Sugar and Spice

by Roxy Wynn

  “Come on, Chrissy. I bet you don’t get nearly as much dick as a girl like you needs.”

  “You don’t know what I need,” I snapped.

  When he tried grabbing me again, I pushed him much harder. This time he stumbled back and almost fell on his ass. Reaching into my purse, I grabbed my keys and jumped inside my car as fast as I could.

  “Fat bitch,” he bellowed at my closed door.

  I flipped him off with my left hand as I started the engine and put the car in drive with my right. For a moment, I contemplated hitting him with my car before peeling out, never to be seen again. But I had a business to run, and Sarah needed me.

  I took a deep breath before saying, “I just don’t see myself dating an accountant, you know?”

  She raised her eyebrows at me. “To be honest, we could use some help in the money department.” She gestured to the empty bakery that we had both dumped our life savings into.

  “I think we need to advertise better, or come up with some viral stunt or something to get our name out there,” I said.

  “You didn’t tell me he was a number cruncher though, we could use a guy like that. Maybe you should go out with him again, so we can get some free financial help.”

  “So, like… whore myself out for money advice?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re right, that’s an amazing idea.”

  While Sarah thought she was hilarious, I died a little inside.

  “Listen, Ruby’s will get there, I know it will. Your recipes are amazing, and our customers love us. We just need more of them. Maybe I should lay off the dating again and help you more with the business side of things.”

  “No way,” she said. “This was our agreement. You do kitchen stuff, I do business stuff.”

  “Sarah, I love you, but raising a kid and dealing with a business that isn’t doing all that well has to be super hard. I don’t mind putting in extra time here. In fact, I would love to do it if it means we see some return on investment.”

  “We aren’t doing that bad though,” she countered. “Most restaurants fail in the first year, and we’re still here. And besides, this whole street is being gentrified. The rich yuppies are out there, and they want real butter croissants.”

  I watched a trio of women with fanny packs power walking past the window. They slowed slightly when the smell of vanilla and yeast hit them, but ultimately kept moving.

  “I don’t know, I think rich yuppies really want healthy, allergen free things,” I said.

  We both shuddered at the thought.

  While Sarah went back to our cinnamon roll, I walked to the window to watch the women power walking away. We need those women inside and buying stuff. But the question was, how could we entice them to come over to the dark side and ditch their stupid diets?

  Whether Sarah liked it or not, I decided that dating was no longer on the menu. No more men for me for the time being. At least until business got better.

  Or I ran out of batteries again.

  Chapter Three

  Jax

  “If I have to run this scene with you one more fucking time I will lose my shit,” I whispered to Melody. From the bloodshot eyes and the way she couldn’t say three simple lines, I knew she was high.

  Again.

  We were so close to completing the scene where our characters, former lovers, argued in a swamp. Two normal actors could have completed it in an hour, but here we were, two days later, up to our knees in stagnant water.

  Sometimes I hate my job.

  Back when our show first aired, Melody was a polite, professional young actress. Six years and a heap of publicity later and the woman that stood before me had become a cocaine fueled party machine.

  I can’t stand that shit.

  It’s one thing to ruin your own life, but when you’re high every day, it effect everyone around you. Especially in show business where there were countless people behind the scenes working their asses off to make sure you looked good.

  I took a deep breath before yelling to the crew, “All right, let’s try this one more time.” I glared at Melody, “But that’s it, if you fuck this up I’m leaving.”

  The director, Jake, and I locked eyes. In the two weeks we had been shooting this episode, he had started letting me take over. Directing a show with a revolving door of creative minds behind it was hard, and Jake was green. He needed all the help he could get.

  I would never receive a directorial credit, but it was worth it to wrap this whole charade up.

  Today’s brief outburst of bad attitude from the cast and crew could almost be forgiven considering we recently got word that our show, Dark Night, was not being renewed for season seven.

  The decision was a long time coming. In this business, if they don’t announce your next season right away, odds are it won’t happen. While it upset most of the cast and crew to lear, they would soon be unemployed, I couldn’t be happier.

  Melody winked at me before flipping me off, and demanding a cut, so she could get a break. I stood there helpless as she climbed out of the swamp and a P.A. wrapped her in a robe. She wasn’t even off set before she lit a cigarette and tossed the match on to the ground.

  Am I the only fucking professional around here?

  No wonder they canceled us.

  Her mouth said ‘lunch’ but her blood-shot eyes said ‘I need another fix’. Instead of arguing, Jake relented and called lunch. He gave me a shrug of the shoulders as if to say hey, we tried it your way.

  “Fuck this then, I’ll be in my trailer” I said, jumping out of the water and storming from the set. My P.A. ran over with my robe, but I brushed her aside and kept walking until I was outside in the oppressive Louisiana summer.

  Our personal trailers were located just outside the large warehouse set, but I broke into a jog. In this heat, my white latex body paint would melt off if I didn’t get to my air-conditioned trailer as soon as fucking possible. And I did not want to sit in makeup for another 45 minutes waiting for touch-ups when lunch was over.

  When I opened the trailer door, my phone was flashing on the dining table. I grabbed an ice-cold beer from the mini fridge and carefully sat down on the couch, back stiff, so as not to smear. When I saw the name Alex on the screen, I was elated.

  We had been looking for investment opportunities in the area and had recently stumbled onto a building that might fit the bill.

  The plan was to find a large warehouse that we could convert to a retail/residential situation in an up-and-coming part of town. Something with pricey condos on the top floors that overlooked the city, and a high end brew pub on the ground level.

  Alex and I both loved beer, and I had a shitload of money, so why not invest in something that would make us even richer while we were having fun?

  Alex: I did more digging into that building in Mont Clare. The current owners are highly motivated to sell.

  This was amazing news.

  Me: Really? That’s great. Should I go check it out?

  Alex: Yeah, it 8122 Mississippi Ave. Just give it a look. Check the neighborhood. That kind of stuff. But don’t let the owners know who you are, we don’t want them raising the price if they know some Hollywood hotshot is looking to invest.

  Me: Good point. I’ll see if make-up can loan me a disguise.

  I put my phone back on the table. If we scored this building, I would never have to act on another shitty T.V. show again. Instead, I could focus on indie movies and passion projects. Hell, maybe one day I would direct something of my own. Take that, Jerry!

  Vampires are cool and all, but the trend was definitely on its way out. From Twilight to True Blood, our show came in at the tail end of an already fading market. I don’t know how we stayed on air for so long. The writing is bad, and some of the acting is even worse.

  Not my acting, of course, mainly Melody’s.

  I’m convinced people are still watching solely to see what will happen to my character, Drake. He was the vampire that every
guy wanted to be, and every woman wanted to fuck.

  When I took this gig, my trainer put me on a very strict diet of protein shakes and boiled chicken to bulk up. At first having to spend all that time in the gym was torture, but over the years it started to grow on me. I liked what I saw when I flexed in the mirror now, and the women liked it even more.

  Not that I’m ashamed of my roots. Without this show, I would not be the star I am today. I appreciate the work I have gotten since getting cast, I just miss living a normal life sometimes.

  You know, the kind paparazzi don’t follow around screaming at? I miss being able to go to the grocery store to buy eggs without it being all over TMZ.

  After I finished my beer, I headed back to set in the hopes Jake could be persuaded into pushing through to a different scene, or removing Melody from this one.

  Hell, we could even wrap up the show completely for all I cared. But when I got there, everyone was wrapping up anyway.

  “Sorry Jax,” Jake said. He had placed one of his hands on my arm before realizing I was still covered in white makeup.

  “Apparently, Melody decided she was done today.”

  We both looked over to the makeup chairs where someone was removing Melody’s wig. She appeared to be passed out already.

  “That must be nice.”

  “We’ll get back to it in the morning,” he said, wiping his hand on his pants. “Hopefully she’ll dry out between now and then.”

  I wouldn’t count on it.

  “Sounds good, boss.”

  Works for me since I had a building to scout out.

  When I reached the makeup department, the small team of women immediately started wiping the body paint from my face and chest while I removed the silver contacts from my eyes.

  Due to viewer demand, Drake hadn’t worn a shirt in a Dark Night episode in almost four seasons. And the makeup department was not shy about the fact that they got to rub me down every day.

  “Looking sharp today, Jaxon,” one of the older women said. She had to stand on a chair to reach my face because at 6’3”, few women reached my eye level.

  “I’m a handsome bastard every day, Amelia. Why don’t we just cut the bullshit and go out once and for all?”

  It was our little joke. Every day she shamelessly flirted with me, even though we both knew she was happily married.

  “If I was thirty years younger, I would have you eating out of the palm of my hand,” she giggled.

  In response, I pretended to nip at her fingers when she wiped the area around my mouth.

  As I popped the tiny silver contact out of my left eye in front of the large mirror, I noticed our special effects makeup guy, Gene, leaning against a wall in the corner fucking around on his phone.

  I knew that over the next few weeks, our best crew members would quit for other projects, leaving us to film the remainder of the season with the worst of the worst.

  Gene was one of my favorites, I would be sad to see him go.

  “Hey man, I want to go out into the real world without being discovered, do you have any disguises I can wear?”

  “You mean like a wig or something?” Gene was always up for a challenge.

  “Yeah, or like a beard or something. I just want to look like a normal guy.”

  He assessed my shirtless chest and raised his eyebrows as if wondering how he would transform my pecs into something that resembled a dad bod.

  He stood thinking for a moment, looking me up and down and nodding. “Can do Jax,” he said, turning to grab his tackle box of supplies.

  When he was finished, I took in my fresh look in the floor to ceiling mirror.

  “Gene, you are a fucking magician!”

  It only took fifteen minutes, but what he did was nothing short of magical. My short blonde hair had been covered by a slightly darker brown wig, and my clean-shaven face now had a healthy amount of stubble. Some brown contacts covered my baby blues, and I was ready to hit the town.

  I had to talk him out of giving me an eye patch and a gold tooth, but that was par for the course with Gene. Glancing in the mirror, I still looked like me, but with a beard and a lumberjack feel instead of my typical movie star look.

  I looked good.

  Normal.

  Well… jacked normal, but normal.

  That and a baseball cap should be enough to get me to Mississippi Ave and back without being followed.

  At least I hoped it would.

  Chapter Four

  Chrissy

  “Hey, you can go home early if you want. It’s pretty dead,” I said to Sarah. There hadn’t been a customer in the bakery for almost an hour at that point, and we had been using our phones to pass the time.

  While I messed around on Reddit, Sarah stuck to her parenting blogs.

  Most days we had three major rushes. The before work crowd, who came in for coffee and bran muffins. The lunch crowd, who bought most of the sandwiches and pastries. And the late afternoon ‘I just need a little something sweet’ crowd.

  Lunchtime was by far the busiest time of day. From loaves of bread, to croissants, to the cute little sack lunches we offered, complete with an apple and a cookie. Lunch was where we made our bread and butter, so to speak.

  The late afternoon crowd was hit or miss, and today I thought we might be heading toward a miss.

  “You sure?” She asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll close up today. You’ll just owe me one.”

  She smiled at me as she grabbed her bag. “All right, but I’m not owing you shit. You love me, and you know it. Also, Bailey wants a mom who can play with him outside in the sun. As his favorite Auntie, it’s your duty to help. It takes a village.”

  “Don’t give me that ‘it takes a village’ bullshit,” I laughed. “Stop reading mommy blogs and please go back to being a normal human being. I miss my weird best friend.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do? Sell him? Sure, he might still shit his pants on occasion, but I enjoy having the little bastard around. And I think you do too.”

  I hated to admit it, but she had a point. I was almost as in love with her three-year-old son as she was. He was an even tinier version of her, full of attitude and love.

  On days like today, when there were more employees in the bakery than customers, letting her leave early was the right thing to do.

  Of course, as soon as she skipped out the door, a crowd of soccer moms poured in with their kids.

  Ugh, if only I had waited five more minutes…

  For the most part, I loved the visit from the late afternoon mommy groups. They didn’t come in every afternoon, but at least twice a week they showed up in droves and filled the bakery with tiny people on the lookout for sugar.

  The moms were happy to let their kids get hopped up on the sweet stuff before letting them run themselves ragged at the park two blocks away. While the kids went crazy, the moms were free to enjoy their lattes in peace. On more than one occasion, I even noticed small bottles of Baileys in diaper bags, ready to pour into said lattes.

  Those were my kind of moms.

  Of course, every group had an outcast, and today that outcast was ‘Karen’.

  I recognized her type the moment she stepped foot inside Ruby’s. Karen was the kind of person who talked too loud and complained, as if the rest of the world should care.

  Both the kids and other moms ignored her as she shifted her weight from side to side complaining. She filled her entire five minute wait with classics such as “God, why is this taking so long,” and “I can make a latte faster than that.”

  I would love to see you try, bitch.

  When it was her turn to approach my counter, and the last of the actual mommies filed out into their sun-filled days, I applied my best customer services face and smiled.

  “Hi, what can I get for…”

  “Vegan scone and black coffee,” she demanded without looking at me, but at her cell phone. Not one to take rudeness lightly, I could tell this was about to get inte
resting. Luckily there was only one other person in line, so if I lost my cool, at least the business damage would be minimal.

  “I’m sorry ma’am, we don’t carry vegan scones, but the coffee I can definitely get you.”

  “You don’t have vegan scones?” Her eyebrows raised, and for the first time she made eye contact. I had a feeling this was a question she already knew the answer to, but played along anyway.

  “Don’t you serve anything healthy here?”

  “Well, we have fresh made pastries using European butter and real sugar instead of high fructose…”

  She cut me off again by waving her poorly manicured finger in my face, “I’m sorry, but butter is not healthy. You need to tell your manager to get with the times and serve food that won’t give your customers a heart attack.” When she said this last bit, she eyed me up and down.

  I felt the blood rising to my face, but I decided to kill her with kindness.

  Instead of my fists.

  “So, just the coffee then?”

  “Fine.”

  She tossed her credit card on the counter instead of waiting for a total like any sane person would. I contemplated running it, but at the last minute handed her card back, and gave her the coffee on the house. God willing, I knew she would never step foot in Ruby’s again. At least if she blabbed to her friends about it and mentioned free coffee, maybe that would draw in customers.

  I also accidentally on purpose give her decaf instead of regular.

  She took her cup and stormed to the entrance where we kept the cream and sugar. I watched as she picked up the container of cream and shook it.

  “This is empty,” she said with disdain before marching out the door. If she was any other customer, I would have handed her the fresh container I had in the fridge. But I knew that wouldn’t make her happy. People like her will find a way to complain about everything.

  My one remaining customer laughed out loud. “Didn’t she say she was vegan?” He asked, eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah, apparently cream is a health food but butter will give you a heart attack.”