If It Makes You Happy(5)

I hold up my hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

Carol flicks her lighter, takes in a breath, then blows the smoke through the corner of her mouth in the opposite direction.

“I’m a basket case,” Carol moans.

If people were pastries, Carol would be a cannoli. When you take a bite of a perfect cannoli—even though it’s perfect—it cracks apart, and all that’s left is a gooey center. Carol is always on the verge of showing her soft side.

I sigh, dropping my arm over her shoulders. “You’re not a basket case.”

“I never get anything right.”

Carol’s always critical of herself, but she’s been too critical lately. We’ve all been on edge since Birdie Cadell passed this summer, and we all cope in different ways. I overbake. Carol smokes. At least she does it far enough from the bakery that the smell of her smoke won’t permeate the store.

She flicks her hand around, smoke trailing with it. “Do you ever feel like that? Like a loser?”

“No.”

She shoots me a look, and I grin.

“Listen, we make sure the croissants are fluffy and that the door opens at six.” I grip her shoulder with my palm and shake. “If we get that right, there are no problems. It’s just a bakery, Carol.”

She tilts her head to the side. “Just a bakery,” she mocks. “You’re such a liar.”

She’s right. Of course it’s not any old bakery; it’s our bakery—a bakery I dived into headfirst two years ago and one that thrives more than it has any right to. Burke’s Bakery is both my biggest accomplishment and one of my biggest problems. I love it.

“The cupcake painting doesn’t matter, all right? You’re doing great. Promise.”

Carol gives a weak smile. I pull her in for a side hug.

“Thanks,” she mumbles.

“Now, let’s get going.”

Carol scrunches her nose. “You’re not the boss of me.”

I bark out a laugh. “Technically, I am.”

“I hate you sometimes.”

“Not as much as Emily does.”

She snorts. “Are you kidding? Emily idolizes you.”

“Oh, right.” I snap my fingers. “Forgot it was the opposite. My daughter loves me.”

“You ass,” Carol hisses through a reluctant smirk, pushing my shoulder. “One day, she’ll be a normal teenager and see the light.”

“Don’t jinx me.”

“Maybe she’ll turn out to be a mess, like her dear ol’ aunt,” she muses, taking another inhale of her cigarette. “Oh God, I’m a mess.”

I take the butt from her fingers and press it into the ashtray on the park’s trash can.

“I do hate you,” she says through narrowed eyes. “I mean it this time.”

“I’m sure you do.”

I lean against the lamppost but startle as orange lights wound around the pole stab into my back. Copper Run’s square is decorated for the Harvest Festival. Haystacks line the walkways, scarecrows stand erect beside the white gazebo, and crowds of pumpkins form a small patch in the corner of the park. I need to decide what I’ll bring to my booth this year. Last year, Burke’s Bakery sold out of our apple crumb cakes.

Carol kicks out a foot, scratching fallen leaves on the sidewalk. “So … has the evil queen called?”

I rap a fist against the lamppost and tongue my cheek. “That’s not nice.”

“Has she?”

“No,” I answer. “And there were no messages for me, right?”

“Nope.”

I nod to myself. “Then no. Nothing.”

“That’s normal though.”

“Unfortunately.”

My ex-wife makes weekly calls from New York to our daughters, but it’s not uncommon if she misses one. I’ve called her twice since Sunday, but I reached her answering machine both times. It’s been two years since Tracy left Copper Run, and I worry about her, but I worry about her relationship with our daughters more.

If Carol is a cannoli, Tracy is a yule log—more difficult to bake than it needs to be and only seen by me at Christmas.

Carol places a gentle hand on my shoulder. I give a half-hearted smile.

“Let’s go,” I say. “Smoke break is over.”

“You got it, boss.”

“I knew you’d come around.”

We move to cross the street, but down the sidewalk, striding toward the bakery, are my two daughters. I consider that maybe my watch is slow, but when I look—no. School is not out yet.

“What the—” I stride across the pavement, holding out a palm to stop our florist, Sandra, from hitting me with her van.

She playfully honks, but her smile drops when she spots my worried expression.

“Sorry, Cliff!” she calls out the window.

I give a passive thumbs-up.

I catch up to my sixteen-year-old daughter, already sliding her backpack down one arm, key chains rattling on the concrete.

“Emily, what happened?” I ask, darting my eyes between them.

Emily shrugs. “I saw Brittany outside the video store.”

“And you didn’t think to send your sister back to school?” I ask, rushing toward my six-year-old. I squat down to her level.