The Girl Who Chased the Moon

sad sort of vulnerability was wafting from her, making the night smell like maple syrup. There was something familiar about her, and that’s when Julia suddenly remembered. Vance’s granddaughter was coming to live with him. This past week at Julia’s restaurant, it was all anyone could talk about. Some people were curious, some were fearful, and some were outright mean. Not everyone had forgiven this girl’s mother for what she’d done.

Julia didn’t like the thought of what the girl was in for. It made her feel stiff and anxious. Living down your own past was hard enough. You shouldn’t have to live down someone else’s.

Tomorrow morning, Julia decided, she’d make an extra cake at the restaurant to take to her.

Julia undressed and got in bed. Eventually the light went off next door. She sighed and turned on her side and waited to cross another day off her calendar.

AFTER HER father’s death almost two years ago, Julia had taken a few days off work to come back to Mullaby to get his affairs in order. Her plan had been to quickly sell his house and restaurant, then take the money and go back to Maryland and finally make her dream of opening her own bakery come true.

But things hadn’t gone exactly the way they were supposed to.

She’d quickly discovered that her father had been deeply in debt, his house and restaurant mortgaged to the hilt. Selling his house had paid off his home mortgage and a small part of his restaurant mortgage. But even with that, she would have barely broken even if she’d sold the restaurant then. So she came up with her now-infamous two-year plan. By living very frugally and bringing in more business to J’s Barbecue while she was there, in two years she would have the mortgage paid off and could sell the restaurant for a tidy profit. She’d been perfectly up- front about it with everyone in town. She would be staying in Mullaby for two years, but that did not mean she lived here anymore. She was just visiting. That was all.

When she took over the restaurant, J’s Barbecue had a modest but loyal following, thanks to her father. He had a way of making people feel happy when they left, smelling of sweet yellow barbecue smoke that trailed behind them like a dress train. But Mullaby had more barbecue restaurants per capita than any other place in the state, so competition was fierce. With her father’s personal touch now gone, Julia knew the restaurant needed something to set it apart from the rest. So she started baking and selling cakes-her specialty-and it was an instant boon to business. Soon, J’s Barbecue was known not just for fine Lexington-style barbecue, but also for the best cakes and pastries around.

Julia always got to the restaurant well before dawn, and the only person there before her was the pit cook. They rarely talked. He had his job and she had hers. She left the day-today running of the place to the people her father had taught and trusted. Even though the barbecue business was in her bones, stuck there like spurs, she tried to stay as uninvolved as possible. She loved her father, but it had been a long time since she’d wanted to be like him. When Julia was a child, before she’d turned into a moody, pink-haired teenager, she used to follow him to work every day before school and gladly help with everything from waitressing to tossing wood into the smokehouse pit. Some of her best memories were of spending time with her father at J’s Barbecue. But too much had happened since then for her to ever believe she could be that comfortable here again. So she came in early, baked that day’s cakes, and left just as the first early-bird customers arrived for breakfast. On good days, she didn’t even see Sawyer.

This, as it turned out, wasn’t a good day.

“You’ll never guess what Stella told me last night,” Sawyer Alexander said, strolling into the kitchen just as Julia was finishing the apple stack cake she was going to take to Vance Shelby’s granddaughter.

Julia closed her eyes for a moment. Stella must have called him the moment Julia left her last night and went upstairs.

Sawyer stopped next to her at the stainless steel table and stood close. He was like crisp, fresh air. He was self-possessed and proud, but everyone forgave him for that because charm sparkled around him like sunlight. Blue-eyed and blond-haired, he was handsome, smart, rich, and fun to be around. And he was disgustingly kind, too, as all the men in his family were, filled to capacity with Southern gentility. Sawyer drove his grandfather to Julia’s restaurant every morning just so he could have breakfast with his old cronies.

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” she said as she put the last layer of cake on top of the dried-apple and spice filling.

“Report me to the owner.” He pushed some of her hair behind her left ear, his fingers lingering on the thin pink streak she still dyed in her hair there. “Don’t you want to know what Stella told me last night?” he asked.

She jerked her head away from his hand as she put the last of the apple and spice filling on top of the cake, leaving the sides bare. “Stella was drunk last night.”

“She said you told her that you bake cakes because of me.”

Julia knew it was coming, but she stilled anyway, the icing spatula stopping mid-stroke. She quickly resumed spreading the filling, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “She thinks you have low self-esteem. She’s trying to build up your ego.”

He lifted one eyebrow in that insolent way of his. “I’ve been accused of many things, but low self-esteem is not one of them.”

“It must be hard to be so beautiful.”

“It’s hell. Did you really say that to her?”

She clanged the spatula into the empty bowl the filling had been in, then she took both to the sink. “I don’t remember. I was drunk, too.”

“You never get drunk,” he said.

“You don’t know me well enough to make blanket statements like ‘You never get drunk.’” It felt good to say that. Eighteen years she’d been away. Look how much I’ve improved, she wanted to say.

“Fair enough. But I do know Stella. Even when she drinks, I’ve never known her to lie. Why would she tell me that you bake cakes because of me if it wasn’t true?”

“I bake cakes. You have an infamous sweet tooth. Maybe she got the two tangled up.” She walked into the storage room for a cake box, taking longer than necessary, hoping maybe he’d give up and go away.

“You’re taking a cake with you?” he asked when she came back out. He hadn’t moved. All the crazy-hot activity in the kitchen-waitresses going in and out, cooks going back and forth, the constant thump of barbecue being hand-chopped-and he was so still. She had to quickly turn away. Staring at an Alexander man too long was like staring at the sun. The image became imprinted. You could close your eyes and still see him.

“I’m giving it to Vance Shelby’s granddaughter. She got in last night.”

That made him laugh. “You’re actually giving someone a welcome cake?”

She didn’t realize the irony until he pointed it out to her. “I don’t know what came over me.”

He watched her as she put the cake in the cardboard box. “I like this color on you,” he said, touching the sleeve of her white long-sleeved shirt.

She immediately pulled her arm away. A year and a half of avoiding this man since she’d been back, then she had to go and say to Stella the one thing that would draw him to her like gravity. He’d been looking for this excuse since the moment she came back to town. He wanted to get closer to her. She knew that. And it made her angry. How could he even think of picking up where they left off after what happened?

She reached over and closed the window above her table. It was always the last thing she did every morning, and sometimes it made her sad. Another day, another call unanswered. She picked up the cake box and took it with her out into the restaurant without another word to Sawyer.

J’s Barbecue was plain, as most genuine barbecue restaurants in the South were-linoleum floors, plastic tablecloths on the tables, heavy wooden booths. It was an homage to tradition. As soon as she’d taken over, Julia had pulled down the tattered NASCAR memorabilia her father had tacked to the far wall, but she’d been met with such protest that she’d had to put it all back up.

She set the box down and picked up the chalkboard on the diner counter. She wrote the names of the day’s cakes on the board: traditional Southern red velvet cake and peach pound cake, but also green tea and honey macaroons and cranberry doughnuts. She knew the more unusual things would sell out first. It had taken nearly a year, but she’d won over her regulars with her skill with what they already knew, so now they would try anything she made.

Sawyer walked out just as she set the chalkboard back on the counter. “I told Stella I’d come over with pizza tonight. You’ll be there?”