two

Hours later, even thinking about Melanie’s insinuation that her business was failing still made the tips of Jack’s ears burn. She idled at the street corner that headed to Graham’s. Jack considered skipping out on the weekly guy’s night with him and her brother. Bed sounded good. Drowning her pissy mood with beer and friends sounded better.

She turned left onto Magnolia Street and had to wait for a cluster of college boys in ripped-to-be-fashionable jeans and polos to move out of the street in front of Sweetwater Brewery. Recognizing two or three of them as customers, she waved. She caught the words cupcakes and hot even through the rolled-up windows, then the subtle hint of gardenias. The desire wasn’t strong, just enough to get her attention. She smiled at the boy in front. He patted the hood of her car twice before stepping out of her way.

Jack cracked open the window to coax the scent of her perfume from the car. She didn’t have to look in the rearview mirror to know he was still watching her as she drove away.

The car bumped over the brick crosswalk bridging the two sides of Sugar’s main shopping district. Though the majority of shops were closed for the night, the restaurants looked full.

A parking space opened one building down from Three Sugars Coffee Company. Figuring it was the closest she was going to get, she pulled in. The air had cooled and held a faint scent of caramel as she got out of the car. Her shoulders popped when she stretched. The first traces of tension began to dissolve.

She glanced up at the apartment windows two floors above the coffee shop, and seeing Graham’s lights on, walked through the thin alleyway that led to the residents’ entrance in the back. Jack keyed in the code, and the door opened with a trio of beeps. The overhead lights in the stairwell had burned out months before. There was one window on the second-floor landing. It was grimy and let in more air than light from deep cuts in the casing.

Jack took the steps to the third floor two at a time.

She rapped one knuckle on the door—a deep thunk, thunk that echoed down the hallway. She entered without waiting for Graham to open it. His one-bedroom apartment smelled of lavender and salt.

Small terra-cotta pots of herbs lined the windows. He coaxed tarragon, basil, lime thyme, chocolate mint, pineapple mint, rosemary, and lavender from the dirt with delicate fingers and soft murmurs. He babied his plants and, in return, they sprouted strong and potent. Clumps of dried herbs hung from fraying string tied to the knobs on the kitchen cabinets, which his gray tabby, Alice, pawed at like piñatas.

Before Jack had taken more than three steps inside, Alice weaved around the legs of the coffee table and greeted Jack with a warbling cry.

She bent to scratch the cat’s ears. “Hey, Fuzzball,” she cooed. The greeting was returned with a thunderous purr as if Jack had cranked a motor. She straightened when Graham padded, barefoot, into the room.

His hair was damp and spiked out from his scalp. In a Breaking Benjamin tee and jeans frayed at the pockets and hems, he looked much more like the music store employee he’d been in high school than the award-winning pastry chef he’d become.

She imagined running her fingers over his scalp, messing up his hair even more. Instead she said, “Sorry. I’m early.”

“No problem. Hutt’s running late. Walked out of the house without the beer.”

“We give the man one job and he can’t even do that.” She sighed, a dramatic outpouring of breath. She flopped onto the sofa and nestled into it with a rough, full-body shake that caused her to sink into the plush folds.

“I don’t see any pizza, either. You Pace kids are worthless,” Graham said.

“Indeed we are. I don’t know why you put up with us.”

“Old habits are hard to break.”

She smiled as the air shifted, a subtle flutter against her skin. She rubbed her hands back and forth on her arms to settle the goose bumps. For a few seconds, the air smelled like mint and lime. She let it wash over her. It seeped into her pores so that her blood pumped faster through her veins. The scent was so warm, so seductive that she closed her eyes and wished she could live in the moment forever. Her skin felt like she’d spent the day at the beach instead of at work.

It disappeared just as quickly as if she’d imagined it.

Graham looked away when she caught him watching her. At the knock on the door, Jack hefted herself up. “That would be my pizza.” She pulled money from her purse and paid the delivery guy. The box burned her hand. She set it on a stack of old cycling magazines. “We’re not all worthless.”

His mouth tugged up into a half smile as he sat next to her. He reached across her for a slice, letting the lid fall back into place with a soft scratching of cardboard on cardboard. He ate his first piece in four bites before she had even started on hers.

“Did your day get any better?” he asked.

“Nope. Worse,” she said. He raised an eyebrow at her and waited for her to continue. “Melanie stopped by. To check up on us. She’s worried that you’re going to realize you’re too good for this place and leave. She practically said that I was irrelevant.”

“Well, she’s wrong,” Graham said.

“I’m serious, Graham. It’s like people think I don’t do anything around here. I give them exactly what they want every time without asking, but they don’t even notice.”

“C’mon, Jack. You can’t be mad at them for not knowing something you want kept a secret.”

“I know. I know,” she groaned. Dropping her head back on the cushion, she tried—and failed—to rein in her frustration. “But is it too much to ask that they at least recognize that I’m damn good at my job? That what I bring to the table makes them happy every time they stop in?”

He bumped his shoulder to hers. “I promise you, people don’t just come in for the cupcakes. They come in because you make sure they’re happy. Don’t let Melanie get in your head.”

Too late, she thought. But she pushed it out of her head. “We’re gonna have to knock the Twilight cupcakes out of the park if we want to make her happy.”

“We will.”

He was so matter-of-fact, Jack turned to look at him. His face was inches away from hers. His breath caressed her cheeks. She met his eyes. They were so steady and confident. They held none of the fear she knew must’ve been staring back at him from her own. The hair on her arms stood up as she inhaled a subtle hint of mint. She held her breath. The scent filled her, spreading like a shot of whiskey to warm her chest, and made her dizzy. He was still watching her, unblinking.

Jack shifted away from the middle of the couch. Away from him.

By the time her brother arrived, the cheese had congealed into a thick crust on top of the last two pieces. The pepperoni and bacon looked like shriveled bits of shrapnel. Hutton devoured them anyway. Then he popped the cap off of a Corona and guzzled it.

“Rough day?” Jack asked.

“Nah. Just trying to catch up,” he said. Hutton grabbed her beer and drained it, too. The muscles in his forearm flexed as he plopped the empty bottle on the table in triumph. He stood and headed to the kitchen.

“At least get me a new one.”

“Not a chance.”

“Thanks for nothing, Perm Boy,” she said. She could tell the insult penetrated when his back stiffened.

Hutton’s blond hair was cut close, revealing no hint of the dense curls that had plagued his childhood. Old ladies would pat his cheeks and asked if his mother had had it permed. The day he was old enough to decide his hair’s fate, he’d whacked it all off and had yet to forgive their mom.

Hutton came back with two bottles, and for a fraction of a breath, Jack imagined his hand tilting, upending the contents on her head. Instead he handed it to Graham. The bottle passed so close to her face that the fizz from the lime tickled her nose.

Graham took a long swallow before handing it to her.

Jack’s fingers brushed his as she took the bottle and said, “Thanks.” She beamed at her brother.

Hutton grunted his disapproval.

“I’d wind up getting her one anyway,” Graham said with a shrug.

Jack straightened on the couch. “I could’ve gotten it.”

“But you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d sit there pouting and Hutt would sit there egging you on for long enough that I’d get you the damn beer just to get the evening moving again, and you both know it.”

“He’s got a point,” Hutton said. He checked his watch and turned back to her. “Do you still have a vacancy above the shop?”

“Do you know someone who might want it?” she asked.

“Um, yeah. I might,” Hutton hedged.

“That would be great. I’d like to get someone in there before the oven spontaneously combusts and takes the whole building with it.”

“I’m not gonna burn the place down, Jack,” Graham muttered.

“I know you won’t, but that oven has it out for me. It would blow up just to spite me.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Hutton said. “I heard it plotting with the toaster the other day. They’re taking you down, missy.”

“We don’t have a toaster,” she said.

“That’s what you think. They’ve got you surrounded and you don’t even know. Victory is at hand!” His voice jumped up several decibels so that the last sentence boomed around the room. He had perfected his evil chuckle over the years so that it came out as a singsong “muahaha,” punctuated with short bursts of dead silence in between to prolong it.

Jack rolled her eyes.

The television hummed low in the background. It sent flashes of color and light dancing across the room. The conversation shifted between the strangest cravings Jack had sensed that week to a detailed description of an articulate—if slightly inaccurate—term paper one of the students in Hutton’s young adult literature class had turned in on why the Unites States is headed toward becoming a dystopian society and how the government leaders in The Hunger Games had a point. Hutton recounted a few of the more salient points and said he was just glad that at least the student had put some thought into it unlike half the class who had written about how they wished Hogwarts was real.

He jumped up when a knock resounded from the door. He waved Graham back down and threw Jack a strained smile over his shoulder before opening it.

Their sister stood in the doorway. Harper’s pale hair was streaked with chunks of hot pink. In her teens it had progressed through a rainbow of colors: desperate black, violet, flame-tipped, atomic red, and platinum. And every style had fit her. She’d added a lip ring and a silver bar through her left eyebrow since the last time Jack had seen her.

She had never looked more beautiful.

The one rebellious thing Jack had done with her appearance was a tattoo—the lyrics to her favorite song—inked in black on the soft underside of her forearm. “If I told you I loved you, you might melt away on my tongue like spun sugar and disappear.” She traced the curved letters as if they were Braille. Her life story, at least as it pertained to Graham, was inscribed in plain view. But he may as well have been blind for all he noticed it. Or her.

Harper’s face was flushed with color, though the only makeup she wore was a thick trail of eyeliner and mascara. Over the years, she had put on a healthy ten pounds, which did more than merely hint at curves and removed all traces of the sharp cheekbones and restlessness of her youth.

“Hey,” Jack said. The greeting stretched between them. One syllable extended into two. She removed her hands from her back pockets. When Harper stepped closer, Jack stood and looped her arms around Harper’s waist. She sighed when Harper did the same.

“Hey yourself,” Harper said.

They broke apart and stepped back as if the close proximity had made them feel more like sisters than the almost strangers they were.

“How long have you been in town?”

“A few days.”

Jack’s surprise burst out of her in a squeaky Oh. She would have backed up if Graham hadn’t been in her way, his fingers lightly held to the small of her back.

“It’s not like that,” Harper rushed to clarify. Her cheeks burned, matched her hair. “I needed to figure out what I was doing before I sprang myself on y’all. I just saw Hutton yesterday, and Mama and Daddy don’t even know I’m back yet.”

“Are you back?” Graham asked.

“I think so. And I hear there’s a vacancy above your shop.” Her tone was hesitant, hopeful. She glanced at Jack.

When Jack had leased the retail space, the landlord said he’d only rent it to her if she took charge of keeping the studio apartment rented as well. Until a few months ago, the room had yet to be empty for more than two weeks. She couldn’t keep her shop afloat and cover the apartment rent, too. But she wasn’t desperate enough to believe that she could rely on her sister for anything.

Determined to keep her resolve, Jack said, “I think it’s a little out of your price range.”

“But it’s just sitting there empty. So it’s not like you’d be any worse off if I crashed there for a while.”

“But if you’re living there I can’t very well get some paying person to move in.”

“If you find someone, I’ll move out. I don’t have much stuff so I could be out quickly. Please help me out, Jack,” Harper said.

“C’mon, Jack. What’s it gonna hurt?” Hutton pressed.

Everything. She shrugged and avoided looking either of them in the eye.

***

Jack seethed as she watched her handyman tinker. Her foot tapped in time with the clock, ticking off each second with a sharp slap of her shoe on the floor tiles. Danny had the top two-thirds of his body crammed into the malfunctioning appliance. He checked wires and heating coils. He thumped on the sides with a rubber mallet. He emerged, scooted it out from the wall, made a few more thwacks, and returned into the belly of the oven, where he started the process over again.

The longer she waited, the more tense her body grew until her arms were stiff at her sides and her jaw felt fused shut with miles of thick, heavy wire. She’d dropped enough money into repairs that she could’ve replaced it twice with comparable models.

“Yep, your wiring’s shot,” Danny said from inside. His voice was garbled, gravelly.

“You were in here not two weeks ago and said it was the thermostat. So which is it?” Jack rapped on the side. The cold metal shook.

He shuffled backward, scooting his knees along the floor until his face was free. Hefting himself to his feet, he readjusted his girth. Danny was in his seventies and still well over six feet tall. Jack was surprised he could still maneuver in and out of tight spaces. His stark-white hair sprouted from his scalp and face as thick as if he were forty years younger. “Well, I thought it was, but looks like it’s this now.”

“It looks like, Danny? I’m paying for repairs, not for guessing. I don’t have money for looks like. I need you to be right this time.”

“Hold on there, Jaclyn. Don’t get huffy.”

“I need my damn oven fixed. Like yesterday. And if you can’t, I need you to tell me now. We can’t keep throwing away half of everything we make because the stupid thing wants to be put out of its misery.”

“Whoa, Jack. Chill,” Graham said. He stepped in between them and spread his arms to silence them both. “I know it sucks, and it’s expensive, but it’s not going to do us any good to get pissed off.”

“This coming from the guy who assaulted it with cutlery yesterday morning,” she said.

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged.

“I’ll just leave you to figure it out then.” Jack went out the back door and sat on the gritty concrete. Despite the chill in the air, the sun beat down warm on her exposed face. She shoved her sleeves halfway up her forearms and let the sun prickle her skin.

The door to the gallery next door creaked open. Caught by the wind, it flew open, banged into the building, and then shut with a deep click when the manager kicked it.

Jack nodded to the girl, who slouched against the brick wall, puffing on a cigarette. The breeze tangled her hair. She could smell the spicy cloves from the cigarette. She inhaled deeper to savor the scent and made a mental note to ask Graham about a gingersnap cupcake for next fall.

Her pulse began to slow. She considered going over the finances again but she could pull up any figure from the QuickBooks spreadsheet simply by thinking about it. And the numbers knocking around in her head did not include a new oven.

“God, what’re we gonna do?” she muttered.

The girl next door looked up and said, “What?”

Jack shook her head. “Nothing.”

Deciding she had given Graham enough time to square things away with Danny, she pushed up from the ground, shaking granules of dirt and rocks from her hands. The door slapped into place behind her. The room was quiet. The oven sat quietly appeased.

For the moment.

Graham wasn’t in the kitchen, which meant that he was either still smoothing over the situation or he’d been forced to help a customer. She shuddered at the thought. She walked up front in time to hand the customer a double-chocolate salted caramel instead of the carrot cake she’d ordered.

“I’d compromised with myself that I could have one if I got one with a vegetable in it, but the caramel is just so good.” She took the box, hugging it to her chest as she left.

“How did it end with Danny?” Jack asked when they were alone.

“He fiddled with the wires and said it’ll hold for a bit,” he said.

“All right.” She drummed her fingers at the base of her neck, along her shoulders. She winced.

“You okay?”

“Stress headache. Nothing new.”

Graham leaned against the doorjamb. Crossing his legs at the ankles, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “It’s not dead yet. We can probably eke out a few more months from it.”

“Even if we do, I still don’t know how we’ll pay for it. We haven’t had a renter upstairs for going on two months. And business isn’t exactly booming.”

“Are we that bad off?”

Jack shifted around him and slipped the file of spreadsheets out from under the register, where she’d stashed it the day before. “No,” she said, grimacing as she looked at the numbers again. “Maybe. Things are tight, hence my nice little freak out the other day over Melanie. I’ve already been to both banks in town and talked with one in Atlanta on the phone about getting another loan. No dice. Apparently we’re not a ‘good investment’ in the eyes of the bankers.”

He flicked the cover of the folder closed. “There are other banks,” he said.

It won’t matter, Graham. No one’s gonna throw money at a dying business. Sighing, she said, “We’re still open, and for now that’s gonna have to be good enough.” She forced a smile.

“We may not be open for too long if I have to toss half of what I make,” Graham said.

She followed him into the back. While he rolled a baking rack out of the walk-in cooler, she leaned against the office door.

Removing cupcakes from metal cups, Graham separated them by doneness—golden, tan, and verging-on-burned. He shoved a row of dark-brown cakes off the edge of the table and into the trash. They tumbled against the bag with a heavy thud, thud, thud as they piled on top of each other.

“Damn thing’s gonna be the death of us,” Jack said. “Will you be okay if we can’t afford the huge-ass, double oven you’ve been mooning over? I mean, do we really need one that has all those bells and whistles?”

“Yes, I do need them,” he said. He looked up, hair flopping in his bright eyes.

His expression was so serious, Jack almost laughed.

“Not only will that oven not burn half of what I bake, it’ll increase efficiencies, and hopefully lead to a steady rise in our net sales.” Graham ticked off his points by squirting a dollop of icing on each of three cupcakes. “It’ll most likely pay for itself within a few months.”

“Look at you using all those big businessy words.”

“I want this oven. Need this oven.”

“I know.”

Graham rapped his knuckles on the table next to her in defeat. “I can call my dad,” he said.

“Graham, no,” Jack said. She pushed up on one of the worktables and sat with a dejected thump. The metal was cool. It seeped through her canvas pants to numb her thighs. She scissored her legs from side to side.

“He’s got money. And we both know he owes me,” he said.

“We’ll find another way. Plus you said we probably have a few more months. Things will turn around.”

Or you’ll go somewhere where they can give you what you want.