by Gaby Triana
“Sabs, can you handle emails and phone calls for me?”
“Yup, you got it, boss.”
Boss, I like that.
“And Alexandre, can you make a really simple order form for me?”
“Right away, mademoiselle. How are you taking payments? Do you want me to set you up straight on your phone with Square?”
“You know what? As cool as that sounds, I can’t have payments coming into my account for my mom to see, so cash is best for now. For all we know, this could be a fluke, and I won’t get any more orders after this.”
“Or maybe it’s the beginning of something permanently amazing.” Alexandre taps his cheek with his pen. “You’ll need a new account on every social media site. I’ll even come up with a logo if you want. I was thinking something that says ‘sexy baking diva,’ like a pin-up girl in an apron. I think that look really suits you.”
“I love that look!” Sabrina grabs the edge of the table.
“No. There is no way,” I tell them. No way am I getting my chunky underaged butt into fishnet stockings and an apron for a boudoir photo. “How about Rosie the Riveter, except instead of showing off her bicep, she’s—”
“Holding up a cupcake?” Alex’s wild eyes take up half his face.
I laugh. “How did you know I was going to say that?”
“Cause I know you better than anyone?” Alex smirks.
That is very true. “Hmm. If all goes well,” I say, “maybe I can pay you guys a bit. It may not be much, but it’ll be more than cake.”
“I can deal with that.” Caleb nods happily.
“I don’t want your money,” Sabrina says flat-out.
“Me neither,” Alexandre says, sneering at Caleb.
Caleb shrugs. “Or not, whatever.”
I see what’s happening.
“Oh, man, speaking of money…” Caleb changes the subject, talking about some guy at school with an underground nude photo business of his own.
“I know that guy!” Sabs turns to Caleb, and before I know it, they’ve hijacked my meeting to search for pics of this person.
In the meantime, I exchange grins with Alexandre. A Rosie the Baker logo would be great! I love how willing he is to help me while enjoying it, too. Too bad he’s not into girls, or we would make one hell of a kick-ass couple.
After the meeting, Sabrina’s mom shows and they offer Alexandre a ride home, which he reluctantly accepts. Caleb lingers, and I’m nervous as hell. Once we’re alone on Papa’s porch, Caleb turns to me. “You know, Rosie,” he says, taking his keys out of his pocket, “this is super cool. I’m really proud of you. You’re all, like, what’s that cupcake lady on TV?”
“Uh…I don’t know.”
“Marty Steward.”
“Martha Stewart? Yeah, she’s not a cupcake lady, but I get what you’re saying.” That’s sweet of him to compare me to Martha Stewart.
“Well, whoever she is…you’re just like her. Maybe you’ll get really big time, you’ll publish books, and have a TV show or something.” For the first time ever, his eyes are really connecting with mine, and we’re having an actual conversation that has nothing to do with cake delivery.
“Yeah, maybe.” I wring my hands.
Is this a moment? Maybe Papa’s right. Maybe I don’t need the Cakespell to woo him.
Caleb runs a hand through his hair. “I was gonna ask you something, and I forgot,” he says. “Anyway, if I remember what it was, I’ll text you.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, goodnight.”
No! Stay and kiss me, sweet employee! “Okay, goodnight.”
He taps the doorframe then hops off the porch over to his car. I swear I feel starbursts twirling in my eyes, as I watch him go. Martha Stewart…proud of me…I might be famous one day. I hope I don’t get too big-headed. I hope I keep it real with him and all my hometown small people when I’m famous.
That night, lying on my bed, I pick up the remote and cue Notting Hill. It may stray from my 1940’s collection, but it’s quite possibly one of the most romantic movies ever. I always imagine myself as the leading role—shy bookstore owner, William Thacker, star struck by the movie star character Julia Roberts plays. I understand that feeling every single time Caleb comes over.
But tonight, after talking to Caleb, I feel like the movie star character…
Strolling into his travel book shop, I take in the ambience. He’s surprised to see me after our embarrassing breakup. I didn’t have a choice. The tabloids were after me, and my ex-boyfriend, big shot actor, what’s-his-name, was still hanging around, making things even more difficult. But he’s gone now.
It was love—real love—between me and Caleb, and I’ve come to tell him. If he’ll have me back, that is. There’s no one between us now—only the Chagall painting I brought him from my own flat. Because I’m rich and famous now that I have my own baking show on Netflix and I can give him expensive presents.
He faces me, the warmth I’m used to has vanished from his face. “Can I just say no to your…kind request?” he says, after I beg him to take me back. “And leave it at that?” I absolutely adore Caleb’s English accent.
“Yes. Fine, of course, I…yeah,” My heart splinters into a million pieces. “Of course. Well, I’ll just be going then…”
“The thing is,” he adds, “with you, I’m in real danger. It seems like a perfect situation, but my relatively inexperienced heart would, I fear, not recover if I were once again cast aside,” he says. He’s so eloquent now that he lives in Notting Hill.
“That really is a real no, isn’t it?” I smile to hide the pain. “Fine. Good decision…good decision.” I should’ve expected this. It’s okay for him to dump me back. I deserve it. I turn to leave, but face him again for one last thing. “Caleb, the fame thing…” I try to explain, “isn’t really real, you know. And don’t forget, I’m also just a girl…standing in front of a boy…” I watch his green-gold eyes. “Asking him to love her.”
He gazes at me a long time. But alas, I’ve grown too famous for his small town sensibilities, and this will never work out. The curse of my career.
“Bye.” I reach for his shoulders and give him a quick kiss on the cheek, then turn and leave the book shop and Notting Hill…forever.
Eleven
Over the next two weeks, my customers all get their cakes, and I get full reports back from each of them. It’s part of the agreement Sabs drew up. They all must answer one question—did anything interesting happen when you gave the cake to someone?
We are keeping close tabs. Because this is science.
So far, Millie from Spanish got Carlos from Art to fall hard for her after he bit into one of my red velvet cupcakes with fluffy cream cheese frosting. Well, of course, anyone would fall in love after eating one of those babies. He’d never even talked to her before, but after that cupcake, they hung out all weekend. The following Monday, they were holding hands in the hallways.
Magic!
Mrs. Norman reported that she and her husband devoured the cake samples I put together, and other than the full body massage he gave her for the first time in twenty years, there was nothing else to report. “Hmm,” Sabs says. “I think she’s leaving stuff out.”
“Which is fine, Sabs.”
A junior, Dwayne, had nothing unusual to report at first, but when Sabrina prodded him, he finally admitted giving my cake to a girl he liked, only nothing special happened. “So, I asked if she had a boyfriend already, and he said yes, so there you go,” Sabs explains.
“That’s Papa’s Cakespell Rule #2,” I say. “You cannot make somebody fall in love with you who’s already in love with someone else.”
That’s two cakes, four cupcake orders, and one sampler tray. $350 for my first weekend. Can anyone say cha-ching? I can use this money for tools or even a stainless steel work table, if Papa will let me bring one into the kitchen. I kind of need it now that I have more orders.
Sabrina spends all next Monday callin
g bakeries and discovering I’m seriously undercharging people. Still, I don’t feel right charging what the big places charge either. It’s not like I have a professional facility or huge overhead. Right now, I’m up to $780 before expenses, and hiding cash under my mattress is getting super stressful.
Over the next week, I make three more cakes, five dozen more cupcakes, and as a special favor, a batch of chocolate chip cookies, only because my Economics teacher, Mr. Pearce, is so darned nice. So far, two nerds have gone out with two dance girls, a biker chick fell in love with our wide receiver, and Mr. Pearce and his wife had the best anniversary dinner ever.
That one really makes me smile. I know I thought it would suck if I couldn’t use the power for my own benefit, but I’m really starting to like being a svakha for others.
Sheila comes over for the fifth day in a row. She and Papa are getting serious. I feel like the third wheel all the time, so I go home. It’ll be good to see the house where I sometimes sleep and that working woman who sometimes cares for me. What’s her name again?
“Bye, Papa,” I call out.
“Bye, Rosie the Baker!” He laughs. I hear him and Sheila talking about me. She’s on her way, she’s so creative, her friends are so supportive, if only her mother would approve…
Yeah, okay. Good one, guys.
Señora Fuentes insists on doing the same Hispanic Heritage activity as every other teacher in the history of Coral Cove since my elementary school days. She assigns a Spanish-speaking nation, then asks us to write eighty million pages about its government, people, culture, blah, blah, blah. We’re assigned foods to bring in—empanadas, arroz con pollo. We sing Guantanamera and call it a day.
I get the country of Chile.
The first thing I learn about Chile is that it has nothing to do with chili, Chili’s, or chili peppers. Which sucks, because I drew a chili pepper on the front of my report next to a bowl of chips and queso, and now I have to start over.
Word gets around about the matchmaking qualities of my baked goods, even though I deny it. Seventeen more orders come in over the last two nights. I figure, if I can get all my friends and maybe Papa’s yoga instructor, Zumba teacher, Sheila, and that gardening lady to help somehow, we could crank out all seventeen orders.
La capitál de Chile es Santiago de Chile…
Click, clack, down the hall. Ah, the punctuated heels of death. LM is coming to make more demands. A hissy sigh escapes me long before she reaches my doorway. She doesn’t stop at the door like she usually does. Instead, she charges right in all the way up to my face. Then, blam! A new silicone mold I just bought for making pearl borders, still in its plastic seal, hangs in front of my nose.
“What’s this?” she barks.
The bag dangles back and forth. “I don’t know. What is it?”
Crap, I left that on the sofa.
“You know exactly what it is. When did you get it?” She waves it around like it’s full of drugs. “Actually, I’m pretty good with deductive reasoning.” Reaching into the plastic bag, she slides out the receipt. “You bought it….oh, look at that…you bought it today. At 3:29 PM after school. Rose?”
“It’s nothing!” I almost shout.
Mom stares at me, aghast.
You know what? I want to raise my voice today. “I still buy decorating stuff, so what? I plan on using it one day. What’s so bad about that? Maybe not now, because…see?” I hold up my Spanish project. “Now is ‘learning time,’ so I can support myself in the future!”
She wiggles the mold at me. “You may think this is funny, but I’m telling you right now, you need a different hobby.” LM spins around, naively thinking that she’s leaving.
“It’s not a hobby! It’s my life!” I yell again.
She turns and stares, aghast I could say such a thing. “Your life? You have no idea what you’re saying. Rose, baking is slavery. To weekends, to pleasing people…”
“What’s so wrong about pleasing people? What’s so wrong about making something that puts a smile on someone’s face, that makes their eyes roll back because of how good it is, that makes them fall in love with someone they might not have looked at twice otherwise?”
She says nothing.
She could say any number of things. My mom is fully stocked with comebacks. But she only crosses her arms, assessing my every facial movement. “The other day, you mentioned a word I was hoping I’d never hear out of your mouth, a word I was done with forever.”
“What word—Cakespell?” I dare her.
She narrows her eyes. “What did Papa tell you?”
“He told me a little about Nana, that’s all.”
“Bull. You’ve been going over there a lot.”
“Yes, because I like visiting him.” Unlike some people.
She takes another look at the receipt. “Twenty-five bucks for this little thing?” She holds up the offending decorating tool. “Where are you even getting money for this?”
“I—” Ay, ay, ay, did not expect that question. “I have some saved. The snack money you give me. I haven’t been snacking quite so much. See?” I lean back in bed so she can behold the eight pounds I’ve lost.
“Yes, I see. Though you still have a while to go, another reason I don’t want you around cake—”
Wow. Thanks for that. “What did cake ever do to you?”
Her head cocks in my direction, but I don’t care anymore. I’ve had it.
“What’s so terrible about being a svakha?” I ask.
Her eyes widen with shock. “Svakha? What do you know about being a svakha?” She slams the silicone mold down on my bed. It bounces and flips over.
“I said—what’s so terrible about it, Mom? Why can’t you answer me?”
She scoffs. “We are not going to talk about this. I see now that Papa has been feeding you his bullcrap—I mean, he has to feed it to someone—so your view of the world is a little skewed right now—”
“And your view of life isn’t any better!” I’m standing on one knee on the bed, one foot on the floor, yelling at Lovely Mother. “In fact, your whole attitude could use an adjustment!”
She closes in on me, brown eyes boiling with rage. “Excuse me, young lady. But you will lower your tone. I will not have you speaking to me this way in my own house.”
“Yeah? Well, you can have your house!”
She recoils. “What do you mean?”
“I’m moving in with Papa.” What? Where did that come from? Well, maybe I should. I live there half the time anyway.
Her eyes un-narrow, and for a moment, she looks like any kid my age. A wounded kid. Like I just threw sticks and stones. But my GOD, that woman needs a spanking!
I’m saved by the doorbell. LM backs up a few feet, hand on my desk chair for balance. Eyes glued to mine, like she doesn’t recognize me. Well, maybe I don’t recognize me either. “We’ll continue this later.”
She leaves. Near the front door, quiet, polite talking reaches my ears. A man’s voice. I spring into the hallway to see who’s here. Peeking around the corner, I spot the salt and pepper hair—Frank is back. Thank you, Frank.
While my mom chats him up, I notice that the silicone mold isn’t the only thing I left out in the open for her to accidentally see. I also left a small kraft shopping bag containing one leftover cupcake box sitting on a counter stool. It’s holding several cupcakes. I put it there when I used the bathroom after getting home. I was supposed to hide it in my room right after. She hasn’t seen it, thank goodness.
I slip-slide in my socks all the way across the tile, hoping to pluck the bag out of sight when suddenly, Frank’s eyes land on me. My mother’s head whips around to see what the distraction is. Quickly, I stand in front of the stool holding the bag.
“A new estimate?” My mother faces Frank again. “That could’ve been discussed over the phone, couldn’t it?”
“Yes, it could’ve,” Frank smiles. I’ve seen this look before on the faces of other servicemen my mom has hired. He’
s smitten. Poor chap.
Cupcakes infused with my witchiness. Hmm…
Frank continues. “We just wanted to show you that our customers are number one to us, and it’s important that we…” I wave to catch his attention, and he loses his train of thought.
“That we?” LM prods him to continue where he left off. I point to the cupcakes emphatically. Frank, see these? Tell her they’re for her. I point to my mother as another clue, but he’s not following.
“That we do whatever it takes to secure your business,” Frank says.
LM’s face softens into a small smile. They begin discussing other homes she’s showing that require his services as well, hence her need for a better quote. No wonder he’s sucking up to her.
On the marble countertop is his business card poking out from underneath LM’s phone. I move the phone aside, trying not to notice the “Insufficient Funds” email currently displayed and slide the card over to me. I add his phone number into a new message on my phone and type:
Tell her your company sent you over with these cupcakes to make her happy.
Tell her she’s your most important customer right now.
When he gets the text, he studies it, confused.
I wave to catch his attention. Yes, Frank, it’s me texting you.
He nods warily, but keeps winding up my mom. Sabrina appears at the open door and knocks. “Can I come in?”
“Over here.” I wave to her.
“Hey, Ms. Milkovich,” Sabrina greets as she walks by, backpack slung from her shoulder. “Hey, Person I Don’t Know.” She scoots past Frank over to me. “What’s going on here? Your air’s still not fixed?” She fans herself with her hand.
“Just watch. This is gonna be epic.”
LM excuses herself, heads down the hall in a rush, while Frank lingers around waiting. “Hello, ladies,” he says.
I take advantage of the fleeting moment and run over to place the bag of cupcakes into Frank’s hands. “Give these to her.”
