Sweet Caroline (7 page)

“Well . . .” Oh, now, this is unfair. Why do I have to be the one? “Kirk will close it down, sell the property, and donate the proceeds to charity.”

Andy’s broad shoulders slump ever so slightly, and for the first time I see a break in his confidence. “Well, that’s that.” He slips the towel off of his shoulder and snaps the air. “Ten years. Not a bad run. Are the want ads lying round?”

“Un-freaking-believable.” Mercy Bea’s puffing and blowing smoke. “I protest the will.”

“You can’t protest the will, Mercy Bea. You ain’t kin.” Andy’s big bicep tightens as he lifts the trash can, searching for the
Beaufort Gazette
classifieds.

“Now hold on, y’all. I haven’t decided.”

“There goes youngest young-son’s basketball camp.” Mercy-Bea-the-Positive unties her apron, clamping her red lips around the filter tip of her cigarette. “Since it’s dead here, I’m going to run down to Panini’s Café and Plums. See if they’re hiring. Maybe I’ll cross the line over to Paul Mulroney’s.”

Hear that, Caroline? Jones rolling over in his grave.

“Wait,” I holler. “Did you
not
hear me? I haven’t decided yet. Kirk is coming back next week for my decision.”

“I’ll be holding my breath.” Mercy Bea balloons her cheeks with a backward glance and kicks open the kitchen screen door.

“Let her be.” Andy sets the trash down. The want ads are rolled in his hand. “She needs to blow off steam.”

“What about you?”

“Lost my head for a second. I’ll find something to do in this town. Gloria’s back isn’t bothering her as much these days. She can go back to work until I get a job.”

“I’ll stick around, Caroline.” Russell speaks for the first time. “I’ll find work after we shut down.”

“Shut down. Come on, y’all. I haven’t decided.”
Yet?
“Andy, what should I do?”

“Can’t tell you.” He taps his chest. “Only you know what’s in your heart.”

Mitch sits on the back porch when I pull up home Wednesday evening.

“Hey,” I take the steps slowly, watching as he rises from the bench swing. “How long have you been here?”

“A few minutes.” His easy stride is accented by his baggy shorts, oversized shirt, and flip-flops. “Well, maybe like thirty minutes. Okay, forty-five.” He stops in front of me, smiling. “Actually, I have no idea. I dozed off.”

With a laugh, I squeeze past him. Even now, he’s electric and exciting. “Dork. Why didn’t you come to the Café?” I unlock the kitchen door and head inside.

“I figured you’d be home sooner or later.” He stands by the door, his blond hair loose about his face.

“Are you coming in or just holding open the door for the flies?”There’s a note in Posey’s handwriting tacked to the fridge.
Gone shop-ping
in Savannah. Dad & Posey.

“Guess I’ll sit for a bit.” Mitch walks the rest of the way in, taking a seat at the table. “Does your dad still have the soda fridge? He kept the drinks so cold, ice chips floated on top.”

“You know some things never change.”

“Like you.” His album-cover smile knocks at the closed, locked door of my heart.

Head: Go away.

Heart: Yeah, no one is hoooome.

“I’ve changed.”
Haven’t I?
Yes, definitely. How, I’m not sure, but surely I’ve changed. Yes, lookit, I’m ready to move way over to Spain and take a job I have no idea I can do. “Do you want root beer, diet, or what?” I shove open the mudroom door. The hinge is loose, so the bot-tom scrapes across the board floor. Dad’s tackle keeps the room perpetu-ally perfumed like rotten fish. “How long are you in town?”

“Root beer sounds good. Most of the summer. Taking some time for myself.”

“Nice.” Jerking on the leverlike handle of the old fridge, I take out two root beers. When I set his down in front of him, he says, “So, you and J. D. an item?”

Slowly, I pop open my drink. “We’ve gone out a few times.” Talking to Elle and Jess about my love life is one thing. Talking to Mitch? Awkward.

“He’s a decent guy.”

“Decent? Kind of a bland thing to say about your old buddy.”

Mitch grins. “Is it? I thought it was a compliment.”

“What about you? Last time I saw the cover of
Country Weekly
, you were engaged to that new singer Mallory Clark.”

Mitch pops the top off his root beer and slurps the foam oozing over the top. “We broke up six months ago.”

Curling my leg under me, I sit in one of the kitchen chairs and sip my icy soda. “I’m sorry. Who’s your woman now?”

Looking contemplative, he shakes his head. “Flying solo these days.”

“Mitch O’Neal, running around Nashville untethered? What is the world coming to?”

“Confounding, isn’t it? I’m working on a few life adjustments.”

“You seemed different to me last night.”

His exhale is half laugh, half regret. “Took God knocking me upside the head, but I’m waking up to some realities.”

“Realities?” Mitch hasn’t referenced God since before his Nashville days. I’m curious about the “realities” belonging to a distant, leave-me-to-my-business God. (Mind you, if there is a God. Jury is still out.)

Mitch fiddles with the root beer can, looking as if he can’t formulate an answer. Finally, “Frank Sinatra’s wrong. ‘My way’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“From where I sit, your way has worked well.”

“Let’s just say I’m a long way from the preacher’s kid who walked an aisle and begged Jesus to live in his heart—whatever that meant. I just knew He was real.”

“Isn’t this what you wanted? Escape from the life of a small-town preacher’s kid?”

He taps his finger over his heart. “Yes, but nine years later, it’s left me pretty empty.”

The emotion in his voice moves me.
Yeah, I know exactly what you
mean.

Hungry, we decide to cruise down Highway 21 to the Shrimp Shack for a shrimp burger. And, Mitch wants to drive Matilda. “It’s been a while.”

The Shrimp Shack is busy, and when Mitch steps out of the car, he creates a stir. Customers dining at the picnic tables, and those waiting to pick up, buzz, “Is that Mitch O’Neal?”

Beaufort County has changed so much, the newcomers are not used to seeing one of our favorite sons.

Mitch graciously signs a few autographs—he doesn’t seem to mind this part of his reality—before we take our food to an outside picnic table and sit in the shade of a tall palm tree.

“All right, what’s new with you?” My friend regards me with his sandwich between his teeth.

I pinch off the tip of a french fry. “Jones left the Café to me. You heard he died, right?”

He stops twisting open his water bottle. “Read about it online. Then mom called the day of his funeral. So, you weren’t expecting to inherit the Café?”

“Are you kidding? I had absolutely no idea.”

Mitch is always easy to talk to so I tell him the story of the Café and Hazel’s Barcelona offer. He listens without interrupting, munching on his food like it’s the best thing he’s eaten in a while. The wind blows his hair away from his face. His cheeks appear leaner than the last time I saw him.

When my story is done, he asks, “Do you
want
to move to Barcelona and work for Carlos Longoria?”

His simple, upfront question requires a deep, philosophical answer. “I don’t know.”

“You feel responsible for the Café, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. You always did carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“Well, aren’t you free with the grand sweeping generalities?”

“Am I wrong?”

“No.” Smart aleck. He knows me too well. Even though our romance soured, our friendship remains. It was one aspect of our relationship I thought would keep us forever in love. “You try not feeling responsible when your mother abandons the family.”

He wipes his hands with his napkin. “I’m not accusing you.”

“I know.” Absently, I dip a fry in a puddle of ketchup as my shrimp burger gets cold.

“What are you going to do?” He shoves his food basket to the cen-ter of the picnic table.

“I have until next Tuesday to decide.”

“Translation, you have no idea.”

Holding up my hand, I curl my fingers into an
O
. “Zippo.”

“Barcelona . . . what a great city. But owning a lowcountry café can’t be all that bad.”

“The Frogmore needs a lot of tender loving care, Mitch. Money I don’t have.”

“I’d love to help you out, but—”

“No, no, no, I’m not asking.”

“My label and I parted ways. And I just dumped a ton of cash to pay the bills and wipe out the mortgage on the Fripp Island house. I’m living light until I sign a new deal.”

“Is that the reality God hit you with? Your label dropping you? After, what, five years?”

“One of the realities. Sales aren’t what they were for my first two albums.”

“So?”

“So . . .” His wry laugh is not airy, nor easy. “Record companies are in the business of making money. Not stringing along a party-too-hard artist whose album is tanking, while he barks about getting back to his roots.”

Mitch, not electrifying the music charts? Unbelievable. “I’m sorry.”

He stares off toward the road. “I brought in a bunch of songs they hated, including ‘Yellow Line,’ hoping to record like I used to before ‘commercial appeal’ took over my music.”

“Their loss.” I take a big bite of my shrimp burger. Even cold, it’s fab. “What are you going to do?”

“Same as you.”

“Decide next Tuesday?”

DAILY SPECIAL

Friday, June 8
Frogmore Stew
Green Salad
Bubba’s Buttery Biscuits
Scoop of Choc/Straw/Vanilla Ice Cream
Tea, Soda, Coffee
$7.99

9

Caroline, phone for you.” Andy jiggles the kitchen’s old wall receiver in the air.

It’s Friday afternoon. Business is steady, but the Café feels old and tired to me. I feel old and tired. The Café dilemma is brutal. Do I fight to keep it open or call it a good half century and close down?

“Caroline, this is Melba Pelot over at the
Gazette
. How are you?”

The
press. “I’m fine, Melba. What can I do for you?”

“Confirm a rumor.” Her tone is airy, like this is no big deal, but I can tell when I’m being fished.

“What rumor?” I fall against the kitchen wall and stare out the back door toward the carriage house. It would be nice to live there, in town, close to all the downtown action.

“Did you inherit the Frogmore Café from Jones McDermott?”

“Yes, I did. How’d you—”
Ahh
. As Mercy Bea comes around the kitchen corner, humming, I know. Wonder who all she’s told?

“What are your plans?” Over the line comes the
click, click
of Melba’s keyboard.

Am I supposed to be honest with the press? I know Melba from around town, a
comeya
from Pennsylvania. “I’m still making my decision, Melba. There are conditions and terms to be considered.”

“Really? Like . . .”

“Well—” Ignoring the big fat
nooo
in my gut, my mouth rattles on. “If I don’t keep the Café for a certain amount of time, it will be shut down, sold, and the proceeds donated to charity.”

“Really?”
Clickity, clickity, clickity.

Instant regret fills my chest. Why did I tell her? “Melba, listen, this is between you and me. Off the record.”

“Umm-hmm. Well, good luck with your decision.”

“Melba, what are you—”

The dial tone speaks to me. That
comeya
has hung up on me.

Saturday I sleep in, tired from a long and somewhat emotional week. Andy and Mercy Bea are opening the Café today while Russell and I take closing.

Saturday business is schizophrenic—mind-numbingly boring to hectic. We’ve been managing to keep all the balls in the air without Jones, but we miss his extra set of hands in the kitchen. If I keep the Café, I’m going to have to hire help.

In a half-dreamy state, I hear Dad banging down the hall with his suitcase. Oh, it’s wedding-trip day. I kick off the covers and swing open my bedroom door.

“Ready to go, Dad?” My shaggy hair slips over my eyes.

Dad looks back from the second stair down. “Sorry to wake you, Caroline.”

“Off to get Posey?”

“Yeah, and I’m late.”

I wrap my arms around my waist and lean against the banister, peering into the great room below. “Have a lovely wedding and a wonderful honeymoon.”

Dad grins sheepishly “I’m planning on it.” I do believe I’m blushing. “The hotel name and number is on the refrigerator door. Call if you need anything.” He starts down the stairs, then pauses. “If the Mustang breaks down, drive the truck. Keys are on the kitchen hook.”

I prop my chin in my hand. “Do you get tired of taking care of me?”

“Suppose I could ask the same of you.” He stares off and away, clearing his throat. “I can’t count the number of times you kept me this side of sane after your mama left. Those nights you watched TV with your old man instead of going out with friends . . .” Laughter gurgles from his chest. “Know what came to mind the other day? The summer you hired the lawn service. ‘The dang grass is cutting my calves.’”

The memory is a soft favorite. “It became apparent no one in the Sweeney household could fire up the mower.”

“Caroline, you all right? You don’t seem yourself lately. I heard Mitch is back in town . . .”

Daddy knows me well. Watched me ride the Mitch roller coaster a few times. “No, it’s not Mitch, Dad. Actually, I’m sort of dating J. D. Rand.”

“J. D.? Didn’t he have a crush on you in junior high?”

My sleepy eyes pop wide. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Careful around him, Caroline. I hear he’s a ladies’ man. He’s—”

“Treating me very nice, Daddy. Don’t worry. Go get married. I’m fine.”

Why tell him about the Café and Barcelona? It’ll only add to his load. And on his honeymoon. I can’t be responsible for that.

“Well, guess you’re grown. I’ll leave you to your business.” He takes the last of the stairs down, bumping his old suitcase the entire way. “See you in a week.”

Once he leaves, I decide to take advantage of the morning and ponder my options from high up in my live-oak sanctuary. It’s a lovely but warm June day, fragrant with the scent rising from the dewed ground.