Page 28 of Sweet Rivals
TheBakingChick: Where do you live?
PotatoBake888: I travel a lot.
Leave it to him to answer without answering at all.
TheBakingChick: What do you do for a living?
PotatoBake888: I cook … that’s how we met…
TheBakingChick: You never know. You may just be a wanna be a cook.
PotatoBake888: Let me ask you a question. Why don’t you watch romcoms?
TheBakingChick: Why do you?
PotatoBake888: I can’t watch horror all the time. I need a palette cleanse every so often.
TheBakingChick: I guess I’ve had enough palette cleansing. I want something real.
As soon as I wrote it, I knew it was true, and not just about movies. I desperately wanted something real in my life, and as much as I wanted to dismiss us and our chats, this online man seemed more and more to be exactly that.
PotatoBake888: Maybe I’ll convince you eventually.
TheBakingChick: Good luck!! It won’t ever happen.
PotatoBake888 and I chatted well into the night. When he finally logged off, I stared at my computer screen for way too long as the heady buzz of our conversation faded, leaving me faced with the reality that I was sitting alone in my room rather than actually socializing. I couldn’t help but feel a profound disappointment that PotatoBake888 only existed online, which felt a little like pretend.
I pulled myself together and did the second most pathetic thing I could do—cyber sleuthing. I typed Jared’s name into the Google search. I told myself it was relevant research, but likely, it was an avoidance tactic. Perhaps everything in my life had been an avoidance tactic. Always pretending to do productive things without actually making any progress. Never taking any risks or putting anything on the line. Now here I was again, doing the same exact thing.
“Right after this, I will come up with some recipes,” I said out loud as if putting it into the ether would make it true. “I know this town. I know these people. I can come up with a menu Right after this.”
When I stared at the blank notebook waiting for recipes, I felt overwhelming pressure to magically distinguish myself from Jared, from my parents, from the Lobster Tail while still embodying the Cape Shore vibe. It was a tall order.
The results on Google were exactly what I had expected. Articles about Jared, his family, their restaurants, and charity work populated the window. I scrolled through, mostly looking at headlines and pictures. There was one about Jared opening a free food pantry in an underserved area and another one about him revitalizing a community restaurant before turning it back over to local owners. Alright, maybe he wasn’t such a terrible person. Still, I didn’t believe in the ethical rich, nor did I appreciate him coming to my little town to run experiments on some new venture. It was clear from the articles that the Wallace family empire had never ventured out to a vacation town, nor had they opened anything other than a high-end sit down restaurant, food pantry aside.
So, when I closed my laptop in frustration, I still had a mystery on my hands. Who the hell was Jared Wallace? Why was he here? Why Cape Shore? Why my bakery? Where was the rest of the family? Why didn’t the email sender want him opening this place?
None of the questions helped fill my little notebook. Admittedly, the answers wouldn’t either, but they would have been nice to have. I liked to know who the hell my opponent was. It was the only way to come up with a reasonable plan of attack. Was it possible that he had no idea what the hell he was doing?
No, that couldn’t be.
“Ugh!” I groaned as I flopped onto my bed and sketched out a little cupcake with blue frosting. “Stupid!” I shouted at my drawing before ripping it out and tossing it in the garbage, which I missed, making Mouse pounce on the offending piece of trash.
Chapter Twenty-One
Istood outside the bakery in the same way that I had forever, only this time, my anxiety nearly forced me to turn around. In the light of day, my rational brain was pretty pissed at the impulsive agreement made by the light of the moon. What the hell was I doing? Why had I let myself be talked into doing this?
Mom had happily given me a leave of absence when I mentioned working with Jared. In her brain, I’m sure it was an opportunity to get in good with these big money, big name restaurant guys, which I had never thought was a priority for her. She had built herself up as the antithesis of big name, flashy, recognizable chains, but maybe that was only from lack of availability.
Either way, here I was, standing in front of this goddamn bakery that had been turning into the bane of my existence rather than the thing with hope and feathers. That’s what Emily Dickinson was talking about right? Regardless, it felt way worse showing up here to work for someone else. The point had been to keep your enemies close and all that, but it felt like I was betraying myself in even pretending to help him.
The door swung open, blasting me with cold air.
“You coming in?” Jared asked as he held the door open and waved his other hand ushering me in. He had a unique way of making me feel like a total idiot every time I did anything. Or maybe that was all my own traitorous brain’s doing.
I walked over the threshold without a word. I wasn’t going to risk sounding more uncertain of myself than I already had. I wanted to maintain some small air of confidence even if it was entirely fake. It seemed like I only had strength to stand up for myself when I was burning with rage. I needed to foster that in any way I could.
“So, what do you want to do first?” he asked as we walked through the mess of the front-end that hadn’t been touched by any clean out.