My Last

by Stefania Gil

  As expected, Holly agreed to make the desserts in three days and without help from anyone. I would come by her house in the afternoons and help a little. However, she didn’t let me do much because, like a good baker, she did not allow many hands in the dough or dessert mixtures.

  On Wednesday, I got home close to 10 p.m.

  I had been at Holly's house arranging desserts in boxes to take to Lucy's house the next day.

  I was very excited. All the desserts had been delicious and I was sure after the engagement party, new orders would rain in.

  My cell phone alerted me to a new voicemail. It remained forgotten in my purse.

  “You have a new message,” the auto attendant said. Message left today, at 6:45 p.m.

  A beep sounded. And then there was James' husky voice.

  “Jen, seriously, I'd like to take you out to dinner. However, it looks like it's going to be easier for me to get an appointment with Obama.” I heard the smile in his voice. “Send me a message when you listen to this. Bye.”

  My stomach twisted.

  “I have to eat,” I said aloud. It's certainly not due to have eaten well today.

  I tried to convince myself it was not James causing that effect in my stomach.

  What a foolish truth?

  I went to the kitchen to prepare a salad. I ended up putting it in the fridge because I was not hungry.

  It was anxiety.

  I attacked a dark chocolate bar like I had never seen chocolate before in my life. After that, I got into the tub considering the infernal heat rising inside me at the thought of James.

  When I was about to get into bed, my cell phone rang again.

  A text message.

  “Are you ignoring me?”

  It was James ... again.

  I smiled.

  Like a real fool. I am sure if I had seen my foolish face in a mirror, I would have known, once and for all, James liked me and didn’t want to be my occasional friend. Looking in a mirror, I couldn’t have deceived myself.

  “I had a very busy day. I got your message a while ago but it was too late to respond. I thought you'd be asleep. Did Obama agree to go out with you?”

  A while later, another message.

  “Hahaha I’m unlucky... everyone rejects me. I'm going to bed, later ;) Shall we go out tomorrow?”

  I sighed. The next day was going to be very, very complicated.

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow”

  More than ten minutes passed before receiving the last message.

  “Mmm, maybe I should insist on Obama. Hahaha. Sweet Dreams”

  “The same to you ;)”

  And so, I began to let James into my life without realizing it.

  ***

  At 8 am. I entered Lucy's house with the boxes of desserts. Oliver would arrive soon to unload the bouquets and place them where Lucy and I had agreed.

  A big engagement party, even though Lucy told me it would only be family. The back garden of the property was full of people walking around checking and arranging everything for the day’s celebration.

  Lucy met me in the garden. She was accompanied by her mother-in-law, her best friend, and her sister-in-law.

  We sat at the table where they were upon our arrival.

  We had a light breakfast and then, I set to work. After decorating everything with flowers, I spent some time in the kitchen organizing the sweets on trays. I wanted everything to be perfect and people would be encouraged to order such desserts. I was convinced there was a market for this and Holly would benefit by doing what she loves.

  After finishing everything, Lucy poured me a cup of coffee and we opened the box of desserts for tasting Holly had prepared. They would be presented to the party guests.

  Each one took a different dessert. They were all indescribable.

  “My God!” exclaimed Lucy's sister-in-law. “Now we can lose weight without eating candy. This is delicious.”

  “Thank you,” I said with a smile. My instinct never failed. Holly was the best baker I had ever known.

  She made desserts with love and when you do, everything comes out perfect.

  The best came at the end of the delivery; the three women accompanying Lucy made new orders for dietary desserts.

  Holly was going to be amazed with the news, and knowing her, she was going to be terrified, too.

  The orders were large and with little time to be prepared considering only one person was in charge of making them.

  My brain clicked on.

  There was a lot to do. Requests for raw materials, industrial equipment, a new oven to produce more quickly and above all, a new workspace for this activity.

  While Holly was obsessed with cleanliness. Health care workers didn’t mind due to them demanding an exclusive area to prepare homemade food for sale. We couldn’t think of setting up a business so soon to comply with all the legal matters involved with making food from home.

  Thank God, I always had contacts on hand to counsel me.

  When I left Lucy's house it was almost 3 p.m. and I was dying to call Holly to tell her how everything had gone.

  It wasn’t necessary. It seems our minds were connected.

  My cell phone rang. It was her.

  “My dear,” I said happily. “I have so much good news for you.”

  “Well, start talking, I'm dying to know.”

  “No, no, no,” I said, smiling. “Have you left your meeting yet?”

  “Umm a long time ago. It only takes a couple of hours to coordinate all of tomorrow’s work and I won’t have more work until next week when S & C Bakery will open again.”

  That was excellent news. Holly could devote herself entirely to those new orders I had in my hands.

  “Mmm, we have to talk about that considering you're going to be very busy, believe me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I'll explain it to you when I get to your house in a little while. Do you have any cookies left over from yesterday?”

  “I have left overs of everything Jen, you know that.”

  “Fine, make coffee I'm on my way.”

  I hung up, and half an hour later I was entering Holly's house.

  “I love the smell of fresh coffee,” I said as I entered.

  “There's a whole carafe out there,” Holly said, smiling, “by the way, you've got a lot to tell me.”

  The afternoon was cool to me, although I listening to the people around me, commenting on how it was getting cold. I kept using my fan and any extra air conditioning unit in my path.

  Holly was wearing a nice turtle-necked, blood-red sweater that showed off her white skin. Her hair’s original color was light brown. However, since forever, Holly was blond. I really liked her hair color. My friend dressed simply. The very opposite of me. Many would say, I was wearing a rather light dress for the current season. I never stopped wearing Stilettos and even if we were in the dead of winter, I never stop wearing colorful clothes. I didn’t agree with only wearing gray, black, brown, olive green, garnet and violet during the winter months. I liked those colors but they left me feeling depressed for several months a year.

  Holly, despite being pre-menopausal like me, didn’t seem to hate the weather as much as I did considering I was always hot.

  I sat down in a chair opposite Holly and took an oats with almonds cookie, while she poured me a cup of steaming coffee.

  I bit my cookie.

  “Mmmm, Holly the truth is they were delicious.”

  “I'm glad they were so good,” she said, smiling at me.

  “Well,” I said, sipping my coffee. “This morning I arrived at Lucy's house with the whole order. After decorating the house and making sure everything was in place, we went to the kitchen to organize the desserts. Her face lit up as she opened the boxes and saw the beautiful contents. Of course, she had never eaten those kinds of desserts, and I suppose she thought they would look awful” —my friend watched me carefully, without interrupting. “Lucy's face te
sting the candy was something I still can’t describe. I don’t think even someone who is trying Nutella for the first time makes a face like that.”

  “That's saying a lot,” said my friend.

  “Exact! Thanks to your initiative to send her samples, her mother-in-law, her best friend and her sister-in-law, were with us and dear” —I gave her my best smile— “you have a lot more orders!”

  The poor woman choked on her coffee.

  “Are you serious, Jen?” She said after coughing a couple of times.

  “Why do you think I would play about something so serious?” I asked indignantly.

  Everything she was thinking was displayed across her face. Fear, insecurity, responsibility, happiness and doubt.

  “It's too much, Jen,” she said. “Alone, I can do it, no doubt, but not with my new job at S & C.”

  “Then you'll have to thank them for the opportunity at S & C and retire as soon as possible because this Holly,” I looked into her eyes earnestly, “is an opportunity you can’t turn down.

  “But Jen, I can’t risk it.” What if, after these orders, nothing else comes in? I have to keep paying bills every month. S & C is safe.”

  I knew she wasn’t going to make it easy. Although her arguments were logical, she still didn’t know how much she could make by making sweets on her own.

  It was time to show her the bill I had in the folder.

  Holly’s eyes almost popped out of her head after seeing what Lucy paid for the desserts.

  “Jen, how could you possibly have taken so much money for those sweets?”

  “It's your job Holly, besides it’s specialty work. Not many people know how to make those desserts so well and when you don’t know how to do something or don’t want to do it, you have to pay for it. It's that simple. In addition, it’s not a lot of money, it's just fair. My clients don’t skimp on expenses. I assure you.”

  Holly was still amazed.

  “So,” I said, “looking at the commission, I can assure you we are going to triple what I was paid today, and by the way, I must give you a check.”

  I took out my checkbook and pen, filled in the necessary spaces, signed it and yanked it off the checkbook.

  “Holly Morgan, this is your first official payment with many more to come.”

  A few tears of happiness escaped my friend. I felt good helping her get ahead.

  “You're good at what you do Holly, because you are passionate about it, it makes things turn out well.”

  “You're giving me the full amount of the bill,” she protested. “It does not seem right. You got the client and took the order, besides, you helped me with the elaboration of each dessert. You should keep half of it.”

  I shook my head as I smiled amused.

  “Holly, if you're going to do business like this, you're never going to have money. How are you going to give me half? You bought everything you needed for the elaboration, you worked more time than I helped. You can’t give me half. If anything, it would be a percentage. However, for now, I don’t want anything. I’ll see later.”

  “No,” she said seriously. “If we are going to do this, you take care of getting the clients and settling the bills, but I want you to take out what seems fair for each bill. Without protest. We both won.”

  You'd better say yes since we could argue for hours if I refused to do what you are asking.

  “Okay, we'll talk about it later. Now concentrate on making a list of the things you will need to get started. I think you'll have to buy an extra refrigerator to store the desserts. I've been thinking about asking my friend James, the builder, to come and look at your garden. I think you could have a room built as a work center while we look for a suitable place to do this.”

  I smiled guiltily and she smiled back at me. In her eyes, I saw her intentions. She wondered if there was anything going on between James and me. I didn’t want to talk about it because even I was surprised to offer James to do a construction job at Holly's house. It was like involving him in my life, wasn’t it? A knot formed in my stomach. Fear. Afraid to realize I was thinking of James again and more than I should.

  Thank goodness, Holly's brain proceeded to what was currently important to her and she didn’t ask anything about James making me forget a little of how I was feeling.

  “Take it easy, Jen. Talking about a bakery is too much.”

  “No dear, you know doing these kinds of things at home requires special parameters assigned by the health department. You can’t take the risk someone will send an inspector and you are not in compliance with the established rules. This is serious Holly and we are treating it as such. You need to make ample room with a new kitchen, stainless steel appliances and a smooth surfaces. I already found out that is what needs to be done. The food handling permit has to be renewed.”

  “I'm already doing it since Caroline asked me too.”

  “Well, that’s one less step. I'll make an appointment with James-there I was again, talking about James and dating him-and then, when it’s all set, you can request an inspection. When the time is right, we will move everything to a bakery.”

  “I'm scared,” she said. “It's an interesting project, but it involves investing money, even if I collect Sam's life insurance, I don’t know if it's advisable to spend. I can’t risk investing everything and if the business doesn’t make a profit.”

  “That's not going to happen. I assure you. Start believing in yourself more, please.”

  These changes in Holly's life shook her confidence. It was normal. You didn’t work because you didn’t need to and overnight, you are obligated to so you are afraid to face this great opportunity life is offering you because you are afraid of failure considering at this particular time, you can’t afford to fail financially.

  “I'm not telling you to invest everything you have in this business,” I reassured her. “We will go step by step. Building your workplace will not cost much money and I can fund it so we don’t argue about it. You will pay me back, in whatever installments you want. I'm sure James will have no problem getting me a good price. I can thank him with dinner,” I said, winking at her. A blush swept across my face when I said that aloud. How the hell could I betray myself that way?

  Careful Jen, be careful, I thought as Holly uttered a loud laugh.

  “I said you had a lot of male friends lately. Your doctor friend who examined me when I was like Sleeping Beauty and now your builder friend. Is there any more?”

  I smiled remembering Michael; I had been weeks since I had heard from him.

  It’s worse than I thought, I sighed.

  “No, dear, there are no more, for now. However, it is always helpful to have friends of the opposite sex to help you solve day-to-day problems.”

  I smiled amusedly. Holly knew me very well and if I didn’t pretend, she was going to start questioning me wanting to know what the hell was going on with me.

  How could I explain it? If my internal battle was so epic that even I did not understand it.

  As if some divine power had invoked it, my cell phone rang indicating I had a text message.

  Of James, of course.

  “Are we going out?”

  I took the opportunity to respond while Holly was answering a call she had received.

  “111 W Huron St. 9:00 p.m.”

  “My GPS says that is a hotel in the center of the city”

  Exact. The same one I frequently visited with Michael. That was what I had to do, put James in the Casual Friends section. We would see ourselves in the fabulous hotel bar, we would drink a few drinks and then, to give ourselves over to pleasure.

  I felt much better when I thought that way.

  “I hope you wear the same red shoes I liked so much last time”

  Ahhh, I breathed a sigh of relief from two things.

  The first, I liked the direction James was taking because it told me soon I would get over the inner fuss I had about this man.

  The second, the fact, I was wea
ring the red shoes.

  ***

  I entered the bar at 9:30 p.m.

  I stated to the hostess James Bracco was waiting for me.

  He was sitting on a dark brown couch with one leg crossed at his ankle sipping a drink.

  When I arrived in front of him, his eyes glittered and my stomach twisted.

  I had eaten a little at Holly's house. I avoided chatting with them after dinner, excusing myself as being too tired and eager to get home.

  The truth was I had not stopped thinking about the meeting James and I would have when we were alone in a hotel room. I could barely taste a bite during dinner and what little I had eaten gave me a queasy feeling as soon as I saw James.

  He wore a light gray three-piece suit. White shirt without a tie.

  His hair was a little tousled, and a slovenly beard covered part of his face.

  I was going to eat him very slooowly, as Rick would have said, and above all, knowing what was hidden under the suit.

  I took a deep breath to calm my nerves.

  I had to calm down considering I wanted to jump him and we had not even said hello!

  “Are you going to stand there?” He said, smiling as he stood approaching to greet me.

  He put a hand on my waist pulling me seductively toward him. He gave me a light kiss on the cheek and whispered in my ear:

  “You are beautiful.”

  My skin prickled with the whisper.

  There was the infernal heat of desire making its presence.

  “You're very handsome in that suit, too,” I said, smiling stepping away from him. “I had gotten used to seeing you in your work outfit.”

  “That's because you still haven’t gotten used to seeing me naked.”

  My God! His glances and voice charged with eroticism were causing my nervous system to collapse.

  We sat down and ordered a glass of wine.

  We started talking about the weather, thanks to my spring dress at the beginning of winter.

  From time to time he would hold my hand and kiss the back of it.

  That accelerated my heart. Yes. Why should I deny it? With that simple act, James was able to activate my inner volcano and start a spark.

  I glanced at my watch sighing impatiently.