My mom sets a large piece of day-old cherry strudel in front of me.
“What’s got you in a funk?”
I know she actually means it because she’s offering me food at the register, which is a huge no-no in my dad’s book. My mom’s all about breaking tiny rules, though. I consider the strudel for a moment, and how I can’t remember a single time I’ve actually had a dessert at this place the day it was made. Maybe Pepper’s not even that good of a baker. Maybe it’s just that her stuff is actually fresh.
Ugh. The taste of her Midterm Moon Pies from before the baking ban are still so fresh in my mind, I can’t even lie to myself about it.
“I’m not in a funk.”
“You are. Did uptown funk you up?”
“Mom.”
She nudges my shoulder with hers, which is no easy feat, seeing that Ethan and I dwarf her now.
“C’mon. Is it school?”
“No.”
“Dive team?”
“No.”
“Those big, scary college admissions interviews?”
I roll my eyes. “Definitely not.”
She hums in agreement. “You’re already locked and loaded after college, anyway. Who needs those stupid brand-name schools?” she asks, as if she didn’t go to Stanford.
I can tell she’s trying to be a Cool Mom, trying to take the pressure off me, but if anything, it makes it worse. It’s enough of a shift that, for the first time since I left Pepper on the pool deck, she and stupid Landon are not the most aggressive things on my mind.
“Do you ever regret that?” I ask.
I’ve caught her off guard. “Regret what?”
“Going to school. The big brand-name kind. And then ending up here.”
“I didn’t end up here, kiddo. I chose to be here.”
“But if you hadn’t met Dad…”
I’m expecting her to be defensive. In all the times I imagined asking her about this, it never ended well. But instead, she smiles and tilts her head at me.
“I’d probably be working at some law firm here or in DC or some other big city, married to some other guy, with completely different kids.”
I blink at her. “Oh.”
She leans forward into the register, musing so casually, I might have asked her if she thinks it’s going to rain tomorrow. “I knew that then, and I know it now. That’s the thing, though—I love your father. I love this deli. And you two punks, even if your antics have probably taken a dozen years off my life.” She puts a hand on my back. “I knew I’d never regret it. And you know what?”
I raise my eyebrows at her. “What?”
“I was right.”
I should choose my next words carefully, but I’ve never been very good at that. “Even though it made Gran and Gramps mad?”
She clearly already knew this question was coming because she doesn’t flinch. “They came around. It was my life, not theirs. I knew what I wanted. And that’s lucky enough by itself—not a lot of people do.”
I open my mouth and almost say it right then: I don’t want this. But the problem is I do, and I don’t, and my feelings are still way too tangled for me to be able to say I don’t want to spend my whole future in this place when I also can’t imagine a future without it. It’s dumb, but I wish for a stupid, childish second I could just stay like this forever, with Mom and Dad running things so I can still love this place without feeling responsible for it. So I can still let it define me without letting it own me.
But then another swell of customers comes in five minutes to close, and we’re all back in a flurry, the conversation over and the strudel long forgotten.
