Love in a Nutshell

EIGHTEEN

Kate didn’t want to jinx things, but she was on a roll. Over a week had passed since Matt had given her permission to schedule music events, and she’d gotten next summer booked. And because she was in overachiever mode, she’d also finished all the promo materials. Okay, maybe she wasn’t so much in overachiever mode as fill-every-waking-hour-so-she-couldn’t-think-of-Matt mode, but no matter. The results were the same. Kate rose and double-checked the events calendar she’d hung on the office wall.

Even better, her house was nearly repaired. The contractor had been very cooperative. He said he needed the work, so she could pay after the holidays. All it needed was some fresh paint, some new furniture, and a head-to-toe cleaning.

She stood hands on hip, pleased. “You’re golden,” she told herself.

Matt had scheduled a mandatory 10:30 staff meeting this morning. For no reason other than pride, she’d wanted to be done with these projects before then.

Kate’s cell phone rang. She went back to the desk, picked it up, and did a double-take at the name on the caller ID: Barb Appleton. She and her mom didn’t talk frequently. It wasn’t that her mom didn’t love her, or that she didn’t love her mom. They were just in different places in life. But today, Kate felt happy that her mom was calling.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hello, Kate. You’re a tough one to reach.”

“I answered on the third ring,” she said.

“I didn’t mean now, dear. I’ve been leaving messages on the phone at The Nutshell for days. Where have you been?”

Kate searched for an explanation. Her mom liked her kids in one piece.

“I… I’ve been having some work done out there and staying with friends until it’s complete,” Kate said.

“What sort of work?”

“I’ve been getting the exterior doors re-keyed,” she replied. Which wasn’t a total lie, because she still planned to. Eventually.

“Why would you do that? We’ve owned that cottage for decades and kept it unlocked for just as long. There’s no place safer than Keene’s Harbor.”

Kate withheld comment.

“How is the house looking?”

“Just fine. Why?”

“Your father and I are feeling a little nostalgic. I know we usually stay in Naples October through May, but we were thinking that popping up to Keene’s Harbor for a family Thanksgiving would be wonderful. Just like the old days.”

“But we always had Thanksgiving at the country club,” Kate said. “You know, the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Detroit, then turkey with your choice of stuffing and sides, overlooking the putting green.”

“We must have had it at The Nutshell once,” Mom said.

“No. Never.”

“Then it’s definitely time. Your father and I aren’t getting any younger, you know, Kate.”

Man, she hated it when her mother played the aging card.

“Neither am I, Mom.”

“True. So this year, let’s get you, Chip, Bunny, and all the family up to the cottage for an old-fashioned meal.”

A couple weeks ago, Kate might have been horrified. The insecurity and jealousy that had infected her marriage to Richard had just sort of bled all over her other relationships, including the one with her family. But the truth was that, before Richard, holidays like Thanksgiving had always been a really big deal to her.

Suddenly, Kate realized that she missed her mom. She missed her dad. She missed her brother and sister. They were her family and they loved her and she loved them. She might as well get on the turkey train. “That sounds fun. Can’t wait.”

“Good, dear. Now see if you can find a chef to cook for us. I just want to relax with the family. If you can’t, we might have to come up with another option. Perhaps a restaurant up that way?”

“I’ll start looking.”

“Keep me abreast of the plans.”

“Sure thing. Give my love to Dad.”

Kate hung up and went facedown on the desk. She’d forgotten about Matt. How was she going to explain that they were living together to her parents? Matt entered the room and settled into a guest chair. “What’s up?”

Little wrinkle lines were forming on Kate’s forehead. “My whole family is coming to The Nutshell for Thanksgiving.”

“And?”

Kate bit her lower lip. “I’ve got two problems. One is of the big variety. The other could be huge.”

“Lay it on me.”

Kate sighed. “You know how Charlie Brown had a Thanksgiving party for Peppermint Patty, excent t=”0ept that he could only make popcorn and toast?”

Matt laughed. “Yeah.”

“Well, I can only make toast.”

Matt got out of his chair and hugged her close. It was nice-friendly and loving. Like she had known him all her life. “No worries. I’ll help. It’ll be fun. Was that the big or huge problem?”

In Matt’s arms, her problems seemed small. “My parents are a little…” She paused. “Conservative.”

Matt smiled. “No problem. We can bond over our shared opposition to the hippie menace.”

“If they find out I’m living with a guy, they’ll be horrified. They won’t understand that cosmic forces are to blame.”

Matt shook his head. “Isn’t this Barb the table dancer we’re talking about?”

“Barb, the married table dancer,” Kate pointed out. “It’s like the 1960s in my family. It’s all about the order of events. You don’t skip past the entrée straight to dessert and you don’t shack up. The only thing that could make it worse is announcing at Thanksgiving that you’re my baby daddy.”

Matt’s eyebrows perked up. He held her tighter. “That can be arranged, too. And, on the plus side, no one will care about only having toast for Thanksgiving.”

“I’m serious.”

Matt brushed her hair away from her face. “So we have a minor inconvenience to deal with.”

Kate looked at him for a long while. “And, it’s Thanksgiving. And, if I can’t find your saboteur by then, my house belongs to you. So it really isn’t a ‘we’ problem. It’s my problem.”

“I see.”

Kate felt bad. The truth was, she wanted it to be their problem. And, in her heart, she’d said something very different to Matt. But her hasty words had just sort of popped out and hung in the air like a bad smell. Kate decided to change the subject. She’d try to make it right with Matt later, after work.

“The first thing I need to do is get a locksmith, then move back and get The Nutshell ready for them,” she said.

“Thanksgiving is still over a week off. What’s the rush?”

“I just think it’s time. It’s been pretty quiet the past few weeks. Maybe the jerk has gotten bored with the whole thing and moved on. Anyway, I’m feeling safer now.”

She hesitated and looked at Matt with wide, hopeful eyes. ”And you can get your life back.”

“For the record, I’m okay with my life the way li hesitatedit is. But all the same, even though I don’t like it or fully understand it, I’m not going to stop you from moving back out there,” Matt said.

“Thanks.”

It was what she’d asked for, but it wasn’t what she’d wanted. She wanted to add that she knew she was being weird. That this was what dealing with her parents did to her, and she just couldn’t stop herself.

“Chuck has kind of grown to like having Stella around,” Matt said.

She knew what he was saying, and it had nothing to do with dogs. But maybe she was more traditional than she wanted to believe.

“Maybe I can bring Stella over to visit every now and then?”

“Chuck would like that,” Matt said. He hitched his thumb toward the door. “Do you think you could head out to the taproom? I need a couple of minutes to get my notes together.”

She needed a couple of minutes to pull herself together, too. This had hurt way more than she’d thought it would.

After Kate left, Matt sat at his desk. He had no notes. All he had was a numb sensation he’d last felt when he’d fallen off his roof and nearly knocked himself out.

Matt couldn’t nail the exact moment, but at some point reality and he had parted ways. Having Kate in his house and in his life had felt real to him, not just an arrangement. But even though they’d had breakfast together, gone to work together, and flipped a coin over whether to watch football or movies at night, it hadn’t been real.

If he’d been rational, he’d have known it had been all the illusion and none of the substance of being a couple. But he wasn’t rational. He was in love.

Still, no matter how crappy he might be feeling, he had a roomful of people waiting for him out there. So he’d move on and deal with his feelings for Kate later. Matt joined his crew in the taproom, and when he looked at his gang, he felt better, if not perfect.

“Thanks to those of you who weren’t scheduled for coming in, and the rest of you for being here early,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of big-picture updates about what’s going on here at Depot Brewing, except to officially announce the start of a music series next summer that Kate’s been putting together, and I’m sure most of you have heard about it, anyway. I think we’re going to see a big jump in business on formerly slow nights, and I want to put on more part-time staff. If you know of anyone good, send them my way.”

Steve, the server, raised his hand. “I’ve heard that Bagger’s is cutting staff down to one server a shift. You might pick up someone there.”

“Thanks,” Matt said.

He’d known that traffic had been down for Harley, but he hadn’t known it was that bad. If it was time to give Harley a hand, Matt was glad to do it.

“And now on to other news,” Matt said. “I know that a lot of you have had questions about where I go when I’m not around the brewery. To make a long answer short, I’ve been spending a lot of time in Traverse City, and that time investment is starting to pay off. By next summer, I’ll be looking for staff for a microbrewery up there, plus for a new motel and restaurant. I’m also opening a new restaurant in Keene’s Harbor. It’s a couple miles out of town on the lake. If any of you are interested in making the move, you’ll get first shot at the openings. Think it over and let me know. No rush, okay? And now I’m going to turn the meeting over to Jerry to update you on front of the house matters.”

His manager had just started talking when Matt motioned Kate over. They walked into the hallway by his office.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Get your locksmith and whatever else you need done lined up so that you can move back to The Nutshell,” he said.

“And what’s the point?” She felt anger rising in her voice. “New locks on a great old house you’re just going to bulldoze. I never had a chance. I wouldn’t be surprised if you put Junior up to the mess he caused me just to seal the deal.”

She knew she’d gone too far, but he’d caught her by surprise with his announcement, and it had all come gushing out.

FOUR DAYS later, Kate stood in The Nutshell’s living room steeling herself for her parents’ impending arrival. She was pretty sure she had her act together, since she’d prepared as she would for any natural disaster. Kate had stocked up on Manhattan mixings and maraschino cherries for her dad and champagne and crossword puzzles for her mom. She’d also hidden a handful of candy bars and three bags of potato chips in her bedroom in case she needed to take shelter for an extended period of time.

It was nearly six, and a pot of beef stew simmered in the kitchen. Kate had thrown in a jar of cocktail onions and some red wine, hoping she could fake her mom into thinking it was a classic boeuf bourguignon. Mom had always been all about dinner being a sit-down meal, even if the house had been falling down around them. When she was a kid, it sometimes seemed inconvenient. Now, she realized it was one of the best parts of her childhood-a constant in her adolescent life that made her feel safe and protected.

Kate smoothed her hands over the black pencil skirt, which she’d last worn when working at Detroit Monthly. Mom didn’t believe in jeans, paper napkins, or ketchup at the dinner table. As a teen, Kate had tried to assure her mother that all those things were perfectly real and even kind of cool. Mom had never bought in.

Tonight, Kate didn’t mind being dressed up. If nothing else, the change in wardrobe kept it front and center in her mind that she’d been right not to expose Matt to this. Somehow, she couldn’t picture him wearing a button-down shirt just to eat beef stew.

Stella’s ears perked at the sound of a car in the drive. She trotted toward the fd tt picture ront door and gave a welcoming yip.

Kate gave the dog a gentle pat. “Sure, it’s all happiness and sunshine, now. But let’s see what tune you’re singing by turkey day.” The truth was, she was excited, too.

Kate pulled on her jacket and went outside to greet her parents. Stella, who wasn’t a fan of the icy wind off the lake, lurked indoors.

Though Kate had visited with her parents just a handful of months ago, she felt a surprising sense of nostalgia seeing them here, at The Nutshell. The years had treated her father well. With his Florida tan, silver hair, and aristocratic features, he still reminded Kate of a diplomat in the foreign service.

Mom was no slacker, either. Her hair might have tipped the scales from blond to gray, but otherwise, she looked much as she had when Kate was a teen. And she still stood a good four inches taller than Kate, too.

After hugs and greetings, Kate looked into the back of the SUV her dad had rented.

“That sure is a lot of luggage, Mom,” Kate said.

Kate’s mom removed a suiter from the back. “It might seem excessive, but you never know what events might pop up and how the weather might be.”

“In this case, not many events and freezing would be good bets.” Kate glanced at her mom’s pale pink and very thin cardigan sweater. “Do you have a coat in one of those suitcases?”

“I have another sweater or two, but I left my mink in cold storage.”

Kate was no fan of furs, but if her mom had to wear one, now would be the time. “You can borrow one of my jackets while you’re here.”

“That’s all right. I’ll ring up Bunny and ask her to bring something appropriate,” Mom said. “In the meantime, your father and I can pretend we’re snowbound and stay indoors. It could be very romantic.”

Kate put her muscles to work, helping her dad haul the luggage. In the time it took them to get everything inside, Stella had fallen asleep on her mom’s lap.

Kate’s mother sat on the flowery sofa, stroking Stella. “Your dog’s a charmer, Kate. What do you think I should get her for Christmas?”

“Anything in cashmere would probably do.”

Her mother laughed. “Well, naturally. She is an Appleton female. And how about you?”

“I… uh… Let me get back to you on that one.” Kate couldn’t think of the last time her mother had gotten her anything other than a gift card. Of course, she also couldn’t recall when she’d gotten her mother anything other than a silk scarf. “Why don’t you two get settled in, and I’ll get dinner on the table?”

Half an hour later, after her parents had their cocktails in hand, tilsget dinnehe family sat down to Kate’s fake boeuf bourguignon. The onions tasted weird even to Kate, but no one mentioned them. In fact, her dad said that stew made the perfect meal when snowed in. Never mind that they weren’t really snowed in, and that Kate had started the stew hours before their arrival.

Toward the end of the meal, Kate’s dad stuck an old Johnny Mathis album on the stereo. “Katie, the house looks just great. Better than I remember. I really think you could make your plan to turn this place into a B &B work.”

He turned to Kate’s mom. “Remember seeing Johnny perform that winter in Lake Tahoe?”

The two of them shared a smile and clasped hands on the tabletop. Kate pushed around the onions in her stew, not wanting to break into their moment.

“Kate, if you’ll excuse us, your mother and I need to have this dance. And don’t worry about clearing the table. We’ll do that… later.”

“Sure,” Kate said. “I’ll just go take care of some stuff in my room.” She didn’t feel like telling them right now about Matt and his plans to turn the house into a restaurant.

She listened to her parents laugh through the walls of her room. If this was to be a nightly event while playing snowed-in, Kate was going to need more chips and chocolate in her stash. For crying out loud. These people were her parents.

ACCORDING TO Kate’s clock, it was now ten at night. It felt more like three in the morning. Kate was bored out of her mind. The music downstairs was still going strong, though her parents had moved on to Frank Sinatra.

For lack of anything else to do, Kate dumped her purse onto the dresser and began to sort through the bag’s contents. A cleaning might make it weigh less than a ton. Kate pulled out her wallet, makeup bag, and the notepad she carried to write “to do” lists that she could then ignore. At the purse’s bottom, in a nest of pennies and market receipts, lay the letter from her mom that she’d tucked away and never finished reading.

“Now’s as good a time as any.”

Kate settled on the bed. Because she’d already heard a fresh update on all nieces and nephews during dinner, she fast-forwarded past the opening chat and the bit where her mom wished that Kate would have gotten a business degree.

But there’s no remaking the past. Your road won’t be as easy as mine, her mother wrote. Still, I know you’re up to the challenge. Yes, you’ve been struggling, and it was obvious to both your father and me how much it upset you to ask us for help. But we were happy to give it, darling. And though it’s not kind to say, neither your father nor I were especially fond of Richard. He tended to try to build himself up at your expense. You’ll be a happier woman without him.

“You’ve got that right,” Kate said.

=”0nstairs

I think in many ways, I envy you, Kate. You have a spirit I didn’t have at your age. Oh, I had my moments, but you have me beat. You also have the determination to weather the tough times. I’m not so sure I would have had your sort of grit. I am very proud of you. I need to tell you that more often, and you need to begin believing it. Then we’ll rule the world.

Kate smiled. Maybe she could imagine her mother dancing on tabletops, after all. And maybe she had been wrong about her parents all these years. It wasn’t that they thought she couldn’t do anything, it was that they thought she could do everything.

A WHILE before midnight, Matt sat alone at his closed bar nursing a tall glass of water. Since Kate had moved out, his universe had been totally jacked up. He’d even been feeling sorry for himself, which was a new and unpleasant sensation.

When the cuckoo clock over the bar struck twelve, Matt planned to get the hell over this. Somehow. And in the meantime, he’d watch the clock’s minute hand move.

A sharp rapping sounded on the taproom window, pulling Matt’s attention from the clock. Lizzie stood at the glass in her police officer’s uniform, flashlight in hand.

Matt pointed her toward the front entrance.

“What are you doing here?”

“My promised late-night rounds,” she said. “The bigger question is, what are you still doing here?”

“Waiting for midnight.”

“Why? Are you going to turn into the guy version of Cinderella or something?” She grinned. “Kate mentioned your shoe fixation.”

“More like I was hoping to turn back into myself.”

“I didn’t know you weren’t yourself. I mean, you skipped last Friday’s fund-raiser and everything,” Lizzie said.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, Kate moved out, and I wanted to enjoy my new peace and quiet, but Chuck really misses her.”

“He’s really stuck on Kate, huh?”

“This isn’t the kind of stuff we talk about,” he said. “It feels wrong.”

She gave him a crooked smile. “It’s just that ‘Chuck’ doesn’t generally have relationship problems, and I don’t generally have relationships.”

“Good point,” he said.

Lizzie sat down on a barstool next to Matt. “So why did Kate move out?”

Matt was surprised by the question. Kate and Lizzie had grown pretty close.

“You mean she hasn’t talked to you?”

“Not in the past few days.”

“She found out her parents were coming in for Thanksgiving, and she kind of freaked out. Apparently, they don’t believe in sleeping in a guy’s guest bedroom before you’re married.”

“Interesting,” Lizzie said. “And in more ways than one. Kate slept in the guest bedroom?”

“Don’t let it get around. My false reputation is at stake.”

“As if I would. And no one would believe me, anyway. But, really, so what if she moved home? Things have been calm here, and she’ll be safe.”

“Well, I’m also about to foreclose on her childhood home and destroy her dreams so I can expand my evil empire.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I’m a police officer and I’m a woman. That makes me a big snoop. I also know you made arrangements with Kate’s contractor to secretly pay him yourself and have him reimburse you once he gets the money from her. Does she really believe a contractor would ever wait for his money?”

Matt grinned sheepishly. He’d been caught. “Does anyone else know?”

“No. I don’t think so. Why’d you do it? You have a lot of money invested in this project, don’t you?”

Matt shrugged. “I love her.”

Lizzie burst out laughing. “Look at you. You’re a mess. Do you want my advice?”

“Give it your best shot, because I’m coming up blank.”

“I love Kate. I think she’s fabulous. I hope you two work it out and have a million kids, or whatever it is you’re looking for. You’re my big brother… heck, my only brother. I want to see you happy. My advice to you is-Suck it up.”

Matt raised an eyebrow at his sister.

“Since when was Matt Culhane a quitter? You never gave up in football or hockey. You didn’t give up in the eighth grade when Mary Lou Petty refused to go to junior prom with you. You certainly never gave up on Depot Brewing-even when a lot of people thought you should. If you love Kate that much, go get her!”

Lizzie was right. He’d go to Traverse City for a couple of days, giving Kate the space she needed and a chance to get reacquainted with her parents. When he returned, he was sure Kate would be ready to invite him to dinner, and if she wasn’t, he’d invite himself. Desperate times called for desperate measures. After all, Chuck really missed her.