Love? Maybe. (13 page)

J
an’s shop looks like a bomb went off in it. Everything has been taken off the shelves and pulled away from the walls so we can clean. I’m standing on a stool behind the counter and handing big jars of jawbreakers and rock candy down to Jillian.

“How many is that?” Jeremy asks from the other side of the counter.

Charlie tries to answer, but it just comes out sounding something like “Elve.” He gives up and uses his fingers, holding up both hands then two fingers.

“Twelve,” Jillian says, as if the rest of us are mathematically impaired. Charlie pushes another marshmallow in his mouth, wedging it inside his right cheek. He closes his eyes for a moment then shakes his head. He goes into the back and thankfully lets the door bump shut behind him. He
comes out after a moment, wiping his mouth with a paper towel.

“You win,” he says to Jeremy, who is grinning like mad. Jeremy managed to wedge thirteen marshmallows into his mouth before calling it quits.

“Finally,” Jeremy says. “The great Charlie Wishman goes down.” Charlie shakes his head and smiles. Jeremy laughs and rubs his hands together. “I spent five years getting lapped by you. Finally vengeance is mine.” He pushes back through the door into the kitchen, where Jan is standing over the stove, stirring pots of chocolate. We hear him announce his win to Jan, then Jan laughing.

Jillian, Jeremy, and I have been here since right after breakfast. When Charlie showed up, I introduced him to Jeremy, who shook his hand very seriously. They managed to get out a couple of fake how-do-you-dos before they both started laughing. Charlie said they used to swim together. Jeremy amended that.

“Charlie is a swimmer. What I do is more like sustained non-drowning.”

“Come on,” Charlie said. “You weren’t that bad.” Jeremy just looked at him.

Charlie started to argue, but finally smiled and nodded. “Um. You did your best?” Charlie said, smirking.

Jeremy laughed. “That’s exactly what Coach said just before he cut me from the team.” This made Charlie smile. After that it seemed like every sentence they uttered for
the next hour started with: “Hey, remember that time—” Following the hundredth swim team/Boy Scouts/Little League walk down memory lane, I tuned them out. There’s only so much guy bonding I can take.

Jan put Jillian and me in charge of the front of the shop, while he enlisted Jeremy to help in the kitchen. At first I was a little put out that Jeremy got to work in the kitchen, but Jan explained that he was working on a surprise and didn’t want me to see it until it was finished. Jillian and I have been dusting and wiping and arranging and throwing out for nearly five hours. If this were my mom’s shop, we would have been done hours ago. Her style is very minimalist. Less is more. Jan’s style is, as Jillian says, “Early Pack Rat.” Every spare bit of wall space is covered with reclaimed street signs and vintage metal plaques advertising everything from seltzer water to motor oil. He has dozens of old tin toys lined up on a shelf above the menu board. One of his old surfboards is suspended from the ceiling above the taffy and caramel bins. He’s hung all of his old rock climbing equipment from hooks over the barrels of hard candies.

So far we’ve managed to dust everything and wipe down every flat surface. For the last hour, before we were interrupted by the World Marshmallow Championships, we’ve been hauling bags of hard candy from the back storeroom and filling all of the barrels. They’re almost spilling over.

Having Jillian around does keep things interesting. So far
she’s asked me to tell her, in detail, everything I can remember about my very brief conversation with Ben Donovan. He called last night right after Jillian, Claire, and Charlie had left. He had to make it fast because his dad was having him go to some dinner party. I was wiped out and half asleep as he was talking, but he didn’t seem to mind that I had little to say.

“Did you ask him about the gifts in your locker?” Jillian asks. I shake my head. “What about the balloons at your house?” she presses, referring to the ones that were tied to my front door sometime Friday night. I hadn’t even noticed them when I stumbled out of the house on my way to the meet.

I shake my head again. “I really don’t think it’s him,” I say.

“It has to be him,” she says, as if that settles it. I pour the bag of star mints into the bin, watching them tumble over each other.

“You like him though, right?” Jillian says.

“He’s nice,” I say, and it’s true, but he’s nice sort of like yogurt is nice or a brand-new pencil is nice.

“That’s good,” Jillian says, sounding distracted. She’s watching Charlie fill one of the big apothecary jars on the counter with silver M&M’s. Jan has them in any color you can imagine. Hot pink is the most popular followed by baby pink, purple, lavender, and silver. I always feel sort of bad for the brown ones. No one ever wants them.

“So what’s left?” Charlie asks when he’s finished refilling all of the jars.

I look around at the shop. “We need to clear some of the tables out to make room for the cameras and then someone needs to fix the Valentine’s display.” We all look over at the front window, which Jan has decorated for the upcoming holiday. It looks bad. Nearly all of the candy is gone and even cupid, who used to float serenely in the window, looks like he’s taken a beating. Jan said a busload of tourists hit the shop late yesterday, cleaning him out of just about everything.

“I’ll do the tables,” Charlie says.

“I’ll help,” Jillian offers. She makes big eyes at me before walking over to where Charlie is already lifting one of the tables and carrying it toward the back. If Jeremy noticed any difference in Jillian since Charlie arrived, he hasn’t given any indication of it. I’m pretty sure you’d have to be blind not to notice though. If Jillian says one more thing about Charlie’s muscles, his hair, his shirt, his voice, or his eyes, I may just have to see how many marshmallows I can cram into
her
mouth.

My phone moos at me from my back pocket. I might have to ask Charlie to change it this time. I read the text from Claire.

There in 10

—C

I push my phone back in my pocket and look around. There’s still so much to do, but Mom made me promise to
finish early tonight. I have a big week in front of me with swim practice and school and the Food Network visit and the Umlaut thing. Mom said she wants me home “at a decent hour.”

I start working on the Valentine’s display. I fix cupid’s wings so that he hangs straight again. I fluff the pink clouds hanging in the window. Yes, they are real cotton candy. Jan does nothing halfway. I restock all the candy, making sure there are plenty of Consternation Hearts. They’re selling really well. Jan ordered another container of boxes and those are already half gone. I notice the jar of Jan’s Fortune Hearts is nearly empty too. I walk toward the kitchen to retrieve more from the walk-in. I try to push the door open, but it’s blocked.

“Wait!” Jan says. I wait. And wait.

“Jan, I have to—”

“Okay,” he says. “Come in.” I push the door open. Everyone is huddled around the island. I lean over Jillian’s shoulder to see what they’re all looking at.

“Ta-da,” Jan says.

“It’s a ring pop,” I say, seeing the band of plastic supporting the oversized hunk of jewel-shaped candy.

“Not just any ring pop,” Jan says. “Look.” He holds one out to me. I take it and look at it. “Put it on,” Jan says. I slide it onto my finger. Immediately it lights up, making the gem glow.

“Cool,” I say.

“Wait for it,” Jan says. I watch the ring as it starts to shift from the clear gem I put on my finger to a light pink color. Jeremy clicks the lights off, pitching the kitchen into darkness. The rings are the only lights in the room. I can see Jeremy’s green one bobbing near the back door and Charlie’s and Jillian’s matching orange ones near the stove, and then a purple one appears where Jan is standing. Jeremy flips the lights back on. Even though they were only off for a moment, the sudden light is too bright in my eyes, making me squint. “These are cool, Jan,” I say, studying mine again.

“Cool?” Jeremy asks, as if I just called them stupid.

“Um, supercool?” I say.

“These could revolutionize the confectionary industry.” I raise my eyebrows, but Jan just smiles.

“They’re cool, but how are colored ring pops going to revolutionize anything? Even if they do light up?” I ask.

“They’re not just colored. They’re mood ring pops,” Jeremy says.

I look at my ring again, which is slowly shifting to blue. “So what do all the colors mean?” I ask.

“Well, that’s the tricky part,” Jeremy says. “We need to test them.” He grabs a pad of paper from the desk and looks at Jillian.

“Describe your mood.”

“Happy. I guess.” Jeremy writes that on the pad and looks at Charlie.

“Happy,” he says, but already his ring is changing to yellow. “Sort of.”

“Sort of happy,” Jeremy says, writing that down.

“This doesn’t seem very scientific,” I say.

Jeremy points at Jan. “Stressed,” he says. We all look at his ring, which is careening past purple and headed toward black.

“Piper,” Jeremy says. My ring keeps shifting from pink to purple to green and back again. “Confused,” Jeremy says, writing that down. I frown at him.

“And I’m…” He tilts his head to one side and looks up at the ceiling. “Focused.” I snort, but luckily a herd of cows starts making a racket from my pocket, keeping me from saying anything I might regret.

I look at my phone. Another text from Claire:
HELLO?

I hear the knocking at the front door. “It’s my mom,” I say, slipping my ring off and laying it on the counter. I walk to the front and let her and Claire in. They are each carrying a huge flower arrangement. One is all roses: pink and red and orange and white. The other is a huge arrangement of tulips and gerbera daisies.

“Wow,” I say, stepping back to let them by. The back door opens and everyone spills out of the kitchen. My mom puts the flowers she’s carrying on the counter and looks around. Claire is grinning like crazy.

“It looks great,” my mom says, smiling around at the shop and then at Jan. My mom and Jan have only seen
each other half a dozen times and always for about ten seconds when she’s picking me up or he’s dropping me off. “It’s so warm and friendly in here and well—” She pauses. “Amazing.”

“Thank you,” Jan says. He’s quiet for a moment. “The flowers are beautiful.”

“Oh,” my mother says. “The flowers are for you. For your show.”

I walk over to where Jillian and Claire are standing, leaving Jan and my mother talking about why roses don’t have scents anymore. I’ve already heard that discussion about a thousand times. Claire is smiling at my mom and Jan.

“What?” I ask, elbowing her.

“Nothing,” she says, but she keeps grinning, reminding me a little too much of Jillian when she’s devising some scheme.

Jillian clears her throat. “You guys should come to my house to get ready for the Umlaut event.”

“She means so she can supervise us as we’re getting ready,” Claire says to me.

“What are you going to wear?” Jillian asks me.

“I don’t know,” I say. The truth is I haven’t had time to think of much other than candy and homework and swimming. “I’ll figure it out.”

Jillian stares at me for almost a full minute. I shift under her gaze, wondering what I’ve said this time that has her looking at me like I’m from some other planet. One apparently without fancy art openings and posh fund-raisers. “I’ll
take care of it,” she says. “All you have to do is be at my house by six.”

I look around to be sure no one else is listening. “Have you told Charlie?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “I want it to be a surprise,” she says. I know for a fact that Charlie hates surprises, but before I can say anything I hear my mother’s phone ringing. She takes it out and looks at it. She smiles apologetically at Jan before turning to answer it. “Is everything okay?” she asks into the phone.

I start to tell Jillian again that she should give Charlie the heads up about the Umlaut thing, but the look on my mother’s face makes me pause. “How high?” my mother asks. She looks over at me. “I’ll be right there.” She hangs up. To Jan she says, “I’m sorry. That was my sitter. It seems my other two children are sick. Both with fevers.”

“Oh no,” Jan says. “Poor little guys.”

“I’ll get my coat,” I say. I head into the back and grab my jacket from the hook. My mother is still talking to Jan when I come back.

“No, no. I’m a ginger ale girl when I’m sick,” my mother says. I walk over. “So is Piper.”

“And I would have picked you as a Sprite person,” Jan says, smiling at me. He picks up a bag from the counter and drops two of his new ring pops into it. He hands it to my mother. “For when they feel better.”

“I’m sure they’ll love them,” she says. “Thank you.”