I grinned. I’d always liked Zoe, even before she married Mrs.Powell.
My mother’s lips twitched. “I get up early enough every morning without tying myself into a pretzel on the beach.”
“Annie! You’re here!” Zoe enfolded me in a familiar cloud of patchouli, holding on, as she always did, a second too long before pulling back. “And what’s this? A new tattoo!” Her eyes welled with tears. “For Rob! You must miss him terribly.”
All the time.
My mother met my gaze. Something unexpected moved between us. Sympathy. A meeting of spirits. “You’ll need to cover that up in the shop,” Mom said.
I must have imagined that moment of understanding. “Lots of people have tattoos at work now, Mom.”
“Not unhealed wounds in food service, they don’t,” she said in her blunt way.
I flushed. I didn’tthink. “I took off the dressing last night. I don’t have anything with me.”
“First aid kit in the kitchen.”
“I’ll get it,” Zoe said.
“How’s Mrs.Powell?” I asked as Zoe smoothed ointmentover my arm. I realized I was bouncing on the balls of my feet and forced myself to stand still.
“You can call her Beverly, darling. She’s not that much older than I am.”
“Fifteen years,” my mother said.
Zoe tossed her curly golden mane. “Age isn’t important unless you’re a wine.”
“Or a cheese,” I said. “It just feels weird to use her first name. She was my English teacher.”
My favorite teacher, who never busted me for reading in class. Who challenged me to turn my daydreams into stories and encouraged me to apply to Northwestern.
“Wasyour teacher.” Zoe taped gauze over my tattoo. “You’re all grown-up now.”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” Mom said.
Zoe smiled at her fondly before turning back to me. “I had a dream about you the other night. I saw you”—she touched her heart—“here.”
“I have a dream,” my mother said dryly, “that the two of you will get to work before I have to open this door to customers.”
A joke? From Mom? Zoe laughed and ducked behind the counter to make coffee. I resumed loading the fridge with orange juice, moving on to straighten the already neat displays of souvenir shirts and hats.
“Right, then,” my mother said, and flipped the sign on the door toopen, letting the first customers inside.
Growing up, I’d spent as much time in the shop as in the kitchen at home. More, maybe. I’d done my homework at one of the little tables, spent summers weighing fudge and washing up under my mother’s watchful eye. I used to complain about working when I could have been out playing or off withmy dad. But secretly, I liked being the owner’s daughter, earning my own money and a tiny measure of respect for smiling and chatting with customers. Looking back, I realized it was good preparation for teaching—the constant interruptions and demands for attention, the thousand tasks waiting to be completed, the need to think on my feet all day. The big difference was that in my classroom, I was in charge. At Maddie’s, Mom was Undisputed Ruler of her domain.
She bustled from the kitchen to the marble slabs in the window, stirring and blending, putting on a show for the tourists. Zoe operated the POS system, shedding her particular brand of sunshine over the front of the house. I played backup, sliding trays in and out of cooling racks, separating slices of fudge with thin sheets of bakery paper, cutting end pieces into samples.
“Smaller,” Mom said. “We’re giving away tastes, not the whole store.”
She lifted the thermometer from a bubbling cauldron of chocolate. Grabbing hot mitts, she shifted the heavy copper kettle to a stand with a thunk.
I put down my knife. “Let me help you.”
I trailed her as she rolled the kettle stand to the front of the shop. There was a line at the counter craning to see, customers eyeing the fifteen different flavors of fudge or—in the case of some of the dads—Zoe in her purple leotard.
I took the other side of the big round pot, lifting with Mom, positioning it over the marble. A little girl peered through the window, cupping her hands to see. I smiled at her through the smeared glass.
The kettle wobbled. Chocolate dribbled over the frame and onto the floor.
