Sink Or Sell

Copyright © 2023 by Margaret Rose Hodson Press supports copyright. All rights reserved. Cover Design: Sam Palencia at Ink and Laurel Editing: Anne-Marie Rutella Proofing: Emily Gretzinger Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws. You are supporting writers and helping Hodson Press continue to publish books. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely incidental. For Jeff, my hero. Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Epilogue Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Margaret Rose Chapter One Sharp, sterling silver scissors are cold in my hand. Gran would kill me if she knew I was using her embroidery tools for this, but I’ve got to stop thinking about the kiss. Outside, a winter moon is high but mostly hidden from the window by camellia bushes that grow wild in Seattle. I tilt my head toward tulip-shaped sconces casting a glow overhead. “Come on, Stewart,” I murmur, as if I’m gearing up for a battle. Around me, baby pink tiles I’ve warred with since grade school mock my inability to make a decision. For example, are said tiles ugly? Or full of cottage charm? Is this a good idea? Or a colossal mistake? Leaning in toward the mirror, careful not to knock my precariously perched laptop with a paused tutorial, I pull a chunk of hair between two fingers. Drastic times, desperate measures… is that how it goes? And then I do it. Someone should be filming for Nike while reading my internal monologue aloud. I just do it—snip! It’s exhilarating, thrilling, and downright cathartic. I’m on my own for the first time in my life. Scared? Um, yes. And in desperate need of a power move. I don’t have the relationship I want, I don’t have the job I want, and now Gran’s left me in this house all alone. She’s probably already snoozing through a post-welcome wagon martini buzz in her new retirement home. Living a more complex and inspired life than I ever have. The place sounded like Walt Disney World meets the Playboy mansion meets The Golden Girls. But what was she thinking, leaving her tools and the cottage in Capitol Hill in my possession? “A woman has to have something of her own, always!” she used to say while cleaning her dentures each night. She doled out the really important advice at bedtime and I’ve never had the heart to tell her it’s impossible to take her seriously in a semi-see-through cotton gown with no teeth. My fingers tense and I go again, trigger happy now—snip, snip, snip! Pieces of wavy hair fall to the sink. Suddenly and without warning, my endorphins go with it, down a proverbial drain. My heart stills to the point of chest pain. I glance at vanity drawers wondering how I’m going to remedy what I know is fast becoming a style crisis. Maybe I need to walk away and come back with fresh eyes? Padding down the hall in Wonder Woman slippers, I search the living room for the remote. That fantasy series I want to finish might help me stop thinking about the kiss (and now my hair). But as I toss a button-down I’d been adorning with sequins to a corner and reach under chintz-covered cushions, my traitorous brain flips back in time to replay the holiday party kiss-capade again. The DJ, set up in our office playing Ariana Grande. George in a corner near a tree decorated with dreidel ornaments. His eyes meet mine. I saunter over to him as if there’s a breeze blowing my hair in slow motion, and I go for it. He tastes like scotch and soda. But the song changes seconds after my lips—still salty from the pretzels I’d knocked back while trying to act casual—land on his. The glaring silence gives him a chance to break away, sparkling blue eyes wide, pulling at his chin in shock and smile-laughing. But he kissed me back, for a liquor-soaked split second before he pulled away to make a toast. A snake coils in my belly just thinking about it. After the holiday party there were a few busy days where it was all-hands-on-deck just to get through shipping deadlines. Then I took the week after Christmas off so I have no idea what George is thinking. I haven’t seen him in—I stop searching for the remote to count on my fingers—eight days. “Enough!” I wander out to a large gold mirror in the entryway for another look in better light. It's not that bad. My eyes narrow and I’m horrified when I see a hint of the General looking back at me. The daughter Gran raised, the woman who half raised me, is ferocious and never makes mistakes. Maybe water will help? I run the tap to fill Dad’s old mug with the anatomical heart diagram, and smash frizzy curls against my forehead with damp fingers. My heart rate kicks up and my armpits start to sweat. If it’s possible for my skin to get paler, and my smattering of freckles to stand out more, they do with dark brown bangs. Deep breath, Holly, it’s just hair. But I haven’t changed one thing about myself since