Candy Kisses

Candy Kisses

Chapter Two

“Canto Alla Vita
Alla Sua Bellezza
Ad Ogni Sua Ferita
Ogni Sua Carezza”
-- Josh Groban

“Now, I see from your application, that...”

Nicholas tried to keep his attention directed at the woman interviewing him. Despite the tidy appearance of her red uniform, there was something haggard in her manner, and she kept shooting nervous glances at the door behind him, which led into the candy shop’s kitchen. Nicholas suspected that her outward calm represented a very brittle façade, and he didn’t want to be the one who shattered it. But it was hard to stay focused. Up until now, he’d spent most of his time in a series of classrooms and auditoriums -- his work had been a descending scale of precise notes, and his rest had been a silence so deep that he could fall forever without ever reaching the bottom of it. Compared to that, the squealing children, chattering adults, rustling cellophane, ringing bells, and beeping cash registers, seemed like absolute pandemonium.

“Mr. Foster?”

The woman’s voice jolted Nicholas from his thoughts. Blinking at her, like an owl startled by bright light, he tried to remember her name. Mary? Margaret? Marcie? Something along those lines. Probably Margaret. Margaret seemed to fit her. But he didn’t feel sure enough to risk speaking his guess. “Yes?”

“It says on your application that you’re studying voice at the Chicago Institute of Performing Arts. Is that correct?”

“Yes.” Nicholas felt relieved that he didn’t need to lie. Not yet, at least. “Yes, that’s right.”

“May I ask why you want to work in a candy store?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nicholas noticed a girl examining a display of music boxes. All the boxes appeared to be shaped entirely from sugar, and yet they still played romantic tunes when opened, each note sweet and clear. A few even contained tiny ballerinas, which danced on their candy stages.

“I’m sorry.” Margaret didn’t sound sorry at all. She sounded annoyed. “Would you like to have this discussion somewhere else?”

Embarrassed, Nicholas tore his gaze away from the music boxes. “No, this is fine. You were saying?”

“I was curious why someone with your background would want to work at Sugar Hearts?”

Again, Nicholas felt relieved that he could rely on the truth -- at least, a part of the truth. In his heart, he knew he wasn’t very skilled when it came to lying. Actually, to be brutally realistic, he was a terrible liar. Abysmal. And it occurred to him, somewhat belatedly, that maybe he should have considered his lack of subterfuge skills before agreeing to do this. Maybe there was a lot he should have considered before agreeing to do this. But when someone offers you the thing you’ve spent your whole life fighting for, what are you supposed to do? Tell him to wait while you think about it?

“I just moved into a new place. It’s only a couple of blocks from here.”

If it surprised Margaret to hear that a student could afford one of the luxurious apartments which bordered Lakeshore Drive, she didn’t remark on it. “I see. Well, I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Foster. Normally, we like our applicants to have more experience.”

Nicholas’s heart sank.

Leaning closer to Nicholas, Margaret tapped her pencil restlessly against the clipboard which held his application form. “Although, to tell the truth, we’ve had a bit of trouble retaining help recently.”

“Really? Why is--?”

As if in answer to Nicholas’s question, a muffled explosion sounded from the kitchen. Then, a few moments later, the fire alarm started to go off. And Margaret’s brittle calm finally shattered. Her face twisted into a look of absolute exasperation, and she slammed her pencil against the clipboard so hard that the pencil’s tip snapped off. “This sort of thing NEVER happened when Miss Penicandey was here!”

Nicholas, however, barely heard her. His attention had been stolen the minute the kitchen door swung open, revealing a handsome young man. His long hair was covered with a fine dusting of powdered sugar, and his apron had been singed in several places, but he seemed quite cheerful, despite the wisps of smoke sneaking out of the kitchen behind him. “Everything’s alright,” he assured the startled customers. “Just a minor mishap. Keep shopping.”

“If only Miss Penicandey knew what was going on,” Margaret wailed. “If she knew, she’d come back and take the store away from that -- that brother of hers.” Somehow, she managed to make the word brother sound like the most damning of insults.

Margaret’s words confirmed what Nicholas had already guessed. The young man with the singed apron must be Marzipan Penicandey. As far as Nicholas knew, he’d never met a sorcerer before, so he realized that he didn’t have any valid standard for comparison. But even with that in mind, Marzi surprised him. Nicholas had expected someone older. And, to be honest, considerably more dignified. He’d expected Merlin, and gotten Willy Wonka instead.

While Nicholas watched, Marzi climbed up onto a chair, and shut off the fire alarm. Then, seemingly aware of Nicholas’s gaze, he turned toward him, and winked. Touching a finger to his lips in a gesture of silence, Marzi hopped off the chair and started to walk over.

“He’s a menace,” Margaret continued, apparently oblivious to everything except her own lament. “He’s reckless, and he’s disorganized, and he’s--“

“--and he’s standing right behind you,” Marzi volunteered, with a mischievous smile.

“Mr. Penicandey!” Holding her clipboard like a shield, Margaret sunk down into her chair, as if hoping it might swallow her up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to--“

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Marzi assured. “I just couldn’t resist seeing the look on your face.” Then, without waiting for Margaret to reply, he plucked the clipboard out of her hands, and began to glance over Nicholas’s application. “Now, who is this delicious bit of sweetness?”

“His name is Nicholas Foster, and I was just telling him that we don’t normally hire people without any formal retail experience.”

“Experience is highly overrated.” Marzi scanned a few more lines on the application, and then looked at Nicholas. “It says that you’re studying voice. Does that mean you can sing?”

Despite all his training, at that moment, Nicholas couldn’t even choke out a reply, much less sing. He felt like a feather caught in the storm of Marzi’s wild energy -- elated by flight, but afraid of being swept off to places from which he might never return. “I...” he stammered. “That is, yes.”

“Did you hear that, Margaret? He can sing!” Marzi tossed the clipboard back at Margaret, who just barely managed to catch it. “I think that settles it. He’s hired. And just in time, too. I really need someone to help me clean up the kitchen.”

“But he can’t start right away!” Margaret protested. “I haven’t even finished the interview. He hasn’t signed any papers. If he hurts himself while he’s on the premises, we’ll be liable for his medical bills.”

Placing his hands on his hips, Marzi fixed Nicholas with an expression of comic sternness. “Nicholas. Are you going to come into my kitchen, fall on your ass, and sue me for damages?”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Alright. I judge you to be a man of your word. Come along.”

Obediently, Nicholas rose to his feet, and started to follow Marzi into the kitchen. A slight pang of guilt had pricked him when Marzi called him a man of his word, but he did his best to ignore it. After all, he still hadn’t lied. And maybe he wouldn’t have to. His instructions had been so vague, and so innocuous, that it was hard to think of his actions as any sort of true betrayal. Befriend Marzi. Earn his trust. What possible harm could there be in that?

“But the papers--!” Margaret persisted.

“Forge his signature,” Marzi suggested, without looking back. “I usually just trace the one on their application.”

The kitchen wasn’t as bad as Nicholas had expected. Most of the smoke had already dissipated, sucked up into the whirring exhaust fan. And, despite Marzi’s haphazard approach to hiring help, he kept his workspace quite neat. Brightly polished copper pans hung from ceiling hooks, alongside an amazing range of spoons, tongs, and measuring devices. Nearby, a tall silver rack held several trays of candy, each grouping of confections lined up in neat rows, like soldiers dressed in their best, most colorful uniforms. The only true sign of disorganization was a handful of red candies scattered across the counter, and the sink, which looked like something on fire had been dumped into it.

“You have to forgive Margaret,” Marzi explained, as he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. “She’s a good employee. Looks after the shop like it was her own child. But she has trouble adapting to change.”

“She did seem rather fixated on your sister,” Nicholas admitted.

“Well, everyone loves Pepper. You can’t blame them for that.” Bending over, Marzi opened a cabinet under the sink, and pulled out a can of scrubbing powder. “My sister is an amazing person.”

Nicholas watched while Marzi shook the scrubbing powder over the sink. “Shouldn’t I be helping you with that?”

“This? Nah. I made the mess, I’ll clean it up. I just felt like having someone to talk to.” Taking a brush from a nearby drawer, Marzi began to scrub the soot and charred sugar off the sink’s metal basin. “Hey, you must like candy, right? Feel free to help yourself to anything that looks good.”

Like most students, Nicholas found it hard to resist the lure of free food. Wandering over to the silver rack, he examined the options available to him – chocolate truffles decorated by candied flower petals, brightly colored conversation hearts waiting to have messages inscribed on them, and sugar rosebuds. Finally, he selected a piece of chocolate molded into the shape of a cat’s paw. But before he could bite into it, a cry from Marzi stopped him.

“Not that one! Don’t think you’d like it.” Marzi shook his head. “Chocolate infused with catnip. For a special customer, you know.”

“Oh.” Carefully, Nicholas placed the chocolate back where he’d found it. Then, a bit worried about what the other trays might contain, he decided to risk one of the red candies scattered across the counter.

“And definitely not one of those!” Marzi warned. “That would be really, tremendously bad. Listen, why don’t you try one of the rosebuds? They’re some of my favorites.”

Somewhat tentatively, Nicholas lifted one of the rosebuds, and placed it in his mouth. At first, he didn’t taste anything except the familiar sweetness of sugar. Then, the candy seemed to stir on his tongue, and he felt a sensation like petals unfurling. How could anyone describe the flavor of a rose blooming? Even as he experienced it, Nicholas knew he’d never be able to put it into words.

“That was amazing,” he whispered, when the last bits of candy had finally melted away.

“One of Pepper’s most inspired inventions,” Marzi agreed. “No one can make candy like Pepper.”

“Why did she stop? If she was so good at it? Why did she decide to go away?”

Nicholas hadn’t thought that anything short of a tranquilizer gun could subdue Marzi. But when he asked his questions, the playful light in Marzi’s eyes disappeared, like someone blowing out a candle, and his face fell into shadow. Instead of answering, he turned away from Nicholas and rested his hands against the sink.

“Marzi?”

“She didn’t exactly decide.” The grief in Marzi’s voice sounded raw, like sandpaper against an open wound. “But I...I was stupid, and selfish, and blind...”

For a moment, Nicholas felt afraid that Marzi might break down. But, just as suddenly as his depression had descended, it seemed to lift. When he turned back toward Nicholas, he moved with a stately grace that had been absent from his previous rushing around. And the sharp edges of his mirth seemed to have vanished, replaced by a gentler, softer, warmth.

“Nicholas. I’ve kept you in here for quite long enough. Go fill out whatever forms Margaret wants, and then head home. Tomorrow, she’ll teach you to work the register. Is that all right?”

Nicholas nodded. It didn’t make any sense, but if he hadn’t been standing there, staring directly at Marzipan Penicandey, he would have had the strangest suspicion that he was talking to someone else. “Tomorrow. That’s fine.”

“Good. And Nicholas?” Marzi smiled -- a smile so different from his mischievous grin that it seemed to belong on another face. Gazing at it, Nicholas once more felt roses blooming inside him. But this time, rather than unfurling on his tongue, the petals seemed to spread inside his heart.

“I really am looking forward to hearing you sing.”