“I’m happy for you.”Ivy sighs, and it sounds like she really is happy for me.“I’ll come and visit soon, okay?Just to make sure everything stays… where it’s supposed to.”
I snort at that, rolling my eyes.“Just because you run the best candy store on the freakin’ East Coast doesn’t mean I need you to hold my hand, Ivy.I’m a librarian.”I give the word my best Evie fromThe Mummyinflection, and I grin when Ivy laughs.
“I know, I know.I just, uh, I worry about you.You’re my friend.”
“I know you do, Ivy.And I appreciate it.”
“Now go have fun with this mystery man.And don’t forget to lock the door to the bookstore tonight,” she says, all bossy-like.
“Bye, Ivy,” I tell her, grinning.
“Bye-bye,” she sings out, and then I hear her set the phone down while instructing someone in the background to do something with a batch of candy before she disconnects the call.
Psh.As if I’d forget to lock the front door.Typical Ivy.
She’s the most superstitious person I’ve ever met, though her two sisters are also just as weird.Ivy sees signs everywhere, reads tea leaves, and likes to give me “special candy” when I have a bad day.
I have some suspicions about what’s in the candy.
She’s a great friend, though definitely overbearing, and I adore her.
Even if I steer clear of the special candy from her store.
5
Aiden
It should be awkward, taking a strange woman on the most mundane errands known to mankind.
The car ride to the local hardware store, however, is anything but awkward.
For someone who is bad at small talk, Sylvie tells me all about her friends with the air of a practiced storyteller.
It’s much, much better than small talk.
“Okay, so Ivy is like, one of the most successful people I know, and she built it all on her own, right?”She pauses to take a breath, shooting me a glance as I try to keep my eyes on the road.The New Hopewell volunteer crews are out in force today, getting all the trappings of fall and Halloween in place before our biggest tourist weeks really get underway.
“Right,” I agree.“You said she has a candy store?”I shake my head in both appreciation and surprise at the gritty survival of such a wholesome and niche market’s success.All hail the entrepreneur.
“Right, so she makes candy, like, she makes it all herself.Well, she has employees now.And she has like, the slickest online storefront, and her whole schtick is sort of witchy, magical candies.Who knew?I mean, she did, obviously, but she sells like crazy.And she’s just a wonderful friend, but she’s been so weird about me moving here.”
She pauses, and I chance a glance over at her, her brows furrowed as she ponders her friend’s so-called weirdness.“She said something so weird about finding bones.”
“What?”The question bursts out of me, and I huff a laugh at the sheer bizarreness of that comment.
“I think she misunderstood me.I was talking about the bookstore having good bones.”
“It does.It definitely does.You know, it sounds like your friend would fit in here.Her candy store, too.”
“She’ll never leave the coast,” she shakes her head as I pull into a free spot near a cart return.The hardware store isn’t exactly in New Hopewell, but it’s close enough that it’s made life easier for all of us.“Her sisters both have their shops nearby, and their family has lived in that town for generations.”
“How did you meet her?”I ask, invested in Sylvie’s strange friend in spite of myself.
“College.She was studying plants.Botany, whatever.She was one of my suitemates.Weird that she went into chocolates, right?She says that science is a big part of understanding candy, and if she’d studied chemistry, that would make more sense to me, but whatever.”
“And her sisters have their own shops?”
“Weird, right?You’d think they’d all work together.Maybe that’s reductive of me, though.Hm.They’re all really different.One’s a music teacher, so she took over their town’s music store at some point, and the other one is a mechanic.”
