Page 10 of Mr. Delicious
My family expected me to become a doctor or at the very least someone in medical. Not the baker, or pastry chef, or whatever it was I called myself these days.
Mom and Dad were brain surgeons. Cora was a cardio-thoracic surgeon. Her husband was a pediatrician. My two uncles on Mom’s side were lead consultants at a private hospital in Maine, and on Dad’s side mostly everyone were surgeons.
It made sense I would follow suit with the majority and not follow the one person in my family who wasn’t medical and fainted at the sight of blood.
Aunt Rena. Dad’s middle sister.
Like me, she loved baking and taught me everything I knew about the craft.
My family hated that I went to Brown’s to study business, became a pastry chef—albeit one who’d won many awards and worked in three Michelin starred restaurants—and they loathed I’d set up the coffeehouse.
I could have continued to work for any of the restaurants that hired me as I was well sought after, but I’d always dreamed of having my own business. Somewhere I could have free reign of what I wanted to do and be creative.
“I don’t know what to do.” I rested my palms on the table and pulled in a slow breath.
“What can I do to help?” Stella asked. She looked at me with huge, sad eyes. “I should have helped you more.”
“No, don’t say that. You helped me enough.”
When I first set up, Stella gave me ten grand.Ten grand. And, it was a gift. That with Aunt Rena’s twenty-five, gave me a chance to get the place.
Stella wasn’t rich or anything. She wrote for the relationship advice column in the super-cool weekly magazine,Trendy. She was always busy thinking up some crazy relationship advice and answering mail for theDear Stellasection of the column. She considered herself to be comfortable in her earnings, but just wanted to see me do well, doing something I loved. After all she’d done there was no way I could ask for more.
“I could have stopped this.” She insisted.
“No, I should have stopped this myself. It was just too late when I realized Billy wasn’t for me.”
“How were you supposed to know?”
“You knew.” I pointed out.
“He was ugly Wren, and I thought you could do better in the looks department. I didn’t really think he would be into all that crazy stuff. And I seriously never imagined he would scam you. My lips to God’s ears.” She placed her hand on her heart. “Wren, you know I would have told you to get rid of him. Jesus, why is finding a good man rarer than hen’s teeth?”
Normally I’d laugh at her sayings, today I didn’t have the strength. All the humor was gone from me. Particularly since I’d always been with assholes.
Landon, my first boyfriend, was a complete dick. He didn’t cheat, but he treated me like shit, always questioning me and undermining my intelligence. I rejoiced when I built up the courage to leave him.
Peter, Lucas, and Freddy came next. All short-lived relationships that never lasted more than six months because they were all jerks.
Handsome faces with ugly hearts. Like most women I loved the GQ handsome types with muscles and the kind of body that would make a woman melt. But those types of guys tended to be assholes; to me anyway.
Then came Billy.
He was my something different guy because he wasn’t exactly good looking. Okay, he was ugly. Just like Stella said.
Billy was supposed to be a safe option, and he turned out to be the biggest ass of them all.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Best to drop the subject of assholes because I didn’t want to start thinking something was wrong with me, or settle into some depressive state where I gave up on love. “Maybe I could remortgage or sell.”
Stella was already shaking her head before I could finish talking.
“I’m sorry, sugar. But I know there has to be another way. Putting your home at more risk is no good. You already have a secure loan on it. My cousin did it and ended up losing everything.”
“I have to get rid of the loans somehow. That’s the only thing. I can’t lose this place. It’s my everything. Everything here is exactly as I hoped it would be.”
The more I thought about it the more I could see I was going to lose everything. Everything I’d worked so hard for if I didn’t do something with the house.
I’d dreamed about having this place all my life.
