The Cake Therapist

by Judith Fertig

  Well, that was an understatement.

  “Are you eating right?”

  Sure, I eat from all of the major food groups: bakery, five-way chili, pizza, Chinese takeout, and Mom’s home cooking.

  “When was the last time you went to the dentist? Have you had recent surgery? Have you hit your head on anything? Been in an accident?”

  He evaluated my answers, then looked at me sternly. “You might have a mild case of dysgeusia.”

  “Dis-goose-iya?” That was an actual medical condition? How did he know? Yes, I probably did have a mild case of that. I was seeing imaginary geese. “‘Goose’ as in honk-honk?”

  “No, Neely.”

  I wasn’t sure it was strictly professional for a physician to roll his eyes at a patient.

  “Dysgeusia is a disorder with the characteristics you describe, usually some kind of a foul taste in the mouth for which there is no medical explanation,” Dr. Bryant told me. “It’s more common in middle-aged women. But it has probably been exacerbated by the fact that you are also experiencing insomnia. Your body is trying to tell you something, Neely, so pay attention.”

  Besides the reminder to take a multivitamin, he gave me two prescriptions. One for sleep, another for a dietary supplement, which was supposed to help banish the sour taste brought on by stress and a compromised diet.

  On the way back to the bakery to load up the cake, I picked up the prescriptions that Dr. Bryant had phoned in.

  I had a hopeful thought that my sleepless nights and one-track taste would all be over soon.

  When I got back, Ben was there, chatting with Maggie and drinking an espresso. Roshonda was draining the dregs of her caramel Americano.

  “So what’s the verdict, Neely? Rickets? Malaria? Beri-beri?” Maggie asked jokingly.

  “Maybe it’s all of the above,” Roshonda teased. “Because I won’t lie—you look pretty terrible. I think you need at least two lattes this morning. Maybe three.”

  Ben smiled and scanned my face with obvious concern. I must have looked tired.

  I held up my prescription bag and gave it a shake. “Not to worry, friends. All I needed was a little something to help me sleep so it’s not Night of the Living Dead around here anymore.”

  “Just don’t take that sleeping pill now,” said Maggie. “You have to call Miranda back at Carriage Hill Country Club about the Schumacher wedding.”

  “You know I’m ready to help,” Ben said, rising and walking over to me. “Just text me when you’re leaving here.”

  “That’s great,” I said, smiling, wanting to stay close to Ben. I felt better already, I realized. Whether it was the promise of sleep or the presence of Ben—or maybe a little of both—I didn’t care. Then, of course, the damn phone buzzed again.

  “Later, Neely.” Ben nodded to me and took his coffee with him out the door.

  Maggie, who took everything at face value, went back to the counter. Roshonda gave me one of those “hmmm” looks she was so good at.

  And so I answered the call without looking at the display until it was too late.

  A 212 area code. I heard the bluegrass music and a clear female voice singing. I had to give Luke credit for good taste in music. I love Sarah Jarosz’ “Come Around.” But I wasn’t coming around. I was almost sure.

  DECEMBER 8, 1941

  It was a long way to Izzy’s from Queen City Terminal in the early December dark.

  Shemuel crossed part of the old canal, the water oily-black and choked with debris, past neighborhoods of brick tenements peeling paint. He sidestepped the broken furniture left out on the curb.

  His thoughts outpaced his footsteps, looped back, started again.

  So much had happened in such a short time.

  We’re at war, he thought. War.

  Yet to Shemuel, the fire was still far more real. His mother’s death. Locking up the burnt-out salvage yard. Leaving Mishka and the cart behind. Losing Edie.

  His old life seemed to consume him—fill him—somehow, and at the same time, it felt so long ago, so little, so gone.

  The ragman’s son saw the red, white, and green painted sign for the outdoor Lincoln Market on the side of a building. It was not far now.

  He turned left at the corner and saw the line at the German butcher that sold fresh mettwurst and pickle loaf to department store salesladies, clutching their worn shopping bags on their way home by streetcar. In the next stall, a man stuffed a bunch of dark leafy greens into a bag for a Negro woman, still in her maid’s uniform.

  Across from the market and down a side street, the pickle barrel on the sidewalk told him he had arrived in front of Izzy’s.

  I did remember, after all, he thought.

  This was where his father used to take him to buy corned beef, a distant memory of an unusual time when his father was not angry and they all ate well. A memory surfaced—Izzy reaching a meaty hand into the green brine to pull out a crisp sour dill as a treat for him, then a boy. Nine, ten years old?

  He almost tripped as he crossed the brick street, the pothole hidden by a wooly covering of snow.

  He opened the door and stepped into the warmth. He heard Izzy’s old Victrola in the back, scratchily playing a 78. He looked around. The store was empty.

  “Do you like Tchaikovsky?” asked the burly proprietor jovially, putting his apron back on as he walked to the front of the store.

  The tall young man with the stooped shoulders and the face that looked like the end of the world didn’t answer.

  “It’s my favorite. The Pathetique, especially the last movement, the Adagio lamentoso. Do you know it?”

  The young man removed his cap. No.

  “It’s what I listen to when I think the world has gone completely meshuggenah. Which is a lot of the time, I have to admit.”

  Izzy studied the young man’s face as if something about it was familiar.

  “But especially today. Maybe that’s the problem with people today,” he said. “The war.”

  “The war,” Shemuel tonelessly repeated.

  “Come in and warm yourself and then you can tell me what you need to tell me,” Izzy said, continuing to study the young face. “I always stand over the heat vent when I have cold feet.”

  Shemuel shuffled his frozen feet toward the rectangular grate in the wooden floor and stood over the vent.

  They both looked down at Shemuel’s boots with the notch cut out in the corner of the big toe.

  “You are not the first man to wear those boots,” Izzy observed, giving Shemuel an appraising look from his feet on up to his face. “Your feet must be freezing.”

  The young man nodded, almost swaying from fatigue.

  Izzy’s wife, Rosa, a trim dark-haired woman, was wiping her hands on her apron as she click-clacked her way on the old wooden floor toward them. “Isador,” she said sternly, “the potato pancakes aren’t getting any hotter.” She barely raised an eyebrow at yet another surprise guest at their table tonight. “It’s a good thing I have made plenty.”

  “First things first.” Izzy clapped his stubby hands together, reached his arm up to put around the young man’s shoulders, and led him back to the stairs in the storeroom.

  “I think I knew your father, my son,” he said. “He used to wear those boots when he worked in the garment district, right over on the next street. A hard man. Didn’t get along with people. His own worst enemy. But one thing he liked? My corned beef. You will, too. It wouldn’t be easy having such a man for a father,” Izzy added, looking at Shemuel closely.

  No more needed to be said for now. They both understood.

  “A full plate of food makes everything seem better,” Izzy reassured him. “Rosa makes the best potato pancakes you’ve ever had, my boy—and my corned beef is so tender you can cut it with a fork. Plus, all the kraut you can eat!” he exclaimed hearti
ly.

  Shemuel attempted a smile.

  “That’s a joke, you know,” Izzy said, and clapped him on the back. He gently pushed Shemuel toward the back of the store and up the stairway.

  “Do you have any luggage, a satchel that you’ve left somewhere?”

  Shemuel tiredly shook his head no.

  “I heard all too many stories from my grandparents about getting out before the Cossacks came,” Izzy said. “You stay with us tonight, and tomorrow we go to the rabbi at the Russian temple. And we will fix what needs to be fixed.”

  The young man’s eyes widened.

  “I know, I know, you’re not Russian. But believe me, those stuck-up German Jews will turn their noses up at you. And that’s not a pretty sight.” He clapped the ragman’s son on the back again. “That was a joke, too. Maybe after a full stomach, you will feel your funny bone again,” he said lightly.

  On the landing, Izzy started humming “Second Hand Rose.”

  He guided Shemuel to the left, into the dining room with windows that overlooked the street below.

  “Remember that song, Rosa, my love?” he called out as she returned from the kitchen with a towel draped over one arm and three full plates of food.

  “That’s my Rosa.” He wagged his eyebrows at her as she set the plates on the table. She made a show of rattling around in a drawer in the built-in corner cabinet for more silverware and a third napkin.

  “‘That’s why they call her so stuck-up Rose,’” he sang to Rosa, and kept humming the tune.

  She flicked her kitchen towel at him. “Isador Kadetz, you behave.”

  He made a show of kissing her hand. “You’re so lucky to have me.”

  “So you always say,” she said, finally smiling. “Now, let’s sit down and eat.”

  11

  By eleven a.m., Ben was waiting for me at the loading area of the Carriage Hill Country Club, outside the kitchen entrance in the back of the rambling structure. Built in the Tudor style with a slate roof, the club exuded an aura of old money. The open-air facilities were groomed to perfection: manicured lawns, clay tennis courts, a swimming pool, an eighteen-hole golf course. A club-wide dress code had recently been instituted to mitigate any vulgar influence of the nouveau riche, however badly these members might be needed for the club’s bottom line.

  Inside, a dark wood-paneled gathering area with a huge fireplace encouraged quiet and discreet conversation, while the dining room and event spaces were open and airy with French windows leading to the formal garden.

  It was true that people with money didn’t always display good taste, but at Carriage Hill, even the food was noteworthy. The chef had worked at Chez Panisse in Berkeley as well as several Mario Batali restaurants in New York. When she came to a special Rainbow Cake tasting in January, she loved my work, so I knew she understood what I was trying to do. She’d already ordered from Rainbow Cake several times for private events at the club.

  When I texted her from the van, she sent the banquet manager wheeling a large stainless steel cart to open the double back doors for me. Ben helped me shift the large, bottom cake layer onto the cart—it was the heaviest and most crucial—and off I went while he stood guard at the van.

  I was glad it was a cool day so I didn’t have to worry how the buttercream frosting would do in the heat. The nonskid mat in the bed of the van had kept all the boxed cake layers from sliding around. “Prevention” was the key word when hauling expensive wedding cakes.

  I went back three more times for the other layers, doubling up on both shelves of a taller wheeled cart that could hold rows of full sheet pans, like the cart I had at the bakery. The last trip I made by myself, putting the extra containers of buttercream, mousse, sugar-paste decorations, the cake stand and server, and my cake decorator’s toolbox on the cart. Ben departed to do his security detail.

  I already had my white chef’s coat on over my clothes. I’d learned from my apprenticeship with Sylvia Weinstock that not only does your cake have to look good, but you do, too. No jeans, no messy hair, no dirty chef’s jacket; you always presented a tailored, professional appearance and, above all, clean hands, to your client.

  Sylvia’s trademark look was her sleek chignon, large black-framed glasses, and a Chanel suit. Mine? Under my chef’s coat, I wore a simple navy lace sheath dress and low nude heels, channeling Kate Middleton. I would be as ready as the cake for the big reveal.

  Quickly, the banquet manager wheeled the round cake table into the prep kitchen. I reached under the table’s damask cloth and locked the brakes. I didn’t want this table going anywhere without me.

  Ellen and her mother had chosen an antique footed silver cake stand, so I placed it on the cake table. The bottom and heaviest cake layer was on a heavy cardboard round, so the sous chef helped me center that on the silver stand.

  I worked quietly, gently pressing the dark blue ribbon around the bottom of each frosted cake layer so it would stay in place.

  Layer by layer, the wedding cake took shape. I used a step stool to arrange the sugar-paste blossoms and leaves on the top of the cake, then worked down and around, so wherever you stood to look at this confection, you could see part of the meandering cascade.

  I finished just before noon, a relief. I stood back and smiled. My first official wedding cake! I reached in my pocket and took a few photos with the digital camera I had brought. I asked one of the servers to stand by while I cleaned up. I had heard too many horror stories of clumsy servers with big trays, tottering guests, kids playing tag, and collapsing tables. I wouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief until the cake had been cut, the photos taken, and the cake wheeled back to the kitchen to be portioned, plated, and served. Nothing soured your reputation like an expensive wedding cake disaster.

  My standard fee included my staying to make sure everything went as planned. With the server on guard, I wheeled all my gear outside and put it in the back of the van, throwing my chef’s jacket on top of it all. I wouldn’t need that anymore.

  I went to the restroom for a quick touch-up—hair, makeup, hands.

  About thirty minutes before the reception, the banquet manager and I slowly—very, very slowly—wheeled in the cake, just as the chamber music quartet was tuning up on the other side of the room.

  Ellen and Sam had met in their professional lives rather than in college, so they wanted a more refined affair. A silver champagne bucket, ready with ice and a bottle of bubbly, was positioned at the side of each six-top table. Midnight blue sashes tied around the ivory chair covers complemented the coral and green floral arrangements, low on the tables to allow conversation. The cake table, between the two sets of French doors, helped pull the fresh and formal look together.

  Guests started drifting in to find their name cards at the tables. From my vantage point by the cake and French doors, I watched the bridal party, the mothers, and a tall, rather elegant old man gather outside in the formal gardens for a few more wedding photos before the reception officially started.

  I sighed. They all looked so happy. With all my heart, I wished them well. But you had only to look at their group to know that happily-ever-after wasn’t always in the script. Both mothers were alone: Ellen’s father had passed away; Sam’s father was in prison. And the older man with them, whom I recognized from photos as Samuel Whyte, Sam’s grandfather, had probably lost a spouse as well.

  I thought of my wedding day, when I had felt like the luckiest person in the world. I was marrying the man I loved and who loved me and I imagined that our future life would play out under blue, blue skies. Back then, I could see only one ghostly cloud on that sunniest of days: my own absent father. How naive I had been.

  I shook my head slightly, as if to dislodge these memories. Would I do this at every wedding and spoil my enjoyment? I had to think of something happier.

  And then Ben was by my side. “The wedding planner needs t
o talk to you, Neely.” He gently pressed his hand in the small of my back to guide me in her direction, and I felt a surge of warmth that made my cheeks flush. I turned back to him in surprise and our eyes locked. I didn’t want to move.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll guard this cake with my life,” he said with a wink, and then nudged me toward the woman with the notebook computer.

  A quick conversation with the wedding planner, and we agreed with the change of plans—Ellen and Sam would cut the cake first and then the sit-down lunch would be served.

  I walked back to Ben—and the cake.

  “Before I forget to say it, you look fantastic. Those anti-fungal pills must be working already,” he teased.

  I jabbed his arm and whispered, as this wasn’t professional wedding behavior, “Smart-ass. You know they’re sleeping pills. And I haven’t taken them yet.”

  But I linked my slender arm through his big one all the same.

  The chamber music quartet began playing “A Little Night Music.” Mozart. Perfect.

  I smiled. This was going to be wonderful.

  I took it all in, standing arm in arm with Ben like we were the bride and groom on top of the cake. More guests walked in, and we watched the kaleidoscope of colors as women in spring pastels and men in well-tailored suits moved from group to group, table to table, to greet the ones they knew.

  If only I could have frozen that moment in time.

  “Where is she?” someone growled from the doorway. “Get out of my way!” Like a bolt of acid lightning, something scorched down my throat, and I started to choke and stumble.

  “Are you all right?” Ben grabbed a glass of water from a nearby table. “Here, drink this.” Despite the commotion by the entrance, his entire focus was on me.

  I gulped the water down. But my mouth felt blistered, and I motioned for another glass. He handed one to me.

  When I straightened up to drink again, I knew we were in big trouble.

  VALENTINE’S DAY, 1942

  “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when,” Peggy Lee sang with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, her voice as smooth as Pond’s cold cream.