Sugar: A Novel Part 17

"How about a kiss?" the teen asked. "Just for kicks."

The crowd agreed to the brilliance of this idea, and Vic encouraged them with a mischievous lift of his eyebrows.

"No, thanks," I said, more roughly than I'd intended. "A photo's fine, though. If you can take one quickly. I need to talk with someone at the front of the store."

"Aww," the teen said, faking a pout I'm sure her mother abhorred.

Avery and I smiled for her phone, then stayed in position for another fifteen phones brandished for the same purpose. I tried sneaking looks at Kai, and I could see he was still in the store, but I couldn't get a read on his expression because he appeared to be pacing.

Finally, I broke our pose and turned to Avery. "I need to talk with Kai. Be right back."

Avery nodded, busy signing a postcard for a plump woman wearing a denim jumper who was yammering on about her own idea for a cookbook.

I pushed through the gawkers but had an awful time reaching the front of the store. One man wanted to ask me about how I broke into show business. Another woman stopped me to tell me her daughter was a waitress at the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando and would I be willing to chat with her about how to move up in the restaurant business? By the time I reached Kai, I felt manhandled.

"This is a lovely surprise," I said, going in for a hug. "What are you doing here?"

I tensed. He wasn't hugging me back.

I backed out of my one-sided embrace.

He stared at the crowd for a moment, his jaw tensing.

"I'm sorry to have this conversation here, but I can't wait for a time when we're both awake and alone."

I felt my heart start to gallop. "What conversation?"

He brandished his phone and pointed the screen at me. "Remember when I said Dahlia was trying to get a hold of me? How she'd been texting and calling all morning yesterday?"

"Yes," I said, struggling to square the intensity of his stare with such a benign question.

"This," he said, "is why she was in such a hurry."

I squinted at the photo on the screen, and when my eyes focused, I gasped. "Oh, no," I said. The image was a bit grainy, but anyone could easily make out two figures in front of the fireplace at Thrill, their bodies close, their heads tilted in a heated kiss.

"Kai, this does not tell the whole story," I said. My defenses flared into a quick burn, and the blood started to pound in my head.

"Really?" Kai's tone was incredulous, angry. "You are honestly going to tell me this is some sort of misunderstanding?"

"Keep your voice down," I hissed, noting the sudden quiet in the room.

He shook his head. "No. I can't. This is too important, Charlie. I need you to hear me loud and clear."

I swallowed and wished I were anywhere else. "Kai, I can explain what happened."

He shook his head, unwilling. "Here's the thing, Char. I understand your life is crazy right now. I get crazy. I get long nights and deadlines. I get working like a dog to take hold of your dream. Believe me. I get all that." He took a deep breath and appeared to be grasping for some self-control. "I even get nondisclosure contracts and working with people you used to date. But even with all that, Charlie?"

He paused. I realized I was holding my breath.

"I need to know who you are. And I thought I did." He looked at his phone. The people who were standing around us had gone silent, hanging on every syllable of our conversation. He shook his head. "I do not know who you are. And maybe you don't, either."

"Kai." My voice broke.

"I'm sorry, Char." He backed up, toward the door. "I can't do this. I need clean, direct, honest. I need all of you. And I'm not even close."

He turned and walked out the door. The little bell above the gla.s.s chimed a gentle reminder of his exit for seconds afterward. I felt unable to move and likely would not have were it not for the sudden realization that there was a line of phones pointed in my direction.

I turned abruptly, anger climbing over the pile of hurt in my body and gut. "Stop filming," I said. The phone people wouldn't even meet my gaze; they were so intent on watching the scene unfold on their screens.

"I said stop filming! This is real life, not some script!" My words sounded strangled. I backed up and knocked over a display of cake pans and rolling pins. Vic called to me, and I heard Avery say he would follow me, but he didn't. I walked out the door and away from the crowd, away from the confused driver who offered me a ride, and away from the place where I had been the star of my own, unraveling life.

23.

BALLET flats are not engineered for long-distance walking, but I put mine to work that afternoon. I turned back in the direction of downtown, the restaurant, my apartment, but really I had no clue where I was. I certainly saw unfamiliar neighborhoods, streets, and restaurants, but I couldn't muster enough interest to get worried. At first, I used all my energy to call Kai's cell and try to repair what I had broken. I left eight voicemails, my words first tilting toward hysterical and repentant, and gradually landing firmly on just depressed and repentant. I tried texting, too. That line of attack wasn't any more effective or dignified, particularly when I resorted to this: Me: Kai?

Me: Kai?

Me: Kai?

I kept up a harried walking pace, catching glimpses of my reflection in storefront windows. My mother had often accused me of "tromping" instead of walking. She had forced me to attend years of ballet cla.s.s to try to expunge the tromp. Judging by my reflection in Dottie's Organic Pet Treat Emporium, the ballet fees had been a foolish enterprise. I could feel my phone becoming slippery from the sweat on my palm as I continued to check it compulsively, staring at it and willing it to ring. It did ring once, but I silenced it immediately upon seeing Avery's name on the screen.

Around the time when the arches of my feet began to feel like separate, aching appendages, I realized I had slowed down and commenced some sort of shuffle. My eyes stung, and I felt a bubble of emotion threatening to spill over and onto my cute new dress that had cost more money than I would ever admit to Manda. My lip trembled as the image of Kai's face, hurt and angry, held onto my thoughts with a tenacious grip. I took a shaky breath. Deep within my reverie, I gradually realized that a car traveling along my side of the street was matching the speed of my progress. A glut of vehicles had backed up behind the pacer car, a limo, I now saw, and was raising a wail of protests with honking and shouting. I closed my eyes, on edge to think that I'd have to deal with an Internet scandal, a shocking break-up, and a traffic accident, all in one calendar day.

Avery's head was halfway out of the limo's back window.

"I saw you ignore my call," he called.

I kept shuffling.

"I saw you in action! Busted!"

I said nothing.

"Are you okay?" He had to shout over the honking.

This question stumped me, and I stopped walking. I stood there mulling over a truthful answer until Margot opened the door next to Avery's and stepped out. For a woman who topped out at barely five feet, she carried herself with the authority of an Amazon tribal chief. She shot a look at the driver directly behind the limo, and he looked like he'd been hit with a stun gun.

"Go on," she said to the men in her jurisdiction. Avery and Vic nodded like privates to their commanding officer. "Charlie and I will see you at the restaurant tomorrow." Without waiting for their input or approval, she stepped onto the curb and clicked toward me in her power heels.

"Let's talk," she said. She pointed to the coffee shop behind me. I glanced at the pa.s.sel of black wrought-iron chairs and tables and wondered if I would have just kept walking right into them if I hadn't heard Avery's call.

Waving away Margot's offer for a coffee, I lowered myself onto one of the chairs. After Kai's words and his abrupt departure, adrenaline had coursed through me, probably helping me cover a lot of pavement in a short amount of time. Now that I was sitting and still, I felt all the energy that had propelled me to that spot abandon me. My limbs, my heart, my head all felt depleted, even jittery, with exhaustion. I squinted up at the sun, surprised it was out and so irritatingly perky during such a horribly dreary moment.

Margot used her back to push through the shop door to the outside. Returning, she balanced two large coffee cups in her hands. Placing one in front of me, she said, "Drink this. You'll never make it home if you don't."

I looked long at the drink I hadn't wanted, watching steam curl up in delicate ribbons. As soon as the thought occurred to me, I knew with total certainty that it was true. I looked at Margot. "You leaked that photo, didn't you?"

Margot took her time drawing a sip out of her coffee. Steam rose and fogged the frames on her gla.s.ses. She sat back in her chair before answering.

"Yes." One word, and that was all she was offering.

I shook my head, anger rising. "You had no right to make such a private moment public."

She raised an eyebrow. "You were in a very well-lit restaurant with all the windows uncovered. Any person walking by could have snapped that photo." She shrugged. "We just happened to have much better lenses at our disposal. And an inkling that we should stick around until both of you had left the building. You and Avery are wild cards when you are together. Makes for great TV."

I clenched my jaw. "Kai broke up with me because of you."

She winced. Drawing one cigarette out of an engraved silver case, she lit it and took a long pull. On the exhale, she returned her gaze to me. "Charlie, please. Do not stoop to playing the victim. It's so unbecoming in a woman of your caliber."

I stood. The table wobbled, and some of the liquid in my full cup sloshed over the rim. "I quit." I pushed the chair back with my foot, but even over the sc.r.a.ping of iron on the sidewalk, I heard Margot's words.

"No, you don't." Her tone was firm, irrefutable.

"Listen, if this is about the contract, I'll pay my way out. I can-"

She sniffed. "Trust me, my dear. You cannot pay your way out of that contract. Not on a chef's salary." She shook her head and took another pull on her cigarette. "But it's not about the contract. It's about you."

I stood, unable or maybe unwilling to move.

She nodded at the chair. "Sit. Your feet won't make it far anyway, and the least you can do is hear me out."

I waited a moment, weighing her words. "Fine," I said finally, in what sounded like the voice of someone on Saved by the Bell. I sat carefully on the edge of my chair, as if my body were reserving the option to bolt at any moment.

"I understand you're upset." Margot's voice was measured. "It is unfortunate that the photos caused such an issue in your relations.h.i.+p with Kai."

Hearing her say his name made me newly angry. "Was that an apology? 'It is unfortunate' does not count as an admission of guilt." I tapped my fingers on the top of the table until her stare made me stop.

"I did not apologize." She pointed at me with her cigarette. "And neither should you."

I started to protest, and she shook her head, long earrings swinging into her cheeks.

"Charlie, I allowed those photos to be released because I was doing my job. I'm very, very good at my job." She fixed her eyes on me. "And so are you."

I sat up straighter. "Thank you. But a compliment won't fix this mess."

Margot leaned her slight frame over the table. "Are you feeling guilty, Charlie? I can see on your face that you are. But why? Why should you feel guilty? What have you done wrong? You were working long hours at a job you love, you were tired, and you repelled the advances of an old flame." Her eyes widened. "No offense, honey, but that is not exactly the makings of a sweeping scandal. You're clean as a whistle from my perspective."

Her words hung in the air between us. I rolled them around a bit in my head, testing them for soundness. "I haven't been a very good girlfriend," I said, more meekly than I intended. "I've been working a lot."

At this Margot erupted. "Do you hear yourself?" She stubbed out her cigarette with a vindictive twist. "You work sixty hours a week at a job that is your pa.s.sion. You have put in years-years, Charlie-getting to this spot in your career. You have defied social norms by excelling as a woman in a profession long dominated by men. Believe me, I know exactly how that feels and the kind of commitment it takes." She pulled one of my hands into both of her small ones. I didn't know where to look, so surprised by her uncharacteristic closeness. "Charlie, let me ask you this. What have you dreamed about for the last ten years?"

I answered without hesitation, my response as automatic as the way in which I piped frosting or whipped a mousse. "I've dreamed about having my own pastry kitchen in a premier restaurant."

She nodded slowly, letting me hear my own voice. "Right. And you are so, so close. So close, you should be able to taste the accolades. To feel the power of crafting your own career from here on out. To touch the ink on the menus that bear an embossed imprint of your name. To hear that name bantered about for the next James Beard award, the next Michelin star." She watched my face. My breathing had become shallow.

Her smile was a knowing one. "I can read the desire and the compet.i.tiveness on your face as if it were an op-ed in the Times."

I didn't even try to deny it. "I've wanted those things for so long. Many, many years."

"And how long have you been dating this Kai?"

I felt my stomach turn. "Three months."

Margot didn't move. She just looked at me and waited for me to know what she already did.

The light had begun to wane, and the cool of a summer evening seemed suddenly chilly. I s.h.i.+vered, wis.h.i.+ng I had a sweater. My thoughts turned to the never-used soaking tub in my apartment, and I knew where I wanted to be.

I stood but couldn't find the words to end our meeting.

Margot saved me the trouble. "Sleep on it." She nodded to the other side of the street. "You go ahead and take that cab. I'll call another for me."

I glanced at the waiting taxi and wondered how long it had been sitting there.

"Thank you," I said. I moved away from her, but she had one more thing to say.

"You're welcome. And Charlie?"

I turned.

"You're smart and talented and beautiful and strong. Those are not empty compliments. They are facts." She reached over to my untouched coffee and took a sip. "See you tomorrow."

I walked gingerly on my worn-out feet, and I knew without any further reflection that she had nailed it. After a bath and a good cry and maybe even a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, I would sleep and then, yes, without a doubt, I would see her tomorrow.

24.

ALL the inner peace and strong emotional muscles I'd flexed the night before had completely disappeared by the morning. I felt weepy as I showered and got dressed. I never should have watched The Notebook. That movie always messed me up for days.

Gulping down a carafe of French press, I talked to myself. My voice was loud in my apartment.

"You're going to be fine," I said to my fridge as I opened it to get the cream. "You just need to get to work early, start in on prep, and act like nothing happened yesterday."

I tried for levity as I brushed my teeth. "Hey," I said through a mouth full of foaming paste. "Who cares? So you had a public breakup! In front of your bosses and a room full of people with smart phones!" I spit out the excess paste. "So Kai won't return your calls or texts! You feel like a loser, right? Well, shake it off! No biggie! Life happens!"

I looked long and hard into my reflection on the elevator door as I waited for it to reach my apartment. "You are a professional. Act like it and people will treat you like one."

That last bit of advice was what helped me gather my courage to open the back door of Thrill and face whatever stood behind it. Turns out, nothing stood behind it right at that second because the kitchen was running at full speed. I frowned at the chaos, confused as to why people were acting as if it were 7:30 p.m. and mid-rush when, in fact, the clock had just inched past noon.