Pieces (29 page)

So I guess I’ll go into counseling mode again,
the message read.
Remember when I told you to make sure you knew what you wanted before taking off with Jesse?

She stopped reading for a moment, realizing how positive he was that she had left with Jesse. He knew her better than she wanted to admit. Shaking off the thought, she kept reading the message.

Well, I remember thinking you had no idea what you wanted. You kept saying you wanted to be with Jesse. That was your main goal. I think more than that, what you have always wanted was something a lot deeper. I guess my question for you is did you find that ‘something’ when you went to Italy?

Sitting back in her chair, she folded her arms and stared at the screen. She didn’t know how to answer the question. Had she found something deeper? She had at least realized she wanted to live an honest life. She had realized how dependent she was and how much she hated that feeling. She hated that her father had flown home with her. She hated that she was stuck back in her old bedroom with nothing in her future. She hated that the only person she felt she could lean on now was a guy she couldn’t have.

She put her hands on the keys and started typing as her mind reeled in circles.

I want to be independent,
she wrote.
I want to be my own person and earn my own way. I’ve always been the ‘rich girl
’
or ‘Brad’s girl’ or ‘that girl who fell in love with her kidnapper’. I don’t want to be that anymore. I want to be just plain old Naomi. Boring. With a job in a café or something.
She paused for a long while, waiting for him to respond, and then she typed,
Like you.

Are you saying I’m boring?

She laughed.
Yeah, kinda
...
but I like that. A lot.

A little smiley face popped up and she typed one in return.

I should get a job,
she wrote.

Another smiley face from Finn.
How come? Because you want to support yourself or because you really want to work?

Another minute passed and Naomi looked at the open folder of sketches. The top one was of dragons. She didn’t break into a sweat when she looked at them anymore.

Maybe a little of both,
she typed.
I feel bad for wasting my parents’ money.

Understandable.
He paused for a minute before typing,
but I think you should let them keep helping you while you need it.

Yeah.

I gotta go, Naomi. I’m late for meeting Carly somewhere.

She cursed under her breath.

No problem. Thanks for talking, Finn.

Good luck!

Naomi stared at the screen after he was logged off. Then she opened a web browser to a search engine and typed in the word
chef.

XXVI

January

C
HRISTMAS CAME AND WENT. NAOMI
convinced her mother not to hire someone to put up a tree, and instead went with her into town to buy a fresh-cut pine. With a lot of grunting and cursing, she helped her mother stuff a small tree into the back of the SUV. She could smell pine sap on her fingers for two days after that. Her father bought lights and helped string them up. For the first time in weeks, Naomi smiled as she and her parents stood back and looked at the tree.

“It’s lopsided,” her mother said as she pressed two fingers to her lips and tilted her head. “It’s not nearly as pretty as it would be if Id hired—”

“It’s perfect, Karen,” her father interrupted with a glance at Naomi. “Enjoy it.”

Now, the second week into January, Naomi passed by the sitting room where the tree had been and frowned at the empty space. No more falling needles. No more spicy pine smell. It had reminded her of Stacy’s office, but that wasn’t why she liked it. The smell had been something foreign to the house. Something new. Smiling at the memory, she rounded the corner in search of her mother. There was a workout room at the end of the hallway. It was the only room she hadn’t checked yet.

Stopping in the doorway, she stared open-mouthed at her mother holding a perfect tree pose—one foot held flat against the opposite upper thigh, her arms stretched high above her head with her palms pressed together. Her eyes were closed as she listened to soothing nature sounds playing in the background. Naomi didn’t say anything. Instead, she grabbed hold of the doorframe and remembered all the yoga she had done with Evelyn at the house. It had become a ritual—one Naomi missed. Watching her mother now made her want to stretch and reach and bend her body in ways she knew would hurt now that she was so out of practice.

“Naomi!”

Naomi brought her attention back to her mother. She had lowered her foot to the floor and stood rigid, her eyes wide open.

“Mom, I didn’t know ... sorry, I was just trying to find you to ask if I can borrow the car.”

“Of course you can borrow the car.” Pink crept across her cheeks, as if she had been caught red-handed at a crime scene. Her exercise clothes were bright purple and teal. That was odd, considering all she ever wore was white and cream.

“Okay, thanks.”

“May I ask what for?”

Naomi paused, halfway turned to leave. She returned the doorway. “Nothing,” she said, and swallowed a lump in her throat.

“Oh.” The blush on her mother’s cheeks disappeared. “I was going to tell you about a phone call I received yesterday. It was from your advisor at Harvard.”

Naomi blanched. She didn’t want to think about Harvard. “Kate?” she asked, the lump in her throat returning. “She must hate me. She always told me I had so much potential. Then I dropped out.”

Her mother shrugged as she approached Naomi. “I suppose she thinks you still have potential because she said you have a chance to accept your scholarship again. I had to explain your situation and talk to the right people, but your appeal went through.”

Naomi looked down at her hands and shifted her feet. A moment ago she was excited to go to her first interview. Now she faced something that would render a job unnecessary. Unless, of course, she decided not to look at it in terms of money. It was more than that. It was about working outside of a school setting. It was about figuring out what she truly wanted. Squaring her shoulders, she looked her mother in the eyes and said, “I don’t want to go back to Harvard.”

It was as if a grenade had landed in the middle of the room and they were both waiting for it to explode. Her mother’s expression fell and then twisted into confusion. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Naomi thought about all the time she had wasted, all the money spent on tuition and living expenses, all the stress over homework and grades—and for what? Maybe it
was
about money, in a way, at least for her parents. She said, “I’ll pay you and Dad back, somehow. You paid for the last semester I didn’t even finish. I’ll—”

“No,” her mother interrupted, swiping a hand over her face as if to brush away her confusion. “It’s about our trust in you, not what you think you owe us. We want to help you, and letting you live here with us until you’re on your own two feet is a part of that.” She narrowed her eyes. “So don’t ever feel like you have to pay us back.”

Naomi watched the confusion on her face melt away. “Then I hope you’ll understand why I’ve applied for a job. It’s not for money. It’s for me.”

Her mother shook her head as her mouth dropped open. “A job? Where?”

“A little café in town. They were advertising for a kitchen assistant. It’s just cleaning, mostly, but I can work my way up. I want to ... I want to be a chef. Maybe when I’m feeling more on my own, I can go to school for it.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I need to leave soon to get to my interview.”

Her mother opened her mouth again. Her shoulders dropped.

“Mom?”

“I thought you wanted to do art.”

“Cooking
is
art. At least it is to me. Don’t worry, I’ll keep helping out at the foundation.”

She turned and left before she was sucked into an argument about how cooking might not be a wise career choice. Her mind was still reeling from discovering her mother did yoga.

W
ORKING WAS
not what Naomi had thought it would be, but she kept at it. Sometimes, if she was helping out at the foundation on a day she worked at the café, she would wake up at seven in the morning and not get home until eleven at night. The foundation was emotionally exhausting, while her café job was physically exhausting, but she wanted it that way. She welcomed it. She thought about how hard Finn worked, and her parents too. She wanted to be a part of that world, even if it meant scraping food off plates and burning her hands in scalding, soapy water.

Another assistant in the kitchen recognized her name and started asking her about Jesse and the kidnapping. Her name was Alyssa. She had colored streaks in her hair just like Carly. Naomi hated her from the start.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” she said as she scrubbed a dish clean.

Alyssa was scrubbing a pan. She had bubbles all the way up to her knobby elbows. “Well, alright, but I think it’s funny how you work here at the bottom of the employment chain when your daddy is CEO of a huge company and your mommy’s a lawyer. Can’t they afford to send you to school? Did they make you get a job?” She grunted as a nasty smile spread across her lips.

Fighting the urge to throw hot water in Alyssa’s face, Naomi pursed her lips shut. The longer she scrubbed and stared at the bubbles skimming across the top of the water, the more she remembered Stacy’s comment that she needed to let both pieces of her life come together. Jesse had tried to separate it all and ended up sliding back into his old habits. The whole point of her getting a job and learning how to work and stand on her own two feet was to move forward and create something new out of who she already was. The point was
not
to run away and ignore things.

She let go of the dish and watched it sink to the bottom of the huge stainless steel tub. Turning to Alyssa, she pulled her arms out of the water and dried them on a towel tucked into the front pocket of her apron.

“You know, it’s people like you I’ve been hiding from my whole life,” she said in a calm, even voice. “You judge me and push me around and you don’t even know me ... and the worst part is I let you do it.”

Alyssa looked up, her lips twitching as if she couldn’t decide if Naomi was serious or not.

“Yes, I was kidnapped,” she continued, “and yes, I’m a ‘rich girl’, but that’s not who I am. I’m working here because I’ve never had a job before and this was all I could get. I want to work in a kitchen and learn how it all functions. Someday I’m going to be a chef, and you’ll still be standing here scrubbing dishes and feeling sorry for yourself.”

Alyssa opened her mouth, but Naomi wasn’t about to let her get a word in edgewise, and kept going.

“As for me, I’m sick and tired of feeling sorry for myself, so if you have questions about my past, ask them and I’ll answer, but don’t expect me to stand here and take it while you make fun of me.” She leaned forward. “Got it?”

Alyssa closed her mouth as she searched Naomi’s face. The stupid colored streaks in her hair didn’t make Naomi angry anymore. She didn’t care if they reminded her of Carly. She had no right to hate Carly, anyway. If she was what Finn wanted, so be it. She would move on and do whatever would make her happy. Period. And right now, as strange as it seemed, that was washing dishes.

Smiling to herself, she dipped her hands back into the water and started scrubbing the dish again.

T
HAT NIGHT
, when she arrived home from work, she passed her mother’s office. She was at her desk, her eyes drowsy as she sat back in her chair with her phone to her ear.

“Hm-mm,” she said about eight times before looking up to see Naomi in the doorway. When she motioned for her to come in, Naomi walked across the room and sank into the comfy leather armchair across from the desk. She could tell her mother didn’t want to be on the phone. It was eight-thirty and Naomi doubted she had eaten dinner yet.