Page 79 of The Rebound
“A couple of… months.” Beth trails off, wide-eyed as Jess subtly slides a twenty euro note into the tip jar.
As if being operated by a machine, Ollie immediately starts moving faster.
“And what are these?” Jess asks. “Lemon tarts? Do you bake them yourself?”
“No, there’s a woman in—”
“We should bring some back to your sister,” Jess says, tossing her hair as she glances over at me. “As a thank you.”
“Sounds good,” I say with a “tone it down” look.
“We’ll take eight.”
Beth stares at her. “Eight?”
“Eight.”
Beth’s grinning from ear to ear as we leave, laden with the tarts, two coffees each, and an éclair for the road.
“I’ll tag you on Instagram,” Jess calls. “You’re welcome,” she adds under her breath as the door falls shut behind us. “Why doesn’t she have more customers? She’s a doll.”
“I don’t know. Maybe because there’s hardly anyone here to begin with. There’s a reason everyone else only opens seasonally.”
“Their loss.” Jess groans around her first bite of éclair. “Oh my God, I missed calories.”
We stop by the river on the way back to drink our coffees, and though a rain cloud hovers threateningly overhead, it remains dry as we sit, our activity for the day finished.
“So that’s it?” Jess asks as she runs a finger around the pink cardboard box, finding the last of the cream.
I stare out at the empty field on the other side of the water. “That’s it.”
She leans back against the bench, draping one leg over the other. A lingering breeze whips the hood back from my head, ruffling through my hair, but Jess’s doesn’t move, weighed down with product and good genes.
“I know I cried,” I say haltingly. “But I’ve also got everything under control.”
“Your life’s a mess, babe.”
“To the untrained eye,” I begin, and she sighs.
“Look, if you had an epiphany and realized you hated your life and everything in it and decided to move home to renovate a cottage and start an organic-honey business I wouldsupport you. You know I would. I would place you on a pedestal and point at you and say that’s my friend and this is her choice. But this?” She gestures at the river, at me. “As pretty as it all is, it isn’t a choice. This was something you were forced to do because of a series of shitty circumstances. And what I don’t want to happen is for you to settle and think this is all you are worth and be miserable.”
“I’m not miserable.”
“You look miserable,” she says flatly. “Your skin looks bad and your hair looks frizzy and you’ve got a hardened ‘where did my life go?’ look in your eye. You’ve given up.”
“No.”
“Yes. You’ve given up even if you haven’t realized it yet. You’re not stuck here, Abby. It’s bad now but it will get better. So you need to stop thinking that this is your life now and remember that this is all just a break. You are here to see your sister and her very cute husband. You are here to catch up with old friends, to get back to your roots and connect with your homeland. Treat it like a vacation. A cold, windy vacation that you’ll never have to do again. You’re one of the smartest people I know and you didn’t climb all the way to the top floor only to settle for the basement.”
“I didn’t make it to the top floor.”
“The analogy works,” she says. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I mumble.
She settles back, calmer now she’s said her piece. “So is Beth single or what’s her deal? It’s just a question!” she adds at my look. “She was checking me out.”
“She was not. Don’t go near her. She’s my friend.”
