Page 55 of Lemon Crush

AUGUST

Bernadette Prudence Hudsonhad never been a saint or a prude, and no one would ever mistake her for one. She looked more like an Amazon, with a tall, slender body forged by a lifetime of physical training. We were the same age, but Bernie looked ten years younger and was in much better shape. Her sun-kissed skin, attractively displayed in a halter top and a pair of frayed jean shorts, was still soft and healthy-looking. I needed her secret. And possibly more SPF 100.

She stood there with her hands on her hips, studying me with inscrutable eyes, and the way the muscles bunched in her shoulders, arms and thighs made me silently question all my sedentary life choices.

When we were kids, she’d gone to dance competitions and gymnastics meets year-round, while I’d spent my days with my head buried in a book and my hand in the nearest bag of chips. Now she looked like she could compete in an Iron Man competition, while I…looked like I couldwritea book with one hand buried in a bag of chips.

I wondered if they served chips here.

She was going to be a grandmother in less than two months. It was hard to wrap my head around.

“I heard about your roof,” she finally said, after winning the once-over stare-down. “You can grab a plate if you’re hungry.”

“I’m fine.” I hated that this felt so uncomfortable. “And thank you for taking Morgan’s dogs while my power was out, but I’m not here for… Whatisall this?”

I gestured to the crowd around us but kept my focus on her familiar face. Even wearing its current look of suspicion, it helped calm the anxiety I was feeling.

She reached up to push a thick strand of dark-brown hair out of her face and work it back into her braid. “The usual. Wade made Hudson’s an unofficial command center for county workers and local maintenance. I’m not sure who started the rumor we were having a party and the whole neighborhood was invited to bring food.” She glared at the crowd milling around outside. “But since my brother is buried in work across the street, I closed up my studio to juggle this circus.”

“That was nice of you.” If memory served, she actually could juggle. And rock climb. And skydive.

Bernadette was a one-woman life goal.

“It’s a pain in the ass, like the dogs—Ann took them back to the house by the way. But that’s what family is for. They show up for each other,” she added with a meaningful look. “Even when it’s hard.”

Ouch. I felt that. I needed to orient and get out of here. “I’m actually here to help out too. I’m supposed to?—”

An embarrassingly high-pitched squeal of surprise escaped me when she pounced, wrapping her fingers around my wrist. “Do not fuck with me, August.”

Were we fighting now? I wasn’t dressed for fighting. And why did everyone think I was fucking with them?

“Tone it down, Wonder Woman,” I muttered as twenty heads turned to look at me. “I’m losing circulation in my fingers.”

“Sorry.” She loosened her grip, her expression tinged with desperation. “I heard you say you were here to help and got carried away.”

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” I told the people who were still staring at us, my face hot again. Then I looked at Bernie as I shook out my hand and flexed my fingers. “I had no idea yoga turned people into deadly weapons.”

“You’d be surprised.” She let out a loud breath. “Look, I know we’re not supposed to bother you with things like this, and if you’re having a bad day physically, I won’t push. But if I could borrow you for a couple of hours, I promise to give you free yoga lessons for a year.”

“Borrow me?” And what did she mean, she wasn’t supposed to bother me?

“Half the employees are stuck in one part of town or another until the water levels go down, and I am not patient enough to wait on all these people,” she continued rapidly. “A few friendly randos volunteered to grill and man the food tables, and I bribed two members of my band into waking up before the sun went down to run the bar and bus tables, but that’s it. There could be riots if I don’t have an extra pair of hands for an hour or four. If you can handle the till and pitch in with service, you can keep whatever tips you make. You’d really be helping me out.”

Bernie hadn’t asked me for much since Phoebe was born.

If anything, the last thirty years had been about the things we’dstoppedasking each other for. She’d stopped asking if I was coming to visit. I’d stopped calling for a pep talk every time we moved to a new location. We’d stopped checking in with each other for updates. We’d stopped sending each other Christmas cards after getting busy and forgetting for a year or two.

It was normal for people to drift apart when they lived halfwayacross the country from each other, though not when your families were so intrinsically connected. It made me feel like the distance between us was something I’d done wrong instead of a natural side effect of living separate lives.

Maybe it was. Maybe I needed to try to do something about it for once instead of running like hell in the opposite direction.

“Sure,” I said, social anxiety be damned. “Where do you need me?”

Three hours later, I was actually having a pretty good time, if lamenting the decision to wear a skirt. (Hello thigh friction, my old friend).

No one could be more surprised than I was.

The last time I’d worked as a server, I’d been in my twenties and customers didnotappreciate my tendency to trip over my own feet or forget which table had asked for what. Today, everyone was so relieved they’d survived a hurricane that they were surprisingly forgiving and kind when I gave them the wrong beer or cleared their table when they’d just gone back to the buffet for seconds. Some of them even saved me from myself—a woman wearing a camo cap caught a beer that was sliding off my tray like she was Neo fromThe Matrix.

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