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“Grandma, we talked about this. Fiona and I aren’t together anymore.” Joe puts his hand on hers.
“But ...” She puts her cup down harder than necessary. Dark liquid sloshes from the cup onto the saucer as her eyes dart from me to her grandson and back to me.
“We should get these plants in the ground. What do you say the two of us head to the garden and let the young people work on that fancy new movie project of theirs,” my grandmother says.
“Good idea. They look like they could use some privacy. Not together anymore.” She shakes her head and looks like she doesn’t believe that for a hot second. “I remember catching them kissing back behind the old shed when they thought no one would notice.” Joe’s grandmother snickers, and mine joins in, both of them ignoring us as they head out the kitchen door and to the backyard.
“Ignore them,” Joe says, pulling his laptop closer. “There are a couple of things I wanted to run by you.”
We work side-by-side, going over the contracts we just got from legal and finalizing our offers.
“Are you sure Charles is the right man for the job? He didn’t seem too excited to join us,” Joe asks, looking through the email exchange I forwarded to him.
“He is. There’s no one better. And the reluctance doesn’t have anything to do with us. His ex lives in town. Maeve Alden. Her next few projects are in Toronto.”
“I almost got to work with her. Pretty big personality. Bit of a diva, from what I’ve heard.”
“She’s mellowed out a lot since she’s gotten married.” I’ve always liked Maeve, but she could be a handful. I didn’t blame Charles for trying to stay away for a while. Watching your ex-girlfriend get married couldn’t be easy. For a split second, I imagined what it would be like to see a wedding announcement for Joe in the paper.
“Alright, if you think he’s the right man for the job ...” Joe looks at me as if he can sense my change in mood.
“He is,” I assure him, returning my attention to the tasks at hand.
“I’m sorry about my grandmother. She gets confused, and for some reason she is convinced we never broke up.” His eyes are glued to his laptop, and I realize this isn’t easy for him either.
“Don’t worry about it.” I busy myself forwarding a few more emails to him and setting up a preliminary shooting calendar to share with our new team.
“Do you ever wonder about it?” he asks a little while later.
“Wonder about what?”
“What could have been if we stayed together?” He’s still not looking at me, but his tone is more serious than before. Almost a little sad.
“Let’s not go there,” I say, panic rising in the back of my throat.
“Okay.” He finally looks at me, and my heart is about to break when his stomach growls so loudly, I’m pretty sure our grandmothers can hear it.
“Hungry?” I ask, biting back a grin that’s as much relief as anything else.
“A little,” he says with a half-smile.
“Liar. Why don’t we go fix some food? I’m sure those two will be hungry too when they finally come back inside.” I look at the two old women, bent over the herb garden planter, chatting and laughing like they are young girls.
“You’re probably right. What do you think? Frittata?” He walks into the kitchen.
“Sounds good to me. What do you need me to do?” I rinse my hands in the kitchen sink and pull an apron from the hook by the back door in an attempt to keep the white blouse I’m wearing from getting ruined.
“Chop some veggies and slice the bread?” he asks, handing me a cutting board and a large knife.
“You’ve got it.” It doesn’t take long to chop enough zucchini and tomatoes for the vegetable and egg dish.
Joe has an old cast-iron skillet on the stove. It’s seasoned so well that I bet it outperforms any modern pan. Butter is melting in the bottom, and Joe turns to reach for the chopped veggies.
I hand him the cutting board, our fingers brushing against each other. I hold my breath, savoring the sensation that shoots through my entire body.
“I should get these into the pan before the butter burns,” Joe says, making no attempt to break our connection.
“You should.”
