by Harper Lin
Food Festival and a Funeral
A Pink Cupcake Mystery Book 3
Harper Lin
Harper Lin Books
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Honey Apricot Cupcakes
Coconut Cherry Cupcakes
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Food Festival and a Funeral
Copyright © 2016 by Harper Lin.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
www.harperlin.com
Chapter One
“How does this look?” Amelia asked, turning her computer screen toward her seventeen-year-old son, Adam.
“Baker’s Dozen. One makes all the difference,” Adam read aloud. “That actually sounds kind of good, Mom.”
Amelia twisted her lips exaggeratingly.
“Kind of good? I wouldn’t say it’s Hemingway, but it’s certainly better than that Brown guy and all his drivel.”
“Who?” Adam asked, looking up from his math book.
“No, please don’t tell me you don’t know who Hemingway is. I’ll go in the garage right this minute, start the engine, and sit in the car with the door shut if you tell me you don’t…”
“I know who Hemingway is. Farewell to Arms. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Who is the other guy?”
Amelia pretended to wipe sweat from her forehead.
“Brown? He’s nobody. Best you don’t waste your time just to find out I was right, as I usually am.”
She reached over her laptop and grabbed her coffee mug that proclaimed she was the World’s Greatest Mom. Loudly, she sipped her hot tea.
“Whatever you say, Mom.”
“But it looks good, right?” She tapped the computer screen.
“Yeah.” Adam grinned as he nodded. “I’ll read it when I’m done with my homework.”
“You know, I wouldn’t have ever dreamed in a million years that in addition to The Pink Cupcake I’d be updating my own social media outlets. See? Social media outlets? Don’t I sound like I know what I’m doing?”
“You sound like you do,” Adam said teasingly.
“Well, what I really mean to say is I couldn’t have done it without you.” Amelia set her mug down, reached over, and stroked her son’s thick black hair. “I’m really proud of you, Adam. You’ve made The Cupcake a success just as much as the cupcakes themselves have.”
“It’s no big deal, Mom.” Adam shrugged, his cheeks getting red.
“What’s no big deal?” Just then, Amelia’s daughter, Meg, came bopping down the stairs from her room and into the kitchen.
“That Mom finally admitted you are adopted and I’m her favorite,” Adam said to pester his sister. Meg rolled her eyes as she made her way to the refrigerator and yanked the door open.
“Hey, Mom. Did you know that there is a female cage fighter named Penelope ‘Cupcake’ Tate?”
“And why are you telling me about female cage fighters?” Amelia looked at her daughter as if she were suddenly growing a second nose on her forehead. “Please don’t tell me it’s a possible career choice.”
“No,” Meg said as she pulled out two bottles of water and shut the fridge door. “Catherine was telling me about her. She watches cage fighting with her brothers. We thought it might be a good idea to get her to endorse your cupcakes. Get it? ‘Cupcake’ Tate loves The Pink Cupcake. Cute, right?”
“Adorable. Except sports endorsements cost a lot of money. I think we’ll have to wait a little while longer before we are big enough for that.” Amelia smiled.
Meg shrugged again and went back upstairs, where she and her best friend, Catherine, were creating the marketing strategy for The Pink Cupcake in between diagraming sentences for English and finding out the value of “X” in algebra.
“Should I be worried Catherine is watching cage fighting and telling Meg about it?” Amelia looked at Adam.
“Naw.” Adam shook his head, pulling his lips down in the corners.
Amelia finished typing a few more lines then, following the steps Adam had carefully written out for her, saved her new blog entry and with a couple clicks updated her website, Twitter, Facebook, and a few other outlets with her latest commentary on the beauty of baking.
She watched as her son quickly scribbled down equation after equation until finally he sat back, folded up his homework, stuck it in between the pages of his book, and slammed it shut.
“Done.” He sighed, stretching his arms over his head. “I’ll have your Gary-Fest feature up on the website by tomorrow.”
“Right.” Amelia exhaled, looking up at the ceiling. “I almost forgot about that.” She let out a long, tired sigh.
“Aren’t you looking forward to it?” Adam asked in surprise.
“I think the event itself will be good. But the city is making us pay double for the weekend just to be in the space we are in three hundred sixty-five days out of the year.” Amelia huffed. “And if we wanted to settle in one of those prime pieces of real estate by the pond just for that weekend, my gosh, it’s like handing over a down payment on a house. There’s no way we could afford it.”
“That’s not fair,” Adam replied.
“No, it isn’t. It’s politics.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I took the money from your college funds so I could keep The Pink Cupcake in her regular spot.”
“I have a college fund?”
“Not anymore,” Amelia said teasingly as she stood from the table, took her cup to the sink, and rinsed it out.
It was aggravating as Amelia thought about the small fortune she’d had to hand over to the city just to participate in an event they thought up. They didn’t operate the food trucks. They hadn’t sunk their savings into a micro-business, losing sleep six out of seven nights a week figuring out how to stretch a dollar. But they sure did see a chance to make a few bucks off the people who did.
Choking down her disgust at her city’s ground-level politics, she turned back to Adam.
“You plan on working? I think your sister and Catherine plan on helping out for a couple hours, passing out flyers and samples. It’s all very glamorous.”
“Sure. I’ll take some pictures for you. Update your web pages. All that stuff.” Adam cleared his throat. “Amy might come with, if that’s okay.”
Amy Leonard was the only girl Adam ever talked about. She was a neighbor, and even though the two teens tried to act casual and cool, it was obvious to anyone with eyes they liked each other.
They were cut from the same cloth. Amy skateboarded and wore weird T-shirts with words like SPOON or CLUNK on them that made sense to other people who were in the geek-realm but were enigmas to the rest of the world. Amelia had learned from Adam that Amy’s parents had been together since high school.
Some people were lucky in love, was all Amelia could think. Every once in a while she might hear a loud “d
iscussion” coming from their house. Other times she’d hear loud laughter. The Leonards seemed normal. Amelia was glad for that. The last thing she wanted was Adam’s life taking a left turn in order to fill a hole left by divorce.
“Of course she can come. Tell her parents to come too. They can have cupcakes on the house.”
“Great,” Adam mumbled, trying to hide his smile. Letting out a deep breath, he scooped up his book bag and slung it over his shoulder while pushing himself up from the kitchen table.
“Leaving so soon?” Amelia pretended to look disappointed. She knew Adam was heading to his bedroom in the basement to text Amy about the upcoming Gary-Fest event. It was all so exciting.
“Is it really true that you had to dip into your savings to pay for your regular spot at the food fest?” Adam asked while hanging in the doorframe.
Amelia felt a twinge of guilt for telling him. The kids were good about money. They never asked for anything out of the ordinary when they easily could have. The life they’d all enjoyed while Amelia and her ex-husband, John, were still together had offered a lot more material stability. Designer shoes, the latest gadgets, dinners out almost every other night. Of course, John was having dinner with Jennifer now, his twenty-something girlfriend that he’d left Amelia for. Come to think about it, the meals weren’t that great.
But now it was different. In her house, coupons were cut, pennies were pinched, and the threat of the car breaking down or the refrigerator crapping out would mean noodles with butter for dinner for a week.
“It isn’t all that bad,” Amelia lied. “We had it in savings. I just hate to part with it.” She winked at Adam, who nodded.
“Well,” he said, “if you ever need it, I’ve got money I’ve been saving. It’s just a couple hundred dollars. I was saving for a car, maybe, or a trip to Las Vegas or something.”
Amelia felt the sting of tears in her eyes, but after the divorce, she had made a promise to herself that she’d cried enough. Biting her tongue, she smiled at her son, who became more and more of a man every day.
“And a trip to Las Vegas is such a wise decision for a seventeen-year-old boy. Thank you, Adam. But no thanks. We’re good.” She tilted her head to the left as Adam gave her a nod and went down the stairs, pulling the door closed behind him.
Quickly turning on the faucet, Amelia filled her mug with water and took a big gulp. It helped push the tears back and just in time. She heard Meg and Catherine giggling and chatting as they made their way down the stairs toward the kitchen.
“Hi, Mrs. Harley.” Catherine waved as the two girls took a seat at the kitchen table. “Did you hear about that killing in Florida?”
Chapter Two
Amelia gave Catherine a puzzled look while slowly shaking her head back and forth.
“Someone kidnapped some guy, and they found him stuffed in a suitcase, but the weird part…”
“There’s a weird part?” Amelia interrupted her, looking at her daughter then back to Catherine.
“Yeah.” Catherine nodded enthusiastically. “His feet were nowhere to be found. Why would anyone keep someone’s feet? Hands I could see because, well, fingerprints and maybe even the head, but…”
“Catherine, honey, is your brother on his way?” Amelia interrupted again.
“Yeah.” Catherine smiled. “He just called. Should be here in about ten more minutes.”
“Okay.” Amelia nodded, smiling. “How about a quick snack before they get here?”
Both girls agreed that was a stellar idea and continued their own conversation about an upcoming school project that they were partnered up for. It was some kind of history presentation, and the two girls thought dressing up as people from another era would be good. They discussed other parts of the project that Amelia didn’t quite understand because both girls had the uncanny ability to talk and listen to each other simultaneously.
Without missing a beat, they devoured a small plate of oatmeal raisin cookies just before the horn of Catherine’s brother’s car could be heard honking in the driveway.
“You know, you can tell your brother he is welcome to come in. He doesn’t have to stay in the car and honk,” Amelia suggested, smoothing Catherine’s hair as she passed by on her way to the door.
“Eww, yuck. It’s bad enough I have to be seen driving with him. I don’t want him infiltrating my friend zones, too.” She wrinkled her nose. “Bye, girl!” She waved to Meg. “Bye, Mrs. Harley.”
She stepped out the front door to her brother honking the horn again. Meg and Amelia laughed as they heard her yelling at her brother right before the car door slammed shut, and the sound of the engine faded away.
“Did you guys finish your homework?”
“Yup,” Meg replied while heading back into the kitchen.
“What would you like for supper? I was thinking scrambled eggs and bacon.”
“And pancakes?” Meg suggested with eyes wide.
“Sure.”
“That sounds good.” Meg loitered around the kitchen, looking at her fingernails, then at the ceiling, then lazily flipping through some sales papers on the counter.
“Something on your mind?” Amelia asked.
Meg took a deep breath and looked at her mother.
“Yeah.”
“Is it a sit-down-and-brace-myself something or is it a keep-doing-what-I’m-doing-and-just-listen something?” Amelia watched her daughter’s face.
“You can stay standing and just listen,” Meg replied. Amelia saw her daughter’s expression and felt a tug in her heart. Something was bothering her. A million scenarios went through Amelia’s mind. Was she in trouble? Was she hurt? Did someone say or do something to her? Drugs? Alcohol? Or worse…dating?
“Do you like Catherine?”
Not the question she’d expected, but Amelia rolled with it.
“Of course I do. She’s a little weird, but you can tell when you talk to her her heart is in the right place. Why?”
Meg took another deep breath.
“There are some girls at school that hassle her. They make fun of the stuff she likes and call her names behind her back. Real childish and cowardly, in my opinion,” Meg spat.
“Yeah?” Amelia thought for a minute. Was Meg being punished for being Catherine’s friend? The mama bear claws were starting to come out.
“Well, Catherine asked me if I thought she was scary like these girls are saying.” Meg shook her head. “I told her I didn’t think she was scary at all. I told her I liked her because she was different.”
“That sounds like the right answer,” Amelia replied softly.
“I thought so too,” Meg answered firmly.
“But…it sounds like there is more to this. Are these girls turning on you because you are Catherine’s friend?”
This was what Amelia was afraid of. The constantly looming threat of bullying had finally come. And bullying would lead to low self-esteem, falling grades, an eating disorder, drug abuse, suicide. In her mind, Amelia was already planning what she was going to say when she scheduled a meeting with the principal to make these girls stop or else.
“Mom, I couldn’t care less what these girls think of me. I never liked them before. I don’t like them now.”
Stupefied, Amelia let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “So what is the problem?”
“Is there something wrong with me because I only have one friend?”
Amelia laughed. “No. My gosh. If you have one friend as good as Catherine, you are blessed. No, honey, there is nothing wrong with you for having just one friend.” Amelia walked up to Meg and wrapped her arms around her. “In fact, I’m glad you picked a person so unique. That shows you don’t care what the crowd thinks. I never pegged you for a follower, Meg. This just proves it, right?”
Meg smiled. That smile was going to win the heart of more than one boy in a few more short years, Amelia thought. Already, her daughter was almost as tall as her. Meg’s body was changing in ways only a mother would
notice.
Flashing back to when she was just a round little bundle of cuteness in a pink blanket, Amelia felt those tears trying to surface again. She shook her head.
“Is that all? Or is there more?”
“No.” Meg smiled some more as she shook her head. “That’s it.”
“You sure? No worries about the current state of the economy? Concerns about asteroids heading toward Earth? I know I’m certainly apprehensive about the great UFO cover-ups.”
“You are so weird.” Meg laughed as she helped get the table set.
“Yeah, but you like weird. You just said so,” Amelia said teasingly.
The two continued to bustle about the kitchen. Within minutes, the smell of bacon sizzling and pancakes on the griddle brought Adam up from the basement.
As they sat around the dinner table, the conversation jumped from school, to movies, to work, and finally landed, oddly enough, on the topic of Lila Bergman.
“She’ll be working at the Gary-Fest, right, Mom?” Adam asked enthusiastically.
“Of course. My gosh, I’d be lost without her. She’s as much a part of The Pink Cupcake as its hot-pink color. Can’t have one without the other.”
“Good,” both kids said at the same time.
“Why do you ask?” Amelia squinted at her children, who eyed each other then looked innocently at their mother.
“No reason, really,” Adam replied. “We just like her. She has funny stories.”
“She does?” Amelia prodded. She knew they were right. Lila Bergman had a way of spinning a yarn that could keep you riveted. She was a colorful personality, to say the least.
“She told me about when she was a teenager, she’d spend an afternoon with one boy, sneak in through the kitchen back door, quickly change into a new outfit, and come sauntering to the front door to go out with another boy at night.” Meg giggled.
Amelia let out a burst of laughter then quickly composed herself.
“She told me that her brother took out their dad’s car on a Friday and didn’t have it back in the garage until Monday morning, just in time for their father to go to work, and when he opened the door, a hundred beer cans fell out,” Adam added.
