The Matchbaker (A Romantic Comedy) (23 page)

HUGS! Wish I could have a drink with you.

Me too.

Can we talk later? Going to pick out paint colors for baby’s room with Mom.

K. Love you.

Ditto!

I sigh as I watch the dollar amount tick higher and higher. Not nearly as satisfying a conversation as I had hoped for. But what is she supposed to do? Move back to New York to commiserate with me? Of course not. Despite the fact I thought she was making a monumental mistake by staying with Steve and moving to Ohio, she seems happy. Content. Something I wish I felt.

The pump finally clicks off when it reaches $61.98. I definitely won’t be driving much now that I’ve returned. No taxis either. But that’s fine. I could stand to do some walking. I smile, happy with my resolve to walk all over the city. I’ll be back in my favorite DKNY dress before I know it. That’s my silver lining.

I hop in the car just as my phone buzzes with another text.

Where are you?

It’s Holly. She must be waiting for me at the bakery.

Bad night. Sorry. Back in NYC. I’ll call Mom.

Two seconds after I hit send, my phone rings. I should have known she wouldn’t let me get away with a simple text. I pick up and hit speaker before I peel out of the gas station and head uptown on the West Side Highway.

“Hey,” I say, trying to sound casual.

“What is
wrong
with you?”

Ha!
What
isn’t
wrong with me?
I want to shout. “I had to get out. I’m sorry.”

“You’re
sorry
? That’s what you have to say to me? How about, ‘Hey, sis, I’m on my way back right now, because I would never, ever dream of leaving you alone in Sagehaven with Mom and Dad to return to my jet-setting life in NYC.’ How about
that
?”

I give an exasperated sigh as I dart around a slow-moving delivery truck and hit the gas through a yellow light. “God, Holly, not everything is about you.”

“Oh, there’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that everything is about
you.
Your job, your magical powers, your whims regarding men—”

“This is
not
a whim, Holly. I’m…I’m in love with him.” My heart clenches. I’ve never said those words out loud. Ever.

“And?”

“And we’re not allowed to be together. There’s no spell that can fix this, and even if there were, I wouldn’t be allowed to use it, anyway. What good is magic if you can’t use it for yourself?”

“I’m sorry…who is everything about again?”

Damn it. She cornered me. And even worse, she’s right. I hate when Holly is right.

Feeling defeated, I reply, “I just don’t know what else to do.”

“I know,” Holly says, her tone shifting to one of sympathy. “But you didn’t get to be the youngest exec at Bell North by running away. You’re Candace Cooper, barracuda.”

I laugh. “No one’s called me that in a long time.”

“That’s because you’ve been acting like a pussy.”

My jaw drops. “Holly!”

“Well, it’s true.” Her voice is borderline screeching. “Grow a pair. Or
re-
grow a pair. I’ve never known you to give up just because you hit a little roadblock.”

“It’s not
that
little.”

“Just shut up and get back here. We’ll figure this out together, okay?”

My sister was pretty ruthless in her own field once. Maybe she’s right. Maybe together we can find a solution.

A sign for my exit to Riverdale appears. One mile. At 50mph, I have approximately one minute to make a decision.

“Candy, you still there?”

Half mile.

“Hello? Did I lose you?”

The exit looms before me. My pulse is pounding.

“No,” I finally reply as I hit the gas hard and zip past the exit. “You didn’t lose me. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

Twenty-two

As I drive back to Connecticut, I start to feel a little silly about this whole thing. Holly was right. I mean, did I really just run away? I’m twenty-nine years old, for heaven’s sake. I’m not a young, foolish kid who needs to rebel against her parents. And it’s that thought that brought me here, right back to the bakery.

I burst through the kitchen door to find everyone—Mom, Dad, Holly and Colin—working together to get orders out. Mom looks briefly at me and then turns back to her batter with a huff and a clenched jaw.

“If you’re going to take up space in my kitchen, put on an apron and get to work,” she orders. “We’ve got the Andrews wedding in a few hours.”

My stomach drops. I completely forgot. And I left them all in the lurch because I couldn’t handle my disappointment. Or my confusion. Or my anger. Or life in general.

“Oh, my God, Mom,” I say, trying to lace my words with as much regret as I can muster. “I’m so sorry. I totally forgot. I never would have left if I had remembered.”

“You shouldn’t have left either way,” she says curtly, not bothering to look at me. “Apron. Now.”

Right. My questions will have to wait until later. I have to turn this whole wedding thing around first. Redeem myself. Then I can get my answers and hopefully find a solution to this whole Joe situation. And if not…

I shake my head free of the thoughts and take my place at a mixer next to Mom. We work silently for several minutes, adding eggs, flour, sugar… We click on the mixer buttons and stand silently next to one another while we watch the batter take shape. Then we click them off, remove the bowls and reach for
the spoon
at the same time.

“Sorry,” I say, drawing my hand back. “You go first.”

“No, you,” she insists, pushing the spoon toward me.

I would take it but I’m a little gun-shy about doing anything that might appear selfish. “No, really, Mom. You go.”

Mom rolls her eyes at me and grabs the spoon. Man, she’s really worked up over all this. She puts the spoon in the bowl, closes her eyes and starts to mix. Only, her jaw is clenched and her nostrils are flaring.

“Hey, Mom,” I say gently. “We don’t want a fight to break out at the wedding.”

My mom slightly resembles Satan’s spawn when she looks at me. “None of this would have happened if you had just opened the damn door last night.”

I rear back. Mom doesn’t usually curse, even something as innocent as
damn
or
hell
. “Look, I know,” I say, holding up my hands in surrender. “I’m…I’m all mixed up, and I screwed up. Bad. I know that. I’ve made a mess of everything! I’m an awful daughter, a horrible sister, a terrible girlfriend. I deserve all the worst things in life because I’m just a total and complete fuck up! There. Is that good enough for you? Are you happy?”

The room is silent, except for my labored breathing. No one even dares to move or make a sound.

“My instinct right now,” I finally continue, fighting back tears, “is to run out that door, get in my car, and never come back. But I’m not about to prove that the worst things that I—and
you—
think about me are actually true. So hand me the damn spoon and let’s bake some freakin’ cupcakes!”

I hold my hand out, my heart racing, my hands shaking, waiting for the inevitable screaming fight to begin, when my mom bursts into laughter. She doubles over, clutching her midsection just as I hear a snort from behind me.

I turn to see Holly contorting her face, trying not to join in, but when Dad and Colin break into mirth, she can’t seem to stop herself. I’m not sure whether to be annoyed or grateful. On the one hand, I just gave a gut-wrenching speech about my shortcomings. For the first time in my adult life, I’ve faced the truth about myself, and voiced those truths
out loud.
A little support would be nice.

But on the other hand, I said the word
fuck
to my mom. Things could be going much worse for me. She could be holding me over the sink, shoving a bar of soap in my mouth, for instance.

I stand there, waiting for everyone to get a hold of themselves. Mom’s finally standing upright, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her apron. And eventually, the others return to what they were doing before the Comedic Speech of the Century was delivered.

“Oh, Candy,” Mom says in that
you silly puppy, you pooped on the floor again
kind of way. “My sweet little drama queen.”

Drama queen?
I tap the side of my jaw and cast my gaze upward, pretending to think hard. “I wonder where I get it from?”

Mom sends me a sidelong smile. “Get back to work,” she says. “These cupcakes won’t bake themselves. And when we’re done here, we’ll all sit down and have a nice cup of milk.”

Of course. Milk solves everything, according to Mom. I would agree, so long as the milk has a heavy splash of Kahlua thrown in. But I’m not going to argue. I need answers, and milk-time will be my opportunity to get them.

~*~

Three hours and five hundred cupcakes later, we’re finally done. And I’m exhausted. I nearly forgot I drove to NYC last night and slept in my car. I’ve been up since dawn, my neck hurts, my body aches and my eyes are scratchy from all that stupid crying—all I really want is to curl up on my pullout sofa and go to sleep. But I need to figure this out. I need to see if there’s a way to be with Joe.

Dad’s head appears in the doorway of the kitchen just as I’m hanging up my apron.

“You coming, Candy?”

“On my way.” I trudge slowly after him to the office next door where Mom, Dad and Holly are gathered around the table. “Where’s Colin?”

“As much as we love Colin,” Mom says, sending a smile Holly’s direction, “this is family business. Once he’s a member of the family—”

“Ugh, Mom,” Holly groans and rolls her eyes. “We’re not getting married! At least not yet. Can you let it go for, let’s say, a year?”

Mom purses her lips. “As I was saying,
Candace,
once he’s part of the family, he’ll be able to join us for things like this.”

I look at my mom, my eyebrows raised. “For things like…
milk
?”

A tinkling laugh wafts from my mom’s throat. “Of course not, dear.” She procures the family book of spells and places it on the table with a soft thud. “For things like breaking a curse.”

“Oh.” I stare at the book. “How did you find that?”

“Locator spell,” Mom replies, her tone matter of fact, as if it should have been obvious. “But good thinking hiding it behind all those old VHS tapes downstairs.”

“Thanks. So…you’re going to help me?” I’m a little surprised by this after our blowup in the kitchen.

Mom puts a hand on my arm and looks me right in the eye. “Candy, if this is true love, we can’t let anything get in the way.”

Dad chuckles and we all turn to look at him. “More like your mom wants grandchildren sooner than later, so whatever she has to do to get them, she will.”

“Oh, hush!” Mom says, clearly not amused, which tells me there’s a good bit of truth in Dad’s statement. “Now, let’s get to it.”

By dinnertime we’ve all gone cross-eyed. I have a headache so bad I’m tempted to just chop my head off. Probably a good thing we don’t live in Revolutionary France.

We’ve gone through each page of our family’s book of spells with a fine-toothed comb. Mulling over each spell, contemplating how it might be of use to us. But there’s nothing. Nothing about how to break this curse that keeps magical people from being together. I’m feeling exhausted and hopeless.

“I think we should call it quits for tonight,” I say, looking at the clock above the door. “We’re all starving and tired.”

“Good idea,” Dad agrees. “How about dinner at Giovanni’s?”

Since no one feels like cooking, we all agree. We decide to take one car the short distance, and I have to admit, I feel like I’m eight years old again. Me and little sis in the back, Mom and Dad in the front, heading out to a family dinner. It’s really not like me to get all nostalgic about my childhood, but I can’t help it. I’m touched by the way they’ve rallied to help me, and I can’t stop the warm and fuzzy feeling I have about all of them right now.

“What are you grinning about?” Holly asks, smiling at me over the top of her phone. I’m guessing she and Colin are texting.

I shrug. “Nothing.”

Holly gives me a look that says she totally doesn’t believe me, but she drops it and goes back to texting.

Giovanni welcomes us, as always, and seats us at our usual spot in the back corner. Once we’ve decided on a pizza and two family-style pasta dishes, Holly declares that she needs to use the restroom.

“So do I,” Mom chirps.

They disappear and I’m alone with Dad. He puts a comforting hand on my shoulder and squeezes.

“How you holdin’ up there, Sweetpea?” he asks, and I sort of want to collapse against his chest and have a good cry. But I don’t. I’m a grown woman and we’re in the middle of a restaurant. Besides, if I start, who knows when, or
if
, I’ll ever stop. God, I’m an emotional basket case.

“I’m okay,” I reply. “I just…” I shake my head. “I don’t know. I just never thought this would be my life.”

“Nobody ever does.” Dad leans forward and crosses his arms on the table in front of him.

“What do you mean?” I always thought Mom and Dad knew exactly what they wanted from life. That everything turned out just the way they’d planned.

“There’s a lot you don’t know, Candy, about
before.
”

“Before?”

“Before the curse took hold of your mom.” Dad clears his throat suddenly and sits up straighter.

“Whew!” Mom says, bustling back to the table. “Much better.”

Holly follows and sits down, casually placing her napkin on her lap. But I’m feeling anything
but
casual. My dad’s just dropped this sort of cryptic bomb on me and totally clammed up as soon as Mom came back! This must be good. I need to know what he’s talking about. What happened to my mom before the curse?

Dinner is pure torture. Gone are my nostalgic warm fuzzies. I just want to get home so I can corner my dad in private. As I’m stuffing pizza into my face, I’m wondering why I never thought to ask before. Why did I just assume they had no lives before the curse? If my dad’s tone is to be believed, they had quite the lives, and I’m going to find out about them. If everyone could just hurry up and eat already!

It’s another hour before we’re finally home and it’s pretty late. How in the world will I be able to corner Dad at this point? Mom’s going to expect him to go to bed with her, and since we’re all stuffed to the gills, there’s no “late night snack” excuse. Damn.

As suspected, Mom and Dad head up to bed, and I trudge, disappointed, down to my lair. I collapse on my pullout and click on the TV. I’m exhausted, but wired. I need a little mindless television to help me unwind. Food Network has another episode of
Cupcake Wars
on, so naturally that’s where I stop. I’m fascinated by how these people execute these elaborate set-ups in such a short amount of time. The pressure is just way too much. I mean, we had to get a lot of cupcakes out this afternoon for the wedding, but only half as many in almost twice the amount of time. And we didn’t have to conceptualize an eye-catching display or anything to go along with it. That is one position I will never find myself in.

A light knock sounds at the basement door. It creaks open a moment later.

“Candy? You still up?”

It’s Dad! “Yeah, Dad! Come on down.”

The floorboards of the stairs moan with every step he takes until he’s finally at the bottom. He’s wearing his plaid, flannel PJs and the slippers I gave him last Christmas.

“What’s up?” I say, trying to remain nonchalant, but secretly I’m freaking out. I might get some answers tonight, after all.

“Mind if I sit?”

I shake my head and Dad takes a seat in the ugly blue velvet chair next to the bed.

“I don’t have a lot of time. Your mom thinks I just came down for a quick nightcap.”

I don’t say anything. I don’t want to ruin his groove.

“But there’s some stuff I think you should know. About your mom. About
us.
”

“Us?”

“This might come as a shock to you, but…I wasn’t your mom’s first love.”

That is a shock. They’d always said they were high school sweethearts. “What, did she have a torrid romance in elementary school?”

Dad chuckles. “Not quite. But your mom doesn’t remember anything before me.” He shakes his head. “No, that’s not right. She remembers things, she just remembers them…
differently
than they actually happened.”

“Well, that’s clear as mud.” I have no idea what my dad’s talking about, and I’m starting to question his sanity.

“All right,” he says on a heavy sigh. “Let me start at the beginning. When I met your mom she was…
amazing.
There’s no other way to say it. I was at a party, and when she walked into that room, it was like the whole world just stopped.” Dad’s staring blankly into the distance, his mind clearly replaying that moment in time. “Everything about her made me long to be near her. But…”