Honey on Your Mind (29 page)

I stood there for a few moments, my hands on my hips, breathing hard, looking up. It couldn’t look more different from the Golden Gate Bridge, a symbol of my former life, but in its own way, the Brooklyn Bridge was just as beautiful.

I put my head down and kept running.

I’d read somewhere that it took fourteen years to build the Brooklyn Bridge.
Fourteen years.

I thought about Jake, then about Aaron. They were the only two men I’d ever loved, and
combined,
those relationships hadn’t even lasted three years yet.

I thought about how my dad had been widowed at a young age, how the future isn’t ever certain, how fast things can change.

I thought about how in a few days the path I thought I was on might be upended right in front of me

I looked overhead again.

Fourteen years to build the Brooklyn Bridge.

Why can’t life be more like that? Why does everything have to happen overnight? Why can’t things stay the same for a while?

The last few months had been crazy and stressful, yes, but I wanted to enjoy the crazy ride I was on. It may not be traditional, but it was
my
life, and I wanted to enjoy it all.

I looked ahead to where the bridge connected with Manhattan.

Suddenly, I had an idea.

I scanned the skyline before me. To the left I could see the skyscrapers of Wall Street and the Statue of Liberty. To the right lay the Manhattan Bridge and the booming skyline of Midtown.
In between were buildings, cars, people, trees,
energy
. The entire city was covered in a thin layer of ice, but it was also bursting with life.

It was the dead of winter, but that didn’t stop anyone from living.

When I got to the other side of the bridge, I stopped running, put my hands on my hips, and took it all in. I was terribly out of shape and breathing hard.

And taking in every moment of it.

Things all around me were in motion, but for a brief window, everything stopped, and for the first time in months, I could see clearly.

I finally had an idea for my New Year’s Eve segment.

Although I was relieved to have come up with an idea for the New Year’s Eve piece, I was still anxious. Hard as I tried to focus my mind entirely on the show, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was a little—if not completely—freaked out about Jake.

And it wasn’t just the Jake situation that had me on edge. Since the
Love, Wendy
production team had decided to do the entire show on location in Times Square, they planned to incorporate
Honey on Your Mind
into the live show. Instead of including my usual prerecorded video feature, that meant I’d be doing my show
live
. And not just live on a quiet street, but live smack among the throngs of tourists from around the globe packed into the most touristy area in all of Manhattan on the most touristy night of them all: December 31. One wrong step, however tiny, and the whole world would see the damage unfold, reality-show style. Given how much editing my segments normally required to get them into the shape I wanted them to be, I was doubtful that I’d be able to pull it off without some sort of legendary Waverly moment ruining the whole thing.

A Waverly moment that would very likely be followed by a conversation with Jake that I desperately wanted to avoid.

Did I mention I was freaked out?

• • •

Three days before New Year’s Eve, I entered the big conference room of the
Love, Wendy
office carrying an enormous cup of coffee that I hoped would compensate for the sleep I’d reluctantly left behind in my warm bed. I was the first one there, and as I was pulling my notebook out of my purse, Ben, the intern, walked in. Ever since that night when he’d finally acknowledged my existence, he’d emerged from his shell a bit more each time I saw him. I wouldn’t exactly call us
friends
, but we were becoming chummy.

“Hi, Waverly, how’s it going?”

I smiled. “Hi, Ben. I’m OK. I’ve got way too much on my to-do list, but I’m hanging in there. How about you? Did you have a good Christmas?” I went back to studying the notebook in front of me.

“Yep. I got a new phone. Life is good.”

I glanced up from my notes and smiled.
To be that young again
.

People slowly began to trickle in and noisy chatter began to fill up the room. Wendy, the last to arrive, waltzed in casually. I hadn’t seen her since that awkward encounter on Christmas Eve. It was only nine o’clock in the morning, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been drinking.

Without acknowledging me, she removed her cashmere wrap, hung it on the chair behind her, and patted her big hair. “Ben, dear, could you be a peach and fetch me a large, nonfat cappuccino from Argo?” There was a free cappuccino machine in our kitchen, but I’d noticed that Wendy rarely drank anything other than fancy cappuccinos from places like Argo Tea Cafe. Rarely drank her
coffee
from anywhere but there, I mean. The image of her sitting alone with that vodka bottle was still burned into my retinas.

“Sure, no problem.” Ben stood up and looked around the room. “Anyone else want to throw in an order while I’m up?”

Every single hand in the room went up, mine included. We all laughed.

“I bet you regret asking that,” I said.

Wendy shot me a look. “I bet you regret some things too,” she said under her breath. It was just loud enough for me to hear but quiet enough that no one else could.

I looked at her, not upset, not…
anything
. A week earlier, I would have wanted to punch her for making such a spiteful comment, but now I just couldn’t be angry with her. She had her demons, and they clearly weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I forced a smile. “I’m sure I do, Wendy.”

Scotty stood at the front of the table and clapped his hands. “OK, everyone, let’s get started. This is going to be one busy day, and I can say with certainty that the madness is not going to end until the year is over. And by that I mean
every single day
until the end of the year.”

We all laughed, and he took a bow.

“How long have you been waiting to use that line?” I asked.

He winked. “A magician never shares his secrets.”

• • •

The next afternoon, Paige left me a voice mail that felt like a punch in the gut:

“Hi, it’s Paige. I…I need to talk to you. I know we’re supposed to get rolling with the new office January first, but now, well, things have changed for me, and I’m…I’m not sure it’s going to work for me to be a part of Waverly’s Honey Shop anymore. I’m really sorry. Please call me as soon as you can. Thanks.”

I listened to the message three times, unable to believe her words were true.

She’s quitting?
I couldn’t run Waverly’s Honey Shop without Paige. What about the Jordon Brooke account? Or Bella’s Boutique? Our office? Our interns? There was no way I could manage all of that with everything I had on my plate at
Love, Wendy
.

No way at all.

I’d created Waverly’s Honey Shop, but Paige had taken it to a whole new level. Without her, I knew it would crash and burn.

Is this because of Gary? She doesn’t want to work with me anymore because I disapprove?

I called her back but got her voice mail.

“Hi, Paige, um, it’s Waverly. I just got your message and don’t know what to say. I’m swamped preparing for my New Year’s Eve show but want to talk to you. Can you please call me when you can? Or maybe we can just meet at the office on New Year’s Day like we’d planned? I’ll be there at eleven o’clock, um, like we planned. I hope you’ll be there too. I…I really don’t want you to quit.”

I hung up and winced. I knew I didn’t sound professional. The real question was did I sound pathetic? I certainly felt like it.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Was it possible that within the span of a week both my boyfriend
and
my business partner were planning to leave me? Less than a week ago, I had the christening of my new office and a trip to meet Jake’s entire family ahead of me. Could I really be losing them both because of my beliefs about what makes a relationship work? Was I really that wrong about everything?

I didn’t know how my communication with both Jake
and
Paige had gotten so off track, but at that moment I had so much work to do for
Honey on Your Mind
that I could barely stop to eat,
much less contemplate two major life changes at once. I didn’t even have time to call Andie or McKenna. I didn’t have time to do anything other than prepare for the show. If I screwed that up too, I couldn’t even begin to think what that would mean for the future of
Honey on Your Mind
.

The future.

Ironic to think about, given what I had planned for New Year’s Eve.

“You ready for the big show, princess?”

“Scotty, I can’t believe you’re technically my boss yet you still call me
princess
.”

“Would you prefer I call you
kitten?
”

I laughed and looked at Tad. “Isn’t that violating some sort of sexual harassment policy?”

Tad nodded. “You should hear what he calls
me
.”

Scotty laughed too. “Well,
technically
, we’re not on the clock right now, so
technically
I’m not violating any corporate policies, sweetheart.”

It was the night before New Year’s Eve. Scotty, Tad, and I were having dinner at Esca, a fancy Italian restaurant a few blocks from NBC. Scotty had seen how rattled I’d been all week, and he was determined to calm me down before I completely came apart at the seams. Until then, he’d assumed it was just the show that had me so stressed. While I was determined not to mention the Paige thing, I hadn’t decided whether to bring up Jake.

I chose to take an indirect route.

I took a sip of water and smiled at Tad. “So, after you first met Scotty at that wedding and started dating, did you ever think he’d end up moving to New York to be with you?”

Tad laughed. “Are you joking? Never in a million years.”

“Hey now, you know you wanted me to,” Scotty said.

I shooed Scotty away. “I didn’t mean that he wouldn’t
want
you to, silly. I meant that moving to New York was a big deal for you.”

Tad shook his head. “At first, I definitely didn’t think he’d do it.”

Scotty shook his head. “At first, I definitely didn’t want to do it.”

“But New York is so amazing, Scotty. Why
wouldn’t
you want to live here?”

He pretended to remove a cowboy hat and tipped his head slightly. “I’m a Texas boy, born and raised, and you know what they say. You can take the Texan out of Texas…”

Tad laughed. “Don’t buy it, Waverly. He likes New York more than he likes Dallas now. He just won’t admit it.”

“But it worked out great for your career, so that made the decision to move easier, right?” I asked Scotty.

He nodded. “True.”

“But what if that
hadn’t
been the case? Would you have moved?”

He gave me a strange look. “That’s a good question.”

I turned back to Tad. “Did you ever think of moving there?”

He coughed. “Oh God, no. Me? In Texas?”

“The South’s a whole other world,” Scotty said. “They say, ‘Don’t mess with Texas,’ for a reason, you know.” He gestured to the waiter and introduced dessert as a new topic of conversation, but I could tell he knew something was going on with me. He was too polite to pry in front of Tad, and I was grateful for his discretion.

• • •

I don’t think I slept at all that night. For hours on end, I stared at the ceiling fan in my bedroom, my body ignoring my head’s desperate pleas to
please, please, please
get some rest. To keep myself from completely losing it, I focused on what my dad used to say to me when I was a kid. “If you’re lying still, your body is resting, and that’s as good as sleep.” I still didn’t know if that was actually true or if it was just a trick he used to get me to take a nap when I didn’t want to. But tonight, it was the only rope I had to keep me from falling into a pit of anxiety, so I grabbed hold and hung on.