by Pippa Grant
* * *
Savannah: I love you, too, sissy. And I’m okay. Still sporting a crater where my heart used to be, but if I keep stuffing my face with scones and clotted cream, it will eventually be filled with dairy and carbs.
Maybe.
If not, I’ll move on to haggis next week when I get to Scotland.
* * *
Cassie: You do know that haggis is basically offal stuffed into a cow’s stomach, right?
* * *
Savannah: Ugh! No. That’s disgusting.
But it also sounds filling. Then my heart crater could be full of offal and awful.
* * *
Cassie: Oh, pumpkin. I know it hurts, but someday you’ll look back on all this and be so glad you had an amazing opportunity to see the world and to do something just for yourself, I promise. Probably someday very soon!
* * *
Savannah: *zombie emoji* *heart emoji* *skull and crossbones emoji*
* * *
Cassie: Okay. I’ll keep my platitudes to myself while you’re nursing your wounded zombie heart, but there is a matter we need to discuss. Something happened today. But before I tell you about it, I want to assure you that everything is fine, no one was hurt, and the factory did NOT burn down.
So really, this is a happy story! A great story!
Nothing to be upset about at all.
* * *
Savannah: Oh my God! Was Gordon playing with fire again? I was so nervous when we moved in next to the taxidermy shop, but everyone in town promised he hadn’t lit anything up in years!
* * *
Cassie: No, it wasn’t Gordon. He wasn’t into work yet and he does seem to be reformed as far as I can tell. Though I have to confess I’m creeped out by his shop window. When did he start the stuffed squirrels in battle gear thing?
* * *
Savannah: A few years ago. He’s making a killing on Etsy. Can’t keep enough Mighty Squirrels in stock to meet the demand. People are way into taxidermied rodents dressed as soldiers, apparently.
* * *
Cassie: People are disturbing.
* * *
Savannah: Agreed, but I’m more disturbed by fire right now. Olivia didn’t take me seriously when I said we were going to light people’s sheets on fire, did she? I was sure she understood that was a metaphor.
* * *
Cassie: No. No sheets. The investigation is still ongoing, but we know it started with some lube in the lab. Neil thought he’d put it out, but it ignited again after he left the building, spread to a bin of self-lubricating butt plugs he’d planned to use in another experiment, and then there was a loud, but mostly harmless, explosion.
* * *
Savannah: WHAT?!
* * *
Cassie: Turns out coconut oil is more flammable than one might assume.
* * *
Savannah: OH MY GOD. That’s it. I’m closing down the factory. It’s a sign from the universe. Everything I touch turns to poop. My marriage, my business, my life, my heart.
* * *
Cassie: Your heart is not poop. Your life is not poop! Steve is poop. You are unicorn hair plaited in a beautiful braid, sprinkled with sugar and sunshine.
* * *
Savannah: Thank you, but I’m done kidding myself, Cass. I should have closed everything down before I left town.
* * *
Cassie: No! You have a great team here. Everything’s fine, and it’ll be running like a well-lubed machine and waiting for you when you’re ready to come back.
* * *
Savannah: I’m not coming back. I’m going to eat my way through the United Kingdom. Then I’m going to sail to the Netherlands and smoke my way through every pot shop in Amsterdam. After that, I’ll drink my way through France until my money runs out and I end up homeless on a beach in Italy selling seashell necklaces to survive and talking to myself because I won’t understand anyone else. But since I don’t speak Italian, I won’t be able to communicate, make friends, or fall in love, and my heart will never be broken again. So homeless madness will end up being a fair trade.
* * *
Cassie: Stop it. You are not going to end up homeless. You are going to grieve, get back on your feet, and reclaim the helm of this wonderful company you’ve built.
* * *
Savannah: You hate the company.
* * *
Cassie: I do not, I’m just…shy around dildos.
* * *
Savannah: You shouldn’t be. Dildos just want to make you feel good, Cass. Dildos are our friends, unlike dicks attached to actual real life men.
* * *
Cassie: I don’t think dildos have life goals, but I see your point.
* * *
Savannah: Good. You should take a few home and see which one you like the best. Take them all. I’m shutting down.
* * *
Cassie: Say I do take all your dildos. For argument’s sake, not because I want one, much less all of them. Then where would the rest of the world find safe, eco-friendly sex products that put a woman’s pleasure first? You’re revolutionary, Savannah. You can’t let humanity down.
* * *
Savannah: I can’t give humanity’s nether regions third-degree burns, either. Or God forbid, blow them clean off! The products aren’t safe if they’re exploding. Someone could have been hurt, and if they had, I never would have forgiven myself.
I’ve got to close. It’s the only answer.
* * *
Cassie: Do that and you put a lot of people out of work, Van. You don’t want to rush into a decision like that, especially when there’s a chance the products weren’t to blame.
* * *
Savannah: What do you mean?
* * *
Cassie: Like I said, the investigation is still ongoing but…
The specialist they called in said it could be arson.
* * *
Savannah: What?!
* * *
Cassie: It’s not a given, but it looks like the chemicals might have been tampered with. We should know more when they get results back from their lab in a few days.
* * *
Savannah: Who on earth would do such a thing? Put people in danger like that? I mean, I know some folks think it’s scandalous to have a sex toy company at the edge of town, but…
* * *
Cassie: It’s in the middle of town. Right by the post office.
* * *
Savannah: Well, yes, but the sign is very tasteful.
* * *
Cassie: The sign is a sun having an orgasm.
* * *
Savannah: She is not. She’s just happy!
* * *
Cassie: Too happy.
* * *
Savannah: That’s like saying babies are too cute or ice cream is too delicious or water slides are too much fun.
* * *
Cassie: I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. And looking at it from the perspective of an older person who grew up in a less free-and-easy time… I can understand why they’re freaked out. But that’s no excuse for putting lives in danger. So if this is a case of sabotage, I’ll hire security and make sure the factory is so closely guarded nothing like this will ever happen again.
In the meantime, we’re back to business as usual tomorrow. We’ve moved product development to another space while we clean up the old lab and Ruthie May is going to bring in a box of Maud’s famous Sunshine-inspired cookies from Dough on the Square to get everyone excited about a fresh start Tuesday morning.
* * *
Savannah: The vagina cookies or the penis ones?
* * *
Cassie: I…don’t know. I didn’t realize they were those kind of cookies.
* * *
Savannah: Oh, yeah, Maud is a big Sunshine fan, even if her husband is a stick in the mud who hates fun. She makes the most adorable sexy sugar cookies. The vagina ones have a little sugar pearl clitoris on them and everything!
* *
*
Cassie: Oh God.
* * *
Savannah: What?
* * *
Cassie: Nothing. That’s just kind of gross, isn’t it?
* * *
Savannah: You ate penis lollipops at my bachelorette party without a problem. Don’t you believe in equal representation of genitalia in baking and candy-making?
* * *
Cassie: What I believe is that you were meant to run this company and I can’t wait for you to come home, rested and rejuvenated and ready to lead Sunshine Toys into a bright and shiny new future.
* * *
Savannah: Oh, sweet Cass. I love you, but this isn’t like all the other times I’ve said I was running away from home. I have actually run away—I’m out of the country and loose in a foreign land—and I don’t think I’m coming back anytime soon.
I’m so sorry to disappoint you. And my beautiful employees.
Maybe I should just give the company to Ruthie May and call it a day?
* * *
Cassie: No! Not Ruthie May. She would go mad given that much power. And drive the rest of Happy Cat crazy along with her. Plus, she keeps talking about retiring.
* * *
Savannah: Olivia?
* * *
Cassie: Eh…
* * *
Savannah: I know. She’s a disaster, but I love her. She’s been my bestie since we were eight years old. I couldn’t not give her a job after her mom died.
* * *
Cassie: You’ve got a big heart. And that’s why Steve’s betrayal is tearing you apart right now. But big hearts don’t just hurt big. They also heal big. Even bigger and better than they were before.
* * *
Savannah: How did you get so wise?
* * *
Cassie: I read a lot of books. And I’ve learned a lot from watching my kick-ass little sister. You’ve weathered break-ups and heartbreak before. You can do this. There’s no doubt in my mind. I’ll check in with you soon, okay? In the meantime try to have fun and see a few sights aside from the interior of every bakery in London.
* * *
Savannah: I’ll try. Thank you for babysitting my life. Everything A-okay at the house, at least? You’re comfortable and have everything you need?
* * *
Cassie: The house is great. I love being so close to the lake and the woods. I go hiking every morning before riding my sister’s obnoxious dildo-handled bicycle to work.
* * *
Savannah: Lol. I would pay money to see you on my bike, my shy little squirrel.
* * *
Cassie: When you come home I’ll ride it around the block for you. You can film it for posterity.
* * *
Savannah: If I come home.
* * *
Cassie: When.
* * *
Savannah: We’ll see. Oh, and remember Tuesday is trash day so be sure to put the bins and the recycling out at the end of the drive. With the lids on tight and the rocks beside the mailbox on top.
* * *
Cassie: Already done. I told you, I’ve got this, lady. Don’t worry about me. Everything is under control.
Three
Cassie Sunderwell
(aka an overworked computer gamer geek who needs a vacation from her vacation)
* * *
Everything is not under control.
Everything is chaos and insanity and explosions and fires and intimidating sex toys—half of which I would have no idea how to use, even if I were of the mind to do that “product research” Savannah’s been encouraging since she started making fake penises for a living—and now…him.
Him. Ryan O’Dell, Mr. Popular, star of the wrestling team, and voted Most Likely to Stay Hot For Eternity every year of high school.
Mr. Used-to-haunt-my-dreams.
Mr. And-he-did-again-last-night.
Not only has he not moved out of town, the way I’d naively assumed after not seeing him around Happy Cat my first week on the job as Savannah’s temporary replacement, he’s become a big, bossy firefighter with broad shoulders and a chiseled jaw and piercing blue eyes that have somehow gotten even bluer and more knee-weakeningly intense in the nine years since he broke my stupid teenage heart.
And the most pathetic part is that he clearly had no idea who I was…at least at first.
I’m as invisible to him as I was in high school. But at least now I know better than to think it means something when he looks at me that way, like he’d enjoy ripping my tee shirt off with his obnoxiously shiny and perfectly shaped white teeth.
Even if I have been accidentally thinking about him every minute since he showed up at Sunshine Toys yesterday…
Ryan’s sex-eyes and the dreamy way he used to say my name—like he was Mozart and my name was his most triumphant creation—are nothing but his default attract mode. Like a video game screen saver set to play a tempting part of the game, designed to lure people in to spend their hard-earned money, Ryan is always on. He’s a gorgeous man who enjoys attention and has adapted his code to draw in as much of it as possible.
If only I’d realized that sooner. But at sixteen I was so ridiculously innocent.
Compared to the sophisticated, experienced, sex-kitten-about-town you are now, the inner voice offers snidely as I gather this morning’s empty cornflakes box and the toilet paper tube to take outside to add to the recycling bins.
“Shut up, inner voice,” I mutter.
You wouldn’t be so cranky if you’d gotten laid, it answers. Like…ever.
I grimace in response. Maybe I would’ve finally lost this pesky V-card—seriously, it’s a minus five charisma penalty—if I’d gone to SuperHero*Con like I was supposed to last week. I had my Captainess America costume all ready, and I’d been chatting in an online gamer group with Flash185, a fellow coder from Detroit with a quirky sense of humor and a decently cute profile pic, about having butter beer at the hotel bar one night. I know that could’ve gone somewhere between the sheets.
Maybe it would’ve been awkward and mortifying and I probably would have laughed at inappropriate times, but at least I would’ve finally entered the adulting levels of life.
And then maybe I wouldn’t be having wild dreams starring Ryan O’Dell, dildos, and flaming sheets.
I step out the front door of Savannah’s cottage, ducking under the massive Steve The Cheater Doesn’t Live Here Anymore banner that she hung from the edge of the porch roof. After a week, it’s started to blend in with the old live oaks and magnolias up and down the street, getting droopy and relaxed in the early June heat.
I should probably take it down. Fresh starts are important, and coming home to a sign bashing her ex won’t help Savannah maintain the Zen she’s finding in Europe.
My boots squish against the damp stone walk leading to the trash cans at the curb. This is the first time in two years that I’ve been back to Happy Cat, and I can’t say I’ve missed the humid summers. I’ll take San Francisco weather any day.
But San Francisco doesn’t have hot firefighters, that inner voice pipes up.
“Pretty sure it does,” I mutter back.
None that you’ve come close enough to sniff though.
And now I’m thinking about Ryan smelling like soap and lemon and fire hose—yes, fire hose has a smell, and it’s oddly sexy—and I’m silently persuading myself that there will be no more reasons for him to come to Sunshine Toys. I’ll go to work and come straight home and our paths need never cross again. I therefore won’t have to worry about how good he smells or how fine he looks or the way my heart makes like a fainting goat every time he shoots one of his signature sex-eye stares my way.
