Cookies Are Not Always What They Seem

It was that time of the year again. When Juniper Langston was scheduled to host her annual Cookie Exchange Christmas party, just days before the holiday itself. She made sure to make all the preparations, as usual. Sending out invitations and making sure to have her decadent house on Tenth street, ready. This year, Juniper decided to go with a more glamorous holiday color theme instead of the traditional green and red that she typically used. Deciding on silver and gold with just a touch of royal blue. Making sure to spare no expense in the design of her ornaments and her eight-foot-tall Christmas tree. 

Juniper had made sure to send her invitations to her friends and a few family members a little bit earlier than usual. She had to make sure that all of her guests were going to make it. The invitations she had sent out were pressed with silver and gold leafing and many of her guests told her how much they admired her beautiful cards. Her sister, Cassy even called up to tell her that she was coming and that she would be more than willing to help with the cookie preparations. For she was a skilled baker that owned her own flourishing business. Juniper accepted her sister’s offer and invited her over the day before the party to put the last finishing touches on both the decorations and the plan for her and Juniper to bake the cookies for the exchange. 

Come the day of the much-anticipated event, Juniper got up early to finish her own baking. Making sure to avoid licking the spoon as she always did. Her sister had informed her many times that eating raw cookie dough was dangerous. Yet she always sneaked some leftover dough whenever her sister was not looking. For Juniper had helped in her sister’s bakery before she decided to leave the store and follow her dreams of using her degrees to be a successful lawyer. Nevertheless, she was always appreciative of the times her sister allowed her to work in the bakery shop. Even though, she was usually relegated to being the cashier or to clean up the few small tables in the front room of the bakery. 

It was actually Cassy’s idea to first do the cookie exchange parties a few years prior. Due to the fact that Cassy was too busy running her bakery, she always had Juniper host it at her house. An event that Juniper felt honored to host and enjoy each year. Something for her to look forward to after a year’s worth of court dates and paperwork. 

When she greeted her guests and invited them into her house, each of the party-goers gushed about how beautiful her house was this year. The last guest to arrive brought two plates worth of ginger snap cookies to exchange. This type of cookie was one of Juniper’s favorite and she hoped that she would be able to get at least one plate full. The way that the cookie exchange worked is that each guest drew a number out of a stocking and had to exchange with the person who had the matching number.

Juniper always chose last out of the stocking and found that she had the same number as Margie who had brought the ginger snaps. They were both sitting opposite from each other on Juniper’s very large dining table. Juniper made sure during the exchange to hand over her decorated snowman cookies to Margie. Knowing full well that she had planned to exchange with Margie all along. 

A few years prior, Margie her friend of more than ten years had come to the cookie exchange that Juniper hosted and did something that Juniper found so offensive that she almost asked Margie to never come again. That year Juniper’s husband who was usually away on business during the holiday season stayed and joined in on the festivities, including the cookie exchange. He had haphazardly made some cookies and ended up exchanging cookies with Margie. Margie had made wonderfully delicious double chocolate cookies, his favorite. 

What Juniper didn’t know at the time was that Margie was very much in love with her husband, Carl. So, when Margie thought that Juniper was preoccupied with her other guests, she pulled Carl against his will under the mistletoe and gave him a big kiss. A kiss that at first Carl was dead set against but quickly turned into a short makeout session. Juniper did in fact see this incident occur and shouted at the both of them to stop. Carl immediately backed off and attempted to explain to his wife that it was no big deal and that the kiss was not consensual. Although Margie was offended when Carl said this, she knew what she did cross the line. She then proceeded to apologize over and over again to Juniper as the other guests whispered their disapproval. 

Although Juniper decided to let it go and continue the party, she did pull Margie aside and threatened her. She told Margie that if she ever touched her husband like that or kissed him like that again, that she would make sure that Margie regretted it. Well years later at her current party Margie had shown up to the exchange party and Juniper knew a secret. A secret that Carl had tried in vain to keep from her. That the attraction between Margie and him did not stop at the kiss all those years ago. 

Juniper had caught them right before they were about to have sex in her own home. She had come home early unbeknownst to the two cheaters. Then saw them through the crack of the door to her bedroom making out on the bed she and Carl shared. Aghast at what she saw, she quietly ran out the door and headed out for a drink at the bar up the street.  

She had decided right then and there while drinking more than she had intended that she would not call them out on it but instead get revenge. So, she waited until her annual cookie exchange party to carry out her plan to hurt Margie as Margie had hurt her. An act that Juniper herself would come to regret as well. So furious at the fact that she knew Margie and her husband were having an affair behind her back. She invited Margie just to take out her anger at what she had witnessed a few weeks prior to the party. 

Going against her bitter judgment, Juniper had baked something dangerous and odorless into the cookies prior to the exchange party. These cookies held in them a substance that would surely make Margie violently ill. It was not until Margie left the party with her expectedly scrumptious cookies and got back to her own home that she started to feel the symptoms. So much so that she ended up having to go to the hospital. Now, this is not what Juniper had planned. She had not anticipated that the substance she had used to poison Margie would send Margie to the hospital. 

Luckily after several days of sickness and recovery, Margie was discharged from the hospital and sent home. Against Juniper’s wishes, her husband suggested that they go and visit Margie when she was feeling better. Finally after Carl’s persistence in his desire to go and help Margie. Juniper agreed and they took some soup over to her. This time, Juniper did not intend to poison Margie. 

Once they arrive and had given Margie the soup. Margie had invited them in and they sat down in her living room to talk. Getting frustrated with the conversation while knowing that the two of them were cheating. Juniper accused them of their affair and explained that she had caught them in the act over a month ago. Although they both tried to deny it, they eventually did admit to their crime. Juniper however did not tell either of them that she had intentionally made Margie sick. Though while she and her husband were still at Margie’s, Juniper told them that they could continue their affair. Also mentioning that she wanted a divorce from Carl as she stormed out of the door and left Carl there. 

That was the end of Juniper and Carl’s marriage right then and there. Of course, Margie and Carl continued their relationship both during the divorce process and after the divorce was finalized. Juniper and Margie no longer had a friendship and never again was Margie invited to Juniper’s annual Christmas cookie exchange.