Yours in regret,
Sir
* * *
To Sir, with reassurances,
Please don’t think a thing of it. Of course we can go on as we’ve been! Here, I’ll get us started. An important topic I find it hard to believe we haven’t discussed yet: reality TV. Is there anything better? The drama? The suspense? The sheer juiciness of it all…
Lady
* * *
My dear Lady,
Oh GOD.
Yours in dissent,
Sir
Seventeen
I don’t want to say I’ve hit rock bottom. That would imply I’m at home in my PJs, digging into another pint of pistachio gelato, with no bra and hair that hasn’t encountered shampoo in quite some time.
I’m fine. I am. My brain is very sure of this.
Sir is just some guy whose face I’ve never seen. Sebastian is just some businessman whose interest in me was purely financially motivated. I never had either of them, so I haven’t lost either of them.
So why does my heart hurt?
There is a bittersweet silver lining to my personal life crashing and burning. My professional life is also crashing and burning, but at least I’m in the driver’s seat there. With every longtime customer I’ve said goodbye to, with every discount sign I’ve hung, with every box of champagne I’ve carefully packaged to sell to one of the vendors who’ve been buying out our inventory, I feel a little more sure that this is right.
Scary. And sad. But I feel in my bones that this sharp turn in my life’s path is the right one.
I smile at a young forty-something couple as I hand them a crisp white paper bag. They’re celebrating her one-year anniversary of being cancer-free and were thrilled when I pointed them to a particularly nice steal on our going-out-of-business table. A few of our nearby competitors bought out full and half cases, but for the one-off bottles, I’ve decided on an “everything must go” approach.
Dad’s probably ticked about it from up in Heaven. While he himself was a coupon-cutting, deal-hunting aficionado—he loved himself a cheap Chianti—he and my mom had defined Bubbles as a luxury shop from the very beginning. You don’t see a sales rack at Cartier, do you, Gracie?
In truth, I’d never set foot in Cartier. I still haven’t, so I don’t know what it’s like.
But here’s what I do know: The smile on that couple’s face when I’d handed them a bottle of wine to celebrate being alive? The tears in the eyes of a grandmother buying champagne to celebrate her first grandson and finding something in her price range? Worth it, despite the loss. Which tells me something I’ve maybe known all along: I’d rather be a good person than a great businesswoman.
Of course, that’s easy to say now that I have the financial buffer of the Andrews Corporation deal. Not that I’m set for life or anything. But for the first time ever, I’ve got a bit of breathing room in my budget. No more losing sleep about making sure I have enough to pay rent at home and the store. No more Groundhog Day resentment that I have to work seven days a week because I can’t afford to bring on another employee. No more endless stress about being able to keep the employees I do have.
That, apart from our legacy coming to an end, has been one of the hardest parts of all this. Breaking the news to May, Josh, and Robyn that while they’d get six months’ worth of pay, they’d need to find another job. That they’d all received the news with understanding and kindness had been a little bright spot in an otherwise bittersweet period of my life.
May in particular had been in favor of the decision. Time to move on, in more ways than one.
I know she was talking about letting go of my dad. I know that most of the reason she’s stuck around the store is for me, but I also know a little part of it’s for her—a way to stay connected with my father. I don’t want that for her. To stay connected with his memory? Of course. I know she’ll always love him. But I also want her to find that same happiness with someone else.
Robyn had been disappointed, but not surprised. In fact, she’d already started job hunting with the anticipation of the store closing, and I’m glad for it. She’s smart, she’s talented, and I’m confident she’ll find someone or somewhere that can make use of those talents.
Strangely, it had been Josh whom I’d been dreading telling the most. I hate that he worked so darn hard to learn wine, to learn the shop… for nothing.
Not nothing, boss. I was a part of something good. No regrets.
Ironic. Ironic that the employee who’s been a part of Bubbles’s story for the shortest amount of time is the one who was able to sum it up the best. Part of something good indeed.