Page 77 of So Not My Thing
My favorite part was watching the progress as the stage was built. More than anything else, that marked the conversion from café to club. When it had been a café, from the entrance, the kitchen door was on the left side of the back wall and the hallway to the restrooms ran up the right. The contractor had built a hallway in front of the kitchen that extended halfway down each side wall. The stage went in against that. Now, as a club, standing in the same spot, it looked as if the stage backed up to the main wall, when really, now a hidden passage ran behind it so servers could come and go from the kitchen and customers could come and go to the restrooms without distracting anyone.
The stage had started as sturdy plywood and struts. It wasn’t high, maybe two feet, but it would need to hold the weight of a baby grand and up to six musicians with portable risers for even larger groups. Gradually, the floorboards had gone in, then the footlights, each new addition making Miss Mary’s a more distant memory.
With every bit of progress, I could imagine the musicians more clearly, plucking an upright bass, using brushes on the drums, doing riffs on the piano. It made my fingers itch. I’d quit piano lessons after junior high, and I only played every once in a while when I went over to visit my parents. I was rusty, but the skills were there.
“How do you feel about this?” Chloe asked me one morning when I stopped in to check on the progress before work.
“Guilty.”
“Guilty? Not the answer I expected.”
“Maybe disloyal is the right word. I loved Miss Mary’s so much, but honestly, every time I come down here, I get more excited about the renovations.”
“I get that,” she said, slowly. “But if her Facebook is anything to go by, I don’t think she’s missing the café at all.”
I laughed. “True. Did you see her post from yesterday?” She and Mr. Douglas were on the road in their RV and they’d stopped at an RV park near the Great Smoky Mountains for a couple of nights. Apparently, she’d decided to cook breakfast for all the other travelers staying in the campground, and her post had shown her beaming in front of a portable griddle surrounded by at least a dozen other people, all holding plates of pancakes and giving a thumbs up.
“Leave it to Miss Mary.” Chloe shook her head. “Of course she would turn an RV park full of strangers into family. Anyway, I don’t think she misses being on her old café schedule at all.”
“I know. But I still feel guilty about how much I love this new place.”
“Feelings aren’t logical, so I won’t try to talk you out of them. But if you don’t feel guilty about loving our apartment more than you love your parents’ house, there’s no reason to feel guilty about loving the changes here.”
“Hey, ladies,” Miles said behind us as he stepped out from the new kitchen hallway. “Good to see you this morning.”
“We’ll get out of your hair,” I said. “Just wanted to see how the stage was coming.”
“Almost done. The floodlights go up today.” He slid an arm around each of us, resting them on our shoulders. I stiffened slightly, surprised by the touch, but Chloe snaked her arm around his waist like they were the oldest of friends. It was the first time I could ever remember being jealous of her.
He gave a happy sigh as he studied the stage. “Definitely stop by after work so you can get the full effect.”
“Sounds good,” Chloe said. “And now I’m off to work. I have to cover a zoning hearing this afternoon, and I need to read up on some statutes. Try not to be jealous.”
“So jealous,” Miles said as she slipped away. “Have fun.”
Now it was only the two of us, me still standing like a wooden post next to him. I wanted to relax into him and slide my arm around his waist like Chloe had. It was the kind of thing I should be able to do as friends. Instead, I made an excuse to step away.
“Is this hickory?” I asked, walking toward the stage like I wanted to investigate it.
“Yeah. Same as the floor.” He sounded almost confused by the question, which made sense since I’d helped him pick the hardwood.
“Right. Good call. Well, I should get going.”
“See you after work?”
“Sure.” I tossed it over my shoulder as I headed for the kitchen exit.
“Ellie?” Miles called when I was halfway through the door. I paused and glanced back at him. “Good to see you this morning too.”
I nodded, trying to figure out why his words had made me blush as I exited the kitchen and walked out to my car. People said that all the time. Clients. Tenants. But somehow, coming from Miles, it had felt intimate.
Instead of driving into work, I headed out on Franklin to the I-10. I wanted to drive Pontchartrain Bridge. My parents had moved to Mandeville a few years ago, the city at the other end of the bridge, but that wasn’t why I wanted to drive it. The lake was massive and driving the twenty-three miles across it felt like driving over the ocean. I needed the wide-open space to clear my head.
For almost a month now, I’d avoided playing Miles’s music. I’d stayed away from his social media, and when thoughts of him drifted into my mind multiple times a day, I shoved them out. I’d kept my visits after work short and focused on the club.
But those had been my downfall.
I looked out over the water stretching as far as the eye could see on either side of the causeway, my wheels humming quietly over the concrete.
