A Batter of Life and Death (12 page)

“I hope you don’t mind, sugar, but your mama said it would be okay for me to work here with you ladies too.” She removed tubs of glittered sugar and pearl cake embellishments from the tub. “I’ve got to get this finished for the competition this morning, and the theater is having a big old cast breakfast this morning. There was simply no space for me.”

I caught Mom’s eye. She shrugged. “Uh, I guess. We don’t have a lot of space either, though.”

“That’s okay, y’all. I’m almost done with my cake. Just need to add some glitzy finishing touches. I’ll stay out of your way. I just couldn’t stand the thought of having to work with that rude French chef, Sebastian. Where I come from I’m used to being treated the way a lady should. That man is no gentleman.”

Nina rolled her eyes. “Where I come from women like to be treated as equals.” She shot a look at Linda’s neon-colored tubes of frosting. “And we like our food natural.”

Linda pretended not to hear her.

“Has anyone heard if we’re even going to shoot?”

“The show is going on, as they say,” Linda said. “I knew Philip would pull it off.”

Mom made a big production of starting the oven, explaining to both of them that we were down an oven and would have to share. “Why don’t I start coffee. Any takers?” Mom grinned through tight lips.

“I’d love a cup.” Linda set a plastic Tupperware on the counter and removed the lid. She scooped gobs of white frosting onto her cake.

“Is it organic fair trade?” Nina asked.

“We use Stumptown beans,” I chimed in.

Nina placed her cake in the warming oven. “I guess that’ll do.”

“That’s not up to temp yet,” I said, pointing to the oven.

“It’s fine.” Nina shut the oven and followed Mom to the front.

I started cubing the butter for the first round of morning pastries. Linda reached her manicured hand toward me. “You know what I don’t understand about these hippie types these days is that they’re so uptight and serious. It used to be that hippies were mellow and fun-loving.”

That seemed like a broad overgeneralization, but I didn’t want to get in a debate with Linda over it. I’d classify Nina as New Age and health conscious, not a hippie.

I decided to change the subject and see if I could get anything out of her about where she was last night instead. “How was the play?”

Linda’s fluffy frosting spread in mounds on her cake. I prefer frosting to complement the cake, not compete with it. She was being generous with the frosting to say the least.

“What play?” She stuck her index finger in the tub of frosting and took a taste. “Just like mama used to make it. Wanna try some, sugar?”

I took a taste of the frosting she offered. The texture was lighter than I expected it to be, but tasted like she used margarine instead of butter. A fireable offense at Torte. “What do you use as the base?” I asked, sliding the tub back to her.

“It’s my mama’s secret recipe, but I’ll share it with you.” She leaned closer. I could smell her peach-scented perfume. Another bakeshop no-no in my book. No one wants perfume-infused baked goods.

“What’s that?”

“Crisco.”

“Ah. Of course.” I scooped the cubed butter into a mixing bowl. What was it with my competitors? Did they have some sort of antibutter conspiracy going on? “How was
Othello
?” I asked again.

“Oh, that play.” She stuck her pastry spatula into the frosting. “It was quite charming.”

Othello,
charming? She had to be kidding.
Othello
is one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies.

“I’ve never heard anyone call
Othello
charming.”

“It was a riot. We just don’t have theater like y’all do down South.”

Linda tapped gold dust over her frosting. A riot? She was most certainly lying. I’d heard
Othello
described in many ways, but charming and a riot—never.

I added sugar, vanilla, and eggs to the butter and turned the mixer on low. Linda embellished her cake with gold and silver edible pearls. It wasn’t exactly my style, I’m a fan of clean lines and simplicity, but if she was going for a sparkly showstopper, her cake certainly shined.

“What do you know about Philip?” I tried a less direct tactic.

Linda pasted on her signature smile, but I noticed her hand trembled as she tried to twist the cap back onto the gold dust. “Philip? Not much. He’s a big Hollywood producer. That’s about all I know.”

“Do you think he could have anything to do with Marco’s death?” I decided to try a direct approach.

She fumbled with the gold dust. It fell onto the butcher block and knocked over two other bottles of crystal sugars. “Now, why would you say that?” She didn’t meet my eyes as she gathered her decorating supplies.

I alternated adding buttermilk and flour to my batter. “He and Marco were last seen together. Plus he seemed pretty worked up that Marco was trashed the other night. I get the impression that he’s pretty intense about the show. If he thought Marco was going to ruin it, maybe he snapped.”

Linda tried to regain her composure. She stacked her supplies on a shelf near the sink and brushed gold dust off her neon-pink apron. I’m not sure why, the dust blended in with her outfit. She batted her eyes and gave me a little wave with all her fingers. “I better head up the hill and deliver this. I have an early appointment for my makeup. Don’t worry your pretty little head about this nasty murder business. I’m sure the police will figure it out. I can’t imagine that Philip could have anything to do with it.” Her voice sounded breathless.

I glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even five-thirty. I couldn’t imagine that the makeup team would be at the theater this early, but she didn’t give me a chance to ask. Without another word, she picked up her cake and clicked on her high heels to the front door.

The oven dinged. Nina scurried to remove her cake. Today her hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders. I’m envious of anyone with natural curls. My hair is as straight as a pastry knife. No amount of product or attempt at curling it works—it just falls flat. My first bunkmate on the cruise ship had mounds of frizzy curls. She was jealous of my baby-fine straight locks and would spend hours trying to flatten her curls. I guess we always want what we don’t have.

Nina’s cake had baked to a honey color with a lovely golden top. She set it on the counter to cool and began mixing honey and futter together. Her slightly tan face, dotted with freckles, made her look like an advertisement for natural eating. Maybe there was something to this vegan thing after all.

I finished my muffin batter and scooped it into paper-lined tins. Mom kneaded dough for sweet rolls and scored loaves of rising bread before sliding them into the oven. Managing three of us in the same space was doable, but when Stephanie arrived a little before six things got really tight.

Mom assigned her to work on quiches and cookies. We all bumped elbows and sucked in our stomachs to scoot past one another in route to the fridge or for supplies in the pantry. I was used to this from the ship. We had a shorthand language we’d speak: “hot pan,” “behind,” “coming through.” It’s understood when working in a busy kitchen that you have to watch your back.

Thank goodness Linda had taken off early. I didn’t know how we were going to make five people work in this space.

Andy ducked in a little after six. He removed his baseball cap and fired up the espresso machine. “Sorry I’m late, boss,” he said, as I brought a tray of hot loaves of bread up to the front case. “I have a midterm later today and had to pull an all-nighter.”

“It’s fine.” I placed the tray in the case, but left it cracked slightly open so the heat wouldn’t steam up the glass. “But since you’re here, I’ll flip the sign to
OPEN
.”

As I reached for the sign, the door jingled. Sterling was exactly on time for his front counter duties. I held the door open for him, and Thomas appeared behind Sterling with a box of sunflowers. “Special delivery.”

“Wow, you’re up and about early,” I said, taking the box from him and resting it on the front counter.

“You know what they say—the early bird gets the—what is it? The muffin?”

“Something like that.” I took two vases of sunflowers and set them on our bistro tables.

Thomas followed behind me, grabbing the vases with wilting flowers to return to his family’s shop.

“Any news on Marco’s murder?” I asked.

“Jules.” Thomas raised his brow. “I thought we talked about this yesterday.”

I walked to the front to get another handful of flowers. “We did, but I have some news,” I said, making sure no one was listening.

“What kind of news?” Thomas looked skeptical.

“It’s about Philip,” I whispered.

Nina interrupted us. “Thomas, I thought that was you.” She held a plate of chocolate cookies. “As promised, here is one of my most popular cookies at the Garden of Vegan.”

Thomas smiled and plucked a cookie from the plate. He munched it in two bites and took another. “These are great,” he said through a mouthful of chocolate.

Nina offered one to me. “Try one, Jules.”

I took a bite of her vegan creation. The chocolate flavor came through nicely and the cookie had a chewy density to it. I’d almost swear she’d used butter. The nutty flavor I’d tasted in her futter yesterday didn’t come through at all.

“You’d never know they don’t have butter, would you?” Nina beamed at Thomas.

He polished off the cookie and took one more. “Nope. I don’t think so, but you’d have to ask Jules. She has the palate, not me.”

Nina waited for my response.

“They’re really sophisticated.” I broke a cookie in half. “Great texture.”

Nina fluffed her curls. “And the futter?”

I hesitated. “I’m not picking up any hint of the coconut oil. I’m surprised actually.”

Nina’s hands trembled as she held the plate of cookies. Thomas helped her steady them. Was she worried that he wouldn’t like them?

I took another bite of the cookie and concentrated on pulling out each ingredient. I had to give Nina credit, the decadent chocolate flavor must have overpowered the coconut. No wonder Thomas scarfed down two more cookies.

Having a discerning palate is a critical skill for a chef, but one of the things that irritates me about chefs is that as a general rule they tend to believe their palates are more sophisticated than the average person. There’s truth to the fact that training strengthens the palate, but I’ve found most of our customers are quite savvy when it comes to what they like and don’t like.

Nina scooted closer to Thomas. “I was wondering if you might be free to show me around town later.”

Thomas started to reply. The bell on the door rang and a handful of locals walked in for their morning fix. I excused myself to go place the remaining sunflowers on the tables and make sure we had stocked pastry cases.

I couldn’t help but watch as Thomas and Nina chatted like old friends.
Jules, knock it off.
I flicked myself on the wrist and returned to the kitchen.

Mom and Stephanie were immersed in baking. I pulled coconut and lemon muffins from the oven. The smell reminded me of the tropical lotions that guests would lather on themselves on the cruise ship. I washed my hands (a constant task in our busy bakery) while I waited for them to cool.

Nina hurried back to remove her cake. “Thomas is going to walk me up to the theater. See you there in a while.” She left with her workstation a mess. Apparently he’s not busy solving a murder, I thought to myself.

“Mom, how are we going to make this work?” I asked, taking muffins out of the tins and arranging them on a tray.

She directed Stephanie to add more parmesan to the quiche. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Linda and Nina,” Mom said, dusting her hands in flour before rolling out sweet bread dough. “Philip left a message on the answering machine. It was waiting for us when I got in. He’s going to pay us extra to have Linda here too. Apparently the theater kitchens are closing with the show. Although he didn’t exactly ask if it would work. It was more like an order.”

“That’s how he is. I can’t decide if it’s just because he’s used to directing people around—literally—or if he’s a self-obsessed jerk.”

Mom sprinkled flour on the dough and her marble rolling pin. “What do you think? Can we make it work?”

“I think we’re going to have to rotate shifts or something. Maybe have one of them here in the afternoon and the other in early evening?”

“That could work,” Mom replied.

Stephanie tipped the bowl to show Mom her quiche mixture before she began pouring it into pie crusts. “I think it’s weird to have all these people here. I had no idea that things were so chaotic behind the scenes when I watched the show.”

“I agree,” Mom said, nodding her approval for Stephanie’s quiche.

“That makes three of us. Something’s not right with the
Take the Cake
production.” I stuck the last muffin on the tray and took the tin to the sink.

Stephanie’s violet eyes perked up. “Elliot thinks so too. He told me last night that Philip’s in some kind of trouble.”

Mom and I glanced at each other in surprise. Stephanie’s not exactly forthcoming with any details. Hearing her gossip caught me off guard.

“What kind of trouble?”

Stephanie shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

Sterling came around the counter to get the muffins. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No, why?” Mom asked.

“’Cause everyone shut up when I came in.”

Mom laughed. “What could we possibly be talking about that you couldn’t hear?” She winked at him. “Unless we were discussing how all the girls in town seem to be especially hungry for pastry and coffee these days now that you and Andy are manning the front.”

Sterling almost blushed. Only Mom with her playful banter and warm brown eyes could make the übercool Sterling momentarily lose his bad-boy persona. I hadn’t had a chance to mention to her that things were weird between Stephanie and Sterling, so I hoped she didn’t tease him about that.

I jumped in. “Sterling, what’s your take on the show? We were just talking about how something feels off with it.”