Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Fou r
I stood in the corner, trying to make myself invisible as if I were a child called to the principal's office. I studied the two men who were currently in a contest of who could look broodier. The resemblance was startling. If I didn’t know any better (because I had asked five minutes earlier), I would have thought they were twins. While Jared had long, messy hair, a five o’clock shadow, and casual clothes (still covered in the mess we had made), his brother had a clean fade, clean shave, and sharp, stylish clothes. They had barely spoken a word to each other since Joel had found us out back. Jared and Joel … was their mom trying to be cute? I wondered what their dad’s name was. I would have to look it up. Then I realized that I also fit the J theme and almost laughed out loud, but I was too busy being mortified by my unprofessionalism.
“What is the anticipated opening date?” Joel said.
“Less than a week,” Jared said .
That was news to me.
Joel nodded begrudgingly as if he had wanted to be unhappy with the answer but couldn’t fault Jared for getting the place up and running so quickly.
“And you have hired a consultant ?” Joel asked, glancing in my direction putting emphasis on "consultant" as if it were a dirty word.
I couldn’t read his expression. It didn’t hold any of the same hostility that he reserved for his brother, but it wasn’t exactly warm and welcoming either. If I had to describe it, empty might be the best word. Somehow, that felt worse than derision. I shifted uncomfortably, wishing I could just leave and take a shower. But if they planned on discussing the bakery, then I wanted to be there. It wasn’t my bakery (yet), but I had a vested interest in the opening. So, discomfort or not, I was staying put.
“Yes. She is planning the menu and helping with the opening and advertising,” Jared said, not glancing in my direction.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he was regretting our little wager and how much power he had inadvertently conceded, at least for the time being and potentially permanently if I won. For some strange reason, it hurt my heart just a little to think that he was embarrassed of me, but I couldn’t blame him because I was embarrassed at the moment, too. For all my disdain of their corporate empire of chain restaurants, I’m sure some of it came from a place of envy. Here I was, a small-town nobody trying to hold my own with men who dominated the business. Our little family-owned, beac h-themed tourist trap couldn’t hold a candle to the kind of success even one of their locations brought in.
Joel’s sigh filled the kitchen. “Jared,” he began then glanced at me. “Perhaps we can talk in private?”
“We can talk here. Whatever you have to say, Jenna can hear. She is a professional and has a job to do here. She cannot be kept in the dark.”
I blinked several times. Wow. Jared was going to bat for me? Why? Every time I thought I had him figured out, he surprised me.
Joel sighed again, and I thought he should probably win some sort of prize for the most dramatic sigh in all of Cape County. “You know we have consultants on staff.”
“They don’t know Cape Shores.”
“Jared, I wanted to discuss my email. I appreciate your pet project here, but Dad and I both think it the wrong direction for the brand.”
My eyebrows tried to climb off my forehead. So, the brother was the one who sent the email and disapproved of this venture so strongly. Maybe Joel and I had more in common than I thought. Maybe I could use this new development to my advantage. I had to work on getting on Joel’s good side. As soon as I thought it, some nagging guilt whispered in the back of my mind. None of that, I thought. This was war, and I had to use everything in my arsenal to win.
“We have already had this conversation. I am not a brand. I have no problem supporting the brand, the chains, the family, the business, but I…” he paused, glancing at me, clearly regretting a llowing me to be present for such an honest and vulnerable conversation.
Since meeting Jared, I had never seen him be serious. He hid behind his humor, and I kind of felt bad that his brother was taking him to task. He was being asked to lay himself bare in order to defend himself. I sighed and headed for the door. As much as I wanted to understand Jared’s motivations, I also didn’t want to be where I wasn’t welcome.
They started talking again as soon as I stepped out of the room. “I’d like to do something on my own,” Jared finished, but I didn’t think it was what he had originally intended to say.
“Then what’s with the girl?”
I paused then. I know. I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but they were talking about me, after all.
“Nothing is with the girl. She’s just some local that might help bring good feelings and ease the opening,” Jared said.
I winced, the words like a knife. It was stupid. I viewed Jared as my enemy since the moment we met. I was actively (although ineptly) trying to bring him down. I had no right at all to have hurt feelings. But I did anyway. It sounded very much like he was using me for good PR.
The conversation continued as I stood frozen, trying to process it. New Jenna, Jenna who won the bakery contents and didn’t take shit from anyone, would turn around and tell both of those rich assholes off. But new Jenna was still a fantasy, living only in my imagination. Real Jenna was a goddamn coward who let her feelings get hurt by some jerk she wanted to run out of town .
“Jenna?” It was Jared’s voice. “I thought you left.”
He sounded flustered. I don’t know if it was because of me or his brother. I didn’t care.
“I was about to, then I heard you talking about me. Thought it might be important for me to hear,” I snarled, my cheeks burning red even though I wasn’t the one who should feel embarrassed. But overactive blood vessels in my cheeks were just my lot in life.
“That wasn’t meant for you,” he said sternly.
I closed the distance between us, so I could whisper without Joel hearing. “You’ve been using me this whole time. Did you ever intent to fulfill your end of the deal?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. He may have been lying. I didn’t know Jared well enough to pick up on his tells. But I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t walking away.
“Good. Then I will bring you down.”
I walked through the cafe, pausing briefly to look at the main space, imagining what it would look like when it was done. It made my chest swell up with excitement, regret, and worry. I had to win. I had to make this happen. I wanted it so badly that it hurt.
As I stepped into the sun, I turned on the boardwalk and headed for home. A line already formed in front of the Fudge House where a poor, overwhelmed teenager handed out samples and tried to direct the crowd into the store for a purchase. Children ran squealing toward the arcade, which played a constant stream of electronica accompanied by the whistles and sirens of blasting games. Cyclists on single speed beach cruises with wide handlebars and old rickety baskets peddled slowly by, clunking along loose boards as they relearned how to ride a bike. It was the sound of my life and helped ground me just a little bit from the heartbreak of my current predicament.
The gritty sand and congealed flour rubbed at my skin and left me desperate for a shower, which only pulled my mind back to the strange events of the day. I should have been back at the bakery, trying out recipes. Instead, I was slinking home to get a shower. What the hell had happened? Who the hell was that girl spraying water in the kitchen and wrestling in the sand? Had the whole thing been a rouse to get my guard down? Pull me off-balance? Get me out of the kitchen?
I really knew nothing at all about Jared or his brother or his family. I, unlike my mom, was still ardently against the corporate takeover of my small little beach town. More and more, however, I felt like I was in the minority. Chuck from the Cape Shore Daily News, which had actually turned into a monthly paper sometime in the last two decades, had called the bakery and asked for an interview. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a hard-hitting think piece about the fast-fading small town feel as big names took over for mom-and-pop shops. Even Cat, who would be on my side until the day we died, seemed to not mind Jared so much.