by Dana Moss
“Oh, I don’t think that!” Her sparkle was genuine. “They actually remind me of when I first met you.”
Taffy arched an eyebrow.
“I mean, I thought you were the cat’s meow. So sophisticated and beautiful… so cool and hip. I just wanted so much to be your friend. Remember? I just wanted us to be friends, and now we are, and now I want your friends to be my friends.”
Cher had successfully tied the cherry stem into a knot and displayed it on her stuck-out tongue. Those who had assembled were now clapping. A few of the younger sugar elves were asking Cher to show them how to do it. Ellie then stepped in. Slipping an arm first through Macy’s arm and then through Cher’s, Ellie said, “Don’t badger our guests now. They’re having a tour, and you all have to get back to work.” In a singsong voice and tilting her head toward Taffy, she added, “The boss is watching.” They all smiled at Taffy and went back to work, except for Nolan who, with his mouth still slightly agape, watched Macy and Cher sashay out on their high heels.
Once beyond chocolate dip, they giggled and teased Taffy about being “the boss.”
“I think Luke would like that,” Cher said with a grin. “It would fulfill some of his fantasies.”
Ellie asked, innocently enough, “Who’s Luke?”
“No one!” Taffy said, shutting down any possible conversation.
“No one she wants to talk about right now anyway,” Macy whispered.
They’d reached the end of the corridor where Taffy’s and Ellie’s offices were.
Ellie led them into her office, where there was a whiteboard on one wall with diagrams and lists on it. “We’re brainstorming new candy ideas,” she explained.
Taffy said, “Ellie and I have to go over some research and development ideas for next year’s products, so I’m going to ask Aubin to show you around a bit more.” She stepped into her office to call down to the front desk, but by the time she returned Taffy was mortified to hear Macy and Cher giving Ellie their ideas for new candies to develop.
“You should totally be making candy sex toys. Edible underwear and lickable dildos.”
“How about gummy nipple teasers? Nibbleable! Nipple nibblers!”
Ellie blinked, her smile still wide but frozen in place, as if she didn’t know what to make of this suggestion. She glanced at Taffy, who was rolling her eyes.
“Don’t listen to them.”
Macy said, “But there’d be a huge market back east.”
Cher nodded. “And probably LA and San Francisco.”
“New Orleans!” Macy squealed. More seriously, she added, “And have you thought of exporting to Paris?”
Ellie’s face grew more animated. “I imagine there’d be a wide profit margin?”
“Huge!”
Taffy interjected. “Ignore them, Ellie. They know nothing about this.”
“But if it’s an untapped market?”
Taffy had to nip this in the bud. “It goes against our brand. We’re part of the ‘sweetest town on the coast,’ remember?”
Cher shook her head. “Sweet Abandon? Come on. That has innuendo written all over it.”
Macy turned to Ellie. “You really should consider expanding into the adult markets. You’d be amazed at what I’ve seen some people do with store-bought marshmallows. Just think, if they were actually designed for—”
“Stop it, you guys.”
But Ellie said to Taffy, “Maybe I should at least do some research and design some prototypes?”
Taffy shook her head. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, Ellie.” She handed a sheaf of papers to her. “Here are the new licorice-supplier contracts all signed.”
“Licorice whips!” Macy said.
“And handcuffs,” Cher added.
Taffy dragged them both out of Ellie’s office. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
In the hall, she faced them.
“Enough!”
“Oh come on, Taffy. It’s all so sickeningly sweet around here and could use a bit of spicing up.”
“Not all things need to spiced, scented, and branded to the highest degree of luxury—or lustery, as the case may be—some things can remain quaint and kitschy, tacky even. There’s room for everything.”
Macy and Cher gaped at her.
“Tacky? Kitschy?”
“Did those words just come out of Taffy Belair’s mouth?”
Ellie had stepped out her office by now. “Is everything okay?”
With her hands on her hips, Taffy said, “I’ve asked Aubin to show you the hard-candy division.”
“Oh, we like hard candy,” Macy said with a giggle.
Cher chimed in. “As you know, we both like to suck.”
Ellie laughed like they’d invented the first joke ever. Taffy rolled her eyes and cleared her throat as Aubin sidled up to them.
“What did I miss?” she said with a smile. “Did I hear you say you like suckers, because lookee here…” She pulled out two more lollipops from behind her back. The girls laughed again but took her offering politely.
“Shall we head off to the rumble room?” That was the nickname for the room holding the hard-candy tumblers, the ones that coated the sticky sweets with a sweet powder that kept them from sticking to each other for packaging, and it elicited a few more giggles.
Aubin looked at Taffy, “Can I give your friends complimentary elf jackets when we’re done? I think we have a couple in their sizes.”
“Whatever you think, Aubin. I leave them in your capable hands. I’ll meet up with you in half an hour.”
“We can be sugar elves, too!” They giggled their way down the hall.
After they’d gone, Ellie said. “They’re fun.”
“They’re trouble,” Taffy groaned.
Unfortunately, Taffy’s comment about trouble turned out to be prophetic, because not twenty minutes later Lina, a sugar elf working in candy corn, arrived breathless at Ellie’s door.
“I think you should come quick—there’s a crisis in vanilla cream.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lina gave her report on the way over. Apparently, Clint had been making vanilla cream for the Wafer Wonders. He’d been demonstrating the process of layering the wafer and the cream when Cher had asked if they could have a sample. So he’d filled a bowl from the nozzle and let them dip their fingers in, and from there things had gradually spiraled out of control. First, Cher had wiped cream on Macy’s nose, and then Macy had dabbed some in Cher’s hair. When Clint started to laugh, Cher wiped cream on his cheek, and then Macy had somehow grabbed the nozzle and fired, without knowing how to stop the flow. Aubin had snatched a wafer sheet—as yet uncut to cookie size—as a kind of shield. It had shattered around her in less than a minute, peppering the floor with wafer flakes and catching on any rogue cream attached to people or equipment. Lina had walked by the scene, which had been soundtracked with shrieking and laughter and beeping alarms from the mishandled machines, and had run to get Taffy and Ellie. All of this had been reported by Aubin, whose long fake eyelashes were sprinkled with wafer dust. She was the only one still on her feet, the slick floor having taken down her stiletto-clad friends.
Taffy hauled them both up by the lapels—they were wearing their new striped jackets—and led them down the hall to the staff room, where there was a bathroom and a shower.
“We were just having a bit of fun.” Macy tried to say this seriously, but they both burst out laughing again.
“Did you see when Clint came up behind Aubin and—”
“And the hose was between his—”
They couldn’t finish their sentences for all their snorting laughter.
Taffy was fuming. “This is my job! This is a place of work! It’s not an amusement park, and my sugar elves are not Oompa Loompas!”
For a moment they had looked chagrined, biting their lower lips, but at the mention of Oompa Loompas, they’d both burst out laughing uncontrollably again.
Taffy stomped her foot.
; Cher wiped a dollop of cream onto her nose. “Little Miss Bossy Mama is having a tantrum.”
Taffy wiped her nose with the cuff of her sleeve. “Why can’t you take things more seriously?!” For a second, she reminded herself of her old boss, Mr. Herbert.
Then Ellie walked in, and when she registered Taffy’s angry, pinched face, she paused at the doorway. Her reaction made Taffy believe she had, indeed, channeled old toffee-toupeed Anthony Herbert.
“I thought you wanted us to have some fun,” Macy said defensively.
Ellie swooped in. “Of course we do. Don’t worry, Taffy. Everything’s getting all cleaned up and back on track.”
But Taffy was still on her rant. “You both don’t understand. This is serious business. We have production quotas to make, standards to uphold, and…” Her voice trailed off as she realized she was still possessed by Mr. Herbert’s righteous, condescending tone.
Macy slipped out of her striped jacket. “Maybe you take things too seriously.”
“Somebody has to!” Taffy crossed her arms.
Cher narrowed her eyes at Taffy. “You know, Taffy, you have changed. You used to be fun. You actually used to have fun with whipped cream.”
Macy said, “Yeah, remember that time in Saint Barts? The bathtub?”
Taffy held up a hand. “I’m not that person anymore. I’ve grown up. I’ve taken on responsibilities, and you can’t just—”
They both started laughing again. “You’re kidding, right? This is just a phase, a detour, you’re caught up in a game of dress up as a corporate candy chick, but you’ll come back to your senses soon. And you’ll come back to New York.”
Ellie stood nearby looking worried.
Taffy frowned. “You know what? You’re snobs. The both of you. You’ve been caught up in your perfectly manicured lives. Pampered, protected, privileged.”
“Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black if I ever—”
“I admit I was just like you. I admit I still am a bit like you. But I’m not proud of it anymore. The world you live in, the world we come from, is exclusive, not average.”
“That’s what makes it so fabulous.”
“It makes it special and elite and completely out of touch with the rest of the population.”
“But we get to live the lives that everyone drools over on TV.”
“And what happens if Macy ends up in jail?”
“She won’t—”
“You mean just because you don’t want her to? Just because it’s not part of the plan since high school? News bulletin: That’s not how life works!”
“So maybe orange can be the new black. Maybe they’ll make a TV show about her.”
“Cher!” Macy’s bottom lip quivered. “Don’t make jokes.”
“But who made Taffy an expert on life?” Cher turned to Taffy. “Just because you’ve found a way to survive here doesn’t mean we have to. We want to go back to our exclusive lives, as you call them, and you should too. They’re better than this. You’re better than this.”
Ellie shuffled on her feet. Taffy looked over. She caught a momentary look of hurt on Ellie’s normally warm and friendly face. Then it was gone, and the warmth returned. Friendliness and enthusiasm overrode everything else. She said, “I have an idea!”
Macy and Cher, who seemed to have forgotten she was standing there, turned to her.
“Macy and Cher, why don’t you come over to my place after work? We can hang out, have a bit of girl time. You can show me how to do that cherry-stem trick. I’d sure love your help thinning out my closet, giving me some makeup and hair tips. Whaddya think?”
Cher put one hand on her hip and looked at Ellie. Then she glanced at Macy. Taffy saw the glance between them. She knew neither could resist a makeover challenge.
Macy said, “Can we, Taffy?”
Ellie slid her arm through Taffy’s. “I promise I’ll take good care of them.” Then she whispered, “And it sounds like you could use a little break.”
Taffy sighed and nodded. Ellie was the real godsend.
Ellie said gently, “Why don’t you go over those files on your desk? I’ll help the girls get tidied up.”
In other words, she meant: go back to your office and cool off. So Taffy exhaled an exasperated sigh and turned on her heel and left.
Back in her office, she paced. Why did Macy and Cher think the whole world revolved around them? As if every whim and fantasy that popped into their heads could be enacted? They were selfish and spoiled and entitled, and—she plopped down in her desk chair—they were everything that Taffy had once been too.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ellie suggested that Macy and Cher stay with her, since the end of the work day wasn’t too far off. She gave them paper and markers so they could sketch out some of their candy design ideas. To Taffy she said quietly, “Don’t worry. I’ll just humor them. You go take a breather. Pick them up at my place later. We’ll have fun.”
Relieved, Taffy left work early.
It was still a while before she had to meet Maria, so she decided to stop at Ethan’s to drop off the bag of cat food she’d forgotten to take out of her trunk when she’d dropped off Midnight that morning.
On the way to Ethan’s, she stopped by the Magpie Brewing Company for a take-out latte. Out front was a car she thought she recognized, the rental car from outside the police station that morning. Was Veronica around somewhere? Taffy looked up and down the street. No sign of anyone who could be her.
Pushing through the coffee shop’s main door, Taffy set the bell tinkling. She ordered her latte and, as she chitchatted with Jayda behind the counter, she scanned the shop’s interior. Several of the back booths were occupied. At one of them sat a woman wearing sunglasses. Was it her? She was talking on a cell phone. Taffy was tempted to get a closer look but remembered how stressed Maria had been and how she’d promised to lay low while Veronica was in town. And then Taffy’s own phone rang. The woman in sunglasses glanced up but only for a second.
Looking down at her phone screen, Taffy didn’t recognize the incoming number, so she grabbed her coffee and stepped back outside to take the call.
“Hello?”
“This is Alice. You left me a message at the resort.”
“Alice? Oh, right, the masseuse. I wanted to… uh, I guess, I’d like to book some appointments for my friends.”
“Sure, when?”
“Anytime. Maybe sooner rather than later?” Taffy crossed the street to her car.
“How about tomorrow afternoon?”
“Perfect, and...” Taffy set her coffee on the convertible roof of her car and opened the driver’s side door. “Alice, can I ask you a question about one of your recent clients?”
Alice hesitated. “I have to keep client information confidential.”
“It’s regarding the night of that murder on the yacht.”
“The police have already spoken to me about that.”
“It’s just that… Are you one hundred percent sure Anya didn’t leave the hotel that evening?”
Alice hesitated again before answering. “Are you part of the investigation?”
“In a way, yes… I’m just working on some crazy theories.”
“That one of my massage patients could be a murderer?”
Taffy laughed lightly to show she was only semi-serious. “Like I said, cray-zee.”
“She couldn’t be. She was with me the whole time. She never left the room. By the time I left the hotel, the police were already down at the dock.”
“I see. Okay. Thanks.”
“Do you still want to book those massages?”
They arranged a time for Alice to come by the house with her portable massage table.
As Taffy slid into her driver’s seat, the woman with the sunglasses exited the coffee shop alone. She looked at Taffy, or rather, she looked at Taffy’s shiny Bentley parked across the street. Then she climbed into the rental car and left.
Taffy’s phone was still in
her hand. Impulsively, she snapped a picture of the departing car.
* * *
Taffy pulled into Ethan’s driveway. She retrieved the bag of cat food from her trunk and went inside. On the patio off the kitchen, Taffy saw a shirtless man leaning back in a lounge chair with his eyes closed. It wasn’t Ethan.
She cleared her throat. “You must be Ethan’s cousin.”
His eyes opened. He grinned and sat upright. “Hi. I’m Mitch.” He had chocolate brown eyes and a playful smile. He stood up to shake her hand. “You must be the new girlfriend.”
Taffy didn’t consider herself “new” after nearly a year. “So Ethan’s told you about me?”
“Just a little.” He winked. “How long have you been dating?”
“I guess almost a year.”
“And you’re originally from New York?”
She nodded.
“An uptown girl?”
She nodded again but this time with a frown. Why was he grilling her?
“This seems like a strange place for someone like you to end up.”
“‘Someone like me’?” Where were his manners?
He tilted his head to one side. “You’re different than I’d imagined.”
“Well, you’re different than I imagined too.”
He looked curious. “How so?”
She actually hadn’t spent much time imagining him but she’d sensed something less than flattering in his tone and felt a need to say something. “I guess I thought you’d be taller.”
It was his turn to frown. “I guess I thought you’d be less…”
She raised an eyebrow, waiting.
“Or more…” He tilted his head to one side, as if appraising her and trying to come up with a good word. She had a good idea of what this was about.
“You thought I’d be more outdoorsy like Ethan?”
“Something like that, sure.”
She crossed her arms. “You know what they say about how opposites attract.” She forced a smile. She wasn’t required to like all of Ethan’s family, was she? “So. How long did you say you were staying?”
He winked again and said, “As long as it takes, darlin’. As long as it takes.”