Better Than Chocolate (23 page)

* * *

The permits finally surfaced from the sea of red tape at
city hall. It was a sign, Samantha told herself. The permits were in place and
the rockslide would be history. Now they just needed visitors.

If you have it they will come.
At
least she hoped so. “Let’s push forward aggressively,” she told her festival
committee. “We need to get every service club and church signed up for a booth,
as well as the restaurants. That will bring out our people and the ones from
nearby towns. Who has a list of all our local artists and crafters?”

“We’ve got one on file over at the Chamber office,” Ed
replied.

“Great,” Samantha said. “I think, instead of emailing, we
should make phone calls. It will be more personal that way and easier to get a
commitment.”

“Oh, my,” Olivia said weakly. “I’m already busy with the tea,
although if this mess doesn’t get cleaned up I don’t know who’ll come.”

“I’m not good at that sort of thing,” Annemarie Huber said.

Ed shrugged. “Sorry, Samantha. The virus I had really took it
out of me. I can email you the list of contacts but that’s about all I’ve got
the energy for.”

After doing whatever he’d done to nudge the permits along, Ed
was off the hook. Still, some of the others could pitch in. She looked hopefully
at Heinrich.

He shook his head. “We have several arrangements to do for
Frank Reinhold’s funeral and I have two birthdays. And I’m busy planning
decorations for the ball. I won’t have time to make so many calls.”

Where was everyone’s team spirit? Well, never mind. She’d
rather make all the calls herself. That way she’d be sure they got done. “Fine,
I’ll do it,” she said.

“I’ll help,” Cecily told her.

What would she have done without her sister? She smiled
gratefully at Cecily, then asked briskly, “Okay, what else do we need to
cover?”

“Publicity,” Cecily said. “I’ve sent out press releases to the
papers both on this side of the mountains and in Seattle saying that the slide
will be cleared in plenty of time, and I’ve called and left messages for the
producer of
Northwest Now.
But I haven’t heard
back.”

“We need to take out more ads,” Samantha said.

“Are we sure the highway will be cleared this week?” Annemarie
fretted.

“It will,” Samantha assured her. That road would be cleared
even if she had to get out there with a borrowed truck and haul away boulders
with her bare hands.

“How much can I spend?” Cecily asked. “I checked and it’s not
going to be cheap to run an ad in a Sunday paper in Seattle.”

“My goodness, that’s steep compared to our Icicle Falls paper,”
Olivia said after Cecily quoted prices.

“But think how many people will see it,” Samantha countered.
“We have to spend something. Much as we all love free publicity—” except when it
involved embarrassing situations “—papers are more interested in printing bad
news than good. If it bleeds it leads.”

“We can’t afford a fortune in advertising,” Annemarie
cautioned. “Not after all the money we’ve already spent.”

But if they didn’t get the word out, they wouldn’t have any
visitors. All this would wind up being for nothing. “One ad? Can we do one ad?”
Samantha pushed.

Ed turned to Cecily. “Get me all the information. We’ll see
what we can do. And meanwhile, keep trying to get hold of that TV producer. Now,
there
would be some great publicity.”

As long as no one told Bill Will that TV people were in town
they’d be fine.

The meeting broke up and Samantha reminded Ed to send her the
list of artists.

“Will do,” he said. “Then I’m going to go home and crash with a
good book.”

No surprise there. He was Pat’s best customer. “I hope you feel
better soon,” she said. “And I don’t know what you did to get those permits
through, but thanks.”

He shook his head. “I’d love to take credit but I didn’t do a
damned thing. I went home and hit the sack.”

“Oh. Well.”

Ed smiled. “The wheels of progress move slowly in our city hall
sometimes, but they do move.”

Still, getting those permits had begun to feel like the
impossible dream. So what had happened?

Who cared? They’d finally sailed across the sea of red tape and
that was all that mattered. She was just grateful to whatever good fairy had
helped with the crossing.

Now, if they could get people to come…

Chapter Nineteen

Every successful person encounters roadblocks, but when your
family is with you, you can always find an alternate road to success.

—Muriel Sterling,
When Family
Matters

T
he Department of Transportation had the
rockslide cleaned up by Thursday but the damage had been done. Most of the
people who had booked rooms at the town’s B and Bs had canceled, and no one was
calling in with fresh reservations.

“Our poor town,” Olivia lamented to Blake when she came in to
draw money out of her savings. “First no snowpack and now this. You know, I was
booked solid until this happened. Now I’m down to one couple. And Annemarie is
in the same boat. So are Gerhardt and Ingrid over at Gerhardt’s Gasthaus.
Samantha is trying to let people know we’re still having the festival, and her
sister made I don’t know how many calls to newspapers and even that Northwest TV
show, but she hasn’t had any success. And at this late date who will come?”

With the festival less than two weeks away, it didn’t look
promising for the Sterlings or the town. Restaurants, B and Bs, stores—everyone
was paying the price for this travel scare. But the ones Blake was most
concerned about were the Sterlings. One Sterling in particular.

Samantha Sterling couldn’t seem to catch a break.

Could he catch one for her? He didn’t know if he could succeed
where she and her sister had failed but he was willing to try. Heck, he owed it
to them and his other bank customers to enter the publicity fray.

The next morning he was up and out the door by 4:00 a.m.,
headed for Seattle. Sometimes phone calls weren’t enough. Sometimes it took a
little face time to make things happen.

* * *

“Have you seen the Seattle paper,
chica?
” Elena greeted Samantha when she came to the office on
Friday.

Samantha didn’t care if she ever saw another newspaper again.
But Elena was smiling, so it couldn’t be bad news.

“Look,” she said, holding it out. “It’s on page two but that’s
okay.”

Samantha took the paper. The words in big print above the
article made her eyes pop. D.O.T. Clears Up Pass in Time for Town’s Festival.
“Oh, my gosh,” she gasped. Free publicity—it was a miracle!

It appears chocolate-lovers will be able to get over the pass to
enjoy the chocolate festival scheduled to take place in Icicle Falls the weekend
before Valentine’s Day, after all, thanks to the Department of Transportation
crews working overtime. A major rockslide recently made it a challenge for
travelers going over the pass via Highway 2, but D.O.T officials say the pass is
once more clear for travel. “We’re open for business,” says Ed York, Icicle
Falls resident and owner of D’Vine Wines. Ed’s business is one of many
participating in the upcoming festival.

“Not bad, eh?” Elena said again.

Ed must have contacted the paper. Go, Ed!

Samantha’s lips tugged upward. What was that unusual movement?
Oh, yes, a smile, the first one she’d managed in days, and it felt fabulous.

She went into her office and started emailing. The clock was
ticking and she had a festival to promote. Thank God.

She was in the middle of putting a tweet on Twitter when Elena
buzzed her. “The producer of
Northwest Now
is on
line two and wants to know if you’ll do an interview about the company and how
you got the idea for the festival.”

Would she!

On Monday it was lights, camera, action as the film crew from
Northwest Now
hit town. Samantha had asked Mom
and Cecily to join her, partly for family solidarity, partly as an olive branch
to Mom. She’d been pretty hard on her mother the past month, and considering how
sweet Mom had been it grated on her conscience. This seemed like one way
Samantha could make that up to her.

So now here they sat in the gift shop on soda fountain chairs
borrowed from Cass’s bakery with piles of chocolate boxes for a backdrop, lights
and cables everywhere, about to talk to Kiki Long, host of
Northwest Now
. Kiki looked impressive in her red suit but she
couldn’t hold a candle to Cecily, who was pretty in a pink cashmere sweater and
dress jeans, or Mom, who was wearing a pencil skirt and cream-colored silk
blouse accented with gold jewelry. Samantha had opted for her favorite
embroidered green jacket over a white blouse and jeans—Icicle Falls business
casual. She still could hardly believe that their luck had turned and this was
happening.

Now, if she just didn’t blow the interview. She’d never been on
TV and her deodorant was working overtime.

“Don’t look at the camera,” Janice, the producer, instructed
them. “Just make eye contact with Kiki.”

Samantha nodded and swallowed in an effort to hydrate her dry
throat.

“And smile,” Janice added, giving her arm a pat. “This is
supposed to be fun.”

Yes, fun. Relax. She glanced over at her mother. Mom was as
serene as the
Mona Lisa
. Of course, she’d done this
sort of thing before. She’d had a radio interview with a Seattle station when
her last book came out.

She smiled encouragingly at Samantha and Cecily and said,
“Think how proud your Great-grandma Rose would have been.”

That made Samantha smile.
Yes,
Great-grandma, we’re still hanging in there fighting.

The camera started rolling and Kiki kicked off the interview by
sampling a lemon-white-chocolate truffle. Her reaction was worth a fortune in
advertising dollars. Her eyes widened and she actually groaned. “Oh, my God,
this is amazing,” she said, fanning herself in typical dramatic Kiki
fashion.

“That’s actually my mother’s recipe,” Samantha said. Before she
channeled her creativity into writing, Mom had contributed a recipe or two.
Unlike her eldest daughter, who was obviously recipe-challenged.

“So tell me about your company,” Kiki began. “Is it true that
your great-grandmother, who started it, literally dreamed your first
recipes?”

And with that they were off. Mom was charming, Cecily was
beautiful and Samantha couldn’t stop smiling. What woman, seeing their cute pink
boxes and bonbons wrapped in gold foil and secured to little satin pillows with
magenta bows, wouldn’t want to visit the gift shop or go online and order Sweet
Dreams Chocolates? They talked about the company, about Icicle Falls and, of
course, the festival.

“What made you decide to host a chocolate festival?” Kiki
asked.

Desperation.
“Well, who doesn’t
like chocolate?” Samantha quipped.

“Not only do we make the world’s best chocolate here in Icicle
Falls, but we also have beautiful scenery, great shops and restaurants, and
wonderful people,” Cecily added.

There was the perfect sound bite, thought Samantha. Why hadn’t
she come up with that? Her sister had a real gift for marketing.

“I agree with you,” Kiki said. “And your candy is incredible.
So, Samantha, you’re the head of the company, right?”

“Yes, she is,” Mom said.

Deep inside Samantha, something tight and hard that she’d been
carrying around for a long time broke and shattered.

“Have
you
dreamed up any new
recipes for Sweet Dreams?” Kiki asked Samantha.

What? Of all the questions in all the world, the woman had to
go and ask that one? Panic seized Samantha by the vocal chords and she sat
frozen in her seat.

Mom stepped in. “Every company needs both dreamers and doers.
Samantha is a doer. Thanks to her, our company is going to be around for many
years.”

Samantha couldn’t have been more overwhelmed if the president
of the United States had pinned a medal on her. Tears sprang to her eyes and she
found herself squeezing her mother’s hand.

“Let’s hope so,” Kiki said. “And all you chocolate-lovers and
sweethearts looking for a great getaway this weekend before Valentine’s Day,
Icicle Falls is the place to be.”

And that was it, the end of the segment.

“Perfect,” Janice said.

It was time to shake hands, thank everyone and make sure they
got complimentary chocolate. The crew packed up their gear and Cecily escorted
Kiki and Janice over to Schwangau for lunch, which would be on Sweet Dreams, of
course.

Samantha caught her mother’s arm. “Mom, thanks. For what you
said.”

“Oh, sweetie,” her mother said, “I should be thanking you.”

“For what? Being so angry?”

Mom sighed. “Sweetheart, I don’t blame you. I know I mishandled
things with Waldo.” She hesitated and bit her lip.

“Mom, what is it?” Samantha pressed, now anxious to fully clear
the air between them.

Her mother sighed. “About Waldo.”

Samantha could feel herself stiffen, bracing for a lecture.
You should have been nicer to him. He loved you.

Go ahead and say it,
she thought.
I deserve it.

“He wasn’t well.”

Of course he wasn’t well. He died. “What does that mean
exactly?”

“He had something called Lewy body disease.”

Ice-cold shock smacked Samantha in the face. “Lewy… What is
that?”

“It’s a brain deterioration similar to Alzheimer’s,” Mom said
wearily.

“So some of the strange things he was doing…” Of course, that
explained why his decisions went from incompetent to disastrous. “How long?” How
long had they known? Samantha felt sick.

Her mother shrugged. “Several months at least. It started with
what we thought was restless legs. He was having trouble sleeping. I got him
vitamins. They didn’t help. Then he fell on the deck. But it was slippery that
day, so we didn’t think anything of it.”

Samantha remembered that fall. She also remembered hoping it
would keep him out of the office and her hair for a few days.
Rotten daughter of the year.

“He started forgetting things—”

Like the quarterly taxes.

“—and getting confused. But other times he was fine. We kidded
ourselves, saying he was having senior moments, but by October I knew we were
dealing with something more. We didn’t get the final diagnosis until December.
The doctor had ordered a brain scan.” Mom stopped, pressing her lips together
while she got control of her emotions and then continued, “The only way to be
completely positive it was Lewy body would’ve been with an autopsy but I
couldn’t do that to him. Anyway, the brain scan told us enough.”

Their so-called getaway to Seattle right after Thanksgiving
hadn’t been a getaway at all. They’d been off seeing doctors, enduring a battery
of tests, all alone with no emotional support.

Samantha was going to throw up. Or cry. Or both. “Why didn’t
you tell us?” she croaked.

“We didn’t want to spoil everyone’s Christmas. And you had your
hands full at work with holiday orders.”

And fighting with Waldo. Fuming over the penalty Uncle Sam had
slapped on them because they’d been late with their quarterly taxes. Creating a
scene in his office when she learned he hadn’t been able to make the payment on
their loan in December. Tattling to Mom.

“Mom, I…” Her throat closed up and she just stood there in the
middle of the shop like a big, dumb boulder. All those bizarre purchases he’d
made, the paranoia, the increasingly inept decision-making, the financial
tangle. Why hadn’t she figured out that Waldo’s problem was medical?

Because she’d been too busy with the business and with being
angry. Now Waldo was up with the angels, practicing his golf putt. When it was
her time they’d probably lock the pearly gates and tell her to go look for a
hotter climate farther south. Heck, they wouldn’t have to tell her. She’d go
voluntarily. Why didn’t life have a rewind button?

Now she saw something new in her mother’s expression that made
her feel even worse. Regret. “I should have told you as soon as I suspected,”
she said to Samantha. “Obviously it was affecting his ability to run the
company.”

Obviously. Samantha should have felt exonerated to hear her
mother say this—she’d known all along he wasn’t fit to run the company—but all
she felt was sad. Here her mother and stepfather had been grappling with
life-and-death issues and she’d been having hissy fits because he bought cases
of bottled water. “Mom, I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known.”

“And I wish I’d encouraged Waldo to do something else.”

That made two of them. Poor Waldo had fancied himself a savvy
businessman but he’d been out of his depth from the beginning. Still, she could
have worked with him, helped him more. If she’d tried harder could she have
averted disaster? She’d never know.

“I want you to know that after we found out what was wrong, he
was going to step aside,” Mom said. “We talked about it right before he died.
You should have been in charge of the company all along. It was your
heritage.”

There it was, out in the open at last, the source of Samantha’s
anger. Waldo, who’d been the perfect happy ending for her mother, the perfect
stepdad, had slipped in and stolen her birthright and Mom had gone along with
it. Samantha had been saddled with anger over that ever since, and no matter how
she’d tried to hide it or ignore it, the nasty emotion had ridden her hard. But
it was time to buck off the saddle. This was baggage she didn’t need to carry
anymore.

“Can you forgive me for my poor choices?” Mom asked, tears in
her eyes.

So many emotions crowded Samantha’s throat, all she could
manage was, “Oh, Mom.” And as they hugged she could feel the anger sliding off
her.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Mom whispered.

“Mom, there’s nothing to make up.” Not now. She was the one who
had the making up to do, for her bad attitude, her lack of understanding, her
resentment of a man she had genuinely cared for once.

Her mother gave her a watery smile and anchored a lock of stray
hair behind Samantha’s ear. “If anyone can pull us out of this, you can.
Remember your favorite story when you were little?”