Life is Sweet

Praise for
Wherever Grace Is Needed

 

“Bass draws her characters, particularly the adolescents, very well.”

 

“Bass introduces wonderfully needy characters who discover their untapped
strength. The teens and their relationships are particularly well developed.
Kristin Hannah fans and readers attracted to Lisa Genova's novels will
appreciate this novel. Definitely buy for readers who demand character
growth and relationships in their fiction.”

 

“Readers of all ages can enjoy this thoughtful story of two families overcoming
tremendous challenges. Beautifully exploring the complexity of sorrow, loss,
healing, and forgiveness,
Wherever Grace Is Needed
provides insight
into the significance of home and belonging.”

 

“Bass's characters are created as likable, genuine, imperfect, and complicated
people with whom the reader will find it easy to share empathetic
feelings. A terrific vacation read.”

 

 

Praise for
Miss You Most of All

 

“The world Elizabeth Bass has created is full of life, humor, heartache,
and hope. You'll be happy to enter it and sad to leave.”

—Lorna Landvik

“Bass's sparkling debut will inspire laughs and tears. . . . With bountiful grace
and a real feeling for her characters, Bass creates a three-hanky delight.”

 

“A funny, poignant, and deeply satisfying novel. What I loved about it most
of all was the authentic portrait of a family with all its imperfect and humble
acts of love—those things that truly make our lives worthwhile.”

—Nancy Thayer

 

“Incredibly funny, genuinely heartbreaking, and strangely comforting,
Miss You Most of All
is completely wonderful.”

—Beth Harbison

 

“A deliciously great book for those who love real books that depict real
life, with all the mess, tears, joy, and laughter that living on this planet—
or in this case the Sassy Spinster Farm—involves.”

—Cathy Lamb

 

“Utterly warmhearted,
Miss You Most of All
is a special experience
from start to finish.”

—Holly Chamberlin

Books by Elizabeth Bass

 

 

MISS YOU MOST OF ALL

WHEREVER GRACE IS NEEDED

THE WAY BACK TO HAPPINESS

LIFE IS SWEET

 

 

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

Life Is Sweet

Elizabeth Bass

KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

A goggle-eyed face peered through the window of the Strawberry Cake Shop. It had been a while, but Becca recognized the type right away—a female in her mid-twenties, anxious, emotionally forlorn. A Tina fan. The woman was pressed against the plate glass, binocularing her hands in order to get a better view inside. If she'd had little suckers on her feet, she probably would have taken up residence there, like a gecko.

I do not need this today.
As subtly as possible, Becca performed a three-quarter turn to face away from the gawker and continued with what she was doing, which was icing a cake.

Pam, her oldest friend in Leesburg and a helper at the shop, had a harder time ignoring the person outside. Unacquainted with the reality of goldfish-bowl living, she edged toward the door.

“We don't open for another ten minutes,” Becca said before Pam could flip the Closed sign to Open.

Pam halted, tense from the pressure vibes the gawker was sending. “But there's a customer.”

“That's not a customer, that's a . . .” She almost said
parasite,
which would have been mean. Accurate, but mean. Pam already faulted Becca for having a cold, shriveled heart because she'd bailed on her marriage after six months. No need to hand her more character critique ammo. “. . . a nostalgia pilgrim.”

“How are you going to sell this stuff if you turn away people at the door?” Pam nodded to the display case of cakes, cupcakes, and brownies that they had worked all morning getting ready. It was almost full, and would be packed as soon as Becca finished icing the latest batch.

“I never turn away anyone during business hours,” Becca said. “And I don't have trouble selling.”

“Right. So tell me again why we both have freezers full of day-olds?”

Becca didn't let the dig bother her. “We're turning a profit.”

Finally. It had taken her a long time to be able to claim that. Eighteen nervous months of outgoing payments being higher than incoming cash. The shop's setup costs had been more than she'd estimated, mostly because the building—a defunct hardware store downtown—had required unforeseen repairs and alterations. A burst pipe during month two had nearly scuttled the entire enterprise. Lately she'd been letting a few things go—carrying pans upstairs to her apartment's dishwasher instead of getting the shop's fixed, for instance. She also could have used a handyman to fix all the wobbling tables and sticking doors around the place. But for the present, she was pleased with the turnover of the baked goods themselves.

Besides, the leftovers were usually a by-product of experimentation, not lack of customers. The orange cream cupcakes had not been a success. Neither had rum raisin—which was insane, because they were the best cupcakes ever. When Becca stuck to the classics and a few of the time-tested varieties, the store sometimes sold out before closing time.

“You're not exactly Sara Lee yet,” Pam said. “You can't take customers for granted.” She shot nervous glances at the human gecko at the window as she filled the cream and milk thermoses.

Becca kept her focus on the thick glob of buttercream she was gently ploughing over the golden surface of a lemon cake. “That's not a customer,” she muttered.

“How do you know?”

She arched a brow at Pam. “Believe me, I can tell. At most, she'll buy a token cupcake.”

“One cupcake is a sale.”

True. And usually anyone wanting to buy anything gave her a thrill. But if the tax on her psyche cost more than the sale of a two-dollar cupcake, it wasn't worth it. She hadn't moved two thousand miles to a small city and opened a cake store to exploit her once-upon-a-time fame. In fact, she'd run this far for the express purpose of reinventing herself. She just wanted to bake, own a business, and be somewhat normal. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

Gecko Girl rapped on the door and pointed at her watch. In reply, Becca lifted a sorry-Charlie glance and nodded at the large wall clock that showed the time to be six minutes till eleven. Gecko Girl responded with an exaggerated frowny face. Becca pretended not to see it and went back to her icing.

Pam looked as if she might have a nervous breakdown. “
Five minutes
. What's the harm in being a little flexible?”

Becca relented with a laugh. “Okay. Knock yourself out.”

But even as she gave the go-ahead, she braced herself.

Wiping her hands on her apron, Pam hurried to the door. She flipped the sign, and then turned the dead bolt to open the door.

The early bird nearly flattened Pam in her race across the room. For a second, it looked as though the person might attempt to bound over the counter like a high hurdle, but at the last minute physics got the best of her and she ended up draped over the glass display case, gaping at Becca.

“It's really you! I can't believe it! I'm so so so excited!”

Becca tried to smile. “Can I help you?”

The woman's face lit up so that her eyes were practically shooting sparks of adoration. She was a breathless Roman candle of fangirldom. “God, yes! I'm dying to know what it was like to work with Jake Flannery. I always thought he was
so cute.
My first crush. Of course, I was only seven or eight at the time, but I bet he was really cute in person. You were probably in love with him, too, right? Although, I guess you couldn't
really
be in love with him, since he was your dad and all.”

“He wasn't, actually.” Becca aimed for patience and understanding, but wasn't sure she managed either. “He was an actor playing my dad.”

“Yeah, right—plus, he was a ghost!” The woman blinked, and then laughed nervously. “I bet you still call Jake sometimes just to say ‘Good night, Daddy.' That was always my favorite part of the show. Poor ghosty guy had to wander around his house where his family couldn't see him anymore, and he'd try to help them with their problems—like you having to deal with that bitchy kid at school, the one played by Abby Wooten. Then you'd say ‘Good night, Daddy,' to him at the end, and then the studio audience would go
awwww.
”

Could the woman handle learning that those
awwwws were prerecorded? Or would her head simply explode? Becca decided not to find out
.

“I haven't talked to Jake since we got cancelled,” she said. “Seventeen years ago.”

Seventeen years.
How could people care about something that happened to fictional people in a box in their living room so long ago?

The woman's face collapsed in a frown. “Oh God, that's
so sad.
But you were in love with him, right? I mean, how could you not be?” Before Becca could answer, excitement overwhelmed the woman again and she shouted toward the ceiling, “I can't believe I'm standing here having a conversation with Rebecca Hudson! You were, like, my first best friend.”

It never took long, that leap from strained amusement and (
admit it, Becca
) flattery to being creeped out. “And you're my first customer of the day,” she said, gently steering the woman back to the land of sanity. “What can I get for you?”

The woman gasped as if Becca had just asked her on a girls-day-out date. “Oh! Okay, first, can I get a picture of us together?”

Becca tried hard to keep her lips set in a smile as she gestured at her Strawberry Cake Shop apron. She was covered in flour and powdered sugar, and her hair was pulled back in a net. She could just imagine the captions if a photo of herself looking like this hit the Internet.
Former Child Star Now Kitchen Worker.
A few years earlier, she'd been photographed going into a strip mall where there was a family planning clinic. L
ITTLE
T
INA
T
ERMINATES
B
ABY
!, a tabloid headline had screamed over a grainy photo, even though Becca had been headed for the nail salon next door.

“I'm not in my picture-taking clothes this morning,” she told the woman. “I'm in cupcake-selling clothes. Would you like to buy something?”

The woman had to unhook herself from the case she was plastered against to see inside the glass. She blinked at the neat rows of cupcakes and cakes as if they were a complete surprise to her. As though she hadn't realized she was in a bakery at all. “Pretty! You make these? This is what Tina does all grown up?”

Becca's jaw clenched, and she couldn't help shooting a dagger gaze at Pam, who stood apart, bemused by it all.

Belatedly, their visitor peered around the shop the way most people did when they first walked in. The only objects decorating the brick walls were horsey things, old black-and-white pictures and stuff she'd found at garage sales. A jockey's silks under glass. Ads for ancient vet remedies. Crops and hats and spurs.

“Where's
Me Minus You
?”

On cable, in reruns.
Becca bit back the temptation to lapse into snark. “The television stuff's not really my thing anymore.”

The woman swung back to her, gaping in horror, as if Becca had just bad-mouthed apple pie and motherhood. “But it's who you are.”

A volcanic mass of irritation started belching steam in Becca's gut. “The lemon cupcakes are the freshest,” she said through a tight smile.

The woman's eyes turned red and bulgy. She actually appeared to be on the verge of tears. “I drove all the way from Delaware to see you. Why else would I have come so far? This is just like an ordinary bakery.”

Becca bagged a lemon cupcake and thrust it across the counter. “Here—on the house.”

For a moment, the woman seemed so petulant and disappointed that Becca thought she would refuse the offering. Which, frankly, would have given her some hope for the woman's mental health. Anger might have been a first step down the long road to recovery from old sitcom overidentification. But then her gaze met Becca's again, and that spark of the crazy reignited. “Could you autograph it?”

Fine. Becca snatched the bag back and grabbed a ballpoint from the cup next to the cash register. Clicking it, she asked, “Your name is . . . ?”

“Megan—but could you add something personal? And could you put a lot of x's and o's before your signature?”

When she was done, the lip of the bag read:

The woman grabbed it back from her and read the words greedily. Her smile dissolved. She said nothing at first, and Becca worried she would cry. Instead, her face went red, and she flashed her outrage through bloodshot eyes. “
‘Get a life'?
Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“Not exactly.”

“You're telling
me
to get a life? And who the hell are
you?
” Megan asked, the bag crinkling in her hands. “Some washed-up has-been working in a bakery. You don't know the first thing about me!”

Would the word
irony
mean anything to this woman? Becca took a deep breath, already regretting the stupid autograph. Impulse control had never been her strong suit. “I'm sorry. The fact is, you don't know me, either.”

“I do so,” the woman shot back. “I've been a fan since I was this high.” Her hand disappeared beneath the cash register. “I always thought you were a nice person, but you're obviously just a bitch—just like your guest appearance on
Malibu High School
! No wonder they killed off your character.” She marched to the door but turned back, her gaze dark with warning. She raised a fist, which was still clutching the white bag with a strawberry stamped on it. “Don't think the whole world won't hear what kind of person you really are. I have a blog!”

She slammed the door behind her.

Pam crossed her arms. “Great PR job there, boss.”

Becca lifted her shoulders. “I tried.”

“
That
was trying?”

“Believe it or not.” Props to the woman for sticking the knife in and twisting it with her last snarky reference to
Malibu High School,
which had been a traumatic experience. Becca had played a horrible character, and the show had starred her nemesis from
Me Minus You,
Abby Wooten. During the run of the earlier show, Abby and Becca had been pals, although by the time of the cancellation, their friendship had cooled. After Becca got written off
Malibu High School,
Abby had dropped her like a hot potato. Becca's career never recovered, and neither had her faith in Hollywood friendships.

“Megan was nuts,” she said in her own defense now.

“Well, yes. She did seem a little deranged.”

A little! But a little or a lot, what did it matter? Fandom was insane. How much did it take for a brain to flip the switch from harmless fan to Mark David Chapman? Becca didn't want to find out. “It's weird. Just when I assume I've finally been forgotten for something I did when I was twelve, some Tina-crazy person pops up.”

“Oh look.” Pam peered out the window. “Your secret admirer's back.”

Oh God. Becca was ready to duck behind something solid and dial 911, assuming Pam was talking about crazy Megan—but that didn't add up. The woman probably never wanted to see her again. Ducking didn't make sense, either. Becca might be a million not-very-good things, but she'd never been a coward.

She came around the counter to investigate from Pam's angle. Her secret admirer was sitting on the bench on the sidewalk in front of the shop. She'd seen the older man before—he was hard to miss. His shambling appearance would have been more at home in a Depression-era photograph than modern-day, gentrified Leesburg. He definitely didn't look like a
Me Minus You
fanatic. . . which might be the only thing he had going for him, actually.