Death of a Chocoholic

by Lee Hollis

  If Liddy knew what was good for her, she was definitely here to beg for forgiveness.

  Hayley turned back to Gemma, who had already shoved her earbud back into her ear and was staring at the screen of her iPad. She sniffed, as if she was fighting back tears. She refused to make any more eye contact with her mother.

  Hayley decided to let it go.

  For now.

  Sometimes the odds of getting a teenager to talk were about as high as winning the million-dollar lotto. Which Hayley still tried doing on occasion, given how she was constantly drowning in bills. So it was probably best to give her daughter some space and try approaching her again in the morning.

  As Hayley walked back down the stairs, she heard the door to the kitchen open and a voice call to her, “Don’t kill me for showing up so late.”

  Hayley smiled.

  It was her brother, Randy.

  She rounded the corner and saw him standing in the kitchen, wearing sweats and a t-shirt, furry slippers and a winter coat thrown over his shoulders. He was holding a big square box in his hand, and there was a brown bath towel covering it.

  “How’d your date go?” he asked.

  “Don’t ask. What’s that?”

  “Please don’t be mad,” Randy said.

  Whenever her brother said, “Please don’t be mad,” it always meant bad news for Hayley.

  “What, Randy? What is it?”

  “I was going to wait and come over in the morning, but I was afraid Sergio would kick me out before then, so I had to take care of it tonight.”

  “Take care of what? What are you talking about?”

  Dustin strolled down the hall into the kitchen from the living room and opened the refrigerator to grab a carton of milk. “Hey, Uncle Randy, what did you bring us?”

  Randy slowly pulled the brown bath towel off the box.

  Dear God, no.

  It wasn’t a box.

  It was a pet carrier.

  And inside was a big, fat Persian Blue cat. He growled menacingly. His yellow eyes fixated on Hayley like some caged violent criminal behind bars who vowed to wreak havoc if he ever broke out.

  It was Blueberry.

  Hayley knew this animal all too well. He was the pet of a local in town, and Hayley agreed to look after the cat briefly while the owner was incapacitated. It was during a very stressful time when Hayley’s furnace was busted and she was staying with Randy. Blueberry relished terrorizing everyone in the house, and left behind a devastating path of destruction.

  Unfortunately, Blueberry’s owner had recently left town unexpectedly; and Blueberry was now homeless, but that was a whole other story.

  Right now, the question was what was this devil cat doing in her kitchen?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Randy said. The words tumbled out of his mouth at such a speed Hayley could barely understand him. “Why would I ever allow this horrible creature who hates every other living thing to set one paw back inside my house, especially after he peed on every rug and upholstered piece of furniture I own?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Hayley said, crossing her arms.

  “Because I’ve always been a sucker for a sob story, you know that, and when I heard from Michelle, who volunteers part-time at the animal shelter, that they were planning to put him down because nobody wanted to adopt him given his, well, diabolical nature, I just couldn’t stand by and let them do it. I heard myself saying the words ‘I’ll take him’ and yet it was like I was outside my body watching myself sign the papers and walk out of the shelter with the carrier. It was so surreal. Like it was happening to someone else.

  “But then I got home and I let him out of the carrier, and it hit me like a two-by-four. Why this was always going to be a terrible mistake. He started tearing up the place, and peeing everywhere, and threw up a hairball in Sergio’s slipper.”

  Sergio.

  Randy’s partner.

  And the town’s police chief.

  “When Sergio went to grab him, Blueberry scratched the hell out of his hand. Now my relationship is teetering on the edge. Sergio is furious I brought him home without checking with him first. He doesn’t even like cats. He’s allergic. How was I to know? After all, he was in Brazil the last time Blueberry was around. He never came in contact with him.”

  “You’ve been living with the man for ten years. You didn’t know he was allergic to cats?”

  Randy shook his head, a panicked look on his face. “What am I going to do?”

  “Take him back to the shelter,” Hayley said firmly.

  “I know he’s a little high maintenance, but is that reason enough to kill him?” Randy asked.

  “Well, what other choice do you have?”

  “Well, I was hoping you might—”

  “No! Don’t even go there.”

  “Just until we can find him a permanent home.”

  “Absolutely not. I don’t think Leroy’s heart could take it.”

  Leroy was Hayley’s white Shih Tzu, with a pronounced underbite. He was also the number one victim of Blueberry’s terrorist activities. The poor dog cowered in fear at the mere thought of this angry, furry blue butterball.

  “Why is he looking at me funny?” Dustin asked, staring at Blueberry, whose yellow eyes narrowed as he glared from inside the metal carrier.

  “He’s trying to suck out your spirit,” Hayley said. “It’s one of his wicked powers.”

  “He’s kind of freaking me out. I’m going to go hide in my room. Night, Uncle Randy,” Dustin said, putting the milk back in the fridge, then pounding down the hall and up the stairs.

  “Night, buddy,” Randy said, before turning back to Hayley. “Blueberry’s not that bad.”

  “No, he’s not that bad—now that he’s in my house and not yours. You know I’m a bleeding heart, Randy, just like you, and I’m really, really mad at you for taking advantage of that.”

  “I will pay for all expenses—food, shots, medicine, anything he needs.”

  “And you’ll reimburse me for anything in my house that he might destroy?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. And I will find him a place to live. I promise. Just give me a week. Maybe two. But no more than three. It’s been pretty busy lately at the bar.”

  “Why do I have the feeling I’m going to regret this?”

  Leroy, who had been sleeping in the recliner in the living room, ambled into the kitchen. His little tail had been wagging at the sound of Hayley’s and Randy’s voices, but he stopped in his tracks at the familiar sight of the pet carrier. His eyes went wide in abject horror as Randy unlatched the door to the carrier and pulled it open.

  Blueberry sauntered out calmly, swishing his tail around, taking in his surroundings.

  Leroy stood his ground, but he kept glancing at Hayley, like he was begging to know what on earth would possess her to allow this dangerous presence onto his home turf.

  Blueberry calmly marched forward, stopping less than an inch from Leroy’s face. He sniffed Leroy, and his whiskers tickled the little dog’s nose.

  For a moment, it looked as if Blueberry might be calling a truce.

  Leroy bought it.

  He sniffed back.

  But then the devil cat flicked open his claws and swiped them across Leroy’s face, drawing a tiny bit of blood above the nose.

  Instead of retreating, Leroy began snapping at Blueberry with his bared teeth. Hayley and Randy raced to intervene and pulled the two prizefighter pets apart.

  Let the games begin.

  Chapter 3

  “Six days and seven nights in Isla Mujeres,” Bruce Linney said, waving the brochure in front of his boss Island Times editor in chief Sal Moretti’s face. “You know what ‘Isla Mujeres’ means, don’t you, Sal?”

  “I never took Spanish in high school,” Sal grumbled as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Island of Women,” Bruce said, winking, before unfolding the brochure and holding it up for Sal to see. “And my b
uddies who’ve been there before told me it’s definitely not false advertising!”

  Hayley kept her eyes on her computer, not at all anxious to join the conversation. She was already jealous that crime reporter Bruce was able to afford a first-class two-week Mexican vacation and she was struggling to pay her winter heating bill.

  “Take a look at the villa we’ve rented. You wouldn’t believe how cheap it was, especially since I’m pooling with my fraternity brothers.”

  “Nice,” Sal said, before sucking down his coffee and trying to make a quick escape to his office in the back of the Island Times building.

  No such luck.

  “Just think. This time Saturday I’ll be sipping a cocktail on the deck of this incredible rental house, watching the sun set over the ocean, a hot Mexican chick in a tube top and a flowery sarong nestled in my lap, slowly licking the salt off my face from the margarita glass, while I’m high-fiving my college buddies.”

  “Oh, dear God, Sal, make him stop,” Hayley moaned, unable to hold her tongue anymore.

  “She’s right,” Sal said. “Don’t rub it in.”

  “Sorry,” Bruce said, smirking. “I’m sure you’ll have a nice weekend too, Hayley. Maybe you can drive up to the Bangor Mall and buy a new vacuum or something.”

  “If you ever saw the inside of my house, Bruce, you’d know I rarely vacuum,” Hayley said, half joking.

  Actually, she wasn’t joking at all. She couldn’t afford to hire a maid and she was usually too tired from work and parenting to get much housework done on the weekends.

  “Hayley isn’t going to have time to take any joy rides to Bangor, Bruce. She’s going to be way too busy writing both columns while you’re gone,” Sal said, pouring what was left in the coffee pot into his cup and then slurping it down in one gulp.

  “What do you mean both columns?” Bruce asked.

  “I thought Hayley could fill in for you while you’re gone,” Sal said.

  Bruce looked at Sal and then at Hayley, his mouth agape, before suddenly bursting into a fit of giggles. “Good one, Sal. You almost had me.”

  “I’m serious,” Sal said.

  “No, you’re not,” Bruce said, still laughing.

  “Yes, I am. I really am.”

  Bruce suddenly stopped laughing. “You’re going to let Hayley write my ‘Police Beat’ column?”

  Sal nodded.

  “Well, that’s about the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

  “You might want to rephrase that, since it was my idea,” Sal warned. “I can go back to my office and dig up your vacation days request and stamp a big fat ‘Denied’ on it if you keep pissing me off.”

  “It’s just . . . I mean, I thought my column would go on hiatus while I was on vacation.”

  “Oh, so you think crime in Bar Harbor is just going to stop while you fly off to Mexico?” Sal snorted. He glanced over at Hayley, who was still in shock over the sudden doubling up of her workload.

  “But why Hayley? I mean, no offense, but she is supremely unqualified.”

  “Wow. How could I ever take offense to that, you silver-tongued devil?” Hayley said, rolling her eyes.

  “Let’s be honest, Sal. She’s never had any real writing experience. I have a journalism degree from Boston University. Hayley majored in Jack Daniel’s shots at the University of Maine at Farmington before dropping out after freshman year for lack of attendance. And let’s face it, you pay her to dole out all these recipes to our readers and she’s never taken one cooking class.”

  “You do realize I’m sitting right here,” Hayley said.

  “And she gets more fan letters in a week than you do in a year,” Sal said.

  That shut up Bruce.

  For about a second.

  He opened his mouth to speak again.

  Sal cut him off, delivering the final blow. “And if you really want to be honest, just by being annoyingly nosy, she’s also solved more local crimes in the past couple of years than you have.”

  Hayley wanted to cheer Sal for so valiantly coming to her defense.

  But she could’ve done without him calling her “annoying.”

  And “nosy.”

  Bruce’s face flushed with anger.

  He was speechless.

  And that was about as rare as a tornado in Maine.

  Bruce shook his head, staring at Hayley in utter disbelief, before averting his eyes back to Sal, as if waiting for the editor to burst out laughing and tell him it was all just a sick joke.

  But Sal held his ground.

  His sour puss expression never changed.

  Finally accepting defeat, Bruce marched through the door into the back bull pen, retreating into his office, and slamming the door behind him.

  There was a deafening silence.

  Hayley’s mind was racing. How on earth would she ever be able to write two columns at once? She was already inundated with her office manager duties aside from her own food-and-cocktails columns. Not to mention parenting two rambunctious teenagers, one of whom was in the midst of an undisclosed crisis. She knew she had to speak up now or be stuck with an overwhelming workload.

  “Sal, I appreciate the opportunity to fill in for Bruce, but I don’t see how I can manage—”

  “I’ll double your salary for the next two weeks until Bruce gets back.”

  “I won’t let you down, boss,” Hayley blurted out.

  Suddenly the idea of writing two columns didn’t seem so daunting.

  Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell

  The other night, after I finished washing the dishes from dinner, I glanced at the clock and realized that it was only seven o’clock. I still had time to whip up one of my famous German chocolate cakes that my brother, Randy, had recently started selling at his bar. The more cakes I made and he sold, the more extra spending money I would have in my pocket for the slots in Bangor. So let the cake baking begin!

  As I gathered together my ingredients on the kitchen counter, my mind wandered back a few years ago to when the kids were smaller and more rambunctious and how hectic the nights always were before and after dinner. Inevitably, I would forget to check their backpacks to see if there were any notes or other important information. Asking the kids if there was something I needed to sign or know about always proved fruitless because once they finished eating, their eyes would be glued to the television and they completely tuned me out.

  I should have been more diligent after learning my lesson at a recent parent-teacher conference. I was approached by two parents (who shall remain nameless, but you know the type—the ones who fancy themselves above all others and appoint themselves in charge of every event). Anyway, the Super Moms cornered me in the hallway and quietly asked me if everything was all right at home, since my absence from the monthly PTA meetings hadn’t gone unnoticed. They also added that they were shocked that I wasn’t even contributing to the classroom bake sale fund-raisers. After exchanging a look of judgment, they turned on their pointy high heels and clicked down the hallway, looking like twin Barbie dolls. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open (once again).

  That night when I got home, I tore through my kids’ backpacks and pulled out every scrap of paper. Oh, what a mess! But I found schedules for the meetings, dates for bake sales, book sales, and crumpled-up announcements of every other upcoming scheduled event for the whole semester. Then I searched the house for my organizer calendar, which I had purchased before the school year began just to avoid all of this drama (although I did note to myself that I hadn’t even taken it out of the wrapper yet).

  After frantically filling in all of the dates for every upcoming activity, I must admit I was quite proud of myself. I even managed to attend the next PTA meeting while pretending not to notice a few raised eyebrows as I made my way to an open seat in the front of the classroom.

  A few weeks later I was up way too late on a work night, watching a cheesy-but-oh-so-good Lifetime Movie Network thriller about some soap actress with a murd
erous stalker. Actually, he was better-looking than she was and had six-pack abs. I had to wonder why she was so upset that he was standing outside her bedroom window, but I digress. I turned off the TV and walked into the kitchen to shut off the light, and just happened to glance at the calendar on the fridge. There right in front of me in huge glaring red letters were the words BAKE SALE! Oh, my God! And it was tomorrow!

  I vowed I was not going to miss this one and have those prissy, perfect mothers talking behind my back; so I ran all over the kitchen, throwing open the cupboards and grabbing the ingredients for my German chocolate cake, which I decided to turn into German chocolate cupcakes. I could just double the recipe so there would be more than enough to sell at the bake sale. I was up until the wee hours of the morning, baking and frosting and packing up my moist cupcakes into three boxes, before finally collapsing into my bed, around 3:00 A.M., and dreaming about that handsome stalker chasing me around the house instead of pursuing that whiny soap actress.

  When I opened my eyes in the morning, the sun was streaming through the window and the house was unusually quiet. I turned to glance at the clock and sat up in horror! It was 7:45 A.M.! We were late! I leapt out of bed, screaming the kids’ names! They groggily pulled on their clothes as I threw together their lunches while trying to come up with an excuse for Sal as to why I was going to be over an hour late for work.

  Finally the kids, backpacks, myself, and four dozen cupcakes were packed into the car and we raced off to school. Of course, I had to hear about how it was my fault we all overslept because I didn’t wake up Gemma and now her perfect-attendance record was going to be ruined. Note to self: Get the kid her own alarm clock for Christmas. Once we squealed to a stop in front of the school, I shoved everyone out of the car and then hit the gas and sped off to the office. Luckily, the rest of the day was relatively quiet. Until I got home at five and found Gemma standing in the middle of the kitchen with her hands on her hips, staring daggers at me.