Chapter 19

 

Sam found her attention wandering as she set autumn flowers around the tiers on her second wedding cake of the day. Becky worked beside her, piping words onto the blank page of a book-shaped cake for the Chocoholics Unanimous group at the bookshop next door. Chocolate cake, dark chocolate covers, white chocolate pages and deep chocolate writing. A thick fondant bookmark was waiting for placement when the lettering was finished.

Ever since Sam had taken the cartons of finished candy out to the airport for another Book It Travel order this morning, stopping by the new property on her way back to take muffins to Darryl’s crew, her head had been filled with ideas for the upcoming move.

The back door opened and Kelly came in, practically bouncing with excitement.

“I brought you something,” she said, holding out a sheet of heavy paper. “Your new logo. I played around with the photos I took of the Victorian the other day, added some special effects and found a very cool font for the lettering. What do you think?”

Sam wiped her hands on a damp towel before touching the page. “Wow—nice. I had no idea you could do this stuff.”

Kelly had somehow isolated the old house from the surrounding tattered landscaping, turned the faded bluish paint to purple and added “Sweet’s Sweets, Candy With a Magical Touch” below.

“If you don’t like the tagline, I can change that,” she told Sam. “I borrowed from your ‘bakery with a magical touch’ phrase you use here.”

“I’m still not firm about the name for the chocolates division,” Sam said. “I don’t want people getting confused and thinking it’s the bakery.”

“Sure, whatever. Changing the words is the easy part.”

“The illustration is amazing,” Sam said. “Maybe one day the real house will look this sharp and beautiful.”

“Oh, it will.” Kelly took the drawing and stuck it on the cork board above Sam’s computer where everyone could admire it. “I’ll bet the renovations are coming right along.”

“Well, it’s only been two days since Darryl’s guys got to work on it but I have to say they are making great progress. I’m lucky he knew the right strings to pull and got the permits almost immediately.”

“I want to bring Scott by to see it,” Kelly said. “He has asked me about it every day since I was there. He loves historic buildings.”

“Wouldn’t he rather wait until it’s done?” Sam had moved the wedding cake aside and began kneading fondant for a birthday design, a skier’s paradise cake, which would begin with a steep white mountain.

“Knowing him, he’d probably rather see it un-fancy. If there are holes in the walls and spider-webby corners, so much the better.”

“Well, he’d better hurry then,” Sam said with a laugh. “The dirt-and-spider-web show is pretty much over. I suppose he could poke around in the basement and carriage house if he wants to. I’ve barely given them more than a glance but I suppose he might find a ghost or two.”

“I’ll tell him. Can we stop by after work tonight?” Kelly already had her phone out.

“Sure. If I get ahead of things here, I’m going around four o’clock so I can check things before it gets too dark.” Sam turned her attention to trimming cake layers to represent mountain terrain.

“Excellent! Okay, gotta go brush two poodles.”

Becky looked up from the rack of cupcakes in front of her—six dozen green-faced monsters for the middle school carnival. With Halloween now only two days away, production was ramping up, big time.

By three-thirty Sam was standing with hands on hips, surveying and mentally totaling the goodies. Cupcakes and cookies for classrooms and parties, check. A generous supply of white-frosted ghost cookies to hand out to trick-or-treaters here at the store Friday afternoon, check. Fourteen custom ordered cakes for parties, plus extra generic ones for last-minute shoppers, check.

The quirky-but-elegant cake Mr. Bookman planned to fly to Aspen for that CEO’s swanky party had occupied every minute of Becky’s time in the two days since Sam had been back and forth to monitor Darryl’s progress on the new place. The Victorian house, it turned out, had been the perfect inspiration for the cake—square tiers stacked and covered in purple fondant, pressed with a woodgrain tool to resemble siding, fondant shutters and a rock-candy pathway. Becky had outdone herself in creating white decorative ‘gingerbread’ trim out of modeling chocolate and adding details such as carved pumpkins and spun sugar cobwebs. Now to get the whole thing to its destination in one piece since the plan had changed and Sam would have to deliver it to the airport herself.

Julio and Sam rigged boxes and Styrofoam blocks to enclose and cushion the huge confection for its journey.

“Okay,” said Sam as they taped the final cardboard flap in place. “I’m getting this out to the airport now. From that point on, it’s up to Mr. Bookman’s best pilot to get it to the party.”

“Too bad he didn’t want you to fly along and set it up,” Becky said.

“He did. I had to tell him there was no way I could take the time away from here and still get his next order of chocolates done.” Sam wheeled a cart over to the table. “He’d already told me the hostess has a full catering team on site. They’ll be able to handle the cake too.”

The three of them transferred the cake to the cart and got it to the van. Sam took a peek inside the box to be sure nothing had shifted. She would do the same at the airport, making certain someone from Bookman’s crew verified the cake had been delivered in perfect condition. After that, it was in their hands.

An hour later, with a sigh of relief, she left the airport and drove the back route to her new location. Despite the pickup trucks out front and the trailer filled with old wallpaper scraps, plant debris and trash bags, the place was taking on a fresher look each time she visited. A flash of red caught her attention as Kelly’s little car pulled off the road and stopped behind Sam’s van. Kelly and Scott got out.

“Wow—it really is a nice example of the period,” he said, staring up at the highest turret windows.

Sam watched in amusement as he walked over and laid a hand on one of the posts which held up the narrow porch roof. With a gentle touch, he proceeded to touch the railing, the house siding and one of the front window shutters.

“Love the glass here,” he said. “Look at the ripples in it.”

Sam and Kelly exchanged a smile. “I want to see inside,” Kelly said.

They stepped past a worker on his way out with an empty paint can.

“What a difference!” Kelly exclaimed.

The hardwood floors in the foyer, parlor and dining room were spotless now. With the wallpaper gone, the walls sported fresh, pale gray paint and the dark wainscoting was now a soft taupe. Metallic clanking came from the kitchen and Sam led the way to see what was going on.

Darryl knelt at the spot where pipes emerged from the wall. He’d tapped into the hot and cold water lines and nearly finished soldering the copper pipe where it would soon attach to a faucet. The room itself remained empty, although Sam could envision her new six-burner stove sitting against the west wall where the crew had already mounted a vent pipe. Cabinetry would surround the sink and large dishwashing area where Darryl now worked, and there would be a huge table in the middle of the room for tempering and working the chocolate. Even with all that, there was still plenty of space for a bake oven and cooling racks, should the day come when the small kitchen at Sweet’s Sweets could no longer handle the volume of cakes and baked goods.

Darryl stood, letting out a small groan. “Sorry,” he said. “This old white beard should be telling me I don’t crawl around on the floor quite so easy anymore.”

He worked a kink out of his right leg. “So … what do you think?”

Kelly gushed. “Can’t believe how much you’ve done in two days.”

“Cabinets and plumbing come in tomorrow. Is your supplier still on target for Monday delivery of the rest?”

“Stove, fridges, cooling racks and worktables,” Sam said. “If it’s okay, I want to bring some things over this weekend.”

“Technically, you can’t conduct any business until we get your health department inspection and that can’t happen til the fixtures are installed and operational. What did you have in mind?”

“Just stuff I want to store, extra boxes, candy molds—making some space back at the shop.”

He waved it off. “Yeah, that’ll be fine, especially if you store it all away from the kitchen.”

A noise came from the vestibule leading to the side door, the loading area, as Sam had begun to think of it.

Scott stepped inside, shook hands with Darryl and complimented him on the job before turning toward Sam.

“Did you say your landlady’s name is Nalespar?”

“It is.” The owner’s name, Orinda Nalespar, was unusual enough to have caught her attention. Sam couldn’t actually remember telling Scott or Kelly, but it had been a busy few days.

“Any relation to the writer, Eliza Nalespar?”

“I have no idea.” Sam looked toward Darryl but he merely shrugged.

“If it is,” Scott said, “you’ve got yourself quite a find here. She was very well known in the paranormal genre.”

Kelly’s eyes got wide. “Ooh—you suppose she got her inspiration from this old house?”