The Cake Therapist (9 page)

I put on a good pair of black pants, a crisp white fitted shirt, and a ballet-style black cashmere sweater that tied in the front. I wore my hair down and put on my good diamond earrings. A little spritz of Chanel No. 5 and I was downstairs when Ben rang the doorbell.

“I hope you like this place,” he said as we drove across the bridge, through the blighted areas of Lockton, over the railroad tracks, and into the gentrified air of Fairview. “The restaurant’s in an old mansion. The chef trained at the French Laundry in Napa,” he explained as he opened my door of the car.

“If you took me to the House of Chili right now, I’d be happy. I was so busy today I forgot to eat.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten to eat,” he said, and we both laughed.

Maybe it was the Prosecco we drank to start or maybe it was that I was tired, but the evening passed in a warm and wonderful blur. It occurred to me that it was quite a novelty having the undivided attention of a good-looking man, not only for a few moments at a time, in between his noticing the other women in his orbit, but for an entire evening. Okay, make that a good-looking man with a squashed nose, a scar over his eyebrow, a few knuckles that had seen better days, and who knew what else from playing the violent sport of football. Well, none of us had gone through life without a few nicks and dents. His were just more visible.

It was certainly different from being with Luke, whose neck sometimes swiveled like a bobblehead doll, not wanting to miss anything or anybody when we were out in public.

This was just what I needed, and when I told Ben that, he looked pleased.

On the way home in the car, I fell asleep.

Ben put his arm around me to help me up the steps and in the door. I was so tired, I fell against his chest and just leaned into him, resting my head under his chin. I could hear the steady beating of his heart. His big, big heart. He held me for I didn’t know how long.

“I’ve got to go, Neely,” he said, clearing his throat, “and you need some sleep. Do you want me to help you upstairs?”

The thought of that was strangely tempting. But I waved him toward the door.

“I’m fine,” I said with the last bit of energy I had left.

It was a lie. I wasn’t fine yet. But an evening in Ben’s company had given me hope that I might soon be.

EARLY DECEMBER 1941

It was just getting dark when Olive let herself in the front door, bringing a box of day-old cloverleaf rolls and chocolate éclairs from her workday at Oster’s. She could smell the turkey vegetable soup simmering for the fourth night in a row, and it didn’t make her mouth water. The sweetness of the vegetables had long been gone from the broth, leaving the strong, lingering taste of old turkey bones, which had given all that they had to give.

At least we’ll have something halfway decent,
she thought. Even day-old bakery goods were better than tired soup.

She set the white box and her crocodile-patterned pocketbook on the little hall table before she hung up her coat in the closet. From the hook on the back of the door, she carefully removed her mother’s old gray sweater, hand knit so many years ago, now lumpy and boxy. One of the buttons was missing and the sleeves were hopelessly pilled. There were spots where moth holes had been repaired, some more expertly than others. Olive put the sweater on and hugged it to her, shivering. She was glad to be home, but it was not as warm here as it was in the bakery. With their father and their mother both gone now, the sisters’ budget didn’t stretch to coal fires on a regular basis.

Edie had the radio on again, turned up loud so she could hear it back in the kitchen. It was that stupid Singing Lady show. Edie was too old to listen to fairy tales, even this creepy one about the girl who couldn’t stop dancing in her red shoes.

Ah yes, the shoe.

Olive took a folded-up rag from the cleaning bucket in the closet. She spread the rag on the floor, then opened the front door again to retrieve the muddy shoe that had been left on their front stoop.

Then Olive turned the radio off and waited.

In the sudden quiet, Olive heard Edie’s footsteps patter from the kitchen, through the middle room, and into the entry hall.

Olive looked her sister up and down. She gestured to Edie, then to herself. Olive snorted. “Look at us. Just look at us.”

Edie had their mother’s faded yellow gingham apron tied around her thin waist. The leaf-patterned dress with the big shoulder pads and their father’s old cardigan hung on her, Olive suddenly noticed. Edie wore a pair of their father’s old brown trousers underneath the dress, the cuffs rolled up.

Without a word, Edie shuffled past Olive and bolted the front door.

“We’re beginning to
look
like orphans,” Olive said. “And I guess we’re not expecting company this evening, since you’ve got us padlocked in again.”

Edie stared blankly at her sister.

“What is it with you lately?” Olive grumbled, grabbing her things from the hall table. “Ever since you got home late the night of the fire at the ragman’s, you haven’t been the same. It’s a terrible thing, and nobody knows better than us what it’s like to lose your mother, but you didn’t even know her.”

Edie looked at her blankly.

“Shemuel’s
mother
.”

Edie shook her head and turned back to the kitchen.

“Wait a minute,” commanded Olive. “Your boyfriend left you a present.”

Edie stopped and pivoted toward her sister again, her face expressionless.

“Shemuel is not my boyfriend, Olive, and you know that.”

Olive sighed. “I don’t know that. But what I do know is that it’s going to be a long, boring evening again if you keep acting like this. I can’t take much more of this crap, Edie. I can’t do everything. All you do is sit at home here and wring your hands. I miss Mama, too, but we have to get on with it.”

Edie looked so forlorn that Olive felt an unaccustomed stab of guilt.

“Are you sick? Do you need to see the doctor?”

Edie shook her head no.

“Is something else wrong?”

No again.

“Well, I can’t do anything about it if I don’t know what in hell it is,” Olive said, her temper rising.

Edie turned to go back to the kitchen.

“Wait a minute. You haven’t seen what your boyfriend left for you. Maybe that will cheer you up.” Olive pointed her toe at the muddy shoe.

Edie’s eyes widened and she stepped away.

“Well, isn’t it yours? It sure looks like yours.”

Edie didn’t answer. She stared at the shoe.

“Well, it’s not like we’ve got a closetful of shoes and we can’t keep track of them all. Doesn’t the red shoe belong to you? Edie?”

Edie nodded weakly, still backing away. “How did it get here?” Edie whispered.

“Somebody left it, I guess,” replied Olive. “Maybe you were like that girl in the Singing Lady story. You danced your shoe right off.”

Edie didn’t smile.

“He found my shoe.”

“Shemuel did?” Olive asked.

“No, not Shemuel.”

“Well, who, then?”

“I don’t know,” Edie said.

“Well, if you don’t know him, how does he know you live here?”

Edie looked alarmed.

Olive sighed and picked up the shoe. “Maybe we can clean this up,” she said, turning the shoe to inspect it more closely. Bits of caked mud fell to the floor.

A faint stink of creek water rose in the air. Edie clutched her midsection as if her stomach hurt.

“Get rid of that,” Edie groaned. She put her hand to her mouth, ran into the bathroom, and shut the door. Olive heard her sister retching.

“We have to do something.” I overheard Mrs. Amici talking to her daughter as they pushed a cart with one errant wheel through Valu-Save.

Normally, I didn’t like to shop here, but Valu-Save had my nighttime herbal tea on sale this week. My plan was to get what I needed and hurry back to the bakery before we had another busy stretch. I tried to stay well to the right of the Amici women in the coffee and tea aisle, but their loud complaints carried.

“Here we go again,” muttered Diane, as she grabbed a plastic container of Brand-Nu coffee. “Why does everything in this damn store have a dumb-ass name?”

Grocery shopping with Mrs. Amici wasn’t likely to bring out the best in anyone. Diane looked exasperated, and they were only halfway through the store.

I hadn’t seen Diane Amici in quite a while. Her frizzy hair had now gone almost completely gray. The ends were a metallic purple-red, like you get from cheap hair dye. Her tired lavender sweatshirt was the wrong color for her sallow complexion, and it looked like she had spilled oatmeal or something on the front and didn’t realize—or didn’t care—that it was there. The sweatpants bagged at the knees. She and Aunt Helen were about the same age. Helen was no fashionista, but at least she didn’t go out in public like that.

“We have to do what, Mom?”

“Don’t you ever listen to me, Diane? Get it back. It’s about the only thing you and Bobby can expect, besides my old, fallin’-down house.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, for hell’s sake, Diane.” Mrs. Amici glared at me as I tried to maneuver past them.

I turned the corner and cruised the canned soups and vegetables and then the peanut butter and jelly aisles; nothing I needed there. On to the pharmacy section.

As luck would have it, they stopped there, too.

“Wait here for a minute, Diane. I’ve got to sit down.” Mrs. Amici sank into a chair next to the pharmacy pickup window at the back of the store. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“You all right, Mom?”

“It’s just upsetting to an old woman like me,” Mrs. Amici whimpered, doing one of her lightning-fast turnarounds, from junkyard dog to teacup poodle. “Especially since I don’t really have anyone.”

Oh no,
I thought. I looked around for a way to avoid their drama, but the “digestion” aisle was next to them, and I really needed those acid reflux tablets.

“What do you mean, Mom?” Diane asked with an edge to her voice, and then caught herself. I could tell she had immediately regretted being drawn in like that. Besides practiced surliness, button-pushing seemed to be Mrs. Amici’s other special talent.

“You and Bobby together couldn’t pour piss out of a boot,” Mrs. Amici said, shaking her head. “Neither one of you can hold down a job. Who’s going to take care of me when I get old?”

Get
old? I thought uncharitably. Mrs. Amici had to be well into her eighties.

“Well, Mom, you can sell the house,” Diane said, trying to placate, “or we would move in with you.”

Mrs. Amici snorted. “We’ve already tried that a few times. Didn’t work out too good, if you recall.”

The old woman stood up again with the aid of the cart and they wheeled down the canned-goods aisle. “They owe us, Diane. It could make all the difference.”

I ran my cart up to and then across the front of the store, quickly scanning my list to see whether there was anything else I needed to get.

Were the saltine crackers with the other snack crackers and cookies or with the soup? I could never figure out grocery store logic.

At the self-checkout, the “pomegranate” button wasn’t working on the produce screen. I waited for the manager to come over with his key and cancel my transaction. Meanwhile, Mrs. Amici and Diane carted their groceries to the next checkout. Their cashier looked like a bored high school dropout in a dead-end job. From what Helen had told me, Diane could relate.

Mrs. Amici fumbled in her wallet for the money. She handed the girl a dollar bill.

The cashier rolled her eyes at the old woman. “The total comes to fifty-two dollars, ma’am.”

“So?”

“You gave me a dollar.” The cashier popped her gum and waved the dollar bill in front of Mrs. Amici’s face. “I can’t bag these up if you don’t pay for them.”

“Keep your shirt on,” Diane said. “We’re gonna pay for this stuff.”

Mrs. Amici looked through her wallet again for several moments, but her eyes looked blank.

“Here, Mom, I’ll do it.” Diane took the wallet and handed the cashier a wad of cash. As her mother stared off in another direction, Diane pocketed the change.

They wheeled out to the parking lot as I finished bagging my groceries.

As I got into my SUV, I saw Diane settle her mother in the front seat of an old beat-up Pontiac. She put the grocery bags in the trunk and slammed it shut.

Diane got in and gripped the steering wheel, looking like she was ready to scream, and roared off.

I thought I’d drop a few things off at Mom and Aunt Helen’s, hoping that I wouldn’t run into Mrs. Amici and Diane once again on my way over there.

I knew where Mrs. Amici lived, but I hadn’t really noticed her place for years.

The old redbrick house was a few blocks away from my mom’s. It had a door to the right with a plain transom window above it and one window to the left. Three rooms down, two rooms up. Just like the other houses on her street, one of the oldest in Millcreek Valley.

There was no driveway, and the small backyard stopped at a fringe of scrub trees and tall weeds, then dropped off a few feet to the Mill Creek.

It looked run-down and deflated.

Just how I felt after listening to the two of them.

I drove past, then turned left to go to Mom’s. I hung the plastic grocery bag of stick pretzels and paper towels on her front doorknob.

At the bakery, Maggie had everything ready for my afternoon wedding cake tasting. I so looked forward to these moments when I could focus on people and not on tasks.

Every bride-to-be had a story. It was like picking up a novel that you could read in an hour or so. There were the stories they told me: how they met, fell in love, how he proposed, their future plans. And then there were the stories I sensed: the fear of getting marriage wrong because their parents had, the joy of finding love after heartbreak, the yearning for a family of their own.

Love made them brave.

Maybe some of that would rub off on me eventually. As angry as I still was at Luke, I wasn’t quite ready to end that chapter in my own story—or begin another one—but someday I hoped I would figure out more of the plot.

It was the pure sensory pleasure of these cake-tasting moments that could lift me and make me forget I had any troubles at all. I loved seeing the colors of the bridesmaids’ dresses, the bead or embroidery details of wedding gowns. I loved the crackle of the fire in my hearth, the soft cushions to lean against, the muted sparkle of the silver coffee set.

I smiled as I gathered up the boxes of miniature cupcakes and clear cups filled with the different mousses. I already had buttercreams in my refrigerator at home. I had thirty minutes to get set up.

On the porch, I looked over the privacy fence to my plastic garbage bins. The lids were off and the bins were empty. It was not trash day.

I stood there a moment, puzzled. It didn’t look like someone had gone through the trash searching for something and making a mess. It was all gone.

And then a jolt of electric worry zipped across my midsection, a feeling I usually woke up with in the middle of the night when I had dreamed about Luke or my dad.

Now I could dream about a mysterious identity thief. All that junk mail and bills and my personal info. I tried to remember what I had thrown away that week. Why didn’t I have a shredder?

And there, propped up at the front door, was a large FedEx box. I got bakery deliveries at the bakery, not here. But I hadn’t ordered anything. The sender’s address was in New Jersey.

I would think about all of that later. I had work to do now.

I sighed as I walked into the house, and let its calming atmosphere do its work. I took the FedEx box back to the kitchen, preferring to keep it out of sight.

I placed the miniature unfrosted cupcakes on the tiered stand in the parlor, spooned dollops of the different flavored mousses on my artist’s palette, brewed coffee, and made tea. I scooped a few different buttercream frostings into small china bowls.

When the doorbell rang, I was ready. I took a quick look at my mobile device again: Thomas Edgerton and Roberta Canfield. A December wedding.

They both seemed to be in their early forties.

Thomas was pleasant and plain, with sandy hair and a receding hairline, a freckled complexion, and clear frames on his glasses. Slightly plump, he was dressed in a brown sport coat, plaid shirt, and khaki pants. According to my notes, he was a self-employed accountant.

Roberta, on the other hand, was a stunning brunette, taller than her fiancé, with mahogany skin that looked like dark chocolate mousse. Were those Manolo Blahniks she was wearing? She was a marketing specialist for a Fortune 500 company.

We sat down, and I explained the tasting procedure.

Roberta looked over the little cupcakes on the tiered stand. “Don’t you have carrot cake, too? I read a review online that your carrot cake was good.” She was the most well-groomed person I’d ever seen, but something seemed a little off about her.

“Well, carrot cake would be great for a groom’s cake, but it doesn’t slice cleanly—all those little carrot and raisin pieces in it. That’s why it’s not usually done as a formal wedding cake,” I explained. “But we can certainly include a groom’s cake if you’d like.”

Thomas took Roberta’s hand. “Whatever makes you happy, sweetheart.”

Sweet. Just sweet. My mind formed the word before it registered that I actually tasted just that. Sweet.

Okay.

That was what had made Thomas happy over the years. Anything sweet.

Now, if I could just get a taste of what Roberta was all about.

I turned to her and smiled. As I spread a little raspberry filling on two chocolate cupcakes and dabbed them with a little chocolate buttercream, I let my mind relax, hoping it would all come to me.

“We can do a really stunning chocolate cake, if you like bigger flavors,” I told the couple as they sampled. “The raspberry has a little drop of rosewater in it to bring out the berryness of the fruit. Raspberry and chocolate is a classic combination.”

“No, I don’t want chocolate for a wedding cake,” she decided, putting her half-eaten cupcake on the service plate. Thomas just nodded as he finished his.

“All right. How about this, then?” I dabbed both apricot and almond fillings on browned-butter vanilla cupcakes and smoothed on just a bit of vanilla buttercream.

She took a bite, patting her lips with her napkin. “Too much going on.”

This half-eaten cupcake joined the other one. Thomas looked at the discards yearningly.

“Maybe a more seasonal touch, perhaps? Pomegranate and pistachio will be our signature flavors for December.”

“Ooh, that sounds interesting. Let’s taste that combination.”

“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll be right back.” I went to the kitchen and poured a little salt into a ramekin.

Roberta had a secret. A big secret. What it was, I didn’t know yet.

The salty flavor I was getting from her was all about her fear of being discovered. Carrot cake had a saltier flavor from both the batter and the cream cheese frosting. I should have guessed that right away.

“I’m not sure I’ve got enough salt in this pistachio buttercream, so I’ll just sprinkle some extra on,” I said as I chose a white cupcake, spread on a rosy pomegranate mousse filling, dabbed it with the palest of pistachio-green buttercream, then sprinkled on a little salt. Of course, the buttercream didn’t actually need salt. Thomas could taste that, and tried to suppress a grimace. For once, he left something on his plate.

But Roberta wolfed hers down. “I think we might have a winner,” she said.

“Let’s just taste a few more to be sure,” I said. I hope this worked.

I offered her cupcake after cupcake, filling after filling, all kinds of buttercream, and a sprinkle of salt on each. Thomas had called it quits after the pomegranate, but she ate on.

Her voice seemed to get lower, and lower, and lower with each sample. She had had enough salt to feed her fear, and now she was letting go a little bit, getting careless.

Thomas looked at her with the beginnings of alarm.

And I got a glimpse.

Black men at a neighborhood barbershop, one getting a shave, others sitting and joking with one another in the shabby waiting area, the linoleum floor worn through in spots. A handsome teenager in the second barber chair—Roberta’s brother, maybe?—kept saying, “No, I want to keep it longer on the top.” He fluttered his hands to indicate volume. “I need volume.”

“You’re as damn fussy as a girl,” one of his friends cackled.

“You don’t mess with his ’do,” another friend joined in.

“Can I use your bathroom?” Roberta suddenly asked, her voice gruff, and I pointed the way. She got up from the table with her handbag over her arm. “Just one more bite. I can’t stop.” She reached over to pluck another salty cupcake from the stand, then click-clacked her stilettos across the wood floor to the hallway bathroom.