In Hot Fudge And Cold Blood

by A. R. Winters

  “But then again, Molly could be mistaken. Maybe Donovan has a perfectly legitimate reason for dropping by Sandra’s house.”

  “Multiple times,” said Sarah.

  “Maybe he’s addicted to her fudge and needs to get his fix,” I said with a giggle.

  “Fudge! Fudge! Fudge!” screeched Kiwi.

  “We’ll get some more soon,” I said in the direction of the bookcase. “He really does seem to like that fudge, doesn’t he?”

  “He sure does. I hardly ever hear him demand cheese puffs anymore.”

  Cheese puffs were Kiwi’s all-time favorite snack. I knew his current obsession with fudge would only be temporary; he always went back to the cheese puffs.

  “I’m sure cheese puffs and fudge would be the perfect meal for him,” I said shaking my head. “Goodness knows how he would survive being back in the wild.”

  “I’m sure he’d find a nice little fudge tree or cheese puff bush down in the Amazon, wouldn’t you?” said Sarah to Kiwi, who responded with a happy chattering sound.

  “So what are we going to do about Mom and Donovan?”

  Sarah grinned at me. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you arrange a dinner for us, just the three of us, at your place?”

  I nodded dubiously. I didn’t really relish the thought of having my mom criticize my cooking, though to be fair, it had been a long time since I’d given her the chance.

  “Okay, dinner it is. I’ll check with Mom but plan on it being the day after tomorrow.”

  “Yay!” said Sarah with a clap of her hands.

  “Fudge!” shrieked Kiwi.

  Chapter 2

  I was quite pleased with myself. The soup was delicious, the chicken looked great, the vegetables were neither soggy nor undercooked, and I’d picked up a delicious chocolate fudge cake for dessert.

  Sarah had arrived early of course, and after an offer to help that was so fleeting it barely existed, she sat down at the dining table with her scrapbook, scissors, tape, glue, and goodness knows what other art supplies she had in her bag.

  “What are you sticking in there?”

  “I made a page for my love life,” she said.

  “Just a page?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  She stuck her tongue out at me. “Just a page. Look, Brad here is represented by this picture of a bottle cap, Emerito by this scrap of wine label, Sebastian by this little drawing of a snail to represent his love for French cuisine, Nic—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it.” I frowned at the mess on my dining table. “Why don’t you put that away before Mom gets here? You know what she’s like.”

  Sarah cocked her head at me. “You don’t think she’d like my scrapbook?”

  “Nope.” I knew she’d make some cracks about Sarah finally graduating from kindergarten or something equally trite. “Why don’t you take Kiwi downstairs to the stockroom?”

  Mom didn’t like Kiwi, and even though I could trust him not to cause any serious mischief while she was here, I didn’t need to hear another rant from my mother about how I should get rid of the feathered menace. Out of sight was out of mind. One less thing for Mom to criticize.

  Sarah held out her arm, and Kiwi obligingly hopped onto it. “You poor little thing.”

  “Just put on CSI or some reality television for him and he’ll be fine.”

  He let out a happy squawk. He, too, would be happier downstairs and out of Mom’s way when she got here. An evening of reality television alone in the stockroom without me there to criticize or heckle would no doubt be an ideal evening for my simple-tasted bird.

  While Sarah and Kiwi descended, I went back into the kitchen to take out the condiments and finish my preparations.

  BZZZ.

  Mom rang the bell to the side door of the building.

  “I’ll get it,” shouted Sarah from downstairs.

  There was the sound of the bolts turning and the door unlocking before Sarah and Mom greeted each other as if they liked each other, which they didn’t. They didn’t hate each other; they were just very different people who struggled to even communicate due to the large differences in their thought processes. I was somewhere between them and could act as an intermediary though, when necessary.

  The two women climbed up the stairs and I stood at the threshold of my small apartment, which was located directly above my shop, taking up the second floor of the building.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  “Hello, dear. It’s been so long since you had me over for dinner I thought you might have forgotten I eat!”

  “Ha, ha,” I said, rather than laughed. “I’d forgotten how delightful it was to have you as a guest. Come in.”

  My mom smiled at me with a suspiciously unlined face. I gave it a quick once-over and tallied it up. Fresh collagen injections? Check. Botox for the forehead and eyes? Check. A glamour spell to cover up those last few wrinkles? Check. Freshly-dyed blonde hair to mask the gray? Of course.

  “You look nice, Mom,” I said.

  “I do, don’t I?” she said with a smile, neglecting the generous opportunity I’d given her to compliment me.

  We walked into the main room of my apartment, which had a living area and a dining area all in the same open floor plan.

  “I’ll have a glass of white wine, dear, chilled but not too much. Something fruity but dry and no oakiness. And nothing too pale.”

  “Right. I’ll see what I’ve got.”

  “Nothing too yellow either,” she called after me.

  I popped into the kitchen and took out the only bottle of wine I had in the refrigerator. It would have to do. Mom had recently taken an interest in wine and become something of a connoisseur, or ‘fussy’ as I preferred to put it.

  We all sat back down in the living room with a glass of wine each. Mom took a sip, wrinkled her nose, scrunched up her face like she was about to spit it out, and then in a remarkable show of theatrics made a drama of putting a neutral expression back on her face.

  “Interesting choice. But if it’s all you’ve got, then it’s all you’ve got.” She patted my knee while she spoke, in an almost motherly way, while she criticized.

  “Well, I think it’s lovely,” said Sarah smiling.

  This was probably true, as Sarah found almost everything to be interesting, lovely, wonderful, or at the very least a learning experience. She was always positive, unless you got on her bad side—in which case, you’d best be careful.

  “Annabelle,” said Sarah. “I was wondering...”

  And so the game was afoot. Sarah had two goals for this evening and I’d gone along with them with only my usual amount of reluctance.

  The first goal was to find out more about my father. Sarah had been so eager to get some answers that she threatened to put together a scrapbook by herself on the topic. The second was to “gently encourage” Mom to break up with Donovan.

  “Yes?”

  “Where did you meet Aria’s father?”

  I blanched. I hadn’t expected her to be so... direct.

  “That? Him? Oh, that’s ancient history. Well, not ancient—I’m not that old, of course—but it was so long ago I just don’t think I can recall.”

  “You don’t remember? That sounds mysterious!”

  Mom frowned and shook her head. “Not mysterious, too dull to recall. At least I think so. I don’t recall!” Mom giggled at herself while Sarah and I didn’t.

  “Was Aria’s father a witch like you?” asked Sarah.

  “A man? A witch? Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mom.

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders.

  “I don’t know about things like that. I’m more grounded in the real world,” she said.

  I snorted. You could accuse Sarah of a lot of things, but being grounded in reality was not generally one of them.

  “What about now? Where would you go to meet a man now?”

  The whole conversation was making me incredibly uncomfortable, which was why Sarah was there in the first place. She would d
o the heavy lifting of asking embarrassing questions.

  “Meet a man? Why, I really wouldn’t know. I suppose one would be introduced at a gala or a ball or the like. But as you know, I am quite happily with Sequoia Bay’s finest man.”

  “Mayor Charlston?” asked Sarah.

  “Yes, of course. You can’t get a finer man than the mayor of the city, can you?”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Come on,” I said. “The first course is ready.”

  When they were both seated at the dining table, I brought out three bowls of a cream of mushroom soup which I’d cooked after closing the shop for the day.

  “What’s this?” asked Mom, peering at it.

  “Homemade mushroom soup,” I said with a smile.

  “It looks and…” Sarah paused to inhale the steam coming off the bowl, “…smells great.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you pick the mushrooms yourself?” asked Mom, peering at me intently.

  Great. I knew where this was going. If I did, she would be worried about being poisoned, and if I didn’t, then no doubt I should have picked them myself. But I knew how to play her game.

  “No, Mom, I didn’t,” I said.

  She let out a long, slow sigh. “You can’t trust supermarket mushrooms. You really need to pick them yourself. We are blessed with the most wonderfully fertile woods, loaded with fresh mushrooms, around Sequoia Bay and—”

  “That’s where they came from. Sarah picked them. I didn’t do it myself because I was too busy.”

  Mom’s head whipped over from me to Sarah. She’d been thwarted in her first critical attack, but she had plenty more ready to go that evening.

  “And do you know which mushrooms are safe?” she said with a skeptical look.

  Sarah nodded emphatically. “Don’t you remember my old boyfriend, Mushroom Mathew? He taught me all about how to recognize the safe ones and the dangerous ones, and even which ones can be used for mystical and spiritual purposes.”

  “Really?” asked Mom in surprise.

  “Yep,” I said, giving Sarah a nod of support. It was true, and for the three weeks she had dated Mushroom Mathew—though I did suspect this wasn’t his real name—she had been the keenest mushroom collector in all of Sequoia Bay, coming back with bags of them almost every morning after heading out into the woods.

  “Well. Good,” said Mom, spooning some of the soup between her preternaturally-plump lips and smiling. “It’s... nice.”

  I beamed. Nice from Mom was like getting a Michelin star. She wasn’t generous with her compliments where I was concerned.

  “Mom,” I said, placing my spoon down for a moment. “How are things with you and Donovan?”

  “Fantastic. Couldn’t be better.”

  “Really?” said Sarah.

  “There’s nothing odd about him these days?” I asked.

  Mom shook her head and frowned at us.

  “Why should there be? He’s my same old Donovan. Still the best man in the city.”

  “Right. Do you really see yourself sticking with him? Long-term?”

  “Why? Do you think he’s too old for me?”

  I nearly choked on my soup. Too old for her indeed. He was actually a few years younger than her.

  “No, no, not that. We were just wondering,” I said, giving Sarah a look that said save it for later.

  “Well, worry not. We’re still together and it looks like we’ll stay that way.” She placed her spoon down in her empty bowl. “That was surprisingly good, Aria.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and we shared genuine smiles with each other.

  “If the bridal thing doesn’t work out, you can become a cook.”

  And... she ruined it. My shop was my life, and I’d built up my business through my own hard work and dedication. I wasn’t about to abandon it for some other career, and Mom’s lack of confidence in me was, as always, eternally frustrating.

  “I’ll get the main dish,” I said.

  I could have delayed it a little and let us sit and talk between courses. But I didn’t want to sit and talk between courses. Not with Mom, anyway.

  “Here we are,” I said a few moments later as I laid a plate out in front of Sarah and Mom each. “Homemade chicken, gravy, biscuits, and mashed potatoes.”

  “And beans!” said Sarah.

  I nodded.

  Mom looked down at the plate—which looked delicious if I do say so myself—and then looked back up at me.

  “Are you trying to fatten me up?”

  Deciding to take it as a compliment, I laughed.

  “Just eat as much as you want, Mom. You don’t have to finish it all.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to seem ungrateful.” She dug in like she was worried I’d take it away from her if she didn’t finish it all in a timely fashion.

  “Australia,” said Sarah apropos of nothing.

  Mom gave Sarah a look but I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. I think it was somewhere between ‘shut up’ and ‘what are you talking about?’

  “Isn’t that where Aria’s father went?”

  Mom shook her shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know. We thought he was dead.”

  “Did you really?” I asked.

  We had found out he was alive when Hazel Crane showed us a picture of a very much alive man who she claimed was my father. A man who bore a striking resemblance to me.

  “Well, we didn’t know he was alive, as such. Not until that Hazel Crane poked her nose in where it didn’t belong.”

  “Where is he?” asked Sarah.

  Mom shrugged her shoulders, banged her fork on her plate, and tried to focus on eating.

  “What is this? An inquisition? I don’t know anything about that man except he left a long time ago. We’d all do well to forget all about him. Now, let’s not ruin dinner thinking about him.”

  We each cleaned our plates, shoveling the food down faster than would be polite at a normal dinner party. But with us, it was never normal.

  “And now for dessert,” I said.

  “What have we got?” asked Mom.

  “Chocolate fudge cake,” I said. “With ice cream or whipped cream.”

  “Sounds divine!” said Sarah excitedly hopping in her chair.

  “Just a small piece for me,” said Mom.

  “Goes straight to your lips, doesn’t it, Mom?”

  She pursed her inflated lips and glared at me. She didn’t find me as funny as I found myself.

  When we were all happily sitting in front of our triangular portions of cake, Sarah skillfully brought out her killer card. The one to break up Mom and Donovan forever. At least, that was the plan.

  “So this is chocolate fudge cake,” said Sarah with a wave of her fork. “Which reminds me... of fudge.”

  “I can’t imagine why.” Mom rolled her eyes.

  “Probably because of the ‘fudge’ in the name,” continued Sarah, oblivious. “But we spoke to a lady the other day. We were talking about Sandra the fudge lady. Do you know her?”

  Mom frowned. “I know of her. I tried some of her fudge and it really was quite nice.”

  Sarah nodded. I filled my mouth up with some more cake and let Sarah do the talking.

  “Well, we heard that she had some zoning trouble. She was making and selling fudge at home, which is against city regulations.”

  “Is that so?”

  “But even though she was reported to the city, she hasn’t given it up. She’s been meeting with someone quite regularly.”

  “Oh?” Mom gave Sarah a suspicious look as she carefully cut off a small piece of cake from what was left on her plate.

  “Yep.” Sarah shoved a giant spoonful of cake into her mouth so she couldn’t go on.

  “What’s she talking about, dear?”

  “Thanks, Sarah,” I said to her with a saccharine smile. “It’s probably just gossip, Mom.”

  She dropped her spoon into her ice-cream bowl and glared at m
e.

  “Come on, Aria. Out with it.”

  “Well, this lady, Molly Anderson, she lives next door to Sandra, and she said…” I paused, not quite sure whether I should continue. The evening was going remarkably well so far, and it seemed a shame to ruin it.

  “She said…”

  “She said that Donovan had been dropping by. Not just once, but several times. She thinks Sandra is trying to get Donovan to rezone the area to allow her to run her fudge business from home.”

  Mom folded her arms in front of her chest, her remaining cake completely abandoned.

  “Are you saying that Donovan, my Donovan, has been going to the fudge lady’s house?”

  I nodded in confirmation.

  “That’s right. And Molly thinks she’s using her feminine wiles to persuade the mayor.”

  “Her feminine wiles?” Mom attempted to raise an eyebrow but there was barely a twitch. Botox.

  Sarah finally finished swallowing her mouthful of chocolate cake and wiped her lips with a napkin before setting it down in front of her. “She used the term Jezebel.”

  “Jezebel!?” Mom stood up in one swift motion, knocking her chair backward and sending it clattering to the floor behind her.

  “But it is just hearsay.”

  “Hearsay? This fudge woman’s going to hear what I’ve got to say, make no mistake. And is that why you brought me here? I knew you two were scheming something. You just wanted to deliver the news in person, didn’t you?”

  I shook my head rapidly.

  “No, Mom, it wasn’t like that! We wanted to tell you in a nice setting. Give you a nice dinner.”

  “Yeah, right. You wanted to look at me as you told me your horrible news. Your own mother. Aria, I’m very disappointed in you. Very. Disappointed.”

  “But Mom—”

  She was already moving, shaking her head as she crossed my little living room toward the door that led downstairs. I chased after her, but it was to no avail.

  “Good night, Aria,” she said without even turning around when she got to the bottom of the stairs. She opened the door, stepped outside, and immediately shut it behind her—right in my face.

  “Bye,” I said weakly to the closed door.