Prompt :
A social media influencer has stolen your recipe for a coffee-infused cocktail and they’re making a fortune out of it by selling it online. How do you get your revenge?
News on Paper
"Grande-cafe-licious," Sasha spat out her words as if they were expelitives.
"Damn thief!" she whispered to herself after the outburst.
"What?" Her husband lowered his newspaper and focused on her over the rims of his ever-present glasses.
Sasha clicked her tongue and viewed the Instagram post on her phone. Darius Spectaulus, she almost choked on the alias, which he must’ve chosen with care.
"Totally crass name!"
"Darling, what?" Her husband inquired, turning a wide, ink-blotted page, What?"
She could hardly believe her eyes; DS, as he was known, had put up a countdown to win his latest cookbook. The incongruous man was actually holding a competition. He’d released a few recipes to whet people’s appetites, and one of them was unmistakably hers. Grande-cafe-licious was her recipe.
"Bastard!" she fumed.
Sasha’s husband abandoned his beloved newspaper with reluctance.
"Okay, tell?" He responded with the deflated air of a man resigned to his unpleasant fate.
"He holds interviews, you know?" Her tears were beads on her eyelashes.
"Who, Sasha. Who?"
"This idiot who’s stolen my recipe, that’s who!"
Her husband considered her. He tried not to laugh.
"But, darling. No one can steal anything from you if you’re careful and you think about things. If you think about things clearly, Sasha."
"He has, darling!" she added, sarcasm dripping.
"How, then? How did he accomplish this miraculous feat?"
"He offered me a job. Don't you remember?"
"Sometimes it’s hard to remember, dear. You’ve always got so much going on," he picked up his paper and looked at it mournfully. Despite his predicament, he knew better than to indulge himself in the paper’s fascinating pages.
"He invited me to an interview. Do you remember now?"
"Oh, yes! I do. The interview I had to drive you to on a Thursday, my busiest day."
Sasha pouted and allowed a low, drawn-out sound to escape her lips. It was almost enough to make her husband understand that "this time" she was serious.
"He’s so clever. I don’t have an email or a single message that I can pin on him," Sasha lamented.
"Sweetheart, there’s always a solution. To every little problem, a solution is possible."
"God! You’re so annoying. Do you know how annoying you are?" Saha’s cheeks flamed.
"Calm down. It's not my fault, after all," he defended himself.
"Just tell me where and how, love. Tell me." He patted the newspaper lovingly.
"He held the interview at that brand new cafe on Rose Street. You know the one that’s been on social media, darling?" Sasha eyed her husband’s newspaper with uncommon insight, "I suppose you’d rather get back to the news?"
"No, I’m here to help you," he offered sincerely.
"He made me hand over a few recipes at the cafe, ostensibly so that he could test them out before giving me the spectacular job he was offering. Guess what—he must’ve done the same thing to a bunch of other people. Hey?" Sasha’s dejected countenance made her husband sit up slightly.
"So, his idea was that there’d be no damning emails, messages, or anything that could point, resolutely, to his theft?"
"Yes, if you put it like that. He’s off scot-free; he conducted his clandestine activities in person. Over coffee. There’s no proof!"
"Sasha. Do you remember the bank robbery on Rose Street?"
"Sure, what’s that got to do with it?"
"It was in the newspaper, darling. That cafe on Rose Street operates a CCTV system twenty-four hours a day. They caught those bank robbers as a result. Go and ask them, darling. I think you have your man."
Sasha’s jaw dropped.
He unfolded his newspaper and settled into his comfortable chair with relief.
