How to Bake a Murder
“I don't see why I have to go live with the old bat,” Clarissa Johnson said. Hearing those words through the front door, Karen “Cookie” Williams paused with her hand raised to knock. She was here to pick up her granddaughter. The same granddaughter that had just declared her an old bat. Cookie knew who the girl was talking about. Didn’t need subtitles to figure that out. Well. Old she might be, by a teenager’s standards, but the rest of it she took issue with. Her daughter, Madison, was sending Clarissa to spend the summer with her.
This didn’t bode well at all for their time together. Such a lot of anger built up in that little girl. On the other hand, Cookie guessed she could understand. What interest would a headstrong teenage girl have in spending the summer with her Gram, working in a bakery? Madison lived in a modest home on the outskirts of the city.
Her lawn, like everyone else’s on the street, was square and trimmed. All the houses were the same raised ranch design. All of them were shades of blue, too. Cookie had often wondered what would happen if the numbers fell off everyone’s mailboxes all at the same time. How would anyone know which house belonged to them? She much preferred the country and her apartment above the bakery. Cookie took a deep breath and let it out again to calm herself. She had managed to get her daughter to adulthood on her own. Surely, she could do the same for her granddaughter. This was the plan she and her daughter had hatched.
A summer away from electronics and boys who were too full of themselves to get out of their own way. A summer away from her new stepfather, too. It was a good idea. It would be good for Clarissa. At least, Cookie hoped so. When she’d raised Madison after her husband walked out, she’d had no choice. This time was different. She didn’t have to be here. But her daughter had asked, and she’d said yes, and that was the way things were. Things here in her daughter’s home weren’t the best right now. Giving everyone some space from each other only made sense. Madison had hoped her new marriage would bring some stability to their lives. Instead, Clarissa had fought tooth and nail against accepting her new stepdad.
Joseph was Madison’s second husband. For a variety of reasons—some of which Cookie could understand and some she couldn’t begin to fathom—there was a lot of tension between Clarissa and him. So much so that it was bleeding into the new marriage and causing issues.
Everyone could use some breathing room. Enter Grandma Cookie. She’d been looking forward to getting to know her granddaughter better. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year now and at this age, a girl did a lot of growing up. She had imagined a fun-filled summer for the two of them. From what she could hear, Clarissa didn’t share that dream.
“You will not talk about your grandmother that way.”
It did Cookie’s heart good to hear her daughter defending her.
“Sure, she’s a bit odd, but she raised me on her own and some of my best memories will always be growing up in our house.” Odd? Cookie frowned. So much for being defended. Maybe she wasn’t like other grandmothers, so much, but still… Cream, her little Chihuahua, sat at her feet, looking up at her, ears cocked. His fur was the color of Coffee-Mate creamer, which was where he’d gotten his name. In a lot of ways, he was her best friend.
She could read his thoughts in that little doggie expression of his. Even he had his doubts about this. Thankfully he stayed quiet and didn’t give them away here on the porch. Curiosity got the better of her and she let them talk, bracing herself in case she heard something else she may not like. The sun was falling in the sky, and the air had a nip in it. Summer might be here on the calendar but nature didn’t seem to care. She pulled her spring jacket a little tighter, realizing how long she had been standing there at the door, eavesdropping.
“If you like her so much, you go live with her,”
she heard Clarissa say to Madison.
“Oh wait. That’s right. You want to get rid of me so you and the new man in your life can spend more time together.”
Madison’s voice took on the tone of someone tired of having the same argument again and again. “We’re not trying to get rid of you, Clarissa.”
“Yes, you are. So you and Daddy can spend more time alone. I know what that means. I am sixteen.”
“Yes, you are. So you and Daddy can spend more time alone. I know what that means. I am sixteen.”
Cookie sighed at the hot venom in Clarissa’s voice and took another deep breath to calm herself. Cookie didn’t like being in the city, even here in the suburbs, and she’d been hoping to spend some time here in her daughter’s home to relax before heading back with Clarissa. Somehow she doubted they would all be sitting down to tea before heading back to the small town of Widow’s Rest. Well. That just meant she could get to the work of the bakery sooner.
What she had put off till tomorrow could now be done today. And now she’d have Clarissa to help with some of the other chores that needed to be done around the place.
“I don’t want to go!”
Clarissa insisted to her mother.
0 Commentaires