With a strangled sigh, Theo said, “Listen. I’m not feeling so well.”
Nellie rolled her eyes just the slightest bit. “I have some medicine in my car?”
Theo shook his head, folded up the rest of his raclette, and stood. He’d been looking forward to his date with Nellie for months and months. He’d imagined them sitting in the sunshine, trying to dig into the facts of one another and learn as much as they could. But he already understood Nellie to be a judgmental woman who’d been given everything she had. He saw no future with her. And he knew he had to return to Bluebell Cove—as early as possible—and get to work.
The truth was, things at The Dockside weren’t running smoothly. They hadn’t been for more than three years. That was another reason he’d been at that meetup in October. He’d wanted to ask his fellow restaurateurs for advice about how to proceed. He’d wanted advice on “how not to run my own business into the ground.” But when he’d met Nellie, he’d been too embarrassed, thinking that she wouldn’t like him if he admitted how rough things were going.
“My restaurant is falling apart,” Theo said suddenly now, realizing that he didn’t have a future with Nellie anyway.
Nellie leaned against the picnic table and adjusted her sunglasses. Her tone was entirely dismissive but businesslike. “I’ll say it again. Have you taken out a loan?”
“They won’t give me anything else,” Theo said.
“How’s the rent at your current place? Have you considered moving properties?”
“I can’t move,” Theo said. “I have an old contract, and anything else is about three times as costly as what I have right now.”
Nellie groaned. Theo was empathetic to her plight. She’d thought she was coming on a research mission slash date with a “handsome chef from Bluebell Cove.” Instead, she had to listen to whatever this was. A sob-fest. Demands for advice.
“What’s the problem, then?” Nellie asked. “How are your overheads? What is your menu like?”
“I don’t know. I can’t keep up with the market. Everything in Bluebell Cove changes so fast. During the summer, tourism is at an all-time high, which should be great for us. But I’m watching all the restaurants and hotels surrounding me fill up, while I barely fill my tables during the lunch and dinner rush. I’m at the end of my rope. And my food is…”
“I know your food is good,” Nellie said, waving her hand. She sounded dismissive of that, too.
“How do you know?” Theo demanded.
Nellie laughed. “Do you think I’d go on a date with someone who couldn’t cook? A friend of a friend knew you back in culinary school. I asked around. She said you were the star pupil in the class, that you were going to go somewhere. Well, it looks like she was wrong about that last part. But cooking skills never leave you.” Nellie got up, finishing off the last of her raclette. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to carry on. I made a list of all the foods I want to buy while I’m here.”
With that, Nellie headed back into the throng of market-goers, leaving Theo at the picnic table. Tears threatened him, but he told himself to keep them at bay. He refused to be seen as the failing chef who’d just been left thirty minutes into a bad date. With his head held high, he walked back to his green pickup, then drove back to the highway.
When he spotted Bluebell Cove on the horizon, that quaint and cozy town on the edge of the sparkling and impossible-to-fathom Atlantic Ocean, his heart shot into his throat. And when he pulled into the lot behind The Dockside, his beloved and failing restaurant, he tried to forget about Nellie, about the messages they’d sent one another over the months, about the ache he now felt now that she would no longer be a part of his life.
Dating was not easy. Some said it was worse than owning a restaurant.
Theo decided to focus on one over the other—maybe for the rest of time, or at least till they boarded up his restaurant and ran him out of town.
4
Juliet had an interview with a young fashion guru who’d said online that she wanted to “look to women older than her for guidance, women who’d been in the industry longer and had the relevant instincts.” It was to be held at eleven thirty that morning. After struggling to get Danica out the door for school (a fight that felt unending, especially since Juliet and Alvin had split up), Juliet flung herself through the rituals she felt sure would get her this “job of a lifetime.” She meditated. She exercised. She wrote positive affirmations in her journal.
After changing into a simple black-on-black outfit, she buttoned up her raincoat and went outside, then took the subway to the Upper East Side office where the interview was to be held.
Taking the subway was a rare thing for her. Since marrying Alvin and becoming successful, Juliet had alternated between having a personal driver (funny to think of now) and riding in taxis. Now, sitting on the train, gripping an iron railing because she hadn’t been able to find a seat, she tried to tell herself that this era of her life would soon be over. She’d one day look back on this time of fear and loss with good humor. She’d say, “I’m so glad I went through that. I learned a lot.”
The fashion guru—whose name was apparently Elektra, although Juliet doubted that was her real name—was twenty-one and had become famous on TikTok in her teenage years. She had a following of 500 million people, and brands were throwing goodies her way, eager to have her advertise their watches, sweaters, or hair clips. Juliet knew this was an irony of wealthy people. All wealthy people were given free things, things they could have afforded on their own.
Elektra’s secretary was a twentysomething blond man wearing a tank top and tight pants. The fashion world was all about subversion. The secretary took her back to Elektra’s office, which was painted teal and featured luxurious leather couches that Elektra soon told her were real, although she told most of her clients they were faux leather. “So many clients aren’t keen on real leather,” Elektra said, stroking the material. “Everyone wants to believe we live in a world where cruelty doesn’t exist! Oh, but if you work in the fashion world for long enough, you realize that’s impossible. I imagine you know that?”
Juliet knew it better than anyone. Hadn’t she just been fired from her long-held position? Didn’t she feel like they were trying to put her out to pasture?
And wasn’t it awful to cower to this twenty-one-year-old influencer and ask for whatever money she could throw her way? Juliet felt pathetic. But she put on her bravest smile and reminded herself that Manhattan was expensive, and she needed to work hard not only to pay for Danica’s school but also for that teensy Greenwich Village apartment. The dream was to one day move into an apartment even better than the one that Alvin still had. Maybe that would come when the divorce and alimony were finalized.
Juliet told herself to breathe, to be in the moment. But she realized she was already thinking of her future in terms of securing this job.
And then, Elektra asked her a question that startled her out of her reverie.
“Why didn’t you ever start your own fashion brand?” Elektra batted her long lashes. There was no malice in her question, but it spoke of a real lack of understanding of the industry, of money, and of the way life could sweep you away.
