Candy Flip

Chapter Three

By the time Lucy collapsed into bed at eleven PM that night, her head raced from the four apple ciders she'd had whilst chatting all night to who she believed was one of the most interesting people she'd ever met.  So much for her first night out in Bakefield.  She couldn't say she regretted it though.  It was nice to chill with an adult over an alcoholic beverage and talk about life.

Aunt Stacey enveloped Lucy into her tales of life.  She learned all about her vintage clothes obsession, where Aunt Stacey even trotted up to her room to bring down a sample from her collection of Victorian French hats.  Lucy shared her mindset with her Aunt on the pressure she felt in South Dakota, and how out of place she felt in the bubble of society.

"I can relate to you entirely," Aunt Stacey sighed as she took a drag from her Marlboro Golds.  "Why do you think I left South Dakota?  It wasn't a place for me.  I knew I was no ordinary woman.  I wanted to live a life of adventure and excitement, not sit at home with a family and bore myself on a daily basis with a crappy job."

"Did you always want to open up a candy shop?" Lucy asked.

Aunt Stacey's lips flickered into a smile for a fraction of a second and then she frowned and dabbed at her cigarette so that the ash floated down into the ceramic blue ash tray that sat on the oak wooden table.

"When I was your age I dreamed of being a ballet dancer but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't ignore the comments that crushed my dreams.  "You have no talent," the teachers used to say.  A very dear friend of mine once told me that you can be anything you set your mind to so I was sure that I could become a ballet dancer.  And then after an argument with a ballet teacher that demanded to be paid extra since I required extra attention due to my lack of talent, I left and never looked back on the dance.  My friend's words lingered in my head and I knew I wanted to do something different.  Something special and something that not everyone would do in their lifetime.  And then the idea came to me as I sat at my favorite lake down in Shallow Peaks during my break, back when I was a full time bartender.  All it needed was a little confidence, courage and determination and I opened up my baby."

Lucy couldn't help but admire her Aunt.  In a way she felt connected to her in the sense that they both ached to step out of the box of norm and take a pathway in life that was unlike something anyone could ever do.  Ever since she was little, Lucy had no intention of going to college.  She had simple hobbies like baking and sketching but she was never really good at any academic subject so it was always hard for her to fit into a group and even harder to decide who she wanted to be.  Without a father figure, growing up was hard on Lucy and she had been through groups of friends like people went through tissues during a bad cold.  She felt glad that her Aunt was as much of an outcast as she was.

"I was bullied to hell and back when I was a little girl," Aunt Stacey said with a glazed look in her eye as though Lucy could see the flashback overwhelm her.  "I wasn't like your Mom.  Your Mom was popular, she had the right group of friends that respected her and she stuck with them through college.  I on the other hand never knew who I wanted to be.  I was with the cheerleaders and the nerds and the goths and even the stoners but I knew that I belonged in my own kind of unique group."

Lucy smirked.  In high school, she mostly stuck with the art freaks and the popular kids.  She couldn't have labelled herself as popular.  She wasn't a loser, but Lucy never really felt like someone in a group of friends and rather felt like she was constantly pushed off to the sidelines and thus the spark of desire to explore was ignited.

Sleep came easy to Lucy after her long day of travelling and talking.  She was excited to start her day in Bakefield and go to Aunt Stacey's candy shop.  Her dreams were adventurous as she dreamt of herself floating on a cotton candy cloud amidst a land of candy.  In the distance she saw an idyllic land.  Lucy wasn't sure what it consisted of but what she knew was that she needed to reach it.  She bounced from cloud to cloud, each time building her courage as she neared the picturesque land, never really sure what it was.  And just as she was floating to the next cloud it disappeared, and Lucy plummeted down into the depths of nothing...