Truth Game

by Anna Staniszewski

  “You need me to what?”

  “It’s almost done, but my husband can’t put the finishing touches on it. I’ll need you to do it. Can you come in early tomorrow morning and handle it? I’ll let you inside at seven before I head over to the venue with the other girls to set up.”

  I swallow. This is it. The pineapple gods are finally answering my prayers and giving me a chance to show everyone what I can do. “I’ll be there,” I tell her.

  Chapter 22

  In the morning, I arrive at the bakery with my whole body jiggly with nerves. I tried to find my lucky shirt again—the one that I couldn’t wear on the first day of school because I managed to stain it with toothpaste—but it seems to have disappeared for good. I guess I’ll have to get through what could be the Most Important Day of My Life without it.

  Cherie assures me that Chef Ryan is going to be okay and says that they’re both counting on me. Then she says she’ll be back to pick up the cake at noon and runs out the door, leaving me standing alone in the bakery.

  I’m frozen for a second, suddenly terrified. Then I tell myself to pull it together, and I go into the kitchen to check out the Montelle-Brennan cake. The three tiers are all frosted, but they still need to be put together and decorated in the intricate pattern of iced roses that Chef Ryan sketched out. Even though I’m still not convinced the design is perfect for the occasion—it looks a little too stuffy and uptight—it’s beautiful. And after Angela’s cake, I’m not about to start questioning his vision. I only need to assemble the cake and make the roses to go on top, and it’ll be done. And hey, that means a tiny bit of my work will wind up on TV, even if I wish it had happened a different way.

  Okay. I can do this.

  I riffle around in the supply cabinets—careful not to make a mess so Chef Ryan doesn’t freak out when he comes back—and gather what I need. Then I get to work. Since the cake has to be put together for the roses to go on it, I decide to assemble it first. I’ve never worked on a cake this big before. From what I’ve heard, a lot of bakeries assemble their cakes at the wedding location and finish the decorating there, but I don’t think we have time for that. I’ll have to put it together here and hope that it makes the trip in one piece. I’m sure Cherie can do a little bit of touch-up work at the venue if need be.

  I take a deep breath and carefully lift the second tier and place it on the bottom one. Then, holding my breath again, I pick up the smallest tier and gently place it on top. I realize, too late, that I should have measured out the tiers before putting them together, but even eyeballing it, they come out pretty good. The top tier might be a tiny bit off-center, but it won’t be all that noticeable once I put the roses on it.

  I’m sweating like crazy from the stress, so I hurry to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face before I start on the roses. When I come back out, I glance at the clock and see I still have more than four hours before Cherie comes to pick up the cake. At this rate, I’ll be done in way less time than that!

  Thankfully, Chef Ryan already made the colored fondant, so I only have to shape it and put it on the cake. Roses look impressive, but they’re actually pretty easy to make. I shape the petals and then carefully wrap them around each other until they start to look like blooming roses. I put them on wires so they’ll be easy to put into the cake without worrying about them falling off.

  When I’ve made a half dozen of the roses, I peek at the cake to see how it’s doing—

  “Oh my goldfish!” I shriek.

  Half of the middle layer is caving in on itself! The cake is collapsing!

  I run around the kitchen, frantically looking for something I can use to keep the cake from sagging more, and find a bunch of dowels that I shove into the tiers. But when I try to reshape the cake, it’s no use. The middle layer is completely sagging, and the bottom one is collapsing too. No amount of frosting will cover that up.

  I don’t get it. What did I do wrong?

  And then I look at the dowels again and remember something I saw on TV a long time ago about stabilizing wedding cakes with wooden or hollow plastic dowels to keep them from caving in. Since Chef Ryan usually assembles cakes on-site, I’ve never seen him do it before, but that must be how he keeps his cakes from collapsing. In my rush to put it together, I hadn’t even thought about reinforcing it! Why didn’t I ask Chef Ryan about that kind of stuff instead of badgering him to let me put vines on things? It doesn’t matter if a cake has fancy decorations on it if it’s falling apart!

  Gah! The cake needs to be at the venue in less than four hours, and it’s a total mess! What am I supposed to do?

  Tears start stinging my eyes, but I push them back. There’s no time for crying right now. I grab my phone and call Cherie, but there’s no answer. She’s probably off taking care of some other wedding emergency. I think about leaving her a message, but I don’t want her to freak out. So instead, I call my mom even though I know she’s busy at work.

  “Okay, don’t panic,” Mom says after I explain what happened, but it’s a little late for that. Her voice is echoey which probably means she’s cleaning someone’s bathroom.

  “I can’t believe I did this! No matter what I do, I always mess things up and drag everyone else into it!”

  “Honey, stop beating yourself up,” Mom says. “Yes, you make mistakes, but you always fix them.”

  “But I don’t want to always fix my messes!” I say. “I want to not make them in the first place!” I’m so mad at myself that the tears start trying to pour out again.

  “That would be impossible,” Mom says.

  “I know, I know. I’ll always make a mess. That’s just who I am.”

  “No. You’re a human. That means you can’t help but be imperfect. But that also means you can find a way to make things right.”

  For some reason, I think about rock climbing with my dad and how I decided to actually leap through the air and risk falling to the ground rather than climb back down and try to fix my mistakes. I thought I was being brave and pushing myself to do big stuff, but maybe if I’d slowed down and actually focused on learning the basics first, I wouldn’t have fallen at all. “You’ve got to crawl before you can walk,” Chef Ryan keeps saying, and I keep rolling my eyes, but maybe he’s right. And part of crawling is falling on your face over and over, until you finally learn what you’re doing.

  “Okay. I have to go.”

  “Do you want me to come help you?” Mom says. “You don’t have to do this on your own.”

  “I know,” I say, “but you’re busy. I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you sure? I can tell my clients I have to reschedule. I can—”

  “No, really. It’s my mess, and I’ll figure it out. You have your own stuff to worry about.”

  “Okay.” I can hear the reluctance in her voice. But she promised to let me handle my own problems from now on, and I guess she’s keeping her word. She tells me to call if I need anything, and then she hangs up.

  As I stand there staring at the destroyed cake, I know I need to start over and make a new one. It seems crazy and impossible, but it’s the only way. And my mom is right. I’m going to need some help.

  Chapter 23

  “What do you mean you’re making slime?” I say into the phone.

  “It’s not slime,” Pierre corrects me. “It’s sludge. I have made an oil sludge that I plan to transform into a—”

  “You can’t put your sludge project on hold for a few hours and come help me? I’m really, really desperate.” He’s a foodie like I am. That means he can’t ignore a food emergency, right? It’s like foodie code or something.

  I hear some kind of alarm go off in the background. “Oh, my mixture is ready. Sorry, Rachel. But good luck.” Then he hangs up.

  I groan and reluctantly call Whit. After a few rings, he picks up, but the noise in the background is so deafening that I can barely hear
him.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “At the arcade with my nephews,” he yells into the phone. “Sorry, it’s really loud in here. Can I call you back?”

  “Actually, I need your help!” I try to explain to him about the cake, but I can tell he still can’t hear me.

  “I’ll see you at school, okay? We’re going to get some food. I actually convinced them to eat grilled cheese! I know it’s not the kind of stuff Mrs. Da Silva wants us eating, but it’s better than Cheetos, right?” Then the phone cuts out. I can’t tell if he hung up on me or if we got disconnected, but either way, I’m on my own.

  I sink into a chair, my face in my hands. Now what do I do? I thought the whole point of being in a cooking club was to be around “my people,” but how can they be my people when I can’t even count on them in an emergency?

  But then I realize. I do have people like that. They might not know much about wedding cakes, and they might hate my guts right now, but I’d do anything for them. Hopefully that means they’ll do anything for me.

  • • •

  “Thank you guys for coming,” I say. “I know I totally don’t deserve your help, but—”

  “Just tell us what you want us to do,” Marisol says. “There’s not a lot of time.”

  “Yeah,” Evan adds. “Whatever you need, we’ll do it.”

  I could hug them and cry, but there’s no time for that. Amazingly, it took almost no convincing to get them here. I sent SOSes to both of them, and within a few minutes, they were on their way. All the stuff that happened between us isn’t gone, not by a long shot, but right now it doesn’t matter, not when there’s so much we have to do.

  While I was waiting for them to get to the bakery, I came up with a game plan. Since Marisol is a terrible cook but a great artist, she’s going to help me with the decorating. Evan is pretty good at cooking on the other hand, so he’s going to help me bake the cake.

  “We’re remaking the cake exactly the way it was?” Marisol asks.

  “No,” I say, and they both stare at me in shock. “I can’t make it the same way he did. I don’t know how.” It hurts to admit that, but it’s true. When I took this job, I thought I was as good as Chef Ryan, maybe even better. But the truth is, I have a lot to learn. “Ms. Montelle said she totally trusted Chef Ryan to do whatever he thought would work. She wanted the cake to be a surprise. So we’re making one I know will be perfect. Even if it won’t be nearly as fancy.”

  I only hope Chef Ryan won’t murder me with a whisk when he finds out what I’ve done.

  Marisol nods. “Okay, so what do we do instead?”

  “We can keep the same flavors, but it should look more like…” I hurry over and grab a piece of paper. Then I start sketching what I’ve had in my head since I first heard about the wedding.

  As I make my pitiful sketch, Marisol adds a few touches to help clarify what I’m thinking. When we’re done, it’s perfect. And, unlike when I was making Angela’s cake, I can feel the excitement pulsing through me. Chef Ryan might fire me for messing up his cake and making a totally different one, but if I have to start all over, I’m going to make a cake that I’m passionate about, one that feels like me, like he said.

  “Thank you,” I tell Marisol. “Really. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  I hope she can see how much I mean it, but she just shrugs and says, “Let’s get to work.” Then she goes off in the corner. Clearly, she’s still mad at me, but she’s also my best friend. That means getting me out of yet another jam even though I probably don’t deserve her help.

  Meanwhile, Evan’s already started gathering ingredients for the cake. Since we don’t have time to make more fondant to cover the cake, I start making a buttercream frosting instead. I can practically feel the clock ticking, but I try to take a deep breath. If we keep our heads down and keep working, we might be able to pull this off.

  Once the cake layers are baked and cooling and the buttercream frosting is done, I glance over at Evan and realize he’s covered in flour and sugar and icing. Despite it all, he looks absolutely adorable.

  “What?” he says when he catches me looking at him.

  “Um, nothing,” I say. “I just… Thank you for being here. I know you’re still mad at me, and I know things are really weird between us right now, but I really appreciate it.”

  He nods and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “Did you mean it?” he asks after a minute. “What you said in the game about us not being together in six months?”

  “No!” I say. “I wanted us to be together that long. I hoped we would be. It felt like jinxing the whole thing if I said we definitely would be, you know? I thought things were going really well, but I guess they weren’t.”

  “They weren’t?” he says, sounding surprised. “I thought they were.”

  “You did? But…but you said you didn’t want me touching you in public. You said I couldn’t take a hint!”

  He looks down at the floor, suddenly looking embarrassed. “I’ve never been good with PDAs. I mean, look at my family. The only time my parents even hold hands is when they’re at some big charity event and they want to prove to everyone how happy they are. I liked kissing you and stuff.” He blushes. “But I wish it had been when other people weren’t around, you know?”

  “Wait, so you…so you still like me?”

  He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Of course I still like you. Why wouldn’t I?” He gives me a hopeful look. “Do you still like me?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course I do!”

  We stand there in giddy silence for a second. Then I smile as I notice a glob of frosting on his shirt. “You have a little something on you.”

  He glances down at his filthy clothes and laughs. “I guess I do. And you…” He takes a step forward and smears some frosting on my cheek. “You have a little something on you too.”

  And that’s when it happens. He leans forward and I lean forward, and our lips find each other. And then I swear angels start singing! I close my eyes and feel the warmth of his lips on mine. And there’s no sweat or gym sock smell this time. There are just his lips pressed against mine, and the tiniest hint of powdered sugar.

  Finally, we pull away, and I find Evan looking back at me with a question in his eyes.

  “Well?” he says. “Was that any better than last time?”

  I’m tempted to bury my face in my hands from embarrassment, but I’m still on too much of a kissing high. “The first time was perfect because it was with you,” I say. “And this time was perfect too. I was an idiot for saying anything else. I’m sorry.”

  He smiles and dabs some more frosting on my chin. “Don’t worry about it, Booger Crap.” Then he leans in and kisses me again, and that’s how I know I’m really forgiven.

  • • •

  Two hours later, the cake is done. The three of us stand there staring at it in awe.

  “It’s perfect,” Marisol whispers, and I have to agree. The pale-yellow buttercream frosting looks light and fluffy, the tiers are securely fastened with plastic dowels, and the blue and white shells and starfish that Marisol made out of the leftover fondant are subtle yet stunning. The whole thing screams waterfront wedding, and I know Ms. Montelle will love it. I only hope Chef Ryan feels the same way.

  We carefully box up the cake and wait for Cherie to arrive. I sit there holding Evan’s hand. Or he’s holding mine. It doesn’t matter. I was so busy worrying about it all before that I guess I wasn’t letting things happen naturally.

  “Okay,” Marisol say. “I should get going.”

  “Oh.” It’s stupid to feel disappointed. Why would she stick around until Cherie gets here? It’s not her job that’s on the line. “Well, thank you. For everything. Really.”

  She nods. “No problem.”

  Before she can walk away, I grab
her arm. “Are we…are we ever going to be okay?”

  She sighs. “Probably,” she says. “But I think I need more time.” Then she hops on her bike and rides away.

  “She’ll come around,” Evan says as I watch her disappear around the corner.

  “I hope so.”

  At exactly noon, Cherie pulls up in front of the bakery, her face red. “You weren’t answering your phone!” she says. “I saw you called. Is everything okay?”

  I realize I didn’t even glance at my phone after we got to work on the cake. “Um, there was a minor crisis, but we figured it out.”

  “Oh good,” she says. “Because we need to pack up the cake and get going.”

  Evan jumps up to help, and together he and Cherie put it in the back of her catering van. I hold my breath the whole time, but it goes in without a problem.

  I expect Cherie to speed off and tell me to keep an eye on the bakery, but instead she turns to me and says, “Grab your supplies and hop in.”

  “My supplies?” I say.

  “If the cake needs any last-minute touching up, you’re going to be the one to do it. I won’t have time.”

  “But what about the bakery? Who’s going to watch it?”

  “We can shut down for one day. If all goes well today, we’ll have a lot more business from now on. Now go get your things.”

  I nod and hurry inside to get some extra tools and supplies. Evan helps me pack everything up and walks me back out to Cherie’s van.

  We stand there for a minute looking at each other, but for once I don’t feel awkward about saying good-bye to him.

  “Thank you,” I say for probably about the tenth time. “I really owe you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Just remember me when you’re a famous TV chef, okay?”

  I laugh and give him a peck on the cheek. Then I hop into the passenger seat of Cherie’s van, and we speed off to the wedding and to what might finally be my big TV debut.