by Tracy Ewens
“I know, but right now we need breakfast.”
They climbed into his car. Hollis felt the urge to share her story, tell Matt about her morning, but she would take care of it herself and then they could get on with their future.
“What future?” she heard Megan’s nasty voice in her head. The bitch was now in her head too? That had to be one step before the bouncy room and the custom-fitted jacket, didn’t it? Hollis lowered her sunglasses over her eyes and tried not to think.
Sage Jeffries married Garrett Rye at dawn in the barn on Ryeland Farms. Hollis had originally thought it was insane to have a wedding so early, but when her sister handed her the bouquet right as the cool blue sky warmed to a shade of pink that seemed special ordered for the event, she changed her mind. It was surreal, Hollis thought, and beautiful on a level she was starting to understand again. After the brief and fairly traditional ceremony, Garrett, who wore a vest and no tie, kissed Sage, and with one hand still cradling the back of her neck, he held up the other in a fist as if he’d won some incredible prize. He had, Hollis thought, giving her sister back her bouquet of multicolored roses. Sage was hands down one of the best people Hollis knew and while she’d spent a brief period of time trying to be naughty, it was no use. Sage was a kind person and Garrett had found a way to be worthy, eventually.
Sage wore a vintage wedding dress, strapless with a yellow sash around her waist. Her hair was cut into a pixie so she wore a tuft of tulle pinned to the back of her head and speckled with tiny shining blue stones. That was Annabelle’s contribution, her “something blue.” The art deco cuff bracelet their mother wore at her own wedding was the “something borrowed,” and Meg sent thirteen gold coins since even though she was not able to attend, she was put in charge via Skype of the “something old.” There was a note with the coins when they arrived two days before the wedding explaining that arras were a tradition in Spain. The groom gave them to the bride to show he could support her. Since us Jeffries girls pay our own way, here’s a little pouch to keep in your garter. Be nice and she’ll take you to dinner, Garrett.
Sage was upset their youngest sister couldn’t make it, but they’d all grown accustomed to living without Meg. Secretly, though, they hoped that someday, when she’d lived each adventure she’d managed to dream up, she would return home. Hollis was, of course, put in charge of the hardest bridal item considering her sister loved all things old—something new. At first she thought of shoes, but Sage already had silk shoes from 1920 with little embroidered blue birds around the back of the small heel.
“Of course you do,” Hollis had exclaimed to her sister after racking her brain. She’d offered to buy the wedding dress, but even that wasn’t new. She’d thought of buying Sage’s lingerie but after the Nice to Naughty book she’d given her last year, Hollis thought it best to steer clear. She was left with few options and right when the pressure to find something perfect was starting to get to her, Hollis found the perfect “something new.” She’d gone into the city and purchased a pair of Cartier diamond earrings from 1926 and asked the jeweler to mount them on new studs. Sage loved them and technically, the parts touching the bride’s ears were new.
“That’s cheating,” Annabelle had said, no doubt pissed at having been topped.
Hollis shrugged her off. “Anna, your middle complex is showing.” They all laughed and Hollis gave her sister exactly what she wanted her to have, a little shy of the rules.
The wedding party included Hollis, Annabelle, and Sage’s best friend Kenna, who sat across from Garrett’s brother Logan, their father Herb, and Travis, Kenna’s fiancé. Garrett’s dog Jack was the ring bearer and his niece Paige was the flower girl. Matt, Logan’s wife Kara, and Herb’s girlfriend Libby, the Jeffries set of parents, and Uncle Mitch were also there to help make sure Sage and Garrett had the perfect spot of morning to exchange their vows and announce to lots of cheers and one “I knew it” from Travis that Sage was pregnant.
Hollis had been pissed at first that her sister kept something so important from her, but she quickly remembered twelve years ago when she hadn’t let anyone in. When and where to share that news was personal and should never feel like an obligation, Hollis decided as she hugged her sister and shook her head at Garrett and mouthed the words, “You’re welcome.” He promptly cracked up, and the entire lot of them boarded a private plane waiting at the airport compliments of Grady and Kate Malendar, Kara’s brother and sister-in-law. On the plane ride up to Napa, Hollis learned they were expecting their third child any day after having adopted their first two sons. It was a boisterous and laughter-filled trip to the vineyard resort where they would join another hundred or so friends for a reception and overnight party until breakfast the next morning.
“Lots of happy couples and babies,” Matt said as he took the seat next to her on the plane.
Hollis nodded, not sure what to say considering their history and the secrets they were able to keep, though briefly, from their families. The contrast was undeniable, the elephant between them, so Hollis pushed it away and focused on where they were at in their lives now. She leaned over and kissed Matt, who in turn pulled her into his lap and kissed her more.
“Circus lady, word on the street is you’re in love.”
“Aren’t we all, Farmer G, aren’t we all.” Hollis laughed and Matt pulled her back into his arms.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Matt spent the morning after they returned from Napa in meetings, trying to remember why he was back in the city even though he could still see her in his bed when he left before sunrise to beat the traffic. His father had his third session with Toro next week, Poppy would be back full-time a week after that, and hopefully Matt would be able to return to his big-boy job within the month. The thought both appealed to his need for calm and stirred a sense of dread. Outside of the cove, back at home, where would that leave him and Hollis? He knew relationships tended to be complicated, but somehow being with her in the suspended reality of Mitchell’s Cove made things easy. Matt knew it wasn’t exactly adult, but he’d liked easy. “Easy never got anyone anything other than fired,” he could hear his father barking.
Yeah, yeah. Matt pulled up pictures from the wedding on his desktop right as Bradley knocked on his office door.
“How was Napa?” he asked, taking a seat across the desk from him.
Matt pulled up a picture of Hollis and her sisters and showed it to Bradley. It was one of his favorites.
“I know Hollis Jeffries,” Bradley said, leaning in closer as if to confirm. “She works for Dobbins Capital, right?”
Matt nodded and turned the monitor back around as if pulling her back into him. It was strange hearing her name in the context of her job, the life he knew little about.
“I’m surprised she was able to get away for the wedding or is smiling, for that matter. Dobbins is all but being held hostage.”
“How so?”
“Zeke… I can’t remember his last name. Well whatever, Dobbins Capital, specifically your…”
Matt flashed him a look that told him to be careful.
“Dobbins, specifically your lady friend there, fed Pretty Boys Gaming to a group of bigwig investors.”
“Stupid name.”
“Yeah, I know, but they’re three friends, met in college.”
“Don’t we all?”
They laughed.
“The two front guys are good-looking. If Kelly tells me Liam is ‘hot’ one more time, I’m going to tell her she should move in with him and take her car payment with her. They are the schmooze, super salesmen, but the whole thing hinges on Zeke, who’s a total pothead and from what I hear, a prima donna. They wrote Fat Pigs, that’s their baby. It’s supposed to be the next Angry Birds, but better.”
“Okay, so aside from the fact that the one guy could break up your marriage, what’s the problem?”
“Things were going great, so I hear, until they dropped it into beta testing and some nine-year-old kid broke it. The game
stops after like level twenty.”
“Scalability issue?”
“Not sure. It’s written in Objective-C, which has issues, but that’s the thing. This Zeke guy isn’t fixing it. He’s not even trying. Meanwhile, they’ve invested millions in promotion. I’m sure you’ve heard the ads, ‘This September, things are about to get—’”
“Dirty,” Matt finished. “Yeah, I’ve heard it, but I guess I didn’t put the two together.”
“Well, you’ve been busy stocking the creamers.” Bradley laughed.
“We don’t use creamers—local dairy fresh each day,” Matt deadpanned then smiled. “So this needs to be fixed by September, or what?”
“I read something last week, and rumor is the investors are already looking to pull and recoup. It’s a huge mess.”
“Why don’t they bring in another programmer, have someone rewrite?”
“The guy is weird and protective of his stuff. There’s some clause in their contract that basically gives him the reins to the runaway train. Dobbins is completely stuck unless Zeke puts down the bong and decides to work.”
“Do you think he knows the problem?”
“He has to. I’m thinking move the whole thing to Lua and that should fix any issues. It’s a better language anyway. Why these guys hang on to the stuff they learned in college like it’s the Bible, I’ll never know. Investors are threatening to jump ship and their man is baked in Mexico somewhere.”
“He’s back from Mexico,” Matt said. “Let’s get some of our guys on this.”
“Are we letting Dobbins know?”
“Not yet. Let’s see if we can help first. How long before they pull the plug?”
Bradley shrugged. “I’m guessing they’re not hanging on for more than another week.”
“Well then, let’s see what we can offer.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Bradley asked, standing and making his way to the door.
“We help people, Brad, isn’t that what we do?”
“Not usually people that bite, but you are right. I’m on it.”
He left and Matt sat at his desk. If he could help her, he would. The fact that she had again told him she didn’t think she needed his help was a discussion for another time. Right now, he was going to do exactly what he’d done with his father: if he had an idea and could help, he was going to barge in and do exactly that.
Hollis had been competitive all her life, but she’d never thought she was competitive with Matt. Obviously, she’d been completely wrong because looking back at their freshman year, it was a competition to see who received better grades. Who ran faster? When Matt dropped out after the miscarriage, had she still been like that? Had she felt that despite her setback, getting pregnant in college, she was going to pull ahead and leave him in the dust? Was she that ugly? Was it possible she needed to be in front at all costs? And if she was that person who tried to ring up her groceries in the self-checkout line faster than the woman next to her or walked faster down the hall than the other women to show she was in better shape… if she was that ridiculous person, how did she get there, and even more pressing as she began chewing on the nail of her index finger, how could she fix it?
She began typing up a proposal, an action plan for how they could transition the programming to a contracted entity in the interim to protect the investment. It read like a bunch of words, and Hollis was certain her boss would see it for what it was—failure. There was nothing she could do now but wait for follow-up, so Hollis focused back on getting her uncle’s office, his processes, more streamlined so he could function more efficiently. Function more efficiently—Christ, when did she start believing her own propaganda? Maybe her uncle didn’t want to function efficiently. Maybe no one did, for that matter.
Looking around Uncle Mitch’s office, she suddenly realized that she had come to him for guidance and tried to change him. He walked in behind her with a bagel and cream cheese and sat behind his desk.
“Are we ready to enter the final phase of cleanup, learning how to use Excel?” he exclaimed sarcastically. “I know I’m excited.”
“I think you should leave things the way they are. Forget what I said.”
“What?”
“I mean it. I had no right to traipse in here and tell you how to run your place. Obviously, you are doing a great job.”
“Did something happen?”
“No. I’m not going to be here much longer, and someone once told me I sort of bulldoze over people.”
“Tots, I love what we’ve done to the office. I can find things. I have a calendar. Please don’t pull out now. I need you.”
Hollis looked at her uncle and thought about telling him, asking him for help, but she knew there was nothing he could do and besides, she was the helper, not the one in need of help in this scenario. So instead, she smiled and returned to work making his office the best possible version of him.
“Maybe it’s time for you to let go of some stuff too before you start talking to yourself and the plants like the lady staying in The Duke,” Uncle Mitch said as she stood behind him watching him type in his password.
“Holy sh—taki, did you see her yesterday? Full conversation with both of the succulents on the patio. I walked out of my cabin and thought she was talking to me.”
“She came in for lunch yesterday and I asked her if she was a writer. You know how weird they are, so I thought…” He shook his head.
“Not a writer, huh?” Hollis laughed and felt less unsteady. Uncle Mitch had a way of balancing things.
“Nope, and she looked at me like I was the nut-o for even asking. I smiled and backed away. What was I going to say, ‘So you have no reason for talking to my plants?’” He stood from his desk and poured more tea from a tray Hollis hadn’t even noticed on the corner of his desk.
Hollis moved the cat and sat and her uncle dropped down into the new chair next to her. They found it at the used furniture store in Point Reyes. It was bright blue and now that he wasn’t drowning in papers, there was room. And it was the exact color of the plastic marlin now hanging over his desk. He took her hand as they both looked out toward the bay.
“Let some of this go, Tots. When you were a little girl and your sisters would piss you off, do you remember what I used to say?”
“I thought you only gave me extra Popsicles.”
“Well, I did, but while I was contributing to your future root canal…”
“Be a duck.”
He nodded. “Let things land and then roll right off your back. Big sisters can’t carry it all, or you’ll—”
“Drown. I remember.”
He kissed her hand.
“Does it get any easier?” she asked.
“What?”
“All of it. Life, all the choices and turns in the road. It was clear to me, and I can’t find a path forward with this shi—mess at work. Maybe that’s fine because it brought me back here, but I’m tired of figuring things out.”
“You’re probably asking the wrong person. I’ll be fifty-five next month and I’m still working on taking a multivitamin every morning.”
“Have you tried the liquid? I mix mine with my juice.”
“Sure, I’ll try that, but it’s not the point of my greatest uncle speech. Life has no finish line, that’s the point. You’re never going to be done, not even you, Tots. Right when you think you have one piece figured out, a dam breaks somewhere else and you have to juggle. I’m not sure your parents have ever let you girls see the struggle of the juggle. They make it look so darn easy.”
“They do.” She propped her feet up on his desk.
“I don’t think they mean to seem sickly perfect, but maybe they do. Could be they have all kinds of garbage they’re hiding and that’s why they work so hard. I can tell you my brother is no ‘walk in the park,’ as our mother used to say.”
Hollis laughed. “He says the same thing about you.”
“I’m sure he does,” he said, shaking his hea
d. “No one has all the answers. What kind of trouble are you in at work? Can I help?”
Hollis loved that he asked as if he could tell some story or get her an extra Popsicle and things would work out. She wished it were still that simple. “No. It is all but over. This game.”
“Fat Pigs?”
Hollis nodded. “The lead programmer is a flake, and I offered up the company to our investors. It’s a long story, but the gist is this guy can’t finish the game and I should have known.”
“So they are going to fire you over that?”
Hollis let out a slow breath. “Not right away, but once they start figuring out how this all broke down, I’ll lose my job in stunning failure.”
“Okay, so go there, take yourself to the worst-case scenario. Sometimes it helps when I get nervous about things.”
“Does that ever happen?”
“It used to when I was younger. I had this technique where I would go to the dark place. Whatever the worst case was, I’d imagine myself there.”
“I can’t quite get there without wanting wine or a nap.”
“That bad? Are we talking jail?”
Hollis laughed. “No.”
“Then it’s not that bad. So, it’s you and me, close your eyes and go there.”
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine a conference room full of her colleagues and investors when they found out exactly why they’d invested and lost millions of dollars. She tried to picture the snickers, the behind-her-back jokes. And then she saw herself packing her things. She felt the humiliation.
Hollis was about to hyperventilate, so she opened her eyes and looked out over the magnificent bay.
“Well? Doesn’t it help to know you’ll survive?”
“I opened my eyes before the end again.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve worked hard and it will be embarrassing.”
Her uncle took her hand and kissed it again. “Okay, so it’s that bad. Well, let’s go with my other coping mechanism, my backup.”
“What’s that?”