Saving Gracie (11 page)

“It just hasn’t been a good day, Gracie.” He’d given her the background over their snapper lunch, but if he now started talking about the fact he was going to be the first John Edward Peoples in Port Provident history not to receive a vote of confidence to head the family company, she’d see right through him.

Gracie would know what his father always said. She would know the fraud he must truly be.

The light in her eyes dimmed as she spoke. “You spent most of your day with me. I don’t understand.”

His preoccupation with his own issues had prompted him to speak without thinking. Gracie had no way of knowing the phone call with his grandmother caused his day to take a dark turn. She didn’t know he’d made his sister cry on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life. She didn’t know that his hours with her filled his afternoon with the only pure sunshine in this gloomy day.

“It’s not you, Gracie. It’s me. I promise.”

“What does that mean, Jake? Why are you using some cheap breakup line?” Her voice started strong, then trailed off. If she hadn’t been standing next to him, he would have missed the last phrase entirely.

But when she found out that he couldn’t even save his own job at his own family’s business, she wouldn’t trust anything he said to help save hers. And when she realized he had no power to help her, they would go their separate ways in just a few hours.

Jake leaned against the rear bumper of the truck, trying not to think of tomorrow. “I had to let go of a dream this afternoon.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice sounded as soft as her floral fragrance that drifted on the breeze.

Her gentle presence somehow comforted him. He could hold back his thoughts from Nana and Jenna, but for some reason, not from Gracie.

“My grandmother called. She’s been tipped off that the board will not vote to confirm me at tomorrow’s meeting.” His ears ached at the sound of his own words.

Gracie’s expression turned serious. “You sound so sure of it. Nothing’s final yet. They haven’t even heard your presentation.”

“My father’s best friend has gotten enough votes to block me. Even from the grave, my father’s mistrust still follows me all over this town. All my life, my father kept me at arm’s length from everything that meant anything to him. Once Sam Pennington reminds the board that my father didn’t want me as part of his life or his company, I see no reason for the vote to go in a different direction from what Nana said earlier.”

Jake wanted to pull away from her intense stare, but her eyes followed his.

“So you’re going to allow my business to be ruined for nothing? You’re going to allow your family’s business to be run by someone else?” She pulled away when Jake reached out to take her hand. “No. That’s not the Jake Peoples I’ve come to know.”

“Then you don’t know the real Jake Peoples.” The distasteful words practically spit out of his mouth. “Tomorrow, I’ll be the first one in four generations to be shown the door from Peoples Property Group. First my own law office, now this. The only thing it seems I know how to do is fail, Gracie.”

A large family’s laughter carried on the wind all the way from just outside the restaurant’s front door. Their good-natured conversation prodded Jake like a white-hot poker. His family never had moments like that. He couldn’t recall his mother, father, sister and him ever laughing together in that way.

Jake’s jaw clenched. He reached out a hand, without thinking, and slammed his palm into the side of the truck, barely missing Gracie. The sting of skin on steel hurt, but not as much as the memories.

“What are you doing, Jake?” Gracie gasped.

“I don’t know.” His breathing came heavy and short. “This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. I was supposed to get it right this time.”

The wind swirled gently around the parking lot as the sun began to set, framing Gracie’s hair in gold.

“You know, Gracie, I think I’m not good company tonight.” He knew canceling on her right here was cheap, but maybe she needed an introduction to the same Jake everyone else appeared to know.

“No, you’re
not
leaving,” Gracie replied. “My family’s expecting you. You say you let down your family when things didn’t work out for you in the past—well, you’re not going to let down mine tonight.” The determination in her voice could have intimidated a line of army generals.

“Gracie, I’m not trying to—”

She cut him off. “That’s right, Jake, you’re not trying. You’re bailing on
mí madre,
who’s counting on an extra pair of hands tonight. You’re resigning yourself to being kicked out of your company before you even give your presentation. You’re giving up on yourself because of the expectations of someone who isn’t even alive anymore.” She stared straight at him, brown-velvet eyes full of concern. “And you’re running away from me after you promised your friendship and your help in saving my school.”

She pulled back, swiped her hand in the air dismissively, then began to walk toward the short stucco annex off the back of Huarache’s main building.

Jake wanted to reach out and grab her hand, to hold on for a moment. But by the time he’d sorted through his thoughts enough to act on them, Gracie had already made it to the door. The hinges squeaked open, then a second later, the pink door slammed shut with a metallic thud.

The silence in the night air wrapped around him. The laughing family had found their way inside and were probably sitting down to a good meal. Gracie had gone inside to her family, as well. But Jake remained in the parking lot, on the outside, as usual.

He looked at the door Gracie had just walked through, then looked at the keys in his hand. It was time to go home and get ready to face tomorrow. Gracie Garcia was just one more missed opportunity in the life of Jake Peoples.

* * *

“Aren’t you missing someone?” Juanita Garcia looked up as soon as her youngest daughter walked in. “Your sister told us you were bringing a friend tonight, Graciela.”

Her mother’s eyes sparkled with mischief as her arms rested almost elbow-deep in masa, the ground corn dough that formed the chewy exterior of a tamale.

“No,
Mamí.
Something came up.”

Like a complete and total turnaround from the self-confident Jake she thought she knew. Gracie couldn’t explain what had happened to Jake tonight. How could one phone call bring about such a change in a person?

“It tells you a lot about a man if he’s afraid of tamale-making.” Juanita Garcia’s warm, throaty laugh—a sound Gracie had always loved—rippled through the room.

“I don’t think it’s that,
Mamí.
I wish I really knew what happened. Earlier this afternoon, he helped me find a new location for the school that will work if I get the grant, then we had lunch and ran into Gloria on the beach.”

Gracie walked to the prep table and picked up a stack of dried corn husks, placing them in a bowl of water for softening. “Then tonight, he picked me up to come here and he wasn’t himself.”

Gloria walked through the side door, carefully balancing an assortment of spice bottles in each hand. “Where’s Jake?”

“He’s not coming,” said Gracie and her mother at the same time.

“Qué?”
The bottles rolled out of Gloria’s arms and across the countertop with a thud that punctuated her simple question.

“I really don’t know, Gloria.” Gracie reached in her mother’s bowl and grabbed a hunk of pliant white dough. “It feels good to do something productive instead of worrying. I’ve done enough of that this past week. First about the school, and then about Jake. I’m done worrying. On to tamales.”

The vaguely grainy masa squished between Gracie’s fingers. Each round of flexing and working the dough released a little more of her frustration.

Her sister gave a gentle hip bump as she passed by on the way to her own station. “Well, if
you’re
not going to worry about him, Graciela, can I?”

“You don’t even like him, Gloria. Why on earth would you worry about him?”

Gloria moved a pan of cooked pork close to her and laid an empty pan alongside it. “What do you mean I don’t like him?”

“Well, both times you’ve met him, you’ve pretty much torn him to shreds.” A voice several octaves deeper than those of the three Garcia women came from the doorway.

Jake looked pointedly at Gloria, who pulled at the large rounds of cooked pork until they became small strips in the pan.

“Jake...you said you weren’t coming.” Gracie tried to keep the surprise out of her voice. She didn’t want him—or any of her family members—to know how her heart leaped when he spoke.

“Well, you were right, Gracie. I promised some people I’d be here. I seem to have blown a big opportunity with my family. I didn’t want to do the same with yours. And if I went home, all I’d do was think about more negative things.” He crossed the room in two steps and stood next to her mom. “
Señora
Garcia, how can I help?”

“
Bienvenidos,
Jake. Any friend of Gracie’s is always welcome in our kitchen.” Her mother smiled a knowing smile. She nodded at the bowl, indicating she would shake his proffered hand, except for the mess that covered her to the forearms. “You can help Gloriana shred the pork, if you’d like. Gracie’s measuring out the balls of masa. But we will need something to stuff them with.”

“I’d be happy to. Gloria, you’ll tell me what I need to know?”

Gloria’s eyes lit with mischief. Gracie knew that look from a hundred childhood pranks.

“You’re up to something, Gloria.” She wished she knew just what was running through her sister’s head.

“Me? Never.” Gloria looked down at the pork roasts and began shredding methodically. She lifted her head and met Gracie’s eyes, then began to giggle. Gracie’s own eyes rolled at her sister’s silliness.

“I brought sodas.” Gracie’s father stopped as soon as he entered the room and looked from Gracie to Gloria and then at Jake. He didn’t say another word to his daughters, and instead set the bottles of fizzy drinks on the nearest counter and then turned to Jake. “Carlos Garcia. You must be Gracie’s friend—the one Gloria told us about.”

Jake reached quickly for the outstretched hand and gave it a strong shake. “Jake Peoples. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Garcia.”

“The pleasure is mine. Please, call me Carlos.”

Gracie stood dumbfounded, watching the introductions she’d been so certain weren’t going to happen. “I thought you were heading home.”

“I did head home. I even pulled up to Nana’s gate. But the sound of your voice replaying in my head wouldn’t let me drive any farther.” His knuckles looked white as he gripped the edge of the counter. “If I don’t keep my commitments when times get rough, I’m proving my father right.”

A different warmth began to come over Gracie, starting deep in her stomach, when she heard him say he’d thought about her words as he drove in the car. She spoke softly, wanting to keep the bubbling emotion out of her words. “I think you made the right decision.”

“And now it’s time to get to work.” Slapping a black nylon kitchen fork on the rim of the shredded pork pan, Gloria cut in the conversation and assumed the role of taskmaster. Her grin gave Gracie hope that her sister would give Jake a chance.

Jake walked over to Gloria, fingers raised in a quick salute. “Private Peoples, reporting for duty.”

“Your mission, Private Peoples, is to take this pork and to give it some shock and awe.” She pointed at several pounds of freshly roasted meat.

“Yes, ma’am.” Jake found two more shiny aluminum rectangles and set up a processing station that resembled Gloria’s, then stocked one pan with plenty of yummy material with which to work.

“Don’t forget your gloves.”
Mamí
pulled a pair of clear plastic gloves from a box on the shelf over the sink. “Gracie, take these to Jake.”

Instead of taking them to put on himself, Jake held his left hand out for Gracie to slide on the glove.

“Gracie?” Jake gave a sincere smile at her hesitation to put the glove on his hand. “You’re slowing down the assembly line.”

“I’m going to need the masa on those husks very soon, Graciela.
Rápido!
” Juanita cocked an eyebrow straight at where her daughter couldn’t stop studying Jake’s smile.

“Lo siento, Mamí.”
Well, really, she only felt sorry about turning away from Jake and walking back to the other side of the counter.

“So, Jake, I understand you’re in real estate?”
Papí
pulled a bottle opener out of a corner drawer and began popping tops off the soda bottles. Gracie could feel herself deflate like the whoosh of the escaping carbonation as her father blindly dove into the heart of Jake’s struggle tonight. She couldn’t blame
Papí
for making small talk out of the only detail he knew about Jake. But still, she wanted Jake to feel as safe talking with her family as she always did when they cooked together.

Jake continued to work at his assignment. “Well, Carlos, I am for now. But not after tomorrow. Is Huarache’s hiring?” He held up a handful of pulled pork and laughed as he spoke. It made Gracie breathe a sigh of relief to see him joking instead of stressing. What a difference the passage of a little bit of time could make. “You may consider this my job interview.”

“I’m sure we could find you a spot, Jake, although we prefer to hire family.”
Papí
clapped a wide hand, marked with the scars from years around knives in a busy kitchen, on Jake’s shoulder as he passed. Gracie had seen
Papí
give Gloria’s husband, Felipe, the same sign of approval so many times over the years before Felipe passed away.

He brought the last of the soda bottles to the table and started handing them out. “Gracie, I know you want the orange soda. Jake? Which flavor do you prefer?
Limón?
These are popular soft drinks in Mexico. I hope you like them.”

“I think I’ll try the lemon, Carlos. I believe I had one of these as a kid when we went down to Cancún on a vacation.” He took a long sip straight from the bottle. “How many tamales are we going to make tonight?”

“Ten dozen, maybe a few more. They’re always popular at the church fund-raisers. Lots of families like to eat homemade tamales, but don’t always have the time to make them.”
Mamí
squeezed between Jake and Gloria and removed a pan heavy with a mountain of tamale filling. “Anything worth having takes time and effort. A good tamale is no different, Jake.”