The Icing on the Cake (Otter Bluff)

by Linda Seed

  Later, after they’d showered—which took longer than it should have because they did it together—they got dressed and arranged to meet Ike and Benny at a Thai place in Hollywood.

  It was Cassie’s first time meeting Brian’s best friend, and she was nervous as they went inside the restaurant and Brian waved to Ike and Benny, who were already seated.

  Ike was enormously tall, with a sculpted beard and a friendly smile. Benny was an attractive brunette in her mid-thirties wearing a Star Trek T-shirt, skinny jeans, and black Doc Martens.

  Cassie liked them both immediately, which was a relief because she already knew Ike held a lot of influence with Brian, and Benny held a lot of influence with Ike.

  They talked and laughed over beer and Pad Thai. Ike and Benny told them about their wedding plans for the following spring, and Brian and Cassie filled everyone in on life in Cambria. Ike told them how he was getting along at the UCLA law school, and Benny talked about her job as a college marine biology instructor.

  Brian and Ike laughed a little over a video Brian was planning, then Ike brought up the ones Brian and Cassie had made together.

  “They’re really good.” Ike leaned his long body back in his chair, a bottle of beer in one hand. “You know, Cassie, you have great comic timing. Not to mention the fact that you can decorate the hell out of a cake. The ones you made for the show were amazing.”

  “I’m really hoping you’ll do ours,” Benny said.

  Cassie blinked at her a few times. “Really?”

  “Oh, hell yes. The one you made on that first video was stunning. And I saw the ones you posted on your Instagram. And”—she pointed one finger at Cassie—“I’m telling you now, we’re paying full price. I don’t want you giving us some ridiculous discount just because we’re Brian’s friends and you’ll be coming to the wedding.”

  Cassie absorbed the fact that they assumed she would be coming to their wedding as Brian’s date a year from now. They’d just met her, and yet they were taking it for granted that she was here to stay. That had to mean Brian had told Ike he was serious about her.

  She felt warm all over in a way that was distinctly pleasant.

  “Hopefully, I’ll have my bakery up and running before then,” she said, avoiding the question of what Brian had said to them and what it all meant.

  “How’s the search going? You find a place you like here in LA?” Benny asked.

  Cassie’s shoulders fell, and she took a hefty slug of her beer. “No. No, I didn’t. Let me tell you what happened.…”

  The visit with Ike and Benny was just what they’d both needed to release some of the tension of the day. Later, when they were alone, they released some more tension in a way that would have been decidedly inappropriate at a restaurant.

  They couldn’t put off dealing with it forever, though, so Cassie brought it up when they were lying in bed together in the dark.

  “I think we should just go home. If I can see Lisa in person and talk to her about the Cambria property, then yes, I want to do that. But if she won’t even talk to us …” She shrugged. “Lorenzo isn’t going to show me anything I want to see.”

  Brian rolled onto his side to face her in the silvery moonlight streaming through the hotel window. He rubbed her shoulder gently. “We’ll go over there in the morning. To her place. And I’m not asking Lorenzo’s permission. Then, if we don’t get anywhere with her … yeah, we’ll go home.”

  “You warned me this wasn’t going to work out.” Cassie tried to keep the tears out of her voice. “You warned me, and I didn’t listen.”

  “Maybe it’ll still be okay,” he said. “Let’s try tomorrow, and we’ll see.”

  Brian didn’t think it was going to be okay. He didn’t think Lisa was going to listen, and he had his doubts about whether she’d even pry herself away from her studio long enough to hear their arguments.

  But he couldn’t say that to Cassie—not when she was feeling so vulnerable. He had to keep up a show of optimism for her sake.

  The fact was, he was furious with his mother. But, hell, that wasn’t a new feeling for him. He’d been furious with her before, and he would be again. But usually, that anger was roused by something she’d done to him. Now she was playing games with Cassie, and that was an entirely different thing.

  He wasn’t going to let his mother screw around with the woman he loved.

  It wasn’t until he’d thought about it just that way, lying in bed with Cassie nestled against him, that he realized he loved her.

  He loved her.

  He wouldn’t tell her—not now. He wasn’t sure she was there yet, and he didn’t want to freak her out. But for him, the matter was settled.

  Now that he knew he loved her, he wasn’t going to let anyone—even his mother—hurt her.

  Chapter 27

  The next morning, Brian and Cassie had breakfast at the hotel, packed their things, checked out, and drove to Lisa’s place in Silver Lake.

  She lived in a converted warehouse loft space that was right out of Flashdance, if the woman in Flashdance had been rich. Exposed brick and ductwork gave the place urban ambiance, along with a huge, steel front door that rolled instead of swinging open. Half of the interior was arranged as a living area, and the rest was designated as Lisa’s studio.

  Not that Cassie saw much of it until after a good deal of arguing and confrontation.

  Initially, Lorenzo met them at the door and refused to let them in.

  “Lisa is working. You understand that, no?” Cassie tried to ignore the fact that the man was wearing nothing but a pair of running shorts. He worked out, obviously, but she didn’t think this was the time to admire his abs.

  “I understand that she’s my mother and I don’t need your permission to speak with her,” Brian said.

  “Ah, but I’m afraid you do.” Lorenzo smiled and shrugged. “She’s asked me to keep her environment free of distractions, so …”

  “Maybe put on a goddamned shirt if you don’t want her to be distracted,” Brian said. Then he leaned into the doorway past Lorenzo and shouted, “Mom? Lisa! I need to talk to you right now. Tell this asshole to let us in.”

  Moments later, Lisa came to the doorway, and Cassie was surprised by her appearance. She looked older and more tired than she had when Cassie had seen her last. She was wearing a pair of loose sweatpants and a cardigan sweater, which she was hugging around herself. She had no makeup, no jewelry, and she looked like a different version of herself—as though she had a twin sister who’d become a librarian, maybe, or a grocery store clerk instead of a high-profile artist.

  “What is it, Brian?”

  Clearly, he, too, was surprised by her appearance—and maybe also by the lack of fight in her voice. Because for a moment, he didn’t say anything. He just looked at her, his jaw slack.

  “Well?” she prompted him.

  “I … ah … Can we come in? Cassie and I want to talk to you.”

  She looked at them for a moment as though she weren’t going to admit them. Then she nodded and stepped back so they could enter.

  The first thing Cassie noticed was the art. Huge canvases, some so tall that Lisa needed a ladder to reach the tops of them. The art was a combination of oil paint and collage, and the subjects were all the same: domesticity and the subjugation of women.

  Cassie gaped at them, hugging herself, as she saw what appeared to be a series in progress, all focused on women in frilly aprons. They were all baking wedding cakes.

  In one, a woman in a Donna Reed–era dress and high heels decorated a pink and blue cake while wearing shackles around her ankles and wrists. Surrounding the image were blown-up news articles, book pages, and photographs related to bondage, slavery, imprisonment, and mind control.

  Cassie walked from one canvas to another. All of them played on the same themes.

  “What is this?” She looked at Lisa helplessly. “What is all this?”

  “It’s the work for Art Basel,” Lisa said crisply, walkin
g past them and toward the kitchen. “Can I get you two some tea?”

  “I don’t understand.” Brian sounded as shocked as Cassie felt. “You seemed so interested in Cassie’s baking at Otter Bluff. Is this what that was about?”

  Lisa shrugged, her face tight. “I might have gotten some inspiration from her. It’s possible. I get inspiration from any number of places.”

  Lorenzo occupied himself doing minor tasks in the studio, sweeping up in an area where Lisa had scattered the news clippings and other random items she used for her work. He looked over his shoulder and smirked at them as he swept.

  “Is this what you think of me?” Cassie swept an arm toward the paintings. “Is this really how you see me?”

  Lisa let out a scoff. “Dear, don’t be dramatic. I’m making an important social statement. It isn’t about you.”

  “But it is, though. Isn’t it?” Cassie felt gut-punched by what she was seeing, at the knowledge that she was being simultaneously ridiculed and used. “Why did you offer me the money, then? It certainly isn’t about you believing in what I do. Not with …” She gestured toward the paintings with disgust. “With this.”

  Lisa didn’t say anything. She just pulled her cardigan more tightly around her body as though it were armor.

  “Tell her, Mom.” Brian’s face was grim. “Tell her why.”

  “Brian, what are you talking about?” Lisa turned her ire on her son. “What exactly is it you think you know?”

  “Just that the whole bakery partnership has something to do with me. Doesn’t it?”

  “Well, of course it does!”

  Lisa threw her hands into the air and whirled toward her son. “What did you think, that I wanted to throw tens of thousands of dollars into a brand new business run by a woman who, at her age, still earns minimum wage and lives with her parents? Is that what you thought I wanted? I was doing this for you, Brian. For you. Because you have feelings for her, and I thought …”

  “Go on.” Brian’s voice was deadly calm.

  “I thought that if I could convince her to start her business here, in Los Angeles, then you might follow her. And then I might see you more than a couple of times a year, at Christmas or my birthday. You might not be able to forget I exist. We might … We might have an actual relationship, the way mothers and sons do. And if you want to hold that against me, then my God, Brian, you go right ahead. I plead guilty of loving you and wanting you in my life.”

  Brian had known that, of course. Lisa had made no secret of the fact that she’d wanted him to move closer to her. But having confirmation that she’d used Cassie to achieve her goals infuriated him.

  “You had no right to bring Cassie into something that should be between the two of us.” He pointed one threatening finger toward his mother. “This is her life you’re playing with.”

  “I’m right here,” Cassie said. “You’re both talking about me like I’m not here, but I’m standing two feet away from you and I can hear every word.”

  Lisa gave Cassie a dismissive wave and rolled her eyes.

  Brian looked at Cassie, tightened his jaw, then looked back at his mother. “You can’t control this,” he said, “and you can’t control me or my feelings.”

  Lisa reached out to her son, putting her hand on his arm. “If you could only see how I—”

  He shook her hand off. “For what it’s worth, Lisa”—he pointedly used her first name—“the reason we don’t have a better relationship has nothing to do with where I live. You think this is about geography? About travel time? It’s about the fact that you’re so epically narcissistic that you couldn’t be bothered to raise me, you look down on everything I do, and you’ve never shown even the slightest hint of interest in me or the things I value. But, sure, get me to move to LA and I’m sure all of that will go away.”

  Lisa reared back as though she’d been slapped.

  “Come on, Cassie. Let’s go.” He walked toward the door, expecting her to follow him.

  Cassie watched Brian walk to the door, but she didn’t go with him. Not at first. She was too stunned by everything that had happened, everything that had been said, to move.

  Somehow, she’d gotten wrapped up in something that had nothing to do with her. She didn’t want to be in the middle of this, and yet here she was. Feelings roiled inside her. She was seeing her best shot at her dream go up in a cloud of foul-smelling vapor. She’d been insulted, and it had turned out Brian was right that his mother disapproved of her. All of that left her feeling crushed. Devastated.

  But she was also watching two people—one whom she cared about deeply and the other whom, regardless of what she’d done, was still a human being with feelings—hurt each other in ways that might never be repaired.

  “Cassie? Are you coming?” Brian, usually such a relaxed and happy guy, looked grim and gutted.

  “I … yes. Yes, I’m coming.” She followed him out without another word. As she went, she saw Lorenzo smirking at her.

  They didn’t talk in the car as Brian maneuvered through the traffic of the city and toward the freeway that would take them north out of town. At first, they didn’t talk because the tension of the shit show they’d just experienced was too thick to let anything through.

  After a while, though, the fact that they weren’t talking to each other became its own thing, its own source of discomfort and angst.

  They didn’t talk as they got onto Highway 101, they didn’t talk as they moved through Hollywood, then Studio City, then Sherman Oaks.

  Finally, Cassie couldn’t take the silence anymore.

  “Are we going to talk about this?” She was slumped down in her seat, her arms crossed over her chest.

  He stretched his neck and didn’t look at her. “Not yet.”

  “Are you mad at me?” Cassie asked, thinking as she said it that she sounded like a toddler who’d gotten caught writing on the walls. “Is that what’s going on? Are you mad at me? Because, Brian, that’s really—”

  “No. I’m not. I just don’t want to talk about any of this yet. So if you could just … just not talk about it yet, that would be great.”

  Tears in her eyes, Cassie slumped down even farther in the passenger seat, thinking that it was a long way to Cambria. It was going to seem even longer.

  Chapter 28

  Cassie had imagined that Brian would crack at some point during the drive; he would become uncomfortable with the silence and talk about what had happened—certainly before they arrived in Cambria.

  He didn’t.

  They stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s in Ventura, and their total conversation amounted to what Cassie wanted and whether she preferred the medium combo or the large.

  The longer it went, the more angry she became. Surely he couldn’t think any of this had been her fault. Surely he understood that she’d been wronged here, not only by his mother’s refusal to accept the Cambria location for the bakery but, more importantly, by her judgment of Cassie. At her age, still living at home. Still making minimum wage. Still nobody, in other words. Shouldn’t he be reassuring her that she was, in fact, somebody? Shouldn’t he be affirming that he didn’t share his mother’s view of her?

  Instead of doing any of those things, he stared forward at the road, occasionally messing with the radio or bobbing his head along with whatever song was playing.

  When he dropped her off at home, she didn’t invite him in, and he didn’t ask. He did help her carry her bag—at least he was still that much of a gentleman—but he dropped it inside and said an awkward goodbye, his hands stuffed into his pants pockets. Then he headed back to his car and drove away.

  I will not cry, Cassie told herself. I will not fall apart.

  * * *

  In her trailer, she looked in her refrigerator, but she wasn’t hungry. She tried to take a nap, thinking it might calm her down, but she couldn’t so much as doze. She unpacked her bag, but that took only a minute, since she’d been gone barely a day.

  She paced
around her tiny space, thinking about everything that had happened. Then she did what she always did when she was having a problem.

  She called Lacy.

  Lacy and Daniel’s house was located south of town off a winding road that led into the rolling, grass-covered hills. The house itself had been recently remodeled, with an addition to accommodate their quickly growing family. In back was Daniel’s glass-blowing studio, down a gravel path from the house.

  When Cassie got there, it was late afternoon. Lacy was in the kitchen arranging slices of cheese, crackers, and chunks of fruit on plates for the children’s afternoon snack.

  “Come and get it,” Lacy called to Danny and Caleb, and the two boys ran into the kitchen, scrambled into their chairs, and began eating as though they’d just emerged from a week in the wilderness.

  Trevor got a handful of Cheerios at his high chair.

  With that done, Lacy turned to Cassie.

  “Okay, that should occupy them for a few minutes. What’s up? You sounded upset on the phone.”

  Cassie slid onto a barstool at the kitchen island where Lacy was putting away cheese and discarding strawberry tops and apple cores.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” she said.

  “I take it the trip to LA didn’t go well.”

  Tears sprang to Cassie’s eyes, and she wiped them away, taking in a shuddering breath.

  “Oh, boy,” Lacy said. “That bad, huh?”

  “Yeah. That bad.”

  “Okay. After the boys finish their snack, I’ll put on a movie for them. Then you should be able to tell me about it without things getting too crazy.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the older boys were watching a Pixar movie, Trevor had been put down for a nap, and Lacy and Cassie were sitting at the kitchen table, cups of tea in front of them.