Dinner flew by. We laughed and joked. The meal tasted delicious, but I let the waiter pack half of it up for later. I was having too much fun to overeat. I felt sexy in my black dress, and I didn’t want to get all full and bloated. Who knew where the date was going to take us?
“So how is your fish?” I asked DC. On our last date that got interrupted, he’d invited me back to his place to see his new fish.
“Dead.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said. The conversation hadn’t taken the sexy turn I’d hoped for.
“They gave me a store credit for him since he didn’t last long. I’d like to think he had a good life,” DC said.
All I could do was nod. I wasn’t sure how serious DC was. The man’s moods were still a mystery to me. Except his anger. That one was easy to figure out.
“But I have a new little guy I named Ted,” DC said.
I laughed. “You named your fish?”
“It made him seem more pet-like,” DC said laughing at himself.
“I have some chocolate cake at my place if you’d like to see Ted, and have dessert there. Maybe we can even watch some TV or a movie,” he said. “For the first time in ages, I don’t have to work tomorrow. How about you?”
“We won’t start prepping for our new catering gig until next week, so no work for me.”
DC paid the check, and we got up.
“You just got back and already have a new gig. That’s great. Where’s it at?” he asked.
“It’s this record release party,” I said. I didn’t really want to think about my ex right now. The date was going so well.
“You don’t sound that enthused,” he said. “No ‘case’ attached to this one, huh?”
“There’s a case, but it’s no big deal.”
“What kind of case?”
I exhaled. DC didn’t like us messing around with police business. “Robert’s manager already called the police,” I assured him. “Us being there to cater the party is just to quell rumors about me and tamp down any bad press for the band.”
I really didn’t want to fight about us taking on cases—especially this one.
“Wait!” DC said and stopped walking. “Robert who?”
“Robert Conway, my ex. He’s been getting—”
“You’re going to work for your ex. I thought that was over,” DC said, his anger not a mystery at all.
“It is over,” I said.
DC shook his head. “He wants you back.”
“I assure you he doesn’t,” I said. “You don’t need to worry.”
“You say that like it’s his choice.”
“You are being ridiculous!”
DC shook his head and started back for his truck. I followed him. When we got to the truck, he opened my door for me, but he didn’t wait for me to get inside. He walked to his side of the truck as I closed my own door and buckled up my seatbelt. He didn’t look at me when he climbed into the driver’s seat and fastened his seat belt.
I wanted to talk this out even though altercations weren’t my strong suit. “Listen—”
“You know,” he interrupted.
I hoped he was going to say something to help us move toward a resolution or at least start a discussion. But instead he said, “I’m not in the mood for dessert. How about I just take you home?”
Seriously? Looking back I know I should have said something, like how the two of us needed to talk it over. But in that moment I was so mad. We were having the greatest time. He had the night off. He’d offered to introduce me to his pet fish and have chocolate cake, and two minutes later without discussion he decided the date was over. So I said, “Fine.”
“Fine,” he said back, which made me even angrier. Who is he to say it’s fine? I’m the one who says what’s fine or not, and this wasn’t fine.
“You’ve ruined a great date,” I heard myself say.
“You’ve ruined the start to a great relationship,” he spat back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He said nothing, and we rode the rest of the way in silence. I kept thinking he would say something at some point, but he kept driving me home. When he pulled into our driveway without a word, I was too heartbroken to come up with anything that could save the night. How could he turn so cold so fast? I got out of the truck, and he left without a wave or even glance back at me.
Three days and no calls from DC later, I parked our catering van in the parking lot next to the Mocha Muse.
“Remember when you were too nervous about your driving to park here?” Mom said.
I shot her a weak smile.
“You’re getting better at driving, kid,” Mom encouraged. She knew something was wrong, but she didn’t want to pry. Mom had an uncanny ability to know when to push someone into talking and when to hold back.
We’d gone back to supplying the Mocha Muse with their baked goods. While we were gone, Dar had to use another vendor. Everyone in town preferred our brownies and muffins and had waited patiently for us to return and get back to work.
Fletcher Canyon was a small town filled with retirees at the foot of the Los Angeles Crest Mountains. The Mocha Muse had recently opened as an extension of Fletcher Books next door. It was the last shop on Main Street before the mountain. Fletcher Diner was across the street. Al, the new mayor, owned both the diner and the Mocha Muse.
Rumor had it that he’d been upset when the Lucky Dragon had gotten that fancy espresso maker. But the Mocha Muse’s opening had driven up the demand for fancy coffee in our little community.
Most Fletcher Canyonites had never had a latte until the opening night party, and they were hooked. The only problem was that in the morning it was easy to get a coffee at the Mocha Muse, but by afternoon, the students from the nearby college had taken our “trolley,” which was really just a bus made up to look like a trolley, to come the Muse to study.
Dar had succeeded in attracting the hip, young crowd to hang out in the afternoons and at night, but the seniors in town preferred to avoid “the crowd.”
The Lucky Dragon served that crowd and a great deal more decaf espresso-based coffees. It turned out our little town had grown in popularity while we’d been gone. Even the diner seemed busier than it had been before we left. The parking lot was almost full.
I opened up the back of the van and grabbed the large box of mocha brownies, cookies, muffins, and cupcakes. Mom had taped the invoice to the top. Since my hands were full, Mom shut the van for me, and we headed into the coffee house through the delivery entrance in the back.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Darwin said, turning from the counter and heading to the back room.
“You almost out of treats?” Mom asked.
“Oh yes, that,” he said, “but I also wanted to show you guys these.” He grabbed his iPad and turned it to face us.
I didn’t know what to make of what I was seeing. “What’s this?”
“Bee costumes for the big gig,” he said. “If we order today, we’ll be able to get them free, two-day shipping, and they’ll be here in time.”
“They’re great!” Mom said.
“I’ve narrowed it down to three,” Dar said. Mom scooted closer to him to take a look, but I was distracted by someone coming into the coffee shop. The deliberate fast walk, and his salt-and-pepper, Ed Harris hairline made him easy to spot. DC approached the counter, and Jenna, the very young and thin blonde barista bounced over to help him. “The usual?” she asked.
“Thanks,” he said with a nod. If he would have smiled at her, I might have killed them both.
Before I knew what I was doing, I walked over to the counter area and heard myself say, “Hi!”
DC looked up. “Hi,” he said back, but his answer was short and not at all friendly.
No call for three days and now he was acting like he barely knew me.
I went around the counter and stood closer to him. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to shout our personal business from across the shop.
Small towns are great if you want a feeling of community, but not if you want to argue with your boyfriend and keep it private. That’s if he was even my boyfriend still.
“Listen,” I heard myself say. “We need to talk.”
I wished I’d chosen my words better. It had been my experience that men reacted to the phrase “we need to talk” the same as if I’d suggested going for a swim wearing a concrete Speedo—crazy with a kiss of death.
“I’m on duty,” he said.
“You’ve got time to get a cup of coffee,” I said. “You should have a little bit of time for your girlfriend.”
“So are you my girlfriend?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“It seems to me like maybe you want to get back together with your ex,” he said.
“I told you it’s over. I want nothing to do with him,” I said.
“Actually, you said that he didn’t want to get back together with you.”
I glared at DC. “I thought it went without saying I didn’t want to ever be with that guy again. He’s a jerk. He cheated on me. I want nothing to do with him.”
“Except of course taking a job working with him again,” DC said.
“Listen,” I said. “My old friends are acting like I’m some sort of psycho that’s threatening his life over some song or over a broken heart.”
“Who cares what they think?” DC said.
“We just need to cater this party, and then it’s over,” I said.
“When did you find out about this gig?” DC asked.
“I don’t know. His manager contacted Mom and Wenling through the website. I’m not sure when. I didn’t know it had anything to do with Robert until the day of our date,” DC said.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“So you want me to believe that you didn’t come home specifically to work on this case with your ex-husband? That none of this was pre-planned. You lost weight, came home, and this just happened?”
“Yes, I do expect to believe that, because it’s the truth.”
DC shook his head no. “I don’t like it,” he said.
“Well, it’s not up to you to like it, but you need to believe me or—”
“Or what?” he dared.
What could I say? I’d break up with him. I didn’t want to, but that’s where it felt like all of this was headed.
The reality of DC not believing me or trusting me hit me like a cold fish to the face. It shocked me, and it stank. I thought our relationship was turning into something. I thought we were falling in love.
“Well?” he demanded.
My bottom lip trembled. “Then you’ll be the man who didn’t believe or trust me,” I said, my voice at a shaky whisper. I knew I had only a few seconds to stop myself from breaking into a full-on, ugly crying fit.
I glanced around to see if everyone was staring, but my vision was already clouded with unshed tears. I needed to pull myself together.
“Christy,” DC said, but his cell phone rang. He looked down. “I gotta take this.”
I escaped to the bathroom.
The great thing about not wearing makeup most days is that you never have to worry about your mascara running if you burst into tears in a public restroom. So lucky me!
I cried myself snotty, washed my face, and gave my eyes time to not look as puffy and red.
In short, I hid in the bathroom until I knew DC would be out there. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to him. I just knew if I did I’d burst into tears, and I didn’t feel like making a fool of myself more than I had already.
It made me so mad that Robert had his new girlfriend, and he was still reaching out into my life ruining things. Had I been wrong to decide to do this case? What if Robert really was in danger?
I stepped out of the bathroom and was happy to find that no one seemed to notice I’d been in there for so long. I slipped behind the counter and into the back room to find Dar and Mom still poring over the costumes.
“There you are,” Mom said.
“I had to go to the bathroom,” I said.
I wasn’t sure if she believed me. I didn’t know if she’d seen me and DC talking at the counter. Mom had such a good poker face.
“Which one do you think we should wear?” Mom asked. “It’s just for the three of us. Dar will help us set up, but he has to be here at the coffeehouse on Friday.”
“The perils of being the man in charge,” he said. “But you’ll tell me everything that happens, right?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“So which one do you like?” he asked. “This one’s my favorite.” He pointed to a very sexy bee costume.
“It’s a little revealing,” I said.
“I told him that one’s like bumble bee underwear!” Mom said. “I like the one with the little headbands.”
Mom pointed to the potato sack-like outfits with the antenna stuck to the headband. Maybe it was my deflated mood, but in that moment I felt like that was our best option.
“Let’s go with that one,” I said.
“I guess it’s cute,” Dar said. “Maybe with a belt.”
“No belt. It’s that shape so it looks like a bee!” Mom corrected. The two of them debated ways to improve the costume while maintaining the “bee look.”
The truth is I didn’t care at the time. I didn’t think ahead and realize that I’d be with my ex-husband and all of the cool rock ‘n’ roll kids wearing a striped potato sack on Friday night. Friday was a hundred years and a million miles away.
Catering and Cops
The morning of the gig, we packed up the van with all of our equipment and dropped it off in the kitchen of The Sunset Sound. Dar, to his word, loaded and unloaded the oven from our kitchen and into the club’s without even breaking a single one of his long, manicured fingernails. I was impressed.
Mom giggled with delight as she went over the invoice with Trey Jacobs and took payment in advance for the evening. She ran his platinum credit card from the little swipe kit she’d gotten for her cell phone.
She’d made sure to mark up rental for the oven, mark up our event-specific uniforms, and other expenses. Trey Jacobs didn’t bat an eyelash. He seemed to enjoy Mom’s briefing of the expenses. She’d even prepared, at extra cost of course, hors d’oeuvres and snacks for VIPs and industry folks backstage.
“Now the whole point of this is that we need everyone to know that there is no animosity between Robert and Christy,” he said. “So Madison, the publicist for the band, wants you to arrive early to take photos.”
“We’ll be dressed and ready,” Mom said.
“Can you bring those props you had in that newspaper article?” he asked Mom.
Mom had gotten us deerstalker hats, a magnifying glass for me, and a Sherlock Holmes pipe for Mom for our picture in Fletcher Weekly.
“But I told you, we’ll be dressed as bees,” Mom said and whipped out her cell phone to show him a picture of the costumes.
“Oh that is brilliant,” he said. “Can she hold up the magnifying glass and you have the Sherlock pipe with these outfits?”
“Like detective bees?” Mom said.
“Exactly!”
Mom decided that was a reasonable request. “But no hats. They’ll crush our antennae.”
Trey Jacobs held up his hands in surrender. “Understood.”
Fletcher Canyon was deep in the San Fernando Valley, and our catering gig was an hour and a half away in Hollywood when you factored in traffic. We went home to change into our event-specific uniforms and pick up Wenling.
Normally, we’d pack our bow ties on a hanger and change at the venue, but the tights and oversized sweater-dress of the bee outfits were comfortable and didn’t wrinkle so we figured we’d just wear them all night.
I liked that the antennae hair band distracted from the hairnet we legally had to wear while baking. I would’ve had to take the thing on and off ev
ery time we put in a new batch otherwise. I’d never found it flattering.
I hated driving in the mountains of California. The winding two-lane roads without guardrails made me feel like death awaited at every curve. Adding a large van with a stick shift into the mix didn’t help matters.
Mom and Wenling pored over the photocopied notes while I focused on not getting us all killed. Even though it was for show, they’d decided they’d keep their eyes peeled for our death threat writer just in case.
It bothered me that DC and I were on the verge of breaking up over this stupid gig. But to be fair, it wasn’t just this gig, was it? DC had been jealous of that reporter, and he hadn’t trusted me when I told him there was nothing going on with me and Robert. I would’ve thought having a jealous boyfriend would be flattering, but it felt more insulting.
I pulled in behind The Sunset Sound and into our parking spot. The great thing about being the caterer is the parking. When I’d been “managing Robert’s career” I always had to park on the street and walk several blocks to the club by myself at night. I’d been safe enough, but I always resented that Robert never took the time to walk me back to the car. He was always too busy with “fans” and “networking” to tear himself away.
When we got out of the van I noticed there were several other cars already there. There was only one empty space left. I knew Robert was already inside when I saw the red convertible. It was his new girlfriend’s car. He’d driven it to Mom’s house when he first tried to get me to sign the divorce papers. The reality of having to deal with Robert made my mood sink even more.
We entered the kitchen, and Mom preheated the oven while I checked on the dough. We’d rolled them and put them in individual tins and then onto a large tray. We’d transfer the little tins to a cooling tray before bringing out the batch. It only took twenty minutes for each big batch to bake. We’d have fresh buns all night. I hoped that meant that I could spend most of the time in the kitchen.
Honey Buns and Homicide_A Funny Culinary Cozy Mystery Page 4
