Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Despite the ongoing noise, Andrea managed to make a bit of headway on her first official day of vacation.
Or, whatever this was called. She supposed it couldn’t fully be considered a vacation when she was surrounded by stacks of work, but the endless supply of hot cocoa, candy canes, and sappy holiday movies she couldn’t seem to turn off helped set the mood.
Now, if only the pounding next door would stop…
“You’ve certainly made yourself comfortable,” Phantom commented as he sashayed into the living room around half past four. His green eyes gave the assorted piles of paper, sticky notes, and notepads a disapproving glance.
Andrea sat up and took a beat to sip her now lukewarm cocoa. She frowned when she slurped up the last marshmallow and wondered if she should make a fresh cup or switch to wine.
“I’ll clean it all up,” she told the nosy cat as she placed her mug back on the cat-shaped coaster.
She’d noted quite a few cat-themed decorations around Marren’s home, and wondered if they were items she’d selected for herself, or if it was one of those things where casual acquaintances and well-meaning family members insisted on buying her cat things simply because she had a cat.
“It’s a process,” Andrea added, leaning back to stretch out her lower back. She’d been sitting cross-legged on the sofa most of the afternoon, which was quite a change of pace from her usual routine of rushing around the patisserie’s kitchen from dawn to dusk.
“I see…” Phantom replied, dragging the words out to convey his skepticism.
Andrea smiled to herself. It did look like a disaster zone.
It never failed to surprise her how disorganized she became in the recipe creation phase of her writing.
In all other areas of her life, she was meticulous.
She’d never met an organizer box she didn’t like, and her friends knew her love language was gift cards to The Container Store.
It was often a sore spot in past relationships, as she was reluctant to cohabitate.
Even when she’d begun to think about a wedding and a real future with William, she’d had a hard time picturing how they would merge their lives fully together.
He kept his condo in the West Hills, and she had her place inside Hecate’s Kitchen.
William didn’t care for the magical district, preferring life among the non-magical population.
She figured she could wear him down eventually, and at least he was neat.
He was the type of man who kept his ties stored in neat little cubbies; his socks married and folded in a way that wouldn’t damage the wool; his pots and pans nested, their lids properly stored; and he kept an app on his phone dedicated to a rigorous watering and feeding schedule for his variety of houseplants.
On paper, they’d been an equal match. At least, until it came to their sense of decency and ethics.
Andrea felt her ire stir at the thought of William and his picture-perfect condo, and forced herself to shift her attention back to the work ahead of her.
“Where were you, anyway?” Andrea asked the cat as she scooped up a stack of lavender notecards to continue her work. She’d put off her plan to go to the market, opting instead to make one master list of ingredients before venturing out into the cold.
“I was attempting to sleep,” Phantom replied, the frustration evident in his strained voice as another round of pounding thuds came from next door. “Though I wasn’t as lucky as your mangy companion,” the cat added with a swish of his voluminous tail in Crumpet’s direction.
The terrier was curled up in front of the gas fireplace, sleeping soundly on the knitted blanket he’d tugged down from the arm of the sofa.
Andrea frowned at Phantom over the top of her notecards. “He’s not mangy. Do we really need to go over this again?”
The cat swished his tail in a dismissive manner. “Yes, yes, sixty-dollar shampoo. I remember.”
With a satisfied nod, Andrea resumed her work.
She squinted at the scrawled handwriting on the card and frowned.
“What does this even say?” she asked herself, before glancing over at the dozing Crumpet, as if he could help.
“Maybe I need to take a penmanship class when we get back to the city. Is that a thing?”
The dog twitched a paw, most likely dreaming of chasing squirrels.
Andrea smiled and reached down to smooth the fur between Crumpet’s ears. “Give ’em hell, bubba.”
The dog kicked and let out a soft woof, still lost in his dream.
Phantom gave a disgusted scoff and padded off toward the kitchen.
A soft ping came from Andrea’s phone, and she set her cards down and snagged the device from its perch on the throw pillow beside her.
There was a new text, but it was just a promotion from one of her favorite restaurants back in Hecate’s Kitchen.
Andrea sighed and checked the other message notifications, searching for Paige’s name.
She’d replied to the text Andrea had sent the evening before, letting her know she’d arrived safely in Vermont, but when Andrea followed it up with a question about the holiday orders, Paige had left her on read.
And thus far, her reminder had also gone unanswered.
Technically, Andrea could log in and check the daily sales for herself, but she was trying to resist the urge.
Her gaze shifted to her laptop, which sat open on the tufted ottoman, and she chewed at the corner of her lower lip.
“No,” she said, shaking her head as she got to her feet.
A few strands of hair tickled her cheeks, too short to stay contained to the section she’d pinned back from her face earlier in the day.
“I’ll get another cocoa and a snack, then I’ll finish this movie.
That’s all I need, just a little brain break. ”
She abandoned the stack of notecards, printed pages of recipes from the bakery’s best-sellers—most of which had already made their way into the pages of her previous two cookbooks—and glossy tear-outs from various food magazines, in hopes of finding some inspiration or new flavor profiles to play with.
Even in her deepest pit of desperation, she would never dream of copying someone else’s work, but she could use an existing recipe as a jumping-off point.
She rarely worked from established recipes these days, preferring to experiment and add/remove as she went, but sometimes it was nice to follow a step-by-step plan and see if an aha moment might strike.
As she waited for a fresh mug of oat milk to heat up in the microwave, she continued scrolling through her phone, only halfway listening to the movie as it played in the adjacent room.
Lainey had texted several times, letting Andrea know that her granny was fully on board if she changed her mind about hexing William.
A few other friends and acquaintances had reached out, presumably having seen the review, and while she appreciated the gesture, it only made her feel worse to see how far and wide William’s bitter words had spread.
She glanced through the various social media platforms, both magical and not, but quickly closed out of the apps.
Every post only served to remind Andrea of what she didn’t have—photos of happy kids hanging their stockings; loved-up couples posing mid-kiss, under a sprig of mistletoe; the holiday engagement photos and photos of friends with their kids, displaying decorated Christmas cookies or doing goofy poses with that terrifying elf doll everyone loved.
And while she would never admit it out loud, it made her wonder what might have happened if things with William had turned out differently.
Even before the review, Andrea had known her Christmas was hexed.
It all seemed so stupid in hindsight, but she’d gotten the idea that William might be the type to spring for a Christmas Eve engagement.
And following that hunch led to the revelation that not only was he not shopping for rings, but in fact, he had another woman on the side.
The memory rose to the top of her mind as the mug continued to rotate on the microwave’s carousel, and she squeezed her eyes shut at the fresh stab of pain.
At the beginning of November her curiosity drove her to rifling through William’s phone while he was in the shower, intending to look through his emails for any sign of a digital receipt from their preferred jeweler.
However, she’d barely made it into his inbox when a text came in from someone named Allie with a photo of a lingerie store display window, where a busty mannequin showcased a red-and-white lace number that would make even the naughtiest of Santa’s elves blush.
The text with the photo asked whether she should pack it for their upcoming trip.
Andrea hadn’t gotten a chance to scroll through the text history before William emerged from the shower, wearing a towel and a smile—though Andrea was able to wipe the smile off when she held up the phone and asked, “and just who in the nine circles of hell is Allie?”
A tale as old as time. Or, at least, as old as cellphones.
When confronted, William tried to gaslight her, and said the woman probably sent it in error. Oh, right, the classic “how hot would my boobs look in this” buttdial. Who amongst us hasn’t made that mistake?
“Scumbag,” she muttered at the memory.
She was better off without him, just as Lainey had said, but the sting of it still nipped at her.