2142 Green Hollow RD (Sisters of Edgartown) Page 5

  “It didn’t fall apart,” Amelia insisted. “You and Joel just erm...”

  “Decided you wanted something else,” Mila continued.

  “Something like that.” Jennifer felt the hesitation in her own voice, even though she knew Mila was right. After another pause, she said, “I can’t help but think that it doesn’t even matter if they’re not getting along. There’s no telling what Mom will be like after all this is over. The doctor said she’ll need round-the-clock care, and I just...”

  Her voice trailed off into nothingness. Mila squeezed her hand with powerful fingers.

  “It’s always been strained between us,” Jennifer continued. “I can’t even imagine what it was like for them to watch me grow up without Michelle. Her picture is still all over that house. My picture has gotten older, sadder, but she’s remained this beautiful being encased in a frame...”

  They all exchanged worried glances. Hurriedly, Jennifer said, “I’m not complaining about growing older. I know it’s such a blessing. I would never take any of it back. I just don’t think I was fully prepared for how painful it would feel. That’s all.”

  After another pause, Jennifer dropped her chin toward her chest. “Gosh, and I don’t know what in the heck to do with the bakery. It’s Mom’s pride and joy. Tomorrow is Saturday morning, which is one of their busiest days.”

  “They’ll understand that you need to close it up for a while,” Olivia said.

  Jennifer shook her head, violently. “No. I don’t want to close it. I owe it to Mom to keep it going.”

  “But you have your own career,” Mila said. “You said you just took on that new client.”

  “Yes, but I also took on an intern to help,” Jennifer replied. “The money is flowing better than ever, and for the first time in a while, I have some extra time.”

  “You aren’t really going to manage that bakery alone, are you?” Amelia asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “I’ll head over there first thing in the morning. I need to update the staff and figure out what I’m going to do,” Jennifer said. “Actually, I should go right away. Now, even. I should check on the calendar, see what’s needed to be done...”

  “No!” Amelia cried. “You’re staying here and getting a good night’s sleep. The bakery doesn’t open till seven, and I know for a fact your mom has her manager in place to take care of things.”

  Jennifer grumbled as Olivia continued on with Amelia’s cause.

  “I know you want to fix everything, Jen, but Amelia’s right. That bakery has been around for, what? Three generations? It’s not like it would go under if you closed it up for a few weeks.”

  “That’s not the point,” Jennifer said. “I have to prove to Mom that what matters to her matters to me, too.”

  “Stubborn Jen. As usual,” Mila said with a little laugh.

  “It’s not like any of you are any different,” Jennifer returned.

  They all stewed in this for a moment. It was true: they were nothing if not stubborn about their love, about what mattered, about what they fought for in this life.

  “Three generations,” Olivia breathed. “I still remember going to that bakery almost every day after school.”

  “Ariane always had the best pastries and snacks prepared for us,” Mila agreed. “We always left there with like four cookies each stuffed in our pockets.”

  “Again, we were black holes,” Jennifer said. “And Mom always knew exactly how to cheer us up, especially when things went wrong.”

  “That time I broke my arm in third grade,” Olivia said. “She made a whole apple pie because she knew it was my favorite.”

  “That’s right,” Amelia said. “And it had just come out of the oven, and we ate it with vanilla ice cream and watched the snowfall outside. I don’t know why I remember that day so well.”

  “It’s because Olivia only broke her arm because she was trying to break your fall!” Jennifer said.

  Amelia’s eyebrows popped up on her forehead. “That’s right! Oh my gosh, Olivia, I’m still so sorry about that.”

  Olivia shrugged as she sipped her wine. “Remember? I got out of gym for like six weeks. It was a dream come true. I just got to read all the time.”

  “That’s right. You’d never been happier,” Camilla said.

  “Oh my gosh. That reminds me. Michelle pretended she had buggered up her arm then, too. Remember?” Jennifer said excitedly.

  All the girls burst into fits of laughter.

  “She always had some kind of scheme, didn’t she?” Camilla said.

  “She pretended to fall off the slide so she could get out of gym, too,” Jennifer said. “And I was so worried she would actually break her arm! I thought maybe, if my twin broke her arm, I would break my arm, too.”

  “You guys did have some weird twin things,” Olivia said. “A little bit of intuition.”

  Jennifer clucked her tongue. “I swear she knew I was pregnant with Nick on that last day. She could see it in my eyes or even feel it in her belly. I don’t know. But she wanted me to say it aloud. I could feel it.”

  This was something Jennifer had obviously brought up countless times before. Even still, it never grew boring for any of them to recount old stories of Michelle. She was the final reminder of the youth they’d lost.

  More wine was poured; conversation continued on, from memories to current happenings.

  “I can’t believe how much Nick looks like Joel,” Mila said. “It’s like looking at Joel’s photo in our old high school yearbook.”

  Jennifer chuckled. “Yes, I know. They’re pretty similar in almost every way. I can’t say that’s a bad thing.”

  “Two of the best guys I know,” Olivia affirmed. “I keep hoping Chelsea meets a good guy. A guy worthy of her and one that will treat her well. I hope she doesn’t make the same mistake I did with Tyler. I should have known he wouldn’t stick around.”

  “Nobody knew what Tyler was going to do next,” Jennifer tried to assure her. “He wanted to be a lone wild wolf or whatever.”

  “I guess we had our good times for a while,” Olivia said. “Remember our wedding?”

  “I mean, none of us really remember that wedding,” Jennifer said.

  “Your dad springing for the open bar meant my memories of that are few and far between,” Mila agreed.

  Olivia giggled. “I guess you’re right. Although Jesus. Remember how tight my wedding dress was?”

  “You didn’t eat for like two weeks so you could slide your body into it, and then we had to make sure you didn’t faint!” Jennifer said.

  “True. But I have to admit I look beautiful in the photos,” Olivia said.

  “You were always going to look beautiful,” Mila said as she rolled her eyes. “I’m just glad you didn’t have to have most of the photos taken from the floor.”

  Around one-thirty in the morning, Mila collected Jennifer up and led her toward the bedroom. Once there, she dragged the sheets aside and watched as Jennifer hobbled beneath them.

  “Promise me you won’t work yourself to death with this bakery venture,” Mila said as she knelt slowly and dotted a kiss on Jennifer’s forehead. “You already do so much. And you do most of it by yourself.”

  “It’s not like you’re not also keeping yourself afloat alone,” Jennifer returned.

  “You know us,” Mila said with a shrug. “We have to worry about everyone else but ourselves first. I’ll wear myself out with worry over you, as long as you wear yourself out with worry over me. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Jennifer whispered.

  As she lay back in the darkness, she listened to her dear friends as they tip-toed out into the darkness. There was the sound of the engine, cranked up to deliver them back to their homes across Edgartown. Jennifer cradled herself tighter with all the blankets on her bed, wishing she’d asked at least one of them to stay over. This wasn’t necessarily outside the bounds of what they normally did. Jennifer herself had slept over at Mila’s several nights after Peter
’s death. They’d all set up a little tent-hut at Olivia’s after Tyler had left.

  But that night, Jennifer needed to rest up. She needed bright eyes and eager ears in the morning. Frosted Delights Bakery awaited her, and she wouldn’t let her mother down. Not now when she needed her the most.

  Chapter Six

  Jen parked her car outside Frosted Delights Bakery just after six-thirty in the morning. Much like her mother, she liked to be early for everything, just so she could get a read on the situation. It was always better to be prepared than to be panicked. From the front seat of her vehicle, she watched as her mother’s manager, Connie, bustled about, placing croissants, baked baguettes and custard tarts, and fresh cinnamon rolls in the front window. The light from within the bakery was orange and warm and gorgeous, just exactly the kind of place you wanted to hustle into on a cold Saturday morning in late November. Jennifer remembered those days so well: her early childhood, arm-in-arm with Michelle as they’d raced into the bakery on particularly early mornings, to allow for their mother to get a head start on the baking.

  Jennifer took a deep breath and headed for the front door. As the place hadn’t opened yet and wouldn’t for another thirty minutes, the door was locked. She rapped her knuckles on the glass and peered in to catch Connie’s eyes. Immediately, Connie rushed for the door, unlatched it and flung it open.

  “Well, isn’t this a surprise!” she beamed at Jen. “I haven’t seen you around the bakery in ages. Come on in. Can I get you something to drink? We just started specialty lattes.”

  Try as she might, Jennifer couldn’t smile. She stepped into the warmth of the bakery and felt the corners of her mouth quiver.

  “I’m sorry to say that I haven’t come with good news, Connie,” she said as her voice crackled.

  Connie’s brow furrowed. “What’s wrong? What is it, Jen?”

  Jennifer heaved a sigh. “Mom had a stroke last night. They’re not sure what will happen next. They’ll be monitoring her this week and if all goes well, she’ll be home sooner than later.”

  Immediately, Connie threw herself forward and wrapped Jennifer in a big, gut-busting hug. Connie’s wail alerted one of the other bakers in the back, a girl Jennifer didn’t recognize. She hustled into the front of the bakery and then snapped her hand over her mouth.

  “No, no,” Connie said. She tapped her forehead with her apron and then turned swiftly toward the counter. “This is horrible. I don’t know what to say. Jennifer, I can’t even imagine what you must be going through right now.”

  Jennifer’s lower lip quivered for only a second. She almost fell into another round of tears and was grateful when she managed to hold herself back.

  “I just wanted to let you guys know that I’ll be handling the day-to-day operations of the bakery until she’s better,” Jennifer said softly.

  Connie’s eyes grew to the size of saucers. “Really! But your mom always talks about how busy your career is.”

  “I’ve found a happy medium,” Jennifer admitted. “And I’d like to pitch in here. I can’t imagine this place going under. I have countless memories of it and besides, my great-grandmother opened it. Three generations of Frosted Delights Bakery can’t very well end now.”

  Connie and the other baker exchanged grateful glances. Connie then beckoned Jennifer back into her mother’s office, where she showed her some of the processes that her mother ordinarily busied herself with.

  “We normally bake together on mornings like today,” Connie explained. “Since Saturdays are the busiest days of the week. Heck, this couldn’t be a worse time, as Saturdays before Christmas are even worse. But okay. Okay. We’ll make this work. Me and Ariane, we could always make anything work.”

  “Know that she’ll be back here as soon as she can be,” Jennifer whispered, even as a flash of what her mother had looked like the previous night came over her vision.

  She’d looked depleted and tired. Like she had been beaten up by life. She hadn’t looked like the kind of woman who’d wanted to live anymore.

  But Jennifer understood the depth of their family’s pain. She understood that sometimes, you had to take on the burden for others to ensure that you all pushed forward together.

  At just after seven in the morning, Jennifer walked out to the front door to find a familiar line of regulars. They snaked away from the door and down the snow-topped sidewalk. She could hardly believe that so many people supported her mother’s bakery, even this early on a Saturday morning. When she pushed open the door, the first woman in line grinned widely and said, “You really do look so much like your mom! I was hoping to catch her this morning. I wanted to tell her what a great job she did on the cake for my daughter’s birthday.”

  Jennifer didn’t recognize the woman. She didn’t feel up to the task of describing to her what they’d all been through the previous night.

  “I will pass that along when I see her,” Jennifer said as the woman eased into the shop. “Thank you. I know comments like that make her love her work more than ever.”

  To Jennifer’s surprise, mid-way through the line, she spotted a familiar face. Camilla stood all bundled up with a bright yellow scarf wrapped around and around her neck. The moment they made eye contact, Camilla flung herself forward and wrapped her arms around Jennifer.

  “I figured today would be difficult for you. I wanted to bring moral support,” Camilla said.

  “You really didn’t have to do that,” Jennifer breathed. Even as she said it, she felt a level of calm she hadn’t thought was possible. All her muscles relaxed.

  Camilla followed Jennifer into the bakery, where Connie had begun to tend to people’s orders while the other baker, whose name was Hannah, made specialty lattes and smiled at customers. The air in the bakery was strange, despite the visitors' bustling nature, so Jennifer set about putting on some Christmas music. Camilla flipped off her scarf and stretched her arms out.

  “Tell me what I can do to help you,” she said. “I’m here to work.”

  “Camilla. You worked all week!” Jennifer said. “Why don’t you just sit down. Have a hot chocolate.”

  But the line continued to grow out the door. Jennifer rushed to the back to grab more oat milk from the walk-in fridge. When she turned back, she found Camilla with outstretched hands and this funny glint to her eyes.

  “Pass ‘em over,” she said with a mischievous grin. “You know you want to.”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes. “What did I do to deserve you?”

  Connie, Hannah, Camilla, and Jennifer raced through the chaos of a Saturday morning in late-November. There were pies to bake, croissants to toast, butter to spread, bagels to nibble at in-between rushes. There were people to greet that Jennifer hadn’t seen in what felt like years, and there was Christmas music to sing along to, anything to get her mind off of her mother back at the hospital, and her father, probably already thinking about his first drink of the day.

  Around ten-thirty in the morning, Jennifer was stationed at the register. She stretched her palms out in front of her and analyzed the powdered sugar she’d somehow gotten all over herself, along with a few dribbles of various different flavors of jelly. Camilla stepped again toward the espresso machine and said, “I think it’s about time for another latte. You in, Jen?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jennifer said. “I bet we’ll have another line out the door in ten minutes flat.”

  Camilla chuckled. “I’ve worked as a nurse for almost twenty years—”

  “And at the hospital much longer than that,” Jennifer said, remembering Camilla’s long-ago adventures in volunteering.

  “True. But there’s something about working here that feels difficult in a different way,” Camilla said. “Maybe it’s because I want to shove every cream puff and donut I see directly into my mouth.”

  Jennifer fell forward with laughter just as Camilla began to grind up the espresso beans. When she whipped back, drawing her glorious red locks down her back, she found herself face-to-face with a ha
ndsome, forty-something man. He looked at her then as though she’d lost her mind. His eyes were saucer-like, the color of midnight, and his shoulders were wide and powerful, filling out what looked to be a very expensive suit.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jennifer said between gasps of air. “We probably look crazy.”

  The man laughed and it sounded like music. Jennifer’s heart dropped into her stomach with the sound of it.

  “Don’t quit on my account,” he said. “I don’t want to be known as the guy who ended laughter at Christmastime.”

  “No. And I think that would be a punishable offense on Martha’s Vineyard,” Jennifer replied.

  Was she flirting with this guy? She hardly recognized her own voice.

  “That seems clear, although I’m still pretty new around here,” the man said.

  “I hope you have someone to show you the ropes,” Jennifer said.

  “I bought a how-to manual,” he joked, flashing her a grin before continuing. “But it’s a bit awkward to pull it out in situations like this.”

  “True. You have to find a way to go with the flow,” Jennifer said.

  They held one another’s eyes for a moment. Camilla began to foam the milk, which forced Jennifer’s mind back to reality.

  “What can I get for you?”

  “I’m normally a black-coffee-only guy, but today, I’d love one of your specialty lattes. Maybe the caramel one?” he said. “And hmm. Your donuts look incredible.”

  Jennifer flashed her hand around to show the jelly caked across her palms. “I think you can see that we’ve had our fair share of taste-tests this morning. They’re divine. We can’t take credit for making them.”

  The man laughed again. Jennifer had the strangest feeling that she wanted to spend the rest of the morning and afternoon—maybe even her life—making this guy laugh.

  “Then I guess I’ll have to have one. Maybe the raspberry-filled? With the vanilla glaze?”

  “You sound like a man who has good taste,” Jennifer said.

  “I should hope so. I don’t mess around when it comes to my sweets,” he said.