Chapter 3
WINNIE
Ihave never been a small girl in any sense of the word. Not my personality, not my dress size.
So I am definitely not obsessing over the ill-fated interaction with The Guy who shall henceforth be known as Fitz the Douche.
After he left, I went over that paperwork with a fine-tooth comb. I was an investment banker in a previous life, after all, and I know how to read a real estate contract.
I bet Fitz thinks he’s really in control, like it was a big gotcha.
Like I’m some down-on-her-luck baker who’s about to lose her grandmother’s café.
Well, guess what? My gran has ADHD and a gambling problem, and I have financial literacy and a credit card, so I’m not crawling and begging some man to take care of me.
Especially not one who has socks with pink llamas on them.
I am a franchised bitch, and this is why I typically buy my own property. My other Brew & Browse locations are doing great. And I’m not selling those land parcels to anyone, so he can come try me.
Sure, the lease deal for this spot was pretty sweet and came with a big tenant improvement package, but I don’t care.
I’ll pivot. Every wannabe real estate developer in this city is always looking to offer a sweet deal to a proven franchise. They all need some sort of café to sell as a perk of their “luxury” apartment complex. I’ll pack up this location and go somewhere else in the city.
Somewhere Fitz doesn’t own.
“This is why we have fuck-you money,” I remind Fidget, who is trying and failing to lick her belly in the front seat of the car.
“Bullet dodged, because this could have turned into a ’90s-romance-movie level of a shit show.
I mean, would you believe me dating a billionaire to save my failing café?
” I bark a laugh. “Honestly, let it fail—then I don’t have to remind Olive for the thousandth time where we keep the oat milk. ”
On the radio, a teenager is singing about finding her perfect dungeon prince.
I change the station.
The same song plays on the next one and the next, because apparently every radio station in this city is owned by the same unimaginative person.
Fitzgerald Svensson. The bastard kicking me out of my café.
“It’s fine. Everything is fine. This is a blip. No problem a little money can’t fix.” I reach out to pet Fidget. She can’t see my hand coming around the cone and yelps in surprise.
I listen to the sound of the rain on the roof of my car. I drive home in stop-and-go traffic, the windshield wipers hypnotic. I love rainy Seattle weather. That’s why I moved here.
Today, though, it just feels a little… depressing.
Lonely.
I had goals when I moved out to the West Coast—the handsome hubby, the dog, the kids, the beautiful home.
“I have the house and the dog,” I remind myself firmly. “And actually, I have a partial man. Probably the best kind. He doesn’t actually live with me, but he leaves me stuff and cleans my bathroom.” I turn onto my street.
“Anyway, I like living alone. After sharing a bedroom with a sister my entire life, this is luxury. We’re going to have a cozy rainy evening.”
I’m looking forward to whatever my stalker has left in my fridge. I’m pretty sure he also filled up the gas tank in my car at some point in the night.
Carolina calls as I’m pulling into my driveway.
“It’s just embarrassing, is all,” I tell Carolina as I half carry Fidget into the house, who does not like it when her paws touch wet grass, concrete, or leaves.
“I’m a businesswoman. I should have known a guy wearing a Patek Philippe watch and hanging around a café carefully branded to appeal to women was up to no good. I’m losing my touch.”
I take a deep breath. Nothing better than a freshly cleaned house. There’s even a single rose in a vase.
“Nooo! You were meant to be a baker!” I can hear her chewing a pastry.
“I should have been researching the shit out of him. Instead, I reverted to old me, just pining for a chance to see him. All while he was plotting my downfall.” I hang my coat up in the coat closet.
Wow, did he reorganize?
“You said yourself this was more of a marketing location anyway, right?” Carolina swallows. “I bet you could get a new lease deal tomorrow.”
“Yeah, obviously I can go get another deal.”
Fidget follows me into the kitchen.
“Fuck him. He’s intimidated by a successful woman.”
“Damn right he is,” I holler as I open the fridge. Yum, food.
“But…” A paper bag rustles. “You should still fuck him.”
“Nooo…”
“It’s not cheating on your stalker.”
“That’s not—” I sputter.
“You can’t be in love with a guy who breaks into your house.” I can hear my friend raise an eyebrow.
“Sneaks,” I interject. “He is sneaking in. And you know me—I’m decentering men.”
“You can’t decenter men. You never date,” Carolina argues. “Men have never been central to anything you’ve ever done.”
“Exactly. I’m not the falling-in-love type of woman.”
“Not even with Mr. You’ve Got Mail?”
“That was a terrible movie, and Fitz is way hotter than Tom Hanks ever was or will be.”
Carolina hums.
“And,” I rail as I stomp up the stairs, “Fitz is a douche bro. He does sports.”
“I, too, read his impressive Wikipedia page.”
“He owns sports teams. Multiple. And he played football in college. You know how I feel about athletes.”
“Yeah, all that hard muscle and sinew,” my friend purrs. “You can get off humping that weird bulging muscle in their lower thigh.”
“I am not falling in love. I have too much self-respect. And I’m especially never falling in love with Fitzgerald, of all people.”
“Yeah, you’re so happy being alone you get turned on by a guy breaking into your house and touching your things.”
“If he wants to do my laundry, I am empowering men to take on feminine-coded tasks. Cleaning is gender-neutral. And—” I grab my laptop. “It’s not like he’s touching my money or anything. Besides, there’s lobster mac ’n’ cheese in my fridge in the cutest little casserole dish. It’s pink!”
“What? They make those pink?”
I send Carolina a photo after we get off the phone, tie my shaggy cut up into a high ponytail, then slip into the shower.
The warm water’s relaxing after the chill of the rainy day. I had this house renovated before I moved in. I breathe in the steam from the fresh eucalyptus bundles my ghostly stalker left in the shower, the white marble gleaming.
It’s my dream shower in my dream bathroom. I even have a plant in the window.
The towels are brand-new. Egyptian cotton. I disappear into one and step into the terry-cloth slippers waiting next to the fluffy bath mat.
My stalker left me some little moisturizer samples. I swoon at the note written on what looks like handmade cream-colored paper. I smell it—that scent of ink and oil and leather I’ve come to associate with him.
I float down the stairs.
“Ah, living alone!” I open up the fridge and pour a crisp Diet Coke over the good ice from the ice machine I put in my dream kitchen.
“You work hard, and you reward yourself,” I tell Fidget as the pasta heats up. “This is what it’s all for.”
The border collie looks up at me from under her cone and sadly taps the little brass bell next to her food bowl.
“You ate already. You ate all day. And everyone snuck you snacks. You’re on a diet. And don’t eat any more of my socks.”
Ring, ring, ring, ring.
I pick up the bell. The dog starts tapping on the empty food bowl.
“No.”
Fidget sighs heavily as I pick up her bowl and dump it in the sink.
It’s a magic sink. I just leave dirty dishes in there, and someone else takes care of them.
“This is why men want a wife, isn’t it?” I blow on the steaming pasta as I settle down on my oversized couch spread with an oversized comforter. “And a glass of wine. Actually…” I grab the whole bottle of wine. “All the wine. The new Netflix Jane Austen adaptation. It’s a perfect evening.”
All alone.
“Just how I like it,” I say firmly to the empty living room.
The border collie is rummaging out in the kitchen. I pour another glass of wine and try to ignore her, focusing on girls on TV with good hair and pretty dresses and men who are obsessed with them.
There’s clanking, then Fidget trundles out into the living room with an empty mixing bowl and a spatula.
“No, Fidget.” I start on my strawberry-cream pastry for dessert.
A bag of flour lands on my lap.
“Oof! Seriously, I’m not making you cookies. Fidget, put that back. You’re supposed to use that intelligence to herd sheep, not beg for food.”
The border collie dumps a bag of peanut butter chips on my chest and howls.
The doorbell rings.
“I swear, if you ordered DoorDash again,” I warn the dog as she runs excitedly to the door, “we are done. I’m shipping you to Minnesota. Kathy can put you on the WAG diet. Then you’ll really be upset.”
As I walk to the front door, out of the corner of my eye, I think I see a shadowy figure in the window, briefly illuminated by the light from the headlights of the car trying and failing to parallel park on the narrow, steep Seattle street.
“Oh no. No, no, no!”
Fidget woofs happily as the doorbell rings again.
“Absolutely not. What the fucking—Hi, Mom! What a”—terrible—“wonderful surprise!”
My mom sniffs as I throw the door open. “Winifred. Something horrible has happened.”
“Oh no, is it Dad? Did something happen? Why didn’t you call me?” I feel sick and rush out of the house.
“Worse.” My mom dabs her eyes.
“Granny?”
My mom sighs. “No, the Lord unfortunately did not see fit to take her during the road trip.” By the sour set of my mother’s mouth, it’s obvious that would have been the preferred solution.
I hear Gran and my dad arguing down the hill.
“No, it’s Kathy.”
“Oh… no… that’s horrible. What happened? I mean, Kathy and I had our differences, but gosh, to lose a sister—”
“Winnie!” My sister, eyes puffy red, a big floppy hat on her head, in ridiculously high heels, stumbles across my lawn to me and throws herself in my arms. “It’s awful. He broke up with me. Knox left me.” She sobs.