***
At ten minutes to six, I walked up the steps to Lily’s house. There was a note on the door that simply read Please Come In. When I opened the door, the house chimed. My house did the same thing; it let everyone inside know that someone was entering the residence. I wondered if all the houses were equipped with chimes. It seemed logical that they were.
“Hello?” I called out
Lily yelled back, “In the kitchen!”
When I entered the kitchen I found Lily and Fisher standing in front of the sink. Their soapy hands were intertwined under the running water. Lily giggled and flicked water and bubbles at Fisher’s face.
“Hi, Lil. Fish,” I smiled. “What are you up to?”
“We just made the biggest mess. We were trying to make my mother’s sweet lemon glaze,” Lily laughed. “It didn’t turn out so well.”
“The project was a total failure,” Fisher admitted with a mischievous smile.
“Where is your mother? Why didn’t she make it for you?” I asked.
“My parents are with yours, at that dinner party,” Lily answered.
I remembered the message from my father that I’d received earlier in the day. Your mother and I will not be home this evening. Duty calls. Have a nice time at Lily’s. It seemed that “not be home” actually meant “at a dinner party with Denver and Cheyenne.” Lily was right. I needed to ask more questions.
“So you two have been here all alone,” I winked.
Lily blushed.
Fisher looked away.
“Who all is coming?” I asked.
“Stone is on his way. Ash and Holly should be here too,” Fisher said.
“Pet 1, Pet 2, and Willow, because Holly doesn’t do anything without Willow,” Lily added.
“Clay wants to stay home and go through his notes from the week. No surprise there. But I think Ridge is coming and he might bring one of his other friends.” Fisher summed up the other attendees.
Lily pointed to the box I was holding. “What did you bring?”
I placed the box on the counter. “Oat, nut, and brown sugar muffins. Dallas, Aspen’s chef, left them for me. He said they were divine. I’m actually dying to try one.”
I lifted the lid and pulled one of the muffins out. I ripped off the top (the top of the muffin was always the best) and then took a big bite of it. The slight crunch of the nuts, the hearty oats, and the sweet brown sugar, mixed together with Dallas’s secret blend of spices (that he refused to divulge)… all those flavors… I loved it. “Mmmmmm,” I hummed while I chewed.
Lily saw the look on my face and giggled. “That good?”
“That good! Here. Try,” I said and brought the piece of muffin to her mouth.
She took a bite. “Seriously amazing,” she said and grabbed the rest out of my hand to bring to Fisher. “Try this,” she said.
Fisher opened his mouth and Lily placed the piece of muffin up to his lips. As he took the morsel into his mouth he seemed to kiss the tips of her fingers. Lily’s smile was one that I’d never seen before. It was a very intimate moment. I felt like I was intruding.
“I think I heard something. I’ll go check the door,” I said softly, not wanting to break their moment.
Neither of them said a word as I walked out of the room directing myself toward the front door. Coincidentally, the door opened just as I neared and Stone came walking in.
“Blue!” he exclaimed.
“Stone!” I countered.
He studied the expression on my face. “Why do you look so strange?” he asked and then puffed up his cheeks with air.
“No reason. Come on, they’re in the kitchen. I‘m sure the door chime has… nothing. Follow me,” I fumbled my words.
Stone released his air bubble. “Ooh, and you’re acting strange too.”
“Lovebirds,” I whispered.
“Aaaah. Now I understand. Sickening, isn’t it?”
I nodded my head. “And awkward.”
Stone followed me into the kitchen and placed a small white box on the counter.
“Stone!” Fisher smiled, stepping away from Lily. “Did you bring it?”
“Bring what?” I asked.
Stone opened the box to reveal small bite sized pieces of something light brown. The smell that emanated from the box was mouth watering. It smelled a bit like the hard candies we were permitted to have on certain Concord holidays, but the scent was richer.
Lily licked her lips. “What is that?”
“It’s called toffee,” Stone said as he picked out four pieces and distributed one to each of us. “And it’s the most amazing candy. I think it’s just made from sugar and butter, I don’t know. Anyway it’s cooked in some special way. Apparently it is only made once a year and you can only buy one box. My mother said she gets an extra box from her neighbor, because the crazy woman doesn’t really like it. I begged her to let me bring this little bit so you guys could taste it. It’ll be months before it comes out again, and we can get some of our own. Anyway, pop it in your mouth. You can suck it or chew it. I suck on it, because it lasts longer that way, and if you chew it gets stuck in your teeth.”
I placed the piece of toffee in my mouth and let my tongue move across the surface of it. The sweet flavor coated the inside of my mouth. “Oh wow, Stone.”
Lily’s eye widened. “This is better than that hot chocolate drink.”
Fisher slapped Stone on the back “I told you they’d love it.”
“My mother has a weakness for sweet tasting things,” Stone said.
The door chimed again, announcing the next arrivals. Stone hid the box of toffee, stating that it was too valuable to be devoured by the herd, and then we went to welcome our friends. Within a few minutes, the rest of the group had arrived, carrying various bags and boxes filled with treats. Ridge was the last to arrive; he had Thorn with him.
I hadn’t interacted much with Thorn during Incorporation. He was usually quiet and kept to himself, so it was nice to see him at something social. Even though he didn’t say much, his eyes were always moving about as if he was absorbing every detail of the world around him. I liked that about him.
Lily announced that she was going to start the video on the wall screen, so we gathered in the other room and sat down to watch the comedy. As usual, I could predict the ending quite soon after the beginning. Lily only had to tell me to be quiet once… after I said, out loud, the name of the secret admirer a few minutes before he was revealed on screen. I kept my mouth closed during the last half of the video. I had such a bad habit of spoiling the ending, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t do it.
After the film was over, Lily brought out what was left of the food. She placed it in the center of the room and we all sat around it on the floor and just talked.
“What other videos have you seen recently?” Willow asked the group.
“I liked the historical drama that told of the Origins of Concord’s Council,” Fisher offered. “The people at the time were not doing well at all. It’s no wonder The Council was formed.”
“There was that love story about a Marriage Contract that almost didn’t happen because of a selfish woman. I loved how she saw the error in her ways and made things right in the end,” Petunia sighed.
“Oh yes,” Petals agreed. “I liked that one too.”
“How about books?” I asked. “Has anyone read that new one… the cover image had a little girl on it… she was wearing a blue dress… ack. What’s it called?”
“I haven’t seen that one,” Lilly pulled at her bottom lip in confusion.
“Neither have I,” Holly shrugged.
I clapped my hands together as the title came to me. “I remember now. Lost on the Way to the Beach. There is this little girl, like I said, and she is on a trip to the beach with her caretaker. They are walking through a wooded area, and I think they get lost. That’s as far as I got.”
Willow shook her head. “I scan the new selections every day and I didn’t see that o
ne.”
I jumped up from the floor where we sat. “I’ll get my tablet and show it to you.”
My black bag was still in the kitchen. I grabbed it, brought it back into the other room, and took out my personal tablet. As I started scanning through the Library, Willow looked over my shoulder.
“All the same selections I have,” Willow noted.
“It was here,” I exasperated.
I’d read almost half of it already, and I was planning to finish the rest of it the next day. I couldn’t believe it was just gone, vanished from my tablet.
“Whatever it was, it is not there now,” Ridge commented. “That’s not exactly uncommon. If the media department receives several complaints about the same book they will pull it from all devices. My father is a media distributor. He works with Thorn’s father,” he explained.
“They sit in front of wall tablets all day, don’t they?” Stone asked.
“Probably,” Ridge shrugged.
“Ugh. No desk,” Stone sighed.
“Well that’s frustrating,” I sighed. “I really liked the story so far.”
“Make up a new ending,” Stone suggested with a wink. “Come on, you know you want to.”
I pushed his shoulder hard, almost knocking him off balance. “Maybe I will!”
Thorn’s eye glinted with curiosity. “You do that too?” he asked me.
“Do what?”
“Make up new endings to stories.”
“Sometimes,” I said. “When I think it would be more interesting if the story took a different path. Sometimes I think it would be nice if the characters did something unexpected.”
“Me too,” Thorn smiled. “Did you know I was assigned to the Writing Department? I’m leaning toward Creative Storytelling rather than News and General Information.”
“I didn’t. But if you like to make up story endings then it sounds like the perfect placement for you. Lily, Fisher, and Stone once thought that I might end up creating stories. I think it would have been a nice career, but I guess it simply wasn’t meant to be.”
Thorn shook his head. “I suppose not. Destiny had other plans for you.”
“We can’t argue with destiny, can we? It’s all for the best, right?” I asked, slightly uncertain of my own words.
“Is it?” Petals sighed looking down at the X branded into her flesh.
Petunia grabbed her sister’s hand. “It is,” she said softly. “Did we tell you all our plan?” she asked the entire group. “I guess we couldn’t have. It was approved by The Council just this morning. Since we are identical twins, so alike in every way, we have decided to stay together always. You see, any child I have will also look like it came from her, and since Petals is infertile but I am not, I can have one for me and then have one for her.”
“We will need to marry brothers,” Petals continued. “That way there will be similar genetic material from the fathers as well as from us. The Council has approved for a Marriage Broker to look in all four Concords to find two brothers, close in age, for us to marry. I think it would be nice if we all lived in the same house.”
“Of course!” Petunia agreed. “Our mother came up with the idea and Father approached The Council with our plan. Concord will not even charge our family for the Marriage Broker’s services. They just want us to appear at a few public functions and make a Marriage video to show the Citizens how gracious The Council is being to us. Being an identical twin is quite special.”
I moved to position myself between the two of them and pulled them into a group hug. “I think both of you are beyond special. I’m happy for you.”
Petals wrung her hands together. “I hope they find a good match for us.”
“I’m sure they will. We will be together. That is all that matters,” Petunia concluded.