P.S. Send More Cookies CHAPTER ONE


Jack broke Hannah’s heart on a Friday afternoon, which pretty much guaranteed Hannah a rotten weekend. She knew what all the bloggers she followed would say: Go out! See your besties! Indulge in a little retail therapy!

Do not, do not stay in, wallowing in self-pity!

What did she do? Stayed in, wallowing in self-pity.

Also, homework. Hannah was a sophomore in college. She had decided to study art history because ever since she first saw them as a little kid she had thought Impressionist paintings were the prettiest things in the world. But now, after a year of classes, she was learning to like the sculptures the Greeks had carved out of marble. Some of them were more than two thousand years old. Over the centuries, they had lost legs and arms and chunks of their faces, but you could still see classical perfection shining through.

Not like Jack, Hannah thought.

He was overweight. He was loud. He wore this weird old-man-style hat all the time.

So why was she lying on her bed in her dorm room on a perfectly nice fall Sunday staring at her textbook and reaching for yet another tissue to wipe her tears?

Hannah decided to make some cookies. Her grandfather had been a baker who believed cake, cookies, and cupcakes had the power to fix most problems—flour power, he called it.

True, the bloggers she followed would be horrified. They were anti-gluten, anti-sugar, anti-fat. They lived on kale smoothies, seaweed, and chia seeds.

And they should all just settle down, Hannah thought.

Sure, an all-cookie all-the-time diet would be a recipe for disaster. But a few cookies now and then are exactly what sanity demands.

On the second floor of the dorm was a kitchen kept decently stocked with sugar, flour, and other basics. Hannah stuffed a wad of tissues in the pocket of her jeans, got up, stretched, and headed out her door and down the hall, which was deserted. Only the lovelorn would be indoors on such a beautiful day.

Hannah had met Jack at the Moonlight Ranch Summer Camp in Arizona, where they were both counselors. For a long time, they were friendly, but no sparks flew. Then one day she realized that not only was he funny, he was also someone who listened to what you said and remembered it later.

Besides, who cared that his abs weren’t washboard when his eyes were so beautiful?

Jack and Hannah had gotten together about two weeks before the end of camp.

In the kitchen, she counted on her fingers. That was six weeks ago. She was crying over a romance that had lasted a measly six weeks!

Get a grip, she told herself at the same time her phone bee-bee-beeped like the Roadrunner. She had a text from Jack.