Chapter 4
“Here’s your cake, Emmie.” I open my eyes to see Freya sliding my special-order birthday cake in front of me.
It’s a prinsesst?rta, a gorgeous layered cake covered in a smooth pale pink dome of marzipan and decorated with little rosettes.
The Longboat has been offering these cakes made by a local baker for years, and Mom has ordered this cake for my birthday every year since I was a child.
Freya hands around the plates, then slices the cake, revealing the layers of soft sponge, raspberry jam, and pastry cream mixed with whipped cream beneath the marzipan topping.
“Ooh, it always looks so elegant,” Mom sighs happily.
“Maybe this will be your lucky year, Emmie,” Dot says, giving me a hopeful wink. Dot and Dani know about the visions. Not many outside our family do. We tend to keep the birthday visions a secret, but Dot is Mom’s best friend and Dani is mine, so they’re in the circle of trust but sworn to secrecy.
“I hope so.” I glance down at my generously portioned slice of cake. I’ve been disappointed too many times but still I’m hopeful.
“Baby girl, we’ll cheer you on if it works this year and cheer you up if it doesn’t,” Dot tells me, reaching across the table and squeezing my hand. I squeeze back, grateful for the solidarity.
“Here’s the candle.” Mom takes a small wooden box from her purse, opens it, and carefully unwraps the length of muslin that enshrouds what is inside.
She sets the object on the table and we gaze at it for a moment.
A beeswax candle about five inches tall and two inches wide, it is decorated on every side with beautiful gold swirls and starbursts.
I reach out and carefully run my fingers lightly over the pretty patterns embossed on the deep golden surface.
This candle has been used for generations.
Signe brought it with her all the way to Poulsbo when she emigrated from Norway.
And ever since, each woman in our family has used the candle on their birthday until they are given their vision; then they pack it away and pass it along to the next woman in line.
It is more than a century old, but only an inch or so has been burned.
We only light it for a few seconds each year.
Mom gently presses the candle into the smooth pale pink marzipan rind on my slice of prinsesst?rta.
The kind of birthday dessert you choose doesn’t seem to matter.
My great-aunt Tilda is diabetic and she chose a big slice of triple cream Brie as her birthday treat the year she saw her vision.
It’s the candle that holds the magic, not the food.
“Ready?” Mom asks. She shoots me a sympathetic look.
I take a deep breath and nod. It’s time.
Freya appears with a box of matches with the Longboat logo on the cover.
She lights the candle and steps back. Everyone at the table sings a slightly off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” to me, a few of the other patrons joining in.
I shiver a little, eyeing the candle flame, heart beating fast. Please please please let this be the year, I murmur silently.
I shut my eyes and make the same wish I do every year.
Please let me see my purpose in life. Please show me what is true and real and good.
Then I open my eyes and snuff out the candle with a quick little puff of air. All eyes are on me. I bite my lip and wait, heart beating hard. For a second nothing happens. And then everything changes.
It starts gradually, at first a faint glimmer around the edges of my vision, little pops of shimmering gold shooting bright across my field of sight. My breath catches in my throat as the realization dawns on me. I think this is it. It’s finally happening! My heartbeat quickens.
“Emmie?” I hear Mom’s voice from far away.
“Mom?” My voice sounds even more distant.
The colors are getting more intense. The gold shimmers are glowing like sparklers crackling along the edges of my eyesight, growing brighter and brighter.
It’s like shooting stars, like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
I blink, and when I open my eyes, I do not see Dot or Mom or Gus or Dani.
I do not see the heavy wooden beams of the Longboat dining room or the sailboats bobbing on the silver waters of Liberty Bay.
What I see is something else entirely.
I don’t know how long the vision lasts. It feels like only a few seconds, barely enough time to register the scene in front of me, but it feels so real. I don’t just see the image. I taste and touch and smell the moment too. I am living it.
Then from far away I hear someone saying my name, and it feels as though I am being forced backward down a tunnel, back down into my real life once more. I plop back into the present with a jolt. When I glance around the booth, Dot, Mom, and Dani are all watching me, silent and wide-eyed.
I catch Mom’s eye and stare at her wordlessly, then nod. She instantly starts to tear up. “Oh, honey,” she whispers, reaching out and grabbing my hand. “See? You didn’t miss it.”
“Wait,” Dot interrupts. “Was that it? Did something happen? Did you see something?”
I nod again, still stunned. Not sure how to even explain what I saw. There must be some mistake. “It’s impossible.” My voice sounds dazed. I take a sip of water, trying to clear my head.
“Why? What did you see?” Dani asks eagerly. Gus is peering up at me curiously, looking a little worried. His mouth is ringed with raspberry jam and whipped cream. He has somehow eaten almost all of his slice of cake already.
“Are you okay, Mommy?” Gus asks nervously, eyeing me. He slips his small, sticky hand into mine.
I look down at my slice of prinsesst?rta with the candle stuck in it, the wick blackened, flame snuffed out. “I saw a vision.” I find my voice at last, small and disappointed. “But there’s no way it could be true. I think something went wrong.”
“Why, honey? What did you see?” Mom asks. They all lean forward eagerly.
I shake my head at the absurdity of the situation.
I feel so disappointed. I waited all my life for this?
For something that is so outside the realm of possibility it’s clear I dreamed it up?
It must have been my own wishful thinking.
What else could it possibly be? I blink back a prickle of tears behind my eyes, then take a deep breath and tell them what I glimpsed.
“I saw Henry Summers proposing to me.”
There is a long beat of silence. Then Dani pipes up, “Wait, like Henry Summers the TV star? Your celebrity crush?”
“Is he that darling British man who hosts that travel show you like?” Mom asks, puzzled. “The one who goes around the world and finds little family food spots and interviews the owners and explores the history? What’s it called?”
“Savor,” I say miserably. Now I’m feeling embarrassed.
I want to sink straight through the floor into the bay.
Figures that I’d wait all these years and then my mind would make up an absolutely absurd fantasy in place of my real purpose in life.
Ugh. I lean down and rest my forehead on the table.
I give up. I’m just going to go through life purposeless. Maybe that’s my destiny.
“Hold on, Emmie,” Mom interrupts. “Can you tell us what you saw?”
I raise my head slightly. Gus scoots near me. He looks worried, his big brown eyes magnified through the thick lenses of his glasses. He squeezes my hand.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” he whispers in concern. “Do you not like your cake? Can I have your piece?”
I pull him to me and press a kiss to his head, to the soft little pulse point on his temple. I hold him close for a moment, inhaling him. He smells like raspberry jam and crayons. Already he is wiggling away. I release him, wondering why it is that motherly love feels just a little like heartbreak.
“I’m fine. Nothing’s wrong, sweet boy.” I force a smile. “And it looks like you’ve already had cake. Do you want to read your book now? Can you find a really crazy space fact for us?” He nods and leans away from me to grab his Weird but True book of facts about the universe from his backpack.
“We need booze,” Dot announces. She waves Freya over and orders us all shot glasses of aquavit.
When it comes, she throws hers back without hesitation.
I sip mine and grimace. The iconic Norwegian liquor tastes like vodka heavily spiced with botanicals, chief among them caraway.
I slide my glass over to Dot, who downs that one too.
She can drink anyone under the table and never seems to feel it.
Dani takes a sip of her shot and whistles. “That will put hair on your chest,” she announces to no one in particular. “No thank you.” She slides her shot over to Dot too. “So, Emmie, tell us what you saw.”
Then Dot, Mom, and Dani all turn their eyes on me, waiting for an explanation.
I tell them about the sparklers, about the pops of brilliant gold color, about opening my eyes and being somewhere else entirely, like I was stepping into another time and place.
It felt so real, like I was an invisible observer, standing there watching a few seconds of my life unfold somewhere else entirely.
“I was standing in my own boutique chocolate shop,” I explain. “It was exactly as I’ve imagined it for years.” I shoot a nervous glance at Mom, who smiles encouragingly. “Like the one I used to talk about having someday.”
Like the one I’ve been secretly dreaming about.
The shop looked like I’d always imagined it would—big windows, dark wood floors, gleaming glass-and-wood display cases, a few whimsical decorations.
There was a tree with chocolate ornaments, a bird’s nest of spun chocolate with colorful chocolate eggs decorated with fancy sprinkles perched in the branches.
It was cozy and tasteful and fanciful and lovely.
“You were all there, standing around me in the shop.”
They’d been gathered close to me—Mom, Dot, Dani, and Gus, who was clutching a glass bottle of fancy soda, and a few other folks I recognized, fellow shop owners from town…and Jakob Kristensen was standing next to me too. Weird. I don’t let myself dwell on that one too long.
“Everyone was holding champagne coupes, and I was wearing the prettiest yellow dress that looked like sunshine. I think it was chiffon. And Henry Summers was…” I hesitate, not sure how to say this. “Well, he was proposing to me.”
There was no mistaking that famous face—the warm hazel of his eyes, the swoop of wavy hair across his brow, the touch of scruff along his strong jaw.
The posh UK accent, the Breton striped shirt and his signature swazer.
In my vision, Henry Summers of the melting eyes and dreamy accent was down on one knee, holding up a little red box to me. An engagement ring–sized box.
I had my hand over my heart and happy tears were streaming down my face.
Not ugly crying. Pretty crying. Which is also how I know this can’t really be my future.
I don’t think I know how to pretty cry. In the vision, I reached out to accept the little box, and then Henry got up and embraced me, brushing a kiss against my cheek.
The look on my face…I’ve never looked more joyful.
I was as radiant as sunshine, even through the happy tears.
Which is why it hurts so much to realize this is all clearly just a figment of my imagination.
When I finish telling them the vision, no one says anything for a full minute. Then Dot clears her throat. “Well hot dang,” she says. “I got nothin’. Gwen?”
Mom looks puzzled and a little troubled. She takes a small sip of her aquavit and shudders, pushing it gently away.
“Tell me again how it starts,” she says. I describe the gold sparklers, the clear and precise sensation of being somewhere else entirely. She hmms when I’m done.
“It sounds right, Emmie, like you really saw your vision. You don’t think there’s any way it could be true?” she asks me cautiously.
“Mom, come on.” It’s like a mash-up of all my daydreams in one five-second clip.
My own boutique chocolate shop. Everyone I love gathered around.
Henry Summers proposing to me. Me, elegant and beautiful in a floaty dress.
“None of it can possibly be true. It’s all just wishful thinking,” I conclude glumly.
No one disagrees. Silently we finish our drinks and cake.
I’m so disappointed I just want to go home and have a good cry.
Even though the sun is still shining, the evening feels faded and already over.
Dani asks Freya to bring the check, and Mom carefully wipes off the candle and wraps it back up.
Freya boxes up the remainder of the prinsesst?rta. No one speaks.
Inside I feel the hollow throb of bitter disappointment jumbled up with a hopeless sense of longing.
I know it can’t possibly be true, that what I saw must be just a product of all my secret wishes smashed together in one perfect fantasy scenario.
I know there’s no way it’s actually my future, but if it could be…
if it were…it would be everything I’ve ever wanted right there in one beautiful, impossible moment.
I’d give anything to really live that moment.
It crushes me that there is no way it could ever really come true.
With a wistful sigh I take my uneaten birthday cake and prepare to return to my normal life.
So much for thirty-four.