Honey on Your Mind
Read Honey on Your Mind Online
Authors: Maria Murnane
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 by Maria Murnane
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Publishing
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612183732
ISBN-10: 1612183735
I dedicate this book to every reader who has offered me kind words, either in person or online, at one point or another. Your collective support and enthusiasm has convinced me that writing is what I need to be doing with my life, no matter what, and for that, I will forever be grateful.
And to Terri Sharkey, for being you.
I hung up the phone and stared at it. My hand was shaking.
Did that really just happen?
I sat there for a minute, then took a deep breath and stood up. I set the phone on my desk and made my way toward the kitchen to get a glass of water, my throat suddenly dry. I couldn’t really feel my feet on the hardwood floors, but I could feel a small buzzing in my ears. I blinked a few times and shook my head as I walked.
Did I really just say yes?
I poured a huge glass of water and plunked myself onto the couch in the living room. I slowly gazed around the apartment I’d lived in—
loved
living in—since graduating from college more than a decade ago. I’d never thought about it before, but at that moment, I realized I’d spent my entire adult life here. The place had changed quite a bit from the early days, when I’d roomed with my college friend Whitney, to my “big decision” to keep the two-bedroom place on my own when she got married a few years later. Over time, I’d gradually ditched the IKEA furniture for a more grown-up decor, and recently I’d even bought a few plants—although they’d quickly fallen victim to my black thumb. There was just something about this classic Victorian apartment nestled in the middle of quaint Pacific Heights, something
more
than rent control, that had made me think I’d stay here forever.
It wasn’t just the apartment or the neighborhood that had cast a spell on me; it was…
San Francisco itself
. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is about the city’s magnetism that captivated me, but San Francisco has a way of making you think there’s no other place worth living. After ten years, I was still entranced by it, and I had never even considered leaving.
But apparently I was about to do just that.
I set my glass on the coffee table and leaned back into the couch. I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them and stared at the ceiling.
Did I really just agree to move across the country?
I bit my lip.
What have I done?
“I can’t believe you’re giving up this great apartment,” Andie said. “Do you know how many people would kill to live here for so cheap?”
I squinted at her. “You can’t believe I’m giving up this
apartment
?”
She laughed and took a sip of Diet Coke. “I mean, I can’t believe you’re
moving
. You know I’m totally going to miss you.”
“Thank you. That’s much better.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please, we’ve been over this like a thousand times. You know I hate you for leaving me.”
“I know, I know. I sort of hate myself right now.” I looked around the nearly empty living room, the families of tiny dust bunnies skittering across the hardwood floors. The whole place looked much smaller now than in my memory of when I first saw it. Had it already been ten years since college? Part of me could still remember what it felt like to move in…my first real apartment…my first real job…my first taste of real life.
My thoughts drifted from the past to what lay ahead—and the woman who, albeit inadvertently, had made it all happen.
Wendy Davenport, ugh.
Several months earlier, my good friend Scotty Ryan, a features reporter for the
Today
show, had invited me to appear on a Valentine’s Day segment about love and dating. At the time, I was writing a newspaper column on those topics, so it was a good
fit, not to mention great exposure. Overall, the appearance had gone well, despite the fact that I was unexpectedly ambushed by Wendy, who also had been invited to appear. I hadn’t known it at the time, but Wendy had been jockeying for a position as a TV talk show host. She showed me up on stage by asking some pointed questions about my
personal
love life that I wasn’t prepared to answer at all, much less before millions of people.
Since then her syndicated advice column,
Love, Wendy
, had been turned into a full-blown TV talk show on NBC, and they’d made Scotty the executive producer. Shrugging off our rocky introduction, Scotty thought I would make a good addition to her show, and he was higher up in the decision-making food chain than she was.
Then came the phone call that changed my life.
It was a part-time gig, but part-time in TV pays the rent. It would also give me a financial boost to get my online project, Waverly’s Honey Shop, off the ground. In a moment of inspiration, I’d recently launched a small line of T-shirts, tote bags, and other products with fun slogans about trying to figure life out (my personal favorite was I
KNOW NOTHING, BUT AT LEAST
I
KNOW THAT
), but it was stalled until I could improve my cash-flow situation.
“Waverly? You still there?”
I blinked. “Sorry, yep, still here. What did you say?”
“I asked when you’re going to meet up with Paige.”
I closed my eyes and scratched my forehead. “Um, I know the answer to that. I really do.”