The Doughnut King

by Jessie Janowitz

  “Don’t you get it?” Why did I have to explain this to her? “We’re winner and loser. That’s it. The person who crushes and the person who gets crushed.”

  “That’s…that’s the most…” Her face had gone all splotchy red. “You know what? You are a newdy!”

  “A nuddy!”

  “Whatever!” She threw my earbuds at me, then marched over to the table, grabbed a bottle of water, and guzzled it down.

  I jammed the earbuds back in my ears.

  Not sure whether I felt like a shark, but thanks to me, I was pretty sure Keya did now.

  • • •

  Keya and I went straight to our stations when we got to the set.

  “Anybody else feel the temperature drop when these two walked into the room?” Marco said. “Tension and loathing. I like it.” He rubbed his hands together.

  “Brrr.” The medic, April, pretended to shiver, then flashed Marco a grin that was more gum than teeth.

  “Hey, Keya, Tris,” Terrence called from offset. “I didn’t have time to come by the greenroom. Come give me your phones.”

  “I got it,” Marco said and came around to collect our phones.

  As I washed my hands, Chef JJ and Dieter walked onto the set. Randy hurried out from behind the lights and showed them something on her clipboard.

  Just then, I remembered that my parents were in the room, Keya’s too, probably. The finalists’ families were invited onto the set for the last challenge.

  I squinted into the lights but couldn’t make out anything past the Transformer cameras.

  “So.” Marco knocked his fist into my shoulder. “You ready?”

  “I’m ready,” I said louder than I’d meant to in a voice that didn’t even sound like mine. Maybe it was the shark’s.

  “I got to say I never thought you’d make it this far. I mean, remember Knife Skills Showdown? Yowza. That was not pretty.”

  “Thanks,” I said as if Marco hadn’t just told me he’d been betting against me from day one.

  Marco was never going to see me as a shark. Just like Harper had said, we’d all been chosen to play a role, and that’s not the one I’d been chosen for. Harper was the shark. I was the choker, and Marco wanted to make sure I didn’t forget it. Maybe it was just trash talk, but it didn’t matter. It had worked.

  I felt that burning at the back of my throat.

  Randy clapped her clipboard over her head. “Okay, everybody! This is it.”

  Snap!

  The cameras began to roll. The sound guys dangled their mics over our heads.

  Chef JJ was talking but I could barely hear her. My heart was beating too fast and too loud. I could feel it all over my body, in my ears and in my hands.

  I love competing. I am a shark. I am a shark…

  Who was I kidding? I could say that stuff a million times. It wouldn’t make it true.

  And then from far away, I heard something that changed everything: “…Killer Cupcake Competition!”

  The burning in my throat disappeared.

  My heartbeat jumped back into my heart where it belonged.

  Whatever I’d been feeling, just the word cupcake had cured it.

  I didn’t need to compete to make cupcakes. I didn’t need to hate anybody to make cupcakes. I didn’t need to be a shark to make cupcakes. I’d been making cupcakes before I could spell “cupcakes.” I had cupcakes running in my veins.

  There was no question. I’d make the peekaboo cupcakes I’d invented for Henry’s birthday. Zoe had begged me to make an FYO cupcake like the FYO doughnuts, so I’d created a cake with buttermilk that had enough “give” you could fill it with cream without the whole thing falling apart. I knew the recipe by heart because I’d spent days perfecting it.

  One problem: Chef JJ wouldn’t get the same kick Zoe did from filling the cupcakes. She’d probably even accuse me of leaving them unfinished. Easy fix: I’d just fill them myself, use a special tip, and swirl cream like soft serve ice cream around the top to hide the hole. That would even look good. Plus, you wouldn’t know about the cream on the inside so there’d be extra wow when you bit into it.

  But which flavor cream? Butterscotch was too risky. Even though Chef JJ didn’t taste the butterscotch cream at the callback, I was pretty sure she’d remember it, and I didn’t want her to think I was a one-trick pony.

  Chocolate? Not after I’d made the mousse.

  Then it came to me. Mocha! Chef JJ was always sending people to get her coffee. No way she wasn’t a mocha fan.

  Mocha peekaboo cupcakes. Killer.

  I ran to the pantry and got everything I needed for the cake: eggs, butter, sugar, buttermilk, vanilla, flour, baking powder, and salt. I’d make the cream while the cupcakes were baking.

  I whizzed through making the batter and didn’t look up even once to see what Keya was doing. In no time, I was sliding the cupcake tin into the oven.

  50:28…50:27…

  I ran back to the pantry and searched the shelves for instant decaf coffee. That’s what I used to give The Doughnut Stop’s chocolate cream a little kick. I figured for mocha cream, I’d just increase the coffee.

  Where was it? My eyes raced along the shelves a second time.

  No instant coffee at all, but there was ground coffee so I grabbed that and everything else I needed for the cream, including shredded coconut that I saw and suddenly knew would add the perfect flavor and crunch, toasted and sprinkled on top.

  I ran back to my station, praying there was a coffee maker there that I’d just missed. I’d never actually used a coffee maker, but I’d watched my parents make coffee every day of my life. It wasn’t rocket science. I could figure it out.

  After a thorough and completely useless search of the cabinet, I flipped the HELP sign over the back of the sink like Randy had told us to do.

  A few minutes later, Chef JJ and Dieter were standing at my station. “My best guess?” Chef JJ said to Dieter. “Tristan here is wasting valuable time with whatever this is.”

  “Tick-tock,” Dieter sang.

  “I need a coffee maker.”

  “‘Need’ is a funny word,” Chef JJ said.

  “See, I’m ma—”

  “Forget it. Make something else,” she said and walked off.

  What was I thinking? Of course she wasn’t going to help. I could have said I didn’t have any spoons and she would have told me to cup my hands and start stirring.

  46:02…46:01…

  Forget Chef JJ and whatever fancy coffee machine she was holding hostage. I didn’t need either. I was making coffee, not building a rocket launcher. Making coffee without a coffee machine wasn’t impossible. I didn’t need a coffee maker. People made coffee for centuries before coffee makers, right?

  Just like the Tea King said, my solution didn’t need to be pretty or fancy. I just had to make it work.

  I could do that. The only must-haves were water and ground coffee and…

  I ran to the pantry. No filters.

  But what are filters? Just paper, right? I could totally Swiss-Family-Robinson filters.

  I ran back to my station, filled a pot with water, and put it on a burner on high. While I waited for the water to boil, I tore off a ribbon of paper towels and folded them into a large square. I twisted the square into a cone and tried to picture myself filling it with coffee.

  I couldn’t be holding the cone when I poured in the boiling water. It would rip. And, worse, I’d burn myself. I needed to be able to sit the cone in something that would let the water flow through. I needed…

  I was just about to look in the cabinet again when I noticed the sieve I’d used to sift the dry ingredients on the counter.

  Yes!

  Okay, what next? Something to catch the coffee as it dripped. I went through my equipment again. Mixing bowls. Measuring s
poons. Measuring cups. A measuring cup!

  I rinsed off the sieve, lined it with the paper towel cone, and spooned five tablespoons of coffee into it. I needed it strong. Then I sat the sieve on top of the measuring cup and slowly, very slowly, poured the boiling water over the coffee, stopping every few seconds to let the liquid drain into the measuring cup.

  While the coffee dripped into the cup, I toasted the coconut in a pan over low heat, stirring every few seconds so it didn’t burn.

  Bing!

  I turned off the burner, moved the coconut to a cool spot, and opened the oven.

  Out floated a warm, vanilla-y mist. Mmm.

  I slid the rack out and studied the cupcakes. They looked perfect, all puffed up with just a hint of gold around the tops. A toothpick slid into the center of one came out clean. Done!

  42:14…42:13…

  I popped the cupcakes out and left them on a wire rack to cool while I made the cream.

  At first, the chocolate drowned out the coffee flavor, so I kept adding coffee and tasting until it was the right balance. On the fifth try, I hit mocha. It was good, rich and sweet, but there was no wow. Something was missing.

  “Hello?”

  I blinked. Dieter was waving his hand in front of my face as I sat there with a spoon in my mouth staring into space. “Tick-tock.”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Don’t hurt yourself.” Chef JJ sneered.

  She could say what she wanted. I was in my own world, someplace where I was supreme ruler and her words were just noise.

  What was that secret ingredient that would take this mocha cream to the next level? Vanilla? Boring. Cinnamon? Maybe. Almond extract? Wrong. Nutmeg?

  I ran back to the pantry and grabbed a small knob of fresh nutmeg.

  Dieter whistled as I grated it. “Fancy.”

  Chef JJ zapped him with one of her looks.

  I knew I was on the right track just from the smell.

  I wasn’t sure how much I’d need so I added it to the cream in pinches, mixing after each one and tasting.

  One: no change.

  Two: there but only a ghost.

  Three: shazam!

  The chocolate and coffee were still the strongest flavors but now there was also this peppery spark.

  I’d found a plastic case marked “Cake Decorating Supplies” in my equipment drawer. Inside was a pastry bag, a plastic sleeve with a big opening on one end and a small one on the other, and a bunch of metal tips with different shaped holes. I chose a tip with a sunburst hole, screwed it into the small end of the bag, and spooned the cream into the big end. The sunburst would give me the perfect wavy ribbon of cream to wind around the top of the cupcake.

  Now came the fun part: I pushed the tip into the center of the top of the cupcake and slowly squeezed the bag, emptying cream into the cake until the top began to rise. Then I lifted the tip out and spiraled frosting out from the hole until I’d covered the top, then I spiraled back in again.

  I felt my mouth spreading into a bigger and bigger smile.

  Suddenly, I got that feeling you get when you know you’re supposed to be doing something but aren’t and can’t even remember what that thing was.

  I looked around.

  20:02…20:01…

  Time! I’d completely forgotten about the clock. And the competition.

  And I didn’t care.

  For the first time in so long, everything felt right. Like I knew who I was and what I was supposed to be doing, and as long as I kept doing it, everything else would be okay.

  I made the last circle of icing over the spiral tower, set the cupcake down on a clean white plate, and sprinkled it with the toasted coconut.

  Perfect.

  Eighteen minutes left, and all I had to do was fill and ice one other cupcake.

  For the first time since the challenge began, I checked what Keya was doing.

  She must have just taken her cupcakes out of the oven because she was still wearing oven mitts, but she wasn’t taking the cakes out to cool, and I could see why. They were shriveled down in their little cups and though their edges were brown, their centers looked wet and foamy.

  She had time to make another batch if she hustled. But she wasn’t hustling. She was chewing on her bottom lip, staring down at her shrunken cupcakes. Maybe she was trying to figure out what had gone wrong—it didn’t made sense to start again until she knew what had happened.

  Come on, Keya. Come on. Go through the steps in your head. Find the mistake and get moving.

  I don’t know if she couldn’t figure out what went wrong, or if she wasn’t even trying but two whole minutes later, she was still just standing there.

  Before I knew it, I’d put down the pastry bag and was headed over to Keya’s station.

  “Hey, you can’t do that,” Marco said behind me. His voice sounded different, like for once he was saying something he hadn’t practiced in front of a mirror.

  At the front of the set, Chef JJ and Dieter were offering tips on making buttercream frosting and didn’t seem to notice that the Transformer usually trained on my station was swinging sharply to the left.

  April the medic saw me though, and beat me to Keya. “Go back to your station,” she said, blocking me. They were definitely going to have to edit this out.

  “Keya?” I said over April’s shoulder.

  She didn’t say anything. She was still staring at her sad cupcakes.

  “Look—”

  April poked me in the chest. “I said, ‘Back to your station.’”

  I backed up as if I’d given in, but then circled around the front of the counter to Keya’s other side. “You have time to make another batch.”

  “Why do you care? You want to crush me, remember?” She shoved the tray across the counter. “Now, you have.”

  “We just need to figure out what went wrong.”

  “Dude, you won,” April said. “Let it go.”

  “C’mon, before you-know-who has a fit,” Marco whisper-yelled. He was standing behind April, his arms crossed, hands squeezing his bulging biceps.

  “April, Marco, you’re in the frame. Back up,” said the camera guy shooting from the far end of the counter.

  “Were they just yellow cupcakes?” I reached into the cabinet and pulled out some clean mixing bowls.

  “What are you doing?” Keya said.

  I couldn’t explain even if I wanted to so I just started scooping flour into one of the bowls.

  “I’m not fooling around,” Marco warned. “Get back to your station now.”

  “It’s over,” Keya said.

  It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be over, not until Keya had some cupcakes for Chef JJ to taste so she could declare Keya the winner. “Okay, what’s next?” I looked around the counter. “Baking powder! There’s no baking powder. That’s what you forgot.”

  Right then, someone jerked my shoulders from behind. I stumbled back, trying to catch myself, but couldn’t get my feet under me.

  The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, looking up at Marco, who looked as surprised as I felt.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to…” He reached out to help me up, but before I could take his hand, someone was swatting it away.

  “What’s wrong with you?” It was my mother, right there on the set, standing over me, glaring at Marco like she was going to rip his head off.

  “Mom?” I felt my face go hot. “You’re not… What are you—”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I got up off the floor.

  Mom looked me up and down. “You’re sure? Because sometimes it takes a while when—”

  “I’m sure.”

  Mom put her hand on her heart and took a deep breath, then spun around to face Marco, her eyes flashing from wo
rried-mom back to monster-mom. “Don’t you ever—”

  “What is going on here?” came an icy voice. “And dear God, what are those?” Chef JJ pointed to Keya’s cupcakes.

  My mother, Marco, and April all started talking at once.

  “Enough!” Chef JJ snapped. “Randy!”

  “Right here.” Randy was standing behind the camera chewing a pen cap to shreds.

  “Get the leech back to her seat.”

  “Who?” Randy said.

  “I meant…” Chef JJ had a look on her face I’d never seen, and before I could even say what it was, it was gone. “Get Kira, Tristan’s mother, back to her seat.”

  “I’m sorry, did you just call me a leech?” Mom said to Chef JJ.

  “Kira, do you know how much it costs if we don’t finish filming on schedule? Are you going to pay for that?”

  “She did call you a leech,” I said. I wasn’t going to cover for Chef JJ. “That’s what she calls you and Walter.”

  “Why?” Mom looked more confused than upset.

  Chef JJ’s nostrils flared. “Why? Why?” she taunted. “Because that’s what we call people who suck your blood and then move on without so much as a thank-you.”

  For a few moments, Mom didn’t say anything, and neither did anybody else.

  What happened next was pretty much the last thing I think anyone expected: Mom burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Chef JJ snapped.

  Mom gripped her side like she had a cramp and kept on laughing. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “What is so funny?” Chef JJ repeated, a vein across her forehead pulsing.

  “Ooo. Ooo…” Mom gasped for air. “Walter and I open a bottle of champagne every April 12 to celebrate the day we quit! He’s going to love it when I tell him you call us ‘the leeches.’”

  “Stop it! Stop laughing!” That vein in Chef JJ’s forehead looked like it might burst.

  “Mrs. Levin, um,” Randy said, “maybe you could, you know, go back to your seat so we can finish filming.”

  Mom wiped her eyes. “Oh, right. Yes, of course.”

  As Randy led my mother, still chuckling, off the set, Samara brought Chef JJ a glass of water.