As if someone had slammed a window shut, Brigit’s face grew stiff and closed. Mel couldn’t read any emotion off of her. She wondered if she had gone too far, but figured if she had, she had nothing to lose.
“What is the history between you, Hannigan, and Sam?”
“Ask Sam,” Brigit said.
“I did,” Mel admitted. “He said it wasn’t his story to tell.”
The side of Brigit’s mouth curved up for just a second in the tiniest of smiles. Mel realized she had never seen Brigit smile and had certainly never heard her laugh. For the first time, she felt sorry for Brigit, and her pity outweighed her fear. A life without laughter was unthinkable to Mel.
“That sounds like Sam, loyal to the end,” she said. “We do have a history, a long one. But it isn’t relevant now.”
“Really?” Mel asked. She knew she sounded sarcastic, and she didn’t even bother to lessen her tone. “You were nose-to-nose with Hannigan a few minutes ago in my kitchen, and you don’t think your history is relevant? How are we supposed to pull this off if you people are in the middle of a power struggle?”
Brigit shrugged as if it was none of her concern.
“Oh, no,” Mel said. “Now you’re messing with my reputation. If we’re doing this huge charity event with a video on SWS’s website and still pictures in the next issue, then you had better believe that you are going to figure out how you’re going to get this done, and with a smile on your face, too.”
“Excuse me?” Brigit’s eyebrows pulled together in one of the most menacing frowns Mel had ever seen, and if Mel hadn’t been completely irritated, it might have given her pause. It did not.
“You heard me,” Mel ground out.
Brigit put a hand over her heart in mock fear. “Stop, you’re scaring me.”
“Ooh, I did sound like a mean boss lady, didn’t I?” Mel asked.
“When someone threatens something you love, it brings out the tiger mother in you.”
Mel nodded. She got it now. Brigit was as fierce as she was because she loved her magazine as much as Mel loved her bakery.
“So, since you’re in charge and seem to have connected with your inner boss lady, how do you suggest I deal with Hannigan? Meaning, how do I do this cupcake charity thing and manage to get out the next issue of my magazine?” Brigit asked.
Mel was quiet for a moment as she contemplated options. Then she tipped her head, and said, “Maybe we need to switch personalities for the week?”
Brigit gave her a hard stare, and then she laughed. She threw back her head and laughed loud and long. Her laugh sounded rusty, as if she didn’t do it often enough.
“I like you, Melanie Cooper,” she said as she wiped a tear away from one eye. “I think you might be on to something. A mellower me and a tougher you; it might just work.”
The back door banged open and Sam stuck his head out, followed by Tate. They must have dropped their cupcakes and run, because they both had dabs of frosting on their upper lips and in the corners of their mouths.
“Is everything okay out here?” Sam asked.
“Did you two go back for seconds?” Mel asked. They both looked guilty. “Sheesh, I leave my bakery for two seconds, and you just decide to help yourselves to the product. The cupcakes are for the customers, you know.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Tate asked. “You sound so—”
“Tough? Assertive? Mean?” Mel asked hopefully.
“Well, yeah,” Tate said.
Mel spun around and exchanged an awkward high five with Brigit. They missed each other’s hands on the first try and had to do it again.
“What’s going on?” Tate asked. “You two look like you’re up to something.”
“Uh-oh, the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North have bonded,” Sam said.
“You’ll just have to see which is the wicked witch,” Mel said. “Now get back in there and get to work!”
She glanced over her shoulder and saw Brigit give her a very subtle nod.
Mel strode back into the bakery to find Angie, Justin, Bonnie, and Sylvia unpacking bags of supplies. There was no sign of Amy or of Hannigan, for which she was grateful.
“All right, people, listen up,” Mel said. She was only a tad stunned when they actually did. “The stakes on this have been raised. We have a camera crew coming to film us while we work, and Hannigan plans to put it on the magazine’s website. I, for one, am not going to allow my bakery to look anything other than professional. Got it?”
Angie was looking at Mel with wide eyes, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.
“From now on you will dress appropriately, you will wear the bakery’s aprons, you will participate, and you will work your butt off this week to make sure we have the finished cupcakes for the gala. Are you with me so far?”
Again, the group nodded as one.
“Excellent,” Mel said. “Pull up a chair, everyone, we’re going to work out a schedule.”
The meeting went well. At the end of it, they had timed out the entire week. They were about to break for lunch when Amy came in through the swinging door.
“The camera crew is right behind me,” she said. She gave Brigit a particularly thin smile. “Ian agreed that I should take the lead on the filming.”
Brigit’s left eyebrow rose, but Mel shook her head, and Brigit took a deep breath and said nothing. Sam gave her a look of concern, but he didn’t say anything.
“How about a nice lunch at RA, the sushi place down the street?” Bonnie suggested. “Then we can come back and start baking.”
“What about the filming?” Amy demanded. “I’m in charge of it, and I say we start now.”
Brigit’s lips were compressed into thin line, as if she were afraid that even the tiniest opening might allow a volley of harsh words to spew forth.
“Amy, you can set up the film crew while the others go eat,” Mel said.
“What? You are not the boss!” Amy planted her hands on her hips and tossed her long, dark hair.
“Excuse me?” Mel asked. She stepped closer to Amy and raised one eyebrow, obviously daring her to repeat what she’d just said. “You’re in my bakery and this little boot camp thing that we’re doing, yeah, I’m in charge of it. So, I am the boss and you will do as I say, or you will be downgraded to dishwasher. You feeling me now?”
“You can’t intimidate me. I’m going to call Ian right now!” Amy shrieked.
“And you just lost all of your personal power by threatening to go crying to the boss,” Mel said. “Pitiful.”
It was clear that Amy was furious at being called out in front of the others. She spun on her heel and slammed back through the kitchen to the bakery. They could hear her taking her foul mood out on the film crew.
“So, we’re off for lunch?” Justin asked, rubbing his hands together.
“Be back in an hour,” Mel said. “We have a lot of work to do.”
Mel, Angie, and Tate didn’t join the others. Mel wanted to use the lunch hour to do some prep work, and Angie had already been gone most of the morning. As the doors shut behind the magazine crew, Mel felt relieved to be left in peace with just Angie and Tate.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Angie asked Tate.
“I took a personal day,” he said.
Mel and Angie exchanged a look. Tate never took personal days. He worked for his father’s investment firm and was very, very good at making other people’s money grow.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” Mel asked. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine,” Tate said.
“Maybe you need fewer cupcakes and a little more cauliflower,” Angie said.
Tate stood up and crossed the room. “I’ve got to go.”
“What, no movie quote? Nothing? Not even, ‘You see, Marcus. The ending is only the beginning’?” Angie asked.
“The Human Comedy,” Mel and Tate identified the movie together.
“Oh,
that was an easy one,” Angie said. “Speaking of movies, are we on for our usual classic movie at your place on Saturday night, Tate? I’ll bring the Sno-Caps.”
“Uh, no,” Tate said. “I’m not going to be able to make it this week. Gotta go.”
He slipped through the kitchen doors and out the front without another word.
“Okay, what was that?” Angie asked Mel. “He is acting so weird.”
“I have no idea,” Mel said. “Hey, can you give me a hand setting up the kitchen like we’re going to be teaching one of our classes? I think that’s the best way to handle this bunch.”
“Sure,” Angie agreed. “Do you think Tate’s sick?”
“He seems off but not ill,” Mel said.
Angie began putting out bowls and whisks while Mel measured out ingredients. She noticed Angie was muttering under her breath and thumping the items down on the table harder than was necessary. When she slammed a glass bowl down, making the steel tabletop reverberate like a gong, Mel could no longer ignore her.
“Angie, stop banging the cookware!” she ordered. “Now, exactly what is your problem?”
Nine
“He didn’t even notice my hair!” Angie said.
As if to emphasize her point, she did an elaborate hair toss that looked like it cricked her neck but, being Angie, she refused to show any pain.
“Clearly the man is losing his sense of priorities,” Mel said. Her sarcasm went unnoticed by Angie, which was probably a good thing.
“Ah!” Angie gasped.
“What?” Mel asked, thinking Angie had hurt herself.
“You don’t think he’s seeing someone, do you?”
“Are you insane?”
“Hear me out,” Angie said. “He called out of work, he looks terrible, and he doesn’t want to get together on Saturday night, you know, the premiere date night of the week.”
“So, he’s under the weather,” Mel said.
“Yeah, like lovesick under the weather,” Angie said.
The kitchen door swung open, and Marty strode in. He was wiping his hands on his blue apron with the atomic Fairy Tale cupcake logo on it.
“I need backup out there,” he said. “I’ve got a line five deep, and I’m out of Death by Chocolates.”
“Angie will help you,” Mel said.
Angie gave her a look that clearly stated she did not like being bossed around. Mel didn’t care.
“If you’d rather be in charge of all this, be my guest.” Mel held her arms out wide, gesturing to the cupcake boot camp preparations.
“Fine, I’ll help.”
“Well, thank you,” Marty said, not sounding grateful in the least as the door closed behind him.
“You might want to see if Marty knows anything about what’s going on with Tate,” Mel suggested.
Angie looked at the door with a considering glance. “I’ll try, but you know how men are. Marty will know every play Tate made in his last volleyball game, but Tate could get married and have two kids and Marty would never notice.”
“You have a point,” Mel said. “Good luck, and report back.”
Angie left through the swinging doors, and Mel sank gratefully into an empty seat. She could hear the faint sound of customers being helped on the other side of the doors, but the ticking of the kitchen clock was the dominant sound in the room, and she relaxed into the stillness.
She was not going to have a meltdown, or so she kept telling herself in the hope that it would keep her from bursting into tears and looking like a big sissy.
The truth was that being in charge did not come easily to her. She was a horrible delegator and generally preferred to do things herself, because that way she knew they would get done right. She really only trusted her bakery crew, and having this crop of strangers plus a camera crew was going to be a real test of her patience and nerves. Honestly, she didn’t know if she was up to it.
It was an hour on the dot when she heard the bells on the front door jangle, signaling the return of the magazine crew. While they’d been gone, Amy had directed the camera crew to rig up cameras in the kitchen to cover all angles of the cupcake boot camp. Mel tried not to notice, but it felt as if there were a million watchful eyes on her.
Chad, the photographer, was there as well as Nick, a large man who had not spoken a word the entire time he’d been setting up the cameras and who had a very long red beard, undoubtedly to replace the hair he no longer had on his head.
Mel tried not to resent the cables and noise that the two brought with them, but she couldn’t help feeling as if her sanctuary was being violated.
“I will go direct the staff,” Amy said.
She looked as if she expected Mel to challenge her, but Mel really couldn’t care less about the film portion of this venture, except that it not make her bakery look bad.
Mel glanced at the table to see that the chefs had all that they needed. She had decided to make the pumpkin cupcakes first. She figured they’d bake the different varieties and freeze them in batches, thawing them as each cupcake had a different type of frosting with different handling requirements.
A crash sounded from the front of the bakery, and Mel’s head snapped up. Had someone dropped a tray of cupcakes? Not the end of the world, but it always hurt when one of her cupcakes went frosting-side down to its doom.
There was a shout—okay, more of a high-pitched screech—and then another one.
“Uh, Mel, we need you out here—now!” Marty said as he popped his head through the door.
Mel hurried through the doors into the main bakery. What she saw brought her up short, and she skidded into Justin, who stood gaping at the scene before him. Brigit had Amy in a headlock that any World Wrestling Entertainment champ would have given her props for.
Mel grunted as she caught her balance with Justin’s help. “What’s going on?”
“The smack-down of the century,” he said. “Amy suggested to Brigit that she go have some quick Botox done since the magazine is trying to bring in a younger readership—”
“And she didn’t think Brigit’s wrinkles would go over well on camera,” Sylvia interrupted.
“She said Brigit wouldn’t want to scare away the young hipsters with her sagging skin, now, would she?” Bonnie relayed. Her eyes were huge, as if she couldn’t believe Amy was still alive.
“She did not!” Mel gasped.
“Oh, yes, she did,” Justin assured her.
“I didn’t know Amy had a death wish,” Sam said from Mel’s other side. “And it looks like Brigit would be happy to grant it.”
“Amy’s mean and stupid,” Bonnie said. “Deadly combination.”
“True beauty lies within,” Sylvia said.
Angie gave Sylvia a worshipful glance and Mel rolled her eyes and met Bonnie’s chagrined look. It was easy for a knockout like Sylvia to say something like that, but perhaps if she looked like a mortal, she’d have a better understanding of how society really didn’t give a hoot about inner beauty.
“Listen, you rubber-lipped, silicone-boobed, Spanx-wearing little tart, I was in this business before you were even born,” Brigit said as she tightened her grip on Amy’s head. “I wrote real news for real newspapers and I was traveling the world, being wined and dined by diplomats and celebrities while you hosted tea parties for your Malibu Barbies and anatomically challenged Kens. SWS thrives because of my commitment to excellence, not your fixation with drunken celebutantes. Now, you will respect me and what we do, or I will see you fired and on the dole with the hundred thousand other reporters who’ve been let go since newspapers were stupid enough to put their content online for free.”
A blubbering sound came from the tangle of dark hair in Brigit’s elbow. Mel didn’t think Amy was in pain, but perhaps she was scared, which seemed a bit overdue in Mel’s opinion.
“Well, fearless leader,” Justin said out of the side of his mouth to Mel, “it’s your call.”
She glared at him. “No way! You’re bigger than me.
You can break this up much easier than I can.”
“Bock bock bock!” Justin made clucking noises and flapped his arms.
“I am not chicken!” she protested. Justin continued to squawk and flap. “Fine!”
She stormed around the counter and faced Brigit.
“I thought you were supposed to be channeling me,” Mel said. “Do you see me putting people in headlocks?”
“Did she say you needed Botox?” Brigit countered with a grunt.
“True,” Mel conceded. “But I think you’ve made your point. You need to let her go.”
Brigit met her gaze with a grin. “You have no idea how good this feels.”
“Please. I took down my archenemy with a cupcake yesterday,” Mel said. “I know exactly how it feels.”
They exchanged a look of understanding.
“All right,” Brigit said. Then she leaned close to Amy, and hissed, “Show some respect, or next time it will be worse. Got it?”
She let Amy go and stepped back. Amy came up in a surge of rage. Her face was red and streaked with tears, snot was leaking out of her nose, and her chin wobbled like a spoiled brat who had just realized she wasn’t going to get her way.
In full temper, Amy struck out with a fist, but sadly her aim was lacking, and instead of popping Brigit, she punched Mel right in the eye, knocking her down and out.
Ten
Mel woke up, lying on a booth bench with Angie and Marty staring down at her on one side and Brigit and Justin on the other.
“Mel, are you all right?” Angie asked.
“Ooee, that’s quite the shiner you’ve got sprouting,” Marty said.
“A what? Why is my face frozen?” Mel sat up and a bag of ice dropped into her lap as the pink bakery spun around her in nauseating circles.
“Down you go,” Angie said as she gently steered Mel back into the booth.
“Did someone punch me?”
“Amy,” they all said together.
“Where is she?” Mel asked. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know so she could wallop Amy in return or because she was afraid of taking another hit.
Going, Going, Ganache Page 6
