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Chloe whips up shrimp po-boys for dinner, and we eat them outside on the porch, talking over our strategy for tomorrow.
“What time do you guys think we should open? 6:00 AM?” Harper asks.
Chloe chokes on her bite.
“If you’re opening that early, kid, you better be serving straight espresso shots, not lemonade,” I tell her.
“Okay fine. We’ll cut the grand opening ribbon around 10:00 AM. Hopefully there are a lot of people. Maybe I should call the local paper? They could send a news crew.”
Chloe looks at me. We’re both obviously fighting down our laughter.
“Why don’t we just do a soft opening tomorrow?” Chloe suggests with a reassuring hand on Harper’s arm. “That’s really common in the restaurant world, and it gives you time to work out any kinks you might have before the place gets really busy.”
Harper agrees.
Now the tricky thing about running a lemonade stand in the Hamptons is that most of the time people like to stick to themselves out here. Jerry Seinfeld isn’t exactly inviting people onto his property for a drink and a pastry.
The next morning, we set up Sugar Stand at the end of our long driveway, and Harper expects ten people to be lined up right away. I bring out two chairs, one for her and one for me, and we sit in the shade under a tree and wait.
Harper checks her pink Barbie watch every few minutes. By 10:10, she’s up pacing. Then she rearranges the cookies so the best ones are on top. Feeling as though that still might not be enough, she lines up the muffins so the ones that look to have the most blueberries are right up front.
She stirs the lemonade, then takes a seat and crosses her arms.
“Are we ever going to get a customer?”
“Sure, we just have to be patient. C’mon, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“Whatever that means, it’s annoying.”
Noted.
Chloe brings us a midmorning snack and offers to take over for me so I can go get a workout in. She gestures over Harper’s head so my daughter can’t see her.
“Any customers?” she mouths.
I give my head an infinitesimal shake, and Chloe cringes.
By the time I’m back, a little over an hour later, they still haven’t had a single patron.
Then Ned wanders up with his cat. He’s been out back all morning weeding and tending the flower beds around the pool. He looks like he could use a pick-me-up.
“How much for a cup?”
“Fifty dollars,” Harper says with a completely straight face.
“Fifty dollars?!”
“Okay, three dollars,” she counters, clearly still working out her pricing strategy. “But you get to pick a treat too.”
Ned slips three dollars out of his wallet and hands the cash to Harper. She passes him a cup of lemonade and lets him take any baked good he wants.
“These have nuts?” he says, pointing to the cookies.
“No.”
“They vegan?”
He pronounces it vay-gan.
“Uh…” Harper looks to Chloe, and Chloe shakes her head.
“Alright then. Thank you, miss,” he says, tipping his imaginary hat to Harper as he downs his lemonade in one go then nabs a cookie off the top of the pile to eat on his way back to work.
After that, it’s thirty minutes of tumbleweeds. A lot of cars pass by on Ocean Drive, but no one stops.
“This is embarrassing,” Harper says, kicking her foot out dejectedly. “My business is the worst.”
I don’t have the right words on the tip of my tongue to make her feel better, but Chloe does.
She springs into action and reroutes Harper’s mood like it’s the most natural thing in the world to her. “You know what I was thinking, Harper? We need signage! Something we can put out on the road. How are people going to know about our stand otherwise?”
Harper perks up. “I do have a bunch of paper and markers inside! Oh! I could even use the back of that poster board from my presentation. I’ll go grab it!” She takes off in a full-out sprint back toward the house.
Chloe and I watch her go, then in sync, we turn back toward the road, watching the cars drive by and pretending the other person doesn’t exist. I damn near start whistling to cut the tension.
“Any requests for dinner? I was going to head to the market soon.”
Still no eye contact.
I drag my hand through my hair. “No. I mean, just…whatever you want to fix, I know it’ll be great.”
She tucks her hands into the back pockets of her jean shorts and rocks back on her heels. “Sounds good.”
“Right. I didn’t mean to make that sound so flippant. It’s more like, I trust you to make something delicious. I never got the chance to tell you how good your pizza was.” I could groan with pleasure just thinking about it. “God, it was good.”
“Oh yeah?” Her voice comes out a little higher than usual. “I’m so happy to hear that. You never know. I might like things one way, you might prefer them some other way. Finding a good chef is a lot like finding a good bedmate.”
