by Bella Cruise
It’s Ginny, and she’s not alone. She’s flanked on either side by Evie and Summer, who is grinning like a psychopath.
“Jules Rockwell,” Summer says, “this is a fucking intervention.”
Then the three of them shove me back inside.
#
Ginny, god bless her heart, cleans. She gathers up all the trash, scrubs down the ice-cream-sticky counters and runs a load of grody spoons in the dishwasher. She even Febreezes my couch, which smells pretty nauseating after I’ve parked my sorry ass on it for five days straight. Evie bustles about in the kitchen, unpacking a load of organic groceries she brought from the local farmer’s market.
“You need vegetables, girl,” she says. “All those toxins and dyes and sugars and artificial flavorings are going to clog up your pipes and make you even more miserable.”
“I can’t get any more miserable,” I tell her, and it’s pretty much true. But she just flashes me a view of her perfect white teeth.
“I can’t guarantee this salad will make you happy,” she says, “but I promise you, you’ll feel more human after you’ve had some kale to eat.”
I try to force a smile, but I can’t. Maybe it’s because of Cal, since everything he did and said to me made me feel so small and inhuman. But maybe it’s because Summer is standing next to me, her lip curled.
“What?” I finally ask, whipping my head around to glare at her. Usually Summer’s antics are charming, but I don’t have any patience, not today.
“Jules, you’re so, so gross,” she says. “Is this what you’ve been eating?” She gestures to the overflowing bag of Girl Scout cookie wrappers that Ginny is struggling to lug from my apartment. “Look, I’m all about health at any size but that’s just icky. That’s gotta be ten thousand calories a day and they’re not even quality calories. You own a bakeshop. Hell, you live over a bakeshop. I would have run a cupcake upstairs for you. Or, like, a pie. You know I make a mean peach pie. If you’re going to binge, binge right.”
“Thank you, Summer,” I say dryly. Her answer is just as dry in response.
“You’re welcome. Do you need another truth bomb?”
“No.”
“Too bad. Do you know how bad you smell? Like a fart that’s crawled inside a queef. When’s the last time you brushed your teeth? Or showered? Or at least put some baby powder on your pits to soak up the stank?”
“I don’t know. Ginny, when did I see you last?”
“Friday,” Ginny shouts from the stairwell. She’s still struggling with the garbage bags. One’s busted open in my doorway.
“So Thursday,” I say. “Thursday is the last time I did any of that stuff.”
“Gross,” Summer says again. She opens one of my drawers and rummages through it until she finds a set of salad tongs. But instead of handing them over to Evie, she pokes me with them.
“Hey! What are you doing?” I whine, trying to knock them away. But she only pokes me again with them, snickering.
“I want to shove you in the shower, but I don’t want to touch you.” She gives me one last poke with the salad tongs, but I snatch them away from her. And, despite myself, I find myself laughing. Because, yeah, Summer is pretty funny. Even when Cal’s sent me into a cave of misery and self-abuse.
“Fine, Summer. I’ll shower.”
“Good,” she says. “And wash behind your ears, too. Just in case something’s slithered back there to die.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, and march off toward the bathroom.
#
I take longer in the shower than I should with an apartment full of friends waiting to pull me out of my funk. But I can’t help it. Every few minutes, mid-lather, and mid-rinse, and mid-shampoo, I stop to sob my eyes out. It’s so unfair. I’m going to lose my business. And I’ve already lost my heart. Cal was supposed to be mine. What we had together was supposed to be real. He was supposed to respect me, damn it, like a real adult. He wasn’t supposed to treat me like some kid who he hired to wash dishes in his kitchen, heaping on bad advice and paternalistic bullshit. Merge our stores, my ass. Just when I’ve stopped crying, I start getting angry. And then I get scared of my anger, and start crying again. It goes on and on, until the hot water runs out and Summer bursts through the door.
“Are you clean yet?” she hollers, throwing a towel over the shower door. I turn off the water and sniffle into the terry cloth. Then I dry myself up and step out of there. Her back turned, she hands me a clean outfit and waits while I change.
“I got dumped once,” she says. It’s a rare moment of emotional honesty from her, and I’m surprised to hear it.
“What happened?”
“It was freshman year of college. This douche from my biochem class took me on three dates, then said he could never be serious with someone who thought she was funnier than him.”
“What’d you do?”
“I mooned him.”
“Damn, Summer. Mature.”
“Whatever. It was war. Maybe I shouldn’t have waged it in the middle of class. My TA still gave me a 4.0, though.”
I smile gently at her. Somehow, Summer always makes me feel better. As soon as I’m dressed and dry, I throw my arms over her shoulders.
“Thank you,” I tell her. For once, she doesn’t shrug me off.
“I’ll let you hug me just this once. But it’s only because you’re traumatized.”
“Shut up. You love it.”
“Ugh,” is all she says.
We walk out into my kitchen together. Ginny and Evie are there, with four perfect bowls of salad freshly dressed and waiting to be eaten. Despite my work-week-long binge, my stomach growls at the sight of all that kale and shaved parmesan and pine nuts. I sit down and dive in.
Man, Evie was right. I feel like I’ve been starved for real, actual nutrients. It’s not until I’ve practically licked the bowl clean that I notice they’re all staring at me.
“What?” I ask. Evie and Ginny share a Look.
“Nobody eats free,” Evie says. “We’ve pieced together some of the story. Ginny told us about the pop-up thing. But we want to hear the rest. What happened on that date? You looked like Cal had stabbed your puppy or something. After you stormed off, he came back and drank an entire hundred dollar bottle of wine himself.”
“Callum McKenzie doesn’t drink,” Ginny protests. When we all look at her, she blushes. “What? I read TMZ.”
I shake my head. Cal doesn’t drink, not usually. But with the way our fight went, I can’t entirely blame him. Hell, I’ve been engaging in some unhealthy habits, myself.
“Turns out that not only is Mecca Cakes opening permanently, but he wants to merge stores. By, you know, buying out Rock N Roll Cakes. He spent all of last week in meetings about it and didn’t even tell me.”
“Wait, he wants to buy you out?” Evie asks, wincing. “What kind of white knight bullshit is that?”
Ginny is giving her head a fretful shake. “I can’t imagine how I’d feel if Luke told me what to do with my business.”
“I know, right?” agrees Evie. “It makes me glad that Finn knows fuck-all about the restaurant business.”
“Wait, you guys,” Summer cuts in. “You’re missing a very important component of all of this, which is, if Cal buys Jules out, I’m out of a job.”
“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “I said no.”
Summer visibly exhales. “Good. I’ve read about how he treats his employees. No way I want to go work for him.”
“Tell me about it,” I agree. “Ginny, I did exactly what you told me to do. I tried to talk to him rationally about my feelings. He just didn’t get it. Not at all. It was like talking to a wall. And I haven’t heard a word from him since.”
“No one has,” Evie says faintly. “Mecca Cakes has been closed all week.”
“What?” I spit, letting my fork clatter down into my bowl. “All this drama about their expansion, and they’ve been closed?”
“No one knows what’s going on,” Gin
ny says. “Not even Perez.”
“It’s been awesome,” Summer assures me. “You know we’ve had actual customers the past few days? Sure would be nice to have some help in your bakeshop.”
“Hush, Summer,” I tell her. She sticks out her tongue.
“Well,” Evie tells me. She gets up to gather the plates. “I can’t say I don’t blame you for any of this. If I found out that the guy who has been fucking me actually wanted to fuck over my business, I’d be a hot mess too.”
“Yeah,” agrees Ginny, handing Evie her bowl. “But we’re worried about you, still. I’m worried about you, Jules. It’s not like you to wallow.”
Fuck, if only Ginny saw me five years ago. This is nothing compared to the great Miami Wallowing of Aught Ten. But I appreciate the sentiment, still. Ginny’s used to me being strong. The past few days, I’ve been anything but.
I reach out and put my hand on her hand, and give it a squeeze. “I’ll be fine, Ginny,” I promise. I see hope flicker in my best friend’s eyes, and, for a moment, I believe it.
#
After Ginny and Evie and Summer all leave, I’m tempted to put on Netflix again, but I know I can’t let myself fall down the hole of Ross and Rachel drama. So instead, I take out my laptop. It’s been days since I checked my email. It’s bills, bills, and more bills, mostly. But while I click through the junk mail, I see a name pop up in my chat list.
Cupcakecasanova.
Damn. I blocked Cal’s other screen name, first thing, but it’s been so long since we talked under our other, more amorous identities that I hadn’t even bothered. I wonder for a moment what he’s doing here. Probably sending dirty messages for some other bakeshop slut. I hover my cursor over his name, contemplating blocking him.
He IMs me before I get the chance.
[email protected]:
Juliette.
Fuck. Damn. Shit. I close my eyes, composing a thousand responses in my head. The chat sound dings again.
[email protected]:
Juliette, we need to talk.
I want to answer him. Really, I do, with every fiber of my being. I want all of this business drama to go away. I want all the lie and betrayal to vanish. I want to tell him what color panties I’m wearing, and exactly the way I’d like to be touched. I want it to just be the two of us. Without Mecca Cakes. Without this stupid merger.
But I can’t turn back time, and Cal can’t, either. It’s over between us, and I need to be strong if I ever want to move on. I can’t let a chef destroy my future, not again. Once was one time too many.
I close the laptop, pick up my remote, and turn on Friends again.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A week goes by. I pick myself up, dust myself off, and put myself together again. It’s easier than I thought it would be, actually. Now that Mecca Cakes is closed, business has really started to pick up. From Sage Tunlaw to Wes Lansing, our regulars all have returned. Mrs. O’Gilligan even starts coming by again for her nightly Pink Surprise.
“You have to understand, dear,” she tells me one night, as I slide the cupcake into a box and tie it off with our signature ribbon, “Callum McKenzie has an incredible draw. He’s so charismatic. But I should have known that a man like that never sticks around long.”
It’s almost like she knows something transpired between Cal and me, like she can read all those months of passion and pain on the very features of my face. It hurts to remember him, but it’s a bittersweet sort of pain. Because Mrs. O’Gilligan is right. Cal sparkled and shone the way most people don’t. That’s why they put him on television, why he got his own franchise of stores, while I only get my corner bakeshop, bank loans and all. He’s gifted in a way that I’m not. Of course he would have wanted me to go to work for him. People like Cal are leaders, and I’m—
“You’re such a gifted baker, Jules.” Mrs. O’Gilligan has stopped in the doorway to look back at me. Her features are wrinkled, weathered, but she’s smiling warmly as she talks. It’s a young woman’s smile. “Places like Cal’s come and go all the time. They’re—what do the kids call it? Trendy? But you’re a Key West institution.”
I let the corners of my mouth lift. It’s good to be back, to have life, at long last, return to normal.
And yet, as much as I hate to admit it, I still miss him. I think I always will. Cal represented not just love to me. He represented hope that I could be loved again, truly and freely. I don’t know if I’ll open my heart to anyone else, not anymore. I’ll have my business, but I’ll be alone.
After Mrs. O’Gilligan leaves, I have Summer close up shop for me. Then I hop on the shop bike. Maybe it’s crazy nostalgia that drives me to pedal three blocks over, to Mecca Cakes’ empty storefront. To be honest, I’ve been stopping by every night. And every night, the store’s been empty, the windows dark, the space inside cavernous. I always hope I’ll catch a glimpse of Cal, but I never do. Usually, there’s just cobwebs. But not today. Today there’s a work crew dismantling the Mecca Cakes once-blazing neon sign, now dark. Men with hard hats are inside the store, too, taking the fixtures apart. I watch for a moment from my bike. Then I head over to the foreman.
“What’s going on?” I ask. He’s directing a forklift to place a massive letter M down on the sidewalk.
“Owner decided to close up shop. A new investor is moving in.”
For some reason, my stomach sinks at that. I can’t imagine his store just turning into something else. It wasn’t any tourist trap. It was Cal’s tourist trap.
“That’s too bad,” I say, watching the men work. The foreman shrugs. Then he says something that sticks in my brain, an echo of what Mrs. O’Gilligan said.
“Shops go under. That’s the nature of the beast.”
I feel strange and sad as I walk my bike home. And conflicted. On the one hand, it’s a relief. Mecca Cakes is gone, and the threat to my business with it. But that means something else, too. It means I’ll never see Cal again. And after everything that happened between us, isn’t that what I wanted?
Some days, I feel certain it is. I can move on now, be secure in my business, be successful. But then there are others when I’m weak and soft, days when I can’t stand how badly I miss him. I’ll never see those green eyes again, that infuriating cocky grin. I’ll never hear his accent, or feel his tongue against my naked body. There are so many nevers. It feels like if I stacked them up, they’d lead me straight to the moon.
I miss him so much.
But that’s life. Stores come and go, and people do, too. In a way, this is just a reminder of how lucky I am. I might not have Cal, but I have a place here in Key West, and people who care about me. Summer and Evie and Ginny and Luke. Mrs. O’Gilligan and Sage Tunlaw and Wes Lansing, too. Unlike some people—unlike Cal—I have a home.
I park my bike outside my apartment and head upstairs.
My phone vibrates in my pocket just as I walk through the front door. I answer right away. It’s Ginny.
“What’s up?” I ask with a sigh. I don’t mean to sound wistful. It just comes out that way. I’ve spent too much time today thinking of Cal, our past, and my future alone.
But Ginny doesn’t pick up on my contemplative mood.
“Are you busy tonight? What am I saying, of course you’re not busy tonight . . . ”
“Hey!” I protest, but I probably shouldn’t. It’s a fair assumption. Things have been better since her intervention with me a few days ago, but I’m still spending a lot of time alone. Definitely haven’t lined up any hot tinder dates or anything like that. I sigh again. “No, I’m free.”
“I knew it,” Ginny says, and I can almost hear the thrill in her voice. “Luke and I want you to come out with us tonight.”
“Tonight? Really? I don’t know. I have important things to do.” One important thing to do, actually, which is to continue my How I Met Your Mother marathon. I mean, I’m not paying Netflix $7.99 a month to collect dust.
“No you don’t. Not yet anyway. But we�
�re coming to Key West for dinner tonight and you’re coming with us, capisce?”
Oh, Ginny. I love it when she gets all fake-Italian with me. I laugh lightly into the phone, despite myself.
“Fine,” I tell her, “but I’m not going to enjoy it.”
“Great!” she responds brightly. “We’ll see you in an hour.”
#
An hour later, as the sun sets over Key West, I’m sitting on my fire escape drinking the tail end of a bottle of cheap blush wine when I see Luke’s truck pull up to the sidewalk below. I watch as Luke holds the door open for Ginny. Even on a night like tonight, when they’re both dressed casually, when their third-wheel high school friend is tagging along on a date, he’s always a gentleman. My heartstrings feel pulled tight at the reminder, because Cal always was, too.
Well, not always. Not with his employees. Not for the cameras. And not in bed, not all the time. But he was a gentleman when it counted, right up until the end, when it all came crashing down.
I gulp down the white zin before they can ring my doorbell. Then I climb back through the kitchen window to go greet them. When I throw open the door, I see how Ginny’s expression is full of merriment. Luke, too, seems to be holding a secret behind his lips. But before I can ask them what’s up, he leans forward and presses a kiss to my cheek.
“Ready to go?” Ginny asks, grabbing my hand and tugging at it. I laugh a little and hang back.
“Whoa, girl, let me grab my purse.”
I meet them outside a few minutes later, some light make-up dusting my face and my purse slung over one shoulder. When we go downstairs, I expect to climb into Luke’s car. But instead, they start walking down the street.
“Where are we headed?” I ask, trailing after them. They’re walking with their arms linked, whispering to one another. I feel a little bit like an annoying kid sibling following my older sister around on a date.