A Measure of Happiness (2 page)

“She was an animal. Woke me up twice for more . . . a little of this. A lot of that.”

“Three times?” A guy's voice sounded high-pitched, like a grade school boy telling a dirty joke.

Celeste was the joke.

Celeste slapped her hands over her mouth. Bile pressed the back of her throat and her stomach cramped, like the first time she'd gone down on her boyfriend, Justin, in high school. Like the first time she'd discovered he'd, post-breakup, spread rumors about her appetite for sex. Like every single tortuous day she'd endured snide looks from girls, wolf calls and obscene tongue-in-cheek pantomimes from boys.

Celeste imagined walking into the kitchen with her head held high. They were grown-ups, weren't they? Equals, consenting adults. She had nothing to be ashamed of.
Hey, guys. What's so funny? Did I miss anything?
She imagined the guys' cheeks pinking beneath her scrutiny, Matt flushing but feigning ignorance. Then she imagined catching obscene gestures in her peripheral vision, words and phrases whispered behind her back. She imagined those same male classmates standing too close and testing her with their eyes, their gazes stripping her bare, examining and dissecting every inch of her body, and reminding her she was less than the sum of her parts. She was nothing.

Less than nothing.

Because she had the audacity to try to forget.

 

Celeste drove through the night, fueled by strong coffee, a lead foot, and the blue-hot flames of mortification. The fact she'd misjudged her friendship with Matt was bad enough. The fact she'd misjudged herself far worse.

Less than fifteen hours ago, she'd fled campus after having stopped at her dorm long enough to shove clothes in her bedraggled blue-striped tote and grab a blueberry muffin from the mini-fridge. She'd driven around in a daze, attempting to shore up her battered dignity. Then she'd made her decision and headed for home.

She'd crossed from New York to Connecticut, cut through Massachusetts, caught five hours of Z's at a New Hampshire rest stop, and zigzagged along the Maine coast all the way to Casco Bay's best kept secret: her hometown of Hidden Harbor. Her dignity had degenerated, and the blueberry muffin had long since rolled beneath the passenger seat, road grit overriding sugarcoating.

In all that time, her memory had refused to resurface.

Minutes before three on Wednesday morning, Celeste parked her trustworthy Cabriolet, Old Yeller, in her parking spot before Lamontagne's, Katherine's bakery. The owner's neighboring spot was vacant.

A week or so ahead of New York foliage, a hint of decaying leaves already mingled with the ocean air. A few solitary leaves rattled across the empty sidewalk, skeletons scratching the concrete. The storefront looked the same as when Katherine had purchased it from the previous owner, 1999 masquerading as 1976, a fact Celeste never hesitated to remind Katherine. The fact Katherine was supposed to have sold the bakery to Celeste months ago, that back in May, Celeste had already mentally cut the time-consuming breads from her menu and planned out October's pumpkin cheesecake, whoopie pies, caramel apples, and apple strudel, had meant nothing to Katherine.

Katherine's reneging on their verbal agreement and the associated meaning—she felt Celeste wasn't ready to run her own shop—meant everything to Celeste.

Yet here she was, in a compromising position, second time in less than twenty-four hours.

Her reflection stared back at her from the bakery's glass front. Even in the streetlamp's low light, the hollows beneath her green eyes appeared bruised, shades of the unintentional Goth look she'd sported six years ago, during her junior year in high school. An unseasonably warm breeze caressed her cheek, like a mother comforting a child, and Celeste shook off the misplaced sensation.

Katherine Lamontagne wasn't her mother.

The fact the baker had acted the part since Celeste's parents had abandoned Hidden Harbor for warmer shores meant nothing. Katherine had reminded—okay, nagged—Celeste into eating three meals and two nutritious snacks a day because passing out behind the counter would've been bad for business. Their arrangement had been purely professional, no blurred lines.

Same as her friendship with Matt.

The coffee in Celeste's stomach churned in revolt, as though a wand were foaming milk for a cappuccino in her belly. She wiped the sour taste in her mouth with the back of her hand and acknowledged the slightly sore sensation between her legs that hadn't lessened. That and a few glimmers of memory evidenced her folly.

She'd downed two screwdrivers. She'd accepted Matt's ride back to the dorms. She'd kissed him good night.

She'd
kissed
him
.

Celeste's key fit into the lock, and the glass door gave, opening into the café at the front of the shop. The customer-alert bell jingled. Canary-yellow vinyl booths with light-green trim lined two walls, but the seat farthest from the door appeared lighter than the rest. When Celeste went to take a closer look, even the trim was different. Red instead of green trim proved Katherine still needed Celeste to tell the difference between the two colors, if nothing else. She ran her hand along the cushion, free of the permanent center indentation. Why would Katherine have replaced a lone cushion? Baby-blue paint, Katherine's only other update since her long-ago purchase, made the place look as much a nursery as a bakery. Back of the café, slant-front glass cases housed rows of pastries. The aromas of vanilla, butter, and spun sugar softened the air and wrapped Celeste in a hug she didn't bother resisting. This warmth and sweetness was her home, her siren song calling, her safe haven. Last time she'd spoken to Katherine, Celeste had told her boss she didn't need her, her bakery, or Hidden Harbor.

Not the first time Celeste had spoken her mind and regretted it.

Celeste slipped into the kitchen and found her apron on the hook, same place she'd left it upon storming out months ago but without the fuzz of flour and the scourge of deep-set stains. She held the cotton up to her nose and inhaled the baby powder–scented laundry detergent Katherine used on all the dish towels and oven mitts. The smell rattled Celeste's jaw, rattled her. Celeste's mother had warned her not to burn her bridges, not to bite the hand that fed her. A mixed metaphor Celeste hadn't appreciated until today.

Celeste turned on the industrial Blodgett oven, and the bad old girl's pilot light fired to life. She consulted the master bake sheet, a mammoth blackboard Katherine propped up by the stockroom door. Despite Katherine's best efforts at erasing, smudges from past weeks' orders bled through to the present. Nothing a little baking soda and water wouldn't correct, but Katherine had never been good at taking Celeste's advice.

When Celeste had worked here, Katherine split the master bake sheet into Celeste and Katherine columns. Now the entire gargantuan list fell to Katherine.

A dull headache thrummed behind Celeste's eyes. Hunger pains stabbed her gut, but she knew better than to give in to her body's demands before she'd taken care of today's business. She knew better than anybody that if you wanted to earn your keep, you'd better roll up your sleeves, rewrite the master bake sheet to include a Celeste column, and get to work.

An hour later, when the front door jingled and Katherine Lamontagne breezed into the kitchen, the bread dough was rising, warming the air with the satisfying aroma of yeast and flour. Inside the mammoth oven, apple, peach, and pumpkin pies baked and browned, and Celeste was hand folding wild blueberries into the muffin batter. Celeste raised her gaze to Katherine Lamontagne's dark-brown eyes.

Neither woman blinked.

“You're back from New York,” Katherine said.

“Apparently.”

Katherine's gaze widened, and her jaw set. “What are you doing here?”

Celeste gave the batter bowl a solitary pat. “Stirring up the blues.”

Katherine shook her head. She turned to shed her peacoat and don her apron. She pulled her thick, dark hair into first a ponytail and then a chignon, her fingers working like magic. No matter how many times Celeste had studied Katherine, she'd never been able to replicate her process. Today, the sight of the back of Katherine's neck—pale and vulnerable beneath the harsh lights—made Celeste feel like crying.

Probably just sleep deprivation.

Katherine turned around. The slight imperfection of her cowlick only enhanced the do. Her gaze lighted on Celeste's eyes and softened. “Why'd you come back?”

“Maybe I missed your apple tarts.”

“You were supposed to show me how much you didn't need me. You were supposed to finally get a degree and open up a shop in New York,” Katherine said, her tone at once accusatory and foot-stomping disappointed.

“I never said New York.”

“Anywhere but Hidden Harbor.”

“Maybe I like it here.”

“You needed to leave.”

“Maybe I wasn't ready? Maybe you were right to go back on our deal?” Celeste's cheeks tingled with heat. The sound of her own voice—thin and unsure, every statement a question—made her throat itch.Who was she? She wanted to take inventory, to strip down in front of a full-length mirror and seek the missing smart-ass Celeste. She hadn't felt this way about herself in years, every failure a certainty, every insecurity exposed. She hung her head, and a chunk of hair sprang from her ponytail.

“Oh, Celeste. I never said you weren't ready. I said
I
wasn't ready to retire at forty-six.” Katherine sighed. She reached into her pant pocket and took out a handful of hairpins. “How many times have I told you to keep your hair off your face?” Katherine swept Celeste's hair from her throbbing forehead, her hands cool as summer tea. Then she cajoled Celeste's unruly auburn mop into a bun, snug and secure.

Katherine tipped Celeste's chin up. “New York didn't work out?”

A flash of Matt's face streaked across Celeste's vision. The expression she'd previously identified as regret now seemed like what? Embarrassment? He sure hadn't sounded embarrassed when he'd bragged about sleeping with her the way her big brothers used to brag about nailing a bull's-eye during target practice.Who was she to judge character? Any way Celeste looked at it, she was screwed. “Something like that.”

“Want to talk about it?” Katherine asked.

Celeste slid the muffins into the convection oven, and her eyes dampened. For a nanosecond, she imagined sobbing on Katherine's shoulder the way she'd cried in her mother's arms after the Jerk Justin high school breakup that had sent her on the Bad Mad spiral that still lurked.

You didn't bare your soul to your employer. You couldn't get drunk, boink a classmate, have him blab about it to the whole class, and then expect your classmates to take you seriously.

Celeste couldn't admit what had happened and expect Katherine to take her seriously.

Celeste had only seen Katherine drink once. They'd shared a bottle of sparkling wine after hours when Celeste had turned twenty-one. Freixenet, because Katherine insisted it went best with the Black Forest birthday cake she'd baked for Celeste. Celeste had never seen Katherine lose her head, with the exception of Katherine's divorce two years ago. And in the middle of last spring's thaw, her ex-husband, Barry, had started coming in for coffee every morning when the bakery opened at six. Katherine's excuse? She'd never shown him how to use the coffeemaker.

When Celeste turned around, Katherine's hands were planted on her hips, her eyebrows raised, as she awaited an answer to her question.

“Not really.” Celeste cleared her throat. “I don't really feel like talking about what happened.”

“Okay.” Katherine nodded, but her gaze held on to Celeste's, searching for answers. Then Katherine consulted the master bake sheet and ran her finger down the checked items. “Had anything to eat yet?”

“Does coffee count?”

Katherine let out a small laugh, and Celeste's heart fluttered at her collarbone. “Not if you picked it up at a convenience store hours ago,” Katherine said.

“Guilty.”

Katherine went into the café and returned with an apple tart on a white stoneware dessert plate. “Eat while I get some proper coffee started.”

Celeste stared at the tart, perfectly proportioned, with golden-brown crust. Light from the overhead fixture shone off the apples. She inhaled the white chocolate of the glaze, and the tang from the apples puckered the sides of her mouth. But when she lifted the pastry to her lips, her throat tightened. She returned the tart to the plate. Her hands shook. “Too much coffee,” Celeste said in deference to the tremble, but they both knew that was a lie.

 

Ever since the burglary, whenever Katherine was alone at the bakery, she jumped at every sound. The rumble of a truck passing through the center of Hidden Harbor pooled tears at the back of her throat. Errant Dumpster odors slipping beneath the back door had Katherine checking and rechecking the stockroom and restrooms, in case an unhygienic intruder were hiding, biding his time to wield black spray paint against her walls and booth seating. Every morning, she stepped from her car and race-walked beneath the lamppost, blunt-edged key thrust between her pointer and middle fingers like a weapon.
Don't mess with me, or I'll what? Scratch you silly?

And even though Katherine hated guns, her safe concealed the .22 she'd purchased within hours of the burglary, her biggest concession to newfound fear.

When a stranger broke into your sanctuary, stole, and fouled, nothing was sacred. Everything, no matter how precious, was tentative and up for grabs. And Katherine hadn't needed her ex-husband, Barry Horowitz, to point out the obvious similarities between the crime and the layers of loss that had upended and toppled their marriage. Katherine didn't need Barry to sit Celeste down on his chaise—or whatever furniture currently occupied his therapy office—to confirm the shadow of loss that haunted the young woman. Yet here he stood, front and center and Katherine's first customer of the day.