As Long As There's Cake Page 12

  Then she was back at the register to help the customers again.

  Cookie smiled. Everything was fine. More than fine. Clarissa really was a natural. She was handling all of this like a pro. Whatever else came of Clarissa’s little visit, Cookie was glad to have her granddaughter here.

  Then, through the swinging kitchen door, Rick appeared carrying a plastic tray full of little meat tarts. It was one o’clock in the afternoon already, but the lunch crowd at the bakery often extended out to two o’clock. If they had already sold out of the first batch of those meat pastries, and needed to make more, then this was going to be a good sales day for sure.

  He saw her as the door swung itself closed behind him, and the look he gave Cookie was the strangest mixture of apology and arrogance. His lips pursed themselves into a frown and he quickly looked away. He busied himself with setting the pastries into their space behind the glass counter, nervously scratching at his unshaven face.

  Clarissa picked up on the change in his behavior and looked from him, to where Cookie was standing. Understanding crossed over her yes. She smiled weakly, and waved with her fingertips, before going back to help the next customer. Cookie felt like there was a rift between her and those two, already big and getting bigger. She wasn’t sure how to cross the divide.

  She went through the bakery, saying hello to several people who knew her, stopping to chat with a few about this and that. At first it surprised her that not a single one of them brought up the investigation of the robbery. Then she realized that word wouldn’t have gotten around yet. It would catch on quick after this morning, no doubt, but for now everyone was still wrapped up with their usual small town lives.

  She made her excuses to get away from everyone and then went through the kitchen and on up to her apartment. Clarissa was too busy at the register to say anything to her. Rick made sure his back was turned until she was gone.

  Cream met her up in her apartment, bouncing on his little doggie legs. At least he was happy to see her, even if the greeting that she’d gotten from Clarissa and Rick was less than enthusiastic. Hopping up onto his hind legs over and over, he danced around her and yipped up a storm, wanting to know where she had been all day.

  “It’s a long story,” she told him, “but I’m back now. Let me get you something to eat and then we can sit down for a while, all right? I can’t wait to tell you about it. I’ve had the most exciting day.”

  He sat back on his haunches, twisting his head to one side. “Whuff?”

  “Well, yes. For you and me that’s nothing new, I agree.” She chuckled. “I suppose I was right. These sorts of things just seem to happen when I’m around. Or perhaps it’s this town? There’s much more going on here than one would expect, that’s for certain. Lots of things hidden behind the curtains, or at least that’s how I’ve been saying it to myself. Oh, guess what? You were right about that cabinet in Mara’s shop. Here, you eat and then I’ll tell you all about it.”

  She scooped out some dry kibble into his bowl and refilled his water dish. After that she made herself a sandwich from the sliced turkey in the fridge. Just something light for now. She really should get back downstairs to help Clarissa and Rick.

  “Although I suppose,” she told Cream, “they don’t really need me down there. They were doing just fine when I came through. I suppose there’s hope for that boy yet. Oh, my. I should call Madison while I’m up here. Clarissa’s mother is going to blow her stack if I wait much longer to tell her what’s going on. I wouldn’t blame her, either.”

  Cream grumbled around a mouthful of food. Cookie had to interpret what he meant from context.

  “Well, I couldn’t very well call her today. I was busy all morning. Besides, I really wanted to have Clarissa make this call. She’s the one who should give her mother the news, not me.” She chewed a bite of her sandwich, and decided it needed mustard. She went back to the refrigerator for the yellow squeeze bottle. “I tell you, Cream. Sometimes you just don’t know people. Jerry had to arrest Mara today. Know what was in that cabinet?”

  He stopped chewing for a moment to look up at her.

  “The money from that old bank robbery twenty-five years ago. Well, some of the money anyway. It looks like she’s spent the rest. I still can’t believe it. Jerry and I went there to search her house, but I thought we wouldn’t find anything. I knew her mother. We were friends.”

  She paused in her story with the door to the fridge open, looking through the bottles of condiments in the shelves. Ketchup. Mayonnaise. French dressing. Where was the mustard?

  And what in the world was that little plastic container right there?

  “Anyway,” she said to Cream, taking out the little orange Tupperware box to examine it. “Mara was involved somehow in robbing the bank where her mother worked. I don’t think she did the robbery herself. No. They said that was a man. She must have been the one to give the robber all the information they needed to pull it off.”

  Cream licked his lips, a question in his eyes.

  “I don’t know why she would keep the money. It does seem silly. The whole thing is confusing to me.” The plastic container was distracting her. She set it down on the table to look at later. Still searching for the mustard, she explained to her little Chihuahua friend, “A man told us the money would be there, and there it was. He saw the bag there when he broke into her home, apparently. It was just a coincidence, I suppose, that he was there at all. Wrong place, right time. That sort of thing.”

  Ah. There was the mustard. She picked it up from behind the jar of dill pickles, and then stopped. Something was bothering her, but she couldn’t quite decide what. Her mind was picking apart at something, working at the edges of it, pulling it into pieces like monkey bread.

  Then she turned around and saw the Tupperware container sitting on the table, and something clicked.

  That wasn’t hers. Her plastic containers were all of the see-through variety. She preferred to see what she was storing, and see if it had gone bad, rather than have to open it up to find out the hard way. Nothing was worse than opening a moldy container of old spaghetti and being assaulted by the smell. Clear plastic containers took the guesswork out of life.

  This container was an opaque orange. There was no way to see inside to what it might be. Almost like whoever had put it here didn’t want anyone to know what was in it.

  And if she hadn’t put it in her fridge, that meant someone else had. Jerry spent a lot of time here, but he didn’t bring his own food containers.

  That left Clarissa or Rick.

  Which might not mean anything. Or, it might mean that one of them had something to hide.

  Her mind raced to several bad conclusions. Considering what she knew about Rick’s problems, she didn’t think it was that much of a stretch. This was something she couldn’t ignore. She had to be sensible about things. She couldn’t turn a blind eye to the dangers she had let into her home when she invited Rick to live here. Not even for the sake of her granddaughter.

  She shut the refrigerator, and set aside the mustard, before sitting down at the table. She centered the container in front of her. With a heavy breath, she braced herself to see what was inside. Her fingers felt along the ridged top, and the tight seal.

  The she took ahold of one corner…

  “What are you doing?”

  She jumped in her chair. Cream raced across the floor and stopped in front of Rick, looking up at him with all the menace a dog his size could muster. No one was going to scare his Cookie!

  Rick ignored the dog, and stepped into the apartment, but his eyes were on the container. “That’s mine, Grandma Cookie. You have no right to open that.”

  It took her only a moment to gather herself together. She was infuriated that he would speak to her this way, in her own home. “I’ve told you not to call me ‘Grandma,’ young man. If you ever get yourself together and marry my granddaughter, and give her the life she deserves, then you will have earned the right to call me that.
Until then, don’t. Now, then. What is in this container?”

  He started to stomp his way over to the dining table, but Cream let out a string of horrendous yapping that made him step back again. The little dog could be fierce when he wanted to be. “It’s none of your business,” Rick told her, trying to act like staying by the stairs had been his choice. “Just put it back. Clarissa needs us downstairs.”

  “Clarissa needs a lot of things. One of the things she needs the most is a man in her life.”

  “I am in her life. I’m there for her.”

  Cookie shook her head. “That’s debatable, but what I meant was that Clarissa deserves a man to be with her. A man takes care of his troubles. A man asks for help when he needs it. A man does not destroy the life of a young woman who loves him. Can you be a man, Rick?”

  “I am a man,” he repeated.

  “Then you should act like one.”

  His face twisted. “What do you know about what we’ve been through, huh? I would do anything for Clarissa.”

  “Except stop using drugs?”

  There was a look in his eye like he didn’t know what to say about that. He was silent. No witty response, no angry retort. He knew the truth of what she had just thrown in his face. Cookie knew she should have done that right from the start. She shouldn’t have let him hide behind the curtains of his lies. It was out in the open now, and he could either face it or hide from it. If she was going to help him, she had to do this.

  Cookie wasn’t going to let up on him. Not if he was going to deny the truth to himself.

  With one quick motion, she took off the top of the Tupperware.

  “I said don’t!” Rick yelled at her.

  Cream barked at him, but then backed away as he rushed for the plastic container.

  Too late. Cookie saw the wrapped packets of white powder that were piled inside. Nine of them altogether.

  Rick ripped the Tupperware out of her hands, and grabbed the lid up off the table, and slammed it shut. “It’s not for me,” he told her, the words coming out in a rush. “It’s a friend’s. I do have friends, you know. Sometimes you have to keep this stuff away from the people who just want to abuse it, you know? That’s all. I’m just keeping it for a friend. That’s who I am. I’m a giver. I help people. I just want to help. You know me. You know who I am.”

  Cookie stared at him in disbelief. She’d always heard about the lies addicts told to justify their behavior, but now she was seeing it firsthand. “Rick, we both know this is yours. You brought it here. Here, to my home.” She shook her head sadly. “You need help.”

  “I don’t need help. I just need to work for a little bit and get out from under all our debts and then we’ll be fine. You’ll see, Cookie. We’ll be fine. Me and Clarissa will be fine.”

  “No, you won’t.” Cookie made herself stand up and made herself go over to him. “You need help, Rick. You need to find a way to get away from the drugs. How much did that cost you, hmm? How can you save money to get out of debt when you put your money into this poison?”

  “I told you, these are not mine. I’m just holding them—”

  “For a friend,” she finished the lie for him. “I heard you. Well. Then if they aren’t yours, you won’t mind if I hold them for this friend of yours, will you?”

  She held her hand out, silently demanding that he give her the box.

  He bounced it in his hand, and frowned, and his eyes darted everywhere looking for inspiration to drum up another lie. Cookie didn’t let up, though. She stood there, with her hand out, and waited.

  Rick swallowed. He realized he’d trapped himself with his own words. Slowly, reluctantly, he handed the box over to her. “I mean, sure,” he said, with a nonchalant shrug. “If you want to take them, that’s fine. It doesn’t mean anything to me. They’re not mine. Sure. Go ahead.”

  His words were uncaring, but Cookie saw the look on his face, and saw the way his eyes kept tracking to that box. He needed this more than he knew. Or, more than he wanted to admit.

  “Tomorrow,” she insisted to him, “you and I and Clarissa are going to find you some help. I think we should involve Jerry in the conversation, personally. Yes, he is a police officer, but he’s a good man. He’ll know how to get you the help you need so you can shake this problem.”

  For just a moment, Rick’s hands twitched back toward that plastic container of his drugs. It was killing him to give them up. For all Cookie knew, this was the last of what he could afford. Then his hands balled themselves into fists at his sides and his expression turned to rage again.

  “I don’t have a problem,” he said, his voice rising with each word. “I don’t need that kind of help. I don’t need to kick a drug problem because I don’t have a drug problem! I don’t need your pity. I don’t need you to stuff me into some kind of program for addicts because I am not an addict!”

  Even as he said it, his eyes went back to that container. His fists began to shake. He swallowed again and again, his nostrils flared with each breath. When was the last time he used, Cookie wondered? Recently, she was sure of it. His lies couldn’t disguise what was going on with his body. This box that he’d brought into her home wasn’t here for decoration. No. he had it stashed here because he was still using.

  This poor, poor man. Cookie had to find some way to help him.

  How was it that this could be harder for her than solving the mystery of a bank robbery from over twenty years ago?

  “Clarissa needs you,” she decided to tell him.

  His mouth hung open as the sting of those words pierced his heart. His nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed. “I know that. I’m trying my best for her.”

  “Then you need to stop this and find a way back to being the best man you can be.”

  “Stop what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She knew he was lying. He knew he was lying, too, she could see it all over his face. “You,” she said to him, very slowly, enunciating each word, “will not bring this poison into my home. Do you understand?”

  “Stop telling me what to do!” he exploded. Cookie was sure that all of her customers must have heard him downstairs, he was being so loud. “I am a grown man whether you want to treat me like one or not. Stop telling me what to do!”

  She ignored his anger, hard as that was to do, and then she told him again. “You will not—ever—bring this poison into my home. You will seek treatment. You will make yourself better for your sake, and for Clarissa’s as well. She needs you.”

  “Grandma Cookie, you can’t tell me—”

  “I can,” she insisted in a voice that was stronger than she felt, “and I will. Someone has to tell you, because you aren’t telling yourself. You will do this. You will do it, because it is the only way you will be allowed to stay under my roof and as we both know, you don’t have any other options. I am doing this for you, Rick, but I am also doing it for my granddaughter who I love dearly. I don’t want to see her get hurt. Not by anyone, but especially not from the man she loves.”

  “I’m not an addict.” His arms crossed themselves defiantly over his scrawny chest. “I love Clarissa. I would never hurt her.”

  She held the box up and his eyes darted to it like a magnet. “You are hurting her. This is hurting her. This is hurting you. This is what you need to fix and until you do, you are not welcome here.”

  The words hitched in her throat, but she forced them out anyway. This had to be done. She could see that now. Just letting them stay here wasn’t going to fix things for them. She needed to force the issue. Nothing would change until Rick wanted it—no, needed it—to change.

  Cracks began to form in the mask he wore. His resolve was slipping. Either because he believed her when she said he needed help, or because he was afraid of being turned out from the last place that would take him.

  That was the key, Cookie realized suddenly. She had to make him more afraid of losing what he had with Clarissa, than he was afraid of losing his drugs. He
needed to want the one more than the other.

  His shoulders hunched as he looked away from her. “Grandma Cookie, please…”

  “Do not call me that. Not until you’ve earned it. Tomorrow, you can begin earning it. Do you understand me?”

  For a moment it looked like he wasn’t even breathing. Then he shook himself all over and gave her a nod. “I understand.”

  “Promise me, Rick. Promise me for Clarissa.”

  “Fine. I promise. Cookie.”

  There was heat in his voice when he said her name. Like some of his anger towards her was still there. That was fine, she thought to herself. Let him be angry. Let him hold her responsible for what he was going to have to do. As long as that anger didn’t get misdirected at Clarissa, then Cookie could bear that burden. She had strong shoulders. She could take it.

  A ripple of emotion spread across his face and his eyes slid toward the Tupperware package one more time. Then he just turned away and stomped down the stairs.

  Cookie slumped down into her chair, tossing aside the hateful package. She was going to have to do something about that. Something permanent, so that it wouldn’t fall back into Rick’s hands. That confrontation with him… that had been one of the scariest things she had done in a long time.

  Would he stick to his promise? It was hard to tell. She had been involved in several bizarre situations over the last few years. Things that a woman her age shouldn’t have been involved in, perhaps, but this thing with Rick was completely new to her. She had no idea what to expect.

  Tomorrow would tell the tale. He would either start to change for Clarissa, or he would lose everything.

  Today, it might be best if she stayed up here in the apartment and let Clarissa and Rick handle the bakery. They all needed some space from each other right now and those two were obviously more than capable of handling it. If they could work so well together at running a business, then certainly there was hope for their personal lives together.