One Spoonful of Trouble (Felicity Bell Book 1)

by Nic Saint

  She’d arrived at Stanwyck Street 41 and let herself in. Just then, her phone chimed. She frowned at the display and seeing the name Stephen Fossick pop up, picked up as she nudged the door shut with her hip.

  “Hey, Stephen. What’s up?”

  “Fe, so glad to hear you,” a gravelly voice rang out. Stephen might be the best editor for miles around—and coincidentally also the only editor for miles around—but he was a little hard of hearing and seemed to think everyone was. She held the phone away from her offended ear. “I heard all about what happened at Rafi’s. How are you holding up?”

  “I’m fine. Two guys tried to rob the store but I stopped them.” Hearing herself say those words suddenly made her swell with pride. She had actually thwarted a robbery, hadn’t she?

  “You’re a true heroine!” Stephen boomed. “And what I want you to do is write a short piece about what happened,” he quickly added. “Nothing fancy. Just tell the readers the story in your own words. About five hundred of them.”

  She stared at her reflection in the hall mirror and saw that her eyes were wide and fearful. “But—but I’m not a reporter. I can’t—I can’t possibly—”

  He cut her off. “You can and you will. I would do it myself but I’m doing a piece on the mayor so basically you’re all I’ve got!”

  “But-but-but—”

  “Great! That’s settled then. Get me the story by six. That should give you plenty of time to come up with something. And don’t worry—I always rewrite everything before it goes to print!”

  “That—that’s great,” she muttered, then remembered she’d never written an article before. But before she could mention this minor detail, the line went dead. She’d been writing her baking column for about a year now, but that wasn’t quite the same as writing an article. She staggered into the house feeling as if a great weight had descended upon her, and as she allowed gravity to drop her onto the couch, she became aware of Alice, seated cross-legged in the cozy chair, reading a book.

  “You look like hell,” her friend remarked as she eyed her with compassion.

  “Thanks. That sounds about right.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Felicity accepted a glass of cool water from Alice’s hand and stared before her as her friend fussed over her.

  Alice was a pint-sized petite blonde, her hair styled in a bob, with bewitching green eyes that perpetually appeared to sparkle. She and Felicity had been friends since kindergarten, when they’d bonded over a shared dislike of Virgil Scattering, who’d had the revolting habit of smearing his boogers all over the other kids’ faces, claiming they—his boogers, not the kids—had healing powers.

  She took a seat next to Felicity and patted her hand consolingly. “I heard all about it. I ran into Mabel on my way home and she got it from Gloria.”

  Gloria Gonzalez was Rafi’s fabled ‘Mami’, and about as accomplished a town gossip as Mabel Stokely, who worked at City Hall.

  “Looks like the whole town knows about this already.”

  Alice shrugged. “You know how it is. Nothing ever happens in Happy Bays and when it does, tongues start wagging. Remember when Letitia was bitten by Mabel’s poodle last year? Front page news. Imagine the kind of tizzy they’ll get into with this robbery story. I bet they’ll still be talking about it at the Festival.”

  Since it was only April, and the annual Happy Bays Festival wasn’t until the end of August, Felicity felt this was taking things too far. “There must be other stuff they can talk about, right? After all, it’s just a little robbery. No biggie.”

  “No biggie? You should have heard Mabel. She made it sound as if Virgil had collared Al Capone himself.” She leaned in and touched her knee excitedly. “Is it really true you held those two perps at gunpoint?”

  Felicity nodded, still thinking about that article. For some reason, writing it seemed more daunting than subduing those two crooks.

  Gaston, the chubby red cat they kept, trotted up from the kitchen, and hopped on the couch, nestling himself between them. Alice tickled him behind the ears and he started a steady purr. “You have to tell me all about it,” she said with shiny eyes.

  “I thought you already knew all about it? From Mabel who heard it from Gloria, remember?”

  Alice hitched up her shoulders. “I’m sure they left out the best parts.” She grinned excitedly. “Is it really true you fired a gun?”

  She sighed. “Unfortunately, yes.” She told her friend how much anxiety that single bullet had already caused her, then proceeded to regale her with the whole story, leaving out no details however small. Finally, she added the kicker: that she was supposed to write an article about the whole ordeal. As if it wasn’t enough she’d had to go through it, she had to put it into words as well.

  “Didn’t you always say you wanted to be a reporter? Just like Tintin?”

  “Well, yes,” she admitted, “but I never thought I’d actually have to do it.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “Now that sounds logical.”

  “No, I mean, I already fulfilled my dream. I love doing my baking columns. But an actual article?” She threw up her hands. “I’m not trained for that. I didn’t go to journalism school, or take any classes. I don’t even know where to begin!”

  “I’ll help you if you want,” Alice suggested. “Writing an article sounds like fun.”

  “Sounds like a pain in the neck to me.”

  “Do you have one of those thingamajigs? A, um, whatchamacallit…” She snapped her fingers. “A deadline.”

  “Six o’clock.”

  “So what’s the plan? Strawberry shortcake or the article?” She licked her lips and Felicity laughed. Of the two of them Alice was even more enthusiastic about the baking column than she was, for she couldn’t wait to eat the final product.

  “Let’s do the cake first, then worry about the article.”

  “I like your thinking. Let’s start right away, shall we? I haven’t eaten.”

  Felicity rubbed her tummy. “Me neither.” Though she didn’t really approve of having strawberry shortcake for dinner, she could have eaten anything. Her original plan had been to arrive home before Alice, whip up some grub, and plan the rest of the evening while they enjoyed an early dinner together. Now, after her run-in with those two elements from Happy Bays’s criminal underbelly, her plans lay in ruins. But at least she’d gotten away with her life.

  “You should have seen them,” she told Alice as she laid out the ingredients on the kitchen countertop. “One of them was hideous as hell, while the other…” She hesitated, vividly seeing the face of the second hoodlum before her mind’s eye. “Well, actually he was kinda cute. Blue eyes, straggly hair, lean body—what I could see of it, of course,” she quickly added. She told the story of the baby peas and Alice laughed heartily.

  “That has to go into the article,” she insisted. “I can see the headline now. Baby Peas Versus Cute Thug. 1-0.”

  “Mh. Didn’t think about headlines, actually. I suppose Stephen will pick one.”

  She checked the list. Strawberries, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, salt, and cream. Yep, that seemed about right. She wiped the countertop, placed the food processor in the center, switched on the oven, and busied herself measuring the right amounts and putting them in glass bowls. Alice prepared the camera the two friends bought especially for these sessions. The money they paid for the camera wasn’t really covered by the stipend received for the Flour Girl column but they had so much fun they didn’t really care.

  Alice positioned the camera just so, and hit the kitchen ceiling lights. “Did I tell you that we have now reached the fabulous number of one hundred subscribers on our YouTube channel?”

  “Yay. That is fabulous.” Felicity frowned as she read the recipe. She’d gotten it from her grandmother, like so many of the other recipes she’d prepared for her column. She’d already told grandmama that her baking prowess was garnering more and more fans each day, but since the old lady wasn’t really internet-savv
y that didn’t mean all that much to her. She was happy that her recipes would stand the test of time though, as Mom dutifully clipped all of the columns and collected them in a scrapbook.

  “So, are you ready, Flour Girl?” Alice asked, hovering her finger over the record button.

  “I’m ready if you are, YouTube Girl.”

  Alice, with a wide grin, pressed record and just at that moment, the doorbell rang.

  They both uttered a curse. “I’ll get it,” Alice called out as she ran to the door. “You just go ahead and start already. I’ll fix all this in post.”

  Felicity grinned. Alice was beginning to sound like Martin Scorsese. She plastered her most genial smile on her face and started explaining to the camera what she was going to prepare today. She’d just started adding the sticks of butter to the processor when she caught sight of a tall, handsome man walking toward her. The moment she recognized him as the crook who’d attacked her with a can of beans, she let out a yelp of horror, took a firm grip on the bowl of eggs conveniently placed next to her hand, and whirled them at the man.

  The bandit opened his mouth to speak when the eggs impacted on his face with a satisfying crack. Felicity just wished she had something harder, bigger and capable of causing more damage to throw at the gangster.

  That’s when she caught sight of the meat cleaver…

  CHAPTER 8

  Rick Dawson stood hovering on the doorstep of a cozy red-brick two-story row house, just around the corner from Happy Bays’s market square. He stared at the sign next to the bell, which revealed that here lived ‘Felicity + Alice.’ The sign was written in a pink scrawl and surrounded by a cloud of hearts and flowers.

  He sighed, once again wondering if this was really such a good idea. After all, the woman might bridle at the sight of him. Not only had he accused her of being a crook, he’d actually caused her physical pain by throwing that can of beans.

  He could argue that he hadn’t known at the time that not she was the crook, but the man she was holding at gunpoint. It might be considered a feeble excuse. Everyone else seemed to know who she was, even the young policewoman taking his fingerprints. She’d smirked when Officer Scattering told her Rick actually thought Felicity Bell was a deli robber. Turned out she was quite the local celebrity. She even had a baking column in the Happy Bays Gazette, where she was known as Flour Girl.

  But how could he possibly have known? He had, after all, only arrived in town two days ago, after a very long, self-imposed exile.

  As a hard-nosed reporter, he was used to covering crime, not thwarting it, and when the opportunity had finally arisen, he’d done what seemed right.

  Good thing Suggs Potter had vouched for him, and Officer Virgil had been obliged to let him walk after giving him a stern warning not to assault any more of Happy Bays’s citizenry. Well, it wasn’t as if he made a habit of attacking the locals. In fact the only local he’d butchered in cold blood was the lone mosquito that had kept him up half the night.

  When Virgil had advised him to make amends with Felicity, whom he seemed to consider something of a personal friend, he’d said he’d think about it. On his way out, he’d been approached by Mabel Stokely, who’d slipped him Felicity’s address. The matronly secretary had encouraged him to make a clean breast of it. “You have nothing to worry about, Mr. Dawson,” she said. “You just go on over there and apologize. I’m sure she’ll have a good laugh, and so will Alice. They’re two of the sweetest young ladies you could ever hope to meet.”

  He figured she was probably right, and had set foot for Stanwyck Street.

  He was fortunate to find that the woman who bade him entry wasn’t Flour Girl herself but the Alice Whitehouse Mabel had mentioned.

  “Hi. My name is Rick Dawson and I’m here to see Felicity Bell. I, um…I had a bit of a run-in with her at the deli this afternoon? I want to apologize for my appalling behavior.”

  Alice, a springy blond woman, listened to his story and quickly agreed to take him to meet her friend. Granted, she had a twinkle in her eye as she stepped aside to let him pass through the door, but he dismissed this as merely a sign of the sweet, good-natured soul Mabel had assured him she was.

  And then the horror had started. First the eggs. He should have been warned that something like this might happen, but he’d just opened his mouth to introduce himself when the throwing started. About a hundred eggs had hit him straight in the face. And he’d just removed enough of the sticky substance to be able to restore his vision, when he caught sight of a gigantic meat cleaver in Flour Girl’s hand. Oh, Christ. This was worse than Iraq.

  “One more step and you’re a dead man,” Felicity told him matter-of-factly.

  He held up a hand in defense, though truth be told he was quite certain that nothing could protect him now.

  “Who let you in?” she demanded.

  “I did,” Alice piped up with a giggle. “Fe, it’s all right. He’s a reporter. It’s all one big misunderstanding.”

  This seemed to give the egg thrower pause, and he quickly interjected, “She’s right. My name is Rick Dawson and I’m a reporter with the New York Chronicle.”

  Felicity narrowed her eyes. The news seemed to do little to appease her. “Then why were you holding up Rafi’s Deli?”

  “But I wasn’t!” he cried, getting a little worked up. It didn’t do, he felt, to be accused of being a gangster after all the time he’d spent writing stories about them. Almost like Woodward and Bernstein being accused of going into politics. “I was simply there to buy some groceries when I heard gunfire. When I went to investigate I saw you wielding a gun and pumping bullets into the ceiling. What was I supposed to think?!”

  “You were supposed to think I had just apprehended a dangerous criminal and wasn’t ready to be attacked in the rear!”

  He held up both hands now, in a gesture of peace. “Look, I made a mistake, all right? An honest mistake. I mistook you for a criminal and I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

  She wiggled the meat cleaver, lips pursed, and seemed to consider both his explanation and apology.

  “For Christ’s sakes Fe, the man is a reporter! You know, like a professional writer of articles?” She enunciated these words, as if they held a certain meaning, and he was glad to see that they seemed to have a soothing effect on her roommate.

  “A reporter huh? What did you say your name was?”

  “Rick Dawson.”

  She frowned. “Dawson…I think I’ve seen your byline. Didn’t you write that article on stimulated self-serum skin therapy?”

  “I…yes! Yes, I did!” Though he’d never even heard of whatever it was she was talking about, mentioning the fact seemed injudicious.

  She nodded, placing her weapon on the counter. “I like your writing.”

  “Thanks,” he said, nervously following her every gesture. It seemed as if the greatest danger was averted, but from the brief acquaintance he’d had with this woman he knew her to possess a volcanic temper that could be unleashed at the drop of a hat. “Look, I’m sorry, all right? If I’d known you were—”

  She waved her hand. “Water under the bridge. Let’s forget the whole thing.”

  He expelled a long breath. “Great. That’s…great.”

  She held up a finger. “On one condition.”

  “Huh?”

  “You have to teach me how to write.”

  He stared at her dumbly. “Write?”

  She laughed, and for the first time he noticed her cheeks dimpled when she did so. “I don’t mean ABC. I mean teach me how to write an article.”

  “Oh.” He blinked. “I think I can do that.”

  “Wonderful. Now take a seat and shut up. I have a cake to bake.”

  And with these mysterious words, she gestured to her friend. Alice seemed to understand the unspoken command, for she started fiddling with a camera placed on a tripod. Only now did he notice that the kitchen counter held more items than just eggs and meat cleavers, and with a frown he watched Felicit
y magically spirit an enchanting smile onto her face, gaze straight into the camera, and launch into an explanation on something related to food.

  His face still dripping with egg yolk, he found himself strangely drawn to the mysterious Flour Girl. Only now did he notice she was quite pretty, and when she smiled there was something thoroughly engaging about her. Her liquid brown eyes flashed, her red hair flickered, and he blinked as he took in her curvy frame.

  God, he thought as he licked some egg from his face, she’s quite gorgeous.

  CHAPTER 9

  Felicity stared at the man. He seemed innocuous enough now that he wasn’t pelting her with canned beans. She had to admit she’d been a little rash to fire off those eggs but what else did he expect? Here she thought he was safely locked up in the Happy Bays slammer and then he suddenly showed up in her own home!

  “Is there, um, a place I could, ah, freshen up?” he asked.

  “Sure thing,” Alice replied and showed him to their small but cozy bathroom. Once returned, she seemed pensive. “Do you think he likes cake?”

  “Mh?”

  “Do you think Rick likes cake?”

  “I’m sure that man likes anything you throw at him,” she replied darkly.

  Alice fiddled with the camera. “It’s just that…” She leaned in and scooped up the cake bowl, then dipped in her finger and started meticulously cleaning out the batter. “…strawberry shortcake happens to be my favorite, and Mr. Hot Reporter Guy just told me he’s starving.”

  “He doesn’t look like a cake eater to me.”

  “He’s just been through a terrible ordeal. Falsely arrested, thrown in prison…”

  “He’s got no one to blame but himself,” Felicity said decidedly as she buttered the baking tray. “Serves him right for jumping to conclusions and treating me like a common criminal.”