Emmy shakes her head at us. “Well, please keep that in between out of the dining room and show Grace how to work the POS.”
I frown. “Piece of shit?”
Eva chokes a laugh.
“Point of sale,” Emmy says, gesturing to the register, but she’s biting back her own smile.
“I’ll show her,” Eva says as she swipes another card. “I’m here anyway.”
“Thank you,” Emmy says before resting her hand on Eva’s shoulder. “Everything okay today?”
Eva immediately stiffens. It’s subtle, but I definitely notice her rolling that shoulder back a little, dislodging Emmy’s hand. “Yeah, fine.”
“Good.” Emmy’s hand drops, her mouth smashing into a straight line. She watches Eva stack up her receipts for a few seconds before shifting her gaze to me. “Grace, before you learn the POS, can you come to the kitchen and get this tray of muffins for me?”
“Yeah, sure.” I throw Luca a glance as he rounds the counter to attend to a new three-top. He just tousles my hair as he passes me.
I follow Emmy into the kitchen, where a couple of gleaming silver trays full of fresh raspberry muffins sit on the prep counter, waiting to be piled into the pastry case near the register. Malcolm and Kaye, Emmy’s cooks, are busy at the stoves grilling sausages and prepping fries for lunch.
“These smell amazing,” I say as I take a tray from Emmy.
“Thank you. You’re welcome to one on your break.”
I nod and head for the dining room, the tray heavy on my forearms.
“How does Eva seem to you?” Emmy asks before I reach the swinging doors. I freeze, then turn around slowly, meeting her worried gaze. Heaving a deep breath, I walk back over to her and set down the tray. Before I respond, I try to gather my thoughts, wondering if Emmy’s hunting for evidence of Eva’s midnight escapades.
I finally settle for “She seems okay. I mean, I know she’s sad, but she’s . . . I don’t know. Coping, I guess? I just met her, but yeah. She seems okay.”
Emmy’s shoulders descend a little. “Good. That’s good. Luca told me you two spent some time together at the bonfire. She barely speaks to me. At least, nothing more than a curt sentence or two, so I’m glad to hear she’s talking to you. I arranged for her to join a dance company in Sugar Lake, take a few lessons. It’s not New York, but it’s something. But she refuses to go.”
“Well, from what she told me . . .”
Emmy tilts her head when I hesitate. “What did she say?”
“She just doesn’t seem like she wants to do ballet right now.”
Emmy presses her mouth flat. “I know she doesn’t, honey, but ballet was her life. Like you and piano. Can you imagine giving it up? And at a time like this, when she needs as much normal as possible?”
I’m not sure what to say because, no, I can’t imagine ever giving up piano. It keeps my feet on the ground, my heart in my chest. But I can imagine giving up a dream, settling for some other form of piano because there’s no other choice. Like Eva said, sometimes it’s not a matter of want.
“I just want to take care of her,” Emmy says, looking down, her hands worrying at her apron strings.
I reach out and squeeze her arm. Emmy’s the sweetest woman on the planet. Hands down. She’s saved my ass multiple times, slipping a twenty into my jacket pocket every now and then when I’ve been hanging out at their house. I never find it until I get home—?she knows I’d never accept it if she just handed it to me—?but she always seems to know exactly when I need it.
“And how are you, sweetheart?” she asks before I can say anything else about Eva. “The lighthouse working out okay?”
That question has way too many possible answers so I stick to my usual. “Everything’s fine.”
Emmy narrows her eyes at me. She’s nearly impossible to bullshit, but she lets me off the hook and offers a tiny smile. “Well. Strawberry-rhubarb pie won’t bake itself. Let’s get back to work, shall we?”
I nod and watch her pull cartons of strawberries and long stalks of rhubarb from the refrigerator. I grab the muffins and join Eva at the register. While I unload them into the pastry case, she starts her spiel about the POS and I half listen, wondering about Emmy’s eager concern and the obvious tension between the two of them. Wondering about that aqua sea-glass necklace forming under my mother’s hands at home.
But underneath all of that, there’s something else. This pull to Eva. Loneliness to loneliness. Like to like. Missing mother to missing mother. Wish to wish.
For the rest of our shift, she keeps catching my eye. I keep catching hers. And every time she smiles that little smile—?a little hint of the girl on top of that lighthouse—?it makes me smile back.
Chapter Fourteen
AFTER A FEW GRUELING HOURS WITH FRéDéRIC CHOPIN at the Book Nook’s piano, I walk into the house to the sound of voices.
Soft female voices.
And something that smells like puke. At first, I wonder if it’s me because I went straight from LuMac’s to the bookstore. But no, I smell like onion rings, which is decidedly different from puke.
I follow the voices through the kitchen, half expecting to find a pool of vomit somewhere that I’m going to have to clean up. But then there’s Mom, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, seated at the dining table, a dish of something drenched in cheese and slightly green-colored steaming in front of her. Hence the puke smell.
And Eva is sitting right next to her.
Hence the female voices.
“. . . You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Mom is saying, her voice a little teary-sounding. “Everything is different now.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to do ballet,” Eva says, flicking the tab on a can of Diet Dr. Pepper. “I miss it a lot. I just . . . feel like I physically can’t do it.”
Mom nods. “Emmy’s never lost anyone the way we have, baby. If giving up ballet gets you through the day, then give up ballet.”
Her words fit all wrong on my ears. I’m about to take a step back into the kitchen when Mom glances up.
“Hi, baby.” She says it happily, but she wipes under eyes like she’s also been crying at some point. Eva smiles, her eyes a little watery-looking too. “Where’ve you been?”
“Piano.”
“Oh good, you found one!”
“I did. What’s going on?”
“We’re just waiting for Pete and Julian to get home. I ran into Eva at the Trading Post when I was picking up some groceries and invited her for dinner. We’ve just been having a little girl time.” Mom winks at Eva. “Haven’t we, hon?”
Eva nods. She wraps her hand around her soda can and crinkles the aluminum. “Much needed. Join us, Grace.”