Sheila Roberts - Better Than Chocolate

“Cecily told me about the bank. Are you okay?”

“No.”

There was silence on the other end and she could just see her baby sister biting her lip, considering what to say next. “I’m sorry, Sammy,” she finally said. “I feel like we’re leaving you holding a big, stinky mess up there.”

Samantha rubbed her aching forehead. “At the rate we’re going I won’t be holding it much longer.” And then what would she do? Worse, what would Mom do? She wasn’t exactly making a fortune as a writer. Cecily would have to find millionaires for both of them.

“But you can’t let Sweet Dreams go out of the family,” Bailey said. “That would just be wrong, Sammy.”

Sometimes Samantha felt it was wrong that she was the only one of the sisters who’d stayed in Icicle Falls to keep Willy Wonka Land going. Here she was, like Davy Crockett at the Alamo. Or the Last of the Mohicans. Or…something.

“Do you have any ideas for how to save the company?”

Offer to sleep with Blake Preston in exchange for making an exception to bank policy. Oh, cute. Where had that come from? No place good. “No,” Samantha said. But there had to be something they could do. Why couldn’t she think of anything? She’d never lacked for ideas in the past, so where was all that brilliant inspiration now? Obviously, her idea factory had been shut down.

“We need a family brainstorming session,” Bailey said firmly.

If she couldn’t think of anything, what did Bailey suppose the rest of them were going to come up with? “Listen,” she began.

Bailey cut her off. “I know you think nobody can run the company like you, but we’re all pretty creative.”

There was no denying that. Samantha looked at the shredded nails on her left hand and decided manicures were overrated.

“I’m calling Cec,” Bailey said decisively. “I’ll go over to her place tonight and we’ll Skype you at Mom’s at seven.”

By seven all Samantha wanted was to be in her condo, escaping into a computer game or a movie on TV with Nibs curled up in her lap. “I don’t think—” she began.

“Come on now, don’t balk. Let’s at least give it a try.”

Her baby sister would stay on the phone and harass her until she caved. Might as well cave now and be done with it, she told herself. “All right. Seven tonight.”

“Good,” Bailey said in a tone of voice that sounded as though they’d already accomplished something.

* * *

Cecily stared in surprise at the buxom blonde in the low-cut top and overdone jewelry sitting on the other side of her desk, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Liza and Brad should have been a perfect match. He wanted a woman with boobs the size of life rafts and she wanted a man with a deep well of money to support her Rodeo Drive spending habit. Brad not only had money, he was good-looking to boot, another requirement of Liza’s, and now Liza was saying she didn’t want to see him again? Seriously?

“So you didn’t hit it off?” Cecily asked.

“We should have. He took me to Melisse, and the food was to die for. We both love great food.”

“Common interests are important,” Cecily said. They could have happily eaten their way through life while Liza ate her way through Brad’s bank account.

“Then he said he liked my hair.”

“Compliments, that’s good.”

Liza made a face. “Oh, yeah? Not when he says it’s the same color as his mother’s hair and then he starts talking about her.”

“Maybe he thought you’d like his mother?”

“Not by the time he was done. I swear it was like there were three of us on that date. And she lives with him. He’s forty and he lives with his mother? Sheesh. I can’t believe you don’t screen your guys better.”

“Well…” Cecily stumbled to a halt. She wasn’t even sure what to say to that. She didn’t have a place on her forms to check off mama’s boy. “I’m sorry, Liza. I thought he’d be perfect.”

“Well, he wasn’t. You’ve got to do better.”

That might not be so easy, considering the fact that Liza had tried to sucker the last two guys she’d gone out with into taking her shopping on the second date. “I’ll try,” Cecily said. “But you have to remember not to ask these guys to buy clothes for you when you’ve barely started dating them. It makes them think that’s all you want out of the relationship.”

Liza scowled at her. “Of course that’s not all I want. What do I look like, a hooker?”

Actually, yes, and not a very high-class one. “No, no,” Cecily said quickly. “Don’t worry. We’ll find your perfect match.”

“I hope so. I mean, I could go to someone else, you know.”

The Millionaire Matchmaker on TV? Cecily smiled the diplomatic smile that had always stood her in good stead. “Of course, I want you to be happy.” The rest of that sentence should have gone something like, “And I’m going to do everything in my power to find the perfect guy for you.” But the rest of the sentence never got out of her mouth. Instead, she discovered she had an evil twin, and the evil twin said, “So if that’s how you feel, then you should trot those Jimmy Choos somewhere else and see if they can find you a man who’s into gold diggers.” Oh, dear God, had she just said that?

Liza obviously couldn’t believe she had. Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

Oh, boy. “I don’t think I can help you,” Cecily said simply. And then the evil twin added, “And I don’t think I want to.”

Liza’s eyes flashed. “I want my money back!”

Good luck with that, thought Cecily. That money was long gone, just like her patience. “You got your money’s worth. I’ve matched you up with six eligible men. It’s not my fault you blew it.”

Liza glared at her. “Fine. I’m telling all my friends never to come to you. Ever!” And with that, she grabbed her Kate Spade bag and teetered out of the office on her three-inch heels.

Cecily ran a hand through her hair. This was abysmal. Not losing Liza as a client—she’d had a feeling all along that she wouldn’t be able to help the woman. No, it was the way she’d reacted to Liza’s threat—so tacky, so unprofessional. What was wrong with her? She was burned out, plain and simple.

She told Willow, her secretary, to hold her calls and locked herself in her office with a cup of chamomile tea, but the tea didn’t make her feel any better. She tossed out the remains and went back to her emails. And with each new one she opened, she kept asking herself, What are you doing here?

Good question.

* * *

Samantha was about to leave the office when her mother called to ask how she was doing.

“I haven’t slit my wrists yet,” Samantha reassured her.

“Don’t even joke about things like that,” Mom scolded. “I just talked to Cecily. It sounds like we’re set for a brainstorming session tonight and I was wondering if I should make dinner.”

While Samantha always preferred other people’s cooking, especially her mother’s, the idea of sitting across the table from Mom after everything that had happened, and now this latest development—she couldn’t face it. “I’ve got a million things to do before we Skype.” Please don’t ask what. “Can I take a rain check?”

“Of course,” Mom said. “But let me send some food home with you after. I’m up to my nose in casseroles.”

Free food. That would work. And stuffing herself with Mrs. Nilsen’s triple-threat mac and cheese was a step above medicating her pain with goodies from their gift shop or chewing off what few fingernails she had left.

She pulled up in the driveway at 6:55, turned off the ignition and sighed. It was wrong not to want to spend one-on-one time with her mother. She loved her mother. But right now she felt a big, lumpy wall between them, a misshapen, awkward pile of resentment, guilt and who knew what else, that she wasn’t sure how to scale. Mom was trying, though, God bless her. Which, of course, made Samantha feel all the more guilty.