Sisters: All Things Sweet [book three]

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

In the weeks following I swing from one extreme to the next.

Instead of dreading when the sun the rises and filters through my curtains and my family expects me to emerge from my shelter, I can't wait until my alarm shrills and I can leave my worries in the sheets. I accompany Michele in her trips to the bank, her consultations with the website designer, the visits to the homeware store for furniture plus the dozen other errands and purchases and decisions for the shop's grand opening on September twelfth. It feels like a lifetime away, but I know that it'll soon come around.

A newfound motivation has me staying up until past midnight, punching numbers into spreadsheets and drinking steaming cups of coffee after coffee, even though I never understood coffee, until now.

I wake up at six o'clock to head out to the shop and bake, configuring new recipes and tweaking old ones. I know I'm going to burn out soon. Every day I collapse into bed, exhausted. I'm too tired for nightmares and I'm too busy during the day to think about Dad, to think about the summer that's rolling by and my friends that I promise I'll get back to but never quite manage it, to wonder how Zac is spending his summer, and whether he's found someone else to enjoy it with.

I see the foundations of the shop rise from the ground and take shape, while my personal life shatters around me. My only breaks are for coffee mid-morning each day with Michele, either on the shop floor at All Things Sweet or at the nearest Starbucks, but even then all we can talk about is the shop and what we plan to do next. Conversations with Mom are fleeting and chats with my friends are even rarer. Only Michele understands.

I'm designing the banner for the shop's opening day when Esmee's name flashes on my screen. I hesitate. I haven't spoken to her in over a week. She's called me in instances such as these but I've either had my phone on silent and missed them, or I've bypassed them, pretending that I haven't been ignoring my best friend. Today, though, had been an especially difficult day. The meeting with the photographer this morning hadn't exactly gone to plan - involving an inappropriate slap on Michele's bum and a guess-what-you're-fired moment - and I was already on my sixth cup of coffee, even though it was only just past midday. Rather than fight it, I gave in and held the phone to my ear.

"Hey, Esmee," I say, mustering the chirpiest possible hello-I-haven't-just-ignored-you-for-eight-days-straight.

"Where are you?"

I frown. "What?"

I hear Esmee's voice muffle for a second as she speaks to someone who isn't me on the other end of the line. "She's forgotten," Esmee says to some me else, and my heart races. What have I forgotten? My eyes flicker to my calendar. It's August third. I wonder what's meant to be happening today, then I remember.

"My pool party," Esmee huffs, answering for me. "Where have you been? It's like you've dropped off the face of the earth."

"I've been--" I begin to say, but then I realise the inadequacy of my excuse. I had totally forgotten about Esmee's pool party. She had announced it one frozen yoghurt date about three and a half weeks ago, back when I was still a normal teenager and not a career obsessed mom.

"Don't finish that sentence," Esmee snarls.

"I'll be right over," I say, and I mean it. I hang-up the phone and fling open my wardrobe. I snatch my bikini from one of the hangers and hold its thin material between my fingers. I slip it over my legs and over my head, then stare at myself in the mirror. I haven't worn a bikini in years. I've lost weight over the past couple of months and my skin is white like paper. I'm still just a little too skinny for only two square feet of material.