Bitter Sweet (21 page)

She caught sight of the frosting
note she’d made. “Speaking of which, I better make sure this whole idea is
going to work.”

She put the finishing touches on
the cake with the burgundy flowers and went outside to start the van and get
the air conditioning up to speed. Julio gave her a hand with the cakes and she
headed out to make her deliveries.

The first was simple—a
hacienda-style restaurant where Sam knew the chef. Although the wedding
reception wasn’t to take place until the following afternoon, he’d agreed to
make a spot to store the cake in their refrigerator after the bride had
practically gone ballistic in her fear that it wouldn’t arrive on time. No
matter how early she called to check on it, he could show that it was there, on
site.

Her second delivery took her out
to the north end of town, past the ranch land where Beau’s place was, through
the little town of Arroyo Seco. Nestled among the tall trees that flanked a
narrow creek, a spacious adobe on what had once been a large estate now hosted
private events from art retreats to dances and weddings. It took her a few
minutes of backtracking before she located their driveway, an unassuming trail
between the trees. She hoped they would have some way to better mark the spot
when the wedding guests began to arrive in six hours’ time.

With the second cake safely at
its destination she turned back toward town and wound her way to Zoë’s, where
the last of the day’s bed and breakfast guests were just throwing their bags
into the trunk of a small sedan. Sam pulled down the driveway to the back of
the house, plucked the yearbook from the passenger seat of her van and met Zoë
at the kitchen door.

“Before I do one other thing,”
Sam said, “I have to see if you have a date open on your calendar. For Beau’s
and my wedding.”

Zoë led the way through the
kitchen to her small office. “For you, dear, anything. Well, nearly anything.
If someone has already paid a deposit . . .”

She picked up her reservation
book in its leather cover. Sam knew from past experience that Zoë kept two
years’ calendars in there, since many of her guests booked next year’s vacation
before they left.

“September twenty-first,” she
said as Zoë began turning pages.

A hiss as Zoë inhaled sharply.
“Ooh.”

“Oh, no, don’t tell me.” Sam felt
her mood dip. “If you don’t have that date, you’ll have to call my mother. I
can’t do it.”

“Well, we do have one group.” She
chewed at her lip. “How many rooms would you need? I know we’d talked about
putting your whole family up here.”

“What do you have?”

“I have one room for the
twentieth and twenty-first. Nothing before that. Wide open after that.”

“It’ll work. Put Mother and Daddy
in that room for those two nights. I’ll just tell them that
Rayleen’s
bunch and anyone else will have to get hotel rooms.”

Zoë drew a line through the boxes
on the calendar, making sure no one could inadvertently take those away.

“Now, the ceremony and reception?
Back in February we’d talked about using the parlor but in September . . .”

“I think you’ve read my mind. Out
in the garden would be beautiful. If Darryl doesn’t mind getting it ready?”

“He won’t have a choice.” Zoë
grinned at Sam. “No,
hon
, he won’t mind at all. There
might be extra leaves to rake but otherwise, that’s the best spot on the
property in the fall.”

Sam blew out a deep breath.
“Looks like we’re set then.”

“All set.” Zoë set down the
appointment book. “Want to take a look? Decide how you want it arranged?”

She led the way out back where
her bright freeform beds of wildflowers framed a perfectly trimmed lawn. Huge
elms and cottonwoods bordered the property and a pair of blue spruce flanked a
small pergola with a stone fountain at the rear.

“The pergola would be a nice
place for you and Beau to stand while you say your vows,” she said. “We can put
folding chairs on the lawn for the guests.”

Sam gazed around. Zoë was walking
toward the large flagstone patio where groupings of furniture formed a cozy
spot for her guests to lounge.

“We’ll rearrange these,” she was
saying, “and we can add round tables for the meal. Depending on the number of
guests, I can either do a Mexican buffet or if you had something else in mind
and want to work with a caterer . . .”

Vows. Caterer. This was really going
to happen. The beautiful garden dimmed in her vision for a second.

She shook off the momentary
freeze. Of course it was going to happen. She’d been ready for it back in
February and she was ready now. Except that her cell phone rang down in her
pocket. Flipping it open, she saw the bakery’s number.

“Sam, how soon will you be back?”
Jen asked. “There’s some kind of
mixup
with Mrs.
Sanchez’s order.”

Back to reality.

“I
gotta
go,” she told Zoë after assuring Jen that she could be there in five minutes.

She parked her van behind the
bakery and walked through the kitchen. At Sam’s inquiry about Mrs. Sanchez’s
problem, Becky shook her head and Julio shrugged. Sam took a deep breath and
walked out front.

“My fifteen year old daughter is
not
getting married,” the customer said.

Sitting on the counter was a
tiered white cake with purple flowers, ten bridesmaid figurines dressed in long
purple gowns, and a traditional bride-and-groom topper.

“This was to be her
quinceañera
cake. Vanessa can be at the top of the cake in
white, but there is
no
groom!”

Oh boy. How did this happen?

Sam looked at the order sheet Jen
had pulled out. Becky had decorated the cake but there was no point in trying
to lay blame. At this moment all she could do was fix the customer’s problem.

“Can you give me twenty minutes?
I can fix it.”
In the spare time I have between the other three cakes I have
to deliver later this afternoon.

Mrs. Sanchez didn’t look
especially thrilled at the delay, grumbling about how the party was starting in
an hour, but Jen handed her a cup of their special blend coffee and a
complimentary slice of cheesecake and settled her at one of the bistro tables.

Sam carried the cake to the
kitchen, her mind racing with ideas to make it look less bridal. Off came the
topper with the happy plastic couple.

Becky set down her pastry bag.
“Oh no, I did this one. What’s the matter with it?”

“It needs a few changes. Can you
set up the airbrush for me? Quick!”

Sam tested shades until she came
up with a lavender that set off the darker purple trim that was already on the
cake. Holding a sheet of parchment to mask off the figurines she gave quick
airbrushed spritzes of the lavender to the tiers and trim, effecting an elegant
shading of white, lavender and purple. She found a spare bridesmaid figurine
and quickly piped a white frosting dress over the standard purple one and set
the little lady on top of the cake.

“What do you think? Does this
look more appropriate for a fifteen year old?”

“She’ll love it.”

“And hopefully her mother won’t
make a big deal of the fact that we changed it at the last minute.”

“Sam, I am so sorry. I just saw
that it was two tiers, bridesmaids . . .”

“It’s okay. It’s fixed now. We’ll
all be sure we double check our instructions from now on.”

She gave the cake a final
check-over and picked it up.

Becky was right, the cake was
beautiful, although Mrs. Sanchez gave it a critical inspection before she
accepted it. At last she said that her daughter would love the colors and she
let Sam box it and carry it out to her car, where she placed it safely on the
floor.

“Whew, that was a close one,” Jen
said when Sam walked back inside.

In the kitchen, Becky went into
apologies all over again and Sam had to spend a couple minutes reassuring her
that those things sometimes happened. She’d finally turned back to her work,
carrying a sixteen inch tier for another cake from the fridge when her hip
bumped the edge of her desk.

The fondant covered tier veered
precariously and before Sam could recover, the twenty pounds of cake and fondant
crashed to the floor, smashing into a hundred pieces.

The rest of the afternoon didn’t
go any better. By the time Julio baked replacement layers for the smashed ones,
Sam knew she would miss her delivery time. The cake was to have been delivered
to the bride’s mother’s home by six o’clock, for a ten a.m. wedding the
following day. But that wasn’t happening. Sam phoned the customer and assured
her she could have the cake there in the morning.

“Sam—are you sure?” Becky asked.
“Should I plan to stay late? I can call Don. He can handle the boys for one
night.”

“No, that’s all right.” Sam felt
her energy lagging but to accomplish what she needed, she really didn’t want
her employees around.

Despite several more
fumble-fingered delays she finished the other two wedding cakes and, leaving
Becky and Julio with specific instructions to finish out their workday, she
once again climbed into the van and set out. It was after six when she made the
final delivery—she could hear the wedding music coming from the adjoining room
at the hotel.

At home she found a note from
Kelly saying that she would be out with friends for the evening. Sam wondered
what that would be like—to meet up with your pals and have dinner and see a
movie or something. It had been ages.

But she had promises to keep. She
stretched out on her bed for fifteen minutes, hoping the headache that had
plagued her for the past two hours would go away. She’d pacified her mother and
organized the venue plans for her own wedding. Appeased a frantic customer and
dealt with a few disasters. Surely she could take a moment or two for herself.
Her eyes drifted shut.

She awoke with a snap and
discovered that an hour had passed. Even with magical help she was going to
need every spare minute. She pulled the wooden box from her dresser top and
held it between her palms. As always, the wood began to warm, then to take on a
golden glow. Sam sat on the edge of the bed and placed the box on her lap,
running her hands over the uneven lumps of its quilted top, watching as the
small stones began to shine.

I know I promised myself I’d
quit relying on this to get my work done,
she thought.

The glow dimmed slightly.

Use the box to find your
answers
, Bertha’s gentle voice said.

“My everyday work shouldn’t
require these kinds of answers,” Sam muttered. She took a deep breath. “But
there are times . . .”

Heat suffused her hands. When it
became too hot she pulled them away. The box’s colors began to dim as soon as
she set it back on the dresser. Her muscles no longer ached. The nagging
headache had vanished entirely. She traded her soiled baker’s jacket for a
fresh one and washed her face at the bathroom sink. In the mirror her face
seemed younger, less tired. Her hair looked fresh and fluffy, not matted as
she’d half expected.

Thank you, Bertha.

Whatever power that box conveyed,
Sam knew she should be grateful for it. In the past she’d fought the scary
feeling of having powers that she didn’t understand. She’d tried to get rid of
the object; she’d avoided telling Beau about it for a very long time. But maybe
it was time to simply accept that this thing had come into her life and that as
long as she used these new abilities for good purposes, maybe it was all right.

For the first time in days she
felt very much at peace. She gathered her pack and picked up an apple from the
fruit bowl on the table.

The pastry shop always had a
different feel at night. Sam parked in the back and switched on the kitchen
light as she entered. A peek into the sales room told her that Jen had left
everything clean and neat, with the small night lights illuminating the window
displays. All was quiet.

With a certain Zen that had
eluded her all week, she moved between worktable and fridge, picking up her
pastry bags and tools. Her hands moved in rhythm, placing, smoothing, piping,
finishing. In the cool night hours and into the morning she set a completed
order aside, picked up another, let her artistic eye tell her what to do. Her
hands obeyed. Beautiful pastries emerged under her touch.

When the low sound of Julio’s
motorcycle rumbled into her consciousness, she was surprised to see that it was
five o’clock. She stared at her surroundings. The stack of order forms was
nearly gone. The worktable held a scattering of her tools. A glance into the fridge
revealed that all the unassembled bits and layers of cake were now beautifully
arranged and ready for their places at parties and weddings and gatherings over
the weekend.

“Sam? Everything all right?”
Julio’s voice startled her. He’d walked in and was peering over her shoulder at
the miraculous number of finished cakes in the fridge. “What—?”

She backed out, forcing him away
from the evidence.

“How did you do that?” he asked,
staring at her. Julio, an experienced baker, knew she’d accomplished the impossible.

The back door opened just then
and Becky stepped in. “Morning, everyone.” She caught the tension in the air.
“What’s up?”

“I just pulled an all-nighter,”
Sam said, keeping her tone light.

“It looks like she finished three
days’ worth of work,” Julio said, his eyes still on Sam.

Becky paused. She’d seen this
before, although she didn’t know the secret. A long two seconds of silence
passed. “Oh, she does that sometimes,” she said lightly. “Either she brings in
little elves to help out, or what I think—she just works better without
interruption.”

I owe you one, Becky.
Sam
smiled brightly. “Well, you know. I just go to town when the phone’s not
ringing and all that.”