The Matchbaker (A Romantic Comedy) Read online

  “Candy!” She’s yelling and waving her hands in the air.

  I rush to the passenger side and throw my bag in the backseat before climbing into the front. “Are you crazy,” I say to her, as she climbs into the driver seat. “You were about to get a ticket.”

  “Oh, it’s fine.” She waves me off. “I’m so glad you’re finally here, though.”

  “How long have you been at Mom and Dad’s?”

  “Just since last night,” she says as she whips around the corner and accelerates in front of oncoming traffic. “But they’re acting crazy.”

  “Tell me about it. Mom wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to come up for the weekend. She called me about a gazillion times while I was in Paris.”

  “It could have been worse. She forgot I was on the west coast. I kept getting calls from her at four in the morning.”

  “Any idea what’s going on?”

  Holly swerves around a slow-moving car and hits the gas. “Nope. But we’ll find out soon.”

  My life flashes before my eyes several times before we make it to my parents’ house, and I make a mental note never to let my sister drive again. Mom and Dad meet us in the driveway, all hugs and kisses and excitement.

  Once the greetings are out of the way and Dad has deposited our bags in the house, Mom procures two long pieces of cloth that look frighteningly like blindfolds. She hands one to Dad and instructs Holly and me to turn around.

  That familiar pit is forming in my gut again. Have they finally lost it? Am I going to have to put them into assisted living already? Sure, I make a lot of money, but those places cost an arm and a leg.

  “Is this entirely necessary?” I take my mom’s hand, now that the blindfold is in place, and let her lead me to the car.

  “Absolutely, honey,” Mom says as she guides me into the car and then slams the door. “This is how it’s done.” She’s yelling through the closed window. “You girls are in for a big treat.”

  Holly is next to me now. She leans over and whispers, “Told you they were acting weird.”

  “I’m afraid,” I say, and we both burst into giggles. It makes me realize how much I miss my sister. But we both have demanding careers, in different cities.

  Our destination is only about a ten-minute drive. That could put us any number of places. Maybe the downtown district with its quaint shops, including our bakery. Or the giant strip mall with the discount superstore, movie theater and chain restaurants. At this point, it’s anybody’s guess.

  “Well, honey,” mom says as she helps me out of the car. “I’ve waited twenty-nine years for this day to come, and here it is.” Is she getting choked up? She works the knot at the back of my head and then counts to three. The blindfold drops. “Ta-da!”

  Before me stands our bakery, the business that’s been a part of our family for three generations. Its pink-and-white striped awning looms over us, and scents of sugared batter waft to where I stand next to my sister on the sidewalk. I look at her. She’s just as flabbergasted as I am.

  There are no words.

  “That’s my name,” I say lamely, pointing to the awning that now reads “Candy’s Confections,” rather than “Dottie’s Delights.”

  “That’s right, sweet pea,” Dad pipes up, and I turn to look at him. The salty part of his salt and pepper hair glints in the sunlight, and he’s smiling just as brightly. “It’s yours now.”

  So many questions race through my mind, but not one of them finds their way out of my mouth. Mine? How is that possible? I have no idea how to run a bakery. Plus, I have a career. A successful career. Are they crazy?

  Holly, on the other hand, doesn’t have any trouble talking. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve brought me all the way here and blindfolded me to show Candy her new store?”

  As the word mine repeats over and over in my head, sweat pools under my arms. It’s not even that warm out; I’m just starting to panic.

  “Not only hers, Holly,” Mom says. “We can explain everything inside.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, finally finding my voice. “It’s mine?”

  “Now, don’t worry, sweetheart.” Dad puts his arm around my shoulder. “We’ll be here another month or so to help you get acclimated.”

  Am I losing my mind? What are they talking about? “What do you mean, another month? Where are you going?”

  “Maybe we should go inside,” Mom suggests. “Have a cupcake and some milk.”

  I follow my parents to the office, past the customers and the display case of pastel-colored cupcakes. There are a couple high school-aged girls behind the counter. Mom and Dad love to employ young people. They call it “Cultivating tomorrow’s leaders.”

  I plop down in one of the white spindly chairs next to Holly and we wait while Mom and Dad retrieve the snacks. It’s just like my mother to insist on refreshments for the we’re-abandoning-you-and-leaving-you-to-run-the-family-business speech.

  “Here we are,” she says, her smile strained, as she bustles into the office ahead of Dad. His hands are full, bearing four mismatched mugs of milk. Mom has an antique dinner plate, complete with doily and three different cupcakes. The first one is the Sweet Dreams cupcake, I think. Pale lilac cake, creamy, white frosting and lavender bits as garnish. Mom used to give us mini versions of that one in the evenings, before bed. There’s a yellow one and I assume it’s some kind of lemon flavor. And I definitely recognize the third. It’s my favorite. Mom calls it Hakuna Matata. It’s a piña colada in cupcake form and has the ability to instantly transport you from Sagehaven, CT to an exotic beach. I know I’ve sworn off carbs, but it would be rude not to eat it, right? I take a bite and can almost feel the sun beating down on my face and the sand beneath my feet. Heaven.

  I close my eyes to savor it. The flavors explode on my tongue—pineapple and coconut and sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. I open my eyes to see my parents staring at me.

  “Feeling better, darling?” Mom asks with a hopeful smile.

  “Um, yeah. But, what’s this all about?”

  A covert look passes between Mom and Dad.

  “Well, girls,” Mom begins, “there’s a tradition in this family—one that neither of you knows about. In the twenty-ninth year of the oldest daughter of this family, the change begins.”

  Oh. My. God. No. She can’t be serious. “Do you mean . . . menopause?” I can feel my throat closing up, and I swear the temperature in the room just spiked by a hundred degrees. Oh, God, it’s already starting. That’s why I was sweating outside. I put a hand to my forehead to wipe the sweat as the implication of menopause at twenty-nine sets in. I’ll never have children! Never mind that I never really wanted them in the first place, but I would at least like to have the choice. And what if I grow hair on my chin? How can I go to work with hair on my chin? The bright sunlight in my new office will make it look even worse.

  “Of course it’s not menopause, Candy!” Mom wails, sounding exasperated.

  I look up. The tan skin of her face is wrinkled into a frown of sorts. Clearly, she thinks I’m losing it. She might be right.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Candy,” Holly says, then turns to Mom and Dad. “You guys better explain before she has a stroke.”

  “Goodness, she’s taking this worse than I did,” Mom says to Dad, almost under her breath, but not quite. It makes me feel like I’m a ghost in a movie where everyone is talking about me, but they can’t see or hear me. I want to flap my arms and yell, “I’m here, I’m here!”

  “Well, what are you talking about?” I ask. I reach for my cupcake and think better of it. My new Alice + Olivia dress will look awful if I’m even a half a pound heavier than I am now.

  “I can’t tell you everything, Candy,” Mom says. “Only that the change will happen, and it will happen very soon. You’ll know when it does. But it starts with us turning the bakery over to you.” She apparently sees I’m starting to panic again, so she shoves the cupcake toward me. “Have another bite, dear.”


  In my panic, I do. I don’t know how or why, but somehow it makes me feel better. I take a tiny swig of the milk to wash it down and look back at my parents. “You said you’d be around to help for a month or so,” I say, trying desperately to make sense of this complete nonsense. “And then what?”

  “And then I’m taking your mother away.”

  “Away?” My head is spinning. I turn to Holly, who looks just as confused as I feel.

  Mom smiles at Dad all googly-eyed and takes his hand. Dad pulls a brochure out of his back pocket with his free hand and slides it across the distressed wood table to us. The front of it has the words Cruise Around the World printed over a stock photo of an older couple on the deck of a ship, both staring contentedly out at sea. I briefly wonder how many times they had to take a break so they could vomit over the edge of the railing.

  “You’re going on a cruise?” Neither one of them has ever shown any interest in cruising before. They don’t even like going to the lake for the Fourth of July. Why in the world would they want to cruise around the world?

  “Not just any cruise, Candy,” Dad says, the excitement in his voice somewhat startling. Dad isn’t usually the excitable type. “Look, look.” He opens the brochure and points to things like midnight shuffleboard and whale watching. Two things I know I can’t wait to do. “It’s the trip we’ve always dreamed of.”

  Well, that’s news to me. “So, you’re leaving us. All alone. With no way to contact you for—” I look down at the brochure, and my eyes bug out of my head. “Six months!”

  “Cupcake, dear,” Mom urges, and I impulsively shove the rest of it into my mouth. “You’ll be just fine, Candy. I was, and so was your grandmother. We’ve all survived the change, and so will you.”

  “Mom, what is the change?” I ask through a mouthful of Hakuna Matata.

  “Hold on!” Holly interrupts before Mom can answer me. “Can someone please explain what the hell I’m doing here?” Her face is bright red and she looks like she’s about to start throwing cupcakes across the room. “Because if I gave up a weekend with Todd so I could be here when you told Candy about her inheritance, I’m going to be furious.”

  I know it’s not the time to ask, but I can’t help myself. “Todd? What happened to that other guy? The one who was taking you to Cabo?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Don’t get me started on Alan,” she says. “I met Todd in Chicago a few weeks ago. I was going to fly out there this weekend, but someone insisted I needed to be here.” She casts a mutinous glance at Mom and Dad.

  “Holly, it’s for you both,” Dad puts in. “We’re leaving the bakery to both of you. But Candy is the one who has to do the baking.”

  “What?” Okay, I’m panicking again. “I don’t know the first thing about baking.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re the firstborn. The change can only happen to you. And it will…soon.” What is wrong with my mother? I’ve always thought she was a little eccentric, but this really takes the cake. No pun intended.

  However, for me, reality is hitting hard all of a sudden. I extract myself from my parent’s dream world of cupcakes and cruises. “You’re both forgetting one thing,” I say. “Holly and I have established careers. We can’t just up and leave our jobs because you two want to go gallivanting around the globe. I mean, I just got the promotion I’ve been waiting for. It’s taken two years!”

  Mom and Dad look at each other, their expressions pained.

  “Dear, I understand your little career is important and all, but—”

  “Little? Mom, I’ve just been promoted to a junior executive level. I’m the youngest executive at Bell North in the history of the company. You can’t just ask me to give it up because you and Dad decided you want to go on vacation.”

  “Candy, this has nothing to do with us,” Dad says. He’s surprisingly calm in the face of my yelling, and I can’t help but be annoyed by that.

  “The change will happen no matter what.” Mom looks almost desperate now. Had she really expected this to be easy? Did she think I wouldn’t put up a fight?

  And what the hell is the change?

  “So, let me get this straight…I’m supposed to drop everything—my job, my apartment, my life—to move back here, run the bakery and have some unknown change happen to me that you apparently can’t be bothered to tell me about?”

  “Your sister will be here to help,” Mom puts in, clearly trying to be helpful.

  “Hang on a sec!” Holly scoots forward on her white wicker chair. “You’re suggesting we both quit our jobs and move here to run the bakery?”

  Holly works for an interior design firm. Her expertise is high in demand in Boston. She just finished doing all the models in Boston’s newest and most prestigious high-rise.

  “Well, maybe you could keep doing it as a hobby,” Mom suggests.

  Holly’s nostrils flare, in and out, in and out, like a perky, blond bull.

  “Okay, look…” I say, trying to be the voice of reason. “Why don’t Holly and I go grab some coffee and talk this over? We’ll let you know what we’ve decided tonight at dinner.”

  Mom is about to say something—probably along the lines of “You don’t have a choice”—but Dad puts a hand on her arm, encouraging her to be quiet. “That’s a great idea,” Dad says. “We’ll see you tonight.”

  I grab Holly’s hand and we head out of the shop onto the sidewalk. The August sun is bright and we both reach into our handbags for our sunglasses. I look up and down the block, watching for cars, then drag Holly to the café directly across the street. If there was any question what they served there, the name was definitely a dead giveaway. A Latte Joe. Clever.

  A Latte Joe is a cute little place with café tables and a few over-sized, fluffy chairs, and it’s been around as long as our bakery has. Another institution of our tiny little town. There’s only one table left in the place, so I run to snatch it while Holly goes to the counter to place our order.

  “I’m sorry, I was actually waiting for this table.”

  I look up to see a man standing on the other side of the small table, coffee and muffin in hand. I would reply, except he’s so freaking hot, I can’t seem to find my tongue.

  “I don’t mind sharing, though,” he continues, clearly thinking he pissed me off.

  “Oh, um, no…” Get a grip, Candy. “I mean, I’m here with my sister. But if you were waiting, it’s totally fine. I’ll just go…wait over there.”

  I try to slip past him, away from the table, but my loosely hanging tunic catches on the spindle of the chair. The chair makes a scraping sound as I drag it along with me and heat rushes to my face.

  “Oops! Didn’t mean to take your table and your chair,” I say, giggling like an idiot at my own joke as I try to set my clothing free, but I think I’m just making it worse. Crap.

  “Do you need some help?” My handsome stranger is at my side after putting his coffee and muffin on the table. He leans in and starts working the fabric out of the twisty spindle. “It’s really in there, huh?”

  Oh, God. He’s so close, I’m afraid to open my mouth. It’s been hours since I last brushed my teeth. And I just had milk. What if my breath smells sour now? “Mmm-hmm,” I say, keeping my mouth closed.

  “Are you new in town?” he asks, much to my dismay.

  I turn my head to the opposite side as far as I can. “Not really new,” I say. “I grew up here. My parents own Dottie’s Delights.”

  His head pops up, and he stops trying to free me. “Candy?”

  My eyes widen. How does he know who I am? “Yes?”

  “Oh, wow.” He shakes his head as he gives my cardigan one last tug, releasing me from the clutches of the café chair. “You probably don’t remember me. I’m Colin Hawthorne.” He holds out his hand. I stare at it, dumbfounded. It can’t be.

  “Um, hi.” I give him my hand. His firm grip makes me feel a little light-headed.

  “You don’t, do you?”

  “I’m sorry?�
� I have no idea what he’s talking about. It’s all I can do to keep my head on straight right now.

  “Remember me?”

  “Oh, um…no, I mean, yes. I do. Of course I do. It’s just…been a long time.” Long enough for you to morph into some kind of Greek god. I had a major crush on Colin Hawthorne in middle school, and that was when he was a scrawny mathlete.

  “Wow, it’s really kind of crazy running into you like this. I don’t suppose your parents told you about me yet, did they?”

  I continue to feel as if I’m going slowly insane. Or maybe it’s everyone else. Yes, that would make more sense. Better sense, at least. “No, I don’t think they mentioned you, Colin,” I say. My voice sounds distant to my own ears. Maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe the carbs from the cupcake are making me feel faint.

  “Oh, well, maybe I shouldn’t say anything. I should let them talk to you first.”

  “No, no!” Whatever it is, I want to know about it. I want to know exactly what I would be getting into if—and that’s a really giant if—I moved back here and took over the business. “Please, tell me.”

  “All right, well…you’re looking at your newest business partner!” His smile is wide and entrancing, I can hardly process what he’s just said. Mainly because Madame Antoinette’s words rush to my mind: You will meet him this fall. September, perhaps. Okay, so it’s only August, but close enough.

  I’m standing there like a fish, opening and closing my mouth in shock, when my phone rings. I feel bad for not responding to Colin, but at the same time, I’m relieved for the interruption. I have no idea what to say to him. I don’t even know if I’m going to do this whole bakery thing. Confused doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling right now.

  I pull my phone out of my purse. It’s Lucy. We’ve been playing phone tag ever since Paris. I have to take it. “I’m so sorry,” I say to Colin and then turn away to answer the phone. “Lucy? Oh, my God! Finally!”

  “Hey! How’s the big shot executive?” she asks, and I’m glad to hear she sounds chipper.