“Brett, this is my wife, Jessie,” Mack said when they entered the kitchen.
The woman at the stove looked ready to give birth right then and there.
“And my daughter, Grace.” Mack ruffled the girl’s hair before grabbing a mug from a cabinet.
Brett recalled his conversation with his cousin’s wife yesterday. Charlie had mentioned that her friend Jessie and her husband lived on Union Street. “You’re not by any chance friends with Charlie Sherbrooke?”
Jessie flipped a pancake on the stove and then looked over at him. “Charlie was my maid of honor.” She flipped another pancake before she spoke again. “Sean told us a friend of his bought the house next door. When Mack told me your name this morning, I assumed you must be one of Jake’s cousins.”
“Guilty. But try not to hold it against me,” Brett said, accepting the coffee Mack held out.
Jessie laughed and rubbed her lower back. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to admit I was related to him either,” she said good-naturedly.
“Jake danced with me at Jessie and Dad’s wedding,” Grace said, joining in the conversation.
For some reason the comment didn’t surprise him.
“More than once,” Jessie added. She refilled Grace’s milk and went back to the stove. “The pancakes are almost done if you’re hungry, Brett. There is more than enough here.”
It’d been hours since he last ate, and he had absolutely nothing in his kitchen. If his neighbor was offering him breakfast, he wouldn’t turn it down.
“Jessie makes the best pancakes,” Grace said. “You’ll love ’em.”
“If they’re the best, I can’t say no. Thank you.”
***
Relax, you practically know him already. Jen repeated the sentence over again in her head. She’d been more or less repeating the same words in some form or another since she agreed to tonight’s meeting. Despite the numerous times and many variations, they were not helping.
The cell phone in her shoulder bag dinged as she pushed open the door to Ambrosia Pastry Shop and Café on Benefit Street. Before checking it, she scouted out the popular café. In the morning and afternoon, the place was normally packed with customers of all ages. With the workday over for many, she had her selection of open tables and booths.
Today she wanted a seat with a good view of the door. Since it would only be the two of them, she walked past the tables designed for groups and settled on a small booth near the windows. From there she could see the front entrance and also part of the sidewalk leading up to the café.
Sliding behind the table, she pulled out her cell phone.
The short text from Kristen came as no big surprise. Relax and have fun tonight. Let me know how it goes.
Jen responded with an ok and pulled up her e-mail. As usual she was early. She couldn’t help it. While some people were perpetually late for meetings and get-togethers, she had the opposite problem, especially when she was doing something out of her regular routine. Meeting the man she’d been communicating with for almost two years certainly fit into the way-out-of-her-daily-routine category. She just hoped Brett was on time. Her deodorant might not hold up if he showed up ten or twenty minutes late. As it was, she wasn’t confident it would last the fifteen minutes until he was supposed to arrive, and she’d even put more on before leaving the office.
The majority of e-mails clogging her inbox were either spam messages or ads from her favorite stores. She deleted them all without opening any first. She did open the one claiming a Nigerian prince wanted to give her five million dollars, but only because she found those e-mails and the ones she got claiming she’d won some foreign lottery amusing. She never responded to them, of course, but every once in a while she wanted to send them a message back, thanking them and asking what she had to do to claim the money just so she could see how long she could keep the game going.
With the temporary distraction gone, she checked her watch. Phooey, she’d managed to waste less than five minutes. Now what? She looked over her shoulder at the cases filled with various baked goods. Unfortunately, when she got nervous, rather than lose her appetite, she ate. Jen knew she wouldn’t be disappointed with anything she might order here because she often stopped in and picked up a spinach pie or a calzone for lunch. Ambrosia’s biscotti and tiramisu were divine as well. However, today the last thing she needed was to eat and then get a piece of food stuck between her teeth. Talk about making a terrible first impression. Tea or coffee should be fairly safe though, assuming she didn’t spill it all over her white blouse. Another embarrassment she could do without tonight.
Jen left her sweater on the table. She had the perfect location in the café and didn’t want to lose it while she ordered. Before joining the short line at the counter, she grabbed the newest copy of The Star Report. This week a picture of actor Anderson Brady took up the cover. She didn’t read the popular magazine often, but it had great crossword puzzles. She could work on this week’s while she waited, killing whatever time she had left.
“What can I get for you today?” Chloe, according to her name tag, asked. Until recently the woman had been a permanent fixture at the café. Jen hadn’t seen the employee in a few months, and she’d assumed the woman had left.
Setting down the magazine, she considered her drink options before deciding to keep it simple tonight. “Large dark roast with milk and two sugars.” While Chloe prepared her order, she spoke again. “I haven’t seen you here all summer.” There was no one in line behind her, so a brief conversation wouldn’t hold up anything.
Chloe set down the coffee. “I finished my degree back in January and took a position at Gatekeeper Gaming. I only fill in when they need someone, like tonight.”
She wasn’t into gaming, but she’d heard of the video game company located downtown. “Well, it’s nice to see you. Have a good night.” Jen paid for her magazine and coffee and returned to her booth.
Okay, let’s see how much time I can kill with this. She flipped the magazine over and opened to the crossword puzzle. She filled in ten answers before glancing at the door when the hands on her watch read six o’clock. On cue the door opened, but the college-age man with the shaggy hair and well-worn T-shirt wasn’t the man she wanted.
Glancing down again, she read the clue for seven down, Location of the 2012 summer Olympics. She never watched the games, however, the answer contained only six letters and the third one was an N. Jen remembered sometime in the past decade the Olympics had been held in London. London contained six letters.
Jen filled in the boxes and jumped to the next clue, Second United States President. “Too easy,” she mumbled and moved her pen toward the puzzle boxes again. The voice in her head suddenly telling her to look up stopped her from doing anything else. Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, she took a deep breath, counted to ten, and looked up toward the entrance.