Flavor of the Month

He was the president and she was the disposable intern.

She lived in the cramped apartment over her shop and her only mode of transportation was a white ten-year-old minivan with the shop’s logo painted on it. He likely had a sprawling mansion in the Hollywood Hills and drove a Ferrari.

Reilly absently folded the paper, the pad of her thumb catching on the edge.

“Ow.” She shook her hand then stuck her thumb into her mouth. The cowbell above the front door clanged. She turned to find one of her morning steadies squinting against the change in light.

She pulled her thumb from her mouth. “Morning, Johnnie.”

“And an awesome morning it is, too,” Johnnie aka Johnnie Thunder said, just like he did every morning.

Reilly wondered if she was the only one who didn’t operate under an alias in the greater L.A. area. She pushed from the stool, finding it amazing that she had steady customers. She took in Johnnie’s limp, shoulder-length brown hair, his thickset torso bearing a pea-green T-shirt with a white logo of some kind on it peeking from the open flaps of his thriftshop army jacket. Worn jeans and tennis shoes finished off the effect of urban unchic. On a teen it might have been okay. But Johnnie had to be in his thirties.

“Can I interest you in a cream puff this morning?” she asked, scooting behind the counter where her eighteen-year-old niece, Tina, was stocking the display.

“No. I’ll take a sweet roll and a small coffee.”

“In other words, the usual?”

“Yeah.”

Instead of immediately heading for his spot as he usually did after receiving his tray of items, Johnnie lingered awkwardly at the counter.

Reilly blinked at him as she rearranged the rolls for maximum effect. “Is there something more you wanted, Johnnie?”

Was it possible for a man his age to blush that deeply? Yes, she realized, it was.

“I was just wondering,” he said. “I have tickets for this great music festival this weekend and I was thinking maybe you and me…well, if you wanted to go with me…”

She smiled at him, genuinely flattered at the attention, even if unwanted. “Thanks for thinking of me, Johnnie, but right now Sugar ’n’ Spice is the whole of my professional and personal life. And it probably will be for the foreseeable future.”

“Oh. Okay.” He showed her the thin notebook computer tucked under his arm. “Mind if I hook up, then?”

“Actually, I’d probably tell anyone else who dared to sit there to get lost.” She took in his half grin. “The spot’s all yours.”

He nodded, his stringy hair momentarily hiding his ferretlike features as he headed with his order for the table in the opposite corner that featured an electrical outlet and a cable modem hookup. She’d thought offering the service would attract more people of Johnnie’s type, but so far he was the only one who logged on regularly. She wasn’t all that clear what he did, but she was pretty sure Johnnie Thunder was his Internet name.

Her niece finished up then stacked an empty tray near the door to the kitchen. She shrugged out of her apron. “I’ve got to get to my nine o’clock.”

“What’s on tap this morning? Psych?” Reilly asked.

“Social Sciences.” Tina—short for Constantina, and shorter yet for Constantina Kalopapodopoulos—blew dark brown bangs out of her darker eyes. She usually made it into the shop for an hour or two each day to help out and make deliveries, depending on her class schedule.

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

Tina slanted a gaze at her. “Trying to juggle a full course load at UCLA while working two part-time jobs isn’t a picnic, Aunt Rei.”

“Well, if your motivation for wanting a degree in psychology was more than just about figuring out your dysfunctional family, maybe it wouldn’t seem so tough.” She rounded the counter again. “Besides, you forget that I’ve been there. The juggling part, I mean.”

“Yeah, but that was at least…forever ago. Things have changed since then.”

“Since four years ago?”

Tina rolled her eyes, looking more like her Greek-American father than her Polish mother—who was Reilly’s sister—with every day that passed. “Whatever.”

Reilly put a couple of cream puffs into a bag as Tina grabbed her backpack and jacket. She held out the bag as the eighteen-year-old passed.

Tina paused, her pretty face looking a little less harried. “Thanks.”

“Is Efi stopping by to help out tonight?”

Efi was Reilly’s secret favorite out of her nieces and nephews. She was Tina’s younger sister and much hated by the older girl. At fifteen-going-on-forty, Efi reminded Reilly of what she’d been like herself growing up. Not a day went by that Efi didn’t beg Reilly to hire her on full-time, though what she really wanted was to be a partner. But the only time Reilly gave in and let her help was when she had a large order to fill. And the catering gig for a charity event that weekend definitely qualified as a large order. More specifically, five thousand tiny éclairs.

“Yeah, she’ll be here.” Tina hurried for the door.

“Give ’em hell, kid!” Reilly called out after her.

While she couldn’t see Tina’s expression, she was pretty sure it involved an eye roll and a grimace.

Reilly shook her head as she picked up the empty baking trays and headed for the kitchen. The telephone on the wall next to the swinging door rang. She freed one of her hands and plucked it up. “Sugar ’n’ Spice.”

“And everything very nice,” a familiar female voice said. “Have you gotten a load of this morning’s Confidential?”

A documentary producer and one of her three best friends, Mallory Woodruff rarely got excited about anything, so her enthusiasm warmed Reilly even further. “Why, yes, as a matter of fact, Layla brought by a copy earlier.”

“Earlier? What time is it? Oh.”

It was just after eight-thirty. Which made it much too early for Mallory although Reilly had been up since four-thirty getting ready to open her doors at six. When she’d first opened the shop, she’d posted her hours as seven. But that hadn’t stopped at least a dozen or so people from knocking on her glass door with their car keys, their noses practically pressed against the window as they eyed where she was stocking the display cabinet. So she’d moved back the opening time. Which meant she also had to get up an hour earlier. But, hey, one didn’t get mentioned in Hollywood Confidential by slacking off.

She caught herself smiling in the same goofy way she had been all morning.

“I think you should blow up the mention and post it in your front window,” Mallory was saying.

“Too tacky.”

“Well, frame it, then hang it in your window.”

Reilly looked at the wall behind the counter. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. She could put it next to where she displayed in a frame the first dollar the shop had made and where her business license hung.

The front door opened, letting in another customer. Reilly looked in his direction. Another man. It was a given that the majority of her customers were female, aside from the men who stopped for coffee before eight. After eight, men were pretty scarce.

The expensive shine of rich leather shoes caught her attention first. Then her gaze moved up crisply ironed tan slacks, a belt that matched the shoes and up over a crisp brown-and-white striped shirt rolled up to reveal wrists peppered with dark hair. Mmm…if the rest of him matched what she’d seen so far…

Ever hopeful, she looked up into the handsomely familiar face that bore a passing resemblance to Tom Cruise.

She nearly dropped the phone.

Reilly swung away so she was facing the wall. Deciding that wasn’t enough, she ducked through the swinging door leading to the kitchen, dropping the empty trays she held as she went.