Chapter 11 Hazel
HAZEL
When it came to working in a candy shop, I thought the hardest part would be avoiding snacking on the inventory all day long.
I didn’t think it would be constantly trying to avoid distractions. And by distractions, I mean Gloria.
“Why peach?” Gloria asks as she scoops out sour peach lips from one of the jars on the round table in the middle of the shop into a small glass bowl.
“Peach rings, peach lips, peach rounds, peach skulls. Did every candy maker congregate and agree that peach was the flavor? Was it the cheapest flavor option?”
“Maybe because they taste the most natural?” I say toward my laptop, where the past year’s sales and customer data from the point-of-sale system are downloading.
She pops an entire pair of lips into her mouth. “Do dey, dough?” she mumbles. I think she means Do they, though?
Emma comes in from the shop’s back room with a box of sour watermelon skulls. “Gloria, restock this, will you please?” she asks.
Gloria plays with one of her silver hoop earrings. “I don’t get a paycheck from you.”
“Okay. Do you plan on paying for that?” Emma asks, nodding toward Gloria’s bowl, which is her third refill of the day.
Gloria hides it behind her back. “Friend special?” When Emma arches a sharp brow at her, she surrenders. “Oh, fine! Did you like the way I organized the bats yesterday? I brought some bodega pumpkins to scatter around the jars.”
With three weeks until Halloween, Sweet Escape has been packed. In addition to contributing pumpkins, Gloria’s taken it upon herself to add faux cobwebs to the front door and windows.
Where I mostly spend time is at the register, which is situated along the opposite wall with other products that people tend to impulse buy on the way out: candles, mugs, and hats.
“Maybe you should start paying her,” I suggest to Emma.
She laughs. “I’ve tried. She won’t accept a penny. I think she just likes having something to do during the day, having somewhere to go.”
“It wouldn’t be the same without her,” I say. It feels true. “Oh, I have something for you.” I grab a box next to my bag behind the counter and hand it to Emma.
She lifts the lid and peers in. “You got me cupcakes?”
“It was Sweet Escape’s two-year anniversary yesterday, right? They’re dirt cupcakes.”
From where she’s standing, Gloria lets out a loud aww. “I’ll grab the worms!” she calls out.
“This is so thoughtful,” Emma says, wrapping her arm around me in a hug. “Thank you.”
Gloria joins us at the checkout counter and sets a few gummy worms on top of each dirt cupcake.
“What’s with this?” Emma asks when she notices a plump bag of gummy numbers tied neatly with an orange ribbon.
“I paid for it,” I say.
“No, I’m just curious why you do it,” Emma says before biting into her cupcake.
“Oh. It’s just this thing I do for…”
Gloria waves me on with her half-eaten cupcake. “For…?”
“For myself,” I say before taking a bite, the dark chocolate crumble perfectly sweet and rich.
“Lies!” Gloria shouts. “Who are you doing this for? I’ve seen you devour candy by the bagful, but even this would be excessive.”
She and Emma huddle closer to me like we’re gossiping at Sunday brunch and not work.
“It’s for a friend,” I say.
“Oh. I had a friend like that once,” Gloria says with a knowing smile. “We gave each other buttons. Come to think of it, where are those buttons?”
“This is the fifth bag of”—Emma analyzes the contents of the bag—“numbers since you started working here,” she says. “Does your friend eat it all, or what?”
“I don’t know what he does with it,” I say. Him eating it isn’t really the point.
“Why numbers?” Gloria asks.
Obviously, I can’t tell them about the lottery. Money changes dynamics. It changes relationships. “Why buttons?” I ask her.
Gloria’s lips curl up. “To replace the ones we lost when we were ripping each other’s clothes—”
“What’s your friend’s name?” Emma cuts in.
That’s an easier question to answer. Still, I hesitate. “Logan.”
“I met a man named Logan once in the seventies. He was quite the looker. Is your Logan a looker?”
Logan is not my Logan. Or… maybe he is? I don’t know what he is.
“He’s a looker,” I say with finality. I don’t want to go down this path. Gloria and Emma are getting way too invested in my personal life. I move the trackpad on my laptop so that the download doesn’t get interrupted.
Emma shifts the conversation, as though she can sense my unease. “So you get Logan candy numbers. That’s fun.”
Gloria nudges me with her elbow. “And cute. Look at you two having inside jokes.”
“It’s not an inside joke if you two know about it,” I point out.
Emma holds her hand up. “Look, I get it. You don’t have to tell us about what you’re doing with Logan. New feelings can be fragile. You don’t want to jinx it.”
“What? No,” I say. “I’m not superstitious about me and Logan.”
I don’t think I’m the only one who notices that I don’t address the feelings part of Emma’s comment.
“Look at the three of us, talking about feelings like we’re in middle school.” Gloria sighs. “In middle school, I had a crush on Jim MacCreary. Now he was a looker.”
“You can talk about feelings as adults, Gloria,” Emma says.
Gloria flaps her hand at us. “Not in my generation, you can’t.”
“Anyway,” Emma says, turning to me, “it’s been nice having you here, Hazel. You’re job hunting, right? How’s that going?”
Good. Work is a safe topic. Work I can talk about.
I update them on my upcoming round of interviews and how I’m being considered for manager.
They listen eagerly. They act excited for me.
They’re encouraging. They’re so friendly, and I…
I just smile and nod in return. I’m not used to having people to talk to.
Lately, between these two and Logan, I’ve had it in spades.
Our huddle is over when a customer comes in and asks for suggestions on what to buy for her Halloween party–slash–baby shower.
I check my phone. Two missed text messages. One’s from Logan that just says FYI. The second is from Bank Frances.
That’s literally how I added her name to my contacts.
Bank Frances works at Dad’s local bank in upstate New York.
She helped us with the mortgage. She told me to reach out if I ever had questions, which was nice of her to do but also probably something she regrets.
Honestly, I think Bank Frances took pity on me for being in this position in the first place.
For putting up with me—and Dad—Bank Frances gets boxes of chocolates during the holidays and cards on her birthday. Nearly a decade in, I’ve never missed one. This year, she’s getting the largest box they’ve got.
Bank Frances (4:31 PM): Hey Zull, hope the Big Apple’s still cheating you well. Listen, we’ve got a bitch of a situation here. It’s short hair on your account that there are perfumist payments. Give me a call when tucan, k?
Bank Frances must be using her phone’s speech-to-text feature again. I tell Emma I’m taking a quick break and go to the stock room to make the call, needing typo-free, speech-to-ear answers.
“Hazel! You got my text?” Bank Frances says after a third ring.
“Hi,” I say. “You’re back from leave already? How’s your mom doing?”
“It was three long months, but she’s doing better now. Thanks for asking. Listen, Hazel.”
Uh-oh.
“I got back this week and am still playing catch-up. They had Bobby cover for me, but unfortunately for all of us, he’s new.
Mary Margaret was also out for the past month on vacation and, long story short, the monthly mortgage amounts still haven’t been paid,” Bank Frances says, her tone steady as it always is.
“I’m still trying to figure out the details, but I thought you should know right away. ”
I log in to my banking app. “I’m looking at the transfers right now.” I scroll down to the past few months, identifying each of my $600 payments. “They’ve all gone through successfully.”
“Ah.” Bank Frances clicks her tongue in realization. “That’s the issue. You’re still short.”
“Oh, well, yeah. My dad pays the other half,” I remind her.
“After six hundred gets paid, there’s still…” Bank Frances hums as she types. “Eight thousand left.”
“Eight thousand?” I choke out. I visualize the numbers she’s mentioned, trying to make sense of them.
That makes the new mortgage amount $8,600.
And that makes my new monthly half… $4,300.
“Maybe it’s a processing error? Our full monthly mortgage amount is twelve hundred dollars.
” Not over seven times that amount. The confidence in my voice has vanished.
Bank Frances is quiet for a moment. “Look, Hazel. Another letter’s gonna go out—”
“Another letter?” I ask, my voice wobbling. “I didn’t get any letters.”
“Because you don’t co-own the house, Bobby couldn’t include you in the communications.”
Which, sure, that technically makes sense. I don’t have the same kind of relationship with Bobby like I do with Bank Frances.
“Looks like the amount increased in…” Tap, tap, tap. “May.”
The new amount is going to be impossible to afford. For me and Dad. This doesn’t make any sense.
“It’s a good thing I caught this when I did,” Bank Frances says. “There’s still time to make it right.”
The air deflates out of my lungs like a popped balloon. “Make what right?”
“The house going into foreclosure, sweetie. I’m emailing you a copy of the latest pre-foreclosure notice.”
“I’ll call you right back,” I mumble, distracted.
Increase in May. $8,600. Foreclosure.
It takes three tries to finally get through to Dad’s cell phone.
“Give me a break, ref! That’s a hold” are the first words I hear. “Hello?”
“Dad!” I shout-whisper into the phone. I’d really prefer that my coworkers and customers don’t hear this.
“Hazel! You watching the game?” Dad asks.
I slide a box filled with ribbon aside with my foot, moving as far from the door as I can. “No, we need to talk—”
“Who do you think will win?” he asks.