What I Should’ve Said
Chapter 14

Norah

With guilt hanging over me like a poncho since “the incident,” I’ve been trying my best to make up for the clusterfuck of an arrival I made to Red Bridge.

I wake myself up, before Josie’s alarm even goes off, get ready for work, and pack a little snack bag for Josie along with my own every day. When we get to CAFFEINE, I try my best to watch and listen and learn everything I can, but I’m sad to report, it’s still not going well.

Wednesday, I forgot about the cookies in the oven and nearly smoked out the coffee shop. Sheriff Pete called the volunteer fire department and made us evacuate the building until they arrived.

Thursday, I tried my hand at the espresso machine, only to cause a death rattle even the manufacturer isn’t sure how to fix. It still works, technically, but it’s much slower, causing even Josie, Todd, and Camilla—who are all experienced baristas—to turn down making some drinks when customers request them.

Friday, I didn’t break anything, but I forgot to put the lid on the trash cans behind the building, and we came in this morning to an alley full of raccoons chomping on leftover muffins and expired fruit.

Which is why I’m currently cleaning up soggy trash.

I blow my hair out of my face and pick up the final scraps of mangled fruit. I toss them into the third trash bag I’ve filled since Josie put me on cleanup duty, set the bag in the garbage, and secure the lid. You know, like I should have done last night.

As I head through the back doors, I snap off the elbow-high yellow rubber gloves and toss them into the sink to clean later. Once I give my hands a good wash and scrub, I make my way to the front of the coffee shop and replace Josie rearranging the glass cabinet with fresh cookies and muffins.

“Do you need me to do anything?”

Her answer comes quicker than a sprinter out of the blocks. “Nope.”

It doesn’t take a genius to deduce why less and less is being required of me as minutes tick by. I’ve tried to make myself useful by placing small Gerbera daisy centerpieces on the tables and switching the lightbulbs out to create a warmer glow, but I’m getting the overwhelming sense that while not annoying to my sister per se, these actions still feel like an encroachment on her personal space. Which I get. Working together all day and living together at night is not for the faint of heart.

Needless to say, I’m going to need to replace a job soon. One that pays me actual money so I can contribute to living costs and, eventually, replace my own place.

I haven’t heard from Thomas since he left town—thank God—and I’m hoping with the help of the protection order against him, it’ll stay that way. I also got a new phone number and plan at the only cell provider in town—keeping the same phone because help me, I’m poor—and at some point, in the distant future, I’m hoping I might actually go long enough without causing a disaster that I can make some friends.

Lord knows, at this point, my sister and I both are emotionally locked up tighter than a billionaire’s vault. I need someone to gab and share feelings with.

Josie comes over by me, putting some tip money in the tip slot of the cash drawer and closing it up, clearly intending to get back to the real work. But something about the moment makes me blurt out words I’ve been wanting to say since Tuesday night.

“All right, I have to know. How do you know that bartender Clay?”

The exhale she lets out could be its own wind turbine and power half the town. “He’s the owner, actually, of The Country Club. Before last week, I hadn’t been there in a long-ass time.”

“Okay…but how do you know him?” I push with a teasing lilt. “Ex-lovers?”

She sighs. Looks over at me before her eyes become fixated on the floor, and another sigh escapes her lungs. “He’s my ex-husband.”

A bomb may as well have exploded above us.

“What? He’s your ex-husband?” The shock I feel is so consuming that I slap both of my hands down on the cash register, and it starts flipping out. Ringing and clinking and even spinning the numbers on its old-fashioned dial.

With wide eyes, I step back with my hands up, and Josie jumps in, slapping the noisy thing like it’s an angry alligator.

“I’m sorry!” I shout over the chaos, feeling so small you could fit me in your pocket. When am I going to stop messing crap up?

Still…this is huge!

“Are you telling me you were married?” I scream, just as the cash register stops wigging out and shuts up completely.

Camilla and Todd both suck their lips into their mouths and tiptoe into the kitchen and away from us.

“Yes,” Josie answers, her patience for me already depleted. “I was married. And now I’m divorced. Can we move on?”

My brain wants to self-implode.

“You. Got. Married?” My voice rises with each word. “You got married?” I gesticulate my hands wildly in front of me, and Josie puts herself between me and the glass counter defensively. “My sister got married, and then she went through a divorce, and I didn’t know anything about it? Why, Josie? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know, Norah.” She places two hands on her hips. “Probably for the same reasons I don’t know anything about your ex other than his propensity for bleeding. In fact, why are you in Red Bridge at all? Why did he come looking for you? What exactly is going on?”

Well, shit. This conversation took a hard left into a place I am not equipped to handle.

“You know what? I’m going to run down to Earl’s for a bit. I’ll be back shortly,” I redirect, taking off my apron and trying not to get trapped in Josie’s now smugger-than-smug smile.

“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought,” she says, and even though I’m not looking at her as I grab my purse and keys, I can hear her “Checkmate” smile in her voice. “We need whole milk again, so you might as well make yourself useful and grab two gallons. Oh, and while you’re there, get a gallon of oat, almond, and 2%, too.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” I salute her like a diligent soldier and slip through the front door faster than a cat on the nip. She’s obviously not ready to air out all of her dirty laundry, and quite frankly, neither am I. Our secrets will live to see another day.

I keep my head down on the short walk across the square, lest I draw some kind of unwanted attention from townspeople after the article about my ex-fiancé’s grand visit to Red Bridge in the paper this past week, and pull my hair over my earbuds to make a curtain around my face.

The automatic doors to Earl’s Grocery open, and I step inside with Carly Simon reverberating through my ears. She sings about some guy and how vain he is, and I almost hate how much I can relate to this song and the fact that it makes me think of Thomas.

There’s a large, far-too-curious part of me that wonders how things went for him after he left Red Bridge with a protection order to leave me the hell alone. A man like Thomas King is used to getting what he wants and things going his way…all the time. His experience in this small town was the complete opposite of that. It goes without saying that it got under his skin. But the consequences of that? I don’t know.

Did he tell his father?

Does my mother know about what happened?

Is he actually going to leave me alone?

So many questions that I wish I didn’t have.

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and purposefully change the song from Carly Simon to Lesley Gore and some lyrics with the empowering vibe I need.

No one owns me. Not Thomas. Not my mother. No one.

And no one is going to tell me what to do or say or think or feel. I am my own woman, dammit, and I’m going to create my own life where I get to make all the decisions and live the way I want.

Lesley is the perfect wingwoman, and I stroll through the grocery store mentally singing along with her. The refrigerator section is in the back, and I take my time getting there, winding through the aisles and even stopping in the magazine aisle to peruse a little.

It’s going extremely well…until it isn’t.

Right there, on the tabloid next to People magazine, is the only face I’ve ever been able to forget. Except now, it’s noticeably bruised.

I snatch the shiny paper off the shelf, turn to the page it suggests, and start reading.

Thomas King’s Mysterious Black Eyes

The young heir to King Financial was seen at Tavern on the Green last night, enjoying dinner and drinks with friends. Though, no one could miss the prominent black eyes and swollen nose on his face.

Which leaves all of us wondering—what happened to Thomas King?

“Ever since Norah Ellis left him at the altar, Thomas has been having a really rough time,” one inside source revealed. “And this just proves that nothing is right in his world. Honestly, I feel bad for the guy. First, the love of your life leaves you for another man, and then, you get in some kind of fight? It’s horrible.”

Left him for another man?

What a boot-licking, ass-kissing, tale-telling asshole.

Frustrated, I slam the tabloid back on the shelf and take off for the front of the store. I’m almost out the door when I see the want ads bulletin board for all the job postings in town.

With an even hotter fire burning inside me to make something of myself on my own and leave Thomas and my mother and stupid New York in the past, I scan through the push-pinned papers with fast eyes.

Shearing sheep on Tad Hanson’s farm, a teller at the Red Bridge bank, and an assistant manager at Earl’s—none of it is speaking to me.

I frown and pick through the other papers on the board until I finally replace one that stands out as interesting.

A simple sheet of white paper with printed black letters—Artist’s Assistant Needed. Open Interviews Every Tuesday at 12 p.m.

No phone number. No name. Just an address.

Without hesitation, I pull my phone out of my back pocket and snap a quick picture of the flyer.

I’ll have to wait for Tuesday to check it out, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend even another minute thinking about Thomas King.

I turn to leave, but when I see a woman heading out the doors with a cart full of bagged groceries, I realize I’ve forgotten Josie’s request for milk of all kinds. And I can’t go back there empty-handed—she’ll kill me. Or, you know, at least try to interrogate me some more.

Quickly, I snag a cart from the row by the door and make a beeline for the back of the store. My music is still playing—“Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins.

It’s an oldie but a goodie, and I choose to embrace the vibe as I swing open the fridge door to grab the milk Josie requested. I even replace myself shaking my hips a little when the chorus hits. I quickly check the expiration stamps on the whole milk and choose the two with the furthest out, before swinging them off the fridge shelf and down at my side.

I lift my foot to tap the door shut, but when I look up and see someone standing beside me, someone I definitely know, the balancing act of being on one leg with two gallons of milk hanging at my sides becomes impossible to juggle.

I start to fall forward, and the only way to stop myself from crashing to the floor is to grab the cart with my hand and steady myself. Alas, one jug of milk doesn’t make it in that scenario and hits the floor with a hard glug.

White liquid splatters out of the now-cracked plastic like a rushing wave on a flooded river and makes its way across the floor and right onto Bennett Bishop’s shoes.

Oy vey.