“Why can’t you do this?”
“No,” I say. “Not this time.”
“Really?” She huffs like a teenager, swings herself off the barstool, then stands there, hands on her hips. “You keep saying you want to help and I’m asking for help and now you won’t do the single thing I’ve asked.”
I resist her plea to escape the acknowledgment of her father’s death. “You need to go to the restaurant. I can’t do this for you.”
She looks toward the salon. Light cascades through the patio doors, washing one side of her face and body with golden light. She gnaws her lip. “Meadow.”
“Maya?”
She turns toward me. “I need you to go home.”
“Now?”
“No, not this minute or anything. I don’t want you staying here. Living here. I need to be by myself while I start this next part of my life.”
An ache starts up—I don’t want to leave her unprotected. I don’t want to leave the house I love so much, either. Which one has more pull? It makes me ashamed of myself that I should feel such a materialistic ping, but it would be nearly impossible to say how much I loved this place. It was the center of my world for twenty years.
It’s not really about the house, of course. Maya senses the core of my conflict. “I know you don’t trust me, and I don’t really trust myself, actually, but I need to figure it out, okay?”
“Of course.” I rub the dishcloth in my hand over the tiles on the counter. “I just . . . don’t want you to feel lonely or lost. You’re not alone, okay? Your sister is right in town, and I’m forty minutes away, anytime. Ever.”
She rounds the island and gathers me into a hug. “I know, Meadow. I love you and I appreciate everything you’re doing.”
“But.”
“Yeah.” She steps away. “If I’m going to stay sober, I have to learn how to stand on my own two feet.”
“All right. I’ll clear out. And you don’t have to go to Peaches today if you’d rather leave it a little longer.”
“No, I’ll go. I’m sure Kara’s getting really anxious. We need to make a few decisions, for sure.”
We meet at Peaches and Pork an hour later. Kara is there with the books, which are not difficult for a woman who ran a winery to read.
“What the hell?” Maya exclaims. “He’s in hock up to his ears.”
Kara and I exchange a glance. “Have you looked to see what you owe on the house?”
Maya sighs. “No. You think it will be this bad on that, too?”
“No idea, babe,” Kara says.
Maya pulls out her phone and makes a note to herself. “I need to get all the paperwork together on the house and the restaurant and see if I can set up a meeting with a banker.” To Kara she says, “Can you get me a name? He must have been working with someone in particular.”
“Definitely. I’ll email you.”
Kara wants to know if they can open anytime soon, which will mean finding a new head chef, a problem that’s been looming a long time. Augustus was possessive of his kitchen and menus and no matter how we—mainly Kara and I—nagged him, he was reluctant to hire and train a backup. He didn’t want to be replaceable.
Which I understand on so many levels.
Maya says, “You know, I’m going to leave those decisions in your hands. If you need to consult with Meadow, or there are things you need me for, that’s great, but you’ve been running the place for a long time, and you’re going to do it better than I will.”
Kara presses her hands together in namaste. “Thanks, Maya. That means a lot to me.”
Maya takes the time to look at everything, at the barstools starting to fray along the seams, not overtly, but enough to tell their age; at the linens and glassware; at the public toilets and private ones. “It’s all so dated.”
“It is.” Standing with her in the dining room, I continue, “It wouldn’t take that much to freshen it up, though. New dining chairs, some paint, different window treatments.”
“Glassware, flatware, all of it,” she adds, then looks over her shoulder. “God, that stinks.” We’re standing near the bar, and it smells sour and beery and sharply of tequila.
“Is it bothering you, the smell of alcohol?”
“A little.” She touches her belly. “It’s making me kind of nauseous.”
“C’mon, let’s go back to the kitchen. Sorry. I just didn’t think about it.”