The Bride Wore Chocolate (Sweet and Savory Romances)

by Shirley Jump

  “Oh really, Candace. Lighten up. How do you expect to keep Barry interested in you?”

  “Long conversations about intellectual subjects.”

  “Bullshit.” Della dumped the bags on the kitchen table and let out a sigh. “Honey, you need to live a little before your life gets away from you.”

  All Candace wanted to do was take a handful of Tylenol and forget that the world—and fishnet body stockings—existed. Her mind, however, kept coming back to Michael, like a dieter who'd been denied cake for months and had been gotten locked inside a bakery. She needed to get back on track, back to Barry and her regular life. “Now you sound like Grandma,” she told her mother.

  “I doubt she'd be happy to hear that.” Della paused in front of the hall mirror and spruced up her hair. “By the way, don't wait up for me. I have a date tonight.”

  “You just arrived yesterday. You met a man already?” Candace shouldn't be surprised. In one weekend trip to Reno, Della had been divorced on Saturday and remarried before the sun had set on Sunday.

  “I met the nicest man at Lingerie for Lovers.” She sighed. “He's a poet.”

  “Translation—poor.”

  Her mother took out a tube of Lancôme lipstick and applied cranberry red to her lips. “Maybe. But he's really cute. You should see his—”

  “I have to go,” Candace interrupted. No way was she going to stay here and discuss the physical attributes of some wannabe poet who sold garter belts for a living.

  She got to her feet, skirting a wide path around the hot-pink lingerie bags on the table. A few minutes later, she had changed into jeans and an old T-shirt and was weaving her way through the streets of Dorchester to the shelter.

  Inside Paws a Minute, controlled chaos reigned. Dogs yapping, cats mewing, fur flying and bits of dog food skittering across the floor. Jeanine, the manager, tackled her in relief when Candace arrived. “My assistant called in sick today,” she said. “I've been here alone since nine.”

  “I need a few hours with four-legged creatures who have no input whatsoever into my love life.” Candace grabbed an apron off the wall and tied it around her waist.

  Jeanine laughed and kept Candace to her word. For the next four hours, she shampooed and clipped, fed and petted, walked and scooped.

  By the time her shift was up, her arms ached and her legs wobbled with exhaustion. It should be enough to put her to sleep and knock out all thoughts of pink boas and one particular blue-eyed man. She drove home, too tired to even flip on the radio.

  Grandma sat on the steps of their shared porch, oiling the wheels on a skateboard. Her bike helmet sat beside her, at the ready for a bit of pavement hanging ten. “I see Barry's back,” she said, wiping off the excess oil with a rag.

  Candace took a seat beside her on the worn wooden steps. “How'd you know?”

  “He came by earlier to introduce me to that harpy he's got with him.”

  “Grandma! That's his mother.”

  “She's a gargoyle. If you marry him, you better wear battle armor.”

  “What do you mean if? When I marry Barry.”

  Grandma spun the cap back onto the oil container. “There's time to change your mind.”

  “The invitations already went out.”

  “Uh, sort of.”

  “No, Barry told me he and his mother mailed them out last week, when he was visiting her. He thought it would make it easier on me if he took care of that.”

  Grandma wiped her hands on a rag, then reached into her back pocket and withdrew a cream envelope, blank except for the stamp and Candace's return address. “Here's what came in the mail today.”

  “Yeah, the invitation.”

  “Not exactly.” She wagged it. “There's no addressee.”

  Candace snatched the paper out of Grandma's hands. “How can that be?”

  “Seems you've had a label letdown.” Grandma fingered the flap. “The innards are there, all neatly addressed in a curly script to 'Eleanor Woodrow and Guest.' Pretty penmanship. But, no one's going to see that if the invitations aren't addressed to anyone.” She tapped the envelope. “It's a sign.”

  “Will you stop saying that? There are no signs of anything here. Just defective labeling products.”

  “Or a man who can't make it stick.”

  “Grandma!”

  Grandma draped an arm around Candace's shoulders. When she did, Candace could smell the familiar scent of Grandma's vanilla perfume, topped with a bit of wheel oil. “I love you, honey, more than anything. Please, for me, take a minute to think about what you're doing. Figure out if Barry really is your soul mate.”

  Candace let out a sigh. “How does anyone know what that is? If there even is such a thing, which there isn't.”

  “How do you know unless you ask?”

  “Ask who?”

  “Anyone.” Grandma cupped Candace's chin in her age-softened palm. “But most of all, ask yourself. And do it fast, before you find yourself exchanging muumuus under the Christmas tree with the gargoyle.”

  On Tuesday morning, Candace started to panic. She lay in her bed, project planner pad in hand, and created a to-do list that grew longer and less doable with every minute.

  Two weeks and four days left until her wedding. She had no dress, invitations that were MIA and a grandmother who'd planted a tiny little doubt in Candace's mind, growing like those expandable cockroach-alien things she'd seen once in a Star Trek rerun.

  “I am a committed person,” she said to the ceiling. “I do not run off willy-nilly and make stupid decisions.” For the past twenty-seven years, sticking to well-thought-out plans had served her well. No unfortunate surprises. Well, except for one. And she'd learned a very painful lesson from that, never to be repeated, because every time she thought about it the hurt returned anew, like a scar that hadn't quite healed. After that, Candace no longer took chances or veered off the straight and narrow path. Unlike her mother, who lived life by the seat of her designer pants, Candace believed in stability.

  All of which was why she should focus today on her wedding. If she poured her energy into that, she could get back to her regularly scheduled life and forget about Michael Vogler. He was an interruption she could do without. She'd ask Rebecca and Maria to handle all the business dealings with him, and that way, she could avoid ever having to see him again.

  At that thought, a trickle of disappointment went through her, but she shook it off and picked up her list again.

  Today was her day off from the shop. Most weeks, she'd spend it helping out at the Lincoln Homeless Shelter's soup kitchen and working on this week's ad for Paws a Minute. The ad could wait until Wednesday night; she had until Thursday at noon to get it to the paper. She made a quick call and switched her schedule at the homeless shelter to Saturday afternoon.

  This morning, she'd find a dress. No matter what. The invitation problem could be solved with a couple of hundred phone calls.

  There, a plan. She felt better already.

  A few minutes later, she stood under the hot shower, the water pelting at her face and head like a large-boned Swedish masseuse. She sighed and leaned farther into the spray.

  In the back of her mind, she could hear Barry's voice. Seventy-five percent of water usage is sucked down the bathroom drain. Shaving two minutes off a shower could save umpteen gallons a year, reducing water costs by a gazillion dollars over the course of her lifetime. “Every drop counts,” he'd say to her in the mornings, after he'd spent the night, while he shaved at the sink using a few tablespoons in the basin for rinsing his razor and cheeks.

  But he hadn't been here last night, had he? He hadn't helped set her mind at ease or turn off the nightmares she'd had about facing an empty church in her underwear. Or the recurring dreams that featured a man with blue eyes greeting her at the end of the aisle, not Barry's dependable browns. No, he'd been off with his mother, showing her the town.

  Candace switched the water to cold and gave herself a blast of icy water, both to clear
her head and get rid of the last vestiges of sleepiness. She shouldn't be mad at Barry for spending the evening with his mother. Or for his commitment to saving money. Those were good qualities in a man.

  It was just that today, it all annoyed the hell out of her. Maybe she needed a donut. Everything looked better after a donut.

  The telephone rang. Candace shut off the water, wrapped herself in her terry robe and dashed into the bedroom to grab the cordless phone off the nightstand.

  “Good morning,” Barry said, his voice clear and crisp. He always talked as if he didn't want to fritter away any syllables. Barry wasted nothing. “After work, would you have dinner with Mother and me?”

  Grandma's comment about the gargoyle came to mind and Candace had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “I get a choice?”

  “What did you say, dear?”

  She cleared her throat. Bernadine was going to be her mother-in-law, for better or for worse. She'd better start getting used to the idea. She was about to agree, then remembered Bernadine had seen her getting out of Michael's Lexus. “I might be busy at work.”

  “Mother will be very disappointed if you don't come. She really wants to spend more time with you.”

  I'll bet. She could avoid Michael Vogler forever but she couldn't avoid her mother-in-law. Surely in the next eight hours she could come up with a reasonable explanation for being in his car.

  Unless ... Bernadine hadn't mentioned it because she'd been sneaking those cigars. Barry hated the smell of cigarette smoke and would have mentioned it if his mother had such a habit. Had Bernadine been doing a little lying of her own? If that was the case, then Candace didn't think she had to worry about Bernadine squealing. “I'd love to go to dinner with you two,” she said.

  “Wonderful. Mother has great ideas for the wedding. You'll love them.”

  Candace plunked down onto the bed. “Barry, about the invitations...”

  “Mother and I worked all last week on those. She has such beautiful penmanship.”

  “Well, there's a problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you remember to address the envelopes?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, Mother's hand was starting to cramp after we put all the return addresses on there, and you know no one can read my handwriting, so we decided to create our own labels. I did a very nice Excel spreadsheet and mail merge. You should have seen it.”

  “My grandmother's invitation arrived without a label. What happened?”

  Barry paused a second. “Uh, well, Mother was starting to get a headache from the fumes. That label glue was pretty powerful.” He tsk-tsked the manufacturer. “Do you know what they put into glue? It's all animal by-product. I didn't want to get near it, either. Who knows what it would do to my allergies.”

  “Fumes?” Candace shook her head. “What kind of labels did you use?”

  “Oh, we got a great buy on them. Five thousand for two dollars at the dollar store.”

  “Barry, these were our wedding invitations. Tell me you didn't skimp on them.”

  “We bargain-shopped, not skimped. Every penny counts, you know.”

  Tension knotted into Candace's shoulders, undoing the shower massage. “You used substandard labels on our wedding invitations?” She could hear Grandma's voice in the back of her head: It's a sign. It's a sign.

  “I had every reason to believe they would stick. The package said 'sticks to anything.'”

  “They're not a great bargain, Barry, if they don't stay on the envelope,” Candace said, her voice rising in sharpness. “Why didn't you just run the envelopes themselves through the printer?”

  “Oh.” Barry paused. “We didn't think of that.”

  Candace ran a hand through her wet hair and flopped back onto the pillows. “There's not enough time to send out new invitations. We're just going to have to split up the list of guests and call everyone.”

  He sighed. “I'm sure most of the invitations were fine. You worry too much, Candace.” He paused, and the annoyance hummed on the line between them. Then he dropped his voice a few levels, into a soothing tone. “But if it will make you feel better, I'll try to slip in a few calls this week.”

  “A few? We invited two hundred people. You're going to have to find time for a hundred calls.”

  “Actually, Candace, many of those people are couples. I think it would be more accurate to say a total of eighty-six calls. And if you subtract Mother, your grandmother, your mother, Rebecca and Maria, since we can tell them in person, it's only eighty-one calls. If I take a few, surely you can handle the rest. Isn't today your day off?”

  “I have to shop for a wedding dress.”

  “You still don't have one? Darling, our wedding is only two-and-a-half weeks away. Mother found her dress last night at Filene's Basement in Downtown Crossing. Oh! I have a brilliant idea!”

  “What?”

  “Why don't you and Mother shop together? I know she'd love to spend more time with you.”

  Candace scrambled for an escape route. “Uh... I was going to work at the shelter today and shop on my break.” She cringed at the lie, but figured it was either that or end up with a Technicolor caftan for a bridal gown.

  “Okay.” He sounded disappointed. “After dinner, how about I drop Mother off at my place? Then you and I can spend some time alone at your apartment. We could rent a movie, have some popcorn with cheese on it. I’ve missed you so much. I hate being away from you. You're my anchor, honey.”

  “I've missed you, too,” Candace said, and meant it. When Barry was around, she felt like her keel was back in the water, keeping her on a straight path. She'd known him for two years. Being with Barry was as comfortable as an old pair of slippers. “What should we rent?”

  There was a pause, and then both of them said “Titanic” at the same time.

  Relief flooded through Candace. All was right with the world again. “See, that's why we're perfect for each other. It's like you can read my mind.”

  “You're the one who's perfect for me, always,” Barry said softly. “I'll see you at six.”

  Candace hung up the phone and smiled. Soul mates and signs were all ridiculous thoughts, the kind of things dreamed up by greeting card salesmen and people vying to get on Oprah. She didn't need a soul mate.

  Not when she had Barry Borkenstein.

  1/2 cup butter

  l/4 cup sugar

  1 cup self-rising flour

  1 pinch of salt

  1/4 cup chocolate powder

  Get out the mixer and whip that butter and sugar until it's as creamy as a squirt of Ben-Gay. Sift together the flour, chocolate and salt, then stir them into the creamed mixture. Get it good and gooey, like a big brown mess of taffy.

  Roll the dough into balls and place with TLC onto a greased cookie sheet. Leave room between them for oven growth. Flatten each ball slightly with a fork dipped in water. Resist the urge to make cute crisscross patterns. You don't have time for that crap, not at your age. Remember, the sooner they bake, the sooner you can indulge.

  Bake at 375 degrees for eight minutes. Remove from oven and share a few with your soul mate in front of a roaring fire on a bear rug. Best served with a dinner he has cooked. Why? Because he loves you, of course.

  And if you want to eat naked, just watch out for hot butter drips.

  CHAPTER 8

  Twenty minutes and two Boston Kremes from Dunkin' Donuts later, the soul mate thing kept cropping up in Candace's head like brain heartburn. It refused to die a slow death no matter how often she reminded herself that Barry was the ideal mate.

  She pulled out from the coffee shop and started heading toward Denny's Discount Bridal, one of the few stores in the state of Massachusetts left unscathed in her second quest for a dress. As she hit the outskirts of Dorchester, she passed the huge, stained-glass-and-stone Our Lady of Faith cathedral where she and Barry had promised to exchange “I dos.”

&n
bsp; She banged a quick right, prompting the driver behind her to lay horn in true Boston style, and skidded into the lot. She parked, got out of the car and marched toward the church. She'd put Grandma's soul mate notion to rest once and for all, and be able to dismiss the little doubts that had been planted by Michael Vogler, too.

  Father Pete was a no-nonsense, live-by-the-Good-Book kind of guy. He frowned on horoscope reading, fortune telling and Oscar predictions. Surety, he'd be the voice of reason she needed. Certainly a better one than Father Kenny, who'd abandoned the collar for the cross-gender church secretary.

  After her eyes adjusted to the darkened church, she headed back to Father Pete's office. Surrounded by a clutter of books and papers, he sat behind his desk working on something—a sermon, she supposed. He was doing double duty until a replacement could be found for Father Kenny.

  Father Pete was given to extemporaneous biblical exposition, if the mood struck him and an unwitting parishioner stumbled in at the wrong time. Candace breathed a quick prayer that Father Pete was not in a gabby mood today. The last thing she needed to add to her list of worries was a trip down Fire-and-Brimstone Lane.

  Father Pete looked up when she entered and smiled, half rising out of his chair to gesture her into the room. A bald man with a youthful face, making it difficult to place his age. With his plain looks and pale green eyes, Father Pete didn’t fit the bill for a handsome description. For a second, she wondered what made a healthy, male human choose celibacy. Had girls recoiled from him in high school? Did he have some fetish for wearing black? Or worse, did he have a thing for seeing other men in black?

  Or maybe he liked the ordered structure of priesthood. The no surprises, no broken hearts, no soul mates life of self-deprivation. Put that way, it sounded like a pretty sensible choice.

  “Candace,” he said. “How nice to see you. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to the cranberry leather chair across from his desk.