Abigail didn’t expect such an utter disaster. She swore up and down that she was an entirely good willed hostess. She wanted nothing but the best for her friends. Yes she may have whined and groaned about all her friends falling in love but she had also thrown the most wonderful Valentines party to show just how goodwill she was. she didn’t want this. This was an awful peculiarity.
“I’m tired of it. You spend all day reading, you’re silly little books and I’m sick of it.” Stacy yelled.
“Well I’m sick the way you laugh it’s far too loud.” Andrew yelled back at her.
Abigail buried her cringing face into her flour coated hands. Her apron still wrapped around her. She didn’t let her gaze peak through the cracks between her fingers. She couldn’t bear the sight of them bickering in the corner of the kitchen any longer. Fearing the party’s guests on the other side of the door would grow concerned, she prayed for a quick fix.
The escalation of all of this was completely absurd. All she had done was give the loving couple a batch of the cookies she had baked all by her lonesome. She was proud of those cookies too.
Those cookies. Making them was almost muscle memory in a way. Her and Stacy made them so many times when they were little girls. Hoarding all the flour, sugar, and butter. They had very little culinary skill and yet still made cookies for one particular purpose. To present to their crushes. Whatever girl one of them thought was radiant or boy one of them thought was so handsome. It was always presented to the people they adored and it was all because they thought their silly little cookies were love spells.
Of course there was no real magic to any of this. There was barely a formula they concocted to be a part of their little imaginative scheme. All the love spell recipe required was regular old cookies and some intention while creating them. When they made these delicacies in the past the intention was to make the receiver fall in love with them.
“You’re always going to all these get together and talking everyone’s ear off you know what I just think-”
“ I’ve had it. I’m breaking up with you.” Stacy cut her fiance off and stomped her left fit in indignation.
“Fine. I don’t care.” Andrew’s response was biting and punctuated by each syllable having a stern pause dividing them but all of this was completely undercut by his decision to stick his tongue out at her like a child throwing a fit down at the sandlot.
Stacy turned to stomp out the door, huffing and puffing while her hands balled into fist at her sides.
“No. No you can’t leave.” Abigail raced to block the door with her failing arms. “You two are supposed to get married.”
Stacey continued to maneuver her way around her friend but Abigail blocked her stubbornly by mirroring her movement. The engaged woman crossed her arms and groaned in defeat.
“I don’t know what the problem is.” Abigail declared and she meant every word of that statement.
A moment ago they had been hugging and giggling on the living room couch and calling each other repulsive little names like “sweetie” and “darling.” The sickening sweetness of the two made Abigail’s stomach churn but in this moment she realized that the alternative was far more explosive and labor-inducing for her.
“All these issues you both are listing are the things you are always complimenting each other about.” Abigail said.
That was the most absurd aspect of this all. These were the things that had made them obsessed with each other. In high school Stacey would see the books that Andrew would read. She thought that his taste in literature was the most intelligent in the world. She ended up snagging her own copies of his favorites from the library. Unbeknownst to Stacey, Andrew wrote pretty words about how he adored his fiancé’s roaring laugh in his vows, that might not have future use now. Their adoration for each other was annoying but it was who they really were.
“I have listened to too much chattering from the both of you for all these quirks for it suddenly become problems. All that happened was that you ate my amazing cookies. Which were really good and neither of you have said thank you yet.”
That was it.
It was a truly preposterous theory but Abigail felt in her bones that it was the only explanation. It was magical thinking in more ways than one.
The constant annoyances led Abigail to make those cookies with the intention of breaking up the modern age Romeo and Juliet. Some type of wish had made the pair hate everything about each other that they spent their lives loving.
“Neither of you are leaving.” Abigail stood her ground. “You’re staying in the kitchen for at least, I don’t know an hour.”
After what felt like a millennia of listening to more bickering
“Your hair is too shiny.”
“Oh yeah, well your smile is too wide.”
“Why do you have to care so much?”
“Why do you have to be so carefree?”
Abigail pulled her pretty pink oven mitt over her hand and pulled her tray of heart shaped cookies. They were simple chocolate chips, she wasn’t about to indulge any frills but she hoped the bare minimum would do the trick.
When her friends took their first bites and smiled at each other. A soft expression returning to their faces. Marvelously, her solution was successful.
