Recipe for Love

by Darlene Panzera

  “Eat a chocolate cupcake, and you’ll feel better,” Andi instructed. “Then help tally receipts and count out money for rent.”

  Rachel nodded to the Cupcake Diary Andi held in her hands, the three-ring binder containing all their notes pertaining to the cupcake business. “How are we doing?”

  “When Jake balanced the financial books, he said Creative Cupcakes is doing okay, but we need to do better,” Andi informed her. “There’s still no money for extras.”

  Kim set her paintbrush on the plate of food gels and turned in her seat at the front table where she’d been decorating the smooth fondant tops of a dozen vanilla truffle cupcakes. “Maybe we shouldn’t have accepted the building owner’s offer to use the extra space in the back for a party room.”

  Rachel frowned. “I love the party room.”

  “I have several groups interested in booking the space for different nights of the week,” Andi said, tapping the list in the Cupcake Diary with her pencil. “And once the shop starts making more money, I’d love to go on vacation. Someplace warm—with Jake.”

  “After working so hard to open Creative Cupcakes, we could all use a vacation,” Kim agreed. “But before I can afford to travel, I need to rent a gallery space in Portland to display my artwork.”

  Rachel thought of her sick grandfather who had drained her mother’s bank account with medical bills. “We need more customers.”

  All three of them lifted their gaze to the golden cupcake cutter, the size of a short sword, which hung on the pink pin-striped wall above their heads. The shiny victory blade had been a symbol of success after their struggle to open the shop. Now it sat, unused, between Kim’s unsold watercolor paintings as a stark reminder that starting a business was only part of the battle. Now they needed to stay in business.

  Evening fog drifted in ghost-like wisps through the streets outside Creative Cupcakes’ window. The inside of the shop resembled a ghost town, too. The tables and chairs in the dining area and the stools in front of the marble counter sat empty. The sweet, delicious multiflavored cupcakes in the glass display case remained untouched.

  Andi straightened her shoulders and pointed toward the large storefront window. “Here comes a customer now.”

  The bells on the front door jingled as it opened, and in walked a tall blond man with an impressive build. Except for his black beret, he was dressed all in white from the collar of his dress shirt straight down to his leather wingtip shoes.

  Kim nudged Rachel and whispered, “Maybe he’s an angel sent to answer our prayers.”

  Rachel pursed her lips. “He looks more like Chef Ramsey on Hell’s Kitchen.”

  “Can we help you?” Andi asked.

  “I’ll taste one of your bite-size tiramisu cakes,” he said, his accent distinctively French.

  “Great choice,” Rachel told him. She opened the display case while Andi took his money, and the strong scent of the coffee-and-mascarpone whipped frosting wafted into the air. “Dusted with cocoa, these moist, creamy cupcakes are guaranteed to melt in your mouth and keep you coming back for more.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” the Frenchman replied. Lifting the miniature cupcake to his mouth, he took a bite, paused a few seconds to chew, then walked over to the nearest garbage can and spit it out. “How long have you been in business?”

  Rachel glanced at the can and frowned. “Six weeks.”

  “From where did you gather your recipes?”

  “Most of them were my mother’s,” Andi said, her voice filled with pride. “And some I’ve created on my own.”

  “And your credentials?”

  Andi smiled. “My mother taught me to bake.”

  “Not one of you attended a school for culinary arts?”

  Andi hesitated, then gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Kim remained stock-still and silent. Rachel narrowed her gaze and tried to decipher exactly what the guy was up to.

  “I assumed as much,” he said, sweeping his gaze around the room. “I am Gaston Pierre Hollande. Undoubtedly you have heard of me.”

  Rachel looked at Andi and Kim and shrugged.

  “Gaston Pierre Hollande, crowned the Prince of Pastry and awarded the grand champion trophy on the reality TV show Extreme Bake-off?” he prompted.

  “Sorry,” Rachel said, “I must have missed that one.”

  “It appears that you missed them all if you consider this a bake shop.” He sniffed and stepped forward to study the other cupcakes in the display case. “You only serve cupcakes? No other bakery items?”

  “We are Creative Cupcakes,” Andi emphasized, lifting her chin. “Cupcakes are our specialty.”

  “Not for long,” he informed them brusquely. “I have come here tonight to evaluate my competition, but I can see this is no competition at all. If anyone needs help, it is you. For while my bakery, the prominent Hollande’s French Pastry Parlor, draws crowds of customers through its doors with its wide menu of fine delicacies, your shop sits here empty.”

  “We are about to close for the night,” Kim told him.

  “You will soon close forever,” Gaston boasted. “As will every other bakery in town.” He eyed them with contempt. “I did not see your name on the list of vendors for Astoria’s Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival. Are you not going?”

  Rachel shot another glance toward her friends and bit her lower lip. She didn’t even think of promoting their cupcakes at the festival. They’d set up a booth at the Relay for Life fundraiser and held a grand opening party, and she’d used her computer skills to create a website, Facebook page, and Twitter account. But most of their energy was directed toward the day-to-day details of baking and selling at the shop.

  “My bakery has a premier location within the festival building, and when the weekend is over, everyone in Astoria, Oregon, and the whole Northwest will know Hollande’s French Pastry Parlor is number one.”

  “Yeah,” Andi said, her sudden smile giving way to a smirk. “Good luck with that.”

  “My success is not a result of luck, but talent,” he insisted.

  “Maybe we’ll sign up,” Rachel said, standing on her tiptoes to look him straight in the eye.

  “Au contraire! The vendor slots for the festival were sold out long ago,” Gaston told them, his face smug. “You are too late.”

  Rachel shrugged, careful to keep her expression indifferent. “I doubt cupcakes belong at the Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival anyway.”

  “Not as creative as your name suggests, no?” he taunted.

  Mike came out of the back party room, and Gaston’s forehead creased fourfold as he took in the magician’s costume. Directing his attention back to the three women, he asked, “You’re working with clowns?”

  Rachel scowled. “He’s not a clown; he’s a magician.”

  “I meant clown as in ‘buffoon,’” he retorted, jutting out his cleft chin.

  Mike drew close to Rachel’s side. “Who’s this?”

  “The Prince of Pastry.”

  Gaston handed Mike a business card from his back pocket. “If you need to recommend a real bakery, here is my number.”

  Mike waved his hands, and the business card shot into the air and circled round and round his body until it finally swung inside the plastic-lined barrel beside him.

  “You fool! What are you doing?” Gaston demanded, his hat falling off in his aggravated attempt to reclaim the card.

  Andi’s daughter, Mia, ran from the doorway of the party room to the barrel and peered in. “He made it float into the garbage can!”

  Andi nodded. “Where it should be.”

  Mike stooped down to pick up Gaston’s hat from the floor.

  “Have you no respect?” Gaston barked, his fair face turning red as he narrowed his beady gaze on the magician. “Give me back my beret!”

  Mike complied, and Gaston slapped his hat back on his head. A moment later, his eyes widened, and taking the hat off again, he looked inside.

  Mia gasped, her mouth
transformed into a perfect O.

  Rachel sneaked a quick glance at Mike and let out a laugh. Andi, Kim, and many of the others coming from the party room laughed, too. The only one not laughing was Gaston—maybe because his head was covered in the remains of a smashed chocolate cupcake with coconut cream filling.

  “Who’s the buffoon now?” Mike challenged.

  Gaston Pierre Hollande let out a high-pitched, explosive word, which Rachel assumed to be a French curse, and stomped his foot. “Make no mistake,” Gaston declared, his tone ten times haughtier than when he’d first walked in, “Hollande’s French Pastry Parlor will be number one.”

  The door slammed behind him on his way out, and Andi gestured to the Frenchman as he passed outside the front window. “How did a cupcake get into his hat?”

  “Mike swiped it off the counter with his hand behind his back,” Rachel said, smiling.

  “Discovering my secrets?” Mike asked, giving her an amused look. He took out his wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

  “You don’t owe us anything,” Rachel told him. “You did us a favor. That man has an ego larger than the Astoria−Megler Bridge.”

  “I overheard the way he talked to you, and I didn’t like it,” Mike said, and a muscle jumped along the side of his jaw. “My sister dated someone with a similar attitude. It didn’t end well.”

  “What happened?”

  “He broke her heart.”

  A string of faces floated through Rachel’s mind. The ones who had managed to get too close were the ones who had broken her heart. “Has she met anyone else since?”

  “No.”

  Rachel recalled the boys in grade school who teased her for her freckles and red hair. A few years later, after she’d used a myriad of beauty products to change her appearance, her high school boyfriend dumped her for someone more popular because she didn’t party enough. Then when she went to college and passed herself off as “the party girl,” her college sweetheart took her for granted. That’s when she’d initiated the two-date limit to keep her relationships fresh and exciting and her heart intact. So far, it had worked.

  “Rachel?”

  She snapped out of her revelry, glanced toward the front door, where Andi and Kim stood waving goodbye to the party guests, and refocused on the masked magician in front of her. “Did you say something?”

  “I asked for your phone number, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Funny how memories can haunt you, she thought. She cocked her head, relishing the thought of a temporary diversion. “You want my phone number?”

  “Of course,” he said, and his mouth twitched into a subtle grin. “Unless you don’t want to give it to me.”

  “Depends,” Rachel teased. “Will you call to ask me to be the one you saw in half at your next magic show, or will you use it to ask me out?”

  “I’m asking you out now. I only need your phone number to confirm the details.”

  Rachel gave him a big smile, turned toward her friends, and called out, “Andi, Kim, where’s a pen?”

  TEN O’CLOCK MONDAY morning, Rachel sprawled across her quilted patchwork bed, her cell phone to her ear, and waited for the coordinator of the Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival to answer.

  “The deadline for sign-ups was three months ago,” the woman told her.

  Rachel’s spirits sank, but then there was another voice in the background speaking to the woman in charge.

  “You may be in luck,” the woman continued. “It seems one of our other food vendors has an emergency and needs to pull out. I can let you have his space.”

  “Great. How much?”

  “A ten-by-ten aisle space rents for four hundred dollars.”

  Rachel thought of Creative Cupcakes’ limited bank account and then Gaston’s smug face. The event brought thousands of people into town each year, many from neighboring states, and with them came a boatload of money. She hadn’t associated cupcakes with crab, seafood, and wine, but, hey, why not? Cupcakes tasted good no matter where you ate them, didn’t they?

  A large percentage of the locals took on double-, sometimes triple-duty temporary jobs during the weekend festival to both help out and earn extra cash. Last year her postman drove one of the school buses transporting people back and forth from the various hotels in town to the fairgrounds. Andi had once worked as a hired hand serving crab in the main dining hall. And she herself had once stood near the entrance stamping hands and collecting the fairgoers’ festival fee.

  Still, $400 was a lot of money.

  “Can I discuss this with my business partners and get back to you on this?” Rachel asked.

  “Only if you can get back to me within the next ten minutes,” the woman replied. “I know others who would be interested in taking the space.”

  Rachel called Andi at home. No answer. Next, she called Kim at the cupcake shop and didn’t get a hold of her either. She called Jake at his day job working at the office of the Astoria Sun, but he was out on assignment. And not one of them answered when she called their cell phones.

  What should she do? She hated making a decision without consulting her friends, but this was an opportunity too big to miss. Hoping she wouldn’t regret her choice, she called back the woman in charge of the Astoria Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival.

  “Yes,” Rachel said, her voice resolute. “We’ll take it.”

  If they didn’t make any money at the festival, Rachel would take responsibility and suffer the loss from her own earnings from the cupcake shop. She might not be able to afford gas for her car, but Kim didn’t have a vehicle and managed to get around. She could do the same.

  She flipped open the latest issue of Beauty, Fashion, and Glamour magazine to an article titled, “Top Ten Tips: How to Make Men Fall Irresistibly in Love with You.”

  Her cell phone buzzed, and she wondered which of her business partners had finally received her message. Instead, it was a text from the magician, Mike Palmer.

  Are you available for dinner tonight?

  They had agreed on dinner at the new seafood restaurant on pier 39 in the renovated Bumble Bee Hanthorn Cannery but hadn’t decided what night would suit both of their schedules.

  Smiling, she rolled over on the bed and punched in her reply. Need to work. How bout this weekend? Oops. Scratch that. Our shop @ the Crab & Wine fest.

  Mike responded a few seconds later. Next Wednesday?

  She tried to imagine what he might look like without the mysterious black mask. Would he live up to her expectations? After checking her calendar, she sent back: It’s a date.

  The deep rumble of her mother’s car sounded in the driveway, and Rachel pushed aside the flimsy lace curtain to look out her second-story garage apartment window. Tossing her cell phone on the dresser filled with perfume, nail polish, and makeup, she hurried down the steps.

  “You’re home early,” Rachel said, as her mom got out of the beat-up minivan.

  “I had to take your grandfather to his doctor’s appointment.”

  “How did it go?”

  “As well as it could.”

  Her mother’s face appeared more haggard than usual. Could be from the two jobs she took on to pay her grandfather’s medical bills.

  “Rachel, help me get your grandfather into the house, please.”

  She obeyed and opened the passenger side of the car. Grandpa Lewy had his wispy white head tilted back, and he was snoring with his mouth wide open. Her mother gave him a gentle shake, and the old man woke with a start.

  “I told you I like my eggs hard-boiled,” he scolded.

  Rachel and her mother pulled him out of the seat, and balancing his weight between them, they managed to lead him into the house.

  “When were you hired? You aren’t the regular nurse who comes in,” Rachel’s grandpa said, looking up into her face. “Do I know you?”

  “Yes,” Rachel answered, meeting her mother’s gaze as they helped him into his rocker. “I’m your granddaughter.”

&n
bsp; “I’m related to you?” The old man laughed. “Your hair is as red as a twelve-pound radish!”

  “So was yours back in the day,” Rachel’s mom chided.

  A few minutes later, Grandpa Lewy was comfortably snoring once again.

  “Would you like breakfast?” Rachel followed her mother down the hall. “Or should I get out the leftover chicken-and-rice casserole from last night?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “How about I fix you some tea and maybe we could talk?” Rachel asked hopefully.

  “I have to sleep now so I can work tonight.” Her mother patted her hand and shot her a look of compassion. “Soon?”

  Rachel had heard her mother say “soon” for the last decade. “I thought life would be easier with the state-certified nurse coming to watch over him every day.”

  “His Alzheimer’s is getting worse,” her mother confided. “The doctor told me there’s a new treatment that could help, but it’s deemed ‘experimental,’ and the insurance won’t cover it. I might have to find extra work.”

  “Mom, no!” Rachel protested. “You’re already working two jobs. I can’t remember the last time we spent a whole day together. If you take on more hours, I’ll never see you.”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “Let me help,” Rachel told her. “Creative Cupcakes still needs to grow, but I’ll give you whatever I can each week.”

  “We need $10,000,” her mom said wearily, “and if he doesn’t start the treatment soon, we could lose him.”

  “Lose Grandpa?” Rachel swallowed hard. It seemed like they’d just lost her father not too long ago. Drowned in a boating accident. She couldn’t lose Grandpa Lewy, too. Out of all her family, he was the one she’d always related to best.

  She remembered her grandfather running around the beach, his bright red hair waving in the wind as he chased her through the tide pools when she was a little girl. In a family of redheads, tempers tended to flare, like hers did when they moved from Long Beach, Washington, to Astoria when she was in the first grade.

  The kids in her new class at school took one look at her ruddy freckles and flaming hair and called her “the Sunkist Monster” because she was all orange. She’d exploded into a rage and promised revenge, but her fuse was doused by the tears that followed. It was her grandfather who had pulled her close, cradled her in his arms, and told her not to listen to them.