Dannika Dark - Seven Years

“What?” I gasped. “Can they even do that?”

“Apparently, they can.” She glanced around and wiped her hand on the apron. “I managed to move some of the candy, but I didn’t have any place to take it. The pizza shop next door didn’t have any cooler space and I couldn’t put them in the car,” she said, throwing her hands up in surrender. April’s stylish hair was streaked with pink and chocolate. It was sticking out on one side and her face was red with sweat dripping down her temple. “Now it’s just a race to get them out of the canisters before they make an even bigger mess for me to clean up.”

“Did you call Charlie?”

“He’s not answering.”

“When did this start?”

April shrugged. “I don’t know. Bridget called in sick, so I came in around noon to open up shop. The store felt like the freaking jungle, so maybe it went out last night?”

I reached around to my back pocket and pulled out a band, tying my hair up in a ponytail. I was going into crisis mode. We had a candy war on our hands and time was of the essence.

“The candy can’t be salvaged,” I said. “He’ll have to take the loss. What you need to do is start ordering more inventory. Tally up how much we need, because we’re going to want to make sure we can quickly restock our supply when the power comes back on. I can’t afford to cover the bill for Charlie, so I’m going to drive to his house and see what’s going on. Leave the candy. Once the air comes back on, we’ll drop the temperature so the candy re-hardens. It’ll be easier to pull it out instead of you contending with ten gallons of taffy.”

April had a bright laugh—like wind chimes—but she was a control-freak and didn’t handle chaos very well. One of the canisters tipped over as she stood up.

“I’ll put a sign on the door and cancel our orders,” she said. “Maybe some of them will reschedule, but I seriously doubt it.”

“I wonder how much those canisters cost,” I murmured, deciding they were probably ruined. “Do me a favor and open up the doors. Put the sign up that we’re closed. Call the girls and tell them we need them on standby. I really don’t want everyone in here dying of a heatstroke, but if it cools down later tonight, we can start cleaning up.”

April got out her phone and a list of contacts she kept under the counter.

“Uh-uh,” I said, taking her wrist. “Change of plans. Lock up the store and go cool down at the pizza place while you make your calls. Order a few glasses of water and do not overwork yourself. Your health is more important than all this.”

After she washed her hands in the bathroom, April closed Sweet Treats and I stood out front and called Austin to inform him of what was going on. He wanted me to keep in touch and let him know where I was because he expected to hear news from Ivan today.

April staggered up the hot sidewalk like a zombie, and I hopped in my car and headed over to Charlie’s house. I’d been there a couple of times for barbecues and had once picked up his mail when he traveled out of town. He lived fifteen minutes away from the shop and when I pulled up to his small, two-bedroom house, something immediately caught my attention.

Several newspapers were scattered across the brown grass.

I picked one up and noticed the date. I began tossing them onto his porch and rang the bell. After a third ring, I walked around the house and peered into the windows, but the drapes were all closed and it was hard to see anything. The garage door was down, so I couldn’t tell if he had gone out of town.

“You lookin’ for Charles?”

A woman in her sixties stood on the edge of the driveway, watering her grass with a green water hose in an attempt to save her dried-up lawn. She had a southern drawl and a scratchy voice that sounded like a cat squalling.

“Yes, ma’am. He’s my boss. Have you seen him?”

A ring of sweat circled beneath the armpits of her blue shirt. She was clearly a woman who didn’t give a damn about water restrictions as she sprayed water on the dirty driveway. She scratched her curly hair, dyed a pale blond, and sprayed another patch of dead grass.

“He’s been sick with cancer. I saw the ambulance here the other night and Lord knows what happened to that man. I don’t think he’s got any family that I know of, except an older woman who came by a few times. I think she’s his sister because her license plate said Ohio. I don’t know who else would drive all the way from Ohio to Hell, unless it was for family.”

Cancer? I knew Charlie hadn’t been feeling well lately, but I had no idea how serious his condition was. “Do you know what kind of cancer? How long has this been going on?”

She pursed her lips. “I reckon a year or two, maybe more. He mentioned it to Daryl once but didn’t say what kind, just that he was getting those treatments. Charles told us his hair was thinning and he bought himself one of those rugs.” She chuckled and sprayed a leaf into the grass. “Ugliest damned thing I ever saw.”

“What hospital?”

“What do I look like, the news channel? I just saw the ambulance come in and drive off. Haven’t seen him since.”

When I got back to my car, I turned down an old Foreigner song and dropped my head against the steering wheel. “Cancer,” I whispered. Had I known, I would have visited him, brought over dinner, and helped Charlie out with any errands he needed done. We were probably stressing him out with work-related calls when he needed someone to take care of him. Charlie didn’t have a family to look after him, and was only in his late fifties.

The rest of the afternoon, I ran errands that were long overdue, including a visit to my mom’s house to check her mail and make sure her bills were taken care of.

I shivered and slid the thermostat up to eighty. No sense in having cold air blowing in an empty house. I grabbed a small bag for Maizy and then stuffed a few of Mom’s clothes into a separate bag. I wasn’t about to prepare for the worst, even though I sat quietly in her bedroom, staring at a picture of us on her dresser.

I packed her root touch-up because she dyed her hair blond and the last time I talked with her, she had mentioned her roots were showing her age again. I didn’t know what she was talking about. She could let her hair go grey and she’d still be the prettiest woman I knew.

The only thing that had changed was I could no longer look forward to looking like her when I grew up.

“Journey? They’re really breaking out the oldies,” I said with a nostalgic smile. Classic rock still dominated the playlist, and not much had been upgraded at The Pit since my last visit. Best barbecue joint in town and it hadn’t changed in all these years. The walls were the color of the sauce and still decorated with wooden wagon wheels, knotted ropes, and antlers from a dead animal. I never liked staring at animal parts nailed on a wall because the last thing I wanted was to be reminded of what I was actually eating.

Austin lifted the yellow plates off the tray and set them on the wooden table. I had sent him on a mission to order my dinner because I was curious if he would remember what I liked.

“I don’t know how you can eat that,” he remarked, wrinkling his nose at my plate.

I popped the fried okra in my mouth and grinned. “Because okra is good for you.”

“Deep fried?”

It was bustling in here. The families had already vacated and the atmosphere changed, becoming more rowdy. Several groups of single teenage girls sat in clusters while the guys spun around in their seats, whistling and flirting with them.

Some things never change.

I took a bite of my rib and wiped my hands on the paper towels they put on the table. I tapped my finger against the edge of my plate, looking around the room.

“Something wrong with your food?” he asked, eyeing my hand.

Austin had rolled his short sleeves over his shoulders because the ceiling fans did nothing to cool things down. A few of the women were gawking at him, and the tats were working in his favor.

“I hope you know all the women in here are sizing you up for dessert,” I pointed out while sipping my draft.

Austin laced his fingers together with a lazy grin spreading across his face. “I hadn’t noticed.”

On cue, a woman’s black heels clicked on the floor and stopped at our table, just to my left.

“Well, well, Austin Cole. Been a long time since I last saw you, honey. I hardly recognized you with all the tattoos.”

There was a soft vibrato in her voice—the kind a woman uses for dirty talk, which must have been on her mind by the way she slowly twirled her necklace between her fingers. I didn’t have a clue who she was, but I wondered if the two of them had been intimate, because his eyes slid up her body and met with hers as if he were remembering something.

“Life’s treating you good, Bonnie. You still live around here?”

She jutted her hip in the painted-on jeans that threatened to rip apart if she bent over.

“Mmmhmm. Just up the road a ways. Where you been hiding all these years?”

I began to feel invisible, because Bonnie was hitting on Austin like I was nothing more than restaurant décor. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did, but I stopped eating and looked out the window.

“Had to get away and live a little,” he answered.

“I’d love to hear all about it,” she said with a lift in her voice. “I remember when you used to come in here with those troublemakers back in high school. Shoot, I can’t even remember their names anymore.”

And then, all of a sudden, Austin’s hand slid across the table and rested on mine. He still kept his eyes on hers, engaged in conversation, but he held my hand and stroked my fingers with his thumb. A flush of heat touched my cheeks and I turned to look at Bonnie and caught her smoky eyes staring at our hands.