“So, Angie and I talked,” Mel said. She couldn’t meet Holly’s gaze. “And I guess we’ll plan on going to look at more properties, say, tomorrow?”
Holly sagged in relief. “You mean it? Oh, thank you so much! You won’t regret it. I promise. In fact, I want you to come over to my place tomorrow and I’ll prove it to you.”
“Prove it?” Angie lifted her eyebrows. “Do I understand from that that you’re going to bake for us?”
Holly nodded. “And trust me, I am going to blow your minds.”
Six
“How is he?” Mel asked the nurse who came into Stuart Stinson’s room while she stood awkwardly by his bed, not knowing what to say or do for a man she had only known briefly.
“Resting comfortably for now. He was awake early this morning and he didn’t appear to have any permanent injuries,” the nurse said. “They are keeping him a bit longer for observation but he should be free to go soon. Are you family?”
“No,” Mel said. Relief that Stuart was going to be fine almost made her buckle at the knees; she hadn’t realized how worried she had been. “I’m just a business associate, but I was there yesterday when he and Mr. Jensen were caught in the fire.”
The nurse nodded. “Mr. Stinson was lucky he didn’t get burned. Mr. Jensen, well, it’s been touch and go.”
“They wouldn’t let me in to see him,” Mel said. Her throat felt tight and she drew in a shaky breath. “Can you tell me anything?”
The nurse reached over and squeezed Mel’s forearm. “It doesn’t look good, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” Mel nodded.
She turned and saw Tate standing at the nurses’ station. He was undoubtedly getting the same report she had gotten. When he turned around, his wavy brown hair looked mussed as if he’d been running his fingers through it. Angie came up beside him and looped her hand through his arm. Tate leaned over and kissed the top of her head. It was a gesture of comfort and affection.
Again, Mel was pierced with a sense of aloneness that was so acute, it actually hurt. Was this how it would always be then, her two friends comforting each other while she stood on the outside looking in?
She shook her head. She was being a selfish brat while Scott Jensen was fighting for his life. She had no right to feel sorry for herself. She was fine, absolutely fine.
“You ready?” Tate asked as Mel approached. She nodded. They all knew the situation; talking about it only made it worse.
Mel grumbled all the way to Holly’s house, which turned out to be well off the Strip. Even though it gave her an excellent excuse to zip through town in the silver bullet, as she had dubbed the Mercedes, she still felt grumpy. She didn’t particularly like change and it sure felt like it was coming hard and fast with no break.
On the one hand, she knew that it was her protectiveness of the bakery that was making her so franchise resistant, but on the other hand, she knew Tate was right that expanding was key to their survival.
She wondered if Holly had shown up yesterday looking a little pudgy with short-cropped hair and no makeup whether she would have felt more kindred with her. The answer would only validate Angie’s observation that Mel had a pretty girl bias, but yeah, in Mel’s head when they had talked about franchising, she had pictured someone, well, more like her.
Personal maintenance fell by the wayside when you had to be up at the crack of dawn to bake every day. Elaborate hairdos didn’t go so well under the old chef toque or hairnet, makeup melted when confronted with a 350-degree oven, and when you spent all day using your hands to mold fondant and had to wash them a million times to keep the germs off the product, manicures seemed pointless. So yeah, Mel had expected someone a little more kitchen goddess and less bedroom siren.
That being said, Holly did seem nice. She had a quick response time in a crisis, and really, how could Mel dislike anyone with a fake hiney? It was so ridiculous, it actually bought Holly some points with Mel.
Tate navigated using the directional app on his phone. When they started rolling toward the McMansions on the west side of Vegas, Mel had to wonder how much being a showgirl paid if Holly could afford one of these places.
“Huh.” Angie grunted from the backseat. “I think I may need to look into how much a girl gets for high kicking.”
“I don’t think she makes enough to live here,” Tate said. “Do we have the right address?”
“Let’s double-check at the gatehouse,” Mel said.
She pulled up to the small brick building with a uniformed guard stationed in the doorway.
“Good morning, how can I help you?” the guard asked. He was middle-aged and a little pudgy, which was unfortunately accentuated by his emerald green uniform. He had a righteous handlebar mustache that was trimmed to perfection, framing his mouth and accentuating his pouty lower lip.
“Hi, we’re guests of Holly Hartzmark,” Mel said.
“Just for the day?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
The guard ducked back inside his little house.
“‘Who rang that bell?’” Tate squawked from the passenger seat. “‘Who rang that bell?’”
Angie burst out laughing but Mel refused to react, fearing the guard would hear them.
“Stop it,” she hissed at Tate.
“Oh, come on, you were thinking it, too. He’s a dead ringer for him.” Mel was silent so Tate cajoled, “You know what movie I’m talking about. ‘Who rang that bell?’”
“The Wizard of Oz, now shut it.” Mel identified the movie just to hush him up. “Behave.”
The guard popped back out of his house, handed Mel a dated pass to hang on her rearview mirror, and gestured for her to go forward.
“You’re all set, ma’am, have a nice day.”
“You, too,” Mel said. She moved the car forward and a massive wrought iron gate slowly glided open to the right to let them through.
Angie leaned forward and said, “Well, the joke is on them.”
“How do you figure?” Tate asked.
“Because I’m pretty sure these exclusionary gates were designed specifically to keep our sort out,” Angie said with a snort.
Mel laughed and Tate turned around and planted a kiss on Angie’s lips. “That’s my girl. Don’t ever change.”
“All right, you two, no making out while I’m driving, or I’ll need a carsick bag,” Mel said. “Tate, where do I go now?”
“Head straight for half a mile and then take your first right. Basically, head straight for the big red rocks up ahead. We’re looking for number 6844.”
“Got it,” Mel said.
The massive houses surrounding them were gorgeous; there was everything from fancy Tudor-style homes to starkly modern palaces. It was definitely a mishmash of styles with the only thing they all had in common being their ostentatious show of wealth.
Mel was happy to admire them from afar, but she knew she would hate living in a house where she needed GPS tracking to get from the bedroom to the kitchen. And what if she had children? You could lose a child in one of these colossal casas, quite possibly for days. It reminded her of what her dad always used to say about conspicuous consumption—just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Mel drove down the wide street, slowing to read the numbers in front of the mansions. Each one was again gated, because the uniformed guard at the front station clearly wasn’t enough security to keep the riffraff out.
Finally, they stopped in front of a mansion with the matching number. A cobblestone driveway led from the street through another huge wrought iron gate to an enormous mansion beyond. Mel pulled into the drive and stopped in front of the gate. There was a buzzer mounted on a stone pedestal to her left and she pressed the button.
“Oh, you’re here!” Holly’s voice greeted them. “Come on up to the house.”
The spiky gate opened as if by an invisible hand. Perfectly manicured lawns hugged both sides of the drive while a line of tall palm trees led the way to the house.
“Okay, I am definitely working on my high kick,” Angie said. “This is unfreakingbelievable.”
A three-story gray stone building that was all sharp corners and jutting angles, with walls of sheer glass on the upper stories framed by burnished steel, loomed ahead. Mel parked in front, feeling as if her silly Mercedes wasn’t good enough even to be parked in front of such opulence.
As they climbed the stairs to the front door, Mel caught her breath. The doors were two huge steel half circles that met on their inner edge to make one large circle.
“I feel like I’m going into a superhero’s lair,” Tate said. “At least, I hope it’s a superhero’s. If it’s a villain, I am so out of here.”
One of the half circles opened and a young woman wearing baggy shorts and a Hawkeyes football jersey with her dark brown hair in a high ponytail poked her head out.
“Hi, guys,” she said.
Mel blinked three or four times. She glanced at Tate and Angie. They looked equally perplexed.
“Holly?” Angie finally asked.
“The undone version,” Holly said and she held her arms wide.
“I didn’t even recognize you,” Tate said. “You look so . . . normal.”
Holly laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I think. Come on in.”
Tate and Angie filed into the house while Mel brought up the rear. She took a second to study Holly. Tate was right. She was unrecognizable and in the best possible way.
Mel grinned at her. “So, all of that . . .” She waved her hands around Holly’s face and body before she added, “Really was just makeup and filler.”
“And attitude,” Holly said. “Don’t ever underestimate the attitude component.”
“Clearly, that’s what I’ve been lacking all these years,” Mel said. She put her palm to her forehead as if she’d suddenly seen the light.
“Truthfully, filler is the perfect word,” Holly said. “Being a showgirl, you learn how to work with what you’ve got and make it bigger. This is Vegas, after all.”
“Well, it’s incredible,” Mel said. “You were right. If I passed you on the street, I wouldn’t have recognized you as the same woman I met yesterday. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen the transformation or more accurately the un-transformation myself.”
“I like to think of it as the equivalent of taking flour, eggs, sugar, and butter and whipping them into something much more lovely and yummy than they are by themselves,” Holly said.
“I like that metaphor,” Tate said. “See? She even thinks like a baker.”
Mel was spared having to answer when a little girl, who looked to be about five, came tearing into the foyer of the house wearing a chef’s hat and an apron, both of which were entirely too big for her.
“Mom, Mom, Mom, the buzzer’s going off!” she shrieked.
Seven
The girl was tiny and blond with round silver-framed glasses that made her blue eyes enormous. She was missing a front tooth on the bottom and she had a smear of chocolate batter on one cheek. She was also carrying a spatula like it was a weapon.
“It’s okay, Sydney, we’re on our way,” Holly said. “Thank you.”
Sydney gave her mother a stern look and waved her spatula. “But the buzzer!”
Tate held out his hand to the little girl and said, “Lead on, young chef, we can’t have anything burnt on your watch, now can we?”
“No, sir!” The little girl grinned at him with a smile as big as the sky. Then she slapped her hand into his and began to run, leaving Tate no choice but to jog to keep up.
“Your daughter is adorable,” Angie said before she hurried after them.
“That’s one word for it,” Holly said. She and Mel fell into step behind the others. She glanced at Mel and said, “Thanks for coming today.”
“No problem,” Mel said. She glanced at Holly. Somehow knowing that she was a mom changed everything. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Holly said although she sounded wary.
“Why exactly do you want to open a bakery?” Mel didn’t want to be the one to break it to her that houses like this were generally out of a baker’s salary range, even if they owned the bakery, but it was clear they were going to have to discuss it at some point.
“Well, I love baking,” Holly said. “But mostly, it’s for Sydney. She’ll start school next year, and unless I find something with different hours, I will literally never see her except on Monday afternoon and evening. I want to be a baker, but even more I want to be a mother.”
“How does your hus—”
“I’m not married,” Holly said.
“Oh, sorry,” Mel said. She desperately wanted the details but she knew it was rude to ask, so she said nothing, although it about killed her.
“No, it’s fine,” Holly said. “We divorced when Sydney was just a baby and it actually saved our relationship. We co-parent better than we ever did the whole husband and wife thing. Billy’s a great father and it works quite well, actually.”
The hallway to the kitchen was a long one. The floor was a rich hardwood, and the walls were painted pewter gray. Recessed alcoves with track lighting illuminated the various pieces of art. Mel couldn’t even hazard a guess at how much the little gallery of eye-popping paintings was worth. She didn’t want to know, fearing it might make her queasy.
If Holly was this well-off, why did she want to buy a franchise? She could easily redistribute some of this largesse and open up ten or twenty bakeries all on her own. She didn’t need Mel or Fairy Tale Cupcakes. Mel wanted to ask, but again, it felt rude.
They turned the corner into the kitchen. Mel stopped in her tracks. Tate and Angie were already staring openmouthed at the plethora of cupcakes that littered every surface of the enormous kitchen.
Many of the flavors Mel recognized from her bakery. She saw Blonde Bombshells, Tinkerbells, Death by Chocolates, but also there were cupcakes that were eye catching in their artistry. A dozen vanilla cupcakes sat front and center on the sparkly granite counter. Perched on a fat dollop of vanilla buttercream on each cupcake was a miniature fondant version of the iconic WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS NEVADA sign that has greeted visitors to the city since 1959.
“Oh, my,” Angie breathed. “How did you do this?”
“It was easy. I made an edible transfer onto the fondant,” Holly said. “Sydney was happy to eat the ones that didn’t come out very well, weren’t you, cutie pie?”
Sydney giggled. “I got a stomachache.”
“She did,” Holly confirmed. “I felt terrible. Of course, it might have been all the chocolate icing that she ate on the sly.”
Holly gave her daughter a sideways glance and Sydney giggled again and then said, “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
This was said with such wide-eyed earnestness that the grown-ups all laughed. The affection between mother and daughter was evident in the way they smiled at each other like they shared secrets. It made Mel miss Joyce, her mother, who was manning the bakery back in Scottsdale.
“Now you have to try them,” Sydney said. She pushed her chef’s hat back off her head and passed out paper plates and napkins.
“I don’t know,” Mel teased. “I had a really big breakfast. I don’t know if I can manage all these cupcakes.”
“Not all of them, silly, just most of them.” Sydney gazed at Mel with the inexhaustible stubbornness of the young.
Mel took a plate. She was a little nervous about trying the cupcakes. She realized that she liked Holly and she was anxious on her behalf. She didn’t want the pretty confections to prove too dry or too sweet and ruin the amazing first impression that they had made. Then again, they looked so de
licious, she was a little afraid that they might actually taste better than hers. The thought horrified her.
Tate had no such qualms. He went right for a vanilla one with the Las Vegas sign. Angie took the almond-flavored Blonde Bombshell. Mel decided to stick with the lighter-flavored lemon and raspberry combo in the Tinkerbell. The three of them glanced at one another and then Tate counted down.
“Three, two, one . . .”
They each took a bite. Mel was pleasantly surprised to find that Holly’s cupcake tasted exactly like her own. Tart lemon cake with sweet raspberry icing, it was a one-two punch of cupcakey goodness. Mel nodded at Holly while she chewed, and as soon as she swallowed, she smiled at the other woman.
“This is excellent.”
“This one is even better,” Angie chimed in. “I think it might even be better than yo—”
“Yum!” Tate interrupted his fiancée with an enthusiasm that didn’t fool Mel one bit. He’d tried to cut off Angie before she said that Holly’s cupcake was better than Mel’s.
“Where’d you get the recipes?” she asked Holly.
“I asked Tate—”
That was as far as she got before Mel whirled on Tate. “You gave away my recipes?”
He had his mouth full of fondant so he was forced to shake his head back and forth.
“He didn’t,” Holly said. “I swear. He just described them to me and I made them to the best of my ability based on his information.”
Mel glanced between the two of them. Tate was pointing at Holly and nodding, clearly backing up her story.
Mel glanced at Angie and asked, “Did you know about this?”
“Nope,” she said. Unfortunately, her attention was caught up in scraping every bit of cake and frosting off her paper plate.
“Why don’t you just lick it?” Mel snapped.
Angie lowered her plate and frowned. “Why are you not happy? You should be happy. Holly is a fantastic baker. You aren’t going to have to worry about quality control at all. This girl has it going on.”
Vanilla Beaned Page 5
