Georgie, All Along (41)

And even though there’s still the sizzle of that frying pan—especially anytime we veer close to family dynamics that obviously have nothing to do with Levi—I realize, sometime in the middle of stacking chairs, that I’m . . . enjoying myself.

I can’t quite say that I’m enjoying the actual work I’m doing, since my feet hurt and I smell like seafood and I am definitely going to need to change this mop water, but the time I’ve spent at The Shoreline has been more connected in spirit to the fic than anything I did in Sott’s Mill with Bel. Maybe I mostly wrote about wanting to be close to Evan, but I also clearly saw The Shoreline as a way to be part of something, part of a world I didn’t have access to when I was younger. And sure, Remy and Olivia and Luke and I have been stretched thin out here all afternoon, but I have felt like I was part of a group, more than I often did in the time I spent working for Nadia. In the last couple of years especially, I’d taken on more, had worked mostly alone or only with Nadia herself, and today it’s been nice to be on a team, to trade knowing looks as we served and to talk as we’ve cleaned up. Maybe I need to keep this in mind for what I want, after I go back to—

A throat clears behind me.

It sounds so familiar.

But also, somehow, not.

“Hi, Dad!” Olivia calls from the bar, where she’s wrapping silverware.

Levi’s dad.

My internal stove burner is turned all the way up.

I turn to face him slowly, getting my serving-plates smile back in place, since this man is technically my boss for the job I have not agreed to do yet. It isn’t the first time I’ve ever seen him, obviously—I used to see him pretty regularly, in fact, in the stands at the Harris County High football games, cheering Evan on enthusiastically. But it is the first time I’ve seen him since I’ve met Levi, and it’s strange how different he looks to me as a result, how I measure everything about him against the son I hardly knew a thing about less than a week ago. His eyes are the same color as Levi’s, and he’s almost exactly as tall, though not as broad. He doesn’t have a beard, but somehow, the set of his jaw reminds me of Levi, too.

“Cal Fanning,” he says, extending a hand to me, and it’s strange—it’s Levi in the eyes, focused and a little suspicious, and Evan in the smile, easy and charming. “And you are?”

“Dad!” Olivia says, all excitement as she comes to stand by me. “This is Georgie Mulcahy! We told you she might come by today? Well, she did, and she saved our a—”

Okay, maybe not Levi in the eyes, since I’ve never seen him be the language police toward an adult woman before.

“Behinds,” Olivia corrects.

“Ah, yes, Georgia,” Cal says, which is extremely annoying. Georgie’s not short for anything except for my dad’s weird nicknames. I shake his hand anyway.

“Hi, Mr. Fanning.”

He doesn’t ask me to call him Cal, which obviously means I will only ever privately think of him as Calvin or Calthorpe or whatever name I decide Cal is short for.

“Your father used to do some work for me,” he says.

“Yes!” I say, enthusiastic, as though I’m talking to a drunk mortgage broker. Calorie. Callous. Calcium.

“And have my son and daughter managed to convince you to come onboard for a while? As you can see”—he says, gesturing to the room we’ve been busting our behinds to clean for the last hour—“we are very short-staffed.”

I can almost hear Remy’s eye roll, but I’m too preoccupied, too stuck on the other part of ol’ Callow’s sentence, to be bothered by the commentary on the dining room.

My son and daughter.

Maybe it shouldn’t rankle me the way it does, the exclusivity of it; after all, Evan and Olivia are the only two of Cal’s offspring who actually work here. But it’s a bell ringing in my brain, that tidy pairing of Evan and Olivia, and all I can think about is Levi—the quiet, gruff way he’d said that he couldn’t ever see where he fit. For the first time all day, I let go of the embarrassment over last night and focus instead on the way I’d felt walking up to Levi with Evan’s card in my back pocket—like I’d done something wrong by agreeing to come here. Like I’d betrayed him somehow. I swallow, shifting on my aching feet.

I realize I’ve gone weirdly silent when Cal speaks again. “We could be flexible about your hours. Olivia and Evan mentioned you’re in town helping a friend.”

“I’m not sure we made the best impression today,” Olivia says, looking sheepish.

“You did,” I say quickly, because whatever guilt I experience from being around Cal (Calisthenics, Caliper, Calculate) Fanning, Olivia has been nothing but kind and hardworking. And anyway, maybe I’m being too harsh, too judgmental. Families are complicated, after all, and I don’t know the full story.

I’m only trying to know my full story. The one I’m working on telling myself these days. I’m at The Shoreline; it’s gone well; it’s taught me something about what I want. It has not, to speak metaphorically, stood still while I tried to kiss it. Probably if I stick around I won’t see Calamity Cal that often anyway.

“I had fun,” I say, not lying, and Olivia looks thrilled. Mr. Fanning—fine! I’ll use the appropriate name!—smiles, Evan-style, and starts talking about paperwork.