From Bags to Riches. Sandra D. Bricker
don’t know,” she replied, straightening and scanning the store. “These crowds are a little tough to take on my own.”
Jessie giggled. “I can be back before six. Then you can take off, and I’ll close.”
“Deal.”
She stopped in her office first to pick up her cell phone from the desktop and grab her purse from the peg behind the door. With a quick wave to Amber, she scurried past the jingling door and headed for her car. She dialed Piper before leaving the parking lot.
“Hi, Jessie. I was just thinking about you.”
“Oh good. I’m hoping you feel like seeing me, too.”
“Where are you?” Piper asked, and movement muffled her next words. “Do you feel like meeting for some coffee and something sweet?”
“Always.”
“I could be at Vanilla Bake Shop in twenty.”
“I’m on my way,” Jessie said with a sigh. “See you soon.”
Vanilla Bake Shop on Wilshire Boulevard offered one of the most exquisite key lime confections Jessie’d ever tasted—shy of Miss Maizie’s key lime pie back in Slidell—and she hadn’t sauntered through their glass doors in far too long. As she made her way in that direction, she remembered a Christmas party she and Jack had attended at the home of one of his clients. The Vanilla Bake Shop had catered an entire table of cupcakes that dazzled partygoers with tiny glistening trees set into stark-white coconut, sugar-glazed snowmen atop mounds of creamy vanilla icing, rhinestone snowflakes glittering over stiff frosted swirls. She and Jack had giggled about the snowy holiday theme on a seventy-eight-degree night when they’d driven there with the convertible top down on his sports car.
One of Jessie’s favorite activities as a child had been the connect-the-dots games where lines attaching one dot after another formed a picture. The simple memory of laughing with Jack on the drive home from the Chadwicks’ party acted like a live-action version of that game as she moved through one choreographed memory to another, leading her through the puzzle of their lives together.
It wasn’t like he’d been a completely reprehensible human being or a pathetic excuse for a husband, after all. It might have been easier for her if that had been the case. They’d shared memorable moments of intimacy and tenderness as well; all of which, combined with so many of his finer qualities—humor, kindness, confidence, strength—had managed to diffuse the sound of alarm bells she’d been so readily able to ignore.
She sighed when she turned into the parking lot and gazed on the familiar damask-stenciled awning and pristine display cases on the other side of the front door of Vanilla Bake Shop. Piper’s familiar Jaguar already sat parked in front, and Jessie hurried out of the Taurus and toward the door.
A sight for sore eyes. That’s what she knew Grampy would have said in such a situation.
Jessie wondered if her best friend really looked unusually radiant, or if her own eagerness to connect with her had created the golden light around her perfect, pretty face. Short spikes of red, gold and copper pixie-like hair framed porcelain skin, pouty lips, and wide green eyes. Piper just happened to be one of those few women who could pull off adorable and sophisticated at the same time.
“It’s so good to see you,” Jessie breathed, stopping to give her a quick hug before dropping into the chair across from her. Noticing the plates and cups already on the table, she perked. “What have we here?”
“A key lime cupcake,” she replied with a grin. “I know it’s your favorite. And a lemon bar for me because that’s my fave. Then I thought we could split the cookies. They’re white chocolate cranberry oatmeal and chocolate chip toffee.”
“You so get me.”
“So let’s dig in,” she said, sliding the lemon bar toward her. “And you tell me what’s got you scrambling for a friend today.”
Jessie giggled. Piper really did get her.
She lifted the beautiful cupcake and slowly twirled it, inspecting the confection from all sides before taking her first bite.
“Oh. Come. On,” she exclaimed through a full mouth.
“Why haven’t we been here for so long?”
“Because we’re idiots?”
Piper chuckled and nodded. “Or we’ve had a few other things to think about.”
“And there’s that.”
She sipped from her coffee cup, and upon placing it back on the saucer, she turned it clockwise. “So. What’s going on?”
“I told you about the reality show thing with Courtney.”
“Just that she’s included you and the store. Is there more to tell yet?”
Jessie licked a smear of icing from her finger as she nodded. “So much more.”
“And?”
“Her manager is going to handle the legalities of it for us, and the producer and his cameraman will come to the store tomorrow to meet us. Then we have a photo shoot for the network and one of Courtney’s styling sessions that they’ll want to shoot at the store—”
“Okay. That all sounds very good. So what’s with this?” she asked, circling Jessie’s face with her index finger. “What’s the face all about?”
“What face? This is my face.”
“Yes, it is,” she answered, with only the subtle hint of a smile. “It is your face of concern and trepidation.”
“No, it’s . . .” Oh, why fight it? “Yeah, you’re right. And I don’t know why I feel so strange about it. I mean, isn’t this something I’ve always wanted, something that puts the store on the map, gives me some financial autonomy and a solid platform for my career?”
“You tell me.”
Jessie moved the last of the cupcake aside, saving it as her final taste. Breaking the oatmeal cookie in half, she raised the smaller half and breathed in its aroma before taking a bite.
“Oh, this one’s good,” she said, nodding toward the second piece still on the plate. “Try it.”
“Don’t rush me. I’m basking in my lemon bar.”
“Well, anyway . . . I know I should be thrilled about all of it, right? But there’s something in my stomach that kind of . . . dreads it at the same time. It makes no sense.”
Piper finished her lemon bar and gazed down into her coffee cup for several beats before she looked up at Jessie and arched one perfect eyebrow. “Do you think you’re just feeling frozen to the spot? Kind of yearning for no more change for a while?”
Jessie considered her words. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You haven’t given Danny an answer yet, have you?”
Her eyes dropped in . . . Was it shame? “Not yet.”
“What are you waiting for, honey?”
A bolt of defiance shot through her, and Jessie leaned against the back of her chair and crossed her arms. “Maybe I don’t know if I want to be married again, Piper. Is it some sort of law? Does every person on the planet have to be part of a couple? I mean, isn’t it enough to just enjoy each other? Do we have to put our footprints in stone and engrave it with ‘Till Death We Do Part’?”
“There’s no law, no.”
“I’m not saying it’s not right for you and Antonio, or for Steph and Vince. You know. But for me . . . I don’t know. Look at Courtney. She’s not married, and yet she has a thriving business and a new baby daughter . . .” Her words trailed off slowly.
“So you’re saying Danny is right for you. You’re happy