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Gretchen reachedto untie her apron, her hands sticking to all the fabric on her shirt too. “Okay,” she said with a huge sigh. Her heart raced, and her eyes darted around the candy kitchen. “I have to go.”
At the same time, she couldn’t go. Not with caramel-like-glue on every surface she could see. She and Jon had been making caramels for hours now for an event this weekend. She looked at the man, her eyes wide. She needed his permission to go before she could actually do it.
“Date with Will Cooper tonight,” he said, giving her a smile that didn’t seem very smiley.
“Yes,” she said, still fumbling with the tie on the back of her apron. Her mother used to make her aprons that went on like smocks, and she could unsnap them from around her neck in two seconds flat. In moments like this, Gretchen missed her mother powerfully.
“He hasn’t canceled?” Jon asked, and Gretchen stopped playing with the tie.
She reached for a roll of paper towels and a bottle of stainless steel cleaner. “Not yet.”
“Because he did on Sunday, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “His mama is real sick.” She shot Jon a glance. “I understand that. I had to spend yesterday and Monday with my daddy, taking care of him.”
Jon sighed and finished wrapping the last batch of caramels. He tossed them by the wax-paper-wrapped handful into the bin marked “vanilla” and sighed. “I know, Gretchen. I’m sorry.”
“Why do you care?” she asked, glad the more difficult flavors of black licorice and cinnamon had been done for hours. “Besides me wanting to run out and leave you to clean the kitchen.”
“Which I agreed to do,” he said. “I booked this event, and you stayed to help me with the caramels.” A hint of redness started to creep into his face. “I just think…this Will Cooper better be good to you.” He turned away from her and flipped on the water at the industrial sink that ran along the back wall.
Gretchen stared at him for a moment, not quite sure how to digest his words. “He is,” she said, her voice a bit high-pitched. “We’re going to The Culinary Cabin. Remember that place I told you to take Diana?”
“Yeah,” Jon said.
“You never did.”
“I couldn’t get her to go on a second date with me.” Jon turned around and gave Gretchen a glaring look. “So no, I never did.”
Gretchen blinked at this man she’d hired a couple of months ago. He’d become her friend at Sweet Water Taffy, and she’d always gotten along with him.
“Never mind,” he said. “You should go so you’re not late for your date.” He started scrubbing the counter in front of him as something strange shot through Gretchen.
Had she offended him by talking about her excitement to meet up with Will tonight? She’d told him about Will’s difficult Sunday too, and maybe she shouldn’t have. Perhaps she needed to simply treat him like an employee and not her friend.
She wasn’t quite sure how to do that, but she did manage to untie her apron and hang it on the hook beside the sink. She washed up too, the water too hot but her mind circling too much for her to care that much.
After driving home without noticing anyone else on the road or if she came to a complete stop at any of the intersections, she dashed up the front steps and through the mint green door. “Elvis,” she called, hoping the cat was here. She didn’t want to leave out the fresh food if it didn’t get eaten. If she did that, sometimes she got wild animals coming in through the cat door that led onto the back porch.
The cat appeared at the end of the hallway, and he’d probably been snoozing on her bed. “Come eat,” she told him, and she flew through putting together his dinner. He got chicken, carrots, and peas tonight, which almost looked like a chicken pot pie without the gravy.
Gretchen very nearly tossed the bowl on the floor in her haste to get down the hall and out of her candy-making clothes. She hadn’t checked her phone in hours, and Jon’s question about Will canceling tonight rang through her head. She’d said he hadn’t, but in truth, he could’ve but she hadn’t seen it yet.
She stepped out of the black pants she wore to work, searching her pockets for her phone. It wasn’t there, and panic ran through her. She felt torn in a hundred different directions, and she started to remove her shirt at the same time she ran back toward the hall, as if her device would be lying on the floor out there.
It wasn’t, and Gretchen went into the kitchen just as her phone chimed. She’d left it next to the cutting board where she’d chopped the cooked carrots into uneven chunks for Elvis. The cat still chomped through his meal, and Gretchen swiped on her phone at the same time her doorbell rang.
Fear paralyzed her, and only her neck worked as she looked away from her phone and toward the door.
That couldn’t be Will already. Could it?
In the living room, the grandfather clock she’d brought over from her parents’ house after her mother’s death started to sing.
It was six o’clock, and that meant the person on the other side of the front door definitely was Will.
Gretchen flew herself into gear, taking her phone with her as she dashed past the clock, which had started its march toward the six dongs it would eventually get through.
After all, she couldn’t answer the door if she was undressed.
“I mean, you could,” she said, flinging open her closet door. One day, she’d learn to lay out her date clothes before she left for work. “But I’m not sure that’s the message you want to send.”
