If It Makes You Happy(4)

Allen’s blond hair, once gelled back, is now fraying. I can see the white streaks coming in along his temples. He attempts to swipe a strand back on a sucked-in breath.

“We should have told them the day we decided,” he says. “You see, this is your problem, Shelly—”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“I should have known you’d keep this from them for as long as possible. You don’t tell anybody anything. Not me. Not your family. You keep all your emotions bottled up until they explode. Well, congratulations. Here’s your explosion.”

I blink quickly, standing taller, clenching my fists. “I do not—”

He leans in and hisses, “Why do you think I had to find someone who made me feel like a partner?”

My head jerks back so fast that it feels like someone fisted my hair and yanked.

I can barely whisper out, “What did you just say?”

“You’re so uptight. You’re not fun anymore.” He’s counting my flaws on his fingers now. “You have to take charge of everything. Ever think I didn’t want that? Ever think nobody wants that? And you hold everyone to such impossible standards. God, you couldn’t even forgive your mom for—”

Crack!

At first I think that’s the sound of my heart breaking. Then I realize my palm pitched back and collided with Allen’s cheek.

I gasp. I can’t breathe.

Allen blinks at me as my pink handprint slowly takes shape on his face.

Still as stone, he breathes, “You deserve to be alone.”

The words—definitive and concise—ring in my ears.

I rush past him and out the chapel’s double doors. The wind whistles through my hair. A bead of sweat dribbles down my lower back. The thorns from the bouquet gnaw into my skin. The first fall leaves flit down from the trees.

Honking cars. Loud music down the sidewalk.

He’s right.

I’m bubbling with anger, and here’s my explosion.

My world is out of control.

Everything is out of my control.





SEPTEMBER 1997





CHAPTER 1





Cliff




I have a bad habit of staring at the phone. Arms crossed. Tongue in cheek. Foot tapping. Maybe it’s unfair, but the thing doesn’t ring when I need it to, so who’s really the victim here?

“You sure there were no messages for me this morning?” I ask, leaning over the bakery counter, where my sister is staring as intently as I am at a framed cupcake painting. “Carol?”

“It doesn’t look good,” she announces.

“The painting?”

“It doesn’t look good,” she repeats.

“Sure it does,” I answer. I swing open the half door to the linoleum-tiled lobby and wipe my hands on my apron. “It’s great.”

I honestly can’t tell the difference between this and the last painting she picked, but with Carol, there can’t be hesitation.

Carol’s been redecorating the bakery’s interior for weeks now. Green walls became pink, then yellow. Iron chairs were traded for dark wood, then light. The display cases have somehow remained untouched, but I give her another week until those are gone too. This place could have neon beer signs for all I care, but that’s why she’s in charge of presentation and I’m not. My job is to bake.

She’s Burke’s Bakery’s brains; I’m the hands.

Carol swivels her eyes toward the bakery’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Winston, our resident painter, is perched on a small stool on the sidewalk, creating the final strokes on our seasonal window art. It’s a mural of autumn leaves, scarecrows, pumpkins, and apples. I told him to add a pie, but he said he couldn’t draw pies, so plain apples it is.

Carol lets out a wistful sigh. “I couldn’t do that.”

“Of course you couldn’t. That’s why we hire Winston. The art looks fine,” I reassure her again.

I look at the counter phone. I thought I’d heard a ring. Maybe I didn’t.

“It’s not working.” Carol snatches the cupcake painting off the wall, places it on the floor, and power walks outside.

I follow her out, leaving the door cracked open so I can hear if the phone rings.

A breeze picks up. I tuck my hands into my denim pockets. Copper Run isn’t even remotely as cold as it will be in future months. It’s the beginning of September, and the leaves have begun shifting from summer greens to deep auburn and burnished golds. It’s the first real blustery day, wind knocking leaves down around my feet.

“What do you think?” Winston asks from the sidewalk, gesturing to the glass mural, paintbrush poised in the air.

“Stunning,” I say. “Your best work yet.”

“Carol looks stressed.”

“She’s upset she’s not as talented as you.”

Winston chortles. “Everyone wishes they were as talented as me.”

I clap his back in passing. “Good job not getting a big head, buddy.”

He salutes me in response.

I follow Carol across the street to the town square. She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. I raise my eyebrows.

“Shut up, Clifford. I’ll quit tomorrow.”