Chapter Sixteen
Lily
T oday is one of those days in which the always cozy—though somewhat unhinged—town of Birch Borough officially loses it.
Bake Fest kicks off today. It’s a town-wide event. Everyone turns out to watch the contestants face off in a battle worthy of the greatest baking shows in history. While participants include people who wishfully dream of being on The Great British Baking Show (or The Great British Bake Off , in Great Britain) but have never baked a cake in their lives, we also have those who have taken on baking as a serious hobby, plus local pastry chefs who could use more publicity.
It’s one of those rare days in our small New England town in which, as much as we care about each other, everyone is out for themselves. Our baking battles are savage. The townspeople get downright territorial over their blueberry scones and lemon pound cakes.
Bake Fest happens in two rounds. One round must include chocolate, but it can’t be used in both. Personally, I wish the judges would add another round so I can at least assess if I have the stamina to compete on one of my favorite television baking shows. Because you never know what the future holds. If Graham can be talent-scouted for a movie role, I can certainly find myself being filmed in a culinary showdown.
The winner receives more than just a plate, though it’s not much. The judges present a plate with the official Bake Fest logo, the year it was won, and a twenty-five-dollar gift card to Ted’s Pet Shoppe, which is unfortunate because I don’t have a pet.
I’ve won several times over the years. If I win again, I almost might want to get a dog. I don’t think I’d do well with a fish, for some reason. As much as I love animals (and marine life), I don’t think I could handle beady little eyes that don’t respond.
When I’ve won in the past, I usually picked someone in town with a pet and said, “Go nuts!” This year, I’ve already decided to give the gift card to my favorite waitress, Lucy, for her cat. Liam’s cat already has sponsorships and enough food gifted for the next few years that it’s like he won a lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni on The Price is Right .
I’ve been training for Bake Fest my whole life. When Harold, our town clerk, stands at the front of the flower-covered pavilion and yells, “Let the baking begin!” what ensues is a rush of pure adrenaline fueled by sugar. The view is beautiful since it is near the river, but the makeshift cooking stations are pure mayhem.
I love it. I’ve been competing in Bake Fest since I was eligible the year I turned sixteen.
Sparrow isn’t into it. She likes to sample everything, of course, but she always says she wants to enjoy baking for others. She has enough to worry about at our bakery, and she doesn’t need another thing to keep her up at night. Meanwhile, I’ve been slowly crushing my way through all the hopes and dreams of the other contestants each and every year. Most years, I haven’t won, but I still show up and expect to annihilate the competition. It seems like the only thing I’ve known how to quit was Graham.
While I could demolish everyone with my chocolate cake recipe every year, I was banned from ever making it again when I was seventeen. Someone asked to buy it from me, and good ol’ Harold thought it was gambling. He didn’t want to go to jail since I was underage. I’ve tried to repeal the ban several times but to no avail. The Bake Fest council takes it so seriously that at the top of the application is now written, No chocolate cakes allowed , as if verbally banning me from competing with it is not enough.
This year, I’m making fluffernutter cookies. Yes, that’s right—peanut butter cookies with a thick swirl of homemade marshmallow crème. They are divine. I’ve been perfecting the recipe for months. While Sparrow is known for her croissants and macarons, I am known for my chocolate creations and decadent cookies. I like to crush things on top of my cookie creations just to see how they will taste. (Things like espresso beans, not crickets—I don’t care if they’re good protein.)
Swiftly, I gather my ingredients. I am trying to play it cool because I know that Graham just walked over to join Sparrow and Rafe. Our friends are back from Nashville and watching nearby, stretched out on a blanket in the grass with a picnic basket between them. They are spreading out cheese and wine (as if we needed a reminder that they’re French). Graham is sitting with them, of course.
I shake off the distraction of his handsome face in my peripheral vision. Focusing all my energy on each baking step, I begin measuring my sugar and flour and getting everything sorted.
In typical fashion, before I know it, thirty minutes have flown by. There is flour all over my apron and sticky marshmallow fluff woven through the ends of my hair. A blob of peanut butter somehow landed a few feet from me in the grass, and a squirrel is now going to town on it. You’re welcome, buddy.
Bless Sparrow. She knows when I’m in the zone. It is no surprise that when my cookies slide into the little makeshift oven at my bake station, she appears beside me. Rafe and Graham trail not far behind her.
I sneak a glance at Graham when he nears. When I find him looking at me, I give him a little nod. It’s all I can manage without completely losing my focus.
I’m still reeling from him sleeping over on my apartment floor the other night. I remember the lights coming on and the rain slowing down to almost nothing before we fell asleep. There was no panicked moment, wondering what to do with only one bed available. Before it even got to that, we fell asleep in each other’s arms. Well, I woke up in his, but I hope he didn’t notice.
We exchanged an awkward goodbye as Graham walked out with the fuzzy croissant socks tucked into his dress shoes after I insisted he keep them. We haven’t talked about that night since. But when I saw him crossing the street yesterday, I waved. I lifted my hand in greeting, a shy smile on my face .
In the last few days, something has shifted for us. I don’t think either one of us knows what to do with this new dynamic yet.
And while my palm is still sore and my heart still tender, I’m trying my best to get it together.
“Did you hear from them today, Lils?” Sparrow asks quietly, a furrow in her brow. By “them,” I know she’s referring to my parents. But if they didn’t call me on my birthday because they were training new doctors for one of their clinics, there’s no reason for me to expect a call before the humble Bake Fest.
I shake my head, a hint of melancholy overshadowing my usual spunk. I should be used to being overlooked by them by now. What I do feels so small compared to what they accomplish each day, changing the trajectory of lives, often saving them. Still, it stings. What if I have inherited their indifference, their dedication to their passions at the expense of those they love? A fresh wave of guilt hits, followed by the determination to remember why I know I’m not cut out to love someone like he would deserve. The proof can be found by looking over at Graham and letting it sink in how much I’d fail if given another chance, no matter how much I’ve wanted one. The truth is a necessary punch to my gut.
“So, whatcha makin’ for round one this year?” Sparrow interrupts my downward spiral by changing the subject. I send her a grateful grin. Only she can ask me about my baking and get away with a smile from me instead of an eye roll.
“Fluffernutter cookies,” I reply. I lift my eyes to Graham, who looks as if he just caught sight of Gladys when she decides it’s seventies day and wears bell bottoms and a flower crown in her hair. What a hero that gal is.
“George?” I say in his direction. “Something offensive about the cookie I’m making?”
At this, Graham shakes himself out of a stupor and clears his throat. “No, not at all.”
“Is this that peanut-butter-and-marshmallow thing that is common here?” Rafe asks, taking a bite of one of the maple croissants Sparrow packed from the shop.
I grin at the smile he flashes Sparrow while he bites into it, like he just can’t help but look at her no matter what he is doing. I mean, the man sings for her, for crying out loud. You’d think she’d combust from all the affection, but in truth, I’ve never seen her so happy. The sentiment shoots discomfort throughout my chest, and I rub the spot to try to massage it away.
“Yes, it is,” Graham answers before Sparrow can reply.
At first, I think he jumps in because, after all, the man lives for questions and riddles and attempting to make sense of the world around him.
But then, he continues, “They’re my favorite. I grew up on those sandwiches.”
I freeze. His gaze flits over to me for the last bit, and my hands instantly tense as I try to make sense of this sophisticated man eating the humble (but incredible) fluffernutter sandwich. I know he experienced a rough few years when his father left. My whole class knew they sustained me during my senior year of high school . . . and that makes sense to me, but Graham? The man with the perfectly creased pants? I can’t fathom it.
“That can’t be true,” I mutter under my breath .
His eyes remain focused on mine as he replies, “I assure you that it is.”
“Well, I can’t wait to try these cookies,” Rafe says with a smile.
Sparrow wishes me luck, and she and Rafe turn toward their picnic area. As Graham pivots to follow them, I find myself murmuring, “I didn’t know.”
He looks back at me. His face catches the light, transforming his eyes into a deep pool of blue water. “There are a lot of things you didn’t know.” He’s in motion but pauses to say, “Oh, and I’m sorry your parents didn’t call you. You deserve to know how valuable you are. In what you think are the small things and the big things. Even when you doubt it.”
I’m left staring in his wake until I jump at the sound of the buzzer.
∞∞∞
Round one was a breeze. My fluffernutter cookies knocked the socks off the judges, so much so that their feet should be feeling cold right about now.
I’m confident I can win this contest again with my second-round recipe. I’ll be using homemade crunchy shelled eggs—the pretty pastel ones with a sweet coating—and integrating them into brownies. The dessert is decadent. It’s sweet. And it’s my favorite thing to make around Easter. The holiday may have already passed, but the spirit of it is still going strong in Birch Borough.
It’s a good thing too, because I may have gone a bit overboard with my candy-making a couple of weeks ago. There are approximately two hundred chocolate bunnies left that I need to distribute before my landlord realizes the chocolate scent in my studio apartment isn’t a room freshener.
The scent of burned sugar carries on the light breeze, and I search the stations for the culprit. I nearly cackle when I see a ruined pan fly through the air, landing with a thud on the grass. One down.
I am in the process of stirring the batter, thinking of all the ways I will celebrate (or gloat) my victory, when the air around me suddenly begins to buzz with intensity. I know that feeling. Graham.
I spare a few precious seconds of concentration to lift my head. Sure enough, he’s a few yards from my station, leaning against a tree, and just . . . watching. Not in a creepy way, of course—he doesn’t have it in him. No, he’s staring at me as if he remembers exactly how much he loves sweets and how much I used to love making them for him.
I drag my attention away and back to my task. After scraping the bowl with a spatula and filling the baking pan with the batter, I chop up the chocolates and arrange them across the top so they sink in, but only just. Since they are so sweet, the trick is to add dark chocolate and decrease the sugar in your brownie batter just a bit for the perfect balance.
I look up to meet Graham’s eyes again, wishing I could decipher him. The fluffernutter thing isn’t sitting right. I know he had a rough time growing up and started working when it was close to illegal, but the look in his eye when the sandwiches were mentioned tells me that—true to his character—there is a weight in his past that he tried to shield me from when we were together. I guess it’s hard to see people clearly when we’re sure we already know the full story.
With a start, I realize the stand mixer has been spinning nonstop for the past several minutes while I’ve been distracted by Graham’s presence.
“Argh!” I growl into the air as I check my egg whites. Completely deflated. I throw the batter bowl down and look up to find Graham again, but he’s gone.
Pulling off the mixing bowl and beginning again with a clean one from our table of supplies, I start over.
Minutes fly by, and it’s only when I’m cutting into the brownies and using a piping bag to create little meringue flowers across the top that I feel the relief of creating something I love. Plus, I get to use a torch to brown the meringues, which is excellent.
Sparrow and Rafe are standing up and cheering as the crowd counts down the dwindling time left in the competition.
“Three, two, one!” our host yells into the air, and applause and laughter ring out.
Our town reporter is circling, ready to go in for the kill of the story of small-town New England residents out-baking each other. If they wanted drama, they got it. I’m pretty sure we’ve had one injury (non-fatal), three burned desserts (fatal to cakes, at least), and four hundred ways that Graham has taken over my mind (verdict: unsure).
After bringing our second round of desserts to the judges’ table, I wait with hands clasped behind my back. It takes ages for everyone to get judged. A line of us arrange ourselves in a makeshift formation. There’s trash-talking (mostly from Gladys, who isn’t even participating) but mainly laughter. I keep to myself for the most part. After all, I came here to win.
Perhaps I didn’t realize it before, but my inner challenger is telling me I have to win this year of all years. Graham has traveled all over the world, sampling the best of foods. And here I am, in this humble baking competition. I’ve never been ashamed of what I do, but I promised him I would go on adventures when I left LA. I declared my dream to see the world and never made good on it. I have to make good on it.
Harold walks to the makeshift podium near the pavilion decorated with old-timey banners and balloons whirling their way toward the powder-blue sky. A microphone appears. “Right, well, let’s hear from our judges.”
Liam walks around with a boom box, playing music I know must be crushing his soul. He’s an artist forced to play from the monstrosity of official Bake Fest music that is decades old. What I think must be a cassette tape whirs within the machine. He sets it on the ground with more force than I’ve ever seen him use and pulls a harmonica from the back of his jeans. A. Harmonica.
He starts to play it, the tin-sounding music fading against his talented rhythm, the boom box forgotten in a heap that will most likely show up in the consignment shop around the corner by tomorrow. I hold back a laugh as Harold tries to figure out where the music is coming from.
“Judith Wilkins.” Her name is announced, and Judith walks up to the judges’ table, her hands shaking a bit as they play with the greying hair twisted in a knot at the top of her neck .
The names just keep coming, a dozen contestants in all, before they finally get to me. “Lily Thomas.”
I take a breath and do a little hop toward the front like I lost my dignity when my name was called. An amused laugh rustles through the crowd. Honestly, I’m not paid nearly enough for the entertainment I bring to this town.
Liam changes the tune to “Baby” by the Biebs—you haven’t lived until you’ve heard it on a harmonica—and I hang my head in defeat. Most of the demographic collected here today won’t recognize the song, but it still makes me laugh.
The judges are doing their thing. Harold has moved to the end of the table and is eating like his life depends on it. I swear he scrapes his fork enough times that I want to tell him to just lick the plate and put us out of our misery before he decides he’s done.
I turn around, telling myself it’s to see Sparrow and Rafe cheering me on. But my heart warms when I spot Graham at the front of the spectators. He seems to be hanging on every word, brow furrowed, carefully watching the judges’ expressions, because of course he is. He’s taking in every movement, every word, and he’s making assessments and calculations of my odds of winning.
I feel my heart leap a little. Something about him living here in Birch Borough is unraveling the walls I’ve built bit by bit. I thought I was reacting to his proximity, but I’m not.
I see Graham starting to belong. He has a secret handshake with the Andrews kids now. Gladys looks at him like he’s her nephew, no longer just a handsome man to trick into being in her somewhat scandalous calendar. I’m unraveling because my heart warms when he shows up for town events. It’s not because Graham doesn’t think there’s anything better than Birch Borough. He’s lived across the country and defended plenty of celebrities before Rafe (who is kind of a celebrity in his own right due to his family’s French fashion house). It’s because he chooses to be present in these moments. Usually, he’s all calculations and wanting to know the facts, but here, he’s right where he is, taking everything in without pretense every time you see him.
He catches my eye. I flash him a grin, not even caring to make a witty comeback or trying to tear him down. Somewhere in me, I know I need to stop digging up what has taken me so long to plant. I have to stop trying to be on the apps, swiping right (or left), when the love of my life is here.
Maybe I can learn a thing or two from being more in the moment like Graham. After all, it was thinking too much of the future that caused me to run from what we had in the first place. It was never him, and it was nothing he did. I can blame the surprise of the ring all I want, but he didn’t read our relationship wrong. It wasn’t too fast. I was the one who didn’t stand up again when I was brought to the mat by my fear.
The energy that crackles between us is alive and well. It’s so strong that I don’t hear my name mentioned. I only turn when Graham nods and looks behind me, a smile overtaking his face. I shake myself out of my trance and finally become aware of the clapping all around me. I hear the cheers in the crowd from Sparrow and Rafe.
“That a girl!”
Without even turning around, I know the compliment came from Graham. I’m convinced I could pick the man’s voice out of a crowd, even in the middle of a Boston sports game.
“Lily Thomas, please claim your prize!”
I walk to the front of the crowd, relief hitting my shoulders and tears threatening to spill. I brush them away with the back of my hand and walk up to the podium to grab my gift card and plate. This year, a little egg is painted in the corner of the logo. It is almost as if they knew this was my year to win another one of these humble prizes.
I nod my thanks and hop down the stairs, heading immediately toward my station before I’m bombarded by more people. I’m hoping to avoid the town journalists, but there’s no luck of that. I’m pulled in for a photo for an article for The Seacoast Gazette , our local magazine publication. A group of those wild youth (or, as Schmidt from New Girl would say, “ youths ”) clamors around. They are really darlings but just want to take unflattering selfies with me to post on their social channels.
It’s only when it’s five or thirty minutes later that I finally make it back to my station to stash my prizes in a large tote and pull out a container from the supply shelf.
“Ahh! Lils, you did it!”
My smile is genuine as I start hacking at the leftover brownies and dishing them up to my friends, even Liam. Graham stands off to the side, silently observing with a soft smile on his face. He’s not looking at me, but still, he looks happy.
While my friends—well, our friends, since Graham has been making them with or without me—talk about Liam’s harmonica solo, I move toward Graham. He’s positioned near the edge of the table, so I walk backward, smiling and hoping that no one notices my attempt to be subtle.
“Well done, Lils. I’m happy for you.”
I pivot to face him in surprise. He still isn’t looking at me.
“And you didn’t sabotage me once,” I reply. The twitch in his jaw gives his amusement away. “I made you something,” I continue softly.
At this, he does turn. The sun casts such a striking shadow on the curve of his cheek that I want to draw it. I’m not an artist, but if I had to guess, that shadow is the perfect angle to touch him. The palm of my hand would fit just right. There’s something poetic about the sun doing it for me. Instead of reaching for him, I hand him a small container.
He clears his throat, taking it from my hands and cracking open the corner to smell what’s inside—not look, smell. Always searching for the answers and taking nothing at face value. “Peanut butter. And marshmallow.”
I smile, adjusting my face quickly. I peek over at the river as I fight to keep my expression from being anything but neutral. “Fluffernutter cookies.”
“You made me fluffernutter cookies?”
“No, I made them for the competition, as you know. But there were some left to share.”
“And you’re giving them to me.” His tone says it is more of a statement than a question. “Why?”
I dare to step a bit closer to him. Our shoulders brush, a hint of the scent of peanut butter still swirling around us.
“Why would you do this?” he asks again. There is an urgency in his voice that makes me turn toward him. The urge I usually feel to push his buttons dissolves when his icy blue eyes catch the sunlight .
I shrug, as if the truth isn’t gutting me first of all, but also because of the effect it is having on him. Graham is the one who used to wish I’d say what I’m about to. “Because,” I say softly, “they’re important to you.”
He hums and holds the container a bit closer.
I push myself to make sure he hears me now, hoping he is ready for me to say what has been weighing on me lately. “Thank you for staying with me the other night. I hate storms.”
“I know.”
“Of course, oh wise one,” I reply with a grin. “The man who remembers everything and can’t seem to forget a thing about me.” I wring my hands together behind my back. At the moment, I feel more in tune with him than I expected. I’m waiting to push off the edge of whatever we are by his response.
“I wouldn’t want to. I never wanted to change you.”
I swallow. “I know.”
“Good.”
“Still . . .” I begin.
“Still what?” His voice is unmistakably gritty when he rotates to face me again, as if the next words I say must be held extra close between us.
My eyes trail upward from the center of his chest over each of the buttons on his dress shirt, catching on his trimmed beard and full mouth before they lift to meet his gaze. The subtle widening of his eyes tells me he’s surprised I’m intentionally looking at him. I know I have something to give him.
“You make me want to soften,” I murmur.
It’s the closest we’re going to get to a confession of my feelings. At first, I’m not sure what his response will be. But Graham’s eyes reflect instant relief. He clears his throat and opens the container I’ve given him. A cookie emerges, looking small in his large hand. He takes a big bite, and a grin lifts the side of his face with the enjoyment of something I made. And I know that, in this moment, my words are enough.