Chapter 4 - Callie
Having to hear “I told you so” from anyone is disheartening. It’s a painful reminder and annoying remark. Especially when it comes from yourself.
I muttered those words to myself over and over as I speedily walked down from Declan’s apartment back to my car. To my surprise, I was able to hold my tears in the entire time, and I was able to keep myself from keying Declan’s car on the way out. Though that may have just been because I don't have a clue as to what car he drives. I bet it’s expensive though and could use a good keying. HIs whole place could do with some rearranging. Maybe I should have stayed in bed with him until he fell asleep and woken him up with an entirely new place. Shattered windows, everything in his fridge relocated to the toilet or sidewalk, and every single one of his cushions torn open.
A jail cell would be inconvenient to run a bakery from, but being there as a result of trashing Dicklan’s place would feel so satisfying. More satisfying than fucking-- well, that’s untrue. Having sex with him may be one of the only redeeming moment of the night.
But that’s not true either!
The whole night was fine. He was nice, charming, we were getting along fine. Everything was fine. Until he decided to ruin by belittling the importance of this date. Even if it wasn’t important to him, he had to know that a date with a millionaire would mean a lot to a baker who hasn’t had any sort of social life since grade school.
And if he knew, then that just makes him a prick. A sex-hungry prick who uses women.
I can’t even think of him. And I won’t. That’ll be my little goal for the week. To forget about that prick and hope I never have to come across him.
“So how was your date?”
The enthusiasm on Sheila’s face slowly disappeared when she read my face. Instead of waiting for an answer, she quietly continued her opening duties.
Opening the bakery in a bad mood may be the best action to take, but my only other option was staying at home with my kittens, checking movies off my Netflix queue that consists of mostly rom-coms.
Sheila clears her throat for a second attempt at starting a conversation. “Any orders were have to take care of today?”
Nothing.
“Not yet. But I’m sure something will come in. Today might just be a slow day.” Exactly what I need to clear my head.
Suddenly, the phone rings.
“Wow”, Sheila exclaims. “I’m not going to lie, that’s creepy.”
I reach for the phone, quickly interrupted by Sheila.
“You’re not actually going to pick it up are you?”
Turning to her, I shoot an inquisitive but frustrated look. “It may be a customer so yes, as a matter of fact, I am going to pick it up.”
“You’re right, you’re right”, Sheila mutters, brushing off my harsh tone. “I’ve been watching too many horror movies lately and the timing of the ringing just-- Yeah, don’t mind me.”
Sheila never turns off. She’s always a character. No matter what day she chooses to come into my life, she always has something interesting to say. New boyfriend. Fun weekend. Weird meeting with a stranger. Too many horror movies. I need to find out how Sheila manages to work as much as I do and still have an interesting life.
“Hello, this is--”
“Callie honey, are you at the bakery”, my mom asks.
“You called the bakery and I picked up, Ma. Why don’t you take a good, hard, educated guess?”
“Oh, you. I’m nearby, could we talk?”
“Sure”, I sigh. “When should I be expecting you?”
She hangs up on me, and only seconds later, swings the bakery’s front door wide open. It’s been a while since she’s been this dramatic but it’s a welcome addition to the terror that the past 24 hours have been for me.
“Take a seat”, I insist.
Sheila walks over to her with a freshly brewed cup of coffee and an equally fresh chocolate chip muffin. I watch my mother inspect the muffin and take a long time deciding whether or not she’ll actually take a bite out of it. She notices me watching her and enthusiastically takes a bite out of the free treat.
Her eyes flutter as she moans, “Oh god, it’s delicious. As always.”
“So what is it you wanted to talk about”, I ask.
“Do you mind if we talk somewhere a slight bit more private? It’s not exactly a public matter”, she loudly whispers, failing to not attract Sheila’s attention.
“I think here’s fine, Ma. I tell Sheila everything. If we go somewhere else to talk about it, I’ll very likely just come back and tell her all about it”, I explain.
My mother shrugs and takes another bite of her muffin. With her mouth full, she says, “Alright, honey. Whatever you say.”
“So what is it?”
She swallows. “Honey, what… how do you feel about Jacob and his kids?”
That is a very loaded question I had trouble thinking of a simple answer for. I could, of course, lie but something is very clearly wrong with my mother that she bothered to actually come down to the bakery to talk. I figure it’s time to stop beating around the bush and come clean about how I feel towards Jacob’s side of the family.
“Ma, I know we’re trying to work as one unit, but.... Goddamn, I hate them. Jacob is alright, except he’s really pushing about being my dad, which he’ll never be. But whatever, that’s what stepdads do, I guess. Jake and Miranda, on the other hand, are giant pieces of shit and I hate them both. Jacob is too good for his own children.”
I anxiously wait for my mother’s reaction and am relieved when she heartily laughs.
“God, okay, I’m so glad I’m not the only one”, she says, equally relieved at my response.
Finally, after so many years, I feel like my mother and I have some common ground on something. Though we’ve never been at odds, I haven’t felt like I could relate to my mother at any point in my childhood, adulthood, or teenage years. But now we have this to bond over; the mutual hate of my stepsiblings.
“So what made the cat come out of the bag”, Sheila asks, taking the words right out of my mouth.
My mother turns to her. “You’ve been told about Jake and Miranda, I presume?”
Sheila nods her heal while she kneads some dough.
“Then you already know that my stepson is a pervert and my stepdaughter is a cold-hearted bitch. And this morning, I got a firsthand experience with both of them.”
“Wait”, I shout, “you know about Jake being-- about how he’s gross?”
I refrained from saying too much about my knowledge of Jake’s activities, in case she wasn’t yet aware of the pictures of me in his possession.
A very over-the-top groan escapes her. “The little creep is jacking off every second he can. If there’s anybody who needs an intervention to keep themselves from jerking their dick clean off, it’s him. But that’s not even the worst part.”
Oh, boy.
“I once saw him masturbating to a picture of you”, she exclaims.
Another wave of relief hits me. “Yeah”, I explain, “he’s a fucking creep and he’s got a thing for me. A gross, immoral thing for me.”
“You don’t feel the same way do you?”
“JESUS, NO. GOD. Ma, of course not. The little jerk is disgusting and a total asshole. Besides, even if I was attracted to him, we’re step siblings. I’m at least sensible enough to know that only creeps date people who are in the same family as them, blood relation or no”, I tell her.
“Good. Like, I know we’re trying really hard to blend our families--”
I scoff. “Yeah, Jake more than anyone else.”
“Ew, stop. I just… I can’t take it with him or Miranda anymore.”
“What did Miranda do?”
My mother goes on to explain that Miranda’s needlessly cruel attitude towards anybody who isn’t her father or a man interested in her has driven my mom to tears on more than one occasion.
“But what can I do? It’s not like I can tell Jacob, ‘Hey, I hate your daughter, you should kick her out so I never have to see her bitch face again’, you know what I mean? That’s his little girl. If I did that, I’d be nothing more than the evil stepmother from a fairy tale.”
Right. Regardless of how cruel Miranda can be towards my mom, Jacob will always see her as “daddy’s little girl”. What a gross expression that is. Being someone’s daughter shouldn’t absolve them from any criticism, especially when that criticism is only that the person should stop being a complete asshole for no goddamn reason other than they’re rich and feel their opinion of others overshadows all other opinions.
“I’ve already talked to Jacob about family counseling but he keeps telling me that that’s only for families that are in trouble. Despite what I’ve told him time and time again about his kids, he refuses to believe that we are in trouble. I can’t be part of a family where I’m hated by two thirds of it”, she cries.
Sheila walks over to the table to fill up my mom’s cup of coffee and give her a soft pat on the back.
“I don’t want to break things off with Jacob”, she explains as she wipes the tears away. “He’s been nothing but good to me. But I think that at the very least, he should have his kids move out of the house. You moved out right after you graduated high school and you didn’t have anywhere near as much money as Miranda and Jake do.”
“But I also didn’t have things spoonfed to me since birth. They’re comfortable living at home because there’s NEVER been any pressure for them to live any other way. Jacob is a sex positive parent so he has no reservations about Jake or Miranda bringing partners home. Jacob cooks for them so they don’t do it for themselves. And he’s their source of income. So what would compel them to get a job, or find a way to make money themselves. Everything they want, they have. So it’d be hard to get them to agree to move out. You’re in pickle, Ma.”
“First of all, I’m sorry that you’re having to go through all of this. You should be living a happy life with your new man. What are you going to do?”
She groans. “I don’t know, honey. I really don’t. Let’s talk about something else before I give myself a hernia. What’s new with you?”
“SHE WENT ON A DATE LAST NIGHT”, Sheila shouts before quickly running to the back of the bakery.
As expected, my mother’s interest was immediately piqued. She put her cup down and set her unfinished muffin to the side.
“You have a boyfriend?”
Before she even finishes asking her question, I hear the heel of Sheila’s shoes clacking back towards the front of the bakery.
“Hardly", I confess. “I had a one night stand. That's it.”
Both of the annoying ladies simultaneously ask who it was I had a date with. To Sheila, I explained that the man who hired me to bake him a birthday cake. To my mom, I just explained that it was someone I met on a catering job.
“Don’t leave us in suspense! What happened? Was he hot?”
All I want to do is forget that I met Declan and sure enough, that's the only thing I can't manage to avoid today. Takes me back to middle school days where I couldn't write anything in my diary because my mother would read it when I wasn't home and try to pry information out of me in an attempt to be a good parent. But that just drove me further away from her.
This feels eerily similar.
“He was crazy hot”, I admit. I chuckle at the thoughts going through my head but choose to voice them aloud regardless. “He was… perfect in every way. Rich. Handsome. Great in bed. A great cook. He made me laugh.”
“When does the ‘but’ come in”, Sheila jokes.
“But… he doesn’t want anything more than a one night stand. And I do. As much as I hate Jake and Miranda, I’ll admit that I’m a bit envious of what you and Jacob have”, I confess to my mother.
She’s flattered and simultaneously looks taken aback. Sheila, invested in this story I’m telling, curiously asks, “So what did you tell him?”
“Well, he very bluntly reminded me that he wanted nothing serious to do with me immediately after we had sex. So I just got up and left. I got what I wanted, he got what he wanted, so that was that. There wasn’t much to say.”
After entertaining the two with my story, Sheila returns to her duties as a baker/assistant manager while steal some of my mom’s unfinished muffin. The silence bouncing around the establishment is finished when my mother again asks me for advice on the whole “Jake and Miranda” situation.
“They have to live their own lives, independent from Jacob, or more appropriately, his money. You have to talk to Jacob about it and if that doesn’t work then… I truly don’t know what you could do. I’ve never been in this situation before, Ma. Blending our families doesn’t mean we have to be unreasonably accomodating to those shitheads. I’ll do my best to be more… warm, I guess, towards Jacob but the only way our two families can become one is if Miranda and Jake put some real effort into it.”
She nods her head and kisses mine before heading out, looking determined but frightened.
The rest of the week passes by unceremoniously. A few catering jobs here and there, but nothing worth writing home about. Through the week, though, Sheila and I spent some time together outside of work. We got eat at some restaurants I’ve never been to, and she actually gets me hooked on some crime documentary she’s been in love with. She’s been helping me climb out of the emotional hole the date with Declan threw me into.
But then the box arrived.
A day of menial work and a conservative amount of customers resulted in cutting the bakery’s hours of operations short for the day. While we closed, Sheila alerted me that a box had been left at the door.
“Should we open it? What if it’s a bomb? You remember the unabomber? What if he’s back? Should we call the cops?”
“Calm down, Sheila”, I insist. “It’s not the unibomber for a… number of reasons.”
She hesitates. “Still, do you think it’s safe?”
“Of course it’s safe. I’ll open it. Geez.”
I swing the glass door open and lean over the box to give it a quick glance before opening. It’s thin and long, wrapped in an appealing purple paper with golden stars, all held together with a thin black ribbon.
“A bit too fancy for a bomb, don’t ya think?”
“Or is it fancy enough to fool people into thinking it’s not a bomb?”
Upon opening it, I find a red maxi dress with a card on top. The card contains a ticket to an opera. I kinda wish it had been a bomb. Being blown up may have been a bit more enjoyable than being blown back into the emotional hole I was stuck in.
Sheila opens her eyes which she had pressed tightly closed half-expecting to be blown to bits.
“That’s from your guy, isn’t it”, Sheila rhetorically asks.
“Unless you’re seeing a rich guy who doesn’t know how to apologize with words.”
“No… for a number of reasons, but that’s a story for another time.”
He really thinks that this is an adequate apology. An expensive dress and a ticket to a show I’m bound to fall asleep at. No note. No actual apology. My forgiveness can’t be bought. And I have very little interest in seeing someone who thinks of me as nothing more than a sex doll. There’s only one reasonable thing to do with a gift from someone who has wronged you.
“Into the trash you go”, I sing, picking the box up.
“What”, Sheila shouts. “You’re not at least going to take the dress? It’s a nice, expensive looking dress.”
She makes a good point. I could add the dress to my inventory and maybe sell the opera ticket online. There’s no real reason for this go in the trash. It was a gift after all. Sheila and I close the store and go our separate ways. In the car, I think hard about what to do with Declan’s gift. I look in my rear view mirror to make sure he’s not following me or doing something creepy like Christian Grey would and find myself to be alone on the road. Thankfully. So he’s not creepy and has no way of knowing what I did with the gift.
Maybe I’ll even attend the opera.
Not as an acceptance of his lame apology, but in order to see him face to face and find out exactly what he wants from me. I’m not in the business of being dicked around by a spoiled kid with too much money than he knows what to do with. If he wants to see me, he better be ready to explain exactly what he intends to do as far as a relationship with me goes. The last thing I need to have my time wasted. I’ve done enough of that escaping a social life by caring more about my business.