Candy Man Read Free Page B

he’d counted at least five other people wearing brown Candy Heaven aprons, and they were all doing different things. The squat dark-haired girl with the crew cut and glasses was handing out free taste coupons, the sour-looking boy with the nose ring and goatee was behind the counter with the chocolates, and the foxy-faced girl with the skunk-stripe in her dyed red hair was currently stocking from the last batch that had been pulled down from the stairs. A good-looking kid with brown hair and big brown eyes was cleaning out the old boxes from the loft and throwing them out back, presumably to make it easier for Adam to get up there to stock.
    Two new boys had walked in while Adam was working, both of them with sienna skin and curly, shiny black hair. The taller one had a mustache and the shorter one had a jowly face—every now and then when they weren’t taking care of customers, they spattered Hindi at each other in an effort to give directions. In fact, they were the only two people besides Darrin whose names Adam knew. The tall one was Ravi and the short one was Anish. Adam had no idea how they were related, but he knew they probably couldn’t exist for longer than an hour outside the other’s pocket.
    And given that he was going to need help and theirs were the only names he knew, they were about to become his new best friends.
    “Uh, Ravi? Anish? Darrin says he needs stock—can one of you tell me what to look for, and the other stand here at the bottom of the stairs and take stock?”
    They both looked at him, teeth flashing whitely as they smiled. “Yeah, sure,” Ravi said with decision. “Anish, you shout the orders, I’ll take the stock.”
    Oh, thank God. Help . Adam tried not to sway as he pulled himself up the stairs into the loft.
    “Lemon sours!”
    Adam searched until he found the last box, and ran that down the stairs to Ravi. As he was doing that, Anish called out, “Sanded cinnamon drops and sanded cherry drops!”
    And then he repeated the process.
    He was into it, breaking a sweat, in that place where hunger and tiredness didn’t matter, when Anish called out for mixed sour balls. They were on the bottom shelf. He squatted down for them….
    And fell on his ass.
    As he was down there, wondering how he’d gone nearly a whole day without eating, he heard a perky alto calling out, “Darrin! Darrin, you said you needed food?”
    “Finn! Yeah, here. Put the usual on the counter here, but do me a favor, would you? Could you run the burger with blue cheese and mushrooms up to the loft? My new employee just passed out.”
    There was a chorus of “What? Who? Is he okay? Who was that guy, anyway?” And Adam felt like he should contribute his two cents.
    “Didn’t pass out!” he said, but he could hear his own voice wandering. “Fell on my ass. Please tell me I’m getting paid. What time is it, anyway?”
    “It’s almost eight o’clock at night,” said that perky voice. Adam looked to the top of the stairs, and there he was. The kid with the Finn hat, and he was carrying a box of takeout in a plastic bag.
    “Finn,” Adam said, literally so drifty he couldn’t lock down his own brain. “Where’s your goofy little dog?”
    “You watch Adventure Time ?” Finn said, sounding delighted. “That’s awesome!”
    “Someone at the base had boxed sets,” Adam said, his brain flashing to the comfortable camaraderie of H-1, outside of Baghdad. Yeah, there was war, but there was a lot of boredom, and he and the troops had passed entertainment around with an almost religious intensity. Paperbacks were golden, and Lieutenant Crandall’s boxed DVD cartoon sets from his kids had resulted in fistfights before Crandall had started showing them for an hour a day in his bunk. “ Futurama , Adventure Time , Archer . Adventure Time was my favorite.”
    “Finn” came closer to him, eyeballing him with a certain wariness in the dim light of the loft, like he expected Adam to start foaming at the mouth