The House of Hope & Chocolate (Friends & Neighbors Book 1)

  The House of

  Hope & Chocolate

  by

  Ava Miles

  A Friends & Neighbors Novel

  © 2021 Ava Miles

  Sign up for Ava’s Newsletter

  Ava’s Website

  Ava’s Facebook

  Ava on Goodreads

  Ava’s Twitter

  Ava’s Instagram

  From the time she was a little girl with a chocolate stand instead of lemonade, Alice Bailey dreamt of opening a chocolate shop. After all, chocolate heals everything, from heartache to woes.

  If Alice has learned anything recently, it's that life is precious. It’s now or never—carpe diem time. She's ready to put down roots and live her dreams.

  Only opening up a chocolate shop in this close-knit community proves harder than she imagined, especially when other neighborhood businesses are experiencing hard times. She's not only an outsider, but resentment over her circumstances breeds distrust among some of the other business owners.

  But Alice believes in one absolute: chocolate can heal anything and it’s a great way to make new friends. And as she struggles to heal and rebuild, she shows her new friends and neighbors that life offers more richness than they realize.

  To Mr. Rogers and those who continue to share his wisdom.

  To Paul Terracciano, for reminding me what it means to make a friend Mr. Rogers style.

  And to all the people in my neighborhood (“they’re the people that you meet each day”), but most especially those in New York who inspired this book: Frank, the original Vinnie, Jimmy, Emily, Jack, Jeff, Dylan, Anthony, and countless others, too many to list, which in my world, is an absolute blessing.

  Warren watched Alice cross the freshly mowed yard and dash across the street toward his lemonade stand. He was already smiling. Alice Bailey was a “smile inspirer”—everyone from their neighbors to their kindergarten teacher said so. She could even make stiff-necked Principal Hendricks smile, and that was a downright miracle.

  Warren liked her because she always knew how to have fun, from the funny faces she made in school to her wild ideas, like the time she’d suggested they put paper crowns on their heads like Vikings and sled down the snowy hill on the playground in the toboggans the gym teacher had bought for the older kids.

  The hot sun beamed down on his head as he poured her some lemonade. He’d already decided he was going to give her a glass for free. They were friends and neighbors, and that’s what you did sometimes. His dad called it good business. His mother called it kindness. Warren figured they were both right.

  Alice’s big brown eyes sparkled as she approached him, and he slid the paper cup her way. That look told him she was about to blurt out another fun idea. “Hey, Alice.”

  “Hey, Warren.” She plunked her skinny elbows down on the card table his dad had dragged up from their basement.

  “Hey, guys!” Sarah hollered, slamming her screen door behind her. Her blond braids bobbed up and down as she ran across the street to join them. Even though she didn’t talk as much as Alice—no one in the world could do that—Sarah still played crazy games with them, so she was cool. “What are you up to?”

  Alice slid Sarah her lemonade so Warren poured another. Because he cared more about hanging with them than making a profit. “I was about to tell Warren my idea. It’s going to take his lemonade stand to the next level. It involves chocolate. You’re going to love it.”

  “I love chocolate!” Sarah said with a grin, slurping the lemonade.

  Warren poured himself a glass, and they all drank together. Whatever idea Alice had was going to rock. He smiled and held out his hand to her, like his dad told him a man did in business. Because whatever Alice had in mind, he was on board. He was going into business with his best friends.

  “I’m in.”

  Chapter 1

  Hope wasn’t simply Alice Bailey’s goal. It was her mission.

  And she intended to coat it in chocolate, like one of the new mocha indulgence truffles she and her business partner had created for their new store, the House of Hope & Chocolate.

  Alice gazed down at the newly framed photo of her, Warren, and Sarah standing behind their neighborhood chocolate stand the summer they went into business together. Warren’s grin showed his missing front teeth, and Alice had her arm around Sarah. Their handwritten sign was on butcher paper Alice’s mother had found, and she and Sarah had drawn it in crayon because even then Warren’s penmanship had been illegible.

  God, she could still feel their excitement that day. That chocolate stand had brought their entire neighborhood together in ways no one could have imagined. They’d run it for ten years, starting with simple offerings and adding more to the menu as the years went on.

  Alice found a nail and hung the frame on the robin’s egg blue wall behind the counter of their shop. She wanted it front and center—a reminder of the power of hope and determination. Sometimes she needed one. This summer, when her career of working for an international financial consultant for the Fortune 500 had come to an end—hello, pandemic—she’d come up with a brilliant idea: resurrect the chocolate stand, only make it a full-blown store. While Warren had his own finance career outside of Chicago, where they’d all grown up, and wasn’t interested in leaving it for a chocolate shop, Sarah had quit her accounting job to go into business with Alice and their third partner, Clifton Hargreaves, who’d just retired from his long-time profession as a butler. Wasn’t this the moment to follow a long-cherished dream? Heck yeah, it was.

  Sarah had suggested they launch the shop in Orion, New York, the town she’d called home. Since neither Alice nor Clifton had a real home base—he’d made his home with his boss, Clara Merriam Hale, and she’d followed her boss, Francesca Maroun, around the world—they’d been happy to oblige. It didn’t hurt that Orion was nestled on the Hudson River and bursting with small-town charm. Some of Alice’s favorite memories were of visiting Sarah here before everything had changed. They’d pushed forward with their plans, all of them full of anticipation and hope, and then the unimaginable had happened. Sarah had contracted Covid three months ago, and after a quick fight for life at the hospital, she’d died.

  Clifton and Alice had only just moved to Orion, both in temporary housing, when Sarah first came down with symptoms. They had both tested negative, likely a testament to their agreed-upon safety protocols for working together.

  Putting up this photo of Sarah made it feel she was still a part of the shop, and Alice wanted her friend’s presence to always be around them…even if it was sometimes painful. Their shop was about making a stand for hope, even when it seemed elusive. Especially then. Sarah had given them her blessing—she’d even left Alice her beloved home—and Sarah’s parents had offered their encouragement too.

  “Sarah might not be here in person, Clifton, but I know she’ll always be watching out for us,” Alice said, blowing her friend a kiss before turning around. Her chest tight, she took a deep breath to ease it, focusing on the crisp October air floating in through the open door. She smelled chimney smoke, reminiscent of the smoky Earl Grey tea perfuming their shop, along with an undercurrent of fresh paint. Comforting smells. Ones she could sink her teeth into.

  Clifton stood behind their empty glass display case. “Her memory and energy will always greet our customers. We will tell them her story. As you like to say, people will be drawn in because of the brightly wrapped products on the white bookshelves and the scores of chocolates in our cases, but it’s our connection with each other, and the relationships we’ll form with our customers, that will keep them coming b
ack. Much like the three of you did when you were children at your chocolate stand.”

  “You get it, Clifton,” she said, her heart a total mush factory right now. She’d heard from others she and Clifton were an unlikely pair. She was only twenty-nine, born and raised outside of Chicago, and he was a distinguished British gentleman of eighty-one. But they had clicked immediately and become family in every way that mattered. “Few acts convey hope like having a piece of chocolate. To me, it’s like you’re saying yes to life every time you eat it.”

  “The French talk about enjoying the sweetness of life for a reason. It’s no wonder they are so famed for their chocolate. I am honored to join their ranks as a chocolatier.”

  “Well, we’ll have an abundance of the sweetness of life in our shop,” she said, hugging herself. “Here be hope central.”

  “Bien sur,” he answered in French, a language they often conversed in. He wore a black mask, but she could tell he was smiling from the way his brow line rose. She’d gotten better at reading the expressions behind people’s face masks. Her favorite compliment was being told she smiled with her eyes. She did so every chance she got.

  Truth was, she’d been afraid of living in a world without smiles. Talk about sucking all the hope out. So not her jam. As she liked to tell Warren when they caught up, No siree Bob! Not on my watch. He still poked fun at her for the wacky way she talked. Of course he was as wacky as she was, which was why they were still such close friends. She dug out her camera and took a photo of the frame she’d just placed on the wall, texting it to him with the message:

  Your toothless grin has been immortalized, my friend. Consider yourself a hope emissary in the Hudson Valley. Missing you and remembering all our good times together.

  His text came back immediately. Well, texts, actually. He never said in one message what could be said in three. Something they had in common.

  Missing you (and Sarah) too. Got choked up HARD at that photo. Where did you find it? You’ve got a Hope Chest, don’t you, Bailey? I need a copy!

  You GO on the shop! Connection between people has taken a beating with this damn virus, and you’re going to kick BUTT taking it back. Plus, chocolate was such a better idea than lemonade. Have I ever thanked you for helping me see the light?

  Have a good day, kid! Talk to you soon. Amy and the girls say hi. Here’s a pic from this weekend, BTW… Taylor has less teeth and hair than I did at six. Of course, our Toothless Wonder is only ten months so I probably shouldn’t be too worried about her, right?

  Leave it to Warren to help her smile. Although Warren was grieving too, he’d gone above and beyond to keep her spirits up. So had Clifton. She had no family beyond her friends and those relationships were sacred to her. Being alone in her best friend’s hometown would have been hard, but Clifton never failed to remind her she wasn’t alone. He made every day easier and happier. Of course, he was going through lots of changes too, and she did her part to keep his spirits up. She slid her phone across the counter to Clifton to show him the picture of Warren’s family. He didn’t touch it, but his eyes told her he was smiling again.

  “I must admit I laughed at Warren’s last photo,” Clifton said. “Making his backyard into a mini-golf resort with a baby pool and sandbox was not only creative but quite amusing. Especially since his golfing attire was a dinosaur outfit.”

  “He made a wicked brontosaurus with that putter,” Alice said, chuckling and shaking off her lingering sadness. “You should have seen what we used to get up to as kids. I’d dress us up as Vikings, and we’d all go sledding and pretend we were pirates on the high seas. If Warren hadn’t wanted to go into finance, I swear he’d have been an actor.”

  “Speaking of which,” Clifton said, “I hoped you might be on board with a musical playlist of various Broadway tunes. Classic shows like Hello, Dolly come to mind, but we might also want to include songs from modern ones like Hamilton.”

  “Love it! Clifton, you know music like nobody’s business, so I hereby invite you to be in charge of the shop’s playlists. All of them. Make sure to include some of your classical Spanish guitar music.”

  “I hereby accept that task.” He bowed in his elegant butler way.

  “We should always be playing music,” she decided on the spot. Sabicas’ “Fantasia” was discreetly thrumming through the shop, she realized. Clifton and his small touches again. Sometimes she was too busy to notice them.

  They had four weeks until their grand opening in mid-November, right as the holiday season kicked into full gear. Most shops made bank then, and she planned to cash in. Of course, the town’s businesses were all struggling. Foot traffic wasn’t what it had been. She needed to think outside the box to drive people to a new and untested shop.

  Some thought she and Clifton were crazy to begin a business in these times, but hope kept them going—hope and a solid business sense bolstered by her education at Columbia University’s business school and six years of working with Francesca, who wasn’t just her former boss but a dear friend. She’d learned a thing or two, and she knew they could make the shop work.

  They had six months to break even with their reserves before dipping too deeply into their personal savings. Not having a mortgage on her end was a boon, something she knew Sarah had thought about. She’d been considerate like that. The money Sarah had invested into the shop had also helped.

  Only they were opening in a month and hadn’t finished their menu yet. They were still testing and tasting, and her market research never seemed complete. The pandemic had kicked conventional market wisdom to the curb. Alice was going on instinct about what to sell, but with everything on her plate—from moving to a new place, Sarah’s death, finishing their shop’s remodel, and creating content for their website and social media—she didn’t feel on top of her game.

  They could use all the help they could get.

  “Clifton,” Alice said, “I’m going to call that food writer for the Daily Herald in the city. Arthur was a peach to ask his granddaughter for a contact from when she used to work there.”

  “I don’t think he’d take to being called a peach.” Still, Clifton’s eyes crinkled. “But yes, he and Clara, of course, have been most helpful. It doesn’t hurt to have a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist on one’s side.”

  “I hope it’s safe enough for them to come visit soon.” Clara, Clifton’s former employer, and her husband were both in their eighties, like he was, and needed to be particularly careful to avoid the virus.

  New York was one of the safer places to be at the moment, with some of the lowest Covid rates in the country, but there were no guarantees these days, which was why, when he wasn’t making chocolates in the kitchen, Hargreaves would man the chocolate counter behind the plexiglass wall they’d installed. Alice intended to handle any walk-ins, the Chocolate Bar customers, and the to-go window they’d installed in the outside wall facing the street.

  Beyond wearing masks—which was mandatory for entry to all the businesses on Main Street, more by collective agreement than anything else—she planned to keep Clifton as safe as possible. He appreciated it, but he was a proud man and wanted to carry his weight. He’d insisted on being given more duties to offset all she was doing, so she’d told him he could temper the chocolate—a fastidious, time-consuming task more suited to his orderliness than her whimsical ways.

  “Okay, I’m going to call from the office. Wish me luck.”

  His nod was as crisp as Sabicas picking at the guitar. “You don’t need it. You managed to convince a man of eighty-one to open a chocolate shop with you during a pandemic, after all.”

  “I only convinced you of what was in your heart,” she said, blowing him a kiss as she left the main showroom for the hallway leading to the office. Although they’d knocked down a couple of walls since purchasing the building, the office sat where it always had—across from the doorway to the large kitchen.

  This building was formerly a dear Italian restaurant that had closed in m
id-July. Sarah had thought it perfect, and arranging its purchase had been one of her last acts. Their shop was quite a bit larger than a usual chocolate house, something that worked to their benefit. With a parking lot, outdoor seating, and tons of space inside, they could provide the requisite social distancing and work within new capacity guidelines.

  There was also room for their Chocolate Bar, situated in a large room off the main showroom, which Alice hoped would become a gathering place for chocolate tastings and music nights beyond the normal fare they regularly served during the day. Of course, for the time being, they were only allowed a limited capacity inside the shop due to Covid, but she could live with that.

  She dropped into her new gold ergonomic desk chair and swiveled around in a circle to boost her energy. The mocha truffle she’d saved for later was sitting on a pink and gold china plate on her white desk, and she popped it in her mouth. Hope in a delicious little package. The sensuous flavor of dark chocolate, ganache, and coffee had her closing her eyes in pure bliss. Damn, Clifton had outdone himself with this last test batch.

  Pulling out her cellphone, she brought up the number Arthur had sent her and dialed it, tapping her foot on the newly finished wooden floor under the white desk.

  “Paul Brown,” the serious voice answered.

  “Hi, Paul. This is Alice Bailey. Meredith Hale put me in touch with you via her grandfather, Arthur.”

  “Of course!” The man’s voice brightened. “Meredith emailed me about your new chocolate shop. She was great to work with, and her grandfather… He’s a legend.”