelids drop closed out of sheer exhaustion and not-wanting-to-deal. "What? No. Bread has gluten. It's not the type of bread, it's the flour. Wheat."

Kaylee's eyes go wide and I feel rotten, like I've just told a child that there's no Santa Claus (shit, I hope I didn't just ruin that for any of you).

"Oh. Wow. I guess..." She stops and looks like she's about to cry.