Chapter 9 Sierra #3
“Well, it could use some fresh paint inside. Something brighter. Maybe some updates to the furniture? I’m a fantastic thrifter. You must have some cool yard sales and second-hand stores around here somewhere.” Why am I sounding so excited about this?
Because I’m excited.
Maybe I’m just looking for more ways to fill up every second of my day so I don’t have to think about the meme or the look on Kyle’s mom’s face on that video call or that time Kyle invited his best friend to my birthday party and kissed her on the forehead right in front of me.
June eyes me, considering. Or maybe trying to decide if this is all just the marijuana talking.
“So, what do you say? I’ll make the Cozy Cottage even cozier for your next guest? And maybe you consider keeping me a little longer?”
“I’m not prepared to promise you anything, Sierra,” she says. “It may surprise you to learn, since it came so easily to you, but Pier Seven is quite a landmark. It has history in Orchard Cove. You’re not the only one who wants that building.”
Damn. “You’re talking about Mason Grant?” I was kind of hoping he’d realize that he was being unreasonable, and just find some other location to run a pop-up restaurant. And, you know, maybe he could go back to not hating me.
“It’s no secret that the Grant family has been wanting to buy that building for decades,” June says.
“Wow. Decades. If they want it so bad, why haven’t they bought it?”
June seems unusually hesitant, like she’s selecting her words carefully.
“I’m not one to indulge in gossip.” She levels me with a steely look, like, You better not be, either.
“But I’ll tell you this because it’s fact.
Mason’s parents died last year. It was a car accident.
Very tragic. Maybe they would have bought Pier Seven, if they could.
But the thing is, it wasn’t always for sale. ”
I take this in, the weight of the discovery settling uncomfortably in my chest. The knowledge that Mason suffered such loss, and so recently, tweaks my empathy. For his whole family.
But it feels wrong to ask questions of June about something so tragic. I’m not keen to gossip, either. Not about something so painful.
We’re both silent for a moment, sitting with it.
“But now, Pier Seven is for sale?” I ask tentatively.
“Why? Would you want to buy it?”
“Oh, no. I’m not in the market to buy a building.”
“Why not? I heard your smoothie bar was very busy today. I’ve been seeing those obnoxious Cutie Fruitie cups all over town.”
At this point, her criticism of my business just rolls right off. I actually think it might be praise in June’s grouchy old way. “Honestly . . . I was going to buy a building. At the end of summer. But it didn’t work out.”
“Well, maybe it wasn’t the right building.”
“I guess not.”
“Why didn’t it work out?”
“Is it the small town in you that makes you so nosy, June?”
This seems to catch her off guard. “I don’t know. I never really thought about it before. I’ve always lived in a small town.”
“Food for thought.” I am on a roll, planting these little guys. It’s so satisfying, pressing them into the soft soil. “What can I say? I put a lot of faith in someone I probably shouldn’t have.”
“And what happened?”
“Well . . . I loved him. Gave him three years of my life. Thought we’d get married. Thought the sun rose and set with him. Put everything I had, outside of work, into our relationship. Turns out, it wasn’t enough.”
“Hmm.”
Again, I have no idea what that means.
“Okay, so, I did one incredibly stupid, embarrassing, tiny little thing wrong,” I admit, “and he dumped me. And his parents pulled out of the investment they’d happily offered me because they saw how hard I worked, how much I’d put into the business to grow it from the ground up, and they ‘believed in’ me. Or so they said.”
“I see. So, you’re Cinderella.”
“Huh?”
“You put in all that time on your knees, scrubbing those floors, because you believe deep down that since you’re a good person and you work hard, eventually, someday, your Prince Charming will see how special you are and put a crown on your head.
Your Fairy Godmother will make your dreams come true.
All that nonsense. But life doesn’t work that way. ”
“It doesn’t?” I mean, I don’t disagree. But this woman’s insight into me is fascinating, even if I’m not sure how accurate it is yet.
“It didn’t even work that way for Cinderella. What happened to her in the end?”
“Uh, the prince married her?”
“And why did he do that?”
“Because she was the fairest maiden in all the land or something? And nicer than her evil stepsisters?”
“Wrong. She went to the ball, even though she wasn’t supposed to. She manifested that happy ending for herself. She didn’t just sit around accepting what she was given. She saw her opportunity and she seized it.”
“Right. She stepped up and claimed her glass slipper.”
“So, forget about that fool who abandoned you after you dropped so many glass slippers in his path, he was blind not to see them. You deserve better. Even if you don’t totally believe that yet.”
“Wow, June. I feel seen.”
I catch the hint of a smile that she’s quick to hide with a brusque nod. “Well. We’ve all been fools for love at one time or another.”
My eyebrows almost fly off my head. “We have?”
It’s hard to imagine this no-nonsense, fiercely independent woman a fool for anything.
But she eyes me like I must be dense. She shakes her head. “Some people are primarily selfish. It’s sadly obvious that you are not one of those.”
I almost laugh. “Sadly?”
“Learn to put yourself first,” she says firmly. “Then you’ll know when to fight for what you really want. Instead of just accepting what the world offers you.”