The Cupcake Diaries Read Free Page B

imagined the other details and climbed the stairs to the room she temporarily shared with Kim above the garage.
    The room over the garage, which was separated from the main house by a paved driveway, used to be Rachel’s until she wed Mike Palmer and moved in with him. Kim, too, would be moving out when she married her Swedish hunk, Nathaniel Sjölander, at the end of summer. The space seemed to be a holding facility for future brides.
    But not in her case, of course. She couldn’t hope to find a husband in three months. When she moved out, she’d be happy if she just found someone to date.
    She thought of Dave Wright, the handsome man she’d met the day before at the yard sale. If she’d been more experienced in the art of flirtation, she might have found a way to meet up with him again. But she was a total geek in the romance department. While many women her age were married and having kids, she’d barely held anyone’s hand.
    Later that evening Stacey went into the main house for dinner. Sarah had made a pot roast, and Grandpa Lewy and his new wife, Bernice, had come over from their senior housing facility to join them.
    During dessert, chocolate caramel cupcakes with chocolate sprinkles, Sarah handed her a letter. “From Idaho.”
    The previous December, Stacey did have a date, one who ran out the door of the restaurant after eating and left her to foot the bill. Unable to pay, she’d had to call her roommate, Pam, to come bail her out of trouble. Again. Then when she’d packed her bags for her trip to Astoria to attend Rachel’s wedding, Pam had told her—in not very flattering terms—not to come back.
    Stacey’s hands shook as she opened the envelope and read the legal letterhead.
    Grandpa Lewy leaned across the table. “What’s it say?”
    She stared at the paper. “It’s—It’s a bill.”
    “A bill for what?” Grandpa Lewy persisted.
    Stacey tried to speak but let out a strangled cry instead. How could Pam do this to her? Her throat closed up, her cheeks heated, and her eyes burned in their sockets.
    Sarah leaned over the corner of the table and placed a hand on her arm. “How can we help?”
    Stacey shook her head. “Pam claims I owe her $2,000.” She waved her hand back and forth over the sheet of paper as if that would make the numbers disappear. “The bill is for half the rent, utilities, and food for the five months I stayed with her before I came here.”
    Sarah frowned. “But that was over half a year ago; why is she contacting you now?”
    “The girl must have got herself into trouble,” Grandpa Lewy growled, “and is looking for a way to collect some money.”
    “Did Pam ever talk about what you owed while you lived with her?” Bernice asked, joining in.
    “No, never,” Stacey said and flipped through the copies of receipts Pam had included with the letter. “She knew I didn’t have a job when she offered me a place to stay.”
    Stacey had tried to get a job, but she’d had trouble with the interviews. Every time she went in she’d fumble over her words, repeat herself, and squirm so badly it was a relief when the prospective employer put them both out of their misery and dismissed her. Like many of her dates.
    “I had thought I did pay her back,” she said, looking around at each of their faces. “I helped with chores, I walked her dogs, cooked dinner, cleaned the apartment.”
    “You cleaned?” Grandpa Lewy teased.
    Stacey rolled her eyes. “Of course I cleaned. You know how I hate living in . . . any kind of mess, and Pam’s place was a disaster. But, obviously, Pam didn’t think my efforts were payment enough. She had her lawyer uncle draft this legal document stating that if I do not pay her the two thousand I owe her by July 15, they’ll take me to small claims court.”
    “If you didn’t sign any contracts agreeing to pay Pam for expenses,” Grandpa Lewy continued, “then her uncle can’t make a case. You don’t have to pay her.”
    Stacey thought