Death is Semisweet Read Free

Santa with dread locks, and several with bizarre accessories like rhinestone belts, small dogs with Santa hats, and one bratty child dressed up as an elf who stuck her tongue out at Heaven and Stephanie Simpson inside the restaurant as she marched past outside.
    The Plaza, a faux Spanish shopping center built in the 1920s and ’30s, was Kansas City’s pride and joy. Long brick buildings with red tile roofs and fronted with elaborate statuary housed Gap and Barnes and Noble stores. There were European streetlights and a slightly shorter rendition of the Tower of Seville, Spain, the sister city of Kansas City. The Plaza was known nationwide for itselaborate Christmas decorations, which involved outlining every building for several blocks with lights. This year, that obviously wasn’t enough. The Plaza seemed to be recruiting Santas by the dozens.
    “I’m stuffed,” Stephanie moaned as she pushed back her plate. “I can’t believe I ordered dessert after corned beef hash.”
    Heaven had finished her own order, eggs Benedict. She took her fork and pointed it at Stephanie’s plate. “You’ve always had a sweet tooth and you never put on a pound, you dog. Maybe I’ll just have a bite of this chocolate bread pudding. So go on with your tale. Your new boutique, gourmet, fancy-schmancy chocolate shop is doing great, you’re so tired you can’t move because this is your first Christmas with a retail business. By the way, I’ve being meaning to ask you this and I always forget: Why did you decide to do this?”
    Stephanie paused with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. She thought better of it, put down the cup and picked up her champagne glass instead. She sipped her mimosa and shook her head. “Earth to Heaven, so to speak. I got dumped by my dog of a husband, remember? Even with a hefty financial punishment for breaking my heart…”
    “And running off with his receptionist,” Heaven added.
    “Yes, let’s not forget that. It couldn’t be his assistant or a paralegal, God forbid. It had to be the receptionist, not that it isn’t a perfectly good job. Men really do go for the most geographically available and the easiest, don’t they?”
    “What they can reach out and grab,” Heaven quipped. “No, I realize you probably couldn’t make a living just doing food styling here in Kansas City. But when facedwith the inevitability of having to get a real job, why did you choose opening a chocolate shop?”
    “The blimp,” Stephanie said, waving toward outside. A large pink blimp was floating over the Plaza, as large as the Goodyear blimp only shocking pink. It was painted, “Season’s Greetings from Foster’s Chocolates” on one side and “Foster’s Chocolates 50 Year Anniversary” on the other.
    “Yeah,” Heaven said, not looking up. “I’ve seen it the last couple of days. It hovered over 39th street Friday at rush hour. What does Foster’s blimp have to do with you opening a chocolate shop?”
    “Oh, I forget you didn’t grow up here, Heaven. I’m a member of the family that owns the number one boxed chocolate candy company in the country. The poor side of the family, as luck would have it.”
    “Foster’s?” Heaven finally looked out the front glass doors of the Classic Cup, her friend Charlene Welling’s restaurant. The tail end of the blimp gracefully disappeared from view.
    “Celebrating their fiftieth year,” Stephanie said with an affirmative nod.
    “Well, hell then, why didn’t you go to work for your family if you wanted to be in the chocolate business?”
    Stephanie was a petite blond fashion plate. Known for her incredible wardrobe and her red nails before the divorce, she now looked down at hands with dozens of little nicks and scrapes on them. No nail polish. Hardly even any nails, as Stephanie was using her hands to dip chocolates, bake brownies and clean out espresso machines. She studied her disastrous cuticles a split-second more, then looked up at Heaven and smiled