Now here I am, eight years later, pretending I don’t know what grade Chari teaches, trying to avoid Devon’s eagle eyes.
“Third grade.” I whistle. “A huge responsibility.”
“Give me a sec.” Devon stands up from his stool and steps away to talk to someone across the bar. Which gives me a full-access view of all the ways Chari has changed. She looks much the same, but the confidence that comes with age is evident in the way she sits, the way she holds my gaze. Right now she’s dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, but I find myself imagining what she would look like in . . .
“How do you mean?” she asks.
Concentrate. “Third grade. A benchmark year for reading.”
I can’t help but laugh at her expression.
“Come on, Char, you know I’m not just a pretty face,” I tease.
“I know, but still. I’m impressed you know about that.”
I’m not eager to share why I know. Her brother knows, but I suspect it’s one thing he hasn’t told her. Before my family moved off the lake to be closer to the shop, we lived only four docks down from the Atwoods. Devon was like a third brother to me. Still is, even though we don’t see each other often enough.
There are a lot of things you don’t know about me that would impress you.
I don’t say it, of course. “Do you like it?”
Taking a sip of beer, she nods. “I do. But it’s frustrating too. I feel like I could be helping them more. Like I could have a bigger impact if . . . don’t get me started. I’ll be on this soapbox all night. And I’m not staying.”
The hell she was leaving.
“Oh no. I haven’t seen you in what . . .”
Eight years.
“. . . in years. You’re not going home.”
Chari nods behind me. When I turn around, no less than ten people look away.
“You have enough of a fan club here,” she says. “Not to mention Devon, who is pretty pumped to see you.”
At the moment it looks as if Devon is pretty pumped to be in an entirely different conversation on the other side of the bar with a woman I don’t recognize at first.
“Is that Colleen Karim? Isn’t she a doctor now?”
“Yes. And yes.”
“Looks like you might win that bet sooner than later. What did you bet, anyway?”
“Dinner.” She smirks as she says it, but then something changes in her face and she looks down to her lap.
“That must seem silly to you. Someone with . . .” She stops.
I hate this part of my new life. Hate it. Of course I’m grateful for everything success has brought to me, but there’s a flip side to the coin of fortune. I can’t sit in my hometown bar without being stared at, my conversations overheard and analyzed. And a woman who was once a close friend now feels uncomfortable around me. But if I complained about any of that, I’d be laughed out of the bar.
“Please don’t feel weird around me.”
Chari looks toward the taps, her gaze narrowing on a familiar logo.
“But it’s so strange. That’s you. Your beer. I mean, it’s crazy, Enzo.”
It’s the first time she’s said my name tonight, and it sends a ripple through me.
“It’s definitely a little bit crazy.”
“A little? More than a little. You create an alcohol antidote that lets people sober up before they get behind the wheel. They say your company has saved something like a bazillion lives already. And it’s just ‘a little bit crazy’?”
How many times has someone asked how that makes me feel? Five hundred? A thousand? But this time, I give a real answer, not the kind of canned response favored by our PR team. Even though our success and the impact we’ve made is incredibly humbling, I’m sick of saying so.
“It’s more than a bit crazy,” I admit. “But there are days I wish I’d just graduated as a chemist and worked for a pharma company somewhere. Maybe back here.”
She looks at me like I’ve lost it. People tend to think money and success negates a person’s capability for self-doubt, but it’s not true.
“And here I thought I was the only one who wondered about my career choice.”
There is something dark behind Chari’s laugh, an emotion she’s trying to mask with humor. I shouldn’t want to know what it is, but uncovering that mystery is suddenly the most important thing in the world. Unfortunately, unraveling it will have to wait.
“Sorry about that. I had to.” Devon looks between Chari and me. “Talk to someone.”
I can’t resist ribbing him. “Ah,” I say. “Is that what they call it these days in Bridgewater?”
“In fact, yes, they do,” Chari says, her eyes sparkling. “What do they call it in New York?”
“They call it ‘dipping the stinger in the honey.’”
Chari’s laugh is worth the look Devon gives me. Some habits die hard, and apparently acting like a seventh grader is something I still do outside of Manhattan. Despite the looks and whispers around us, I feel comfortable here. Relaxed.
It’s good to be home.
Or, more precisely, to be here in this bar, talking to Devon and Chari Atwood.
4
Chari
“Tell me everything.”
Lisa leans forward and looks at the other side of The Wheelhouse as if it’s the scene of a crime. We’re in what I call the daylight half. The ground floor is split into two—part bar, part bakery and deli. And it’s always busy, especially in the spring and summer, once the old waterwheel next to us begins to turn again. On one end of Bridgewater lies a lake. The other, a river that cuts through the edge of the downtown. And while the huge wheel encased in wood just outside the window where we sit isn’t actually used to produce power anymore, the owner of the building stills turns it on after the last thaw. Ambiance and all.
I was practically raised here. The husband and wife who own the building rent my mother the space upstairs for her souvenir shop. Usually, I’m as relaxed at this table overlooking the river as I am at home. But not today. Not after last night.
Bridgewater isn’t a huge town. One main street. A handful of restaurants and bars, some closer to town and others along the nearby lake. But there’s only one bakery. It’s not far-fetched to think—to hope—Enzo might come by this morning, which is why I can’t take my eyes from the door.
“I had no idea he was coming home,” I tell my best friend since kindergarten.
Tall, blonde, and incredibly kind, Lisa is the one person in this town everyone, literally everyone, likes. Including me. And my brother, despite the fact that their brief hookup in high school didn’t go swimmingly well.
I did warn her.
“Who would have guessed? I mean, how long has it been?”
“Years since I’ve seen him.”
I reach for the ketchup, but Lisa pulls it away before I can grab it.
“Just try it without any. All I’m asking is for you to do it once. For me.”
I grab the bottle back.
“Not even for you.”
Squeezing a pool of red gold onto my plate, I prepare to dip my scrambled eggs, much to Lisa’s chagrin. You’d think she would give up on trying to refine my food tastes. Eggs without ketchup? No, thank you. I might as well eat her broccoli and mushroom egg white omelette. Yuck.