Broken Pieces: A Novel (3 page)

Even Byron’s expression brightened.

“I propose we purchase the wood from the salvage company stripping the building. By upcycling, we’ll not only have the caliber of wood this fine building deserves, but we’ll preserve a piece of Paris history at the same time. And we’ll save money.”

I pulled out the sheet on which I’d made my financial notes, detailing the difference in expenses between ordering and installing new wood and reclaiming the old.

Excitement danced inside me. By using material from the old mill, I’d developed what I suspected was a completely unique approach—one that would keep not one, but two pieces of Paris history alive. I felt sure the next few moments would push my proposal into the win column.

Byron held out one hand. “The rendering and the financials, please.”

Jack, who had reached for both, slid them to the end of the conference table.

Byron tapped his expensive pen against the tabletop as he studied every angle on my design and digit on my financial projections.

Yet I continued my presentation unfazed. Adrenaline pushed aside my exhaustion as I moved from point to point, design element to design element.

I’d married my love of reclaiming old materials with techniques I’d honed through years of practice—making multiple cuts on the same piece of wood to yield intricate trim and scrollwork, and fabricating large finished projects from carefully designed sections.

Excitement surged through me, and I felt more alive than I’d felt in years, my confidence shining, my words flowing. I’d finally captured Byron’s full attention by the time I made my closing remarks.

“We’ll be in touch,” he said a few moments later, after I’d gathered my materials and shaken hands with each member of the committee.

I ended my presentation more forcefully than I typically concluded potential client meetings. After all, the renovation was most likely a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

“I want this job,” I said, meeting each of their gazes in turn. “I will deliver a product that exceeds your expectations. I look forward to your call.”

Then I gathered up my portfolio, held my head high, and walked out.

CHAPTER THREE

Moments later I sat at the counter inside the Paris River Café and soaked in the murmur of the early lunch crowd. Coffee brewing. Dishes clattering. Voices raised and dropped in earnest conversation.

I’d been sitting at this counter at some point each day since Jessica Capshaw, the owner and one of my oldest friends, had opened the restaurant.

I worked alone. I lived alone. I liked it that way. Yet here, cozied up to the counter in the company of my dearest friend, I enjoyed the buzz of activity that filled the restaurant.

After she’d lost her heart—and her life savings—to her ex-husband, Jessica had returned to Paris with two small children. With the help of her family, she’d rebuilt the café, turning the once empty storefront into a gathering place for good food and great people.

I studied her as she worked her space, taking orders, making small talk, and pouring coffee. Her smile never wavered, and the life in her eyes shone brightly.

There were times when I envied Jessica, but mainly I admired her. I knew myself well enough to know I could never be her—juggling work and motherhood. In our circle of friends, she was the one who inspired calm and hope and positive thinking.

Personally, I had no patience for that crap.

“How are the kids?” I asked as she pulled out a twenty-ounce mug and poured me a cup of coffee.

Eight-year-old Max and six-year-old Belle were the lights of her life, and while I knew her routine to be exhausting, she rarely showed the strain. Even now, she appeared effortlessly fresh and happy.

“Amazing,” she said on a sigh. She waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re driving me crazy and growing up way too fast, but they’re just . . .” Her voice trailed off as her blond brows pulled together. “Amazing.”

“I don’t know how you do it.” And I meant that.

But Jessica grinned and shrugged. “I just do.”

I nodded, letting the questions of my past flash through my mind for a split second.

How different might my life have been had my mother lived? Would I have married? Had children? Would we have settled in a house not far from my parents? Would we have shared Sunday dinners and backyard dances?

Jessica’s smile faltered and she placed her hand on top of mine for the briefest of moments, evidently reading my mind. “I want to hear all about your presentation.” She hesitated momentarily. “And Albert.”

Paris, New Jersey, population 1,326, give or take a few, was notorious for the speed at which news traveled.

Her brows lifted as she waited for me to bare my soul, like a bartender who could read her customers’ woes simply by the set of their shoulders or the tone of their voice.

“So you’ve heard?”

She leaned forward. “Honey, everybody’s heard.” She gestured toward a wall of photos where another of our childhood friends had hung a collection of photographs documenting special moments in the town’s everyday life.

“I’m surprised someone didn’t capture his arrival and post it front and center on the wall. One of Paris’s most famous sons,” she said in a mock announcer voice.

“And lousiest fathers,” I added.

“There is that.” Her expression turned serious. “He was in here this morning.”

“Here?” I frowned. “I was hoping he’d be on his way back to New York.”

Jessica shook her head. “Stopped by for a stack of pancakes and a cup of coffee. Said he’d see me tomorrow.”

Disbelief pushed at the high I still felt after my presentation. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Nope.” She slid a chocolate-glazed doughnut with sprinkles in front of me. “Why the surprise visit?”

I took a bite of doughnut, gave Jessica the thumbs-up, chewed, and swallowed. “To quote the mighty Albert Jones, ‘Can’t a father visit his daughter?’”

Jessica glanced from one end of the counter to the other, checking on her customers; then she wiped the counter in front of me, by all appearances working a stubborn spot.

“It’s a valid question,” she said, her voice soft.

All my life, she’d had a knack for saying exactly what I needed to hear. This statement, however, was ridiculous.

“You’re kidding, right?” I set down my doughnut.

Two new customers settled at the counter. Jessica gave each a warm greeting, handed them menus, then moved back to where I sat.

“You used to complain about not seeing him,” she said.

I laughed. “I haven’t complained in a very long time.”

“Fair enough,” she said. “Look, I’ll never forgive him for the way he faded from your life, but what if he wants a second chance?”

I held up a hand to stop her train of thought.

Had I ever considered what I’d do if my father did ask me for a second chance? Sure. Twenty years ago. Hell, even ten years ago.

But now?

“Too little, too late,” I said flatly. “Ask me about the opera house instead.”

Jessica’s brows wrinkled momentarily, suggesting she didn’t quite believe me; then she smiled. “Tell me. I’ve been dying to hear.”

I shoved away all thoughts of Albert Jones and relived every moment, doing my best to ignore the fact that a measure of my excitement had faded after talking about my father.

“I’ve got a good feeling,” Jessica said.

She gave my hand a pat just as a gathering of Clipper Club members hooted and hollered from the back corner of the restaurant, their favorite meeting place.

“Bucket-list day,” Jessica explained. “Mona had this crazy idea that if she added ‘theme’ days, the club would take on a new life.”

Jessica’s grandmother had started the coupon-clipping club at the height of the extreme-saving craze, but the group’s focus had become more social than anything else.

“What’s on yours?” I asked.

“Healthy kids. Happy family. You?”

I ignored her question. “What about your plans to take over the restaurant world?”

She grinned, pulling a snapshot from her apron pocket. In it she stood behind her son and daughter, her arms wrapped tightly around their shoulders, pride and love shining in her posture and expression.

“I’ve got everything I need right there.” She tapped the photo. “Your turn,” she said, as she tucked the picture safely away.

I frowned, as if I didn’t understand what she meant.

She simply said, “Answer.”

I took a swallow of hot coffee.

A long time ago there had been only one thing on my bucket list—one thing I could never have again.

My mother. My father. My family.

Just as we’d once been. Happy. Whole. Untouched by illness, and death, and life.

“Nothing,” I said with a shake of my head.

Jessica pursed her lips and studied me, apparently seeing right through me, a skill she’d perfected back in first grade.

She leaned across the counter and spoke softly. “Be careful what you don’t wish for.”

Not quite ready to see Albert again after I left the café, I set out for the place I’d loved my entire life.

Situated beside the asphalt walking trail that ran along the Delaware, parallel to Front Street, the massive boulder perched above the river like a sentinel charged with keeping an eye on the Pennsylvania side of the river.

Lookout Rock, the river, and the trail sat just across the street from the opera house.

My heels sank into the soft ground leading from the path to the rock, and thunder rumbled in the distance as I set my portfolio against the boulder’s base.

Ironically, the person who’d first brought me to the rock was the very person I’d come here to avoid.

Albert Jones.

As soon as I’d been old enough to climb the massive object, he’d introduced me to the spot, and all my life I’d come here to reflect, to plan, to celebrate.

Even now, as the river rushed past and the breeze picked up, rustling the dense summer foliage, part of me wondered what it might be like to hear Albert ask how my presentation had gone.

How might it feel to tell him how visibly impressed Byron had seemed by my proposal to upcycle reclaimed wood from the Paris Mill, even though he kept his verbal responses stiff and noncommittal?

I squeezed my eyes shut. My father had never asked about my work. Not once. Instead, our annual dinner conversations had consisted of little more than a rundown of his latest awards or upcoming show schedule.

Perhaps we were safer sticking to the superficial.

Before each Christmas visit, I reinforced my emotional walls. Last night’s pop-in, however, had put a serious crack in my defense.

My cell phone chirped an incoming call, and I glanced at the screen. Surprise whispered through me; Marguerite hated talking on the phone.

“Hey,” I said. “Everything all right?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing. Are you out celebrating? My sources tell me you dazzled the committee.”

It wasn’t just her words that soothed my nerves. It was her voice—the voice that had been my sounding board, rock, and counsel for as long as I could remember.

My grandmother had been so shattered by my mother’s death she’d seemed unable to shoulder my grief in addition to her own.

Marguerite, however, had kept the promise she’d made to her best friend—to be there for me.

Even now.

I sighed. “Too soon to celebrate.”

“You’re not sitting on that big, damp rock contemplating life, are you?” she asked.

I looked around me, momentarily considering a twist on the truth, but opting for a straight answer instead. “It’s not damp, and I’ll be home soon.”

“Storm’s coming,” she said. “Don’t sit by that river too long.”

Even at age thirty, I found the maternal tone of her voice insanely comforting.

“Plus,” she added, “you have company.”

I sat up straight. “He’s still there?”

“Yes, he is, along with a young man in a zippy white sports car.”

I did my best to slide off the rock gracefully, then gathered up my portfolio.

“I’m on my way.”

It was bad enough that Albert was still at the house. I sure as hell wasn’t going to encourage him to have company.

CHAPTER FOUR

A sleek white Tesla with New York plates sat in front of my house when I arrived back home.

Even though the car stuck out like a sore thumb along tree-lined Third Street, part of me wondered if the anger I felt was irrational. An even bigger part of me knew I was fully validated in being pissed. After all, I’d given Albert one night. I hadn’t said, “Stay awhile. Have some friends over.”

Marguerite, who hadn’t missed a thing in her almost sixty years, sat on her front porch, sipping a glass of iced tea.

Today’s outfit included a pair of vivid lime-green Capri pants, a loudly flowered top, and enough chunky jewelry to open her own boutique over on Artisan’s Alley.

“No movement in or out,” she said, in her best secret operative voice.

I knew her well enough to know she was trying to cool my anger before I walked through the door. After all, she’d spent the last two decades cooling my anger.

“Did you get a look at the driver?”

She nodded. “Young guy. Little bit older than you.” Her eyes widened. “Handsome.”

I waved as I hurried past. As long as he was here to take my father back to New York, I didn’t care if the guy looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

As I pushed through the front door, a tall, apparently frustrated man paced back and forth across the width of the sitting room.

Albert sat in his chair, appearing more annoyed than anything. His coloring had gone red and splotchy, and for one quick moment fear flickered through me. Was he all right?

I shook off the question and focused.

“What’s going on?” I asked loudly as I stepped inside.

The man was as polished as his car was sleek.

He appeared to be several years older than I was, yet his dark, close-cropped hair showed not a trace of gray. He wore crisp blue jeans, a T-shirt, and a tweed jacket, even though it had to be close to ninety degrees outside.

“Jackson Harding,” the new arrival said, giving my hand one quick pump. He emitted an air of familiarity despite the fact he was a stranger standing uninvited in the middle of my home. “You must be Albert’s daughter. Your father speaks of you often.”

The man’s statement took me by such surprise my anger slipped, and the warmth in his eyes left me momentarily speechless, but I held my ground. Found my voice. “And you are?”

“Your father’s manager.” He gestured grandly to Albert, who remained sitting, arms crossed, eyebrows locked in a fierce scowl. “Surely he’s spoken of me,” Jackson continued.

“Mr. Harding”—I shrugged and fisted my hands on my hips—“my father hasn’t
spoken
to me about anything substantial in years.”

Surprise flashed across Jackson Harding’s classic movie-star features, yet he quickly regained his composure.

The flush in my father’s cheeks, however, had morphed from a rosy pink to bloodred.

Jackson raked a hand across his face. “Has your father shared with you that he moves closer to breach of contract each day he misses rehearsal?”

“Do tell.” Here was a topic directly in line with my desire to end Albert’s visit.

“Your father is scheduled to open on Broadway next week in a Howard Carroll classic, yet he’s chosen this moment to return to his roots.”

I nodded. “I’m sure he’d be happy to drive back with you right now.”

My father stood, shooting me a sharp glare. “I owe those people nothing.”

His hostile tone stunned me.

“You owe those people the return of your signing bonus if you don’t go through with this performance,” Jackson said, his voice steady, soothing.

My father waved one hand dismissively, then turned his back. “Fine. Send back the money.”

I may not have known much about my father, but I knew he took his reputation in the business seriously. Based on the rising color in Jackson’s cheeks, my father’s words had left him similarly surprised.

“If you are truly unable to fulfill your contract, Albert, I will, but you haven’t even tried.”

My father pulled himself taller, sucked in his gut, and spoke slowly and deliberately. “There are some things in life more important than money or reputation.”

“Like what?” I asked before Jackson had a chance to reply.

He turned to me, then pointed to the small, framed photos that sat on the table beside the chair. “Like family.” He gave an exaggerated shrug. “Perhaps there comes a time in every man’s life when he feels compelled to return home.”

Home?

Paris hadn’t been his home in two decades.

Anger burst to life inside me. How dare he stand here and pontificate about home as though his life here had mattered?

“This isn’t your home,” I said. “You made that abundantly clear twenty years ago.”

Albert looked as though I’d slapped him, a reaction I was sure he’d perfected in one role or another.

Jackson, however, jumped through the window I’d opened.

“Your daughter is correct,” Harding said. “New York is your home. Broadway is your home. I understand if you’re nervous about the time you’ve missed because of the accident, but they aren’t going to wait for you much longer.”

Annoyance simmered in my father’s eyes, an annoyance I’d seen in my own reflection many times. “I do not get nervous.”

His words echoed the internal dialog I’d had earlier at the opera house, and I realized his was the voice I carried in my head. Back when he’d been my hero, he’d taught me to be brave, to be strong.

Well, I was strong now. Without him.

As quickly as he’d bristled, Albert shrank before my eyes. “I just need more time.”

The momentary light at the end of the tunnel dimmed.

“To do what?” Jackson’s voice went gentle, the exact opposite of the reaction I’d expected. “You can’t hide forever. Either you learn your lines and go back, or you don’t.”

Learn his lines?
Some of my clearest memories of time spent with Albert had been watching him learn his lines. The man had been a natural, making each role his own within moments of opening a script.

Since when had he had trouble learning his lines?

My father slapped his chest, pulling himself taller. “I am an artist. I will not perform until I feel ready to give my audience my best.”

“I’ll run your lines with you,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

My father’s actor façade slipped, and for the briefest moment I saw him, the dad I’d once known. Surprised. Proud. Genuine.

I flashed back on the images of my childhood, back when my mother had helped my father run his lines. When she’d grown too weak to continue I’d taken over her role, sitting out on the patio or in this very room with my father, helping him rehearse.

I’d never felt more important.

That was the only explanation I could think of for my ridiculous offer.

Jackson clapped my father’s shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow at ten. I’ll send a car.

“Miss Jones,” he said, reaching to shake my hand, “I apologize for the intrusion. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

He was partway down the front walk when he turned and jogged back up to the top step, stopping several inches from where I stood. “Perhaps you’d like to come with your father tomorrow—see where he works his magic?”

Works his magic.

The words tapped into a loss and longing I’d worked to deny, but in spite of that I found myself nodding.

I did want to see where Albert worked his magic, where he’d chosen to make his life instead of here. “No need to send a car, then,” I said. “We’ll see you at ten.”

I stood in the doorway until Jackson Harding’s car drove out of sight, then I turned to face my father.

“OK,” I said. “Let’s run your lines, but first I need you to tell me the truth. Did you come here to see me? Or was this just a convenient place to hide?”

Albert sank back into the chair, going pale.

I shut the front door and stepped into the sitting room. “For God’s sake, don’t act.”

His gaze snapped to mine. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“That means I’m fairly confident everything you’ve said since last night has been said in character. Everything,” I added, “except for that one quick moment back there when I saw you. The real you.”

My father stood and turned his back to me, plucking the photograph of my mother and me from the end table. I fought the urge to tell him to set it down.

“I’m having trouble with my lines.” He returned the frame to its place on the table and pivoted toward me. “Since the accident.”

The frustration I’d felt a split-second earlier softened, but I caught myself, bolstering my resolve. He didn’t deserve my sympathy.

Yes, I felt bad for the man if, in fact, what he said was true, but where had he been all my life? Did he honestly expect he could come back now and gain my sympathy?

“So this is a habit of yours?” I asked. “Hiding from things that are difficult?”

He sank back into the chair, folding his hands in his lap. Something purple speckled his slender fingers and covered a few nails.

“What’s on your hands?”

He lifted his pale eyes to mine, even as the shadow fell. He was done with the conversation. Done with the truth.

“I painted the chairs on your patio.”

I blinked. “You show up unannounced, after years of merely stopping by for Christmas dinner, and you paint my patio chairs?”

Albert tucked his hands into the pockets of his chinos and looked down at the floor.

“I wanted to do something to thank you for letting me stay.”

In that moment he looked like a young boy, unsure of himself, frightened. He looked nothing like the imposing image I’d held inside my memory for most of my life.

He appeared broken, and the ten-year-old inside me wanted nothing more than to run for a towel to tie around his neck to remind him of his superhero status, even though he hadn’t been my superhero in a very long time.

For all I knew, he was still acting.

I pushed away the past and focused on the now.

“You painted my chairs?” I repeated.

He looked up and our stares locked. “Want to see them?”

I threw up my hands. “Sure,” I said, wondering if the chairs were nothing more than a diversion to shift our conversation away from his career troubles.

“Her favorite color,” Albert said proudly after leading me to the patio, pointing to the chairs he’d painted—chairs that had been a faded green that morning and were now the same brilliant violet they’d been in my youth.

He grinned as if my mother might step outside at any moment to happily discover what he’d done. He’d once taken so much pride in our house. They both had, my parents. Ours had been a home filled with love and laughter, a warm, nurturing place where I’d always felt safe.

“She’s been gone a long time,” I said, wondering if he’d returned the chairs to their original color to somehow bring a piece of her back.

“Seems like yesterday.” Sadness flickered across his tired features.

“I guess that happens when you run away.”

Silence stretched between us. Silence and twenty years of nothing but stiff holiday meals.

“It’s my favorite color, too,” I said, wishing I could take back the words as soon as they left my lips.

Albert pressed his hand to my shoulder, the rush of memories his touch brought almost more than I could bear. “I had no idea,” he said.

I winced against the sting of his words.

Of course he had no idea. He knew nothing about me, making my earlier moment of sentimentality feel ludicrous.

I walked back inside, away from the fresh paint and the emotional danger it represented. I stopped in the kitchen, leaning hard against the counter, working to regain my composure.

I could do this.

I could run lines with Albert and drive him to New York in the morning. Chances were good I wouldn’t hear from the selection committee for a day or two, and the projects waiting for me at the shop weren’t anything that couldn’t sit untouched for another day.

I thought about the violet chairs and my mother, knowing exactly what she’d ask me to do if she were here.

She’d been kind, gentle. Slow to anger and quick to forgive. Pretty much the polar opposite of the woman I’d become.

When my father stepped back inside, I channeled her spirit and did the exact opposite of what I wanted to do.

Straightening, I gave him my full attention and said, “Let’s do this.”