Page 104 of The Fall Classic

I’m going to be sick.

“You know what we should do,” he says, leaning toward Marlowe, “is scale it. One truck is a hobby. What about a fleet? We could start small, maybe five or six trucks, and hit every factory lot and farmers market in three counties. Then grow from there. That’s a real money⁠—”

“No,” I interrupt. It comes out fast enough that Lulabelle looks up from her coloring, and everyone at the table turns on me.

“You don’t want that,” I say, and I get how strange and urgent I must sound for such an innocuous conversation, but it’s not innocuous. It’s insidious. “It’s a bad idea. I know it sounds simple, but it’s not. You need someone running every truck who you’d trust with cash and a four-thirty alarm, and you need those same people to be able to handle high volumes fast and read a customer well enough to know when an order is going to be the wrong fit, whether the customer knows it or not. And then you have to understand the customers, create connections with the owner or management, make sure they’re willing to accommodate you, even promote you⁠—”

“Someone thinks pretty highly of herself,” Marlowe says.

The table goes quiet for half a second.

“I’m joking,” she laughs, smiling at my dad and the table generally. “Of course you’re protective of what we’ve done with the truck. But we found Olivia easily enough, and we could find more like her. It’s not as though baristas who can drive a truck are irreplaceable. And you can leave the networking to me.”

Just like that, I’ve been put down and put away.

“Well,” Dad says, not defending me, not backing her. To her, that means we’re at a stalemate, but it’s in a game I’m not even playing. “It’s something to think about.”

“It is,” Marlowe says. “We can talk about it next week in Columbia …?”

Dad grins. “Perfect. I have an idea for new specialty syrups.”

And now they’re both dreaming, which I’ve never seen before. Marlowe’s nodding along, agreeing that yes, a fleet, properly managed, properly overseen could work. She’s building herself a permanent seat at the table of Raymond’s next big idea, making herself indispensable to a dream they’re stealing from me! A dream that doesn’t get to belong to either of them. But she’s part of it now without my say.

The worst part is that if she can be the one who manages it, who oversees it, who knows where every dollar goes, it will absolutely work.

And to Marlowe, that means they’ll work.

I understand her reasoning completely.

“Mommy,” Lulabelle is saying to Nicolette. “Can you help me with the word search?”

Nicolette pats her hand. “Ask Auntie Georgie to help you, sweetie. We’re talking business.”

I’m frozen.

Frozen, but I don’t feel numb. On the contrary, I feel the pain of every word. This is worse than that time in third grade when my dad took me ice skating and forgot to bring me a sweatshirt or gloves, so I shivered for an hour, clutching the edge as my dad skated laps around me, grinning each time he passed. He didn’t see how often I fell on my butt or hips or elbows or how my bruises deepened with every fall.

My phone buzzes on the chair under my thigh, and I wish I could answer it. I’m almost positive it’s from Logan, and I could really use him right now.

And yet, I can’t. I can’t rely on him to save me from this life. I can’t rely on him or Alma or Olivia.

All I have is me.

And somehow I have to make sure that my father never gets anywhere near the coffee truck that has my mother’s legacy on it.

He destroyed one thing she built.

He cannot touch another.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Logan

Flying into Chicago at night always reminds me of a circuit board or light grid. Or maybe the movie Tron. I squint past the glittering network of lights and try to follow how far the glow from the city spreads across Lake Michigan until it fades into total darkness.

When I’ve stared into the void long enough, I pick up my phone and check my messages.

She still hasn’t answered.