Page 148 of The Fall Classic

And I think about my mom, somewhere, somehow watching me with bated breath …

I call Jane.

After the second ring, I hear her low, confident voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jane,” I say, my voice pathetically high and wispy but my spine stronger than it’s been in years. “This is Georgie Ashman from the coffee truck. I’m not sure if you remember me, but we met a couple of weeks ago through Kayla? I was wondering if we could talk?”

I’m so used to people interrupting me, I almost don’t know how to finish.

“I would love to, Georgie,” Jane says warmly. “I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

***

Sometime during my conversation with Jane, I stop paying attention to what Liv is doing and rummage through my shoulder bag for the journal I used to doodle and dream in, except I only ever used the back pages, hiding them as if they were shameful secrets instead of aspirations worthy of a vision board.

Now, I open it at the front and take careful notes about everything Jane says, as well as keeping track of the things I want to mention in our next meeting. Jane isn’t all business, though. She asks questions like she wants to understand me as a person …

Not just me as someone who wants to run the coffee shop her mother left her—the one her father and stepmother still run because of a choice she made at seventeen that never really felt like a choice at all.

Take over the shop now, and the debt with it, or let them keep running things until it was paid off.

I never imagined I’d still be paying for the consequences of that choice.

“Thank you, Jane,” I tell her when we wrap up the call, confirming our plans to meet. “I promise I’ll have a real presentation for you on Sunday.”

“I know you will, Georgie,” Jane says. “You have a sharp business sense and something really special in Meant to Bean. I’m looking forward to meeting.”

We say our goodbyes and then I squeal.

“I did it!” I exclaim.

I shoot off a text to Logan with a picture of Jane’s card and a checkmark. His response is immediate:

Logan

That’s my girlfriend!!

Game’s about to start. I’ll call when it’s over.

Love you!

I grin at his texts and then stow my phone, looking for Liv.

She’s not at the bookshelf anymore, and the bottom rows are bare of mugs and books. I whip around to look at the donation pile, except that it’s not only a pile now. It’s several full supply boxes from Meant to Bean, with the contents of each written in Sharpie. Blankets, scarves, and pot holders. Tupperware and kitchen appliances. Mugs. Books.

“Holy cow,” I say, practically gulping as I pull my gaze to slowly look around my apartment, which already looks so different—not bare, like I expected, but … open.

Like it finally has room to make new memories.

“Liv?”

“Down here,” she says, and I look around to see her sitting on the ground on the other side of the armchair, where I have boxes and boxes of papers. I don’t even know what’s in there. Cell phone bills and credit card offers?

She’s holding a yellow manila envelope, looking at the papers inside with wide eyes. “Uh, boss?”

“Sorry?” She’s never called me boss before. Why is she now?