The Sugar Queen

  “Jake, it’s Brandon.”

  Thank God. It was work. Brandon was a fellow ADA. “What’s up, Bran?”

  “I’ll get straight to the point,” Brandon said, which Jake didn’t find alarming. Brandon began every conversation this way. If he was going to lunch, he’d say, I’ll get straight to the point. I’m going to McDonald’s. “I went to Jiggery’s after work, and then came home and realized I’d left my wallet there. Long story short, I went back and Chloe was there.”

  Jake, pacing the porch to keep warm, suddenly stopped. “Chloe was at Jiggery’s? Alone?”

  “No, that’s just it. She was talking with someone. His name is Julian something. I can’t remember his last name. I’ve seen him in court a few times. Petty stuff, but he’s a hitter. I know you and Chloe are having some problems, but I thought you needed to know this.”

  His body felt coiled, ready to spring. He was not going to let Chloe get hurt again, by anyone. Not that he thought she would actually go off with another man. She said she would die first. She wouldn’t really…no, of course not. Chloe wouldn’t do that. But, God, just the thought of it. He couldn’t imagine what she must be going through knowing, knowing he’d been with someone else. “Thanks, Bran. I’ll go now.”

  Jake closed his phone and put it back in his jacket pocket. He turned to go inside, to get his coat and make his excuses, only to find his father at the front door, leaning in the doorway with his drink in his hand. “Trouble?” Kyle asked, almost leisurely.

  “I have to go, Dad. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “It’s work…”

  “I heard the whole thing. It’s Chloe. I told you this when she kicked you out, son. Give her some space, some time. You’re not doing yourself any favors by having people keep tabs on her, then showing up wherever she is. You shouldn’t have told her in the first place.” Though everyone in the DA’s office that night had agreed not to say anything because it would jeopardize all the work that had gone into winning the Beasley murder case, word had somehow leaked out to the courthouse about Jake-the-wonderboy’s indiscretion with an unnamed woman. It had eventually reached his father, who just happened to be the mayor of Bald Slope. Kyle had managed to stop the rumor like a tourniquet, not letting it bleed outside the building. But even he didn’t know whom Jake had slept with. That at least stayed in the office, though it killed Kyle not to know, and Jake wasn’t telling.

  “I’m not trying to keep tabs on her,” Jake said.

  “I went to see Chloe today, at her shop.”

  Jake’s hands fisted at his sides. His father told him not to see Chloe, yet he went to see her himself. “I appreciate that you’re concerned, but I can handle this on my own.”

  “No, you can’t. She could barely stand to have me near her. The balance of power was never equal between the two of you. You stand back. You let her realize that she needs you. If you push too hard, she’s going to walk. And don’t think I’m saying this for your benefit. It’s her I’m worried about. Chloe is good for you. I want her in this family. You messed up once, don’t do it again, because if you do it again, you’ll lose her for good and she’ll be left with nothing and nowhere to go. Do you want that?”

  “Of course not.”

  Kyle pushed himself away from the doorway. “Then come inside and compliment your mother on her dress and assure her that everything is going to be all right.”

  “I don’t suppose you ever did anything like this,” Jake said as he watched his father disappear inside.

  “If I did, you can be damn sure I never told your mother about it,” Kyle called out into the darkness.

  Tuesday afternoon, after a long day of nothing new, of trying not to watch for Jake or think of the mystery that was Julian, of pushing a slightly scorched Finding Forgiveness off the counter for the eighty-second time, Chloe was about to clean the grill and reluctantly go home. But then she saw Josey walk across the rotunda toward her and her day suddenly got a little brighter.

  “Josey!” she said. “I’m so glad you came by. You rushed away so quickly at the festival. I didn’t have any way to contact you to find out if you were all right.”

  “I know. I came by to tell you I’m sorry,” Josey said as she approached the counter. “I’m just a little…ten years old sometimes.” She made a face, as if it pained her to say that. “I have a cell phone. I’ll start checking messages if you want to call me. Do you have something to write on? I’ll give you the number.”

  Chloe took one of her business cards from the little stand by the register and handed it and a pen to her. Josey turned the business card over and wrote a number on the blank side.

  “So, what can I get you today?” Chloe asked. “Grilled tomato and cheese?”

  “No, thanks,” Josey said, capping the pen and putting it beside the card after she’d finished writing.

  “Oh, come on,” Chloe said. “I make a great fried egg sandwich. Want to try it?”

  Chloe stared at her with an encouraging smile until Josey finally laughed and nodded. “Okay.”

  “Great!” Chloe put on a pair of disposable gloves, then she took butter and two eggs from the under-the-counter fridge. “Go ahead and take a business card. You can call me here if you want. And the bottom number is my cell.” She plopped a pat of butter onto the grill. When the butter melted, she cracked the eggs into it, close enough for their whites to merge. While they sizzled, she buttered two slices of sourdough bread and put them on the grill.

  “I didn’t know this place was called Red’s,” Josey said, reading the card.

  Chloe smiled when she thought of her great-grandfather. “Another family tradition. My great-grandfather had red hair. So did my mother.” Chloe sprinkled the eggs with salt and pepper and a pinch of dill, then turned them over with her spatula. She flipped the quickly toasting bread too. She’d spent her childhood watching her great-grandfather do this, and here at the shop was the only time she felt him near anymore. “Do you want this for here or to go?”

  “To go.”

  Chloe sprinkled a little more salt and pepper on the eggs, made sure the yolks had firmed ever so slightly, then topped them with cheese. She let the cheese melt before scooping the eggs up and putting them on the buttered sourdough. She wrapped the sandwich and bagged it, then turned around to Josey. “On the house,” she said, waving away Josey’s attempt to pay her. “Why don’t you stick around for a minute while I clean up? We can leave together.”

  Josey leaned against the counter as Chloe turned around to scrape the grill. “I see you fished the book out of the trash,” Josey said.

  Chloe looked over her shoulder. Finding Forgiveness was back on the counter, close to Josey. Josey was stroking the cover, making sympathetic noises when she noticed the scorched places from where it had appeared on the grill in front of Chloe that morning. Chloe could almost hear it purr from the attention. Shameless book. “Um, yeah.”

  “Where do you get your books? The library? The bookstore?”

  Chloe hesitated. She finished with the grill, then wiped down the counters. She’d always wanted to reveal her relationship with books, about how they came to her. She wanted to be told it was all right, that strange things happened to other people too. But she could never bring herself to do it. The fear that she alone was odd, that no one would understand, was too strong. “I collect them,” she finally said, going to the sink. “I have hundreds of boxes of them in storage.”

  “Wow.”

  “Do you read a lot?” Chloe shut the water off after washing a few things.

  “I have favorites I read over and over. Every once in a while I’ll pick one up at the grocery store.”

  “You can borrow any of mine,” she said, wiping her hands. “In fact, let’s go to the storage rental now!”

  Josey looked surprised. “Now?”

  “I just need to cash out, then I’m finished here. Do you mind?”

  “No,” Josey said. “But you don’t hav
e to do this just for me.”

  “It’s for me too. I haven’t been to the storage rental in a while. I have some of my great-grandparents’ things there. Maybe it’s time I decorate the apartment with some of my stuff.” Chloe cashed out and put the money bag in the safe in the back room. After she locked the security gate, they walked outside. The days were getting shorter and the sun was already low in the sky. “I walked to work today. My apartment is about two blocks away, if you want to take my car.”

  “That’s okay. I’m parked right there.” Josey pointed to the far corner of the park, where there were two spaces, one occupied by a blue Land Rover and the other by a sparkling metallic gold Cadillac that looked like a large Las Vegas dancer.

  They walked down the steps and crossed the park. Chloe stopped at the SUV, but Josey continued on to the enormous gold Cadillac. “Oh, I thought…” Chloe shook her head and walked ahead. “Well, this is a nice car.”

  Josey laughed as she electronically unlocked the doors with the device on her key chain. “It’s on loan from Elvis.”

  When they got in, Chloe told her the name of the storage rental. Josey knew where it was and headed toward the highway. For the first few minutes, Chloe surreptitiously looked around the car. Cars were very personal and they usually said a lot about their drivers. This car was a couple of years old, but it still smelled new. Everything inside was very neat, very clean, and she was afraid to touch anything. There was nothing personal, or even the slightest bit messy, about it. It wasn’t Josey at all.

  When she finally looked up from her perusal and saw where they were, she suddenly said, “Oh, wait! Stop right here!”

  Josey came to a sudden stop in the street. “What? What’s wrong?”

  She had cut through a neighborhood just south of downtown. They were on a street called Summertime Road, so named because it was the route the old summertime residents used to take when they first entered the town for their summer stays. The Bald Slope natives always watched this road, waiting for them. Little kids perched in trees to better see the caravan of carriages, then, later, automobiles. Small boxy houses lined the street, looking like old wooden children’s blocks left outside, light pink and yellow and green.

  “Right here,” Chloe said. “This house. What do you think of it?”

  Josey looked at Chloe curiously, then leaned forward and stared at the buttercup-yellow house with white trim. There was a realtor’s sign in the neat front yard. “Same owners for over thirty years. A neighborhood that’s being revitalized, lots of young families moving in.” Josey sat back in her seat, shaking her head. “But they’re asking entirely too much for it. It’s been on the market for over a year and they haven’t budged on the price. They’re too emotionally attached.”

  Chloe laughed. “How do you know all that?”

  “It was brought to us as an investment opportunity. We were interested, but not at that price.”

  “Oh.” Chloe turned back to the house. Money had never meant a great deal to her, but at that moment she envied Josey’s wealth. Josey didn’t want to buy the house, but she could. “They’ve had a couple of open houses over the past year. It has the most wonderful library, to the right, just off the entrance. That window there. See? In a small house, you don’t expect something like that. When I first walked in and saw it, I remember thinking, This is it.” Chloe sighed. “I love this house. I pass by it all the time. Even if where I’m going is in the other direction. Jake thinks it’s funny.”

  “He doesn’t like it?”

  “He likes it. He likes it because I like it. But at the price they’re asking, we’d never be able to afford it without asking Jake’s parents for money. Jake has big issues with that. They gave him the apartment we live in, and he feels awkward enough about that as it is.”

  “So, you don’t own the apartment together?”

  “No, just him.”

  Josey looked worried. “Is he going to give it to you? I mean if the two of you don’t get back together?”

  “I don’t know.” The car was quiet for a moment. Life without Jake. She felt panic ballooning in her stomach, but she feigned a smile. She was not going to have an anxiety attack in front of Josey. “That’s it. I just wanted to show it to you.”

  “It’s a beautiful house,” Josey said.

  As they drove away, Chloe couldn’t help but look behind her, watching it disappear. “Yes, it is.”

  The sun had almost set by the time they reached the storage rental place—a large sprawling maze of low-slung buildings on an inky black tarmac. The security lights lit up the area like noon. The rent she shelled out for this place would pay for a small apartment. Each rental was temperature controlled and had overhead fluorescent lights.

  When Chloe lifted the bay door to her unit and turned on the lights, Josey walked in and said, “Wow, look at all this stuff.”

  Chloe followed her. She had forgotten how much this place smelled like the farmhouse—long since gone—of furniture polish and Borax detergent. She felt calmer all of a sudden. Why hadn’t she come here sooner? When she sold her great-grandparents’ land to a developing company, they’d let her keep the things in the house for months after closing. She sold some of the furniture during that time. Then, when she met Jake, the rest went directly into storage. Jake never suggested that she move her things into the apartment, and she knew she was partially to blame for that. She was so excited to be with him, to move in with him and into his life, it never occurred to her to bring any of herself with her.

  Chloe walked to a long bank of boxes, stacked chest high, a lifetime of books that had come to her. “So, what do you like to read?” She put a hand on one of the marked boxes. “I have mysteries. I have romance. I have history. Self-help. Classics.”

  “Romance,” Josey said.

  “I have the most of those, ironically,” Chloe said, walking over to the boxes on the far end. Josey followed. “I read these just before I met Jake. Tons of them. As soon as I finished one, there was another.”

  “How magical,” Josey said.

  Chloe shifted uncomfortably. “Books aren’t always right. But maybe they weren’t meant for me. Maybe they were meant for you. For you and Adam.” Chloe lifted the lid of one box and said, “Help yourself.”

  Josey paused with her mouth open for a moment, as if Chloe had literally shocked the words right out of her. “Um, listen, about Adam. Would you mind not saying anything about me to him? He seems distracted lately, anyway.”

  “Uh-oh,” Chloe said.

  “Uh-oh?”

  “I sort of already told him.”

  “Told him what?”

  “That you’ve been interested in him for a while.” Chloe laughed at Josey’s expression, then reached out and took her hands. “It’s a good thing, Josey! Adam isn’t seeing anyone. He moved here, so I know he wants to be here, but he’s just had some problems adapting. He needs to get out more. You could ask him out. There’s nothing wrong with that. Are you all right?”

  Instantly, Josey smiled and nodded. “Oh, yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course! What could be wrong? I have my choice of romance novels. I’m in heaven.”

  Josey began to go through the books, so Chloe walked around, touching things, smiling. There was the headboard of her old childhood bed, the same bed her mother slept in as a child. The pie safe. The jelly cabinet. These things weren’t meant to just take up space in order to make a point. They’d been waiting all this time for her to use them. Furniture was a lot more patient than books. Furniture waited for space in your life instead of just showing up and demanding attention.

  About a half hour later, Josey had a respectable pile of books on the floor. “I’ll get these back to you as soon as possible,” she called.

  Chloe wove her way around ladder-back chairs and braided rugs rolled up and set on end. “Don’t bother. Take all the time you need. They’ll make their way back to me eventually,” she said as she
reached Josey. She found an empty box and together they loaded the books into it. “What are you doing this weekend?”

  Josey shrugged. “Taking my mother to tea on Saturday. That’s about it.”

  “Do you want to go out? I don’t think I could stand another weekend in that apartment alone.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” Josey said doubtfully. She put the lid on the box and picked it up. “So, what did you decide to take with you?”

  Chloe turned and looked around the storage bay. “Nothing.”

  “No?” Josey said, surprised.

  “No.” Chloe took a deep breath, and the decision was there before she was even fully aware of it. She needed these things. She’d tucked too much of herself away as it was. But she also needed a place to put them. This wasn’t exactly the happy ending books had led her to believe. But what did she expect from paper and string and glue? She shouldn’t have trusted them in the first place. “I think I need to move out of Jake’s apartment.”

  Late that night, Josey was finally able to get the box of books out of her car and bring it up to her room. She stopped by the kitchen to get the fried egg sandwich from the refrigerator’s crisper drawer, where she’d hidden it earlier for Della Lee. She knew now that Della Lee did eat, at night when everyone was asleep. She probably washed then too. Maybe even did laundry. For days Helena had been complaining about things moving around the house overnight, and about faucets being left on and the refrigerator door being left slightly ajar, causing the milk carton and jam jars to sweat.

  As she headed up the stairs, she didn’t have to see Helena to know she’d popped her head out of her bedroom. “It’s okay, Helena. Go back to sleep,” she said, then heard Helena’s door click shut in the darkness.

  She got to her room and went to her closet. “I found out the real reason Adam is acting funny,” she said when she opened the door.

  Della Lee didn’t look up from reading one of her notebooks. “Why?”

  “Chloe told him I was in love with him,” she said morosely as she sat down with the box and sandwich bag.