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I smiled.
“Fine, you’re hired,” he said with a deep sigh. “But don’t talk too much. I hate that. And don’t try to reorganize things or brighten the place up. I don’t wat to have to fire you for that shit.”
I nodded, biting back my excitement.
“I mean it. The menu, the decor, it was all designed by my Janie, and I’m not changing a damn thing.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I assured him.
“You start tomorrow. Four to close.”
I wanted to hug him, but I had no doubt he’d fire me on the spot.
“Thank you,” I said, my attention on the limes again.
He nodded, heading back toward the kitchen. “Do the lemons before you leave.”
Chapter4
Hazel
Nothing had changed. Bernice’s bouffant was just as voluminous as ever, despite the deeper wrinkles around her eyes. And the diner was spotless but worn. The rips in the vinyl booths had been patched with tape, and the black and white checkerboard floor tiles had been chipped over the years.
This place was a lot like Lovewell. Proud but tired.
I was camped out here with my laptop. It had only been three days, but I was already losing it. I needed space to work, to spread out, and to think. And distance from my big brother. I had a big mountain to climb, and I hadn’t even made it to base camp yet.
Dylan’s apartment above the bank on Main Street was small. But the brick building had large windows that overlooked the town, and the rent was cheap. He had moved in after he graduated from college, and for a tiny bachelor pad, it was always scrupulously clean.
Though he was less than two years older than me, Dylan had raised me. Our dad split when I was a baby, and Mom battled depression and addiction for years. We had nothing but one another and our shitty single-wide trailer on the wrong side of town. And we were only fortunate enough to have that because our grandma had left it to us when she died.
He taught me to read and to tie my shoelaces. And he used the money from his paper route to buy me a bike for my thirteenth birthday.
I still woke up every day knowing just how much I owed him.
So we were close. We had to be. It was the only way we’d survived. When I was identified as gifted in kindergarten, he never let me skip a day of school and helped me study for every single test, often learning right alongside me. When I was in high school, he attended community college while working nights at the sawmill, but he was still there, standing over my shoulder each night, making sure I studied for the SAT.
When I graduated as valedictorian, no one was prouder. He shouted and cheered, and we celebrated with pie at the diner. When I got a scholarship to Brown University, he drove me to Providence, Rhode Island, in his ancient truck, unpacked my dorm room, and gave me money for books. Never mind that he was a student himself, studying education while still living in that trailer and working two jobs.
So there was no time for slacking. Dylan hadn’t pushed me this far for me to get distracted now. This dissertation would not only be produced in record time, but it would blow the socks off my advisors and result in what I hoped was an abundance of job offers.
Public health wasn’t a particularly lucrative field, but a prestigious research grant or a placement at an Ivy League university would certainly pad the resume and get me to the next stage of my career.
So I’d returned home, ready to work. Not just to level myself up, but to do something for the community that had taken Dylan and me in and championed us since childhood.
“Hazel, darling. Are you only using me for my Wi-Fi? Or do you plan to visit with me?” Bernice asked. While she mostly scowled at everyone else, she gave me a bright smile that juxtaposed her reputation around town. My mom had worked here for a bit when I was a kid. She was a terrible waitress, but Bernice and Louie had taken pity on her. Naturally, she flaked out, but they had always had a soft spot for Dylan and me. They fed us when we needed it and gave me a quiet place to do my homework. They were the surrogate grandparents we so desperately needed.
“I’m teasing. Gossiping with old ladies won’t help you become a doctor.”
I sighed and fought a smile. “I’m not going to be a medical doctor. Just a PhD.”This was a common misconception in town. Since I’d left for Brown when I was eighteen, the legend had grown and evolved. This small-town rumor mill was notorious for its exaggerative misconstruction. If random townspeople were surveyed, the results of what I was doing with my life now would vary from being the current secretary of state to a NASA astronaut inhabiting the International Space Station. At least doctor wasn’t too far off.
“Justa PhD?” she scoffed. “Louie, did you hear that?Just.” She waved her hands at me dismissively and turned to the kitchen window, where her husband Louie was visible as he worked the grill.
“Smartest person to ever come from Lovewell, that’s for damn sure,”he hollered.
“We’re proud of you, sweetie.” She shuffled over and kissed my cheek.
My heart clenched. The words made my skin itch. I hadn’t earned them. The research was barely started, and I had an enormous mountain to climb. Moments like this reminded me of how much was riding on my dissertation. How much I owed the people who’d looked after me for years, not because they had to, but because they’d chosen to.
