Too soon shouted her cautious brain.
The ringing of her cell phone yanked Aspen away from her wild thoughts.She dried her hand on the tea towel threaded through the tie of her apron before answering the call.
“Hi Mom.What’s up?”
“Not too much.Your father went for a walk on the beach before I woke up and I thought I’d check in on you and the bakery.”
A fissure of unease skittered up Aspen’s spine.
“You sure all is well?”
“Yes, tell me about the shop.Have you started ordering extra supplies?With colder weather around the corner, you know traffic will be picking up.”
“I’m prepared, Mom, but it’s still the middle of summer and I have a bigger issue than ordering more flour for‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’muffins.The air conditioning unit is on its last leg.”
“Your father and I should have done something about the unit years ago.”
Aspen’s frustration began to mount.“There are a lot of things on its last leg, but hopefully my foray into catering is going to increase my revenue stream.”
“You’re such a dreamer, Aspen.You need to focus on what works.”
Aspen silently counted to ten to refrain from telling her mom that their neglect of the shop put her in the position where she currently sat.
“Not a dreamer, Mom.I need to get creative if I want to compete with the franchised coffee shop down the street.”
“All I’m saying is the bakery is fine just the way it has always been.”
“It isn’t, Mom.If I don’t find a way to become diverse, this shop won’t be here for long.”
“We should have just closed the shop before we moved.That way we’d have some money to actually enjoy retirement.”She complained as though she was completely oblivious to how hard Aspen worked to make this business her own.
Aspen suddenly felt tired.All she wanted was a shot at following her own dream, but would she ever move away from her parents’ shadow or their incessant need to tell her how to operate the business?Or seemingly never be satisfied with life itself?
“Yes, well, it’s my shop now and I’m going to make this work.Gotta go, Mom.I’ll talk to you later.”
Her mom hung up the phone before saying goodbye.
Why was everything so complicated with her parents?All she wanted to do was run her bakery and make it as successful as she knew it was meant to be.
Maybe she should sell her place and use what little equity she had and move to a strip mall in the suburbs.She could certainly rent a place somewhere cheaper than downtown Denver.Maybe she could keep her place and get a roommate to increase her on-hand cash.
With frustration mounting, Aspen slammed a few metal bowls in a childish way in hopes of getting past her anger at her parents.
“Whatever those pans did to you, you’re sure showing them, BB,” Connor teased, appearing out of nowhere and resting his forearms on the counter, a smirk dancing across his face.
Aspen knew she was in an emotionally delicate state when his attempt at being charming not only fell flat, but got on her last nerve following the call with her mom.
“Haaa,” she said lamely.
“Doing okay, there, BB?”concern instantly etched Connor’s face.
“Fine.Dandy.Just had a great call with my mom,” Aspen yanked off her apron, balled it up and tossed it under the counter. “Of course they still think they own the shop and are running it.Even though they didn’t reallyrun itwhen they owned it.Oh, and no matter where they are or what they’re doing they never seem happy.”
She was ranting.Irrationally so, but she couldn’t help it.Maybe it was lack of sleep from all of her extracurricular activities with Connor, or the fact that Mia had asked for a couple of days off to get her head on straight, so Aspen was running on fumes.
Oh, and she was so nervous for the upcoming catering event she could literally feel her insides twisting with worry that the hockey camp wouldn’t turn out the way she planned.
“Ooookay.Let’s grab a cup of coffee.We could watch an episode of Wheel on your phone.”