by Cora Wilkins
She’d dashed off for a quick nail appointment across the street at Mrs. Barnaby’s beauty parlor, and she’d completely missed Mr. Frobisher’s visit to the candy shop, much to her chagrin.
“Now, now, Kaye,” I replied. “You seem to keep forgetting that you’re married to Daniel.”
“Oh, hush. I’m allowed to look, as long as I don’t touch,” she said with a grin. “You know I love Daniel more than anything.”
“Of course,” I said. “Just teasing. Oh and speaking of Mr. Frobisher, I really must check the ingredients lists on all our products. Apparently he’s deathly allergic to red food dye number forty-two.”
“Hmm, okay. I’ll help you check that soon,” Kaye replied, before glancing at the shelves. “Oh, yuck. The jars need wiping. Covered in fingerprints from all the schoolkids again. Where’s that cloth I had earlier?”
Rosie appeared a second later, having overheard Kaye. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll wipe them all down.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” Kaye replied. “You’re the best.”
She busied herself making more coffee for the two of us while Rosie cleaned up, and then we sat and relaxed with our warm drinks, stretching our tired arms and legs after the big day. We’d had twice as many kids in today than we usually did for some reason, and after that we’d had a variety of other older customers, all happy to talk and share the latest gossip.
Most of the talk for the last few days had been centered around the annual Midsummer festival which was coming up on the weekend. It was set in the town center around the main gazebo in the park, and many small business owners would set up booths to display their wares, myself included. Kaye’s cousin Ben was a carpenter, and he’d put together a beautiful little stand for us, painted in striped pink and white to match the sweet, old-fashioned theme of our store.
By the gazebo in the main park, a local band would provide entertainment with live music for the adults to listen to, and there was plenty of other entertainment for the town’s children too – face painters, games, and even a small teacup ride. Contests were also a big attraction There were prizes to be won for baking, gardening and jam-making, and last year there had even been a pie-eating competition that a local boy had won after managing to eat three blueberry pies in the space of five minutes. Heck, he must have had hollow legs…I couldn’t imagine putting away even half a pie in such a short amount of time.
All in all, it was an event that couldn’t be missed, and many of the proceeds were donated to good causes like the York chapter of the New England Women’s Association and the local church.
“Well, I better be getting home,” Kaye said, taking her final sip of coffee. “I promised Dan I’d make his favorite for dinner. Chicken cacciatore.”
“Yum. All right. Rosie and I will close up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She waved and departed, and I leaned back and sighed contentedly as I surveyed the store. Life was good. The next few days would be busy, unpacking tomorrow’s delivery and getting ready for the festival, but overall everything was in perfect order. Little did I know how much things would change in our quaint little town in just a few days….
***
The next morning I arrived at the shop early again. Tuesdays and Wednesdays were usually quite slow for business, so Rosie and Kaye weren’t due to start until ten o’clock on either day, but I wanted to get a start on perfecting my new fudge recipe and possibly even try a new one.
I heard the bell chime at nine, and I wiped my hands and went to the counter, half expecting to see Deputy Ted waiting for his usual coffee and candy order. Instead I came face to face with a perfect stranger. Literally. The man was absolutely perfect. He had thick, wavy dark hair and mesmerizing blue eyes, and his lips quirked up into a smile as he saw me.
“Are you Anne?” he asked. I immediately recognized the deep voice from the phone conversation the other day. It was Chris Keller, the owner of Candyland.
“Yes. You must be Chris,” I said, hoping my cheeks hadn’t just turned twelve shades of red.
“Lovely to meet you,” he said, crossing the store and offering a hand to me. I took it and shook it, hoping I could pick my jaw up off the floor quickly enough to muster up a response.
“Er...you too,” I replied.
“Anyway, I’ve got a few boxes waiting in the van for you,” he said. “Just thought I’d come and introduce myself first. Your shop is lovely.”
“Thank you,” I said, my cheeks growing even warmer. He wasn’t just handsome and successful, he was kind too. “I’ll come help unload the boxes.”
“All right,” he said with a dazzling grin. “But it’s no trouble for me to do on my own if you’re too busy.”
“Oh, I insist,” I said, following him outside to the street where a silver van was parked on the curb. Kaye would be proud of me. I was vaguely flirting with a gorgeous man for the first time in…well, as long as I could remember.
“So,” he said, placing the last box out the back a few minutes later. “Have you lived here for long?”
“Sort of. I grew up here and then moved to Boston for a while, but I moved back here two years ago.”
“Not surprising. Looks like a nice place. And even if you miss the city, it’s only an hour away.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Well, I guess I better start unpacking.”
“Let me help,” he said. “After all, you helped me carry all this stuff in. It’s the least I can do.”
Really, he was going above and beyond his duties to help me, especially seeing as he was the owner of the wholesalers and just filling in for the usual delivery man. But I sure as heck wasn’t going to say no to spending a little more time with him. By ten o’clock, all the candy had been unpacked into various jars and cases, and Kaye and Rosie walked through the door a moment later, their eyes widening as they saw Chris.
“Who is that?” I saw Kaye mouth to me when his back was turned.
“Chris, this is Kaye and Rosie,” I said, directing his attention to them. “They help me run the store. Ladies, this is Chris Keller. He owns the confectionery wholesalers company that we get most of our sweets from.”
He turned and offered Rosie his hand and then Kaye too, and she smiled and threw a meaningful look at me as she shook it. “Lovely to meet you, Chris. You know, Anne is single.”
I was aghast. “Kaye!” I said, unable to believe she’d said something so brazen. She simply shrugged and grinned at me, and Chris returned the grin, seemingly unfazed by her obvious hint at setting us up. I crouched down and dipped my head below the counter to hide my flaming cheeks, pretending to have found a spot on the floor that desperately needed scrubbing.
“Well, Kaye, I just so happen to be single too,” he replied. “Now… I see Anne has suddenly vanished, but if you happen to find her, please tell her I’d love to see her again.”
Oh, heck. I stood up and faced the two of them again. “No, I’m here. And… I’d love to see you again too.”
I felt like I was all the way back in high school, sixteen again and getting embarrassed over a boy liking me. I was supposed to be past this stage years ago, but I supposed I was still young at heart. After all, it did take a certain type of person to want to run a candy store. Chris asked for my number before leaving the store, but not without waving goodbye and promising to call first.
“Kaye,” I hissed as she stood there with a smug, gloating smile. “I can’t believe you just did that!”
She laughed. “Oh, shush. I knew from the minute I walked in here that he was checking you out, so I thought I’d help speed things along. Don’t be mad.”
I shook my head with a rueful smile. I couldn’t be mad at her. We’d been friends for years, and she was just trying to help in her own way.
“It’s fine,” I replied. “But if he turns out to be some sort of crazy serial killer, I’m blaming you for getting me involved.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you think a man with a face like that could possibly be
a crazy killer?”
She waved her hands at me and made a clucking sound with her tongue as she wiped off the small tables near the window, and I returned to the kitchen, my stomach doing nervous flip-flops. Now I didn’t just have the festival to worry about, I also had my love life to worry about. What if Chris didn’t call? After all, he was a stunning hunk of a man. What could he possibly see in me?
I was snapped out of my reverie a few minutes later by the sound of an almighty ruckus from somewhere out the front of the store. I raced out to see Kaye and Rosie standing near the front window, their mouths hanging open in shock as they watched the scene unfold.
Mrs. Barnaby from the beauty parlor was standing on the street right outside the window, and she was clutching a bouquet of flowers and hitting Mr. Frobisher around the chest and stomach with it.
“You…you horrible man!” she said. “I thought…I just…”
Her words trailed off and she slammed the flowers into him one more time before throwing them down on the ground, and Mr. Frobisher knelt down and picked them up. “Wait,” he said. “Please, just let me explain, Cara.”
“Explain?” she said, crossing her arms. “Oh no, Frank. I don’t need an explanation. I know very well what kind of person you are now, and I want no part of it. Don’t ever call on me again, because I won’t answer my phone or door to you. And you can shove those flowers!”
Frank held his hands up in exasperation and then turned and walked away, and Mrs. Barnaby stormed into my shop a moment later, her hair mussed up and her eyes wild with anger. Her rage immediately turned to sadness as she saw our concerned expressions, and tears welled up in her brown eyes and spilled down her cheeks as she took a seat close to the counter.
“Mrs. Barnaby!” I said, dashing over to her. “Are you all right? Can I get you something?”
“Please, let me make you a cup of tea. On the house,” Kaye interjected.
Mrs. Barnaby sniffed and dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief. “Thank you, dearies. That would be lovely. I’m so sorry about causing a scene out there. Oh, I’ve made a complete fool of myself.”
“What happened?” Rosie asked, sitting down and squeezing her hand.
She sniffed again and then answered. “Well, you see, Frank has been here a few weeks now, and I met him on his first day. He asked me out to dinner, and we’ve been seeing each other quite a lot since then. I know it was fast, but I really felt something for him. He even showed me pictures of his grandchildren and talked about how much he’d love for me to meet them all. And then…”
She blew her nose on the handkerchief and then continued. “And then just this morning, I walked past Jerry’s Café and who do I see getting cozy in the corner? Him and Mrs. Lilley. They were holding hands, so it certainly wasn’t innocent. I marched right in there and gave him a piece of my mind, and he chased me out and tried to give me the flowers he’d obviously bought for her!”
Kaye clapped a hand to her mouth. “But Mrs. Lilley is married!”
“Oh, Mrs. Barnaby,” I said, rubbing her back. “I’m so sorry this happened. Some men are just like that.”
I was surprised. Mr. Frobisher had seemed so nice when I met him, but apparently he was quite the cad.
“I just don’t understand the way things seem to be these days,” Mrs. Barnaby said. “When I was younger, things were different. If you were seeing someone, then they were the only one. Nowadays it seems all anyone does is date around with a whole lot of people, all at the same time. It’s just cruel. I didn’t think I could be any more humiliated after Gerald left me, but this is somehow just as bad.”
Gerald was Mrs. Barnaby’s ex-husband who’d left her three years ago for his secretary. I hadn’t been in town when it happened, but I’d heard all about it. Apparently he’d taken off with the younger woman and moved to some tropical island, and Cara Barnaby had been left all alone. The poor woman. I wasn’t surprised she was so distraught. Being cheated on by her new beau was the last thing her self-esteem needed after everything she’d been through.
Not only that, as Kaye had said, Mrs. Lilley was married. Yet there she’d been, brazenly holding hands with Mr. Frobisher in the main street café! She obviously wasn’t too bothered with her husband finding out, but if and when he did, Mr. Frobisher would be most unpopular indeed. It would be yet another small-town scandal. Perhaps I’d been wrong about him fitting in here. He’d certainly been wonderfully nice to me, but he seemed to have already made an enemy in the few short weeks he’d been here. What on earth was he thinking?
***
Chris called me that evening, and my heart leaped into my mouth as he asked me to dinner on Thursday night.
“I’d love to,” I said, my heart aflutter. “Where should we go?”
“Well, seeing as you live in such a nice old town, I was thinking I’d drive out there again and we could go to wherever is your favorite. Nor very original of me, I know, but I figured you’d be most comfortable on your home turf.”
“Well, there’s a lovely French restaurant just off the main street,” I said. “It’s called Chez Pierre. Very nice food.”
“Sounds perfect. I love French food,” he replied. “Well, I’ll get their number and make a booking. Seven o’clock on Thursday sound good?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” I said, butterflies racing around my stomach. Seven o’clock was perfect. It gave me enough time to close the candy shop for the day and head home to get ready. I didn’t usually bother with much makeup or hair product, but for a first date I definitely wanted to, especially if I was going to be out with such a handsome man.
The next two days practically crawled by. We weren’t getting very many customers because most of the townspeople were saving their stomachs for all the treats the Midsummer festival would have to offer. I sent Rosie home early and closed up with Kaye, and she offered to come and help me get ready for my date.
“There’s leftover meatloaf in the fridge for Dan,” she said. “So I don’t need to worry about getting home and cooking dinner for him. How about I come home with you and help you pick out an outfit?”
“Sure,” I replied. “You’ll have to help me figure out something to do with my hair too. It’s been so frizzy lately. I don’t want to go to dinner looking like I’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge.”
We headed back to my place, and she rummaged through my wardrobe before emerging with a pile of dresses.
“Oh God,” I said, chewing on my lower lip as I inspected my pores closely in the mirror. “Maybe you should go for me. I’m too nervous!”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Now try something on!” she continued, handing me a lavender-colored silk dress that I hadn’t worn in years.
I slipped into it and showed her, and she shook her head. “It’s a bit see-through at the front, where your chest is.”
I grumbled as I looked in my mirror, realizing she was right. If only I were flat-chested; then the fabric wouldn’t stretch so much across my chest. We went through three more dresses until she tossed me a black one.
“Oh, not that one,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “I don’t think I’ve fitted into it for a good five years now.”
She pursed her lips. “Nonsense. You’re as slim as you were back in high school. Believe me, I’m envious! Just try it on. Little black dresses are perfect for first dates!”
I rolled my eyes and slipped into it, and surprisingly she was right. It still fit perfectly. It was quite snug around my waist and flared out around my hips and thighs, providing a lovely feminine silhouette, and I stared at my reflection with satisfaction and did a twirl. Kaye clapped her hands together.
“See, what did I tell you? It looks great!”
I turned my attention back to the mirror. I had to admit, it really did look rather nice. The dress hugged my figure in all the right places. I was pleased with what I saw, but I didn’t want to seem conceited.
“Are you sure?”
Kaye
rolled her eyes. “Absolutely, Anne. Now it’s time for the rest.”
She spent the next hour fussing over my hair and makeup, and by six-thirty I was all dressed up and ready to go. She’d dusted some light brown eyeshadow on my eyelids and put a coat of dark brown mascara on my lashes, and my lips were stained a deep pink. My chestnut hair hung around my face in soft tendrils, and she smiled gleefully as I slid into a pair of low black heels.
“You’ll be the talk of the town once everyone sees you looking like this,” she said, hazel eyes flashing with satisfaction. “I bet no one will even notice him with you around, despite how good-looking he is!”
I smiled back at her. It really was all quite exciting, getting ready to go on my first date in what felt like forever. I hadn’t been interested in meeting anyone new since my break-up with my ex-partner, but the giddiness in my stomach at the prospect of a potential new love interest made my heart soar.
Kaye left, and Chris arrived at ten to seven.
“You’re early,” I said, smiling as I slid into the passenger seat of his car.
“I like to be early,” he said with a grin. “My father always taught me that if you’re not ten minutes early, you’re late. You look great, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
Chez Pierre was looking wonderful as usual. It was beautifully decorated to look like an old French bistro, complete with damask wallpaper, pastel paintings hanging up, and candles on each table. The perfect romantic location. We ordered some red wine and starters, and we chatted as we waited for our food to arrive.
“So you said you used to live in Boston,” he said. “What was it you did there?”
“I used to be a paralegal,” I replied before smiling up at the young waitress pouring our wine.
“I bet you’ve seen a lot of interesting stuff, then,” he said.
I grinned. “I sure have. This one time, a man tried to petition the court to allow him to marry the tree in his backyard.”
“A tree?”
“Yes. It was encroaching on his neighbor’s yard, and the neighbor wanted part of it to be chopped down. So this man figured if he and his beloved tree were legally married, no one would be allowed to chop off any part of it.”