The Sugar Queen

by Sarah Addison Allen

  “Josey Cirrini asked about you, after you left the shop today,” Chloe said, because that was neutral territory. “She thought you and I were a couple. She seemed relieved that we weren’t.”

  Adam stopped packing, giving Chloe the strangest look.

  “I take it this is a surprise to you?”

  “She’s a nice woman and I deliver her mail, that’s all.”

  “She is nice. And I didn’t realize she was so young,” Chloe said. “Come on, I know you’ve noticed more than her mail.”

  “She smells like peppermint,” he said, after giving it some thought.

  “You have noticed.”

  But he didn’t say anything else. It wasn’t like their usual banter, when she would tease him about dating more. He disappeared into the attached bathroom and she crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her feet.

  “I’m going to lose you, aren’t I?” she said when he came out of the bathroom with Jake’s toiletries.

  She liked Adam, but he was friends with Jake first. Jake had met him at the gym. Adam hadn’t been in Bald Slope for very long at the time; it had only been a few months since his accident on Bald Slope Mountain, and Jake invited him to have drinks with him and Chloe. Everything around her had been Jake’s first. The apartment was Jake’s, a stylish redbrick place in the historic renovated firehouse downtown. It had been a gift to him from his parents when he graduated from law school. She had some furniture left from her great-grandparents’ house, along with hundreds of boxes of books that had appeared over the years, in a small storage rental. She’d never asked to put her things here. She didn’t know why now. She guessed she didn’t think they would fit. And she had wanted to fit in Jake’s life, wanted it so much she got lost in it.

  Adam walked over to her and put his hands on her arms. He had to bend a little to make sure he met her eyes. “You’re not losing anyone, least of all me. It was a one-time thing, three months ago. He was stupid. People do stupid things. I mean, you don’t do stupid things. Asking him to leave wasn’t stupid. I’m not saying that…”

  She smiled at him again. “Adam?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re really bad at this.”

  He seemed relieved that she’d called him on it. “I know.” He dropped his hands from her arms. “I guess I should be going.” He went back to the bed and zipped up the suitcases, then he noticed a book on the nightstand. “Is this your book?” he asked as he picked it up.

  She looked over at it, expecting it to be that damn book that had been following her all day.

  But no.

  This was a new book. Old Love, New Direction.

  “This is good, Clo.” He held the book in the palm of his hand like a scale, as if the words had weight. “It’s good that you have this.”

  Confused, Chloe leaned out of the room and looked over to Finding Forgiveness, back on top of the couch cushions in the living room.

  Good Lord, it had called in reinforcements.

  “I should go,” Adam said, putting the book down. He slid the suitcases off the bed and she followed him to the front door. “Do you want me to tell Jake anything?”

  She opened the door for him. “That I look happy?”

  “Clo…”

  “No, I don’t want you to tell him anything. Good night, Adam,” she said, and closed the door behind him.

  She whirled around. Old Love, New Direction had joined Finding Forgiveness on the couch, like they were waiting to have a talk with her. Great. She was being stalked by self-help books.

  She stomped to the bathroom to take a shower. Books never appeared in the bathroom. Like cats, they hated water. She stood under the spray until the water turned cold. Just when she thought she had washed all thoughts of Jake out of her mind, at least enough to sleep, she opened the bathroom door and found the books, stacked neatly one on top of the other, on the floor in front of her.

  “If I see you again tonight, I’m putting you both in the toilet,” she said as she stepped over them and went to the bed to set her alarm.

  When she turned around again, they were gone.

  4

  Sno Caps

  The next day at work, Chloe spent her downtime reading magazines from the periodical inventory that had come in that morning. She wanted distractions, any distractions. She wanted to forget about how quiet the apartment was last night, how out of place she felt in it alone. Unfortunately, Finding Forgiveness kept appearing by her on the counter, nudging her, reminding her. At least Old Love, New Direction had decided to stay home, though it had poured out of her box of cereal that morning, clanging onto the bowl and causing Cheerios to fly everywhere. She had just knocked Finding Forgiveness off the counter again when she saw someone crossing the rotunda toward her.

  She straightened as the woman approached. “It’s you!” Chloe said, unreasonably glad to see her again.

  Josey Cirrini stopped and turned around to see who Chloe was talking to. When she saw no one was there, she said, “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” Chloe said, laughing. “Another grilled tomato and cheese to go?”

  Josey walked up to the counter. “You remembered.”

  “I remember what everyone orders. I get that from my great-grandad.” Chloe turned and put on a pair of disposable clear plastic gloves, then she started to assemble the sandwich. “He used to run this shop. He left it to me. I don’t get too many orders for grilled tomato and cheese. There was this one woman who always ordered it, but I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “Oh?” she heard Josey say, as if that interested her.

  Chloe shrugged and said, “A pretty woman, older, a little rough. Blond hair and lots of makeup. Every time I saw her, she was coming from court. Domestic disturbance. Every time. Except that one time she was here on solicitation.” Chloe stopped and looked over her shoulder at Josey. “I’m not talking trash. She told me. She told Hank too.” Chloe nudged her shoulder toward Hank at the security gate in front of the main doors. “She wasn’t ashamed. That’s just the way some people live.”

  As soon as the bread turned golden and the cheddar and Colby and Jack began to melt and sizzle onto the grill, Chloe scooped the sandwich up with a spatula and wrapped it in wax paper. When she turned, Josey had the money ready.

  She was dressed that day in a long gray coat, its cloth-covered buttons secured all the way to the top, where a red cardigan peeked out from under the collar. It was something easy to overlook, but she was really very pretty. She had beautiful pale skin, which was a stark contrast to her dark eyes and hair, like black marble and snow. It was very dramatic, like she would be cool to the touch. But she smelled sweet, like candy. No, that wasn’t it, Chloe thought. She smelled like Christmas. “Adam’s right,” Chloe said as she set the bag on the counter in front of Josey. “You smell like peppermint.”

  “Adam said I smelled like peppermint?” Josey said, her voice pitching slightly.

  “Uh-huh. Last night when I talked to him.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I’d say it was good,” Chloe said, trying not to smile at how nervous that seemed to make Josey. It was sweet. She and Jake had never had that fluttery infatuation, that nervous Does he like me? feeling. From the beginning it had been like a cannonball, all that passion. There had never been time for a traditional courtship.

  She took the money from Josey and rang up the purchase just as the elevator farthest from them opened and a wave of suits poured out. Court had recessed.

  Chloe looked up and found him right away. It was as if thoughts of him had made him appear.

  Jake’s shoe was untied and he hadn’t noticed. He had papers sticking out of his briefcase, which someone had just pointed out to him. He looked embarrassed. He didn’t know how to handle this any better than she did, which was a strange thing to take comfort in.

  Jake began to walk toward her shop. He had dark hair that, compared to Josey’s black hair, was warm chocolate-cake brown. His eyes were li
ght green, a striking shade she could make out even from across the rotunda. He was so intense. Did the other woman see that in him too? Had he focused on her like he was focusing on Chloe right now? Had she been helpless to resist? A single hard impulse hit her and she wanted to go to him. She wanted to leave Josey and the shop and everything else behind and run into his arms. He’d hug her and they would kiss and the water in the coffeemaker would start to boil and everything would go back to the way it was. Everything would fit in the too-tight way it did before, but that would be all right. Wasn’t that better than her life falling off of her altogether?

  But she stopped herself. That wouldn’t make it right. You didn’t forgive because it was the only choice you thought you had. That didn’t make it forgiveness, that made it desperation. She’d always been too desperate about Jake. Always.

  And how could she forgive him when he wouldn’t even tell her who he’d slept with?

  “Excuse me,” she said to Josey, starting to turn, to hide in the small storeroom.

  “Are you okay?”

  Chloe looked at him again. He was getting closer. “I’m just trying to avoid someone.”

  Josey turned to see who it was. “Jake Yardley?”

  “You know him?”

  “Sort of,” Josey said, turning back around. Chloe wasn’t surprised. As prosecutor, Jake had been on the local television news almost every night for the duration of the Beasley murder trial in Bald Slope this past summer. Murder in a small town is pervasive, growing like kudzu until it envelops everyone in its sensationalism. People would still come up to Jake on the street to talk about the case, wanting to know what went on behind the scenes at the trial, wanting assurances that Wade Beasley was behind bars for good.

  “He cheated on me,” she said, and it was the first time she’d said it out loud.

  “Oh,” Josey said.

  Chloe hurried into the storeroom. After she’d dropped out of college when her great-grandparents fell ill, she’d had to sell the farmhouse and put them in a nursing home. She’d had nowhere to live, so she’d secretly moved into this storeroom and lived in it for almost six months. Every bit of money she’d made during that time went toward her great-grandparents’ care. Hank was the only one to find out, and he let her get away with it. Her great-grandparents died within months of each other. Just weeks after her great-grandmother’s death, she met Jake, and she clung to him. She’d lost almost everything, and there he was, offering her so much.

  “Clo, please come out here,” she heard him call.

  “I don’t think she wants to.” Chloe cocked her head. That was Josey’s voice.

  “Chloe, if you don’t come here, I’m coming back there.” He was ignoring Josey.

  She steeled herself for his presence. He could make her forget that it was desperation. He could make her forget everything. And this small room couldn’t contain what they had when they were together. The temperature would rise. Ice would melt. Eggs would fry in their cartons. After it had happened a few times when they first met, she had insisted he stay away from her at work because she lost inventory when he was around.

  A few moments passed.

  “All right, here I come,” he said.

  “No,” Josey said. “You’re not going back there.”

  “Who are you?” Jake demanded in his lawyer voice, which made Chloe feel anxious for Josey. Josey was no match for him in lawyer mode.

  But to Chloe’s surprise, she heard Josey say with some exasperation, “I’m Josey Cirrini, Jake. I stole your piece of chocolate cake at your grandmother’s Christmas party when I was six and made you cry.”

  “Josey!” Jake said, as if his memory had suddenly kicked in. “Where is your mother? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m helping out a friend.”

  “I know all of Clo’s friends.”

  “Maybe you only thought you did,” Josey said. A few moments of silence passed before Chloe heard, “He’s gone.”

  She walked out sheepishly. She should be handling this better. “Thank you,” Chloe said.

  “I hope I didn’t…” Josey waved an arm in the direction Jake had obviously left. The movement revealed the watch on her wrist. When she looked at it, she said, “Oh no. I have to go.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Chloe said, falling into step with Josey as she grabbed the sandwich bag and hurried into the rotunda. They reached the doors and walked out into the cool afternoon. The park in front of the courthouse was a flurry of last-minute activity before the kickoff to the Bald Is Beautiful festival that night. Leaves skittered across the grass on the breeze created as the canopies went up. The clouds were low in the sky, bright gray and full of sparkles. “Wait,” Chloe said once they reached the courthouse steps, a little out of breath. Josey could really move. “Are you going to the festival tonight?”

  Josey looked out over the park warily. “No. Are you?”

  “I usually do. I mean, I always went with Jake. I’ll go if you go.” She met Josey’s eyes. They were about the same height, and their eyes were the same shade of dark brown.

  “Surely there are other people you’d rather go with?”

  “They’d all grill me about Jake. I get the feeling you wouldn’t.”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “See? You’re perfect.”

  Josey gave a small laugh and shook her head. “I haven’t been since I was little,” she said. She looked down, confusion coming to her face. She bent and picked up a book that was lying on the steps. “Isn’t this your book?”

  Chloe sighed. “Oh, thanks.”

  “Didn’t you just leave it on the counter?”

  “Yes. I think I will go tonight. I didn’t do anything without him. That’s going to change. I’m going to do this.”

  Josey’s eyes went from the book to Chloe’s face. “Do you think you’ll forgive him?”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.” She took a few steps over to a large green trash receptacle and threw Finding Forgiveness away. “Listen, I’ll be at the stage around eight o’clock if you change your mind and want to come tonight.”

  “Here, eat this, quick,” Josey said as she opened her closet door. She put the bag in front of Della Lee, who was sitting on the floor on the sleeping bag. She was still wearing the tiara and all the necklaces, but today she was wearing several of her shirts layered over her T-shirt, and it looked like she’d put a pair of jeans on over the pair she was already wearing. Josey wasn’t quite sure what Della Lee was doing. Maybe she was bored. Maybe she thought the only way she could take her things with her was if she was wearing everything.

  Not that she was making any noise about leaving. And considering what she had to go back to, that was probably a good thing. In fact, Della Lee seemed perfectly at home here, with no desire to even stand or walk around, at least during the day when Josey could see her. Josey, of all people, understood the appeal of living in there. If Della Lee wasn’t in the closet, Josey would crawl in there right now. She would eat raspberry caramels and chocolate-covered cherries and read a romance novel.

  Josey took off her long gray coat, then slipped out of her lucky red sweater. Was today really lucky? She didn’t know how to feel exactly. Things were changing, in tiny ways, but enough to throw her off her normal course. First there was Della Lee. Then Chloe. And then Adam said she smelled like peppermint.

  He’d smelled her.

  “Why eat it quick?” Della Lee asked.

  Josey walked over to the blue tufted chaise lounge and set her purse, sweater and coat on it. “I wanted you to eat it warm, so I put it in my purse when I brought in the groceries. But I think my mother smelled it on me.” She turned around, trying to smooth the sides of her windblown hair.

  “So what?” Della Lee said.

  “So, I don’t want her to find it here. I was late coming home. She was worried. And if on top of that she thinks I’m sneaking food in here…well, it would embarrass her. And I think I’ve embarras
sed her enough as it is.”

  The truth was, she sneaked food in all the time, there was just never anyone else involved. She bought a lot of things at the grocery store every week, extra things on her own debit card so her mother wouldn’t find out. There were coconut drops, Pixy Stix and several pretty bottles of orangeade in the trunk right now. She kept the things in the car trunk until her mother went to sleep at night, then she’d sneak them in. Helena knew about Josey going out to the car at night, but she seemed to think it was normal behavior and after a while she stopped offering to help her carry the things in. She only stuck her head out of her bedroom to make sure it was Josey and not some ghostly midnight mover.

  “What have you done to embarrass her?” Della Lee asked. “It seems to me that you’ve given up all semblance of a normal life just for her.”

  Josey shook her head. “I was a terrible child.”

  “So what?” Della Lee said again.

  “So, I owe her this. And she’s my family, my only family.”

  Della Lee laughed. “That you know of.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Joke. It was a joke.” She shook her head. “You need to stop this hero worship of your mother. She’s not that great. And she doesn’t give a flying fig about you. You did the same thing with your father.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The whole town knows that. You adored your father.”

  “Imagine that. I loved my father. I probably need therapy.”

  “Thank you for the sandwich, but I already ate. Here,” Della Lee set the bag outside the closet, “you eat it.”

  Josey stared at the bag. Eating that sandwich would make her feel better. And it would make her feel worse. It was a familiar dilemma. She’d never experienced anything that was simply and entirely good for her. She wondered if such a thing even existed.