Page 97 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
I put my phone back in my pocket and wait for some cars to creep over snowy Thames Street. I’m meeting Win and Regina for coffee at a place called Charm City Grinds that sits atop an old record shop called Charm City Rocks. I nearly fall twice as I negotiate the slick metal stairs at the side of the building.
“There he is!” shouts Win when I open the door.
“Woo hoo!” calls Regina. “My other killer has arrived!”
My boss and my creative partner are waiting for me at a little table by the window. My vacation is about to be over.
It’s a good thing I anticipated the snow drinkers.
We open at 9a.m.seven days a week with a little breakfast and Bloody Mary menu. Most weekday mornings we can get away with a skeleton crew to handle the sparse crowd. But with the snow rolling in, I texted Zoe last night and told her to rally extras, and now Edgar Allan’s is bustling with college kids home on holiday break and young professionals whose offices are letting them “work from home.”
“Who drinks beer this early?” Zoe murmurs as she passes holding two sixteen-ounce drafts.
I’m behind the bar with her, but I’m not doing much, because Lauren Maxwell will be here in one minute. The morning news is on one of the TVs. It’s muted, but they’re talking about the storm. They’ve made some poor junior reporter stand out in Fells Point by the harbor in a parka. A water taxi floats by behind her.
Hector installed a heater above the entrance yesterday that blasts two seconds of warm air whenever the front door opens. I hear it now, an epicwhoosh. I don’t look right away because somehow I know it’s her.
“Welcome in,” Zoe says, oblivious. “Grab a seat, hon.”
The shittiest thing so far is that I can’t tell anyone about any of this,because everyone I’d tell loved Tim, too, and I don’t want to ruin that for them. Tim’s secret is now my secret and, well, Lauren’s secret, too, I guess. She’s at the entrance now in a winter coat with what I hope is a faux-fur hood, and the burden of that secret is clear. She’s pretty and put-together. She’s in nice shape and has great, flowy strawberry-blond hair. But as she looks up at the new photograph of Tim, which is directly above me, I can see that she’s terrified. I give her a second to stand there not knowing what to do. Finally, I come out from behind the bar.
“Come on,” I say. “You like cannoli?”
I gave Dom a heads-upyesterday that I needed to borrow the Italian Embassy for a meeting, so he turned the lights on for us at the little bar area behind the host stand where people grab a glass of wine before being seated. The restaurant is closed to customers until this afternoon, so we’ve got the place to ourselves. Dom didn’t know who I was meeting with or why, so he turned some Christmas music on for us, and because fate is merciless, I’m sitting across from Lauren Maxwell while Michael Bublé gently sings “Let It Snow.”
“I love this restaurant,” she says.
“Don’t tell the chef,” I say. “He’s insufferable.”
She smiles, but nervously. Sounds of food prep come from the kitchen—chopping, cleaning. There must be a TV back there, because I hearIt’s a Wonderful Lifeplaying. Jimmy Stewart is going on about how he wants to live again, and I’m having a tough time not rolling my eyes.
“When I saw you at Costco,” Lauren says. “My reaction to your son. Is that when…?”
“Sort of,” I say.
She shifts in her seat, looks away.
“As far as I can tell,” I say, “Tim didn’t delete a single one of your email chains for the last six years.”
I watch as Lauren is moved by this, then I watch as she tries to hidethat she’s moved. For a moment, we sit in this fancy place like any two ladies might. Then I say, “Were you sleeping together?”
Just then, Dom appears carrying a silver tray. “Espressos, ladies,” he says. “Poured slowly over orange slices and brown sugar. Lemme know what you think.”
This is one of Dom’s signature moves: breezing in all handsome with culinary absurdities, then breezing out. Lauren and I sit silently again. She touches her glass but doesn’t drink. “No, we weren’t.”
I so badly wanted that to be the answer, but I’ve prepared myself for every conceivable other answer, so all I can do is breathe out slowly. “Really?”
“Really.”
“But—”
“Grace, I promise.” Then she takes a drink and says, “Wow.”
I sip, too, and she’s right.
“Orange slices?” she says.
“Who knew?” I say.
