Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 59659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“She did,” Mark said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Melanie.
As I looked past him to Melanie, who was now being surrounded by Allison, Mallory, Carmela, Amy and Norma, she winked and waved. It looked like they were gathering her up to take her out as well.
Once in the limo that had inexplicably shown up outside of the store, I whipped out my phone to text Melanie.
Did you know about this? I texted.
It was my idea, she texted back. The girls and I are going out too. Go have fun. Be silly. I love you.I love you too, I texted back.
It was a permission slip to go be dumb and act up with the boys, and yet, all night, I found myself texting her. I wanted her to know how much I loved her, and how much that even in a moment of fun with my best friends, I still thought of her. Plus, it was fun to send her pictures and to get ones back of the shenanigans the girls got into. Apparently, Norma knew how to party. I wasn’t sure if I would ever see her the same way again after some of the stuff I saw in those pictures.
By the time midnight rolled around, I was sure that not only had I had enough to drink, but that there was nowhere on earth I would rather be than in bed in Melanie’s arms.
28
MELANIE
Victor said I had no idea how many people in town loved me and my family, and that I would be surprised, but I still had a hard time believing him. With the store having struggled financially in recent years, I thought it was all due to a lack of interest by the town of Murdock. The combination of new and emerging markets and superstores were smoking us out, and after my parents died, people seemed to be slowly losing the connection to the local store that they once had.
But Victor insisted I was wrong. That the love for Brewer’s Grocery was as high as it had ever been and that customers had simply taken the store for granted recently, and the storm and losing the original building was going to bring them back. I had my doubts.
Then the store opened, and it had been a bonanza every day. With a wedding to prepare for, I couldn’t be there all the time, but thankfully I didn’t need to be. Norma and Amy stepped up in their new roles, and a host of new hires were making it easy on me to be an executive and do the big picture stuff I had always wanted, while also having an actual work-life balance that meant I got to go home after eight hours instead of sleeping in the spinning chair in the tiny office the old store used to have.
When Victor suggested that we get married in the empty lot behind the store, and that we shut down for it and invite the whole town, I thought it was a sweet, if silly idea. Our friends would come, sure, and maybe a few of the regulars. But inviting the whole town was borderline embarrassing. Who else was going to show up?
As it turned out, everyone.
It seemed like the whole town was there, and from my view from inside the store in the office, I could see that cars were parked on the sidewalks all the way down Broad and Main and all the side streets around them. The whole town had come to a standstill, and everyone was filing into the lot, wearing suits and dresses and enjoying the atmosphere.
Carmela was with me, sitting in the spinning chair that had somehow survived the storm and the transition to the new store. It had been found two streets away, sitting in the middle of the road, completely unharmed. Norma took it home, and when the new store opened, brought it back. She said she couldn’t imagine the store being complete without that chair in the office, even if the office was now twice as big and connected to a suite for Victor and me to work out of.
I paced between the two rooms, going from the office to the suite and back, my stomach in knots as I watched people file in.
“Babe, you are going to sweat yourself right out of your makeup,” Carmela said, standing and bringing me a cold bottle of water. “Why don’t you sit down in the chair?”
“I can’t sit,” I said. “Not in this dress. This is not a sitting dress.”
“All right,” she said, not skipping a beat, “then why don’t we walk around the store a little? Watching people file in isn’t going to help your nerves. The other girls are out there. We can go have a little glass of wine and relax.”