A Billion Reasons Why (18 page)

“Help you, miss?” A young, skinny college-age student appeared, wearing a khaki apron with the conscious-eating slogan slashed across his chest. Conscious eating? She thought this kid made a better billboard for starving urchins in foreign countries. She was still on the banquette and was surprised to see him outside. She knew Luc specified service, but coming outside and questioning people at the bins, that felt extreme. Her father never would have pressured a customer. Of course, that’s why she wore practical shoes and they lived in a shotgun house.

“What’s the best kind of apple right now?” She pitched the question like a fastball.

“We’ve got these Jonagolds on special.”

“Fuji,” she corrected him. “In June, the Fujis and the Empires.” She knew the Jonagolds were available, but it wasn’t their peak. This fresh eating business was nothing more than a consumer ploy.

“Look at this one.” He held up a large, round apple, perfectly unblemished.

“I’m the Empire of my daddy’s eye, you know.”

“Is that so?”

“See this?” She showed him the crown of a ripe Crispin apple and felt a bit like Snow White’s wicked stepmother. “This brown at the crown is all the sugar. These pockmarks and lines mean this is the sweetest apple available right now. You don’t want a perfect-looking apple.”

“Let me know if you need any help,” he said, as he backed away. Who could blame him?

She entered the store through the wide, open barn-like doors. Inside, the store expanded into a cavernous but warm warehouse. The exposed electrical system and greenery unfolded like a high-tech version of nature. Almost as though she’d walked into another world, not the normal sterile drudgery of a grocery store.

The LED lighting captured her attention and she twisted under the bulb, scrutinizing the way it imitated natural sunlight. She wanted to stamp her feet and scream that her father’s food was a connection to the earth and its goodness, not a pale mockery of a farmers market with the illusion of conscious eating. But what did it matter? The illusion is what people wanted. Even her father would have admitted that much. The customer was always right. Even when they were wrong.

The stick-figure boy had followed her inside. He held the same apple, one slice protruding from the rest of the fruit, a paring knife in his other hand. “Customers want perfect apples, and that’s what we strive to give them at Forages.”

She took the proffered fruit and bit into it. “Good,” she said. But not as good as Paddy’s. It never would be.

Chapter 13

I
T’S
D
ELOVELY

Katie wandered deeper into the store and felt surrounded by lush greenery. Misters pumped fresh water onto the produce and floral arrangements. Copper-colored display counters were separated and marked by sections: Seafood, Fresh Soups, Garden Salads, Poultry, Meat. She wished life could be so easily labeled:
Feelings, Truth, God’s Will, The Narrow Gate–Enter This Way
.

She sighed as she listened to the waterfall sounds trickle from a collection of tropical fruit under a man-made water fountain. Piled pineapples rose into a bark-sided pyramid and held a cup turned to its side, forcing the water to descend.

She wondered what her father would think of Luc’s changes. Would he see them as a vast improvement or a crime against fruit and a terrible waste for people who simply wanted good food on their table?

Each circular aisle brought some new surprise, either a new way to display food or a different idea for cooking a rare food product, like couscous. Katie read labels, explored foreign recipes, and marveled at all the ways Luc created something special from the ordinary. He truly thought outside the box, and the world rewarded him for his creativity. Luc DeForges was extraordinary. The proof surrounded her.

She wandered the store, almost making a game of avoiding the overzealous and annoyingly helpful employees. At least an hour must have passed before she arrived in the colorful, fresh floral department, which dripped with blooms and aroused all of her senses.

She inhaled the fresh scent of roses and the heavy scent of gardenias, mingled in a perfect medley of sweet and indulgent. The roses aroused her memory of that awful night years ago in the DeForges mansion. Unwittingly, she drifted back in time . . .

Y
OU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO

A
GRADUATION PARTY

T
O CELEBRATE A

B
ACHELOR OF
S
CIENCE
D
EGREE IN
A
PPLIED
B
USINESS

A
WARDED TO
L
UC
D
EFORGES

FROM

T
ULANE
U
NIVERSITY

M
AY
4
TH AT SEVEN THIRTY IN THE EVENING

A
T THE
D
EFORGES
M
ANSION

C
HARLES
S
TREET
, N
EW
O
RLEANS

N
O GIFTS, PLEASE

“Mam! Mam!” She’d run the invitation to her mother, barely able to contain her squeals. “She’s invited me. Mrs. DeForges invited me. I told you!”

Things would be different now. Luc’s mother understood that she loved her son for who he was, not for his money.

Mam’s brow darkened. “Sweetheart, that is wonderful, but I don’t want you to read too much into this. It’s only natural that she would invite Luc’s friends to his graduation party.”

“Are you saying I’m not
really
invited?”

“I’m only saying that I wouldn’t read too much into it . . . the idea that it came from Mrs. DeForges. She’s learned to do things a certain way. Properly. Inviting you to Luc’s party is the proper thing to do.”

“It did come from her, though!” She waved the invitation’s vellum envelope in front of her mam. “Look, it has her seal on it and everything!”

“Katie, people—not just Mrs. DeForges, but most people— do things formally here. Mrs. DeForges is doing what all the other mothers are doing when their sons graduate from college.”

“I’m graduating from college too, Mam. It’s not like Loyola University is any less prestigious. I’m the first one in our family to graduate! Maybe we should invite Luc’s family to my party. No one cooks better than you, Mam. We could use Grammy’s china, and we’d have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Mam brushed the bangs from Katie’s forehead as if she was still a child. “We don’t have anything to be ashamed of, sweetheart. If anyone looks down on another, it’s their own lack of breeding.”

“She doesn’t, Mam. Paddy told me Mrs. DeForges would come around. He told me, Mam!” She paused. “No, don’t make that face at me. He was right. He knew people.”

“Your father, God rest his soul, your father only saw the best in people. I know Mrs. DeForges does a lot of good in this community, but that doesn’t mean that she wants her son to marry you. You’re both so young, and there’s an entire world out there. I’m sure Mrs. DeForges has nothing against you personally—she just wants the best for her son.”

“I am what’s best for him.”

“Then there will be time.” Mam patted her cheek. “You have your daddy’s ability to see the best in people, and that’s a gift, Katie. But it can also be a curse if you don’t protect yourself from the wrong sorts.”

“How can you not see the good in her, Mam? She’s invited me.”

Katie clutched the invitation to her heart. It changed the game. Until that moment she’d been nothing more than a waif to Mrs. DeForges; an unclaimed friend of Ryan and Luc that she paid no mind. Nothing more than a ministry for her Junior League Friends, an Eliza Doolittle from the Channel.

Until she saw Luc and Katie under the magnolia tree. Mrs. DeForges’ reaction sent birds flying off in several directions, but Katie forced that thought away. Paddy would want her to seek reconciliation. To see the best in others. And this seemed like the perfect opportunity to show how forgiving she could be—because Luc’s love was worth the trouble.

“Katie, you’re too young to be serious about any boy, much less Luc DeForges. There are two kinds of men, Katie. There are men who make you feel like Luc DeForges makes you feel with their skills and their charm, and then there are the men you marry . . .”

“Luc
is
the man I’m going to marry! He loves me, Mam! I know he does. I’ll prove it to you. You just wait until after this party. You’ll see.”

Luc’s graduation party wasn’t the end, it was only the beginning, where they would announce their love publicly for the first time.

“Luc is the one and only man I’ll ever love. Mrs. DeForges sees that now, and so will you.”

Mam gave her a dismissive smile, which made her more determined than ever to prove her wrong.

“Gosh, what an idiot I was,” Katie said aloud. She lifted a bouquet of red roses and sniffed them. Mam was right, of course. When had her momma ever been wrong when it came to the character of another person?

Katie searched the store for some reminder of her dad, some homage that paid tribute to the man who created Luc’s spark for taking healthy eating global, while maintaining the idea of eating locally. Failing to find anything, her walk slowed and an employee managed to catch her.

The middle-aged woman, who did nothing to hide the Southern frizz in her hair and wore the same khaki apron as the kid out front, spoke to her. “Are you all right, miss? You having trouble finding something?”

“My dad owned this store,” she said softly. “Before, when it was a real grocery and all. He just had fruit and vegetables and staples. You know, dairy, eggs, bread—oh, and peanut butter and jelly, because he always said inevitably some momma would forget about her child’s lunch for school the following day.”

“Bless yo heart, dahlin’. You come sit down right here.” The woman patted a rattan chair she’d pulled next to the flowers. “Why are you dressed like that, sweetie? You been to a funeral or something?”

Katie looked down at her getup and shook her head. A red chiffon dress, tennis shoes, and an oversized T-shirt. The woman, whose name tag identified her as Pat, probably thought she was nuts. She knew her father would have treated a disoriented ragamuffin the same way had one wandered into his store, and it was as though his spirit was alive in the business.

“You’ve got a good heart, Pat. My dad would have appreciated that.”

“Sit here for a minute, hon. I’m going to get you some water.” Pat came back with a paper cup.

Katie drained the cold liquid and crumpled the cup in her hand. “It’s nice here. Luc’s done a good job.”

“You know Mr. DeForges?”

“Well, I did.” She shrugged. “Once.”

“You must have never grieved his loss.”

“Wh-what?”

“Your father. You must never have grieved his passing. You can’t bypass that kind of grief. It only waits for you at the other side of whatever you’ve avoided it with. I’ve seen it time and time again.” Pat’s frizzled, weather-beaten look belied her warmth.

Katie wondered at how caring people could be. Had she avoided this kind of community since leaving home? If she was honest, even church didn’t feel as warm as this solitary chair in Luc’s store.

“Katie!”

She turned to see Luc rushing toward her, holding her handbag. “We’ve been worried sick.”

“I just left the club.”

He showed her his watch. “It’s nearly eight o’clock. You left the club hours ago.”

Katie searched for an acceptable excuse, but there was nothing more than she’d become consumed, spellbound by Luc’s consideration of every detail. He’d created a world unto itself, one that made a customer forget the mundane task of marketing.

“Hello, Mr. DeForges.” Pat held out her hand to her boss.

“Luc, this is Pat. She got me hydrated and stopped me from wandering your store aimlessly. It’s incredible, Luc. I’m afraid I got rather lost in all the details.”

“Actually, she wandered for quite a while before I finally got her a chair. I think she was avoiding me.”

Luc put a hand on Pat’s shoulder. “Thank you. Thanks for seeing to her.” He knelt in front of Katie. “You ready to go?”

“I’m ready.”

Luc stood and took her hand. “Come here. I want to show you something first.”

She followed as Luc walked resolutely through the aisles and dodged carts until they passed the cash registers and came to a community bulletin board. It was next to the espresso café and over the condiment table, which was filled to the edges with Southern sauces and utensils for the myriad take-out items.

“Nice,” she said. “It’s making me hungry.”

He seemed to want more from her. “No, look.” He pointed to the wall.

A picture of Paddy stared back at her.

“My father!”

His smiling eyes and toothy grin met her, and she reached out for his sun-ravaged face. Underneath the photo, in gold, were etched the words I
N
M
EMORIAM IAN
“P
ADDY
” M
CKENNA
, F
ATHER OF
F
RESH
E
ATING IN
N
EW
O
RLEANS 1954 – 2001
.