Cheryl's plans for the simple life, spreadsheets & cat cuddles, was taking some strange twists to earn an honest living with Gloria Vandergast at the helm. Such as this scheme to run reconnaissance on the neighbor Gloria declared to be her sworn enemy. It forced Cheryl into an itchy uniform. Worse still, having to drive a delivery van.
"Choice Tidbits" was a small fruit and candy catering business as part of the countless imitators of edible style decor arrangements. Gift baskets of cake pops, centerpieces of chocolate dipped fruit shapes and such had been snatched up into Gloria's enterprises from a struggling studio. For her it was a shrewd way to use up baking materials. Today it was a Trojan horse packed with overpriced, nut covered caramel bananas.
Cheryl blew up her cheeks then exhaled. This game of deception was not her forte. She didn't fancy having her green dyed hair tied back by a scratchy visor nor a polo delivery shirt with far too much static cling. Yet the shy girl had been pressed into one of Gloria's zany schemes to get an inside look of the stuccoed ranch style house across from Gloria's new house.
Up the driveway past the gravel lined succulents and palm fronds, she wheeled a package on a dolly cart to the front door. The big windows showed a well decorated living room between the gaps of the half drawn curtains. Stopping the load by the door, the intern into parts unknown rang the doorbell. And waited.
Maybe nobody would be home. This whole plan would go to pot. And what was she going to do with a four foot tall--
Without warning from the other side, the door swung open. Cheryl was surprised to see a young woman with thick, shaggy dark brown hair covering half her face. Her one visible eye was grey and she had shark bite piercings: two pairs of rings on either side of her lower lip with two studs above her chin. She was dressed a grey scrunchy blouse with a pair of ripped skinny jeans. She looked oddly recognizable.
She eyed the box. "You got a body in there." Somehow it didn't sound like a question.
"What? No, ha ha, I'm Shery-leeanne," Cheryl winced. "From 'Choice Tidbits' with a welcome to the neighborhood package for you, it says. Someone must like seeing you here."
The woman shrugged. "Somebody who isn't paying attention, I've been house sitting here for months before my sister sold it."
"Huh," Cheryl said, not sure what to make of that statement. She took a full look of the young woman at the door, trying to puzzle out how she seemed familiar. She was thin, very boyish with hardly any curves to speak of, yet with a soft looking middle. Still rocking that emo/punk look with her style and boots...
"Oh My GOD!!" Cheryl exclaimed, "weren't you one of the players in 'Mercury Soda'?! That hybrid grunge band?"
And now the woman at the door looked taken back. "You listened to our music?" she cringed. "Shit. I am so, so sorry."
"No, don't, I mean, not all of it was good, yeah," her script was abandoned for full on niche music geek mode, "but you guys were so cool! Pauley Spillum, right?"
"Just call me Paul," replied Paul Spillum, bemused to meet a genuine fan. "Thanks for the acclaim but I was only intermediate on sax. And terrible on bass."
"You don't do music anymore?" Cheryl asked.
"Nope. Out of that rat biscuit entirely," Paul said, crossing her arms under a lack of chest. "So what's this about a housewarming gift?"
"For the new homeowner, yes," Cheryl got back into the script. "Which, wait, are you the new homeowner, or if not then who--"
"Paul!" called out a heavily accented voice. "Who is keeping you standing there with the door open?"
Paul gave Cheryl a look and a jerked thumb. "There's your transplant." She turned back towards her roommate. "Somebody sent you a stupidly large box of fruit frackery, Jafit."
"Memesh," Cheryl didn't recognize the language, although her mouth dangled open as the speaker walked up to the threshold. She had done her research along Gloria's list of rivaled bosses in preparation for this mission and now she was seeing Gloria's new neighbor face to face.
The other woman had long chestnut hair a lighter shade than Paul's dark brown, honeyed olive skin and zaftig, full figured curves in a snug sundress. With breasts at least the size of her head! Enough padding in her rear as well! And there was only one woman in the culinary scene with that appearance: Jafit Gamor.
Jafit was an Israeli-Spainard hotshot chef known for her Spanish, Mediterranean & Middle Eastern fusion cuisine. And those giant knockers of hers. Land sakes, was Cheryl suddenly feeling tiny and she had a bit of a rump compared to the likes of Paul Spillum. Jafit had a bigger rump than her, along with a bigger waist yet proportionately small on her overfed hourglass body. She was dead sexy on top of being a talented chef. She also knew four languages: Hebrew, Greek and Spanish along with English. She was becoming a cross-contintial beauty of the kitchen with landmark restaurants in her home of Barcelona, Spain; her second in Tel Avid, Israel; and a third in Marrakesh, Morocco. And she had done it all while being just under Gloria's age.
All things considered Jafit shouldn't have been a direct competitor to Gloria's business. Yet a continuously enduring media campaign in all the big cooking magazines and websites since her debut had disrupted Gloria's past plans for a media blitz. Then, there was some lost pride on Gloria's part being eliminated by Jafit in a charity celebrity chef tournament. And now she was another new member of the Lee's Creek neighborhood if everything was as it appeared. Which probably meant she was working on her rumored project in America.
"Miss Gamor, um, wow," Cheryl was barely able to keep her words straight. "Nice to meet you! Um, you've been gifted as your welcome to the neighborhood one of our biggest products."
"Who is this from, again?" Paul interjected.
Gosh, that was right! Cheryl could barely fathom that not only was an internationally renown chef moving to the states, she was apparently sharing a house with a former alt band member? The mix of fame and infamy made for the most unlikely pair, even before pointing out their contrasts. Cheryl made a show of checking her clipboard. "Gee! I guess the return address was smudged. No matter, shall I wheel this in for you?"
Paul shot her a funny look but the top-heavy Jafit was all smiles. "Please, I would like to see what this 'frackery' is." Paul snorted.
Cheryl was keeping her eyes open as the two roommates led her to the kitchen. Chique, modern furnishings with lots of color populated the house. And Jafit had just purchased it, from Paul's sister? What a small world.
Counter space was cleared as Cheryl opened the box, untying the plastic bag inside. Jafit gasped in surprise of the gift and Paul's eyes grew wide.
"This is," Cheryl had to check her clipboard, "the 'Botanical Bounty Bouquet' in the cactus variation." A fancy name for hundreds of dollars worth of cantaloupe, pineapple, melons, grapes and berries dipped in various kinds of chocolate, yogurt, and fondant stuck into a base to roughly form the shape of a flowering cactus.
That was the trojan gift delivered and Cheryl noting the interior of Jafit's house. The Israeli-Spanard had already dug into a section of the edible display, taking bites from one of the fruit skewers.
Cheryl looked to make her exit. "Well, I never thought I would meet both of you in the same day. I guess I should be going."
"Paul is a dear friend from years ago," Jafit said, using her height advantage to lean on the pierced punk who didn't appreciate having a giant pair of breasts sitting on her shoulder. "And once she's done with her mixology training she'll be my new bartender at my next restaurant."
"Oh wow," Cheryl repeated, knowing Gloria was going to hate this news.
"You should stay for lunch," Jafit said, turning back to her stove, "I had it on the kettle. You can be our first American customer!"
"I really shouldn't," Cheryl said, "that's much too kind."
"You've brought me this wonderful gift," Jafit said, "I insist. Come, stay awhile!"
"Unless you've got a lot of delivers left to do, Sheryleeanne," Paul kept her eyes on Cheryl.
Drat! Cheryl should really be getting out of there before she blew her cover. She should've come up with the excuse of more deliveries, yet Gloria had only loaned her the one van for this specific package. Yet she had tasked Cheryl to observe as much as she can about her new neighbor. Plus, Cheryl didn't have the confidence to figure out how to say no.
By the time she worked up the courage to make her exit, Jafit had already held a plate towards her. "Cocido montañés," she said proudly. "My highlander stew. Only with lamb instead of pork, and we were boiling shrimp as well."
"That does smell fantastic," Cheryl admitted. She had expected to pick up a meal on the way back to the office although she felt hungry now. "Maybe I could stay for a bowl."
"Wonderful!" Jafit said, beaming as she looked from her guest to Paul.
Paul sighed. "Guess I'm getting the drinks."
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