Free Sweet Dreams on Center Street by Sheila Roberts Page B

protested.
    â€œThings are quiet right now. I’ve got the time.”
    Quiet? What did that mean? Wasn’t her dating service doing
well?
    Cecily tended to keep things to herself. When she had a crisis
they never heard about it until it was long over.
    Still, this worried Samantha. “Not that I don’t want you,” she
said, “but you can’t just up and leave your business for several weeks.”
    Cecily put on what Samantha thought of as her poker face; her
expression gave nothing away. “I’m closing the business. It’s a long story,” she
added before Samantha could press her for details. “Anyway, I’ve had all the sun
I can take. I need seasons. I can rent out my condo, and I bet Charley would let
me have a job waiting tables at Zelda’s a couple of nights a week. That would
leave me free during the day to work on the festival with you guys. Mom, can I
stay with you?”
    â€œOf course,” Mom said. “But I think you girls need to figure
out a few more things first, like where we’d hold this festival.”
    â€œAll over town.” Bailey almost whacked Cecily in the nose with
her sweeping hand gesture.
    â€œI bet we could get all the B and Bs to participate and offer
some special rates,” Samantha said thoughtfully. “No one has full occupancy
these days, so maybe some of them would offer a special discount for that
weekend.”
    â€œOh, and the restaurants can feature special chocolate
desserts,” Bailey said.
    â€œWe could award a plaque to the one that comes up with the most
creative dessert, using our candy, of course,” Cecily suggested. “Bragging
rights for them, profit for us.”
    â€œI love it,” Samantha said. This scheme was looking better by
the minute.
    Bailey nodded eagerly. “Our local artists can set up booths in
the park along Center Street. Heck, we can all have food booths over on Alpine
like we do on the Fourth of July.”
    â€œGirls, this all sounds lovely, but you have to have time to
get people on board,” Mom said.
    â€œSince when isn’t the Icicle Falls Chamber of Commerce on board
with anything that brings in tourist business?” Samantha argued. “I could work
that angle.”
    â€œMe, too,” said Bailey. “I can phone people from here. Oh, this
could be really big. We can hand out samples, give tours of the factory, all
kinds of cool stuff.”
    â€œBut there’s the matter of permits,” Samantha said, coming down
to earth with a thud. “We can’t just decide to have a festival without getting
permits for the sale of food and alcohol. And we need a special-event permit
that all the departments sign off on. It takes time for all that to make the
rounds in city hall.”
    â€œBut if it’s good for Icicle Falls I bet you can find someone
to move the process along,” Cecily said.
    Hmm. Her sister had a point there.
    â€œLet’s try it, anyway,” Bailey urged. “Think of all the
chocolate-lovers we can lure up here. Oooh, and we could have a chocolate ball,”
she added dreamily. “I can see it now, an old-fashioned masked ball where
everyone dresses up.”
    â€œAnd have that chocolate dinner before,” Cecily put in.
    â€œWe can sponsor the dinner and the ball and sell hot chocolate
and truffles in a booth.” Bailey was beaming now, on fire with a million
ideas.
    If they could manage to pull off even some of them…Samantha
felt the fire catching in her, too. “We’d need to advertise in the Seattle
papers, set up a website.” She grabbed a piece of paper from Waldo’s desk and
began scribbling notes to herself.
    â€œThat will cost money,” Mom pointed out. “Girls, I just don’t
think we can raise what we need by sponsoring something like this. Sponsoring,
by its very nature, involves cost.”
    Now that they were going down the tubes she was deciding