I felt haggard and corpse-like, but to my shock Jillian looked cool and unaffected, her long brown hair curled in soft waves, with subtle understated makeup on.
Then, of course, like a deranged boomerang, Christabelle was there too, with her uniform on and everything.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I bit out. “I didn’t ask you to come back! Jillian, this is not my doing!”
But my wife only shrugged. “We still need workers and sincewearen’t together, if you’re willing to work hard, Christabelle, you can still have a job here.”
CHAPTER 12
Jillian
“No—of course she can’t continue to work here—” Frankie protested.
“She was hired for at least two weeks,” I returned. “Firing her would be too much paperwork. So we are going to get two weeks work out of her.”
Christabelle’s jaw dropped open again.
“Honey, can we talk about this?”
But my tears were dried now.
Ignoring him, I went to the supply closet and grabbed the massive crab costume. It was a bright, nightmare-pink and had the words PINCH A PAGE AT PERK UP & READ.
“If you still want a job here, you can wear this costume and twirl the sign. Be sure to do the crab walk, too. Customers love that. Now get out there.”
"You still want to employ me?" Christabelle asked sharply, “even after what Frankie and I did?”
"Workers are in short supply in the busy season," I said. “Now that Frankie and I are no longer together, he can date who he pleases. But you'll need to really spin that sign, I'm afraid we don't tolerate laziness here."
She looked nervously around at Frankie. “What the hell—I mean, ok, sure.”
But Frankie wasn’t even looking at her. There were big dark circles under his eyes, and his handsome face looked drawn.
I turned to the latte machine as he cleared his throat.
"Jilly!" he pleaded, wiping his tears with the back of his hand, his voice cracking. "Please don’t do this. We don’t need to open up. Let’s keep the café closed so we can figure this out.”
“There’s nowe,” I said. “AndIwant to keep it open. You can go home if you want to.”
"Please let me explain myself! I made mistakes but I’m never doing that again!" Frankie cried, trying to follow me into the attached room where we kept a small bookstore.
“Oh really?” I asked coolly. “Because I saw Christabelle practically climbing into your window last night.”
“She was not!” Frankie cried. “She tried to get in, but I wouldn’t let her.”
“That’s not what Cash told me.”
“He’s just—trying to get you for himself!”
Christabelle emerged, almost staggering sideways under the weight of all her crab claws.
“Out front,” I said.
“All right,” she grunted, but she was already sweating in the heat.
"Jilly, I love you!" Frankie cried, holding his hands out in supplication. “I’ll never even look in another woman’s direction again.”
“It’s not abouther,” I said. “If you’re a cheater, it would always be someone.”
