After that, Danica showed Juliet some of the websites and social media presences she liked most for restaurants in Manhattan. Danica’s ease with the internet gave Juliet momentary pause, although she reasoned that the internet had been invented long before Danica was born. There had been no “tech adoption” for Danica. It was a part of her ordinary world.
And because she was a blogger, because she’d built for herself an “internet presence,” Juliet had to defer to Danica’s skills.
“I’m impressed, Danica,” Juliet said, praying that her daughter would accept the compliment.
Danica shrugged. “It’s easy, honestly. It’s just instinctual.”
“For you,” Juliet said. “Not for everyone.”
Danica beamed.
They sat together on the sofa for a good hour. It was the longest time they’d spent together since their drive to Bluebell more than a month ago, and it did Juliet’s heart good, so much so that when Danica did go to bed that night, Juliet fought her urge to read her daughter’s blog.
She needed to give her daughter the privacy she deserved. She needed to let Danica feel her feelings. Like Celia and Ivy, Juliet needed to let her daughter feel the love and safety she had created for her, without frightening her away.
Exhilarated by thoughts of Theo and The Dockside, Juliet stayed up later than she’d planned, perfecting a business plan and outlining potential branding and interior design ideas. When she woke up the following morning, she felt bright and eager. She did a workout, jumping up and down in place, drawing her knees to her chin.
After making breakfast, Juliet knocked on Danica’s door to tell her to come eat, if she wanted.
“Maybe later,” Danica called sleepily.
Juliet told herself not to let that get her down. After breakfast, she packed her laptop, then walked the fifteen minutes down to The Dockside, basking in the July sunshine. Tourists walked around her, humming about how beautiful Bluebell Cove was. And Juliet found that she was endlessly proud of this place, this town she’d run away from.
What if—and this was a tentative thought—she and Danica made a life here? Alvin’s alimony was good enough to find a better place to live here in Bluebell Cove. They could be comfortable here.
But was that as good as giving up on her dreams? Juliet felt her smile melt off her face. This was a question she didn’t feel prepared to answer yet.
By the time she reached the front door of The Dockside, Juliet’s heartbeat felt like a stutter. The same OPEN sign was brightly lit, but there was dirt and dust and sand all over the patio, and the windows were so dirty that she couldn’t see all the way into the interior. Within, she walked past empty tables, to the bar, where three empty bottles of beer remained, maybe from last night or the one before that. She put her laptop down and called out, “Theo?”
She wasn’t sure why she felt she was walking through a haunted house.
“Theo?” she tried again, moving toward the kitchen door. There was no sound, not the sizzle of a grill nor a radio, and she half imagined that Theo had taken off in the middle of the night, running away from his problems the way that Juliet once had from hers.
But right before Juliet reached the kitchen, the door swung forward and smashed her directly on the nose. Juliet shrieked and fell back, both hands over her nose, while Theo gaped at her. He was wearing a big pair of headphones and a pair of dirty chef whites. His curls spilled from his chef hat, drawing long shadows down his cheeks. “Juliet?” He looked mystified.
And then, he saw the blood. Hurrying to a nearby roll of paper towels, he ripped one strip after another off before returning to Juliet and guiding her to a booth. “Sit down,” he urged her.
The sharp pain in her nose was now a low, awful throbbing. Juliet collapsed into the booth and felt her blood ripple through the paper. The way Theo looked down at her, now, didn’t remind her of high school, when he’d thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world.
Now, he looked at her the way he had on the Fourth of July, like she was pathetic. like someone had just walked out on her date.
“I’m sorry,” Theo said. He sounded confused yet tender and exhausted. He sat across from her and threw his headphones onto the booth seat so that they bounced. “I didn’t know you were there.”
“You could have looked through the window,” Juliet grumbled through the paper towel, although she reasoned that that wasn’t fear. Why would Theo think someone was coming into the kitchen? He worked alone, it seemed. And he wasn’t used to having customers.
But Theo had taken it as an insult, of course. Because, she supposed, she’d meant it as one.
Already, tension made the air between them poisonous. Juliet wanted to go outside and re-enter and do it all over again.
That, or she wanted to turn around and leave The Dockside and never enter again.
“I guess you came because your sister sent you?” Theo asked, his eyes dark. “I’ll tell you what I told her. I don’t need any ‘social media branding’ help. In my world, the food should speak for itself. And…” He trailed off. “Once upon a time, you told me that my food was the best you’d ever tasted.”
Juliet pulled the mussed paper towels from her nose and blinked down at the bright red blood. If she bruised from this, she wasn’t sure what lie she should tell her sisters. Unless lying wasn’t the right way forward? Why did she always think she needed to lie?
Was it because of her mother and father?
“Well, it looks like that food isn’t doing very much talking,” Juliet shot back. She got to her feet, surprised that she felt sort of dizzy. But she stood strong, glaring at him. “I just realized something,” she said, strutting her way back to her laptop. “All night, I thought about you. I thought about your restaurant, all the work you put into opening it, and the training you did to become the best at your craft. I wondered, How can I show the world how talented he is? And I put together a few pretty stellar strategies for you. Because, like it or not, Theo, people won’t care about you unless you show them why they should. I know this better than most, because I lived and worked in the fashion world for literally decades.” She smacked her thigh and felt a thread of blood come out of her nostrils.
