Pastry Mystery: Cheesecake Mistake

Chapter Nine

Three days had passed since the police released Libby from the jail but she was still a hot potato in Amaranth Creek. A new rumor that spread all over the town was that Libby accidentally added a rat poison instead of cornstarch in her cotton cheesecake. As if it wasn’t ridiculous enough, people also blamed it on Toby for being reckless to let Libby meddling with the bakery business. People seemed to forget that Libby was the daughter of Jimmy Vanderbilt and also the new owner of Pastry Mystery. As a result of the rumor, the number of customers that came to Pastry Mystery decreased day by day. In around one week after the cops falsely arrested Libby and named her as the main suspect of Jessica Medley’s murder case, there were only twelve loyal buyers who still regularly came to Jimmy Vanderbilt’s bakery.

“I don’t want to go to the market anymore!” whimpered Libby as soon as she got back from the market. Toby asked her to get some cornstarch since they were running out of it. He only laughed nervously at Libby and hinted her with his eyes that they had a customer now. “Oh, hi Barth. I didn’t see you there.”

“Hey, girl. What’s wrong? Why don’t you want to go to the market anymore?” questioned Barth Smithson, their loyal buyer who was also a good friend of Jimmy Vanderbilt.

“Am I stupid? Do I look stupid?” asked Libby.

“If you’re stupid, what am I then?” joked Barth. “You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever known in my life, Libby.”

“Mike from the market kept telling me that the difference between a cornstarch box and a rat poison box. Of course, I know the difference! What, am I illiterate?” grumbled Libby while unloading her groceries on the store table. Barth couldn’t hold his laugh listening to Libby’s complain.

“Oh, honey. Just let them talk. Those ungrateful people,” said Barth wiping tears from his eyes. “When your father was still around, they all came to him anytime they needed help and now you’re in a trouble, they just easily turn their back on you. And Sheriff Jack Curtis, don’t take him seriously. He only bluffs but he can’t even shoot with his gun properly.”

“Thanks for coming, Barth,” said Toby handing over a bag of Danish pastries to the old man in front of him. Barth then excused himself as he had to go to work. The retired police officer announced that he became Russell Fontana’s new gardener. As soon as Barth left, Libby and Toby returned to their work even though there was not much to do for them lately.

At the end of the day, they had more leftover food to throw away than yesterday. Libby couldn’t stop grunting as she brought all the remaining pastries and cakes to the disposal bin. Now she understood how her father felt anytime there were not many customers coming. She could hardly dispose of all the pastries she made last night with Toby but keeping them would also be useless. Toby and she couldn’t eat up everything and Jimmy would rise again from his grave if he knew they served leftover food for their loyal customers.

“One day, they will all line up in front of Pastry Mystery again for my Danish pastry and then I will say, ‘oh, sorry, it’s all sold out’,” vowed Libby to herself as she cleaned up the store.

“But you will keep some for me, won’t you?” asked Russell startling Libby.

“Oh, Russell. You surprise me,” Libby grinned from ear to ear to see her friend coming. “How are you doing?”

“I’m good. And you too, I guess. Anyway, I can’t stay long, I just come to ask you something,” explained Russell.

“And what is that?”

“Do you have time tomorrow morning? Tommy Olsen’s new movie is in the cinema already. I thought you might want to see it with me,” offered Russell, but Libby shook her head and smiled.

“Oh really? That’s sweet of you, Russell. But no, thank you. I- I have a lot of things to do here. I have to help Toby as well.”

Russell nodded even though a slight of disappointment drawn clearly on his face, “Oh it’s fine, I understand. Then we’ll do it next time.”

“Yes, sure.”

It was actually a lie—Libby had another plan tomorrow evening. As Tommy Olsen’s die-hard fans, she knew that tomorrow was his new movie’s premiere. She even had booked two tickets for herself and Toby, and that was why she declined Russell’s invitation. She could’ve just said it to him, but she was afraid that Toby might hear it. She didn’t want Toby to find out about her surprise for him.

“Russell, wait,” halted Libby grabbing Russell’s arm. He turned around and Libby kissed his left cheek. “Thank you so much.”

Russell’s face turned red since he didn’t prepare himself for a sweet but unexpected act that Libby did.

“Your welcome. Bye,” said Russell excusing himself to go.

Bam! Libby was startled as she heard the door to the kitchen getting slammed. Maybe it was because of the wind, she assumed since she opened the front door widely and it was pretty windy outside.

Thunder blared loudly in the sky of Amaranth Creek and awakened Libby from her deep sleep. It was still dark outside and the sun wouldn’t come out until around forty-five minutes later. She could barely close her eyes the whole night until a couple of hours ago. Even though nasty rumors about her and Pastry Mystery were still all over the town it didn’t really bother her until she was awake for hours. And no, she wasn’t scared that the killer would come back to Pastry Mystery and this time might end her life. It was the second night that she begged Toby to sleepover on the couch in the living room. She walked out of her room to see if Toby was still there. She sighed in relief when she found him still sleeping tight in front of the TV. She pulled up the blanket that only covered half of his body carefully since she didn’t want to wake him up.

Toby was the very reason for her to stay up almost the whole night. Since Libby moved back to Amaranth Creek, all that she and Toby did was mostly arguing. Things were finally going well between them after the police let go of Libby from the cell. They even spent more time together to talk about everything, except that Toby was a man who kept things for himself. He was more of a listener and he seemed to enjoy every story and joke that Libby told him. They finally became friends and Toby could finally begin to fulfill his promise to Jimmy—teaching Libby everything about the bakery. Last night, however, he ghosted Libby out of the blue. He didn’t reply anything she said to him and when Libby tried to talk it out with him, he refused with silence.

Libby couldn’t think of any single mistake that she might have done to annoy him. She didn’t even make any cotton cheesecake anymore since she got out of jail. She kept her promise to learn to make their signature Danish pastry and the result wasn’t bad as well. What have I done? she thought. She even planned to take him to the cinema as a gratitude for proving her innocence to the police.

“Did he find out about it?” she mumbled. “If he did, maybe he doesn’t like going to the cinema? Or he hates Tommy Olsen? Oh my god! What kind of person who hates such a great actor like Tommy?!”

“No I don’t hate Tommy Olsen,” replied Toby suddenly still with eyes closed and startling Libby who had been watching him sleep.

“Why don’t you tell me that you’re awake?” complained Libby.

“What are you doing there?” asked Toby back as he opened his eyes.

“No- nothing. I was just…”

“Then move. I want to sleep again,” said Toby turning his back to Libby and closed his eyes again.

“What is wrong with you? What have I done so wrong this time?” queried Libby. “If you find out about it already, you can just tell me that you don’t like going to the cinema with me.”

Toby spun around and looked at Libby confusedly. He seemed to have no idea what she was talking about.

“What cinema?” he questioned. Libby closed her mouth with both of her hands quickly—she ruined her own surprise. She shook her head and tried to escape but Toby pulled her until she fell on him. Toby looked very calm despite having Libby laying on his chests and their face was just a few inches apart from each other. Meanwhile, Libby’s heart was ready to explode from beating way too fast until she thought she could hear it.

“No- nothing. Let me go,” said Libby trying to get up but Toby held her tightly in his arms.

“What cinema?” he repeated his question. Libby could feel his warm breath blowing on her face.

“I- I bought two tickets to see Tommy Olsen’s new movie for us tonight. It was supposed to be a surprise but I thought you knew already and you didn’t like the idea,” she stuttered.

“No. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Then why did you ghost me last night? Why are you mad at me?” asked Libby.

“Because you did something stupid last night,” he answered lightly. Libby wasn’t sure if he actually realized that he still held her very tight in his arms. Her left leg would get cramped if he didn’t let her go soon.

“Wait a second, so you want to go to the movie with me tonight?” she confirmed.

“Yeah, sure. Why not?”

“What did I do last night?” Libby asked one more time but he still didn’t say anything. He only stared at her deeply in her eye. “Oh come on, I can’t read your mind.”

“You kissed Russell and I don’t like it,” replied Toby firmly. Her heart stopped beating for a second as Libby was surprised to hear the reason he ignored her last night. She didn’t expect any of it and she thought she was still dreaming. Toby still locked her in his eyes and, literally, arms and Libby finally gave in. Was he jealous? Oh, gosh! How could he look so calm right now? she thought. After a moment of awkward silence between them, Libby closed her eyes. She didn’t know why but she just did. She learned it from many romantic comedy movies she watched where usually the two main characters would kiss after a certain length of staring at each other deep in the eye. Libby could feel that her face became as red as a steamed lobster. She nearly got a heart attack when Toby’s breath blew even closer and harder on her lips.

“Okay, we’ll go to the movie tonight. Now I’m going to sleep again,” said Toby as he pushed Libby away from her until she fell from the couch.

“Ouch,” grunted Libby as she fell for the second time this morning. She wished that she would die from embarrassment right now. What was she thinking? She felt very stupid for believing that Toby would kiss her. She ran back to her room and she didn’t know whether she could look at Toby in his eyes anymore after this silly incident.