So, he’s coming Friday.
Until then, anytime I start to spiral about answers and backstories and this insane web of lies we’re weaving, I’ll text him.
Okay.
I can do this.
13
JANIE
“I can’t do this,” I tell Harper, just hours later.
“I mean, it’s very off-brand for you, I gotta say,” Harper says as she loads something that smells delicious into one of her industrial ovens. Her adorably freckled face is hot from working, almost as red as her auburn hair, currently falling out of her bandanna in unruly curl clumps.
I didn’t expect to feel right back at home in The Roasted Chestnut, but I do. She looks at home too. I felt bad when I moved back weeks ago and learned her dad’s been ill and she’s basically taken over as owner and operator of the town’s favorite bakery.
I think maybe I’ve been a crappy friend.
No, I know I have.
I want to blame the fact that my life was in utter turmoil. Turns out most people’s lives are in some sort of turmoil. Especially once you get past the easy post-grad years when everyone from college is still living close by, starting easy introductory jobs, still full of hope. What’s that Peter Pan quote?Don’t grow up, it’s a trap!
For real.
“I know,” I hop down from the counter and start to help her move some cooling racks from the counter to the huge sink. “But I really need the money and he really needs a wife.”
“But, are you, like, okay? What about a loan? I mean I’m barely getting by keeping this place open, so I’m no help, but I thoughtyou were living the fancy New York life? I get that your brother wiped out your savings but don’t you have a whole slew of rich, fancy friends? Ask one of them.”
My stomach twists into a knot.
She’s not wrong, my sweet, shy, small-town friend. A friend I left in the dust as soon as I could get to the city, only an hour and a half away. But also, a world away.
I did live a fancy life. I did have fancy friends. I don’t anymore. I have a struggling brother, a dilapidated small-town condo and a string of text messages I have only very recently had the courage to answer.
“Eh, borrowing from friends and family never works out well. And I’m not exactly eager to explain to everyone how I ended up in this situation.”
“Not everyone. The artist girl, what’s your Canton bestie’s name? I saw her in a lot of your pics on Instagram.”
“Skye. All six women in that family are friends, really. But I didn’t feel right asking them for a loan.”Especially not one like this.
“But you did feel right agreeing to a fake marriage with Benedict Clark?”
“Well, he’s very persuasive! He said that the rich use these contractual marriages for their benefit all the time. And I could too, he said. Just a year, he said. Ugh, he said a lot of things.” Harper waits, watching me. “Now that I’ve had to answerforty-threequestions about it in one day, I’m thinking maybe I had temporary insanity.”
Her bright blue eyes widen, “Oh man, did you have forty-three answers?”
I love that my old friend knows I don’t exaggerate figures. When I say a number, I mean it. My brain counted or calculated it involuntarily. It’s been that way since we were kids.
“No, not really. We did a terrible job of making a plan. He just wanted to get us married before leaving Vegas and I was so caught up in his whirlwind energy, I wasn’t thinking straight. Today was brutal. And it was just day one!”
“Can you back out?”Can I? No.I shake my head and she frowns as she asks, “Are you sure? Benedict seems so nice when they catch him on TMZ.”
“He…he is nice.”
Nice isn’t the right word. I’m not sure there is a word for him. He is somehow both predictable and surprising. Totally unserious but thoughtful. His concern for my situation seems sincere. He’s a really good guy behind the annoying flashiness.
Which is why, in addition to the legal reasons, I can’t ask him to let me off the hook. He looked truly distraught that first night in Vegas. His eyes misted up when he worried about disappointing his mother, embarrassing his family name. Weirdly, he genuinely seemed to need my help. And I can’t say no to that.
