Page 73 of The Fall Classic

“For what?” Alma asks, eyeing me.

My mouth stretches into a smile that feels used up after a long day of smiling at customers. A long few weeks, to be precise. “I’m going out for dinner with a friend.”

Alma’s eyebrows almost jump off her face. “What friend? I know all your friends. They work here.”

My face heats. “Some of them are customers.”

Alma’s gaze flicks to my hat and back down. “Ah. Good. Have fun.”

“I’ll try,” I say with a weak chuckle. I don’t go up yet, though. I look past the service counter into the dining room, where I spot Marlowe speaking to a woman who looks around my age. She’s lean and wearing Doc Marten’s with a rust-orange corduroy skirt that makes me hope she’s made a deal with Mother Nature to bring autumn early to the South.

“What’s going on back there?” I ask, my voice cracking from overuse. Alma eyes me before following my gaze.

“Go find out.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

Alma squeezes the rag she’s been using. “It is your shop. Your grandparents built it. Your mother shaped it and left it for you, but you’re afraid to even touch it without wearing gloves. When are you going to leave your fingerprints on it, mija?”

“I can’t put my fingerprints on it when Marlowe’s the one keeping it all afloat. Until it’s paid off, I can’t make it about me.”

Not when I already agreed not to.

I was seventeen when Marlowe spread a mountain of paperwork over the kitchen table. “Things still aren’t good, sweetie,” she said. “But you can take over Meant to Bean when you come of age, or you can have your dad and me keep taking care of things until the loan is paid off, as your mother always wanted for you.” Her lips pulled into a thin smile the way it always did when she mentioned my mother. “If you want me to keep helping until it’s paid off, I’m more than happy to. I know I’m not your real mother, but I want you to inherit something real, because I care about you.”

I didn’t do any math in my head or look at the figures circled on any of the loan documents. Marlowe was being so sweet to help me, and I would have done anything for her to keep wanting to help, for her to want to love me.

It never felt like a choice at all.

“I want your help,” I said. She smiled and hugged me and promised she would.

She’s kept that promise.

She has.

But try telling that to Alma’s gaze. It could roast me like coffee beans.

“Go find out,” she repeats. When I hesitate, she sighs and says, “Tell her I sent you.”

“Gracias, Alma.”

She shoos me with her towel.

I’m tired, my brain feels like it’s been wrapped in a blanket, I’m dizzy from hunger and lack of sleep … yet Alma’s lit a fire under me. Unfortunately, it’s a small one that’s flickering out after only four steps in Marlowe’s direction.

I can’t do this.

I veer to the left—toward the back, where the staircase is—when Marlowe notices me.

“Georgiana, good, you’re here.”

I turn toward her, like I hadn’t even noticed my stepfamily six feet away at a big open table. “Oh, hi,” I say, giving an awkward wave with my tumbler and pointing in the direction of my apartment. “I’m just⁠—”

“This is Olivia Turner,” Marlowe says over me, giving me a tight grin. “Alma told her to apply for a job. I thought you were doing fine on the truck, but it appears you’re already looking to hire someone else.”

I can see it in her eyes: You’re all wishes, no work.

And I shrink.