Wishing on Willows: A Novel (20 page)

“She built it after her husband died. She and her friend over there.” John pointed to Bethany. “I think it represents healing, maybe. Or hope.”

Something uncomfortable squirmed in Ian’s gut. And it wasn’t the food.

The cash register dinged open, a glorious sound that repeated itself throughout the morning. Robin hurried to the kitchen and removed a batch of red velvet cupcakes from the oven. Hot and fresh. Her customers wouldn’t be able to resist them. The tips of her fingers smarted as she scooted each cupcake onto the cooling rack. Taking one last whiff of cocoa, she pushed through the door to join Joe.

Her chest swelled. For the second day in a row, she had a line in her café. An actual line. Yesterday, for the first time in years, she had run out of food. If not for making a fresh batch of chocolate fudge brownies in the afternoon, she wouldn’t have had anything to bring to the kids at One Life’s afterschool program. Robin pictured Piper Greeley—a red-haired, freckle-faced girl with knobby knees and sticky fingers, not much taller than Caleb. She smelled like cigarettes and wore the same purple shirt with a stretched-out collar every time Robin saw her. As soon as she brought in the brownies, Piper squealed and flung her skinny arms around Robin’s waist, jabbering about how much she loved chocolate.

Joe handed a woman change and a tall cup, then took the next woman’s order. Robin swept past him and positioned herself at the espresso machine. After a stretch of several frantic minutes, with Joe taking orders and her filling them, the line disappeared. Her doors opened and closed. And except for one patron crinkling through a newspaper in a corner seat, her café emptied.

Robin leaned against the counter. “That was great.”

Joe closed the register and held up a wad of multicolored papers. “Except most of them had these again.”

The rush of busyness dimmed as Joe fanned the coupons apart like a hand of cards. “You sure gave a lot of them away.”

“I thought they’d be good for business.” She ran her hands down her apron. “We’re building clientele. Those people will fall in love with our coffee and keep coming back.”

Right?

She refused to let the pathetic squeak of a word escape. Of course she was right. She had a two-part plan. First, get people through her doors and remind them why Willow Tree did so well that first year. The second part—where they returned as loyal customers willing to fight against Ian and his condominiums—would follow.

Joe pressed his palm against the top of his head, momentarily flattening his flyaway curls. “If you’re right, then you’re going to need another employee. I can’t work all those shifts you’ve got me scheduled for next week. Not with the classes I’m taking this summer.”

Joe was right, of course. If this continued, and she prayed it would, she would need more workers. Between Joe and Molly and Amanda’s willingness to step in from time to time, Robin had a hard time finding a schedule that didn’t involve her working every minute the café was open. And that wasn’t fair to Caleb. But how could she afford to hire another employee when, thanks to her ingenious coupon idea, her increased clientele wasn’t bringing in much profit? She buried her face in her hands. Why couldn’t life be easy for once?

“This probability and statistics course is kicking me in the rear. Math and I don’t get along so well.” Joe grabbed a stack of coffee cups wrapped in plastic, poked through the top and pulled the plastic away. “Do you mind if I take my break? I need to pick up a prescription at CVS.”

“No, of course not.” She pulled her hands away from her face.

The man in the corner rolled up his newspaper and came to the counter. Robin racked her brain, trying to recall his name. He worked at John Deere. An engineer. Married to Betsy, a constantly exhausted-looking woman with four boys under the age of four. Every time Robin saw her, she wanted to give the woman a hug.

“That coupon I got on Monday said free refills.”

What in the world had possessed her to put free refills on a coupon? Robin forced a smile, filled his cup a little farther from the brim than she might have if worry wasn’t burrowing its way beneath her skin, and handed him his drink.

“Thanks, Robin. I haven’t had coffee this great in a long time.”

“I hope you come back.”
Man. What is his name?

“You read this yet?” He flicked the paper. “Interesting article.” Mr. No-Name nodded farewell and left the café.

Robin unrolled the paper and came face to face with a large picture of Ian McKay, just as annoyingly dashing in black and white, and beneath him, the logo of McKay Development and Construction. The headline blazed, “A Battle Ensues: Old Versus New.”

She skimmed the article. Words about tax revenue and building the town’s economy. Boosting local business and a picture of McKay condominiums. They looked classy and well built. Especially beside a current picture of the area. Finally she came to her side of the story. A paltry paragraph. Her concerns about One Life and the population boom and how much she loved her café. All of which sounded incredibly lame next to Ian’s fancy statistics.

Heat pricked the back of her eyes. Crumpling up the paper, she shuffled to the wall and brushed her fingers across the surface of her favorite canvas, wishing, more than anything, she could crawl inside and return to that carefree time and space—when Micah was alive and their love was invincible and Robin wasn’t a widowed mother trying to save a struggling café. She brought her fingers over her lips, as if touching them might connect her to her husband.

She and Bethany had printed these pictures on canvases and hung them as soon as the paint dried. Every pounded nail, every paint stroke, the polished floor beneath her and the tables in front linked her past and her future—pain and hope encased in the mortar of a building. She’d poured her broken heart into this café, her dreams, her sorrow and regret, until the
walls pulsed with healing, pulsed with memories, pulsed with hope. Robin’s hand fell to her side. She sat on the piano bench and stroked the keys.

Micah had been her middle C—his life, their marriage, his love had determined where all the other notes of her life fell. When he died, the café took his place. The café became her middle C, her grounding point. And now Ian wanted to take it away. He wanted to banish it from existence.

Lord, I thought You wanted me to fight. How can I possibly win if You don’t help me?

Her eyes blurred the keys into an indistinct mass of ivory and ebony. She placed her hands over them and began to play. Phrasing, articulation, tempo adjustments. Everything her mother taught her fell from conscious thought, until the music ebbed and flowed inside her fingers. She depressed the soft pedal with her left foot and let the muted, mysterious notes pour out, an otherworldly tune that matched the churning in her soul.

Raindrops landed on the newspaper in Ian’s hand, melting into the words and pictures. He tucked it beneath his arm and trotted up the stairs, through the thick drizzle, until he stood beneath the awning of Willow Tree. He wanted to show Robin the article. She’d put on her boxing gloves at the fish fry, and it was his turn to do the same.

Running into John Broughton on Monday had been fortunate. Nobody would miss the front-page story. Tomorrow, the people of Peaks would show up at the town hall ready to listen. And hopefully, ready for change. Ian shook out his wet hair and peered inside the front window.

His attention traveled over the empty tables and landed on Robin, her hair gathered and swept over her shoulder, giving him an unencumbered view of her back as she sat straight and moved her hands over the piano keys. She wore a sundress the same color as the purple lilacs Dad planted on the side of their house when Ian was ten.

As soon he opened the door, her notes blew around him like a warm breeze. Slow and hauntingly beautiful. The music knocked on his chest, an
irresistible tapping that beckoned him to sit and listen. To soak in the music the way his mother used to soak in the smell of those lilacs every spring. But he couldn’t afford to get sidetracked now. So he blocked out the melody and spotted a crumpled newspaper on the floor.

She’d seen it. And obviously hadn’t liked it. He took a few more steps inside and steeled himself for her anger. For the moment she would turn around and spot him in the doorway. Her eyes would flash. She’d dismiss the article, claim that the citizens of Peaks cared more about One Life than tax revenue, and then she’d probably try to kick him out again.

The music stopped in the middle of a refrain. The sudden quiet jarred the air. She didn’t turn around. She didn’t move a muscle. She sat in the thickening silence. Then dropped her head into her hands and wept.

The café lurched. Throwing his determination not just off balance, but away. His calf muscles twitched. One leg moved closer. The other wanted to step toward the exit. And in the midst of his indecision, Robin turned, tears glistening on her cheeks, those blue eyes filled with equal parts sorrow and desperation. All because of him. He’d placed that desperation there. With his stupid news article. He took a step closer.

“Please …” Her whispered word came out dry and cracked, like the desert floor, making him thirsty for something he couldn’t define. “Please, leave.”

Ian listened. He hightailed it outside, where the drizzle had turned into fat, wet drops that splattered against his eyelashes and hair. He punched in the office number on his phone, hurrying toward the parking lot of Willow Tree Café until the receptionist answered. “Good morning. McKay Development and Construction.”

“Good morning, Sue. It’s Ian. Can you put me through to my dad, please?”

“Hold on just a minute, Ian. I think Jim’s in his office.”

The rain soaked through Ian’s shoulders and stuck to his skin. After a beat, Dad’s voice came on the other line. “Ian? Everything okay?”

No, nothing was okay. He either crushed Robin’s dreams or lost people their jobs—like Jim, who despite his suggestions last week, was a nice guy
with a family to take care of and a wife who needed health insurance. There had to be a better way. “Listen, Dad, I wanted to run something by you.” He ran his hand through wet hair. “I’d like to offer Robin Price first-floor ancillary use of our condominiums.”

The rain fell harder. Dad’s silence gave him too much time. Resentment built—for this job, for the position it placed him in. For the briefest of moments, he imagined leaving. He gazed at Arton’s through the downpour and pictured a restaurant there instead, something like Grandpa Vin’s Italian bistro. What might it be like, not living with his father’s legacy weighing on his shoulders? Ian dismissed the idea. He had responsibilities. He couldn’t ditch them because things were hard. That’s not who he was.

“Where’s this coming from?” Dad finally asked.

“She doesn’t want to sell and she loves her café. It’s a nice establishment. It could work with our condominiums.”

“It’s your call, Ian. Usually we rent out the space to a boutique or a chain. Something more established. But if you think renting the space out to Robin will get her to sell, then by all means, go right ahead.”

Robin’s face swam in his mind. Her tears and her sorrow. This was the best option. The only way to make them both winners.

“You can let me know how things go this weekend.”

“Thanks, Dad. I’ll see you at the banquet.”

Ian powered off his phone and did an about-face, back toward the dryness of the café, and used the wet sleeve of his shirt to wipe away the drops of rain rolling down his temple. As soon as he walked inside, Robin looked up—her tears gone, her eyes red. She was no longer alone and the crumpled newspaper was gone. Joe, the young man with the crazy hair, wiped off one of the tables and stepped behind the register, but Robin intercepted Ian before he reached the front counter. She tucked her hair behind her ears, her attention sweeping over his wet shirt and even wetter hair. “What do you want?”

“I have an offer to make.”

“We already did this.”

“This is a better offer.”

“I told you, I don’t care about money.”

“What if you could keep your café and I could build my condos?”

Robin hugged her middle and took a small step back. “Then neither of us would have a problem.”

“What do you think about renting out first-floor space for Willow Tree? You’d have a built-in clientele. A brand-new space. It would be perfect. I know this is all coming out of left field, but it makes a lot of sense.” The more he thought about it, the more he warmed to the idea. What might it be like, working alongside Robin, instead of against her?

“What about One Life?”

Ugh
. In his zest to fix Robin’s heartache, he’d forgotten all about the ministry. His mind scrambled for a solution. Maybe they could rent first-floor space too. But as soon as the idea formed, Ian had to dismiss it. That wouldn’t work. Rent would be too expensive and the entire landscape of the south side of town would be different. If people like the Crammers already struggled to walk inside One Life’s doors, how much less inclined would they be to do so with posh condominiums surrounding the place?