—The Revealing Ride Home—

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LISA

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Okay, so the whole sexual innuendo, "dessert round two" comment was a little over the top, but I felt it was completely justified considering Jennie's cousin needs an ego check.

It isn't until we're in Jennie's SUV and we've made it past the gates that I finally speak. "That was interesting."

Jennie glances at me before she turns left out of the driveway. Her cheeks are tinged pink, likely from the embarrassing end to our visit in which I insinuated, in front of her entire family, that I was going to take her home and devour her like one of her cupcakes. "Sorry I didn't adequately prepare you for the experience."

"I don't think anything could have adequately prepared me for that."

"They're well-meaning but crazy." She tucks a few wayward strands of hair behind her ear.

"You can say that again. How the hell did your parents end up swapping partners?" I wonder how many people Jennie's had to explain this to and whether it ever gets easier.

Jennie blows out a breath. "Uh, I don't really know what precipitated it, but my whole family has always been really close, traveling together to get new restaurants up and running. Jihyo, Jisoo, and I were pretty much raised as sisters, and whoever wasn't on the road looked after us. The parental roles were basically interchangeable."

She grips the steering wheel tightly. "When I was a sophomore in high school, Mom, Dad, Aunt Nora, and Uncle Lawrence sat us kids down and explained that things were going to change." She shakes her head, maybe remembering how it all went down. "It was the weirdest conversation I've ever been involved in. At least until Jisoo and Matthew told me they'd started dating."

The whole Jisoo and Matthew situation is its own crazy nightmare, I'm sure. I'd have to come back to that, though. "You were in high school when it happened?"

She nods once. "Yup."

"That must've been rough."

"Uh, well, not much changed to be honest. I mean, there were obvious things, like my mom and dad stopped sleeping in the same bedroom, but the actual family dynamic stayed pretty much the same. Outside the house it was a whole different story, though."

"Can I ask how, or do you not want to talk about it? Because honestly, I can totally understand if you don't want to, but I can't lie and tell you I'm not curious."

"It's like a bad daytime talk show episode."

I can't tell if she's embarrassed or what, so I give her an out. "We can change the subject."

"It's fine. It was a long time ago. I'm mostly over it. I'm pretty removed from the situation at this point. I love my family, but the whole situation is weird and kind of squicky, you know?" She grimaces. "Actually, you probably don't know, which is a really good thing. Anyway, my parents thought the best plan would be to have everyone move into the house together, less disruption for us kids, and my aunt and uncle were always over anyway. So they pooled their resources and built that tacky monstrosity and we all moved in there. My mom and my uncle took a wing, and my dad and my aunt took a wing, and us girls were just supposed to deal with it."

"Is that how it worked out?" Having two families mesh together like an incestuous Brady Bunch doesn't seem like something teenage girls would just be able to roll with.

She lifts a shoulder in what I assume is meant to be a careless shrug. "Yes and no. Was it awkward? Definitely. We went to this really exclusive, expensive private school where everyone was super gossipy, and my parents own some insanely successful restaurants all over the world, so…"

"It did not go unnoticed." I can't even imagine how awful it would be to have your family's messed-up drama become public knowledge.

"Nope. Teens aren't very forgiving when your parents and your aunt and uncle switch partners. I think their lack of convention made me crave normalcy. I became obsessed with family shows, especially Leave It to Beaver. I loved everything about shows with stereotypical family units who were solidly average."

"I can see how that would be appealing." I take in her appearance, from the perfectly styled hair and makeup to the full-skirted dress and cute heels. "I'm assuming it also inspired your fashion sense."

"Kind of, yeah. The whole thing sort of came out around Halloween and I was already in my Leave It to Beaver phase, and I was in the play Grease, so I started wearing the dresses and never really stopped. It was easier to have people whispering about my weird fashion choices than it was to have them talk about how my parents were probably swingers."

"People said that to you?"

"There was speculation, and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it was true, however I'm happy to be blissfully ignorant on that front for the rest of my damn life."

Everything I've learned about Jennie tonight shifts my perception of her. She's even stronger than I realized, not taking the easy road where everything could've been handed to her on a silver platter.

She sighs. "Anyway, I love them, really I do, but there's just too much crazy. I know my dad would've tried to find a way to let me pursue my passion for baking if I'd really pushed for it, but I needed the separation and I didn't want to have to compromise. Besides, Jisoo and Matthew are up to their elbows in the family biz, and I would really like to steer clear of that whole situation. Not to mention the Jihyo situation."

She's opened the door to the topic, so I'm happy to walk right through it. Also, she's right: This is totally like a horrible Jerry Springer episode. "You mentioned you and Matthew dated before?"

Jennie grips the steering wheel tightly and nods once. "He was sort of a rebound. I knew he wasn't the right one, but he seemed like a decent in-between. I guess that sounds bad. I'd gotten out of a particularly toxic relationship and Matthew came along. He was safe and…very even."

"Sounds boring."

She laughs, which is good because this conversation has been a whole lot of heavy. "He was painfully boring. Is, not past tense. I've never met a more monochromatic human being in my life, apart from Jisoo anyway. They are perfect for each other. All they want to do is work for the family because of all the perks and their ability to take selfies with famous people and travel all over America, while depriving themselves of carbs so they can be Insta-pretty."

"Doesn't sound like your type at all." I don't know what her type is, but boring and vapid sounds like the opposite of what she'd go for.

"He wasn't. Like I said, he was a rebound. He was uncomplicated and he seemed to like me. I went out of town for a convention and by the time I came back, well, he and Jisoo had hit it off."

"How freaking long was the convention?"

She gives me a sidelong glance. "Five days."

"She stole your boyfriend in five days?" Her family really is a bunch of jerks.

"Stole sounds harsh. Matthew and I were not destined for white picket fences, two-point-two children, and a purebred poodle. Besides, we'd only been seeing each other for a couple of months."

"That's still shitty."

"What was shitty was when they ambushed me the second I got home and sat me down together to ask for my blessing to date."

"And you obviously gave it." I want to be angry that she folded, but clearly Matthew is a douche and so is Jisoo, so it's better they ended up together. Or at least that's my assumption.

"Seemed pointless not to when it was obvious they planned to date regardless. I also got to be a bridesmaid at their wedding. On the upside, I'm well aware that Matthew is painfully average in every way." She motions toward her crotch, as if it needed further explanation.

I don't want to think about Jennie with that asshole. I don't want to think about Jennie with anyone, which I realize should raise some serious red flags. However, I'm inclined to ignore those at the moment.

I decide to leave that information alone. For now it's enough to know he's barely adequate and vapid. "And what's the deal with Jihyo?"

"She's always been a hot mess. She was young when the swap happened, so I honestly think it messed her up more than the rest of us. She doesn't have any kind of moral compass at all, or direction, or independent thoughts. I actually sometimes wonder if she's my half sister and not just my cousin."

"That's a mind fuck, right there."

"My whole family is a mind fuck. And like I said, I love them and I know they love me even if they suck at showing it. I just want a normal life where I can do what I love without my family trying to railroad me and make all the decisions for me."

"You're incredible. You know that, right?"

"My family doesn't think so."

"No offense, but your family is fucked."

She laughs. "This is very true. I knew I would fall short if I tried to work with them."

"Fall short how? You're amazingly talented."

She chews her bottom lip for a moment. "I don't share the same values as they do. They're all about appearances and who they know, and that's never really mattered to me. Our goals just don't align. I want to do what I love, not necessarily what's going to make me the most money. And maybe that's naïve, or shortsighted or whatever, but it's how I feel. So I avoided the potential disappointment by going in a completely different direction and now here I am, eking out a living, but doing it on my own."

"They won't help you?"

"My dad has tried to loan me money half a dozen times. He's constantly offering to transfer funds into my account, but if I take their money, I also have to take their advice, and that is not something I want. Like when I wanted to buy the cupcake truck, my dad was there with a big old check, but it came with all kinds of stipulations, so I thanked him and told him I wanted to do it on my own and that's what I did—well, with Yoshi's help, anyway."

This explains why Jennie is all about doing things her own way. "Do they get how hard you're working?"

She shrugs. "Maybe? I'm not looking for their approval, or a pat on the back, though. I stopped doing that a long time ago when I realized their view of success and mine were so different."

"My brothers are a lot like that. It's always been about how much money they can make and how fast they can make it. For a while I was the same way, but it was making me miserable. No matter how hard I worked, my heart wasn't really in it, so when they wanted to go out on their own, I had to reevaluate my own goals."

"That makes sense." She smiles and glances at me before focusing on the road again. "It seems like you really love the bar."

"I do. It's not going to make me rich, but it makes me a hell of a lot happier than working in finance ever did. And eventually I want to open a small brewery, so this is a great stepping stone." It's definitely something we have in common, loving what we do.

"A brewery? Really?"

"Yeah. It's a passion project, but it'll take time to make it happen."

"Hmm, what about your brothers? Do they love what they do or do they love the money?"

"Both, I think, and they're good at it. Finance is a natural fit for them, but it really never was for me."

"So are you kind of a black sheep like me?"

"You're not a black sheep. You're an outlier, Jennie. My parents were always about doing what made us happy, as long as it wasn't rotting our brains with garbage TV and hours of video gaming. But I guess in some ways I'm the black sheep. Both of my brothers have significant others and lucrative careers. They kind of fit the conventional stereotype of success: big house, nice cars, gorgeous wife or girlfriend—and my oldest brother, DK, is going to be a dad this year, so they're on their way to the two kids and a dog scenario."

"So you're going to be an auntie. That's exciting! I'm not sure if Jisoo and Matthew will have kids or not, since Jisoo is terrified of stretch marks."

I laugh, but realize she's serious. "That's kind of…"

"Sad and self-centered?" Jennie supplies. "Honestly, I don't think Jisoo would be all that involved in raising her kids. She's more the kind of person who would Insta-pose them and make it look like her family is picture perfect and then hand them over to the nanny to deal with the feedings and dirty diapers while she gets a facial." She grimaces. "God, I'm making her sound horrible. She's really not. We just had an atypical upbringing, and our parents made some less than perfect choices when it came to smoothing over the fallout of the partner swap, like overindulging us."

"You're not overindulged."

"I'm a different person than she is, though."

I have to agree with that.

She waves a hand around in the air. "Anyway, enough about that. Tell me more about you and your grandpa. You seem like you're really close."

"Mmm, yeah, we always have been, even before my parents passed. My first job was bussing tables at The Manoban Cap as a teenager, and then later I became a bartender there. Plus, I ended up living with him and Grams during my last two years of college after my parents passed, and that brought us closer. We're a lot alike. Same core values, same work ethic."

"He sounds like a good guy." Her voice has that soft edge, somewhere between empathy and envy.

"He is. Thinks you're quite the looker." I cringe, wishing I'd kept that detail to myself.

But it gets another chuckle out of her, which I like. We talk about our childhoods, all our time spent in family restaurants—it sounds like her experiences were a lot different than mine and I love the way her face lights up and her eyes go all dreamy when she talks about the patisseries in France and how they solidified her love of all things sweet.

The rest of the drive passes quickly, and soon she's stopping in front of my building. I consider inviting her up for a drink. It sends a message I'm not entirely opposed to, but it could add a layer of complication. Especially since we work side by side and today is the first time we've spent more than five minutes in each other's presence without arguing. So I decide against it and just go with: "Thanks for the entertaining evening. I had fun."

She graces me with one of her gorgeous smiles. "Me, too. Thanks for coming along, and for not being all weird about my crazy family."

"They made this the most exciting Thanksgiving ever. Nothing will top it."

She widens her eyes and whispers. "You should see what Christmas is like with them." Her gaze darts to my mouth, but she looks away just as quickly. "Anyway, see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow." I get out of the car. "Drive safe, Jennie."

"I will." She waits for me to let myself into my building before she pulls away, her SUV clunking down the street.

Under those layers of pretty fabric, full skirts, and perfectly coiffed hair is one hell of a dynamic woman. Yeah, it was probably a good idea not to invite her up. Otherwise I might have wanted to make good on that comment I made about a second helping of dessert in the form of a Jennie cupcake.

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