“Sandra,” he says, giving me an oily smile.
“Mark,” I say matter-of-factly, trying to walk past him and avoid this all together.
“Easy there. Come on. I just wanted to share some good news.”
I turn, exasperated, but distantly hoping he may actually have something to say that I want to hear.
“We’re going to be able to offer you twenty percent more for the bakery.”
“Great,” I say. “You’re still going to be about eighty grand short of covering the brick and mortar. Forget about the crushed dreams and all that.”
“No problem,” he says, obviously not bothering to listen to me. “The only hitch is that we’re moving the demolition date up. I was able to get approval from the mayor to start earlier. Two weeks.”
His words knife into me. My stomach feels like ice and fire swirling together. Two weeks? I thought I had months. “I can’t... “ I say slowly. “You can’t just do that. It has to be illegal.”
“Honey, you signed it away in the contract. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to get a lawyer to act fast enough to do anything even if there was a problem. Just take the money and move on. That’s my advice.”
“Just take the money and move on,” I yell. “Yeah, the money that doesn’t even cover what I still owe on the bakery? You’re going to take my source of income, leave me with debt, and expect me to just rebuild? I won’t be able to get a fucking loan when I owe close to sixty thousand on the mortgage for a demolished store.”
Mark sighs, checking something on his phone. “Right, well I have to take this. Just thought you should know.” He steps into his truck and puts the phone to his ear, pinning it there with his shoulder as he drives off.
I watch after him, hoping a meteor will fall from the sky and obliterate Mark and his stupid truck. Or maybe the ground could just open up and give him the quick ride to hell he deserves.
I sit on the front porch and throw myself a full-blown pity party. I cover my head with my hands and cry into my knees, thinking about how unfair it all is. I had everything finally going the way I wanted. I fought, struggled, and battled to make a life for myself without my parents’ charity. I made something of myself with nothing but hard work and perseverance, even with everyone in my family trying so hard to convince me to give up and live the easy life. I can just imagine my father’s condescending voice and what he would say if he were here now.
Dear, you knew it would end this way. You had to know this little game of yours wouldn’t be fun forever. Come home. Stay at the lake house. We’ll make sure you have everything you need.
Easy words. I feel like a sailor from the old myths, watching on shore as a siren tries to lure me to my death with a sweet, tempting song. That’s exactly what it would be, too. It would be the end of me. I am who I am because I resist. The moment I give in, I become them. I become the people I’ve fought so hard not to be.
“Saw you crying outside,” says Reid. “Figured you’d cry inside if you didn’t want to be bothered.”
I look up to glare at him as he sits beside me on the porch. “Just leave me alone,” I say.
“Sure. As soon as you tell me what’s going on.”
I sniff, shrugging my shoulders. “My life is just falling apart one huge piece at a time. No big deal.”
“Just ask your parents for some cash. Money fixes everything, right?”
I turn toward him, fists clenched in my lap. “You don’t know me at all. You know that? Do you really think I just let my parents pay for everything?”
Reid’s eyes narrow.
“I haven’t taken a penny from my parents since I moved out at eighteen. I worked my way through college and I’m still paying off the loans. I worked to save enough and get a loan to open the bakery. I’d rather fail then go back and beg them for money.”
He raises his eyebrows, looking at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. “It’s not about the the result. It’s how you get there.”
I smile a little, surprised he can sum it up so succinctly. “Yeah… Exactly.”
“Most rich kids just accept it. What made you turn away from all the money?”
I lean back. I never really tried to pin it down to an exact moment, but now that I think about it, my thoughts bring me to a particular day when I was younger. “When I was twelve. I remember going into a bakery with my mom and dad to get some danishes one morning. While we waited for our food, I watched the baker and the workers behind the counter. I remember being mesmerized by how hard and fast they were working. The workers were like parts in a machine, all perfectly tuned. There was something on all their faces. It wasn’t really happiness I don’t think. It was more like a satisfied kind of exertion. You know? Like they were doing something they enjoyed and doing it as well as they could. That was enough for them. I don’t think at that moment it mattered how much money they made or how big their houses were. It was just the satisfaction of doing something well.
“Then we got in the car and my parents spent the rest of the car ride belittling the baker and the workers. They thought it was disgusting to see how hard they were working. My parents even spent a while speculating on how much money they probably made and compared it to the passive income from interest on their trust funds.
“I guess that was when I realized that my parents weren’t like regular people. They were just… there. The baker and the workers were all striving and living and doing something. They were impacting people’s lives, even if it was a small thing. My parents just secluded themselves in their rich people bubble and never gave anything back. The only goal they had was to protect the wealth they already had and to protect the family name, whatever good that does.”
Reid nods slowly. “I get you. Yeah.”
I grin. “That’s it? I pour my life story out and you get me.”
He smirks back. “Yeah. I get you.”
Great. Well. My life may be crashing down around me, but at least Reid Riggins gets me. “How could you? You really have no idea what I’m going through.”
“Try me,” he says.
“Okay. For starters, what if you knew the only way to make your family happy was to give up on your dreams?”