At the end of the craft fair day, I had made enough money for the effort to have been worth it, but I sure didn't make enough sales and new customers to quit telling people which wine would pair best with their food.

It seemed like getting my red sailboat dream was going to have to wait for a much, much longer while. There was something about it—its independence, its aesthetic, or perhaps something else along the lines—that I wanted for myself, but for the time being, that freedom was so far across the horizon that I couldn't even catch a glimpse of it. I didn't mind that being left up to my imagination, though.

With several tables of people who had more money than I could only dream of having, I turned on a smile. Of course, there were plenty of rich people who thought I was so beneath them that they didn't bother to leave a decent tip, but the ones that did made the effort a little bit worth it.

One table with a stunningly gorgeous younger couple with what I assumed to be family money was definitely the best chance I had at making some good money that night.

"We'll take a bottle of the most expensive stuff you've got," the woman said.

I raised my eyebrows. It was definitely expensive, and even though I had never had it, I couldn't imagine it tasted much better than a four-dollar bottle from Aldi's or what was made here in Marblehead. "That's an Italian cabernet that pairs well with—"

She shook her head and interrupted me. "It's very impressive that you know all this stuff, but it's really just about the status for me at this point in my life."

"Katie," her man admonished.

"What? I just didn't want her to waste her time when I know what I want, and that information would be much more useful with someone else." She turned back to me. "Get those tips, girl."

I blinked a couple of times. I couldn't decide if she was my new hero or if she was completely unbearable. But either way, when I looked into her greyish eyes, all I could see was green.

"Well, I'll have that out for you in a moment, then," I said as I put on a fresh new smile.

As much as I wanted to have enough money to support myself with crochet and to have the basic necessities of life like pumpkin spice everything, I never ever wanted to have that much money. It seemed like that amount of money was almost always wasted on the rich.

I headed back to get that bottle of ridiculous Italian wine for them, but I was interrupted while I was on my mission by another customer.

"Excuse me," a man said as he held his hand out in my path.

I smiled despite the fact that was a little rude. "Is someone taking care of you?"

He was by himself dressed in a flannel and jeans, and in a winery such as The Lakeside Daisy, he seemed a little out of place. The outside of the building reminded me of a cross between a colonial home and a limestone castle, and given that we were on the coast of Lake Erie in Ohio, neither option made much sense. The inside, however, was decorated with nautical shades of blue, and the horizontal wood paneling on the wall reminded me of a ye olde ship.

Of course, there wasn't anything wrong with eating alone, but it was a little weird. And it was much more strange that the curl to his brown hair was untamed, the jeans were ripped, and it looked like he had just come in from playing outside to eat the dinner his mother cooked, SpongeBob mac and cheese.

"You seem confused about how they let me in here," he said.

Was I making a face? I had to have been making a face. Shit. "Oh, no. I'm sorry. I just have a lot on my mind right now. What was it that you wanted?"

He smiled. "Well," he looked down at my nametag, "Marigold, you look an awful lot like the waitress I have. I didn't mean to bother you."

"Ashley? We get that a lot." I giggled to myself. "I guess twenty-something brunette white girls all look the same."

When his phone lit up with a notification (I imagined it was a text from his date who was running a little late), the lock screen was a picture of a boat with a red sail, and although all water looked the same, there was absolutely no evidence that it was not on Lake Erie water.

Was that the sailboat I fell in love with at first sight?

Of course, it would have been nosy of me to point it out and ask about it, so I kept my mouth shut.

"Well, I was just wondering when she was going to bring me that IPA I ordered. It's been twenty minutes," he said.

If he looked around, he would have noticed that we were a little busy, but twenty minutes was way too long for a drink. "I'm so sorry for the wait. I'll check in and see what's going on," I said. "That's a really good choice too. The IPAs look great on Instagram, and they look even better when you tag Lakeside Daisy Winery."

It was a genius plan that I had come up with one night when I couldn't fall asleep. When I found someone interesting that I wanted to get to know a little better, I'd give them a little encouragement to share their experience on Insta so I could scroll through the posts with our location and the ones where we were tagged. I'd find his account, add him, slide into the DMs (after a little support from Blake), and the rest would be history.

And the bonus was that management would think that I was helping them out by encouraging free advertising. There was no way for me to lose in this foolproof plan.

"Instagram? I haven't used that since I was sixteen," he said.

"Oh," I said. How did he manage to destroy my foolproof plan in two sentences?

"It was right around then I discovered the best lives are lived off of social media," he continued.

What in the boomer?

He didn't look much older than me, if at all, but if that attitude didn't scream born in the seventies, I didn't know what did.

"Well, I'll go check on that IPA for you. Ashley is literally amazing, so I'm sure something's going on or she got wrapped up in something else," I said.

"Thank you, Marigold," he said.

As I walked away to get that IPA (and the expensive cabernet that I was supposed to be getting in the first place), I realized that I didn't know the guy's name, and I also wasn't one hundred percent sure if the red sailboat was even his. Of course, the phone lock screen looked an awful lot like the one I saw on the lake, but there were probably thousands that looked exactly like it out on the water all around the world. And there was no guarantee he even had one in the first place. He could have just liked the way it looked like I did.

It sure would have taken a million coincidences to go in my favor if it really were the case that he was the same sailboat owner I saw on Lake Erie the day before.

As the evening continued on, I managed my tables with a smile so I would get those tips, girl, but my mind kept floating back to the possibility that those coincidences maybe strung themselves together to work out for me. And even if he didn't have a life on Instagram for me to check out, maybe I'd get just one more of those chances to fall in my favor and I'd see him again. And that hypothetical next time, I'd ask him about his lock screen.

I passed by the table where the guy sat alone, and Ashley was there, but he was gone.

"Give this to Marigold? Is that a fucking joke?" Ashley asked herself out loud. She bit her lip when she realized she shouldn't have said fuck at work. "Well, I guess this fifty bucks and phone number are yours. Lucky you."

She held out the paper and money to me. On it was another note written: sorry I didn't get the chance to ask you for yours. -Mason

How direct of him. It was like he was raised in a completely different generation than me. And yet, I kind of liked it.

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Hello! I hope you've had a good week, and I hope this next one is better! Thank you so much for reading. I really appreciate your support. It means the entire world to me.

I have to say that I'm very excited about this book. It has elements of my other books (including OftR in this chapter—did you catch it?) and my own experiences, but it's unique and has plenty of new elements that I'm excited to try. 

For today's question, let's do a personal one! If you could do one job for the rest of your life, and it would be guaranteed that you would make all the money you need, what would it be?

I would be a writer, but since that's a boring, obvious answer, my second choice would definitely be to be a candlemaker. It's so relaxing and fun. What could be better than that?