by Nicole Falls
sugar butter flour love
Nicole Falls
Copyright © 2018 Nicole Falls
Cover art by Voldemort
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real locations, people, or events is coincidental, and unintentional.
THANKS.
creationista: for the use of your intellectual properties & for being everything all the time.
lake: for locking me out of socials & encouraging me to stay the course when I asked for my passwords back.
food network: for holiday baking championship.
Contents
-1-
-2-
-3-
-4-
-5-
-6-
-7-
-8-
-9-
epilogue
Afterword
Also by Nicole Falls
About the Author
-1-
Dear Isobel Knight,
It is with great pleasure that we send this correspondence to inform you of your status regarding the Ultimate Holiday Bake Off. Congratulations! You have been chosen to...
My eyes wandered from my phone where I’d been reading this highly anticipated email with bated breath. As soon as my eyes lit on the word congratulations, I yelped in excitement. I didn't bother reading much further past that because I’d seen all that I needed to see. I hopped up from my desk, going straight into my dance of jubilation to accompany my excited, rhythmic screams of victory. I had resigned myself to the fact that perhaps I hadn’t made it beyond the final round of auditions because the deadline by which we were told we’d be told our results had come and gone three days ago. This was one time that I was grateful for CP time, I guess. It was wrong to assume that it was delayed merely because I would be working with a network now run by an all-black ownership group. I’m sure there was actually a real reason for the delay that had less to do with the amounts of melanin in the skin of the network execs and more to do with logistical details. Savor certainly didn’t seem like the type of organization to be slacking on their pimping. All of that was irrelevant now because I did it! I was now a contestant on Ultimate Holiday Bake Off!
“Little girl, what in the world has you back here looking like you’re auditioning to be on Soul Train?” my Gamma Betty asked as she shuffled into my office.
I rushed over to grab her hands, making her join me in my dancing as I screamed, “I made it, Gam! Savor Network just emailed back. You are now dancing with the newest contestant on the Ultimate Holiday Bake Off.”
“You got it?” Gam whispered.
I thought that it was a long shot, but Gam encouraged me to throw my hat in the ring when the opportunity was presented. The whole way along the process I had my doubts, but Gam never swayed from her supreme confidence in me. Her belief in me was honestly what got me through the past three weeks of waiting on pins and needles to hear back about my fate.
I nodded, pulling her into a tight hug, rocking back and forth, “We got it!”
Gam pulled back slightly, mischief sparkling in her eyes.
“Can I say it now?” she asked, then continued without waiting for me to answer her question, “I told you so, BellyBoo!”
My cheeks grew warm at her usage of my childhood nickname, “I knew it was coming.”
“All my treats are boring, Gam. I’m too plain Jane, Gam. I’m not jazzy enough for TV, Gam. What else was said? What else did you whine about?” Gamma Betty teased, “What other fears did I have to squash? I told you I’m never wrong, little girl. You’d do well to remember that.”
“Yeah yeah, old woman,” I replied, laughing.
She was right though. I’d whined my way through this whole process, and her faith never wavered. This was probably the most important risk I’d ever taken in life, though, motivated by that prize money. One hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money...a life-changing amount of money. It was also the money we needed; otherwise...well I didn’t want to think of the otherwise right now. I tried to focus on the positive for the moment.
“Watch your mouth, Isobel the Second. I ain’t nobody’s old nothin,” Gam sassed, “This is exciting, baby girl. I’m so proud of you and can’t wait to see you on TV with that big ol’ check clutched in your grasp. When do you take off?”
“You mean when do we take off?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
We’d had this conversation or a variant of it several times since I’d decided to go through this process of auditioning for Bake Off. Gam was getting up there in years, and I didn’t feel comfortable being halfway across the country and leaving her here to fend for herself. As far as I knew, despite the show eventually airing over ten weeks, we’d actually only be filming for just over two weeks. We had a competent enough staff to handle running the bakery while we were out of town. The truth was that it had been Gam and me for so long that wanting her near me was more for my sake than hers. I didn’t know what life was like without her always there one step behind me, waiting to catch me if I fell. Of course, she’d just be a phone call or video chat away, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted her right right there.
“Belly...” Gam started.
“Nope, I don’t wanna hear it. Mel and Malc can run Whisk while we’re gone,” I said with a hint of a whine in my voice.
Mel and Malc were my cousins, who held a stake in the bakery, but were not as dedicated to the day-to-day running as Gamma and I were. The older Gam got, the more of an increased role I played in staffing, and overall managing of the bakery. Melanie and Malcolm both had jobs, families, and other responsibilities of their own that took them away from the granular parts of running Whisk, but they could certainly manage, with the help of our competent staff, to keep the place from burning to the ground while Gam and I took a few days away. Besides, it wasn’t like we were taking off on vacation, but ensuring that the legacy of Whisk stayed within the Knight family.
“Melanie and Malcolm certainly cannot run anything but their mouths, baby girl. Besides, you don’t need me underfoot when you have some time off from Bake Off and want to explore the streets with the little friends that you’re sure to make along the way while filming. You gon’ out there to wherever Savor sends y’all to record and live your best life like that lil song says. I ain’t goin’ back and forth with you ni...”
“Gam! Where in the world did you pick that up?” I asked, scandalized at my grandmother quoting Lil Duval of all people.
The song was catchy, but I thought for sure Gam didn’t listen to anything that wasn’t gospel, jazz, or the blues.
“I know things,” Gamma Betty replied, laughing, “Stop trying to derail this conversation though. We were talking about you stepping out on your own, love.”
“You say that like I don’t live on my own now!” I protested weakly.
I barely had a leg to stand on because the only reason I lived alone now was that Gam decided to move into one of those senior living apartment complexes. She sold the house that she’d raised me in when I went off to college, and we’d lived together in the condo I bought with the money she gave me from the proceeds until very recently. Gam insisted that I was too codependent on her for my existence, but she was trippin’. I had a full life with friends, family, a job I loved and... I was good. We were good.
“Barely!” Gam laughed, “Hell I’m sure if you could move into Heritage Lakes undetected, you totally would. You gotta live the life that matches your age, Belly. I know you’re seventy years old in spirit, but baby...that face and that body is per
fect for getting into trouble. Hell, when I was your age I...”
“...had three kids with a fourth on the way,” I supplied.
“Exactly, I was living my best life. Mmmmhmmm, sure was,” Gam reminisced, a starry-eyed gaze taking over her face, “I mean honestly, when is the last time you’ve enjoyed the company of a young man. Everyone at Whisk notwithstanding!”
“I go out...”
“But do you let anyone in, is the question I am asking,” Gam replied.
“Gam! Please,” I blushed, getting the double entendre in her words.
“What?” she laughed, hands held aloft, shoulders shrugged, “It’s a valid question. I sure would like to see some great-grands before I depart this earth is all I’m saying.”
“Let’s focus on one thing at a time, lady. Let me save Whisk first, then I’ll see what I can do about great-grands,” I replied, laughing.
We were afloat, running the bakery, but barely. We managed to pay our bills and our staff, but I subsisted off a meager amount monthly as I made it my business to ensure that Gam was more than well taken care of and comfortable as possible. She’d worked her entire life to provide the same for me, so it was the least that I could do.
“Mmmmhmm. Whatever you say, dear.”
“I gotta call Dame and let him know I got it!”
My good friend Damon, whose name I should have just kept to myself because Gam insisted that he and I should be more than that, was the only person besides Gam that knew I was trying out for Bake Off. I tried to get him to go for it as well, but his life was far too busy with an impending wedding and the added task of fatherhood now on his plate. Plus, he was thriving in his patisserie, and with a recent partnership with a local coffee brewer was looking to open a second location in his hometown.
“And how are Damon and his little girlfriend these days?”
“He and his fiancée are doing fantastically, Gam. But you already knew that because I know you keep up with his moves via Facebook.”
“That little girl is cute or whatever, but I still maintain that you dropped the ball,” Gam huffed.
Oh, here we go, I thought, bracing myself for the lecture that followed whenever I mentioned Damon in any capacity. Gam had only met him one time but swore that he was the man of my dreams. Now, admittedly I was super attracted to Dame when he and I first met in pastry school, but he quickly friend zoned me, and I held no lingering feelings of regret. Especially seeing how he ran through those Black French girls in the short time that we were in classes together. The brother was fine, but also a capital h hoe. He’d settled down since, however, being snagged by a woman I routinely liked to remind him was too good for him. Patricia and her son came into Dame’s life at the perfect time though, and I was hella looking forward to watching them exchange I Dos next year.
“Anyway…” I said, trying to move along from the subject of Damon.
“Why don’t you finish reading that email and learn the details of your impending trip, lil lady?” Gamma said, smirking, “Then we can do some shopping to pull together a cute lil wardrobe, so you can catch that check and possibly a man out there.”
I rolled my eyes at Gamma bringing up my being unattached for the second time in just a few short minutes and scanned the rest of the email for the details. There was a contract and some release forms attached, that looked to be standard, but I’d have my cousin Malcolm—my de jure attorney, primarily based on him being the only attorney with which I had a constant communication—check out to make sure I wouldn’t end up signing my life away. The email also detailed a change in the format of Bake Off this season, turning the whole thing into a regional competition. I would be paired with another baker from my region, and we would be splitting the hundred-thousand-dollar grand prize if we were victorious. I wasn’t given any details about my purported partner, and I’m confident it was because Savor would provide that information once they had my signed contract and releases.
I couldn’t front; I was a little put out by the change in the format— primarily because I was banking on that hundred thousand. We didn’t need quite that much to keep Whisk ahead of the game, but it would have been nice to have a bit in reserves just in case we got into a tight spot again. The area of town in which the bakery was situated was becoming a hot spot, and as such, the rent on our building had been increased dramatically—hence why we were tight. Fifty thousand versus a hundred thousand provided a significantly narrower amount of breathing room, but hey—who knows, maybe the exposure of a nationally televised show would be a boon to our business as well. As is, we did okay, but we could always do better. I just knew that whoever they paired me up with better be ready to go the long haul because I wasn’t about to be one of those flash in the pan reality show contestants. I was bound and determined to have my name go down in the history books as the winner of the third season of Ultimate Holiday Bake Off.
-2-
"No,” I said, shaking my head, “Whatever it is, the answer is no.”
“...but...” Tesh started, but I held up a hand before she could continue.
“Whenever you start a sentence with, ‘I know this isn’t your usual thing, cuzzo…’ I end up getting roped into some strange shit. It was how I ended up fostering three pit bulls last summer. Whatever it is, can it. Save your lil Easter speech. I ain’t goin’.”
“You are so damned rude, Travie,” Tesha replied with an eye roll, “I know you were raised better than that.”
“Of course you know! You were right alongside me for most of it. That doesn’t mean you can use that to your advantage and my disadvantage,” I quipped, shrugging.
Tesha was my cousin who was more like my sister. It was a no-brainer for me to hire her as my assistant-slash-manager because she was one of the closest people to me on this Earth. When she moved in with my parents and me when we were in elementary school, Tesh and I became thick as thieves. She was a storehouse for all of my secrets and I hers. These days, my secrets were a bit more valuable than hers thanks to the semi-high profile I still kept despite being fully retired from the league. It’d been a weird transition, essentially being unemployed now which led to me having entirely too much free time for Tesh to pull me into bizarre shit like attending a senior prom…for senior citizens. My date for the prom was one of our former babysitters, so it ended up being a good time, but it was definitely not how I would have chosen to spend my time if Tesh hadn’t agreed to it on my behalf, then informed me about it.
That was her M.O. though, commit—then ask questions later. She was all about making sure that the Travis Coleman brand was forever buzzing in the streets. Ever since I was drafted into the NFL in the first round after finishing up undergrad, Tesh always made sure that my name was out there—mostly on a good level, which helped build a surprising amount of fame and celebrity around me. I really wasn’t into the spotlight shit in the beginning, but the more getting my name out there garnered me endorsement deals and got me invites to parties I’d only dreamed of in the past? I let Tesha do her thang. Being sidelined by a career ending injury, however, the opportunities to keep my name in these streets presented themselves less and less frequently.
“C’mon Traaaav! I promise this one is something good. Remember you were talking about a way to transition into doing television? This might be your way in…c’mon give me a slow yes instead of a fast no,” Tesha pleaded.
“Really? You’re gonna Berry Gordy me?”
“Actually, it was Suzanne DePasse who said that to Bar... you know what? Semantics; it doesn’t matter. Not relevant at all. Can you at least listen to the opportunity that I have for you? These people want me to get back to them soon.”
“Fine,” I said, capitulating, “What’s good?”
Tesha detailed my involvement in a television project that was probably the furthest thing away from the avenues in television that I’d been pursuing previously but was actually brilliant for something to do in between. The more she talked, the more interested I became, wh
ich she obviously knew would hook me. Doing this project wouldn’t be the seamless transition into sports commentary like she claimed, but it would definitely allow me to revel in one of my passions.
Few people knew this, but I loved baking. It all started back in high school when I was forced to take a family and consumer sciences course as an elective. I was forced to pick between a cooking class and a sewing class. Since I figured one had to eat to live so that one would serve me better in the long run, I went with the cooking course. My teacher, Mrs. Longfellow, had a passion for all things food and it was evident in the manner by which she taught us. The baking bug hit me so hard that I ended up taking the advanced version of the course the next year that focused solely on making baked goods. Over the years, I’d kept up with my skills—much to the surprise of many of my teammates when I’d walk into a film review or practice with my homemade delights. They thought my girl or my moms was making them, so when I revealed it was me them niggas tried to clown, but they couldn’t even front on my skills on and off the gridiron.
“So...what do you think?” Tesh asked, knowing damn well she could tell that she had me from the gleam in my eye.
“What’s the hook? There's gotta be a catch of some sort?”
“No hook. Well...”
“Just say it, man.”
“Okay, so this opportunity was presented to you because you’ll actually be paired up with someone from our hometown. The production company and network liked the idea of having bakers compete against one another with help from a hometown hero. So, you won’t be completely on your own.”