Chapter 4 #2
Once she’d done a partnership with a deli in Torrington to provide readymade sandwiches, but they’d been so expensive and if no one bought them on the day, she’d had to throw them out or eat them herself—and the loss.
She’d eaten way too many Italian subs and had gained ten pounds as an added kicker.
Experimenting could be expensive. And she’d long ago learned not to try to be something you’re not, which was why she was so resistant to gussying up the mercantile like it was a Litchfield deli.
No, she’d have to think of something else… she just didn’t know what yet.
Suppressing the sigh that came too readily to her lips, Jenna opened the door to Your Turn Next, surprised by just how many people were up for Scrabble and Nacho Night.
Her friend Liz, who ran Midnight Fashion, Starr’s Fall’s premier—and only—fashion boutique, was there, already swilling what looked like a margarita.
The boardgame café didn’t have a liquor license but customers were allowed to bring their own, and Maggie generously didn’t even charge a corkage fee.
Liz looked like she’d made about four liters of margaritas, judging by the filled soda bottles on the floor next to her.
Annie was there too, with her boyfriend Mike, both of them taking up the whole of a three-seater sofa.
Jenna also spied Joshua and Laurie, a couple so cute they surpassed nauseating and went straight to sublime.
Jenna would have been envious except she was too happy for them—Laurie and Joshua had both suffered some seriously hard knocks in their lives, with Joshua’s mother dying when he was a teen and Laurie growing up in foster care.
How could anyone begrudge them their happiness?
Maggie’s fifteen-year-old son Ben was hanging out with some of his friends from high school, including Bella Harper, whose parents Lizzy and Michael, new to the town a few years ago, ran the bakery The Rolling Pin.
Jenna half-wondered if a romance might one day bloom there; love was in the air for lots of people, it seemed, just not for her.
“Hey, Jenna,” Maggie greeted her warmly from behind the counter. “What can I get you? Latte, cappuccino, mocha…?”
“Margarita,” Jenna decided. “If Liz is sharing.”
“She certainly brought enough,” Maggie replied with a twinkle in her eye.
Maggie was another person Jenna was glad to see so happy.
She’d moved to Starr’s Fall back in January, a year after she’d been widowed.
She and her son Ben had so clearly been bruised by life, and it had been Jenna’s own brother Zach, ten years younger than Maggie and a gamer like Ben, who had helped them to heal.
Zach and Maggie had been a couple now for coming on three months, and they tended always to look very loved up.
But Jenna wasn’t envious. Oh, no. She gave Maggie a quick smile before plopping down on the sofa next to Liz. Liz was divorced, happily bitter about it since her husband had run off with another woman and she’d lost their marital home to boot. She was also a wonderful gossip.
“Hey, Liz,” Jenna greeted her. “Mind if I have some of that margarita?”
“Of course!” As ever, Liz sounded ebullient. “Small, medium, or large?”
“What do you think?”
Liz hooted as she reached for a big red plastic cup. “That kind of day?”
“That kind of life,” Jenna replied before she could think better of it as Liz started to pour.
“Oh now, now, none of that,” Liz admonished sternly as she handed Jenna a very full cup. “If women like us start in on the self-pity, there’s no pulling us back from the brink.”
Jenna paused mid-sip as she stared at Liz.
Women like us? Liz was fifty-three. Jenna was thirty-nine, just last month.
She’d had a birthday dinner at The Starr Light with Annie, Zach, Maggie, Laurie, and Joshua, and it had been very nice indeed.
She might be getting older, but Jenna didn’t like how Liz had just lumped them together like they were in a postmenopausal divorcee club together.
Was that how everyone in Starr’s Fall saw her? Not that she minded being lumped with Liz, not exactly anyway. Liz was svelte, elegant, with diamonds or pearls always winking in her ears, her hair in a glossy silver bob. But still… Jenna wasn’t quite there yet, was she?
“I didn’t know you liked to play Scrabble,” she remarked to Liz, in an effort to change the subject, as well as the nature of her thoughts.
“I don’t,” Liz replied blithely. “But there’s a very eligible bachelor who likes to play, so I thought, why not?” She waggled her eyebrows as she gave a playful shrug.
A very eligible bachelor? Jenna felt that space between her shoulder blades prickle with suspicion. “And who might that be?” she asked in as neutral a tone as she could manage.
“His name is Jack Wexler and apparently he’s good-looking and loaded,” Liz replied with enthusiastic alacrity. She was always eager to dish the gossip, and this was clearly a motherload. “Made a fortune on Wall Street as a venture capitalist and then moved here.”
Jenna made some sort of scoffing sound. “So what’s he doing in Starr’s Fall?” And why, she wondered, was she so surprised that Jack Wexler was still here? He’d said he’d moved here, after all. Just because she hadn’t seen him didn’t mean he’d disappeared. She’d just stupidly hoped he had.
Sort of, anyway, because the truth was, over the course of the summer Jenna had done a number of covert looks around whenever she’d been out and about in town, wondering if she’d glimpse those distinctive Nantucket Red khakis, that head of nut-brown hair.
Not sure what she’d do or even how she’d feel if she did see him, but in any case, she never had.
“It’s a nice place to retire to, I guess?” Liz replied with a shrug. “I haven’t met him yet, but I’m hoping tonight’s the night.” She let out a hoot of laughter as she took another sip of her margarita.
“I’ve met Jack Wexler,” Jenna told Liz, simply because she knew it was bound to come out at some point and she’d rather that she was the one to control the information.
“You have?” Liz’s eyes rounded. “I have to say, he seems to be a very private man. I heard that he moved here in June, but no one seemed to see hide nor hair of him until last week, when he started coming in here to play Scrabble.”
“Really?” He hadn’t struck her as the Scrabble type, and she wondered if he’d gone away for the summer, after all.
“How did you meet him?” Liz asked.
“He came into Miller’s Mercantile back in June.” Jenna congratulated herself for not adding that he’d acted like a complete jerk.
“Oh, of course …” Understanding lit Liz’s eyes.
“ That was Jack Wexler. Makes sense.” Clearly she’d heard the gossip, which came as no surprise.
“Not quite the place for smoked salmon, is it?” she remarked teasingly, which stupidly stung, just a little.
Liz was only pointing out the obvious, but Jenna would have rather she phrased it differently, more along the lines of how Annie had reacted, thinking Jack Wexler was an idiot for wanting salmon in the first place.
Not, of course, that there was anything wrong with wanting salmon…
which maybe she should have considered when Jack Wexler had walked into her store asking for it.
Goodness, but she was feeling muddled about everything, and she’d only had one sip of margarita.
“So you think Jack Wexler is going to come tonight?” she asked Liz.
“Zach said he was. They’ve become buddies, apparently. Jack plays Scrabble with him.”
Her brother played Scrabble with Jack Wexler?
And hadn’t thought to mention it? Especially when she’d complained about Jack Wexler after their first interaction back in June?
Although, come to think about it, that was probably why he hadn’t mentioned it.
In any case, after that showdown in The Starr Light, Jenna was pretty sure tongues had wagged for some time about the mysterious Jack Wexler and why he wasn’t welcome.
Zach probably hadn’t mentioned it because he hadn’t wanted to incur her ire.
She could, Jenna knew, be a little grumpy sometimes, especially with her brother.
“Hmm,” was all she said to Liz, and she took a large sip of margarita. She couldn’t quite figure out how she felt about seeing Jack Wexler again. He probably wouldn’t remember her, she told herself, even as she suspected he would. And would he be as rude as he had been before? Would she ?
Whatever happened, it would be in front of half of Starr’s Fall, which was a less than appealing prospect. She’d prefer her dramas play out privately, if they had to happen at all.
Maybe she’d ignore Jack Wexler, Jenna thought, only to realize that could come across as passive-aggressive.
No, she’d take the high road, she decided, as she’d meant to when she’d first met him, and be perfectly polite, maybe even friendly, if she could manage it.
She’d be friendly first , so he couldn’t claim he’d been the one to extend an olive branch.
Which was kind of a competitive way to think about it, but so what? She’d still be friendly.
Satisfied with this, Jenna sat back and took another sip of her margarita, only to nearly choke on it when she saw who was already walking through the door of the café.
Wearing khakis, a pressed button-down shirt in Oxford blue under a gray fleece vest, it was Jack Wexler himself, in the flesh…
looking as rich and privileged and hot as ever.