Chapter 2
It takes me a while to realize that the banging on my door is actually real and not part of my dream. I pull up my sleep mask and jump when the banging starts again after a short pause. Is someone trying to break into my apartment? By banging on the door? Okay, yeah, not very logical.
But this is New York, after all, and therefore you never know. The banging is hard, like break-the-door hard. I grab one of my sharpest heels—a gorgeous Ala?a I bought last month—on my way to the door and tiptoe with it raised over my head. This shoe could kill people.
The banging has momentarily stopped, and instead of peeking through the peephole like someone with a normal brain would do, I lean forward and press my ear against the door. Silence. Hm, did I dream it? I have slept badly the last couple of days.
BANG, BANG, BANG!
What the actual fuck?! I jump away from the door and raise the shoe again. Someone is definitely trying to both break in and kill me.
“Miss Collins! Miss June Collins!”
Okay, a pretty polite burglar?
I clear my throat a little. “Yeah?” Wait, what am I doing? Isn’t it like rule number one that you never answer a burglar?
“This is the fire department. There’s a fire alarm, and I need you to open the door and immediately evacuate the building.”
I yank the door open. “A what?” I ask, the shoe still raised over my head.
A man in full firefighter gear and with a very handsome face—he’s probably the cover star of the whole calendar—looks back at me with an irritated look he’s not even bothering to hide. Then he sees my Ala?a, and the irritated look is replaced with an irritated frown instead.
I look between the shoe and him before I slowly lower it. “I thought you were a burglar,” I mumble with a shrug.
I see him inhale deeply, probably counting to ten, before gathering himself again. “I need you to evacuate the building immediately.”
“Where’s the fire?”
“One floor down, but please move. Now.”
“Is it big?”
He sighs. “No, but . . .”
I gasp. “Has someone died?”
“No. Leave now.”
“Can’t I just grab a jacket? I can’t walk out like this,” I say, looking down at my tiny pink Olivia von Halle silk satin pajama set. He follows my gaze before he hastily looks back up again.
“Okay, grab a jacket but make it quick.”
I do as he says, thankful I don’t have to expose my neighbors to my cold nipples, and I’m halfway through the door when I remember something very important. “My laptop! I have all my work on it. I can’t leave it here.”
“I don’t care. Leave the building, now.”
“But all my work . . .”
The look he gives me is probably more lethal than the Ala?a shoe, and with a defeated exhale, I surrender. With one last glance inside my apartment, I start walking toward the elevators.
“Stairs!” His voice roars behind me.
Fire seems to be the theme of my day because after the morning incident I spend my day putting out one work-fire after the other.
The morning incident was—thankfully—quickly extinguished and involved, according to rumors, fish sticks someone had forgotten in the frying pan.
According to more rumors, it was Rod Stewart’s fish sticks. Not the Rod Stewart. Another one.
And if that isn’t enough, all these fires are accompanied by some unknown number, calling me over and over again throughout the day.
During my time in the Starbucks line, during all my meetings, and during my one and only bathroom break, my phone buzzes with calls from the unknown number.
And for a split second I wonder if it’s Justin who woke up today and decided to start stalking me, but then I remember how calmly—and boringly—he accepted the break-up yesterday and realize it can’t be him.
Also, why would he suddenly have an unknown number?
It’s probably someone who wants to sell me something, and I don’t have time for that.
Last month, I had a seller who called me every evening for a whole week.
When I finally, and stupidly, picked up the phone, he offered me insanely expensive bamboo panties.
Spoiler alert, I didn’t take him up on his generous offer.
I decline all the calls, growing more annoyed each time, my fingers tapping more aggressively with every attempt. Can this seller just stop? Get the message, dude, I’m not interested in buying anything.
But the dude doesn’t get my message, because when I finally reach my front door in the early evening—both hands full of grocery bags and takeout—the freaking phone starts ringing. Again.
And it’s in that exact moment that the bag with my much-anticipated dinner decides to slip from my fingers and land with a muffled, but oh so wet, thud on the floor.
I want to scream when I see there’s Chicken Panang Curry everywhere, and I want to scream even louder when I notice that my Amina Muaddi heels are sitting in a puddle of red sauce.
Enough is fucking enough. I drop the bags and dig through my purse for my phone, still ringing as if it doesn’t know what it’s done.
With angry—no fuming—fingers, I answer the call.
“Listen and do it carefully. I’m really not interested!
I don’t want to buy anything. Not a single freaking thing!
I don’t even care if you want to sell me a potion that will make me live forever. I’m not interested!”
Someone clears their throat, obviously bracing themselves to come after me with some ‘good’ sales pitch.
“Really, don’t waste your time.” I press the phone between my shoulder and cheek, finally getting the key in the lock, opening my door and stepping inside. I squeeze my eyes shut when I see the Panangy footprints I leave behind.
“Excuse me, is this June Collins I’m talking to?” A female voice. It’s formal but warm, and a little questioning. I sigh as I wipe up my dinner from the floor. Maybe I should wring out the towel onto a plate? Or why not just suck on it?
“Yes, obviously it’s me. You must know that since you’ve been calling me thousands of times today. But no, I don’t want to buy anything—I don’t need anything.” Except for more hours in my day. If that’s something she can offer, then I’m willing to reconsider.
“And I’m not trying to get you to either. My name is Phoebe Torres, and the reason I’ve been trying to reach you thousands of times is because I’m the executor of Liz Evans’s will. You never responded to my letter.”
What letter? I glance at the clock on the wall; I really don’t have time for this.
She’s obviously called the wrong person.
“Look, I’m sorry I was rude and I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time, but you’ve clearly called the wrong person because I don’t know anyone with that name.
” I slip out of my skirt and put on a pair of yoga pants instead.
“You confirmed your name was June Collins?”
I pick up the groceries at such speed that I could’ve competed in it if it were an Olympic sport. I probably would’ve won a medal. Most likely the one in gold, that’s how fast I am. “Yeah, but there can be more of us.”
I hear her inhaling quietly. “I don’t think so. There’s only one of you who had a godmother named Liz Evans, who was married to Matthew Evans until he passed away a couple of years ago, and who lived in Pearlband Beach, Oregon.”
It takes a couple of seconds before her words penetrate my brain.
I stop in the middle of putting a jar of sun-dried tomatoes in the fridge.
Liz Evans. All of a sudden, it’s like my brain starts working.
She’s right. I do have a godmother named Liz Evans.
She’s the old friend of my mother who couldn’t have children of her own, so my mom made her the godmother of her firstborn daughter—me.
I only met her a couple of times as a kid, before their friendship fizzled out.
Nothing dramatic happened; they just drifted apart.
They moved in different directions, lived different lives, just as it can be with friendships sometimes.
Phoebe Torres can’t see me, but it’s as if she can hear that something finally dawns on me. Like she can hear it in my silence. She clears her throat a little before she says with a voice that is still formal but a little bit softer than before, “Liz has died. And left you her house.”
“You inherited a house?”
“Yeah . . .” I’m still shocked. Clara is too, obviously.
“A real house? Like in house-house? A real house?”
“I think so, yes. It sounded real when the executor described it.”
“And tell me again where it is?”
“Pearlband Beach, Oregon.”
I know she’s frowning even though I can’t see her. “Never heard of it.” She falls silent, and I know she’s googling. Three, two, one . . . “It looks super cute. A real coastal, small town. It reminds me of . . .”
“Damariscotta,” I fill in.
“Yeah. But more idyllic. Actually, more beautiful, too.”
I think of our hometown. Of Dad. Of the days when it was the four of us, together. When illness had not yet made its way into our family. When cancer was something that happened to other families, not ours. Stop.
“I had totally forgotten about Liz and Matthew. How old were we the last time we saw them?”
“Hm, maybe I was seven? And you, four?”
“Wow, that’s a long time ago.”
Yeah, Dad was still alive. Please, stop.
“I remember how much I liked their dog. Can’t remember its name, though. But it was cute. And kind. Liz even let me dress it in my clothes.”
I smile at the memory. I think Mom has a picture of it somewhere. “I can’t remember its name either.”
“We have to ask Mom.”
“Like she’ll remember it.”
Clara chuckles. “Yeah, you’re right.” She exhales, and I can hear her throw herself onto something.
Probably her bed. “I still can’t believe you’re a house owner now.
Why did you get the funny godparents? Not like Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Hank, like I got.
Like they’re going to give me a house . .
. They’re not even congratulating me on my birthday.
I wonder if they even remember I exist . . .”
“You met them last Christmas and got a Christmas gift.” I smile.
“Yeah, yeah. But I won’t get their house.”
I laugh now. “Remember when we were kids and were terrified that Mom and Dad might disappear and we’d end up split up between our godparents? I didn’t even know mine.”
Clara laughs, too. “Yeah, and I was so scared I’d lose you to strangers.”
“Mom always had to tell us that no one would ever split us up if anything happened. That we would end up together no matter what.”
“I wouldn’t have accepted anything else.”
“Me neither.”
“But back to your house. What did Mom say?”
“She was shocked. But also sad to receive the news that Liz had passed away, and that she wasn’t given the opportunity to attend her funeral. She sounded sentimental.”
“I get that.”
I nod. “Me, too.”
“I still can’t believe she left you her house.”
“I know . . .”
“When will you go there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Yeah, when are you going there?”
“I won’t be going there, Clara.” I arch my eyebrows. She can’t believe I’m going to move there, can she?
“It’s not like I think you’ll be moving there, but surely you must be thinking of keeping it. Imagine having a house in a cute coastal town. Your own house.”
“I’ll sell it.”
Her reply comes immediately. “What?”
“I live in New York. I don’t have the time to have a house in Oregon. I don’t even want a house in Oregon.”
“But you haven’t even been there. You haven’t even seen the house. Maybe you’ll love it. Maybe it’ll be all you ever dreamed of.”
“It’s not. It won’t.”
“How do you know? You’ve never been there.”
I sigh. “I barely have time to wax my legs, how will I have time to go to Oregon to look after a house?”
Clara snorts. “See, I told you that you never do anything fun.”
I raise my eyebrow. “Waxing your legs is fun?”
She heaves a heavy sigh and ignores my question. “You have no idea if you’ll like it before you’ve been there. Don’t you at least want to see it?”
“It doesn’t matter, I don’t have time to go and see it. I’m drowning in work right now, and I’m leaving for Fashion Week Haute Couture in Paris in two weeks.”
She softens. “Then we’ll be in the same time zone.”
The guilt stabs me like a knife right in my heart, and I instantly miss her more than ever. Oh, how I wish I could go and visit her and see the life she’s made for herself in Sweden.
“I want to come and visit you,” I say quietly with a burning sensation in my eyes.
“I know.”
She’s so wise that I sometimes wonder who really is the oldest of us.
“But, Juju, I have to tell you that I think you’re making a mistake by selling the house without going there and looking at it first. There must be a reason Liz left it to you.”
“How’s it going with the scowling sailor?” I ask in an attempt to change the subject. Thankfully, she plays along. She sighs loudly.
“Still hates me.”
“He can’t hate you. No one can hate you.”
“Apparently a Swedish sailor can.”
“He’s obviously an idiot.”
“But gorgeous. A gorgeous idiot.”
We hang up a few minutes later. This evening hasn’t turned out the way I planned. Not at all.