Now what? That was the question that banged on the walls of Emily's brain. Now what?
She walked past bars, restaurants, and clubs, past groups of smiling, jocular, drunken people. She had never felt more alone. Is this what the next few years of her life would be like? How long would she be married to Eric? Was there a term limit to this arrangement that her father was pushing her into?
She stopped walking and grabbed hold of a banister. Her chest heaved. This wasn't fair. What had she done to deserve this? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
When she finally got hold of herself, she started walking again, walking with her head down, pushing her way through the crowds.
There was no way that she could go through with this marriage! She walked the 25 blocks home, trying to figure out how she was going to be able to function.
All her life, she had worked hard in school and hard at the first few jobs she got out of school because there was nothing she wanted more than her independence. She never wanted to have to rely on a man, for money, for emotional support, for anything. What cruel irony!
There was no telling how mean and sadistic Eric would be to her, knowing how much she cared about her father, despite all his flaws. Eric was precisely the kind of man who would look to take advantage of someone in a vulnerable situation. He'd always been like that.
That night Emily tossed, kicked, and clawed in the bed as the image of Claire's glaring face and Eric’s snickering face haunted her.
When she rose in the morning, still groggy, still not quite believing what had happened over the last 36 hours, she knew one thing: there was no way that she would go through with this marriage. She picked up her phone and called Claire. The phone rang three times and went to voicemail. She called again. It went to voice mail after three rings. She sent frantic text messages.
Claire, I love you. I love you. I'm not going to marry him. I love you. Please pick up your phone. Please respond. Say something. Please please, please.
For the next 20 minutes, she paced around the apartment, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for it to beep. In vain.
Finally, she couldn't take anymore. Since it was Saturday, the only way to see Claire would be to go to her apartment. And that's exactly what she did. She knocked on the door, “Claire, open up please!” She knocked and banged and pleaded. “Please! Please!”
A door across the hall opened. Emily turned around. A stooped old woman in a bathrobe shook her head from side to side, and then with an Eastern European accent said, “She left earlier. Two hours ago.”
“Huh?”
“She finally accepted the offer. Mcgill! I think she’ll make a wonderful lawyer.”
Emily stared at her in shock, mouth gaping open. Then she turned back towards Claire's door, gently knocked on it. “Why? You said that you didn’t want to go anymore. You said that we were building something special. You said…”
Chapter 5
Emily spent the rest of the weekend in bed. She didn't shower or turn on the lights or the TV or the radio or her laptop. Nothing mattered to her. She had lost so much—her freedom, the woman that she was building a relationship with, and the last shreds of respect and love that she had for her father. She had no idea what she would do on Monday when Michael would expect her in the office. She had no idea how she would function out in the world, a world that didn't seem to exist for her anymore.
Late Sunday afternoon, she had finally had enough. She had no more tears to cry. She wouldn't spend any more time feeling sorry for herself. No, she had never been that sort of person. This was a time to act, to stand up for herself, to fight against this fate that seemed sealed against her. After showering and gulping down a pot of coffee, she headed out of her apartment and hopped in her car. She tightly gripped the steering wheel and closed her eyes. Adrenaline and nervousness coursed through her veins.
“What do you mean?” Her father asked getting off the couch and putting his hand on his head, eyes wide with dread. “What do you mean you’re not going to marry him? You have to do this. There’s no choice. None!”
She knew it would be hard. She knew that he would look at her with those sad eyes, pleading, begging. She knew that it would take every ounce of her fierce, independent spirit to resist. She looked down at her trembling hands.
“Sorry, dad,” she said slowly raising her eyes towards him. “I’ve worked too hard to give everything up.”.
“I’m not asking you to give anything up. I'm not.” He sat back down on the couch and reached out for her hands. Before she had time to pull them away, he took hold of them.
“I just need you to do this one thing. Just this one thing and all my debts go away.”
She lowered her eyes and shook her head.
“I know this isn’t the first time I said that. But I mean it. This will only be for a year or two.”
“Or five for ten or forever,” she said staring at him defiantly.
Their eyes locked. Tears began to trickle down his cheek.
Emily clenched her fists and bit her bottom lip, fighting the urge she felt to hug and comfort him.
Normally, the sight of her father crying would have caused Emily to extend her arms and pull him tightly to her.
But something deep down inside of her rebelled against that. She wouldn’t stand for it. She had no other choice.
Her father sniffled, wiped away the tears, and stared at her.
“Do you really hate me that much?” He said.
“Daddy, I love you. And I want you to get help. You know that.”
“Letting me go to jail? That’s your idea of helping me?”
Emily slowly weighed her words. “Maybe if you'd gone to jail years ago things would've turned out differently.”
“What things?” His eyes narrowed, face darkened. “What things are you talking about?”
“Dad, I have to go. It's been a long weekend.”
“What things?” He said, raising his voice and glaring at her.
She shook her head slowly from side to side, turned her back on him, then looked over her shoulder. “I know you’ll figure something out. You always do.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to my life.”
“You’re just going to leave me?”
Her hand gripped the doorknob. She closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, then looked over her shoulder again. “I love you.”
Chapter 6
The next morning, Emily didn't wait for the alarm clock to go off at 545 before springing out of bed. Enthusiasm crackled through her body. A huge weight and depressing burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She had finally told her father no, after all, these years of bending and sacrificing. She had finally told him no, finally stood up for herself. He’ll thank me one day, she said to herself, only half believing it. It was hard to know what he would do. He was so deep in his personal shit hole, so deep in his addiction, nothing else mattered except that next bet, that next drink, that next adrenaline rush. She had worked too hard for her independence, her business, her freedom, to throw it all away because of his foolishness. If she hadn't stood up for herself and refused to marry Eric Anderson, she would've never forgiven herself. And she probably would never have forgiven her father either. She would've lived each day in bitter anger.
Instead of taking the subway 20 blocks to work, like she did most mornings, she decided to walk through the city streets. This wasn’t wasn't a job for her, it was in a career. This was her purpose.
How can selling cupcakes be your purpose? Some people would've laughed and snickered. As a young girl, she had seen her mother and grandmother in the kitchen, preparing pastries not just for the people in the family, but for the people in their church group. They would wake up before sunrise and stay in the kitchen until near midnight, preparing cookies, cakes, and pies to drop off at local churches the next morning and afternoon. It was the one time when her mother was really able to stay sober. Those Saturdays spent in the kitchen had come to an abrupt end w
hen Emily's grandmother died of a stroke a couple weeks before her 85th birthday.
That death had been the beginning of the end for the family, the beginning of her mother's downward spiral into hopelessness and alcoholism. After her grandmother’s death, the empty kitchen on Saturdays always haunted Emily. Her mother would stay in bed late into the afternoon, a large bottle of vodka on the bedside table.
“Go downstairs and get me some ice,” her mother would say. “Emily, I need more orange juice,” she would yell, her voice growing angrier and less clear throughout the day.
“Mom, don't you want to bake? And then go around to all the churches tomorrow?” Emily would say.
But it was no use. Her mother would ignore her, slurping her drink through a straw as the light from the television screen flickered off her face, a vacant expression in her eyes.
Emily could only stare at her mother with tear filled eyes. For many years that zombie expression on her mother’s face had haunted her.
While her mother drank herself into oblivion, what was her father doing?
He was either at the racetrack or a bar gambling and drinking away his paychecks, which only seemed to get smaller and smaller as he was forced to move from one job to the next. Hoping to connect with him, Emil had once accompanied him to the track. She had begged him for weeks to take her with him. He always refused. But finally, for some reason, he gave in and agreed to take her.
He barely said a word to her while he was there. He cursed and scribbled notes, yelled at the horses, drank and joked and fought with some of the other downtrodden looking men.
When she got to the office, she greeted the doorman and went up in the elevator, anxious to see Michael. She wondered whether or not he'd heard that Claire had chosen to go abroad, abandoning the company just as it was about to take off.
When she walked into their office suite and made eye contact with him, She could tell right away, from the sad look in his eyes, that he'd heard the news.
They retreated to a private conference room.
“She always wanted to go to Law School,” Emily said. “Maybe it's the best thing. For all of us.”
“The best thing for all of us?” Michael said, shaking his head in despair. “What do you mean?”
“I mean now we’ll have to work harder and dig deeper than ever before.”
“Are we going to be able to do that?” he asked.
Emily smiled brightly and nodded up and down. “You’re damn right we’re going to be able to do it. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Do you really think that you should be betting?”
They stared at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.
Chapter 7
Emily smiled and stared into the camera. Then she began fidgeting, not sure what to do with her hands.
“Thank you for joining us on News Seven at Six. My name is Josie Barbara. Today I'll be talking with the co-owner and founder of the popular and quickly expanding, Sunday Morning Pastries, Emily Stewart.
Emily briefly spaced out as the cute, rather high-pitched and overly enthusiastic blonde TV host ran down the company's accomplishments over the last several years.
The first few months without Claire had brought her and Michael to the brink of collapse. It didn't take long for them to realize that when it came to the business side of Sunday Morning Pastries, Claire's acumen stood well above theirs. They spent more than a few days feeling bad for themselves, lamenting their fate. But the memory of her mother and grandmother baking selflessly and tirelessly, quickly snapped Emily out of her negative and self-deprecating thoughts.
Deep down she knew that running this company was her calling. It was fate. It was something that she would never give up on. The moment that she adopted that never say die, refusal to fail attitude the company had begun to turn around, bit by bit, one scope scoop of sugar and flour at a time, one satisfied customer at a time. Soon enough, or maybe just in time, those 18 hour days, no longer seemed so daunting. After a while, she learned to crave those marathon work sessions. That total commitment to a purpose, no matter how much it demanded of her, was something that she had never experienced before. And after a few months it became something that she couldn't live without.
Over the last five years, she hadn’t been the only person in her family fighting a battle against great odds. Her father had been engaged in his own life and death struggle, every day going toe to toe with the addictions that had ravaged his life. After agreeing to do in a minimum of 18 months in a rehabilitation clinic, he just narrowly escaped jail time. Emily had been the only person in his life to attend the last hearing during which the judge rendered his verdict. But that display of loyalty wasn't enough for the old man. Upon leaving the courtroom, he refused to even acknowledge her. The pain of that rejection cut her to the bone. She spent many nights crying bitterly, weeping, cursing her father for his selfishness and weakness, cursing him for the hell that he had put the entire family through.
When she got tired of being angry, she would work with even more intensity, more determination, ensuring that Sunday morning pastries was a success. She had been forced to learn how to channel her anger and frustration, using them as fuel, which both ignited and sustained her entrepreneurial fires. She had learned how to view all life's trials, no matter how painful or scarring, as something positive to be used for her own personal and spiritual growth.
At the end of the interview, a sense of relief washed over Emily. This once that tenth time in the last month that she’d been interviewed for either print or electronic media. She had never really enjoyed talking about herself or her accomplishments, no matter how proud they made her. Whenever she heard CEO’s and business owners going on and on about their companies, she would always roll her eyes and snicker. No matter how much success she had, she was determined to never become that type of person. Having her own company, generating profits in the high six-figures, was not about money or success. All of those things were nice but what really mattered to her, what really made her spring out of bed each morning before the alarm went off, or stay in the office long after the sun had set and everyone else went home, was her belief that her pastries, which were made with love and care, made people’s lives just a little better.
The belief that she needed to live a life of service had clearly come from both her mother and grandmother. Sunday Morning Pastries was her small way of making the world a better place.
Thankfully, she didn’t keep her head in the clouds all day. There was too much work to get for her not to have her feet firmly placed on the ground most of them time. So much had happened over the last few years. This dream, this fantasy, was more real than ever. The company was expanding faster than she would have ever imagined possible. They were opening up their own factory and distribution centers. They no longer had to go in search of investors. Every other day a new offer came in.
Yet she couldn't help feeling that something was missing in her life. Maybe that's why she worked 18 hour days, hardly ever giving herself any time to think about anything except the company. She was trying to fill a hole deep within herself.
Hardly a day went by without her thinking about… Claire. She hadn't heard from her. Five years and not a word. No calls, texts, emails, letters, nothing.
“You really have to get back out there and start dating,” Michael would often say to her. “She's not coming back. You have to accept that and move on with your life.”
Emily hated those words. She hated to admit that Claire would never come back. With all of her strength, with every bit of her soul, she fought to hold onto the hope that maybe one day they would be reunited. While alone in her apartment, especially after a couple glasses of white wine, she would pretend as if Claire were right there next here. Whenever she fixed her hair in the mirror or tried on different outfits, she would imagine what Claire’s reaction would be.
But whether not they would ever meet again was out of her control. That was the worst part. Throughou
t her life whenever she wanted something, regardless how improbable it seemed, she would dig deep down within herself, working harder and smarter than anyone else. And more often than not—whether it was getting into a top culinary school, rising above her classmates, or raising the capital to start her own business—she usually attained whatever it was she desired.
One late Friday afternoon, Claire and Michael sat in their private conference room, discussing plans for the next week.
“I’m really thinking that we should bring on a new contractor for the Quebec deal,” Michael said. “I think we need someone on the ground there who speaks French but also understands our New York sensibility.”
“French and English?” Emily said, remembering how Claire would often whisper phrases in French to her while they lay in bed, bodies intertwined, a sheen of sweat covering them as they recovered from an intense sensual, lovemaking session.
“That sounds good to me,” Emily said. “Just make sure you get the best. We’ve got the money.”
Michael fixed his eyes on her and slowly nodded up and down.
Chapter 8
Montréal
Claire gripped the frozen banister as she trudged up the icy steps. The bitter air stung her exposed cheeks. Wet snow had gotten inside her boots. She could feel her feet beginning to freeze.
She was relieved when she finally made inside her cavernous condo. She’d been living in Montreal for the past five years but she still hadn’t quite acclimated to the brutally cold winters. Having lived most of her life in the Northeastern United States, she didn’t anticipate cold winters being a problem for her. But she was definitely wrong.
Besides the frigid winters, she found everything about the city to be absolutely magical—the musical accents, the lively city streets, the hedonistic spirits And she certainly loved that she got to speak and live in French every day. Throughout her professional life, her bilingualism had always given her a slight edge.
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