2. CASSANDRA

Every instinct in me is screaming out not to do this.

I spent years training in the bowels of a faceless building in Langley to resist exactly this kind of situation. I’ve kept my wits through sleep deprivation, pharmaceutical interrogation, physical torture. Every time, I’ve come out the other side, wiped the sweat off my brow and said: “Is that all you’ve got?”

But this is something else, something much more insidious. It comes to you as a friend, lulling you into a false sense of security. I’m here for you. I won’t hurt you. You love me.

It doesn’t love me, though.

Sure, it wants me to give in, to feel the brief surge of pleasure. It doesn’t talk about the crushing shame that follows, the hours of torment as you realize what you’ve done. That you can’t undo it, no matter how hard you try.

Do I have what it takes to resist this time? They just keep coming at me. I’ve given in every time – does it even matter any more? At this point, do I even want to resist?

That’s just it: I don’t. God help me, I don’t want to resist.

Fuck it, I tell myself, plucking the little spoon from the paper cup and sliding it into my eager mouth.

“Jesus Christ, that’s the best one so far,” I mutter through a mouthful of ginger-spiced carrot-cake ice cream. As I do, flecks of cream fly onto the lace napkin I’m holding under the treat.

Tricia Clarke folds her arms across her ample chest. “That’s the last of them,” she says. Her strangely masculine voice always sounds odd coming out of her mouth, all full lips and cherry lipstick. You might actually mistake her for a guy if you couldn’t see her Meghan Trainor body.

“Finally,” I say, placing the napkin on the counter. “I’m going to have to run a marathon to work off all of those, you crazy bitch.”

Tricia rolls her eyes. “Yeah, you should probably call the cops, the way I held that gun to your head. You know I need another set of taste buds when I’m working on new recipes. And if you want to be a partner in this thing, those taste buds, for better or worse, are going to be yours.” She sweeps her hands down her body like a game show hostess showing off a new car. “Besides, this doesn’t just happen, you know.”

We look sternly into each other’s eyes for a full second before we both lose it.

God, this feels good. Tricia and I laugh so easily together that it’s hard to believe we’ve only known each other a few months. I’ll never forget it the first time we met at yoga class: she was on the mat in front of me, doing downward dog, and our eyes met through her legs.

It was just so utterly absurd that we both burst out laughing, like we’re doing now. After class we met up for a glass of wine, and she had me in stitches.

“What if I’d farted at that exact moment?” she’d asked, wide-eyed. She was totally serious. The look on her face made me howl so hard I actually started to worry that I might wet myself.

We finally settle down and I take a deep breath to clear my head from the laughter and the sugar overload. Tricia pours us both a coffee and we sit down at a table. It’s early afternoon, just after lunch, so the shop is deserted. Business will pick up in a couple of hours as people drop in for their afternoon fixes of banana splits and root beer floats, but for now, we have Patty’s to ourselves.

“Why Patty’s?” I ask, savoring the bitterness of the coffee after the sweetness of the ice cream samples. “I mean, I get your name is Patricia, but I’ve never heard you call yourself Patty.”

“Irony,” she says. “My whole life I wanted to be called Tricia, but everyone – teachers, relatives, strangers – always called me Patty. I finally stopped answering to anything but Tricia when I was a teen. They finally got the message.”

I can relate. My given name is Cassandra, but I’ve always been Sandra. My father always told me it sounded more dignified and serious than Cassie, and he’s all about being serious.

Only one person ever called me Cassie, and I doubt I’ll ever see him again.

“I’ll tell you what: I’m going to put your preferred name on the line of ice cream,” I say, cocking an eyebrow. “How do you feel about Tricialicious?”

“I like it,” she says. “Then again, if you’re willing to drop millions into this pipe dream, you can call it Sandra’s Snatchtastic Sherbet, for all I care.”

Another laugh ambush. That’s why I love Tricia so much: she helps me decompress. Around her, it’s easy to forget about what I used to do for a living, if only just for a little while.

“That might be a little too New Yawk for the masses,” I chuckle. “Remember, we’re going to be shipping ice cream all over the country.”

“Have you got any details yet?” she asks. “I mean, if anyone can pull it off, it’s you. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever known.”

I nod, ignoring the compliment. I’ve been hearing it all my life, to the point where I don’t even hear it when people point it out. Like my red hair.

“I’ve got my eye on a factory in the Bronx,” I say. “It’s cheap and can easily be retrofitted. It’ll be tight, but it’ll work. Then we’ll have to figure out supply chain, delivery, yadda yadda.”

“And all you have to do is come up with a few million dollars in venture capital,” she says, sipping her coffee. “Piece of cake.”

“That’s going to be the easy part,” I say. “You just worry about the production side of things. We’ll have to make thousands of those little pint containers if we want to take on Ben and Jerry.”

“Pft!” she sneers. “Ben and Jerry can bite me.”

As we descend into laughter again, the money is foremost in my mind. Tricia probably thinks this is just a pipe dream, but it will be easy to get.

Easy money always comes with a price, though. And in this case, it’s about as steep as you can get. The question is, am I willing to pay it?

I have to be. I’ve come too far to back out now.