Page 18 of The Hampton Beach Café 4
Oh, gross, it weirded her out just to think of it. She needed to stop questioning her sanity, or she was actually going to lose it.
Maybe she already had…
Alex cleared his throat.
“So, I don't want to tell you what they are so that you can tell me what you think they are—that way, I know they actually taste how I want them to!”
Alex was being a bit of a showman, but he was also genuinely excited by food, and as Frances watched him, she remembered more and more how much he had loved cooking her breakfast whenever she stayed over to head to school early the next day.
The group gathered around the counter, and he handed out the first swab. Frances took the one he handed her, placing the seemingly dry cotton swab in her mouth.
A salty caramel flavor flooded her mouth, and she found herself sucking on the thing like a lollipop.
“That's amazing. How is it so intense when there's basically nothing there?” she asked.
Alex smiled. “Gastronomy magic.”
With a wink, he wrote down their feedback and thoughts on the strong flavor.
“Excellent, next up,” he said, handing over another. “Let's see how this goes.”
This time it was a tart cherry flavor, almost sour at first, then increasingly sweet as she left it on her tongue.
“That's delicious,” Kennedy said. “I much prefer this to the caramel thing.”
Alex nodded. “Okay, excellent. Thank you. Now this one is a bit more subtle, so…”
When she placed the cotton on her tongue this time, Frances couldn't detect anything. She felt her eyebrows furrow together, so she moved the swab around her tongue and glanced at Lucinda, Vince, and Kennedy.
They all looked equally confused.
“Tastes like a cotton ball, buddy,” Vince said, placing his back into the foam.
“Ah,” Alex said, frowning. “Really?”
He turned to Lucinda and Kennedy with a pleasing look on his face.
The two women looked like they were concentrating hard—trying to find something that wasn't there.
“Yeah,” Lucinda said. “Maybe a tiny bit…unpleasant? Sorry, I was trying to find a food word, but…yeah, it's not very nice.”
“Agreed.”
Kennedy withdrew the cotton swab and offered it back to Alex, who took it and placed it in the slot it had come from. His eyes flicked to Frances, and she smiled awkwardly.
“This one's a no-go,” she said, shaking her head.
“Alright, well, this one should be better,” he said, handing out the fourth and last cotton swab.
By some ridiculous miracle, this one tasted just like a marshmallow in a hot chocolate.
“However you make these…” she said, “…I don't want to know, but please make more! So good…”
Alex's grin was ear to ear, he was almost glowing with pride, and Frances felt that perplexing flutter in her stomach again as she watched him blush and smile as the other three complimented him and asked to be notified when the full-fledged desserts went live on the menu.
He turned to Frances and changed the subject.
“Tell them your plans for the garden.”
