Bakers on Board (2 page)

After two years of running a successful cupcake business, Peace, Love, and Cupcakes had gotten recipe testing down to a science. Jenna was in charge of the ingredients and tasted every cupcake to make sure it was
delicioso
. Sadie was the expert egg cracker and in charge of whipping the batter to a perfect, smooth consistency—without overbeating it.

Lexi was the artist—the one who made sure every cupcake was frosted neatly and delicately with just the right ratio of icing to cake. She created intricate decorations sculpted out of fondant or modeling chocolate, and Delaney was her right-hand woman, standing over each cupcake, ready to give them the finishing touch: a dusting of sprinkles, mini chips, chopped nuts, coconut, candies, or even—in this case—shimmery edible glitter.

“What do you think?” Delaney asked, holding up a cupcake for Kylie to inspect. Everyone's opinion mattered in the cupcake club, but it was Kylie's job to give it the presidential seal of approval.

“I love it—it's so shimmery, like a medal of honor,” she said.

She handed the cupcake to Jenna to sample. “Cherry vanilla up first.”

Jenna used a fork to sample the inside of the cupcake. They had blended chopped maraschino cherries into the batter and topped the frosting with a long-stemmed cherry.

“Nice,” she said, licking the fork. “Nice texture—very moist. But I would up the amount of cherry syrup just a bit—I'm losing the cherry flavor to the vanilla.”

She took a bite of the frosting by itself. “I'm liking the texture.” Finally, she tried both cake and frosting together.

“Well?” Kylie asked anxiously. “What's the verdict?”

Jenna smacked her lips together. “
Sabroso.
”

Delaney scratched her head. “Translation, please?”

“Tasty!” Jenna exclaimed.

The white chocolate cupcake was one of their most popular recipes, so Sadie and Delaney knew the ingredients and directions by heart.

“Six ounces white chocolate, melted!” Sadie called across the kitchen.

Delaney placed a bowl in the microwave and watched it carefully, checking every thirty seconds to make sure the chocolate didn't burn. She whipped it with a whisk until it was smooth and glossy.

“Aye, aye, captain,” she said, pouring the hot chocolate into the mixing bowl with the batter. Then she turned to Jenna. “See? I would be totally amazing at sea. I already know sailor lingo.” She saluted and announced, “Shiver me timbers!”

Kylie cracked up. “That's pirate lingo, Laney,” she said. “I don't think Captain Jack Sparrow is going to be cruising with Jenna.”

But Jenna was too busy trying to figure out the blueberry cobbler cupcake recipe. “The question is, how much blueberry pie filling do we put in the batter?” she said. “Too much, and you get a mushy cupcake. But too little, and you lose the whole blueberry flavor.”

She looked at the muffin tins filled with cupcake liners. “Batter first, then
un poco
blueberry filling on top,” she decided.

“What's a
poc
o
?” Delaney asked, studying her measuring spoons. “Is that like a teaspoon?”

“
Un poco
. It means ‘a little,'” Jenna said. “In this case, a little more than a teaspoon but a little less than a tablespoon.”

“I'm confuzzled,” Delaney said. “I thought we should never guess ingredient amounts.”

Herbie weighed in. “Yes, baking is a science. Precise measurement is key.”

“You're both right, but I gotta go with my gut here,” Jenna insisted. “Have I ever steered us wrong?”

The girls looked to Kylie for her decision. “Jenna is our official cupcake taster. What she says goes.”

When the cupcakes came out of the oven twenty minutes later, Jenna gently removed one from the tin and placed it on a plate to cool. She peeled the wrapper back and squeezed the warm cake gently with her fingertips. “Spongy—not mushy. So far, so good.”

Then she took a bite.

“Well?” Lexi asked. “Don't leave us in suspense.”

Jenna didn't say a word. She took another bite. Then another, and another.

When she had devoured the entire cupcake, she wiped the blueberry stain off her mouth with a napkin. “It's not good,” she said slowly.

Kylie's face fell. A bad recipe meant back to the drawing board. “Really? Not good at all?”

“No,” Jenna said, sighing. Then she smiled brightly. “
Es perfecto
!
”

She handed each of the girls a cupcake. “Try it. I think it's one of the best recipes we've ever made.”

Delaney, Lexi, Sadie, Herbie, and Kylie each dug in. Like Jenna, they couldn't speak—they were too busy gobbling up every last crumb.

“Yummo,” Sadie finally said. “Is that a Spanish word?”

Jenna chuckled. “No, but it sums it up perfectly.”

“The fund-raiser is a week from Saturday,” Kylie said, checking her binder. “Which means we bake Thursday, decorate Friday, and deliver Saturday afternoon.”

“And I set sail the next day,” Jenna pointed out.

“Go ahead, rub it in,” Delaney said, groaning.

Jenna picked up a piping bag and squirted a dollop of pink frosting in the palm of her hand. Then she rubbed it across Delaney's nose and cheeks. “You said to rub it in,” she teased.

Delaney shrugged, wiped the frosting with her finger, and took a lick. “
Un poco
messy, but still yummo,” she said, laughing.

Kylie and the girls were packing the red, white, and blueberry cupcakes in the back of her dad's car when her phone suddenly rang.

“Is this Peace, Love, and Cupcakes?” a harried woman asked on the other end.

“Yes, it is,” Kylie replied. “But we're about to make a delivery. Can we call you back?”

“It's the delivery that I'm calling about,” the woman continued. “The cupcakes for the Mount Vernon Library fund-raiser. This is Ms. Cushman, the head librarian.”

“Oh, yes!” Kylie replied. “We'll have them there soon. Five o'clock sharp, just like we promised.”

“There's a little problem,” Ms. Cushman said, hesitating. “It seems we underestimated how many guests would be coming tomorrow. We need a few more than I originally ordered.”

“Not to worry,” Kylie said. “We always bake some extras just in case. Instead of twelve dozen, you have thirteen dozen.”

“That's nice of you,” Ms. Cushman said. “But I'm afraid we need more than that for our guest list.”

Kylie held up her hand, motioning for Jenna, Sadie, Lexi, and Delaney to stop loading the car. “Exactly how many more cupcakes are we talking about?” she asked.

“Oh, just another twelve dozen.”

Kylie's mouth hung open. “Are you serious? You need us to double the order? Now? We can't!”

Sadie grabbed the phone out of her hand. “What she means is we can't—unless you pay us a rush fee. A dollar more per cupcake.”

“Fine,” Ms. Cushman said. “I'll wait for you to get here. But please hurry. My favorite show,
History Chronicles
, is on TV tonight and I never miss an episode.” She hung up.

“Sadie, are you crazy?” Kylie gasped. “We can't bake and decorate twelve dozen more cupcakes. It took us three hours yesterday to get this batch done—and it's already four o'clock.”

“I don't even think we have enough ingredients left over,” Jenna piped up. “We're low on berries, big-time.”

“It's a lot of money,” Sadie pleaded. “And I've had my eye on a new bike for the summer.”

“We've been in a cupcake crunch before,” Delaney insisted. “We can do it if we work together.”

“Let me think,” Kylie said, pacing back and forth. If there was one thing she was good at, it was dealing with a cupcake crisis. “We'll leave these cupcakes in my dad's car. It's cold out here, so they'll be fine as long as we don't move them. Jenna will ask her sister Marisol to drive her to the market while the rest of us get to work on the fondant toppers.”

Lexi shook her head. “I have to roll out fondant for another hundred and forty-four Georges?” she complained. “My poor aching wrists.”

“We'll all help,” Kylie assured her. “If we're gonna do this, it has to work like an assembly line. Sadie cracks; Delaney mixes; you and I roll.”

Jenna gave her the thumbs-up. “I texted Marisol and she's not thrilled, but she's on her way.”

• • •

When Marisol pulled up in her car she had a scowl on her face. “You owe me,” she told her younger sister as she jumped in and buckled up.

“It's not like you have anything better to do,” Jenna teased her.

“For your information, I was working on something very important.”

Jenna yawned. “What? A physics experiment? Memorizing
War and Peace
?”

“No, nothing to do with studying,” Marisol replied.

Jenna looked puzzled. “Did I interrupt you alphabetizing your book collection?” she joked. “
Lo siento!
I'm so sorry!”

“Forget it,” Marisol said in a huff. “You wouldn't understand anyway.” She pulled up in front of the market and clicked the door lock open. “Go on. I'll wait for you here.”

Jenna actually felt a little bad for teasing her sister. Something was clearly bothering her.

“Okay, I'll be quick,” she said, jumping out. “Thanks for the ride.”

Marisol shrugged. “Whatever.”

When they returned to Kylie's house, the kitchen was in full swing. “Bring those berries over here,” Sadie said, motioning to the mixing bowl. “We're ready for them.” It took them two hours to bake all three flavors and another hour to frost and decorate. It was nearly seven o'clock before they were ready to hit the road for Mount Vernon.

“Marisol said she'll help us drive them over,” Jenna told her friends. “Though she's not very happy about it—or anything actually.”

“Great. My dad's backseat is packed to capacity,” Kylie said. “Let's box 'em up and get them loaded.”

There was only enough room for two passengers in each car: Kylie and her dad, and Marisol and Jenna.

“I win Father of the Year for this,” Mr. Carson said, getting his keys. “And you're lucky it's not a school night. It'll take us at least an hour to get there—if there's no traffic, but there will be on a Friday night.”

“I'll make it up to you,” Kylie promised. “You can sleep late tomorrow morning, and I'll make you pancakes.”

“With some of those leftover blueberries?” he asked, turning on the ignition. “Now you're talkin'!”

The trip took them longer than expected. When they finally arrived at the library, it was eight thirty. Kylie knocked on the door, but it was locked and no one answered. She peered through the window and saw that everything was dark and quiet inside.

“I thought Ms. Cushman said she would wait for us,” Jenna said, carrying a stack of boxes out of the car.

“She also said she never misses an episode of
History Chronicles
,” Kylie recalled. “Which started a half hour ago.”

“Now what?” Marisol grumped. “It's freezing out here, and we've got three hundred cupcakes and no one to accept them.”

“I suggest we drive down the road and find a neighbor willing to hold them for Ms. Cushman till tomorrow morning,” Mr. Carson suggested. “Or it won't be just the cupcakes that freeze.”

They all piled back in and drove to a small house just down the street from the library. Kylie rang the doorbell and crossed her fingers.

A gray-haired man opened the door a crack and peeked outside. “May I help you?” he asked.

“I hope so!” Kylie exclaimed. “We have to deliver these cupcakes to the library but it took longer than we thought to mix the batter and Jenna had to buy berries and then we hit traffic and Ms. Cushman left to go watch her TV show.”

The man scratched his bearded chin. “I'm not sure what you're talking about,” he said. “But if you're selling cupcakes, I'll take one.”

“No.” Kylie tried to explain better. “They're for the library's annual fund-raiser tomorrow night. We're not selling any, but if you can hold on to them for Ms. Cushman to pick up tomorrow, we'll gladly give you one.”

The man opened the door the rest of the way. “I know Ms. Cushman very well, and I'll let her know I have them,” he said. “You can bring them into the kitchen and leave them there for her.”

He motioned to a room down the hall. “It's right through there, past the photos on the wall.”

As they all piled past him carrying box after box, his eyes grew wide. “I thought it was a dozen or so cupcakes…not enough for General Washington's army!”

“Sorry,” Kylie apologized. “Ms. Cushman asked us to double the amount at the last minute, so I'm afraid there's a whole carload more.”

“You might want to stack those in the living room,” he suggested. “It's a pretty small kitchen.”

As Marisol walked by, she couldn't help noticing all the amazing framed pictures. “Wow, did you take these?” she asked.

“I did,” the man said. “I used to be a professional photographer. In fact, the library has a few of my shots on display.”

She put the boxes down and walked back to get a better look. “They're amazing. Like something out of
National Geographic
magazine.”

“You have a good eye. I used to shoot for
National Geographic
.” He pointed to the signature in the corner of the print. “That's me. Harold Hammond.”

Marisol continued to study the pictures. There were several of a desert at sunset, one of lions lounging in the Serengeti, and yet another of the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

“I worked in Paris for quite a while shooting fashion models for magazines,” he said. “In my younger days.”

“It must have been incredible to travel the world and see all these sights,” Marisol said. “I wish I could.”

“It was quite an adventure,” Mr. Hammond reflected. “But now I've retired and hung up my cameras.” He seemed sad. “I'm older now. That's all behind me.”

“You must miss it,” Marisol said. “I don't know how you could ever give this up.”

“Are you a photographer?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Oh, just an amateur one,” she said, showing him a few photos on her phone. “Besides, I'm applying to college this year.”

“Those are pretty good.” He nodded. “You have real talent. If you're interested, I know some people at the Los Angeles Film School, where I went. I could put in a good word for you. They have an amazing photography department.” He handed her his business card from his wallet.

“That's so kind,” she said. “But my mother has her heart set on me going to medical school one day.”

“And what is
your
heart set on?” Mr. Hammond asked.

“Photography does seem very exciting,” Marisol said, thinking out loud. “I just don't know if I can…”

“You see this?” He showed her a picture of a dolphin flying high above the waves off the coast of Oahu. “My editor told me to get this shot. I said, ‘I don't know if I can.' And he told me, ‘You can…but are you willing to do what it takes?'”

He patted Marisol on the back. “I put the same question to you.”

Jenna found Mr. Hammond and Marisol talking in the hallway. “Here you go,” she said, handing him a white chocolate cupcake. “Thanks again for letting us crash our cupcakes overnight.”

“My pleasure,” he said, taking a lick of the frosting. “Happy to help out. Nice meeting you all and reminiscing.”

• • •

All the way home, Marisol seemed absorbed in thought. She stared ahead at the road and said nothing.

“You and that photo guy seemed to hit it off,” Jenna commented. “What were you talking about all that time?”

“Stuff,” Marisol said simply.

“What sort of stuff?” Jenna asked.

“Just stuff. It's none of your beeswax.”

Jenna shrugged. “Well, you can think about your
stuff
all you want. The only thing I'm thinking about is setting sail on our cruise Sunday morning.”

“Maybe I'll bring my camera,” her sister said suddenly. “Do you think we'll see any dolphins?”

Jenna just couldn't figure Marisol out these days! “Dolphins? Since when do you care about dolphins?”

“There's a lot I care about,” her sister insisted. “You and your friends have your cupcakes, but what do I have?”

“Amazing grades, for one thing,” Jenna said.

“I mean something that makes me
really
happy. Something I can get excited about.”

“I'd get excited if I had straight As,” Jenna said. She couldn't understand why Marisol seemed so worked up.

They pulled up in front of their home, and Marisol shut off the car's lights. “Please don't say anything to Mami or Leo,” she pleaded. “I'm just being silly.”

Jenna promised, but she had a hunch that Marisol wasn't being silly at all. She was being very serious.