3 Cupcakes, Pies, and Hot Guys

by Pamela DuMond

  She lay on a fold-out cot next to the window, which was cracked open several inches. Hotel management supplied the cot as a courtesy when Annie called the front desk and confessed that she had broken the rules again and brought a Plus Two. It wasn’t the lodge’s fault there was no extra room at the inn. The Hot Guys Contest was a sell-out.

  The metal bars running through the cot poked into Annie’s back and ribs like tiny torture devices and she felt her neck spasm on the one-inch thick pillow. She pushed herself to sitting and the cot creaked in complaint. “Back at ya,” she whispered.

  She gazed out the window at Lac LaBelle. It was beautiful. Palatial estates, forests, beaches and marinas snuggled up to its shores.

  During the summer, this fresh water lake was filled with swimmers, fish, fishermen, boaters and water-skiers. It was the lake she grew up on. Where she had the toboggan accident with her mom. They catapulted down the icy snow packed hill, when they hit a large bump. Annie flew off the toboggan, crashed onto the ice and hit her head. She woke up minutes later feeling like someone was sticking a huge tongue down her throat. Turns out this was her first empathic moment. Her eyes fluttered open and she saw Julia leaning over her face, looking concerned and holding her hand.

  Paramedics concluded Annie had a mild concussion. After Annie learned Julia had french kissed Greg Finklestein minutes prior to her accident, she concluded she’d been empathically feeling Finklestein awkwardly kissing Julia. She had suffered not only a concussion, but she’d gained empathic ability. She could feel in her body what others’ were feeling in theirs.

  Julia hacked, snorted, moaned and interrupted Annie’s stroll down memory lane. She tossed and turned on her double bed like she was attempting a Zumba workout. “Misterrrrr…Wiskin Swells,” Julia mumbled.

  Perhaps Julia wasn’t attempting Zumba but a more familiar cardio activity.

  Also asleep, Grady cried out, “Noodles!”

  Annie loved them both, but she desperately needed a good night’s rest with some REMS before she turned into a zombie. She could think of only two places where she might be able to do that. One was back at her place in Venice Beach, California, nearly two thousand miles away. The other was…

  Minutes later under a dark sky filled with puffy clouds sliced by slivers of moonlight, Annie pedaled down Lac LaBelle’s two-lane road on a vintage bicycle. She’d talked the night clerk into lending her the ride.

  Her white nightgown draped down her cleavage; the lower hem landing just above her knees. Her Coach bag was slung over her shoulder. She pedaled. And pedaled. And pedaled. She was so tired her skin tingled. The lake’s waters lapped against the shores and the hint of a warm evening breeze tickled her face. She smiled because in spite of the weather, the hellish bus ride, her missing luggage, the gunshots and the scary contest judges, she was secretly thrilled to be back home in Wisconsin.

  Annie turned onto a side lane and rode past older, simple and pretty houses set back from the street. There were tall fat pine trees, gigantic oaks and grassy manicured yards. She pedaled past white clapboard homes and gingerbread houses until she spotted a tiny, energy-efficient car parked in a freshly blacktopped driveway next to an unassuming two-story brick residence.

  The car sat at an odd diagonal; most of it was on the driveway, but its left front wheel rested squarely on the side lawn. She knew the blue Caddie was carefully parked in the garage, a protective cover already draped over it. An old oak tree towered in the front lawn, a wooden swing hung from thick ropes looped over a solid branch above.

  Annie coasted into the driveway, hopped off the bike and looked for someplace to lock it. Then realized she was in Oconomowoc, not Los Angeles. She pushed the bike into a thick green hedge of bushes next to the house and nudged the kickstand down with her foot.

  She quietly climbed the three short concrete steps that led to the porch. She fished around in her purse, pulled out her key chain, held it up the to sky and squinted at the keys. She found the one she was looking for. It was plain brass, worn and had been duplicated a thousand times.

  She gingerly opened the screen door and slipped the key in the lock of the front door. It opened readily. ’Cause this was Annie’s childhood house, the home she grew up in. Where she learned how to bake perfect chocolate chip cookies, got her braces, snuck out to go to parties with Julia. Where she swung on that wooden swing under the big tall oak and wondered what her life would look and feel like when she grew up.

  She tiptoed through the living room. Mouthed a silent hello to the thirty Hummel figurines trapped in the glass-encased tchotchky tower located close to her mom’s fat low-def, state-of-the art TV that she’d bought fifteen years ago.

  She made her way quietly to the staircase that led to the second floor. The wall next to the staircase featured framed family photos, as well as the two hideous chalk drawings of Annie and her brother Carson. Her mom had commissioned a local artist to sketch the drawings when they had vacationed at the Lake of the Ozarks, twenty-five years earlier.

  Annie snuck up the stairs, making sure to avoid the fifth step, as it always creaked. The last thing she wanted was to scare her mom or wake her up. Her plan was to get a little uninterrupted sleep. She’d slip out of her family home in the early morning refreshed and ace her duties as a contest judge.

  Annie reached the second floor. Her mom still left a nightlight on in the hallway. She tiptoed down the hall to the very last bedroom. The door was ajar. She slipped inside and quietly shut it.

  The moon shone through the cotton drapes with multi-colored hearts on them, revealing a small girly bedroom. There was a twin bed piled with stuffed animals, a bookcase stocked with Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books, a petite Early American style wooden desk, bulletin boards filled with photos, cheerleading photos and ribbons as well as a Madonna Vogue poster.

  A hot pink alarm clock with fat silver colored bells sat on the desk. Annie set her purse next to it, picked up the clock and wound the knob on the back. She set the current time, as well as her wake up time for eight a.m. She’d get back to the lodge, hopefully claim her missing luggage and dress super fine for the eleven a.m. Hot Guys brunch.

  She picked up her stuffed animals from the bed and placed them on the floor, leaning each of them against the wall, except for Walla the koala bear—her favorite. Annie noted, that devoid of the animals, the bed’s covers were neatly pulled back. She crawled between the sheets, hugged Walla the koala to her chest, sighed and fell asleep.

  Frank Plank woke up from his unexpected nap on his weight lifting bench. Very strange. The only time he’d ever fallen asleep on that bench was approximately four years ago when he was twenty-six. He’d gotten drunk at a BBQ and made out with a hot younger girl, Lila DeLovely, in front of all her friends.

  This was not his m.o. He’d never been a player. And worse, according to his friends, Frank announced loudly to the entire party that Lila DeLovely was the future Mrs. Plank. The next day, after he sobered up, Frank decided he was a complete ass. That the best way to handle the situation was not handling it. He decided to never call that girl back. Big mistake.

  Months later he ran into Lila at a local bar and she taught him a lesson. They went outside to talk—okay—neck. Lila slipped him a mickey, gave him a hickey and accompanied him back to his boathouse. She had her way with him on the pool table, the couch, the floor, inside a kayak, against the door, underneath the Green Bay Packers poster, and eventually on the weight bench. When he passed out, she took pictures of him and threatened to post them on the Internet unless he became her love slave or helped her escape her life.

  It did not matter to Frank that the candid photos she took would only enhance his reputation as being a man’s man, a woman’s man, or in other words, endowed. The woman who so callously seduced him was the daughter of Suzie Mae DeLovely and the heir to the DeLovely’s Bakery and Coffee Shoppe empire.

  But Lila didn’t want to bake. She wanted to model, become a pop star, travel the world, be a groupie, excavat
e the ruins of Ercolano outside of Pompeii and learn to speak the romance languages: French, Italian and Portuguese.

  Frank was crazy about her. Batshit insane loco for this girl. But he had no idea how to handle her, so he procrastinated. He didn’t encourage her to follow her dreams, or agree to accompany her on her adventures. Frank had a family business to maintain. Responsibilities. Push came to shove and even though he loved Lila, he didn’t propose. He just waited.

  Eventually Lila couldn’t contain her frustration and ran off to Europe. He’d see her in the occasional designer ad, modeling something hip and cool. She’d pop up in the pages of a gossip rag that someone left in the waiting room of his parent’s company office. She’d be on the arm of Clooney, Jagger, some billionaire, politician, or famous rapper.

  Frank didn’t realize Lila was back in town until this week when she e-mailed him, called him, texted him and finally scrawled a note in red lipstick on his car’s windshield indicating her desire to catch up. He surmised that “hook up” was the more accurate term. But the Hot Guys Contest was this week and he had to stay focused.

  Frank spotted Lila in the crowd at the lodge earlier. She was now a gorgeous twenty-three year-old brunette in a short tight skirt with killer legs in high heels. She threw him a kiss, a wink, a sexy come-hither smile. There was an older man with multiple chins sitting next to her, his hand proprietary on her knee. He wore a dress uniform jacket covered in medals. Frank knew what American military uniforms looked like. So many of his friends, including Jamie Ryan, had been deployed and served in the Iraq War. This man wasn’t wearing an American uniform, so Frank assumed he was possibly European. This man also didn’t seem perturbed when Lila not so subtly sucked on her index finger and beckoned to Frank with her other hand. Perhaps the man was far-sighted.

  Lila tempted Frank. But there was so much to do for the contest. He wasn’t going to place or even win if he kept falling asleep on his weight bench. Frank sighed, got up, walked closer to the mirror and flexed his biceps. There was a big red stain on his T-shirt. Did he spill ketchup on it earlier when he was eating his obligatory protein burgers to help him build muscle? He leaned into the mirror to examine the stains. His breath caught in his throat. Because something wasn’t right.

  There was a big, beefy, tall guy dressed just like him, sprawled next to his weight bench. Red stuff was splattered all over this person, all over the dumbbells, weight bench and even dripped down his beloved autographed Green Bay Packer poster on the wall.

  Frank shook his head, confused. He heard a knock on the door. He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

  “Frank?” his mother Patsy asked. “Frank, are you okay? We heard a strange sound. Son? Are you having one of your parties?”

  Again, Frank tried to answer. But no sounds came out of his mouth.

  She knocked louder. “Frank, I’m a little worried about you. Tomorrow’s a big day.” The door to the boathouse opened. Patsy Plank walked inside armed with a shotgun and racked it.

  ‘Everything’s fine, Mom,’ Frank said. Wow, finally he was able to talk.

  But his mom didn’t hear him. Patsy gasped, dropped the gun and ran to the figure next to the weight bench. She put her ear to his chest, then placed her mouth on his mouth and did a couple of rounds of CPR. She stopped, horrified. And screamed. “Heck, call the police! For the love of God, someone shot Frank!”

  No, Frank thought. His mom was confused. He walked toward her and tried to explain that everything would be okay. But then he saw the figure slumped across the weight bench. It was indeed him.

  Patsy shrieked, grabbed Frank’s dead hand, collapsed on the ground next to his body and sobbed. He tried to reach out to her, but she didn’t see him. “I’m sorry Mom,” he said. “I love you. I always tried to do my best.” And then Frank wondered two things:

  If he was really dead—what was he still doing here in the family boathouse? And who in the hell had killed him?

  Seven

  Cinnamon Buns

  Annie woke up and blinked. Sunshine beat through the bedroom window. She extended her arms over her head, kicked off the sheet and stretched her legs. She did wrist circles and ankle circles, and wondered where her cat, Theodore, was. This was his prompt to jump up on her chest and knead her head or stomach.

  But there was no Theodore. The air suddenly felt clammy and Annie realized she was not in L.A. She was in Wisconsin. Her eyes popped open. She pushed herself to sitting and saw Walla the koala lying on the ground, face down, like he’d taken a header during a night of debauchery.

  Her eyes swiveled and registered on the clock. It read ten p.m. How could that be? It was light out? Oh shit. Annie realized she’d totally messed up the a.m./p.m. thing on the clock. Which meant it was ten a.m. and Annie had only an hour to prepare for the contest. If she was lucky, her luggage would have arrived at the Lake Lodge by now.

  But she wasn’t going to have time to bike back, shower, and get dressed. She jumped out of bed and hid behind her bedroom door. Opened it an inch, peeked through the crack and checked for her mom. She heard Nancy singing The Hills are Alive downstairs. Pots and pans clattered, the oven door creaked and the scent of cinnamon wafted through the air. Mom was baking her killer cinnamon buns. So not fair! But Annie couldn’t partake in any or she’d blow her cover.

  She realized her mission. It would not be pretty. It would not be comfortable. But she was a Midwestern girl. And when the going got tough, Midwestern chicks would suck it up and get the job done. Then afterwards they’d celebrate with a cupcake or cocktail—or both.

  She snuck out the door and tiptoed down the hall. She was going to raid her mom’s closet for clothes and accessories and fashion them into a fabulous outfit that even J-Lo would be jealous of.

  Seven minutes later, Annie exited her mom’s bedroom wearing an enormous blue muumuu, belted around her waist. She snuck down the stairs carrying platform seventies-styled shoes. Her hair was pulled back from her face with a headband she’d fashioned from a few inches of material that she’d ripped from the bottom of the dress. She’d borrowed an old pair of huge black Jackie O sunglasses she found in a box labeled “Fabulous Sunglasses.” Nice of her mom to be so organized.

  She waved bye-bye to the Hummels, gently opened the front door, snuck outside and shut it. She crept to the bike and wheeled it quietly down the drive. After she passed the next-door neighbor’s house, she hopped on the seat and pedaled off.

  In the lodge’s parking lot Annie passed a shiny van with a satellite dish on top. I-CHIC with a snappy logo was painted on the van’s side. Illinois Chicago Cable News stenciled underneath. A pretty, late thirty-something brunette woman dressed in a summer suit put on a little lipstick from the inside of the van. She hopped out and strode toward her video crew, already set up on the lawn’s sidelines. More reporters were on the scene. Hmm.

  Annie held her head high, trying to look cool and official as she strode through the massive crowds, past ten large tented booths set up on the Lake Lodge lawn. Nearby Lac LaBelle’s waters lapped onto the shoreline.

  Though the finalists had already been chosen, all of the contestants had prepared a special treat for the brunch. The winners could gain fans, media exposure and even land lucrative endorsement deals.

  Stephanie Storms from WNOC was already interviewing Mr. Bloomer on camera. He cradled several large bouquets and leaned down toward the mic.

  “I believe a great brunch should always have beauty. What’s prettier than freshly cut flowers? I grew these roses. Added some peonies, daisies. A lovely talented girl like yourself deserves beautiful flowers.” Mr. Bloomer smiled at Stephanie and offered her a huge bouquet.

  Stephanie giggled. Raised the flowers to her nose, closed her eyes for a theatrical second, then re-opened them and smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Bloomer. You’re such a gentleman. Good luck! I’ll be rooting for you.”

  “And cut!” Olaf said.

  “Bye-bye, now,” Stephanie waved to Mr. Bloomer, wh
o walked off, a satisfied look on his face.

  Stephanie sneezed and tossed the bouquet onto the ground. “Jeez, my allergies. Remind me to stay away from Bloomer. Who’s next? One of the judges?”

  Annie picked up the flowers, positioned them next to her face and walked past Stephanie, incognito. She headed for the exhibition area set up nearby.

  Each tent was the size of your average car dealership sales event and housed five Hot Guys, as well as their concoctions. The aromas and the lush displays were intoxicating. Annie was drawn to one arena.

  Mr. Milwaukee, a buff African-American man, wore his hometown’s baseball jersey. His booth was stuffed floor to ceiling with huge ice-filled coolers filled with varieties of Wisconsin beers. Smart guy, Mr. Milwaukee.

  Mr. Richland Center was dressed in hunter camouflage and stood with ramrod straight posture next to a table topped with an enormous wooden platter filled with appetizers. A large poster board proclaimed his food items to be an assortment of locally processed, organic and gluten-free deer jerky. He enthusiastically passed out samples, stabbed with little toothpicks that sported tiny plastic deer heads.

  Mr. Appleton manned his booth from his wheelchair. It had a dozen huge apple pies and endless trays of mini pies. “Pies!” he shouted. “Get your free Appleton pies!” He flashed his pearly whites and shook hands. “Vote for the apple of your eye, Mr. Appleton.” He handed a mini pie and a small plastic fork to each person standing in the long line in front of his booth. Annie had a feeling Mr. Appleton would be running for office some day.

  There was a large banner over a booth that read, “Mr. Oconomowoc.” Annie felt her skin tingle. A massive shiny red grill was filled with briquettes sprinkled with wood chips. But it hadn’t been fired up yet. A huge poster for “Plank’s Franks and Sausages,” featuring the company’s food items as well as its proprietor, the hunky Frank Plank, hung from the tent’s wall. But Frank, aka Mr. Oconomowoc, was not attending the booth. Where was he, Annie wondered? He was obviously the hometown darling.