The Icing on the Cake (Otter Bluff)

by Linda Seed

  “Got it.”

  She’d never thought about working with someone else—she’d enjoyed the solitude of baking—but now, with Brian enthusiastically responding to her every request, she had to admit it was nice.

  Fun, even.

  She sifted flour, added baking powder, salt.

  The whir of the mixer blended with the soft snick of the scissors as Brian cut more parchment rounds.

  Before long, Cassie had the next batch of cakes in the oven, strips of wet toweling wrapped around each pan like little scarves.

  “All right. What’s next?” Brian asked.

  “More roses. But I’m not sure you can help me with that.”

  “Hmm. Probably not. But I can keep you company while you do them.”

  She wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to—that she’d already taken up too much of his time. But another part of her thought it would be pleasant to have someone to talk to while she crafted one buttercream rose after another.

  “Okay. That would be nice.”

  Brian was fascinated, watching Cassie make roses out of frosting.

  He leaned his forearms on the countertop and watched as she squeezed out one perfect petal after another.

  “You sure you don’t mind me talking to you while you do that?” he asked.

  “Not at all. Go ahead.”

  “Okay. How did you learn to do this?”

  She told him the story of her first cake decorating class at the Michaels in Paso Robles a couple of years before. Her mother had bought her the classes for her birthday after Cassie had mentioned that she wanted to learn a craft.

  “I complained at first. ‘This isn’t a craft. This is cooking.’” She laughed at her own remembered foolishness. “Just try it, she told me. So I did. You should have seen how crappy my first cakes came out. My flowers looked like little blobs of unicorn poop.”

  “Colorfully put.”

  “But I got to eat a lot of cake, and I like cake.” She formed another rose on the nail, then slid it, on its parchment, onto the counter.

  “Hey, could you cut me some more of these?” she indicated the parchment squares she was using for the roses.

  “Sure. I’m on it.”

  She continued her story about cake decorating—how she’d gotten progressively better with practice, using her new skills on her siblings’ birthday cakes, her sister’s baby shower cake, her parents’ anniversary cake.

  “That was the one that did it. The anniversary cake. I made it look like a wedding cake, with two tiers, lots of flowers, fondant lace. It came out better than I ever could have expected. That’s when my mom suggested I make wedding cakes professionally. As soon as the idea came out of her mouth, I knew it was the right thing for me. I knew if I could make that work, I’d finally know what to do with my life. I’d be doing something I loved. And it shows when you love what you do, don’t you think?”

  “I do think that, yes.”

  She paused in her work, stretched her neck, and looked at him. “Well, you must love what you do, right? The YouTube show?”

  “I do love it, yes. When Ike and I were doing the show together, it was—well, it was my dream. I still love it, and I still make a good living. But it’s not the same without Ike.”

  “So what happened? Why did he quit?”

  Brian shrugged, focusing on his parchment squares. “Ike just didn’t want to do it anymore. He wanted to go back to law school and get married. I was so happy doing the show, I didn’t realize he wasn’t having as much fun as I was.”

  “The show’s still good with just you,” she pointed out. “I know, because I watch.”

  “Yeah, but …” He shrugged again. “It isn’t the same. Now it’s a job. With Ike, I was just playing and getting paid for it. I miss him.”

  “So, what are you going to do to get the magic back?”

  He looked up from what he was doing and smiled, hoping the smile didn’t look as wistful and sad as he felt. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll get a new partner. Or maybe I’ll quit the show and take up cake baking with you.”

  Chapter 7

  For Cassie, the rest of the morning was nothing but cakes.

  She finished baking the new layers, then turned them out of the pans and onto the racks to cool—being sure to check Thor’s location before she did it.

  When they were cool, she wrapped them and put them in the freezer because it would make them more stable and control the crumb when she was ready to frost them. She crafted an entire garden, a veritable greenhouse, of flowers. Then she made a batch of white fondant and set it aside for later.

  Through it all, she issued orders to Brian and answered questions about why she was doing one thing or another. That last part could have been annoying, given how hard she was working, but it wasn’t. She enjoyed the why and how of it, and his interest reminded her of just how cool it all was.

  It wasn’t just a cake she was making—it was art. Art that would be devoured by the bride and groom’s one hundred closest friends, but still.

  She was creating something beautiful, and that had value, however fleeting it might be.

  By early afternoon, Cassie was ready to frost the tiers and assemble them. A twelve-inch double-layer round tier for the base, a ten-inch tier in the middle, and a six-inch round on top. She frosted them from a giant bowl of cloudlike buttercream, inserted dowels for stability, then stacked one cake on top of another.

  With that done, she stretched her neck, which was starting to cramp.

  “Almost there,” Brian commented, and Cassie laughed at him.

  “Yeah, right. I’ve got another six hours to go, easy.”

  His eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously. If this were a sculpture, we’d be at the big-lump-of-clay part.”

  “Oh. Jeez.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re gonna get it done in time, though, right?”

  She propped one fist on her hip and considered it. “I should. But if one more thing goes wrong, I’m screwed.”

  As if on cue, her cell phone rang. She looked at the phone as though it were a rattlesnake or a ticking bomb.

  “It’s Elliot. This can’t be good.” She picked up the phone, reasoning that she couldn’t just ignore him. “Hi, Elliot. What can I do for you on my day off?”

  Elliot launched right into it without an apology for disturbing her and without any polite chitchat. “The new renters at Dolphin Dreams say you did an inadequate job vacuuming the master bedroom, and you didn’t leave them enough towels. I need you to go over there and fix it.”

  Cassie suddenly felt sick with stress, and she pressed one hand to her middle. “Elliot, I can’t. It’s my day off, and I’m in the middle of something.”

  “Well, you should have thought of that before you did a shoddy job on Dolphin Dreams.”

  “I did not do a shoddy job. The renters are …” It was on the tip of her tongue to say the renters were assholes—they’d been clients before, and it was an accurate assessment—but at the last moment, she remembered her professionalism and amended her word choice. “They’re overly particular. You know that. You’ve dealt with them before.”

  “Well. Be that as it may.”

  Cassie gritted her teeth to keep from throwing the phone. “You’ll need to send someone else.”

  “But you were the one who cleaned that house in the first place. And I’m using the word cleaned loosely. Ha ha.”

  If it were possible to strangle someone through a cell phone, Cassie would have done it. She wished there were an iPhone app for that.

  “It’s. My. Day. Off,” she repeated.

  “Well, we all make sacrifices,” Elliot said. “I’ll tell them to expect you.” He hung up before she could respond.

  Oh, shit. Cassie was starting to cry, and Brian hated it when women cried. It was messy, for one thing—all that leaking. For another, it was a mystery to him what one could do to make a woman stop crying o
nce she’d started.

  He wanted to help, wanted to make things better for her, but who knew the mysteries of a woman’s emotions?

  Thor seemed concerned, too; he sat down at Cassie’s feet and whined a little.

  “Elliot is such a dick.” Cassie grabbed a tissue from a box on the counter and blew her nose. “Shit. Shit. Well, that’s it, then. I’m never going to get this done. It was stupid to think I could. It was stupid to think anything’s ever going to change for me. I’m going to be working for Elliot forever, cleaning people’s vacation houses and delivering towels, running around at their beck and call.”

  The beck and call part gave Brian an idea. He pulled out his own cell phone, Googled Central Coast Escapes, and dialed.

  “What are you doing?” Cassie asked.

  Brian held up a finger to quiet her.

  When Elliot answered, he said, “This is Brian Cavanaugh—Lisa Barlow’s son.”

  “Oh. Hello, Mr. Cavanaugh. How’s your mother?”

  They made polite conversation for a minute before Brian got to the point. “Did my mother tell you I’m staying at Otter Bluff for the rest of the month?”

  “Oh. No. I had no idea you—”

  “Well, I’m sorry she didn’t let you know, but that’s what’s going on. You can call her if you like.” He listened while Elliot made a few murmurings about having looked for renters and how it was inconvenient for him not to have been informed.

  “I’m calling because the heat isn’t working,” Brian went on, ignoring Elliot’s complaints. Even as he said it, he felt a blast of cozy heat coming up from a register in the floor.

  “Well, that’s not our responsibility,” Elliot began. “As the homeowner, you and your mother—”

  “I realize that,” Brian said. “But I wondered if you could send over the woman who did maintenance for us here before. What’s the name? Callie something?”

  “Do you mean Cassie?”

  “That’s it.” Brian grinned at Cassie, who looked amused. “Cassie. She fixed our heating once before when it wasn’t working right, and I thought you could send her over.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll pay her, of course. I don’t expect you to foot the bill.”

  Elliot’s tone softened at that. “Well, that’s fine, but—”

  “I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve tried to get a heating guy over here, and they’re all booked up for the next week, and it would be so much simpler if Cassie could come over, since she’s dealt with it before, and I’m sure she’ll know right away what the problem is.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elliot said. “I wish I could help you, but Cassie is on another job, and I can’t just reschedule her on such short notice.”

  “On a totally unrelated note,” Brian said, “has my mother mentioned that we’re looking at another property management company? Lower rates, and everybody says their service is top-notch.” Brian waited while Elliot silently seethed.

  “She’ll be there within the hour,” he said.

  Less than a minute later, a text message came in for Cassie, telling her to go to Otter Bluff rather than Dolphin Dreams. She picked up her phone, sent a response, then grinned at Brian.

  “That was masterful,” she said.

  “I have a few tricks.”

  “You clearly do.”

  Brian was a little stunned by the smile—the sheer voltage of it. Being useful to Cassie could get to be a habit.

  Cassie worked on the cake late into the night. Her estimate of having six more hours of work, it turned out, had been wildly optimistic.

  She lost herself in the job, though—in the art of it. She lost track of time, of her surroundings, of everything as she rolled fondant and laid it over the frosted cakes so it resembled ivory silk carelessly draped over the tiers. Then she applied the roses she’d so painstakingly made: a lush bouquet on top, cascading down the sides and pooling at the base in a riotous tribute to the bounty of nature.

  If she hadn’t been so worried about finishing on time—and if her back and shoulders hadn’t ached as much as they did—she’d have been having a wonderful time.

  Hell, she was having a wonderful time anyway.

  After the last rose had been placed, she stepped back to look at the finished cake.

  “Brian. Come take a look.” Brian had been on the sofa with Thor watching a movie—something involving martial arts and a band of crooked cops.

  “Is it done?” He blinked a few times, and she suspected he’d fallen asleep.

  “It is. What do you think?”

  He came over and stood beside her. Then his eyes widened. “Holy shit.”

  “Again, I have to ask: is that ‘holy shit’ good, or ‘holy shit, what an epic disaster’?”

  “It’s holy shit, I can’t believe you made that. I can’t even believe it’s cake.”

  Cassie smiled, pleased with his reaction. “It’ll do.”

  “It’s … it’s perfect.”

  “You’re damned right it is.” Cassie was exhilarated, thrilled with the way it had come out, the way her vision had been perfectly replicated in the confection standing proudly on Brian’s countertop.

  She’d practiced, sure. But practice was one thing. Producing something as a professional—knowing she’d be paid for her work and that her cake would be the centerpiece of the biggest day of a couple’s lives—made her feel positively giddy.

  She bounced on her toes, ignoring the exhaustion, the sore muscles, the anxiety she’d felt not knowing how this would go.

  “It’s good, Brian. It’s actually good.”

  “It’s amazing,” he said. “Now how are you going to get it to the reception without ruining it?”

  Brian was surprised by the simplicity of the answer.

  Cassie was going to put the cake in a box.

  She’d be delivering it as though it were a package from Amazon or a carton of dishes being transported during a move from one apartment to another. He watched as she laid a non-slip pad on the bottom of the big box she’d brought with her, carefully placed the cake on top of the pad, then closed the carton around it.

  She pulled a roll of packing tape out of her bag.

  “What’s that for?”

  “Keeps the moisture out. Otherwise, the fondant will sweat, which would really suck.” Cassie carefully sealed all of the seams of the box, then stood back with her hands on her hips.

  Once that was done, she looked into his refrigerator and frowned.

  He peered inside with her and saw the problem. There was no vertical space high enough to accommodate the cake.

  Working together, they moved Brian’s stuff to one side of the refrigerator, removed some shelves, and slid the cake in.

  Cassie shut the refrigerator door, leaned back against it, and closed her eyes.

  “There. Done. Finito. Now all I have to do is get it to the reception in one piece.”

  “Too bad I won’t get to taste it.”

  Cassie opened her eyes and grinned. “Who says you won’t? I’m going to the wedding. You want to be my plus-one?”

  Chapter 8

  Brian had never liked weddings. But it wasn’t the weddings themselves he didn’t like. The problem tended to be the people getting married and their guests—most of whom were his relatives.

  He liked champagne, cake, music, and dancing. He just didn’t like them well enough to have to put up with the family drama that came with them.

  The benefit of Cassie’s invitation was that all of the family drama would be someone else’s. He could have the champagne and the cake and the music and the dancing without any of the emotional baggage.

  He would also get to see Cassie in a pretty dress, which was a significant bonus.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” he asked the next morning when she called him to make sure Thor hadn’t somehow eaten this cake, too. “I mean, don’t people usually want some notice before an extra guest comes to their wedding?”

  “It’s fine,” she t
old him. “I RSVP’d with a plus-one just in case I found a date. I didn’t find one. That is, until I found you.”

  “Hmm. That’s interesting. Who did you try?” Not that he would know any of them. He’d asked because he found it hard to imagine anyone turning down Cassie Jordan for a date.

  “Nobody,” she said. “I didn’t try anybody. Weddings are tricky, you know? If you’re dating somebody and you ask them to go to a wedding, it sounds like you’re taking a step. All of that talk about marriage and the future. So, to avoid making them think you’re taking a step, you have to specify to them that you absolutely are not taking a step. But what if you do want to take a step with them at some point? Now you’ve already told them you’re not doing that. You’ve ruined it.”

  “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

  “Of course I have, I’m a girl.”

  She certainly was—in all of the best ways.

  “But,” she went on, “you and I aren’t even dating. You’re the guy who helped me with the cake. So there’s no thought of what steps we might be taking. It’s just about the dessert.”

  “Which makes me kind of perfect,” he added.

  “It does.”

  Except for the fact that he’d been friend-zoned before they even walked in the door of the reception hall.

  Well, he’d see what he could do about that.

  “What about this one?” Cassie turned in front of the mirror mounted to the closet door, modeling a dress for Lacy.

  They were upstairs at the Jordan house, using Cassie’s childhood room. The bed was littered with dresses, including a couple of Cassie’s, some from Lacy’s wardrobe, and one—which she was wearing now—that she’d borrowed from her sister Whitney.

  Lacy wrinkled her nose. “No. I mean, it’s fine. It’s pretty. But basic black is Whitney. It’s not you. You’re colorful.”’

  Cassie smiled, liking that her sister thought of her as colorful. Colorful was so much better than boring—which Whitney’s dress was. She turned her back to Lacy to be unzipped and grabbed a hot pink dress from the pile on the bed. Cassie had bought it for herself when she’d been invited to the wedding, but she hadn’t been sure she’d have the nerve to wear it.