City of Yes (A Novella) Read online

  City of Yes

  Copyright © 2017 by Amanda Pullen Turetsky. All rights reserved.

  First Epub Edition: October 2017

  Editor: Faith Williams

  Cover: Paper & Sage

  Formatting: Blue Valley Author Services

  This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the ePub eTailer of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  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 locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  For all those who have left their hearts behind.

  Acknowledgements/Author’s Note

  Those of you who follow my blog and Facebook page will already know that the past couple of years have brought me adventures, a few trials, and one or two small triumphs. Since the publication of Every Other Saturday in August 2015, I’ve been juggling transitions in and out of the full-time work force, the re-publication of The Marriage Pact series by St. Martin’s Press, and the ordinary hassles and joys of raising two small kids in a busy, messy house.

  Believe it or not, I have also been working on a couple of bigger (read: more ambitious) projects that I hope will one day see the light of… well, day. In the meantime, my friends and fans who have been kind enough to tell me they enjoy my work and would like to hear more from me have been patiently waiting and re-reading. (And sometimes emailing to remind me how patiently you are waiting and re-reading.) I love you guys. You inspire me not only to work hard, but to try to make every story I write better than the ones that came before.

  During my adventures of the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to make it out to San Francisco a few times, and to be reminded that while I only lived there for half a minute (two months, to be precise, in my early 20s), there’s a reason it always feels like a second home to me. Despite being a girl with deep Southern roots, I was born in San Jose, California, while my parents lived there in the mid-1970s. Even though we were back in Georgia before I was five, I like to think there’s a little West Coast in my DNA.

  Whatever it is, the air in San Francisco feels right in my lungs. Know what I mean? It’s a beautiful city with amazing culture and public art (look for the Hearts in San Francisco sculptures and other landmarks in this story). Of course, I haven’t remotely done the city justice in this little novella, and I took a bit of artistic license where necessary. (I’m sorry to report that the Little Blue Shack is entirely made up, as is the hillside hiker’s restaurant on the IHRT). But I hope the story transports you there for a few minutes as you follow Charlotte and Jared around the City by the Bay. Whoa-oooh-oh-oh-oh…

  As always, I owe everything to my patient and supportive husband, Sam Turetsky, and our precious family, who try really, really hard not to barge in when Mommy’s office door is closed. I’m enormously grateful to Samantha Podgorny, Ryan Alexander, Mark Dylla, Karthik Pandian, Farooq Ahmed, Rinki Barsainya, Hardik Mehta, Arun Sukumaran and Matt Svoboda, my accommodating San Francisco tour guides/dance partners. I believe I still owe several of you cab fare, pizza money, and/or an Anchor Steam. Also a shoutout to Phil Rodoni, who like Jared, is not on Facebook.

  Many thanks to Emily Carpenter and Faith Williams for their helpful feedback and mad editing skills. Fast, friendly, professional formatting by Blue Valley Author Services. The lovely cover is by Paper and Sage. My super-fun website is designed and artfully maintained by Laird Sapir at Memphis McKay; Jay Donovan at Tech Surgeons is my go-to technical guru for all the mind-boggling details that are invisible when they’re working and madness when they go awry (usually because I pressed the “do not press” button). And for those keeping track, this is officially my first published story over 7500 words with no mention whatsoever of Waffle House.

  This novella is just over a third of the length of my average novels, and I hope you find it a fun and satisfying diversion from daily life for an evening, or a couple of lunch breaks. (Maybe something to tide you over until my next full-length release in 2018!) I’d love to hear what you think about the shorter format, and the story itself, if you feel so inclined. And if you’re not already getting updates and giveaways from me, please sign up for my newsletter and get my free short story, “Body English,” here: http://www.mjpullen.com/bodyenglish/.

  Thank you for reading, reviewing, sharing, and generally being you. Cheers!

  ~ MJP

  October 2017

  CITY OF YES

  A Novella

  “Ouch!” Charlotte hissed as the match sizzled against her thumb, and she dropped it into the last of what seemed like a thousand mason jars. The Nagai proposal was minutes away, and her job was to make it magical, hopefully without melting off her own fingerprints. “Can’t believe I forgot my lighter. Rookie mistake.”

  “Seriously. You’re lucky I always have matches in my bag,” said Lily, who was setting up her camera equipment and taking light readings behind a nearby tree. “I bet Owen never forgets his lighter.”

  “I know for a fact he does, because I’ve had to rush one over to him at Baker Beach,” Charlotte said irritably. She knew her friend was trying to get under her skin by invoking their super-competitive Perfect Proposals colleague. And it was working. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “I’m on whichever side gets us through this proposal and out to the car before the fog comes back in.” Lily eyed the still-clear dusk to the west suspiciously. They were in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, their fourth wedding proposal this week. The sense of romance was certainly wearing down. “What time is this happening?”

  Charlotte checked her watch. “Nine minutes.” She carefully descended the Japanese Drum Bridge between clusters of tea lights. “The groom will be here first, and I’ve set up a scavenger hunt to get the future bride into the Tea Gardens and up to the bridge.” She pointed at a bend in the pathway. “She’ll be able to see the candles starting around there, and realize something’s up. Can you catch her expression?”

  “Let’s find out. Go be my dummy bride.”

  Charlotte went to the bend in the path and faced Lily, making exaggerated expressions of shock. “This is such a surprise. Why, I had no idea when the man I’ve been dating for eleven years invited me to Golden Gate Park out of the blue for mysterious reasons, that he might be planning to propose!”

  “Take two steps back,” Lily said, half-laughing behind the camera, clicking practice shots. “And don’t ever wear that color again. It washes you out.” They were roommates as well as coworkers at Perfect Proposals, and there was almost no filter between them.

  Charlotte ignored the fashion commentary, clasped hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelashes. “Especially not after telling him six months ago we had to get married or I’d dump him on his ass. This is a total, total, surprise. I never knew he was so romantic and spontaneous!”

  Lily lowered the camera. “Girl, you should take a vacation. Get that bitterness in check before you lose your job.”

  “Oh, please,” Charlotte said. “Five years and I still have a near-perfect client satisfaction rating. Except for the ones who said no, but that’s hardly my fault, is it?”

  She crossed to join her friend in the little c
opse of trees, admiring her own handiwork with the candles as Lily adjusted dials and buttons on her camera. The light was just beginning to fade behind the steep, circular arch of the Drum Bridge, which was dotted with shiny orange flames. It was breathtaking, this scene she’d created. And the rest of it would move forward like science.

  In five minutes, a man would stand on that apex with a ring in his hand and his heart in his throat, trying not to vomit over the side of the bridge while he waited for the longest moments of his life to pass. In seven minutes, those singular orange dots would melt together, casting a surreal glow from the bridge, reflecting in the shallow canal and the surrounding gardens. Perfect for pictures. And in eight minutes, a woman would come around the bend with a rolled-up scavenger hunt clue in her hand. A woman who loved that nauseated man on the bridge. A woman who knew-but-didn’t, hoped-but-tried-not-to-hope, that her life was about to change.

  Charlotte sighed. She had to admit, it was a lovely place to get engaged.

  “Not so bitter after all.” Lily watched her with a smirk.

  “Not bitter, exactly.” Charlotte edged toward the conversation she’d been having in her own head for a long time. The nursing school pamphlets had been accumulating on her backseat for weeks now, mostly for schools outside San Francisco, where the exorbitant rents would prove impossible on a student’s budget. “Just…bored, I guess. Do you ever wonder if what we do really matters?”

  Lily glanced up, not missing a beat. “Of course, I wonder. I’ve been wondering since the day I did the first job. A one-time thing. Special favor for my dear roommate.”

  Charlotte stuck out her tongue. “You’ve been free to say no for about three years since then.”

  “Great. You take over.” Lily pretended to hand Charlotte the camera. “I’m going to go figure out how to get myself embedded with the military in war-torn regions of the world. Instead of capturing contrived magical moments for people with more money than sense.”

  “That’s not fair,” Charlotte objected. Her profession was like a sibling sometimes: it was fine for her to complain, but when someone else criticized it, her defenses shot up. “We take the burden off people so they can enjoy a special time in their lives. We create stories they’ll treasure forever.”

  Lily shrugged. “Hey, you’re the one who’s questioning our higher purpose here. I’m just the camera jockey.”

  Before Charlotte could respond, Leonard Nagai rushed up to them, in pressed khaki pants and a carefully ironed button-down shirt. Look nice, but don’t out-dress her, Charlotte had coached him. Make sure she wears a dress, and that she’s had her nails done. So far, he’d gotten his half right, at least.

  Leonard was a software developer, his prospective bride a human resource specialist. Lately, Charlotte had been more interested in her client’s occupations than their meet-cute stories and wedding possibilities, another sign that she probably ought to be looking closer at those nursing school pamphlets.

  Still, she was a professional. Charlotte greeted the groom with a warm smile and her bag of proposal essentials: breath mints, unscented baby wipes (for the sheen of sweat already showing on his forehead), a small flask of peppermint schnapps for courage. As they made their way to the candlelit bridge, Charlotte went over the last-minute instructions, knowing she might as well be reciting Medieval poetry, for all the poor dude was getting.

  “Make sure you’re facing her, and both of you are turned with your profiles toward the camera. Pull the ring out before you kneel—it will be easier to get out of your pocket. Don’t forget to use her full name when you ask. And,” she added, cringing at the memory of more than one future groom who had found himself speechless. “Don’t forget to ask. She can’t say yes if there’s no question.”

  Leonard nodded, smiling hard, as if he’d rather be anywhere but here. Charlotte could relate: there was a Cary Grant marathon on TV tonight and a pair of fuzzy slippers waiting for her. She took his clammy hand and squeezed. “It will be perfect.” As he relaxed, she added softly, “She’ll want to kiss you, and of course that’s fine. Just don’t block her face from the camera when she does.”

  With that, Charlotte left him twitching on the bridge, scuttling down quickly so Lily could get some shots of him waiting for his future wife. She joined her beneath the trees to do what she had spent most of her adult life doing: waiting for love to arrive.

  “The Nagai engagement went off without a hitch,” Ellen Trask, the owner of Perfect Proposals, said brightly. “Congratulations to you and Lily. The pictures were stunning; the future Mrs. Nagai ordered the extended package with save-the-date cards and digital downloads. Excellent work.”

  “Thank you.” Charlotte twisted the ribbon bookmark from her planner around her finger. “Do you think my next assignment could be…something more challenging?”

  Ellen’s smile faded. “We only do custom proposals, geared to our client’s desires. Every assignment is unique. You know that.”

  “I know.” Charlotte sighed. “And I don’t want to complain. But I keep feeling that the interesting assignments seem to go to Owen. He got to do the city councilman’s proposal, and those firefighters who all proposed at once. The Pride Parade—”

  Ellen started to speak, but Charlotte headed her off. “I know, he’s obviously earned that one. But he also did the cool one with the dog and the wounded veteran from Afghanistan, the one that made the news.”

  “Not that you’re complaining,” Ellen said drily.

  “It just seems that my proposal requests are in a rut, lately. Everyone wants Golden Gate Park at sunset.”

  “Golden Gate Park at sunset is our bread and butter, Charlotte. Yes, Owen is great with the flashy moments, but your crafting skills and attention to detail garner way more attention on Pinterest and the wedding blogs. I know it’s not sexy, but your consistency is a vital revenue stream for this company. Our clients appreciate that. I need that.”

  Charlotte sat back in the chair. “I know. I’m sorry. I love this job, Ellen, believe me. But sometimes I wonder if it’s time to expand my horizons a little.”

  Ellen sat up. “You’re not thinking about leaving, are you? You’re my best planner.”

  Aha. Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “The best, huh?”

  “Don’t tell anyone I said that. We can’t have dissent in the ranks. If my planners don’t all feel like the best at what they do, they start fouling things up, and the next thing you know, people are back to popping the question at restaurants with the waiter holding their phones.”

  “The horror.”

  “Okay, fine. I was going to give you this upper-crust guy who wants to propose at the top of Coit Tower—”

  “Ugh. I did six of those last year…”

  “But instead, I will give you a much more interesting groom I was going to send to Owen. He’s one of those tech millionaires, sold some kind of elevation mapping software to Google. Outdoorsy, wants to do something unusual. You’ll probably end up on horseback on Monterrey Bay or a sweat lodge in the desert.” Ellen glanced at her notes. “Rock climbing, rollerblading…”

  Charlotte made a face. “Sweaty proposals mean lower picture sales.”

  Ellen snorted. “You can’t have it both ways. Like I said, I was going to give it to Owen…”

  “No!” Charlotte said. “I’ll take it.”

  “Great,” said Ellen. “Take care of this guy. He’s got money but no idea what to do with it. Guy like that, you never know, he may get married more than once. Everyone likes a repeat customer.”

  “Ellen!”

  Her boss shrugged. “I’m a realist, what can I say?”

  Rather than point out how odd it was that a self-proclaimed realist founded the most romantic company possible, Charlotte took the file and scooted quickly out the door.

  Lily called just as Charlotte hit the sidewalk toward Blue Bottle Coffee, her fa
vorite place to work. “How’d it go with Ellen?”

  “Fine, I think. She’s giving me a more challenging client.” Charlotte paused as a cyclist zipped in front of her in the crosswalk. “Why are you asking? It’s your day off. Go hang with Darren.”

  “He’s still asleep.”

  “So? Go over and wake him up. Isn’t that the kind of thing you disgustingly happy couples do?”

  “Eh, I’m not a morning sex kind of girl.” Lily yawned. “Darren is a beast in the morning anyway. He’d probably punch me before he realized what was happening.”

  Charlotte sighed. “How am I supposed to live vicariously through your love life if you’re so honest about the reality of it?”

  “Maybe you should try going on a date once in a while and live it un-vicariously.”

  “Don’t start, Lils.”

  “Anyway, I am not going anywhere today unless I can walk or take the bus. I have the primo spot in front of the building and I’m not letting you-know-who take it.”

  “We haven’t seen her for days,” Charlotte said. “You shouldn’t let a stupid block war keep you from getting out and living your life.”

  “Says the expert on getting out and living,” Lily said flatly.

  “Alright, alright. Point made. I need to run, anyway, I’m at Blue Bottle. I need to check out this super exciting, creative client Ellen’s given me.”

  They both knew Charlotte was avoiding the topic of her nonexistent love life, which Lily had been not-so-subtly bringing up every few weeks lately. It was touching, particularly since Lily wasn’t widely known for her empathy and nurturing, but Charlotte had no interest in discussing men just now. She ended the call as the warm scents of the coffee shop enveloped her. This was her second home, a welcoming place to clear her head and get ready to prove to Ellen Trask that Charlotte could be just as creative and flashy as Owen.