Twenty-three-year-old Pepper Spicer is not living the dream. She ended her engagement at the last minute because fiance—a musician an soon-to-be reality TV star—wanted her to sacrifice her own career ambitions for his. Now she's stuck at home sharing a room with her little sister, trying to pay off massive debt for a wedding that didn't happen, and spending Friday nights Facebook-stalking everyone who has a better life. Her therapist father urses her to choose her career dreams and count her blessings by writing weekly thank-you notes, but gratitude is a tall order when she botches an important job interview and has to settle for writing an undercover dating web-zine column—the last thing in the world she wants to do. Still, as Pepper (byline:Indie Girl) chronicles her bizarre and hilarious blind dates, she gives her father's challenge a try and slowly finds herself leaving self-pity behind. Life takes a major upswing as Pepper's column hits the big time and she tastes the exhilarating thrill of success. But there's one tiny problem: the intensely hot man she's falling for is having issues with her job (again). Will Pepper trade her personal ambition for another chance at love?

Dear Ginger,
Thanks for the encouragement. Some people say it’s wrong to kick
someone when they’re down—but not you. YOU march to the tune of
your own demented drum. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

Love always,
Your older, wiser, and far-better-looking sister

A fistful of mayonnaise makes a decent projectile when you’re in a pinch.
If I’d been thinking more clearly, I would have grabbed a handful of
jalapeños instead, but my vision did this red, blurry-anger thing, and when
I ran after Brady Willardson’s black Jeep, what I threw was . . . mayo. It’s
probably harder to clean up, and it’s better that way, really. Less damage,
bigger mess. Dumb kid. I owed him worse for the way he’d trashed
Handy’s.

I trudged back inside the sandwich shop, and the door swept aside
approximately a thousand of the napkins Brady and his lame friends had
strewn all over the floor. I scooped a few up and wiped the mayo off my
hand. Katie and Tara huddled behind the sandwich bar like the sneeze
guard was their last line of defense against me. Which it was.

I said nothing, just stared. Katie cracked first, like I knew she would.

“I’m so sorry, Pepper,” she said, verging on a blubber. “I don’t know what
happened!”

I lifted one eyebrow slowly—the way my mom did when I was little,
and I knew the longer it took to reach its full arch, the more trouble I
was in. Even mouthy Tara shifted nervously now. I slowly scanned the
wreckage inside Handy’s Dandy Sandwiches and then eyeballed them
again. “How do you not see this coming?”

A high-pitched seal bark escaped Katie. It was her nervous laugh, an
involuntary reflex that I hoped, for the sake of her future social life, she
would outgrow soon. Her laugh had summoned me from the back office
to catch Brady Willardson’s Band of Merry Teenage Idiots wreaking
their usual havoc in the dining area.

A visit from Brady goes like this: He shows up, flanked by at least two
of his wing men, and proceeds to put on a show to impress the girls. This involves flinging packets of condiments, punching each other, littering,
and otherwise ignoring the counter girls they’re there to impress. I guess
not much has changed in the five years since I graduated from high school.

This afternoon’s special performance reached new heights—make
that lows—when one of Brady’s atrophied brain synapses fired off what his
underworked neural receptors interpreted as a “good idea.” The ensuing
napkin fight resulted in shrieking, giggling, and Katie’s panicked seal
barking. I walked out to discover her and Tara hiding behind the storage
room door while one of the teenage terrorists lay pinned to the floor by
a larger tribe mate, who was brandishing a squeeze bottle of ranch sauce
over his head. All this while Brady tried to breach the storage room in
search of . . . who knows what. More projectiles for lame teenage boys to
throw when their hormones suffer a sun flare, I guess.

Don’t judge me for chasing them out and lobbing a chunk of fatty
mayo at their car. It was the least violent of all the impulses I entertained
when I saw the napkins they had flung all over the floor. They didn’t
quite cover the few dozen smooshed mustard and ketchup packets that
lay there as well. Worse, scads of busted salt and pepper packets formed
a fine grit over the whole stupid mess. No, don’t judge me. The only
shock should be that Brady and his stupid lift-kitted Jeep didn’t get what
was coming to them months ago. Maybe I should keep an extra dozen
eggs and a slingshot on hand as Brady repellent.

Tears formed in Katie’s eyes. Knowing that a sobbing high school
sophomore was not going to help my mood, I sighed. “All right. Here’s
the lecture. They can’t eat here anymore. Call me out if they come back
in. Clean up. If you want a paycheck next week, don’t distract me again
until payroll is finished.”

The tears quivered and then rolled down Katie’s cheeks, but she
looked surprised and then thankful when she realized I was done.

“That’s it?” she squeaked. Tara elbowed her, and Katie bit her lip
while I glared once more for good measure then headed back toward the
office. I could hear them scrambling behind me to clean up. Satisfied
that they would have things righted within the hour, I settled down
to make sense of the Payroll and Asset Manager program still open on
the computer screen. Stupid PAM. I think she had it in worse for me
than Brady and his army of condiment hurlers. Awesome. I still had a
long afternoon to go at my dead-end sandwich job, with only a creeping
tension headache to keep me company.

What a way to spend my birthday.

“Happy Birthday!”

A chorus of five chipper voices greeted me when I walked in the
front door. I stopped short, sure that the small surprise party waiting for
me was a figment of my imagination. It had to be because I had given
my family strict orders to ignore my birthday. I planned to spend the
evening wallowing in the room I shared with my seven-year-old sister,
moping over the extreme loserdom I had achieved in my twenty-three
years. I intended to bounce around my friends’ Facebook pages and envy
their cool trips and great jobs while I tried to figure out how my life
had become an epic fail. My evening definitely did not involve a cheesy
family birthday party that I’d forbidden several times. Loudly.

But no, when Rosemary detonated a party cracker near my ear and
Ginger sprayed me down with enough silly string to soak up even the
most aggressive BP oil spill, I had to concede that my family had, in
fact, thrown me the world’s weakest surprise party.

My mom’s smile told me she knew they were on thin ice.

“What is this?” I asked, my head pounding worse than ever.

“A surprise party, duh.” Ah, Ginger, an enemy of the obvious.

“Mom, I told you I don’t want to do anything for my birthday.”

“And I think that’s ridiculous,” she said. “Twenty-three is a big deal,
and at the very least, you deserve cake with your family.”

“Twenty-three is not a big deal,” I said. “It’s boring. There’s no
milestone. There’s nothing I can do today that I couldn’t do yesterday.”

My brother Mace tore himself away from picking at the frosting
long enough to say, “Twenty-three is a prime number. You can’t even
divide it by anything. It’s totally lame.”

I glared at him.

“What?” he said. “I’m backing you up.”

“I’m with Mace,” Ginger chimed in. She’s halfway through her
senior year and the resident pain in the neck. “I can totally see why
you’re depressed. I mean, your age is lame, your job is lame.” She swiped
her finger through some icing and took a little cake with it. “I’m sad for
you,” she said, her mouth full.

“Ginger!” Mom was struggling to hold on to her temper. Ginger has
that effect on people.

“Forget it,” I said. “She’s right. There’s nothing to celebrate, which is why I
said I didn’t want a cake or a party.”

“But it’s good!” Rosemary shouted. “I picked chocolate.”

My jaw dropped, and my mom flushed. I like chocolate everything—except cake and ice cream.

“Rosemary really wanted it . . . and I got you butter pecan ice cream.”
My dad looked both sheepish and hopeful as he added the last part, as if
it would compensate for once again indulging one of Rosemary’s whims.
She’s hard to resist, and the fact that she’s a surprise baby, eight years
younger than fifteen-year-old Mace, doesn’t make it easier.

“But it’s my birthday cake!”

“That you didn’t even want,” Ginger pointed out. “You should
chillax. You’re getting older now. You could have a stroke or something.”

That was it. Remembering the satisfaction of watching the mayo drip
down Brady’s car, I stalked to the counter where Mace had tugged the
cake to the edge so he could sneak the frosting more easily. I reached out a
finger like I was going to swipe some too, but instead, I flipped the whole
thing over, pleased when it crashed to the floor and splattered chocolate
chunks on Ginger’s shoes.

“These are new!” she yelped. “I just got them! Mom!”

That got no reaction because Mom was busy trying to comfort a
wailing Rosemary, and Mace was trying to get to the cake board to see
what he could scavenge.

My dad stared at me, one eyebrow inching its way skyward, and
then he pointed at Rosemary. “Apologize,” he said, his voice calm.

I ignored the tiny pang of guilt somewhere around my appendix or
some other useless organ and headed up the stairs. “I said I didn’t want a
party!” I yelled over my shoulder.

“You get back down here right now,” my mom hollered up the stairs.

I slammed my bedroom door.

My room didn’t improve my mood. A room shared with a seven-year-
old rarely does. The Strawberry Shortcake on Rosemary’s comforter
mocked me with a serene, blank-eyed smile, and the bare walls on my
side of the room didn’t offer a better distraction.

Flinging myself onto my bed didn’t help because I knew Rosemary
would be crashing my pity party any minute. Seven-year-olds don’t
understand boundaries. I lay there for all of three minutes, staring at the
opposite wall where her collection of American Girl dolls stared creepily
back, before the door flew open. Rosemary stood there, fists on hips,
looking cute, tear-streaked, and mad.

“You ruined my cake!”

The seed of guilt my dad’s look had planted blossomed into an
acknowledgment that I was possibly a horrible human being if I had it
in me to make Rosemary cry. I clung to surliness to save me. “It was my
cake,” I said. “It’s my birthday, remember?”

“But I picked my favorite flavor for you, and me and Olivia worked
on it so hard this afternoon! She’s going to think you’re so mean,” she
said, as if I cared about her best friend’s opinion.

Which, okay, I did. It’s not like I plotted ways to hurt seven-yearolds’
feelings. “Rosemary, I hate chocolate cake. Didn’t Mom or Dad tell
you that?” I asked instead, determined to rationalize my poor behavior.

“Yes, but I made yours special with chocolate chips. I even had
to find them in the cabinet all by myself because they didn’t come in
the box, and you ruined it.” More tears welled. I felt some of my own
pricking my eyeballs. I hate being a sympathetic crier.

I pulled my pillow over my head, clinging to righteous indignation
so she couldn’t guilt me into feeling worse. Or crying. “Go away, Rosie.”

“It’s my room too. You can’t make me leave.”

“I need some time to myself,” I said. “Why don’t you go to Olivia’s
and complain about how awful I am?”

“You’re rude!” she yelled, but the idea of relaying all the drama to
Olivia must have appealed to her because I heard the door shut behind
her. I enjoyed about thirty more seconds of blank-brained quiet before a
sharp knock sounded. I peered from under my protective pillow to find
my dad poking his head in.

He waved at the foot of my bed. “Is that seat taken?”

I shoved the pillow behind me then shook my head and stifled a
sigh, knowing I was in for it.

He sat for a moment and studied me with a half smile. My dad has
mad skills that are like Dr. Phil level. Except my dad is nice. Which
makes it hard to kick him out of my pity parties. “So when you say you
don’t like chocolate cake, what you really mean is you hate chocolate
cake’s guts?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Hey,” he said, giving my foot a gentle shake. “Where did your sense
of humor go?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Probably down the same black hole that sucked
all the other good things out of my life.”

He sighed. “Do you think that’s an overstatement?”

Ah, the joys of having a marriage and family therapist for a dad.
They’re obnoxiously reasonable and hard to ruffle.

“No. I don’t.” I punched my pillow, trying to shove it into a more
comfortable lump.

He didn’t say anything else, just watched me with his patient therapist
gaze.

I groaned. He still stared.

“Fine, I’ll talk,” I said, struggling to sit up straight.

“Resistance is futile,” he intoned in his best robot voice.

“Let’s start with the fact that I’m not overstating what a disaster my
life is,” I said. I crossed my arms tightly across my chest to communicate
that I was totally not playing.

“Okay. That’s as good a place as any.”

“I have the worst job, I live at home and share a room with my kid
sister, I have no social life, and I’m still nursing a broken heart.”

“That’s quite a list,” my dad said. “Let’s take them one at a time. The
worst job? Really?”

“Yes. I have teenage customers all day long. I have teenage employees all
day long. And even the nonteenage customers are cranky all the time. I have a
college degree, for Pete’s sake. Why am I managing a dumb sandwich shop?”

“Yes. Why are you managing a sandwich shop?” my dad echoed. His
tone was neutral, but I wasn’t fooled. He was using what he likes to call
“reflective listening,” a therapist term for spending an hour saying, “How
do you feel about that?”

“Don’t you do your counseling voodoo on me,” I warned. “I’m on to
your tricks.”

He smiled. “This is dad voodoo. I’m in here right now because I love
you and I’m worried about you. You flipped over the birthday cake that
Rosemary worked on all afternoon. I thought I’d better find out if there
was a good reason for that. It’s not the action of a happy daughter.”

“It was chocolate,” I muttered under my breath.

Dad let that pass because he’s smart. “So, your job. Maybe it’s not
the job you want, but it pays the bills, right?”

“Not fast enough,” I said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t still be living
here and sharing a room with Rosemary. And before you say it—yes, I
understand the law of natural consequences. It still stinks. ”

“Natural consequences” was another one of his favorite expressions. He
and my mom loved to throw that out anytime one of us kids was verging on or recovering from a disastrous choice—the perfect way to describe my
broken engagement and the mountains of resulting debt. No doubt we’d be
analyzing that soon. It was a perfect example of their mantra. “You’re free to
make your own choices, and you’re free to pay the consequences.”

The payment of my consequences turned out to be super literal when
my ex-fiancé, Landon, forced me to call off our wedding a week before
the date. I had paid for everything myself, and I had a massive credit
card bill to prove it. That’s because it was the second time in two years
that we’d called our wedding off. The first time, my parents had footed
the bill. They loved me, but not enough to do it twice. Even though my
sandwich wages would (barely) cover rent in a borderline apartment
somewhere in Salt Lake City, I’d had to move back home so I could
pay my credit card off faster—a credit card my parents had advised me
not to get in the first place. Right after they’d advised me not to marry
Landon. In the gentlest terms, of course.

When I’d announced that the wedding was off (again) and I
wouldn’t be moving out, they didn’t so much as hint at “I told you so.”
They did, however, inform me that they had promised Ginger her own
room for the first time ever, and they weren’t going to renege, which
meant I had to swap places with her in the shared room with Rosemary.
I guess my dad was absent from his family therapy class on the day they
taught that family harmony depended totally and utterly on each child
having their own room. That or my parents didn’t want to pay for a
six-bedroom house. Whatever.

“We’ve covered the bad job and sharing a room, which just leaves
your social life and your broken heart. Might I guess that those two
things are related?”

I shrugged. “Guess all you want. I’d rather not talk about this part.”
“Then I will,” he said with an easy smile. “How long do you think
you’re going to mourn the end of your engagement? It’s been seven
months.”

“You of all people should understand that these things take time,” I
said. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

He ducked down to stare me in the eyes. “I am always on your side,
Pepper. Always. That’s why I’m going to dish out a little tough love.”

Aw, crud. Nothing good has ever followed those words.

“I have watched you climb out of depression and have cheered for
you, but you’ve hit a plateau. I’m worried you’ll backslide if you don’t do something soon to fight this funk you’re settling into. And you are
settling. Almost everything you’ve mentioned as wrong with your life is
something you have the ability to change. But you don’t. Why is that?”

“I can’t change any of it,” I said. “I can’t give up my job or else I
can’t pay off my debt. If I don’t pay off my debt, I can’t move out of the
house. As long as I’m at home, my social life will continue to be severely
limited. I definitely have grounds for a funk.”

“I didn’t say quit working, but there’s no reason you can’t find a
different job.” He tapped his finger on my knee. “You said it yourself;
you’re college educated. What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“It’s an English degree, Dad. A bachelor’s in English qualifies me to
do exactly what I’m already doing: manage a sandwich shop.”

“If only I had known that when I signed the tuition checks.” He
shook his head sadly. “I’d have made you switch to cosmetology school.”
“What a waste. I’d have failed hair brushing 101 and been kicked
out. You can write that check for Ginger.”

“I will when it’s her turn.” Ginger had a five-year plan that involved
opening her own salon, and a ten-year plan that included world
domination via beauty spa. She already worked part time as a receptionist
at the trendiest salon in town.

Even though I knew what was coming next, I couldn’t resist a smile
when he broke into the chorus of “Beauty School Drop Out” from
Grease, his mellow tenor doing Frankie Avalon proud.

“It should have been you instead of Landon,” I grumbled when he
was done. “You have a way better voice.”

He reached over to ruffle my hair. “I think I’m a little too old for The
It Factor,” he said, naming the show that had stolen my fiancé from me.
“I’m happy with my adoring fans here at home.”

“Dad, you’re starting to make me feel better, and it’s really
annoying. Could you leave me to sulk in peace?”

“I would if I didn’t love you. But the tough love is just beginning.
I’m serious about you changing your job. This one isn’t making you
happy. What do you want to do instead?”

Before Landon and I broke up, I hadn’t worried too much about
my future career plans. I had toyed with the idea of journalism when
I was in high school, but I met Landon as soon as I started BYU, and
suddenly my goal was to marry, settle down, have babies, and support
Landon in his career. There was no way I could work when he was going to be on the road touring all the time. I only got my degree because my
parents had pushed me to get it, and I picked English because I could
at least spend some time reading and discussing interesting literature.
Once Landon and I married, I figured if things were tight at first, I
could work as a freelance editor to pay the bills until Landon got his
break. The only problem was Landon got his break way sooner than
either of us expected, and it included a break from me. Permanently. I
sighed. “I don’t know what I want to do. Not make sandwiches. Beyond
that, I haven’t figured it out. It was hard enough to get this job with the
economy as bad as it is.”

“Really?” my dad asked, nudging my foot. “You really have no idea
how you want to put that English degree of yours to use?”

I flushed. I knew he was hinting at my blog. “Blogging doesn’t
require an English degree,” I said. “And it doesn’t make any money
unless you’re crafty and have a billion followers to click on your sidebar
ads. I’m not, and I don’t.”

“But you love writing,” he said. “And people love reading you.”

“A few,” I said.

“A few hundred,” he corrected me. “I’ve seen that people-counter
thing on your blog page.”

“My blog isn’t going to make me enough money that I can quit my
job,” I said. “And I don’t want to trade jobs to something for better pay
but that I hate even worse.”

“It sounds to me like you have all kinds of excuses for not moving
your life to the next level,” he said.

I shot him a wounded look. “What do you want me to do?”

“Find your bliss!” he said. “Find whatever it is that makes you
happy, and do it because what you’re doing right now isn’t working.”

True enough.

“Choose right now,” he said. “If Handy’s closed tomorrow and it
freed you to find a different way to pay the bills, what would you do?”

I didn’t actually have to think about it. A daydream had evolved over
the last few months of sandwich assembly, my “if only” scenario I hadn’t
shared out loud with anyone. But my dad could read it in my face.

“What is it?” he prompted me.

“Writing,” I said. “I want to be a reporter, do some slice-of-life stuff
but for a bigger audience than my blog.”

“Then do that,” he said. “Dream big, Pepper.”

I entertained the notion for half a second, the idea that I could be
a famous writer and find a super-hot boyfriend, a cute apartment, and
new friends to hang out with on Friday nights. I would write a fat check
to pay for the last of my wedding debts and have money left over to buy
a stack of new release books and a box of expensive chocolates to while
away every Saturday afternoon. Maybe . . .

“No,” I said out loud. “It wouldn’t happen. No one is going to hire
me when my only experience writing is from my blog and some old
college term papers.”

“Excuses, Pepper. We’ve let you make them for months, and it’s not
helping you or any of us.” For the first time, I saw true frustration on my
father’s face. “I’m going to give you a writing assignment that I use with
clients at work. Consider it practice. Every week for the next year, you
are going to write a thank you note to someone.” He held up his hand
when I started to protest. “I mean it. You have spent so long feeling sorry
for yourself that you are losing the ability to see the good things in your
life. Maybe when you start recognizing the blessings you have, others
will reveal themselves. You need an attitude of gratitude.”

“Geez, Dad. You sound like a motivational poster in a guidance
counselor’s office. Can I get a ‘Yay, team’?”

“I’m serious, Pepper. Your moping is unacceptable. And if you find
your life unacceptable, then you need to change it. This has been a fantastic
therapy for people with far worse problems than yours.”

“I don’t need therapy, and I’m not going to write a bunch of cheesy
notes to people, Dad.”

“That’s your choice,” he said. “But here’s your consequence. We’d
be pretty rotten parents if we stood by and did nothing while your life
went off the rails. We will not be enablers. If you choose not to take this
opportunity to grow by writing these thank you notes and looking for
a new job, then we’ll assume that living at home is holding you back
because we’re keeping you too comfortable.”

My mom slipped in to hear the last part of my dad’s speech, and the
lack of surprise on her face told me they had discussed this well before
the cake-tipping incident.

“You’re okay with this?” I demanded, my voice rising in panic. “You
would kick me out?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t try to guilt trip us, Pepper. You can afford a
room somewhere else, and you can still make your credit card minimums.
We’re not exactly dooming you to homelessness.”

“But I’ll never make a dent in that bill if I only make the minimums!”

She shrugged. “It’s the law of natural consequences. You’ll never
make a dent in your self-pity if you stay here and keep doing what you’re
doing. Believe it or not, we’re trying to help you.”

My mom is a substitute teacher. She’s immune to drama and far tougher
in the tough-love department than my dad. My stomach flopped, knowing
that things had just become real.

“So that’s it?” I said. “I’m supposed to fill out a few job applications
and write some thank you notes or I’m cut off?”

“See it for what it is,” my dad counseled. “This is a growth opportunity.
Use it.”

My mom tugged on his arm. “Let’s let her think it over, Grant. Think
about your brothers and sisters too,” my mom added. “You can be a good
example or a horrible warning.”

Ouch.

“Our imaginary maid has taken a permanent leave of absence, so I
expect you downstairs within ten minutes to clean up the cake mess,” she
said on her way out.

My dad stopped at the door. “Before you do that, you owe both of
your sisters big apologies, and I think Rosemary is really going to make
you work. She’s completely justified, by the way. Suck up like you mean
it.”

I let the door click shut behind them before flopping over on my stomach
and pounding on my pillow for a while. I was okay with the apologies, but
the rest was so unfair! Wasn’t I proving that I was taking responsibility by
trying to pay back my debt? Apparently, it wasn’t enough though. I had to do
it with a smile. Ugh.

I dug my beat-up laptop out from under my desk and logged into
Facebook, scowling when a sidebar ad suggested that I “like” Landon Scott’s
fan page. Of course. “Being a grownup is overrated,” I typed into my status
bar. It took Ginger all of thirty seconds to comment. “Ur overrated.” With a
growl, I typed back a response, thanking her for her consideration.

Well, that was one note down. Only fifty-one to go.