Dark Chocolate Peppermint Read online

  Dark Chocolate Peppermint:

  A Candy Man Delivery Story

  By

  Graylin Rane

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dark Chocolate Peppermint:

  A Candy Man Delivery Story

  Copyright 2014 by Graylin Rane

  ISBN: 9781625177469

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Graylin Rane

  Candy Man Delivery Service Stories

  Tastes Like Chocolate

  Irish Cream Dreams

  White Chocolate Cherry

  Apple Cinnamon Swirl

  Hot Caramel Passion

  Dark Chocolate Peppermint

  Chapter One

  The photographer in front of me grimaced. If he wanted to keep my nipples from poking up, a warmer beach, or maybe a sweater would help. My clenched jaw to keep from shivering didn’t help. I could see the tabloid headlines now, “Spoiled Model Angry in Bikini.”

  Modeling sounded like a good idea ten years ago. Just out of college with a business degree, I needed a way to pay for graduate school. Then, the travel schedule kept me from studying. I decided not to renew my contract to get my MBA two years ago. This photo shoot was a favor for a friend. At five foot eleven and a size six, my schedule stayed full. My mixed heritage added color and curves. I stood out in front of a glacier. My mother was dark skinned from Brazil, and my father was lighter skinned African American.

  Graduation was last May, and my brothers couldn’t get away. That’s why Christmas this year was in Florida. While my entire family warmed up on the beaches, I stood in Alaska for a cold weather bikini shoot. All five of us shivered until they brought in a huge heater. On this isolated strand of beach with glaciers behind us, the view was gorgeous, for the photographers. What we saw was a line of people in parkas telling us to smile while penguins stood watch.

  It was one of the times I thought the public would prefer to see my side. Bikini clad models were everywhere, penguins watching a photo shoot? Now, that would sell magazines.

  The thought made me laugh. The camera clicked away.

  “Got it, finally. It took you long enough,” Ansel said. He was the best in the business and usually very nice. Ice took away his humor.

  “Turn around, you’ll see why I laughed,” I said pointing at our observers.

  He took more photos of them than all five models combined.

  Susie, my best friend in the modeling world, saw this, saying, “Ansel, maybe we put bikinis on them? At least they don’t shiver in the cold and ruin your shots.”

  He grunted while keeping his camera clicking.

  “Can we get dressed now?” I waved at one of his assistants.

  With a slight nod, Ansel signaled to her, and us, that we could. I ran to a small tent, Susie right behind me.

  “Shoots like this remind me why you dropped out to go to school.” She poured a cup of coffee from the pot on a portable burner. Her small body shivered from the cold. We were an odd pair; she was five foot ten with platinum blonde hair and sky blue eyes. Men forgot to breathe around her. I was amused to find out it pissed her off.

  Her coffee felt warm from two feet away. “Make that two, I’ll dive in if I have to.”

  Handing me a mug, she looked at my body. “How did you manage to stay in that shape during school?”

  I coughed. “Are you aware school is a full time job? It’s not sitting around eating pizza and watching movies. I had to study every day for two hours in order to keep up with assignments.”

  Ansel came in grumbling, stared at us, and walked back out.

  We knew the routine. Warmed up slightly, we followed him outside. The set up for the shoot was in tatters underneath an elephant seal. Trying to keep from laughing, I looked away. The other three models, wrapped in fur coats, fed the penguins bread. I needed a camera. No one would believe me.

  “Get away you miserable beast.” Ansel’s angry shout was met with a snort of derision.

  Susie lost it. “Oh my god, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Ansel and one assistant tried to roll the seal off a tattered shoot umbrella. The silver reflected the sunlight around a huge body of blubber. Moments like those kept me in the business far longer than I planned. The public saw the final results not the fun we had making them. My brother Steven asked me once to come to a bikini shoot. He thought he’d get a front row seat to beauty.

  I laughed while he listened to stick thin women bitch about being hungry, worry about their children, and call their agents to verify travel information. It was a job, glamorous, yes, but a business that required the faces in front of the camera to be as savvy as those behind the marketing campaigns.

  My MBA with a concentration in marketing seemed the logical choice. I’ve been my own product for fifteen years.

  Susie returned wearing a sweat suit handing me mine. “I think we’re done here. If he does get the animals away, the light’s gone.”

  We waited another hour while normally composed professionals yelled obscenities at wildlife before hopping onto a small plane. Changing to a large jet in Anchorage, we changed planes in LA and had a short layover in Atlanta. The last leg to Fort Lauderdale, Susie and I sat up front.

  She fidgeted with her seat buckle. “You’re family’s so proud of you. Hell, I’m jealous. I don’t know what I’ll do when my body realizes gravity is real.”

  I had full confidence in her ability. Barely older than me, she started modeling as a young teenager. She taught me the business. “You’ll do fine. A degree wouldn’t hurt.”

  She raised her hands up. “I give up. You’ve pestered me for years. I was going to wait until your New Years party, but we both know how out of control that could get. I’m starting school next fall. I signed up the day I got your graduation invite.”

  “Nova?”

  “Yep, like you, if I’m going to study for midterms and finals, I’m doing it on the beach.” She glowed. It had been a while since I’d seen her that happy.

  Her last relationship, with a rocker, ended badly. The tabloids knew about his affair months before she did. It sucked when reporters called to ask her how she felt about a breakup she didn’t know about yet.

  Happy that she’d be nearby, I squeezed her hand. “Congratulations, student. I wondered why you accepted my invite to move into my condo so quickly.”

  Her laughter lifted my concern for her. She’d wanted out of modeling before I left.

  My family wouldn’t be meeting us at the airport. I insisted we needed quiet time after the flights. A limo waited for us, we climbed in sitting in silence for the thirty-minute drive to my condo.

  I expected my family to crowd the car as we pulled in. They weren’t there. A note sat on the dining table in my mother’s handwriting. “You’ve had a long string of f
lights. We rented a luxury hotel suite nearby. Call us when you detox. The girls want to make up both of you for family photos.”

  I felt the tears in my eyes.

  Susie hugged me. “They finally heard you.”

  My requests for space and quiet went unheeded for years. My two brothers had children of their own, seven in all. Quiet became a luxury.

  “Either that or my parents got the top suite and have all the grandkids staying with them. My brothers will be happy to let them babysit for the week.”

  “They work hard, Alicia.”

  “I know. Let’s get this travel grime washed off and go coloring with my nieces and nephews.” Seven of them would surround us. I loved it. My three nieces would braid my hair for me, adding bows and ribbons. I treasured the pictures taken with them more than the ones making me money.

  When I came out of my room, Susie was on the phone. I heard my mothers voice giving her directions. Susie looked to me for help, overwhelmed by my mothers will.

  I took the phone. “Mom, give us the name of the hotel, we’ll be there after dinner. We need to find food first.”

  “We have food. I think your brothers bought out the grocery store. The bellman brought up a second mini fridge. The kids already cleaned it out.” She sounded overwhelmed and happy. We’d been very close. Traveling without her after I turned eighteen took getting used to.

  “Where are you?”

  “The Atlantic, oceanfront penthouse.”

  “You splurged.” That wasn’t normal.

  “Your brothers offered to pay if we kept the kids in the suite with us. They are taking a long romantic week. Same hotel, different floor, just in case.” Her voice filled with pride.

  All three of her children have advanced degrees now. She came to this country with a high school education barely able to speak English. By the time I started modeling after high school, she’d finished beauty school and opened a salon in the garage. My first photo shoot, she was my hair stylist. Now, celebrities came to her.

  Susie raised an eyebrow as I hung up. “We’re still eating alone, right?”

  I laughed. “Yes, we can get a good meal in before we get there.”

  We stopped for food at Chima Brazilian Steakhouse on Las Olas. Ordering the fillet wrapped in bacon felt decadent.

  “You’re going for it.” Susie shifted in her seat.

  “I’m done modeling. If they want me now, I come with bigger curves.” I danced in my chair ignoring the strange looks from other diners.

  She laughed ordering the filet mignon and a bottle of wine. “Here’s to our new adventures.”

  Dinner was silent. Between the planes, rooming with Susie in Alaska for two days, and the shoots, I craved quiet. The best part of school for me was feeling the comfortable silence of my condo as I studied. It was the first time I can remember treasuring it.

  Insecurity about my body, curvier than the other models, made silence an enemy my first years in the business. No one could criticize me like my own brain. It wasn’t until a night with too many drinks and not enough clothing that I found out every one of the women the magazines considered ‘stunning’ had those feelings.

  That’s the night Susie and I became friends. She sat across from me, calmer than I’d seen her in months. She slathered the bread with butter.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I feel settled. The vagabond lifestyle got to me. Thank you for allowing me to live with you.” The smile that sold millions of magazines lit up her face.

  “You keep me sane. If I’m going job hunting, I want you there cheering me on. I’ll do the same for you while you study.” There was no replacement for a best friend.

  She grinned. “You can teach me to cook. Crackers, pudding, and broth don’t count.”

  Her diet scared me when we first met. She barely ate at all afraid she’d get fired from her job. I would make her vegan dishes that gave her enough energy to strut down a catwalk without adding extra jiggle.

  “We’ll get gym memberships. I want to eat but I know if I start to get too big, I may cut back too far.” Also, I wanted to stare at the men. It’d been too long since I’d cuddled up with muscles.

  Susie looked around at the other diners. “No one here to stare at. I could use a date.”

  “You and me both.”

  Our food arrived and we stopped talking. It was delicious. Ignoring the vibrations from my phone, we shared dessert.

  Once in the car, I checked my messages. My mother yelled at me in Portuguese. It seems the girls were pouting. They wanted to cook for us in their Easy Bake Ovens.

  I called her back. “Mom, the girls can cook all the desserts they want. I promise, Susie and I will eat them.”

  “They’ll be so happy.” She told them what I’d said and a loud cheer had me pulling the phone from my ears.

  “Your family’s great,” Susie said. Her parents divorced when she was twenty-two. Her father would chaperone her on photo shoots as a teen. She thought it was sweet until she found out he was using her name to sleep with her friends’ mothers. The divorce was ugly. At least, that break up was private.

  “They’re your family now.”

  “Your mom is going to fix my hair again.” She pulled at her ponytail.

  Blonde hair fascinated my mother. “You have to understand, it’s what she does.”

  “Oh, I know. She treats me better than my mom.” Her mother dove into a bottle after the divorce. She surfaces every few months to ask Susie to pay for rehab. Which, she does hoping each time it will work.

  We left my car with the valet and headed to the elevator. It opened to squeals from little girls whose heads were covered in bows.

  “Mother? You missed a spot.”

  “Enough. They wanted to be girly like their aunt Alicia.” She leaned over the girls huddling around our thighs to kiss me on the cheek. “Welcome home.”

  Susie was next. Mom kissed her, hugged her, and pulled us as a group through the front entrance. My father sat on a couch with a game controller in his hand while my nephews sat around him focused on the screen.

  “Hello, dad. How’s it going?” I called over the excitement.

  “I’m losing to these fabulous boys.” He winked at me. If they only knew he could beat all of them while asleep. He never let them play a game until he’d beaten it at least once.

  Susie allowed herself to be pulled to the floor by the girls. I joined them. Getting my hair done, even by girls five to seven years old, relaxed me. My mother supervised.

  I turned around after the girls started to wear down. Mom was unsuccessfully holding a question between her teeth.

  “Ask,” I prompted.

  “Your last job interview?” Her brows furrowed.

  My initial three interviews went well over the summer. They told me I had the experience they wanted and the education. They never called back. Then in August I began to interview with International Marketing firms. Travel wasn’t a big deal to me.

  That’s when I realized the awful truth. The human resources department stapled small copies of bikini pictures onto my resume. The man I met with two weeks ago met me in a private office suite. When I arrived, there were six men there, all drinking. I knew I should’ve left. Walked right out the door, but I’m stubborn. I lifted my chin and dared them to ask me to strip. It happened a lot to models, the assumption that we drop our clothes for anyone and everyone.

  The man I was supposed to me stepped forward. “Hey there, you’re sexier in person. In order to get this job, strip to your bra and panties. We’ll take some pictures we can use to make our wives jealous.”

  “Would that be my job? Posing in bra and panties for you and your friends? Or was the description you posted correct?” I was fuming. He wouldn’t be able to tell.

  He laughed, his friends clinked glasses. “We can think of an official job for you.”

  I actually thought about hitting him. Growing up with two o
lder brothers, we all took self defense classes. I held a yellow belt in Karate. “You run an advertising agency. I’m not applying to be a model.”

  “Oh, sweetie, this isn’t a modeling job. You would be a special friend to the guys in this room.” He dropped his pants.

  My laughter made him blush. “You have an empty pair of boxers for me? Gentlemen, I’m leaving. The position you’re looking to fill is one no woman will take.”

  I heard the snickers as I left and then the line that hurt me. “Honey, if you think anyone is going to think you have a working brain, you are mistaken.” Spoken with venom. Well, I did hit him below the belt.

  I’d spent the last few months looking for work anywhere. My reputation as a bikini model preceded me. The looks from women and men who thought my boobs were my talent.

  I pulled away from those awful memories to face my mother. “I’ve decided to open my own modeling agency. It’s the only profession who respects what I’ve accomplished. Besides, I have two brothers who have promised to help me with the finances.”

  The shout of joy coming from my mother was unexpected and wonderful. “You don’t have to learn a new business. I love it!”

  Steven helped me up. “Greg and I built the business plan over Thanksgiving. With Alicia’s contacts, we can start booking models in January. She even offered to do some promotional shots for the agency.”

  “A shoot with your clothes on?” Susie, who knew about the interviews, stood up next to me. “If you want me to promote the agency, I’m in.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask you. But I hoped you would.” I pulled her to her feet and hugged her. “This is going to be fun!”

  “You should call Ansel, he’d love to get away from elephant seals!”

  We explained the joke to my family. Dad whispered in my ear. “I’ve always been proud of you, Ally. Tonight, I’m bursting with pride and joy.”

  My knees wobbled. “Thank you.” He was my hero.