Page 8 of Don't Call Me Sweetheart

Suzie’s expression turned dreamy. “Maybe he’ll decide he likes it here so much he wants to visit again. Maybe he’ll come back through town for the autumn festival at Crook’s Hollow. You could bump into him at the pumpkin patch and do the hayride together, maybe get lost in the corn maze… He could buy you an apple cider…”

Emma snorted.

“Snap out of it, Suzie.” I clapped my hands an inch from Suzie’s nose, making her blink. “This isn’t a Hallmark movie, which should be obvious because we had sex, we didn’t jump in a pile of leaves while holding hands. One-night stands don’t end with happily ever after.”

And in my case, it hadn’t even ended with an orgasm. It wasn’t fair.

The server returned with plates of food. Emma and Suzie helped themselves to a slice of bacon each. My first bite of waffle was on its way to my mouth when my phone buzzed. Thinking it might be Jessica, I set down my fork and reached for my phone. But it wasn’t Jessica. I grimaced. It was a text this time. We need to discuss this, Katharine.

“Is that your mom again?” Suzie asked. When I nodded, she made a sound of annoyance. “Tell her no, Kate. You’re not doing it. She can’t make you.”

“She can make me, actually. Because she and Dad pay Jessica’s tuition at Piedmont. She can make me do anything she wants.” Even this.

“Oh, come on. She’s not going to force her granddaughter to go to public school just because you refuse to do her bidding. Public school with the farm hicks like me? Can you imagine her horror?”

Suzie might have a point there, but I wasn’t willing to stake my daughter’s education on it. Public school was fine, but Piedmont was a step ahead. “I’ll talk to her,” I said vaguely, hoping that would be enough to placate Suzie.

“I went to public school,” Emma interjected. “And now look at me. I’m the mayor. Whereas you went to Piedmont yourself and got knocked up your senior year.”

Suzie gasped. “Emma! You can’t say it all blunt like that.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “All I’m saying is that we both turned out great, if you ask me, and I personally don’t think that fancy private school had anything to do with it.”

I dug into my waffles while my friends gently squabbled. After savoring a few bites more of breakfast and long, slow sips of coffee, I said, “I want Jessica to have the best. I want all the doors open for her, and she can choose for herself whether to walk through them. That’s what I want for her. To have choices.”

“I get that,” Emma said. “But you should have choices too.”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that you always do what other people want. They make the choices for you. What about what you want?”

“I—” I leaned back in the rattan chair and stared at the sky. “I don’t know what I want.”

“That’s fair.” Suzie nodded. “But there’s nothing wrong with trying to figure it out, is there?”

Maybe that was what last night was all about. Maybe I had just been trying to figure out what I wanted.

The problem was, I still didn’t have any answers.

“We have pupusas!”

The delicious aroma of spiced pork and pickled cabbage hit my nostrils before I even turned around. There was a bustle of activity as Maria and Juan each greeted me with a kiss on the cheek before heading straight for the kitchen. Jessica trailed behind, offering me the halfhearted side hug that had become standard since she turned twelve.

Maria called from the kitchen in her native language.

Maria and Juan had come to North Carolina as part of a wave of immigration from Guatemala. They spoke Spanish and English fluently, but their native language was a Mayan dialect from San Marcos, a town on Lake Atitlan.

George and his sisters, Anna and Evelyn, had been born in Hart’s Ridge and never learned more than a few words of it. George had always regretted that he’d never learned, and he had wanted Jessica to be fluent. I had followed through after his death, asking Maria and Juan to speak their native language with her.

I had picked up a very light understanding of the language over the years, but this time, I had no trouble translating the simple sentence Maria had spoken. Tell your mom. I looked at Jessica expectantly.

“I made the pupusas,” she said.

I detected a hint of pride under the teenage wryness and smiled. “I can’t wait to try them.”

“About Thanksgiving, Jessica!” Maria called from the kitchen. “Tell your mom about Thanksgiving.”

“Right. I’m going to make pupusas on Thanksgiving too,” Jessica said. “As an appetizer.”

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