Sheila Roberts - Better Than Chocolate

But once Mom dropped him on the company like a bomb, Samantha didn’t have to ask. She knew where Waldo was. He was at the office, in over his head and making her crazy.

She ground her teeth as she mentally tallied how much money he’d squandered: new business cards with his name on them, new stationery, new equipment they hadn’t needed, a fancy phone system they couldn’t afford that a slick-tongued sales rep had talked him into buying. How could a businessman be so bad at business? Of course he’d convinced both himself and Mom that every purchase was necessary, and Samantha hadn’t had the veto power to stop him.

That had been just the beginning. Six months ago their profits sank and they started having trouble paying their suppliers. Waldo cut back on production, which then affected their ability to fill orders, and Lizzy, their bookkeeper, began looking as if she’d been invited to dinner with the grim reaper. “We’re behind on our IRS quarterlies,” she’d informed Samantha. “And that’s not all.” She showed Samantha expenditures on the company credit card that made no sense. A gun. Ammunition. Cases and cases of bottled water, enough to keep the whole town hydrated. Waldo was a financial locust, devouring the company.

Where’s Waldo? Busy dumping their lives in the toilet. Flush, flush, flush! She could have happily stuffed his head in a toilet and—

“And I believe that if Waldo could speak to us now he’d say, ‘Thank God for a life well-lived,’” Pastor Jim said.

Her mother let out a sob and Samantha felt a pang of guilt. She should be crying, too. She’d liked Waldo. He’d been a man with a big heart and a big appetite for life.

“We know he’ll be missed,” Pastor Jim was saying, and Cecily laid a comforting hand on Mom’s arm. That, of course, gave Mom permission to start crying in earnest.

“Poor Mom,” whispered Bailey, who was sitting on the other side of Samantha. “First Dad and now Waldo.”

Losing two husbands—talk about a double whammy. Mom had not only loved both her husbands, she’d loved being married. She had no head for business (which probably explained why Grandpa had been perfectly happy to let Dad run Sweet Dreams), but she had a gift for relationships. She’d even had a couple of relationship books published with a small publisher and before Waldo died she’d been about to start on a new book, Secrets of a Happy Remarriage.

Samantha hoped that now Mom would turn her attention to learning how to have a happy life—with no marriage. At least, no marriage until they could get the business off the critical-care list and Samantha was put officially in charge.

The sooner, the better. Her first order of business would be to rehire Lizzy, who Waldo had fired in a misbegotten attempt to economize. She only hoped Lizzy would come back and help her sort through this mess.

She heaved a sigh. Here her mother was grieving and all she could think about was saving the family business. What was wrong with her? Did she have a calculator for a heart?

“Now I’d like to give the rest of you a chance to say something about Waldo,” Pastor Jim said.

He made me nuts probably wouldn’t cut it. Samantha stayed seated.

Lots of other people were happy to oblige, though.

“He was the most generous man I ever met,” said Maria Gomez, his regular waitress at Zelda’s. “He gave me two hundred dollars to get my car fixed. Just like that. Said not to worry about paying him back.”

Samantha pressed her lips firmly together and envisioned hundred-dollar bills with wings flying away, circling ever upward and off toward Sleeping Lady Mountain.

You do have a calculator for a heart. People were talking about how nice Waldo had been, and all she could think about was money. She was a terrible person, a terrible, terrible person. She hadn’t always been like that, had she? A tear slipped from a corner of her eye.

Ed York, owner of D’Vine Wines, stood. “I can still remember sitting with Waldo out on his deck, looking at the mountains, sharing a bottle of wine, and him saying, ‘You know, Ed, it doesn’t get any better than this.’ That Waldo, he sure knew how to enjoy life.”

While everyone around him was pulling out their hair.

“He was a dear soul,” old Mrs. Nilsen said. “Last month he stopped in the freezing cold to change my tire when I had a flat on Highway 2.”

On and on went the praise. Good, old, wonderful Waldo. Everyone here would miss him—except his rotten, ungrateful, Scrooge-in-drag, calculator-for-a-heart stepdaughter. She was pathetic. Another tear sneaked out of her eye and trickled down her cheek.

Pastor Jim finally called a halt to the festivities and the party made its way under cloudy skies to Festival Hall, where everyone could mingle, sing Waldo’s praises further and devour cold cuts and potato salad. Inside, the three sisters smiled and commiserated.

Waldo’s brother and his daughter, Wanda, had flown in from the East Coast. Taking in the woman’s red eyes as she approached, Samantha managed to find empathy in the swirl of guilt and resentment and frustration she was experiencing

“I’m sorry we’re having to see each other again in such sad circumstances,” Wanda said.

“So are we,” Cecily told her.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Samantha added. And she was. She knew how horrible it was to lose a father and she wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy.

Wanda dabbed at her eyes with a soggy tissue. “I can’t believe he’s gone. He was the best father. And he was always so positive, so upbeat.”

So clueless. “I wish we could turn back the clock,” Samantha said.

Wanda sniffed and nodded. “You were all so good to him.”

Samantha couldn’t think of anything to say to that. She hardly wanted to confess that during the past few months she’d been anything but good.

Cecily stepped into the gap. “He was a nice man.”

True. He was just a bad businessman.

“He sure loved Muriel,” Wanda said. “He was so lonely after Mother died. Muriel gave him a new lease on life.”

“And I don’t know what her life would’ve been like without him,” Samantha said.

“I think Muriel would like to hear that, Wanda,” murmured Waldo’s brother, Walter, as he led their long-distance stepsister away.

“I need a drink,” Samantha said.

“Great idea,” Bailey agreed, and they all drifted over to the punch bowl.

Samantha really wasn’t much of a drinker, but a good stiff belt sure seemed to help a lot of movie characters through stressful moments and right about now she was willing to give it a try. “I wish this was spiked,” she muttered.

Bailey looked across the room at their mother. “I feel so bad for Mom.”

Muriel Sterling-Wittman sat on a folding chair framed by the weak winter light coming through the window behind her, a beautiful tragic figure starting the new year alone. Her basic black dress discreetly draped her Betty Boop curves and her hair was still the same shiny chestnut it had been when Samantha was a girl, courtesy of the geniuses at Sleeping Lady Salon. The green eyes Waldo once raved about were bloodshot from crying but still looked lovely thanks to lashes thick with waterproof mascara. Half the men in the room were hovering around with tissues in case she found herself in need.

“Well, at least we won’t have to worry about her being lonely,” Bailey said. She was the spitting image of their mother and the most like her, as well—sweet, positive and naive.

Cecily gave a cynical snort. “Much good any of those men will do her. They’re all married.”

“Not Ed,” Bailey pointed out.

“He’s got the hots for Pat over at the bookstore,” Samantha said, and mentally added, Thank God.