Chapter 3
Ella
That afternoon, I wasdriving Mom’s Mercedes to the fifth bakery on her list. Each shop had been farther from town than the last. After a lot of driving, we were nearly there.
“This one is the best,” she said for the tenth time since we’d gotten in the car. “They were written up in last year’s Best New Bakeries. And miracles of miracles, they said they would consider baking for us since we’re in such dire straits. And they said they could have a sample array ready for us. Is that luck or what?”
She handed me her phone, open to a glitzy cover image with a stunning wedding cake. “Look at this.”
“Mom, I can’t. I’m driving.”
“Well, at least drive faster then.”
I pressed the gas. In this, Mom and I agreed; the less time we spent in the car with her losing her mind about a wedding cake, the better. I could feel her leaning over slightly to eyeball the speedometer, frowning that it only hovered at seventy.
A moment later, she read aloud, “‘Three Birds Bakery is the hottest new arrival at this year’s Wedding Expo Bridal Show, creating exceptional bespoke wedding cakes and indulgent dessert tables.’ Their reviews are off the charts.” She read some.
“How great can they be if they have last-minute availability?” I asked.
Mom paused midreview. “I offered to pay them an extra 70 percent to get their attention. Plus, any new business understands that connecting with an event venue opens a world of opportunities. They’ve never worked for Rolling Green, so this is good for both of us.” She scoffed and added under her breath, “For them, it’s a godsend. Goodbye King”s Bakery, hello Three Birds.”
She snuggled down into her leather bucket seat, satisfied that once again her social weight and wallet had snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat. “This could be a real silk purse from a sow’s ear situation, Ella. Your wedding is going to be just...fairy tale. Everyone who’s anyone will need to be there, and now, we will be able to feature a brand new, up-and-coming bakery. There! Ella, I see it! Turn—no, not there. See the sign?”
I pulled the Mercedes into a strip mall. Three Birds Bakery had a storefront wedged between a laundromat and a hair salon. Mom wrinkled her nose. This place definitely wasn’t the Ritz. But even though Mom talked big about throwing her money and clout around to get what she wanted, these were desperate times...unless we were going to serve sheet cake from the local grocery.
“Come on.” Mom yanked the door open and marched directly to the counter. Dingy exterior or not, the place smelled mouthwatering. People say bakeries always smell good, but I’d been in plenty that emanated burnt sugar or rancid butter. Three Birds was like walking into a warm, gooey cinnamon roll.
“Hello, we’re here about a wedding the third weekend of June.” Mom employed her businesswoman voice. I hung back, pulling out my phone. If a place smelled this good, had that great write-up, and still had availability for a wedding a month and a half off? Well, let’s just say I was scrolling results for “Three Birds Bakery” on my phone, looking for the news article where they got a D health rating for rat feces in a cake or the review that explained the bakery owner was under indictment for murder.
“Of course, Ms. Stewart! I’m so glad you made it! I’ll get the minisampler right out if you’ll take a seat,” the aproned woman behind the counter offered. “I saw the image collection you sent over, and I think we can make something perfect for the vibe you’re going for. I’ll bring over a portfolio of some of our work as well.”
“And you’ll deliver to Rolling Green Country Club?” Mom asked like she was giving a pop quiz. “You know that’s over two hours away?”
The woman at the counter smiled politely. “Yes, we can do that.”
Mom pulled out her phone, gesturing frantically for me to sit at one of the two four-top tables, as though the room were filling quickly and she needed me to save our spot. “Look at the finalization for the flowers—I just sent you the email,” she hissed at me in the seconds before her line connected. “Oh good! Hello. I’m calling about the Stewart-Sticht nuptials. Yes.”
She paced, speaking so importantly over the phone about flower arrangements I suspected Mom imagined herself as some Kris Jenner knockoff. I dutifully opened the email she’d sent, looking at photos of floral sprays, each more opulent and gaudy than the last, until I worried perhaps Mom had accidentally stumbled onto a site selling funeral wreaths instead of wedding flowers.
I smiled to myself. These arrangements weren’t my style because this wasn’t my dream wedding. This was Mom’s. I was the prodigal daughter, and my parents were throwing a party to impress upon all their friends that the decisions they’d made years ago were proven right with the test of time, because look at this perfect wedding and perfect groom. Mom felt she was giving me a gift by organizing and paying for the wedding. I felt like I was giving her a gift by letting her create this fantasy exactly as she pleased.
I forwarded the flower arrangements to Charlie because it was his wedding too, even if my parents were footing the bill. As I did so, I thought again about the furtive phone call I’d overheard between my fiancé and Bob From Work. I waited to have some sort of delayed jealous reaction—the urge to claw her eyes out or scream-call him Chuckle-Fuck the Thurd, but there was only this hollow feeling inside. I tried again to drum up any kind of possessiveness, any sense of being slighted.
I didn’t get what I wished for, but I did get a sudden twinge of...well, curiosity. I told myself that if I actually met Bob it would knock me out of this numbed state, make me feel...something. Anything.
Secret confessions from a reformed pervert? I think I secretly hoped there was room for me in their affair. I let myself imagine some mysterious third party in bed with Charlie and me. All I got was a dose of heartache and flashbacks of Jack and Hailey for my trouble. I had been plenty jealous back then. Once I’d made Hailey get on her knees and lick me as Jack had been inside me, sliding slowly in and out. I had been the exact center of the known universe.
“Do you have a restroom?” Mom called over the counter in a voice suggesting there was only one correct answer. The woman who’d helped us had disappeared in the back, leaving my mother unattended.
From the back room of the store, the woman called, “There’s one in the salon next door. We’re coming right out with the sampler. Just give us a minute to finish the presentation.”
Mom huffed, clearly debating whether to leave for the bathroom now or wait. She checked her phone.
“Save me a piece of every flavor,” she ordered as she strode toward the door. “Especially if they have pistachio.”
Then she was gone, undoubtedly looking forward to terrorizing the salon employees with her minor authority of being told she could use their restroom.
Who was Bob From Work? Both bored and curious, I google-stalked Charlie’s social media, searching for his mystery paramour. I had enough of my mother’s predisposition to know that being put in this position (cheating fiancé weeks before the wedding) should’ve sent me into a tailspin.
Whenever Dad got into trouble with Mom, she got a sizable piece of jewelry. She’d proudly tell you all about it too: “This is the gold necklace Chad bought me after he insulted my mother on her birthday. Twenty-two carat Singapore chain.” Or: “This is the Tiffany T-smile in gold and diamonds Chad gave me after he canceled our trip to Paris for work.”
I tried to imagine what I should want from Charlie. If Jack had ever cheated on me or lied to me, the only gift I would’ve considered accepting would be his front tooth in a six-prong setting, because I didn’t want things. I wanted him. And if he cheated, I would’ve wanted blood.
But with Charlie? I couldn’t even drum up the angst to demand a pair of earrings.
Actually, as I considered his situation, what I felt was a reluctant kinship. He had a side piece in real life. I had a matched set in my heart. If I could get Charlie to talk to me about his affair, maybe I could tell him about the part of my life I’d kept secret from everyone else. The idea lit me up with excitement. God, I hadn’t realized until this moment how badly I needed that connection, for someone to see the real me.
I was methodically scrolling through his followers, taking mental note of the private accounts in particular, searching for anyone named Bob, when the bakery kitchen’s swinging double doors flew open, signaling the likely arrival of the tasting plate. Reluctantly, I closed my browser and straightened, eyes lifting to the server’s platter...only to immediately catch, full in the face, a dozen squares of wedding cake and swatches of frosting stuck to little doilies. I cursed at the shock of the unexpected assault. The platter hit the floor with a loud ring.
“Oh, no!” The noise summoned the woman who’d spoken to my mother. She shoved through the double doors, face aghast as I wiped bits of food away from my eyes. “Hailey, what happened? Oh, I am so sorry!”
It never failed. Even with a face full of frosting and bits of sponge, I heard that name and my insides tensed, ready to fight or fuck. Usually both. There were a million girls named Hailey, and I’d tensed at each first introduction, so as I cleared the frosting from my lashes so I could open my eyes, I was prepared for disappointment. The other woman fell to her knees, wiping helplessly at the crumbs and chunks of cake in my lap.
Hailey Tomlin stood in front of me, platter still clattering noisily on the floor, her big brown eyes huge in her beautiful face.
Time slowed down, and I saw everything: She’d cut her hair shoulder length. It was still thick and glossy but now had a slight wave to it. The tightly tied apron accentuated her still impossibly cartoonish hourglass shape, but now her cheekbones were sharper. She’d lost that round baby face from high school. Her lips were still bee-stung, but maybe that was because they were pulled into a near-perfect O of surprise.
But most of all, it was really her. After all this time.
She said nothing, and I said nothing, but whatever we weren’t saying was so loud that the woman stopped brushing crumbs from my lap, got up, and muttered, “I’ll get you some napkins from in back,” before disappearing through the swinging doors.
I had stopped following Hailey on social media for obvious reasons: seeing her did this to me. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders, throw her onto the cake-bombed floor, and lick every inch of her body.
I licked my bottom lip instead. Buttercream.
“Hi.” It came out as a sigh that sounded way too much like an orgasm. My face, throat, and chest heated with embarrassment. Hailey did that to me too.
“Hi?” she demanded. “HI?! Fuck you.”
Hailey turned on her heel. I got up to follow, to chase her down and do that licking thing until she begged me to keep going, but Hailey slid through the double doors as the other woman came out with a stack of napkins, blocking me. I peered over her shoulder, about to dart around.
“I’m so sorry!” the other woman insisted, shoving the napkins at me, either too distracted by her own embarrassment or purposely giving Hailey time to escape. My body was on fire. Like, woken up from the dead, painful kind of burn.
The front door of the bakery swung open. I tried to dart past the baker. She stuck her arm out to block me. I leaned forward against it like a hunting dog, I was so keen. After years of trying to forget. Hailey.
“What in the name of God happened here?” Mom demanded, aghast.
I froze, guilty, my senses returning.
“My fault,” the woman handing me a stack of napkins lied smoothly. “I’m so sorry. I tripped.”
“Well, we’re not paying for that,” Mom said.
“No! No, of course not.” The baker blushed painfully.
“Well, can you bring out another tray? Ella, you’re a mess. Is that shirt silk? Oh, this is a disaster!”
“Mom, it’s fine.” I took the napkins, my heart beating too hard.
She wheeled on me. “This is not fine. How are they going to make this up to us?”
“I can make you up another platter if you have twenty minutes.”
“Mom...” I warned. Of course she would act like the worst sort of asshole within earshot of Hailey. “It’s fine. And from what I tasted, the cake is fantastic.”
Mom scowled at me. Clearly, I was messing up Mom’s bartering technique.
“In fact,” I said loudly, hoping Hailey could hear me somewhere back there, “This is absolutely the best cake I’ve ever had in my life. This is the cake I want. I want...what is this?” I wiped my finger across my chest and examined a white sponge with peach dots.
The woman leaned in just slightly. “Um, that’s...that appears to be the Peaches and Cream. It’s a vanilla sponge with seasonal peaches and drizzled with peach juice.”
“I want that,” I said emphatically. “For the top layer, the one we save for our anniversary.” I started that sentence out strong, wanting Hailey to hear that I would keep something she made forever in my freezer if it meant having a piece of her with me. But that promise came wrapped with the terrible admission I was marrying someone else.
Oh, my God. I was marrying someone else.
“What is it?” Mom asked worriedly, still on her drama kick and perhaps hoping to stir up something more for a discount or whatever she could get out of Three Birds Bakery.
I shook my head, legit light-headed. Or like I might throw up. Or both. How could I be marrying someone else when Hailey was right here? And Jack. Where was he?
“Buttercream frosting,” I said, my voice froggy.
I stood suddenly, desperate to brush past my mother and the other woman, to go back there and see Hailey again, to tell her how sorry I was I’d messed everything up. I’d kiss her until she changed from “fuck you” to “fuck me.”
The other baker took a distinct step, blocking my way. She knew Hailey didn’t want to see me. Still, I tried to sidestep. The baker scowled. Right. She’d definitely heard Hailey tell me to fuck off, and I was a customer covered in cake, so the baker had to be worried I was gonna start something.
I gave the baker a wobbly smile to let her know I meant Hailey no harm...other than totally wrecking her pussy the second I got near her.
“This really is the best...the best cake, and I must have it for my wedding,” I practically yelled over her shoulder into the back room.
“Of course,” the baker said.
“Well, what the bride wants, the bride simply must have,” Mom said in this half-indulgent, half-put-upon tone. “But the entire cake can’t be peach. And we don’t have time to wait for you to redo the whole sampler. You’ll have to send a makeup to-go box to Rolling Green, and I will order the other flavors. And if we are ordering a cake for 350 from your bakery, including the extras I mentioned earlier, then you will definitely have to send us a complimentary grand taster. I want every flavor you make.”
“Of course,” the baker agreed quickly, ushering us subtly toward the front door.
Driving two hours to deliver a comped cake platter undoubtedly lost Three Birds money. I could only assume by Mom’s braggart tone that the promise of more money later made up for it.
Mom took a moment to be smug, then initiated the kinder second act of her negotiation tactics. “And of course, when you send it to Rolling Green, I’ll make sure everyone there has a taste. Any bakery that makes the cut for the owners” daughter will become a fan favorite of other young couples scheduling their weddings there.”
The woman brightened at this, which made Mom brighten. My mother turned to me, and her smile faded. “Ugh, I’m going to have to get the car detailed after we get you home. You’re a mess!”