“I love all the colors,” Kabisa said. “The variety. We’d have to check their references, but they sound like exactly the kind of company we’d like to work with. And their prices are within our target area.”
“It’s not cheap, but these are boat builders. The quality is going to be very good, and it’s wood furniture that will be able to stand up to the elements.”
Azim looked around. “A few of those pieces would look great right here actually.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Tayla said. “And look at these influencer ideas.” She handed them printouts of screenshots she’d taken of the profiles and a sample post. “They’re nicely photographed. Not the highest follower counts, so sponsoring posts for them would be cost-effective.”
“And look at the comments.” Kabisa’s eyes lit up. “Great interaction.”
“That’s what we’re looking for. Accounts with lower followers but high interaction. Real dynamic. Word of mouth. A lot of these influencers are also really active on other social networks where we could include direct links to SOKA’s site. And we can target the travel accounts depending on where the products are sourced. People who have stayed at a cool local hotel in Ha Long Bay, for example, might be drawn to remembering that amazing trip with a chair or a table made from wood that reminds them of the boats they saw. Play on ideas like that.”
“This is very good, Tayla.” Kabisa paged through the proposal Tayla had put together. She exchanged a look with Azim. “And we’ve tossed around the idea of including more housewares on the site, but I think the outdoor-living aspect presents some intriguing tie-ins and possibilities we hadn’t considered. Thank you.”
“I hope that gives you an idea of where I think we can go with this. And obviously a lot of these ideas translate to fashion, accessories, all the other products you guys are currently offering.”
Azim was nodding silently, still paging through the papers. Tayla had debated going with electronic presentations, but Jeremy had encouraged her to give Kabisa and Azim something to hold, to engage more than a single sense to make herself more memorable.
“I think that’s all we need from you for the interview,” Kabisa said. “But Azim and I are cooking lunch tomorrow for all the staff. Would you be interested in joining us? We’d love for you to meet everyone.”
Tayla’s heart sank. “And I’d love to meet them, but I have to head home in the morning. Tomorrow is the monthly art walk in Metlin, and we’re doing a book club party for the high school book club I’ve been leading. I promised the kids I’d be there for the party.”
Kabisa’s face lit up. “That sounds so cool! What a great thing to be involved in. Of course you can’t miss that. You can meet the staff another time.”
“How did you get involved in that?” Azim said. “It’s lovely you have a bookshop in your town. You work there part time right now, correct?”
“I do. It’s my best friend’s bookshop. She reopened it after her grandmother passed, and I moved down to help her out because I was looking for a new challenge. She’s started a bunch of reading groups and clubs that meet in the store, and she hosts events there. We even had a baby shower a couple of weeks ago! Her partner is a tattoo artist, and he has a shop within the shop, if that makes sense. It’s been really successful.”
“That is so intriguing,” Kabisa said. “We may have to come visit Metlin someday to see it.”
“If you’re interested in seeing the Sierra Nevadas, it’s the perfect place to stay.”
Azim smiled. “It sounds like it could be hard to say goodbye.”
Tayla quickly schooled her expression. “It would be. But it’s not far to visit, and I’m always looking for a new challenge. A company like SOKA presents me with an ongoing challenge, so it’s very much what I’m in the market for.”
“Excellent.” Kabisa clapped her hands. “Tayla, it was so lovely to see you again. Shall we grab another coffee before you have to leave?”
“I’d love that.”
Tayla was battling a headache on the train. She’d left as early as she could after another tense evening at her parents’ house. Her father was gone, of course. Her mother was drunk. Tayla had spent the evening in the sitting room with Bianca as she belligerently watched international real estate shows.
Tayla’s phone buzzed. Jeremy was calling.
A little of the headache lifted. She tapped the Answer button. “Hey.”
“Hey. You on your way home?”
“Mm-hmm.” She leaned against the window, glad for the morning sun. “Train’s pretty quiet.”
“Good. You sound tired.”
“I didn’t sleep great.”
Silence on the other side. “You said the interview went really well.”
“It did. They invited me to a company barbecue today actually. But I told them I had to head back.”
“We could have covered for you.”
“I wouldn’t want to disappoint the kids.” She’d been having too much fun reading their newest book, When the Stars Go Blue. The protagonist was a talented dancer struggling with hard choices, first love, and the future. The parallels were hitting a little close to home. “And there’s the dance performance outside the theater. Some of the girls want to go to that, and Emmie can’t leave the shop on art walk night.”
“Okay. So what’s the headache for?”
I miss you. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. You’re messing everything up by being wonderful. Also, my parents are assholes. “Probably just tired.” She thought about Jeremy. “And probably not drinking enough water.”
“I told you.” Jeremy told everyone to drink more water. “Coffee doesn’t count. The most common cause of headaches is not drinking enough water. You have your bottle with you?”
She smiled. “Yeah.”
“Drink it all. And text me when you get to Fresno. I’ll meet you at the station.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
“See you.”
As soon as she put her phone down, the headache returned.
Great. She was suffering from Jeremy deprivation.
Fuck my life.
Tayla walked down to the theater with eight fourteen- to sixteen-year-old girls, all of them jumping up and down with excitement to see the dance team from Fresno perform in front of the old Fox Theater. Like many other towns in Central California, Metlin had an old art deco–era theater that used to be for movies. Now it hosted concerts, the local symphony, and a few big-name artists that passed through.
Main Street was teeming with artists and crafters showing their stuff, street musicians performing on each corner, and food vendors pushing carts down the center of the street, which had been cordoned off for six blocks.
Once a month, Metlin turned into the place to be in the valley. Street artists exhibited at an old warehouse on 7th Avenue, shops stayed open late, and the whole town and the surrounding area turned up for the party.
Tayla and Jeremy walked with the girls to the front of the theater where the modern ballet company from Fresno would be performing in a few minutes. They were drinking bubble tea from the Thai restaurant and shepherding the girls, who were giggling and walking in a tight pack.
“Do you think they’re talking about us?” Jeremy whispered loudly.
The girls giggled and stole glances over their shoulders.
Tayla shook her head, but she was smiling. “Since you insisted on holding my hand, I think they probably are.”
“I can’t help it. You’re cute and short. I might lose you in a crowd.”
“In Metlin?”
“Have you seen how many people came tonight?”
It was pretty crowded. The art walk grew every month, but this month must have broken records. “You think it’s the dancers?”
“And the band maybe?”
It was the first time the theater was doing a public performance to tease an upcoming show like this. They were doing two fifteen-minute previews of com
ing attractions on the sidewalk outside the theater, and people were crowded around.
Tayla and Jeremy managed to find a space for the book club near the front of the theater, and the girls waited, bouncing on their toes, for the dancers to start. Jeremy stood behind Tayla, his arms around her waist and his chin propped on her head.
“Comfortable?”
“So much.” He bent down. “You staying at my place tonight?”
“I shouldn’t. I need to do laundry and catch up with Emmie. Tomorrow?”
“Going up to the mountains to grab Pop tomorrow. I’ll be back Sunday.”
“Okay. Well… we’ll figure it out.” Tayla’s heart sank.
“No worries. And no worries about Pop. He knows I’m an adult, and he turns his hearing aids off at night. Trust me.”
Tayla laughed. “Your senior roommate.”
“I can’t complain. He makes a mean bacon sandwich.”
“Definitely can’t complain about that.”
“Play your cards right, and he’ll make one for you someday.”
“I’ll remember that.”
She was back, so why did she feel like she was already saying goodbye? And why did it feel so wrong? She wanted to move back to the city. She was thrilled with her interview. She was nearly certain she had this job. And it was a dream job!
What is wrong with me?
She plastered on a happy face and fought back tears. The laughter and joy of the crowd around her was bittersweet. The smiling faces of the book club should have lifted her spirits, but Tayla couldn’t help but think about their next month’s read, The Hate U Give. Would she be there to talk with them about it? Would she have to move before they finished?
“Stop thinking so loud,” Jeremy said in her ear.
“Sorry.”
He tilted her chin up until he could read her eyes. “And stop saying goodbye already.”
“I’m not.”
“Mm-hmm.” His tone was doubtful.
Intro music started and everyone clapped when the dancers came out. They bowed, the music changed, and they threw themselves into the dance. It was passionate and arresting. The two principals at the center of the group moved together in a graceful union before they were torn away from each other by the other dancers in the company. Over and over, they struggled to stay together only to be dragged apart.
Did everything have to be a sign today? Tayla focused on the girls in the book club, who were riveted to the performance. One of them had tears in her eyes.
Nearly twenty minutes later, the dancers were taking their bows and the book club—along with the entire crowd—erupted into applause and chatter. Jeremy and Tayla guided the girls back to the bookshop where most were being picked up by their parents. Then they walked over to Jeremy’s shop where Cary was watching the counter.
A selection of his photographs was also hanging on the walls because he was one of the featured artists that month.
Tayla and Jeremy nearly ran into Ox’s sister Melissa while she was walking out of the shop. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were wild.
“Melissa?” Jeremy put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Fine!” she nearly shouted. “I’m fine. Have you seen Ox?”
Tayla pointed across the street. “I think he’s over at INK with Emmie. Unless he went out to get food. He was just finishing up with a client when we left and he mentioned he was hungry.”
“Okay. Great. Thanks.” Melissa had always struck Tayla as a force of nature. She was a widowed mom who ran her family’s ranch and orange groves nearly single-handedly. She rarely came into town, probably because she was constantly busy with her daughter, her mother, and her cows.
She was beautiful in a Western, outdoorsy way. Honestly, if Tayla imagined Jeremy with a woman, it would be someone like Melissa. Her blond hair was streaked gold from the sun, she was tan, and her body was lean and muscled from days on horseback working with cattle.
Melissa crossed the street, her commanding stride making people move out of her way without her saying a word.
“What was all that about?” Tayla asked. “I’ve never seen her upset like that. She was upset, right?”
“Yeah, she definitely was.” Jeremy frowned and walked inside the shop.
Along the far wall, Cary’s photographs stretched across the display area, framed and lit like they were hung in a professional gallery. Most were vivid landscapes of the mountains or the foothills. A few animal prints. Some really excellent shots of cowboys kicking up dust in a corral. A few portraits.
“Those are from the Oxfords’ branding day last year.” Jeremy pointed to the ranching pictures. “And— Oh shit.”
Tayla followed his gaze and saw what might have caught Melissa’s eye. It was the central picture of the ranching series, larger than the rest and centered on the wall.
The shot was taken in profile, an intense moment captured in the middle of chaos. Dust kicked up around her, her hat at an angle, a boot propped up on a split-rail fence—the portrait was a full-body shot of Melissa, her gaze intent on something in the distance and her mouth hanging open a little. Her skin was flushed, sweat beaded on her forehead and chest. Sunlight made her tan skin glow. Her body was twisted, and the wind plastered her shirt to her body so her waist and breasts were clearly outlined.
It was dynamic and beautiful, a woman in command, intent on her work. Her jeans were dirty, her boots covered in dust. It was both utterly powerful and achingly feminine at the same time. Though the setting was public, the lens had captured an expression that felt intensely intimate.
Tayla looked at the caption: Cary Nakamura. Beauty. Digital photograph.
“Oh,” she breathed out. “He is so in love with her.”
“Yeah.”
Jeremy walked to the counter where Cary was paging through a catalogue and very definitely not watching Melissa walk across the street. His expression was tense.
“Did you ask her?” Jeremy asked.
“She knew I was taking pictures at their last branding. I asked if I could exhibit some tonight. She said no problem.”
“But did she know about that picture?”
He continued to flip pages. “I told her that she and some of the other cowboys were in the pictures. She said, and I quote, ‘No problem.’”
“But she’s mad about that picture.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. She wouldn’t talk to me. First time in the past five years the damn woman doesn’t want to give me a piece of her mind.”
Tayla and Jeremy exchanged a look. It might have been the first time Melissa was confronted by the undeniable fact that Cary Nakamura clearly had feelings for her past professional admiration.
Tayla said, “It’s a beautiful picture, Cary.”
He looked up. “Thank you. I thought so too.”
Jeremy asked, “You okay here?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
They walked back to mingle with patrons in the shop, but Tayla kept sneaking glances at Cary.
He was not fine.
Chapter Nineteen
The following Wednesday, Tayla walked into Bombshell Tattoos only to be hit with the intense smell of stale beer combined with disinfectant. Ginger’s employee, Russ, was mopping the floor, so the stale beer smell was gradually being drowned out by the disinfectant.
Tayla set her books down on the desk in back where Ginger’s computer lived. “Hey, Ginger?”
“Be down in a sec!”
Like Emmie, Ginger’s apartment was above her shop. Also like Emmie, Ginger had once lived with Ox. Awkward? Maybe. But you had to get over all sorts of things when you lived in a small town, even exes living right across the street and working at rival businesses.
Not that it was all that dramatic a year and a half after the initial conflict. Ginger was never going to be Emmie’s favorite person, but they weren’t enemies or anything.
Tayla had developed a sudden interest in relationship dynamics. Why did Ox and Emmie work
but Ginger and Ox didn’t? Were they too much alike? Maybe. When Tayla thought about it, more couples she knew were different than they were alike. Ox and Emmie. Daisy and Spider.
Speak of the devil.
Spider walked into the shop and bumped knuckles with Russ. He smiled when he spotted Tayla. “Hey, gorgeous girl.”
She walked over and gave him a hug. “Hey yourself. How you doing? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
He shrugged. “Busy at home. Refinishing the woodwork in the front bedroom.”
Spider was one of the preeminent tattoo artists on the West Coast, regularly visited by very picky clientele and regularly profiled in national magazines and trade journals.
But his face was never shown, and he kept a very low personal profile. The man didn’t even have a mobile phone. He was like the opposite of a marketing genius. He had no social media. No website.
The mystique had become his brand.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He lifted his arm and Tayla saw an outline of flowers spreading from below his elbow and wrapping around his wrist. “Working with Ginger on a new piece.”
“I didn’t know you got your tattoos from her.”
“Not just her, but…” He lowered his voice. “Ginger’s better than Ox. Especially with color.”
Russ laughed in the corner. “It’s true.”
“Shut up, Russ.”
Tayla examined his arm. “Daisies?”
Spider’s harsh face broke into a grin. “Gotta get my woman on my skin, no doubt.”
“That’s gonna be beautiful.” She dropped his arm and walked back to the desk just as Ginger came downstairs.
“Hey, Spider.”
“Hey.” He handed her a coffee. “Large caffe latte, as requested.”
“You’re a saint.” Ginger reached for the coffee.
“I’m the opposite.” Spider sat down on Ginger’s rolling stool. “Ready when you are.”
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