Beignets and Broomsticks

by J. R. Ripley

  ‘It’s going,’ she said just as enigmatically as she did every time I asked her.

  She watched in silence as I sliced and rolled out the blueberry beignet dough and dropped a trio of three-inch wide, quarter-inch thick squares into the fryer. The 370-degree cottonseed oil hissed and bubbled.

  In a minute, the beignets were golden brown and ready to serve. I scooped them out with the long-handled, stainless-steel skimmer ladle and set them on the draining tray for a minute before dusting them with powdered sugar. I’d learned that if you added the sugar too soon, it melted and disappeared.

  I grabbed a plastic serving tray from the stack at the edge of the counter. I plated the beignets and placed the tray on the counter between us. I added a couple of napkins and her coffee. ‘Here you go. Enjoy.’

  ‘I will.’ She paid in cash, dropping fifty cents into the tip jar beside the cash register. Then she quietly took her tray to the corner table against the window, angling herself in such a way as to get the best view of the busy street and keep the glare off the screen of her battleship-gray laptop.

  ‘Here.’ Kelly set a five-pound bag of waffle mix and a smaller bag of pearl sugar next to the waffle maker.

  ‘Thanks.’ I read over the instructions on the back of the bag and got busy. One way or another, for better or for worse, I was making waffles. ‘Hand me a mixing bowl, would you?’

  Kelly went to the back, returning with a mixing bowl and several sizes of spoons. Together we managed to quickly complete a batch of waffle mix.

  ‘Now all we have to do is wait for the waffle iron to heat up.’ I rubbed my hands in expectation.

  After several minutes, the iron chimed. Kelly raised the lid and I dolloped some thick waffle batter onto the hot plate. ‘OK.’ I licked my thumb, which had somehow gotten into the bowl.

  Kelly shut the lid slowly.

  I moved to the sink and started rinsing the mixing bowl and two of the spoons under warm water. I turned, my Pavlovian response to the tinkle of the leather belt of brass bells on the front door that announced the coming and going of customers.

  It wasn’t a customer. It was my employee, Aubrey. ‘Good morning!’ I waved a soapy hand and dried myself quickly with the end of my apron.

  A moment later, two men and a woman, all dressed for business, stepped inside and Kelly greeted them. She picked up a pencil and the order pad.

  Aubrey stepped behind the counter. I followed her to the storeroom, where she took off her light fleece jacket and hung it on the hook in the backroom next to mine. Though late October, and I’d heard there had been snow in Colorado, the temperatures in this part of Arizona were near perfect: highs in the seventies, lows in the forties.

  ‘What’s that chirping noise?’ Aubrey is a strawberry blonde with jade-green eyes. She’s a Table Rock native and still lives with her parents and brother in the house she was raised in. For a Table Rocker, she was relatively normal. Which, for a Table Rocker, was anything but normal.

  ‘We’re making real Belgian waffles,’ I explained.

  Aubrey grabbed a clean apron and we both returned to the front of the café.

  As we rounded the corner, Aubrey’s eyes grew wide. ‘What’s that doing here?’ Her eyes were on my Belle Époque copper and brass espresso machine.

  ‘You like it?’ I said from over the young woman’s shoulder.

  Aubrey stepped back, jostling me. ‘I don’t like it at all!’

  I frowned. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s cursed!’

  TWO

  ‘I’ve got three orders of beignets, two regular, one lemon!’ Kelly called, waving the ticket over her shoulder. ‘Two coffees, one cola!’

  The door opened and yet more customers filed in. I smiled at them, then turned and narrowed my eyes at Aubrey. ‘What do you mean, cursed?’ I demanded softly so as not to upset our customers.

  ‘I mean cursed. You want to get the beignets and I’ll get the drinks?’

  I nodded and went to the fryer, grabbing both regular and lemon-flavored dough as I moved.

  ‘Excuse me.’ One of the dark-suited men leaned over the glass divider, a troubled expression on his face. Businessmen were always pressed for time.

  ‘Your beignets will be up in a minute,’ I promised.

  ‘I think something’s burning.’

  I glanced at the deep fryer. Everything looked just perfect but the smell of something akin to burnt cake was unmistakable.

  He pointed behind me.

  The waffle iron was puffing out smoke like a steam locomotive climbing a steep Rocky Mountain pass.

  ‘Maggie!’ scolded Aubrey. She reached for the hot waffle iron and popped the lid. She grabbed a plastic fork and prodded the charred lump. Her eyebrows went up in a this is what you get for buying a cursed espresso machine manner.

  By the time I turned back to the fryer, the beignets were overcooked too. I sighed, fished them from the fryer and started over. The businessman, now joined by his two companions, looked meaningfully at his watch.

  Once their orders were ready, the three of them took up a table against the wall near the counter. While I prepared a dozen beignets to go for the next customer, I saw one of the two businessmen at the table lean toward Nancy. ‘Do I know you?’

  Nancy glanced up from her computer, her hands hovering over the keyboard. ‘No. I don’t think so.’ She turned her face back to the laptop, scooted her chair, angling herself further from the three, and resumed typing.

  The two men whispered between themselves while the woman, hair in a bun, dressed in business attire, blue jacket, matching skirt and pale pink blouse, sipped her soda.

  Several hushed words passed among them, and then the middle-aged man in the dark suit tapped Nancy on the arm. ‘Excuse me, but I’m sure I know you.’

  I bagged the dozen beignets, then sprinkled in a generous helping of powdered sugar. I rolled the top of the bag closed and gave it a good shake to make sure each beignet got a good coating of sugar.

  ‘I’m afraid you are mistaken,’ I heard Nancy say. She gently closed the lid of her laptop and stood. She grabbed her coffee and remaining beignet and tossed them in the trash.

  ‘Leaving already?’ I said.

  ‘Things to do,’ she replied vaguely, pulling her lips taut.

  ‘OK. Don’t forget to stop by tonight.’

  ‘Tonight?’ She propped the door open with her shoulder.

  ‘Halloween,’ I replied. ‘We’re going to be handing out special treats!’

  ‘Of course. Halloween.’

  I watched as she walked quickly across the street and disappeared through the street-level door leading to her third-floor apartment.

  It was the first time I’d seen her not finish her food.

  I couldn’t help noticing the two men and the woman watching her the whole time.

  Not more than a minute or two later, Nancy came down to the street once again with her bag slung over her shoulder. She glanced toward the café then climbed inside her ancient white Land Rover, which had been parallel parked on the street.

  The man whose approach Nancy had brusquely brushed off rose quickly and strode with determined long steps out the café and directly to her vehicle as she attempted to maneuver out of the tight space she was trapped in. He rapped on the window and she rolled it partially down. He gesticulated with his arms.

  I couldn’t hear Nancy’s reply, of course, but even from a distance I could see that she didn’t look happy. The man jumped into the road as Nancy stepped on the gas and drove off.

  The man, clearly agitated, returned to his companions. He was tall, with a shock of gray-black hair and sharp sideburns, a tanned complexion and a narrow nose and jaw, as if his face had been stretched too far. His dark eyes blazed. ‘She’s impossible,’ I heard him say.

  The three business people rose and left soon after, leaving their trash on the table. I couldn’t complain too much because they’d also left a three-dollar cash tip, which I added to the
tip jar for Aubrey and Kelly to split up later.

  Detective Highsmith came in right before closing. The café generally closes at three in the afternoon, although once I had come up with some successful savory beignet additions to the menu, I hoped to bring in enough business to justify staying open into the early evening hours. Kelly was already gone for the day but promised to be back before six o’clock that night.

  ‘Am I too late?’ The six-foot-plus brawny cop glanced at me and Kelly. His brown suit and tie were dull and ordinary, but his M&M-brown eyes were as scrumptious-looking as the candy-coated chocolate morsels.

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. A local artist had offered to transform the deli clock and sandwich menu board into a one-of-a-kind Maggie’s Beignet Café sign. Since he was offering to do it for free in exchange for allowing him to hang a half-dozen of his pieces on the café’s walls, I let him.

  The sign now read Maggie’s Beignet Café and pictured a highly stylized candy-red and teal-blue javelina’s head. Javelinas run wild in Arizona. They have long snouts and large heads. A typical adult has a thick coat of dark gray, bristly hair and a band of white hair around its neck. They have a noticeable mane of long, stiff hairs running down their backs from head to rump. The average adult male is four to five feet long and up to two feet tall, and weighs forty to sixty pounds.

  Javelinas travel in small herds of fifteen to twenty. They look scary but are relatively harmless. While they eat the occasional grub or insect, they, like my sister, are vegetarians.

  Javelinas also look similar to a wild boar or pig, and the tourists often mistake them for such, but they are unrelated. I’ve also been told they are quite tasty, but have no interest in testing the veracity of that claim.

  ‘Too late for what?’ I asked. I made a mental note to text Jakob. Jakob Waltz was the local artist who’d reimagined the sign and whose six paintings now hung in the café. Make that five. I’d sold one of his pieces, a multicolored, postmodern interpretation of the Verde River Valley, a few days ago to a tourist.

  Jakob had explained to me that he had sketched out the bones of the painting from the gondola of a hot-air balloon. It seemed the determined young man would do anything for his art.

  I needed to let Jakob know to come down to the café and pick up his check. He had offered to let me keep a percentage of each sale but I had refused. The life of an artist was hard. He deserved every penny for himself.

  ‘A couple dozen beignets,’ Table Rock’s lone detective explained. ‘I promised the guys at the station that I’d bring the treats this afternoon.’

  ‘What?’ I teased. He and I have a special relationship. ‘Are you expecting to confiscate less candy than usual from the little trick-or-treaters tonight?’

  ‘Ha ha. Very funny, Cueball,’ he teased.

  I colored.

  Highsmith plucked his wallet from the inside pocket of his sports coat. ‘Two dozen to go, Aubrey.’

  ‘Drinks with that?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah.’ He slapped his credit card on the counter and Aubrey ran it through the scanner.

  I took care of the order, happy to use up the rest of the regular beignet dough. I intended to switch over to pumpkin spice after that.

  The plan was to close, as usual, at three, then reopen at six p.m. It was a tradition for downtown Table Rock business owners to offer candy and other treats to the children on Halloween night. Now that I was a fully-fledged business owner celebrating my first Halloween, I intended to do the same.

  I’d hand out pumpkin spice beignets and gobs of candy from the big bags that Mom was generously providing. Donna and Andy would also be handing out sweets at Mother Earth/Father Sun, but I was convinced that trick-or-treating parents and children alike would prefer sugar-coated fried dough and sugar-filled candy to stuff made out of the tapioca syrup and rice starch in Donna’s kitchen.

  I dropped the filled beignet bags on the counter and turned to wash my hands. ‘Thanks again,’ I said, my back to him as I scrubbed the dough from beneath my fingernails. ‘Say hello to the men in blue for me and tell them that they and their families are all invited to come back this evening – and you too, if you want a free treat.’

  ‘Treat?’ the detective asked.

  I pushed the bulky espresso maker to the side to make some extra room on the counter.

  Aubrey explained, ‘We’re opening for Halloween. Treats for the kiddies. Parents, too. Anybody really. We’re going to wear costumes and everything. It’s going to truly, truly be a blast.’

  We had hung the Halloween decorations up a week ago – crepe paper pumpkins, spooks, goblins and witches. A black-and-orange Happy Halloween banner extended from one side of the café ceiling to the other. Cardboard tombstones with pithy inscriptions such as Paul Bearer, 1813–1842; Barry D. Alyve, 1794–1851 and Ricky D. Bones, Dates Unknown, sat in the front window.

  ‘Sounds good,’ Highsmith agreed. ‘But we have plans.’

  ‘We?’ I turned around. ‘You and VV?’ VV stood for Veronica Vargas. Considering VV’s looks, it could have stood for voluptuous vixen. From my personal experiences with the woman, I had the feeling it really stood for venomous viper.

  Mark Highsmith and VV were a thing, although every now and again I felt Highsmith and I could have a thing of our own.

  VV was everything I wasn’t: beautiful, cool, aloof, toney, tailored and trendy. She was also successful, with her own law practice in addition to being Table Rock’s prosecuting attorney. To rub more salt in the wound, her daddy was mayor of Table Rock.

  I could say that I didn’t see what Highsmith saw in her, but he saw what everyone else with one X and one Y chromosome saw: a woman to drool over.

  ‘That’s right,’ Highsmith said with a smile. ‘We’re taking part in the Haunted Halloween Hop.’

  I pulled my brows together. ‘What’s that?’ I asked as Aubrey locked the front door and turned the Open sign to Closed.

  Highsmith explained, ‘It’s Halloween for grownups.’ The way he was looking at me as he said grownups, I was getting the feeling he thought that let me off. ‘We go to seven different bars and brewpubs here in Table Rock, Cottonwood, then Jerome and over in Sedona, hear some ghost stories—’

  ‘And drink too much beer?’ I finished. I’d been to Jerome. The road to the town at the top of Cleopatra Hill was steep and twisty. Jerome was almost a mile high. If this Haunted Halloween Hop’s revelers weren’t extra careful, there might be some new ghosts born that night.

  ‘That’s right.’ When he smiled big like that, his dimples blossomed and the big galoot looked adorable. Not that I cared. ‘You should come. Bring a date. It’s fifty dollars a person and all the proceeds go to charity.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I wrapped my hands around the sides of the espresso maker. ‘But as you heard, I have plans of my own.’ Not to mention, fifty dollars per person was too steep for me. Nor did I have a date, let alone one willing to spend fifty dollars on me.

  ‘Will you be wearing costumes?’ inquired Aubrey.

  ‘Of course,’ replied the detective. ‘It’s Halloween. That’s the whole point.’

  ‘What are you going as?’ I asked.

  ‘A Victorian London bobby.’

  ‘Cute. Dare I ask what VV will be dressing up as?’ The Wicked Witch of the West was the first and best option that came to my mind.

  ‘A Victorian lady.’

  ‘Like Lady Audley?’ I quipped, in reference to a Victorian-era novel called Lady Audley’s Secret written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I had read the sensationalistic story in my downtime between clients while working as a hair stylist over in Phoenix. The lurid novel had made an impression on me.

  Thinking of VV in particular brought back memories of Lucy Graham, the bigamous ‘heroine’ who deserted her child, pushed her first husband down a well, considered poisoning husband number two, then set fire to the hotel where other male conquests were lodging.

  Veronica Vargas could star in the movie if they made a
modern film version.

  ‘Huh?’ He clearly had no idea what I was talking about. ‘I guess. If you say so.’

  I nodded. ‘I can see that.’ I hoisted the machine with a grunt and it tilted toward me, bumping me in the nose. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Here …’ Detective Highsmith leapt over the counter. Sheesh, the man had moves. ‘Let me help you with that, Maggie!’

  Still in shock from the alacrity of his actions, I stepped back and gladly released my grip on the heavy machine as he nudged into my side. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t mention—’ A string of cuss words followed while Highsmith grabbed his left foot with his right hand and did a dance across the narrow space behind the counter.

  I had dropped the espresso machine on his foot. ‘Are you OK?’ I gasped, reaching for his arm to steady him.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ He sounded pained, and no doubt he was.

  ‘Sit,’ I begged him. ‘I’ll get some ice.’ I pointed to Aubrey. ‘Get Detective Highsmith some ice from the freezer!’

  Aubrey hurried to the storeroom. As she did, I heard her whisper harshly in my direction. ‘Cursed. I told you, Maggie.’ Her eyes were on the fallen espresso maker. ‘That thing is truly, truly cursed!’

  THREE

  I looked for the third time at my reflection in the tall mirror in the small employee bathroom located in the café’s storage area. ‘What am I supposed to be?’

  ‘Don’t you get it?’ Aubrey brought her hands to her cheeks. ‘You’re Little Dead Riding Hood!’

  I frowned. ‘Little Dead Riding Hood? I thought you were going to make me a Little Bo Peep costume?’ I said over my shoulder. With my black, knee-length hooded cape, shredded black knee-length skirt, tattered black nylon hose and white peasant blouse and white apron, both spattered with fake blood, I looked like Little Red Riding Hood going through her Goth phase.

  ‘Oh, Maggie. That’s so boring. Trust me.’ She patted my shoulder. ‘This is so much better.’

  ‘Much more Halloween,’ agreed Kelly, looking quite as lovely as Aubrey.

  ‘Sure,’ I said gloomily. ‘That’s easy for you to say.’ I tugged at her sleeve. ‘You get to wear all this chiffon and makeup.’