by Abby Tyler
He was giving her an out, somehow sensing her fear. Or maybe it was obvious to everyone. But she steeled herself and walked up to the microphone.
The small stage at the end of the Applebottom high school cafeteria was not large. It was not grand. Moments that changed the world did not happen here. But this moment was possibly about to change her world.
“Andrew and I…” She faltered immediately, realizing she was being too familiar. “Mr. McCallister and I worked for many weeks on the subject matter for this cake. I’m very honored to have been chosen to decorate it.”
She turned to the bottom tier.
“Before we cut it, we’ll let everyone have a chance to see it up close. But you’ll find on this bottom tier, the foundation of Applebottom’s community. Forestry. Fishing. And of course, entertainment. We all know that the development of our neighbor Branson as a tourist destination changed the course of history for this part of our state.”
She turned the cake on its wheel, revealing the bottom tier as it evolved from pine forest and lakes to construction, docks, and an entire sea of tiny people looking up at a lighted stage meant to depict the performances in Branson that had drawn early crowds.
“The second tier represents Applebottom itself, the town that we know and love so well,” she said. The middle revolved smoothly on its disc, showing the shops of Town Square, the park with its gentle hill and lakefront, and of course the elementary, middle, and high schools.
“At the very top of our cake, we have what I hope is the most important part of Applebottom,” she said. “Community. This part of the state was built on the arrival of tens of thousands of people from every walk of life, every background, every part of the world.”
The top tier showed a collection of tiny people, each one carefully formed so that no two were exactly alike.
“But before I have you come up and look at the cake more closely, I wanted to show off a very special feature of this cake, one that depicts my own spin on cake decorating, which has been a very popular subject of conversation in the last few months. And that’s my hidden messages. Secret messages.”
She realized that the mostly hushed cafeteria had gone dead silent.
This was it.
She twisted the bottom tier until it met its mark, then moved the center one, and finally the top. When they all aligned perfectly, words appeared that flowed from one tier to another, written in the blue of a river that cut through the designs of all parts of the cake.
“The words you see here are acceptance, hope, and love.” She cast a furtive glance at Andrew, who was looking at her curiously. Certainly they had never discussed the hidden message in her cake.
“Acceptance is what I am asking for from this community. Not just for me. We all know where I’ve been. But for everyone here who may have a troubled background, or hit a terrible snag on their way to becoming the person they were meant to be.”
She looked out over the crowd, and met the eye of Maude, who was nodding, and the beaming Betty.
“The next word is hope. Hope is what I want for all of us. But particularly for myself. Something amazing got started during the making of this cake, and I feel like I blew it. Just like I blew it eighteen years ago.”
Her voice faltered, but she had to finish it.
“The last word is love. I love this town. You did right by my son. But I also love someone in it. One particular person. And even though maybe I shouldn’t have put messages to him in all the cakes you all have been eating these last few months, it was all I knew to do.”
She tried to make herself look over at Andrew. She could see his sport coat from the corner of her eye. But she couldn’t quite do it.
Her voice was about to go. She entire body jangled with nerves at the huge risk she had just taken. She only had one thing left to say.
“My hope is that he will see the message in my cake this time. And he will know that it was for him.”
Her voice broke at the end. She stepped away from the microphone and into the shadows. Now she would find out whether that was where she needed to remain, or if this chance she had taken had made a difference.
Andrew stood a little dumbstruck by the cake.
The crowd broke out in applause, then shouts.
“Talk to her!”
“Go get her!”
Andrew stepped up to the microphone, his body turned to her.
“I’ve been in love with you since I was a teenage boy. I don’t think I’m very likely to give it up now.”
Sandy’s head felt light, as if she were suddenly filled with air.
He had? All those years? Just as she had?
He stepped away from the microphone to find her in the shadows. “I feel like maybe we should get away from the entire town looking at us,” he whispered.
“Maybe so,” she said.
“That was pretty brave thing you just did.”
“It was time to be brave,” she said.
The citizens of Applebottom clapped and cheered, and Sadie emerged to organize the line to file by the cake.
Andrew took Sandy’s hand and led them deeper backstage.
“The cake…” he said, then trailed off.
“You liked it?” Her throat felt choked off, but she managed to get words out.
“Of course. You are so crazy.”
“I am, aren’t I?”
“What do we do now?” His eyes moved across her face, as if he were trying to memorize her. She flushed under his attention.
“I thought maybe you would want to come to Caden’s game tomorrow. With me.”
“There’s really no Jerry in the picture?” he asked.
“Jerry? You mean Caden’s deadbeat father?”
“You ran out of town to see him. The ladies said he didn’t show up again, but…”
“No. He didn’t show at the game. And he never called Caden again. Another promise broken. Another threat that turned out to be empty.”
“How is Caden taking it?”
“Hard to say. He’s an easy-going boy. He’s glad he got to meet him, though.” Sandy’s eyes sparked with emotion that Jerry had gotten anywhere near to her son to disappoint him. She’d really picked wrong back then.
But not today.
“So, the game?” she asked.
“I’d be happy to,” he said. “I’m happy to go anywhere you go.”
“Even if that means staying in Applebottom?”
“Especially if it means staying in Applebottom.”
His hand brushed her hair, and they stood closer together than they’d ever been. Sandy flashed back to that night in front of her house, when she practically ran from him and returned to realize that it had been a mistake, that he might have kissed her if she’d stayed.
Today she would stay.
As they looked at each other, they heard the squeak of the pulleys as the girl pulled the curtain closed.
“I don’t think they can see us anymore,” Andrew said.
And carefully, tenderly, at the high school where he’d missed his first chance, he kissed her. For one breathless moment, they were teenagers again, their entire futures in front of them.
Only this time, they knew exactly where they were going, and who would be with them on their journey.
Chapter 19
The championship game of the Fisher Junior College Dragons had two minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Andrew held Sandy’s hand tightly. He’d become something of a veteran of these games, having traveled with Sandy the entire season. Now it was early December, and the fate of the Dragons rested on the final snap and a trick play that would be nothing short of a miracle for the team to pull off.
“I can’t believe they have Caden out there,” Sandy said. Her fingers gripped him so tightly that he was beginning to lose feeling in his hand. He worked his way loose and put his arm around her instead.
“The other center isn’t having a good game. Caden’s the best back up they’ve got.”
>
“He looks nervous. Don’t you think he looks nervous?”
Andrew had no idea what Sandy was seeing in the boy. With his helmet and gear, it was impossible to even recognize his features, much less make out an expression. But he wanted to support her. “I think he’s fine. He’s going to do just fine.”
The teams lined up. Truthfully, the snap wasn’t the most essential part of the play. Everyone else had to do their parts. They were going for an onside kick in hopes of getting down the field for one more score to take the win.
Sandy gripped Andrew’s waist about as tightly as she had been gripping his hand. They held their breaths as the play clock ticked down.
Caden snapped the ball cleanly to the kicker, and he punted it sideways instead of down the field. Both sides of the stadium jumped to their feet. If the Bulldogs downed the ball as was expected, they could just run the clock out. But if the Dragons were successful in regaining the ball, they could make one last rush for their end zone.
The kick bounced off a Bulldog, making it a live ball. Realizing that the onside kick had worked, both teams piled onto it to get the play down.
The refs ran toward the mound of bodies, pulling players away to determine who had the ball.
Caden wasn’t in the fray. As center, he had been too far from the action this time. Andrew looked over at Sandy. She was a definite football mom, leaning forward, her eyes trained on the field. She had a glow about her at a football game that always made him smile.
“Do they have it?” she asked.
Dragon players started jumping up and down, then the cheerleaders, then some of the fans. Finally, the ref made his signal. Turnover. Possession to the Dragons.
Caden turned to the stands and gave his mother a thumbs up. He spotted Andrew and gave a quick nod. He’d been surprised to learn his old history teacher was dating his mom, but the times they’d been together had gone well. Andrew’s mother had doted on the boy at Thanksgiving as if he was her own grandson.
Sandy released him and began screaming with her already hoarse voice. “They did it. They did it. They did it!”
Bill leaned past Shannon to say, “And now they have to do something with it.”
It was true. They only had forty-five seconds to get the rest of the way down the field. They were down by two. All they needed was a field goal.
The kicking team ran off, and the offense ran on. Caden stayed on the field.
“They’re going to have to work fast,” Sandy said. The cold made her cheeks and the tip of her nose a rosy pink.
No one had timeouts left, so the players rushed into the new position. They had to make things move. In college, if they got a first down, the clock would stop to move the chains. They had to do at least that much.
Caden snapped the ball, and the quarterback fell back. Now Bill and Shannon leaped to their feet, shouting for their son. The four of them had become couple friends, something unfamiliar to Andrew. But he liked them both, and this friendship mattered a lot to Sandy, who had missed out on all the years of having parent friends while she raised Caden alone outside of town.
“Oh, no, he’s risking a pass!” Shannon squealed, barely able to watch through her fingers.
The ball sailed through the air, and at first it seemed there would be no one to receive it. But then out of nowhere, a receiver leapt into the air and brushed it with his fingers, changing his trajectory so that he could grasp it in his arms. He came down hard, but they had gained twenty yards.
The refs stopped the clock to move the chains for the first-down markers.
“That’s field goal range,” Bill said. “Hot dog, they did it.”
“He’s still got to make the kick,” Shannon said.
Sandy’s hand found his and squeezed it to death again. Andrew laughed to himself. If this was the price of getting to attend these games with her, he would pay it.
Fifteen seconds on the clock. The kicking team ran out again.
“How does he look?” Sandy asked.
“Open your eyes and see for yourself.”
She did. The teams lined up, and Caden made the snap. The kicker ran forward and everything in the stadium got quiet as the ball sailed toward the goal post.
It bounced on the edge of one of the polls, and then went through.
The response was deafening. The Dragon fans screamed and cried and hugged each other and high-fived and stomped their feet.
Sandy wrapped her arms around Andrew and kissed him full on the mouth.
Andrew held on to the moment. The crisp air. The happy sounds of shouts around him. The announcer counting off the seconds as the clock ran out, and the secondary cheer that went up.
And Sandy, her arms around his neck, her lips on his. Her hair, tickling his cheeks. The warm beautiful weight of her pressing against him.
This was what he had waited for all those years. Small town. Small community. Big life. Big love.
And it was all theirs.
Epilogue
Any minute, Sandy’s work would indeed be displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This was a big day. One of the biggest. The annual Met Gala.
Sandy stood next to her cake, afraid to move in any direction, lest the bustle of servers and personal assistants and managers and supervisors cause someone to bump into the table.
She had never been this nervous in her life, not even when she’d stood in front of her entire community with a secret message on a cake.
That was nothing compared to this.
A young man in a black shirt and pants pressed his hand to the headset in his ear and strode up to her.
“Cake ready? It’s almost time.”
Sandy nodded. Her body shook all the way to her shoes.
“The team will escort you in five.”
Her phone buzzed. She waited for the man to walk away, then pulled it from the pocket of her all-white baker uniform. She had been given the outfit by the staff and told to wear it precisely as instructed.
A foot-tall white pleated cap stood on her head. The white shirt was long sleeved, and the white pants impeccably cut. Even her shoes were white. Over it all, she had tied a full-length white apron around her neck and behind her waist. She had not been allowed to put anything in the front pockets of the apron, per security rules, so it took a moment to tug the phone from the pants beneath it.
It was Andrew.
Holding up okay?
She tapped a quick reply.
I’m okay. Five minutes until cake. What’s it like out there?
Andrew sent a series of pictures. He had to sneak them, because they definitely weren’t allowed. Half of them were partially black because the camera didn’t fully come out of his pocket as he snapped blindly.
Sandy had to giggle at the terrible shots. But she did see the face of the famous actor. And even from behind, she recognized all four members of her old favorite teen boy band.
Sandy had to the pinch herself to believe that she was really here. And she had designed the cake everyone would eat.
River Montgomery had made this happen. He’d commissioned a cake so fancy that it had taken her days to complete it. And then it got shipped to New York.
When the director of arts who was coordinating the Gala saw her cake, he immediately hired her. She had spent two weeks in New York meeting with him to plan the cake, and then executing each part of it under the supervision of an assistant art director and their staff.
It had been a stressful experience, but earlier that day, the cake had been photographed by fourteen national magazines plus the Associated Press. Even though her cake would not get nearly as much play as the celebrities and their costumes would, this was going to be a really big deal in all the culinary magazines.
She braced herself for the avalanche of publicity that was sure to come. It had already started. Someone had already whispered that she ought to be flown to England for the upcoming Royal Wedding.
It was a lot to take in.
> The man in black returned, this time followed by a magazine model of a woman with upswept blond hair, perfect makeup, and a long white silk gown.
Still, she held a clipboard and had a headset in her ear, meaning that she was really just part of the help, like Sandy. Important help. But still, help.
“Marcella,” the man said, “this is Sandy Miller, the cake decorator.”
“Nice to meet you.” Marcella’s eyes scanned the cake. “Everything looks to be in order.” She turned to the man in black. “Where is the pastry chef?”
“He was just here.”
A short, elderly man approached, his hands holding his chef hat in place as he hurried. He was also in all white. “I’m here! Sorry. Hat emergency.”
Marcella’s sharp eyes took him in. “Look left and right,” she said.
He turned his head as she asked. “I’ve got it pinned now.”
She nodded. “Looks like we’re ready.”
Four men dressed exactly like Sandy and the chef, only with shorter hats, approached and took a handle that extended from each corner of the cart.
“We will proceed in order,” Marcella instructed. “First, the pastry chef, then the decorator, then the cake.” She moved them into position.
Sandy held her breath as they first set the cake into motion, worried as always about it toppling over. Not that this had been left to chance. The cart had been tested, and it glided across the floor as if floating.
Marcella cleared a path as they moved down the hall. “The chef will be introduced, then the decorator, and then the two of you will move aside so that the cake may be presented. You will walk off to stage right, and will stay at the base of the stage. Do not speak. Do not draw attention to yourself.”
They had to make sure the help knew that they were the help. But it didn’t matter. This was an outrageously amazing occasion, and the snooty Marcella wasn’t going to wreck it for her, no matter what she said.
They paused outside a set of broad double doors. Marcella pressed her finger to her headpiece and looked away, as if concentrating.
“On my command,” she said, as though she were a general and they were about to launch an offensive.