“Oh no. Another shitty customer?”
She had a run-in last week with this balding man in his mid-forties who was dripping with homophobic microaggressions.
Harlow sighs. “I wish. No, it’s just something with a former employee.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” she groans, exasperated. “There was this guy, George Carson, who was the manager for over a decade and was best friends with my uncle. Well, I guess he assumed Uncle Tim would leave him the business and didn’t take it well when he didn’t.”
“Ah shit,” I groan, not knowing exactly where this is going, but assuming it won’t be great.
“Uncle Tim knew I had no real service industry experience and left a note for me in his will that George would show me the ropes, and I could count on him.” She laughs derisively. “Nope, all I could count on him for was convincing all my employees—except the most unreliable one—to quit. He blasts The Sweet Spot online every chance he gets. Between that and a bunch of rookie mistakes, I was hemorrhaging money and wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep the shop open until your mom offered to help.”
“Damn, Harlow,” I say. “I’m so sorry. That’s terrible. Like, I get being pissed because you’re an entitled asshole or whatever, but convincing all the staff to quit? That’s fucked up.”
“He’s constantly going on and on about the ‘terrible new management,’ that I’m a ‘nepo baby,’ and how ole Tim is rolling in his grave.” I can practically hear Harlow’s eye roll.
“Such an asshole,” I mumble.
“Well, he sent me a new message today. Same old shit,except he’s bragging about how he’s going to rent the empty retail space down the road from us and is going to open his own ice cream shop. He promises to single-handedly put me out of business.”
My hands tighten on my steering wheel. “What a big-ass baby. Holy shit. What did my mom say?”
Harlow’s silent.
I check that she’s still there, then say, “Harlow?”
“I haven’t told her.”
“How come?” I ask. “I’m sure she’ll?—”
“I haven’t told her about George at all,” Harlow interrupts, and I still. She groans again. “I just … It’s embarrassing and, yeah, she knows all my employees quit on me, but I didn’t want to tell her it’s because the old manager convinced them to mutiny and he’s running a smear campaign online about me.”
I don’t bring up the fact that if this is all over social media, my mom definitely already knows about it. I imagine that’ll only make her feel worse.
“Normally, I can ignore him. But it’s just really bothering me today.” There’s a shuffling in the background like she’s pacing around the room. “I never asked Uncle Tim to leave me the shop—never in a million years would have guessed he would—but he did. I can’t let him down. I can’t be the reason the business he built from the ground up fails.”
“You didn’t know he was leaving it to you?” I ask, shocked. I always assumed she knew. While Harlow and I often talk about our days, including work, she rarely mentions her family or how she came to inherit the business.
“No,” she says softly. “I’ve spent months trying to figure out why. George was the logicalchoice. It wasn’t until Hannah complained about only getting Uncle Tim’s vinyl record collection that I pieced it together.”
“Wait.” I pull up to a red light and wave my hands in the air, despite her having no way of seeing me. “You got a whole business, and she got a couple records?”
“The collection is worth a couple thousand to be fair.”
“Well, shit!”
Harlow chuckles. “It’s still not really equal, but Hannah treated him like crap after my parents’ divorce. The fact she got anything spoke to his big heart.”
I nod along, then carefully, I ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“What? Hannah or my uncle?”
“Yeah. Either. Both?”
Harlow’s tight-lipped about her family but will occasionally mention a memory with her uncle or a funny story that always included him but never her mom or dad. I don’t want to push, but she’s clearly in a funk tonight, and I want her to know I’m here.
“My parents … Well, things were rough at home,” Harlow says. “The summer before eighth grade, my parents sent Hannah and me to live with my uncle Tim for six weeks. It was the best summer of my life. I loved hanging out at The Sweet Spot. I’d steal samples for Han and I whenever Uncle Tim wasn’t looking. I’d follow him around all day and thought he was the coolest guy.
