Chapter Eight
Parv sat across from her employees during the Monday afternoon lull, wishing she had a cup of coffee to hold so she would know what to do with her hands. Anna didn’t work Mondays, but she’d made a special trip for this meeting and now looked as uncomfortable as Parv felt. It was only the thirteenth, but Parv had hidden in the office when Madison arrived for her shift and gotten their paychecks ready early, hoping that would soften the blow of what she had to tell them.
She hadn’t really loved the people management aspect of owning her own business—she’d always figured during interviews that she was more nervous than the person applying and the one time in the last five years that she’d had to fire someone, a high school brat who showed up late and missed shifts, had practically given her an ulcer—but she loved these girls.
They were smart. They were hardworking. They were responsible and seemed to genuinely love working at Common Grounds.
They deserved better than to lose their jobs, but Parv consoled herself that they would get better ones. She would do everything in her power to make that happen.
She forced herself to meet their eyes and forced a smile—then wondered if smiling in this situation was inappropriate and let it fall from her face, trying to project an air of calm reassurance instead. Though she was pretty sure all she was projecting was seven different kinds of crazy since her face couldn’t seem to decide which kind of expression to wear.
Madison’s brow wrinkled in concern. Anna just began to look pissed—but then Anna generally looked angry whenever things surprised her. Parv glanced toward the front door—the most cowardly part of her wishing that a customer would come into the empty shop and force her to postpone the announcement—but all she saw was the sunshine outside. Another gorgeous day in Eden, California.
Not a bad day for the shop to die.
“So.” Parv swallowed hard, looking back to her faithful duo. “Here’s the situation. And I’d appreciate it if you can keep it to yourselves as much as you’re able to. Obviously that won’t be for long—” They’d need to start looking for other jobs. She’d give them glowing recommendations. Parv took a deep breath and forced herself to say it. “I’m closing Common Grounds.”
Madison sucked in a sharp breath.
Anna just looked grim. “The Blue Mountain,” she said.
Parv nodded. “That was the canary in the coal mine, but we’ve been struggling for a while now—” Or ever since they opened. “—and I’ve come to the decision that it’s time to start winding things down. Our lease goes until the end of the year and nothing is going to change right away—though we’ll have shortages in some of our usual products, like the Blue Mountain, as we start using up our stock.”
Madison sniffed and Parv shot her a desperate look. “Please don’t cry. If you cry, I’ll cry. This is good for you guys. You’re so much better than this. I’ll give you the best recommendations you’ve ever seen and you’ll get jobs that pay you what you deserve.”
Anna’s lips pursed tight, but she didn’t say a word—which made Parv nervous. Anna never held back her opinions.
“You don’t need to worry that I’m not going to be able to pay you.” She retrieved the envelopes from the capacious pocket of her cardigan. “In fact, payday is a little early this month. I just want you both to feel very comfortable with everything that’s happening. For now it’s business as usual—we’ll keep selling coffee, I’ll keep making pastries, nothing has to change right away—but I felt you had the right to know.”
“When?” Anna spoke, the single word rough.
“I’m not sure exactly. November, most likely. Six or seven weeks from now. Maybe less. And we may cut our hours back before then. So if you have a better offer before then you’re under no obligation to stay.”
“I’ll stay.”
Parv smiled, touched by the show of support from Anna, her least touchy-feely employee. “Keep your options open. You never know what the next few months will bring.”
“I want to stay too,” Madison added.
“No one is being laid off today. This is just so you can prepare yourselves.”
“Isn’t there any way we can save the shop?” Madison asked. “Some new promotion?”
“Jesus, Bambi, you think she hasn’t thought of that?” Anna snapped.
“Hey,” Parv intervened, waiting until the two of them stopped glowering at each other. “It’s a nice thought, but the writing’s been on the wall for a while now. It’s time. Common Grounds is done.”
* * * * *
She managed not to cry until she was alone in the back office and even then it was just a few quiet, dignified sniffles. Anna had snatched up her check and stalked out. Madison had returned behind the counter and begun cleaning things—as if she could polish Common Grounds into success. Parv had told her she didn’t have to finish out her shift—she was only on for another half hour and there were no customers anyway, but Madison had given her such a look of betrayal that Parv had retreated back to the office to “take care of some paperwork” to give Madison time to process the news in her own way.
She barely cried. Her eyes were hardly even wet when she fished out her cell phone and dialed Sidney’s number again—not expecting an answer since it was one thirty on a Monday afternoon and if she couldn’t get Sidney during non-working hours she didn’t have a snowball’s chance right now.
“Hello?”
“Sid! I caught you.”
Sidney’s voice rushed out, impatient and frazzled. “Hey. Sorry. I saw you called this weekend, but it was an insane time. I think I was holding up one end of a couch when the phone rang.”
“Redecorating?”
“No, we moved. Didn’t I tell you? God, I don’t know where my brain is these days. I can’t keep track of who I’ve told what.”
“You moved?” Parv echoed.
Sidney lived just down the street in the attic apartment two stories above the storefront for the wedding planning business she ran with Victoria—when she wasn’t filming her new wedding reality TV show with Josh. Victoria lived in the apartment on the second floor of the building with her daughter Lorelei, where she’d hosted Girls’ Nights and they’d spent countless hours commiserating over the sad state of the Dating World these days.
But now Tori’s ex was back and Sidney had Josh and they hadn’t had a Girls’ Night in weeks.
“I’ve been sleeping at Josh’s most nights anyway since he got the new condo. And with Nick living with Tori and Lorelei now they were tripping over each other. My place was too small for two people, but it’s perfect as a suite for Lorelei, especially now that she’s getting old enough to really want her own space. The two apartments were originally one two-story place so it was the obvious choice to combine them again—we’d been talking about it for weeks. When we realized we had a weekend without filming, we had to jump at it. Our schedule is insane for the next few weeks, but Nick and Josh called in some of their frat buddies and we were able to get my stuff moved over to Josh’s and Lorelei’s transferred upstairs all in two days.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” An irrational trickle of hurt threaded through the question. “I could have helped.”
“We had it under control. And I figured you’d be working anyway.”
“I could have made time. I can’t believe you moved without even telling me.”
“Why are you making a thing of this?” A hint of irritation sparked in Sidney’s voice. “I was trying to be considerate. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to take time off work to help when we didn’t need you.”
“I wasn’t working. I had my parents’ anniversary thing.”
“So you were busy.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Well, can we get to the point?” Sidney asked. “I have about seven thousand things to do before we film tomorrow.”
The sharpness in her voice sealed Parv’s lips. She couldn’t tell Sidney about Common Grounds closing now. The timing couldn’t be more wrong. And she really should tell Tori and Sidney in person. “Are we doing Girls’ Night tomorrow?”
“We can’t this week,” Sidney answered without hesitation—and Parv felt another irrational surge of hurt that Sidney hadn’t even paused to consider.
She didn’t know who the ‘we’ in Sid’s sentence was—her and Tori and Lorelei? Her and Josh?—either way, it was obvious Parvati was no longer part of the we.
“I have another call coming in.” Sidney’s voice was abrupt, her attention already elsewhere. “We’ll talk soon.” She hung up before Parv could say another word, leaving her staring at the phone wondering what just happened.
* * * * *
Max could see Parv was pissed as soon as he walked through the door of Common Grounds that night five minutes before closing. The shop was empty and she stood in front of the counter, polishing the already-spotless pastry case with manic fervor—as if she could make it shine by sheer rpms.
She looked up when he entered, no smile of greeting lighting her face, just a hint of a scowl. “If you want coffee it better be French press or drip. I already cleaned the espresso machine.”
He crossed the shop to lean against the counter near her. “And if I just came to bask in your sparkling personality?”
“We’re all out of sparkle today.” She flung the Windex wipe into the garbage for a three-pointer and pivoted to face him, hands planted on her hips, her stance confrontational. “Did you know your sister moved?”
“Sidney?”
“Do you have another sister?”
“What, did she move in with Josh?”
Parvati rounded the counter and snatched up another cleaning product, attacking another already-gleaming surface. “Apparently while she was ignoring my calls all weekend, she was moving.”
Max eyed her cautiously. “And we’re angry about this.”
As soon as he said the word angry, the fight seemed to drain out of her and she sagged against the counter. “I used to know everything. I was the one Sidney told about her day. I was the one she would bitch to when the cable guy was late or the florist for some wedding was jerking her around. I was her best friend. Now I don’t even know that she’s planning on moving in with her boyfriend, let alone that she already did it?”
“Hey.” He came around the counter, ready to offer what comfort he could, but before he reached her she was back in motion, moving past him, flipping over the closed sign and locking the front door.
“I wasn’t needed. I get that,” Parv said as she moved, briskly going through the motions of closing with the inattention of years of experience. “But I wanted to be there for sentimental value, if nothing else. Josh’s frat brothers helped them move out, but I helped her move in. Tori and Sidney and I wrestled that stupid couch up three flights of stairs all by ourselves, swearing and laughing the whole way. How could they not remember that? I used to be part of everything.”
“If it’s any consolation, they didn’t call me either.” And he could have been much more than just sentimental help. He could have shown up with a team of muscle and gotten it done in half the time.
“Of course they didn’t,” Parvati said, offhand. “Sidney knows better than to rely on you for stuff like that. But I’m always there to help. That’s what I do.”
Her analysis jarred him, the words hitting like an unexpected right hook to the jaw. “I’m reliable.”
“Of course you are,” Parv agreed. “But you’re an island. You don’t involve yourself in other people’s lives.”
“Sidney knows she can rely on me.” He hated how defensive he sounded. Like he was afraid she was right. “I did all the security for her for that celebrity wedding in May.”
“And she’s grateful,” Parv said quickly. “That isn’t what I meant. It’s just… It’s the love languages.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s this book,” Parv explained, finishing up with the front of house closing routine and waving him with her back to the kitchen. “My sister Asha used to be obsessed with it—I think because she’s never been particularly good at dealing with feelings stuff and this was a way of approaching it analytically.” She paused, seeming to remember that he hadn’t just arrived to hear her vent. “Did you want coffee? Or a muffin?”
“I’m good.” He really had come just because he wanted to see her—the fact that he could grab a late cup of coffee or a danish just a convenient excuse.
“Anyway, there are five love languages. The ways people show and receive love—and I’m probably going to get this wrong because I only heard about it from Asha—but they’re physical touch, verbal praise, gift giving, the other one that I always forget, and acts of service. That’s me. Acts of service. I do things for people to show them that I care. I want the people in my life to know that they can always call me, day or night, and I will move heaven and earth to help them. And Sidney didn’t call.”
And finally her tirade made sense. “That doesn’t mean she’s rejecting your friendship.”
“I know.” She sank onto a kitchen stool. “I’m sorry. I know I over-freaked, but it’s been a day. I told Madison and Anna today that I’m closing Common Grounds.”
Max hadn’t realized she’d already gotten to that point. He’d been thinking about her situation for the last couple days, turning over options, his brain automatically churning away to fix the problem.
“What if you didn’t have to?”