Death by the Dozen (5 page)

He handed her a form from the school, and sure enough, there was his name, his counselor’s name, and Mel’s bakery all filled out in very official-looking ink. His transcript was attached.

“Wouldn’t you be happier at a guitar store or a tattoo parlor?” Angie asked him while Mel scanned the papers.

“No,” he growled. “I like baking, but I’m not gay.”

Mel and Angie both looked at him.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he added.

Mel glanced at the papers, noting he had taken several culinary classes at Urban Tech and his grades were excellent.

“Oz, could you wait here for just a minute?” Mel asked.

“Sure.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the cupcakes in the large display case.

“Angie, can I have a word?” Mel asked.

They sidled to the far end of the counter, neither of them eager to leave him unchaperoned in the bakery.

“He’s going to scare the frosting off of our cupcakes,” Angie whispered. “Not to mention our customers. What are we supposed to do with him?”

“Not exactly the cute cheerleader we were picturing, is he?”

“That would be a negative,” Angie said.

“Would we be crazy to give him the job?” Mel asked.

Angie frowned. As a former teacher, this was a moral dilemma for her. She believed in giving all kids a chance, but they couldn’t ignore the fact that Oz looked more like a bouncer than a baker, and there was no telling how their touristy customers would react to finding a sullen punk rocker behind the counter.

“‘We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?’” Angie asked.

“
Psycho
,” a voice said from in front of the counter. “Nice.”

Oz’s pierced lips slid into a surprisingly charming Cheshire cat grin as he correctly identified the movie Angie had quoted.

Mel quirked up an eyebrow and studied him. “You like movies?”

“‘You talking to me?’” he asked in a terrible New York accent.

Mel and Angie exchanged another look.

“
Taxi Driver
,” they said together.

“It’s a sign,” Angie said. “I move that we give him a shot.”

“I second that,” Mel agreed. “Welcome to Fairy Tale Cupcakes, Oz.”

Mel reached out a hand, and Oz grasped it and gave it a solid pump up and down. Then he did a complicated thing where he grasped her fingers, slid the back of his hand across the back of hers, and then pounded his fist on top of hers.

It made Mel feel uncoordinated and awkward, but Angie jumped right in. “Hey, teach me that!”

“Sure,” he said, and he went through the same motions with Angie, who, Mel noticed, seemed to catch on much more quickly.

“What does
Oz
stand for?” Mel asked.

“It’s my nickname,” he said. “Short for Oscar Ruiz.”

The bells jangled on the door, and several customers walked in. Angie motioned for Oz to come around the counter.

“I’ll give him the down-and-dirty tour,” she said. “And then you can figure out his hours.”

“Give him an apron, too,” Mel said.

“On it.” Angie led him through the door behind the counter into the kitchen. “So, Oz, are you partial to blue or pink?”

“That depends,” he said. “Are we talking hair dye or clothes?”

“Aprons,” Angie said. “We’re talking aprons.”

“Nothing in black, huh?”

Angie looked him up and down. “ ‘You are a rumor, recognizable only as déjà vu, and dismissed just as quickly.’” She continued quoting the movie, watching Oz to see if he knew it. When she took a breath to finish, Oz joined in, “ ‘We’re “them.” We’re “they.” We are the Men in Black.’ ”

Oz’s head bounced on his shoulders in a slow, approving nod, and he and Angie exchanged their complicated handshake once again.

Mel rolled her eyes. Leave it to them to get a movie junkie intern.

“Go.” She shooed them into the back. Oz ambled ahead of Angie, and she turned at the kitchen door to face Mel.

“He knew the quote from
Men in Black
,” Angie said. “I want to keep him. Heck, I want to adopt him.”

“Then tell him he’d better be as good with a whisk as he is at shaking hands,” Mel said. She gave Angie a push into the kitchen before turning to smile at their customers.

“Welcome to Fairy Tale Cupcakes,” she said. “What can I get for you?”

“Don’t you have anything besides cupcakes?”

The woman speaking was tall and thin, too thin, making her head look overly large for her body as it perched on her shoulders like a beach ball. It didn’t help that her hair was dyed an unnatural shade of red, a cranberry hue with magenta highlights, and her face had seen so many nips and tucks it had developed an alarming sheen from being stretched too tight.

She was a standard-issue Scottsdale matron, one of the ones who had more money than sense. Mel had observed her type all her life. Sadly, these women seemed to be clinging more desperately to their youth than ever before, as if wrinkles and gray hair were a bad thing. Who had decided that? And why did all of these women buy into it?

“Well, we are a cupcake bakery,” Mel said. “So, we pretty much stick to cupcakes.”

The woman made a bad face, as if she’d just caught a whiff of sour milk.

“What’s the problem, Audra?” the redhead’s companion asked.

She was short and stout, dressed in an unfortunate leopard print. Her hair was big and blonde, and her fingernails were long and painted leprechaun green with little gold rhinestones glued on them.

“All they have is cupcakes,” Audra whined. “Carrie, I wanted a nibble of something sweet, not a whole cupcake. How could I possibly eat a whole cupcake?”

The blonde let out a put-upon sigh. “Just buy a cupcake. Take your nibble and I’ll eat the rest.”

“Do you really think that’s wise?” Audra asked, eyeing Carrie’s middle with one eyebrow raised. It was not a nice look.

Carrie’s eyes narrowed, and Mel glanced at the counter to make sure there were no sharp implements for the one named Carrie to use as weapons. She needn’t have worried.

“Oh, my dear
older
sister,” Carrie said, her voice sweeter than Mel’s bin of sugar, “aren’t you a love to worry about your younger, wrinkle-free baby sister?”

Audra’s lips tightened—well, Mel thought they did. It was hard to be sure, given the immobility of her face.

“The only thing babyish about you is your fat rolls,” Audra snapped.

Mel winced. That was a pretty low blow.

“Ooh!” Carrie gasped. “Listen, you bony-bottomed, knock-kneed twig—”

The bells on the door handle jangled again, and Mel was relieved that the arrival of more customers cut off Carrie’s tirade and forced the two sisters to cease and desist their squabble.

Carrie pointed out the cupcakes she wanted, and Mel packed up the six-pack of cupcakes for them and sighed with relief when they paid and left.

The newcomers were studying the menu board. They were a group of three, an older, sturdy-looking couple with a younger woman standing in between them. Mel turned to them with her usual welcome smile, but the older woman in the group glared at her.

“I don’t see what’s so special about these cupcakes,” the woman said, obviously not caring whether Mel heard her or not.

“Mom, shh,” the young woman said. She cast Mel an apologetic look.

“Why are we here again?” the man asked, but the woman hushed him.

From his vacant expression, Mel got the feeling he wasn’t all there. The older woman gave him an irritated look as if he was being forgetful just to annoy her.

“May I help you?” Mel asked.

“Hi, my name is Polly Ramsey,” the young woman said, and she held out her hand.

Mel shook her hand and guessed the young woman was in her early twenties. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, and her long light brown hair was scraped back in a tight ponytail at the crown of her head. She wore no makeup and had a pretty face, but her ears stuck out like handles, and Mel thought she might want to reconsider the ponytail.

“Hi, Polly. I’m Mel. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Hunh,” the older woman grunted. She glanced around the bakery, obviously not liking anything she was seeing.

“How can I help you?” Mel asked.

“I just, uh, well, I wanted to . . .” Polly’s face turned an alarming shade of red as she stammered to a halt.

Mel waited, figuring Polly would get there eventually.

“I’m in the challenge to the chefs, pastry division,” she said. “In the food festival.”

“Oh.” Mel leaned on the counter and said, “So, you’ve come to check out the competition.”

“As if she needs to,” her mother scoffed with a sniff.

Polly gave her a pained look. “I’m sorry, my mother is a little biased about my skills.”

“That’s understandable,” Mel said, pushing back up off the counter. “Although rudeness is not.”

Polly’s mother gave her a scathing look and spun on her heel and went to study the open cabinet in the corner that held all sorts of Fairy Tale Cupcake swag, such as T-shirts and coffee cups, featuring their atomic cupcake logo, newly designed by a fashion designer acquaintance of theirs, Alma Rodriguez, in a trade for cupcake deal.

The logo featured an aqua and pink cupcake with the swirls of an atom going around it. It really suited their fifties decor; even Alma had been pleased with her design.

“I’m sorry,” Polly said. She looked painfully earnest, and Mel took pity on her.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mel said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I’ve never been in one of these competitions before,” Polly said. “I’m afraid I’m in over my head, and I just wanted to meet someone else who was competing. I saw your name on the list, and I figured I’d pop in to say hello. Is that weird?”

“Nah, you’re just looking for a friendly face. I felt like that when I started cooking school. I’ve never done one of these competitions either,” Mel said. “So you’re not alone. I take it you’re a professional baker?”

“Not really. I run a cookie basket company out of my apartment. I started it a year ago, and it just took off.”

“Impressive,” Mel said.

“Yeah, then Mom entered me in this competition because she thinks it’ll give the business a lot of publicity.”

“It might,” Mel said. “That’s pretty much why we entered. Well, that and the ten-thousand-dollar prize.”

“She thinks with Vic Mazzotta judging, I’ll get on TV,” Polly said. She looked mortified, and Mel felt sorry for her. It appeared Mrs. Ramsey was the “pushy stage mother” type.

Mel’s own mother, Joyce, was nothing like that, for which Mel was extremely grateful. Joyce was happy as long as her kids were happy. Well, and as long as Mel kept dating Joe. Her mother always called him “dear Joe” and lived in constant fear that Mel was going to muck it up.

“Well, I don’t know about any of that,” Mel said. “But I do think it will be fun.”

Polly looked doubtful.

Mel was about to give her another pep talk when Angie and Oz came back through the kitchen door.

“Nice,” Oz said. “You’ve got a sweet Hobart mixer back there.”

“Thanks,” Mel said.

She glanced back at Polly, who was looking at Oz with huge eyes. Her mother came up behind her as if to protect her from the ogre from the kitchen.

“Polly, this is my staff,” Mel said. “Angie DeLaura, my partner, and Oz Ruiz, our intern.”

“You let
that
into your kitchen?” Mrs. Ramsey asked. She gave Oz a once-over that said she found him wanting.

Now Mel was annoyed. It was one thing to be rude to her; it was quite another to be rude to her staff.

“I don’t really see how it’s any of your business,” she snapped.

“Yeah,” Angie said. “Who are you anyway?”

“Polly’s mother,” Mel said. “Polly is in the challenge to the chefs, too.”

“Well, Polly, unless you want to alienate everyone in the competition, you might want to muzzle your mother,” Angie said and pointed at Mrs. Ramsey, who sucked in an outraged breath.

“I don’t have to take that,” Mrs. Ramsey huffed.

“No, you don’t,” Angie agreed. “You can leave. Now.”

Polly looked down as if she hoped the black-and-whitetile floor had a built-in escape hatch. No such luck.

“I’d like a cupcake,” Mr. Ramsey said. “A pink one.”

“No,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “You can’t have one.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t that why we’re here? To have cupcakes?” he asked.

“No, you dolt.” Mrs. Ramsey grabbed her husband’s arm none too gently and hustled him out the door.

He tried to dig in his rubber orthopedic heels, but she had a good grip on his arm and Mel could see the muscles bunch in her upper arm. She was no weakling. He gave her a mean stink eye but didn’t make any more protests as she pushed him out the door.

“Sorry,” Polly apologized again.