The Caterer

Chapter 44

A LICE DROVE TO HER PARENTS’ HOUSE, dreading the weekend before her. She rubbed her forehead, still recovering from the previous night. They stayed at the bar before Harry took her to an oyster place in Georgetown that did something with rum where it came out as pearls that burst when she shot an oyster down. It made her feel lovely. Harry got them a bottle of sake. That was the last thing she remembered. It took her a minute to place where she was when she woke up, her apartment foreign to her. She didn’t remember getting home. At least she woke up clothed and alone.

She pulled it together enough to walk to work and load the van. Carver made her an extra strong latte and gave her basic carbs to eat. Fortunately, the desire to throw up had subsided. Her sunglasses did little to combat the sun, her head feeling like someone dropped an anvil on it. Hopefully if she kept drinking water and focused on what she was doing her mother wouldn't figure out what happened. She didn’t need a lecture.

In the morning light, she had no idea what she lost Delany over. There was no way he asked Bobbie to deliver a contract for her business. To do so would go against everything she knew about him. The fact he didn’t mention The Cora hurt. That he would let someone like Jonas have a restaurant in a hotel he owned was beyond what she could comprehend. If she had listened, maybe he could have explained what was going on. Except Bobbie was his blind spot, just like Nadia. Someday he would have to see the truth. Alice backed the van up to the kitchen door and went inside. The house was pristine, a setting for ten on the table in the kitchen. Bing Crosby crooned over the speakers. She didn’t call for her parents. Instead, she opened the side door to the van and started to unload.

It would be best to cut her losses and move on. Rita could oversee the Macon events as they transitioned them out. On Monday, she’d call Eddie and tell him she was not taking the job at Comida. Steps from what she wanted, and it all got taken away—again. Macon had felt like a lifeline, but look what it cost her. She should have been upfront with Tabby, but knew her sister would make her pick and she wanted to be near Delany. He was everything she never thought she’d find in a man. Now she’d lost him and her sister; nothing was worth that.

Her mother came into the kitchen. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She did a slow scan of the counter. “You’ve been here for a while. How are you holding up?”

“Fine.”

“She was going to find out sometime, Birdie.”

“Not today, Mom. Okay?”

“I think the best thing for both of you is to just let it go and move on.” She went into the living room. Alice scoffed and shook her head. Of course, her mother found this trivial considering whatever consumed her time. Tabby wouldn’t speak to her, and she had never felt so alone. Just move on! What did that even mean?

Needing to get out of the house, she took a basket from her dad’s greenhouse and went to see what she could forage. He called her name as she opened the side door. Alice waited, her dad joining her a moment later. She asked about his latest book, letting him ramble as they went to the wildflowers on the edge of the property. Finding a patch of Virginia spiderwort, she knelt.

“What’s going on, Birdie? Is it the move?” Her dad dropped nasturtiums and calendula into the basket before crouching close to her. Alice sat on the ground and told her dad everything—losing her food truck, meeting with Bobbie, fighting with Delany, walking away.

“I’m back at square one, Dad.” Only now she didn’t even have the food truck. The insurance company held up the money, something about possible arson. The police told her they found an accelerant on her truck. She had yet to tell Valencia what happened. Just let her go back to the spring and sit in the food truck and listen to Valencia sing and not have her heart trampled again.

Her dad put a hand on her arm, waiting until she looked at him.

“Are you sure about that? Cause from where I sit, you’ve found a nice niche.”

“I know I’m a good chef, Dad. That’s never been the issue.” She tore a blade of grass between her fingers.

“No, believing in yourself has been. Remember what you asked me before—what if you take this opportunity and fail? Have you? You’ve come into your own, Alice. You’re fighting for what you want, chasing it. So Delany gave you a hand up. The rest is your doing, all of it.”

Maryanne called out for him from the house. Her father pushed himself up, groaning.

“Now it’s time to pretend I enjoy this half as much as your mother.” He started for the house. Alice looked at what was around her. For everything else she wanted Delany there that weekend. She wanted him beside her, meeting her parents’ friends, getting to know the twins, being a part of her life. She’d lost the best thing in her life because of her fear.