Say Youll Be Jasmine

9 Lives in Florence

EXCERPT FROM CHERRY STEMS BOOK 2

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to know for sure, but Abby may have been losing IQ points as she dealt with the endless complaints and questions filtering in. She was being supremely mocked by the counter that showed how many emails she needed to answer, somehow only increasing with every response she sent.

She was stuck in this customer service job for an entertainment venue that featured a giant arcade, bowling alley, restaurant and bar with franchises all over the country, and all she was learning from it was how dumb and lazy people could be.

Abby Malloy used to write and edit articles for various online blogs and companies. Sure, some of them were clickbait, but she had to pay the bills somehow.

Going to school for journalism and creative writing was supposed to be rewarding. So what if she never made six figures a year? She’d be happy because she would have a creative outlet doing what she loved most: writing. What she did not expect was for AI to show up and saturate everything with crap, stealing all of the writing jobs and leaving bullshit in its wake.

Abby could always give up and work for her parents’ lawfirm, as they continued to remind her almost weekly. They’ve tried to convince her for years to use her writing and editing skills as a receptionist or as part of their public relations team, but neither job interested her. She was lucky to be able to go to college and leave it without student debt, unlike most of her friends also nearing thirty, but she wanted to do something she was passionate about. Editing clickbait articles written by robots was definitely not something she was passionate about.

She responded to yet another email asking for the address of one of their facilities, even though it was prominently displayed on the home page and on all search engines. Most of her job involved alternating between copying and pasting answers directly from the “frequently asked questions” page and telling people, “No, you cannot bring your pet lizard to go bowling.” Needing a break, she clicked over to a new window on her screen to reread her itinerary for her upcoming trip to Italy.

Since she wasn’t getting the rewarding career she envisioned, she wanted to explore some other passions she never got the chance to. First up? Traveling!

Although Abby was generally super organized, the idea of figuring out transportation between cities in a country where she didn’t speak the language was a daunting task. Instead, she signed up for an organized tour with a company that had lots of good reviews. They could take care of all of the organizing for her and she could fill in the free time in the itinerary with anything they left out.

When she started planning the trip, she figured she’d be going alone and that was okay. It would definitely be more fun with a friend, or even better with someone special, but everyone was always so busy. Luckily, one of her friends from her soccer team, Hailey, finally got out of a terrible relationship and seemed to be spreading her wings a bit, deciding to join Abby after all. Then, Elena decided to join them, too. Girls’ trip!

If anyone deserved a trip to get away from it all, it was definitely Hailey. Her ex was emotionally abusive and it took her so long to get out of that jerk’s clutches. It worked out for her even more when Hailey and her best friend, Avery, finally admitted they had feelings for each other and gave it a shot. They were so damn cute together, but, thankfully, not in an annoying way.

Hailey was the last person to rub something good in other people’s faces, always worried about making sure everyone around her was feeling their best. She bonded with Abby even more once Hailey realized a while back that she was dealing with depression. Her ex made it so much worse, and every once in a while she would open up about it. Abby had pretty bad anxiety so they often got into conversations about mental health or prescriptions that weren’t working. When it got bad for Abby, she sometimes had to deal with panic attacks. They always left her drained but jittery and few people understood what she was going through as much as Hailey. Hooray for brains dysfunctioning in solidarity!

Despite Abby being a tad jealous of the perfect couple, she was ecstatic for them. She may have also been living vicariously through them a bit since her romantic life wasn’t too exciting. Dating apps were exhausting, and she wasn’t meeting many people anywhere else. There were single guys on their soccer team, but soccer was one of the few passions in her life that was still working out for her, so she didn’t want to risk spoiling it with drama. Plus, none of them really did it for her.

They had all been playing together since Cherrywood High School and their current team was called the Cherry Stems. They were some of her closest friends and she couldn’t see crossing that line with any of them.

Sam and Josh were both graphic designers and they created their own company together. They loved talking about work so much that sometimes she’d replay their conversations when she was trying to fall asleep at night. They also usually stuck with each other.

Cole, their goalkeeper, was certainly attractive. He tended to turn heads wherever he went, but he was pretty secretive about his personal life. Nobody really knew what he was up to when he wasn’t at soccer or working as a high school teacher. Plus, he had this wild hostility with Elena, another female member of the team. Abby was convinced it was sexual tension, but neither of them would ever admit it. Those two were always so competitive in high school and they seemed to keep it up, even after both of them ended up teaching at Cherrywood.

Maybe Abby would find some romance in Italy. A girl could dream. She was sure she’d see plenty of handsome Italian men, so maybe a European fling was just what she needed, even though she’d never even had an American fling before.

Hailey suggested using the trip to start a travel blog, which would definitely be way more fun to read and write about than rescheduling bowling reservations and complaints that the tickets for the arcade were too costly.

She wished her older sister would come with her on vacation, but she would never take that much time off from work. Alyssa barely even took time off to have her son, working until her water broke and then working from home starting the week after he was born. That girl didn’t know how to take a break. Alyssa followed in her parents’ footsteps and worked as a lawyer at their firm. Thankfully, she still made some time for family and Abby got to see plenty of her nephew, Colin.

The kid was three and a half but sometimes he talked like he was some sixteen-year-old, exasperated by his struggles of not having nearly enough miniature cars to play with. Alyssa and her wife, Brianna, didn’t typically worry about their language in front of Colin, either, so he knew how to use the word “fucking” as an adjective. Just the other day he was crying because he couldn’t find his monster truck. After suggesting Abby and him play with his trains instead, he said, “I want my fucking monster truck.”

Well, okay then. Fucking monster truck it is, sir.

He was a very persuasive three-year-old.

Abby tried to focus and brought her attention back to her itinerary for Italy. Her, Elena and Hailey would be leaving in just another month and she couldn’t wait, already preparing a mile-long checklist of things she’d need.

As she browsed the itinerary, she reread the cities she’d be visiting: Florence and Rome had her so excited. She was less familiar with some of the smaller cities they’d be checking out: like Cinque Terre and San Gemignano.

Abby had been researching each city and seeing what she needed to see that wasn’t already part of the itinerary, and her days were filling up quickly. It was only a matter of time before she could put her conversational Italian to good use. Thank goodness for language apps. Or should she say, “Grazie”? She was going to nail this!

She wondered if Hailey had been practicing her Italian and figured there was no time like the present to find out, so she picked up her phone and pulled up her text thread with Hailey.

ABBY:Buongiorno!

HAILEY:Ciao! Come stai?

As soon as the text came in, Abby silenced her phone. She couldn’t stand listening to it if the text alert was going to keep going off. She didn’t need it if she was paying attention to it anyway.

ABBY:Bennissimo! Ahhh! We’re going to be able to say these things to actual Italians soon! In Italy!

HAILEY:It can’t come soon enough! Avery is helping me practice my Italian. Although, we’ve mostly been focused on food.

ABBY:I do NOT need to know about your role play activities.

HAILEY:You’ll want to when I’m ordering at all the restaurants!

ABBY:Touché

HAILEY:Abby, focus. Touché is French :) They’re going to think we’re dumb Americans!

ABBY:Pretty good chance they will anyway. I don’t think we’re very popular in the rest of the world

HAILEY:Shit, you’re right. Let’s get so good at Italian they won’t even think we’re tourists!

ABBY:I’m on it!

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