With her usual cheery grin, our freckle-faced marketing director waves me over from her spot manning the table. Or womanning the table, as Ginny likes to say. She scans left, then right. Coast is clear. There’s a lull in the booth action. She drops her voice to a clandestine whisper. “Leo, I pilfered some goodies for you.”
“Ginny, you are brilliant and also quite nefarious.”
“I take that as the highest compliment, especially since when I was a little girl growing up in Sydney, I had secret dreams to become a chocolate thief.”
“Glad to see we’re making all your dreams come true.”
She slides a green ceramic plate at me then presses her finger to her lips, her heart-shaped necklace dangling perilously close to the table. “But I don’t want anyone to see you tasting someone else’s chocolate. It would make us look bad.”
I shoot her a look. “It would make us look like we were on a mad hunt for the next rising star to partner with.” As the exec in charge of business development, that’s exactly my role at this show—finding that person.
She waves off my reply. “C’mon. Play along with me.”
“Fine. Fine. Cover me, Ginny. I’m going in.” I glance behind me, like I’m checking for sniper fire.
“You’re all clear. Go for it. I’ve got you.” With a sly backhand move, she wields the tongs—God bless her—and drops a small truffle into my palm. “This is your kind of chocolate.”
“Do tell. What is my kind?” I take the chocolate, half-expecting her to say “bitter,” since she knows me well enough.
But her reply surprises me.
“Spice.”
I arch a brow. “Is that so?”
“Absolutely. You tell it like it is, just like a pepper.”
Laughing, I ask, “Is that what a pepper does?”
“Of course. All good peppers give it to you straight.”
“Then I will give this my true and honest appraisal, as if you’d given me Veritaserum.”
“I love it when you talk Harry Potter.”
“You only forced me to read them.”
Her jaw drops. “There was no forcing. That was love. That was only love I forced on you.”
“And several thousand pages of reading too.”
“That you adored.”
“I did,” I concede, since wizard battles rock, then I sniff the chocolate. It tickles my nose with a little hint of fire. I pop it in my mouth, the sharp, peppery taste tangoing over my tongue. “That’s a helluva kick.”
She pumps her fist. “I knew you were a spice. I have others for you to try too. But first, have you found our next rising star for our fabulous boss? She’s damn eager since the first partnership went so well.”
“No one who’s wowed me enough with his or her artisanal creations. Who does this deliciousness belong to?”
“I’m not telling you yet. You need to taste the others first.” She grabs another small square, placing it in my palm. “Try this one now. But smell it first.”
“As if I’d do anything but sniff it.” I draw a deep inhale, letting it fill my mind with . . . a most familiar scent.
Dark chocolate. A touch of vanilla. A little bit of coconut.
And like that, I’m thinking of her.
A woman who smelled like chocolate. I imagine she’d taste like chocolate too. I’ve wondered about her far too much for my own good.
As the memory of her scent floods my mind, I can see her face, her cheekbones, her mismatched eyes—one green, one blue. Or as she liked to say, one green, one not so green.
An impish smile.
She was bright, bold, and a little crazy in all the good ways.
She’d convince you to dance on the rooftop, climb the fence at Gramercy Park, and order the hottest dish on the menu even though you wouldn’t taste anything for days afterward. You only live once, she’d say. And when it came to chocolate, her favorite assessment was, “It’s so good it should be criminal.” Then she’d add, “But thank God it’s not.”
“Is it so good it’s criminal?”
At the sound of that voice, I snap to attention.
Am I hearing things? I spin around. Maybe I’m seeing a mirage.
Here she is now. The woman herself, in the flesh.
“Not that chocolate being illegal would ever stop you from eating it,” I say, since you can’t greet Lulu Diamond with a “Hello, how the hell are you?” or “It’s been forever.” Lulu must be greeted in medias res, and then you simply must keep up with her.
My eyes rake over her, drinking in the sight. She always looked like she’d ridden in astride a rainbow-colored unicorn while fireworks rained down on all of us.
