Chapter 2 Sad Spice
Sad Spice
The dark alley behind Curly’s smells like grease and melancholy.
Or maybe that’s just me. Eau de despair.
Summer’s humidity has already faded, the night almost bitingly cool. Labor Day weekend is always a toss-up. Some years, our birthday is hot and muggy. Others, like this one, carry the promise of fall.
I drop onto the cool concrete steps beneath a lit-up Bar sign that hangs over the back door. The hum of the crowd filters outside, bursts of laughter swallowed up by loud chatter. With my head in my hands, I let out a long, shaky breath.
Connor and I are done. That’s it. One choice, one short conversation, and although my thoughts are knotted together—a scramble of thwarted plans and follow-up questions—one thing is clear: We no longer want the same life.
As hot rage prickles at my skin, all my fears rearrange into a to-do list. I can’t stay with his dad’s firm, so I’ll need a new job. A new apartment, too, because I can’t afford our one-bedroom in Lincoln Park on my own.
I can’t believe I’m on my own.
My chest caves in at the thought of our big, white couch, of all things. It’s the first piece of furniture we picked out together after we found our apartment.
The day we moved in, giddy and deliriously exhausted, we hauled the last of the boxes from my trunk, and Connor joked that our street was so wide and leafy, it looked like the set of an insurance commercial. I laughed. He was right. The city looked as hopeful as I felt.
That was three years ago. We’d been dating for a little over a year and we were ready for the next step. We were sure. With him, I’ve always been so sure.
Now I’ll have to leave our idyllic street and our sweet neighbor, Ned, who fills all the mailboxes in our building with candy on Halloween and remembers every tenant’s birthday.
My birthday.
I check my phone. It’s almost eleven, and although it’s even later in Florida, Mom and Dad sent a selfie on the family group chat, which Ryan renames with regularity.
Today it’s called All We Do Is Wynne. With, inexplicably, a top-hat emoji.
In the picture, Mom and Dad stand in their condo kitchen wearing pajamas, holding up three and five fingers beneath big, goofy smiles.
Beneath it, Dad’s text: birthday nightcap here we go hope you’re having fun.
Someday he’ll learn to punctuate his messages.
Mom texted, too: We love you two the MOST! Cheers to the best year yet!!!!
I heart their messages, set down my phone, and put my head in my hands. I have no clue how to tell my parents about Connor. I can’t say a thing—not until I have a plan.
They’re both retired, and after decades as twin parents and doctors, my parents are relishing their free time. We have a family FaceTime call every Sunday, and I swear every other month we hear about a new trip they’ve booked.
I don’t want to worry them, and I’m not sure I could handle the inevitable concern I’ll find in Mom’s big, brown eyes. Or the lighthearted joke Dad will crack about needing to find a new golf buddy.
I groan into my palms.
Then I hear it, just behind me: a low, rumbling laugh.
Heavy dread presses me into the concrete as Penn slouches onto the step beside me, all six-foot-whatever of him crowding into my space the same way he used to invade our house every afternoon.
Wearing a self-satisfied smirk, Penn adjusts his backward baseball cap and faces me. He smells like beer and popcorn and something sweet. His skin is golden from the summer sun, the dark scruff across his jaw a little longer than usual. Annoyingly, it suits him.
I sigh. As my brother’s best friend, Penn Hayes is a problem to which I’ve grown begrudgingly accustomed, like a leaky faucet. Or an unfortunate chin hair that keeps reappearing.
A Spice Girls song plays in the bar, and he hums the melody, bopping his shoulder. He nudges my elbow, trying to get me to join in. I meet his eyes and scowl.
Penn laughs. “Happy birthday, Sad Spice.”
There’s nobody I’d rather avoid in my time of need. I’m irked he’s seeing me like this. I must be the saddest of sights.
Despair: A Still Life.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” I snap. Connor pushed me off the edge of an emotional cliff, and Penn’s is the very last hand I’d grab in hopes of climbing back onto solid ground.
I’m sure he’d love to learn that I’ve found myself suddenly unmoored.
That’s supposed to be him, the one who treats life like an endless buffet, trying a little bit of everything and committing to nothing.
As a kid, Penn ran a smattering of businesses and recruited Ryan’s help while ignoring my input on how to make them work.
None lasted longer than a month, and Penn’s adult résumé isn’t much more consistent.
In college, he studied film, only to graduate and pursue carpentry.
That is, until he hooked up with a hotelier heir who got him a hospitality gig.
He landed at Curly’s only a few years ago after the owner retired and offered him both the management position and discounted rent on his nearby apartment.
Penn’s only plan is not to have one.
“C’mon, Wynne,” he says, bumping into my shoulder. “I always have time to antagonize my favorite stick in the mud.”
I’d love to tell Penn where to stick it. Instead, I say, “You know you shouldn’t serve peanuts. It’s a common allergen.”
He tilts me a look. “And you know you shouldn’t be so worried about a grown man who can take care of himself. Let your brother live a little, will you?”
I bristle at the familiar, infuriating refrain.
Penn, of all people, should understand why I worry about Ryan the way I do.
He’s well versed in the list of dos and don’ts Mom had taped to the fridge, and we both saw what happened when we broke the rules.
Only one of us learned our lesson that day, though, and it wasn’t Penn.
“Not everyone gets to be the fun friend,” I tell him. “Somebody needs to close out the tabs, call the Uber, and text to make sure everyone gets home safely.”
He sighs. “Ryan’s my guy. You really think I’d throw him to the wolves?”
“I think you are the wolf.”
Penn grins. “Hey, I only bite when there’s an invitation.”
Heat rises to my cheeks. I resent how much he still loves to get a rise out of me. And I really hate how much he does. “Leave me alone, Penn.”
He gets quiet. “Is everything okay?”
My eyes drift back to his. There’s a thin scar etched into the middle of his left eyebrow from when he convinced Ryan to jump off the shed with him in third grade.
As Penn studies me, his thick brows furrowed together, the slanting scar becomes a vertical stripe.
His expression teeters far too close to concern, and I can’t stand it.
“I’m fine. I just…When did you hire Theo Ford?”
Penn rubs his chin, well aware I’m diverting the conversation. Thankfully, he lets me. “Last month. Remind me: Did you get a plaque for being president of his fan club? Or was it more of a medal situation?”
This is the misfortune of knowing someone as long as I’ve known Penn. They know your skeletons, and mine include the humiliating crush I had on Theo back in grade school.
To be fair, I wasn’t alone. As a tween, Theo Ford looked like he belonged on the cover of Tiger Beat magazine, all swoopy blond hair and sparkling green eyes.
He knew it, too. In middle school, he attended an open casting call and snagged the sidekick role on a popular cheesy drama, Noah and the Weekenders.
By high school, though, he was back in Lakeville—less Hollywood heartthrob, more hometown hero.
And now he’s an enthusiastic presence on Cameo.
“I plead not guilty,” I tell Penn. “We were just conditioned to like bowl cuts back then.”
His laugh is bright. “Theo should bring that back. Might double his tips.” Eyeing me sideways, he adds, “You’ll never guess where he’s living.”
“Where?”
“Mrs. Baker’s carriage house.”
I snort in disbelief. Penn, Ryan, and I grew up too scared to trick-or-treat at Mrs. Baker’s house, convinced she was an actual witch. She lived in a small brick house down the street, and when she wasn’t screeching at Penn, her curtains were drawn.
“She hated me,” Penn says. “Thanks to you.”
“Me? I’m not the one who hit her fence with a paint gun.”
“You gave her my name.”
“I wasn’t going to lie on your behalf. It’s not my fault you can’t behave yourself.”
His eyes flash to mine. He presses his fingers to his lips, scrubbing like he’s trying to stop himself from saying something, or to wipe away the cocky smirk that appears anyway. “You might be surprised,” he says. “Baker’s gotten fond of me in her old age. I grow on people.”
“Only the senile ones.”
Penn’s laugh cuts short as someone behind us clears their throat. Our gazes swing sideways to find Connor, whose eyes leap between Penn and me.
Penn shoots me a look, then stands. On shaky legs, I follow suit, unsure how to play this. I can’t let Penn know anything’s wrong, but I can hardly look at Connor. For years he’s been my safest space, and now I can’t even meet his eyes.
Perhaps I should just fling myself into the dumpster and hope for the best.
“Well,” Penn singsongs, grinning wickedly at Connor. “If it isn’t the handsome killjoy.”
Connor’s jaw ticks. In a patronizing tone he reserves just for Penn, he says, “You’ll have to excuse us. Ruby and I were in the middle of something.”
More like the end of something.
Penn’s lip twitches. I can almost see his brain cycling through the many jokes he loves to lob at Connor: jabs about his self-imposed curfew, his blue oxford shirts, his rigid diet.
Penn never fails to call out the many ways that Connor, like me, is inflexible.
Or used to be, anyway. Apparently, Connor tossed aside his rulebook, and me, and everything else I’ve ever known to be true about him.
I’m taking the job, Ruby.
The pang that slices through my chest is so sharp, I clutch at it.
Penn reaches for me. “Do you need to sit down?”
“No.”
“You sure? Because you look—”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Really.”