The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel - By Sarah Addison Allen Page 0,69
it for herself. Her father would have loved this. He would have been out there talking to people, making them feel welcome, catching up on news. For a moment, she could even see him, in his T-shirt and jeans, ball cap and half-apron He was a wisp of man, another ghost in her life. But then someone passed by her line of vision and she lost him. She suddenly wondered, when she left this place, would he still be here? Would his memory live on?
“Hey, Julia!” someone called from a table, and several people turned to her. More people called out. A few waved. A couple of old ladies she’d gone to church with when she was a kid even got up to invite her to the Sunday night service. Normally, she was here so early that she never saw these people. Oh, she would see them in the grocery store and on the street, but they were never this friendly. For some reason, seeing her here made it different for them. Here, she was the restaurant owner. She was the reason they still had this place to come to, to gather, to socialize. Here, she was Jim’s daughter. And they saw in that something to be admired.
Julia smiled at them, a little dazed, and sidestepped her way into the kitchen.
Hours later, in the thick of the lunch rush, Julia finally finished her cakes. They were being sliced and served even as she stood behind the counter and wrote the names of the day’s cakes on the chalkboard.
She didn’t know it, but while she was in the kitchen, her stepmother, Beverly, had come in, but obviously not to eat. She was waiting for Julia at a table near the door. When she got up, the couple she’d been sitting with looked relieved.
“Julia!” Beverly said as she approached, waving a large brown envelope. Several men looked her way. “I stopped by Stella Ferris’s house looking for you because you’re never here at the restaurant at lunchtime. What are you doing here at lunchtime? You’re only here early in the morning. Everyone knows that. You should set a routine and stick to it.”
Julia was too tired, both emotionally and physically, to deal with Beverly today. She set the chalkboard down. “Let’s talk some other time, Beverly. I’m exhausted and I want to go home.” And where was that, exactly? she thought. Her apartment at Stella’s? Her dad’s old house? Baltimore? Nothing was clear anymore.
“No, no, no. I’m put out enough with you already, missy. If I had known you’d be here, I would have come here first instead of stopping at Stella’s house and waiting for you. That woman is such an odd duck. What are you doing here at lunchtime?” she asked again. “You’re never here at lunchtime.”
“I own this place, Beverly. I can come and go anytime I please.”
“Speaking of which … Excuse me, hon,” she said to a man sitting at the counter as she hipped her way between him and the man beside him. It was a tight fit, but she didn’t seem to mind. Neither did the men. “Here’s the surprise I was talking about!” She slapped the envelope on the counter in front of Julia. “Your father would be so proud of me. I had my lawyer draw up partnership papers for this place. All you have to do is sign over half of J’s Barbecue to me. That way, when we sell it, we can split the profit.”
The men on either side of Beverly looked at Julia curiously, waiting, as Beverly was, for her to say something. People at a nearby table heard, too. The news soon made its way around the room like smoke.
Julia stared at the envelope on the counter. This shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Just like last night shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.
At least a full minute passed before Beverly began to look uncomfortable. “Now, Julia, you know I deserve this.” She leaned in and said in a softer voice, “I thought we had an understanding.”
“My understanding,” Julia said, finally looking up from the envelope, “is that my father loved you, but you left him.”
That had the restaurant quiet in seconds.
Beverly scooped up the envelope. “Obviously, you’re cranky. From the look of you, you haven’t had much sleep. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that those are the same clothes you were wearing yesterday. Clean up a little, and I’ll meet you outside.”