How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [118]
Or was. As I pull into the lot this afternoon, I am startled to see how dated it looks. With the critical eye I have developed under Cat’s tutelage, I mentally pull out the dusty, aging junipers and replace them with pots of cactus and yucca, cover the too-jaunty green shade of the paint with something more fitting to the landscape. Forest green, maybe, or a rosy sand to match the earth.
And the sign, I think, touching it as I walk by. The sign definitely needs help.
It isn’t a place I come to very often, but the Erin is still associated very much for me with the summer I was fifteen.
As I walk in, a hostess comes forward, and I wave her away. “I’m looking for Stephanie. Is she here?”
“Can I tell her who is looking for her?”
“I’m her sister,” I say, putting my finger to my lips and smiling as if this is a happy moment. “I’d like to surprise her.”
The girl is instantly conspiratorial. “Oh, sure,” she whispers, and comes close to me. “She’s over in the corner. Do you see her?”
I nod and make my way through the sparsely occupied tables. It does seem that there should be a little more business during a Sunday lunch, but this has always been mainly a dinner restaurant. The presence of customers is part of my plan to keep Stephanie mellow, so I’m glad for any of them.
My sister is neatly dressed in a white cardigan and sharply creased black pants. Her jewelry is a single thin gold bracelet and the amethyst ring that belonged to my grandmother. In this, she and Sofia are both like my mother—elegant, always perfectly groomed, though Sofia has a more passionate and expressive personality, which perfectly illuminates her Irish-Mexican DNA.
Steph is bent over a stack of papers, and I can see she’s doing scheduling. “Aren’t there computer programs for that now?” I say, sliding into the booth.
I’ve caught her off guard, as I’d hoped, and before she can erect her mask, I see the exhaustion around her eyes, the fleeting surprise. “Ramona!” she says, staring. “What are you doing here?”
I fold my hands on the table and look around. Inside, it’s even more dated, with a decidedly Vegas-circa-1973 feeling. It has to be hurting the restaurant. I frown. “Is the menu still the same here, too?”
She raises an eyebrow and gathers papers into a stack. Nods.
“Wow.”
“That’s not why you’re here.”
“No.” I sit straight and look her in the blue, blue eye. “I’m tired of this long war, and I want to end it.”
Irritably, she says, “What war? Don’t be dramatic.”
I think of Jonah, wonder how he might manage a conflict like this. Trying to channel his calming tone, I say, “Maybe it isn’t a war. Maybe it’s just been a disagreement, a different way of looking at things. What I know is that I—” I pause, bite my inner lip. “I miss my sister. I hate it that we never talk, that you’re so mad at me. And I don’t know why, so I can’t fix it.”
Color has been creeping into her cheeks as I talk. She has always had perfectly smooth skin, and it shows this color as delicately as a princess. “I’d rather not have this conversation here.” She glances over her shoulder. “Now.”
“I know. But the thing is, I’m not leaving until we talk today. And if you get up to walk away”—I smile brightly—“I’ll follow you.”
In a low voice, she says, “Why are you doing this?”
In a voice just as quiet: “Because you came to my business and yelled at me as if I were a child. Because I asked for your help and you completely dismissed me, and that is not what families are supposed to do.”
“Oh, what families do!” Her eyes narrow as she leans over the table. “You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, and then when you want us you can just come waltzing back and expect everything to be forgiven?”
“What did I do to be forgiven for, Steph?” I touch my chest. “What did I do?”
She makes a huffing sound of disbelief and looks over her shoulder again. “Let’s start with you screwing your father’s worst enemy.”
I shake my head. “That was after.”
“How about leaving the restaurant, leaving us in the lurch?”
“That’s true, I did do that.” It’s harder to be calm than I expected, and