Chapter 5
Magnolia
When I get back to my apartment that I share with my two roommates, I realize I have to tell someone about Nash. I haven’t stopped smiling since I left the parking lot.
I pound my free fist twice against the doorframe, and it frees the lock. I always get annoyed at having to find the right key, so I open it the quicker way.
The apartment building manager has never cared to do anything with our complaints about the broken door, so we simply prop a chair behind the doorknob at night.
When I step inside, I glance at the Roman numeral clock hanging on our living room wall—it’s hiding the four-inch hole that was there when we moved in. It’s barely eleven o’clock in the morning.
Charlie is gone for the day, working, but at least Piper is home and awake, sitting at the counter that acts as a dining room table. She’s holding a big cup of coffee and looking at me in surprise. I’m never home during the day.
“Hey, guess what?” I ask as I relock the door.
“I held a man’s hand! You all thought this girl had no game anymore.
You. Were. Wrong.” I grin as I open the fridge and pull out the pan of cinnamon rolls I made this weekend.
Baking is my happy place. And while Piper and I have a plan to open a restaurant and pub together…
the part I’m most excited about is making delicious baked goods.
“Why are you home?”
“It has to do with holding hands,” I tell her.
“Prove it. When’s your next date?” Piper asks from where she sits at the bar, sipping coffee. She rarely gets up at any early hour since she’s a bartender. Her late-night hours make it hard for us to ever see each other since I have to be at the office by eight a.m.
“No date set,” I admit sadly.
“So, tell me about the man whose hand you held today. Was it your doctor?” she asks with a laugh. “Or a small toddler needing help across the street?”
“I’ll have you know, it was a very handsome, funny man.”
“Funny?” she asks with raised eyebrows. “Like a clown?”
“He had a good sense of humor,” I explain as I grab a glass from the cupboard and the filtered water from the fridge.
“Let me guess. He walked into your company, met your eyes across the way, and then said, I must meet that woman.” Piper ends with a dramatically deep voice.
I pour the water into my glass. “No, he tried to kill me first.”
It’s not often I get to shock Piper, but she’s staring at me with her mouth open.
Finally, she says, “Did you call the police? This isn’t funny, Magnolia.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t like that. The fire alarm went off in the building, and when I went to the small fire escape staircase, he ran into me. We almost went over the railing and fell eight floors down. No big deal.”
“And all of this has to do with you holding his hand?”
“Well, after almost killing me, he felt really bad, and he took my shoes off—”
“Quick mover,” Piper comments.
“And held my hand all the way down the stairs. I realized I really need to do more cardio since I’m pretty sure he was only holding my hand because he thought I was going to pass out.” I grimace as I recall huffing and puffing my way down the stairs with him.
Piper’s face falls flat. “I was expecting a better story than that.”
“But—” But what? How can I explain the attraction I felt for him? Or how the interaction felt like so much more? Or that he was quick-witted and snarky? Those aren’t exactly things I can articulate. I clear my throat and say, “But I get the rest of the day off, so that’s kind of fun.”
Piper lifts her coffee mug in a salute. “Now, that is a good story.”
I plop a cinnamon roll onto a plate for myself, then grab a second plate when I see Piper lick her lips.
“How’s that no-sugar diet going?” I ask as I grab two forks.
Two days ago, Piper went on a rant about how she wasn’t going to eat any sweets anymore. She told me that sugar was a drug and was ruining her life. I personally find sugar to be a bright spot in my life. But I want to love and support Piper. She needs me.
“Well, it’s gone. I drank a virgin margarita after my shift last night.”
“That’s not that much sugar, right?”
Piper shrugs and holds up her fingers as though counting something off. “I chased it down with three doughnuts.”
Maybe I am slightly worried about what that will do to her blood sugar, but me being judgmental won’t help anything. “It’s the only wise choice. Have a cinnamon roll.”
Piper frowns and taps her fingernails on the counter. “That would be too much sugar, even for me, in a twelve-hour period. Do you suppose I should do a juice fast?”
“Don’t you suppose that’s super unhealthy?” I ask as I stab a fork into a cinnamon roll and take a bite. It melts in my mouth.
“But I can’t shake these ten pounds I’ve gained!”
I wish I could wrap her up in a hug and tell her she looks perfect the way she is, but Piper’s not big on physical affection or reassuring words.
“Why do you need to shake them?”
“Because I used to weigh less.” She sighs and slumps forward, staring longingly at the cinnamon roll I’m already halfway through eating.
“Piper, what you weighed when you were fourteen is not your lifetime weight. It fluctuates. Eat food that’s good for you.
Enjoy a treat.” I hold up a bite of cinnamon roll.
“Exercise. Eat a vegetable. Do the healthy things, but quit thinking you need to fit into jeans you wore before you finished going through puberty. That’s enough of that. ”
Piper smirks. “Thanks for the TED Talk.”
“No problem. Now, if you don’t start taking my advice, I’ll have to charge you a therapy fee. I only give out free advice if you actually listen to it.”
She sticks out her tongue at me. Piper’s an only child, but she acts like the youngest of six.
“I’ll be right back. I’m putting comfy clothes on.
” I walk back to the tiny bedroom I have all to myself.
I fit a full-sized bed in here with a five-drawer dresser.
There’s no closet, so I made my own clothes lines with Command Hooks to hang up my clothes.
Sitting on top of my dresser is a frame with several wires strung across it.
I have pictures clipped on with tiny clothespins.
Pictures of my parents, my siblings, Rowan of course is sticking his tongue out in the family photo.
There’s a picture of Piper, Charlie, and me hiking Smith Rock on a one-hundred-degree day.
I also have a picture of my friends from high school.
We don’t even talk anymore, but they were a big part of my life then.
Then to the side, there’s my vision board.
There’s a picture of a house on a hill and one of a rustic building that could be a distillery or a bakery.
All of the pictures are of where I’ve come from and where I want to be.
It seems silly to some people, but I want to find a small town to make my home.
I want to fall in love and have a family.
I want to start a restaurant with Piper.
And then I just want to enjoy those things.
I don’t want to keep climbing. I want to be content and enjoy friendship and family for the rest of my days.
For having my dreams called ‘silly’ by past friends, they’ve sure been hard to achieve.
I turn away from the board and slip out of my work clothes and into a pair of yoga pants and an oversized sweater. We’re too cheap to turn the heat up in this ratty apartment.
My phone rings, and I walk out to the kitchen where I left it sitting on the counter.
I pick it up, reading the number on the screen.
It says it’s a call from Ontario, Oregon.
I don’t know anyone there, so I figure it’s a spam call.
I hit the silent button and let it go to voicemail.
My boss never calls me, so I don’t worry that it’s something related to that.
Isabel Conwell only ever sends emails. She likes the corporate life and likes everything to feel very official.
“You amaze me.” Piper shakes her head.
“Why, thank you.” Maybe my little speech helped her feel better.
“Doesn’t your curiosity ever get the best of you?” She points at my now-silent phone.
“Nearly every day.”
“But you didn’t answer your phone.”
“Well, my curiosity doesn’t care about who calls me,” I say with a laugh. “I’m more curious if we could get a pepper whiskey to turn out.”
Piper grins at that. “Only one way to know for sure!”
“We’ll have to give it our best shot then,” I say with a laugh.
“I don’t work this coming Sunday. Want to start mixing?”
The pub where Piper works has given us an internship opportunity to learn more about the distilling process. Internship is a very loose term because they’ve given us free rein in their facilities. And we get to experiment and create. They’ve even sold some of our creations in their restaurant.
“Yes!”
“Okay, let’s figure out our recipes right now since we have time before my shift starts. I’ll grab the recipe book,” Piper says as she jumps up to grab a big notebook where we’ve handwritten everything we’ve attempted. The book is nearly full now.
And then we sit down together and brainstorm what we think should comprise a good pepper whiskey. We note what we enjoy about other pepper whiskeys and the flavors they bring out.
This is fun. Not running errands for a tyrant.
But having fun inventing, experimenting, and creating.
This is what I want to do with my life. Now if only I’ll have the courage to tell Piper I would rather only do the distilling at the distillery.
I would much rather only do the creating part and let her run the customer side.
Then there’s the part where my secret dream to run a bakery is still rolling around in my head.
I just don’t know how to make that a reality when I’ve already committed to starting another business with my friend.
Baking sounds like a cliché, but there’s nothing I enjoy more.
I have zero corporate dreams, and it shocks a lot of people when they hear that. I don’t want to climb the ambition ladder. I want to stand on a nice, sturdy step stool and enjoy the view from there.