Chapter Twenty-Three
My dinner-party planning stress fades into pleased relief when Randy and I recap the event to the Ryser Cares office the following Monday morning.
Amid Jen’s laughter, Tessa’s delighted interest in learning about Meg’s true place of residence, and Arun’s awestruck joy at the news of how many VIP packages we sold, my memory of the dinner party grows softer around the edges, transforming from a night of stress to a sparkling evening of good food, Greenstead gossip, and hard-won accomplishment.
Arun sends out the VIP agreements, and it’s another relief when all six come back signed, promised payments made in full.
I tell Arun I’m sorry it’s not enough to afford Art McKenzie, he smiles and shrugs it off, and I feel deliciously at peace with what feels like the most satisfying lie I’ve ever told.
My next challenge is getting the rest of the money, but I give myself a break from worrying. I deserve a little more time holding on to that peaceful feeling.
I only get two days, though. On Wednesday morning, as I’m drinking an iced pumpkin chai latte and working my way through the daily crossword on my phone, Arun disappears into the meeting room in the back for a call, which isn’t out of the ordinary.
He’ll use the room sometimes for lengthy calls with suppliers—or with Walt, who tends to talk his ear off.
But when he returns from this one, he’s a different person, strutting to his desk with his laptop tucked under one arm and a proud grin on his face.
“Guess who I was just talking to,” he says.
“Walt?” Tessa guesses from the kitchen. After hearing about my failed attempt to bake with Bertram’s Honey Mustard apple, she’s been doing some experimenting with them.
“Nope.” Arun sets his laptop down and hops onto his desk. “That was Art McKenzie.”
Jen and Randy look up. Tessa peeks her head out from the kitchen down the hall. My stomach tenses.
“Why were you talking to Art McKenzie?” I ask, growing fearful of the answer.
“Because he’s performing at the apple festival,” he reveals.
Tessa gasps, Jen squeals, and my brain doesn’t know how to process this.
“But…how?” I ask.
“I negotiated. He was willing to take less if his set was more magic than music. Not ideal, but…we got him. You put in all that effort trying to get the money, and we were so close. I didn’t want it to go to waste.
” His eyes are shining, and his words are so sincere, and I’m a horrible person for wanting to strangle him.
I agonized over that dinner party for nothing, and now I’m back to square one. I once again need to conjure thousands of dollars, except this time the festival is only three and a half weeks away. All the air in my lungs leaves me in a shuddering breath.
Seeing Arun’s expectant look, I plaster on a thin smile. “Wow,” I say weakly.
I ignore Randy’s sympathetic glance as Arun launches into next steps in words that sound faraway.
He says we’ll pay Art half the money once he signs the agreement and the other half after the festival, and that we’ll need to book Art’s flight and hotel reservation.
He recaps their careful negotiation, how Art was doing sleight-of-hand tricks all throughout the video call, expertly making a coin disappear. A fitting trick, considering.
The office is abuzz with energy after that.
Jen begins creating graphics to advertise Art’s presence, and Tessa ponders how quickly the local news station will update its “Art Alert” segment.
Randy comments that this all hinges on whether Art sends back the signed agreement.
And as I’m finding reassurance in Randy’s words and hoping Art proves himself a flaky disappointment, Arun’s computer unhelpfully chimes with an email.
Within seconds, Arun cheers that Art is an official part of our apple festival.
As the others celebrate, Randy edges over to my desk, where I’m doggedly staring at the crossword puzzle on my phone, trying to think of a seven-letter city in Silicon Valley.
“What do you want to do about this?” Randy asks quietly. “How can I help?”
I look up with a listless shrug. “It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll figure it out.” When Randy hesitates, I add, “I’ll think of something. Don’t worry about it.”
Randy’s not convinced, but I don’t have the mental capacity to reassure him any more than that. I go back to my phone, and I enter in San Jose , and Randy gives up and returns to his desk.
I do intend to think of something, when I’m more capable. Yet I start slipping into procrastination instead, deciding I’ll figure it out the next day, then the next. Somewhere along the way, that procrastination turns into blissful, numb denial.
The apple festival has been largely hypothetical in my mind, anyway. For so long, it’s been an idea, a concept. Something we discuss and plan for that hasn’t actually come into fruition—which makes it all too easy for me to downplay the realities of what I’m up against.
Yes, I need to come up with the money we lost—again—but no one’s stopping me from continuing on with the festival preparations.
We’re still sending our vendors email updates, hanging up flyers, approving brochures.
No one bats an eye when I suggest removing the Ryser name and logo from the festival signage and make up a lie about getting Amanda’s approval to keep the festival Greenstead-centric.
There’s nothing to doubt. This is normal.
Business as usual. I carry on acting like everything’s fine and the world keeps on turning.
Until Jen gets a call one drizzly Friday morning in early October while I’m settling into my desk with a mug of tea.
“It’s Waterfront Party Rentals,” she says, walking up to my desk with her phone in hand. “They said the card was declined.”
My head shoots up. Behind Jen, Randy glances over with worry. I rifle through my mind for a response.
“Right,” I say, like I’m just remembering something. “Amanda said they’re sending us a new corporate card. There was some kind of security issue with the old one.”
Jen nods, seeming to accept this. “They need the deposit for the chair and table rentals by Monday. Would you mind letting them know how we’re handling the payment?” She holds up her phone.
“Sure.” I bring her phone to my ear, even though I want to toss it across the room and hide in my delusion for a while longer. Jen stands by as I recite my excuse and promise to have the deposit by Monday.
“So you’re getting the new card by Monday?” Jen asks when I hand the phone back to her.
“Yeah,” I say, “it’s on its way.” The lie is easier the more I repeat it.
When Jen returns to her desk, I catch Randy’s eye again and look away. I’m not interested in being pulled into the panic I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to numb myself to. I want to pretend for as long as I can. I’m good at it.
Later that morning, I volunteer to pick up pretzels for everyone.
I could use some time to clear my head. But being alone with my thoughts makes it worse somehow.
The worries I’ve been avoiding pile up and multiply, and as I lean against the wall at Pretzel in Paradise and wait for my order to be called, I feel more acutely than ever that time is running out.
I have to come up with a thousand dollars for a deposit on the chair and table rentals by Monday.
I can’t put it on my credit card because it’s dangerously close to being maxed out with all the festival-related purchases I’ve put on it already.
And when I called the rental company on my way to the pretzel shop to ask for an extension, they cited their policy and said it wouldn’t be possible.
I could transfer the money from my savings, but touching that would set my FIRE plan back even further.
And what would be the point of all the years I’ve spent working for Ryser and hating myself for it, if I was just going to end up setting my plans back anyway?
The last decade of my life can’t really have been for nothing, can it?
I take the warm paper bag Meg hands me when my name is called.
I thank her when she tells me she threw in a few samples of her new cheddar jalapeno pretzel bites.
As I pass through the exit and into the brisk autumn air, I turn around and stare at the cute Pretzel in Paradise storefront with its cartoon images of flavored pretzels adorning the window on this otherwise deserted block.
And I wonder, will Meg and her pretzel shop that Mayor Bradley called the cornerstone of the community be able to thrive and stay in business in the years to come?
Or will this place, too, fall into disrepair, just like the ghosts of the shops that used to be next to it?
Like the community center is surely destined for, and all the other places that used to be beloved in Greenstead?
I’m so in my head when I return to the Ryser Cares office that it takes me a few seconds to notice the office is empty.
A smell hangs in the air, something fruity yet savory, and there are voices coming from somewhere.
I walk past our empty desks and peek into the meeting room—empty—then the kitchen.
It’s there that I find Tessa standing at the stove, stirring a pot of brown goop as the others look on.
Arun’s sitting on the counter, Jen stands at the stove beside Tessa, and Randy’s washing a cutting board in the sink.
“She’s here,” Arun sings when he spots me.
“What’s this?” I ask.
Tessa turns to me with a proud smile. “Okay. This might be my most promising mustard apple attempt yet.”
The memory of her last attempt—a sour-tasting cinnamon apple cake—makes my taste buds cower. I take a closer look at the goop. “What…is it?”