Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Yep. Nature’s candy. Fuck, good job, bees.”
“Good job, bees!” Greta crowed, filled suddenly with an elation that came from experiencing this amazing process, hanging out with a new friend, and the mysterious sense of possibility rushing through her.
Veronica grinned.
“Okay, so now we put some water in here and then heat the bucket to separate and melt the wax.”
The water slowly came to a boil, and the wax began to melt.
The sound of the front door opening shot Greta to attention. Was it Carys, home from campus?
“Dude, it smells like heaven in here,” Helen called from the front room. “Will I ruin the bee vibe if I smoke some weed? Oh, hey, Greta! Awesome.”
Helen was pulling off a purple polo shirt and khaki pants as they walked into the kitchen. In black boxer briefs and a white A-shirt, they stuck a finger into the filtering honey and ate it with relish.
“Get your dirty-ass, fried green tomato fingers out of my honey, you absolute ferret!”
“I washed my hands before I left the restaurant!” Helen insisted, sounding offended, then wrinkled their nose. “But actually, my tip money is filthier than the deep fryer.”
They washed their hands, then slumped into a kitchen chair and pulled a pipe and a bag of weed from the space between two cookbooks in the corner of the retro kitchen table.
“How was work, dear?” Veronica trilled.
“Terrible as always, darling. How are the bees?”
“Wonderful. And Greta didn’t even scream or run away when she met them.”
Greta’s stomach fell. “Did you think I would?”
Veronica snorted.
“No. That’s what I did,” Helen confessed. “I didn’t scream, thank you. I might have cried out, but I am not in the habit of being swarmed.”
“First of all, that’s not what Jenna’s sex party friends tell me, and second of all, you were decidedly not swarmed. Three bees flew toward you and you ran like…like some member of the Saints whose job it is to run really fast.”
Greta had the vague idea that the Saints were a football team but wasn’t entirely sure.
“An-y-ways,” Helen said, “I’m glad we have honey, and do you want?” They held up the freshly packed pipe.
“Sure.” Greta took it from her.
“Blow the smoke away from the honey, please,” said Veronica.
Helen rolled their eyes at Greta but nodded.
By the time they finished the bowl, the beeswax was ready, and Veronica took a silicone mini muffin tin from the shelf.
“Hold this cheesecloth on here?” she asked, and Greta did.
The water had mostly boiled out, leaving Veronica pouring the melted beeswax through the cheesecloth, which caught a skin of impurities.
“I love this part,” Helen said.
With a practiced hand, Veronica poured the clean beeswax into the muffin cups. “Now, we just let it cool, and we have fresh beeswax,” she said triumphantly.
She had already moved the honey on to strain through the finer strainer, and now she poured it into two jars. One of the jars she slid into the cupboard next to the window. The other jar she wrote something on and handed to Greta.
“Huh?”
The lid said V’s Kick-Ass Honey and the date.
“You helped. You get honey.”
“Seriously?” Warmth suffused Greta like a hug. “That’s…wow. Thank you. I love it.”
She felt surprisingly overwhelmed, holding in her hand the precious distillation of the work of flowers and earth, sun and bees, Veronica and heat and knowledge.
“So what are we making with this batch of wax?” Helen asked, rescuing Greta.
“Dunno yet.”
“Dang, I wish I wrote letters. Then I could make cool seals out of beeswax and stamp them with my initials. It’d be awesome,” Helen mused.
“Well, write someone a letter then,” Veronica suggested.
“Ugh, no.” Helen looked horrified and Greta laughed.
“Do you put the king cakes in boxes?” Greta asked.
“Yeah, why?”
Greta shook her head. “It’s probably silly, I don’t know. I was just thinking about what you said about seals and how you were looking for something unique for the packaging that maybe wasn’t glitter. What if you closed the boxes with beeswax seals and imprinted them with the name of the business? You could make business cards for the lemonade too and put them in the boxes with the cakes. Or stick them into the seal? Then people would smell the beeswax every time they opened the box to eat the cake and be reminded.”
She trailed off because both Helen and Veronica were staring at her with wide eyes.
“Yes,” Helen said.
“Fuck yeah,” Veronica agreed. “This is correct. Because we’ve talked about wanting to sell that damn lemonade for two years but we haven’t done it yet. It’s sweetened with my honey, so that’s the connection. And I’ve been selling my beeswax to local chandlers, but I’d make way more money making the candles myself and selling them. They’re pretty easy to make, and wax is the biggest expense. Damn. Yup.”
“Too bad you don’t put candles in a king cake,” Helen said.