Out for a date

   The moment the food arrived to the table, Anne started eating. She was please that Ryan had finally called her and asked her out for dinner but the truth was that she had been at home wondering about how she would survive the next couple of days, without any food on the cupboards or on the refrigerator. Then, she felt as if God himself had called her when Ryan timid voice came out of her cellphone, asking if she would be willing to go out with him for dinner and some drinks afterwards.

 Right after accepting, she realized she had probably made a mistake. After all, it wasn’t the first time that Ryan had come up to her and asked for a date. He was always looking at her in the office and would be kind of creepy about it, always nearby, pretending he wasn’t really looking but obviously doing it. For a moment, Anne had thought of even calling the police in order to ask for advice on how to handle a stalker. But she had other things to do and she eventually learned to live with it.

 He had actually stopped being so creepy until that night in which she had accepted his invitation. While dressing up, she tried to come up with ideas of what to say when he asked why she had finally accepted. Maybe Anne could tell him that she had always been very appreciative of his intentions and his presents, such as candy that he had always left on her desk. He never said it was him but it was obvious. She had a full jar, filled to the top with candy the candy that he had left her over the last year.

 As she put on her high heels, she realized it might be the best idea to tell him the truth. Maybe, as a person of the same age, Ryan would be able to understand how difficult of a time Anne was having with money. She was barely able to pay the rent and all of her taxes, so food money was always scarce and this was the first month she found herself trying to save every single piece of food for a later date. But now she had nothing at all. Maybe he would understand that.

 She grabbed her purse, her coat and walked to the main door. She looked back and realized she did feel guilty to take advantage of the poor man. It wasn’t fair for her to just take on his proposal when she could use it and then drop him like a bag of potatoes. It wasn’t fair. As she entered the elevator, she decided to tell him the truth and just try to enjoy the night. Maybe he would understand and they could become friends. After all, they worked together and sometimes people find out they have more in common that what makes them different, so they could really be friends, for real.

 Anne arrived at the restaurant just in time. She asked for Ryan and one of the waiters took her to their table. It wasn’t the fanciest restaurant in the world but it was much more than Anne would ever be able to afford with her salary. The people there looked entertained, some of them were clearly faking it but others did seem really happy. Other people were there for business meetings, some even with their families and, a couple or more, were there cheating on their wives or husbands. It was obvious.

 They finally reached the table, were Ryan had been waiting for under ten minutes. He helped Anne sitting down and they discussed what everyone discusses for the first five to ten minutes: the weather and what had happened that day. It was trivial talk and clearly none of neither of their interests, but it was always kind of expected to talk about how cold or hot the days are and criticize the taxi services in town or maybe blame some politician or group of people for traffic jams that have always been there.

 Passed that time, they ordered the food and then a very heavy silence fell between the two. It was difficult to really start a conversation with someone you already know but do not really know anything about. So Anne opened her mouth to talk first, ready to tell him the truth about why she was there but Ryan was the one to talk first. He looked really nice that night and it was the first time Anne really looked at him, paid attention to his face and his words and not the character she had made up in her mind of him.

 He said he was very glad she had accepted the invitation and talked a little bit about the restaurant and how him and his parents loved to go there together, whenever they were in town. He told Anne about how he had grown up very far from the big city, in a farm were everything was simpler and, somehow, better. He always had trouble communicating with people but he was happy that he was making some advances on that field. Again, Anne tried to talk but Ryan, with a hand, asked not to be stopped.

 He continued his monologue, saying he had met the most amazing woman ever. He was in love, deeply in love and he wanted to ask her hand in marriage. However, he didn’t feel he knew everything he needed to know about her and that’s why he had asked Anne for dinner. For a moment, Anne had no words. She had no idea of what was happening. What was Ryan thinking, just coming out of the blue with such a statement? Who did he think she was, an easy girl that would marry any man just because she’s single? She was about to stand up and leave when he spoke again.

 Ryan was in love with Erica, from accounting. They had hit it off right away once he had been transferred there and he knew very well how good friends Erica was with Anne. So that’s why he had thought about her in order to discuss his next move. He wanted someone who knew her to tell him more about what she liked and didn’t like and to know if they thought it was a good idea to propose so soon. They had gone our countless times but maybe that wasn’t enough.

 Anne was speechless. She had really thought it was all about her. She was really prepared to yell at him and make a huge scene in order for everyone in the restaurant to know what a pig and crazy he was. But that wasn’t going to happen anymore because the man she had profiled a while ago as a creep, was not even interested in her. He was interested in Anne best mate at work. She wouldn’t even call her a friend, just a person that she liked to hang out with during lunches and such.

 So after the food came, which she practically devoured, Anne explained all of that to Ryan. She had to be very clear about her not really being friends with Erica. She didn’t even know much about her past or who her parents were or even what she liked to do as a person. But Ryan didn’t really mind about that. He needed a woman to tell him if what he was thinking of doing made sense, if it was the right move. He clarified he didn’t care about their relationship, he only needed urgent advice.

 Ryan suddenly got very grim and seemed to be on the verge of crying. Anne felt very sorry for him and started to talk about what most women like and don’t like and some clues he should be attentive for if he really wanted to pop the question. They talked for several hours, having drinks after the food and even laughing at some of the points they were trying to make. Anne realized it was good that she had come, not only because she was helping Ryan but also because she was making a friend.

 She eventually explained her reason for coming and Ryan just smiled, telling her it was not a surprise that a young person would have struggles with money. No one seems to have enough to survive anymore, or so he said. He was understanding and even charming about it.

 When the moment came for them to day goodbye, Anne decided to ask Ryan about the candy on her desk. She asked him bluntly if it had been him. But Ryan was confused by the question and then they went their separate ways. So Anne had a new friend but she also had a mystery to solve.

Friends & Secrets

   It was very problematic for Sean to admit that his life had improved dramatically since he had joined the gym. He didn’t want to tell anyone about it and only went there once a day, six days a week. Of course, sometime people would ask him where he was and what he was doing, but he had created the illusion that he was attending cooking lessons at a school that happened to be in the neighboring building of the gym. The smell of warm and fresh croissants was almost constant and made almost impossible to focus on one's obliques.

 Sean had never been the kind of guy that went to the gym and cared about his body. Earlier in his life he openly mocked those who took too much care of their bodies and looks. To be fair, he still mocked only that he refrained himself from saying anything out loud because he would really look like a hypocrite if he said something. The difference was the he didn’t exercise because he wanted to look better but because he wanted to feel better, which were too different things. Most of the people there were just show offs that already had a great body.

 Since he was a little boy, he had loved eating candy. His favorites were salted caramel and chocolate. His life wasn’t complete when he was at school if he didn’t have a piece of chocolate with his lunch. It was kind of a ritual, a weird tradition that he had with himself. He kept that for years, until very recently. Actually, some of his friends had begun wondering what had happened to the chocolates he always ate and also about the ones that he kept all over the house in case he wanted something sweet to enhance his day.

 All of those chocolates had disappeared and no one really understood why. Some were not idiots and had realized Sean had lost some weight and, weirdly enough, he looked as if he had grown taller and bigger but not in a bad way. They asked him about it and he only answered he didn’t really knew why and that he partially blamed work and the classes because of the tension he went through every single day. Stress could be a powerful force and could certainly be blamed for many things, so it was a nice save that not everyone bought.

 One of those who hadn’t bought into the story was Billy. He had noticed something really strange one day they were at Sean’s apartment watching a movie. At one point, they were having popcorn and Sean asked if they wanted more. Of course, everyone said yes. To be funny, Sean raised his hands in the air and exaggerated a positive response. It was then when Billy saw it: Sean’s shirt had been raised and instead of a normal belly, he saw a body in the process of getting really ripped. He knew his friend had never been like that.

 Many times before they had taken trips all together. Billy knew his friends bodies, not because he had an obsession with them or anything but because he had seen them in their trunks and bikinis. He knew what they look like. So the new appearance of Sean’s body was a very big surprise for him. Now that he was thinking about it, he remembered that Sean had not attended their last trip to the beach. He had told them that he didn’t feel quite right but when they came back he looked exactly the same, like a normal healthy person.

 Billy decided to follow Sean one day. He worked for his father so he asked him for a day off from the office in order to attend some personal business. His father never asked many questions and agreed almost immediately. They following day, he woke up really early and decided to follow Sean by bike. He decided not to take the car as he suspected Sean would know it was him if he saw it. The first time he saw Sean that day was at seven o’clock, time he left at for work. He stayed in his office until midday, when he came out to lunch.

 It was then when he saw the first red flag: Sean had never been the type to eat big pieces of meat or a large portion of anything. He knew how to choose what his body was capable of consuming. However, he had never been the type to refrain himself from eating something delicious, even if hat something was not especially good for you. Billy remembered fondly the time the two of them had eaten a big plate full of spicy hot wings by themselves, no beverages or carrot sticks with ranch sauce. That had been a fun day.

 But now, he noticed that Sean had bought a salad for lunch, a salad that didn’t even had a piece of chicken or bacon or anything. And the worst part of it all was that he really seemed to be enjoying himself while eating it. Sean stopped looked from a distance and thought that maybe he was been too judgmental and a tad exaggerated. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all if Sean was taking care of himself. He was trying to feel better or maybe it was that he wanted to look hotter or even that he was dating and he wanted to look great for that person.

 That all went to the mental garbage when Billy saw Sean pulling a bottle of water from his backpack and drinking from it. That was just ridiculous. One thing was to take care of his body and all of that but drinking plain water with a lunch that consisted mostly on a bunch of leaves only a turtle would eat, was just insane. Billy thought that there was something really wrong with his friend because he had never seen him like this. Something had to be wrong, that was clear. But what could it be or why could it be?

 After waiting for several hours in a café across the street, Billy followed Sean again and the next destination, to no surprise, was the gym. Granted, it was not the type of gym that had many windows and looked more like a giant fish tank than like a human building, but nevertheless it was a strange thing. Billy decided to go in, as he would see nothing from outside. Of course, he had to pretend he was interesting in joining because otherwise he wouldn’t have been allowed entrance. A trainer showed him round but he didn’t really listened.

 He only saw Sean many minutes later, working out on a huge machine that seemed to be used to help exercise the abdominal area. He had no trainer besides him and seemed to be focusing a lot on what he was doing. For Billy, the sight was really strange but not because it was his friend but because he had never seen someone so focused to do something like that. For a moment, he even thought it was quite admirable that Sean had decided to take on such a challenge, but moments later he felt betrayed again, as a friend.

 He decided to confront Sean. He ditched the trainer telling him he would join after walking around alone and then walked, almost ran, straight to where Sean was. As expected, Sean was quite taken aback when he saw his friend standing there. But then he decided to finish his exercise and then finally stand up, sweating more than he would have wanted to in that moment. The two friends looked at each other and didn’t say a word, not until someone dropped a weight somewhere, slamming his foot. They both laughed, which eased the tension.

 Sean explained to his friend that he had always had self-esteem problems, going back to his high school days. He had always felt fat and ugly and he recently had realized he could actually do something about it. He had begun exercising over a year ago but the change in food had been done very recently. He didn’t call it a diet because he ate as always on weekends and he couldn’t say he was going vegan or vegetarian because his favorite meals consisted of pork chops in a pineapple sauce. Anyway, he was trying something to help him achieve his goal.

 He told Billy he was sorry for lying but Billy interrupted him saying he was a bad friend for never having really talk about their past in a much more open way. If they had, he would have known his buddy’s struggles and could even have helped him. He told Sean he was sorry and then hugged him, which was a first for the two as they had always been the kind of buds that only shake hands. It was a new beginning to their friendship, a much needed one.

Sweet dream

   Anna was deeply devoted to her confectionery business. She did the most beautiful food that also happened to be delicious- Her store was small but people came from all over the city and nearby towns to eat some of her signature products such as the strawberry shortcake with extra flavor and the home-made candy bars that could have any flavor that people wanted. They could be personalized at the request of the client. The strangest flavor she had ever been asked was a mix between curry and lemon, which actually tasted pretty goof. Business was great and she handled everything by herself, having no need of a partner or someone else to take advantage of an idea she had while in high school. Back then, she already knew she wanted to cook the best desserts possible and she even tried new recipes with her family every Thursday night.

 Life was good to Anna. She was happy with her business and had recently moved to a small but nice apartment in order to be more independent from her family. She was also considering an offer that would make her candy bat available at a major supermarket chain, which would make her products even more well known and the amount of money she would make was going to be huge. But she wasn’t really sure if to accept the proposal or not. She was afraid of, with time, losing control of her business and finally selling to a large company that didn’t have any love for the art or respect for her creations. It was something she thought every single night before going to bed and it made her a bit crazy. She wanted an answer fast, to know what to do.

 She asked the advice of every member of her family and some of her friends and most of them agreed that of her small store could handle the amount of work, they should definitely sign the contract with the supermarket chain. After all, it wouldn’t be an industrial sized agreement and her products would only be sold there. It wasn’t like she was going to lose entire control of everything. So in her next meeting with the guy from the supermarket chain, she accepted and signed the contract. According to it, her store had to provide a thousand hand-made candy bars of several flavors. As they were normally personalized, they just asked her to make her top five flavors, whichever they were. She accepted and started hiring extra hands.

 They had to work on weekends and the amount of ingredients that had to be bought was simply huge. Only her employees, the three that had been with her since the beginning, would be in charge of the store as such, cooking what people had learned to expect from it. Once a month there was a new product, proposed either by Anna or by some member of her staff. In the other hand, six people worked on weekends to produce candy bars for the supermarket. She had only two weeks before having to surrender her products so everything had to be very calculated and controlled.

 The flavors chosen were orange yogurt, spicy lemon, raspberries in dark chocolate, pineapple and mango and, finally, their classic passion fruit flavor. Those were the ones people had learned to love in her store since its opening only two years earlier and she was proud her clients proved to be such innovative people. They were always really open about the new sweets and were always very kind when submitting their opinions. Anna had created, with help from a friend, a web page where clients could see all of her products and also comment about every single one of them. She would normally use one night per week to read the new comment and use whatever she may find useful from them. Normally, she just laughed or felt proud but sometimes people had interesting ideas and she credited them for the ones that became successful products.

 However, things began to decline after the second months of her contract with the supermarket chain. It all started when her weekend workers started to demand a higher salary. They thought they were exploited by Anna at their current salary, working like mad from dusk till dawn every Saturday and Sunday and even some Mondays. They argued that her store made enough money to pay everyone fairly. Apparently, they resented the fact that her store staff made more money than them, which she had explained once as been simply because of seniority. The thing was they didn’t want to hear none of that. They just wanted more money or they would stop coming and that would be the perfect way to destroy Anna’s creation, and pride, for good.

 On the other hand, the supermarket chain had begun complaining about the quality of the candy bars that were sent to them the third week of contract. Apparently, they lacked the flavor and they accused Anna of sing less ingredients to make more bars which was ridiculous because her order was always the same. She didn’t even fake to be offended and stormed out of the office of one of the executives of the supermarket chain. Anna knew very well it hadn’t been her brightest moment but she couldn’t stand to be accused of doing something she would never do. Seeking a lawyer, she finally found a good one thanks to a friend. She had a meeting with him and asked about the possibilities of ending the contract with the supermarket chain.

 The lawyer, a very serious and older man, browsed through the contract and finally advised her not to end it as the repercussions to her would be simply too difficult to bare. She would have to pay a lot of money and her company would be bankrupt even before paying all of what she had to pay, if she decided to walk away from the contract. Again, Anna had trouble sleeping at night with so much to think about. She finally decided to raise the salary of her workers but not as much as they had hoped. It was clear to them by her words that no more raises would be granted before the end of the contract. Some workers left but she hired new ones and the quality of the chocolate began to improve.

 Anna also had a conversation with the supermarket chain, in which she announced her intentions of not renewing her contract with them but meeting their quotas and demands for the current contract. They really did not have anything to say because they couldn’t really pressure her into signing for one more year or even more time. The work relationship was tense there and they even threatened to sue if the quality of the candy bars was ever too low for their standards. But as she begun to closely watch the production of the candy for that damn contract, they had no base from which to keep annoying her. The candy bars where as tasty as always and her employees were finally happy or at least not aggressive. That was already an improvement.

 However, she never expected one of her trusted workers in the store to go away. Her name was Linda and she had been by Anna for many years, as they knew each other from high school. Linda announced her intentions to leave but not for any salary reasons or because she had grown to dislike the whole thing. It was more like the opposite: she had learned to love making sweets so much that she had decided to became a professional. She wanted to study a full four-year career in order to learn everything there was to know and become the best candy maker ever. Linda had always been pretty ambitious but Anna had failed to see that because of her own ambitions. When Linda announced her departure, she asked her for forgiveness and hugged her tight. Anna also told her she had a place in the store any time she wanted to come back, even if she became world renowned.

 Anna celebrated with everyone on her staff, both from the weekends and from the store, the end of the contract with the supermarket chain. There were rumors they had copied the recipes and now they were going to produce the candy themselves or that maybe rival stores would provide them with the candy that Anna had refused to give them ever more. One or the other, Anna was glad all of that ordeal had ended because she had realized that her dream was a place where she could do her own thing and experiment and be close to her clients. That contract had crushed the soul of her idea and now she needed it back in order to make it beautiful and bright again.

 The following month, she released a whole new set of products, all with exotic fruits and ingredients that would surprise everyone. She had been doing research for weeks and cooking at home to finally come up with some sort of prize to her devoted store clients who hadn’t left her in the year she had been busy doing candy bar for a corporation. The flavors and the candy were loved by everyone and she even had to ask three of her weekend workers to stay and help in the store. Her family grew that way and she realized that her life was better than ever because now she knew what she really wanted to do and what really made her happy. Her heart was always sweet and, now, more than ever.