Free Read: Short Story

A Special Recipe

Copyright 2018 L.C. Zingera
All rights reserved.

“Cookies! I love cookies, chocolate chip, lemon drizzle, white chocolate, cinnamon sugar, oatmeal and raisin…ooh, and rocky road…” Haley chirped as she pulled a tray of delicious smelling cookies from the oven with a satisfied sigh.

“Okay, Haley, we get the picture!” her best friend Sandy laughed.

“But tonight I’m planning something extra special,” Haley grinned as she helped herself to a warm chocolate chip cookie and offered one to Sandy who readily accepted.

“Okay,” Sandy groaned, “I know that mischievous look, what are you up to?”

Sandy leaned back against the stainless steel counter in the kitchen of her best friend’s now famous bakery, or perhaps infamous was a better word, due to the amount of single men The Cookie Place attracted. It was not only to see the curvaceous, adorable and bubbly blonde owner as she bopped her way around the open plan kitchen to sixties rock as she worked, but they also enjoyed watching the cookies being made, and waiting for them to emerge hot and fresh from the oven. 

It was a plus that the single men attracted the single girls, and who wouldn’t want a guy with a sweet tooth? Haley frequently cheerfully proclaimed. So it had become a meeting place too. Sandy was pretty sure Haley was responsible for a few extra pounds in every household in town, but with the amount of walking trails, the shimmering silver lake, and the beach not far away, no one had an excuse to not walk off their calories, Haley always insisted with a happy shrug.

The Cookie Place had become the central hub of activity in their small town since Haley had returned from her travels abroad, where she’d studied and apprenticed in the kitchens of every European country she’d visited, from bakeries in London, to Patisseries in Paris, and Pasticcerias in Rome, before creating her own infamous Cookie Place Cookbooks and opening her small bakery. They also had superfast free wifi here which helped to keep the customers coming in, though it was not used quite as much as anticipated, after all, who needed social media when the entire town tended to congregate here anyway? Morning, noon or evening there was always something hot from the oven.

“So, are you going to tell me or should I guess?” Sandy asked as Haley finished her cookie and wiped a smudge of chocolate from her top lip.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll guess this one!” Haley chuckled.

“Debuting a new recipe? A new book? You’re opening a new store? You’re making more TV appearances…” Sandy guessed.

“Been there, done that, got the T-shirt,” Haley pointed to her walls adorned with pictures of her travels and TV appearances, plus the ever increasing shelves of her cookbooks for sale.

“So, what is it?” Sandy asked.

“I’m closing the store…”

“What?” Sandy squeaked, “You can’t do that! There will be a riot! The whole town is addicted to you and your cookies…”

Haley held up her hands in surrender. “Calm down, Sandy, and let me finish! I’m only closing for the evening!”

Sandy let out a sigh of relief. “But still, an entire evening is huge, the townsfolk…well, they’ll all go into withdrawal!”

“Well, as my publicist, you can get the word out. Anyway, you forgot to ask why!” Haley reminded her friend wryly.

“Why?” asked Sandy quickly, Haley’s eyebrows rose when the sound came out as almost a whine.

“I’m going over to Jeb’s Place to work on a special project for Christmas.”

“Jeb’s Place? But that’s the dog adoption center…”

“Exactly.”

Sandy grinned. “Okay, you don’t need to close, I’ll man the shop at least until we run dry, which won’t take long, but you’d better get in here early tomorrow morning.”

“You’re an angel!”

“Oh, you finally noticed,” Sandy grinned holding one of Haley golden trimmed plates over her head, halo style. “And that’s a dog loving angel, fortunately for you!” she teased.

*****

Haley donned her thick winter coat and dashed out the back of the store as more customers surged in to pick up cookies on their way home from work. She didn’t want to get waylaid by her always chatty fans.

Hopping into her sleek new convertible—thanks to those fabulous book sales—she headed over to Jeb’s Place, only to see a sign on the door instructing her to head over to the town hall cafeteria. The parking lot was full, she groaned, Jeb had turned this little venture into a theatrical event. But she couldn’t blame him, publicity followed her and she had willingly agreed to attend, and publicity meant potential help for Jeb’s favorite cause.

When Haley entered the hall, a resounding round of applause echoed through the venue, she grinned and waved, she enjoyed the attention, and looking into the audience she recognized many local faces. So perhaps there wouldn’t be a run on the shop tonight after all!

The tables were set up and the ingredients set out just as she had asked. All five other contestants stood at the ready in front of their own work stations. Quickly she slipped off her winter coat and tying her favorite red checkered apron around her waist she joined them.

Suddenly a bell dinged and they were off. Mixing, beating, stirring and whisking, moments later the door opened once again, and a tall dark-haired, heart achingly familiar face appeared. He tossed aside his heavy winter coat and lifting the camera to his shoulder he began his approach. He spoke softly as he walked from one table to the next, filming as he went. No doubt the footage would be edited later for the ten o’clock news, many of the reporters at the small news stations dotted around the state doubled as their own cameraman. She flashed him a cheerful grin, willing her heartbeat to slow to its normal level as he drew near and focused his camera on her large bowl of ingredients, tilting both his head and the camera in puzzlement.

She hadn’t seen Drake in a while, a very long while. When she’d taken off to Europe, he’d gone to university in Upstate New York. But when she’d returned home to Jealsby to open her bakery, he’d stayed in Syracuse, she hadn’t known he was back in town, though she’d looked for him at every interview she’d given over the past two years, just in case he’d moved to one of the local stations where she was making her latest appearance, and now here he was, finally back home. But was he here to stay, or in town just for the day?

When she turned the dough onto the table and began to roll it out, he held out the microphone and asked her. “So, Miss Haley Landforth,” she noticed the pause there, was he subtly asking her on camera if she was married? She merely smiled and tilted her head inquiringly as he continued. “Would you like to share the ingredients in this unusual looking recipe?”

“Of course. I always share my recipes.” This evoked an appreciative round of applause from the audience, some of whom waved copies of her latest book in the air.

“Wonderful.”

She turned to retrieve a tray of cookies from the oven, deftly sliding them onto the cooling tray on the counter beside her as she placed another tray in to bake.

“The ingredients are eggs, pumpkin, ground flax seed, oatmeal, peanut butter…” she got no further as his fascination turned to horror.

“But… that’s not how cookies are made!” he sputtered.

A murmur of laughter rippled through the audience, and the devil in her said. “But that is because they are biscuits, not cookies. Please, try one.”

The rumble of amusement from the audience grew louder. Drake picked up a round orange shaped biscuit still warm from the oven and sniffed it, eliciting an even greater roar from the crowd.

“It smells quite…healthy,” he admitted. “Is it a new health food line?” He took a bite, and his eyebrows rose, “Mmm, not bad.”

“I’m glad you approve,” Haley told him with a mischievous smile that really should have warned him. “But it is their approval we really need.” She pointed to the door as it opened and in trotted a line of eager dogs in varying shapes and sizes, tails wagging and expressions hopeful as they sniffed the air and marched smartly on leashes beside their owners. “These are dog biscuits!”

Haley won the competition, but no one really minded, they had expected it in fact, and it was all for a good cause. The dogs loved the biscuits, and even Drake laughingly admitted on camera that they were surprisingly good, but then they were made by a master baker, and the ingredients were all safe for human consumption.

“You let me go ahead and eat one of those,” Drake said later to Haley as the room emptied out of happy dogs and owners.

“You seemed quite eager to do so,” she teased.

“I did, didn’t I?” he laughed. “I barely made it here in time to film the segment, the reporter who was scheduled came down with the flu, so it was kind of last minute, I didn’t have time to read about the event.”

“So, you’re only here temporarily?” she asked, unable to hide her disappointment.

His blue eyes twinkled and he took her hand drawing her close. “No, I’m moving back here next month, the studio sent me as a last minute fill-in because I knew the town, but I’ll be home in time for Christmas.”

Haley glanced up into the familiar twinkling eyes of her old childhood sweetheart and saw the same longing she felt mirrored there. The years apart had not extinguished the love they had once shared.

“A new beginning, Haley?” he asked.

“A new beginning, Drake,” she whispered as his took her in his arms under the mistletoe.

“And a brand new recipe for love?” he teased.

“Very definitely!”