Digging In: A Novel(61)
I leaned forward. I could see his beard had already made a return appearance, the scruff a burnt-orange color. Sean’s lips were full and lush for a man. I licked mine and then slowly pressed them to his. He let me, but he didn’t take charge. He let me lead myself to a place of comfort. His mouth, soft and accessible, didn’t demand, it just accepted.
He was giving me a chance to get myself together. And I needed it. I pulled back, surprised my breath had left me. I could feel the goose bumps rise on my skin, though it must have been ninety degrees.
“Was that okay?” he asked, his features etched with concern.
“Yeah, it was—” A bright orange sticker affixed to the front door grabbed my attention. I had a feeling I knew what it was. “Son of a bitch!”
“What?”
It was stuck at the top like a Post-it note. I tore it down, reading quickly in the glow of the porch light. “It’s a cease and desist command. From the village.”
He ran a hand over his face. “They don’t mess around, but they usually have a pretty sound reason for taking action.”
“It says that using my private residential property as a profit-seeking business is against the bylaws. I have to shut down the garden. How would they know that I intend to sell anything?”
Sean stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I might have said something about your salsa to Mr. Eckhardt.”
“You didn’t.”
“I kind of did.”
I took the letter in both hands and slowly ripped it in two. “I’m allowed to have a garden. They’re going to have to dig it all up if they want me to stop.” I tore it again and again, until it was reduced to bright orange confetti.
“I don’t know if that’s wise,” Sean said.
“Wisdom hasn’t done all that much for me,” I said before tossing the shredded papers onto Mr. Eckhardt’s pristine lawn.
And then I pulled Sean to me, and kissed him with the force of a woman on a mission.
CHAPTER 25
Excerpt from Petra Polly: Chapter 6—The Personality of a Successful Business
Your company has a personality. Like every living, breathing being, its personality is made up of traits both positive and negative. You must assess these traits objectively—is the company stodgy and rigid? Passionate and creative? Adventurous and impulsive? Once you’ve composed a personality portrait, determine whether it’s working to boost the company. If it isn’t, then it’s time for some reshaping. Reward the positive attributes, and squelch the negative. Remember that bubbly, effervescent, high-energy cheerleader? That’s what you’re shooting for. Minus the hair product and domineering quarterback boyfriend.
“Do you notice that Petra gets a little weirder toward the end of the book?” Rhiannon mused from the floor of the conference room. Convinced her vertebrae were out of alignment, thereby fracturing her train of thought, she’d taken to stretching out on the hard floor with a tennis ball under her lower back.
“The tone shifts,” Byron contributed. “She seems snarkier.”
“I don’t mind it,” Glynnis said, shooting daggers at Byron. Rhiannon and Byron were officially a scandalous office romance. Everyone knew and no one talked about it, though I sensed both Rhiannon and Byron couldn’t wait for the gossip to reach a fervor. Jackie and I refused to give them the satisfaction. Glynnis couldn’t help herself. She seethed.
“I like her better this way,” I said. “She’s got a little something to her.”
Lukas burst into the room, a trick he’d overused. None of us flinched. “Tonight,” he said with a healthy dollop of drama. “To-night is the night!”
None of us was to leave the office until it was time to head over to the bookshop. Instead of dashing home for a quick dinner with Trey, as I’d planned, I would practice my script for when I, lowly ad gal, had an audience with the illustrious Petra Polly.
Lukas would place himself first in line to introduce the company and our plans to turn her into a superstar. Rhiannon and Byron would follow, and I, loitering at the end of the line, would try to seal the deal. Frankly, I was surprised Lukas would trust me with such an important part of the mission, but he seemed to think I could be an authoritative presence.
In other words, I was old.
If Petra hadn’t called for security by the time I made it to the front of the line, she might be amenable to listening to a middle-aged woman in a dated power suit, sporting a farmer’s tan. We’d kept the script simple, direct, and professional. The advertisements already lined the walls of the conference room, blown up to poster size and somewhat intimidating. Lukas decided to play all bases—some featured the photo of Petra from her book cover, wide-eyed and dewy skinned, and others featured the products, the aesthetic and design heavily borrowed from the kitschy-hipster style of Anthropologie with the clean, inviting lines of Restoration Hardware. It felt derivative to me. Too safe.
As a general rule, I liked safe. Or, I used to. But then my safe life betrayed me. Jesse and I built our lives around cultivating security. We took risks far fewer times than other couples our age, and when we did, like canceling one life insurance policy before taking up with another, it not only bit us in the ass, but it chewed and chewed until we couldn’t sit down.
A woman like Petra Polly needed something so far outside the box that the box could no longer be seen. This wasn’t it. But then Lukas seemed to understand Petra on a deeper level than the rest of us. I kept my mouth shut.