Wax (6 page)

“Oh, sorry,” Jill said, skittering out of their way with more speed once she saw who they were.

Anita and Preston Chandler, CEO and president of the Grosholtz Candle Factory, respectively, looked at Jill with expressions of . . . nothing. Her presence barely registered as a blip on their worldview​—​nothing but a faint gust of wind between them and the next sip of their vanilla lattes.

The Chandlers had swooped into Paraffin years ago, and though the story went that they had inherited the Grosholtz Candle Factory through some nebulous family connections, it sometimes seemed as though they had taken control solely through brute force charm. Anita and Preston were beautiful, beautiful people. Their skin was flawless, their smiles achingly wide. They were a wedding cake topper come to life​—​plastic, eyes straight ahead, solidly standing on top of the world.

“Gutbag,” Anita muttered dismissively at Jill, putting a French-tip manicured finger on the door. “Are you coming?” she asked Preston.

“My tie got coffee on it​—”

“You have one hundred and eighty-three ties, Preston. Surely one of them will be a suitable replacement.”

He followed her out the door, muttering, “Hundred and eighty-
two
now.”

Jill watched them go. “Did she call me a gutbag?” she asked Poppy.

“We continue unabated!”

They continued, unabated, into the café.

Everyone stared, as Poppy knew they would. Everyone stopped eating, as she knew they would. Everyone looked confused, as she knew they would, when she waved and smiled and marched right up to the counter to order half a dozen chocolate glazed donuts. As she
hoped
they would.

She refused to cower. She refused to be embarrassed for the myriad misfortunes that had befallen her. They weren't remotely her fault. Embarrassment was the most useless of emotions in this situation, and Poppy was sick of letting it wash over her without her permission.

She was in charge now.

She would have her donuts.

∗ ∗ ∗

“That was bitchin',” Jill said as they left, stuffing several hundred calories' worth of chocolate into her face. “Did you see Mrs. Debenport? I think she choked on her bagel.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I couldn't tell for sure. A glob of cream cheese was spat into her coffee, at least.”

Mrs. Debenport's ruined coffee did brighten Poppy's spirits, but it was time to focus​—​and to ignore the many eyes watching her pull out of the parking space. Though Poppy had lost many things during her time on
Triple Threat
—​dignity, confidence, a pint of blood​—​she did win a car, having received the most (pity) votes for Audience Favorite. Clementine was bright orange, somehow simultaneously boxy and bulbous, and made Poppy immediately identifiable wherever she drove​—​but humiliation perks, humiliating as they were, were still perks.

As she steered Clementine around the lake, the Grosholtz Candle Factory loomed ahead of them like a mullet: jolly commercialized store out front, creepy Gothic dungeon out back. Its spires seemed taller today, their emaciated fingers stretching imploringly toward the sky while its storefront welcomed them with open arms, a sunny hello, and a color-coded map.

“Here's your map!” the greeter bubbled, handing Poppy and Jill one copy each. She wore a red vest and a customized pin that said
BARBARA'S FAVORITE GROSHOLTZ CANDLE SCENT IS: NEW-FALLEN SNOW!
“If you have questions, ask any of our Waxperts in the red vests. Enjoy your day at the Grosholtz Candle Factory!”

Poppy and Jill nodded their thanks, because for the next thirty seconds, they could not speak. They made it a few feet into the foyer of the store, until they couldn't hold their breath any longer. Jill was the first to blow, followed a few seconds later by Poppy.

The first inhalation was the worst.

“Bluuugh,”
Poppy moaned, sticking out her tongue.

“Gaargh,”
Jill gagged, crinkling her nose.

Hazelnut-melon Christmas. Buttercream-pumpkin seaweed. Herbal-sandcastle coffee. Berry-rubber holiday. Autumn-hamburger landfill. Patchouli-patchouli patchouli.

Poppy fanned her hand across her nose and exchanged a foul glance with Jill. “Instead of maps, they should hand out gas masks.”

“And suicide pills.”

But the agony had just begun. The entrance area alone boasted no less than forty varieties of jams and jellies, a greasy food court, a kiosk offering freshly made fudge, several Scent Stations, and, of course, the main attraction: walls and walls and walls of jars and tins and molds of candles.

“I am going to be sick,” Jill announced. “Excuse me while I duck into one of these Scent Stations and unload the contents of my stomach.”

“Don't. They'll probably make it into a candle.”

“Half-Digested Donut.”

“Chocolate-Glazed Upchuck.”

The line for the make-your-own-candle area was growing by the minute, winding slowly past a conveniently placed price list​—​
CUSTOM LABELS: $5.00; RAINBOW SWIRLS: $3.00; HIDE A SECRET NOTE IN A CANDLE: $10.00​
—​that kids looked upon with delight and parents looked upon with abject hatred. Another vestibule held bottles of Tackety Wax, the Grosholtz Candle Factory's first foray into infomercial-worthy products​—​a sticky wax that promised a tight seal on anything that needed sealing. And eclipsing them all: a large display with a sign that read
INTRODUCING:
B
I
S
CENTENNIALS! COMING TOMORROW!

“‘In honor of our town's bicentennial celebrations,'” Poppy read off the sign, “‘the Grosholtz Candle Factory will be releasing two brand-new, small-batch, exclusive special-edition BiScentennial candles
every day.
For the rest of our bicentennial
year!
'”

“My heavens,” Jill said as they walked farther into the store. “We'll need another full year to recover from the excitement.”

Poppy tried to ignore the costumed musical atrocity that was befalling the food court, but it was not designed to be ignored. A dancing pig dressed in overalls swung his bucket oh so merrily across a raised stage while a trio of cows sang and wiggled their udders. There was also a terrifying anthropomorphic representation of the state of Vermont ambling and cavorting about, his ceaseless, dead stare no doubt sucking the souls from the slack-jawed children who had the misfortune to fall under his tyranny.

“I will miss my eyes,” said Jill, “when I gouge them out. But I see no other course of action.”

“Waterbury gets Ben and Jerry's,” Poppy lamented. “Cabot gets endless cheese. Paraffin gets candles and Vermonty, New England's most beloved nightmare goblin.”

It was then that Vermonty entreated the audience to join him in a stirring rendition of Vermont's state song, “These Green Mountains,” at which point Poppy and Jill bolted as fast as their loganberry-laden lungs would allow.

They found themselves in a waiting room of sorts, where a large sign announced that the next tour would begin in five minutes. Beside it stood the Waxpert tour guide, a perky-looking girl wearing a red vest and a brightly colored felt hat shaped like​—​wait for it​—​a candle. Covering the room was a beautiful glass-domed roof, affording spectators a neck-craning view of the defunct storage tanks, conveniently located just up the adjacent hill. Stained into the glass in elegant, loopy letters was the Grosholtz Candle Factory motto: “One fire, many flames.”

A gaggle of tourists, not a one under the age of fifty, dallied about the room, waiting for the next tour to start. Some studied their maps with the intensity of air traffic controllers, not wanting to lose a precious second of candle factory fun time to poor planning. Others were reading the informational placards on the wall or shouting the contents of the informational placards into their significant others' hearing aids. Still others were sitting on benches, complaining about their feet.

But most were captivated by the extensive diorama that wrapped around the perimeter of the room. Behind a wall of glass in a climate-controlled display, no less than two dozen beautifully sculpted life-size wax figures stood frozen in scenes of Vermontian history and noble pastoral labor. Some tilled fields, some churned butter, some gathered eggs. A crowd of villagers traded wares in the town square. One girl who looked to be about Poppy's age sat on a stool next to a cow, squeezing its udders with a look on her face that could only be described as vengeful.

In fact, her cheekbones kind of looked like those of Poppy's gazebo twin.

Poppy tugged on Jill's sleeve and pointed out the deranged milkmaid. “Fancy a tour?”

Jill groaned. “We already did the tour. In fifth grade. Anthony Colucchio stepped on my Hello Kitty sneaker and made me cry. What if history repeats itself, Poppy? Do you really want that on your conscience?”

“I am willing to risk it, yes.”

“You're a terrible friend.”

“But look at the tour guide's jaunty hat! How bad could it be?”

∗ ∗ ∗

The tour was bad. The jaunty hat could not save it.

Somewhere around the point at which the tour guide cooed, “And
this
is the
wicking
room!” Jill slumped her head up against Poppy and whimpered. “I can't take it anymore,” she said. “We get it. It's wax. It melts. It smells. End of story.”

“The
story
be
gins,
” Poppy said in a pitch-perfect imitation of the tour guide's opening sentence, “in 1865, when the
Gro
sholtz​—”

“Stoooop.”

Poppy smirked, but her patience had worn as thin as Jill's. The tour was duller than her ten-year-old self remembered, and it had been a waste of time to boot; she hadn't spotted any sort of custom-made-statue opportunities. All she'd learned was that Blake may or may not have gone on this same tour and that the popularity of tea lights was on the rise.

“And here we have a drum of Forty Winks wax​—​careful, you may begin to feel drowsy after prolonged sniffing!” the tour guide said with a chuckle. “The Grosholtz Candle Factory is at the forefront of the aromatherapy movement, infusing innovative new blends into our candles that will improve people's moods . . .
and
lives. We've partnered exclusively with the Paraffin Resort and Spa on a new line of relaxation melts, and we're even working on a product called Beacon, a powder that can be used by emergency responders as a sort of olfactory flare gun, for victims to ‘follow their nose' toward help. Just sprinkle it in any flame, and you've got the opposite of citronella​—​reeling them in, instead of warding them off!”

“Because that's what we need,” Jill joked to Poppy. “
More
candle weirdos.”

“And now for a special treat,” the tour guide continued once they'd shuffled from the wicking room into a hallway. “Say hello to Anita and Preston Chandler, the CEO and president of the Grosholtz Candle Factory!”

She pulled open a curtain on the wall, revealing a large window. On the other side of the glass was a luxurious office featuring deep brown mahogany walls, a majestic fireplace complete with roaring fire, and red velvet armchairs with tall seat backs. A living Christmas card, Anita and Preston Chandler stood in front of the fireplace, waving, Smitty's Donut Shop vanilla lattes still in hand.

The senior citizens crowded around the window as if it were the monkey enclosure at a zoo, scrambling to take photos of the fancy people in their natural habitat. Poppy and Jill stayed put in the back.

After a full minute of flash photography, the tour guide put an end to the gawking. “Thanks, Anita and Preston! Time for them to get back to work,” she said, pulling the curtain closed. “Now, I know what you're all thinking. When is this dang tour guide going to talk about hollows? Hollow candles, for those of you not in the know, are wax shells shaped like candles, but they
do not melt!
Instead, they feature a cavity into which you can insert a smaller candle​—​a tea light or votive​—​thereby producing a muted, flickering light that's ideal for​—”

“Oh my God, a candle
within
a candle?” Jill said to Poppy, hysteria rising in her voice. “This tour is becoming a Russian nesting doll of insanity!”

Impatient, Poppy pushed to the front of the group, interrupting the guide. “Those sculptures back in the waiting room diorama, where we started the tour. Is there any way to hire someone from the factory to make something like that?”

The tour guide gave her a curious look. “What is that, the question of the week?”

“Huh?”

“Someone else asked that the other day. But I'm sorry to say it's not a service the Grosholtz Candle Factory provides.”

Poppy turned to Jill. “That had to have been Blake!”

“Sure,” said Jill. “Fine. I don't care anymore.”

“Now,” the tour guide went on, “if you'll look to your left, you'll see a picture of a bee. Bees make wax too! And so do our ears.”

Jill buried her face in Poppy's shoulder.
“Kill me.”

∗ ∗ ∗

Poppy did not grant Jill's request. When an hour later the tour guide led them into a room with a small stage, they were both alive and well and totally miserable.

“Bet there's no furnace under
that
stage,” Poppy said grumpily. “Bet
their
actors don't get into orphan fights.”

The tour guide hopped up onto the stage and wheeled out a table set with two glass bowls of clear liquid. “What does the future hold for the Grosholtz Candle Factory? Let's just say we've got a few more tricks up our sleeve.” She beckoned for an older couple to come forward and held the bowls out toward them. “Go ahead, take a sniff.”