Page 39 of Happy Harbor
Diane moved closer. “Josie, I want this to work for you and Kendra. Even though I hope you choose not to sell it in six months, I’d like for you to get the most out of it if you do.”
“Why do you care?” she asked, her tone almost accusatory.
“I care because I’m your mother, and even if you don’t believe me, I love you. I love Kendra too.”
“You know nothing about my daughter,” Josie growled.
“I know she loves you, and I know she’s excited about Happy Harbor and a fresh start. I also know that you want to do better than your own mother did, right?”
“Not a hard task. I can just show up in her life and do better.”
That stung, but Diane chose not to react. “Very true. Look, you can be mad at me every single day for six months. Cuss me out in your head every night after work. Make a voodoo doll of your alcoholic mother. Whatever you need to do. Just please do what’s best for this restaurant because people are counting on you, like Bear and Tabby.”
“Tabby seems to be less than stellar. Three times today she has brought water to people who ordered waffles, or waffles to people who ordered water. I asked her why, and she said she just writes the letter W on her notepad.”
Diane chuckled. “Well, she isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she’s a sweet girl and a new mother. You remember what that felt like, right?”
Josie sighed. “I guess so.”
“We need at least one more server here, and I know we have the budget for that. Let me help you grow this restaurant so you can sell it and never have to see me again.” Maybe a little reverse psychology would help. If there was one thing she knew about her daughter, it was that she would never admit when she was wrong. Everything needed to appear to be her idea, or she wouldn’t go for it. By offering to help her get out of Happy Harbor in six months, Diane felt she had the best chance of calming her down and getting her on the right track when it came to running the restaurant.
Josie pulled some of the menus from below the hostess stand and stacked them in front of her, wiping each one with an antibacterial cloth.
“Fine. Put an ad in the paper or whatever y’all do around here. One more server, and that’s it. Let me know when you have people for me to interview.”
Diane hadn’t been offering to do all that work, but she would if it meant keeping Josie and Kendra in town. She needed a chance to prove to her daughter that she had changed and could be her mother again. All she needed was time.
CHAPTERTEN
Kendra stood in front of the high school and stared at it for what seemed like minutes. “This is it?”
“This is it.”
“How many kids go here?”
Her mother shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe a quarter of how many went to your high school back in Atlanta.”
She’d never seen such a small school. Back home, her high school was two stories with a basement and twenty freestanding trailers, and they were still bursting at the seams. They had a baseball field, a football field, and a fine arts building too.
Happy Harbor High School was one long building, and it looked like it was built before God was born. There was a small stadium, no trailers, and wooden fencing around part of the campus.
“What are the fences for?”
Her mom laughed. “Back in the early days, it was to keep out livestock from the local farm.”
“There are farms here?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“Not anymore, but back then there were. The cows liked to roam.”
Kendra was wondering if this whole thing was a good idea. She didn’t fit in at school in Atlanta, but would she fit in here? She wasn’t exactly a small-town girl. Sometimes, she felt as if she didn’t fit in anywhere, like nobody really wanted to be friends with her because she didn’t fit the mold.
Her mother walked toward the school, and Kendra followed, anxious about how her first day would go. As they entered, she was surprised at just how antiquated the school looked with its pale-yellow, concrete block walls and peeling tile floor. It smelled musty, like the old library she used to go to in Atlanta. It was the best place to make out with a boy and not get caught.
As soon as they entered the large lobby, her mom turned left toward a door that said Main Office. Inside were a few chairs and a long reception desk with dark wood and a little bell. Josie nodded toward it, and Kendra rang it before sitting down.
A few moments later, a smiling woman, who was as big around as she was tall, came from the back hallway. “Good mornin’, folks. How can I help you?” She was grinning like she’d won the lottery. Kendra would never understand morning people. Nothing good happened before ten a.m.
“Good morning. I need to enroll my daughter as a new student.”
