Brooke
Chapter
Four
When I was a kid, I would turn the entire living room into my fake bakery.
I would steal the money out of my older sister's Monopoly games and pretend it was the bakery’s cash, and I would pretend the drawer to the end table was the cash register.
I’d take all my mom’s knick-knacks off the shelves and pretend they were cupcakes, muffins, cookies, and whatever else I could think of.
Then, when I sold out, I'd pretend I was a teacher and show others how to bake.
The crazy part is, I never made that part up.
I'd get out a cookbook and be so serious, one would think I was actually baking.
Fifty percent of the time when my sister played, she would actually let us bake. I’d read her the instructions, and she'd do all the things.
It was the best.
The fake play eventually faded away, but I kept baking.
Then, the dream faded. My mom left us when I was twelve.
Dad buried himself in work as the sheriff, and my sister, Halli, focused on school enough to graduate with honors and get enough scholarships to take her pick in colleges.
She left the day after she graduated from high school and hasn’t been back. I only see her if I go to visit her.
I don’t blame her. She wasn’t destined for the small-town life the way I am.
Still, that left me alone to finish my teenage years with Dad, and let’s just say, baking was never at the top of the list.
It actually took years to come back to me, but once it did, I took every opportunity I could. Which is how I ended up taking over B’s Bakery from Sadie and why I’m clutching a notebook to my chest as I head down Main Street for the bank.
If I want to officially buy the storefront from Sadie, I need to get things in motion, and the first thing is going to the bank to secure the loan I couldn’t get when Sadie offered me the bakery all those years ago.
I push the doors open and Mrs. Whittaker, the town's biggest gossip, is just walking away from the teller.
“Oh, Brooke, you look lovely today.” She beams at me.
“So do you, Mrs. W.”
“Big plans?” she asks, nodding at my hands.
I hold the notebook out.
“Just trying to make my dreams come true,” I say with a small laugh at how unsure I sound.
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Good luck,” she says.
I hold the door for her as she hobbles along with her new cane, and then when it’s clear, I head for the teller.
“Hi, Mable, is Cory around?” Cory is the only loan officer in town. Small-town, one-bank vibes.
“He is—let me call him.”
I nod and glance over my shoulder to Cory sitting in his office, the door wide open.
“Brooke Sloan is here to see you,” Mable says into the phone. He smiles and looks our way.
“Great, send her over,” Cory replies.
Mable hangs up and looks me dead in the eye as if I couldn’t hear him.
“He said you can head over to his desk.”
“Thank you.”
Cory stands when I enter and then pushes the door closed, leaving only a sliver open.
“You can hear everything in this place. I want to give you your privacy as best I can,” he explains when he sits.
“That’s kind, thank you.”
He nods. “Look, Brooke, I started the application for you after we spoke on the phone, but”—he looks down at his hands—“your credit score isn’t where it needs to be to make it happen.”
“What? How?” I ask. “I’ve never been late on a rent before. I keep my credit card low and make payments on time, and I have no other debt. How could my score be bad?”
He shifts in his seat.
“Is it because I don’t have enough credit?”
He shakes his head.
“Then … what is it?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not good.” His gaze is filled with sympathy.
I sit here in clear confusion. “I … are you sure you entered the right Social Security number?”
He nods.
Well, maybe he filled out something wrong on the application.
“Can I see the application? Maybe you missed something.”
He clicks around on his computer and then his printer starts.
He hands me the paperwork, and I scan it. Everything is correct.
I sigh, and add the application inside my notebook.
“How?” is all I get out.
I thought it was a done deal when we spoke on the phone last week. I came in here ready to look at numbers and sign papers.
He grabs another piece of paper and slides it to me face down.
“This is a copy of your credit history as of last week. I’ve included paperwork on a site you can use to see your credit score, and here is a number you can call for more information to dispute anything that isn’t yours.”
“Isn’t mine?” I repeat and then look at the paper.
Rows of credit cards with my name and large balances stare back at me.
“This isn’t me,” I tell him.
“It might not be you per se, but it’s all in your name.”
I have no words. I feel blinded.
I don’t understand how my credit is bad.
But I know it’s not Cory’s fault, so I stand and thank him for letting me know.
His advice to keep up the good work and come back in a year or more only confuses me more.
Instead of heading for the bakery after I leave the bank, I head for the police station. Something about this seems off.
What is happening right now?
It takes me no time to reach my father’s place of employment. They buzz me in the front and let me walk to his office. He’s sitting behind his desk.
I knock on the doorframe, doing my best not to start crying.
“Brooke, what are you doing here?”
“I have to ask you something,” I say and sit across from him.
His office is a mess. Papers everywhere on his desk and stacks of files on the floor. This place stresses me out. I like organization and order.
“I was just at the bank to get a loan for the bakery, but it seems my credit is bad. There are a bunch of cards with large balances in my name, but I didn’t apply for them, and they can’t approve me for a loan.”
My dad's expression switches from curiosity to remorse quickly as he looks away. But he doesn’t say anything.
“What?” I ask.
“I …” He clears his throat and sighs. “It’s your mother.”
The last word comes out so softly, I almost don’t hear it.
My father doesn’t like to talk about a number of topics.
The Broncos, if they lose, his front yard, which is never as green as his neighbors’, the fact that most people prefer bottled water over tap, just to name a few.
But the one thing he hates to talk about the most is anything that includes my mother.
It’s clear as day right now that she’s about to be the topic of discussion.
“What about her?” I ask.
He turns to look at me, and the remorseful expression fades quickly to one void of emotion.
“A couple of years ago, when your sister and brother-in-law were buying their first house, she ran into this same problem. Long story short, your mother took credit cards out in her name and racked them up, never paying a dime.”
I suck in a breath and put my hand on my chest. “How?”
He shrugs. “She knows your information, and people like her are desperate enough to do something like that.”
I pinch my lips and close my eyes.
I swear she loved us once. At least … I thought she did.
I swallow the lump in my throat. If she did this to my sister, she would easily steal my identity, too.
I should have asked more questions at the bank. No wonder Cory looked at me with pity. He was probably scared to tell me that I need to start paying off my debt before acquiring more, but because we live in the same town and see each other daily, he didn’t want to make it weird.
How do I go about confirming this?
And if it’s true—oh my god. Do I have to pay off the debt my mother put under my name?
I don't even know how much it could be.
I’ve been saving for years just for a down payment on a loan.
Oh god.
I’m going to be sick.
“Well, I—”
Before I can say another word, Dad’s radio goes off and he stands quickly.
“I’m sorry, Brooke.” He rushes around his desk and hugs me quickly. “Call your sister. She will walk you through the steps.”
The steps?
What steps?
He’s out the door before I can respond.
If he knew my mother was capable of this, why didn’t he mention it to me? Wouldn’t it make sense so that I could check on my own credit and protect myself?
I stand slowly and leave the station, waving a pitiful goodbye to my dad's coworkers.
My walk to the bakery is slow, and I sneak in through the back and close myself in the office.
I had a whole plan, and that plan feels impossible right now.
How do I still get to buy this place and open the online store and grow this whole idea with no loan?
No extra money.
How can I make extra money?
Better yet, how do I improve my credit to a spot where I can get approved for a loan?
I dig my phone from my purse and immediately call my sister.
It gets through half a ring before she answers.
“Hey, sis, what’s up?
“How could you not tell me that Mom took credit cards out in your name?”
The question comes out snappy. It’s not her fault that Mom did this, but she could have said something. I could have checked my credit score a long time ago.
“Shit, who told you?”
I huff. “The bank basically did when they turned me down for a loan. Then I went to Dad, and he told me about Mom.”
“Oh no, she got you too.”
I toss my hands up.
“Seems that way. How do I check? What do I do? How long until this goes away?”
The line goes quiet.
“Halli?”
“I’ll send you a text with some steps, but Brooke, you’ll need to freeze your credit for at least a year, and that’s once you’re done filing a report at the station and alerting credit companies to file disputes for all the charges so that you don’t have to pay anything on her behalf.
It will take time to finalize all that.”
“A year!”
She groans. “Maybe two because you’ll then need to build up your credit to good standing.”
Oh my god.
“Halli, how ... why didn’t you say anything? I could have caught this back then.”
“When it happened, you were signing a lease on your rental house. Dad and I assumed that since everything went through, your credit was fine. So we kept this between us.”
“Okay, then what happened?”
“It sounds like once I froze all my accounts, she went after yours.”
Is this real life?
My mother stole my identity and ruined my credit.
“I have to go,” I say and hang up before she can talk again.
My entire body starts to tingle. Even if I do what I need legally to fix this, it’s going to be a bigger setback than I wanted.
Is this a sign that I shouldn’t do this?
A sign that I'm not cut out to be my own boss.
Fear that I’m not good enough hits me hard, and my mind begins to race down a black hole of panic.
I can’t get a loan.
People will find out.
They won’t trust me.
I’ll lose the rental.
People will stop coming to the bakery.
Rumors will spread.
People will stare.
Another desperate Sloan woman attempting to make something of herself because she thinks she’s better than the rest of this town.
She failed.
Brooke failed.
She was never good enough.
She’s just like her mother.
I suck in a breath as the first tear falls, quickly brushing a hand over my cheek to make it disappear.
I hate crying.
I hold my head high and leave my office, making my way into the bakery, where I know I’ll find peace being in my space and setting my eyes on what I’ve created.
But the calmness I’m craving doesn’t appear when I step through the doorway.
No, it’s quickly replaced with frustration and a small bit of anger when I see the man standing just outside the front window, leaning on the brick wall next to the locked door.
I blow out a breath and stomp in his direction, the fire burning inside of me ready to spar and send him on his way.
Dutton Richford is about to regret standing outside of my bakery.