“What are you doing?” Erielle demanded after he’d tossed three boxes inside.
“This is what you were doing, right?” Oh, hell, what if these books were some she’d planned to keep, not toss? Well, he supposed he’d be climbing into a dumpster, then.
“I was, but that doesn’t mean you need to do it.”
Her defensiveness had cooled, a bit. She sounded tired. He looked closely at her. Maybe the late nights at Rumrunners were too much for her, though she swore she was used to long, late nights in restaurants.
Maybe she was just overwhelmed. He would be, if he had this whole big house to clear out.
“I’m here. May as well put me to work.”
She shook her head, this time her shoulders more square. Ah, the defensiveness was kicking in. “It’s my problem, I’ll take care of it.”
He looked past her to see his mom standing behind her, arms folded, looking at a painting on the wall, lost in thought. He turned back to the stack of boxes.
“Let me just toss these, and you can get a fresh start. I’m presuming you have more.”
She rolled her eyes at him and stepped past him to start throwing the books in a handful at a time. He put his hand on her forearm after she reached for a second batch.
“Go talk with my mom. I’ve got this. I don’t mind.”
She hesitated, then dropped the books back into the box, which he picked up as a whole and heaved toward the dumpster. She gave an indelicate snort at his show, and walked back into the house, collecting his mom out of her reverie on the way.
Erielle needed to work up the nerve to talk to Hattie, which was crazy, really. She’d worked with people who didn’t like her before, but she also didn’t have to live in a place where she saw that person every day.
But beyond missing cooking, she missed the companionship of the kitchen. The shared frenzy and frustrations and triumphs. She wasn’t in contact with any of the people she used to work with because, well, she had been the boss. And before that, the people she’d worked with had been her competition, not her friends. She’d been too busy building her career to nurture the friendships she had formed in school, and they’d all moved to different parts of the country, anyway.
So yeah, she missed cooking, but she also missed the connections one made in a kitchen.
Looking for pointers on how to approach Hattie, okay, really, just killing time, she walked over to Allison’s shop. Again, it was empty. Even Allison was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she shouldn’t leave the door open if she wasn’t going to be in the shop. Wasn’t she worried about people stealing from her? She didn’t even have a security camera, that Erielle could see.
“Hello?” she called, and still jumped when Allison stepped out from behind the curtain to the back, moving silently. She heard the other woman set something down before she stepped fully into the shop.
Creepy. Or maybe Erielle was just a little on edge.
“Hello, Erielle. Is there something I can do for you?”
“I just….had a question about the town? Like, had you heard that Hattie cooks for the community? Mrs. Guillory told me, and I was just wondering if it was common knowledge?”
Allison’s expression softened a bit. “Do you need some help?”
“No! No.” Well, once the credit card bills started coming in, she might. “I wanted to help, actually. I wanted to see if she’d let me cook, but I don’t think we got off on the best foot. I just wanted to have my facts straight before I went over to ask her.”
“While she doesn’t advertise it, people know if they need help, they can go ask Hattie. As far as I know, she cooks every day for some people. She sent us over a few meals when we first got here. You know how it is when you move.”
She had not done the same for Erielle, so…Erielle wondered at the difference. Maybe Hattie saw, as Erielle did, the vulnerability of the woman before her. Erielle herself had never felt particularly vulnerable, and maybe that came across.
“Do you think she’d be open to accepting help in the kitchen?” Erielle didn’t think she could contribute much in the way of ingredients, but she knew how to use ingredients that were on-hand pretty effectively.
Allison rocked back on her heels, considering. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone has ever asked her before.”
Erielle rolled her shoulders, preparing herself for the conversation. “Well, the worst she can say is no, right?” She didn’t believe that, exactly. She wasn’t afraid of being told no. She’d heard the word plenty in her career, and that only made her try harder. But Hattie’s was the only restaurant in town. Being told no by her, and possibly alienating the woman, could cut Erielle off of the one thing that could make her happy.
“I mean, you never know. She might be really grateful that someone wants to help.”
Erielle frowned briefly. Did Allison not know who she was? Maybe not. Okay, that was different. And interesting. But she wasn’t going to enlighten her right now. And it wasn’t important, anyway.
Allison must have misread her silence.
