Not Quite A Bride

by Kirsten Sawyer

  “Hi,” I say, “I’m Molly. We have an appointment to do a wedding-cake tasting.”

  “Oh! Fantastic,” she says, as if my presence is a complete, but happy, surprise to her. “I’m Annabelle. Why don’t you guys take a seat and I’ll bring out the samples.”

  Annabelle walks into the back room, hollering, “Look through the picture books,” over her shoulder as she exits.

  Brad and I each pick up one of the “books,” which look more like overstuffed family albums, and start looking. They are, in fact, family albums of sorts. There are hundreds and hundreds of pictures of happy couples cutting cakes presumably made by Annabelle and the staff here at Cakery Bakery. In typical Brad and Molly form, we spend more time making fun of the pictured brides and grooms than actually looking at the cakes.

  We are practically in tears with laughter over one groom with a particularly atrocious mullet when Annabelle returns. She carries with her dozens of little squares of cakes and dozens of little take-out sauce containers, which she explains contain filling choices. Each little cake square is a different cake choice that they offer. She recommends some popular combinations, such as banana cake with chocolate-fudge filling or carrot cake with cream-cheese filling, but says that the sky is really the limit and to just tell her if we need any more cakes or fillings.

  “Wow!” I exclaim with glee as I plop a whole piece of what I discover too late is pistachio cake in my mouth.

  “Molly! You’re supposed to taste the cake, not just eat it. Here, try this,” Brad says, handing me a square of chocolate cake with raspberry-mousse filling.

  “Oh my God. That’s amazing. Try,” and I plop the other half of my bite into his mouth.

  We ooh and aah and spoil our mouths with all the amazing combinations. Honestly, we haven’t made one that didn’t work yet. We thought lemon and chocolate wouldn’t ... but it actually tasted really good.

  “We’re never going to be able to decide!” I exclaim.

  “Don’t forget,” Annabelle calls over to us, “each layer of your cake can be different.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Brad declares.

  After a while we aren’t any closer to making the decision, but we are so hopped up on the sugar that we are literally bouncing out of our seats. That is when one of us, and I’m not sure who—okay, it was me—decides that we should practice the cake-face smoosh.

  “I don’t think Claire will ever go for this,” Brad admits as I smash chocolate cake with strawberry filling on him.

  “Haha ... neither will Justin,” I say with a pang deep down from the knowledge that my wedding will never come this far. Sure, people will stay at the reception and eat the cake ... that’s my plan, but I won’t be cutting it with Justin, or smearing it across his mouth. A feeling of sadness washes over me, but doesn’t last long because Brad shoves pumpkin cake with cinnamon filling up my nose while laughing hysterically.

  By the time Annabelle comes back over, we are covered with cake, filling, and shame. She just laughs.

  “Honestly,” she says, speaking loudly over our giggles, “you two are the cutest couple I’ve seen in a long time.”

  We stop dead in our tracks.

  “We’re not a couple!” Brad spits out.

  “We’re friends!” I add.

  Annabelle stares at us for a second ... she’s confused and we’re uncomfortable. “Really? Um, oh ... I’m sorry. Well ... has either of you made any choices?”

  “Gee, you know,” I stammer, eager to get out of there now and avoiding Brad’s eyes, “I think I’ll just order the cake for my sister’s shower today and come back later to order my wedding cake.”

  “Me, too,” Brad says, “but not the shower cake. My sister’s not having a shower. Actually, I don’t have a sister. I just have to go.”

  “Okay,” Annabelle says, even more confused by us.

  I arrange to pick up a lemon cake with raspberry-mousse filling decorated in all pink and saying, “We Can’t Wait for Kate,” first thing in the morning, and pay Annabelle as quickly as I can. Then Brad and I leave the Cakery Bakery and walk down the street. Finally we stop and look at each other, making a mutual, unspoken decision to just be cool about what happened.

  “That was so weird that she thought we were a couple,” I say, trying to act normal but being uncomfortably aware that Claire will bust a gut if she hears about what happened today.

  “Seriously,” Brad agrees. “So, anyway, I gotta go.”

  “Me, too!”

  And with a quick, awkward hug, we take off in opposite directions down the street ... unfortunately, the wrong direction for each of us, so a few paces later we are forced to turn around and cross each other again with another awkward, “’Bye.”

  I can’t help but feel disappointed as I ride the bus back home. It felt so good to have Brad back in my life, but the incident with the mistaken engagement has left me concerned that he will shy away from rebuilding our friendship and I will be without him again. I guess it’s a good thing that tonight I’ll be wrapped up in writing people’s names on little metal cans for the florist to pot the centerpiece/party favors in. It’s going to be a long night.

  39

  In Need of a Long, Hot Baby Shower

  When my alarm goes off the next morning it is so cold and so dark. I pound it with my fist while cursing myself for forgetting to turn it off for the weekend. I roll over to snuggle under my down comforter before remembering with a start that today is Jamie’s shower! I almost break my neck as I jump out of bed and trip over the thirty-nine personalized, metal cans that kept me up until the crack of dawn.

  I turn on my bedside lamp, and after the initial blindness wears off, I pick up the one under my foot and examine it. I really do think it was worth the work because they are adorable. I sleepily collect the cans, which need to be delivered to My Secret Garden by 6 A.M. so that they can pot the mini roses and have them all ready in time for the party, as I reach under my bed for a shopping bag large enough to fit them all. I stack them in neat columns to make them fit into a large Restoration Hardware bag left over from the wedding-shower gift I bought for my friend Elizabeth. It was just a pillow, one of the few items on her Restoration Hardware registry that I could afford, but it came in a big box, which I liked. I try to silently get myself and thirty-nine tin pails out of the apartment without waking Justin ... not an easy feat, but thankfully he is a heavy sleeper.

  I get down the dark flights of stairs and am surprised to find the sun on its way up once I am out on the street. I consider hailing a (hopefully) heated cab to go the two and a half blocks to My Secret Garden, but decide against it in hopes that the frigid air will wake me up since getting back between my flannel sheets isn’t on today’s agenda.

  I arrive at the floral shop at 6 A.M. on the dot, unaware of another time I’ve been up and active so early except for perhaps catching a flight somewhere ... or more likely a flight from the night before landing. The florist, Iris (yes, I found a florist named after a flower), on the other hand, is as bright and chipper as if it were ten, not six, in the morning.

  “Hello, sweetie!” she practically sings as I drag myself and my pails through the door.

  “Hi, Iris. Here are the pails.”

  I hand her the bag and she pulls one out to see my work. I hope she likes them because, quite frankly, I worked my ass off. I wrote each person’s name in cute, pink writing with little dots at the end of the letters, then painted little pink, lavender, and yellow roses around each name.

  “Oh my gosh, aren’t you the most adorable thing ever?” Iris asks as she admires my work.

  She doesn’t realize it, but she just made my day. Now I truly have the energy to take on all that needs to be accomplished in the next few hours.

  “Thank you! So you’ll have your delivery person drop them at the restaurant at 11 A.M.?”

  “Absolutely—I have all the information right here, and your cell phone number ... just in case.”

  Iris quick
ly became familiar with my somewhat paranoid ways, but she seems okay about working with my insanity. Good thing, since I’m coming back to order wedding flowers next week and I’ve already mentally changed my mind four times since I met with her two days ago.

  “Thank you, Iris. I’ll see you next week, okay?”

  “Yes. Have a wonderful shower.”

  I start to head out. “And you said you have my cell phone number, right?”

  “Yes, Molly, I have it. Go,” she says with a laugh.

  I turn and walk out the door. Now I have to get across town to pick up the cake from Cakery Bakery and drop it off at the restaurant. Then it’s home to get ready. I decide that for the ride all the way across town, a heated cab is a reasonable splurge.

  I duck into a Dean & DeLuca to grab a latte—I know, my fans at Starbucks would be crushed, but I am just not up to being a celebrity right now—before hailing a cab. The warm, caffeinated beverage does wonders for me and I’m practically among the living by the time I get out of the cab in front of Cakery Bakery.

  I can tell right off that Annabelle is less like Iris in the morning and more like me. She looks grumpy and holds a venti Starbucks cup in her left hand as she flips through the order slips with her right.

  “Ah, here it is,” she says as she pulls the slip out. “Jose!” she screeches into the back room. “Bring out the baby-shower cake for Molly Harrigan.”

  He hollers forward some sort of response that makes sense to her and she tells me that it’ll be a few minutes and that I should take a seat. I’m all for sitting down. As I wait, I flip through the cake album again. Without Brad there it’s easier to pay attention to the cakes and think seriously about what I might want to order for my wedding.

  The sculptures they create with flour, sugar, and water are unbelievable. There are the traditional tiered cakes with fresh flowers and sugared flowers. Even some with fresh and sugared fruit, and one that I particularly like with an amazing silhouette design made from chocolate. But that’s just the beginning. There is one that looks like a pile of presents, and another one that looks like a pile of presents from Tiffany in blue boxes with white ribbon! And yet another one that is made up of little cupcakes ... not to mention the one that looks like a boat; the people seem to have had some sort of a wedding cruise.

  These are not the blah white towers I am used to seeing. Some are white, but those are elegant white-on-white with scrollwork or pulled-sugar ribbons. There are also chocolate cakes, pink cakes, blue cakes ... you name it, they make it. And they are all different shapes, too! Round, square, rectangle, and combinations. Who knew there were so many options? I know from yesterday’s cake tasting that these cakes taste good ... it’s hard to believe that they are also so stunning. I’m drooling over a particularly amazing four-tier chocolate cake with sugared raspberries and pink roses when Annabelle breaks my trance.

  “Okay, Molly, here’s your cake.”

  I walk up to the counter where she is holding a large pink box open for me. This cake is my favorite of all the cakes in the book! It’s a big, bright pink circle with light pink roses painted on ... they almost look stenciled, and the words, We Can’t Wait for Kate in turquoise script across it. My sister is going to love it, which makes me love it even more.

  “It’s amazing, Annabelle. Thank you.”

  “Of course, sweetie. We’ll see you in a few weeks to order yours. You know you can do the same stencil flowers on it, if you like.”

  “Really? Maybe?” Oh Jeez ... another option for me!

  I carry the cake, which is not only bigger but much heavier than I’d expected, out of the bakery and somehow manage to hail a cab by kicking my leg in the air ... without falling over and dropping the cake in the street. The cab speeds down the nearly empty streets a few miles to the restaurant, where he lets me out without so much as an offer to open the door. I kick it shut with my foot and he speeds away again. Then I try to follow the restaurant manager’s instructions to find the service door where someone will be there to take the cake and put it in their refrigerator. For the life of me, I can’t find the door. I walk back and forth three times, carrying the world’s heaviest cake, and I’m not having any luck. Finally, on my fourth time past, I remember that he said you have to walk up a little stairway at the side of the main door. Ugh ... I need to start taking gingko biloba or something ... my memory is shot. I think I might pass out by the time I reach the top of the stairs. I kick the door gently, since I don’t have a free hand to knock, and stand there sweating under my layers of wool and the weight of the cake until Nathan, the restaurant manager, finally opens the door.

  “Ah, Molly with the cake,” he says.

  I gratefully hand it over to him and go over the schedule for the lunch once again, still trying to catch my breath. He seems calm and organized about everything, so I leave to go home and change so I can be back in a few hours. I check my watch when I get onto the street ... hard to believe it’s only 8:00 A.M. I feel like I’ve already had a full day. I have three hours to get home and get changed. Plenty of time ... maybe I can even sneak in a little nap? I yawn at the thought of my bed and decide that a nap is definitely in order. I jump in a cab and before I know it, I’m home. The apartment looks exactly how I left it ... both boys are asleep—it’s clear they never even knew I was gone. Sleepily, I pad to my room, remove the wool, and climb back into bed.

  The day is going even better than I’d planned. The morning errands went so quickly and smoothly that I actually have time to sleep for one hour! It won’t completely make up for the total lack of sleep the night before, but it will definitely help. There is only one problem ... as I drift off, thinking about what I will wear to Jamie’s shower, I don’t think one drop about setting my alarm.

  I awake from a dream, where I am actually dancing with one of the cakes I saw pictured at Cakery Bakery to “Just the Way You Look Tonight,” to Justin shaking me and yelling.

  “Molly! You overslept!! You were supposed to get the pails to the florist and pick up the cake. Oh my God!! Logan! She’s still sleeping!”

  I manage to open my eyelids and focus on Justin, almost surprised that he isn’t a life-sized cake man, and take a second to process what he is saying.

  “Wait, no, it’s okay. I got up and did it all this morning. What time is it now?”

  “It’s ten!” Justin says, panic still in his voice.

  I bolt straight up.

  “Did you say ten?!?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Oh my God! I did oversleep. I gotta get ready. The shower starts in an hour, across town.”

  Justin gets out of my way just in time to avoid being flattened by Hurricane Molly as I speed around my room trying to collect God-knows-what before flying into the bathroom and jumping into the shower.

  I wash at the speed of light and even decide in the interest of time that I will forgo washing my hair, which is a little gross, but I’m hoping if I wear it up the grossness won’t be obvious. Not getting my hair wet will save me a good twenty minutes, and I need the time. I go through the normal points of my getting-ready routine, but today they are at warp speed. I slow down momentarily to put on some makeup because I once had a bad experience putting on makeup in a hurry and I ended up frightening a child who was afraid of clowns.

  I fly into my bedroom and run to my closet door frantically because I still don’t know what to wear. Have you ever noticed that it is the days that you are running late that are the hardest to pick an outfit? If I have nowhere to be, I pull out the cutest thing on the first try. If I need to be somewhere fast, I inevitably pull out hot-pink leggings and a green tank top. I look at my clothes and groan.

  “Molly!” Justin calls from the other room. “Outfit’s on your bed.”

  I turn around, and laid out on my bed, just like I would have done it, but cuter, is the perfect outfit for Jamie’s shower. A winter-white cashmere turtleneck sweater ... more of a funnel neck, really, and a gift last Christmas from Mom, so it�
�s a double win because it’s adorable and seeing me wear it will make her happy. He’s paired it with a knee-length, camel-and-winter-white-plaid skirt, but the plaid is very faint, and my brown knee-high boots. Let me tell you, this is why I am fake-marrying the guy.

  “I love you!” I call out to him.

  “I know,” he answers.

  I throw the outfit on and am so happy that I don’t need to do the frantic rip-on-and-off, what-do-I-wear? dance that is usually an inevitability when I’m running late, and head for the door. Before I can reach it, the phone rings. I grab it in a hurry.

  “Hello?”

  “Molly, it’s Mom. There was a traffic accident on the highway and I’m running late.”

  “That’s okay,” I tell her, “the shower doesn’t start until 11:30—we just said we’d meet at 11:00 to give ourselves time to set up.”

  That half-hour bumper is the only reason that I didn’t go completely ballistic and go to the shower in my sweats.

  “But I forgot my card at home, so I need to stop and buy one,” Mom whines.

  “Mom, just give her the card another time.”

  “Now tell me, Molly, how will she know which gift is mine if it doesn’t have a card?”

  There are two problems with this question: 1) the “now”—damn Marion ... it’s such a little thing, but it really irks me and 2) the gift. We were supposed to get her a gift?!? The shower wasn’t enough? We need a tangible, wrapped present? The panic wells up in my chest again.

  “Mom! I’ve gotta go—just get there when you can.” CLICK.

  I hear Mom starting to say something else as I hang up the phone, but all I can think is “gift.” I yell to the guys that I’ll see them there (because of her extreme hipness, Jamie is having a co-ed baby shower), grab my coat and purse, and pull them on as I run down the steps and to the curb where I hail the first cab I see.

  “Pottery Barn Kids on Broadway at Sixty-seventh!” I yell at the driver, who I think I frighten because he puts the pedal to the metal and off we fly.