Читать книгу A Catered Valentine's Day - Isis Crawford - Страница 14

Just Chocolate was located in a little shopping mall about four miles outside Longely. As Bernie drove she thought about the store. Unlike A Little Taste of Heaven, Just Chocolate had grown and grown and grown. The Gormans had started their shop a little over ten years ago in a small storefront. Bernie remembered going there before she’d gone off to L.A. They’d been the first store in the area to do hand-dipped chocolates.

Business was good so they started selling chocolate novelty items. Then they’d bought the store next door and knocked down the walls, so they’d had a fairly large production area and a cute little counter area.

Next they’d gotten into corporate gifts and the mail order business, and before they knew it they were netting over a million a year—at least that’s what she’d heard from a couple of their suppliers. They were hosting the benefit in the rear of the shop because Bree Nottingham insisted that people always liked to see the behind-the-scenes stuff of successful places, and maybe Bree was right, Bernie reflected. Maybe they did. Unfortunately, Bree was usually right about everything.

“I feel so bad for her,” Libby said to Bernie as they rounded a turn on Palm Street.

Bernie didn’t answer. She was busy wondering about the name since there were no palm trees anywhere in the vicinity, let alone the state. Maybe it was the name of a person? But Palm was an odd name. When she had the time, she’d go down to the Historical Society and see what she could find out.

“Don’t you?” Libby asked.

“Of course I feel bad for her,” Bernie said.

Libby didn’t say anything, but out of the corner of her eye Bernie could see her nodding. After a few seconds Libby turned toward her.

“Having her husband die like that, and now this. They were like two lovebirds, always kissing and holding hands.”

“Remember Mom’s lovebirds?” Bernie said.

Libby’s mouth tightened. “Don’t remind me.”

The family dog had eaten one of them when the male lovebird—Bernie had forgotten what her mom called him—had flown through the dog’s mouth. The bird got away with the stunt the first time; the second time, however, it was sayonara. Needless to say, there’d been nothing to bury. They’d held a memorial service instead.

“I should never have let them out of their cage,” Libby continued.

Bernie took a left. With Libby, guilt was forever. “They were pretty stupid.”

“But pretty,” Libby protested.

“That’s what I just said. They were pretty and stupid.”

Libby didn’t reply. Instead she rooted around in her bag until she found a piece of chocolate and popped it in her mouth.

“You should cut back on that,” Bernie observed. “Especially since you said you wanted to lose another ten pounds.”

“I need it,” Libby protested.

“Nobody needs chocolate. You need a drink or a tranq. You want chocolate, you don’t have to have it.”

“I do.”

Bernie laughed. “You’re not going to rob a bank if you don’t get it.”

Her sister gave in. “All right. I don’t need it, I want it.”

“There is a difference,” Bernie pointed out.

“Maybe, but nothing else works as well in the calming department.”

Bernie leaned forward a little, the better to look at the window of BeSpoke. They had a neat blouse she’d had her eye on, but by the time she got in, it would probably be sold.

“Maybe you’re right,” she conceded.

Libby put her hand over her heart. “You’re agreeing with me?” she said. “I’m in shock.”

Bernie took her eyes off the road for a second and glanced at her sister. She was smiling at her.

“Miraculous, isn’t it?” Bernie said. “But chocolate is one of the most chemically complicated foods that we have. Do you know it entered Europe a little while after coffee did? I find that fascinating.”

“I don’t,” her sister said.

Bernie ignored her and continued on.

“Chocolate has over 423 separate components in it, several of which act on the brain and promote feelings of well-being. It acts on the same neuroreceptors that being in love does.”

“That’s news?” Libby asked.

“No, but they just proved it scientifically.”

“Like there’s a woman alive who doesn’t know that? They should have paid me to do the study.”

“And they’ve never been able to reproduce chocolate in the lab.”

“They can’t produce vanilla either. Vanillin is terrible. So are most of the imitation flavors for that matter. Look at orange extract. It usually tastes like perfume.”

“True.” Bernie looked at the piece of chocolate Libby was about to eat. “Do you have another square of that? Because if you do I’ll take it.”

Libby started rummaging through her bag. How she managed to carry that thing around Bernie never knew. It contained half her belongings. No wonder Libby always slouched. Given the weight of what she carried every day, it was amazing she hadn’t hurt her shoulder. A moment later Libby put a square of chocolate in her hand.

Bernie broke off a piece and popped it in her mouth. “What kind is it?” she asked as the chocolate dissolved on her tongue.

“It’s pure Colombian. First growth,” Libby explained. And she started fishing around in her bag for the box.

“Interesting how food evolves,” Bernie mused. “Look at chocolate.”

“Here we go with the history lesson,” Libby grumbled.

“Well, I think it’s interesting. Think about this. A hundred years ago there wasn’t any mass candy market.”

“Like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or Three Musketeers?”

“Exactly.”

Libby turned her head and stilled her hand. Bernie could tell that she’d captured her attention.

“It’s true,” Bernie continued. “There were just small candy makers back then—kind of like Just Chocolate. Each town had its own candy maker, just like each town had its own brewery and bakery.”

“Why?” Libby asked.

“Think about it. Transportation was different back then. It took time to get from one place to the other. Our interstates are a relatively recent development. I believe they were built in the 1950s for the purpose of getting the army from one side of the country to the other in case the Russians invaded our shores. And there were no large food conglomerates, no one that distributed things on a national level. And chocolate is fragile. It doesn’t travel well when it’s hot out.

“In fact,” Bernie said, warming to her subject, “until the Mars company figured out how to mass-produce and market chocolate, most of the candy in this country was sugar-based. Taffy and licorice were popular back then. Chocolate was strictly a luxury item, something the upper crust ate.”

“It still is a luxury item,” Libby said. “This bar we’re eating cost almost six dollars. And it’s not very large.”

“Yes, but back in the day it probably would have cost the equivalent of twenty-five dollars, and you wouldn’t have been able to afford it at all. In fact, you wouldn’t have wanted it because you wouldn’t know what it tasted like. People like you and me and Dad didn’t eat chocolate. The closest we got was fudge, because that can be made with cocoa powder, which is way cheaper.

“The guy who founded the Mars company made chocolate affordable. He was the one who figured out that if you diluted it with milk solids you could cut down on the cost. Good dark chocolate contains at least seventy percent chocolate, bittersweet usually has fifty-five percent, but milk chocolate only thirty-five percent chocolate…”

“And since chocolate is so expensive, he saved a ton of money,” Libby chimed in.

Bernie nodded her approval. “Exactly,” she said. “For a while, all Americans ate was milk chocolate. It was extremely common and cheap. But look what’s happened in the last ten years. Dark chocolate has become extremely popular again. Now we’ve been told it’s good for us. Supposedly it has more antioxidants than red wine.”

“See?” Libby said. “I knew there was a reason I liked it.”

Bernie pulled into the parking lot. “Can we say the word moderation?”

“Like you’re one to talk?”

“Moi?” Bernie replied as she scanned the lot. It was almost full.

“Yes, you,” Libby retorted.

Bernie spied a space in the middle of the last row of cars and made for it.

Libby sighed.

“What’s up?” Bernie asked as she carefully maneuvered the car in. Since she was driving Rob’s car while their van was in the shop she wanted to be extra careful in the scratch department. Not that he would care, but she sure would.

“I’m just not looking forward to this, is all,” Libby commented.

“Like I am?”

“Things don’t affect you the way they affect me.”

Bernie snorted. “What a load of crap.”

“But they don’t,” Libby insisted. “You and Dad don’t get upset the same way I do.”

“Of course we do,” Bernie said. “We just don’t show it, that’s all.”

Libby tore at one of her cuticles with her front teeth. “I still wish we didn’t have to go in.”

“Me too. But we do. And the faster we do this the faster we can leave.”

Bernie put the car in park. For a moment neither she nor her sister got out of the car. Bernie sat there studying the facade of the shop. The Gormans had chosen to go in the opposite direction from A Little Taste of Heaven. Their facade was all clean lines and metal, while A Little Taste of Heaven had a cozy feel to it. The window display was minimalist with boxes of chocolate suspended in midair with wires. Just Chocolates’ specialty, the Love Knot, a combination of bittersweet, white chocolate and crushed praline, was featured in the center.

Bernie pointed to the large, brown seedlike things on the floor. “I think those are cacao beans.”

“They’re bigger than I expected,” Libby said.

Bernie nodded. They were.

“And uglier,” she added.

“Agreed,” Libby said.

“I’m not a big fan of the display,” Bernie mused. “Too cold.”

It was odd, Bernie thought as she got out of the car. She should like this aesthetic better, it was more her style, but she preferred A Little Taste of Heaven. Somehow, she decided as she walked toward the shop, Just Chocolate projected cool, but whenever Bernie thought about food, she thought warm. Food was about family and friends, not about clean lines and space. She was still thinking about that when she pushed open the door and walked into the shop.

The smell of chocolate, sweet and spicy at the same time, greeted her. The shop was full. Marnie had two counter girls, plus herself, on duty waiting on people. She looked up.

“Thank God you’re here,” she said when she saw them. And she ran around the counter and headed straight toward them.