Sarah Allen - The Girl Who Chased the Moon

She set the box down and picked up the chalkboard on the diner counter. She wrote the names of the day’s cakes on the board: traditional Southern red velvet cake and peach pound cake, but also green tea and honey macaroons and cranberry doughnuts. She knew the more unusual things would sell out first. It had taken nearly a year, but she’d won over her regulars with her skill with what they already knew, so now they would try anything she made.

Sawyer walked out just as she set the chalkboard back on the counter. “I told Stella I’d come over with pizza tonight. You’ll be there?”

“I’m always there. Why don’t the two of you sleep together and get it over with?” Sawyer’s Thursday pizza courtship of Stella had been going on ever since Julia had moved back to Mullaby. Stella swore there was nothing going on, but Julia thought Stella was being naïve.

Sawyer leaned in close. “Stella and I did sleep together,” he said into her ear. “Three years ago, right after her divorce. And before you think that sounds indiscriminate, I try to keep my actions regret-free these days.”

She gave him a sharp look as he walked away. His casual, almost flippant, mention of it took her by surprise and made her feel cool and tart, like tasting lime for the first time.

She couldn’t blame him for being a scared teenager when he’d found out she’d gotten pregnant from their one night together on the football field all those years ago. She’d been a scared teenager, too. And they’d made the only decisions they were capable of making at the time. For better or worse.

But she resented how easily he’d gotten on with his life. It had been just one night to him. One regretful night with the freaky, unpopular girl he’d barely even talked to at school. A girl who’d been madly in love with him.

Oh, God. She wasn’t going to fall into this role again. She couldn’t.

Six months and counting and she would leave this crazy place and never think of Sawyer again.

With any luck.

W hen Emily woke, her hairline was wet with sweat and she felt bone tired. She also had absolutely no idea where she was. She sat up quickly and pulled the earbuds of her MP3 player out of her ears. She looked around the room-the lilac wallpaper, the tattered princess furniture. That’s when she remembered. She was in her mother’s old bedroom.

She’d never slept in a place that felt so hollow. Even though she knew her grandfather was downstairs, having the entire upstairs to herself made her uneasy. All night, there had been long periods of quiet punctuated by loud wooden pops of the house settling. And leaves kept rattling outside her balcony door. She’d finally turned on her MP3 player and tried to imagine herself someplace else. Someplace not so humid .

Scared or not, tonight she was going to have to sleep with the balcony doors open, or else perish into a puddle of perspiration. At some point last night, she’d kicked the bedsheet aside. And she’d started out in pajamas, but she’d wiggled out of the bottom part soon after turning in, and was now in only the top. Her mother might have been the most politically correct person on the planet-an activist, an environmentalist, a crusader for the underdog-but even she ran the air conditioner when it got too hot.

She made her way to the antiquated bathroom and took a bath because there was no shower. And she was momentarily stumped by the fact that there were separate faucets for hot and cold water instead of both coming out of the same faucet like in a normal bathroom.

Afterward she dressed in shorts and a racer-back tank, then went downstairs.

She noticed the note taped to the inside of the screen door right away.

Emily: This is Grandpa Vance writing you. I forgot to tell you that I go out for breakfast every morning. Didn’t want to wake you. I’ll bring you something back, but there’s also teenager food in the kitchen . The note was written in large block letters that slanted off the lines of the paper, as if he couldn’t see around his hand as he was writing.

She took a deep breath, still trying to rearrange her expectations. Her first day here, and he didn’t want to spend it with her.

Standing at the screen door, Emily heard a swish of leaves and, startled, looked up to see a woman in her thirties walking up the front porch steps. She had light brown hair that was cut into a beautiful swinging bob just below her ears. Emily could never get her own bobbed hair to look like that. She’d been trying to grow it out forever, and could only manage a short ponytail with it. And even then, it fell out of the tail and around her face most of the time.

The woman didn’t see Emily standing there until she reached the top step. She instantly smiled. “Hello! You must be Vance’s granddaughter,” she said as she came to a stop at the door. She had pretty, dark brown eyes.

“Yes, I’m Emily Benedict.”

“I’m Julia Winterson. I live over there.” She turned her head slightly, indicating the yellow and white house next door. That’s when Emily noticed the pink streak in Julia’s hair, tucked behind her ear. It wasn’t something she expected from someone so fresh-faced, in flour-stained jeans and a white peasant blouse. “I brought you an apple stack cake.” She opened the white box she was holding and showed Emily what looked like a stack of very large brown pancakes with some sort of filling in between each one. “It means…” she struggled with the word, then finally said, “welcome. I know Mullaby has its faults, as I’m sure your mother told you, but it’s also a town of great food. You’re going to eat very well while you’re here. At least there’s that.”

Emily couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an appetite for anything, much less food, but she didn’t tell Julia that. “My mother didn’t tell me anything about Mullaby,” Emily said, staring at the cake.

“Nothing?”

“No.”

Julia seemed shocked into silence.

“What?” Emily looked up from the cake.

“It’s nothing,” Julia said, shaking her head. She closed the lid on the box. “Do you want me to put this in the kitchen?”

“Sure. Come in,” Emily said as she opened the screen door for her.

As Julia walked in, she noticed the note from Grandpa Vance still on the screen. “Vance asked me to take him grocery shopping yesterday morning so he could get some things for you,” she said, nodding toward the note. “His idea of teenager food was Kool-Aid, fruit roll-ups, and gum. I convinced him to buy chips, bagels, and cereal, too.”

“That was nice of you,” Emily said. “To take him shopping, I mean.”

“I was a big fan of the Giant of Mullaby when I was a kid.” When Emily looked at her, not understanding, Julia explained, “That’s what people around here call your grandfather.”

“How tall is he?” Emily asked, her voice hushed, as if he might hear.

Julia laughed. It was a great laugh, and hearing it was like stepping into a spot of sunshine. That she came bearing cake seemed oddly fitting. It was like she was made of cake, light and pretty and decorated on the outside-with her sweet laugh and pink streak to her hair-but it was anyone’s guess what was on the inside. Emily suspected it might be something dark. “Tall enough to see into tomorrow. That’s what he tells everyone. He’s over eight feet tall. I know that much. World record keepers came nosing around here once, but Vance wouldn’t have anything to do with them.”

Julia knew the way to the kitchen, so Emily followed. The kitchen was large and kitschy, like something straight out of the 1950s. Years ago, it must have been a showplace. It was overwhelmingly red-red countertops, red and white tile floor, and a large red refrigerator that had a sliver pull handle, like a meat locker. Julia put the cake box on the counter, then turned to stare at Emily for a moment. “You look a lot like your mother,” she finally said.