by Ani Gonzalez
Steadily, unrelentingly, the routine had broken down. A missed appointment here, a lost key over there, a forgotten name...It was normal, she told herself, natural even. Her father was aging and a little absentmindedness was only to be expected.
Totally normal.
But Dr. Lebensburg, the local M.D. and the director of the Banshee Creek Emergency Clinic, disagreed. She recommended that they visit a specialist. So they did, heading to the local INOVA health center and waiting in the sterile waiting room for the dreaded diagnosis: early Alzheimer's. Nothing to worry about, the doctor said. It would be years before the disease manifested fully, he said.
But Patricia barely heard. The words had been buzzing around her head, "steady degeneration," "forgetfulness," and, of course, the real kicker "condition will worsen as time goes by."
"He was coming to open the bakery," Laurie said, sipping her tea. "I explained that I had it all under control and he went back home. I guess you asked both of us to help out."
Patricia frowned. She didn't recall asking her father for help. Was this her dad's way of asking for attention, or was it the disease running its course? She would visit him this evening and make sure everything was okay.
"Thanks for helping out this morning," she told Laurie. "That...errand took longer than I expected."
She hadn't told anyone about her bid for the Rosemoor. She didn't know exactly why, but she didn't want it to be general knowledge. It was her business and no one else's.
"No problem. I love to help out. It helps me procrastinate."
Laurie grabbed the teacup, crossed the bakery and sat down at a white table by the front bay window. It was the best seat in the house and Laurie arrived early in the morning every weekday to claim it. As soon as Patricia opened the bakery, Laurie arrived, plopped her laptop on the table, took her Banshee Creek Bakery Unlimited Refills Card out and asked for hot Earl Grey Tea. Then she headed for the window table and occupied it throughout the day, consuming bucket loads of tea and free wi-fi.
She was Patricia's most loyal and least profitable customer.
And Laurie realized it, which is why she sometimes helped out when Patricia had an emergency. She knew how to operate the donut machine, could frost Yeti Frozen Cupcakes like nobody's business and didn't mind opening the bakery when Patricia had a conflict, such as a filing deadline with the Historical Preservation Committee. Although Laurie was rather secretive about whatever it was that she did on the computer all day, Patricia didn't mind. The whole services in exchange for free office space trade worked out well and she didn't want to rock the boat. She was much nicer than that Brit witch Zach hired for the pizzeria, the one who'd criticized Patricia's orange marmalade scones. That girl was a menace to society. Laurie, on the other hand, was a godsend.
"Errand?" the godsend asked, archly. "Is that what we call rescuing gorgeous, half-naked men from dicey situations? I wish I had errands like that."
Patricia blushed as she recalled Zach's muscular body, lying on the floor. The Banshee Creek grapevine had understated the situation. Half-naked? No, Zach had been completely naked.
Laurie gave her a reproachful glance. "You could have taken pictures you know."
"Are you crazy?" Patricia replied, genuinely scandalized. She hastily grabbed a dishcloth and used it to clean a couple of crumbs off the counter. She was an upstanding small business owner and definitely wasn't the kind of person who took pictures of naked men.
"Why not?" Laurie asked, as if naked-guy pictures were the most natural thing in the world. "He's a bona fide, no-Photoshop-needed, hottie."
Patricia ignored her, focusing on wiping off a particularly tricky piece of fudge. Zach was extremely good-looking and Laurie wasn't the only woman in town who'd noticed. The Zach Franco fan club did not lack for members.
But she was definitely not joining the club. Sure, she wasn't entirely immune to Zach's charm. Who was? It wasn't just his looks. He was smart and creative, not to mention strong. It took serious guts -- or cojones, as Zach would put it -- to recover from that kind of accident. The physical recovery was the easy part. Losing your career, your dream, your life...
That was the really hard part.
She knew that very well. But Zach had moved on. He'd taken over his family's pizzeria and turned it into a thriving business, which was no mean feat in Banshee Creek. She respected Zach immensely.
But that didn't mean she was blind to his faults. He was too wild and undisciplined and far too much fun.
"I hear he's got scars though," Laurie continued. "From that motorcycle accident. Brenda says they're kind of sexy."
Brenda? Patricia had to admit that she was curious about Zach's tormentor. Zach was a pro at handling girls. How did the relationship with Brenda end up in chains and pentagrams?
"You know her?" she asked. "The girlfriend who chained him up?"
"Ex-girlfriend," Laurie corrected her, and pointed at her computer screen. "She just posted a relationship status update announcing that she and Zach have broken up because he was always tied up with something." She shook her head mournfully. "But she didn't post any pictures. I don't get it, why go through the trouble of staging an epic breakup and not even document it?"
Patricia opened her mouth to ask another question, but the door opened and a group of amateur ghost hunters entered the bakery. They all wore identical leather jackets that identified them as the Lancaster Para-Inquisitors. She had to hand it to them, that was an original name. The hooded figure in their logo wasn't bad either.
She turned to attend to her leather-clad, rainbow-haired, multi-tattooed customers. They were tired and hungry, which was very good for business. She smiled and dished out bourbon-glazed apple cider donuts and hot chocolate with ghost-shaped marshmallows. As she did so, she noticed they were all carrying plastic bags filled with Pepe's Pizza merchandise.
She made a mental note to order some t-shirts made. Her chubby ghost logo was much more attractive than Zach's slasher pizza monstrosity.
A red-haired girl with heavily-kohled eyes noticed Laurie sitting in the corner.
"Do I know you?" she asked.
Laurie smiled nervously. "I don't think so..."
The redhead frowned. "You look very familiar. Are you with the Stranton Spook Squad?"
Laurie shook her head, looking panicky. "Nope. I'm just a local."
Her companion, a young man with tortoise-shell spectacles and a purple bow-tie, leaned forward, staring at Laurie as if she were a rare species of newt.
"You live here?" he asked. "In one of the haunted houses?"
Laurie nodded, looking marginally less nervous.
"Duh," the redhead interrupted. "Of course. All the houses are haunted, dumbass. That's the point."
The young man ignored her. "So, what's it like?" he asked Laurie. "You know, living in a haunted house? We stayed at one last night. It was really cool. Courtney here," he pointed at the redhead, "saw the blood stains and everything."
Courtney rolled her eyes. "Get your terminology straight, dude. The Hagen House is not haunted. It's cursed. The owner can't sell it because of the curse so he's renting it out to paranormal investigators."
"Whatever," Bowtie Guy replied. "It was really cool. So," he turned back to Laurie, "what's it like to live in one year-round?"
Laurie shrugged. "It's cheap."
Patricia covered her mouth, trying not to laugh. The ghost hunters looked disappointed, but Laurie was just being truthful. The tourists loved all the ghost stuff, but the locals were mainly interested in the dirt-cheap rents. Nothing said affordable housing like a townhouse listing that boasted "great fixer-upper, slightly haunted."
The young man took out a map. "Which one is yours?" he asked.
Laurie glanced at the map and pointed at her house. The young man peered at the description.
"A poltergeist," he concluded. "Just like the pizzeria and the bar. It throws things around."
"Actually," Courtney corrected him, "the bar's spirit is k
nown as a lithobolia, one of the earliest and most primitive telekinetic phenomena. It was first identified in the seventeenth century and it can make the walls of the bar tremble. The pizzeria's spirit is only from the nineteen fifties and all it's ever done is throw cans of tomato sauce on the floor. I mean, they nicknamed it Pepe so how scary can it be?" She turned toward Laurie. "I saw your place in House Haunters. Your poltergeist is electric, right?"
Laurie nodded.
"Electrogeist," Courtney breathed. "Like the one in the big purple mansion. And the bakery has a brownie?" She looked at Patricia, her eyes sharp.
"Yes," Patricia admitted. She pointed at a pair of bowls on the floor next to the door. "I set out milk and biscuits every day to keep it happy. The original owner gave the recipe for the biscuits to my parents when they bought the place."
"What happens if you don't put out the biscuits?"
"Nothing much," Patricia replied. "The oven goes a little haywire but that's it."
This was a bit of an understatement. Skeptical about the virtues of the magic biscuit recipe, she once decided to add chocolate chips and turn it into a sweet scone. The results were disastrous. Her brand new oven burnt three dozen oatmeal cookies and twelve red velvet cakes. After three electricians failed to find anything wrong with the oven, she went back to the original biscuit recipe. To her relief, the oven started working again. She still didn't believe in the bakery brownie, but she put out the biscuits religiously.
But the girl's statement made her uneasy. The Rosemoor had a, what did she call it...electrogeist? That, she had to admit, sounded much more intimidating than a humble brownie.
Courtney sighed. "You're so lucky. This is such a cool place." She sipped her hot chocolate with undisguised enjoyment.
The young man with the bow tie smiled. "We definitely have to come back for the Valentine's Day Ball. I hear it's going to be awesome."
"Absolutely," Patricia agreed. She had no clue what this Valentine's Day Ball thing was, but if it brought tourists to the town, she was all for it.
"I look forward to it," Courtney said, glancing down at her hot chocolate. Patricia had invested in old-fashioned diner mugs with the bakery's ghost logo and the legend "Banshee Creek Bakery, Cakes so good, they're SPOOKY!" Courtney seemed to be impressed.
"But in the meantime," Courtney continued. "I'd like to have a souvenir. Do you, by any chance, have mugs for sale?"
Patricia smiled, quickly calculating the cost of her mugs, the shipping fees and a reasonable profit margin.
"Sure," she said. "Let me ring that up for you."
CHAPTER SIX
"WHAT DO you mean there's no numbers?" Zach shouted into the phone. It was evening, and the pizzeria was almost full, a miracle for a January Saturday night. "I have a band coming. I need to put in supplies and hire extra staff. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get employees to show up on Valentine's Day?"
Sarah's head jerked and she turned and stared at him. Did she have plans for Valentine's Day? Well, too bad. He focused on trying to get some information out of Elizabeth Hunt. Unfortunately, all he got was a bunch of lame excuses.
"I'm sorry, Zach," she said, sounding perfectly sincere. "I don't know anything. They're going to have a town meeting to explain."
Zach frowned at the phone. Elizabeth was an actress and was known for her flexible attitudes toward truth-telling.
"They're really excited," she continued. "They think they've hit upon a brilliant idea."
"They always think that," Zach replied, annoyed. "It isn't always the case."
The Historical Preservation Committee was stuffed with old fogies several decades, if not centuries, behind the times. Their knowledge of eighteenth century brickwork was as deep as their ignorance about basic business principles, like planning and budgeting.
Elizabeth apologized a few more times, then hung up, and Zach pocketed his phone trying not to picture a catastrophic holiday weekend with insufficient supplies and a staff shortage. What the hell was this Valentine's Day Ball going to be? It could be a huge party, like the annual Halloween Costume Party, which routinely broke its own Guinness record, or it could be one of the small events that got filmed and uploaded onto PRoVE's YouTube channel. A party would bring in more customers, which he needed to get ready for. A reality show episode, however, would require almost no preparation.
So, which one was it? And would he find out in time?
The uncertainty did not help his already foul mood. Sarah was already sidling up to him. She probably wanted to find out if she would be stuck working during romance D-Day. Maybe he could send her to the Historical Preservation nut cases to find out. The old biddies would just love her sarcastic temperament. Maybe they'd give her an answer just to make her go away.
"What do you want?" he asked. His restaurant manager looked surprisingly cheerful for someone who would have to work a holiday weekend.
"We're bringing in a band?" she asked, a broad smile crossing her face.
Zach nodded, wondering why she seemed so happy.
"I thought we weren't doing that," she said, eyes sparkling with uncharacteristic excitement. "The first thing I thought when I came in was that we should have live music. It's a total no-brainer. But everyone shushed me."
Zach stared at her, confused. What the hell was she talking about? They didn't have live music because...well, they just didn't. But what did she mean by "everyone"?
"You can't do that, dude," she said, mimicking an American accent. "That's what they all told me. Zach used to play in a band and he was real good and almost made it to the big time before the super-tragic motorcycle thingie. We don't do any music stuff. We don't even mention it."
"Sarah." The name was a loud hiss behind him and he turned around to see Patricia standing there, looking horrified. What the hell was she doing here? Well, at least he'd identified one of the members of the "everyone" gang.
"Don't 'Sarah' me, baker girl," his business manager replied. "You guys are all tiptoeing around him and it's totally daft."
Zach had to agree with her. The thought that his friends had...He couldn't even put it into words.
"It is not," Patricia countered, eyes flashing. "You've been here, what, a couple of months? You don't understand--"
"Stay out of this, Patricia," Zach interjected. The last thing he needed was another fight between the town baker and his restaurant manager. The wounds of SconeGate were still fresh.
"Go check on the icebox tiramisú cakes, Sarah," he ordered. "The guys got a little distracted today and I think some of them melted. You may have to pour some chocolate sauce on them."
Sarah glared at him but complied.
Patricia turned to him, a worried look on her face. She was dressed in her standard puffy coat and hat, but her eyes were anxious.
And that made him angry. He didn't need anyone's pity, and he especially didn't need Patricia's sympathy.
"Is Sarah right?" he asked. "Have you all been handling me with kid gloves?"
Patricia cast a guilty look to the floor.
"Caine has bands play at his place regularly," she said quietly. "Those guys rely on the income from the bar."
Zach nodded, jaw clenched.
"But he's remodeling this spring. He wanted to ask you to host the bands, and asked around to see if people thought it would be a good idea. He finally decided..."
She paused, looking into his eyes.
"Will you stop glaring at me," she demanded. "We're just trying to help."
"Really?" he snarled. "Forgive me for being a bit skeptical about the motives of the person who left me shackled to a wall this morning."
Patricia straightened, readying for a fight. "Well, I wasn't the one who chained you up, was I?"
He stiffened. That hit a bit too close to home. He fought to rein in his temper. Last night wasn't Patricia's fault. It wasn't even Brenda's fault.
It was his fault.
Patricia's little sabotage was actually rather interesting. Wh
o would've thought that she had it in her? Certainly not him.
"Touché." He sighed and raised his hand in a placating gesture. "But you didn't drop by to discuss my business or my extracurricular activities. What do you want, Patricia?"
But Patricia didn't relax, if anything her gaze grew even more troubled.
"Actually." She wrung her hands together. "I was wondering if you'd seen my father today."
"Tom?" He couldn't hide the surprise in his voice. Patricia's dad was as rule-bound and punctual as Patricia herself. His schedule was precise and unchanging. Right about now he should be home, logging into that weird chess web forum that he and Zach's dad loved so much.
"Yeah, he's not home," she replied, brow furrowed. "His housekeeper made him dinner, but he didn't touch it. I was hoping he'd be here with your parents." She looked around the restaurant, searching.
Zach's anger melted away. Family responsibilities sucked, he knew that very well, and Patricia, unfortunately, had a big one right now. He'd heard about Tom O'Dare's diagnosis from his parents. It wasn't too bad right now, but it was going to get worse.
Or maybe it already was worse. "You should get in touch with Fire & Rescue."
Patricia jerked, alarmed, and Zach immediately felt guilty. He shouldn't have been so abrupt. She looked scared.
"Let me make a couple of calls first," he amended, taking out his phone and dialing.
Patricia nodded, and she waited, rocking back and forth on the heels of her rubber duck boots with her hands stuck in her pockets. She didn't look like a confident business woman right now. She was just a vulnerable young woman worried about her dad.
His call was picked up. After a short conversation, he turned back to Patricia.
"Good news," he said. "Your dad is at my house having dinner. He's been there for about an hour."
Patricia's smile lit up the room. Her relief was clear and he decided not to tell her that Tom had shown up at the Franco home uninvited and unannounced. He'd left his coat at home and seemed, according to Zach's mom, to be uncertain as to today's date.
"Of course he is," Patricia said happily. "He must have forgotten to tell me."