21. Finding Balance
Days had passed since I’d seen Bente. Keen to catch up, we made plans to get together at Nellie’s before opening.
The weather was horrific, but Adam’s best efforts at dissuading me from going fell on deaf, frozen ears. Because of the recent heavy snowfall, the walk took double the time. It wasn’t even pretty snow. It was dirty, sludgy and wet. The overcast sky stole the daylight, making the early afternoon seem like night. I arrived at the closed restaurant looking like something a cat had dragged in.
Bente was alone inside, setting tables for the evening service. I pounded on the door and she rushed to open it.
“Welcome, stranger,” she greeted, throwing a handful of cloth napkins at me. “Don’t drip on my floor. That would be a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
I followed her across the room, trying to pat myself dry. “Anyone prepared to go up against the Décaries deserves a multi-million dollar payout.”
“Ooh, Charlotte,” she drawled, cupping her hand to her ear. “Is that the sound of someone changing their tune?”
I grinned. “Not at all.”
Bente heaved a sigh. “That’s a shame. I was hoping for some juicy gossip. This place has been dead since Christmas.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t have juicy gossip.”
That vague hint was all it took for Bente to abandon the table settings and run to the kitchen. I wasn’t surprised; I’d seen that manoeuvre before. I pulled out a chair at the table nearest the kitchen door, waiting for her to return.
“Chocolate cake,” she announced, crashing through the swinging door to the kitchen. “It’s no pecan pie, but it will have to do.”
“How do you know I even have gossip worthy of chocolate cake?”
“Well, for starters, you have an impressive-looking shiner.” She pointed at my eye. “That’s got to be a great story right there.”
The hour I’d spent covering it up with makeup had been pointless. The snow had washed it all off.
“It’s not what you think.”
Bente took a huge bite of cake and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “You don’t know what I think; but I must say, a newlywed bride with a black eye is never a good look. People could easily get the wrong impression of your frog.”
“I know.” I’d spent many days cooped up at home for that very reason. “But Adam would never –”
“Relax, Kemosabe. He’s a frog, not a thug. I want the real story.”
The real story was worthy of far more than chocolate cake. I filled Bente in on the whole sorry saga, starting with the slap from the queen and ending with Whitney skipping town. “So all in all, it’s been a rough week.”
“You’re telling me!” shrieked Bente gleefully, taking far too much delight in my misery. “Do you think Fiona got it all out of her system? Is it happy families from here on in?”
“I doubt it.” I poked my piece of cake. “I think she was more concerned that I’d tell Adam, rather than the damage she’d done to me.”
“She really didn’t take the news well, did she?” Bente’s tone was uncharacteristically sympathetic.
I continued my tale of woe, explaining how no one had taken the news well. My father was so furious that he was unwilling to deal with me. Alex’s promise of calling me after a few days was the first he’d ever broken. I hadn’t spoken to him in nearly a week. Whitney was convinced I’d found a way of breaking up her perfectly happy relationship with Adam. To her, I was nothing more than a home-wrecking whore. “How can someone be so blissfully happy and yet so miserable at the same time?” I smiled to dull the gravity of my question.
A slight frown crept across Bente’s face. “Can I give you a little advice?”
“Please, do.”
“Trying to convince people that you’ve done nothing wrong would be a whole lot easier if you both stopped sneaking around as if you have.”
“I don’t fit in with these people, Bente. His family and friends are never going to accept me.” I pushed my plate of uneaten cake to the centre of the table. “All I want is Adam. I’d be content to hide forever if it meant having him all to myself.”
I knew how selfish and unrealistic it sounded. I wasn’t expecting Bente to tell me anything otherwise. “So his friends are douche bags.” She shrugged her shoulders. “There’s no way around that, but for some weird reason, Adam likes them. You’re going to have to make more of an effort to fit in.”
“I can’t see it happening.”
Bente picked up a saltshaker and poured a stream of salt on to her empty plate, followed by two packets of sugar. “Imagine that this salt is the purple circle,” she said, stirring the grainy pile with her finger. “And the sugar is his family.”
“Because they’re so sweet?” I asked.
Bente walked to the information station and returned with a tall wooden pepper mill. “You can be the pepper – hot and spicy.”
I rolled my eyes. “What is this visual display in aid of?”
She twisted the mill, covering the plate with flakes of pepper. “Bear with me.” Again, she stirred the pile with her finger. “Adam’s whole world is on this plate – his friends, his family and you.”
“Okay,” I dragged out the word, still unsure of the point she was trying to make.
Bente pushed the plate toward me and ordered me to separate the grains.
I looked down at the concoction, shaking my head. “You know I can’t.”
“Of course you can’t, Charli. And neither can he. Adam is constantly trying to pick pepper out of salt. No one can keep that up for long. You’re going to have to change your ways.”