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Early the next morning, Sullivan arrived at Margino’s Coffee.

The barista sat at the baby grand piano at the front of the coffee shop, plucking out a melody that might have been Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” There was no shake, shake, shaking it off for Sullivan.

The barista jumped up with a wave. Sullivan ordered for herself and her friends, then dropped her messenger bag on a bay window seat.

Margino’s usually cheered her up. The white walls and delicate potted ferns felt cozy in the winter and breezy in the summer.

Now it felt like she was watching herself in a dream where everything looked normal, but a dream where you knew that something terrible was about to happen.

She stared out the window. Outside, the denizens of Portland’s Pearl District were emerging to walk their purebred dogs, oblivious to the bizarre and depressing turns Sullivan’s life had taken.

Nina arrived a minute later dressed in a butternut squash–colored velour tracksuit.

“Damn, girl. You look some kinda way.” She rested her fists on her ample hips. “It’s not the end of the world.” She squeezed herself onto Sullivan’s window seat, pulled a lipstick out of her purse, and lunged for Sullivan’s face. Sullivan pulled away.

“You can’t face the world without some color on you.” Nina tipped Sullivan’s chin up. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“We don’t exactly wear the same colors.”

“You can make it work. Blot.” Nina handed her a cloth napkin.

Sullivan didn’t have the energy to tell Nina that a lipstick-stained napkin would probably be thrown away, adding to the massive waste produced by the restaurant industry.

Opal banged through the door with a rugby ball under one arm. She dropped the ball as she wrapped her thick arms around Sullivan.

“Were you up all night?” Opal sounded a little teary too. “It’s going to be okay.”

If Mirepoix closed, it’d hurt Opal too. Sullivan felt like an ass for forgetting.

“I’ll make it right, Opal. Maybe this is your chance to open your own place.”

“Oh, honey. I don’t want to open my own place. I want you to have Mirepoix. I want us to have Mirepoix.”

Opal pulled up a chair in front of the window seat table, nodding her thanks for the triple Americano Sullivan had ordered for her. There was no cause for thanks. The coffee was under-roasted. The foam on Sullivan’s cappuccino clogged her throat.

“Who’re we going to sue?” Nina dropped the lipstick back in her bag.

“There’s no one to sue.” Sullivan stared into her unsatisfying cup.

“There’s always someone to sue.” Nina cradled her London Fog, careful to keep the steam away from her mane of curly hair.

“Kia showed up last night.”

“At your house?” Opal asked. “Why didn’t you call us?”

It hadn’t seemed fair to call her friends in the middle of the night after they’d already spent hours comforting her.

“We do have someone to sue.” Nina set her drink down and pulled out a tablet.

“We’re not suing Kia,” Sullivan said.

“What did she want?” Opal asked.

“She brought me a bottle of calvados and a Rice Krispies treat and asked me to marry her.”

Despite everything, it was fun to watch the sentence land. Nina and Opal looked at her, then at each other, then back at her.

“What?” her friends said in unison.

“Why did she propose marriage?” Nina asked, starting to look hungry. In Nina’s mind marriage meant divorce, and divorce was the expensive, Dior-scented water she swam in.

“Not that you aren’t a beautiful, talented woman who deserves love,” Opal added. “By the way, there’s a new guy working at my brother’s office. When this is all over—”

“No. No. No brother’s office.”

“But you can’t sue her,” Opal added. “You know how hard it is to get into American Fare , just to make it as a high-end chef. And as a Black woman! You can’t sue a young Black entrepreneur, even if you did kiss her—”

“I’m not suing Kia.” Sullivan slumped in her seat.

“So why did she want to marry you?” Nina asked.

“She came by to tell me how Mega Eats is going to run me out of business. I think she said they’ll crush me.”

“Romance is not dead,” Nina said.

“When did she come over?” Opal asked.

“After midnight.”

“In the storm?”

“She walked through the Bois.”

Sullivan could see the gold sparkling in Kia’s eyes.

Kia wasn’t the culinary arts school ingenue anymore.

She wasn’t a wunderkind anymore. She was grown.

She was a businesswoman. And even covered in mud, she was a force to be reckoned with.

It wasn’t fair. They might have been friends if they’d reconnected in another way.

Maybe there was an alternate reality where Sullivan messaged Kia.

Congratulations on American Fare. Kia wrote back and somehow that tripped a fuse in the universe, the butterfly effect, and because of that, none of what happened had happened.

“Did you have hate sex?” Nina asked.

“No!”

“So Mega Eats is going to destroy you, and you should marry Kia because…?” Nina looked like her mind was racing through every possible scenario with the speed of a high-end laptop.

She slapped her palm on the table. She’d arrived at the end of the calculation.

“You’re a legacy landowner. If she marries you, she can buy the Bois. ”

Nina’s enthusiasm was unnerving. The barista came by with complimentary tuiles because Nina lived in the high-rise above the coffee shop and probably spent more at Margino’s Coffee than any other customer.

“I like her.” Nina drew out the words, then punctuated the sentence by crunching a cookie in half. “That is smart. That’s even serving ruthless. She’ll do anything, with anyone to get what she wants. I’m feeling I do .”

“You think I should marry her because she’s ruthless ?”

Nina nodded as though ruthless was high praise.

“And savvy. Decisive.”

“I don’t believe she asked you that,” Opal said. “People don’t marry for property rights.” She picked at the stitched seam of her rugby ball. “Marriage is about love and commitment.”

Nina looked at Opal as though Opal had said Beyoncé was a mediocre talent, then pulled out her phone and started typing.

“Marriage is about money. Always,” she said with a hint of sadness. “I like her. She’s smart.” Nina kept typing. “There’s no way she can just give you the money. If she’s got investors, they’re not going to go for that, and even if they did, that kind of contract takes time we don’t have.”

“What are you talking about?” Sullivan asked.

“I’m contacting my associate. He’ll draw up a boss-ass prenup.

” Nina shrugged without looking up. “Anything goes south, we take her down. I’ll need access to her info.

Net worth. Income streams. Any pending actions.

What’s her lawyer’s name? You have to register the marriage as fast as possible.

” Nina’s fingers flew across the screen.

“Get me her number and all the deets. I was going to blow out my hair this morning, but for you, I’ll wait. ”

“I am absolutely not marrying Kia.”

“Yes. You are.” Finally, Nina looked up. “You don’t have options, girl. It’s marry Kia Jackson or die under a pile of Mega Eats wrappers.”

It was still pouring rain Monday morning, the day after the Oakwood Heights Neighborhood Association meeting.

The RV park had planted orange cones around the lanes to indicate high water.

The cone nearest Kia had tipped over and floated in a lake-sized puddle.

The weather fit Kia’s mood, and the pounding rain was the right backdrop for what she had to do. She had to call Me’Shell.

“There was a problem with the sale.” That felt small compared to everything that had happened last night.

“It didn’t go through, and it probably won’t.

” No point in giving Me’Shell false hope.

“It won’t. And I’m so sorry.” Kia propped her elbows on the foldout table in Old Girl.

“I am looking for other options. I will find you a place to set up your truck. I’ll help you pay the lot fee until you’re up and running. ”

“But Taste the Love Land was a sanctuary. You said so. It’d be different than just renting space. We’d be in it together.”

Behind Me’Shell’s voice, Kia heard Crystal say, “What’s wrong, Mom?” and then: “Watch the road, Mom!”

Kia was going to make Me’Shell wreck. That was the kind of person Kia was. She should put on some Miley Cyrus because she was coming in like a wrecking ball.

“It’s just for a little while until I find a different place to buy.”

Gretchen had told her she had to move fast because investors wouldn’t stay interested for long.

She was exciting. She was new. But she wasn’t a sure thing.

As the American Fare hype died down, that’d feel more important to them than her surge of fame.

Plus the Bois had seemed like the perfect location for the perfect price.

She shouldn’t promise Me’Shell another Taste the Love Land. She’d already broken that promise once.

“I am so, so sorry,” she said.

Her throat clenched with unspent sobs, but she didn’t get to cry now. She was the bad guy, not the victim right now. She didn’t have a right to make Me’Shell feel sorry for her. Or Sullivan. But, damn, she felt sorry for herself.

“Please pull over so you can process this. Call me back, okay?” Kia said.

Then she called the Chets.

Then she burst into tears.

Since the day couldn’t suck more, Kia had driven down to the Chicken Feet and Chow Festival, where she’d installed her food truck—named the Diva, because obviously.

It had her face on it. Deja would have stayed all day to help sear oxtails, but the festival was dead, and Kia sent her away with grudging thanks.

Even the amazing Kia Gourmazing couldn’t attract customers.

She’d had about ten since she opened, despite a dozen upbeat live streams. She was supposed to be hawking a name-brand barbecue sauce, but they would want livelier videos.

She’d have to apologize and make something better tomorrow.