Page 43 of Something About September

“Very unprofessional,” she whispered, leaning back to give him better access.

“Completely inappropriate,” he murmured against her skin, his hands sliding to her waist, lifting her easily onto the counter, stepping between her knees, kissing her like there was nothing else in the world they needed to be doing, and nowhere else in the world either of them would ever need to be.

—

In the afternoon, Rebecca decided that if she didn’t leave the diner, it truly wouldn’t ever be finished—so she kissed Cort goodbye and walked to Calloway’s Orchard. As she got closer, Sabrina’s voice carried over the rows of apple trees, brisk and bright as she directed a crew hauling hay bales for the maze. Byron, her assistant, trailed close behind with a clipboard, trying to keep up as Sabrina gestured toward wagons, ladders, piles of cornstalks.

When she spotted Rebecca, her expression was knowing. Rebecca had wanted to tell her what was going on with Cort in person—but it was clear she already had some inkling. She walked closer, her expression now thoughtful. Sharp and perceptive. She looked Rebecca up and down. “So it is true,” she said. Rebecca started to blush.

“Is it all over town?”

“You absolute trollop, it is. And I couldn’t be happier, honestly. That you two finally got over yourselves and got together. I want to know everything.” She turned to Byron. “You can hold down the fort for half an hour, yes?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Come on. Let’s go to my place for coffee.”

In Sabrina’s sunny converted barn apartment, Rebecca felt relieved to be able to talk about the past few days. “I haven’t really processed it myself. It’s all just felt so easy. And so good.”

“I’ll bet,” Sabrina said, waggling her eyebrows. “And of course it feels easy. It’s years in the making. You two are meant to be.”

Rebecca both loved hearing her best friend say this and felt confusion swirling inside her. She was only in Bramley Hollow for a few more weeks. Cort had a life here and she didn’t, not really. She wanted to say all this to her friend, but it felt like a problem with no solution. And besides, they had something else to talk about.

“Telling you about Cort and me isn’t really why I’m here,” she finally said. “I want to talk to you about something.” Again, Sabrina seemed knowing.

“Finally ready, huh? This tracks. It’s been a few days, you’ve had time to process and decide you can’t keep what you’re feeling bottled up inside.”

Rebecca swallowed. “That photograph, of my mom and your dad…”

“It’s just a photograph, Becca.”

“I found another one, though. In a box of my mom’s stuff in my grandmother’s office.” She had it with her, pulled it from the back pocket of her jeans, her heart racing, feeling guilty for some inexplicable reason, as if she had done something wrong. Tears were filling her eyes, and she blinked them back quickly as her friend looked at the photograph.

Finally, Sabrina looked up. And her eyes were shining, too. “Oh, Becca. Why do you torture yourself like this?”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head, looked down at the photograph once more, then handed it back. “We’re not kids anymore. If we were, of course we would be jumping to conclusions and making things awkward. I’d probably be insisting on doing some sort of mail-in paternity test, telling you there’s a very high chance we’re sisters, not thinking at all about the emotional consequences. But, Becca, all you need to do is talk to my dad.”

She closed her eyes and groaned. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not? I love you, Becca. You know that. But you make a habit of running from the truth, and with Cort, okay, fine, maybe the timing wasn’t right and now it is. But this could be a truth that you can’t run from. This isn’t just about family drama anymore. It’s about your life, Becca. You can’t let fear keep you from finding out who you are.”

“But it’s like you just said. There are emotional consequences.”

“Not the kind you think. We’re your family, no matter what. You have to believe that. You have to stop being so afraid.” She pulled her friend close for a hug, but Rebecca pulled back, wrapping her arms around herself, suddenly feeling cold, even in the thick knit Fair Isle sweater she was wearing. She wanted to protest, to tell Sabrina she didn’t want the weight of that knowledge. But she also felt the echo of Lenore’s silences, the gaps in her story, the ache that came from not knowing, all these years.

Rusty had wandered over to curl up by Becca’s feet. She buried her hand in his thick fur.

“Talk to my dad,” Sabrina said softly. “I’ll love you no matter what happens.”

“I love you, too, Beans.” But she didn’t commit to anything—not yet. She just let herself sit with the possibility of asking questions about who her father was without letting it scare her into running away.

Chapter 28

It was Saturday morning, and the first day all week that Rebecca had not woken early to let Cort in and spend the day with him in the diner. She still had her own work to do—she was almost finished with the enormous job of cleaning, sorting, and packing up the industrial kitchen. But Cort was taking the day off—and there were just a few more floorboards left to lay, besides. He was close to the finish line; they both were. Pip was sleeping at his place, and he had left work in the afternoon to go pick him up from school, and told Rebecca he’d call her the next day. It was a strange feeling, to be without Cort. She pulled a white, blue, and green Fair Isle sweater over her pajamas and gazed out at the view toward the orchard, picking up her phone, then putting it down again. She wanted to call him, just to say good morning—but he had said he’d call her. She suddenly felt like a high school girl again—and was relieved when her phone rang and his name appeared on the screen, as if she had summoned him.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice filling her with warmth, even from a distance. “It feels really weird not to be waking up and driving over to your place.”

“It feels strange not to have you here,” Rebecca agreed, wondering if he could feel how hard she was smiling through the phone.

“I was wondering…are you free for a date tonight?”