Chapter 1 #2
Termination details? Like I give a flying eff about termination details right now.
“Can I at least get the stuff from my desk?” I ask, pointing toward the door at the end of the hallway that leads to our offices.
I want my hot-pink water tumbler and the gray sweater I keep hanging on the back of my chair for when the AC makes it really cold in there.
“I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Steve says, shaking his head. “I can send them home for you with Geoff if you like.”
“Don’t bother,” I huff. “Geoff broke up with me last night. I’m moving out.
” My voice rises, and I turn red—I can feel my face heat.
There. Let Steve think about that for a few minutes.
If the event plan was Geoff’s idea, why did he dump me last night?
Only Steve probably assumes Geoff dumped me because I was trying to steal his brilliant idea. Gah.
Steve clears his throat. “Don’t make a scene, Eleanor. You don’t want to burn any bridges, do you?”
Don’t make a scene?
Did he really just say that?
Something breaks inside of me. I don’t give a crap about any bridges, I want to burn down the whole building.
But I will happily start with Steve’s stupid Patagonia vest. I’ve wanted to tell him about those vests for years.
It’s go time . I turn on my heel and stalk toward the elevator yelling, “You’re not a finance bro, Steve! Lose the vests.”
“Best of luck to you, Eleanor,” comes Steve’s calm and still-fake voice from behind me. “I hope you land on your feet.”
To my credit, I resist the urge to reply by lifting a middle finger in the air toward him.
Instead, I wait until the elevator opens and swallows me before I allow the tears to sting my eyes.
Why do tears have to be my visceral reaction to anger?
I don’t want to sob. I want to punch both those jerks in the stomach.
But here are tears, nonetheless. Right on cue.
Determined to keep it together, I tug on the hem of my blazer, clear my throat, and lift my chin.
I blow out a breath and stare at my reflection in the glossy silver elevator door.
It’s a little blurry, but I don’t look like I just got fired.
My straight, brown, shoulder-length hair is on point.
My dark-rose lipstick isn’t smeared, and my hazel eyes might be swimming with tears, but none have fallen. Yet.
I’m hoping to get all the way to the lobby without a stop. I don’t want anyone climbing on the elevator to witness my watery eyes. At least I have my bag and my keys with me. I’m not stopping in HR. I’m not stopping anywhere. I’m going to...
Going to...
Damn it. I can’t go home. It’s not even my home any longer. I’d moved into Geoff’s place, and the lease was in his name. We’d already established last night that I’d be the one moving out. ASAP.
Where am I going now?
The elevator dings at the lobby, and I step out into the wide marbled expanse just as my phone buzzes.
Mom comes up on the screen. I inwardly cringe.
The last thing I want to do is explain to my mother what just happened.
Mom always wanted me to stay home out in Harvest Hollow on Long Island.
To work for the inn she and Dad own. When I was a kid, it’d been fun to think of working with Mom and Dad, but by the time I graduated high school, I was looking forward to a new adventure in the city.
Harvest Hollow is a small town, and the city just seemed so full of possibilities.
And I’d loved it here... until today.
Now that I think about it, Mom had also always warned me about Manhattan being “dog-eat-dog.” I’d dismissed her concerns the same way I did when she told me I needed to have bottles of pepper spray in every drawer in my apartment. I mean, that’s a lot of pepper spray.
But I take a deep breath and answer the phone, because what else do I have to do? “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, Ellie, how are you?”
She insists on calling me Ellie. Everyone at home does. I’d dropped the nickname and started going by Eleanor when I began working at the firm. I thought it sounded more professional. The name of a future partner. “I’m... okay. How’re you?”
“I know you’re busy, but...”
Mom begins every conversation we have this way.
“I know you’re busy, but Mrs. Timkins is having a garage sale this weekend, and I wondered if you wanted to come.
I know you’re busy, but the Harvest Hollow Community Theater is doing The Music Man , and I thought you might enjoy it. ” I always say no. I’m always too busy.
This time, she says, “I know you’re busy, but we need your help with an event.”
Wait. What’s this? “An event ?” I echo. By this time, I’ve walked across the lobby and am staring out the three-story glass windows at Madison Avenue and the morning traffic streaming up it.
I may have just been dumped and fired, but at least it’s a bright sunny day in late September.
Wait. Are those storm clouds in the distance?
Of course they are.
“Yes, your dad and I and the Parkers have entered the inn and orchard into the Autumn Harvest Parade, and this year we thought we’d do an Autumn Harvest Festival out here that same weekend. I told Lyn I’d ask you to help.”
Lyn Parker is the owner of the apple orchard and the rest of the property where my parents’ inn sits.
The Parkers and my parents have been in business together since before I was born, and our families have always been close.
I’d been raised alongside their two kids, Aiden and Charlotte.
Aiden is a year older than me, and Charlotte is several years younger.
I think she was in eighth grade the year I graduated high school.
As kids, Aiden and I had been tight in that way all kids who are thrown together because of their parents’ friendship are.
But once we’d hit high school, the differences in our personalities had become obvious.
I’d been more of a student-council, straight-A, homecoming-court type, and Aiden had been more of a Future Farmers of America sort.
I think he was also the president of the Wood Shop Club or something like that.
He never went to school dances or participated in anything fun.
I’d gone off to college in the city, and Aiden had.
.. I’m not really sure. But the last I’d heard, he’d come back to live in our hometown and works on the orchard farming the trees.
And Charlotte works there too. Somewhere.
I hadn’t really kept tabs since moving away.
“I told Lyn not to get her hopes up,” Mom continues.
I frown. “What does that mean?”
“You know. You’re busy, dear. I understand.”
I am busy. Or at least I had been, the dozens of other times Mom had called and asked me to participate in the hometown hominess of Harvest Hollow, New York.
But at the moment, I am decidedly free.
.. and without a place to live. Which means I can go out and stay at the inn under the guise of helping Mom and Dad without having to admit I’ve been fired and dumped just yet. I’ll work my way up to that confession.
“You’re in luck, Mom!” I say. “I just finished a big project, and I’m free for a little while.” Best to be vague.
“You are?” Mom’s voice sounds delighted and shocked. Which makes guilt slither through me.
“Yep.”
“Oh, wonderful. You can stay in the attic apartment, of course,” Mom says.
The attic apartment is a two-bedroom place at the top of the inn all tucked up under the eaves.
It’s cute and cozy, and smells of sweet cinnamon and cloves, just like the rest of the inn does.
And I always stay there when I come home.
Which, admittedly, isn’t often. But I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad built it for me to live in after college. So, I think of it as mine.
“When can you be here?” Mom asks next.
“How about tonight?” Might as well get going.
It’s not like I have the money to stay at a hotel.
I’ll have to use my savings to get another apartment and pay for things until I find a new job.
The only other option is my best friend, Maria, who has a tiny studio in Chelsea.
She would definitely let me crash on the couch, but her hospitality would come with a side of I-told-you-so.
She’s always hated Geoff, especially the way he spells his name.
I have pointed out numerous times that it’s his parents’ spelling, not his, but she insists it doesn’t matter.
“Tonight?” Mom says in a flabbergasted voice, as if I’d just told her she’d won the HGTV dream house, which, by the way, she enters to win every year. “That’s wonderful, dear. Your dad and I are going to the Moose Lodge tonight, but the apartment key will be at the front desk for you.”
The Moose Lodge is our town’s hottest venue for residents of a certain age (and Donny Briggs, the bellhop at the inn). Mom and Dad (and Donny) never miss bingo night at the lodge. Though Donny is the only person under the age of fifty who participates.
“Sounds good, Mom. I’ll catch the train out tonight. I should be there by nine.”
“Oh, honey. Your father’s going to be so excited. Lyn and Kevin too.”
I’m pretty sure the Parkers don’t care whether I show up. But I don’t bother pointing this out to Mom. Instead, I thank my lucky stars that I have a place to go and a reprieve from explaining the dumpster fire my life has just become.
An Autumn Harvest Festival might not be the Bolt Hotel Group’s extravaganza, but it’s an event.
Something small and relaxed and pressureless might be fun for a change.
Not to mention I can probably do it with my eyes closed.
Not that I will. My eyes will remain firmly open.
I subscribe to the if-something’s-worth-doing-it’s-worth-doing-well theory of life and work.
“See you in the morning, then, Mom,” I say, before clicking off my phone.
I take a deep breath before I walk over and hop into the revolving glass door to leave the building for the last time.
It’s insane to think about that. I hit the street filled with the crowded, noisy traffic that is Manhattan on a Wednesday morning.
I glance at my smartwatch. Nearly ten a.m. First, I’ll go back to the apartment and pack.
But I will only stay there long enough to get my clothes.
And maybe rearrange the pantry so the canned goods are mixed in with the boxed goods.
Geoff will hate that. That level of petty feels right.
Otherwise, there will be no lingering. Then, I will text Maria to tell her I’ll be out of town for a bit.
I’ll confess the rest to her later, hopefully over cocktails at our favorite bar in the Village.
When I woke up this morning, I never would have thought that by nightfall I’d be on my way back to Harvest Hollow. But here I go.