[Blueberry Springs 01.0] Whiskey and Gumdrops

by Jean Oram

  Russell tossed his head back and let out a massive laugh, spewing droplets of spittle into the brightly lit air.

  “Touché. Some people say you’re in the midst of a breakdown. That you’re acting out of character after losing your savings as well as your love interest’s inheritance--a building that has been in his family for over eighty years--due to a bad business decision.” He turned to the camera. “With the Wrap it Up chain announcing bankruptcy due to mismanagement and overextension, six franchisees have banded together in an effort to save several of the restaurant’s outlets by going independent. Mandy, who was about to launch her own Wrap it Up in the small town of Blueberry Springs, is one of the owners fighting to survive this devastation. But if she can’t win back her outlet in a matter of days--” he paused dramatically, and Mandy’s heart thumped like a hard rock drummer in her chest “--she risks losing it all. Not only her love interest’s inheritance, but she’ll be holding a grand opening for a business that will never open its doors.”

  Mandy clutched her chair’s armrests. This was not how this interview was supposed to go. She was supposed to be an amazing businesswoman who convinced everyone to donate a couple of bucks and voila, she could open her place. This was the news, not a tabloid. Not a giant pity party.

  “I could lose a lot,” she agreed, swallowing hard as the cameras focused on her again. “My savings, my best friend and his inheritance. My dream of becoming an independent business owner.” She was about to launch into her spiel about people wanting to feel good about the food they ate but Russell interrupted.

  “Word on the street suggests that the chain’s visionary and owner Seth Freedly has been spending a lot of time on his boat and is thinking of hitting the high seas. What do you have to say to that?”

  “He’s a good sailor. However, as I was saying, I and five other franchisees are fighting back against losing our investments and livelihoods by raising funds to go independent through micro business loans. Any of your viewers can help us by visiting our Wrap-it-Up Goes Indie website and earning interest on as little as a twenty-five dollar loan.” She went on to elaborate on the micro loan plan despite Russell looking peeved that she’d taken over the show and wasn’t letting him get a word in edgewise. Any second and he’d be making a slicing motion across his neck to the camera crew.

  When she finished, ensuring she smiled confidently to the camera, Russell, with teeth gritted, asked politely, “Where do you go from here, Mandy?”

  She paused, brainstorming a sound bite that would also appease Russell. “Find a way to get the man of my dreams to take my advances seriously while staying out of jail so I can continue to follow my dreams.”

  19

  Mandy stood uncertainly on the water tower’s metal grating, paint can in hand. She gazed at the expanse of cold metal stretching upward and around. Repainting the tower was beyond a big job. It was right next door to this-is-gonna-take-forever, but still better than going to jail.

  The faded black letters Frankie had painted all those years ago followed by her brighter ones waited to be covered with a shade of industrial blue. She sighed and poured paint into the waiting tray, the fumes making her head spin, and dipped her pristine roller. She rolled it back and forth, watching the fuzzy peach color be consumed by aquamarine. She raised her arm to the letters and paused, thinking about how she’d failed. Failed to get Frankie to notice her. Failed to get a big enough influx of cash for her business despite all the Ms around town. She touched the roller to the letters and pushed it up, covering part of the F. In two days the liquidators would march in and seize everything close to Wrap it Up meaning she’d lose Frankie’s building unless she could convince Seth to give up her outlet for next to nothing--compared to what it could have been worth.

  “I thought you’d leave that until last,” came a voice, along with the clang of footsteps on the metal walkway.

  Mandy whirled and stepped back, just about flinging her roller over the edge of the railing in surprise. She grabbed the railing, steadying herself.

  “I can’t believe they saddled you with the whole tower.” Frankie crossed his arms and shook his head, leaning over to poke at the rust spots peeking through the faded paint. “The funding for civic repairs must be down. I only had to do a couple hours of community service and none of it up here.”

  “They’re paying for the paint,” she managed to choke out. What was it about being up here with Frankie that made her heart gallop and her mind refuse to chug forward?

  “Of course they are. Paint’s the easy part.” He took the roller from her hand and covered the F. “Rolls on nice, though. Glad they didn’t cheap out and make the job harder on you.” He leaned down and put more paint onto the roller, his broad shoulders moving with the action. Without a word he began working his way to the right, erasing their ill-timed devotion to each other.

  After a few minutes he said, “I sent Justice home.”

  “Who?”

  Frankie continued his work, small specks of paint flicking onto his tanned face when he loaded the roller with too much paint. She watched for a moment, trying to puzzle out who Justice was.

  Then it hit her. Blowtorch. He sent her home!

  Why? Did that mean…? Was he…? Was she…?

  Argh! Men.

  Remembering she had an extra roller in her backpack, she refilled the tray with paint and began covering the lower section, following Frankie quickly, not caring if the paint job was less than perfect. It wasn’t like anyone from down below would be able to tell. Plus, she wanted to stay close to Frankie in case he muttered something good.

  The chilly late August mountain wind whipped through her and she kept her free hand tucked in her armpit as she crept along, working in the shadow of Frankie’s silence, her mind whirling with questions. Why had their relationship failed? Did he break up with Blowtorch so he could be with her? And him coming to help--what did that mean? And why was he persistently covering their graffiti first?

  “How on earth are you going to do the topside and underside of the tower?” Frankie asked, breaking the silence.

  Mandy explained the scaffolding they’d promised to set up.

  “You’re not trained to use that kind of equipment,” he protested, his nose and cheeks rosy from the cold.

  “I am now,” she said with a sigh. She knew more about scaffolding and painting than she had ever wanted to know.

  “This is ridiculous. You’ll never get this done before it gets too cold. I mean, look at you and fall hasn’t even hit yet.”

  She shrugged helplessly.

  “How are you going to earn any money when you’re up here slaving away? This is a full-time job. And what about your restaurant? You don’t have time for this. You have, what? Three days until your deadline?”

  “Two,” she whispered.

  “Two.” He let out a sound of disbelief, shaking his head, rolling the paint on even faster.

  Mandy kept her head down, emotion zinging through her at his concern. She clung to a thin strand of hope that everything would still somehow work out. Even though instead of opening a restaurant, she was painting a tower. And instead of Frankie holding her in his arms, she was working with him to erase their proclamation. And instead of saving his building, she was two days away from losing it.

  She didn’t know if she was brave or disillusioned having so much hope.

  Frankie placed his roller in the tray and took hers, adding it to the tray. He held her hands and she shivered as his warmth overtook her and he got that familiar look of warm gooeyness that used to scare her. She rolled up onto the tips of her toes, hoping he’d take that look in his eyes and put it to good.

  “Friends again, Miss M?” he asked, dropping her hands.

  Her heart tumbled into a pit of disappointment, her stomach pile-driving it as it sunk along with it.

  Friends? Seriously? After all of this?

  She sighed with resignation. At the end of the day, she was lucky to still have him. �
��Of course we’re friends.” She pulled him into an embrace and leaned back to watch him. “Why did you send Justice home?”

  Mandy shifted in her chair in the lawyer’s office and stared across the truck-sized table at Seth. She tucked a strand of hair still coated in black paint behind her ear and tried to get Seth to meet her in the eye. She shook her head, unable to wrap her mind around how someone who had seemed decent could pull her into such a financial disaster and not care. He’d believed her to be rich enough to be unaffected by his betrayals, to not bother to take him head on.

  It looked as though they had both been wrong.

  She breathed in the room’s new carpet smell and placed her hands flat on the cool table. She was going to nail his balls to the wall and never, ever let herself be that desperate for anything again in her life.

  Other than Frankie, of course. Frankie was different.

  That tight-lipped man who had stayed up on the tower with her until darkness had fallen, not once explaining a thing about Justice and why he’d sent her packing. The rumor she’d heard since was that he’d brought her to Blueberry Springs because she’d claimed nobody would hire a female parts person. Frankie, convinced that Alex would give her a fair shot, had brought her home. But despite her training she hadn’t fit in and had made enough frustrating mistakes that Frankie had sent her away before Alex would have the uncomfortable job of pulling the plug.

  But it still didn’t answer the questions that really mattered such as: Did Frankie and Blowtorch have a romantic falling out, too? Or were they still together and doing a long-distance relationship? Was that why Frankie had ignored Mandy’s overtures?

  He hadn’t even uttered a thing about what she’d said on the set about being in love with him. And he hadn’t breathed word that he knew about her talking about him on W7 during her news interview, either. Nothing about her painting their names on the tower.

  Had he helped paint the tower in an attempt to erase her love? Making certain they were ever only friends who had never even considered becoming something more? Or was he simply the kind of guy who liked to chase and not be chased?

  Or was it about his relationship with Justice?

  Mandy snapped her focus back to the man across the table from her. She needed to worry about one problem at a time. Beside her, John nodded. It was time for Seth to deal with the consequences of his actions.

  Without even a ‘How are you?’ John launched straight to business in a way that made Mandy’s pocketbook rejoice. “My client has the funds to pay back her franchise loan and is offering to purchase the Blueberry Springs restaurant--if we can even call it that--for this amount.”

  He slid a piece of paper across the table just like they did in the movies.

  Only Mandy knew there were significantly fewer zeroes than anyone in the room was expecting.

  Seth’s lawyer peeked at the number and immediately began to protest, saying the restaurant was brand new and worth considerably more.

  “Your client was in breach of contract before declaring bankruptcy and has failed to fulfill his part of the deal. She doesn’t have a brand new restaurant. She has a forty-two percent renovated space and precious little Wrap it Up equipment. She is about to lose her assets because of your client’s neglect. If you’d rather we sue than cut a deal, that’s fine. We can do that, as well as attempt to buy out your client. So the choice is yours. You can try and fill your bucket from a dry creek.” He gestured to Mandy. “Or you can ask your client to get off his ego and man up. Accept her offer and act like the man of honor we all know him to be.”

  Oh, yeah. She had the best lawyer on the planet. She refrained from grinning and narrowed her eyes.

  John closed his file folder and pushed away from the table. Panic heated Mandy’s cheeks. No. No! He couldn’t just walk away! Didn’t he know how negotiations went? Give, take, compromise? Wasn’t that what he’d told her?

  John shot her a look and she forced her chair back as if she was about to leave as well. He’d told her going in that she had to follow his lead. No matter what. Unified front.

  Unified in their quest to flush her dreams down the toilet, apparently.

  Mandy closed her eyes. She trusted him, right?

  He’d been good to her so far and had looked out for her interests.

  But this? This was hard.

  She just about bit her knuckle in anguish, but Seth’s lawyer let out a resigned sigh as she collected her belongings.

  John, his chair still pushed out, half turned to the lawyer and said, “You know this is a fair offer that will help your client pay his debts.” John shot Seth a look. His look turned hard and Mandy watched in awe as Seth paled. John--gentle John--was a man not to be trifled with. She would so hook her mom up with this guy if he wasn’t already married.

  “Filing a flight risk claim was a bit much, don't you think, John?” asked Seth’s lawyer, his voice edged with anger.

  Mandy was glad she was waiting near the door because the way the men were staring each other down was making her fear they’d suddenly launch themselves across the table, all elbows, fists, and flying feet.

  John merely raised a brow and stated dryly, “A yacht loaded and ready with a hired crew? I think not.” He buttoned his suit jacket, nodding to the door. “Mandy?”

  She opened it, just about stumbling in her heels in her haste to escape the room’s tension that had swelled up like a giant wave.

  “You have our offer,” John said. “We’ll be in the foyer having coffee for the next five minutes if you want to discuss our terms.” He closed the door and, with a hand on Mandy’s lower back, quickly ushered her away from the room. By the time they reached the end of the narrow hall, the door to the conference room creaked open. Mandy’s steps faltered but John, with an insistent hand, pushed her around the corner, whispering, “Make them chase us.”

  Seth’s lawyer called out in a pained voice, “John, wait. My client--he wants to discuss your offer.”

  Without turning around, Mandy knew they had Seth exactly where John promised he’d get him.

  Mandy ‘Good morning’d her way down Main Street, ducking into John’s office just before she’d have to stop and chat with Mary Alice. Her back to the closed door, she breathed a sigh of relief at not having to explain one more time that she still didn’t know if everything was going to fall into place in order for her to open her doors as an independent. And with less than eight hours until her buyout deadline. Yeah, no stress there.

  She picked at a blob of aquamarine paint stuck to her wrist as she hung up her jacket, still completely overwhelmed by the way family and friends had climbed up the scaffolding for the past several days to lend a hand, leaving the town with a freshly painted tower and Mandy free to get back to business. Well, at least to see if she even had one.

  “Did you hear back from Seth’s lawyers?” Mandy asked, walking into John’s office. Apprehension swirled inside her.

  “Sure did.” John grinned at her and swiveled in his chair to grab a file folder off the ledge behind him. “I think you’ll be pleased with what was sent over.”

  Grinning, he laid the papers in front of them. Her focus went straight to the bottom line and she hunched in her chair. She tucked her hands between her knees and stared at the numbers swimming in front of her. Everyone in town had been amazing and helped her raise the amount she needed to save Frankie’s building and even buy out the restaurant within the short time frame, but still…it was a lot of money. A lot she’d have to pay back.

  “You don’t look pleased. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just…”

  John tugged the paper out of reach. “What?”

  She pushed her chair away and shook her head. It was too much. There was nothing independent about what she was doing. It was one thing to accept help from others and something else to have everyone pay your way--even if you promised to pay them back--after you mess it all up the first time. And she still didn’t know if she’d be able to open
her doors. She still lacked equipment and the resources to buy what she needed--even with money still coming in from the Ms.

  “Did the others sign?” she asked after a pause.

  He nodded. “Every franchisee is good to go. You’re the last one.”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “I’ll give you a few minutes,” John said, pushing back his chair. “This is a big decision.” He left the room, leaving her alone.

  If she signed, she was going to be more independent than she was probably ready to be. No higher-up would be dealing with her accounting, marketing, training, or supplies. The women had all decided they’d pretty much run their businesses independently, just have meetings once a month to discuss the chain’s brand, promotions, and other such things that tied them together. If Mandy signed, she’d basically be an independent business owner. And she didn’t know squat about business.

  But if she didn’t sign, she’d lose everything she’d already put on the line. She’d be someone who chickened out after asking and receiving what she needed in order to pursue her dream.

  She’d never be forgiven. By herself, by the town, or by Frankie. She’d already had a taste of that and it wasn’t something she wanted to live with again.

  Without this deal, she’d have nothing. No money, no job, no friends.

  She pulled the contract closer and considered it. They were her terms with a few reasonable adjustments. But it was going to be a lot of work and a lot of stress.

  She needed to stop thinking and worrying, needed to just shut her eyes and step off the cliff.

  “John?” she called, excitement renewing itself.

  “Yes?” He popped his head around the corner.

  “Let’s do this.”

  20

  Mandy stood outside Frankie’s building and frowned at the bored looking delivery man.

  “Sorry? Can you repeat that?” she asked, cocking her head.