Chapter Four
For the next two weeks, Cassie tried very hard not to act on her attraction to Manny Pelopson, no matter how good some action sounded.
There were a couple of problems. The first problem was that Manny was kind and interesting and a good listener and obviously laboring under the massive burden of revitalizing the family business without, as far as Cassie could tell, a single complaint.
Another problem was that he was grieving. Everyone in that house was grieving. The absence of Arthur Pelopson was a gap in every conversation. Theo didn’t officially live in the big house, but he stomped in and out, berating Manny whenever he thought he’d overstepped his bounds. Cassie didn’t know if he was always that irascible, or if the loss of his brother was rubbing his nerves raw.
Aerope had gone from icy observation to being overly solicitous to ignoring Cassie completely. Cassie honestly preferred the last, but she couldn’t see any sign of the fierce, loving defender that Steph so admired. Steph had known Aerope for years, and was clearly a good judge of character, but any glimpse of that woman was buried under bereavement.
“And the third problem is that he’s my boss,” she concluded.
It was her second weekend in Weeping Rock, and Cassie had elected to spend the Saturday exploring the area with Steph and her daughter. They’d hiked one of the easier Lake Lydia trails, eaten enormous burgers at a local bistro, and visited the agriculture museum, at Keyshia’s request. Keyshia was a serious little kid, but Cassie hadn’t known what to make of a three-year-old who was into agriculture museums. It turned out the actual appeal was the playground, which was full of kid-sized farm equipment. Keyshia had climbed into the tractor cab and had had to be bribed with jelly beans before she’d leave.
Hanging out with Steph and Keyshia hadn’t been her only option this weekend. Manny had asked if she wanted to go for another run, or maybe a drive around some local spots. Unfortunately, if she spent more time alone with him in an enclosed space, she was going to do something stupid like tell him to pull over and take his clothes off.
Steph grinned at her. “The boss thing isn’t that big a deal. I read somewhere that 60 percent of Americans have had a workplace romance.”
“My sister says that too.”
“The hot sister who’s into girls?”
“No, not the hot sister who’s into girls and boys and is currently filming in Toronto with her boyfriend of two years,” Cassie said pointedly. “This is Laodice, the other hot sister, who’s exclusively into boys.”
“Laodice is the one that’s into cars, right?” Steph tapped her fingers against her mug of hot chocolate. “How exclusive is exclusively, if you know what I’m saying?”
“Just boys. But so many boys. They only have to give her a soulful look or say her hair looks nice and she starts writing their names together in her journal.” She glanced at Keyshia, who was sitting on the kitchen floor with Play-Doh, utterly uninterested in the complications of adult love lives. “I’m exaggerating for comic effect, by the way. Don’t tell Laodice I said that.”
“I’d need to meet her for that.” Steph waggled her eyebrows until Cassie laughed. “Seriously, though, you’re only here for three months. Ten weeks, now. Make out with Manny a little. Do it for me. Do it for the kid I was in AP English.”
“Make what with Manny?” Keyshia asked.
“A cake,” Steph said, without missing a beat.
“Do we have cake?”
“Not today, hon.”
“Okay,” Keyshia said, and solemnly held up her Play-Doh sculpture. It was a squashed orange ball with four spindly tentacles hanging off it, and a second, slightly smaller ball on top. “This is you, Cassie.”
“Oh,” Cassie said, unsure of the etiquette. “Thank you?”
Keyshia nodded. “I’m going to make a cake next,” she announced, and squished the Play-Doh into a disc.
“Your mama’s coming to pick you up soon,” Steph told her. “Do you want to check your bag and make sure you have everything you need for the week?”
Cassie hadn’t met Steph’s ex-girlfriend yet, but it didn’t seem the time to linger in the doorway. She stayed at the kitchen table instead and caught only a glimpse of a brown-skinned woman in a heavy overcoat as she carried Keyshia out to the car, calling friendly enough farewells over her shoulder.
Steph came back in and sat down, her cheer dimmed.
“Everything okay?”
“Sure. Yeah, I’m fine. Just, you know, we were great together until we weren’t, and sometimes I remember. Idunnu’s so good with Key, and it’s not like the feelings ever went away. We just couldn’t live together. Sometimes I think, oh maybe we could try again, do it right this time.” She sighed. “But I shouldn’t lay this all on you. I should write to Ask Cassandra or something.”
Cassie’s heart jolted. “The advice columnist?” she said, making it come out as a tone of vague interest.
“Yeah! Have you read her stuff? I think she’s a genius. She wrote this amazing response to a woman who’d gotten pregnant and engaged, and her rich fiancé was a one-man parade of red flags.”
“I think I’ve read some of that column,” Cassie said. Which was true, after all. She hadn’t gone through all of the archived letters and responses. “Isn’t it like Dear Prudence, though? Like, lots of different authors who are just called Cassandra?”
“Oh man, I love Prudie too. And Captain Awkward is incredible, and I’ll scroll through the Am I The Asshole subreddit posts occasionally. Although I’d never be brave enough to crowd-source advice. I sometimes think there are more assholes in the comments than the letters.”
“Have you ever written in to any of them?”
“Once to Cassandra, when things were going sideways with Idunnu. But she didn’t write back.” She shrugged. “She must get so many emails, though. And I read some of her other replies to couples with kids breaking up, which were actually pretty handy. Step one, staying together for the kids does both you and the kids a disservice. Step two, no matter how amicable the break-up, get a lawyer.”
Cassie smiled. “What do you think she’d say if I wrote in asking about Manny?”
“Don’t sleep with your boss,” Steph said, without hesitation.
Cassie forced a laugh. “Probably.”
“Definitely,” Steph said, and topped up Cassie’s hot chocolate. “But in this case, she’d be wrong. You’re adults, you like each other, and this isn’t a long-term working relationship.”
“There’s still a power imbalance, at least in theory.”
“Now you sound like Cassandra,” Steph said. “Theoretically, if you sleep together and Manny fired you right after, not that I think he ever would, what would you do?”
“Demand he pay the rest of my fee and leave him off my reference list,” Cassie said. “And be very disappointed in myself for my bad judgment.”
“And if you wanted to leave early, what would you do?”
Cassie pursed her lips. “I guess…the same thing I’d do if I had to leave a job for any other reason. I’d refund his deposit, minus the work I’ve already done, and offer to put him in touch with some of my colleagues.”
Steph grinned at her. “Sounds like you’ve got it all sorted out.”
Cassie’s laugh was more sincere. “Theory is one thing. It’s practice that’s messy.”
“Messy can be good,” Steph told her. “You want a shot of something in that hot chocolate? Ward off the chill?”
“I’d better be driving back,” Cassie said reluctantly. She would have liked to stay and dish with Steph some more, but her inbox was getting crowded, and her backlog of answered letters was running out. “I have some work to do tomorrow.”
“I thought you had the day off?”
“I do, but I’ve got some freelance writing gigs too. Gotta hustle and grind, you know how it is.”
“You write? Like, for newspapers?”
Cassie was used to obfuscation. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a little bit guilty. And proud too, that Steph liked her work and it had apparently helped. “Sort of,” she said. “My sister throws me some stuff from her bridal magazine. It’s nothing very important.”
“Oh yeah, because love’s super easy,” Steph said. “I bet it’s way more important than you think.”