Page 17 of Any Girl But You
Frankie and I are huggers. It’s who we are, how we show affection, and we probably hug every day. But this one is different. She’s trying to transfer a message, and a sliver of me is so close to accepting it.
“Listen to me, okay?” Frankie whispers into the top of my head. “You are amazing, and deserved nothing that happened to you. Got it? I need you to hear me.”
I want to bury my head in her shoulder and cry. I want to tell her about how I felt so worthless for so many years that a part of me detached from reality, made me build up a protective persona, and that seeped into everything else in my life. And how stupid it is that some rich old white guy in Manhattan still holds so much power over me. I want to say that combining our upbringing with its underlying message that we were simply tolerated but not celebrated or affirmed, seeped so far into my bones I think it’s part of my DNA. And if I don’t make the Christmas tree farm work, it will prove all these messages I’ve received my whole life are true, and I am, in fact, not worth it.
But instead of slicing myself open and throwing my emotional guts on the table for Frankie to coddle me anymore, I squeeze her back, then release. “Come on, cookies are waiting. We’re taking Truck Norris,not the motorcycle.”
Frankie grins, and thankfully I can tell she won’t push me any further. “How can I get Morgan—who never even has a wrinkle—on the back of my bike, but not you?”
“’Cause you do things to Morgan that I don’t even want to think about.” I shudder with a very dramatic flair. “Gross.”
Frankie laughs. “Fair point.”
In Truck Norris, Frankie pulls up our favorite podcast,Love ’Em or Leave ’Emwith Ruby Reanne, as we back out of the driveway and drive down the road to Zoey’s Bakery.
“Hey, everyone, welcome to theLove ’Em or Leave ’Empodcast, where we do a deep dive into all things relationships. Let’s kick this off with an email I received over the weekend. This comes from Maren, who says, ‘Hi, Ruby. Last year I left an exhausting and emotionally abusive partner who made it their personal mission to belittle me every day, and I’m finally readyto get back on the dating horse. However, on the few dates I’ve gone on, I analyze the men in an almost CIA-level of detail, latching on to anything I see as a red flag. Last week I went out for dinner with a really nice man. Everything was great until we looked over the dessert menu. I suggested German chocolate cake and he said he thought coconut was disgusting and was there something else I’d be willing to share. I immediately closed up and still haven’t returned his calls. What is wrong with me?’
“First of all, that’s just plain good judgment because coconut is delicious and a gift from the gods, and clearly he is totally wrong,” Ruby Reanne says with a smile in her voice. “Jokes aside, this will take a lot more than what I can offer on this show. Throughout my career, I’ve seen various levels of emotional abuse and gaslighting. Often it breaks us to a point that we question everything—if we loaded the dishwasher right, if we’re as terrible of a driver as they say we are, if we added too much salt to the dinner. These types of put-downs are often what abusers start with, and then it escalates to where we question everything we do, our motivations, our sanity…”
As Ruby continues to talk, I focus on the trees outside flashing by the window, the beginning hues of orange and amber spreading across green leaves. I can’t help but relive what happened in the office. Did my boss make me this paranoid, or was that demon always lurking inside of me, hidden, waiting to rise to the surface? I’m buried in this coffin of terror, where every decision I make with my new business might be the one that breaks me. Thank God my aunt and uncle’s crew remained at the farm after I took over. But I’m pouring everything I have into creating this gift shop and Christmas experience, and what if it fails? What if I don’t do it right and the community hates it, and I ruin this chance for an entirely new life?
By the time we bump down Main Street, I’ve wound myself tighter than the curls on my head.
Frankie pulls over a block away from Zoey’s Bakery and pushes the truck into park. She taps her fingers against the steering wheel and peeks at me through her peripherals. “Talk to me.”
I don’t want to. Not now, not yet. I’m still processing. And until I figure out all of this on my own, I can’t loop in Frankie. “I’m good. I’m good.” When she gives methe look, I wrinkle my nose and shoo her away. “Calm your tits, all right? I promise I’m good.”
A quick exhale escapes before she nods and opens the door. I step onto the cracked sidewalk, shield my eyes against the bright sun, and take a full cleansing breath, pushing away any bad thoughts. I’m about to see Zoey and I refuse to bring this negative energy into her space.
We cross the street and look up at Zoey’s Bakery.What the…?Frankie tosses me the same concerned look and we both kick up the pace, speed walking. My gut sinks as we get closer. When I jog to reach the front of the store, and peek through the window, it sinks all the way to my toes.
Oh no…
TEN
ZOEY
This is not happening. Someone pinch me with an industrial-size kitchen tong, because this cannot be real life right now. I stare at Ken, the electrician, standing in my empty shop, blink at the fuzzy spots inhabiting my vision, and vaguely hear him say, “I’m so sorry,” for the third time in the last twenty minutes as he scribbles on the clipboard.
Ken is the same guy who graduated with my dad, brings his granddaughters in every Saturday for strawberry cake pops, whose kind eyes crinkle all the way to his gray temples when he smiles. And right now I want to strangle him.
Well, not him, exactly, because I’m not a complete sociopathic killer, but the situation.
He finishes jotting down a note on his clipboard and glances at me. Oh no. Iknowthat look. I’ve seen this look before. Heck, I’ve even delivered this look when I had to fire an employee a few years ago. I twist the bottom of my apron.Don’t say it, don’t say it… Please don’t say it.
“Two weeks’ closure, minimum.”
Minimum?Minimum!In the six years I’ve been open, I’ve never even taken a full week off. I finally adjusted to takingpartial Sundays and Mondays off, but really, that’s to catch up on all the paperwork that I miss over the week.
I think I’m going to cry. No…I’m positive I’m going to cry. My lip trembles and I’m sure my cheeks have turned a ferocious shade of red. Ken’s eyes go wide. He lobs his hand up like I’m going to fall while inching backwards, and he’s ready to catch me. If I don’t pull it together, my glasses will fog, I’ll be a complete mess, and the entire community will know that I bawled in the middle of my store.
This morning could not have been any worse, starting with being jolted awake by a frantic 5:00 a.m. phone call from my morning baker, followed by an emergency call to the electrician, and one to my mom for moral support.
My place is ruined. Zoey’s Bakery as we know it will cease to exist for the next few weeks because of…chipmunks.
Freaking, stupid, horrible chipmunks.
Somehow, those cat-sized rats got underneath my bakery crawl space, chewed through some wire, and did some other damage that I tried really, really tried hard to pay attention to when Ken told me, but all I could focus on was that the electric affects everything in my fridge, in my freezer, and if I don’t get this stuff out of here in the next hour, I will lose it all.
