The Bake-Off

by Beth Kendrick

  “If you’d like to give me a gift, how about letting me skip the ridiculous black-tie ball tonight?”

  “Never gonna happen.” Amy smiled brightly. “You’ll be there with bells on.”

  “Why do you insist on punishing me? I thought you’d decided you weren’t going to allow my negativity and self-destructive choices to affect you anymore.”

  “Most people don’t consider getting dressed up and going to a party with gourmet food and an open bar to be punishment.”

  “Most people are morons,” Linnie muttered.

  Amy cupped a hand to her ear. “What’s that?”

  “I said, have a good time at the Empire State Building.” When they reached the lobby, Amy headed for the elevator bank while Linnie kept walking toward the back of the hotel.

  “Hold on,” Amy commanded before Linnie could make a clean getaway. “I thought you were going up to our room.”

  “I am.” Linnie put on a bored, brusque expression, but Amy caught a glimmer of guile behind the facade. “Shortcut, remember? I’ll meet you up there.”

  The leaky bathroom faucet finally sent Linnie over the edge. She’d closed the curtains, tossed and turned on the sofa, and tried to nap while the steady drip, drip, drip from the sink slowly drove her to madness.

  Once she’d given up on sleep, she showered and gave herself a lecture on the importance of psychological toughness. Amy was right—she should stop obsessing over every little flaw in her environment and conserve her energy for baking to the very best of her ability. She dried off, slipped into an enormous white bathrobe embroidered with the hotel’s logo, and turned on the television to drown out the steady dripping from the sink.

  It almost worked.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  “You can’t hear that,” she told herself firmly. “You only think you hear it. This is a case of mind over matter, and mind is going to prevail.”

  Drip, drip, drip.

  She picked up the phone, dialed the front desk, and ripped into the hapless employee who answered.

  “This is Linnie Bialek, the enraged occupant of room twenty-six twenty-eight. I’m calling to complain about the air-conditioning in my room. Again. Plus, now my bathroom faucet is broken. . . . No, no, no, don’t you dare try to fob me off with promises of visits from some phantom maintenance crew. I want to speak with your supervisor. Your supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor. I expect a call back immediately. In the meantime, I’ll be buying a parka and sending you the bill.” She slammed down the receiver, combed out her tangled wet hair, and paced the perimeter of the sitting room, her fury mounting with every passing second.

  When she heard a knock at the door, she flung it open, ready to unleash a blistering tirade. But all her frustration short-circuited when she saw who was on her threshold.

  “Someone called about a parka?”

  Linnie clutched the lapels of her robe together and reminded herself to close her mouth. “It’s you.”

  “It’s me.” The mystery man from the freight elevator gave her a gracious nod. Although he was impeccably attired in a business suit, he carried a battered toolbox in one hand and a hefty pipe wrench in the other. “I’m Cam McMillan, by the way. I don’t think we properly introduced ourselves yesterday. You must be Linnie Bialek, enraged occupant of room twenty-six twenty-eight?”

  “I . . . You . . .” Her words came out strangled and shrill. “Cam McMillan. As in McMillan Hotels?”

  “You asked for the supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor, and here I am. How may I assist you this afternoon, Ms. Bialek?”

  When in doubt, she fell back on her customary hauteur to get her through. “This suite is entirely unacceptable.”

  “So I hear. And I will do everything in my power to make things right.” He paused, one corner of his mouth tugging up. “Perhaps by the end of your stay with us, we might even convince you to rescind your ‘twenty-dollar youth hostel’ comparison.”

  He was mocking her! She straightened her back and strode toward the sitting room in her bare feet. “I stand by that comment. Your ventilation system is atrocious, your room service takes forever, my bathroom sink faucet is dripping nonstop, and worst of all, when we checked in yesterday, there was lipstick on the drinking glasses.”

  “The lipstick thing is inexcusable, and you have my sincere apologies. I have personally called a plumber and a heating and cooling expert and they’ll be here within the hour, but in the meantime, I’ll see what I can do about the faucet.” He took off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of a chair.

  “And another thing.” Linnie knew she was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t bring herself to back down. “These robes are way too big. Do NBA players typically stay in this suite? Sumo wrestlers? Because I’m five eight, and this thing is swimming on me.” She stretched out her arms to prove her point. The cuffs flopped past the tips of her fingers.

  “Let me ask you something, Ms. Bialek.” Cam walked into the bathroom and crouched down on the tile to examine the faucet. “Is there anything about this hotel that does meet with your approval?”

  “Well.” Linnie crossed her arms and deliberated. “The shower pressure is adequate.”

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear it.” He ducked beneath the sink to examine the drainpipe.

  “And the complimentary conditioner works well.” She tugged her fingers through her damp hair.

  “Truly, I’m humbled by such praise.”

  “You’re going to ruin your suit.”

  “It’ll be worth it if it will raise your opinion of my hotel above ‘adequate.’ ” There was some muffled banging as he went to work with the wrench. “This property used to be the crown jewel of the McMillan family of hotels. It’s my job to restore it to its former glory, one enraged occupant at a time.”

  He reemerged from beneath the counter, got to his feet, and looked her right in the eye.

  She tried to hold his gaze but couldn’t.

  “Give me a chance, Linnie,” he said, never breaking eye contact. “It’s only my second day on the job.”

  “You’re looking at me again.” She shouldn’t feel exposed—the bulky bathrobe covered her completely from neck to ankles—and yet she couldn’t help tightening the sash around her waist.

  In the silence that followed, she realized that the dripping had stopped. She and Cam regarded each other in total stillness for a moment, and then he took a deliberate step toward her.

  Her eyes widened and she held her breath, waiting.

  “Are you going to kiss me?” she finally prompted.

  “No.” He gave her that rakish smile again. “You’re going to kiss me.”

  And she shocked herself by doing exactly that. She went up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his, once, then again.

  Linnie hadn’t had her first kiss until she was nearly sixteen, a quick grope with an unshaven college senior in a dark dormitory hallway that reeked of stale beer and sandalwood incense. He didn’t know that she was the youngest student on campus. He didn’t care that she could do calculus, not to mention abstract algebra and differential geometry. He just grabbed her hand and yanked her out of the milling throng of tipsy undergraduates. “You’re hot,” he muttered in her ear, then stuck his tongue into her mouth and his hand under her shirt. She’d let him paw at her and waited with an almost clinical detachment for a reaction. Titillation? Revulsion? But she’d felt nothing.

  Linnie wasn’t sure whether it was due to emotional repression or neurological hardwiring, but while she could appreciate the male physique on an aesthetic level, she rarely experienced raw physical desire.

  So her response to Cam took her by surprise. The kiss went on and on, and he urged her back across the sitting room, knocking over a lamp as they tumbled onto the sofa cushions.

  She suddenly felt greedy, determined to help herself to everything she’d been missing out on all these years.

  The sound of a key in the door sent both of them scram
bling into a sitting position.

  “I’m home,” Amy’s voice sang out as she swept into the sitting room.

  Chapter 12

  “You broke a lamp? I have to admit, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you.” Amy put her hands on her hips and surveyed the shattered shards of porcelain strewn across the carpet.

  Her sister clutched the fluffy lapels of her robe and retreated to the bedroom. “I am not having this conversation.”

  Amy stayed right on her heels. “So, who was that guy, anyway?”

  “He came to fix the air-conditioning and the faucet.”

  “Really. I’ve never met a maintenance man who wears Versace suits and looks like he should be starring on a prime-time soap.”

  “I never said he was a maintenance man—I said he came to fix the A/C.” Linnie switched on the hotel’s hair dryer and started waving it around her damp blond locks.

  Amy leaned sideways against the doorjamb, grabbed a nail file from her toiletry bag, and worked on her manicure until Linnie turned off the dryer. “Save me the time and trouble of surveilling you and going through all your stuff while you sleep and just tell me who he is.”

  Linnie sighed, her face bright pink from the heat of the dryer. “You didn’t recognize him?”

  “Nope. Should I?”

  “Of course. He helped you with your luggage in the hallway yesterday.”

  “Forgive me, but I tend not to remember strangers I meet for thirty seconds in hotel hallways.”

  “His name is Cam, okay? Cam McMillan.”

  Amy dropped her nail file. “The hotel guy? I’ve read about him.”

  Linnie cocked her head, intrigued. “Wall Street Journal? New York Times?”

  “Celebrity gossip blogs.” Amy tried to remember the highsociety tidbits she’d skimmed between more salacious posts about Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus. “Heir to a gazillion-dollar fortune, jet-setter, dates a lot of models and actresses. Apparently, he also has a thing for girl-genius blackjack dealers.”

  “He doesn’t know I’m a genius or a blackjack dealer, and you’re not going to tell him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s none of his business, that’s why,” Linnie said.

  “Half the female population of Manhattan would kill to go out with this guy, and you picked him up so you could use him for steamy, lamp-breaking sex and cast him aside?” Amy joked. Her jaw dropped at Linnie’s stricken expression. “Oh my God, you did.”

  “I did not! And besides, you said yourself he was a serial womanizer who throws his money around to compensate for his lack of character.”

  “So what? He still has feelings,” Amy shot back. Her anger was totally out of proportion to the situation at hand, but she couldn’t calm down. “Just because you’re dead inside doesn’t mean everybody else is, too. God, Linnie. You haven’t changed at all—you’re still a user. You use Grammy; you use me; you use random hotel heirs.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she’d gone too far. She’d just violated the sacrosanct rule of the Bialek family: No one ever called Linnie out on her bullshit.

  Linnie sank down onto the couch, looking defeated and overwhelmed in the folds of her robe, and for an instant Amy caught a glimpse of the timid, introspective little girl she’d been before she became a “gifted” and extraordinary stranger.

  Amy took a seat next to her. Neither sister spoke; they both stared out the window at the green expanse of Central Park.

  When Amy finally broke the silence, her tone had gentled. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand why you do the things you do.”

  “I don’t, either.” Linnie rested her chin in her hands. “But I’m sorry, Amy. I really am.”

  Amy had forgiven her long ago for everything that had gone wrong between them. But somehow, forgiveness hadn’t been enough. Their relationship had soured and stagnated, but there was no point in making things even worse.

  So she stood up and opened the wardrobe, determined to shift her focus to more frivolous and less complicated topics. “Let’s just forget it. There’s nothing wrong with us that chiffon and a few glasses of champagne won’t cure.”

  “Oh, honey.” Amy didn’t even try to conceal her pity and dismay when she emerged from the bathroom in a towel turban and a Social Distortion T-shirt that barely covered her butt. “Tell me you’re not wearing that.”

  “What?” Linnie ran her hands over the front of her loosefitting floor-length black gown and glanced at her reflection in the mirror above the writing desk. “The invitation said black-tie.”

  “Lucky for you, I’m a pathological overpacker.” Amy flipped through the plastic-encased gowns she’d brought. “Try this.” She handed Linnie a navy dress with a halter neck and sequins in a chevron pattern. “Or this.” A floaty black chiffon number with a cascade of ruffled layers on one side of the skirt. “Or this.” A simple, elegant one-shouldered red sheath.

  Linnie dismissed them all with a cursory glance. “I don’t do sequins. Or chiffon. Or red.”

  “Are you going to put on makeup, at least? Or do you not do lip gloss, either?”

  “I do lip gloss,” Linnie assured her. “I brought all the makeup I usually wear for a shift at the casino.”

  “You are beyond help.” Amy threw up her hands, continued into the bedroom, and changed into a hunter green silk gown with a ruched waistline and a full, fluid skirt. She ran a flatiron through her hair and accessorized with ornate, amber-studded gold drop earrings. When she returned to the sitting room, she tried one more time to talk sense into Linnie:

  “Will you at least let me fix your hair?”

  “No.”

  “Toenails?”

  “Nope.”

  “Eyeliner?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “At least you’re consistent.” Amy applied a final coat of mascara, then tossed the tube into her gold leather clutch. “All right, let’s get this party started.”

  “Amy! Over here! We saved you a seat!”

  After a long afternoon of sightseeing and scrapping with Linnie, Amy felt drained and subdued, but she pushed aside her fatigue and willed herself into a good mood. She swept into the middle of the crowd, laughing and exclaiming and bringing Linnie along with her.

  Linnie’s pale face got even paler as the swarm of boisterous women engulfed them. “It’s like getting ambushed by the paparazzi.”

  “Would you calm down and have a drink?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Have one glass of punch. That’s an order.” Amy snagged a drink from a passing server and pressed it into Linnie’s hand, then commenced the introductions: “Everybody, this is my sister, Linnie. Linnie, this is Melissa and Chantal, and you’ve already met Joan and Susan, and this is Jill and Bridget and Steph and Dorothy. . . .”

  “Hi, Linnie,” the bright, bubbly cool girls chorused. “We’re the Confectionistas.”

  By the time everyone sat down for dinner, the Confectionistas had commandeered the ballroom’s center table, uncorked the wine, and really started to enjoy themselves. The other attendees ate in small groups around the periphery, but Amy noticed Ty and Tai all by themselves at a table for eight, shunned by their fellow contestants.

  Steph was in the middle of a fork-jabbing rant about her sister-in-law. “. . . She thinks just because she studied cooking for two weeks in France that she’s the only woman alive who can make a proper palmier.”

  “Ha.” Joan snorted. “Give me a break. I’ve never understood all the hype about French cooking. Everybody knows the French stole all the best recipes and techniques from the Italians.”

  Bridget and Jill burst out laughing. “Don’t let Chantal hear you say that.”

  “What?” Chantal, a proud ex-Parisienne who had a charming accent, pried herself away from a debate on whipping meringue with a whisk versus an electric beater. “Who is talking about me?”

  Amy took a bite of her halibut, thoroughly enjoying the
warmth and camaraderie, when Linnie elbowed her and asked, “So these women hang out together and drink all the time? Like a sorority for competitive bakers?”

  Melissa overheard this and teased, “More like a gang.”

  “The muffin tin Mafia.” Steph raised her glass.

  “Ooh, that gives me an idea.” Amy grabbed the wine bottle for a refill. “Who’s up for getting matching commemorative tattoos after dinner?”

  Linnie goggled. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  But the Confectionistas seemed to be seriously considering the suggestion.

  “How hilarious would that be? ‘Delicious Duet 4-eva’ in a big pink heart on my biceps.”

  “We could all get little rolling pins on our ankles.”

  “It would almost be worth it, just to see the look on my eighth grader’s face.”

  Linnie looked around the table, obviously mystified. “But don’t you guys understand that you’re in competition with one another?”

  “Well, of course,” Susan said. “But it’s a friendly competition.”

  “I really just compete with myself, to tell you the truth,” Joan added. “I don’t worry about anybody else.”

  “We’re always trying to get better and learn new techniques.”

  “Screw that.” Melissa grinned. “I just want to get out of the house. It’s so nice to have this one thing for myself. Every now and then, my husband feels guilty about spending his entire weekend on the golf course, so he’ll offer to stay home and help me. But the truth is, I prefer working alone. I love having the house to myself for a few hours.”

  The other Confectionistas nodded. “Everybody needs a little peace and quiet.”

  Amy leaned forward and confided, “I love my family, but there are days when an empty house sounds like heaven.”

  “Not a lot of free time?” Jill asked.

  “Not at the moment. I’m working full-time with my husband, fixing up the house, raising the kids.”

  “How old are your children?”

  “I have two-year-old twins. A girl and a boy.” Amy punched a few buttons on her phone to display photos.