“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrug and turn to walk again, Geoff beside me. “I don’t know. I felt stupid. This is my own fault, right? I’m the one who made a bad business decision and now I’m in debt. I’m the one who should have moved on from the store years ago, like you’ve been saying all along.”
“This isn’t all your fault. Okay, yes, you could have moved, but you had your reasons. And as for the other thing… you were let down by someone you trusted. You can’t blame yourself for that.” Geoff links his arm through mine and steers me toward a bench. We sit, overlooking Washington Street, and after a while he turns to gaze at me. “Are you still making your clothes, designing new things?”
“Not much. Running the store takes up most of my time. Well, that and going on Tinder dates.” I think back to my date at Bounce the previous evening. “I met a nice guy last night, though. So that’s something.” Myles’s face flashes into my mind and I scowl, remembering his words.
“If he was nice why are you making that face?”
“No—” I shake my head. “It was just… you know that new bartender I told you about? We had an argument. He said all this stuff about how I lie on dates, then he randomly started going off at me about how my website sucks.”
Geoff watches me with interest, and I sag, forcing my breath out through my teeth.
“I do feel bad, though,” I mumble. “I was kind of judgmental and then I stormed off.”
Geoff gives me a kind smile. “It’s probably just misdirected anger about everything with the store.” He ponders me over his coffee cup for a moment. “You need to sew, Cat. You know that’s what makes you feel better. If you don’t do the thing you love, you’ll go crazy. You know how uptight Alex gets if she doesn’t write?”
I chuckle. Alex writes romance novels and if she goes more than a few days without writing she has to shut herself away to write or she gets stressed. She says it’s the thing that keeps her sane.
Ugh, Geoff’s probably right. Designing my dresses and sewing has always been the thing that makes me feel better. It was, after all, the reason I started my shop in the first place—even if the focus changed over the years.
“You might be right, but I can’t think about that now,” I mutter. “I need to work on getting more money into the business if I want to save it.”
“Did you ever consider that your creations—your designs—could be the thing to do that?”
I gaze down at my lap, fiddling with the plastic lid of my coffee cup. There was that girl who wanted to order a custom dress, but she never got in touch with me. Other than that, well, my designs don’t do brilliantly in store.
“Maybe,” I mumble. I know Geoff is trying to cheer me up, trying to inject a little self-belief into me, but I’m not sure he’s heading down the right path here. All the ideas I came up with last night to make more money involved the vintage goods: scouring eBay for more bargains and hitting up some flea markets, then marketing more around the East Village with fliers, holding a sale, having an in-store party… that sort of thing.
“Just think about it, okay?” Geoff says, leaning his head on my shoulder and looking up at me.
I laugh, reaching an arm around him and squeezing, angling my face up toward the sun. I really do love this guy.
“Creating something will make you feel better. Oh!” He sits back, a grin lighting his face. “You should meditate. That will help you to de-stress and deal with some of the anger.”
I snort. I’m not the meditating type and he knows that. “Punching Mark in the face would help me deal with some of the anger, too.”
“True,” Geoff says with a chuckle. “But at least this is legal. I use a meditation app and it has changed my life.” He takes a swig of his coffee. “Or you could go to a class. I know a great one in the Village.”
“I don’t need to meditate. I need to come up with a way to save my business.”
“Sure. But you’re stressed, Cat. It’s not good for you.”
I think again of how I snapped at Myles last night and sigh. As much as he was getting on my nerves, I think Geoff’s right—it was misdirected anger. It wasn’t fair to take it out on him. I am stressed, and I’m not feeling like myself.
“You won’t come up with any good ideas while you’re feeling so strung out,” Geoff adds. “Meditation can help to clear your head so you can focus on what you need to do to save the store.”
I look at Geoff, squinting against the sun. “You really think it could help?”
He shrugs. “It couldn’t hurt, right?”
7
“Okay, everyone. Please find a seat.”
I hover in the doorway, still undecided. I wasn’t going to come but I spent most of the night tossing and turning, thinking about the shop, replaying the way I walked out on Myles, wondering why I haven’t heard from Shane. As the night wore on, I found myself getting more and more wound into a tight coil, panicking about what I’d do if I lost my business, if I lost my apartment, if my friends decided they hate me and all my hair fell out…
By the time 5 a.m. rolled around I’d barely slept a wink and I decided I’d give this meditation thing a try. I found an early class in the East Village, figuring I could pop in for an hour to relax then head off to work clear-headed, ready to tackle the day.
