I was avoiding my mother after the whole accidental open casket incident. Luckily I had Ella's cookies to tide me over because I suspected that I wasn't going to get dessert for a long long time. I was also avoiding telling Dickie about it, he already thought that my Grandma shouldn't be allowed out of the house (kind of the opposite to my father, who thought that Grandma should be out of the house all the time).

I filled in my time by creating an Instagram account and added in photos of the lingerie. I'd bartered with two friends from high school to give them lingerie in exchange for modelling and photography fees. We'd had a fun photo session together. It made me realise how little I see of my friends, even Mary Lou. I need to get out more.

I rang Val to give her the latest update on what I was up to.

"Hi Steph! I'm on my way to the baby shower for Sophie. I know she's going to love her present!" Val told me.

"That's awesome, Val. I hope you have a great afternoon out."

"It's going to be great! It's a high tea, and there will be champagne, and I'm so happy. Steve is working, but we have the most amazing babysitter for the girls. She's great, I love her. Even Steve thinks she's fantastic. It means I can actually go out on the weekends and have a bit of a social life again," Val said.

"High tea? Take photos of the food for me, I want to see what you have," I told her. Val laughed.

"I'll keep you update, Steph. Okay, I've got to go. Bye!"

I decided to watch a movie, then went to bed. This is apparently life in my 30s – a Saturday night home alone, going to bed early. I should probably look into getting multiple cats. Or maybe a hamster.

The next morning the sun was shining through the curtains, and I was trying to work out why my phone was making noise so early in the morning. It was sounding slightly possessed with all the notifications that were pinging. I rolled over, trying to focus. I had Instagram followers! Where had they come from? And omigod! An order! And another order!

I was still a bit fuzzy headed and I was having trouble working out what was happening. I opened up Instagram and saw that Plum Lingerie had been tagged in a photo. It was of a baby shower, and a very pregnant woman holding up a shimmery blue bra. Val's baby shower present! And the person who snapped the photo was a famous mommy blogger who had shared it with her nearly one million followers. Omigod. My hands were shaking a little as I tried to ring Val, forgetting how early it would be for her.

"Hello?"

"Val! Did you… how did you… how?" For once, I was lost for words.

"Steph, are you okay?"

"Val, do you have any idea who was at the baby shower?"

"Oh Steph! There was someone there who I was telling about your lingerie and how hard you'd worked on it, and she asked if it was okay to share it online. I knew you had a Facebook account so I said yes. Was that okay?"

"Val, you are amazing! You are the best sister ever!"

When I got off the phone with Val, I had three more orders. Plum Lingerie was finally underway!

The orders kept on coming in. By the time Ella arrived on Monday I was in a panic.

"Stephanie! It's okay. We'll work it out," Ella said. She handed me a plate of cookies, made me a cup of coffee, then looked over the stack of orders. I'd printed them out as they'd come in with payment confirmed.

Ella helped me with getting a system in place, and then worked on the packing for the rest of the afternoon instead of cleaning. By the time she left I was feeling calmer. I had orders, I had a system, I was a success!

The week passed quickly with more orders coming in, and I got into a routine of checking my computer, printing out orders and packing slips, packing orders and taking them to the post office. I was also working on new ideas for the next line of Plum Lingerie.

Dickie managed to fly home for the weekend to celebrate my sales success, and also arranged for two new cars to be delivered and our old ones traded in at the dealership. He then disappeared for another two weeks in Chicago. It was a quick reunion but I was happy to see him after two weeks apart. I also had to admire his negotiating skills. He had two cars ordered, bargained down on price, while I would have still been agonising over colour choices or seat warmers. I also got him to help me pack some packages up as the orders came in.

Poor Dickie. I hoped that he wasn't too lonely in Chicago. I was so busy that I barely had time to ring him.

A few days after Dickie's visit I was shopping at the deli near our townhouse when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Hello cupcake."

"Hello Morelli," I said, turning around. "Don't tell me, you were just in the neighbourhood?"

"Actually I do live nearby," he said, "but I've never been in here before. I heard it was good food. I'm getting a bit tired of Pino's."

"Blasphemy!" I told him, but I guess you could get tired of meatball subs after a while. I wondered what Joe usually did for food. Probably his mother stocked his freezer with meals for him. Maybe Mrs Morelli was on vacation.

"Do you want to eat dinner with me?" he asked, awkwardly holding up his meal. "I was going to eat mine here."

"Yeah, why not," I said. It beat going home to the empty house. We got our food heated up, and sat down at a table together.

"So what's up?" I asked Joe. "Why isn't Mama Morelli keeping you stocked in food?"

He sighed and rubbed his face over his face. "I'm avoiding my family because my family is insane, cupcake. My stupid cousin Kenny has gone FTA, and I need to get to the bottom of something he's involved in, and I don't want to hear about it from my family."

"Why couldn't you be a mechanic, Loretta Mancelli's son never has to arrest his cousin?" I asked him sympathetically. He nodded. We both ate our meals. It was hard being not quite what your Burg family expected, even if that was that you grew up to be a cop instead of a mechanic. I guess Morelli and I had more in common than I thought we did. Besides that one time behind the pastry cabinet. I could feel my accelerator foot twitching at the thought of it. Good thing we weren't near a car.

"Yeah, like that," he said, "but I'm meeting a contact nearby soon and hopefully we can track down creepy Kenny together. I'm good at finding people, but this guy is better, so between us we should have Kenny soon."

"Good luck with that," I said. Kenny was creepy and thinking about him for too long gave me the shudders. Argh.

"So," Morelli said, changing the subject, "how's the underwear business? I could help you out with giving you my opinion on any new designs."

The constants in my entire life – dinner was on the table promptly at 6pm, housewives of the Burg would gossip about every move I made, and Joe Morelli was a pig. It was almost enough to make me feel nostalgic.