“No. I’ve finally come to peace with that. No need for you to end up in jail. I hate my job and I want to get out of the big city. You said our dinners are the highlight of your week, but they are the saving grace to my week. I can’t wait to get out of my office and drive up here.” Her usual vibrant face seems dull and I can tell that whatever the problem be, it’s taking a toll on her. “I truly thought I was making the right decision when I took a corporate job instead of staying home, but I miss the orchard. I miss hauling baskets of freshly picked pecans to the old trucks. I miss falling into bed at night feeling satisfied with a hard day’s work and accomplishment. Right now, I’m a warm body filling a desk and contributing to the wealth of my boss.”
I take her hand in mine and pat it. “I had no idea you were so unhappy. Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I was embarrassed. I pushed so hard to make my own way and be someone other than a pecan farmer. It was silly because I was never really ashamed of that. I’m proud of our family’s history. In all honesty, it was Vince who told me I need to do and be more. He didn’t see himself living on a farm in San Saba for the rest of his life. So, I became the person that I thought he would want to marry. Joke’s on me, huh?” She chuckles and grabs her beer, taking a long pull with tears building in her eyes.
“Don’t be embarrassed, sweetheart. I wanted you to go out and find your own way. I wasn’t expecting any of you girls to want to work with me. I was hoping, but never expected it.” Shesets her bottle down and looks at me, blinking away the tears. “Don’t let that be the reason why you quit your job.”
“Honestly Dad. I wish I would have never taken that job. I have so many ideas to help the company,ourcompany, and I want to be a part of it all. Not just watch from the outside wishing I could be there with you.”
“You are here, honey. Always.” I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her to me and she rests her head on my shoulder.
“So, here’s what I propose. I would like to come work for you–”
“With me,” I correct.
“With you. We need to capitalize on some of those festival winning recipes and sell them to local grocery stores. They’re already buying our nuts, let’s give them an entire line of products. Desserts, dips, anything we can think of that will incorporate Steele Nuts. We’ll start small. Just the two of us, testing recipes and perfecting them. The Pecan Festival is in a month. We’ll enter our best recipe and then when it wins, we’ll pitch it to stores.” Her eyes grow large and her face lights up when she talks. I’ve never seen her so excited about work before and I see now that it’s because she doesn’t love what she does.
This is enough to convince me that we’re on the right track. “You know, you’re pretty damn smart and I think you’re on the right track.”
“Are you saying yes?” She presses her palms together with hope and glee.
“I’m saying hell yes.” Aster jumps off her seat and squeals, throwing her arms around my neck and squeezing.
“Thank you, Dad. I promise I won’t disappoint you.”
“You could never disappoint me, princess. You girls make me so proud and I thank my lucky stars for you.” She looks up at me and this time she doesn’t bother keeping the tears at bay.
“We thank the stars for you, Dad.” I kiss her forehead and soak up the moment. “Let me help you with dinner and we can start brainstorming.”
“Sounds good. Check on the sauce and I’ll grab the pasta.”
“Also, I have one more thing I’d like to propose.” I stop and look over my shoulder at her as she stands at the stove. “Since we’re going to be spending a lot of time working on a new concept, I was wondering if you’d mind if I moved back home. My apartment is kind of far, and I don’t want to be doing things via FaceTime. Plus, it’s expensive and since I’m out of a job, it would be really great to save some money.”
“Aster…of course you can live here. This is your home. You don’t even have to ask. Say when and I’ll help you pack. And two, you have a job and will continue to receive a paycheck. There will be no working for free.”
“Nuh uh. No pay until we get our first deal. I have savings so I’ll be fine. And by saving on rent, I really won’t need much. I’ll help with groceries and of course cleaning, and anything else.” She ticks off one finger after the other and I wrap my hand around them.
“Let’s just take one step at a time. Step one; dinner. Step two; movie. We’ll figure out where to go from there. Okay?” She smiles with a nod and hugs me once more before tending to the sauce.
I spend the rest of the night on cloud nine. I can’t remember the last time I was this happy. I’ll be even happier when we sell a new product and I can breathe again.
5
SERENA
Istare at the plate sitting on the kitchen counter and the strange reddish-brown pie. It looks like the red clay dirt you’d find on baseball fields and with the chunks of pecan mixed about. It makes me think of…
“This looks like someone vomited after eating a nutty candy bar and tomato soup. I willnotbe tasting this.” I look up at Santi who stands there with a fork in hand and a giant ass smile on his face like this isn’t the most horrendous dish we’ve ever laid eyes on.
“You can’t judge it before you even have a chance to find out how it tastes. Haven’t you ever heard ofdon’t judge a book by its cover?” He asks.
“I have and I do. All the time. This looks horrible and to me that means I’ll be puking it up later tonight. So, to avoid me hugging the toilet, I’ll skip over the part where I let this monstrosity touch my tongue.” I push back from the counter, away from the thing that appears to have crawled out of the sludge bucket from the Krusty Krab.
“Then what are we going to enter, Rena? The competition is only two weeks away and we have yet to nail down our dish.” Santi chases after me as I speed walk to the front door.
“This is the exact reason why I didn’t want to enter the competition this year.” I grab my purse and fling it over my shoulder. “We should be solely focused on selling some of our past winning recipes to Queen Food Distributor.”
“Where are you going?”
