Lou Milner - The Day Before Valentine's

The Day before Valentine's

by Lou Milner

Lacey would do anything for Kamea. The woman had rescued her from volunteerism at an East-side street clinic and a job folding panties at Fat 'n Sassy Underthings for the Oversized, where they met. They had coffee together a few times, and Kamea was so impressed with Lacey's ability to sniff out the best java joints in town that she hired her. Lacey loved being Kamea's prized bean smeller at the Olfactory House, in Vancouver, where their motto is "if it smells, it sells." Wesley, who also has a nose for the business, is Kamea's bean counter. They're a happy, busy trio, working seven days a week to get Kamea's decaf coffee biz off the ground.

Tomorrow, Valentine's Day, they go live. Today, they play.

Won't Kamea be surprised, mused Lacey as she quickly worked to set the stage for a memorable day: sand, check; sunlamp, check; fake orchids and forever leis, check-check. God, look at the time. Grass skirt, palm tree, family photos, check-check-check. God-God-God. She should have come earlier. But then again, she didn't know earlier. It was Wesley's idea. He called and asked her to take over; said he had a "crisis to manage" at his mummy's nursing home.

"Shut up, phone," she demanded. Kamea will be here any second. "Hello?" said Lacey into her cell as she reached for the hastily scribbled checklist from Kamea's desk, which now looked more like an active volcano amid a sea of beach rubble.

"How's it going?" asked Wesley.

"I'm on the set of Scary Movie 4, being shot in Hawaii. Where are you?" said Lacey, en route to the kitchen.

"Brew the Kona. I'm on my way with cheese scones and ham."

Coffee was already ground and prepared for infusion. The guy was amazingly thorough, thought Lacey, as she flipped the switch and absently tossed her checklist into the kitchen garbage.

"Morning, Sunshine," sang Kamea, coming down the hall and entering the kitchen without stopping in her office. "You're early. Coffee ready?" Kamea was addicted to coffee but allergic to caffeine, which was the primary motivation for starting the Online D-Kaf Kona Koffee Kompany.

"Morning, Boss" countered Lacey, somewhat distracted by a torn piece of notepaper stuck to the garbage bag. "You can stop it if you want."

Kamea pulled the jug and poured herself a cup. Lacey reached for the sticky note. She read in disbelief the offending scrawl—

"Smells a bit beanie," said Kamea, drinking the musky liquid, anyway.

Lacey's heart th-th-th-thumped to a stop, then a start, then again lurched ahead. She was stunned by what she read. Why would he—they—do this to her? Everything's in place. They're launching tomorrow.

"Beanie?" Lacey whispered. Louder now, "I don't think it's beanie."

"I beg your pardon?" said Kamea, clearly the superior.

Lacey handed Kamea the scrap of paper she'd unstuck from the bag.

Dangling the wretched fiber by its corner, Kamea read the traitorous words. "Oh. Uh. Hmm."

" 'She's lost her sense of smell? Send her back to her underpants?' " Lacey was livid.

"Um, well, it does taste a little tainted," said Kamea, reaching for more. "Still, not entirely undrinkable."

"There's nothing wrong with that coffee and there's nothing wrong with my olfactory organ."

"Lacey, please. Don't be upset. Maybe it's your limbic lobe?"

"What about my promotion? And the shares you promised?"

"It's really up to him. He's the silent partner, the majority partner, the angel, as they say in the money game," said Kamea, who was beginning to breathe a little uneasily.

Lacey was surprised. "He is?"

Kamea nodded, frantically; in fact she was turning a sort of reddy-blue, and her eyes bulged. She gasped for air. The caustic coffee headed south while the stricken woman fell in a heap at Lacey's feet.

Like a mad surgeon, Lacey grabbed the pointiest knife in the drawer. Pop! She plunged the blade into Kamea's throat, rolled the offending sticky notepaper into a tube, and stuck the tube in the incision. Before you could say "coffee with a kay," Kamea was breathing on her own again.

"You saved me," wheezed Kamea from her stretcher in the ambulance.

When Wesley arrived at the Olfactory House, all was quiet. "Kamea? Lacey?" he called walking down the hall, stopping first to inspect Kamea's reconstructed Hawaiian farm, then opening the door to the kitchen.

The place was a disaster: broken cups on the floor, coffee tracks from sink to door, the note—his note—bloody and slimy lying in a puddle of goop.

The heat was still on under the coffee. He picked up the pot and sniffed. "Now that's coffee," he said out loud, pouring himself a tall one.

Pulling a ham scone from his bag, Wesley sat down to a solitary breakfast—the first of many, he suspected. All the signs were there. He smiled. Then he chortled, and finally, laughed. And laughed. Like a schoolgirl with the giggles, he couldn't quit. And he couldn't stop the morsel of meat, either. It had lodged itself mercilessly in his windpipe…the windpipe that would blow him away.

By the time the police arrived, Lacey and Kamea had it pieced together. "With you dead and me in jail, according to the partnership agreement, he'd get everything? The company, the insurance, the farm?"

Kamea nodded.

"Whoa, back up," said the detective. "You're saying it was the caffeine that practically killed you?"

Again Kamea nodded. "Choose your poison, Detective."

"Huh. I had no idea. From now on, my poison's Kamea's D-Kaf Kona Koffee."

"I'll drink to that," said Kamea raising a mug to her new partner.

"Mmm," said Lacey to her once-valued friend and employer. "We'll always have today."
The day before Valentine's, February 13th, would forever remind Lacey how delicate a partnership could be.