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Frustration filled her as she buckled her seatbelt and adjusted the air so it was blowing in her face. She needed a wake-up call, and the chilly blast of air conditioning did the trick. Shewastaking a chance here, but on her career. Not on getting the two things she’d literally been dreaming about for decades.
A job at a restaurant—or SaltFish, the fast casual fish taco joint where she was interviewing this morning—wouldn’t make her a wife or a mother.
As she drove across the city for her interview, another battle began in her brain. “Focus,” she told herself as she got out of her car and tugged on the bottom of her crisp, white blouse. She put that fake smile on her face and squared her shoulders. This was a “restaurant” that served fish tacos in under five minutes. The job was as good as hers.
* * *
A week later,Clarissa was still living out of a half-packed bag, in her sister’s cute little house on the outer ring of downtown San Antonio. She hadn’t heard back from SaltFish yet, and at this point, she knew she wouldn’t. The fact that she couldn’t get a job where someone literally assembled tacos from ingredients in bins brought her to tears every time she thought about it.
Cherry had been trying to cheer her up for days, but Clarissa suspected it was only to get her to shower and keep making dinner. If it killed her—and it might—Clarissa vowed to do both today.
She hadn’t spoken to Spencer in almost two weeks, and that made her throat dry up. She hadn’t been able to get an apartment, though she’d looked at four now. They hadn’t been great, and they were expensive. The one she’d tried to get, she’d been too slow on.
In short, nothing was going her way, and she almost pulled on her well-loved sweats and camped on the couch before she remembered her vow. While she was in the shower, Cherry called into the bathroom that she was leaving.
“Okay,” Clarissa said, but it didn’t really matter if it wasn’t okay. Cherry had a job—a good one. She even had a new boyfriend, and she was leagues ahead of Clarissa.
She’d put out at least fifteen more applications at various eateries all over the city, and it seemed no one was hiring women with dark green eyes and strawberry blonde hair. She didn’t want to call her father and admit defeat, but he’d asked again if he should bring her boxes and leave them at Cherry’s. He asked every day about the apartment hunt and how the job search was going, and her desperation had reached a new high.
In moments like these, which had been coming more and more often lately, she thought about simply packing up and going home. If she did that, Clarissa would have to admit to things she didn’t want to acknowledge, and she gritted her teeth to prevent herself from letting that train of thought continue.
After getting dressed, she wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of cooling coffee. “Is this your way of saying I should just go home?” she asked, folding her legs underneath her body as she curled into the recliner in Cherry’s living room and looking up toward heaven. The space held the slight scent of toast, as her sister loved the stuff and ate it every morning. Her bravest cat, Feathers, jumped up onto the armrest of the couch, and Clarissa stroked her absently.
She sighed and looked at the TV she’d turned on, some cooking show flickering on the screen. “We’re back with Gray Bell, and he’s here to show us how to make his momma’s Southern pimento cheese.”
Clarissa found herself getting to her feet, her eyes stuck to the TV now. A tall man wearing a cowboy hat filled the screen, and everyone in Texas knew Gray Bell, the country music star.
And he was making a flavored, spreadable cheese like it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. A family recipe, no less.
“So your mom would make this every week?” the hostess asked. She was a flawless woman, without a hair out of place and wearing so much makeup that her skin looked plastic.
“That’s right,” Gray said. “Every Sabbath Day. My momma believed in two things: goin’ to church on Sunday and serving crackers with pimento cheese afterward.” His grin could’ve filled the Mississippi River, and the hostess laughed.
“All right,” she said, adding plenty of drawl to her voice now. “Tell us what goes in this.” She peered into the bowl, but Clarissa knew the ingredients to pimento cheese.
Cream cheese, she checked off as Gray put it in the bowl.Sharp cheddar. Pimentos—obviously, he said.
He added a few spices too—far too much salt in Clarissa’s professional opinion—and the country music star started to beat together all that dairy to make the “most delicious thing you’ll ever eat.”
“Sometimes,” he said. “My momma would heat it up, and hoo boy. That was a real treat.” He seemed so happy, and Clarissa wanted to reach through the screen and grab onto that joy. Harness it and saddle it and ride it.
What makes you happy?
The thought entered her mind, and Clarissa didn’t have to think very long to identify a few key things: the shoppe, creating new recipes, and…Spencer Rust.
“I’ve made a huge mistake,” she said as the heavens opened above her, flooding her mind and heart with light. “I have to get back to Sweet Water Falls.”
She had to return to Sweet Water Fallsright now.
