An Introvert's Guide to Life and Love

by Lauren Appelbaum

Genres: Humor & Satire

Synopsis

Inheriting a seaside cottage comes with strings attached in this touching romance where an introverted remote worker must leave her city apartment and learn to connect with others—and find love—in real life.

Mallory Rosen takes her remote tech job seriously. She values routine with predictability and minimum contact with others. So the last thing she wants are any surprises that force her to leave her comfortable Seattle apartment. Surprises like inheriting her late grandmother’s seaside cottage in Florida…with the requirement that she keeps her newly widowed grandfather company.

With no vacation days left, Mal will have to quickly check on her grandfather, sell the cottage, and return to her structured life before her boss even knows she left. But when she gets to Gramp's new independent living community, it’s not so simple. The cottage needs expensive maintenance fixes with a much too charming property manager. Her grandfather constantly interrupts her Zoom meetings. The WiFi drops at the absolute worst times. It all feels too much like déjà vu—the kind that reminds her of when she was fired from her last remote job and was forced to live with her parents.

But right when she’s about to call it quits, she starts finding the unexpected: making friends at the senior citizen yoga, getting to know Gramps as a person (rather than just a stubborn boomer), and exploring the tight-knit small town. It doesn’t help that she keeps running into her hot property manager who seems to know everyone. Just when she finally feels alive, connected to others, and like she has a chance at love, she gets the (almost) worst notice ever: All employees must return to the office.

Release date: September 16, 2025

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 320

Sample

I was a real-life Gollum. You know the meme, right? Gollum darting out of his cave to retrieve his packages? That was me. I got a little too comfortable in my work-from-home lifestyle—undoubtedly a shock for anyone who knew me before—and online shopping became my main joy in life. My cozy apartment progressively got cozier with my online shopping addiction. West Elm, Pottery Barn, Anthropologie. The packages piled up, each one a little dopamine hit. I lived in a safe cocoon full of scented candles, chunky throw blankets, and Netflix binges. (So many Netflix binges—one might say I became more Claire Fraser than Mallory Rosen.) But I’m far from the Scottish Highlands now. And I’m far from my Seattle apartment. In fact, I’m the farthest from home I’ve been in over two years, surrounded by more people than I’ve seen in just as long.

I’m in a beachside hotel on the Gulf Coast of Florida, sitting on the bed to apply my makeup as my twenty-year-old cousin sobs in the shower. She’s been in there for forty-five minutes.

It’s weird being here, and not just because I’m so far from home. It’s my family. I haven’t spent this much time with my aunts and uncles and cousins in years. The last time I was with them, I was twenty-four. My post-college plans hadn’t exactly panned out the way I’d dreamed they would, but I made the best of my remote, entry-level tech job by traveling as often as possible. I was suntanned, arms stacked with leather bracelets from my travels, casually referencing places I’d recently been, like Koh Lanta, Oaxaca, and Rome. The difference between the Mallory back then and the Mallory of today is, apparently, noteworthy, based on the not-so-veiled comments I’ve received so far. My uncle Ron, at least, seems to find it hilarious (“Guess you don’t see much of the sun anymore up there in Seattle! You’re like a vampire now!”).

I’ve laughed off their comments, because, honestly, I’m comfortable with who I am now. When I think of the Mallory who took advantage of her remote job, toting her laptop around the world, stubbornly ignoring the risks she was taking until it was too late… Well, the point is that I enjoy being a homebody now, and I don’t need to travel to far-flung locales to find joy in life.

I squint at my reflection and dust some bronzer onto my cheeks (maybe Ron’s vampire comment did get to me) as my sister Maeve knocks on the door of our room. She’s staying down the hall with her husband and their baby.

“Are you guys ready?” Maeve asks. I nod my head toward the bathroom, where the shower finally turns off. A wail emanates from behind the closed door. Maeve gives me a look of mild surprise. “Guess that’s a no.”

My sister raises a tentative hand, poised to knock on the door, when it opens. Maeve takes a hasty step back from the onslaught of steam.

“Aren’t you guys even sad?” Ellie clutches a towel around her body and glares at us with mascara running down her cheeks. “Lottie is dead.”

I flinch. Maeve places a protective hand on my shoulder. Our grandmother—who insisted that we all call her Lottie—died two weeks ago. I’m stung by the question. And by the presumption. Do I have to sob in a hotel shower to prove that I’m sad?

“Of course we’re sad. And we better go. We’re supposed to be on the boat in ten minutes.” I stand and smooth the black linen shift dress I’d borrowed from Maeve. It was a puzzle trying to decide what to wear to a Florida boat funeral in April. On one hand, I want to be respectful; on the other hand, it’s hot as balls. My online shopping hobby mostly runs toward furnishing my apartment; I never really buy clothes for myself. I mean, most people only see me from the shoulders up on Zoom. Luckily, my older sister has some fashion sense and a job where people have to see her in person, and she’s generous with her wardrobe.

Ellie runs a brush through her wet hair and raises an eyebrow at me as I give my lipstick a final touch-up.

“Who are you trying to impress?”

“Trying to look nice for… Lottie, I guess.” I’m not literally trying to impress my dead grandmother. But Lottie cared about appearances. She told me once that she liked to wear makeup because it was a reminder to herself, and to the world, that she was trying.

A memory swims to the surface of the last time I visited my grandparents, when Lottie asked me to do her makeup for her. The cancer was already taking its toll. I remember marveling at the deep creases and folds of her eyelids as I gently swiped on a dark-gold eye shadow.

“This is a pretty color,” I’d said, guessing that the palette was well over a decade old. “Maybe we can go shopping for new makeup together. That could be fun.”

She’d given a little smile and patted my hand. “Maybe next time, sweetheart. Maybe next time.”

There it was: the sadness. Less of a loud wail, more of a hard fist clenched in my chest. I let out a loud exhale and followed my sister and cousin to the elevator.

Outside the hotel, we find Maeve’s husband, Blake, sheltering in a thin strip of shade underneath an awning as though the sunny pavement is lava. He cradles baby Adam in a thin white blanket and keeps checking to make sure his face is covered by the brim of his baby sun hat. Maeve gives them each a peck on the side of the head.

“It’s too bright.” Blake holds a hand out in the sun and glances skeptically up at the blinding blue sky. A true Seattleite, my brother-in-law. “I don’t know. Should we put sunscreen on him? They say not until six months, but, I mean…”

Blake’s talking becomes background noise as we make our way across the marina. The walk over to the unmistakably loud group of people can’t be more than a hundred yards, but I’m covered in a sheen of sweat by the time I get there. The air is like hot clam chowder.

“Mallory, hi,” my aunt says with an exaggerated pout, drawing me in for a hug.

“Hi, Trish.” I rub her back in what I hope is a comforting way.

A man who I assume is the captain starts trying, gently, to herd us all onto his vessel. A few people—my dad, me, and my unfailingly polite Gen Z cousin Max—follow the captain’s orders.

Eventually, my great-aunt Lenore bellows at the top of her (sizable) lungs: “GILBERSTEINS! ALL ABOARD!” Within two minutes, everyone has taken a seat on the boat.

Mom settles in between Trish and Lenore. The three of them hug one another as the boat’s engine roars and we take off into the Gulf. My gaze slides past them to the tall, reedy man sitting with his arms crossed, his white hair blowing in the breeze. Gramps. He’s surrounded by family but looks impossibly alone. I swallow, feeling like maybe I should go talk to him. It’s just that he looks like he doesn’t want to be bothered.

I cross my own arms and look out toward the horizon. The boat is zipping along now, bumping gently over barely there waves. Now that we’re moving, the weather feels perfect. Warm sun, cloudless sky.

The buzz of my family’s chatter is rather pleasant when it’s not directed at me. My younger cousins are laughing together. My mom is murmuring with her sister, their curly heads bent together. Lenore has asked Maeve and Blake about the baby, and now Blake is expounding on the miracle of infant gas drops.

“He would be crying, and then we’d give him the drops and”—Blake snaps his fingers—“like that, happy again. We went through an entire bottle in—” I tune him out. I’ve heard this story before.

After ten minutes or so, the captain slows the boat to a stop and the chatter fades. Everyone looks around to see what’s supposed to happen next. We all stand and make our way to the front of the boat. Gramps walks unsteadily forward, clutching an urn that I realize with a lurch must be full of Lottie’s ashes. Suddenly, the mood feels unbearably miserable.

“Look! Dolphins!” My twelve-year-old cousin leans over the side of the boat. Three dolphins are crisscrossing in the water mere feet from us, their silvery backs shining under the sun. Everyone swarms forward, oohing and ahhing.

“Do you see the dolphins, Adam?” Maeve coos, holding him up. Blake hovers with his arms outstretched like he thinks there’s a chance Maeve might accidentally drop the baby overboard.

I turn to smile at my mom. She pulls me in for a sideways hug.

“Mom loved dolphins,” she says.

“This is her,” Trish says, tears coating her cheeks. “She’s sending us a sign.”

Gramps scoffs—probably because signs are not, scientifically speaking, real. But he’s smiling too, showing his surprisingly white teeth for the first time today.

“Thank you, my darling.” His voice is so quiet, I don’t know if anyone else hears him. And then he hands the urn to my mom. She looks down at it and her face drains of color; she looks like a scared kid, which is painful to see because my mother is a sturdy, fearless woman.

Lenore takes charge. “We should all say a few words.” She straightens her rainbow-colored shawl and pulls her shoulders back. “Lottie. When you met my brother I thought, well, what does a fine woman like you see in him?” Everyone laughs. “But I’m glad you saw whatever it was that you liked. You became my sister, and I always wanted one of those. You showed me that a woman could be obstinate, and still tender. Glamorous, and still rugged. You were always up for a girls’ trip to Geneva at the drop of a hat, even when your daughter was four weeks old.” At this, Lenore cackles as the rest of us laugh (and Mom and Trish groan). Lenore gestures to her husband, Paul, who keeps the toasts going.

Everyone says something that elicits some laughter, some tears. Are they all speaking off the cuff? I wasn’t prepared for this, and I am, to put it mildly, not the world’s best public speaker.

Maeve talks about how grateful she is that Lottie got to meet Adam, her first great-grandchild, before she died, and everyone is dabbing their eyes or downright sobbing. (My mom. And Blake.) I figure I should keep my story light and funny to bring the mood back up.

When Maeve is finished, everyone turns to me.

“Lottie.” I’m still unsure where I’m going with this. “You were the most incredible grandmother. You were all the things everyone has already said. But also, you were kind of mean sometimes.” I chuckle lightly. “Like, I’ll never forget, at Eddy’s second wedding when I was fourteen, you told me I walked like a basketball player in heels. As if I didn’t feel self-conscious enough already!” My smile widens. Nobody else laughs. Okay. “Um… And there was that time you told my sister to suck in her tummy. Because she had a pooch? She still sucks it in to this day.” Maeve glares at me. “And, Dad, remember the time she told you that you were losing your hair? Before you even realized it?” Dad just looks at me, his bald spot gleaming under the sun. Everyone else is staring at me, too. I had envisioned moving everyone to tears of laughter. Clearly, my social skills are rusty. Or maybe not so much rusty as nonexistent. I decide to shut my trap. With an awkward little bow, I cede the floor to Trish’s husband, Ron.

After the rest of the toasts (all of which are normal, unlike mine), Mom and Trish lower their mother’s ashes into the water, urn and all. I’m pretty sure the urn wasn’t supposed to go in unless it’s biodegradable. But despite the captain’s subtle shrug, it’s silent on the boat, apart from some sniffling and muffled sobs.

And then Lenore breaks the silence. She clears her throat and spreads her arms wide. I know what’s coming before it happens. My great-aunt was a mezzo-soprano for seven years in the Cincinnati Opera, and she’s never let anyone forget it. The first note of an aria pierces the air, sweet and melancholy and very, very loud. I can’t take my eyes off the perfect O of her mouth, rimmed with shimmery brown lipstick. The song is beautiful, really, and it’s a touching display, but it’s just… a lot.

“For Pete’s sake!” Eddy, Gramps and Lenore’s brother, bellows at the top of his voice. “Not this again!”

Lenore just sings louder, her arms sweeping from side to side in a graceful arc.

“I told you at Papa’s funeral,” Eddy shouts at his sister, spittle flying, “it hurts my ears!”

“Leave her alone!” Paul steps up, apparently to defend his wife’s honor. Maeve catches my eye from across the deck, her expression deadpan.

“Paul, I’ve been dealing wit’ her for twenty years longer than you have and I’ve had enough!” Eddy says over the swell of “Ave Maria.”

“Well, I’ve had enough of your macho attitude! Let my wife sing; we’re in mourning here!”

The two men move toward each other and I wonder if we’re about to witness some senior-citizen fisticuffs. The captain, apparently at a loss for what to do, decides to motor it. As the boat roars ahead, the two men wobble and clutch each other’s arms. Some struggling and grunting ensues. Are they fighting or helping each other keep their balance? It’s unclear.

The tension drains from the scene and Lenore continues her performance as we zip back toward the hotel.

I take a seat at the front of the boat and close my eyes. In a few hours, I’ll be on a plane back to Seattle, headphones on, watching a movie—alone.

Well. Alone is a relative term. My parents and sister are on the same flight as me. I thought they were coming home tomorrow, but no. At least I’m a few rows away, and baby Adam is being mercifully quiet. But as luck would have it, I’m sitting beside a Chatty Cathy.

I’m curled in my seat, headphones firmly clasped over my ears, my face hidden behind a mask, and yet the woman beside me rattles on.

“We were here for my niece’s graduation. It was so wonderful.” She beams at what is, apparently, a cherished memory. “Eckerd College! Have you heard of it? We are just so proud of her. And to think, they nearly held it all online.” She says it like it’s a dirty word. “A virtual ceremony. How awful. Oh, I hope you didn’t have one of those. Did you?”

I give a short shake of my head, hoping she takes the hint.

“It’s so wonderful to be around people, isn’t it?” the woman continues. “It’s so important. Nothing can replace actually being with the people you love. Zoom can go to heck!”

I lean into the window, slightly taken aback by this zealous proclamation. From a few rows back, I hear my brother-in-law’s voice, undoubtedly directed at some innocent passenger: “Have you heard of gas drops?” And then, quite clearly, from the other side of the aisle I hear the sound of my father snoring like a jackhammer.

“Yes,” I murmur. “So wonderful.” And then I turn on my tablet and hit PLAY on Bridget Jones’s Baby.

It’s a relief to get back to my normal routine. It’s not like I love my job, but I appreciate the structure of having a nine-to-five that allows for me to work from the comfort of my home and with minimum human interaction. Also, I just appreciate that I have a job. Something I’ll never take for granted again.

Monday morning, my alarm goes off at seven fifteen. I change into some leggings and a cropped tank, unroll my yoga mat in the middle of my living room, and flow through my virtual yoga class. I’ve been doing the same class for two years now. They play pop music and I get to work up a little sweat first thing in the morning.

After a quick shower, I scrunch mousse into my hair and put on enough makeup to make me look presentable on Zoom. I make a peach spinach smoothie in the Vitamix blender I got for an insane deal at Goodwill, and an oat milk latte with the Nespresso machine Maeve got me last Hanukkah. The day passes in a comfortingly familiar blur. Emails, Slack messages, and a couple of meetings—making it two too many meetings, in my opinion. I only hit a snag near the end of the workday, during my one-on-one with my manager, Kat.

Kat’s face dominates my screen, her expertly highlighted hair flipped over one shoulder, delicate lines etched around her eyes and between her brows. She fiddles with her clear-framed blue light glasses as I fill her in on my trip.

“I’m so sorry, again,” she says while staring into the screen.

My mind spins, hopelessly trying to think of a work topic to change the subject to. But Kat beats me there, allowing me to escape from the awkwardness.

“So, listen, Mallory. Something came up earlier in my meeting with Dominic. He pointed out that your last status report was formatted incorrectly. Not a big deal, but you know we have a goal this year to provide consistent status reports across the org.”

My heart skips unpleasantly. Really, Dominic? Throwing me under the bus to our manager? But, God, he was probably right. I always mess up something or other. One week I forget to communicate a deadline to an engineering manager, the next week I mess up on status reports. No wonder I haven’t been promoted yet.

Kat has already moved on to another topic, and I feign listening as I pull up the status report in question and compare it to Dominic’s. He’s right, they’re not the same format. But I do these every week—I must have had a brain fart, I guess.

“Is there anything else you wanted to chat about today?” Kat glances down at her phone.

“No.” I’m still flustered. “I think that’s it. Sorry about the goof, by the way. Won’t happen again.”

“No worries. Talk to you later, Mallory.” She leaves the meeting, and for a moment I’m just staring at my red face on the screen.

I never react well to making mistakes at work. It triggers some sort of impostor syndrome in me. I scroll through my emails from last week, and then I see it. There had been a whole email chain with some of the engineering managers about what they would prefer to see in the status reports. Another project manager on my team, Andi, had come up with the new format. I didn’t have a brain fart.

I click over to Slack and start typing a message to Kat: “Hey, so regarding the status report…” And then Kat’s status changes to a little bubble that says: “In meetings for the rest of the day.”

I delete my message. I can tell her later. It’s fine.

By five thirty, I’m so ready for my walk. In true millennial fashion, I’ve dubbed it my Mental Health Walk, and it has lived up to its name. I started taking a daily walk when my gym closed during the pandemic. It helps me transition from work mode to relaxing mode at the end of the day.

I do my usual loop around my hilly, tree-lined neighborhood. Truth be told, this isn’t technically my neighborhood—it’s ritzy Upper Queen Anne, the quiet streets full of stately single-family homes, homes full of people who, I assume, are better at life than I am. I have to huff up a big hill to get here. I could walk around my own neighborhood, but instead of lush trees and well-tended gardens, it’s full of tourists and people camping under bus stops.

There’s a new episode of my favorite podcast, Elementary, so I listen to that as I walk. It’s hosted by two elementary school teachers—one current, one former—who chat about TV shows and dating and life. They have a core of dedicated listeners who’ve bonded in the comments, where we chat about the episodes and tangentially related topics, like which face cream to buy and the latest shows to stream. It’s like having a group of like-minded friends—something I haven’t felt in a long time. I know that sounds pathetic, but it’s true.

As I walk under a row of blossoming pink-and-white cherry trees, a fellow walker passes by in the opposite direction. She’s a bit older than I am, bundled up in a black down coat despite the mild evening, also listening to something on her earbuds. I give her the requisite Seattle greeting: a tight-lipped nod. I accidentally do a weird, noncommittal form of eye contact where I briefly glance at her face and let my gaze slide away just as her eyes meet mine. She surprises me by murmuring a barely audible “hello.”

We walk past each other every day.

For dinner, I heat up a frozen pizza and toss together some spring greens and vinaigrette. I can’t stop my mind from drifting back to the status report incident. It’s like a bruise that I keep poking just to see if it still hurts. I don’t know what’s worse: the idea of my manager and co-worker discussing my mistake behind my back, or the fact that I accepted the reprimand without question. Someday, perhaps, I’ll grow a backbone. But today I’ll carry on being my nonconfrontational self. I’ll message Andi tomorrow and ask her to remind the team about the new status report format. That way, Kat and Dominic will realize that I was right and I won’t have to say anything.

I take my dinner—and a generous glass of red wine—to the couch, where I spend the next two hours watching Outlander. Is there anything in this world better than living vicariously through Claire Fraser? If I could give up twenty-first-century comforts in exchange for loving a man like Jamie, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Well… I glance around my cozy, dimly lit apartment, from the glowing Anthropologie candle burning on my coffee table to my beloved gadgets charging on the console table against the wall—my iPhone, Kindle, and MacBook. Maybe it would take me longer than a heartbeat to leave these comforts behind. But still, I get it. Jamie Fraser is the man we all deserve.

Around ten, I draw a bath, dumping in a capful of lavender-scented bubbles and a sprinkle of Epsom salts. I’m feeling pleasantly loose from the wine and can’t wait to sink into the hot water with the novel I’m reading.

Just as I’m dipping a toe into the bathwater, my phone buzzes on the counter. It’s probably Maeve sending the latest photos of baby Adam. I glance quickly at my messages, my skin pimpling in the chilly bathroom. It’s not from my sister. It’s from my ex. Crap.

I haven’t heard from him in months. I almost delete it without reading it, but curiosity gets the better of me.

I’ve been thinking of you, Mallory. If you’re comfortable, I’d love to get a cup of coffee sometime. Let me know what you think.

I stand there stark naked, re-reading the message three, four times. If I’m comfortable. If I’m comfortable. My stomach clenches. I was comfortable a minute ago. I was perfect. In my element. And now? Extremely uncomfortable. Irritating memories threaten to swoop in and ruin my relaxation time.

If I don’t think about him, the memories don’t plague me. I’ve grown to be pretty good at living in the moment, appreciating each day for what it is. I let my thumb hover over the BLOCK CONTACT button. But I can’t seem to block him. I just won’t respond.

My bath is shorter than usual; I can’t focus on my book. I do my skin-care routine and pull on my pajamas. As I’m closing my pajama drawer, I catch sight of my bright-purple vibrator. I’d usually be in the mood after two hours of Jamie Fraser, but I’m unsettled now, after the text message. Shake it off, Mallory. And I will; I always do. I leave Big Purple where she is, shut the drawer, and turn off the light.

The next day, Mom has invited us all over for Shabbat dinner. I’m in the back seat of Maeve and Blake’s SUV, next to baby Adam. From the passenger seat, Maeve chirps on about how happy she is not to have to cook tonight. My nephew starts to wail but Maeve keeps talking, stopping every few breaths to make shushing noises, which Adam does not seem to find soothing. My ears hurt.

It takes half an hour to drive to our parents’ house on the Eastside. I try to psych myself up for the inevitable high energy of the next couple hours. My parents are talkers. I love them, and my sister and her cute little family, but spending time with them wears me out. What can I say? I thrive on alone time. Fortunately, a lot of their conversation revolves around the baby and lawyer stuff. My parents, Blake, and Maeve are all attorneys.

I frequently remind myself that most parents would be proud of a child who makes a decent living as a project manager at a big tech company. And I think my parents are proud—technically. But it’s not exactly a secret that I’m the disappointment of the family. My dad’s dad was an attorney. Lottie was a public defender—one of only two women in her law school class. My parents met in law school. Maeve and I grew up knowing that we would be lawyers, too.

It sounds silly when I spell it out like that. I’ve gotten a few weird looks from people over the years when I explain that my parents are disappointed that I never went to law school. But it’s just how things are in my family. My parents had certain expectations; one daughter lived up to them, and the other did not.

If I’m being honest, I had those expectations, too. I enjoyed the certainty of knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up. Some friends held similar certainties, knowing they wanted to be teachers or nurses. And then there were those who floundered and flip-flopped through college, changing majors two or three times, some opting for grad school just to put off making a decision for a few more years.

Grad school: That’s where it went wrong for me. I didn’t get in. I applied to three law schools: one reasonable choice, one reach school, and one where I thought I’d be a shoo-in because my parents went there. But I didn’t get into any of them.

My parents were crushed. But they tried to hide it by reading through brochures for different graduate school programs with me and sending me online job listings. My mom encouraged me to consider other options, like medical school. My dad wanted me to work as a paralegal and reapply to law school the next year. I couldn’t face any of those options. Deep down, I’d grown up feeling like the awkward daughter—less social and less intelligent. Getting rejected from law school wh. . .