The Christmas Crush

Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

“How did dinner with your parents go?” Elena asked Priya. The two stood side by side at a long counter in the copy room. The counter was made of Sparkle Cookie lavender laminate. At night, when Elena closed her eyes to fall asleep, she saw that color. Never saw the swirl of colors on her newest canvas or the rainbow of colored pencils she kept in a cup on her nightstand. Didn’t even see cyan eyes. Sparkle lavender all day, every day, led to Sparkle lavender all night. She swore her dreams had a lavender hue.

“Things are still bad with my brother.” Priya arranged a stack of cardstock, tapped it on the counter to neaten it. “He got another speeding ticket—my dad had to take away the keys to his car. I tried talking to Kiaan myself after dinner. He didn’t pick up my call, the brat.”

Priya’s seventeen-year-old brother caused no end of drama for the Patel family. Over the years of working together, Elena had come to realize that Priya both adored Kiaan and was seriously annoyed with him most days.

“Since I moved out last year, we haven’t been as close. There are six years between us, but we always had fun with each other. He can be total a clown and crack me up like no other. I used to let him get away with stuff Mom and Dad wouldn’t, like watching TV late when they were out or extra sweets.”

“I’m sorry to hear he’s making bad choices. Doesn’t he realize everyone is worried for his safety?”

Priya’s face scrunched with frustration. “I feel like a wise old woman of twenty-three, but kids these days. He won’t listen to anyone. Do you feel like you aren’t close with your brothers since leaving the family home?”

Priya handed her the stack of cardstock. Elena lined it up on the paper cutter grids, then began making clean slices to quarter the stack. She searched her memories for a time she and her brothers had been close. When they were little kids, before Dad’s expectations got in the way? She couldn’t remember. “We were all busy with school and extracurriculars—we hardly saw each other most days. My dad wouldn’t accept anything less than As, and he encouraged us to take AP classes in high school. My older brother was salutatorian, which made Dad try to get me and my middle brother to get valedictorian. Oliver did, I didn’t. Another disgraceful salutatorian.” Elena laughed.

“Man, I thought my parents were intense about school, but that is next level.” Priya’s yellow-gold bracelets jingled as she fiddled with them, then looked Elena in the eye. “Wasn’t that a hard way to grow up? I mean, obviously you’re super successful for your young age. It was worth it, just …”

Priya’s voice trailed off; Elena shrugged. She usually loved working in the copy room thanks to the small vent in the ceiling that blew genuinely warm air. She swore her cubicle ran even colder than the rest of the frigid office. Right now, the heat felt uncomfortable. “Sometimes,” Elena said.

All times. However, she didn’t want to have such an intense conversation at work. If she and Priya went to dinner again soon, Elena could go into more detail then. Not that she wanted to bad-mouth her dad. In her heart, Elena knew his drive came from his humble background and wanting his kids to have better.

“What do you think of the surveys?” Elena asked, glad she could shift Priya’s attention from family history. Elena fanned out the cards.

“They turned out really pretty. I love what you did with the boarders.”

“Thanks! The QR code was a good idea.” Elena still owed Priya a coffee for helping her brainstorm how to best engage customers with the survey. With Priya’s addition of the QR code, customers could either fill out the paper survey or complete it online for a ten percent discount off their first cookie.

“Are you worried Derick is gonna flip about the discount?” Priya asked. The addition of the discount had been Elena’s idea.

It was pretty much a given Derick wouldn’t like the idea of losing a few cents, although most people who came for the discounted cookie would end up buying more at full price in the same transaction. Elena plucked up her courage and said, “Hey, I’m VP of marketing. This is my call.”

She and Priya both giggled at the wobble in Elena’s voice when she spoke. “You tell ’em, girl boss. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

Elena high-fived Priya. They left the copy room and made their way to the test kitchen one floor down. A wall of windows offered a glimpse of the bakers at work. All wore immaculate white coats, hairnets, and gloves. With mechanical precision they moved about the kitchen, ripping open packages of mix or cracking the lids off tubs of frosting. All Sparkle cookies began with the same base ingredients, produced in a few factories across the country and shipped to Sparkle locations on a weekly basis.

Elena found the “test” in “test kitchen” misleading, since the bakers didn’t have much freedom to develop recipes. Most of the add-in flavors were a corporate decision from the higher-ups, who based their choices on intensive market research. Elena aggregated data each week to present to Derick, who later repeated it to top management like he’d done all the legwork. The bakers here were some of the best money could buy, even though they had little leeway when it came to producing new types of cookies.

“I don’t think the guy on the left has blinked once since we’ve been standing here,” Elena whispered. Priya nodded in agreement.

Elena opened the test kitchen door. Sweet vanilla buttercream frosting scented the air, almost masking the sterile smell of the bleach used to clean surfaces every thirty minutes. Fluorescent lights glinted off stainless-steel workbenches, leaving flares in Elena’s vision.

“No civilians past the red line,” a woman in black-rimmed glasses declared. Elena and Priya both stopped in their tracks, looking down at the floor at the red line two feet inside the door. The tip of Elena’s black leather boot was a hair over the line. She pulled her foot back at once.

“We’re here to pick up five dozen sample cookies for an event,” Elena said, speaking loudly to be heard over a stand mixer the size of a small car.

The baker pushed up her glasses, then tipped her chin to a row of four large lavender paper shopping bags. They were arranged on a workbench just outside the red zone. Elena stretched a hand out.

“Excuse me!” Glasses Baker shook her head, a look of disgust in her eyes. “No stepping or reaching across the line. As I said one minute ago.”

Elena put her arms by her sides and gave Priya a pleading look. Priya mouthed, What now? Glasses went back to spreading frosting on a tray of cookies. No one else in the kitchen even looked their way.

Time to channel her dad. His courtroom authority. “My email stated the samples were to be given to me at three PM . It is now 3:02. Please remand the cookies to my custody. Immediately!” The final word came out at a terrifying volume, because someone shut off the giant mixer right as Elena shouted it.

She stood her ground, suppressing the instinct to apologize for her abrupt manner. It seemed to earn Glasses’ grudging respect. The baker left her cookies and came over to hand Elena and Priya two bags apiece. Dozens of cookies were heavy. The rolled paper handles bit into Elena’s palms.

“Five dozen sample-size caramel macchiato cookies, individually wrapped and boxed. Plus one extra for your inspection. Sign here.” The baker held a clipboard out. Elena took her time signing it in her best penmanship. She didn’t want to lose the advantage she had gained with her unintended outburst by hurrying.

“Thank you,” Elena said, then an overhead buzzer rang, signaling something to the bakers, who all marched off to the cooler. Elena and Priya fled.

“That kitchen gives me the creeps,” Priya said as soon as the door swung shut. “Kitchens should be warm and homey, not stark and cold.”

“You’d think being around cookies all day would make people happy.”

They went to Elena’s desk to check the samples. Elena’s cookie came in a pretty square lavender box emblazoned with the Sparkle logo. The only difference between hers and the ones for the swap was that her box had VP Approval Sample stamped in black letters across the logo. She opened the box, Priya peering over her shoulder. Inside sat the cookie wrapped in lavender cellophane. Lovely, but all wrong.

“What’s the matter?” Priya asked. “They did a good job with the packaging, right?”

Lawrence’s words from the town hall meeting about the love in his cookies came back to her. She’d told him you couldn’t taste love, even though she knew it wasn’t true. She didn’t need to see the other cookies at the swap to know hers would be the only ones that looked corporate. Mass-produced.

“The packaging is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.” Elena slid a paint-stained fingernail under the cellophane seam. She broke the cookie in half and shared with Priya. They both munched away, Elena nodding her head. Caramel macchiato was their best seller, a strong cookie across all markets, even accounting for regional preferences.

The sample cookie had the correct ratio of caramel buttercream to chocolate coffee cookie. The caramel drizzle was both beautiful and predictable. All sample-size cookies sported three lines of drizzle and no more. Tasty, moist, a perfect cookie.

What did it lack? How could she put it into words?

“I have to infuse these with some love,” she said at last.

“That sounds a little weird, Elena. Don’t make out with the boxes or anything like that.”

“Ew, no. Nothing like that. I want them to be less off-the-rack, more holiday.” A spark of excitement flared inside her. At last, a chance—a small chance—to do something creative at work. Normally, by late afternoon she stared bug-eyed at spreadsheets, begging the clock to advance to six.

“I’ll let you get to work,” Priya said. She smiled as Elena grabbed her tablet and stylus.

After murmuring a goodbye to her friend, Elena got right down to business. In her design software she sketched her idea, a festive, fun, and best of all, personalized addition to the Sparkle samples.

Optimism made her fingers quick, the stylus swooping over the screen in elegant arcs and loops. For the first time in ages, she didn’t notice the cold or the harsh overhead lights. Sparkle Cookie’s soul-crushing office disappeared, leaving just her art. Instead of sitting in a gray-walled cubicle, she could be standing in a sunlit studio or painting on the banks of the river in Paris. The rest of the world didn’t matter or exist when she felt this inspiration.

She couldn’t wait to see how her project turned out. Or to see the look on Lawrence Higgins’s too-cute face when he realized she’d returned for round three, ready to throw down. He wasn’t the only one who could bring the holiday spirit. Not that she expected to see him again. But if she happened to, she intended to walk away with a clear victory.