Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe

  And she had just the right tools for this job: her cupcake recipes, all laid out on the café counter, each designed with a specific purpose in mind. Chocolate-covered raspberry (romantic), gingerbread (cozy), bananas Foster (luxurious), white chocolate mousse (elegant), dark chocolate truffle (decadent), birthday cake (festive) . . . This was a difficult decision.

  “Mom?”

  Chelsea turned to see little Emily in her pajamas, clutching a storybook. “Are you gonna tuck me in?”

  Chelsea glanced at the oven. She had some time before the next batch would need to be ready. “Manny?”

  Manny slammed into and then through the swinging doors of the kitchen.

  “Would you keep an eye on the oven for me? I have a date with a very important person,” she said.

  Emily beamed.

  “Si, señora.”

  “Hasta mañana, Manny!” Emily called as she skipped out of the kitchen. “That’s Spanish, Mom. It means see you tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. Oh. My. Gosh. It’s tomorrow!

  Chelsea awoke with a start and glanced at the clown clock on the wall. Six thirty! She was late and trapped. Stuck between a soundly sleeping Emily and a wall.

  “All right, everyone. Up!” Chelsea chucked the storybook she’d fallen asleep reading and shimmied out of the lower bunk. “C’mon, kiddos. Rise and shine. And do it fast. It’s time to open the café!”

  Chelsea charged Hancock with getting his sister ready for school and raced down the stairs, smoothing her wild halo of frizz.

  Her mind was racing with the list of things she needed to do. So much so, she barely noticed the gleaming floors or strawberry cupcakes in her display. Then she took in the scrumptious smell filling the air.

  “What on earth?” Chelsea stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, her voice trailing. She had never seen anything like it.

  White chocolate mousse. Dark chocolate raspberry. Bananas Foster. Mocha chip. Butter pecan. Caramel cream. Chelsea’s finest recipes lined the stainless steel island by the dozens. But they did not stop there. As Chelsea surveyed the room, the sugary confections seemed to have multiplied like the Gospel’s loaves and fishes. There was enough to feed five thousand people (or at least a solid three hundred).

  “Morning, boss.”

  Chelsea turned to see Manny standing behind her, covered in flour. “You did this?”

  “I did not know which recipe you wanted to make, so I made them all.” Manny shrugged, sending a puffy cloud of flour into the air.

  “But there are over a hundred!” Chelsea exclaimed.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said through a yawn. “I switched to half dozens after midnight.”

  “Wow . . .” she marveled. “You must really know how to stretch ingredients.”

  “A little lesson from my Father. I come from a big family.”

  “Well, I don’t know how you did it,” Chelsea said, still shaking her head, “but they look perfect. Have you tried any of them?”

  Manny nodded. “They’re really good.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Um, all of them.” He gave Chelsea a sheepish grin. “But don’t take it from me.”

  Chelsea bit into her personal favorite: a melt-in-your-mouth German chocolate recipe. It was heavenly. “But what will we do with them all?”

  Chelsea spotted the reporter the moment he entered the café. Imposing frame, wire-rimmed glasses, and wiry hair just beginning to gray.

  “Bill Davis. I used to work with your father. He doing okay?” he asked as they shook hands.

  Only two topics were off-limits. Chelsea’s father was the first.

  Ding! Ding! She breathed a sigh of relief, thankful for the interruption. And for a customer to fill the empty café.

  “Delivery for Chelsea Chambers!”

  Chelsea raised her hand to identify herself. Please don’t be the IRS.

  “It’s from Sawyer Chambers,” the delivery woman added, handing Chelsea a small package.

  Chelsea knew she should wait to open it. But how could she resist? “Excuse me a moment,” she said to the reporter. Inside she found a folded note taped to a box of chocolates.

  Sorry about everything. Especially losing our money. Working to fix it. Sawyer. P. S. I figured a box of chocolates didn’t break the communication ban.

  Chelsea’s face burned hot with emotion. Lots of emotion.

  “So how is Sawyer Chambers these days?”

  Sawyer Chambers. The second off-limits topic.

  “Looks like y’all are gettin’ along real fine,” Bill continued, nodding to Sawyer’s romantic gesture. “Guess there’s no substance to those Internet rumors, eh?”

  Chelsea blinked and blanked. She was a deer caught in the headlights. Of a freight train. Bill might as well have been wearing a conductor’s hat.

  “Will he be around at all today?” The reporter wasn’t giving up.

  Splat! Manny dropped a box of cupcakes on the floor right beside them, barely missing Bill’s shoes. Chelsea jumped to her feet to retrieve the box, apologizing for Manny, yet never so grateful for his clumsiness. As she stood, Chelsea noticed the tall stack of boxes in his arms.

  “These are all ready, Mrs. Chambers.”

  “Ready?” Chelsea asked.

  “For your morning delivery.”

  Written on the side of each box was an address. Some Chelsea recognized, others she didn’t.

  Bill eyed the addresses. “The Salvation Army? La Bandera apartment complex? St. Vincent’s assisted living . . . Hard to believe these places can even afford a special delivery.”

  Chelsea smiled at Manny. Finally, she got it.

  “We’re giving them away,” she declared. “It was a part of my mom’s weekly routine for decades. I’m just carrying on the tradition. Care to come along, Bill? I can drive. It’ll give us a chance to talk.” Chelsea took the boxes from Manny. “About the café,” she emphasized.

  Their trip through the surrounding community was an eye-opener. And not just for Bill, who scribbled Chelsea’s every move into his pocket notebook. To Chelsea, this hardly seemed like the neighborhood of her childhood. At least not as she remembered it.

  As young girls, Chelsea and Sara had volunteered with their mother at the local Salvation Army. But even on Thanksgiving Day there were never this many people waiting in line—nor so few volunteers there to serve them.

  La Bandera apartments stood in shambles. Windows had been shuttered with plywood and cardboard, offering residents little shelter from the winter cold. The years of neglect were all the more striking when compared to the trendy high-income homes nearby.

  At St. Vincent’s, Chelsea and Bill were greeted by elderly residents who lit up at the sight of the cupcakes and who lingered for the company after the baked goods were gone.

  Then she saw him. An old man seated by a window, jingling what appeared to be a set of keys. Charles Hancock, her father. But this was not the man in her memories. He was feeble and gray, his identity betrayed only by his deep brown eyes, the one physical trait Chelsea shared with her father.

  Thirteen years had passed since Chelsea had last seen him. She could still recall his face, twisted with anger. His long-ago explosion still rocked her emotional world. Those distinctive eyes that had burned with rage. The voice that had roared with disappointment. You’re giving up all you’ve worked toward to be . . . what . . . a housewife! It seemed like yesterday to Chelsea. But it looked like a lifetime on her father. A lifetime she was not ready to face.

  Chelsea grabbed Bill’s arm and headed for the door. “I’ve lost track of the time—I need to get back to the café.”

  When she jerked to a stop in the empty parking lot, Bill said his thanks and made a quick escape, leaving Chelsea with a moment alone. Her crowded mind needed the space. Her father was now occupying every nook and cranny, and she was eager to kick him out.

  Chapter 9

  CHURCH SHOPPING? WE’RE OPEN SUNDAYS! boasted the marquee. Chelsea chuckle
d at her brother-in-law’s wit. Pastor Tony Morales had a winsome personality and a lively sense of humor. It’s no wonder he and Sara were such a good match.

  With the newspaper interview behind her, Chelsea was following through on her promise to set up shop for Sunday service. Faith Community Church was only a five-minute drive from Higher Grounds. It sat south of the King William district in a neighborhood where houses were smaller, cars were older, and more than one front lawn served as a workshop for a shade-tree mechanic.

  The congregation met in a former Baptist church. Worn concrete steps led up to the main entrance, and the red brick had long since faded to pink. A tall steeple adorned the roof.

  Chelsea hadn’t attended church often in the last decade. On Sundays, Sawyer was either recovering from a game or playing in one. During the off-season, he liked to golf or work out. He never wanted to go to church.

  “It would just turn into a big autograph session,” he would tell her. And he was right.

  But Chelsea could get in and out without being recognized. She’d found a megachurch in Dallas where she could sign the kids in at the nursery and take a comfortable seat in the back of the sanctuary the size of an airplane hangar. The preacher looked like a munchkin on the large stage, so she watched on the big screen.

  Today, as she led Hancock, Emily, and Manny through the weighty red doors of Faith Community, she was flooded with warm memories. The stained glass, the Do This in Remembrance of Me carving on the altar, the woody smell of old pews—it felt so familiar. Chelsea could almost hear her mother singing with vibrance and vibrato . . . “It is well . . . It is well with my soul!” No matter the trials her family faced, Chelsea had always found peace in the pews. This was one part of her family history she didn’t mind revisiting.

  “We’re so glad you’re here!” Sara welcomed them into the humble space. “We’ve got big plans for this church,” she said. “Tony is such a visionary!”

  Visionary indeed. Where Chelsea saw the dented walls and stained carpet of the old banquet hall, Tony envisioned a multimedia youth room. The cracked concrete basketball court was simply a “skatepark-to-be.” The linoleum-floored lobby, an inviting coffee bar—that is, if Chelsea could add her magic touch.

  “A city on a hill!” Tony said at the end of their tour. “That’s how I see this place. If it brings the people to the church, I’m all for it!”

  “I don’t know that my café is going to make any converts, but I sure hope the reverse is true,” Chelsea said to Manny as they set up in the lobby. “We could use the customers.”

  As the congregation filtered into the sanctuary, Chelsea had doubts that this crowd could get her business booming. First, there wasn’t much of a crowd. Only one-third of the pews were occupied. Second, the average age appeared to be well over sixty. In spite of Tony’s passion, this congregation was not thriving. It was barely surviving.

  “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find . . .” Chelsea tuned into Tony’s words.

  There’s something I can get behind. Chelsea knew what she’d ask God for. Answers. But the more she thought about it, the longer her list of questions grew. In fact, it outgrew the length of the service.

  Chelsea was still pondering her questions when she lay in bed that night. But she never did bring herself to ask them.

  Chapter 10

  Watching and waiting. That’s what Chelsea and Manny were doing the morning the newspaper review went to press. The Tribune was distributed weekly to cafés around town, and Chelsea wanted to be the first to read it.

  If she couldn’t make the business work, she needed a backup plan, and quick. She did have a few in mind. A tell-all memoir. A spiritual pilgrimage. A cooking blog. Buying a Tuscan chateau. All utterly sensible ways to undergo a midlife crisis, not to mention increase her odds of landing in the arms of a chiseled and contemplative (she wasn’t entirely shallow) man. One who treasured her for all her flaws and eccentricities and extra weight.

  Why not? It always worked for Julia Roberts.

  The first payment to the IRS was due in three weeks, and the Higher Grounds Café had yet to meet its daily latte quota. Chelsea needed people lining up around the block.

  Please, God. Is that too much to ask?

  “Did you say something?” Manny asked.

  “No, I just . . . We really need a glowing review.”

  Watching and waiting. Then a thud on the front porch.

  “The paper boy!”

  Chelsea and Manny raced for the door. The review of the Higher Grounds Café was the lead story in the Food and Dining section.

  “This is it, Manny. The moment of truth.” Chelsea took a deep breath and opened the paper right there on the front lawn.

  If the Higher Grounds Café manages to reinvent itself today, then it might still be around tomorrow,” Chelsea recited from memory.

  “I thought it was a nice review,” Bo said, taking a sip of his cappuccino.

  “What was that thing he said? About the fireplace?” asked Sara, who had dropped in to offer moral support after reading the review online.

  Manny scanned the newspaper. “ ‘Chelsea Chambers and her staff glow with the warmth of a fireplace. Though, unlike her predecessors, Mrs. Chambers takes a bit of kindling . . .’ ”

  “Okay, Manny, that’s enough!” Sara interrupted. “See, Chelsea? You’re a fireplace.”

  Chelsea was not glowing, and neither was the review. Sure, Bill Davis praised the café’s generous spirit and commitment to the community, but he packaged these things as “the time-held traditions of a timeworn establishment.” He called the coffee “acceptable” and the baked goods “divine,” but said the café left much to be desired in the way of modern conveniences. In a neighborhood that valued slick design and high-speed Internet, he reckoned there was no longer room for nostalgia. The closing line was the real kicker: “Higher Grounds Café could become a hub in South San, but for now, it’s a good old-fashioned café with a lot of heart.”

  Except there was a typo, so it read “God old-fashioned café.”

  “One good line, and it’s not even quotable!” Chelsea shouted to the heavens in jest.

  “God heard that,” Sara said playfully. “And you know what? He even cares.”

  “And that, right there, is why you will live happily ever after,” Chelsea said, her skepticism shining through. She could tell from the look on Sara’s face that she had come off harsher than intended.

  “Well, folks, I think I better relieve Tony.” Sara attempted a smile. “Any chance I could get two Americanos?”

  “One for Tony and one for you to hold?” Chelsea asked.

  Sara grinned. “Maybe. Or one for each hand.”

  Sara left with three Americanos. Just in case.

  Bo lingered in the café long after his cappuccino was gone. The hollow sound of his fingers drumming on the paper cup told Chelsea there was something on his mind.

  “Can I get you anything, Bo?” she asked.

  “Oh, no . . .”

  Chelsea settled into the chair across from him. She had never seen him like this, but somehow she found comfort in the fact that a good man like Bo could be troubled by something. “Bo? Are you sure everything is okay?”

  He seemed reluctant even to look at her. “No, Chelsea, I’m afraid it’s not,” he began, summoning a bit of boldness. “I’ve been coming into this café every day for the last seven years. During that time, I learned a lot about you from your mother. And I know exactly what she’d want me to say to you right now.”

  Chelsea sat back in her chair, her heart racing.

  “I don’t know everything you’re going through. Just like you don’t know everything I’m going through. But I can tell you, whatever it is, God can help. But you have to ask Him.”

  With that the reluctant evangelist got to his feet. “Now you’ll have to excuse me, but I’ve got to leave. And I sure hope you let me come back after this,” he added.

  Chelsea was glu
ed to her seat, searching for a response.

  “I’ve tried, Bo,” she said just before he reached the door. “I’ve tried to ask for help.” She tilted her head and sighed. “Faith . . . well, faith is hard for me. I’ve got questions and, to be honest, I’ve made mistakes.”

  Bo spoke from some place deep within. “Try again,” he said. “And keep trying. I can’t promise that one prayer will change everything. But it might.”

  Chelsea thought she spotted moisture in his eyes. But he turned away before she knew for sure.

  That night after the kids were asleep, Chelsea’s mind returned to her ever-growing list of troubles. She wracked her brain for new solutions, but she had tried everything she could think to do.

  Try again.

  It had been a long time since Chelsea had prayed a prayer and meant it. She searched for the words to sum up her problems, but all she could think of was a phrase so simple she wasn’t even sure it would count.

  “God, I need help.”

  Chapter 11

  You certainly have sophisticated taste!” Chelsea said, adding a third shot of espresso to a steaming café breve.

  “It’s for my mom. It’s her birthday,” said the boy. He couldn’t have been older than ten, eleven tops. But his eyes seemed wiser. His skinny frame appeared in desperate need of a warm jacket.

  “How ’bout a hot chocolate for you? It’s a little chilly outside.”

  “That’s okay, I’m fine.”

  Chelsea scooped up the boy’s pocket change. He was a quarter short of $3.55, but she wasn’t going to count that against him. “I’m Chelsea. I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Do you live around here?”

  “I’m Marcus. I live a couple miles away.”

  Chelsea wondered if he had walked from La Bandera. “I tell you what, Marcus. Your hot chocolate’s on the house today. And so are these blueberry muffins,” she said, wrapping them up to go. For the last three days, Chelsea had thrown away stale leftover baked goods. She’d much rather see someone enjoy them while they were fresh.