The Cake Therapist

by Judith Fertig

  He beamed and watched as Maggie transferred a tray full of birdhouse-shaped sugar cookies into the front case. Our blueberry shirts for this month really suited her blond-haired, blue-eyed coloring. He beamed some more.

  “Professor,” she said, her voice warmer since he’d given her those flowers for Valentine’s Day. “What can we do for you this morning?”

  “Just my usual. I can’t imagine starting my day any other way.”

  I’m not quite sure when “Professor” first slipped out, but he seemed to think we were saying it out of respect and not ridicule, which was a little more than half-true by now. The more we called him “Professor,” the less professorial he behaved. And the more we liked him.

  “You sit down over there and I’ll bring it right over.” He happily did as Maggie commanded.

  I was packaging two rainbow cakes when Stephanie, my sales rep for Queen City Weddings magazine, showed up.

  “Omigod, it’s so great that Millcreek Valley has turned into this huge bridal district—I can call on all my advertisers and not move my car!” Stephanie was always perky. I’d hate to see her on three lattes.

  I tried to tempt her with a blueberry-and-lemon baby cheesecake or a package of pastel blueberry-and-lemon polka dots, but she slapped one hip and then pointed one finger skyward. I guessed that was a no.

  When Jett came in after her one morning class today in full Goth gear including black nail polish, I began teaching her the basics of the pastry bag. I had made up the meringue mixture already—basically egg whites beaten with hot sugar syrup until white and billowy. I folded a little almond flour in just before I filled the pastry bag.

  Not as difficult as macarons, my signature polka dots sandwiched together with a flavored filling were easier for a full-service bakery to do. The more sensitive macarons required a baker’s undivided attention—it was no wonder they were expensive.

  A touch of color turned this batch pale yellow. I didn’t flavor the meringue mixture—that was what the filling was for. The meringue just provided the form and the texture.

  Jett was a quick study. She piped out the meringue in a circular motion. We didn’t want perky little points that would break off when we packaged the polka dots. Perky also made me think of Stephanie, who had already buzzed off to another client.

  When Jett had a whole tray of polka dots piped out, I gave her the thumbs-up. That was her cue to put in her earbuds and zone out to whatever was on her playlist today.

  “Just let me know when you’re finished with this batch, okay?”

  She nodded, starting to move her head to the music. I could just hear a little bit of some guy’s deep, spooky voice and electric guitars.

  “It’s ‘Gothic Girl,’” she said, her head bobbing up and down.

  I left her to the dark side for a while.

  The polka dots went in the old double oven, set at a low temperature, for two hours or so, or until the meringues were light and crispy.

  After they cooled, Jett would sandwich them together with seedless blueberry jam or lemon buttercream.

  Personally, I couldn’t bear thinking about lemon today. No one told you that when you ran a bakery, you could get really, really tired of flavors you seemed to taste all the time.

  Later on, when I set out the cellophane packages of polka dots in our seasonal display area, I saw Mrs. Amici walking Barney for the fifth time today already. Maybe Barney had a problem.

  As the little dog stopped alongside the pole of a streetlight, I couldn’t help but notice Diane Amici staggering toward them with her son, Bobby. He kept trying to pull her arm and turn her back, but Diane swatted him away and bulldozed her way forward.

  Until ten years ago when the bridal makeover began, Benson Street sported working men’s taverns at intervals like rough-cut jack-o’-lantern teeth. There, shift workers could get a cold one after a long day making lightbulbs or roof shingles or mattresses. Most of those bars closed when the factory jobs disappeared. Or they had morphed into a more upscale sports bar, like Finnegan’s across the street. But tucked around the corner was one grubby tavern—Hinky’s—that still smelled of cheap beer and cigarette smoke and attracted a clientele that included Diane. Hinky’s opened at ten. It was ten thirty.

  And Diane looked drunk. This wasn’t good.

  Bobby’s tattoos, inked in brilliant blues and greens down both sausagelike arms, were on display because his jean shirt had ragged, cutoff sleeves. His stubby cargo pants rode so low on his hips that just a tug from Barney could have gotten Bobby arrested, and definitely not for the first time. Bobby’s black-tipped blond hair, spiked with some kind of industrial-strength gel to get the natural curl to go straight, made him look like a demented angel or an overgrown teenager. Bobby was only a couple of years younger than me. When was he going to grow up?

  I edged closer to our big display window and then pulled away. I didn’t want them to see me watching them. I needed to make a special retirement cake delivery to a law office in Fairview. Maybe now was the time to do that. As I went behind the counter to collect the cake box from the order shelf, I could hear Diane ranting.

  “You’re just an old bitch! An old, dried-up bitch!”

  I whispered to Maggie to call the police. I put the cake box in a shopping bag and made my way out of the bakery to the side parking lot. I was not about to get involved, but I had to see how this would play out. Their ugliness in front of the bakery was bad for business, and I felt bad for all of them. Such an unhappy family. I locked myself in the car and hoped the police would get there soon.

  Bobby started pulling Diane’s arm again. “C’mon, Mom. You don’t want to do this here.” He kept tugging her arm. As Diane lunged drunkenly toward her mother, he pulled her back.

  Diane pivoted around to face Bobby. “And you’re no better, stealing from your own mother,” she screamed. “You’re a liar and a thief! I know you took my stuff.”

  “Me? A liar and a thief? Me?” Bobby retorted. “What about your stash, huh, Mom? If the cops came to our house, they’d arrest your crazy ass in two seconds. And then what, huh? You think you know everything. You think you’re excused because you had a shit life. Well, guess what? Other people had a shit life, too!” he yelled.

  Diane got right in Bobby’s face and shoved him back. “You little jerk . . .” She took a wild swing at Bobby and missed. The effort left her doubled over and winded.

  “Ha-ha, Mom. If you think you can take me down, think again.”

  “Bobby,” Mrs. Amici started to plead. Barney barked excitably and started to jump up on Bobby. His clenched fists uncurled, and his face softened. He bent down to pet the dog, smoothing Barney’s long ears with both hands. “It’s okay, Barney. You’re a good old dog.”

  Bobby stood up again. “Not now, Grandma. This is between me and her.”

  “You little shit,” Diane growled again, staggering toward her son. “You ungrateful sonofabitch. After all I’ve done for you?”

  “And what exactly is that?” Bobby wheeled around, agitated, waving his arms as he talked. “Being too wasted to take me to school? Bringing a different asshole home every night?”

  They both stopped as suddenly as they had started.

  “Diane. Bobby,” Mrs. Amici pleaded, “don’t do this. You two are all I have left.” Barney, as if he could understand, howled.

  Diane’s shoulders slumped. She began to cry in big, heaving sobs, twisting her face in a bloated grimace.

  The Millcreek Valley police cruiser double-parked in front of the bakery, its lights flashing. A uniformed police officer slid out of the front seat, carefully adjusting the brim of his hat.

  Good, it’s Daniel, I thought. He and Bobby had been in the same class. I remembered Daniel as a calm, methodical, no-nonsense guy who got along with everyone. Even Bobby, I realized.

  “Hello, folks,” Daniel said, walkin
g up to Diane and Bobby with one hand on his holster.

  “Aw, Daniel. We weren’t doin’ nothin’,” whined Bobby, putting his thumbs in his belt loops.

  Diane held her breath to quiet the sobs, but one sputtered out anyway.

  Barney growled. Mrs. Amici tugged on his leash to pull him closer to her.

  Daniel quickly sized up the situation. We all knew that neither Bobby nor Diane was any stranger to law enforcement. Drugs, disorderly conduct, domestic violence—the triple D. “Well, we got a call about disturbing the peace,” replied Daniel in slow, measured tones. “If you folks just move along right now, we can all forget about this.”

  “Yes, Officer,” Mrs. Amici said meekly. She pulled Barney away and slowly hobbled down toward the bridge and her home. Barney turned to look back and barked a few times, but the upcoming fire hydrant soon took his mind off the unpleasant encounter. He was back in the moment.

  Diane and Bobby walked the other way, toward Millcreek Valley Road, not speaking.

  In another thirty minutes, I was back at the bakery after delivering the cake.

  “A tempest in a teapot,” said Maggie, smiling. “Thank goodness.”

  Still, I would have to find a way to keep Diane away from Rainbow Cake in the future.

  “Good-bye, ladies. I will see you tomorrow,” said the Professor. He folded up his laptop and waved on his way out. He had stayed later than usual today, and I couldn’t help but think it had to do with Maggie.

  She remained up front to check our e-mail. I went back to the workroom to see how Jett was getting on.

  Totally into her music, her whole body swayed as she moved the piping bag around, one little mound of meringue after another.

  I needed to make more lemon buttercream, but I couldn’t bear the thought. When Jett was finished piping, I thought I’d teach her the secrets of buttercream, too. She already had a box full of dark blueberries she had fashioned from marzipan; another of tiny, sparkly sugar-paste lemons; and a third of green-tinted white-chocolate leaves. We were good for March’s signature cake decorations.

  I walked from the workroom up to the front of the bakery and did a quick visual inventory of the blueberry-and-lemon-colored paper plates and napkins on our display. Almost time to restock.

  I heard Maggie’s cell phone, then a few moments later her frenzied “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Maggie pulled on her jacket and yanked her purse from the cabinet under the cash register. She brushed past me and flung open the door. “Kathy Ervin saw Emily walking home from preschool by herself! Down that steep hill! She’s four years old! Her goddamn father was supposed to pick her up.”

  “Stop, Maggie.” I ran after her. “You didn’t drive today, remember? I’ll have to drive.”

  “You can’t. Who will watch the bakery?”

  “Jett.”

  I ran back in to the workroom and grabbed Jett by the shoulder. She screamed, dropped the piping bag, and looked at me like I was about to hit her.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.” I tried to calm her, holding up my hands as she pulled out her earbuds. I explained what was going on. “We’ll clean that up later,” I told her, pointing to the mess on the floor.

  By the time I grabbed my keys and ran out to my car, I was just in time to see Maggie climbing into the passenger seat of a strange silver SUV and roaring off.

  I stopped in my tracks and threw my head back. What a day. And people thought a bakery was all sweetness and light.

  There was nothing to do now but text Maggie and hope for the best. So I sat down on the bench in front of Rainbow Cake to await her reply. At the twelve-minute mark, the silver SUV pulled back into the side parking lot, going a lot slower this time.

  “No, you have to come in,” I heard Maggie say to the driver. “At least for a few minutes. Please?” The driver must have agreed, because Maggie nodded and went to unbuckle Emily from the backseat. As mother and daughter walked toward me, I could see that Maggie’s face was a study in conflicted emotions: relief, anger, frustration, love.

  “Hot chocolates all around?” I asked as I opened the door of the bakery for them. Maggie lifted the booster seat down from above the coatrack and sat Emily in a chair so she could reach the top of the table.

  “Oh, can I, Mommy?” Emily piped up in her sweet little voice.

  “Okay, honey.” Maggie turned to me. “How about Irish coffee for the grown-ups?” she asked drily.

  “We’ve got the coffee, but not the Irish.” I smiled back at her.

  “Better make it decaf, then. My heart has gotten enough of a workout today.”

  While I was making Emily’s drink, the Professor popped back in.

  Just great, I thought. This will put the cherry on top of Maggie’s day.

  “There you are!” she exclaimed.

  He looked flustered and slightly embarrassed, but the added color in his face made him look a little younger.

  Maggie pivoted toward me, gesturing at him. She said, brightly, as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself, “The Professor here just saved the day.”

  “That was your silver SUV? I thought you drove a Prius.”

  “It’s a courtesy car—my other car is in the shop today. I was having a helluva time trying to turn on the darn radio and then I saw Maggie run out,” he said. “I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.”

  We all beamed at him, like three spotlights searching and then finding something in a darkened sky.

  Did my dad ever save the day for me? I wondered. For anyone?

  “Anything to meet Little Miss Emily,” the Professor added, making a courtly bow to her.

  Emily looked up at him with her big blue eyes—so like her mother’s—and giggled.

  Maggie sat with her arm around her daughter while I brought a tray with mugs of steaming hot chocolate, each one topped with tiny marshmallows.

  Emily stirred her marshmallows and watched as they melted into sweet white goo. “Look, Neely,” she squealed. “A goose!”

  DECEMBER 8, 1941

  The train lurched forward. With a sudden click, the handle finally moved and the frosted glass door swung open.

  Caught in the no-man’s-land of the train coupling, Shemuel followed the momentum of the door and leapt into the last passenger car. The door slammed shut behind him.

  Edie had to be here.

  He walked down the wood-floored aisle, holding on to each row of upholstered seats, looking to the left, to the right, just to be sure.

  She wasn’t there.

  But he could see where she had been.

  A ticket to Chattanooga, already punched, caught in the crease between a cushion and a seat back. Something wrapped in a twist of embroidered handkerchief on the floor.

  The door to the passenger car opened again. “Ticket, please,” the conductor asked wearily, trudging back to Shemuel.

  Shemuel sat down and quickly put the small bundle in his breast pocket. He handed the ticket to the man.

  “I don’t remember punching your ticket,” the conductor said, looking at Shemuel with narrowed eyes. “And where is the girl who was here before?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re not in the business of giving free rides, you know,” he said, eyeing Shemuel’s shabby clothing and worn boots.

  “I’m not in the business of taking them,” Shemuel replied with a flare of anger.

  “We’ll see what the police at Queen City Terminal have to say about that,” he said, turning to limp heavily back the way he came.

  When the conductor was gone, Shemuel cried out in frustration. He jumped out of his seat, pacing back and forth in the empty car, trying to make sense of the nightmare that had become his life. He thought Edie was his friend, but she had left him, too. He had no money. Everything
he thought he could count on was gone. And now he was in more trouble. At seventeen, he could be sent to a juvenile home or an asylum, and he’d heard stories of what happened to boys who went there.

  He wasn’t going on to Chattanooga; that much he knew.

  When he calmed down enough to sit, he remembered the handkerchief in his breast pocket, rolled up and twisted on the ends. He fingered the fine white lawn, embroidered with tiny daisies. It was older fabric. Washed and starched and ironed countless times, maybe by Mrs. Habig, who had always been kind to him. He held the little bundle to his nose and sniffed. It still smelled like laundry hanging outside on the line—fresh air and sunlight and cotton—and something else. Lilies of the valley. Mrs. Habig. Edie.

  There was some kind of jewelry inside; he felt the hard lines of the metal. But when he finally unrolled it, the ring took his breath away. He had never seen anything so beautiful—the dark blue stone, the pearls, and the fine workmanship. How did Edie have a ring like this? He had never seen her mother wear anything but a thin gold band.

  Even more important, what was he going to do with a ring like this? If the police met the train in Queen City and found him with it, he’d be arrested first, questions asked later, if Lockton police were anything to go by.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  Before the train came to a full stop at Queen City Terminal, Shemuel jumped off onto the platform and ran a few steps into the crowd, as though he were in a big hurry to catch another train. But he needn’t have worried. No one looked his way.

  He straightened, then walked to one of the cast-iron structural pillars and found a foothold. He climbed up so that he looked over a banner strung between two pillars. Partially hidden, he felt safer. He watched the other passengers disembarking. Maybe Edie was up in the front engine car, for some reason, or in the caboose, the private quarters for the train crew. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  The big station clock ticked off fifteen minutes, and more passengers got on. The whistle blew, and the train headed south on its way to Tennessee. No Edie. No police.