Glengarry Glen Cookie by Jon Wesick

Glengarry Glen Cookie by Jon Wesick

“Enriched flour, sugar, flour, vegetable oil shortening (palm kernel and palm oils), cocoa, caramel color, high fructose corn syrup… Who would eat this crap?” After reading the ingredients, Dale put the box of cookies on the kitchen table and pricked his finger with a glucose meter. “100 mg/dl.”

“Keep it up and you might be able to go without insulin.” June put a plate in front of him. “Egg-white omelet and half a grapefruit.”

Wearing her Girl Scout uniform, Tiffany entered the kitchen, poured cereal in a bowl, and opened the refrigerator to reach for the milk.

“Put that milk down!” June said.

Tiffany froze with her hand on the carton.

“Did you hear me? Milk is for closers.”

“No one eats cookies anymore,” Tiffany said. “Everybody’s on healthy diets.”

“There are no bad snack foods, only bad salespeople.” June put the frying pan in the sink. “Theresa Stoppard, Sandra Shepard, and Hermione Pinter aren’t going to outsell any daughter of mine so I’ll make it easy for you. If you make first place in cookie sales, you get a pony. Second place, a trip to Disneyland. Want to know what you get for third place? You’re grounded until you’re eighteen. Do I have your attention now?”

Tiffany put down the milk.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on her?” Dale reached for the sugar bowl and changed his mind.

“Am I, Dale? Is it too much to ask that the supernova of your genius doesn’t eclipse the women in this family’s talents? Remember what you promised when we married, Dale? You said we’d be a pair of artists working as equals. What happened to that dream? Once my pictures hung in New York galleries. Now I’m lucky to photograph weddings. I’ll be damned if that happens to my daughter.” June checked the time. “I’m late for my fashion shoot. I’m calling it Ophelia in Sepia. Can you take Tiffany to school?” Without waiting for an answer June walked out of the kitchen.

“Dad,” Tiffany choked on a mouthful of dry cereal, “you know I’d never ask you to do anything that would raise your blood sugar but I need your help. Give me Ricky Jay’s phone number.”

“Can’t do it. Ricky left specific instructions not to share it with anyone. Why don’t you try Joe Montegna?”

“That deadbeat! I spent five hours trying to close him last year and he wouldn’t cough up a dime. He’s lonely and just likes talking to salespeople.”

“Get your books.” Dale stood. “We have to go.”

“Come on. I’m desperate. Bobby Permafrost invited me to the sock hop and if I’m grounded, I’ll never get married.” Tiffany moved in front of him. “Ricky loves cookies. I’ve seen him eat two whole boxes in one sitting. Just give me his number. No one will know it came from you.”

“Permafrost, is he from Alaska?” Dale asked.

“No, Florida.”

“A library full of rules, a contract that stretches from here to Boston, and an army of lawyers. Know what they have in common?”

Tiffany shook her head.

“None of them inspire as much confidence as a man who keeps his word. This is what’s called business.”

“Wait! I’ll give you twenty percent of my sales.”

Dale shook his head.

“Fifty percent!”

“Give me fifty percent and a hundred dollars.”

Tiffany took out her wallet.

“I don’t have it now but I’ll get it to you as soon as I sell Ricky.”

“Joe Montegna is all you get. I’ll be waiting in the car.” Dale downed his coffee and walked out.

Tiffany dialed the number of Joe Montegna’s cell phone.

“Hello, Mr. Montegna? This is Tiffany, Dale’s daughter. We’ve got a sale on Thin Mints and I immediately thought of you. There’s not much time. I’m off to band camp, tomorrow. What say I stop by your place after Trigonometry? I understand. When will Mrs. Montegna be home? Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll see if my mom can drive me to camp, tomorrow afternoon. Mr. Sullivan will be mad but I’d hate to see you miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like this. Okay, see you then.”

& & &

Joe Montegna ushered Tiffany into the living room the following morning. A man in a blue blazer sat on the couch.

“Where’s Mrs. Montegna?” Tiffany looked back at the door.

“She won’t be joining us.” Montegna motioned to a chair. “I invited Chet instead. He likes cookies.”

“As I was riding my bike over here, I started reflecting on how you can never own anything. You can only rent it,” Tiffany said. “What can you own? This table? I don’t think so. Your home? Your body? All this will be gone one day. Then what is the point of living? Career? Perhaps. Family? Perhaps. Buying things won’t make you happy but buying experiences… Life, happiness, what does it all mean? If the universe is just a bunch of random coincidences, deal with it. If you believe in an absolute morality, act that way. I want to show you something. It may mean something to you. It may not.” Tiffiany placed a box of Thin Mints on the table. “A Girl Scout calls her father’s colleague and offers twenty-percent off. What does it mean? What is life unless you take advantage of opportunities?”

Tiffany watched Chet peel off the cellophane and stuff a handful of cookies in his mouth. It was bad enough that she had to pay for the discount out of her allowance but now they were eating her cookies for free.

“Hey Joe, want some cookies?” Crumbs sprayed from Chet’s open mouth.

“Yeah, why not?” Montegna took a cookie from the box before returning to the conversation they were having before Tiffany arrived. “Of course, you can’t copyright an idea but I’d check with a lawyer just in case. You do have a lawyer?”

“Yeah, I have tons of them.” Chet reached for another cookie.

“Because my guy is very flexible, if you know what I mean.”

They talked until the cookies were gone.

“All right,” Chet said. “I’ll take them.”

“The Thin Mints?” Tiffany asked.

“No, all of them, Thin Mints, Do-si-dos, Samoas, everything you’ve got.”

Tiffany made a phone call and June delivered the entire supply fifteen minutes later.

“I have to get back home. The plumber’s coming to fix the dishwasher.” June tussled Tiffany’s hair. “You have everything under control?”

Tiffany nodded and her mother left.

“That’s six cartons. With the twenty-percent discount it comes to…” Tiffany did a quick mental calculation. “Three hundred twenty-four dollars.”

Chet took out his wallet and frowned.

“Hey Joe, you got any money?”

“Forty bucks, why?” Montegna looked at Tiffany and then back. “Chet, you can’t do that to the girl. Go find a bank machine or something.”

“Can’t. I’ve got to be at the studio by noon and she has band camp. I have an idea.” Chet took off his watch and handed it to Tiffany. “It’s an Omega worth nine hundred bucks. If I don’t get your money to Joe this afternoon, you can sell it on eBay for twice what the cookies are worth.”

& & &

Tiffany rode her bike to Ace’s Pawn Shop and handed the watch to the owner. Donny “Ace” Palermo took a drag on his cigarette and examined the watch under a desk-mounted magnifier.

“It’s a counterfeit. You can tell by the crude machining on the stem. At most it’s worth twenty bucks.”

Tiffany grabbed the watch and ran for the door. Oblivious to the housewife in the blue Toyota Tundra blaring her horn, she rode her bike into traffic. Tiffany pumped hard on the pedals going up Advance Payment Avenue. She was out over three hundred dollars. If she didn’t get those cookies back, she’d never go to the sock hop. She raced into Joe Montegna’s driveway, hit the hand brakes, and hopped off as her bike skidded and fishtailed to a stop. An Asian woman answered the door.

“Is Joe Montegna here?”

“Joe Montegna? There’s no Joe Montegna here, honey. This is the Lee residence. We’ve lived here for over twenty years.”

As Tiffany walked her bike down the driveway, she spotted a box of Do-si-dos in the bushes. Well, at least there was one box she wouldn’t need to replace. When she picked it up, she noticed it wasn’t quite right. The artwork on the box was printed in smudged ink and the weight was wrong. She peeled open the cellophane, took a taste, and spit it out. Instead of having a satisfying crunch, the cookie was mealy as if the baker had substituted corn starch for the flour. The filling had no sweetness. She guessed it was bargain-basement peanut butter from some big-box store. She didn’t know who had adulterated the product but desperation inspired her with a plan to turn the situation to her advantage.

Absorbed in through, she didn’t see the Jack Russell terrier approach. When she noticed him, she tossed him the rest of her cookie. The Jack Russell sniffed it and turned away.

& & &

Mrs. Crawford, the Girl Scout leader, caught her breath when she answered the doorbell.

“Tiffany! Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I need to speak to you in private.”

Mrs. Crawford ushered her into the seldom-used aerobics room.

“So, what’s all this cloak and dagger about?”

Tiffany took the box of counterfeit Do-si-dos out of her knapsack and set it on the treadmill’s dusty control panel. Mrs. Crawford’s face went white.

“How bad?” she asked.

“Seven cartons.” Tiffany added an extra to the six Chet Frank had cheated her out of.

“All right.” Mrs. Crawford put on an air of authority to cover her panic. “Bring the bad ones back and I’ll exchange them for you.”

“I don’t think so.” Tiffany paced around the treadmill. “No, I think I’ll keep them for insurance. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to make me number one in cookie sales or else I’ll notify Consumer Walt at KZTV.”

& & &

Her attendance at the sock hop assured, Tiffany bicycled home. As she rounded the corner onto Pigeon Drop Lane, she saw something that made her heart beat like the percussion of shoes on a PBS pledge drive broadcast of Riverdance. Braless and wearing a loose halter top, her mother June was loading the last of six cartons of cookies into the minivan. Tiffany hid behind a catheter home delivery truck when her mother pulled out. Hanging well back so as not to be spotted, Tiffany followed June as she turned onto Spanish Prisoner Boulevard. Fortunately, the traffic was slow so Tiffany could keep up. The route took as many twists and turns as a David Mamet play but June eventually parked in front of a brownstone on Fiddle Game Road. There was a Chinese laundry on the first floor and a rusty fire escape that led to the upper stories. June carried a carton of cookies to the entrance, buzzed a tenant, and entered. A light came on in a second-floor window.

Tiffany parked her bike behind a McLeod’s Deep Fried Haggis food van to watch. Moments later her mother returned to the minivan. A creature with blue fur and googly eyes accompanied her. It took them two trips to haul the cartons inside.

The mystery urged Tiffany onward. Alternately yanking and pushing, she positioned a dumpster under the fire escape, climbed on top, and pulled down the spring-loaded ladder. Quietly, she tiptoed up the fire escape and looked in the grimy, second-floor window. The place was a dump. A stained mattress lay on the floor and cookie boxes were scattered everywhere. The blue creature entered and set down a carton. Tiffany flattened herself against the bricks and peered around the edge of the window to watch.

“Me no like vegetables! Me want cookie!” The creature tore into the cookie boxes and sent crumbs flying as he stuffed handfuls of Thin Mints, Do-si-dos, and Samoas into his gaping mouth.

“Can I be your cookie?” Wearing only a lacy pair of panties June lay down on the mattress.

“Cookie!” The blue creature pounced on Tiffany’s mother.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Jon Wesick 2025