Luckily, call waiting came to the rescue. “Mom, someone’s calling. Gotta go.” She didn’t wait for a response before taking the next call.
“Hey, Jules. Any word from Fast and Fresh?” It was her assistant, Ellie.
“Oh, shoot. I thought you were them,” Julia said. “No, not yet.”
“Sorry,” Ellie said. “I was hoping you’d have heard by now.”
“I’ll text you one way or the other. Anything else going on?”
“Not really. The creep that’s been leaving nasty comments is at it again. I keep deleting them, but he’s posted five times since your last release.”
“DaddyMack01?”
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “Same stuff as before. From what I can tell, his girlfriend broke up with him based on your advice to remove toxic people from your life.”
“I don’t even remember saying that. It must have been some offhanded comment,” Julia said. “How ’bout you leave up the next comment he posts? Maybe he just wants to vent and will let it go if he thinks he’s been heard. Also, if I know my fans, they’ll give him the what-for, and you won’t have to deal with it anymore.”
“Worth a try,” Ellie said. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll let you know when I hear from Fast and Fresh.”
“Mom, can I go see if Mr. Alex will play LEGOs with me?” Calvin asked as she hung up with Ellie.
Great. He wanted to be buddies with the hottie next door. Add it to the list of things she hoped would blow over soon. Right under imaginary friend. “I’m sure he’s still at work, honey.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said thoughtfully before quickly moving on. “What’s for dinner?”
“Chicken.”
“Nuggets?” he asked with longing in his voice.
“No.” One of his friend’s moms had taken the boys out for fast food, and ever since, Cal had been borderline obsessed with the pseudo-meat chunks. “Nuggets are barely even chicken.”
He slumped. “Simon’s mom lets him eat cupcakes, you know?”
Julia bit her tongue to avoid saying Simon’s mom must not love him, because that probably wasn’t true. “Too much sugar’s not good for your little body. Well, anybody’s body really. I love you too much to feed you garbage.”
“I wouldn’t eat garbage. That’s gross.”
“Tell you what. I’ll come up with a homemade version of chicken nuggets next time I make chicken.And, I’ll let you pick which veggie we eat tonight. Green beans or broccoli?”
Calvin rolled his eyes. Even at five, he knew picking the vegetables for dinner was no big prize.
Julia was often tempted to give in and just feed him mac and cheese and tater tots, but that would make her a hypocrite. Her whole online shtick was “healthy living.” Her livelihood depended on making low-sugar, low-calorie recipes taste good. Although, if Calvin was any indication, she had room for improvement. Luckily, her demographic didn’t include five-year-old boys.
“You excited to go to Grandma’s this weekend? She and Grandpa Joe are going on a trip after that, so you won’t see them for a while.”
“What about Christmas? Will they be back for that?”
“Of course.”
“I better start my letter to Santa, so he gots time to get my toys.”
“So hehastime,” she corrected. “It’s not even Thanksgiving. You have plenty of time.”
It dawned on her that she’d been monitoring email all morning but hadn’t checked voicemail for over an hour. Maybe she missed a call.
She seasoned the chicken, slid it into the oven, set the timer, and grabbed her phone. Sure enough, Fast and Fresh had called twenty minutes ago. She closed her eyes, crossed her fingers, and touched the button to hear the voicemail.
