Sinister Sprinkles by Jessica Beck Page A

now.”
    She disappeared into the front room, and I dropped in a batch of old fashioned donuts. I hadn’t even turned them when Emma came back into the kitchen. That had to be the briefest apology in the history of mankind, but I was busy with donuts frying in scalding oil at the moment, and I didn’t want to get into it until they were out of their sizzling bath.
    As I pulled the finished donuts out of the fryer with my beefed up chopsticks, Emma was ready with the glaze.
    Before I added another dollop of batter to the dropper, I said, “That didn’t take long, did it?”
    “I didn’t apologize,” Emma said.
    “Hang on a second. I thought we agreed that would be the right thing to do. Why did you change your mind between here and there?”
    “Go out and see for yourself,” Emma said with a smile.
    I walked through the kitchen door, and for a second, it looked like Grace was gone. Then I noticed her feet sticking out beyond the edge of one of my couches, and as soon as I spotted her, I heard a gentle snore.
    She’d fallen asleep in less time than it took to fry a donut, a feat that would have been a record in my book.
    I came back in and saw that Emma was grinning. “I didn’t have the heart to wake her up.”
    “That’s fine,” I said. “But you’re still going to apologize to her, right?”
    “I’m glad to,” Emma said. “Why is it so important to you?”
    I hugged her shoulder. “Because I don’t want to see two of my best friends fighting, especially when it’s not necessary.”
    Emma looked at me oddly. “Is that true?”
    “Of course it’s true. You know how much I hate confrontation.”
    “I’m not talking about that part,” she said, her gaze never leaving mine. “I mean the part about us being friends.”
    “Absolutely. I like to think we’re more than just two people who work together. Why, am I being presumptuous?”
    “No, I think of you as a friend, too. I just never said it out loud.”
    I smiled at her. “Well then, it’s high time you did, wouldn’t you say?” I picked the donut dropper back up, then said, “Let’s get back to work, shall we?”
    “I’m ready,” she said, and as she ducked into my office, I slung the dropper back and forth a few times, driving the batter into the bottom.
    “Clear,” I called out as I started dropping fresh rings of batter into the oil, and Emma came out to get to work on the next phase of our operation. As I finished the cake donuts, she got the ingredients out for the glazed dough. We slid into our routine without a misstep, and I was sorry Grace couldn’t see us. It was like a choreographed dance, one that had grown out of practice six days a week for the past few years.
    Finally, it was time for our break.
    Emma asked, “Should we just stay back here so we don’t wake Grace?”
    “I don’t know about you, but I need some fresh air,” I said. “I don’t see any reason to break with tradition now, do you?”
    “I don’t want to wake Grace.”
    I laughed. “Did you hear her snoring? I doubt you’d be able to rouse her with a cannon until daybreak. Come on, let’s go outside and see if it’s started snowing again.”
    We walked through the front, and I saw that Grace hadn’t moved an inch from her spot on the couch. Her breathing was deep and rich, and a part of me envied her the rest. Outside, it was clear that the snow had come again briefly, then it had tapered off to nothing. From the look of the sidewalk and the road, we hadn’t accumulated much more than a dusting since we’d been inside.
    Emma studied the scene, then said, “So, I guess the majority of the snow’s over, isn’t it?”
    “It looks like it. Have you seen a weather report lately?”
    “No, but when’s the last time we got two or three snows so close together?” she asked as she kicked at an errant chunk of frozen ice and slush.
    I thought about it. “Not for years, anyway. I’ll just be glad to finally see it go.”
    “But maybe it could