The Candy Crush

Chapter One

Piper

Nuts and fudge, fudge and nuts.

That pretty much sums up my life.

I pour peanuts into a huge bowl of melted chocolate. Soon, the peanuts won’t be visible until someone bites into the clusters. The shape will be there, but the nuts will be covered up. Submerged. The true interior hidden.

I plunge a spoon into the mixture and see my future. The real Piper concealed by a thick layer of chocolate, unable to break free, with no one seeing the real, raw me.

It’s possible that eighteen years of breathing sugar fumes is affecting my analogies.

Besides, there are worse foods to be swallowed up by. People love chocolate. Want to show someone you care? Nothing says true love like chocolate. Going through a rough patch or a bad breakup? Chocolate cures all. Every holiday has specially themed chocolates, often shaped like a holiday mascot and filled with peanut butter. It’s a worldwide, multibillion-­dollar industry.

Okay, so I’m not personally a fan, but no one needs to know that.

I apply my hard-­earned candymaking muscles to stirring the peanut mixture, then use a cookie dough scooper to drop clusters onto a tray. As I do, I remind myself that I am not, in fact, a peanut.

While I repeat the process over and over (and over), and the creamy scent of chocolate continues its persistent invasion of my hair and clothes, I imagine what I might cook instead. Something with garlic. Or butter. Or cheese. Or, making Southern grandmas proud, a dish with large amounts of all three. Not a teaspoon of sugar to be found.

“Piper, are the truffles ready?” my mom calls from the front of the store.

“Yeah, the bag is under the register.”

Mom makes it impossible to forget special orders. A calendar fills the wall next to me—­paper, because Mom likes to draw on it. Multiple squares have notes, mostly anniversaries and birthdays of people in Port Pelican, along with their favorite candy or standing order or what they always pick up for their spouse. The blend of art, organization, and love of people epitomizes my mom. She used to remember every detail, but now she keeps it in writing in case she’s having a bad spell and her brain is foggy. Today’s square reminds us to have dark-­chocolate-­mint and milk-­chocolate-­caramel truffles ready for Mr. Joyner to pick up for Mrs. Joyner’s birthday.

The box two days before today’s grabs my attention. In Mom’s neat, cheery handwriting, surrounded by stars and exclamation points and topped with a perfectly drawn cap, it says, “Piper’s Graduation!”

I haven’t reached her level of excitement yet, even though the event is over. I’m celebrating freedom, adulthood, the next stage in life, whatever you want to call it, in exactly the same way I’ll be spending the rest of my years: with nuts and fudge. And occasional breaks for Oreo and caramel, to keep life inter­esting.

Graduation should represent promise, future, freedom, possibility. But those aren’t options for me.

It could be worse. I finish making the peanut clusters and set the tray on the counter to let them cool. They sit next to the four twenty-­pound pans of fudge I already made today. Two are topped with neat rows of pecans, one has perfect light brown swirls of peanut butter, and one is a classic, rich dark chocolate.

After I wipe the counters, I give the faucet its required jiggle to ensure the water comes out hot so I can wash my pans. Pops says a messy kitchen is a sign of a happy life. I say a messy kitchen is one more item for your to-­do list later, so you might as well take care of it now.

My philosophy doesn’t make it on to decorative wall signs.

After I remove my gloves and apron, I join Mom out front. The store is mostly empty, which isn’t rare in the morning, especially before the summer season. Tourists will fill the town—­and the store—­soon, but for now, townspeople don’t want taffy and truffles this early in the day.

Since I’m done with the day’s cooking, I retrieve the duster and avoid the people browsing so I can clean our decorations. That’s practically a full-­time job. The store is divided into multiple areas, each with a name to go with our beach theme, and each with a cute, colorful sign painted by my mom when she was my age, before MS made it hard for her to use her hands.

My grandpa has been collecting nautical knickknacks for almost sixty years to “keep things fun,” as if a hundred types of candy and homemade chocolates aren’t fun enough.

I clean a ship wheel and old compasses in Candy Corn Cove, where multiple colors and flavors of candy corn fill barrels, with bags and scoops beside them. I also dust the sign, which shows cartoon candy corns lounging on a small beach, drinking margaritas. Then I move to the mermaid figurines in Licorice Lagoon, guarding the many types of licorice: black, red, sour twists and chews in a dozen colors, while bright fish and blue herons watch on from the sign. Gummy Grotto, one of the most popular areas, has shelves of starfish and sand dollars and taxidermy crabs that haunted my childhood nightmares, alongside the image of gummy bears exploring a rocky beach cave. Next comes the six-­foot-­high replica boat we call the Taffy Trawler, the classic vessel full of shelves with wooden baskets of every color of saltwater taffy.

Any type of candy your tastebuds desire, you can find here. Usually next to a row of lures or a lighthouse model or a wooden fisherman figurine that looks suspiciously like my grandpa.

When Mr. Joyner comes in, Mom rings him up, and he calls, “Happy graduation, Piper.”

“Thank you, sir,” I say. “Happy birthday to your wife.”

“I’ll tell her you said so. What’s next for you?”

I resist the urge to spread my arms and show him the store. “Still not sure. But I’m happy to make your wife truffles for now.”

He laughs and waves on his way out, and what’s next for me is dusting the surfboard on one wall.

As I work, I’m serenaded by music that continues the beach vibe, because Pops doesn’t do anything halfway. We exclusively play songs he thinks have an ocean feel. Currently, it’s the Beach Boys telling us all the places they want to surf. “Texas Gulf Coast” does not make their list. Hardly surprising, since Port Pelican is known more for fishing and bird-­watching than epic waves. Although I did go to surf camp in fourth grade during my short-­lived surfer-­chick era. We won’t talk about how I called everything gnarly or tubular for months.

I refuse to tell Pops that I like the old music, and I hum along since he’s not here. Oldies were the soundtrack of my childhood. Pops collects records the way he collects knickknacks and plays them on a lovingly cared-­for record player that’s older than my mom.

Another customer approaches the fudge counter. Mom stands from her chair and asks the usual—­how much he wants. This guy is a Just a Little More customer. The kind who says he doesn’t want a lot but asks you to move the knife a quarter of an inch twelve times until his “Not too much” turns into “Are you feeding an entire football team?” I move to help, but Mom waves me off. I’m glad her hands are good enough to slice fudge today. She bags his fudge brick and rings him up.

As I dust the Gumball Beach hula girls, who are still wearing the Barbie clothes I put on them when I was seven to hide their coconut bras, Mom asks “Have you thought more about programs you might be interested in or what you want to do next?”

Now those multicolored gumballs are bouncing around my stomach like pinballs. “I still don’t know. Seems like a waste of time and money to go anywhere until I do.”

It’s my usual dodge answer. I can’t tell her that she’s the reason I’m not looking into anything, she and Pops. How could I leave them, when Mom often needs help with household chores and personal care, and with Pops getting older and struggling since his surgery? How could I leave the shop when they rely on me for the cooking and so many random jobs, like organizing the storeroom and cleaning? Which reminds me, I need to fix the loose railing on the porch.

Thinking about college or anything else is pointless when it’s not an option. Better that my mom believes I’m directionless and unambitious. Not that she would use those words. The worst part is, she truly wants me to go off and explore the world and meet new people, when I don’t know if I even want those things, because I haven’t let myself consider them.

As soon as my dad saw what Mom’s diagnosis would bring, he was gone. I was four and didn’t realize immediately what his absence meant, but it didn’t take long to notice Pops coming to mow the lawn or Nana cooking for us or a neighbor bringing dinner or chores piling up. Within a couple of years, I was doing as much as possible. I won’t put them in that situation again.