Free Dream a Little Scream by Mary Kennedy Page A

phoneclasped to her ear, shaking her head and taking notes. When she finally hung up, I pulled out one of the ladder-back kitchen chairs and sat down across from her. “That bad?” I asked sympathetically.
    Ali pushed her notepad toward me. “It’s worse than bad; it’s a nightmare. All cancellations,” she said in a wobbly voice. “I can’t believe it. You’d think we’d contracted the plague. People don’t want anything to do with us or our food.”
    I quickly scanned the names on the list. Some were new customers who’d ordered catering jobs for special events. We’d invested a few hundred dollars handing out samples and developing a free “tasting menu,” hoping it would pay off with local businesses and civic groups.
    It looked like our efforts had been a dismal failure. “Even the Little Miss Chef contest?” I frowned. “I paid a sales call on the pageant organizer last week and gave her fifty free mini-desserts for the girls.”
And a thick wad of coupons for free half pounds of our retro candy. And a generous donation to her nonprofit
, I thought grimly.
    The organizer—a prominent civic leader here in town—had been so appreciative and friendly. How could she pull the plug on us? It felt like a betrayal of the worst sort. She’d said she loved the food and candies at the shop and had promised to recommend us to all her friends. What had happened? There was only one explanation, and Ali and I both knew what it was.
    â€œSonia,” Ali said bitterly, as if she had read my mind. “Sonia happened.”
    I started to contradict her and then stopped. The truth was staring us both in the face and there was no way to sugarcoat it. I had thought inviting Sonia Scott to sign books at the shop was going to be a fantastic boost to our struggling business, and instead it may have killed us. At the very least,we’d taken a major hit, and I had no idea how to turn things around.
    â€œIf only we hadn’t served food,” Ali said, her face creased with despair. “It’s the food that did it—at least that’s what people will think. If only we had stuck to the book signing, none of this would have happened.”
    â€œIt was inevitable,” I reminded her. “The food was a big part of the promotional effort. It did draw a crowd,” I said, remembering the fans eagerly munching on goodies from Sonia’s cookbook. “Ali, we both thought it was the right thing to do, and there’s no sense in second-guessing ourselves now. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”
    â€œI know you’re right,” she said, scooping Scout onto her lap. She began idly stroking Scout’s thick fur and her features relaxed a little. Barney and Scout have the ability to sense when either one of us is upset, and they always seek us out for a little cuddling. A few soft purrs and head nuzzles can do wonders. The cats are highly sensitive to our moods, always ready to offer their own brand of feline comfort. “I guess we need to develop a game plan.” She blew out a little puff of air and her voice was stronger.
    â€œThat’s the spirit.” I was glad to hear the new note of resoluteness in her voice. The old Ali would have crumbled in the face of adversity or simply closed the business, but my sister had grown in so many ways in the past few months. I felt a rush of pride. Ali was showing a strength of character that I’d never seen before; her fighting spirit was an inspiration to me.
    I’m the one with the MBA and the business background, but I was stymied at what we should do next. If people really believed that our food had something to do with Sonia’s death, it was going to be hard to turn this around. I made a mental note to ask Sara if she thought running a piece in thelocal paper would help. Or would that just make it worse? This was a tough call.
    And I needed to find out