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Authors: Rita Stradling

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BOOK: The Fourteen Day Soul Detox
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“Oh good, that went well?”
I asked.

“Better than I even thought it
would.” He gave me a grin and a wink. “Things are looking
up, fingers crossed.”

I nodded. “Fingers crossed.”

Chris’s gaze went back and forth
between us, and then he smiled at Cameron. “Well, I’m
happy for you, bro. You deserve good things coming your way.”

“Thanks, buddy, I really
appreciate you saying that. So,” he drew out the word, “what’s
the favorite for today.”

“Lunch or pastry?” Chris
asked

“Banana muffins,” I said as
a fake-cough.

“I’ll take a banana
muffin,” Cameron said with a grin and a quick glance over at
me.

“Here’s your drink,”
I said, leaning over the register. As I handed him his dark roast
coffee with a double espresso shot in it, his fingers brushed over
mine. His thumb brushed across my hand once before I pulled it away.

After insisting on paying, as he always
did, he held up his pastry bag and said, “Later.”

“Yeah,” I said, biting my
lip as he turned away.

The moment the door clanged closed
behind Cameron, Chris turned on me. “So when are you guys
getting married?”

“Um, never. What are you talking
about?” I turned back to the espresso machine. Grabbing a
towel, I started scrubbing under the machine. “Speaking of
marriage, how’s Melissa? Isn’t it about time you put a
ring on her finger?”

When I looked up at Chris, he was just
shaking his head at me. “Smooth,” he said.

“What?” I said. “Cameron
and I are just friends. We’d never get married… in a
million years.”

“Does he know that?” Chris
asked.

“Yes, he knows that.” I
slammed the double filter holder down over the trash to empty the wet
grinds.

“If you say so.” Chris
raised his hands in surrender. “And, Melissa’s good. She
wants to wait to get married until we both graduate. She’s
actually been bugging me about bringing you and Sarah over for
dinner.”

“I’d love that. But, we’d
probably have to meet at a neutral location, or at my house. Melissa
just has way too much nice stuff for Sarah to knock over.”

“Oh, she’s not worried
about that,” he said, waving a hand in the air.

“Just you wait until Sarah tries
to do a handspring on your coffee table. Trust me, it’ll be
better at my place,” I said.

“Whatever works,” he
shrugged.

“Well, if you’re determined
to stay until we close, mind covering the front while I check through
the papers in the office? I’m hoping to find a couple more
exemptions before I take the shop’s papers to my tax advisor. I
was thinking that if we got enough of a refund, I could hire someone
else on, maybe keep the shop open on evenings and weekends like the
old days. What do you think?”

“Like I told you last week,
Jamie, I think… you should take that offer and sell the shop,”
he said.

I blew out my breath, shaking my head.
“You’re so eager to be out of a job, are you?”

“We both know I wouldn’t be
out of a job for long. I’ve been working here since the day it
opened, and I’ll be here until the day it closes. Businesses
love that stuff. And you’d give me one hell of a reference,”
he said, giving me a smile.

“You think so, do you?” I
said, throwing my towel at his face.

He caught it out of the air.

“I don’t get it, Chris.
You’re the only one who loves this place more than I do.”

“I’d miss this place like
crazy, but you should sell it,” he said. “Aren’t
you tired of paying off a property you’ve already paid off
after years of working your ass off? And it’s a mean lien the
court put on this place. At our current earnings you’ll be
paying it off for another ten years. And, I know you’re paying
yourself minimum wage.”

“That’s why I think we
should hire someone. We miss out on a lot of the business on the
evenings and weekends,” I said. “We could do open mics
and stuff like that.”

Chris shook his head. “The time
is right now, Jamie. You might not get an offer like this again. That
offer was for more than what you owe. You and Sarah would even have a
little to start over. Put a down payment on a house or something.”

I touched Chris’s arm. “You’re
a good guy, Chris,” I said before turning toward the back
office.

“I was here in the beginning,
Jamie. I remember, it was his big dream, not yours,” he said.

“It was both our dreams,” I
said, not turning around.

“Wait, no, I can prove it,”
Chris called.

Rolling my eyes, I turned around. “You
can?”

Chris grinned widely, held up a hand
and walked backward to where we always stored our personal stuff. He
pulled a small square present out of his old, worn satchel.

“What’s that?” I
asked.

“Your birthday present,” he
said, his grin growing even wider. He handed it over.

“Why am I scared?” I asked
him, smiling.

The moment I pulled the blue wrapping
paper away from the CD, I started laughing. “No way! Where did
you get this?” I asked.

“eBay. I had to get a bunch of
other early 2000’s pop CDs with it, but it was worth it.”

“I think that this might be the
best present anyone has ever given me,” I said, meaning it. “I
lost this, you know, with everything else.” I held it up.

“You were pretty hot back then,”
he said, looking at the picture on the cover of the CD.

I smacked his arm. “Back then?”

“Jesus, you don’t need to
get violent. Okay, fine, you were hot back then, but now you’re
gorgeous,” he said.

“Better,” I said.

“And wowza, look at Susan and…”
he paused, looking up at me with a grimace.

I swallowed. “It’s okay,
you can say it, Vanessa was super hot back then too.” I looked
down at our picture. Our blonde hair was up in pin-up girl style
while we stood in super short cut-offs and red and white striped crop
tops, giving the camera attitude. “We were all such babies back
then, and look at us, we’re practically naked.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll look,”
he said.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said,
pulling the CD back to me. “My fifteen minutes of fame,
immortalized in a compact disk.”

“Let’s put it on,”
Chris said.

I looked over to Margret who was still
working away on her computer. “I’m pretty sure we’ll
drive away Margret for good.” She was a professional looking
young woman; this was probably her office away from her office.

“Hey Margie,” Chris called.

“Yeah?” Margret called, not
looking up from her laptop.

“Did you know that Jamie here was
in an early 2000’s pop group?” he called back.

“Are you serious?” she
said, looking up with interest. She walked up to the counter. “Early
2000’s were my years. Were you famous?”

“No,” I said.

“They were a one-hit wonder.
‘Cherry Pie’, you ever heard of them?”

Margret gave me an apologetic smile. “I
can’t say that I have.”

Chris sang, “
Don’t you
want to love me, baby? When the sun goes down. Don’t you want
to touch me, baby, when I’m not around?

I buried my face in my hands. “Now
I’ll definitely not be able to listen to it, I’m already
too embarrassed.”

“Oh, can we? It sounds familiar,
but I’m not sure,” Margret said.

“Oh, fine,” I said, face
still in my hands.

A second later I heard the
oh-so-familiar opening notes from the first song of our CD before
Chris skipped forward to our famous song.

The intro notes played and Margret
burst out laughing. “Oh my god, I remember this song. This was
like senior prom for me. That was you?” she asked.

I nodded.

When the chorus came on, both Chris and
Margret sang along, “
Don’t you want to love me, baby?
When the sun goes down. Don’t you want to touch me, baby, when
I’m not around? It’s been so long, baby, and to you it
might sound sappy. But it’s been so long, so long, baby, since
I was happy.

“Come on, Jamie, you know the
words,” Chris said, nudging me.

“Fine,” I said with a
smile, and I joined them for the next chorus.

When the chorus ended, I stopped
singing too, though I remembered the words.

When the song was over, Margret smiled
at me. “Well, I’m going to have to go buy a copy of your
CD and have you autograph it for me.”

“Good luck,” Chris said,
“Took me forever to find it. You can buy the track off iTunes
though, and have Jamie sign a napkin. Cheaper that way too.”

“No, I’m determined.”
she smiled. “Have you ever been on one of those ‘where
are they now’ things?”

“Nope, but my friend Susan was.”
I pointed to her on the cover. “But, only because she married
an international supermodel and they ‘retired’ together.
Susan’s partner was the main article.”

“Well, that’s very cool,”
Margret said, “I’m going to go pack up and get out of
your hair, guys. I’ll see you Monday.”

“Thanks for coming in Margie,”
Chris said.

When the next song started playing, I
pressed eject on the CD player and replaced the CD in its case. I
slipped the CD case in a pastry bag, taping the ends down.

“What was that?” Chris
asked, raising a brow at me.

I gave him a sheepish smile. “I
don’t want the case to get scratched. Thank you so much Chris,
this really was the best present ever.”

“What else did you get?” he
asked.

“Nothing yet,” I said,
shrugging.

“Well, the point I was trying to
make earlier, was that when I first met you six years ago, you told
me you wanted to go back to your singing career. You told me that you
were just putting things on hold until Logan’s coffee shop and
bakery was on its feet.”

Shaking my head, I stowed the CD in my
purse, making sure I zipped up the purse so it wouldn’t fall
out. “Dreams change, Chris. Even then I knew it would be hard
to be a professional singer and a full time mom. No matter what, I’d
need a day job.”

“Not for a little while if you
took that offer,” he said.

“Even if I didn’t need a
day job financially, I’d
need
a day job for my sanity.
Just having the morning off today proved that to me.”

“Work for Cam, he’d hire
you in a heartbeat,” Chris said.

“At a custom body shop? Um, no.
What would I do?”

He gestured to me. “Be a
receptionist? I don’t know, help him manage it?”

“I am not working for Cameron,”
I said, snorting and suppressing a grin.

“Fine, well, I’ll hire you
when I start up my cupcake shop. It’ll probably be a year or
two, but I can hire you in the meantime to help with all the start-up
paperwork and stuff that I have no idea how to do. I’ll pay you
more than minimum too,” he said, pointing at me.

Two sudden tears splashed down my face.
“You would hire me?”

“In a heartbeat, Jamie,” he
said. “Hey, stop crying.” He pulled me into a hug.

I loved Chris’s hugs; they were
all-consuming and substantial. He smelled like coffee grinds and
flour.

“I’ll help you with your
paperwork, Chris. You don’t need to pay me.”

“Ah, shut up, Jamie. Of course
I’d pay you,” he said, stepping back from me.

Wiping my face off, I smiled at him.
“That means a lot, Chris, so much.”

“You going to sell the shop?”
he asked.

“No… I don’t know
Chris. It just doesn’t feel right selling Logan’s shop.”
I closed my eyes. “But, I’ll think about what you said,
and no matter what, I want to help you with your future cupcake
empire.”

“Well, it’s up to you.”
He shrugged.

The door clanged and a family walked
in.

“Hey, I’ll take the
customers. You go do what you have to do,” he said.

Day
Zero: One-forty

Instead of heading to the office, I
smashed down the recycling, flattening milk cartons and ice-cream
boxes. As I passed the office door on the way to the back exit where
we kept the trash and recycling bins, I forced myself to look away.
Out behind the store, the smell of the trash mingled with the briny
smell of the not-so-distant ocean.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out
the key to the dumpsters. Turning, I jumped a foot in the air when I
saw a man looking at me. All the recycling I was holding fell to the
ground.

“Oh, I’m sorry Jamie!”
he said, getting to his feet.

I grabbed at my heart. “Mitch,
you scared the crap out of me. You know you’re not supposed to
be back here,” I said.

He wiped at his nose, leaving a smear
of dirt across his face. “I’m sorry, Jamie,” he
said again, his loose jaw moved too much with his words.

I doubted Mitch was much older than I
was, but he was already missing a couple teeth and had several deep
wrinkles. “It’s just so cold with the wind, and they call
the cops behind the ice cream place. The shelter doesn’t open
for a while, you know. Can I just stay? Just for a little while. I
won’t touch anything.”

I looked around the alley; the only
thing he could possibly touch was our locked dumpsters.

“Go on ahead around and into the
shop. Tell Chris I said to hook you up with a coffee and something to
eat.”

He slumped forward, staring at the
ground. “Nah, Jamie, that’s okay. I’m not looking
for a handout. just a warm place to sit.”

“Well, unfortunately Mitch, I
can’t have you back here. Tell you what, if you help me out
with picking up all this recycling for me and throwing it in the bin,
I’ll repay you with a coffee, something to eat and you can sit
in the shop while we close.”

“Like, as a payment?” he
asked.

“Yeah, like that,” I said.

He grinned. “Yeah, um, that’d
be great. So I’ve been meaning to ask, do you have any liquor
in there? Like do you add it to the coffee, ever?”

“Nope, sorry,” I said.

“That’s cool, no, that’s
fine. I love your coffee, thanks.” He stood up, scrambling to
gather the boxes I had just dropped.

BOOK: The Fourteen Day Soul Detox
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