And Jo would make extra for Knox and Penny.
At home, she prepared the rice base and vegetables, trying to keep her mind off Blue.
Still, she needed to talk to someone. She rinsed off her hands and picked up her phone.
Her grandmother answered on the third ring. In the background, the faint chatter of a television and a card game winding down carried through the line.
“Josephine. What a nice surprise.”
Jo closed her eyes. No one called her Josephine except Mamie Rose. It always made her feel like a little girl standing in her grandmother’s kitchen, waiting to lick the spoon. She made the best macadamia nut cookies with white chocolate chunks.
“Am I interrupting?” Jo asked.
“I just cleaned out Dorothy and Francis at canasta. They’ll recover, and I’ll donate my winnings to their favorite charity. What’s going on, chérie?”
Jo eased onto a stool at the kitchen bar.
“I need to talk. I have a big day tomorrow with this crowdfunding project I told you about, but I just—” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Blue is leaving for Chicago. He has a job interview there.”
Her grandmother’s door clicked shut after her friends left. Rose Dufour was eighty-four years old and had been widowed at an early age. Her husband had never returned from the Vietnam War, so she had to provide for herself and her daughter, first by taking on sewing and alterations, and then by creating a fashion line that she sold to boutiques. Mamie Rose was the only person Jo knew who understood her completely.
Rose was quiet for a moment. “Will he take the job if offered?”
“I assume he’ll take it and stay. Why else would he fly out for the interview?”
“What do you think spurred this decision?”
“I think his family is pulling him back. And clearly, I’m not worth staying for.”
“Now, Jo. Don’t talk like that. You’re well worth it, and you know that.”
Rose had once told Jo she’d spent her life watching the women around her compromise their goals for the men in their lives. She’d done her best with Sylvie, but her daughter had spent her life chasing validation from men who didn’t deserve the effort.
Being of a generation in social flux, Rose understood that pattern. She also understood why Jo was terrified of repeating her mother’s mistakes.
“Josephine, listen to me. Keep your eye on your goal. You have a big opportunity to launch, and that business is all yours. No man gave it to you, and no man can take it away.”
“I know that.”
“I’m not finished.” Rose’s voice was firm but warm, the way it had been when Sylvie wanted to transplant Hugo to Mexico with a man she’d just met. “The right man, and that may still be Blue, will love you for who you are and respect what you’re building. He won’t ask you to change. If he does, he’s not the right man.”
Jo stared at the ceiling. “What if I went to Chicago? Maybe I could start over.”
“Could you? And would he understand while you did that? You worked awfully long hours starting Cuppa Jo’s. That was a major investment of time.”
Jo tried to imagine it. They’d have to work years to get back to where they were now on Crown Island, hardly seeing each other. A new city, a new diner, new customers. Chicago in the summer was beautiful and exciting.
But the winter? She shuddered. Heavy coats, stiff winds, and gray slush. No sunny beaches or oranges on the trees in January. No Junie across the street. Many survived and thrived in winter climes, but she didn’t want to. Leaving Crown Island, Hugo, and her grandmother would be a sad day for her.
“I don’t think I could do it,” Jo said. “This island is my home. I have community here.”
“And Blue has community there,” Rose said. “His mother, his sisters, the memory of his brother. That’s powerful. The decision is his, chérie. Not yours. You’ve done all you can do.”
Jo felt the weight in her chest ease. She could count on her grandmother to simplify the decision.
“How do you always see so clearly?”
“I’ve had years of practice. I hope my insights benefit you.”
