The Girl Who Chased the Moon

terrible waste of money.”

“There’s never any left over. I was just on my way out, Beverly,” Julia said. “What can I do for you?”

“Oh, stop with that You don’t have anywhere to go. You never do anything but work and go home. You’re so much like your daddy.”

Julia tried to hold her smile. At one point in her life, she would have welcomed the comparison. Now, she wanted to scream No! I’ve done so much more!

“I know it’s only a few more months until you’re going to sell this place. Rumor has it that Charlotte is interested in buying it from you. I just wanted to tell you that I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh?” Charlotte was the day manager of the restaurant, and the perfect person to sell it to. She not only knew the business, she cared about it. And that meant something to Julia now. When she’d first come back to town, Julia would have gladly sold the restaurant to anyone if it had meant a profit. Now that she’d been here awhile, she realized that she owed it to her father to let it go to someone who loved it as much as he had. That’s what staying too long had done to her. It had made her soft.

“I think you might give the restaurant to her for less than you should, just because she’s worked here a long time. But the whole point is to get as much money as possible for it.”

“Thank you for your input, Beverly.”

The waitress brought out a bag containing two covered Styrofoam trays. She handed the bag to Beverly, who took it from her without acknowledgment.

“I’ll see you soon,” Beverly said. “We can go over arrangements. Make it all nice and official, okay?”

Julia didn’t say a word, but she had absolutely no intention of giving Beverly any money from the sale of the restaurant. She didn’t care how mad Beverly would be when she found out. Julia wouldn’t be here to deal with it. It was just easier to let Beverly believe what she wanted to believe. Arguing with her would only make Julia’s time here more miserable, and might even hurt business.

Julia and the waitress watched Beverly leave. The waitress-Julia forgot her name-was new. She was holding Beverly’s bill in her hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” Julia said. “She never thinks she has to pay.”

The waitress crumpled up the bill, and Julia headed for the door.

Only to have it open, and there was Sawyer.

Julia rubbed her forehead. How could a day be this bad so early?

Sawyer was so bright and attentive, even at this hour. She wondered if he ever slept, or if he simply stayed awake all night, pacing with energy and thinking of new ways to sparkle and charm, new ways to get his way. He met her eyes and smiled. “Julia, you look lovely. Doesn’t she look lovely, Granddad?” Sawyer asked the elderly gentleman he was helping through the door.

The old man looked up and smiled. He had deep blue eyes like Sawyer. Alexander men were a sight to behold. “You do look lovely, Julia. That pink streak in your hair adds pizzazz.”

Julia smiled at that. “Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Enjoy your breakfast.”

“Wait for me, Julia,” Sawyer said. “I want to talk to you.”

All sorts of warning signals went up, firework flashes in her periphery. “Sorry,” she said, and slipped out the door as soon as Sawyer’s grandfather had passed by her. “Gotta go.”

She walked down the sidewalk toward home. She thought for a moment that she saw Emily down the street, but then she lost sight of her.

Julia knew she could have driven to work, but with most of her money being funneled into the principal payments on the restaurant’s mortgage, gas was a luxury. Sometimes her walks home reminded her too much of walking to high school because her father couldn’t afford to buy her a car. With envy, she used to watch all the kids who could afford cars drive by. Members of Sassafras, in particular, in their BMWs and Corvettes.

It was all going to be worth it, this sacrifice. She had to keep telling herself that. She had a whole other life waiting for her, one where she could control memories of her past. When she got back to Baltimore, she would pick up where she’d left off and reconnect with friends who only knew her as she was now, not who she’d been then. Nice blank-slate friendships. She’d find a new place to live, get her things out of storage, then find the perfect spot for her bakery. She had worked in other people’s bakeries for a long time. When she got her own place, she would bake with all the windows open and make nothing but purple cookies if she wanted to. Blue-Eyed Girl Bakery. That was going to be the name. That Julia’s eyes were brown didn’t matter. It wasn’t about her, anyway.

“Julia!” Sawyer called.

She felt a prickle along the back of her neck and picked up her pace. Regardless, Sawyer soon jogged up and fell into step with her.

She cut her eyes at him. “Did you actually run after me?”

He looked indignant, like he’d been caught doing something uncouth. “I wouldn’t have had to if you had waited.”

“What do you want?”

“I told you. I want to talk to you.”

“So talk,” she said.

“Not like this.” His hand wrapped around her arm and made her stop. “I’ve kept my distance since you’ve been back, because I thought that’s what you wanted. When I heard you were moving back to Mullaby, I had… hope. But the moment I saw you again, and you gave me a look that could kill, I knew it was still too soon.”

“I haven’t moved back,” she said, wriggling her arm free.

“But I’ve been doing us both a disservice,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “This has gone on too long. I want to talk about it, Julia. I have some things to tell you.”

“Talk about what?” she asked.

He was silent.

She tried to laugh it off. “Does this have something to do with thinking I’ve been baking cakes because of you?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

They stared at each other for a moment before she said, “I have nothing to say to you. And I doubt you have anything to say that I want to hear.”

Undeterred, he said, “Have dinner with me on Saturday.”

“I have plans on Saturday,” she said.

“Oh?” His hands went into his pockets and he rocked back on his heels with surprise. This was a man who wasn’t used to being turned down. “With whom?”

“I was thinking of taking Emily to the lake,” she said, off the top of her head.

“You’re showing a remarkable amount of interest in this girl.”

“Does it surprise you that much, Sawyer?” she shot at him. “Really?”

She could tell that hurt him. And it didn’t make her feel as good as she thought it would. He hesitated before asking quietly, “Are you ever going to forgive me?”

“I forgave you a long time ago,” she said as she turned and walked away. “That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten.”

His voice carried after her. “Neither have I, Julia.”

THE WEIGHT of Julia’s unhappiness took her breath sometimes when she was sixteen. It had been building for years, brick by brick: adolescence, her father remarrying, her unrequited love for the cutest boy in school, the misfortune of having Dulcie Shelby as a classmate. Still, up until she entered high school, she’d always had friends. She’d always been a good student. She’d always been able to function. But then a gradual depression settled over her like someone flipping out a bedsheet and letting it float down to cover her. By the time her sophomore year rolled around, she’d given up on trying to compete with her stepmother, Beverly. Her pink hair and black makeup were attempts to fight the overwhelming sense that she was disappearing. Her friends started avoiding her as her appearance changed and she became more sullen, but she didn’t care. She would gladly lose them if it meant her father would just look at her.

It didn’t work.

Sometimes she would hear Beverly tell her father not to pay her any attention, that it was just a phase, that