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After the first time I’d taken Rory down to South Beach for the failed polar plunge, that spot had quickly become a special place we shared. We never talked about it, never brought other friends down with us. It was only for us. All through high school we hiked down the beach trail once or twice a month, even in winter. Sometimes we’d sit in companionable silence, nestled back against that same huge driftwood log, our log. Often we’d bring homework, but we seldom actually cracked a textbook. More often than not we’d end up talking for hours, arguing good-naturedly about books and movies,
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what friends!!??? How many times - on Monday nights???
“So that’s it then? You’re really going to kiss me like that and go back to her? You just told me you’ve liked me for five years!”
chill Lolly, you're barely 17yrs old
He gave me one anguished glance, but I pointedly looked away. I would not acknowledge that this was costing him something. It was his choice. I was furious, spurned and rejected and horribly, deeply disappointed.
as you should be in high school
We simply couldn’t close the diner. It was our livelihood, our legacy, the thing that held us all together. If we were forced to close, I feared it would kill my father, pure and simple. If we closed the diner, I would be breaking my deathbed promise to my mother. Yet deep down I had a terrible feeling that this letter might actually be what finally sank us.
Lolly, you need professional help, mental specialist
Dining demographics have changed a lot. People don’t want our kind of food anymore. Tastes evolve, and we haven’t evolved enough to be competitive.”
what was your first clue...how long have you known this and what are you doing to help with your college education degree in "studying abroad for a semester"
“You need to stay in school and get your degree. It will give you way more options for a good job in the future,” I said firmly.
wisdom from the master of semester abroad
But I worked as hard as I could so that she could do the things I couldn’t. We sacrificed as a family for her so she could have a brighter future than either Dad or I had. She was one of the main reasons I had given everything up ten years ago. If she gave up on school now, all that sacrifice would be worthless.
mom and dad must be giving those pep talks to Lolly when we weren't reading...
shot Daphne a warning look, the one I’d used since she became my responsibility, the one that conjured up as much maternal disapproval as possible.
but not dad's responsibility...I mean, he birthed her but you've been claiming maternal rights for the past 10 years. Oh right, the ranch hand from Wyoming / Navy veteran turning head cook can't multitask...
I had sacrificed too much to let that happen. Her success meant my sacrifice was worth it. It was as simple as that.
what exactly was your sacrifice...it's never actually been identified...
“Promise me you’ll hold the family together no matter what. Daphne will need you, and your father too. They can’t do it on their own. You’ll need to help keep the Eatery running. It’s our legacy and our lifeline. Promise me you’ll take care of them and the diner.”
a mom's dying words do have some weight...I mean she must been in her senses after being hit by a car and on drugs....dad obviously was in on it and no other family or friends came to help...not even Aunt Gert who loved mom like a daughter...Aunt Gert showed up years later
“There’s one more thing,” she said, clearing her throat. “I need to tell you my lemon meringue pie recipe.” “Are you sure?” This was serious. More serious than her stating that her body was shutting down.
here we go again...rational decision making...
Mom had been the glue that held everything together. Now she was gone, and there was only me to carry on her role. I clutched the phone and felt the weight of responsibility settle on my shoulders. I was the glue now. “Five large egg yolks,” I whispered, suddenly panicking. What if I couldn’t remember the recipe? What if I couldn’t keep my promises to her? What if I couldn’t hold my family together? “One cup granulated sugar. The zest from one large Meyer lemon. One leaf of lemon balm . . .”
stoopid
All the things I’d worked so hard for, sacrificed for, were now in peril. Daphne’s future. The Eatery. I popped the lemon drop into my mouth, tucking it against my cheek, willing it to work. Tonight, I was so tired of trying to hold our family together. There was only one person I wanted to see. I needed desperately to hear her voice again, feel her ample arms press me close to her heart. I needed advice and motherly understanding. I needed her to fix everything like she’d done so many times before. I closed my eyes, overwhelmed with grief and longing. “Mom,”
listen, we don't even know what kind of relationship you had with your mom because all we have heard up till now is Gawd damn RORY
An iPhone sat on the wicker side table. I checked the time and date. Seven thirteen a.m. on Sunday, February 27. I had gone to bed last night in Seattle on Saturday, February 26.
we have iphones so we are definitely are talking at least 2007 when iphone came out...
Hawaii had always been our family’s favorite vacation spot. Every January we would close the diner for a week and head to “paradise” as my parents referred to it, escaping the rainy, gray Seattle winter
um, later in the book Lolly you say you've only closed the diner 3 time EVER...
my sunburned nose buried in one of the Baby-Sitters Club books.
book of the 90s
Martin Samuel Blanchard Beloved husband, father, cook, and sailor April 12, 1960–September 09, 2018.
“It’s not the work hours that are wearing me down,” I confessed finally, taking a deep breath. “I found my middle school journal recently. And it had a life goals list I’d written, all the things I had planned to accomplish before I turned thirty-three.
why 33yrs old?? Thats oddly specific...25yrs no, 30yr, 40yrs no
I’ve kept the legacy of our family going. I’ve kept the diner afloat against some pretty big odds.
Four years ago, when your dad died,
fever dream...
“Honey, it sounds like whatever you’re holding on to is probably already broken,” she said kindly, “and you’re just holding the pieces together and praying for some glue.” She paused, considering. “Life doesn’t work that way. If you cling so tight to something that’s already broken, to a life and dream that can never come true, you don’t have space in your life for anything else, for the good and real plan Bs.” She looked me in the eye and said firmly, “Sometimes, Lolly, you just have to let go.”
There was still the tiny issue that I was in love with a man I’d broken up with seven years ago.
so tired of this crap (32-7= 25yrs old when they broke up)
Aunt Gert visited every few years. She even flew Mom to New York City as a surprise for her fifteenth birthday.
“Oh, I’m too old for all that now,” she said dismissively. “I used a few of the lemon drops years ago, early on after I’d first been given them, but then after a while I felt they’d served their purpose in my life. Now I’m far past the days where I want to live any other reality than this one, hard as it sometimes is.”
“Believe it or not, I got them from a fortune-teller at a county fair in rural Ohio.” “You’re kidding.” “It’s true.” She paused. “It was 1962. I was twenty years old,
so Aunty Gert has been hanging on to magic lemon beans for 60 years?? (80-20=60)
It was more than three years before Rory and I spoke again. I graduated high school and then finished my freshman and sophomore years at Portland State University. The fall of my junior year I signed up for a study abroad semester in London.
what did you study Lolly? Since your 13yr old self wanted to own a resturant, I'm guess we have to believe you were on that career path...I'm gonna go see what Portland State offers....Portland State University’s Food, Beverage & Goods Leadership Certificate
tried to make it true. I unfriended him on social media and blocked his number on my phone. Then I posted
Rory is thankful I'm sure
Even though I’d unfriended him, a part of me hoped Rory saw each one.
not eveyone stalks Lolly
My mother. She was still convinced we belonged together, and so she gave me regular updates on Rory, bits of information passed on to her from Nancy Shaw. I asked her to stop more than once but she blithely ignored the request.
or she thought you might to keep up with all those high school friends you had or because ya'll were neighbors or because he worked at the diner
And then, a month into my semester abroad in England, “Nancy told me Rory’s not coming home for Thanksgiving. He’s going to backpack around Europe. You could meet up, you know, show him around London.”
Rory was in his senior year at Michigan State and was hoping to be accepted to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for medical school. I told him all about my study abroad program and my London adventure so far.
“I’m done being a coward. I’ve been stuck for three years. In love with you but not courageous enough to tell you. That’s no way to live, it’s a shell of a life, a half life. So I made up my mind. I don’t want to live with just the hope of you, Lolly. I’ve tried and I can’t do it anymore. Holding on to the hope of you isn’t enough. I want you.” He
what he means is that he wants the girl from high school
It was August, the summer after our reunion in Oxford nine months before. He was twenty-two, just about to head to medical school at Johns Hopkins. I was entering my senior year at Portland State University. We’d been long-distance dating ever since that night at the Turf. My mother was still alive and well,
9 months of texting and zoom chats?
The woman he’d married six years ago.
no Loopy Lolly thank gawd
And yet, it wasn’t really his fault. He’d protected me, stood up for me, cared for me. Until I forced him to leave me. And even then he’d fought me, fought for me, for us.
he stood up for you to high school kids???
So I stopped. Deleted my social media accounts, distanced myself from Nancy, who had been like an aunt to me my entire life. It was self-preservation and the right decision, but in the absence of knowing, I did still wonder. What did he look like now? Was he happy? Did he ever wake in the early light of morning with the taste of me on his lips, yearning for the feel of us melded together like wax gone soft around the edges from the heat and light of a flame? Did he ever think wistfully of our innocent young love? Did he ever long for me like I still longed for him?
maybe Nancy distanced YOU psycho
surveying Gert’s ensemble. Today she was wearing a red polyester shift dress and matching pillbox hat. I couldn’t decide if it reminded me more of Jackie Kennedy or a Pan Am airline stewardess.
Before I threw it in the washer I clasped Rory’s ratty old T-shirt to my chest, allowing myself that small indulgence, burying my nose in it. Every moment seemed significant and yet so normal. It was all so fleeting, so precious and mundane.
“Yesterday I woke up with two beautiful little girls and a whole life with the man I’ve loved for twenty years,” I said slowly.
Aunt Gert frowned, wiping a wisp of white hair from her forehead and pausing in a half crouch. “If you use a lemon drop to go back a second time to a place you’ve already been, you can’t come back to your normal life again. You will stay there permanently. That will be your life for good.”
how do you know this Aunty Gert because as we learn later in the book, you never took the LSD...lemon sugar drops
“It was just after her accident when her situation was . . . critical. I called her and offered to fly down that very night. I told her about the lemon drops. I told her I thought they could save her life. She could have taken two, chosen a version of her life where she was strong and healthy still. I thought it might work.
no sure who's more crazy here...mom,dying and on drugs spilling lemon pie recipe secrets or batty Gerty
Aunt Gert shrugged, pushing one hand firmly out in front of her as though stopping traffic. “Irene thanked me politely and then she declined. She said she’d lived the life she wanted with the people she loved most. She didn’t want a different life, even if it meant living longer. She said she was sorry to leave the world so soon, but she wouldn’t change her life, not one bit. She died the next morning.”
never offered her the LSD before the accident...apparently mom could raise kids and run a restaurant with no problem,
It felt like I was being handed the biggest gift in the world, the ability to choose.
duh, everyday is a free will day if I'm not mistaken...
SEVEN YEARS AGO MARCH One cool Saturday morning in spring, three years after my mother died, Nancy Shaw came to see me. It was early, before the Eatery opened, and I was baking the day’s pies.
32-7= 25yrs old
“I wanted to talk to you about Rory, actually,” Nancy said a little hesitantly. Her tone put me on instant high alert. Something was up. “He doesn’t know I’m here.” She looked nervous, although perfectly appointed as always in her crisply elegant linen pants and tailored blouse. I suddenly wished I wasn’t wearing a butter-smudged kitchen apron, my hair tossed up in a loose bun. Although she’d been my mother’s best friend and had been unfailingly kind to me, Nancy’s understated elegance always made me feel frumpy, like I was never quite polished enough.
been neighbors since you were 13yrs old
It had been terribly difficult since my mother died, and I was still struggling to manage her responsibilities at the diner. Some days I felt like it would take three of me to replace her. I finished each night far after midnight and drove home with a pounding head and an aching heart. My father was faring worse than I was, however. He was still heartbroken. Daphne, at thirteen, was moody and volatile. It had been a grueling three years,
mom did it, got preggers twice too
My plans for moving to Baltimore and for Toast had been put on hold after my mother’s death. Our wedding was postponed indefinitely. Rory and I still talked about a wedding, but sometime last year we’d stopped discussing the date. The cold hard logistics seemed impossible unless he got a residency spot in Seattle. We’d refused to talk about the alternatives if he didn’t.
“Duke is the best fit for him,” I murmured numbly.
How do you know this as you & Rory don't discuss a future that isn't in Washington?
He’s strongly considering coming back home and getting whatever job he can find, just so he can be with you, Lolly.” There were tears glinting in her brown eyes, those eyes that looked so like Rory’s. “Don’t let him do that. I’m begging you. He loves you so much he’ll destroy his own future for you. I’m asking you to love him enough to not let him do that.” I stared at her in horror. “He’s thinking of giving up his residency?” Nancy nodded, once more composed now that she’d made her plea. “I know you love him, Lolly. I know you’re a good, strong girl. And that’s why I’m asking you to do the
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the only realistic conversation in this flaming turd of a book
Yes, the last three years had been increasingly tough. Med school and running the diner and parenting a teenager left us both exhausted and often on opposite schedules. Gradually I’d noticed we had less and less to talk about. Our lives were completely removed from each other, and what held us together still were the engagement ring on my finger and our long history together.
they spent their young adult years more apart than together!
