What a Girl Wants
A Fillmore & Greenwich Novel
Kate Perry
What a Girl Wants
Kate Perry
© 2015 by Phoenix Rising Enterprises, Inc.
Cover Graphic © Salty Olive Designs
ISBN: 978-1939102362
Digital Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Welcome to Fillmore and Greenwich. You’re going to love it here. How do I know? Because I’m a psychic.
Don’t roll your eyes.
Just hear me out. I’ve lived in the neighborhood for two years, so I’m kind of an expert on the area. We’ve got all the things a San Francisco neighborhood should have: An automotive repair shop. A fresh-pressed juice stand. A wine bar. An optometrist. The requisite yoga studio. A small beauty shop. We’ve also got a fire department.
But all these conveniences aren’t why I moved here. I came to Fillmore and Greenwich because it has the most potential for love.
Not for myself, of course. I’m just a broker.
And I’m not a matchmaker either, thank the stars. If you ask most people what they want in a mate, they wouldn’t be able to give you a coherent list. Imagine how hard being a matchmaker would be.
I, on the other hand, am more of a cheerleader. I facilitate Happily Ever Afters.
That’s a fancy way of saying I help people find an open door to love—or at least show them how to open a window they can crawl through. I encourage them to be open to the possibilities.
I know—you’re skeptical. Everyone is. They don’t take me seriously in my neighborhood either.
It’s okay; I don’t need their validation. My services are just as important as keeping people healthy or helping them see—maybe even more important. I help them find love.
When they let me.
‡
W
here the hell were her car keys, and why did they always disappear when she was late?
“Except I’m always late,” Ariana mumbled, sifting through her bag as she walked down the steps of her apartment building. She was already guaranteed a lecture from her dad—he was always on her case these days—but she didn’t need the added guilt he’d lay on her for delaying her mom’s Sunday brunch.
Damn it, where were her keys? She shoved aside a half-eaten protein bar and the notebook she wrote her ideas in and felt the bottom.
No keys, but she found her lost cell phone.
Brandishing it in victory, she did the logical thing and called her younger sister. “This is all your fault,” she said the moment Annabelle answered.
“What’s my fault?” Belle asked in her usual, peppy voice. She owned a women’s athletic line—sounding like she was high on endorphins came with the territory.
“Being so organized and perfect. As the younger one, you’re supposed to be more flawed, and the focus of Dad’s woe.”
Belle laughed. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Sure it is. At brunch, you’re supposed to be the one he rags on. Instead he’s going to sing your praises and wonder why I can’t be more like you.”
“You are like me, just different.”
“Ha!” If they were apples from her parents’ tree, they’d fallen on opposite sides. They were both creative, but it’d taken her over thirty years to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up; Annabelle had known she wanted to be a clothing designer from the time she was a little girl.
Belle also had the business sense to accomplish her goals. Ariana didn’t really have goals, business or otherwise. She just liked making people feel good.
She was fiercely proud of her younger sister and didn’t hold her success against her, but sometimes she wished Belle would screw up just a little to take some of the attention from her. “At brunch, if Dad gets out of control, knock something over, okay?”
“Uh . . . Didn’t I tell you I’m in LA?” Belle asked.
“What?” Ariana put her hand on her forehead. “You’re abandoning me?”
“No. I just have some meetings tomorrow. I’ll be home Tuesday.”
“I can’t believe you abandoned me.”
Belle laughed. “You’re so—”
The phone went silent.
“Hello?” Ariana held it out to look at the screen. Dead. Of course. Who knew when she’d charged it last.
“Hey, Ariana,” a chipper voice said from behind her.
Ariana startled, looked up to find Esme crossing the street toward her. If she had to bottle Esme into a product, she’d have named it Sunshine and scented it with violets and honey. Esme always had a smile to give and a cheery greeting.
It made up for the fact that Esme was a little odd.
Well, everyone was odd, but when they handed out servings of strangeness, Esme got an extra helping. She always wrapped her hair in a colorful scarf and wore dozens of bracelets and flowy skirts, like she’d been a gypsy before landing in urban San Francisco.
It didn’t help that she was a psychic. She even had a gold neon sign in her window to proclaim it.
As far as Ariana was concerned, Esme added color to the black yoga pants and blue button-down shirts that infested the neighborhood, and color was always a nice thing.
“Hey, Esme. How are you?” she greeted her neighbor.
Esme opened her mouth, but then she frowned. Walking up to her, she leaned closer, sniffing. “What are you wearing?”
“Just the usual. I’m only going to my parents’ for brunch.” Ariana looked down at her ripped jeans. They were clean, and she was pretty sure her tank top was, too. She lowered her chin and smelled herself discreetly. “Why?”
“You don’t smell right.” Esme leaned in and inhaled deeply. Then her frown deepened and she looked up. “Why don’t you smell like peppermint?”
For some reason she’d never noticed how intense Esme’s eyes were. Up close like this, their gray was so light they were almost white.
Ariana leaned away, weirded out. “You know I make organic skincare products, right? I just used a different scent this time.”
“No.” Esme shook her head. “Wear the peppermint. Trust me. You’ll be happier.”
“Peppermint is a pleasant scent,” she agreed carefully as she edged away. “I didn’t know you liked peppermint so much, Esme. I’ll make you a moisturizer with it.”
“No, peppermint is for you.” Esme reached out and held her hand, her gaze direct and serious. “The olfactory senses play an important part in mating.”
She blinked. “Olfactory?”
“That means your sense of smell. It was the word of the day.” Esme grinned sheepishly. “I follow the OED on Twitter.”
This was why Esme was so great and yet so peculiar. “I know what olfactory means, but I don’t know how that applies to me because I don’t have a mate.”
“And you never will if you don’t wear the peppermint,” the woman said, hands on her hips. “Trust me, Ariana. Wear it all over, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed even though it was strange. But then, that was Esme in a nutshell. “See you later.”
“And don’t change your hair.”
“My hair?” She touched her ponytail.
“The purple streaks.” Esme reached out to touch one. “They’re pretty.”
Ariana blinked. “I have no plans to change the color.”
“Oh good.” She smiled happily. Then she pointed to the old, little house across the street and the
PSYCHIC
sign blazing in the upstairs window. “I’m available anytime. Come see me.”
Ariana watched the woman walk away, a spring in her step like she was Dorothy walking down the Yellow Brick Road.
Shaking her head, she made a mental note to switch her body lotion to the peppermint-scented one just in case she ran into Esme again, and then ducked under the gate of the Greenwich Street Garage.
Tango music filled the airy space of the garage. George’s combat boots poked out from under the body of a car, tapping in rhythm to the beat.
Ariana walked up to the boots and nudged them with her foot.
George slid out on a rolling platform, a frown and grease smudge darkening her face. Her red hair was hidden by a backwards Giants cap, and she held some sort of wrench in her hand. “Dude, we’re closed.”
“I lost my keys.”
George rolled her eyes and pointed to the cluttered desk at the edge of the room. “In the middle drawer.”
“This is why you’re the best.” She and George Connolly had been fast friends since Ariana had moved into the neighborhood three years ago. George knew her well enough to have an extra set of all her keys, for when she couldn’t find her own. “You’re a lifesaver.”
George’s answer was the gruff sound of her platform rolling back under the carriage of the car.
Ariana rushed to her car, tossed her bag in, and took off. From the Marina, it took about half an hour to Seacliff, the ritzy neighborhood on the outer edge of the city where her parents lived.
She made it there in fifteen.
Fortunately, they had a circular driveway so she didn’t have to look for parking. She screeched her Prius to a halt and hopped out.
Her dad was already at the door, holding it open, his brow furrowed. “I shudder when I see you drive like that.”
“Then close your eyes.” She got up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “How’s the easy life?”
“Overrated,” he grumbled, holding the door open for her to enter.
She grinned. He’d retired at the beginning of the year at the advice of his doctor, who cautioned him about being a walking heart attack.
Since then he’d been driving everyone crazy—particularly himself, her mom, and her. Ariana supposed it was hard going from ruling the world to playing golf all day. Her dad wasn’t the idle sort.
Which was why she tried to cut him slack every time he wanted to butt into her business. But it was difficult, because he’d been more and more determined to make her over into something she didn’t want to be.
As if on cue, he said, “Have you talked to Sebastian Tate yet?”
“Nope,” she said cheerfully, setting her bag on a side table.
His chest expanded, and he exhaled as though she was deeply vexing. “Ariana, can you just talk to him? He’s brilliant when it comes to branding. I think he can help take your business to the next level.”
That was the thing: She was happy right where she was. She made just enough with her Dew Me products to afford her rent and her simple life, without having to work as hard as Annabelle did. Sure—there wasn’t much left over for extras, but she didn’t need much more than she had. “Trust me, Dad. I’m good where I am. I know what’s right for me.”
“Have I ever said anything to the contrary?” The lines between his eyebrows deepened, the way they did when he was getting agitated. “Even when you decided to be a jewelry maker?”
She wrinkled her nose. Her beading phase wasn’t inspired. “No.”
“Or when you wanted to make birdhouses?”
Her birdhouses were adorable, if she said so herself. It was just bad timing that they didn’t sell. “No.”
“Or when—”
“I get it, Dad,” she interrupted. It’d taken her a while to figure out what she was good at. But now she was on track, and she wasn’t going to mess it up by overreaching when she was in a perfectly happy place. She took her cell phone out of her bag. “Do you have a phone charger, Dad?”
“Ariana, don’t try to redirect me.” He frowned at her. “I want your business to be every bit as successful as it could be. I’m concerned about your well-being.”
“I know, Dad.” If it were up to Edward Warren, she’d be in all the chain stores.
