Chapter 6 Black and White and Bright Pink
BLACK AND WHITE AND brIGHT PINK
MABEL
I can’t say my usual way of shaking off a day of debacles has worked.
But I spend the evening making batches of cookies at the ghost kitchen I rent with other virtual restaurants and bakers.
A couple of Ding and Diners, as well as customers from other food delivery apps, ordered some of the chewy pistachio cookies I’ve become weirdly known for. Weird because pistachios are gross.
Still, the time mixing and baking helped me temporarily forget my bad luck streak. Maybe because of the solitude. No one else was cooking or baking here tonight, which was odd. As I leave, flicking off the lights and locking the door to the empty space, the day’s bad news slams back into me.
I can’t believe I was so desperate to catch a rice-paper butterfly and make my creation perfect that I fell into the very cake I had painstakingly, patiently prepared.
Neither can I believe that I was so desperate to bleach the embarrassment from my brain that I kissed the face off a guy I once crushed on.
These thoughts nip at my heels as I walk a few blocks through the bustling streets of the Mission District, passing a trendy music club with pop anthems floating out, and then a vibrant mural of birds fluttering in a lush tree, painted by local artist Maeve Hartley.
I turn onto my street, where I promptly weave away from a skinny guy on a building stoop, bent over and barfing.
I wish the neighborhood weren’t such a mix.
But beggars can’t be choosers.
As he hacks up…well, everything, I unlock the front door to my building, then head up three flights to my tiny apartment above a taco shop.
I push open the creaky door, and my gaze swings immediately to the blue-tiled antique mirror.
It was my grandma’s, which she left for me, and the postcard tucked into the corner was one of many she sent to me over the years, even when we lived in the same town.
I tap the postcard once, and it makes me feel a little less sad. After I lock the door behind me, my phone buzzes and sparks something inside my chest.
I hate that I’m irritatingly hoping it’s a text from Corbin. What do I even want him to say? Want me to come over after my game so I can fuck the bad luck right out of you?
Um, yes. I would like that very much.
Grabbing the phone from my back pocket, I glimpse the preview pane as I set my bag down on the floor.
Great. It’s my mom.
Another message comes in too.
I push my pickleball paddle out of the way on the futon couch that doubles as my bed—and triples as my desk since my laptop’s on it—then flop onto the cushion. Against my better judgment, I open the group text with my parents.
Mommy Dearest: Sweetheart. Can we please talk about your hobby?
It’s not a hobby, Mom. It’s a job.
Daddy Dearest: We could also talk again about impulse control. Perhaps you should see someone about that.
Mommy Dearest: But first, let’s talk about you getting a real job.
Daddy Dearest: One where you don’t need to…talk so much.
It’s great having such supportive parents. I grit my teeth, but at least I don’t have to wonder if they heard about what went down today.
I don’t answer them. There’s no point.
They don’t think baking things named Sweet Cinnamon Crumble and Lemon Berry Temptation is part of a real job.
I’m twenty-seven. This is my job. This pays my bills, even if I don’t have quite as much cash to spare as I’d like.
I have a business. It’s just—I always imagined flinging open the doors to a bakery in the morning—mid-morning, ideally—and then greeting customers all day.
Chatting with them. Asking how their days are going as I serve toffee brownies and orange habanero chocolate chip cookies.
I can picture it all so perfectly, my bakery in rose pink with soft sage green accents, or a dreamy lilac shade with hints of Tiffany blue, like the color of the mirror grandma left for me. I touch my hair clip at the base of my braid, blow out a breath, and open the next message.
It’s from Remy, asking how it went with the banker. I tap out a reply.
Mabel: On a scale of one to worse than the cake at the romance fair, it was a one hundred.
She responds with seven million question marks and Want to talk?, but I don’t. As I’m replying to her, though, one more text lands.
I gasp when I see Corbin’s name. Then I squeak. And only then does my stomach flip. Could I be any more stupidly excited? With eager fingers, I click it open.
Corbin: We should talk. You free?
I groan as I flop my head back against a lumpy pillow.
I was hoping for a sext, and instead I’ve been given an invitation to conduct an analysis of what it meant when my tongue was down his throat while he pressed me up against the door.
Dude, I don’t want to marry you. You’re my brother’s friend.
My life is a dumpster fire. I just wanted to, I dunno, forget my woes for a little while.
But what I don’t need is an explanation of what that kiss (fine, it was more than a kiss; it was a kiss and grind) was or wasn’t.
And I definitely don’t want the reminder that it was a pity hookup for him.
Trouble is, Corbin Let-Me-Help-You Knight seems like the kind of green-flag guy who would do that, so I’d better get to it first.
I type a reply and hit send.
Mabel: Can’t talk now, but we’re all good! Glad you enjoyed the cake! Thanks for helping!
I pull down the blinds, strip out of my clothes, then undo my French braid and walk into the shower where I wash off the remains of a very messy day that had, for a moment, mocked me into thinking the universe was my friend.
In the morning, I’m up at an ungodly hour. Is it actually eight-thirty? I’m not sure when I was last awake and working at this time. But early birds and all. I’ll turn over a new leaf and get a head start on making and then freezing next week’s wedding cookie order.
As I walk to the ghost kitchen, I click on my email to confirm the flavors, only to spot a new one from the bridezilla. She’s upped her order from two hundred cookies to six hundred.
Is she inviting Cookie Monster to her wedding? It’s going to be a real stretch to do these in the ghost kitchen. But I’m determined. Maybe I’ll just be a ghost-kitchen baker for the rest of my life, until I die in a ghost kitchen and every kitchen becomes a ghost kitchen to me.
When I arrive at the space, a woman in a tailored navy-blue suit is click-clacking down the hallway, talking on her Bluetooth. “Yes, we had an all-cash buyer. It’s great.” She stops when she sees me and holds up a wait-a-second finger. “Call you right back.”
After she ends the call, she looks down her straight nose at me. “You must be Mabel. You’re on my call list for today.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. “Why?”
“I’m a real estate attorney. We just sold this space to a baker who wants to capitalize on the keto craze,” she says.
I roll my eyes. Is Jonas an oracle? “You’re kidding me.”
“I assure you. I don’t joke. But we’ll consider letting you use the kitchen for one day a week, if you’re willing to pay for the deep-cleaning afterward so you don’t contaminate the keto products.”
“Is this why no one was here last night?”
“You’re the last person on my call list.”
“Of course I am,” I say.
Could this day get worse than yesterday? And the answer—as I’m cleaning out my supplies while searching for a new kitchen to rent at the last minute—is yes.
My phone rings, and it’s another lawyer, the one who’s been overseeing my grandmother’s estate for the last year. He’s twenty-three going on fifty, and he belongs on a TV show—the small-town whippersnapper attorney who wears suits three sizes too big and everyone underestimates.
As for me, I’m the heroine in a horror movie who enters the house when the whole theater knows she shouldn’t. Because I answer the call.
“You just found a long-lost Van Gogh in my grandmother’s storage unit?”
I mean, why not manifest something good? Grandma loved art. It’s not such a stretch to think she might have accidentally acquired one.
“Betty always said you were the funny one,” he says, his voice squeaky. Maybe he hasn’t hit puberty yet.
“And a Rembrandt too? Excellent. I’ll be right there to pick them up.”
“Perfect. Why don’t you swing by my office later today?”
I freeze, a whisk in one hand on its way to a box.
“Wait. You really need me there? Last we spoke, you were nearly done with the estate.” And I’ve managed the whole thing, doling out the antique mirrors, the jewelry, a few artsy photos for me, some books and a boat for Theo, and the proceeds from the sale of her small house to my mother, who in turn used it to pay off her mortgage.
“We were going through the final boxes—your grandma really did keep everything—and we found a wrinkle in Betty’s estate.”
I shake my head. “Of course you did.”
We set a time, and I walk back to my apartment, grab my car, and return to the ghost kitchen—that name feels awfully apropos now—to pack up all my supplies before they lock me out.
I load up my car and leave from there, headed to a town I avoid if I can help it.
Because that was where my seven-year streak of bad luck began.
My grandmother was a photographer. A photojournalist, then a nature photographer, then she took pics of cute towns.
That’s where she made a name for herself, when she photographed one of the first ever “beefcake” calendars.
Grandma Betty marched right up to the fire department, pitched them on an idea for a calendar, and snapped twelve months’ worth of small town firefighters and their large hoses.