“No!” My hands tremble and tears flood my eyes.
“What is it?” Jonah says, his hand on my back. “Who texted?”
“My mother,” I say as a tear falls down my cheek. Just minutes ago, I’d been so happy and hopeful for the store. Now that dream is crushed. “She wants to sell.” I show them the text and April and Jonah are stunned into silence, which only makes me cry harder.
Then Jonah takes the phone from me and presses the call button over my mom’s name. “Talk to her,” he says, pushing the phone back to me. “Tell her to give it three more months. Promise her the store will earn at least a thousand extra dollars a month and if it does, she’ll reconsider.”
I nod quickly, trying to remember everything he just said, even though I’m pretty sure it’s hopeless. We’ve lost and Jack Brown has won. Mom answers the phone after several rings, probably because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to answer knowing I’d probably be mad.
“You can’t sell the store,” I say.
“Natalie—” Mom begins. “We’ve been over this.”
“Yes, but I’ve got a proposition for you. Tell Jack you need three months to decide.”
“Nat—”
“Tell him. He’ll wait. He has no other choice. And in these next three months, I’ll have the store earning a thousand dollars more per month. No—fifteen hundred,” I say. Jonah’s eyes widen, but he nods.
“Please, Mom.” I grip the phone to my ear as a tear rolls down my cheek. “Please believe in me. If it doesn’t work out in three months, you can sell the store with my blessing.”
“Fine,” Mom says after a long moment of silence. “You have a deal.”
Chapter 26
A nervous energy flows through my veins on Saturday morning. It’s as if my body knows something bad is about to happen, but it won’t tell me what. I get up and get dressed way earlier than usual because Jonah is going to meet me at The Magpie an hour before we open so we can start on our plan to earn more money. Fifteen hundred dollars spread out over a month is only fifty dollars a day that we need to earn above what we normally earn. It sounds simple, maybe even easy, but I know how many days I’ve spent at The Magpie when not a single customer has even walked through our door. Fifty dollars is a lot.
I brush my teeth, still unable to shake that feeling of dread. When I get to the kitchen, the smell of coffee isn’t filling the room like usual. Mom sits at the table, reading news on her tablet.
“Good morning,” I say. “Are we out of coffee?”
“I just didn’t feel like making it.” Mom’s eyes stay focused on the tablet. I grab some Pop Tarts from the pantry and sit next to her. Although I’d love some coffee, I don’t really have time to make a fresh pot right now since Jonah will be here to pick me up in a few minutes.
“Are you okay?” I ask my mom after a few minutes of silence. She’s staring at her tablet, but she’s not focusing on anything. With my question hanging in the air, she looks up at me.
Oh no. This is not a good look.
“About what I agreed to yesterday,” Mom says, still not looking at me. “I can’t do ninety days. I’ll do thirty days.”
The knot in my stomach seems to look up at me and saythis is why I made you wake up feeling sick.
I take a deep breath and try not to lash out and cry and beg for what I want. “Why not three months?” I ask calmly. “You know business things take a while.”
She nods. “Try sixteen years. I have been there done that, Natalie. Even if we do a few things to the store, it doesn’t bring about long term change.”
“But it will,” I say. “Jonah is going to help me and he’s incredibly smart.”
Mom snorts. “Right. A kid in high school will do better than a team of market researches that I hired a couple years ago.”
“He might,” I say, breaking off a piece of my Pop Tart. “He’s crazy smart and he already has a ton of ideas. He’ll be here any minute and we’re heading to the store to start working on them.”
Mom shakes her head like she still thinks I’m stupid for giving even one ounce of hope to Jonah’s plans. “You can have thirty more days to play with the store, and then I’m selling.”
Maybe she’s given up, but I’m not. “Okay. Fine. I’ll change your mind over the next thirty days.”
“Well, have fun,” she says as she looks back at her tablet. “I won’t be going into work this weekend. I need a break.”
Jonah hands me a Starbucks frap when I climb into his car. I grab it with wide eyes and clutch it to my chest. “You are amazing,” I say, taking a sip. “My hero.”
