by Rachel Astor
But in true Dulcie fashion, she had absolutely no way to prove it. Who were the judges going to believe? Mr. Sugarman, who’d been an upstanding entrant for so many years, or Dulcie, whose only other solo appearance garnered her nothing but disgust and humiliation?
She’d seen it in the short judge’s eyes, how he recognized her all too well, even scrunching up his chubby face and taking a deep breath before he dared the tiniest bite of her creation.
Her mother’s creation.
God, this time she really had dragged her mother’s memory through the mud.
“You’ve been meeting that boy behind my back, haven’t you?” Grams groaned. “I warned you. I told you they were nothing but trouble, and now look what happened.”
Dulcie turned to her grandmother. “Grams, I’m a grown woman and can make my own decisions…and even my own mistakes. I realize I screwed up and I’m sorry, but all I can think about right now is getting the hell out of here. I cannot bear all those people staring at me like that again.”
A tear squeezed out the corner of her eye, which made things so much worse.
Grams didn’t even seem taken aback by Dulcie’s outburst, only nodded once. “You’re right. Let’s get you home. We’ll figure everything else out. Plenty of time later.” She patted Dulcie’s hand.
It was perhaps the most grandmotherly thing Grams had ever done.
So of course, Dulcie flat out started bawling.
She had never witnessed a force of nature as fierce as her grandmother packing their suitcases—she could win some sort of world record at the rate she was going. Dulcie had a sneaking suspicion it may have something to do with a little rage for Nick and Mr. Sugarman. She would not be surprised if she heard word that How Sweet It Is had a flaming bag of doggie doo pummeled at their door before week’s end.
“Check the bathroom, make sure we didn’t leave anything in there,” Grams said as she quickly folded a T-shirt and whipped it into a suitcase.
By the time Dulcie had collected the hair straightener and toothpaste, Grams was finished with all the clothes and was taking a last sweep of the room.
“Let’s go,” she said, hiking both suitcases into her arms.
For someone so dainty on most given days, Grams sure had some spitfire if the situation called for it.
Dulcie grabbed the rest and they snuck out the door. “Elevator?” Grams asked.
Dulcie shook her head. She didn’t want to risk running into anyone from the competition.
“Right,” Grams said, nodding and shoving the door to the stairs open with her butt. “You go wait outside; I’ll take care of checking out. Stand a couple buildings down. That way no one should bother you.”
How did Grams come up with this stuff? Shuffling her out, sending her down the street, and, she noticed, somehow weaseling her way in front of the two people standing in line waiting for the front desk clerk.
They didn’t even seem upset or anything; just let Grams waltz right on in front of them. Dulcie wondered if she even wanted to know how Grams accomplished the things she did.
Grams turned around and shot her a look like, “What are you still doing here?” so Dulcie made her escape. When she breathed fresh air, she had never been more grateful to get away from any place in her life.
She walked up the street, desperate to get away from the building.
More importantly, desperate to get away from Nick.
…
Nick went straight to Dulcie’s room. He banged on the door for several minutes, remembering how long it had taken Dulcie’s grandmother to answer last time. That must be the hold up. Maybe she decided to take a nice long bath to ease some of the stress.
She can’t have gotten away already, he thought. There hasn’t been time.
But no one came to the door.
He went down to the front desk. “I’d like to leave a message for room four-twelve, please,” he said to the desk clerk.
The man typed something into his computer at warp speed. “I’m afraid number four-twelve is empty, sir. There were occupants this morning but they’ve checked out.”
“Shit!” Nick spat without so much as glancing at the man.
He started wandering through the lobby, resisting the urge to pull his hair out. He’d missed his chance; she was already gone. And now she had the entire car ride home to stew over everything. To make matters worse, if her grandmother hadn’t hated him by association before, she certainly would now.
He had to do something. Make it right.
Still fuzzy about the details, there was only one place to start. He headed back to the judging hall.
Several of the contestants still mulled around chatting with one another, exchanging stories of which sports stars ordered from their shop, or what movie star always used their shop’s candy as an apology to his wife.
His father was still there, chatting with some old acquaintance. The man left as Nick walked up.
“So, now that I’ve calmed down, tell me exactly what happened.”
His father turned and pretended to clean up the area where the Salted Caramel Apple Confection had been displayed.
“Dad, I’m serious, you have to tell me.” He tried his best not to grit his teeth while he talked, but that was easier said than done.
“It’s simple,” his father said. “Years ago, that woman stole my recipe for this very contest. I simply repaid the favor.”
“I very much doubt Dulcie stole your recipe ten years ago, since she was a kid,” Nick said, clenching and unclenching his jaw.
His father shook his head in disgust. “Of course not the girl. That…woman,” he sneered.
“If you’re talking about Dulcie’s grandmother, I think I’m going to be sick. She hasn’t had a thing to do with the shop since Dulcie’s mother died. Hasn’t even stepped foot in it.”
“Well, that’s what they say, of course, but if you knew Evelyn when I did, you’d realize how preposterous that sounds.”
“Oh, I know all about you and Evelyn,” Nick said. “Is that why you broke up? You have some grand illusion she stole a recipe from you?”
Nick’s father’s jaw dropped, his eyes growing wide. “You know?”
Nick shrugged. “Enough, yeah. And I really don’t give a shit. What I do care about is Dulcie. Now tell me what you did. Because whatever happened a decade ago has nothing to do with her now, except, of course, she’s fielding the entire shit storm you started.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going to tell the judges.”
“No!” his father yelled.
“Then tell me,” he said, his face more serious than his father had probably ever seen it.
Mr. Sugarman glanced around. A few people had started looking in their direction. “Let’s go somewhere else. We can’t risk our reputation.”
Nick squinted in disbelief. “Our reputation? What about Candy Land’s reputation?”
Mr. Sugarman snorted. “What reputation? That store is barely still running. I’ve been waiting for it to go under for years.”
“And yet Dulcie still fights to keep it open. I guess it must mean a lot to her. You know, like her livelihood.”
Nick’s father rolled his eyes. “I bet she can’t wait to be rid of the burden her mother left behind.”
Nick’s hand clenched into a fist. “It is not her burden; it’s her life,” he said, leaning close to his father’s face. Nick didn’t go against him often, but he had hit his breaking point. “And you probably killed her dream. Her life.”
Mr. Sugarman snorted. “Oh please, it was her mother’s dream, not hers.”
“How do you know?” Nick yelled.
Mr. Sugarman took him by the elbow and pulled him out of the room, to the elevators. The only reason Nick went along was because he wanted to start a scene about as much as he wanted to chew broken glass.
A scene would make things worse for Dulcie, even if she were already halfway home.
“I don’t understand you, Nick,” he said. “Why are you
making such a big deal about this? We had to repay her, that’s how feuds work. I’ve waited years for this opportunity. I didn’t think I would get it after Evelyn’s daughter died.” He met Nick’s gaze. “She was the one who created the best recipes.” He sat on a bench in the hallway.
Nick nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”
“But when Evelyn and I created, you would have sworn she was the real genius.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Ode to Love was one of our greatest creations.” He glanced up at Nick. “And she stole it. We had this ridiculous fight, and the next thing I know, she’s telling me she’s entering it in the competition.” He paused. “By herself!”
“You’re telling me you created the Ode to Love with Dulcie’s grandmother?”
His father nodded, wringing his hands like he was ready to strangle someone over the whole thing.
“So she helped.”
Mr. Sugarman crinkled his brow. “Of course.”
“So then she really only stole her own recipe.”
He stood, facing Nick dead on. “It was at least half mine,” he said. “We made it together. It was supposed to belong to both of us and she just went and entered it.”
“Without you knowing,” Nick said.
“Well, she told me the day before the contest. I had no time to come up with something else on my own.”
Nick was confused. “What do you mean something else? You were going to co-enter the competition?”
Mr. Sugarman was a little sheepish now. “Not…exactly.”
“Oh. My. God. You wanted to enter the Ode to Love on your own, too, didn’t you? She just beat you to it.”
“No,” his dad said, but Nick knew he was lying.
“Regardless, at least she told you. You didn’t have to sit in that room with the judges and all those people staring at you while some other store unveiled your own chocolate right before you were about to. Can you even imagine what that must be like?”
His father was silent, not looking him in the eye.
“You honestly don’t understand the difference between entering something that’s half yours and blatantly stealing a recipe? How in the hell did you get it, anyway? Dulcie kept it so under wraps, even I didn’t have a clue what she entered.”
All of a sudden, he remembered his father handing him that container of chocolates to “break down,” and he realized the part he’d played. Nick thought he might be sick. Then last night, when Dulcie fixed that last chocolate from the ruined batch…why hadn’t he paid more attention to what it was? He could have warned her…
“Oh, don’t worry so much. It’s just a ridiculous contest,” his father said. “It doesn’t even mean anything. Evelyn and I used to fight like this all the time. It only stopped because…well, because her daughter died and I suppose her priorities changed. But then those chocolates were sitting there on the counter the day I went to talk to Evelyn. I took it as a sign.” He smiled wistfully.
“This ‘ridiculous contest’ meant everything to Dulcie. The prize money could keep her shop running for a long time. Keep her mom’s dream alive.”
“Exactly!” his father yelled, as if it were some big a-ha moment. “Her mother’s dream. Her mother’s legacy. And if you must know, it was her mother’s recipe, too. Has her signature all over it. She’s not around anymore, so it’s not like she patented the idea or anything.”
Nick grabbed his hair with both hands, pacing like a madman. “I’m going to talk to the judges,” he said, turning to walk out.
“Wait, you can’t. It’ll put a black mark on How Sweet It Is. The blogs will have a field day.”
“Oh, so it’s fine for you to ruin Candy Land’s reputation, but you can’t take the heat when you get caught? Maybe you should have thought about that before you stole from Dulcie. Haven’t you ever heard of karma, for Pete’s sake?”
“Nick, you’ll be hurting the store if you do this. Our future.”
And that was about the only thing his father could have said to give him pause. Could he live without everything his father’s legacy had paid for? The apartment, the car…the job?
Chapter Fifteen
When they got home, all Dulcie wanted to do was sleep. Just curl up into a ball on the floor of her mother’s room and sleep forever, begging for her forgiveness.
This time she hadn’t just screwed up on behalf of her mother’s memory—she’d messed with her mother’s actual recipe, the last shred of her legacy.
How could she have been so stupid? Sure, Grams skewed a little to the quirky side, but she’d never steered Dulcie wrong. When she said stay away from Nick, Dulcie should have stayed the hell away. Who had she become? Sneaking around and lying? She had been raised better than that. Grams and Mom never snuck around and lied to her.
They deserved better.
Dulcie’s stomach rolled with regret. Humiliation. Disappointment in how her life had turned out. But she deserved it all. If she was going to be so stupid, she didn’t deserve the store. Didn’t deserve her mother’s legacy.
But Nick or his awful father certainly didn’t deserve to get credit for her mother’s recipe, either.
And that’s what motivated her to get up.
“What do we do, Grams?” she asked.
“We’re going to take that bastard down,” she replied.
“But how?”
“I’m still working on that,” she said.
“Grams, we had the whole ride home to work on it and we’re no further ahead than we were back at the hotel.”
“I know,” she said, pacing.
Dulcie got up and paced opposite her.
“Wait,” she said, spinning to face Grams. “Jess!”
“Who the heck is Jess?”
“You know the homeless woman I’ve been telling you about?”
Grams stopped dead in her tracks. “You want to put our future in the hands of a homeless person?”
Dulcie rolled her eyes. “Well, if you would ever come down to the shop and meet her, you’d realize she’s extremely smart. She just got the shitty end of the stick in this recession, and if we don’t hurry up and do some damage control, we’re about to follow in her footsteps.”
“I can’t,” Grams said, more to herself than to Dulcie, shaking her head. “I…I just can’t.”
“Grams, we won’t be able to do this alone. We need the help of our friends at the shop. They’re almost as invested as we are in this. I mean, how long has it been since you saw Constance? And you haven’t even met Ava. She’s been working for us for two years.”
Grams kept pacing, her head shaking even harder now.
It was time for Dulcie to play dirty. “It could mean taking Mr. Sugarman down.” She raised one eyebrow.
Grams stopped.
“Well,” she said with a humph. “I guess I’ve always known I would have to go back someday…”
It wasn’t a definite yes, but at that point, Dulcie was willing to take it.
An hour later they stood in front of Candy Land Confections, Grams pacing in her heels. Her hands were red from wringing them.
“Come on,” Dulcie said after about ten minutes.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, but the next time she turned to pace back toward the store, Dulcie saw a tear streak down her cheek.
“It’s okay,” she said, grabbing her grandmother by the shoulders, standing in front of her. “We can do it together.”
“It’s just…” Grams wiped another tear. “She was my one true love, you know?”
Dulcie nodded. She did know. So often true love was thought of as romantic love, but her mother and Grams were soul mates, destined to live their lives together. Sure, most mothers and daughters were close, but they had been best friends all their lives.
“It’s just…the smell of this place,” Grams said. “It reminds me so much of her.”
“I know. I smell it every day. And I remember her every day. It helps me stay close to her memory.”
Grams looked her in the eye.
“Really?”
“Well, have you been able to think about one thing besides Mom since you got here?”
Grams shook her head. “But it hurts to remember.”
“Yeah,” Dulcie said. “But I try to think of the good stuff. Not the bad news we got.”
Grams took a deep breath, composing herself. “You’re a smarty for someone so young, you know that?”
Dulcie shrugged. “I did have you and Mom in my corner.”
Grams took Dulcie’s hand, squeezing it more tightly than was comfortable. For the first time, Dulcie cursed all the working out Grams did. Her hand was like a vise.
Dulcie opened the door and the familiar jingle of the bells sang.
Grams stopped.
But Dulcie tugged, and a few minutes later they were inside. Grams had her eyes closed, taking in the sounds and smells of the place that used to be like home to her. Dulcie tugged her a little farther into the store; they were in the way of customers wanting to come in.
“Come on, you’re doing great.”
Grams opened her eyes and gazed around. “It’s busy,” she said.
“You should have been here a week ago,” Dulcie said.
Things had tapered off even more. It was kind of good Dulcie had to sneak away for a couple days for the contest; it gave Ava a chance to log a few more hours, and more importantly, gave Jess a couple more days out of that alley.
“Ms. Carter!” Constance yelled from behind the counter. “Is it good to see you!”
Her smile was contagious. It finally struck Dulcie how big of a deal this was, and she barely contained her beaming. Even Grams snuck behind the counter to give Constance a much overdue hug.
The customers standing in line didn’t even seem to mind waiting another minute or two for what even they must have realized was a long-awaited reunion.
Grams let go and glanced around again. “It feels good to be back. I didn’t think it would.”
Constance gave her a look—sort of half scolding and half filled with pride.
“What brings you in after all this time?” Constance asked. Worry crossed her face. “Dulce? How did the competition go?”
