Eat Me Sweet Sin

Melody

Sweet Melody’s.

The sign was the thing she was most proud of when everything had been fixed up. It was seeing her hard work come to life. It wasn’t a website online or a paper banner tacked up below a display case. It had finally become a place where people could come in and sit at tables. It was the cute little dessert shop where people came to satisfy a sweet tooth, or where they came for their cheat day.

Sweet Melody’s had evolved from a home bakery to an actual store, and she had made that happen herself.

My sweet Melody. Her mother’s voice sung into her ear, making her eyes water. She never did get to see this place open. Cancer had taken her away two years before Melody was able to make both their dreams a reality.

My sweet Melody, you’re going to make people smile with your talent.

Her mother told her that for the first time when she was eight, after she made her first batch of cupcakes. Melody wanted to make them as delicious as her mother did, and even though her cupcakes were nowhere near as tasty as her mom’s, they were good for an eight-year-old.

She loved helping her mother bake, mostly because it involved licking a lot of chocolate spoons and eating cake scraps. But as Melody got older, it progressed into a passion and a career goal. She always heard her mother talk about how she wanted to own a bakery but since they were poor she didn’t have the time or money to start a business from the ground up. The most she could do was bake for extra money when she wasn’t at her hotel cleaning job or early morning bread baking job.

So it was Melody’s driving force to get to a point in her own life where she could help her mother achieve her dream.

They were supposed to run this place together. Maybe if she’d been here it would still be open.

Make people smile with your talent, my sweet Melody.

Her mother said to her before she died.

She knew exactly what she felt as she stared up at those words. Sadness gripped her heart in an iron fist and there was a hole where her stomach was supposed to be. Despite how hollow she felt, something akin to nausea swirled inside her.

She couldn’t keep their dream alive.

The baby blue cursive letters would soon be gone, leaving behind a noticeable trace where the elements had been unable to touch. There were already so many other buildings around her with that discoloration on them; now hers would be one of them. Well, not hers anymore. She was now among one of the many business owners on this street that had been forced to leave.

The amount of work it took her to get to this point in life flashed before her eyes, like she was dying. She didn’t know this could happen outside of a near death experience. A piece of her was sort of dying if she really thought about it. Her whole life was spent working to get here, but now it was over. Turns out, working hard to make an honest living didn’t always guarantee stability.

She had done everything right; received a scholarship to the Culinary Institute Of America- the best culinary school in America, snatched up a business degree so she’d know the ins and outs of running a start up and wouldn’t have to rely on someone else for that information, and she ran a baked goods service from her small apartment kitchen well after she graduated culinary school. For years, she baked out of her kitchen, getting orders from her website Sweet Melody’s. Her clientele had grown and she started pulling in enough to rent out an empty vendor space in the food court at the mall, where she had the foot traffic that led to her finally getting the money to buy the building for her first official location.

She was supposed to be going in the opposite direction. Her plan was to open another location after five years of running this one. She never even considered the possibility that this would happen. The neighborhood she chose was full of numerous successful black-owned businesses. She flourished here too for a while. There wasn’t a bakery here when she arrived and her presence immediately prevented anyone else from even thinking about trying to compete with her. Everyone already knew who’s sweets they wanted.

The thought of her building having that discolored banner for everyone to see made her heart sink. Is this how the others felt? Like their pride had been ripped out and stomped all over? She felt bad watching each of them go through slowly losing business, and she could only imagine what it would be like. Imagining what it felt like didn’t even compare a little to what it was actually like.

She had failed and her future felt uncertain. Everything she worked for was gone down the drain. So much for making her mother proud.

This would eat away at her for a very long time.

What was she supposed to do now?

Amber quietly stepped up beside Melody and tilted her head back to look at the letters with her. She didn’t say anything; instead, she lightly rubbed circles in the center of Melody’s back.

Melody didn’t know how long she’d been standing there—ten, fifteen, forty-five minutes? Pulling herself away was hard, like her feet had been cemented to the sidewalk. She knew once she walked away, she’d never see her place like this again. It was only a matter of time before someone else moved in.

Baby blue was her mother’s favorite color. She instantly knew what color her sign would be when she first started designing this place. The bricks were painted a bright white to stand out from the rest of the brown and rust colored buildings around her. There was a baby blue awning with silver tables underneath because what’s better than eating a delicious pastry with a nice, hot cup of coffee and chatting with a friend on a warm spring morning. The large glass window allowed for people walking by to see into the building, right into the display case, so they would be pulled in.

The longer she stared, the more she was able to see this place in its former glory; full of customers—some in line, some sitting at the inside tables, others occupying the tables outside, the display case full of everything she and her crew baked that morning, and an ever-changing, colorful chalk cursive lettered menu.

It was everything she and her mom wanted.

Her world was standing pretty still at the moment. A light breeze blew around her, making the leaves on the tree beside her rustle. She didn’t feel the wind blowing against her or the sun warming her skin. She felt numb.

“Come on, babe,” Amber finally said, bringing Melody out of her daze

She was still there? Melody thought she’d left a while ago.

“Let’s go get some food,” Amber coaxed, taking her by the forearm. “I’ll even get you drunk tonight. I think you deserve it. And you know what? I won’t even wake you up at five thirty in the morning to go running. We can go shopping instead.”

“Can we go to that place with the good Old Fashioned cocktails?” Melody asked, her voice thick and choppy with tears.

“We can share that fried onion appetizer,” Amber nodded. “But I’m going to keep you hydrated and stay at your side at all times. You like to wander off and talk to strangers when you’re drunk.”

As they walked to Amber’s car, Melody couldn’t take her eyes off the building. It wasn’t until they turned off the street that she finally turned around.

She rested her head on the cool window as Amber maneuvered them through five o’clock Houston traffic. She stared blankly into the distance, past the other side of the interstate, into the sky. Nothing played on the radio—Melody didn’t feel like listening to anything when Amber asked if she wanted to listen to music. Why bother? Music wouldn’t have been able to distract her from the emptiness she felt inside.

So she sat there like a lump as Amber took her to get shitfaced.

A few hours had gone by. Melody let out another long sigh. She’d been sitting hunched over with her forehead on the table since the moment they sat down. She didn’t even sit up as she ordered her first Old Fashioned, and when it got to the table, she took it in her hand, holding it in her lap. She sipped on it without sitting up, then placed the empty glass back on the table. Thirty minutes at Bulldog and she was now placing her third empty glass on the table top.

“Amber,” she groaned. This was the first thing she’d said since they left the bakery.“What am I gonna do? I don’t have the space or the resources to bake from home again, and I don’t want to work for anyone. I never had to do that before.”

“Do you really want to hear this? I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to tell you,” Amber replied.

“It can’t be any worse than what I’ve been going through.” Melody pushed herself off the table and leaned against the back of the booth. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from crying, and it probably didn’t help that she’d had three strong drinks with her head down. “Lay it on me. I can handle it.”

“You need to get back at it as soon as possible,” Amber said sternly. She placed her elbows on the table and leaned towards Melody. “Take some time to sulk but then hop back on it. And how you’re going to do that is by getting a job that’ll pay you enough to do what you love while simultaneously giving you a means to start back up again.”

Melody only stared at Amber as her words rattled around inside her head. They made her feel uneasy.

“Yeah, I hated that,” Melody stated as she scooped up her water glass.

She sucked down the rest of what was in her cup, then grabbed a couple of fried onions to shove in her mouth.

“Thinking about working for someone is…disheartening,” Melody said, sinking downin her seat. “I’ve been my own boss for years now. Going from that to being someone’s employee makes me feel...ugh. I don’t even want to think about that.”

She shoved more fried onions into her mouth.

Their server came back and Melody put in for another Old Fashioned as he refilled her water cup.

“Can you bring her a BLT with fries also?” Amber asked him politely. “She’s going to need some food.”

“Will do,” the young man said before leaving.

“I mean,” Melody continued once he was gone; her words were starting to slur. “It’s almost impossible to find what I make. You certainly won’t find anything like it at fuckin’ Whole Foods.” She leaned on the table with tears in her eyes. “I hope I don’t sound arrogant, because I’m not. I just know where my skill level lies and I know I’m better than Whole Foods and Starbucks.” She let out a deep sigh as she finished her rant. “So how did I fail?”

Amber’s eyebrows furrowed together as she listened to Melody.

“You think you failed?”

“My business—mine and my mother’s dream, my baby—went under and I couldn’t do anything to save her,” Melody said. “Yeah, I failed.”

“You have to look at it like it is,” Amber started. “Sometimes, these things can’t be avoided. The neighborhood changed. Businesses that have been there for years even closed down. People who lived there their whole lives had to leave because rent and cost of living got hiked up. You didn’t fail. You were driven out, there’s a difference. In a few years that whole area is going to be unrecognizable. The apartments they built last year don’t even match the rest of the building. There’s a Whole foods there now, a Starbucks across the street and I think a Target is supposed to pop up in the next few months. So it isn’t anything you did or didn’t do; it’s just an unforeseen circumstance.”

The server came back then and set Melody’s fourth drink on the table along with her BLT and steaming fries. At that moment, she realized she hadn’t eaten all day and she was starving. She immediately went for a fry. The crispy, salty potato tasted amazing.

“Seriously,” Amber continued when he left. “You didn’t fail. You just got set back. Now what matters is how you’re going to bounce back.”

Melody nibbled on her fries as she contemplated Amber’s words, her head spinning. She let out another heavy sigh before she sat back on the black vinyl of her seat and looked at a point above Amber’s head.

From the time they had left the bakery to now, Amber had witnessed her best friend go through the seven stages of grief, out of order, and she seemed to be rounding the bend to acceptance.

Melody grabbed her drink and used the little straw to stir it before taking a sip.

“It’s hard not to feel like I failed, but you’re right.” Melody leaned forward and rested her cheek in her hand. “It’s still a blow to the ol’ ego though. I don’t even know what kind of job I would get.”

“Well, we know just any old job wouldn’t do,” Amber said. “I’m sure there has to be bakery jobs all over the city. Look into becoming a pastry chef in a restaurant. With your credentials you’d be a guaranteed hire.”

“If I want to start my business back up, that seems like the quickest way to do it. And I will start it back up,” Melody declared. “There’s no way I’m going to work for someone else for longer than three years. Four at the absolute max.”

“So, are you setting a goal?” Amber asked with an eyebrow raised.

Melody emptied her glass before she answered. “I guess I am, yeah.”

“Well then you’re decided. You’re going to get a job doing what you do best.”

“Yes,” she lamented. “I’m gonna go work for someone else.”

“Oof. I know that’s what we spent this time working towards, but that still sounds odd coming from you.”

“It won’t be for long,” Melody reiterated. It sounded like she was trying to reassure herself. “Four years will go by, right?”

“Before you know it, you’ll be right back in your own place,” Amber said.

Melody nodded. “Yeah. Now I just have to hype myself up about it. If I go into this with a negative attitude, then it’s gonna suck that much more.”

“And look at it as a stepping stone,” Amber suggested. “You’re doing what you need to do to get where you want to be. So if you really think about it, you’re back on track now.” Amber reached across the table and took a fry off Melody’s plate.

“Leave it to you to find a bright side,” Melody said, nodding her head. “Since we’re talking about me getting a job, I don’t think I would hate fine dining. I know how to cook as well as I can bake. So I’d still be doing something I like.”

“My manager was talking about this place called Paul’s that she ate at a few weeks ago,” Amber said. “It’s a five star restaurant that’s supposed to be really nice. I’ve never been but I take her word on it. She’s always going to places like that because she has a rich boyfriend.”

“A place like that would be ideal if I’m going to do this,” Melody said. “But I’ll check out the job boards tomorrow. Right now I’m one drink away from being drunk and I want to be there already.”

“Before you get too sloshed, I just want to say your mother would still be very proud of you, you know that, right? You’ve accomplished more than most. A lot of people would have given up. This one set back isn’t what defines you.”

She rolled her straw between her fingertips as Amber’s words struck a familiar chord.

“That actually sounds like something my mother would say,” Melody said. She could almost hear her mothers voice saying those exact words.

Sometimes Melody swore her mother crossed her and Amber’s paths so she would have someone once she was motherless. In life, her mom always anticipated what Melody would need, and in death she knew Melody would need someone like Amber.

“You know what,” Melody said, sitting up in her seat. She picked up half of her sandwich and slid the other half to Amber. “I will go running with you in the morning.”

Amber gave her a wide smile. “There she is.”