Thirty-Three Going On Girlfriend (The Spinster Series Book 2)

by Becky Monson

  My phone rings. Finally, Jared. I tell Anna I’ll be right back and walk out of the dressing room.

  Okay, Julia, time to put on your big-girl pants.

  “Where have you been?” I ask, not even saying hello. I seek out the closest exit to the department store we are in and go outside.

  “Is everything okay?” he asks, sounding a little panicked.

  “Yes. Well, no. I mean, I’m annoyed that I haven’t heard or spoken to you since early yesterday,” I say boldly, which is not something I normally do.

  “Are you serious?” he says, frustration ringing through his tone. “Julia, my phone wasn’t working, and then suddenly I got a bunch of texts and voicemails from you. I thought something horrible happened.”

  “Well, sorry to disappoint. It was just me, freaking out over this whole thing,” I say, not meaning to say it, or at least not like that. But it’s out there now.

  “What do you mean, this whole thing?” he asks, sounding even more put off.

  “This whole thing—you, me, this long-distance thing,” I say, somewhat loudly.

  “Julia, it’s been a long day at work. Are you seriously going to be mad at me because I haven’t been able to call you for a day?” Now he’s the one talking loudly. “Is this about Kirsten? I told you not to worry—”

  “No,” I cut him off, stopping him there. I’m not worried about Kirsten. There are bigger things I’m worried about. “It’s not about her, and it’s been more than a day since you called.”

  “Julia—”

  “It’s not just that. Don’t you think it’s a sign of things to come?” I say, trying to keep my voice steady and calm. “If we can’t even communicate on a regular basis in the first two weeks, if things are already tapering off now, what happens next?” Water starts to gather in the corners of my eyes.

  “I think you’re being totally irrational right now,” he says.

  That actually quiets me for a few seconds, as I count the days to make sure I’m not PMSing and that this isn’t just a hormonal rage. When I realize it’s not, my heart sinks. This is coming from me and only me. No hormones involved. This is how I really feel.

  “I’m not being irrational. I just feel like—”

  “Like what?” he cuts me off.

  “Like this isn’t going to work.” I say flatly. I don’t want to say it, but now it’s out there. All of the stories and the Googling and the ex-girlfriend and the hexing have brought me to this point. Now it’s his turn to tell me why I’m wrong.

  Instead, it’s just quiet.

  “Well,” he finally says, “if you’re already thinking that way and it hasn’t even been two weeks, then maybe you’re right.”

  Okay, so that was a pretty crappy way of telling me I’m wrong.

  “Julia,” he says in a quieter tone, “I’ve had a rough day. It sounds like you have had one, too. Let’s not do this over the phone.”

  I don’t say anything. Mostly because the tears that were gathering are now sprouting from my eyes. I’m basically a sprinkler at this point.

  “I’ll be there in a week for Anna’s wedding. We can talk about it then, okay?”

  “Okay,” is all I can say.

  “Let’s just take some time to cool off and think about things. We’ll talk when I get there.”

  “Okay,” is still all I can say.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he says and then hangs up.

  Well, that . . . was not good. Actually, it was horrible. I don’t know what I was expecting from this conversation, but it certainly wasn’t that.

  CHAPTER 21

  Currently, I’m having fake discussions in my mind with Anna and Brown over what to do about my crumbling relationship with Jared. I don’t actually know if it’s crumbling. We haven’t spoken in four days. Four days, two hours, and twenty-two minutes, to be precise.

  I honestly didn’t think we would really take time to “cool off.” I figured one of us would give in and call the other, only I thought Jared would figure it should me, and I don’t want to be the first one to call back. I think it should be him. After all, this is all his fault. He took the job in New York. He moved far away. He claimed we would be fine. He forgot to tell me about Kirsten. He got caught up in his new life and lessened the lines of communication. It was all him.

  Okay, and it was some of me—my mind, my Googling, my witchy clients. Mostly my mind. What can I say? I’m naive when it comes to relationship stuff. That’s why my fake conversations with Brown and Anna have started happening.

  The verdict so far? They are both telling me to jump ship before my heart breaks even more, to rip the Band-Aid off fast rather than a slow-form-of-torture rip. Long-distance relationships don’t work, especially ones with no end in sight. That is what my fake conversations with my two most-trusted confidants are amounting to.

  So I’m taking their fake advice into account, as well as my own feelings, which are confusion mixed with doubt mixed with heartbreak mixed with the desire to eat something chocolate. I seriously wish chocolate would magically fix things. I always think it will, but the only thing it does is temporarily relieve me of my stress. Very temporarily.

  I don’t want things to end with Jared. That is the truth. I also know I have to protect myself, and if the signs are there, that might just be what I do. Protect me. But I’m not making any rash decisions. I’m going to wait until he gets here tomorrow. We will have a conversation—one in which he tells me he can’t live without me and is moving back. (That’s the chick-flick version of what I’ve come up with.) Yes, I’ve been having fake conversations with Jared, as well.

  For now, I have to focus on Anna’s cake. Tomorrow is the rehearsal dinner and with all of the wedding-y things I have to do tomorrow, I need to be ahead of the game. Tonight I’m making the cakes. Then I’ll cool them and put them in the walk-in. Tomorrow I’ll fill and frost them while Patti works on décor, which is going to be a mix of fresh flowers (roses) and gum paste flowers (that’s where Patti comes in). On Saturday, Patti and Debbie will deliver and assemble the cakes. I could not have done this without them.

  The bakery is totally my sanctuary, especially at night when I’m the only one here. Although there have been moments when I’ve heard things. One night in particular, I practically ran out screaming (and by practically, I mean I actually did), because I swear a psycho killer was hiding behind the front counter. I may or may not have watched a scary movie the night before.

  I’m listening to the radio while I make the fillings and the frosting. I’ve got it on that cheesy Delilah station. Although I find her normally soothing voice rather grating right now, the music tends to be on the side of sappy and that’s all I feel like listening to. It reminds me of high school when I found out my crush was dating another girl. I think I listened to “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion about one hundred times.

  Oh, joy of joys. And now on Delilah, because karma truly has a sense of humor, some guy named Tony is sending out a dedication to his girlfriend who’s far away, and he knows “they will be together soon.” Really, Tony? Will you? And even if you are, will it all work out? Don’t be so frickin’ naive, Tony.

  There’s a leftover chocolate chip cookie in the walk-in, calling my name.

  ~*~

  I get up early Friday morning to go to the bakery. Today Jared arrives. I’m sort of freaking out, honestly. Every time I think about it, my heart races a little. Has he cooled off? Have I cooled off? I don’t feel very cooled off, myself.

  I can hear arguing as I make my way back to the kitchen from the front. Patti and Debbie are already at it this morning. I wonder what the argument is today. Yesterday they were arguing over whether okra was a fruit or a vegetable. We had to look it up. Well, Debbie and I did. Patti “knew all along.” Apparently, it’s a fruit, which is what Patti said it was. How dumb of us to question a Southern lady’s knowledge of okra.

  As I walk to the back, something sparkly under one of the tables toward the front of the
store catches my eye. I squat down to get a closer look. It’s a hair clip, a silvery, butterfly hair clip. I pick it up and take it into the kitchen with me.

  “Debbie, I think you dropped this,” I say as I walk into the back and hand the clip over to Debbie. I knew exactly who it belonged to. What surprises me is that no one found it the night before when we were cleaning up. Maybe we need a checklist to make sure we are getting everything clean before we close up.

  I glance over at Debbie. A bright red flush starts from her neck and travels quickly up to the top of her forehead.

  “I, uh, I must . . . I think it came out when I was cleaning,” she says, stumbling over her words.

  I scrunch my face at her, squinting. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just thought you would want it back.”

  “Yes. I mean, no. I didn’t think you were accusing me. Sorry,” she mumbles. She puts the clip in the pocket of her apron and goes back to making dough for what will probably be cinnamon rolls.

  “There ya go again, getting all flustered over somethin’,” Patti says, her big blonde hair bouncing as she shakes her head at Debbie. “What is with you these days?”

  I look over at Debbie because I’ve been wondering the same thing about the blushing all of the time, the weird mumbling, and the talking to herself. The other day I caught her dancing some sort of one-sided waltz in the walk-in cooler. There is definitely something strange going on.

  “Nothing is with me,” Debbie says defensively.

  “Well then stop acting like there is,” Patti says, pointing a long, bony finger in her direction.

  Debbie makes some sort of hmph sound and mutters a couple of things under her breath. She starts the large KitchenAid mixer. The noise covers up anything else Patti might have to say.

  I get to work on the croissants. The goal today is to keep myself busy until Jared gets here, which I don’t even know when that is. Normally I’d know this information. I should text him and find out.

  No, I must be strong. I’m not entirely sure what I’m being strong for. Oh, I’m so confused by everything. Wearing big-girl panties sucks. My own brain is pushing and pulling me from one thought to another. I can’t even bring myself to have a full and complete thought on the matter. Not one that makes me feel better, at least.

  Nothing is making me feel better. Not even chocolate.

  ~*~

  The bell chimes and I look up, which I’ve done at least a hundred times today, hoping that the person walking through the door is Jared. But it hasn’t been him so far. He’s being such a weenie about this whole thing. That’s right, I said weenie. He’s supposed to walk through the door and over to me, pick me up in his arms, and carry me out while the song “Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong” plays in the background.

  Clearly, I’m still envisioning a chick flick ending to all of this.

  He said he would be my date at the rehearsal dinner, so I guess I’ll see him then. At least I hope I’ll see him. So far, Jared has always shown up when he said he would. But I’m not sure about this Jared—the one who needed to “cool off” and is taking his own stupid time doing it. I feel like kicking something.

  I decide to abandon all hope that he will come to the bakery, so I head to the back and start working on the filling and the frosting for Anna’s cake. Patti is in the back working on gum paste flowers for the décor.

  “Ya think you’ve got enough fillin’ there, darlin’?” Patti says, gesturing toward the middle tier of Anna’s cake that I just mindlessly piled filling on. It’s slopping over the sides.

  “Crap!” I yell as I start scooping off as much as I can. I grab a spatula and clean up the sides. If this cake turns out, it will be a miracle. I’ve been absentmindedly making it. Neither my brain nor my heart, has been in it.

  Anna is most certainly going to notice. She’ll notice a hair out of place for this wedding. She’s paid way too much attention to detail. I envision her saying something like “You’ve ruined my cake and my entire wedding! How could you?” I’m not sure how a cake can ruin the entire wedding, but Jared not showing up was going to ruin the seating chart, so I’m betting a botched cake would be way worse.

  Of course, everything is so up in the air right now with Jared, I might actually be ruining the cake and the seating chart after all.

  I hear the door chime, but I’m in the kitchen so I’m unable to look, as I’ve obsessively been doing all day. There’s no point anyway. I’ve given up hope.

  “Julia, someone is here to see you,” Debbie says, raising her eyebrows. I know immediately who’s here, because she gives me the same eyebrow raise every time.

  It’s Jared. He’s here. Why do I feel like I’m going to throw up all of a sudden? It’s just that I’ve spent the last five days completely building up this moment, and most of the time in a fairy-tale kind of way. Who could possibly live up to that?

  I wipe my hands on a towel and take a couple of deep breaths.

  I walk out of the back of the kitchen and into the bright sunlit front of the bakery. The lunch rush is over and a few stragglers are still sitting in the dining area.

  “Hi, Julia,” says someone who’s not Jared.

  “Paul?” I ask, totally confused. What is Brown’s new brother-in-law doing here?

  “Yeah, Paul,” he says, pointing awkwardly at himself.

  “What are you doing here?” I say a little crasser than I mean to. “I mean, how are you?” I try to recover, albeit poorly.

  “I’m doing good,” he says, apparently oblivious to my crassness. “I was just down the street and thought I’d pop in.”

  “Well,” I shake my head to try to get myself out of the disappointment that he’s not Jared, “I’m glad you did.” I give him a smile and hope that it doesn’t look too forced.

  “Can I get you something?” I ask, motioning toward the nearly empty display case behind me. “Sorry, the lunch rush wiped us out.”

  “What about one of those?” Paul says, pointing to a massive chocolate cookie, the only one still left by the register. It’s wrapped in cellophane, with a Julia’s Bakery sticker slapped on the middle. I love those stickers. It makes my heart ache slightly when I see them wadded up in the trashcan. Surprisingly, all anyone ever cares about is what is inside the wrapper, not my beautiful label with my bakery logo on it.

  “Of course.” I smile. This time it’s genuine and not forced. It’s good to see Paul—in an awkward, I-don’t-know-why-you’re-here way, but good nonetheless.

  I walk over to the counter near the register, grab the cookie, and hand it to him.

  “What do I owe you?” he asks, reaching for his wallet.

  “No,” I hold my hand out toward the wallet as he pulls it out of his back pocket. “Don’t worry about it. It’s on the house.”

  “Really?” he says holding up the cookie that’s practically the size of his face.

  “I insist.”

  “Well, then okay,” he gives me a big, dazzling, smile. If my ever-growing annoyance with Jared wasn’t causing me to hate all men at this moment, I’d probably appreciate it more than I do. Right now, it’s just an obviously dazzling smile and that is all.

  “Care to share it with me?” he asks, tilting his head at an empty, two-person table that he’s standing next to.

  “Um,” I say, not really sure. I have things I should be doing, but maybe sitting down with Paul for a few minutes would get my mind off of everything, even for a small while. “Okay,” I say and take a seat.

  “So what are you baking?” he asks, gesturing toward my chest.

  “Huh?” I say, and then peer down at my flour-covered apron, most of the flour in my chest region. There’s a smudge of frosting, or possibly filling, on there as well. Lovely. “Oh, I’m making my sister’s wedding cake, and apparently it’s all over me.”

  He grins. “Your sister?”

  “Yep. My baby sister is getting married. I get the pleasure of making the cake.” I make sure the word pleasure oozes with
sarcasm.

  “Ah. I see,” he says, as he starts ripping open the plastic wrap on the cookie. He’s careful not to rip the label on the front, which I find odd but also appreciate at the same time. “When is the wedding?”

  “Tomorrow. I’ll be glad when it’s over.” I sit back in my chair, attempting to relax a little.

  “Oh, right, you’re the one who hates being in weddings.” He winks at me as he breaks off a small piece of cookie and puts it in his mouth. He breaks off another piece and hands it to me but I decline. I’ve had quite a bit of sweets today, I think. Eating my feelings has only proven to give me a stomachache.

  “As I recall, you hate being in weddings as well,” I say, cocking my head to the side, accusingly.

  “Yes, you would be correct in that recollection,” he says after he swallows the bite of cookie. “I don’t envy you in the slightest.”

  “I don’t envy myself,” I say and half smile.

  “So how does the whole cake making process go?” he asks, breaking off another piece of cookie.

  “You really want to know?” I scrunch my face, confused.

  “Sure. I’ve always been interested in the inner workings of a bakery,” he says, looking around the bakery.

  “Well, I have to go and finish it. You can come watch while you finish that cookie.” I gesture toward the cookie that looks barely touched, even though he’s eaten quite a bit.

  “It could take me a decade to get through this.” He holds it up so that it covers his face.

  I laugh. A real laugh. Not the fake kind I’ve been doing for the majority of the week. It feels good.

  “Okay, come on back,” I say, getting up from my chair.

  He follows me to the back and I show him around the kitchen, introducing him to Patti and Debbie. I get started on the cake and he leans up against the counter not far from me, watching me as I work. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch glances from Debbie and Patti, who both look none-to-pleased by the handsome stranger that has invaded the kitchen, as if his very presence means I’m cheating on Jared.