The Matchbaker (A Romantic Comedy) Read online

  By the time I eat through four of the twelve cupcakes, I’m feeling even worse about myself. So when Meg Ryan receives the bouquet of pencils, I dissolve into tears again. I mean, pencils! How could the wrong man be so right for her?

  “Candy?”

  I snarf the dripping snot up my nose and reach quickly for a tissue to dab my eyes. “Yeah, Mom! I’m down here.”

  “Could you come upstairs for a second? I have something I need to discuss with you.”

  I take a deep breath. I’m so not in the mood for a discussion, especially not with my mother. She’ll see right through me and immediately start trying to figure out why I’ve been crying.

  “Um…I was just about to hop in the shower. Can it wait ‘till later?” Please don’t come down here.

  “You don’t look like you’re getting in the shower to me.”

  I startle at my mom’s voice directly behind me. How did she do that? I didn’t even hear her come down the stairs.

  I hem and haw, but much to my surprise, she pretends not to notice that I’ve been bawling my eyes out.

  “Come on, honey, it’ll just take a minute.” She turns around and heads up the stairs. I don’t have much of an excuse now, so I throw off my blankets, wipe the frosting off my mouth, and follow her.

  “Surprise!”

  My jaw drops. Mom, Dad, Holly and Colin are standing in a semi-circle at the top of the stairs as I emerge from my hole. “Oh, my God!” I cry, partially because I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement that they didn’t actually forget my birthday, and partially because Mom is holding a giant tray of my favorite cupcakes. I might as well just send all my clothes to Goodwill right now.

  “Okay, now close your eyes,” Dad says. He’s super excited for whatever the next surprise is.

  I close my eyes and wait. I hear a little bit of shuffling around, then Dad says, “All right, you can open them.”

  I do, and that’s my undoing. Lucy is here, standing in front of me in the most fantastic wide leg pants and turquoise blouse. She’s stunning, and I’m…a mess. But I can hardly worry about what I look like now. My wish has come true. After this little party Mom and Dad have planned, I get to go out with my best friend for cocktails and cry on her shoulder.

  Except she’s pregnant, I suddenly remember. Damn. Cocktails for one, I suppose. But even still, I haven’t told her about the change yet, and I’m positively dying to speculate with her about what it could mean.

  I rush to her and envelop her in a hug as the tears stream down my cheeks. “What are you doing here?” I ask as I pull away.

  “I wasn’t going to miss my best friend’s birthday,” she says, as if I should have known this. “Besides, I need a little space, if you know what I mean.”

  I raise my eyebrows, but she shakes her head and says, “It’s fine. Everything’s totally fine. We’ll talk about it later.”

  A chorus of “Happy Birthday” rings out behind us and I turn to see the cupcakes lit up with candles. My stomach turns a little, and I’m really regretting that I devoured four cupcakes in the last hour. The mere thought of more sugar threatens to send me into a diabetic meltdown.

  As they finish the song, Colin pops the cork on a bottle of champagne and we all gather around the kitchen table to celebrate my twenty-ninth. Only, I’m not feeling all that celebratory all of a sudden. It’s not the fact I’m one year closer to thirty, it’s that I feel totally lost. I’m baking now. Baking! And pining after my sister’s boyfriend. I’m struck again by how quickly my life veered off track and went careening into domesticity.

  “Are you okay, Candy?” Colin has sidled up beside me and asked this question quietly enough that the other revelers in the kitchen couldn’t hear him.

  I’m touched by his concern, but equally horrified at my desire to collapse into his arms and cry. “Oh, fine,” I say nonchalantly. “I just…well, truth be known,” I lower my voice. “I just had four cupcakes downstairs. I’m feeling a little sick to my stomach at the thought of eating more.”

  He makes an “Ouch” face and sucks air in between his teeth. “Yikes,” he says. “That’s a lot of cupcakes.”

  “Don’t judge.” I raise my eyebrows challengingly. “If you had had my day…or week…or month,” I add, dejected. “You would understand.”

  “Listen,” he says, his voice softening even more than before. “I know it can’t have been easy, leaving New York, leaving a high-powered job—”

  “Career,” I correct him.

  “Career. But sometimes things land in our laps, and we just have to roll with the punches. Maybe this will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  Ha. I scoff a little. “It’s certainly a thing that happened to me, but the best thing…” Would be if you dumped my sister because you fell madly in love with me, like Madame Antoinette predicted.

  Colin shrugs. “Only time will tell. Just be patient.”

  Easy for him to say. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

  I’m starting to feel as if I’m being lectured, though I know that’s not Colin’s intention at all. He’s just trying to help, but I’m in such a sour mood, I can’t help but get a little edgy over the advice giving. Instead of plunging further down that particular hole, I turn away and address my father, who is pouring champagne into the crystal flutes sitting on the kitchen table.

  “I’ll have one of those, if you don’t mind.”

  Dad hands over a glass and I guzzle it. No reason to hold back. Lucy has no choice but to be the designated driver, which means I can have all the fun I want tonight. Besides, it’s my birthday, and I’m stuck in Connecticut as a cupcake baker. I deserve a night of revelry.

  Ten

  Didn’t I promise to never do this again? Didn’t I swear that I would never drink so much that I couldn’t remember anything the next morning…or lift my head off my pillow?

  “Good morning, sunshine!” Why is Holly so damn loud?

  Oh, God. It hurts so much. “What are you doing here?” I try to sit up, but I can’t. My body feels like it’s full of lead.

  “Good Lord, what happened to you last night?”

  “I don’t know,” I say weakly. “I think I might have had one too many.”

  “One? By the sounds of it, you had ten too many.”

  And how would she know how many drinks I had last night? “Hey, where’s Luce?”

  “Gone. Back to New York. She called me to come and take care of you, so here I am!”

  Vague memories of telling Lucy about the change—well, what I know of it, at least—waft around in my brain. Lucy, being a firm believer in all things magical and paranormal and supernatural, had many, many opinions on what the change could actually be.

  “I think I’m all right,” I say, desperate to get Holly out of here and leave me alone. “You don’t have to take care of me.”

  She ignores me and plops down on the bed. “Here, drink this.”

  Holly hands me a glass of what looks like green sludge and I recoil at the smell. “What the hell is this?”

  “I juiced for you. You’ll love it, and it’ll help flush out all the toxins from the gallons of alcohol you guzzled last night.”

  “It wasn’t gallons,” I say, annoyed.

  “Well, you smell like you drank gallons.” Holly makes a show of moving away from me and waving her hand in front of her nose.

  “I get it; I stink.” I take a tiny sip of the juice. It tastes like dirt. “What’s in this?”

  “Let’s see…” She looks to the ceiling as she recalls the ingredients. “All the good leafy greens—kale, spinach, collards—two carrots, celery, an apple, an orange, cranberries, half a cucumber and a little ginger to settle your stomach.”

  I’m tempted to hurl as she rattles off the insanely long list of fruits and vegetables, but the fact is, I’m already starting to feel better.

  “And these are for the headache.” She hands me two Advil, which I pop immediately and chase with my dirt drink. �
�Colin is upstairs making breakfast. Eggs, bacon, French toast. That ought to soak up the rest of the alcohol.”

  Colin is here? Oh, God. “You know, I better jump in the shower,” I say as I throw the covers off. I’m still a little woozy, but I can’t let that deter me. It doesn’t matter if he’s taken—by my sister—I still can’t let him see (or smell) me like this, just in case. It was bad enough he saw me looking like hell at my birthday celebration last night, and he and Holly had already left by the time I’d gussied up for my night out with Luce. I need to redeem myself this morning.

  “By the way, Mom’s expecting us at the bakery in an hour, so drink up.”

  Damn. It’s Monday, isn’t it? Today is the day Holly gets folded into the mix, so to speak. She has to learn how to do all the sugar molds and decorations for the cupcakes. Mom usually does them on top of the baking, but no one is confident I can handle both. And frankly, they have every right to doubt me.

  My stomach flutters with nerves as I realize I have only one week left before Mom and Dad leave for their cruise. It seems impossible that I’ll be able to learn everything before then.

  “Hey!” Holly interrupts my thoughts and snaps her fingers in my face. “Earth to Candy. The clock is ticking.”

  “Sorry.” I’m feeling markedly better than I did five minutes ago as I head for the shower. “I’ll be right up.”

  Okay, so I know he’s not my boyfriend and I know he’s dating my sister and all, but I can’t help myself. I have to look good for him. And that includes having shiny, smooth legs, even though no one, including Colin, will even see them under my Juicy Couture tracksuit pants. And while I’m at it, I go ahead and do my bikini area, and of course the armpits, but that’s just for my own comfort.

  I blow my hair out, piece by painstaking piece, until it’s perfectly straight and gleaming under the globe lights in the bathroom. Makeup I’ll keep simple. I’ll just do my five-minute face. Concealer: check! Foundation: check! Powder, blush, mascara and lip gloss: check, check, check and check! Voila!

  Except my eyes look a bit saggy and tired, so I sweep a light pink shimmer across my lids, and use liquid liner to do an Audrey Hepburn thing. Only now I just look like I have droopy Audrey Hepburn eyes. There’s only one thing to do. I have to go all out, play into the “hangover” thing. I use my charcoal gray pencil liner to turn my Audrey Hepburn liner into a smoky, all-around-the-eye raccoon supermodel thing. But now that looks silly with just the pink shimmer, so I pull out my favorite Dior eye color palette that I typically reserve for nights out on the town, and I set to work.

  Once finished, I step back from the mirror to observe the canvas, which is my face. Shit. I look like a really, really tired raccoon.

  “Candy!”

  I look at my phone to see the time. I’ve been at this for forty-five minutes. We’re supposed to be at the bakery soon, but Colin’s breakfast is upstairs waiting for me, getting cold. Shit.

  “Coming!” I yell back, and then I dial Mom at the shop.

  “Candy’s Confections,” Dad answers in a cheery voice.

  “Dad, hey, it’s me!” I say as sift through my handbags. I decide to go with the Tory Burch hobo bag. “Listen, can you tell Mom we’re running a few minutes late? There was…an emergency.” I say this last without thinking. Obviously.

  “Emergency?” Dad’s voice has gone up in pitch. I hear his chair scraping across the linoleum, as if he’s ready to run out the door and drive to our rescue.

  “Well, um, not a real emergency,” I amend, trying to assuage his fears. “Just a…” Oh, God, don’t say it, Candy. Don’t say it. “It’s a feminine emergency.”

  The line goes silent. There’s a lot of throat clearing on his end. I feel awful. No father wants to hear about his daughter having her period.

  “Oh, well,” he finally says, “I will be sure and pass the message on to your mother.”

  “Okay, thanks, Dad! See you soon.” I hit END as fast as I can, brush off my heebie-jeebies, and throw the phone into my bag.

  “Caaaaaaaaaandyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

  Before Holly even finishes her dramatic and drawn out yell of my name, I’m at the top of the stairs. “Sheesh!” I say with a huff. “I’m right here.”

  There’s silence as Colin and Holly stare at me, and I realize they’re staring at my face. God, I can’t look that bad, can I?

  I ignore their stunned silence and assume my most chipper persona. I’m determined to pretend I feel well this morning, even if I’m not entirely up to par. “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya,” I say, and then feel stupid for saying it. The thing is, I feel all nervous and jittery around Colin, especially this morning.

  He hasn’t shaved, and his eyes are bright and blue, and they match his shirt to a “T”. Granted, his shirt looks like something he probably picked up for $12.99 at Target, but still…he looks dreamy.

  “I hope you like French toast,” Colin says, breaking the awkward silence. “It’s my grandmother’s secret recipe.”

  “Sounds great!” I sit down at the table, but Holly is still staring at me. “What? Do I have something in my teeth?”

  “No, but you look like you’ve had the living daylights punched out of you.”

  I raise my smoky eyes to her in irritation. I’m trying to impress a certain someone, I want to whisper, and then I realize that certain someone is her boyfriend. Ugh. There are a billion men on this planet and I’m infatuated with the one I can’t have.

  “Here we are.” Colin puts a heaping plate of cheesy scrambled eggs, French toast and bacon in front of me, and suddenly I’m ravenous.

  I grab my fork and start shoveling in the food. It’s delicious. Every bite makes me feel a little more alive than before. After a few minutes, I realize I’m coming to the end of the meal, and it crosses my mind that I might want to lick the syrup and cheese and bacon grease off the plate when I’m done. But I won’t. That would be insane.

  Once I’m finished, I look up to find Colin and Holly staring at me with wide-eyed expressions of shock, and it occurs to me that with my raccoon eyes and bits of food all over my face (I can feel they’re there, but I’m tempted to leave them and save them for later) I probably look like a rabid animal who hasn’t eaten in a week.

  Well, never mind them. I was hungry, and it was delicious.

  I lean back and pat my stomach with a wide grin. Ugh. Why does it feel so squishy? I make a mental note to reconsider joining the local gym, and even decide I’m willing to take a tour after work today. If I’m going to keep eating like this, I have to have a gym membership.

  Holly glances at her watch. “Shit. Candy, we’re already ten minutes late.”

  Colin smiles at me as he says, “Well, at least she’s not a slow eater.”

  Okay, now I’m embarrassed, but I try to shrug it off with a coy smile and then change the subject. “Don’t worry. I took care of it. Mom and Dad know we’re running late.”

  “They do?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I called Dad and told him there was a bit of an emergency.”

  “Emergency?” Holly seems flummoxed.

  “Mmm-hmm. But I had to tell them it was a…female emergency so as not to alarm them.”

  Holly’s cheeks turn beet red at this, and Colin immediately turns to the sink and starts doing dishes as if he hasn’t been part of the conversation all along. I find this a little odd. Why the embarrassment? I mean, they’re sleeping together, right? Surely, the topic of Holly’s menses has come up at least once. Unless…

  Oh my God. They haven’t slept together. They haven’t slept together! I know I shouldn’t be so excited about this, but I am. I can’t help myself. Colin isn’t as off-limits as I’d thought. Not only is there not the creep-out factor of wanting to sleep with someone who’s already slept with my sister, but it also lessens my guilt. If they aren’t sleeping together, it can’t be that serious.

  “All righty,” I say, trying to break the tension but also trying not to be too chipper. I don’t want
them to think something’s up. “We should probably get going. Thanks for breakfast, Colin.”

  “No problem.” He waves a wet, soapy hand over his shoulder at Holly and me. “I’ll be along in a bit. Just gonna finish cleaning up.”

  Holly runs over to plant a quick kiss on his cheek, but neither of them makes eye contact with the other.

  I give Colin my most winning smile, feeling totally satisfied with myself. “See ya soon!”

  ~*~

  Holly is so mad at me. I can tell. It’s that sister thing, you know? I mean, we’re not twins or anything, but still, it’s so easy for me to read my sister. Of course, she’s been pretty obvious about it today. She hasn’t said a single word to me since we left the house this morning. And every time she looks at me (which hasn’t been very often), she gives me that bitchy devil glare. Kind of like Rosalie always gives to Bella in Twilight.

  But it’s no matter to me. Nothing can bring my mood down ever since my little discovery. Not even the fact that I ruined an entire batch of Fallen From Heavens (that’s what I came up with for the pumpkin nut cupcakes, and Mom loved it!), or gotten flour all over the inside of my Tory Burch handbag (I still don’t know how that happened, but I think Holly was behind it. How juvenile!) It’s not as if I’m going to act on my attraction for Colin—I’m no home wrecker—but it’s enough just to know what I know.

  It’s late in the afternoon by the time Holly and I get another moment alone. I’m annoyed by the silence and tension, so I venture into conversation.

  “So…those sugar butterflies look beautiful.” They really did. I wasn’t lying just to break the ice and make her soften to me. They were a pastel pink and purpely swirl, and then she’d added some kind of glitter to them. Simply magical.

  “What,” she said emphatically, throwing down a tube of food coloring, “is the matter with you?”

  I stare at her, agog. Did she not hear me? I paid her a very nice compliment. She could at least say thank you before she starts accusing me of stuff. “What are you talking about?” I ask, affronted.