Page 4 of Wicked Flavors

Mary was a woman in her late forties, who styled her hair the same way she had in the nineties. She was a brunette with a bob, wearing the same awful, company issued polo shirt and cobbler apron. The latter Gwendolyn also wore, though she suspected it wasn’t for the same reasons. Mary carried pens, markers, buttons, and note cards in her cobbler apron, and that was why she preferred them.

Gwendolyn disliked the attention her breasts would get, and that was why she wore hers.

“Hey, team!” Mary beamed.

“Hi, Mary!” Sierra beamed right back.

Gwendolyn didn’t beam so much as give a dull nod of acknowledgement. She had already greeted Mary when she bumped into her on the way to the break room upon arriving at the store. It made no sense to repeat the social exchange.

“I have the print off for the store updates,” Mary said as she approached the table. “I went ahead and highlighted the important parts!”

The team gave the freshly printed pages a quick look over, and Gwendolyn had to suppress her disbelief. Apparently, the important parts were all of it, as there was barely a line without any bits highlighted.

“Are you excited about the Fourth of July?” Mary asked.

Another thing that confused Gwendolyn. If her boss wanted her to read the weekly store update, why was she interrupting her reading time?

“Oh, I’m just so excited!” Sierra replied, practically bouncing in her seat. “I’m going to the bay to see the fireworks!”

If her coworker was going to volunteer to talk, Gwendolyn wouldn’t let the time go to waste. She quickly reviewed the weekly store update in the hopes of going back to her color problem. Most of the news was the same reminders of company policy—dress code, holiday promos, the usual. However, this particular issue left Gwendolyn surprised enough to interrupt the women.

“They’re no longer going to be carrying theMiss Moxie Dolls?!”

The other women appeared surprised by her outburst, but Gwendolyn didn’t care at the moment. Why would the company discontinue theMiss Moxie Dolls? They were one of the few commercial dolls the store offered to—

“Well, they haven’t been doing so great,” Mary explained. “They don’t perform as well as ourBetty Anne Dolls.”

Gwendolyn’s jaw tightened. TheBetty Anne Dollswere carbon copy wooden peg dolls. Ideal for painting, but outside of wedding cake toppers and Christmas manger kits, they were objectively boring. TheMiss Moxie Dollswere anything but that. The line of plastic dolls had debuted back in the 1960s, showcasing popular fashion and bright colors. They had a good run before sales tanked and the company went bankrupt in the 1980s. Luckily, the dolls saw a resurgence in 1999, capitalizing on Y2K fashion.

If their history wasn’t interesting enough, the sheer variety of doll shapes were.Miss Moxie Dollswere one of the few that offered fashion dolls of different heights and sizes. Gwendolyn’s favorite of the fourth-generation line was Lyra, a doll that sported a cute pear-shaped figure—

“Don’t you collect those dolls, Gwen?” Sierra asked, scooping up some of her pudding.

It was difficult not to flinch at the careless question. Gwendolyn liked to keep her work and private life separate, but her coworkers made that difficult. Gwendolyn couldn’t ring up her own purchases, even if she was a cashier, too. Naturally, Sierra had a front row seat to every purchase Gwendolyn made, but she was hardly the first of the many workers to have a hobby. They all did. Sierra liked to decorate with glitter and sequins. Mary was a knitter, as evident by her earrings.

Gwendolyn didn’t collectMiss Moxie Dolls.

Gwendolyn customizedMiss Moxie Dolls. She took the commercial designs and made thembetter.Painstakingly removed the cheap hair from their heads with needle nose pliers, and replaced it with a higher quality synthetic one plug at a time. She removed the mass-produced paint from the dolls’ faces, and hand drew new ones with acrylic pencils and paints until they were justright.She sketched, drafted tiny patterns, and sewed new outfits for every doll without missing a single detail.

To call what Gwendolyn did a ‘hobby’ was insulting.

But she would sooner destroy one of her dolls than tell any of her coworkers what she did in her free time. The constant demand for access to her personal life was one of the more annoying things about work. The insistence that everyone was one big family continued to baffle Gwendolyn, especially given how she knew it was a simple tactic to keep employees docile. And with her temperament growing rapidly worse over the last few weeks, Gwendolyn had to try and gain back some kind of control.

“I have a lot of nieces and cousins,” Gwendolyn lied with a closed-mouth smile. “You know how big Filipino families are.”

She sincerely doubted Sierra actually knew, given she was not Filipino or even Asian. But large families were relatable enough, and with the younger woman’s nod, Gwendolyn hoped the moment would pass without issue.

“That’s just so sweet of you, Gwen,” Mary cooed. “It makes me so happy that you’re so close with your family.”

Gwendolyn was, in fact, not close with her family. She hadn’t spoken to her parents in over a decade, and last she heard, one of her many cousins had gotten married three summers ago. But that was another matter that Gwendolyn preferred to keep private. No oneneededto know that she wasn’t on speaking terms with her family.

“I try,” she murmured.

“You know, my sister, Cherry—she’s my older sister,” Mary wiggled her fingers. “We just had lunch at the nicest little Filipino restaurant in South Everett. We had adobo!”

Her manager’s attempt to connect with her employee left alotto be desired. Gwendolyn could feel the ends of her closed-mouth smile smart as she nodded in agreement. Mary wasn’t that much older than Gwendolyn, but these rare awkward moments with her made the age gap feel so much wider.

“I had adobo once at the Seattle street fair,” Sierra added. “It was a lot more vinegary than I expected.”

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