Worth the Fall Read online

  “Yup. Welcome to Singleland.” Abby handed me my mocha as if it was above my touch. “You’ll be here a while.”

  “Maybe I’d like to be single a while.”

  She looked at me over the mist from the steamer. “You don’t seem like someone who likes being single.” With that, she headed down the counter to wipe off some machine.

  I stared after her wondering if she was right. Was I that girl who didn’t like to be single? Was I? Was that why I’d stayed with Jason?

  I didn’t think so, but there was a lot I was learning about myself this week.

  I settled into the same overstuffed chair as the night before and pondered. I was definitely in a pondering place in life.

  Once I pushed aside the Singleland pondering, I started considering the real issue at hand. In the back of my mind, I had an idea—one that had lived there for a while trying to work up the courage to pop out. But now, in a mental fight-or-flight situation, it pushed its way to the front and itched at my brain since I’d woken up cold and annoyed.

  My own marketing and design business. Promo, websites, banners, ads. Lots of fun designs to do on my own. No big corporate accounts arguing over what such-and-such shade of orange subconsciously says. Just straightforward work for startups, individuals, and small companies.

  Affordable but gorgeous work.

  I had the skills. I had the drive.

  Looking through my contacts, I tried to figure out where I might find a couple clients to kick off my new business once I got it up and running. I wasn’t sure where the ethical line was about contacting former clients. One thing I did know about myself, that wasn’t a line I would cross.

  Obviously I’d need something to show them. Something as good as what I’d been able to do with resources, but on a much smaller budget. What could I offer that would make me stand out? That would make me a success? That would allow me to pay the rent?

  I Googled designers and started grabbing screenshots. I pulled out my Moleskin and made notes of different things offered, pricing, timelines, color schemes, websites…anything that someone else was doing. I marked examples up. I made notes of what could be done better, different, or just more me.

  It was fun. It was exciting. But, it was just the start and when I tried to think beyond that, I got a little freaked out.

  After an hour I’d gone through my mocha. Another one was definitely needed to tackle a business plan while I waited for John.

  And lucky for me, Abby was still working the counter.

  “You know what your problem is?” she started before I could even get my order out.

  “No, but I’m sure that as my local barista there’s nothing you’d like more than to tell me.”

  It’s a sad state of affairs when I didn’t feel odd or guilty verbally sparring with a child.

  “Look at you. You’re a mess.”

  I glanced down. Probably out of habit. Abby may have started channeling my mother. Was I a mess? Emotionally or physically? She probably meant a little bit of both.

  “That’s not good.” She said it as if being a mess was occasionally a good thing and I might be confused. “It’s hard enough being a girl, let alone an average girl. But you’re lowering your own social credit-rating coming in here like this.”

  I shouldn’t ask. It was a dumb move and I knew it even as the question slipped past my lips. “Social credit-rating?”

  “I call it the Average Girl Theory. It’s the reason you’re single and don’t know what to do about it.”

  I knew what to do about it: Nothing.

  I’d been single—I glanced at my watch—fourteen hours. I hadn’t dropped dead from lack of a man in my life yet.

  I was more than not-dead. I was feeling pretty darn good.

  When I’d decided to move in with Jason, my mother hadn’t been happy. Too many milk-cow references to count. My aunts joined in. The happily-marrieds joined forces to try to talk me out of it. No one, not one person just came out and said they didn’t like him. They just thought we should get married instead of moving in together.

  Or maybe they didn’t like him.

  But this—this underage, self-proclaimed love guru—was too much.

  “See, guys are very visual.” Barista Girl Abby nodded as if I wasn’t going to believe her or this was—I don’t know—news. “Everything is about what they can see. They can’t see that you’re smart or funny or whatever your I Am Woman thing is. It’s all about the visual.”

  “So you said.” I couldn’t be blamed if that sounded dry even to me.

  “Now you come in here looking like that.” She waved her hand vaguely at me from her side of the counter. “Not good.”

  “Last night you accused me of being an adulteress.”

  I was really beginning to wish I hadn’t given her money. Or that she’d already given me my mocha. Or that my ego wasn’t taking a hit for no apparent reason.

  Or…or…or…

  Ah, the fabulous life of the newly single girl. The single average girl apparently.

  Of course, I hadn’t dressed up to walk here and work all day. Yoga pants and a fitted t-shirt were as good as it was going to get. I’d already planned to bring my entire business wardrobe to a consignment shop to help make another rent check happen.

  Of course, designer clothes and toe-pinching shoes were a corner I didn’t mind cutting.

  Now I just needed a rent to pay.

  I picked at the small hole starting to fray along the edge of my t-shirt and reminded myself the last thing I needed right now was another guy. I was done being any-type-of-maintenance and was moving on to Independent Business Woman.

  Barista Girl caught my eye as I finished inspecting my can-this-shirt-be-saved inspection.

  “Maybe a little makeup too. You know. Just some mascara and gloss.”

  “Is my mocha done?” Really. Did she think this was the way to a big tip—annoy the patrons into paying her to leave them alone?

  I shook my change purse. It was probably too light to afford that blessing.

  “Not yet.” She glanced down at the empty to-go cup in her hand. “So, the theory. Guys. They rate themselves very high while knocking women down easily. So, let’s assume about eighty-five percent of the women fall into that average looks group. Some are rated higher, upper-average—like upper-middle class—and some are ranked lower on the scale. But they all fall into the middle of the bell curve.”

  I glanced at her hand, the one with my empty cup, waiting for her to finish so I could get back to work. I had a company to launch.

  “Anyway,” she continued, setting my still-empty cup down. “Guys don’t live on the same bell curve. When they see that ten percent of really gorgeous hot girls, seventy percent of guys think that girl is obtainable. That seventy percent is cutting into the equivalent AGQ—Average Girl Quotient—by quite a bit. Think about it. If a guy who ranks as a six thinks he can date a nine, who are the sixes going to date?”

  It frightened me that she was actually making sense.

  More than frightened. I glanced outside to see if there were any other signs of the apocalypse approaching.

  “So, all those upper-average guys think they rate an above-average girl.”

  “What about the other thirty percent of men?” What was I thinking? Where had the little voice that lived in my head gone? It should be shouting, Do not engage! Do not engage!

  “Well the lowest portion—the below average men—realize where they stand. They’ve accepted they’re in the bottom fifteen percent and have found a girl at their attraction level. Think about it. You see a girl. You know you’re way prettier than she is, but she has a boyfriend. Usually we don’t stop and think, Yeah. But I wouldn’t date him. We just get stuck on the she has a boyfriend and I don’t thing.”

  Who sounded bitter now, Barista Girl?

  “That still leaves about fifteen percent of guys.” Why was I torturing myself like this?

  “Yup.” Barista Girl nodded her head.
“You’re absolutely right. And most of them are taken. They were smart. They grabbed a great girl and they’re keeping her. The rest of them are just figuring it out. You better hope you get your act together and stay roughly an eight before you age out.”

  Age out?

  I was twenty-six. What exactly was I aging out of?

  “Can I have my drink?”

  The snap in my voice must have finally been obvious because she made a face and started doing whatever it was they did behind the counter to create that mocha magic. I had better enjoy it now. With my new lack of income, these weren’t going to be in the necessities column where they used to reside.

  Once Theory Creating Barista Girl finished my frothy goodness, I grabbed a napkin and headed back to my desk—comfy chair and coffee table—in the corner.

  “Don’t listen to her.” The voice was soft, kind of lifting on the end. It matched the girl in an odd sort of way. She had to be about my age, with light brown hair framing a glasses covered pixie face.

  “Sorry?”

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s wrong.” The girl glanced toward the counter before shifting in her chair to look at me. “Okay, she may not be wrong. The theory probably holds. But she’s like nine years old and you can’t put a number on some things.”

  “I’d like to hope that’s true.” Especially since I wasn’t looking so good on paper at this point. There was nothing attractive about homelessness. One more reason I had to get this business up and running.

  The whole idea that I had to carry my own weight had ticked me off last night. There was a reason “for better or for worse” was in the marriage vows. But that was in a real relationship, not one you thought was real but apparently was just a convenience to one party. One more reason Jason and I weren’t married. And now, there’s no way I’d be putting myself out there when I was homeless and unemployed.

  Of course, there was no way I’d be putting myself out there for quite a while anyway. I was pretty much declaring the ten foot sphere around me a Guy Free Zone. I might even bring back the giant hoop skirts to enforce this new sanction.

  But, she wasn’t done.

  “My boyfriend, Ben?” She got this silly grin on her face. “He’s gorgeous. Like, the second most beautiful guy I know. Seriously. Do I look like beautiful guy material?”

  I almost shook my head. Not because she wasn’t pretty. She was. In a cute, girl-next-door-who-is-a-bit-too-nerdy way. I was pretty sure guys would be attracted to her just because of all that shininess coming off her. And the glasses. I’d never been envious of girls with glasses, but she seemed to pull them off as if they were just part of her look.

  Of course, that could just be New Relationship Shine, but I was guessing she was pretty darn adorable sans-Ben.

  “I’m Jenna Drake.” She leaned over the coffee table, hand stretched out.

  It was such a welcoming gesture. She just wasn’t one of those people you dismissed rudely because you were trying to work. Plus, her name was vaguely familiar as I struggled to place it. I was really, really hoping we hadn’t gone to high school together or something.

  That was the last thing I needed. The small town gossip tree was still alive and well. My mother would have me on the phone thirty seconds after she heard my new status, and I’d be getting a lecture on women alone in the world.

  Obviously my mother had accidentally time warped to the 1940s.

  In her eyes, there was only one thing worse than not being married…being single.

  “Kasey Lane.”

  “Oh!” She pulled out a little red notebook and scribbled in it. “That’s a great name. I’m totally stealing it.”

  Stealing my name? As in identity theft? I wasn’t sure what else she could mean, but she didn’t have any of my information so figured I was fairly safe. I’d just have to remember not to leave my purse alone…or throw my receipt away.

  She glanced up and must have caught the horrified look on my face.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not stealing anything real. Just your name. It’s a great name,” she said again, this time with a smile as she folded the notebook back into her tote. “I’m a writer and you’d be shocked how hard it gets to come up with new names. I mean, there’s what? Millions of them? And yet, you find yourself drifting toward the same ones over and over again. I have tried to name four different guys James.”

  She was a little bundle of energy…really unfocused energy.

  “Sorry. I’m trying not to babble. I’m not good with people.”

  She seemed to really think that. She’d been nothing but sweet, welcoming and friendly. If this was bad with people I was in a lot of trouble.

  And Barista Abby…Well, Abby was five steps past trouble. The Brew Ha Ha might need to be reconsidered as my new hangout.

  “No. No, that’s okay,” I jumped in before she could start up again. “I was just a little thrown by the word steal. It could be kind of fun to know my name is out there in some book. Kind of like a famous non-version of me.” I could pick the book up and show my girlfriends next time we got together. Look, this character is named after me! You don’t get that being a soccer mom. Wait. “What exactly did you say you write?”

  With my luck she wrote some weird niche-erotica I’d have to deal with every time someone Googled me.

  “YA, young adult.”

  Oh. That sounded fairly safe. It did seem weird they’d let a slightly crazy woman write for kids, but what did I know?

  Jenna smiled and began pulling more stuff out of her tote. A laptop and cord, a small giraffe-shaped timer, a pile of scribbled on pages.

  “You don’t usually work here, do you?” She opened the laptop and leaned back in her chair while it powered up.

  “First day. Good mocha.”

  “That’s why you aren’t familiar. This is my can’t-take-my-own-company-any-longer office.” It was hard to dislike a girl who was so kind to others and laughed at herself so easily.

  I glanced around. Besides Abby, it was pretty dead. I pulled the overstuffed chair next to me, close enough to strategically pile stuff on it.

  “Is it always this quiet?”

  “Not usually on Wednesdays. Midweek slump. It must be the nice weather. During the week there’s a small lunch rush and then quiet again ‘til the after work crowd. John says they’re packed during the morning commute, but that would involve getting up before eight, so…”

  “Sweet.”

  “I’ll be here every day for a while.” She pulled the computer onto her lap and set the timer. “A tree fell into my office.”

  A tree fell into it? She said it as if this was an everyday occurrence. I almost asked her about it, but she smiled, stuck her earbuds in, and began typing away.

  It took me a moment to refocus, which was weird since I’d been so surprised she’d sat in my overstuffed corner of the café and chatted me up.

  Hopefully nothing fell on her while we were working so close together. She seemed like the type of person something like that would happen to.

  And my luck didn’t need any help getting worse.

  FIVE

  “I should have known you guys would find each other.” John’s voice cut through the music I’d plugged in to drown out my thoughts. There was nothing like a little Jason Aldean to get you rocking out when you didn’t want to think about life. I was ignoring that his name was Jason and focusing on the Country Rock God part of the equation.

  I pulled my earbuds out and looked up at him resting on the edge of the arm of Jenna’s chair.

  “Who?”

  If this was another attempt at telling me how to meet men, I was going to have to rethink this whole place, mocha thing or not.

  “You and Jenna. Jenna’s the one we need to ask about the apartment.”

  I turned toward the adorable elf half-hidden behind the seventeen inch screen of her laptop.

  “You’re moving?”

  Her cheerfulness seemed a little droopy as she shook her head.


  “Not me. Ben is going to London for a year and was thinking about subletting his apartment.”

  Wow. In some ways that was worse than being dumped. At least I could get over my ex-idiot. I felt like I was most-of-the-way there already. But, if someone I really loved was going away for twelve months…Yeah, that kind of stunk. A lot.

  “So, he’s just looking to sublet it?”

  Jenna nodded. “Maybe. He wasn’t sure. The company is paying for his place in London, so it’s not like he’s losing out. But it makes sense to have someone in there.”

  I thought about the overly-charming neighborhood we were currently in and my lack of charming-level money.

  “Is it near here? I probably can’t afford anything in this neighborhood.” I was getting tired of my own tale of woe at this point. “I lost my job and was supposed to be moving in with my boyfriend—now ex-boyfriend—this weekend so, rent is going to be tight as it is. I have five weeks’ payout and some savings, but I don’t want to get into a bad situation money-wise.”

  “Well, he’s coming in this afternoon. We can ask him what he’s looking for when he gets here. How much furniture do you have?”

  “As of tomorrow?” I couldn’t believe the spot I’d gotten myself into. That I’d allowed Jason to paint me into it. “Basically nothing.”

  Jenna and John looked at me as if I’d just told them I was forced to put down my dog…You know, the one I don’t have who peed on my rug I no longer own.

  “It’s a long story,” I explained, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain. “Filled with woe and much Craigslist-ing.”

  “Okay.” Jenna had pulled out her phone and was texting before she’d even answered.

  “So, Kasey. What’s the plan?” John settled himself into the chair next to Jenna and took a sip of whatever the great smelling thing was in his cup.

  “The plan?”

  “The get-life-back-on-track plan.”

  Oh. That.

  I considered dodging the question, but since today was my first official day of being self-employed, I should probably share that.

  “I’m starting my own business.”