Butternut Summer (3 page)

There were some changes, of course. Even Butternut, whose northern Minnesota location was several hours by car from the nearest city, couldn't escape change forever. Where a ladies' dress shop had once been, there was now a place called the Pine Cone Gallery, a chic-looking little shop that wouldn't have been out of place in the Twin Cities.

For the most part, though, the businesses on Main Street had stayed the same. And none of those businesses, Jack knew, was more important to the social fabric of Butternut than Pearl's. He studied it now from across the street, marveling that from the outside, anyway, it looked exactly the same: same red-and-white-striped awning snapping in the breeze, same hand-lettered
BEST PIE IN TOWN
sign hanging in the window, same little bells jingling on the door as customers came in and out. He couldn't really see inside; the glare from the afternoon sun was too bright on the windows. But he didn't need to see inside to know what the rest of it looked like. He already knew, by heart, every scuff on the linoleum floor and every scratch on the Formica countertop. Not that Pearl's wasn't well-maintained; it was. His ex-wife, Caroline, was a stickler for that kind of thing. The whole place, he knew, was scrubbed and buffed and polished to within an inch of its life. Still, it would be showing its age a little, showing it in a way that only added to its charm and its warmth.

He closed his eyes now and imagined himself walking through the front door at Pearl's, past the red leather booths that lined the front window, past the smaller tables for parties of two and four in the middle of the restaurant, and up to the counter, with its row of chrome swivel stools that children loved to spin on. And there, at the counter, he imagined Caroline, a smile on her face, a pot of coffee in her hand, saying “Hello there. What can I get for you?”

But that smile wasn't for him, he realized. It was for another customer. And so were the friendly words. Because when she saw him, she'd be shocked. Shocked and angry. And instead of saying “What can I get for you?,” it was more likely she'd say something like, “What the hell are you doing here?”

No, not hell
, he decided. She wouldn't say
hell;
she wasn't a big one for swearing. She'd say something
like
hell, something that let him know, in no uncertain terms, that his being here was not a good thing and that she wanted him to leave. The sooner the better. He felt a trickle of perspiration start to work its way down from his temple to his jaw. Just thinking about seeing her was making him, quite literally, sweat.

He reached over now and turned the air-conditioning up and pulled the visor down against the noonday sun. But it didn't help. He glanced at his watch again. Daisy was now ten minutes late.

He swallowed, hard. His throat was parched, his mouth as dry as sandpaper. He reached for the water bottle in the drink holder and saw that it was empty. Not that it really mattered. It wasn't water he wanted, anyway. He wanted a drink, a real drink, a neat tumbler of single-malt whiskey. It swirled around the glass in his mind's eye, its amber color the loveliest thing he had ever seen. No, not the
loveliest
, he corrected himself. Because the loveliest thing he'd ever seen was in Pearl's, right now. She was the reason he was here, sweating in the arctic chill of his air-conditioned truck. He'd give Daisy five more minutes, he decided. Then, with or without her, he was going in.

A
t the exact moment Jack Keegan made that resolution, Caroline Keegan was sitting in her cramped office behind the coffee shop, staring at a monthly bank statement on the desk in front of her. She'd already reviewed it carefully, committed it to memory even. But she kept staring at it, hoping the numbers would somehow magically rearrange themselves. They didn't. She sighed, stretched, and bent to examine it again. Nope. Still the same. She'd have to make that appointment, after all. The one with the bank, the one she'd been absolutely dreading having to make.

But before she could do that, her cell phone rang. She glanced down at the display. It was Buster, her boyfriend of three years. She hesitated, then let the call go to voice mail, then felt guilty about letting it go to voice mail. Of course, Buster never minded when she didn't take his calls, though sometimes, honestly, she wished he
did
mind. Just a little. But that wasn't fair, she told herself. He didn't mind because he knew she'd call him back when she found the time. And she would. It was just that, lately, it seemed to be getting harder for her to find the time. Well, she'd think about that later, she decided, scrolling through her cell-phone's contacts for the bank's number. But she was interrupted again, this time by a light tap on the door.

“Do you have a minute?” Frankie, who was the cook at Pearl's, asked as he opened the door just wide enough to poke his head in.

“Yes, of course,” she said, though she suppressed a little flicker of irritation as she said it. She wasn't irritated at Frankie—the man was a saint—but at the constant interruptions that every workday brought with it. Normally, she didn't mind those interruptions; she even welcomed them. They were what kept her from getting bored. Not today, though. Today she needed to do something about the problem staring up at her from her desktop.

Still, she smiled at Frankie as she simultaneously motioned him into the office and locked the bank statement back in her top desk drawer.

“What can I do for you, Frankie?” she asked, as he lumbered in, immediately filling the entire space with his massive bulk.

“Um, well, it's not for me. It's for the customers. They're complaining—whining, really—that it's too hot in Pearl's,” he said, in a tone that suggested they were being unreasonable. Frankie was so loyal to Caroline, and to Pearl's, that he took even the most minor customer complaint personally. “
I
don't think it's that bad, though,” he added. “I mean, we're having a heat wave; what do they expect?”

“They expect to eat their breakfasts in an air-conditioned coffee shop,” Caroline said, automatically.

“It
is
air-conditioned,” Frankie objected. “The system's just a little old.”

“Frankie, that system is more than just a little old. It's ancient. It needs to be replaced. You and I both know that. Now our customers know it, too.”

Frankie sighed, an enormous sigh, and shoved his gigantic hands into his apron pockets. “Well, what do you want me to tell them?”

“Who's complaining?” she asked.

“Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester, and Cliff Donahue.”

She frowned. They were all good customers. “Just . . . just comp their lunches and turn up the fans,” she said. “And ask Jessica to put extra ice in all the water glasses.”

He nodded and turned to leave.

“And Frankie? I'll ask Bill Schelinger to take another look at the air-conditioning. Maybe there's something he can do with it, at least until I can . . .” Her voice trailed off. She had no idea if, or when, she'd be able to afford a new system, not when Bill Schelinger had already told her it would cost over ten thousand dollars.

“Hey, don't worry about it.” Frankie said, flashing her one of his rare smiles. “It'll all work out. You'll see.”

“Thanks, Frankie,” she said, gratefully. And then, with a little frown, “Is Daisy back yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, she's late then,” she said, her eyes traveling to the clock on her desk. “Which is strange, because believe it or not, she wants me to have lunch with her here today. A sit-down lunch. She made me put it in my date book and everything.”

“That's nice,” Frankie said. And it
was
nice, Caroline thought, but it was also a little odd. Of course, she and Daisy had lunch at Pearl's every day in the summertime, but they usually just grabbed it whenever they could. They rarely had either the free time, or the free table, to have it together. Maybe, Caroline thought now, Daisy was trying to make some time for them together in an otherwise hectic summer. And she couldn't argue with that, could she? Since Daisy had started college, their time together had felt all too brief to Caroline.

“Well, I'll be getting back to work,” Frankie said, and then he was gone. And Caroline was left to chew distractedly on her lower lip and add the faulty air-conditioning to her list of worries. But she was interrupted again, almost immediately, by another knock on the door.

“Come in,” she called out, her impatience flaring at this latest interruption.

The door opened, tentatively, and Jessica, her waitress, leaned in.

“Caroline?”

“Yes, Jessica?” Caroline said, stealing herself for this exchange. Jessica was Daisy's best friend, and although the friendship between the two of them had long been a mystery to Caroline—Daisy, the perennial honor student, on the one hand, and Jessica, the hopeless scatterbrain on the other—she tried to be respectful of it. She'd hired Jessica six weeks ago, after she'd failed out of cosmetology school, as a favor to Daisy. But Caroline had regretted it ever since. Of course everyone had a learning curve when they started waitressing. But Jessica's was all curve and no learning.

“Um, there's a problem with a customer,” Jessica said hesitantly, her brown eyes wide in her heart-shaped face.

“Yes?” Caroline said, impatiently. Every minute Jessica spent standing here was a minute she wasn't waiting on tables.

“Well, it's kind of awkward, but . . .” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly and fidgeted with her apron strings.

“Jessica,” Caroline said, closing her eyes and willing herself not to lose her temper, “please tell me this isn't about one of your ex-boyfriends eating here again. Because I've told you before you're going to have to wait on them the same way you'd wait on any other customer.” And she sighed wearily, because the way Jessica waited on any other customer was with a fairly consistent level of incompetence.

“Oh no, it's not one of
my
exes,” Jessica said now, tucking one of her unruly brown curls behind an ear. “It's . . . it's actually one of
your
exes. I mean, not
one
of them,” she qualified, shifting her weight nervously from one foot to the other. “Just your ex. Your
ex
-husband, I mean. He's sitting at one of the tables. And he says he wants to see you.”

“My ex-husband? Here?” Caroline said, her mind a perfect blank.

Jessica nodded emphatically. “Uh-huh.” But Caroline only stared at her, and Jessica, feeling some explanation was in order, went on. “See, what happened was, I went to take this customer's order. And I said the patty melt was on special, and he said ‘no, thank you,' he didn't want the patty melt, he wanted to see you. And I said you were in your office, and I wasn't supposed to disturb you there unless it was absolutely necessary. And I said it had already been absolutely necessary three times this morning, and I was hoping it wouldn't be again, because the last time I interrupted you, you seemed a little irritated. So I told him if I bothered you again, I might get fired, and I really need this job. And he said—”

“Jessica, stop,” Caroline said. Her brain was finally starting to work again. And her brain told her that Jack Keegan could not be here. “Just back up, honey. Where, in all of this, did this man say he was my ex-husband?”

“I was getting to that.”

“Well, get to it faster.”

“He said he didn't want to get me in trouble, but I'd still need to tell you that Jack Keegan, your ex-husband and Daisy's father, was here. And that he wanted to see you.”

Jack
?
Here
? After all this time? It took a lot to shock Caroline. But this did it. This completely, and totally, shocked her.

“What do you want me to tell him?” Jessica asked now. “Because I'll tell him anything you want me to, Caroline. Even if it's not true. I mean, I try not to tell lies, I really do. Especially big lies. But small lies are different; sometimes you can't help telling them. Well, you can help telling them but—”

“Jessica, please. Just . . . just stop talking. Just for a minute,” Caroline said, needing it to be quiet in the office. Needing to think—and think quickly.

“No,” she said, after a moment of silence.

“No, what?”

“No, I won't see him, Jessica,” she said, knowing that it was the only possible answer to his request to see her. “Tell Jack—Mr. Keegan—that he has no business turning up here, without warning, in the middle of the workday. And, furthermore, that I can't imagine why he's here, or what he could possibly want.”

“I, I don't know if I can remember all that,” Jessica said worriedly. “I mean, not exactly the way you said it. Should I write it down?”

“No,” Caroline snapped. “Just tell him I can't,
I won't
, see him.”

“Okay,” Jessica said, scurrying out of the office and closing the door behind her.

But it seemed to Caroline that not sixty seconds later she was back, knocking on the door again.

“Yes, Jessica?”

Jessica opened the door, slightly breathless. “Caroline, I told him what you said, and he said to tell you he's not leaving until after you see him. He said he'll sit at that table all afternoon if necessary.”

“He actually said that?” Caroline asked, her face flushing with anger.

Jessica nodded anxiously. “Do you want me to have Frankie ask him to leave?” This was generally how they dealt with the rare unwanted customer at Pearl's. Frankie asked them to leave. He never had to do more than ask them either. Having people listen to you was one of the perks of being six feet six inches tall and weighing three hundred pounds.

“No, don't tell Frankie,” Caroline said. “It's tempting. But Jack is just brave enough—or stupid enough, I should say—to take Frankie on. And I don't want there to be a scene. I'll ask him to leave myself.”