Friends & Fortune Cookies: A Sudden Falls Romance (3 page)

“Alex is floundering without Uncle Tommy, and I’m gonna try to help him keep the business afloat.”

Which was true as far as that went.

Two little vertical lines telegraphed worry between her eyebrows. “Is the company in bad shape?”

I shrugged. “The economy might be better, but construction still sucks. Alex has taken to picking up odd handyman jobs to be able to justify payroll. It takes money to rehab a house, and folks don’t have a lot of extra right now.”

“What are you going to do?”

As we ate our meal, I explained my meeting the previous Friday with Jack from
Rehab-a-rama
. “I don’t get the keys until tomorrow. We’re going to have to hit the ground running. I’m a little concerned. From the curb, the house looks like it’s practically falling down.”

“Which house is it?”

“It’s the old Queen Anne on the corner of Sycamore and Fountain.”

“Oh.
Yeah.
Good luck.” She winced, even as she slid the noodles on the end of her chopsticks in her mouth with a little “Mmmmm” that jump-started my blood pressure and sent all my red blood cells south.

“Think you can do it?”

For a second, I had no idea what she was talking about. It took a full second for me to regain my wits. Finally, I managed to pull it together and give her a grin. “Hell, yeah.”

FiFi came back with the bill and a couple of fortune cookies, homemade and unwrapped, sitting on a black glazed plate.

Gracie reached for one.

“Eh eh eh,” I cautioned her. “Close your eyes.”

She rolled her eyes and then did as I asked. I swirled the cookies around on the plate to “mix” them up.

“Okay. You can open your eyes.” I held both cookies out to her, one in each hand. She took the one in my left hand, her fingertips scratching their way up my palm as she snagged the cookie. I tried to tell myself I imagined the electric charge I’d gotten from that simple touch.

She cracked open her cookie and read the fortune before a startled laugh escaped.

“What does it say?”

“You first,” she said.

I broke open the crisp cookie and pulled out the little slip of prescience. “You will be successful in matters of business.” I tacked “Between the sheets” onto the end then shrugged. “Doesn’t really work unless I take up walking the streets of Sudden Falls.”

I dropped my cookie pieces on a napkin in front of her. She loved to eat them, and I wasn’t much of a fan.

Nibbling the cookie bits, she gazed around the room. Prolonging the inevitable is what she was really doing, and I knew it.

“Gracie?” She looked up, chewing on her lip.

“This is a dumb game.”

“Must be a good fortune.” I reached out a hand.

She tucked the piece of paper into her palm and closed her fingers around it. “Isn’t this a little childish?” she asked.

I wasn’t buying. “Read the fortune cookie, Grace Eleanor.” I wiggled my fingers in a “gimme” gesture.

“Oh fine.” Her freckles stood out against the florescent pink of her blush. “You have many skills yet to be learned. Choose an experienced mentor,” she said in almost a whisper.

I snorted out a laugh. “Between the sheets,” I finished.

A giggle finally got past her anger, and for the first time since I’d hit town, I saw her dimples.

I admitted to myself, at that moment, the real reason I’d finally come home.

Chapter 5 — Grace

“When it comes to the opposite sex or staff meetings, don’t let yourself be caught unawares.”
~ Luddite in Love: A Cautionary Tale of Dating in the Modern Age,
Grace Mendoza

The day after dinner with Joe, I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that my anger, which had burned about two degrees cooler than the sun when he’d pulled up Saturday on his motorcycle looking like the sexiest thing since an old Diet Coke commercial, now barely simmered.

As I sat in our weekly editorial staff meeting—the least favorite part of my job—I knew I had to find a way to hang onto my mad or I was going to do something I’d regret. Like fall for a jerk who only thought of me as more than his best bud when I was in a serious relationship with someone else.

Joe is like one of those kids who didn’t want to play with his own toys until someone else showed interest. I’d been down this road with him too many times not to see the pattern.

The problem is, no matter what the state of our relationship, I’d always loved the big lug. Mostly in the platonic sense, except on those few occasions where I’d lost my head. I genuinely liked being in his company. He was funny, smart, kind, giving, and fairly easy on the eyes.

I tuned back into the meeting long enough to realize my boss was still on a rant.

George Barkett was a windbag, which frequently caused me to abandon my good sense and tune him out within twenty minutes of any given meeting. As he did most weeks, he paced the length of the room, pontificating on the merits or detriments of....
something
while I doodled in my notebook.

He expounded on the diatribe inspired by his daughter’s forays into online dating, as the lecture had advanced to the evil effects of modern technology on cultural traditions.

“Ms. Mendoza. Do you find the subject of Internet dating boring?” George’s voice next to my ear cut through my thoughts.

What?! Oh, crap! Not again.
I cleared my throat, grasping at something intelligent to say. “Umm. On the contrary, I think, if handled properly, it could be quite an interesting topic.”

“You think so, do you? That’s what I like. A volunteer. Plan to devote your next eight columns to the topic of modern dating practices.” He waved his hand. “I want Internet dating services, that speed-dating thing, and whatever the hell ‘Tinder’ is.” You’re single. Get me some firsthand experience. I don’t want to read another collection of interviews.”

I thought for a second that I might embarrass myself and hurl all over his shoes. It would have served him right. I managed to rein in my impulse to upchuck as he moved onto his next victim. My face flamed as I spent the rest of the meeting taking copious notes and avoiding the knowing eyes of my coworkers.

A half an hour later, the meeting finally wound down. Grabbing my notebook, I headed for my office before being waylaid by any other unwanted assignments.

What did I know about dating in the age of technology? Nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I dropped my head to the desktop and made a sound of frustration. What did I know about dating period? A look at my track record would prove that.

High School: Paul Artson, captain of the chess team, though a lot cuter than one might imagine. Good kisser, too. Dumped me the day before prom so I went with Joe.
Don’t go there!

College: I met Chris Evans by junior year. I’m not entirely sure what happened there. I thought he was “The One” for a while, but alas...

Post-Chris: A long period of time where Joe was my only companion, at least when he was close by. Then Joe went to Afghanistan, and I kind of fell apart or at least realized how lonely I was. So I let a couple of friends fix me up on a few boring dates. Then I met Mike, who had a lot more to recommend him before
Dystopia
got her mitts on him and I realized he was a spineless ninny.

I didn’t want to know about modern dating. I didn’t want to even
think
about modern dating. How could they ask this of me?

Still wallowing in my woe, I didn’t notice the columns editor, David White, until he knocked on the frame of my open door. “I should have warned you,” he said in his usual cryptic manner.

“About what?”

“Barkett planned for you to do the dating articles from the beginning.”

I didn’t know why I was surprised. “So he simply took advantage of my moment of inattention to make me look like an idiot?”

“Yup.”

“Sadistic son of a…”

“Easy there, Tiger,” Dave interrupted, grinning. “It’s for a good reason.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What could that possibly be?”

“The head honchos have been looking at your work and really like what they’re seeing.”

Dave paused, obviously drawing the moment out for dramatic effect. I resisted the urge to reach up and choke him for torturing me.

“And...?” I prompted, finally losing the battle with patience.

“It’s likely they’ll be carried by the
Enquirer
,” he said.

Since that would more than double my readership, that was definitely enough to make me smile. Then David dropped the big bomb on me.

“And if these articles are what they’re looking for,
Grace Notes
could become a nationally syndicated column.”

I leaped to my feet as a yelp escaped my throat.

David held out his hand to curb my enthusiasm. “I have to tell you what a big deal this is. Since the syndication would be through the Community Press, it would mean a huge stream of revenue for the paper. Which, I don’t have to tell you, we need.
Desperately.
”

The desperation with which he said the word “desperately” concerned me. “Is the paper in that much trouble?”

“Not shut-down-tomorrow trouble,” he said. “But if they can’t find a way to get more money from advertising, circulation, or a syndication deal, it will happen eventually. So, it’s up to you, Grace. I feel confident you can do it.”

Suddenly, it seemed like my career might be worthy of one of the Magnificent Mendozas.

Even if it did require me to dip my toes back in the dating pool.

Chapter 6 — Joe

The next morning started rough. I awoke from a dream where Gracie refused to see or speak to me. In it, I coughed and sniffled, and she refused to give me even so much as a Kleenex. Then I realized the coughing and sneezing weren’t actually the dream. I lay on my remarkably uncomfortable sofa-bed, in my remarkably depressing studio apartment, and tested swallowing, grimacing when I realized how much it hurt.

Great. I didn’t have time for a cold. Or allergies. Or whatever the hell this was.

After a shower, which didn’t do nearly enough to clear my head, I popped two cold tablets. Grabbing two more, I put them in my shirt pocket in case I needed them later in the day.

I pulled up in front of our
Rehab-a-rama
house as Alex stepped out of his truck. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting us into?” he asked.

“Have a little faith, cousin.” I tried summoning my own faith and confidence that this wasn’t the biggest mistake I’d ever made. The old Queen Anne had definitely seen better days. She looked to be one stiff breeze away from falling down. But the architecture of the old building had a lot of potential. A multi-gabled roof made it visually interesting, and an octagonal turret, which ran up the house to the right of the front door, would be a big draw to potential buyers. A deep front porch wrapped from the front of the house around the left side.

The place was a behemoth. Two floors, plus a basement, and I’d guess an interesting attic space based on the position of the windows coming out of the roof. Easily thirty-five-hundred square feet of living space.

The color was that of a weathered, unpainted barn. Was “dingy” a color? If so, that was what this house was. A couple of windows were boarded over, and the lack of landscaping on the corner lot screamed, “Neglected.”

“I’m sure it’s in better shape on the inside,” I said with a level of optimism I only wished I could feel.

“I’m sure you’re wrong,” Alex said.

Jack chose that moment to pull into the driveway. He pried his enormous frame out of the driver’s seat of his truck, hands filled with paperwork.

“Here’s the deed and copies of the contract you signed Saturday.” He handed me a clipboard with a stack of papers and a key dangling from a makeshift ring made from a paper clip.

After depositing the clipboard into my truck, I slid the key onto the D-ring connected to my belt.

“Still think this is a Hail Mary?” Jack asked.

“Get ready to go long.”

He laughed and shook his head. “You have six weeks, gentlemen. Good luck! You’re gonna need it.” The last sentence he muttered under his breath but still plenty loud enough for both Alex and I to hear him. My cousin swallowed hard.

We both waved as Jack climbed back into his truck and pulled out of the driveway. “You ready to do this?” I asked.

“Not really,” Alex answered.

The steps of the porch groaned under our combined weight. I let him go ahead so that only one of us was on a stair at a time. I made a mental note to make shoring up the entrance a priority. We couldn’t afford for anyone to get injured.

“Is it too late to back out?” Alex asked, and I suspected he wasn’t kidding.

His level of enthusiasm had bottomed out shortly after I’d announced that I was coming back. I was starting to wonder if maybe he had some resentment toward me about that. I was only trying to save his bacon. I’d be headed back to Denver in less than two months.

“We can do this,” I told him. “Hell,
you
could do this on your own. You’re the craftsman. I’m only a glorified set of wrists.” Yes, I was stroking his ego, but to some extent the assessment of my skills was true. I’d been taught by the best. But, for six of the last seven years, my construction practice had been limited to putting up and tearing down tents. And, for the last year, I hadn’t even been doing that.

“Wrists and a checkbook,” Alex muttered. And there was the root of my cousin’s problem.

“Yeah, I have the dough.” I shrugged. “What’s the point of living on base and eating mess food if not to have some savings? And I can’t think of a better way to invest it.”

Assuming we didn’t completely fall flat on our faces. Because if we did, then we’d be out the company and I’d be out my nest egg. I couldn’t think like that though. This
had
to work. Uncle Tommy had given me so much through the years that I felt duty-bound to help his son get back on his feet. Maybe despite himself.

I handed Alex the key. He popped the lock and shouldered open the door. The house smelled like a place that had been boarded up for too long. Kind of musty and mildewy. A thin layer of dust covered nearly everything. I tried the light switch next to the door, but nothing happened.