Page 10 of Christmas in Watch Hill
“Yeah. Okay. Let’s get some dinner. I would like that.”
“Me too.”
We set off for the local watering hole and I marveled at that too—the relative ease of it, the unexpected flow of conversation that came with spending time with her. I liked seeing more of Nora, and it felt almost as if she was being placed in my path, put there for me to run into her time and time again.
Sam’s Deli was packed with customers, but we found two open seats at the end of the bar, a short distance away from the large screen TV playing one of the many college football bowl games. Nora made a few comments about that, too, and surprised me with her knowledge of the game and the standings, another thing I wouldn’t have figured just by looking at her. We ordered two beers, a small charcuterie board, and two of Sam’s Deli’s famous hamburgers.
“To holiday concerts.” She tipped her glass toward mine. “And spending time with . . . new friends.”
“Absolutely. I’ll drink to that.”
I clinked my dark ale to her light craft brew, then took a sip. It went down like smooth dark chocolate. We drank in silence for a little while, both of us relaxing as we watched Kansas State play Georgia in a place much warmer than Cincinnati. When halftime began, she turned to me.
“This is really nice. I was just thinking about it, and I haven’t allowed myself to relax like this in a long time.”
“Me neither.”
“I’ve spent the last eighteen months or so focused on the store, and that hasn’t left a lot of time for much else.” She gave me a shy smile over the rim of her pilsner, in which only half of the beer remained. “And it’s really hard. Harder than I thought.”
“Why is that?”
“There’s so much competition now. People are shopping differently, and I feel all this pressure to do everything at once.” She looked back at the TV screen, which played a commercial for last minute car deals from a local dealership. “My parents made running the store look so easy. I wish they were here.”
“What happened to them?”
“Until recently, it was so hard for me to talk about.” Biting her bottom lip, Nora studied me for a moment. “They died in a car accident on Columbia Parkway almost two years ago. They were coming home from seeing the Cincinnati Ballet, and a drunk driver crossed the median and hit them.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah, it was really bad. Horrible. Both cars were crushed, but the other driver walked away.” She gulped the rest of her beer as if it would give her some liquid courage. “They didn’t suffer—at least that’s what I heard. I don’t really know. I lived in New York, working as a photographer forLe Mademoiselle,and we were on location in Tucson at the time, doing an editorial shoot for an upcoming issue. My mom ran the store after Dad had made the initial investment. It was her dream, and she loved it.”
“Which is why you keep it going.”
Nora nodded. “Even though I’m finding out I’m terrible at it. I’m not like her. I don’t have . . . I don’t have the ‘it factor’ for success. The knack, you know. I can’t get a lot of customers in the door, and I can’t get the few I have to keep coming back.”
“I’m sure it’s not you.”
Our food arrived, but neither of us touched the hamburgers.
“It’s me,” she said instead. “I’ve come to realize that, and everything about the state of the business right now is telling me that. Sometimes, it really is.” She glanced down at her cooling burger. “But it feels nice talking to someone about it . . . someone who would get it.”
“And while it’s not the same kind of thing, I get the loss.”
Her expression fell and her eyes softened. “I can’t imagine.”
“It’s been hard for me to move on without Monica sometimes. It’s why I moved here. I wanted a different place to come home to every night—one that didn’t have Monica written all over it.”
“I’m glad you came,” she replied, and then her cheeks reddened. “I mean—”
“It’s okay. I’m glad, too.”
Our conversation broke off, and Nora finally ate a few of the fries that accompanied her meal. I took that as a signal that I could eat, also. I bit into the large burger and let out a satisfied murmur. Sam’s Deli always hit the spot, and this was another classic meal.
“I’m sure you’ll figure something out after the new year,” I said after we’d eaten several bites of our dinner. “Besides, things always settle down in January when life is a lot quieter.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of—things settling down and being even quieter on the sales front next month.” She put down what remained of her hamburger and gave me a sad smile. “But I’m also out of time. In addition to the lack of sales, I got a notice about my rent from Chadwick Properties. They want to raise it when my lease is up next month.”
“That doesn’t sound like a lot of notice.”
