by Cassie Rocca
“Wow! Isn’t it a little too early?” laughed Zack. “To tell the truth, I’ve never thought about it.”
Once she was sure she was in control of herself again, she turned to look at him and asked, “So you don’t think you’re going to get married eventually?”
He shrugged. “Who can say? I’ve never felt like drawing hearts or having romantic daydreams, but who knows what the future holds?” He looked towards the kitchen, and once he was sure that nobody was around, he showed her a dish that he’d been hiding behind his back the whole time. “I brought you a piece of cake!”
“Did you make it?” she asked while taking the plate. Her fingers accidentally brushed against his. They were warm, but even that brief contact sent another shiver through her.
“No, it’s just Brad’s birthday cake. He bought it from some bakery. I actually made some cupcakes in secret, but I haven’t given them to our guests!”
“Cupcakes? Mmmm – I love cupcakes!”
Zack was visibly pleased to hear it. “That’s the reaction I was hoping for from you! Would you like one?”
“I’d love one!”
“Great, I’ll go get them. You eat that piece of cake in the meantime, so you’ll be able to tell me which one you prefer,” he said, then went off to fetch his cupcakes from the kitchen.
Liberty took a bite of the cake then wrapped the rest of it in a serviette and hid it among the bushes. She wasn’t supposed to eat so much sugary food, but she didn’t want to offend Zack. She was quite happy to eat whatever the boy of her dreams had prepared, but anything else would just be a counterproductive intake of calories.
He came back holding a tray full of perfumed little cakes; they looked delicious, and thanks to their rainbow topping they were extremely pretty too.
“Wow, they look amazing!” exclaimed Liberty, and her glittering eyes grew even more enthusiastic.
“Well, I hope they taste amazing as well!”
“I’m sure they will.”
“Well, it’s time to taste them!” said Zack, giving her a silly bow and handing one of them to her.
She accepted it and then moaned ecstatically when she had taken a bite.
“Oh my God! This is the best cupcake I’ve ever had!”
“Really?”
“Yes! I think it might be the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten!”
Zack nodded with satisfaction. “You were the inspiration behind them.”
Liberty felt as though she was about to pass out. “I was?”
“Yeah. You said that you like things that are tasty but that are also pretty, so I used some natural colorings to make that rainbow buttercream. And I filled them with—”
“Dark chocolate!” Liberty closed her eyes to savour it distraction. “It’s gorgeous,” she said with her mouth full, trying to stop the chocolate oozing out of the cupcake. “Shoot, I’ve made a mess,” she laughed, looking at her dirty hands.
Zack came over to see what had happened. “Aw damn it, that’s my fault! I forgot to put them in the fridge and now the chocolate is too warm,” he burst out angrily.
“No, they’re perfect the way they are! I should probably have used a fork though,” she said with a smile, and then took another bite.
Zack smiled too as he approached her, and his fingers brushed lightly against her nose and cheek. “You are absolutely covered with chocolate and crumbs!”
“Great – I don’t want to imagine what kind of show I must be putting on…” she whispered, her heart in her mouth.
“Not a bad show at all – and one that’s pretty gratifying for me.”
They remained in silence for a few moments, looking at each other. There was a strange chemistry between them, and Liberty’s heart felt as though it were about to burst with joy. But unfortunately, three people chose that moment to appear suddenly at the kitchen door.
“Hey, there you are! We were all looking for you so we could toast my birthday!” said Brad while he walked unsteadily towards them. Tammy was with him, looking tipsy and with her make up in a mess, and behind them there was Brad’s best friend, Bobby Manson.
Zack sighed. “Yeah, I’ll be right there. I just brought Liberty a piece of cake.”
“You should have left her to starve,” sniggered Bobby, who was obviously drunk. “She has enough fat on her to survive for a few months without eating!”
Brad suppressed a laugh, but only because Tammy elbowed him in the stomach.
“Shut up! She’s my cousin!”
“I know, but it just doesn’t make sense! How can one cousin have a body as perfect as yours and the other one be so… big?”
“She’s just started a diet,” protested Tammy in a low voice. “She’ll start losing weight in no time at all.”
In the meantime, Bobby had silently approached Liberty. “Are you on a diet now? That’s weird, I can see chocolate all over your face!”
“That’s my fault,” said Zack emotionlessly. “I forgot to bring her a fork.”
“And what’s this, then?” asked Bobby asked after he’d discovered the cake Liberty had hidden in the bushes. He burst out laughing. “So your family really put you on a diet, and now you’re scared that they won’t feed you enough, is that what it is? Is that why you’re stocking up?”
“Leave her alone, Bob,” muttered Zack as he set off towards the house. “Let’s go have this toast.”
Bobby went after him, leaving Liberty sitting there with half a cupcake still in her hands and the chocolate dripping all over her new dress.
“Come on, you’re not gonna tell me you actually like that beached whale, are you?!” said Bobby, probably not realising that his words were breaking a girl’s heart. “I can handle this weird thing of yours about cooking and I can even get used to seeing you wearing a floral apron, but this…?! I’d never let you live it down – you know that, right?”
“What the hell are you talking about? If I’m nice to someone and bring them something to eat, does that necessarily mean that I have a thing for them?” asked Zack sharply. “Because if that’s the case, maybe I should remind you that I’ve been bringing you food all night too.”
Bobby pretended to throw up. “Stay away from me! I know that I’m way better looking than she is, but you’re not my type!”
“Well, in that case, stop being such a jerk.”
Brad threw his arm across his brother’s shoulder, interrupting the discussion. “What had you given her, anyway? It didn’t look like my cake.”
“Just something I made this afternoon to kill some time.”
“Why’d you have to give it to her, then? Why didn’t you give it to the rest of us?”
“I wasn’t sure if it was good enough, and she was kind enough to offer to taste it.”
“What is she, she your test subject now?” snapped Tammy, in an attack of cousinly solidarity. “You’ll make her even fatter if you do that!”
“I didn’t know that she was on a diet…”
“Come back inside with us, bro. There are three girls who came especially to see you, and you’re out here wasting time playing kitchen with Allen The Donut,” Brad complained. It was Bobby who had come up with that nickname for Liberty. “This is why people are confused about your sexual orientation, dude! You should stop wasting your time with pans, pots and ugly girls…”
“You’ll regret saying these words when I marry the most beautiful girl on Earth…” replied Zack with a half-smile.
“I hope you’re right, bro. I have a reputation to defend, you know?”
They carried on laughing until they reached the house.
Liberty was sad and angry. She threw away what was left of the cupcake and wiped her hands on her dress, which was already ruined anyway. Her vision was fogged by the tears she was trying to hold back, but she managed to find her phone and call herself a taxi. She didn’t want to stay in that house another minute.
The most difficult part for her was having to walk through the whole house to g
et to the front door. She was trying very hard to maintain her dignity and not show that she was upset, but she could feel all eyes on her and hear their sniggers as she walked past, her dress smeared with chocolate.
She couldn’t see Tammy anywhere, but she did see Zack. He had his back to her and was talking to a beautiful brunette with a broad smile on her face. Apparently he hadn’t realized that he had just shattered all of her romantic dreams.
And she would never forgive him for it.
She was used to being mocked and she had learned to put up with it. That was the reason why she didn’t like attending social events and preferred to spend her time alone reading books or writing romantic stories.
People’s jokes about her weight were only part of the problem, though – the main reason she was suffering so much was Zack’s indifference. When Bobby had asked him if he liked her, he had made it clear that he had absolutely no feelings for her at all.
She must have been delusional. How could she have expected anything else? Had she really thought that he would beat the hell out of those two jerks just to defend her honour? And had she really expected him to confess that he was secretly in love with her and face people’s derision?
Brad and Bobby were right, the whole idea was just ridiculous. She had always suspected that she was a distraction for Zack, but was hoping she would be proven wrong. That had never happened though: he was just a nice guy who had found a perfect taster for his recipes. And who could have been more perfect for the position than a fatty who loves desserts?
She’d always known all that, but her dumb, romantic heart had kept hoping until then. Had kept her hoping that Zack actually cared for her. And realising how wrong she had been for the whole time made her profoundly sad.
She felt embarrassed and humiliated. And he wasn’t the first person to make her feel that way. Apparently, men didn’t find it difficult to do without her.
Tammy was right: Zack had used her as a test subject, completely ignoring her weight problem, even though he was well aware that he shouldn’t really be encouraging her to eat more sweets.
But it’s obvious that he wasn’t doing it on purpose! said the voice of her conscience inside her head. And anyway, you could have told him that you were on a diet! But Liberty was too angry with him to listen, so she ignored those words.
Zack hadn’t cared about her figure or her health for one very simple reason: he couldn’t have cared less about her. In his eyes, she was just a dumb girl who let him feed her every time he needed to.
“I will never eat anything he makes ever again,” she promised herself.
In fact, as they had so sweetly suggested a few minutes earlier, maybe she should just stop eating altogether.
1
New York City, Present Day.
Liberty stared imperturbably at the girl sitting in front of her. She was trying to explain to her, as politely as she was able, that unfortunately she wouldn’t be able to exchange the present her fiancé had bought her for their engagement. “But I read on your website that you offer exchanges if someone isn’t happy with their purchase,” the girl insisted.
“We do indeed, when the product is damaged, has some other problem or isn’t the one that was requested. But I can’t change a product someone gave you as a present just because it’s not what you wanted. And anyway, you should really talk about it with Michael.”
“I can’t talk about it with him! How could I tell my fiancé that I don’t like the present he chose for me?”
“So how would you justify the fact that you don’t have the book anymore if I exchange it for something else?” asked Liberty, trying to keep calm.
“I am going to think about that when I need to,” replied the girl, toying with her curly dark hair.
Liberty took a deep breath and tried to explain to her once again. “I’m sorry, Olivia, but our policy here at Giftland is to accept exchanges only when there’s a valid reason.”
“My reason is perfectly valid,” insisted Olivia, while waving the little bound book in front of Liberty’s face. “I hate this book! It has absolutely no connection with me and Michael’s relationship!”
“But it was your boyfriend who told me the story that way. He also read my draft carefully and, only after he had fully approved it did I have it printed,” Liberty replied for the hundredth time. She knew that she was about to lose her patience.
“You described me in this really sickly-sweet way,” her client stammered. “It just doesn’t sound like me! And anyway, Michael never proposed to me under Brooklyn Bridge on a moonlit night, and I didn’t cry when I said yes!”
So he never got round to making the romantic proposal he was planning, thought Liberty. Michael Santiago had indeed told her of his intentions and asked her to describe the scene he imagined at the end of the book. Apparently he hadn’t managed to stick to the plan in the end, though, and Liberty had the impression that it just might have something to do with his girlfriend’s temper…
The girl was a real life martinet. Her boyfriend had asked Liberty to write up the story of how they’d fallen in love and turn it into a little book, but she had no respect for his loving gesture. His idea had been to do something special to make their relationship unforgettable and have an original present for their engagement, but Olivia didn’t seem able to see anything special about it at all.
And anyway, she found Olivia’s accusations quite insulting to her personally too: she wasn’t at all the romantic type: she didn’t like mawkish quotations and soppy romances, and she would never have written anything sentimental. It was a love story, of course, but she had written it down as well as she was able.
“Your fiancé asked me to turn your story into a short novel, and he gave me all the details that I used to create it,” she explained. “I worked on it for two whole weeks, working in all the details and episodes from your life that Michael told me about, including his proposal, which I described according to what he had planned. I’m sorry if things didn’t go exactly as he had imagined, but that’s not something I could have predicted.”
“Well, thank God things didn’t go the way he predicted!” muttered the girl in annoyance, still looking at the book. “And what about this cover photo? I look horrible in it!”
“If you like, you can choose another picture to put on the dust jacket, but that isn’t included in the original price, so you’ll have to pay for it. That’s the only thing I can do about it at this point.”
“Well, I am completely dissatisfied with your work,” said Olivia in irritation. She put the book back in her bag, then added, “A book isn’t supposed to only please the person who wrote it – it’s supposed to please the person it’s meant for too. You might think you wrote a masterpiece, but you didn’t tell the story of my relationship with Michael the way you should have – you turned it into some cheap little drama for frustrated women who are unhappy with their own lives.”
“It was a present that your boyfriend chose carefully for you. A girl who is in love with her boyfriend should maybe try and appreciate that, instead of secretly trying to exchange it for something else,” replied Liberty. She shuffled some pieces of paper on her desk, then lifted her green eyes, looked right into her client’s dark, angry face and said, “Anyway, I suggest you talk with Michael about that, and about changing the dust jacket, and let me know what you decide to do. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of other love stories for frustrated women who are unhappy with their own lives to write.”
Her nose disdainfully in the air, the girl walked out, leaving Liberty free to get up and go to the coffee machine.
While she prepared her umpteenth cup of the day, Zoe and Clover appeared.
“Who the hell was that girl?” asked an annoyed Zoe.
“A dissatisfied client, apparently,” answered Liberty, holding her warm cup in both hands and enjoying the aroma of coffee which was already making her feel more energetic.
“A dissatisfied bitch, more like!”
exclaimed Clover, sitting down on her friend’s perfectly organized desk. “Where does she get off having the nerve to come in here a month after receiving her book and asking to change it?! And how could anyone want to change such a sweet, personal present anyway?”
Zoe nodded, making her dark bob sway around her face. “You should have sent her packing right away.”
“I can’t send clients away without even listening to their complaints.” Liberty sighed and took a seat as well. “I didn’t even know what the problem was at first – I thought that maybe she’d found a typo or something… In that case I would have given her a refund immediately, but just not liking my writing style? Well that’s not my problem.”
“I don’t think the problem here is your writing style, Lib,” snorted Clover, “it’s about the opinion that girl has of love in general – and it’s also about the messed-up ideas her boyfriend has about her! He obviously thinks that his fiancée is some sort of saint, but that’s clearly a long way from the truth! If he comes back, let me deal with him – I have the perfect present for his girlfriend.”
Liberty smiled. “What? I didn’t think we sold weapons. Not yet, anyway.”
“We should though – for occasions like this!”
“You’re right, that guy deserves better, but I’m sure he’ll find that out soon enough for himself. In the end, smart people always sense who they can trust and who can really make them happy. While she, on the other hand, won’t realize what she’s let go of until it’s too late.”
“Wow, you’re very calm and wise today,” replied Zoe with a grin. “In your place, I’d have ripped that book up into a thousand pieces and forced her eat them all!”
“And I’d have applauded you for doing it!” concluded Clover.
“Great plan, except that it would have caused us a lot of pointless trouble,” said Liberty as she pushed aside the blonde locks that fell over her face and resumed working at her PC. “Anyway, how’s it going downstairs? How many people came in today?”
“Not many, to be honest. I guess it’s normal, though, seeing as all the students are home for spring break. At least half of our usual clients are students,” Zoe shrugged. “Eric is dealing with our last customer, and once that’s done, we can close for the day.”