Baker's Dozen

by Lori R. Taylor

  “What are you, the CIA?”

  Jassie giggled, in that same breathy, girlish way she used to in high school. She’d sounded exactly like that on the night she’d been crowned prom queen. And again, right after she’d stolen Maeve’s boyfriend.

  “You’re so funny. That’s one of your two talents, Maeve. If only your other talent wasn’t so … well, you know what they say, those who can’t do, teach.”

  Maeve would’ve said those who can’t do pay others to do for them. But she’d learned from experience that it was better to get conversations with Jassie over with fast. Any argument she started would just prolong the misery.

  “What do you want, Jassie?”

  “My, you’re in a bad mood. You wouldn’t happen to have been browsing my profile, would you?”

  Maeve paced over to the foyer and up the stairs to the second floor. She had to move, or her pent-up nerves would erupt like lava through her teeth, and she’d end up saying something she’d regret later.

  “Why are you calling?”

  “I just wanted to find out how you were doing with your submission. You know you only have two days, right?”

  “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “I really didn’t expect you to go through with this whole thing. Considering how tough things have been for you, it might not be good for you. Mentally.”

  Maeve was sick of being toyed with. She cut straight to it. “What’s your problem with me?”

  Jassie sighed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about — I thought we were friends. Having a friendly little competition.”

  Maeve hesitated. This was Jassie's trick. Being mean, then backtracking when someone called her on it. She loved pretending that she was the victim.

  Maeve was done falling for it. “Whatever. I don’t have time for this. I’ve got cookies in the oven.”

  “Cookies? That’s what you’re making? Sounds like someone’s never heard of making a good first—”

  She hung up on Jassie, slammed her eyes shut, and drew a deep breath.

  Jassie was trying to get to her, and Maeve wasn’t going to let her. If she started second-guessing herself now, she’d still be trying to figure out what to bake while everyone else was handing in their entries.

  Keeping it simple was still the smart move. The peanut butter cookies were only for qualifying; she’d come up with something more elaborate to serve the judges in the actual competition.

  And if Jassie thought she was going to back out, she was going to be disappointed.

  This was Maeve’s dream. Not hers. Jassie could use her trust fund money to start her own bakery if she wanted to. She didn’t need the prize money or the title. She just wanted to ruin Maeve’s dreams.

  The scent of something burning hit her nose. The cookies.

  Maeve sprinted downstairs and darted into the kitchen. Smoke wisped through the cracks of the oven door and hung in the air above the burners.

  She shoved the window open, switched on the stovetop fan, and whipped open the oven door. Smoke billowed out. She waved it away toward the window with her hand towel. The peanut butter cookies lay shriveled and black on the baking tray.

  “You win this round, Jassie St. Clair,” she growled.

  Maeve dumped the charred cookies in the trash and the baking sheet into the kitchen sink. Then she brought a clean bowl out from under the counter and set to work on another batch.

  If she had to, she’d stay up all night to get the cookies right.

  Chapter Six

  Maeve bit into another cookie from batch fifteen and chewed.

  “Dry,” she announced to her empty kitchen. “Dry as desert sand. Why can’t I get this right?”

  She dropped the cookie back onto the tray in disgust. Had she lost her touch over the last dozen hours?

  Had Jassie cursed her with a case of bad juju?

  Or was her palette ruined because she’d been tasting cookies all night?

  At this point, Maeve wasn’t sure if she could tell the difference between a cookie and a hockey puck.

  “You’re fine, it’s fine.” She ran crumby fingers over her batter-splashed apron. “Of course you’re not fine. Look at you, for heaven’s sake. You’ve made a million cookies and none of them are even edible. This is a disaster.”

  Twenty batches of cookies. One of which had been adapted from her grandmother’s original recipe. The others were variations, some with added oatmeal or raisins. Both of which were superfoods, according to the internet.

  She picked up a cookie from batch fourteen and bit into it.

  Then spat it into the sink. Raisins and peanut butter? What had she been thinking?

  The sun was barely up, but she’d already burned through three pots of coffee to keep herself conscious through the night. There was no chance of bed with the contest deadline looming. She still hadn’t finished step one.

  She turned toward the kitchen and blinked. Mom’s garden was bright with colors: pink, yellow, violet, and red dotted through a mass of green. A lone butterfly drifted from flower to flower in one of the beds, mocking in its freedom.

  Maeve trudged upstairs to her bedroom and grabbed her phone from where she’d tossed it on the bed.

  She had five voicemails, a dozen additional texts, and a slew of notifications from BestGig, the freelancing app where new clients found her.

  Every single message was from Leroy.

  Where are you? It’s been more than 12 hours since I texted you about the color palette.

  I don’t appreciate being ignored — you’d better be finishing the logo that I paid an extra $50 to expedite.

  The final one, sent three minutes ago: If I don’t hear from you in the next hour, I’ll be forced to leave a one-star review and register a complaint with BestGig. And I’ll be finding another designer for future work.

  For six years she’d been producing high-quality graphics for Leroy, and he was ready to destroy her for being out of contact for — what, twenty-three hours?

  Clients like Leroy were why she needed to win this contest.

  None of her attempts had turned out as well as that first batch of cookies — the ones Baker had scarfed down.

  But she had no idea how to make them better.

  She had to get the samples to Emma. Her friend wasn’t a baker, but her taste buds had never steered Maeve wrong.

  Maeve separated the cookies into twenty different containers, labeling each with the batch number and ingredient list. (Batch number fourteen got a big red X on top: here there be raisins.)

  She carted the containers out to her beat-up Honda and tucked them onto the backseat, in neat rows like lines of Tupperware soldiers.

  After she got into the driver’s seat, she looped her arm over the back of the passenger seat and made eye contact with her cookies.

  “Some of you will live, and some of you will be eaten, and some of you, well, you should never have been created in the first place. I’m looking at you, number fourteen.”

  Motivational speech at an end, she reversed out of the driveway and made for Pretty Paws.

  It was only when she’d made it to the locked door of the shelter with her leaning tower of containers that she realized it was barely past dawn, and Pretty Paws didn’t open to the public until ten.

  She grabbed her phone and called Emma.

  “Good morning,” she chirped on the second ring. Emma had always been a disturbingly-happy morning person.

  “Hey, Em. You should let me in.”

  Through the windows on the front side, Maeve could just make out Emma turning around from whatever she’d been doing and noticing her on the other side of the glass.

  Maeve smiled and held up one hand in a silent wave.

  Emma rushed to the door and pushed it open. “What the…? Maeve? What are you doing?”

  Maeve shifted under the precarious stack of Tupperwares. “I need help.”

  “Yeah, you do, but not the kind you think. Have you looked in the mirror thi
s morning?” She stepped aside and waved Maeve into the lobby, so it was obviously alright.

  Maeve started laying the containers out on the reception desk. She still had her apron on, but she was well past the point of caring.

  “You have cookie dough in your hair,” Emma pointed out.

  “Oh?” She reached up, and her fingers found a glob of dried-out dough in the hair at her temple. She sniffed it, curious. “Oof, Batch Three. Too much cinnamon.”

  Emma laughed, but the sound was strained. “What’s going on?”

  Maeve flicked the glob of Batch Three into the trashcan next to the desk and started pacing. Her new normal, apparently, the pacing.

  “I’ve been baking all night.” She walked toward the lobby chairs and back again. “All night, and I’ve got twenty batches of cookies done, right?”

  “Holy … wow. All night? But the competition isn’t for another week.”

  “The qualifying round is due tomorrow, remember? I told you about it yesterday.”

  “Dude, it’s an audition. The cookies are meant to be edible. They don’t have to be masterpieces.”

  Maeve stilled and pointed at her. “See, that’s what they want you to think. But I know the truth. You have to make that first impression. What if I bake a batch of cookies that are too plain, and they punish me for it at the end?”

  “It might not even be the same people judging the contest.”

  “Jassie made a double-tiered chocolate cake with coconut milk and natural sweeteners. And I bet it was the best thing they’ve ever had on their tongues. I can’t let her get away with this.”

  “You need to sit down and take a breath.” Emma took her by the shoulders and pushed her down into one of the little gray-upholstered waiting room chairs. “I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

  “Will you try my cookies?”

  “Of course. Which one?”

  “All of them. You have to tell me which one’s the best. Except, well, fourteen. No one will like fourteen.” Maeve frowned at the line of containers spreading across the receptionist desk. “Dunno why I brought that one.”

  “All twenty? I’m pretty sure that will turn me diabetic.”

  The door to the back of the shelter opened before Maeve could say anything else, and two people came into the lobby — Leslie, the cheerful African-American woman who owned the shelter, and Dr. Dale, the pale, funny vet who helped run it.

  “—don’t think Athena will find a new home if she doesn’t stop scratching all the time. Have we tried the venison?” Leslie broke off, spotting Maeve. She glanced toward the door as if looking for damage to the glass. “How’d you get in?”

  “It’s my fault, Les,” Emma said. “This is my friend Maeve. She’s going nuts.”

  Maeve frowned, but couldn’t honestly disagree with the assessment.

  Leslie gave Maeve an appraising look. “The Maeve from yesterday?”

  “Yup.”

  A smiled sparkled in Leslie’s dark eyes as she turned toward the receptionist desk and the row of cookies.

  Dr. Dale had already wandered over to the desk and was examining the containers, lifting one off the desk. “What’s with all the cookies?”

  Maeve recognized the giant red X across the top of the one he held and leaped to her feet. “No, not those. That’s Batch Fourteen. It’s got raisins.”

  “Ah.” He set the container back down, as carefully as if it were a grenade about to detonate.

  “Maeve’s going to join the HealthNut baking contest. This is her attempt at making a qualifying entry.”

  “They need this many different types?” Dr. Dale asked.

  “Well, no.” Maeve’s cheeks got warm. It was one thing for Emma to think her crazy — it was an entirely different, and far worse, thing to give near-strangers the same impression. “I just wanted to get it perfect. But this is good. Now that you two are here, you can help me try them out.”

  “Sure,” said Dr. Dale.

  “I can’t, unfortunately.” Leslie patted her stomach where it pushed against her colorful scrubs. “Sugar before noon will have me sick all day.”

  “Okay. Then Dr. Dale and Emma can help me.”

  “Honey, you don’t need this many options,” Emma groaned. “You could bake a vanilla sponge cake and everyone would love it.”

  “I have to be sure.” Maeve went over to the desk and opened the lid on Batch One, her grandmother’s special recipe. She held the container out toward Dr. Dale. “My grammy’s special peanut butter cookies, adapted to fit the HealthNut codes. They’re vegan and—”

  Dr. Dale withdrew his hand. “I’m sorry, I’m allergic to peanuts.”

  “Oh. Oh, no.” Maeve shut the lid again, her shoulders sagging. She hadn’t even thought about potential allergens. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” He smiled warmly. “The hives only happen if I eat them.”

  Maeve deflated the rest of the way. The excitement that had carried her through the night was leaking out of her, fast. “I guess it’s up to Emma.”

  “I want to help, but that many cookies? I could never.”

  Emma, too?

  “What am I going to do?” Maeve pressed a hand to her forehead.

  “I’m sure your cookies are great,” Leslie said. “If they could convince the most antisocial dog in the shelter to jump on you, they’d have to be. Excuse us, ladies.”

  She headed for the door to the back, where the sound of barking dogs was coming from. Dr. Dale followed.

  Maeve sighed and leaned her elbows on the reception desk, shutting her eyes for a moment. “Seriously, this is a disaster. What am I going to do?”

  Emma pursed her lips. “You’re really that desperate to have a taste tester?”

  “I can’t tell anymore which ones are good, if any of them are. What’s a vegan cookie supposed to taste like, anyway?”

  “I have an idea. But you have to promise me something. No, two somethings.”

  “Anything.”

  “Firstly,” Emma said, raising a finger, “that you won’t freak out. And secondly, that you’ll take a shower before you go hand in your audition cookies.”

  “Done and done. What’s the idea?”

  “Why don’t we get Baker to be the tester?” Emma asked.

  “You’re not seriously suggesting we feed that dog more cookies? I mean, yesterday was—”

  “Not feed her, no. Especially not the raisin; raisins are toxic to dogs. But Baker clearly has a nose for them. I could bring her out now, and you could let her decide. See which ones she goes to first.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Maeve said, her pulse ticking up a notch. She definitely wasn’t prepared to be in the same room as a dog again. Especially not the dog who had jumped on her yesterday and started this whole re-baking debacle in the first place. “She’s a dog.”

  “Dogs have the best sense of smell.” Emma paused, narrowing her eyes. “Come on, Maeve. What have you got to lose?”

  “Dog tastes are probably different from human tastes.”

  “Are you really going to let Jassie win, just because you’re afraid of dogs?”

  Maeve pictured Jassie’s smug face when she found out that she’d missed the deadline for submitting her entry. Jassie had distracted her last night, made her burn her second batch of cookies, and what if those were the winners? This was partly her fault.

  “Fine,” she said. “Let’s see what the dog can do.”

  Chapter Seven

  The smell of cookies hovered around Emma as she crouched in front of Baker’s cage, holding out a leash and smiling. “Come on, girl. I need your help.”

  She spoke in that soft, high voice that nice humans used a lot around dogs.

  Not-nice humans shouted.

  Baker stayed where she was, her back to the kennel wall. She didn’t have to leave. She’d already been fed, and she was washed yesterday. But that smell…

  Cookies.

  Baker sniffed again, more insistently. She wag
ged her tail, once.

  “That’s right,” Emma said. “Guess who’s here? Maeve. And she’s got more of those cookies.”

  Maeve was here.

  Maeve, the human who was afraid. Baker was afraid of her, too. But she had cookies.

  Slowly, she got to her feet and walked toward Emma. She allowed her to clip on the leash, then followed her down the long passage between the cages. A few of the dogs lay sleeping. Others barked and pushed against the fronts of their cages, their ears flapping. Naturally, Spotty-Ears was one of those.

  One or two turned their heads this way and that, as if to ask if it was finally her turn to go to The Front.

  Most dogs who went to The Front didn’t come back, and those that did were sad, like they’d seen something strange and terrible up there. Baker’s skin prickled at the thought. The Front was no place she ever wanted to go.

  Near the end of the row, a big black dog sat with his nose pressed up against the wires of his kennel door. He bared his teeth and growled at Baker as she passed.

  She didn’t know what Emma and the other humans called him, but to her, his name was Bully. He hated her. He was the reason she wouldn’t play in the yard — the first time she’d tried to go out, he’d been waiting. He chased her around and snapped at her legs.

  The other humans had stopped him, and he wasn’t allowed in the yard with other dogs anymore, only on his own. When they did take him out, he would growl as he passed by Baker’s kennel.

  Her hackles went up, but Bully didn’t leap at the door. He simply watched.

  Finally, they were out in the lobby, and the smell of cookies grew even stronger.

  Baker drooled.

  Maeve stepped back. She was covered in specks of cookie and smelled gooey and warm.

  “Here she is,” Emma said, and led her forward. “See? Baker’s calm. She even came out of her cage willingly, and that’s a first. All I had to say was the name ‘Maeve’ and she came out.”

  “Oh please, Em, I might be tired, but I’m not stupid. I highly doubt she even remembers me.”

  She wiped her hands on her cookie-speckled apron. It looked yummy. The type of thing Baker might dig her teeth into and sleep on, maybe at the same time.