The Wedding Gift

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Knowing she shouldn't get behind the wheel of a car right then, Julie walked back to her aunt's house with her breath coming short and her gut clenching. She didn't even try to catch the bus home, passing it in a daze as she tried to make some sense of everything that had just happened.

Her phone rang as the first drops of rain started to fall. The thought of actually having to talk to someone was too much to bear. But she couldn't resist checking the message. What if it was Rose calling to say she'd reconsidered?

Phoebe's voice rang out on voicemail. "I just heard what happened and that you won't be working here anymore." Her new friend paused as if she only just realized that had come out wrong. "I hope you're okay. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have started asking about Andrew. I shouldn't have even gone near that whole conversation. I feel so bad about everything. Please let me know you're all right when you get the chance."

Julie hesitated, finger poised over the call button. She didn't blame Phoebe for anything. She even thought it was sweet of her to check in. But she still couldn't face the thought of talking. Especially not to tell someone she was all right.

She wasn't all right. She was a long, long way from that.

Tucking the phone into her pocket, Julie continued down the sidewalk, not bothering to dodge the puddles that had started to form. All she wanted was to curl up on the sofa and pretend for a little while that none of it mattered. Even though it mattered so very much.

Julie walked past a food truck at the end of her block and kept going without even pausing to wonder what it served. Just the thought of food made her stomach knot.

By the time Julie got to Aunt Evie's place, the rain had worked its way through her clothes. Oh, how Julie wished her aunt was home, rather than out with her friends. She would hug her and tell her that everything would be all right, even if it was a lie.

Then again, considering all the work Evie had put into cooking for the wedding venue and then recommending Julie for the job, only to have her lose it after three days... What a mess. Would her aunt be angry? Disappointed? The stress of trying to keep up with multiple weddings had been bad for the older woman's health. What would this news do to her?

Julie went to her room, picking up the small notebook she had originally intended to write recipes in, but which sat, largely blank, in one of her drawers. She pulled out a piece of paper tucked in between the cover and the first page and unfolded it, rereading the familiar words of Andrew's review.

Delgado's Restaurant: 2 stars out of 5.

Why had she printed out the review and put it there? She could hardly remember now. Maybe she'd thought to use it as a spur to action, a source of inspiration. Maybe she'd wanted it as a reminder of how easily things could go wrong. All Julie had known at the time was that she needed to keep a copy; that she wasn't going to let the couple of brief paragraphs that had ruined her life simply float off into the electronic ether.

To survive and do well, restaurants must offer more than bland food....

That passion for food didn't come across at Delgado's.

She'd had visions of one day being able to force Andrew Kyle to eat his words. Julie smiled grimly at that as she read the piece over again, her eyes skimming the words that she could have recited from memory.

Judging by the many empty seats in the dining room, it appears as if other customers likely felt the same way.

Such simple phrases, but they had done so much damage. When she got to the end of the review, she went back to the beginning to read it again.