Let Them Eat Cake

by Sandra Byrd

  No, I said inside. Don’t ask that of me too. It’s too much. I heard nothing else, but the second half of a verse came back to me.

  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

  “Who is my neighbor?” I muttered. I refused to consider the thought further. Why would God suggest such a thing?

  We frosted the cakes, wrapped them, and put them into the freezer in the garage. My mom looked sad, and I felt it too. We’d come a long way from our Easy-Bake days. We were transitioning, both of us, and we knew it. Our unspoken thoughts filled the kitchen loud and clear.

  I went into the living room while my mom cleaned up. “Dad? Can I borrow your truck in the morning?”

  He gave me a quizzical look. “Why? What’s wrong with your car?

  “I loaned it to a friend so she could go to church tonight, but I need to go to church in the morning.”

  My mother came in. “But we can go together, honey!” she said, smiling.

  “Well…uh….I think I’m trying a new church.”

  She stopped. My dad turned off the television. “Which one?” Her voice sounded hesitant. She was always afraid we were going to fall in with some cult.

  I couldn’t resist. “Have you ever heard of Barb’s House of Miracles?”

  They both looked dumbstruck.

  “No, I’m kidding,” I said. “Well, that’s where Sophie wanted to go, but I brought her to your—er… our church. But I feel like I might want to try somewhere new. And since Sophie has my car, and Dad won’t be going in the morning, I wondered if I could use the Dodge.”

  “Where are you really going?” my mother asked, looking relieved it wasn’t Barb’s.

  “Church on the Hill, in Ballard.”

  She smiled resignedly. “Enid’s daughter goes there.” That made it acceptable.

  The next morning I drove to Ballard and parked in the small church parking lot. Candles burned on the altar, and there was a large, simple cross in the middle of the back wall. Late-spring light flooded into the room, catching the dust motes in a stained-glass dance. Most of the people were in their twenties. There were a few young families, but for some reason, the squawking kids didn’t bother me today.

  We started with worship, and partway into the second song I felt the desire to lift my hand in worship. I was sitting next to a woman and didn’t want to smack her with my hand, so I kept it to myself. But then she stood and raised her arms, and soon half the congregation had stood and lifted their hands in worship. The other half didn’t, but they didn’t seem pressed to do so either.

  I stayed seated, but I lifted my hands, closed my eyes, and felt the Spirit of God electrify me from the inside out.

  I’m home, I thought.

  After church, I shook hands with the pastor, who looked about thirty-five, and his wife. I would have stayed to chat, but I had to get to work. I revved up the truck and headed out of Ballard, toward home.

  I turned the corner of a familiar street. And then I saw him jogging.

  Don’t look up, don’t look up, I pleaded, but he looked up anyway, right into my eyes. Dan.

  Chaque route a une fourchette.

  There’s always a fork in the road.

  How’d it go last night?” I tied my apron behind my back. “Really nice,” Sophie said. “I left my piercings in, and no one even stared.”

  “Not even Jill?” I asked.

  “All right, Jill did.” She laughed. “But she wasn’t snotty or anything.”

  Luc rushed around in the back.

  “What’s going on?” I said, noting the dramatic change from the lazy Sundays we usually had.

  “Lay Francays are coming today,” Sophie said. I giggled at her mangled French, and she laughed with me.

  “Alexandra!” Luc called. I headed back to the bread room, where he pulled me over to the croissant table. “Look at this,” he said. He pointed out a few batches of dough that were proofing too fast due to the unusual heat and the fact that Jacques hadn’t taken the dough out early enough. I bent over the dough with him, nearly touching heads, measuring.

  “You want me to help roll?” I asked. Normally, that wasn’t something I did, but I could, in a pinch.

  “Oui,” he said. “Go tell La Sophie what you’ll be doing and come on back here.”

  I went up front and noticed someone striding out the front door.

  “Was that Dan?” I asked Sophie.

  She nodded.

  “Did he buy anything?”

  “Nope,” she said. “He just came in, looked around, and left.”

  “Did he ask for me?”

  “No,” Sophie said softly. “He didn’t say anything.”

  Oh.

  I helped roll the croissants and went over and over in my mind the words I’d use when asking Luc to dinner. I’d have to catch him before the guests arrived, and I hoped he wouldn’t be too busy with them to have dinner. But you can’t eat with your cousins every night, right?

  At lunchtime, I saw my chance. I’d been helping in the back, keeping it clean for when Patricia arrived with her sister, Le Monstre, as the Trois Amis sometimes jokingly referred to her. I heard Luc walk in the front door and went to meet him. I took off my floury apron and set it aside.

  I stood right outside the office door. “Do you have a minute?” I asked.

  “Mais oui,” he said. “Come on in. I have just a moment.”

  I went into the office. “You know how interested I am in cooking,” I started.

  “Oui, of course. You’re a fine emerging cook.”

  “Well, I’ve been working on some new recipes,” I said, “and there are some professional things I’d like to ask you. I wondered if you might be free to come over for dinner on Friday night this week.”

  I held my breath. He looked like he was holding his too. For once, he seemed at a loss for words. I couldn’t tell how, but from his face, I could see that I’d completely misread the situation.

  “It’s a lovely invitation,” he said hesitantly, “but I have guests in town.”

  “Oh yes, your cousins.”

  “Yes, my cousin Margot,” Luc said, pausing slightly. “And my fiancée, Marianne.”

  His fiancée?

  With the facial self-control of a politician, I held the smile on my face and groped for the right words. I had to do something to rectify the situation. I had just invited an engaged man to dinner. Not that I’d known.

  “I…uh…they’d all be welcome at dinner,” I choked out. What else could I do?

  His face relaxed into that grin I used to think was foxy and now thought might actually be wolfish. He kissed both my cheeks. “I think everyone will think its divine to eat at an American home. Thank you. May we bring some wine?”

  “Yes, please,” I stammered.

  “Let me know the menu when you’ve figured it out,” he said, “and I will bring something appropriate.”

  With forced dignity I got a fresh apron, tied it around my waist, and walked back to the café. I mindlessly wiped down the counter.

  “Did you know Luc was engaged?” I asked Sophie.

  She shook her head. “No, but I suspected he might be seriously involved, based on something I’d heard Auguste say once. Why?”

  “No reason,” I said. “I’ve just invited him and his fiancée and the two evil stepsisters over for dinner next Friday night.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Lexi. Were you…were you interested in Luc?”

  “Not a good idea to date your boss,” I said by way of a nonanswer. “But,” I added with emphasis, “I never did think it was cool that women wear engagement rings and men don’t.”

  Friday night came soon enough. I had no date for my brother’s wedding. I had no way to afford the one place I had picked out to live, and it seemed like God was urging me to offer that peach to my brother, who already had everything. I had no job that would lead anywhere.

  I decided to have a good time that night. What else could I do?

  I opened the door prec
isely at six, as the four of them arrived. In spite of having almost every reason not to, I liked Marianne. She was kind and petite and fashionable in a nicely cut teal blue suit, but all in a way that made you feel she was being herself and not trying to compete with anyone else. She kissed both my cheeks as she came through the door and took off her shoes, obeying the polite sign requesting them to do so, even though I could see them looking at one another, puzzled. We spoke French all evening, a treat for me.

  “Where do I set these?” Margot barked, holding out two bottles of wine.

  “Here, let me take your jacket,” I answered sweetly. I hung up their jackets and then took the wine from her and carried it to the kitchen. They trailed along.

  What had I gotten myself into?

  Luc opened the bottle of wine and divided it among the five crystal glasses my mother had left out. She was a little disappointed too, when she’d found out that Luc was taken.

  “Make the best of it,” Mom had said before leaving for Whidbey.

  “I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?” I answered. I wasn’t going to be a martyr, though. I did have one piece of wickedness planned for dessert.

  I served fresh Washington clams steamed in their own liquor with drawn butter and sea-salted sourdough. Next was a light spinach salad and then, of course, salmon. “Washington is known worldwide for its salmon,” I said. This one I had poached Japanese style with tamari, and I served it with cucumbers dressed with rice vinegar and jasmine rice.

  “You are the proverbial thorn among the roses, as my father would say,” I said to Luc, noting that there were four women and one man. I couldn’t help it: I meant a thorn in other ways too.

  “Too bad Philippe couldn’t be here,” Margot said. It was clear from the way her face relaxed that she doted on him.

  “Philippe is our younger brother,” Patricia said. “Also a baker, of course. He’s at home, in France.”

  “He’s a Protestant, like you, Alexandra,” Luc filled in helpfully.

  “A rabid Christian Protestant,” Margot grumbled.

  Luc looked at her out of the corner of his eye and quickly changed the subject. He pushed his plate away. “Absolutely delicious.”

  “C’est formidable,” Margot agreed, and Patricia looked at me a little appreciatively, although giving no ground. I think the burn put me in another league in her mind, and for that I was glad.

  We moved to the living room.

  “May I help you with the coffee and dessert?” Marianne asked.

  Luc beamed, and I felt so mixed up. I had been attracted to him in a physical kind of way, but that was before I knew he was engaged. Had I misread his French flirtatiousness for real interest? Or had I simply labeled it what I wanted it to be?

  I still felt something for him, but the more I got to know Marianne, the more I felt that recede. Of course, that left a void in my heart.

  Or maybe it just made the one already there seem even more painfully empty.

  “Mais oui, please help me,” I answered Marianne. Once in the kitchen, I shared my secret with her.

  “I’ve planned a special dessert. Something very American, but that will surprise both Patricia and Luc.” I told her the story behind it, about their disdain for cake mixes, and she laughed along with me.

  I think, under different circumstances, we could have been friends.

  I cut the dessert into pieces and plated them on the fine Belleek china my mother had unpacked from the new house just for this occasion. Marianne and I carried the plates into the living room and served dessert. We each took a small bite, watching Luc and Patricia for their reaction.

  “Délicieux!” Margot proclaimed. “And I should know.”

  “Is there a secret ingredient in this recipe?” Luc asked, eyes twinkling in a friendly manner. I think he was on to me.

  “Mais oui,” I said. “But first, please tell me, do you like it?”

  “You win,” Patricia said begrudgingly as she scraped the crumbs from her plate. Marianne and I laughed together, and when I shared the joke with the others, Luc laughed too, though Patricia and Margot barely smiled.

  After dessert I cleared the dishes and left them quietly chattering, satisfied, I hoped, that they realized Americans weren’t complete culinary barbarians.

  As I approached the living room again, I heard Patricia ask Luc, “Have you asked Alexandra yet?”

  “Non,” he answered. “I haven’t found the right time. Maybe after the week’s vacation.”

  “Maybe,” Margot sniffed. “I’m still not sure it’s a good idea.”

  What could that mean?

  The next week at work was busy, as Luc and Patricia were in and out. They spent most of their time entertaining the guests or looking for property for a new bakery, maybe on the east side of town.

  “Guess you really get to be the manager this week, eh?” I teased Sophie. “Dont fire me.”

  “Ha ha, Lexi,” she said. “I wouldn’t fire you, ever, but that doesn’t mean you won’t quit. I desperately hope you won’t! Have you decided what to do after your commitment is up?”

  “Not yet. I might have an option.”

  Sophie stopped counting cash into the deposit bag. “Why not wait just a little bit longer to decide, until all the brouhaha from the visitors is over?”

  “Why? Luc has made it clear I’m not manager material in his eyes.” I tried to keep my voice positive, but I knew my disappointment and anxiety leaked out. Because we’d had guests at dinner, I never had the business one-on-one with him I’d hoped for.

  “You’ll see your uncle at the wedding,” Sophie persisted. “No sense rushing things.”

  “Yeah, but I have to decide really quickly what to do about my apartment. I can’t afford it on my L’Esperance pay.”

  Sophie only said, “Just don’t rush.” I had the feeling she knew more than she was telling, but I couldn’t get anything else out of her. Everyone seemed to know something I didn’t—Patricia’s comment the other night, now Sophie.

  I decided to walk down the street to a cake bakery on my lunch hour that day to check out a show cake for Leah’s wedding shower. Her mom didn’t want homemade.

  Halfway there, my phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize, but I answered it anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello,” came a lilting Caribbean voice. “May I speak with Alexandra?”

  “This is Alexandra,” I said, my head starting to buzz.

  “This is Cameron from Allrecipes. I’m calling to tell you that the job is yours, if you’d like it.”

  “The job is mine?” I said excitedly before calming into a more professional mode.

  “The job is yours.”

  I walked and talked at the same time as he explained the position and the pay—not great, but it would allow me to keep the apartment if I tightened my budget everywhere else.

  “I’ll need your answer within a week,” he said, “so I can get back with the other candidates. By the way, Alexandra,” he added with a grin in his voice, “I made your Boyfriend Bait Beef Stroganoff. It was fantastic.”

  I laughed out loud, thanked him profusely for his time, and hung up. I walked a bit farther down the street and sat on the bench outside “my” apartment building.

  The job was mine! But what about Sophie? She’d made it so clear she wanted me to stay. And I had made a commitment until July, at least, longer if I wanted to help out Sophie.

  What should I do? I asked God. What’s the right thing to do?

  I now knew he wasn’t going to make every decision for me. Like my parents. On one hand, it irritated me that they were still trying to make decisions for me or my life, with their values. That they still thought of me as the mythological Pan, except half woman, half girl.

  On the other hand, the idea of making all these decisions on my own and living with the consequences scared me.

  The same was true with God, I realized. It was time to make some choices on my own.

&n
bsp; A clutch of preschool kids hopped by, chirping with their teacher. Enjoying life.

  I was too young to give up my dreams. I wanted to enjoy my life too.

  I stood up, walked down to the cake bakery, and placed the order for Leah’s shower Friday night. Then I headed back to L’Esperance.

  I was in another world when cooking and baking. I could see new recipes emerging from old. I could smell when a cake was done without looking at the timer. I could taste the subtle difference between baking with vanilla sugar as opposed to vanilla extract. I knew which vegetables needed to be blanched and which did not.

  Yes, I thought. I’ve found my place.

  I walked into L’Esperance and got ready to prep tomorrow’s pastries. Sophie came skidding into the pastry room. “Here,” she said, thrusting a card at me.

  “What is it?” I took it from her hand. “He asked for you,” she said. I read the business card. Dan Larson.

  “I’m sure anyone can fill out his order,” I said. I just didn’t feel up to this right now.

  “He didn’t leave an order, Lexi! He wanted to talk with you. He said he had a meeting tonight, but would stop by tomorrow morning. I told him you’d be here early with the Trois Amis, getting ready to bake. I bragged on you, told him you’ve been doing quite a bit of the baking lately.” She grinned.

  “Oh okay,” I said. “Maybe he simply wants me to place the order since I took all the others.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, guys do that all the time. They come in to place an order at five in the morning. Right.”

  I caved. She had me there. But was I interested in an in-and-out kind of guy?

  After work I thought it through. Maybe the zing I felt with Dan was like what I had felt with Luc. Physical attraction. Desire to date. Not wanting to be alone. But nothing serious or long-lasting.

  Dan was probably like that. Just a step as I moved past Greg and into a new life. Nothing personal.

  The next morning I tried not to care how I dressed. I did wear a salmon-colored shirt, because I knew it brought out the best in my skin and eyes.

  “You are so weak,” I said to myself in the mirror as I made sure I looked my best.