Sweet Misfortune: A Novel (22 page)

Chapter 32

No matter what your past has been, your future is bleak.

S
OPHIE TOSSED AND TURNED ALL NIGHT. IMAGES OF
Garrett schmoozing on the phone with hordes of faceless women littered her dreams, causing her to wake up periodically in a cold sweat. The third time she woke up she decided it wasn’t worth going back to sleep, so she crawled out of bed and got ready for work.

When Sophie arrived at Chocolat’ de Soph an hour later and started the daily preparations, her Misfortunes seemed to come much easier than normal, and she wasn’t at all surprised that most of them had something to do with miseries of the heart. Her final message, she decided, was specifically for Garrett.
“Sure, there are other attractive fish in the sea,”
she read aloud to make sure it captured what she was feeling.
“Too bad you’re swimming in a shallow pond full of piranhas.”
A wry grin crept across her face as she slid the paper into an empty cookie.
I hope she eats him alive.

After the store opened, but before any customers arrived, Sophie got an unexpected call on her work phone.

“Chocolat’ de Soph,” she said.

“Sophie?” asked the distinctive singsong voice. “Is that you, or is that someone else?”

“Alex? Why didn’t you call my cell?”

“Because you’re at work, and I thought you might not answer it at work, because my boss doesn’t let anyone talk on cell phones while we’re working at Albertsons, and maybe your boss wouldn’t let you either.”

Hearing his voice relaxed her, and brought a peaceful smile to her face. “
I’m
the boss, Alex. But I appreciate your thoughtfulness. How are you? Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now, too?”

“It’s break time. I can call anyone on break time. And so I looked up your candy store in the phone book.”

“I see. So what can I do for you?”

She heard him tap the receiver, trying to remember why he’d dialed. “Umm… oh yeah. I found something.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“The letter.”

Sophie was quiet, collecting her thoughts. “From your dad?”

“Uh-huh. To you.”

Sophie went quiet again.

“Sophie?”

She cleared her throat. “Are you sure it’s intended for me?”

“Yep. It has your name on it. Sophia Jones. And your address. And it has a note on the outside, telling me that when I find it, I should mail it. It’s a yellow note, the sticky kind. And the letter even has stamps on it already.”

“Where did you find it, Alex?
”

“To Kill a Mockingbird
.
”

“The book?”

“Uh-huh. I should have thought of that when you were here. My bedroom is my favorite room, but that book is my favorite place. I really like its happy ending. And I really
really
like the name Boo. I read it at least one time every year. Dad knew that. I think that’s why he put it there.”

“Wow. Did you read the letter?”

“Nope. It’s closed. Do you want me to send it?” He paused. “Or maybe… do you want to come get it?”

Sophie thought briefly. She wanted to see Alex, but wasn’t sure she could get there before the mail could deliver it. Plus, there were other things on her mind that also needed some attention.

“Sophie?”

“Sorry, Alex,” she replied. “I’m afraid I can’t come over this week. Would you mind putting it in the mail?”

“Okay,” he said.

Sophie could hear the disappointment in his voice. “But I promise to come over real soon,” she said quickly. “As soon as things calm down a little bit.”

It was several seconds before Alex said anything else. “Sophie, have you found your happiness?”

“Sadly, no,” she answered with a sigh.

“Any more letters from your newspaper ad?”

“Many. But none that I think are really happy.”

“That’s what I thought, because even though I can’t see your face, I can tell your voice isn’t smiling as much as other days.”

“You’re very perceptive, Alex. But even if it doesn’t sound like it, I promise that my heart is smiling right now from talking to you.”

There was another long silence before Alex said, “Sophie?”

“Yeah?”

“My break is over, Sophie.”

He said good-bye and clicked off.

Chapter 33

There is a fine line between success and failure,
and you’ve crossed that line.

S
OPHIE GLANCED AT THE CLOCK ON THE WALL AS SHE
handed a customer a skewered apple, loaded an inch thick in all directions with a semisoft mixture of white chocolate, milk chocolate, caramel, chopped cashews, and crumbled Oreos.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, salivating as he felt the weight of it in his hands.

She checked her wristwatch to make sure the clock on the wall was correct. Both sources confirmed that it was already five minutes to five, which meant that the mailman was officially late. Normally, she wouldn’t care when the mail arrived, because it just meant that there would be more bills to pay, but it had been three days since she’d last talked to Alex, and as each day passed Sophie grew more and more interested—
and nervous
—to see what Jacob Barnes had written in his letter.

Jacob was the only other person from the night of the accident who would have had any inkling about her involvement, and their brief encounter along the side of the road had affected him enough that he’d remembered who she was, literally until the day he died. Though Alex’s caregiver had sworn up and down that Jacob didn’t harbor any ill feelings toward her, Sophie couldn’t help but worry that maybe Meredith was wrong. Why would he bother writing a letter, she wondered, if not to blame or accuse? The thought had her on edge.

“I don’t recommend eating that all at once,” Sophie told the man, as he turned to leave with his apple, “unless you’ve got someone to share it with.”

“You kiddin’?” he shot back, grinning. “It’s
an apple
. Practically health food. No, this baby’s all mine.” He lifted it to his mouth and took his first bite, then left the store looking very satisfied.

Ten minutes later the mailman finally arrived and dropped off a box of mail inside of the front door. Sophie would have loved to sneak over right then to check for the letter, but she was too busy passing out samples to a family with five kids who wanted to taste everything in the store before making a decision. By the time all seven of them had made up their minds, there were another three customers waiting in line. Sophie breathed a giant sigh. Jacob’s letter would have to wait, if it was there at all.

Randy arrived shortly thereafter and picked up the box of mail while Sophie was ringing up a woman in her eighties who wouldn’t stop talking about how her great-grandchildren were going to love the peppermint truffles in their stockings on Christmas morning. “That’s almost two months away,” said Sophie. “You’ll probably want to come back for fresh ones as it gets a little closer.”

The woman turned up her nose and waved her hand dismissively. “Hogwash, dear. The best sales are on right now, before the holiday rush. I’ll just put them in the freezer, and the kids will never know the difference.”

Sophie decided it wasn’t worth telling her that the truffles weren’t on sale. “Well, then… Merry Christmas.”

The woman smiled happily and waved good-bye.

“Randy?” Sophie called to the back once all of the customers were gone. “Where’d you put the mail?” She was glancing out the front windows at the busy traffic as she spoke, and as she watched, a familiar Mercedes pulled into one of the metered parking spaces in front of the store.

“Oh, crap,” she muttered.

As quickly as she could, Sophie scrambled to the back of the store, pulled off her apron and tossed it on a dirty countertop. “I’m leaving early, Randy. Where’s the mail?”

Randy looked up from a vat of fudge. “On your desk, like I said.” He cocked his head at an angle. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied. “But, if a
certain someone
happens to come in the store in, like, the next thirty seconds, do your best to stall. I need him to stay here long enough for me to slip out the rear exit.” Thoughts of Garrett had been festering ever since she found out that he was seeing—or at least talking to—another woman. How dare he? And after all his previous pestering, when she called to give him a chance at talking to her, he’d turned her down! No, she was not fine. She was frustrated, ticked off, perhaps slightly jealous, and she didn’t even have words for how what she’d learned about his father made her feel. With all of those emotions swimming around in her head and heart, the last thing she wanted right then was to talk to him.

Randy nodded like it was no big deal, and then went up front to tend the register. Sophie hustled to her office, threw on her coat, and was rifling through the box of mail when she heard the front door open.

“Hey, Randy,” she heard Garrett say.

“Wassup, bro?”

“Is Sophie around?”

Sophie stood motionless, listening. There was a long pause before Randy said, “Umm… maybe? I mean. She was. But now… I’m not sure. Well… yeah. She’s here, but like, in the john… or something.”

“Oh,” Garrett said diplomatically. “I guess I’ll just wait.”

Sophie grinned, pleased that he’d bought Randy’s fumbling lie. Quietly, she continued sorting the mail. The letter from Jacob Barnes was near the bottom of the box. She left the rest of the letters on the desk, grabbed her purse and umbrella, then tiptoed to the back door and out into the alley.

Although she still rode the bus on most days, Sophie had figured out that owning a car and driving herself to work had a few benefits, such as being able to sleep in longer in the morning. This morning had been one of the days that she’d needed a little extra time to wake up, and so she drove her Explorer from Gig Harbor to Tacoma and parked it in a pay-per-day garage two blocks away from Chocolat’ de Soph.

Sophie popped open her umbrella to repel the rain and started walking quickly toward the parking garage. By the time she got there, found her car on the fourth level, and paid the fare to leave, she assumed that Garrett had long since left her store. Either that, she thought, or he was growing very worried about the nature of her business in the bathroom. She pulled out onto the road, making a hard right turn, then hung a left at the next light. A few minutes later she was cruising along the highway, headed home, at her maximum rainy-day speed of forty-five miles per hour.

As usual, plenty of cars were annoyed by her tempo, but the only ones that bothered to honk were those that got stuck in her wake, or the occasional Good Samaritan who wanted to wave at her with one finger. She ignored them all. Sophie was almost to the Narrows Bridge when one pulled alongside her, slowing just enough to get a good look at the driver of the snail-paced SUV.

Unlike other cars, the one to her left didn’t pass. It just stayed there, keeping pace. Sophie was sure that the driver was staring at her, but she refused to turn and look, because that would require diverting her focus from the increasingly wet road ahead, so she just kept driving.

A few moments later Sophie’s phone began ringing inside her purse, playing Garrett’s new honky-tonk ringtone, “Don’t break my heart, my achy breaky heart…” He must have finally figured out that she wasn’t in the bathroom, but even if she hadn’t been driving right then, she wouldn’t have answered, for the simple reason that she didn’t have anything to say to him.

The song played through twice, then the phone went quiet. A few seconds later it started up again. Sophie wondered how many times he was going to call before he finally got the hint. She wished she could take her hands off the wheel long enough to put it on silent.

After the song ended for the second time, the car in the next lane over, which was still keeping pace, started honking loudly. It kept honking for fifteen seconds. Eventually, the sound of it became such a distraction that Sophie glanced over at it out of the corner of her eye.

The sight of Garrett’s dimpled face staring back at her sent her into an instant panic. She gasped in surprise, but as she did so she inadvertently punched the accelerator, causing her V8 engine to leap forward. The sudden shift in speed also scared her, so she instinctively hit the brakes to correct the situation.

Then things went very wrong.

The man in the car behind Sophie, who’d been stuck on her bumper for almost two miles because nobody would let him get around, followed her lead when she sped up. He was still on her tail, accelerating quickly, when her brake lights flashed.

Sophie felt the car jolt unnaturally as she was hit from behind. The next thing she knew she was sliding down the road out of control, tires screeching, heart pounding, and mouth screaming. Her Explorer twisted just enough that it crossed over into Garrett’s lane, but that didn’t matter. He’d watched the whole thing unfold, and had already slammed on his own brakes, resulting in another rear-end collision between him and the car behind him. Eight other vehicles that were traveling in tight formation also got caught up in the melee, stacking up end to end in one loud, momentous crash.