Days later I opened the door to Coohills, and the smell of fresh-baked bread filled my senses. I closed my eyes and breathed in the calming scent. It had been a long time since I’d had fresh-baked anything. The last time Grams baked was three years ago before the dementia set in.

I should have known something was wrong when she used salt in place of sugar. The worst chocolate chip cookies I’d ever eaten, but I choked down a few because she’d made them special for me.

My eyes adjusted to the low lights of the restaurant. Fresh flowers and lit candles decorated every tabletop. This wasn’t the kind of place I’d normally go. In fact, it was a mile above the soup kitchen I’d eaten at last night.

Here the people dressed better and spoke in full sentences. I’d even bet the hundred bucks I’d borrowed from Grace that they showered with regularity.

“Welcome to Coohills.” The host stood in front of me dressed in black slacks and a white shirt. I looked down at my matching outfit. Perfect, I’m dressed like the help. The only difference was that he wore a red tie. I was underdressed to be a waiter, overdressed for my normal life, and did not understand how to dress for this meeting.

“I have a reservation under the name Ana Barrett.” I shifted in the black patent leather pumps that only got worn to job interviews and funerals. “I requested a quiet table. This is a business meeting.” I gripped my computer case and followed the man to the back corner of the restaurant.

“Will this do?” He pulled out a chair for me, and I sat.

“Perfect. Thank you.” I ordered a diet soda and pulled out several sample brochures to display on the table. I was nervous and excited.

Thank God for Grace’s peacocks, or I wouldn’t have this meeting. If this went well, I’d be able to catch up on my bills without a problem. I’d even be able to splurge on a few grocery items. Milk and butter for my morning oatmeal sounded decadent—sinful even.

If Dexter Weston liked my work, At Flight Graphics might take off. I’d been trying to spread my wings since graduation. Grams had helped as much as she could, but she’d never had much in the way of money, and now that she required long-term care, she had nothing. Every penny of her Social Security check and Gramps’s small pension went toward her at-home nurse. Around-the-clock care was expensive.

I ran my fingers over the projects I’d picked up over the years and admired how I’d hidden a bird in each one. One was a shadow of a blue jay in the clouds. I’d placed a pigeon in a tree of a recycling company brochure. I’d even turned a piece of cotton candy into a bird for a child’s birthday invitation. Birds comforted me for some reason. They made me feel safe, like a chick in a nest.

I sipped at my soda and waited and waited and waited. I checked my phone for the third time. He was five minutes late. There was lunchtime traffic, so I reminded myself not to worry.

I readjusted the samples and put them in order according to basic color theory—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. I looked at my phone—ten minutes late. I swallowed the lump building in my throat.

My phone rang. Thank God, it was the client. I was sure he was calling to say he was running late.

“Hello, this is Ana,” I said in my happiest voice.

“Hi Ana, this is Dexter.” His voice wasn’t full of fake enthusiasm. He sounded like old Mr. Greer, the mortician who’d embalmed Gramps. Sucking out the lifeblood from his clients had sucked every bit of emotion out of the man. Talking to him was like talking to cardboard, and Dexter Weston sounded the same.

“Do you need directions?”

“No. I’ve decided to run in another direction and can’t make the meeting today.”

Run in another direction? What did that mean? Was it literal? Figurative? I had no idea. “We can reschedule. How about tomorrow?”

He cleared his throat. “No, Ana. What I mean is, I don’t need your services. We will spend our money on social media this quarter, but I thank you for your time.”

This wasn’t happening. My only chance at eating this week was landing this deal. “Dexter, social media is important, but it’s only one facet of marketing. For a well-rounded approach, you should split your efforts between print and digital. I can prepare both for you.” At this point I’d split anything as long as I got a piece of the pie. Pie … that sounded so good.

My heart leaped with hope when there was silence on the other end. That meant he was thinking, which meant I had a chance. “I can offer you a new client discount of twenty-five percent.”

Muffled voices sounding like people talking underwater filled the void, and then he was back. “Sorry, Ana, what was that you said?”

My head dropped until my chin touched my chest. He hadn’t been thinking. He hadn’t been listening. “I offered you a discount as a first-time customer,” I repeated. I didn’t know whether the resignation could be heard in my voice. The disappointment of another lost job crushed my soul.

“I’m not interested.”

“But—” The line went dead.

I asked for the check, but the waiter must have seen the distress painted all over my face because he said the soda was on him.

I gathered my things, and I pulled a five-dollar bill out of my purse. The soda might have been on him, but I’d occupied a table that could have made him money from a paying customer. Five dollars wasn’t much, but it was half of what I would have after I gave Grace back her hundred-dollar loan.

Grams once told me to never borrow trouble, but once outside, I lifted my eyes to the sky and asked, “What now?”

I trudged back home and found out why you should never question the universe. A big yellow eviction notice hung from my front door.

* * *

“And he didn’t even come to meet you?” Grace sat on my lawn chair and opened the second bottle of wine she had brought with her. The first bottle had disappeared quickly while I explained how I had planned to dominate the world with this one client. Now it was all gone. At Flight Graphics might never soar. It was a truth I had to accept.

“Nope, I got a phone call, which is kind of like getting a dear Jane letter, right?” I poured the wine into two red Solo cups and opened the Styrofoam container filled with beef and broccoli, and pork fried rice.

Grace had set up the meeting with Dexter Weston, so the wine and takeout Chinese were her apology for the way he’d dashed my hopes. “Talk about a dickhead. I can’t believe I slept with that guy.” She opened her container of orange chicken and white rice.

“I told you not to trust the peacocks.” I speared a piece of broccoli and chewed off the tree-like end.

“Pea cock is about right. The tiniest dick I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s the little dicks that become the biggest dicks in business. It’s how they compensate for their shortcomings.”

“You could be right. I’ve found that the men with the biggest egos have the smallest set of balls.”

My throaty groan filled the air. “Must we talk about dicks and balls while we’re eating? This is the first meal I’ve had in days that didn’t come freeze-dried, and I’d like to keep it down.” I stuck out my tongue and faked a gagging noise.

She flung a piece of her chicken at me. It bounced off my shoulder and rolled across the hardwood floor. Her eyes took in my empty apartment. “I love what you’ve done with the place. You’ve taken minimalist decorating to new heights.”

I unfolded my crossed legs and shimmied across the floor to lean on the wall. “It will make moving easy.”

We both looked at the yellow eviction notice sitting on my makeshift desk—a TV stand I’d found in the alleyway on garbage day.

“You know you can stay with me.” Grace lived on the good side of Denver in a one-bedroom apartment. With her salary as an executive assistant, she did all right. She paid her rent. Her closet was full of smart-looking clothes. Her wine rack was stocked.

“I have thirty days to vacate this castle. I’ll figure it out by then.”

We sat in silence eating our meals until my phone rang. I picked it up and looked at the number. Not one I recognized, so I ignored it and set it back on the floor.

Two bites later, it rang again. This time Grace grabbed it. “Let me deal with this.” We both knew it was a bill collector that I couldn’t pay, and they were never nice. “Hello,” she said in her best don’t-mess-with-me tone. Her flaming red hair was a dead giveaway of the fire and irritation that burned inside her. “Yes?” Her voice rose questioningly.

Her face went pale as the person on the other end talked. “Okay.” She hung up and dropped the phone to the floor.

“Oh, sweetie,” she said, looking at me with sorrow. “It’s your grandmother.”