Something Fishy by Hilary MacLeod Read Free Book Online Page B

white-and-yellow stripes across the middle. It was made out of a material designed for quick drying, a material that looked like bubble wrap. That’s what she looked like. A bubble, wrapped. Kids used to taunt her: “Bubble bottom! Bubble bottom!”
    Her parents didn’t seem to notice. They thought it was nice she’d found friends.
    She never did. Not on the beach. Not in school. Not in church. Only in the general store, where old “Mac” MacCormack got a glint in his eye when she bounced through the door Saturday mornings, a dollar clutched in her hand. He’d relieve her of it, always tossing in a few extra of the penny candy she loved most – jujubes – to keep her coming back for more.
    She got fatter. And fatter. And fatter.
    Then she discovered fudge. She found out that it was easy and cheap to make and stretched her pocket money a long way. Its sickening sugar content satisfied a deep yearning in her.
    Fiona became a cook. Casserole dishes and stews, anything she could make in servings for four or more she’d eat all in one sitting.
    Anton Paradis was the most infuriated with Fiona’s ugly trailer. It was directly in his line of vision. He would never get permission to install the helipad now. He’d been elated at the removal of the cottage, because he could move ahead with his plans. Now he’d been thwarted.
    He had spent a good part of the morning looking at the eyesore, frustrated that his guests would not be able to contemplate the beauty of the cape without having to stomach the unpalatable “Fudge Palace,” newly named on a sign Fiona had planted that morning.
    Anton’s lips curled in distaste, as he tortured himself, silently repeating the words: Fudge Palace. Spitting it out, pacing about, working himself up to a blistering anger. It was, perhaps, his natural state. He was able to call up past events, slights, assumed and real, and produce a frenzy of feeling as strong as when they had happened. Two veins on either side of his forehead popped out, engorged with hot fury, the blood pulsing in rhythm to his anger.
    Anton was not a man to cross. Though he gave every appearance of being a refined, diplomatic individual, a cold fury blazed inside him.
    Fury at his insignificant birth, at having to claw his way up from the bottom in Shediac, New Brunswick, in crummy jobs where he boiled lobster non-stop for tourists, made potato salad and coleslaw. Coleslaw! His inner chef rebelled, longed for more.
    Now he had it, or almost had it. It was so close he could touch it – success. The inheritance he fully expected and had worked so hard for and this dining experience he had created, bound to catapult him to the top ranks, with a Michelin star shining in his future.
    His greatest achievement had been to become the darling of the wealthy set in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, but he wanted more, and he wouldn’t stop grasping until he got it.
    He would call on those connections for his new business. He hoped for more from one in particular, the opening dinner being held in her honour. Viola. A nasty old bitch, but he’d courted her, enslaved himself to her; in truth, she owned him. He was her make-believe lover, husband, friend, and son. Since she had none of these, he was hoping – and fully expecting – to inherit her millions. Or some of them. She’d hinted as much to him.
    A nagging tickle inside him worried that she was trying to keep him sweet, but some of it, surely, was within his grasp. She had so much, and he’d done so much for her.
    He’d already blown most of the whack of money she’d given him.
    If he couldn’t stave off his creditors long enough to launch this restaurant, he’d find himself sailing from Red Island to a desert island. It was a warm day, but the thought sent the shiver of a chill through him.
    Fiona and her fudge and her tacky trailer stood smack in the middle of his guests’