Eighteen. Putting the Icing on My Baker
Eighteen
PUTTING THE ICING ON MY BAKER
The morning of the qualifying round, I wake up before my alarm, after a night of barely being able to sleep. I’m actually excited for the competition, and I try to remember the last time I was excited about anything in my LA life.
The text Lacey sent the day I got fired from Li’l Ballerz flashes through my mind.
How it thrilled me until I learned what it was.
In fact, every similar text and email—whether news from Lacey or announcements of screenwriting contest winners, and even alerts from Deadline Hollywood—yields a certain amount of pumped-up, “This is it!” feelings, but all of those moments are always followed by crushing disappointment.
How much time have I wasted waiting for my big break?
Sweetville is so much simpler. Even the baking competition, much as I’d love to win it, isn’t make-or-break for me. I want to win for Corey’s sake and because it would be fun, but if our cookie doesn’t make it to the finals, I know I’ll be okay.
I choose a soft white T-shirt and jeans for today. Baking in sweaters is like swimming in jeans—it just invites too much discomfort.
I told Corey I’d meet him at the inn. Dad offers me a ride on his Vespa, but I have enough time to walk. Why waste the spring in my step?
When I walk in LA, I always feel awkward unless I have my headphones in or I have the accessories to state that I’m walking to something.
Today, I have a destination, but I don’t need my I’m an Important Person Who Knows Important People tote, my I’m a Grown-Up with Grown-Up Tasks laptop sleeve, or my I’m Committed to My Health gym bag.
Instead, I use my walk to make eye contact with everyone I pass on the street, exchanging “good mornings” and smiles as my coat billows around me.
I’m still smiling by the time I reach the inn. Corey, with his baker hours, is already there. He beams when he sees me. “Jill, you look ready to take on the world.”
I give him a wink. Yes, an actual wink. “I’m ready to take on the messy Santa,” I whisper. Yikes, I can hear the innuendo as the words emerge, but Corey pays no mind.
“I’ve got us mostly set up,” he says. “But we can’t start baking until they make it official.”
I scan the room to see that everyone else has arrived, too.
The twins, the mother-daughter team, the prince and his assistant, the lesbian couple who’d broken up but now seem on the verge of getting back together.
And of course, Grant and Fiona. They’re at opposite ends of their station, Grant pulling out mixing bowls and Fiona arranging sticks of butter.
She’s wearing a sleeveless sweaterdress that skims her waist, and her pixie cut appears to be freshly trimmed.
In other words, she looks hot enough to soften the butter just by standing near it for a few seconds.
But whatever—I can exude supreme confidence, too.
“I’ll set out our décor,” I tell Corey. “So we’re not short for time at the end.”
“Great thinking.”
I’m prepping small bowls of the marshmallows, sprinkles, and candy pieces we’ll need for our Santas, when Melinda, the lead judge, walks into the room, followed by a man with a narrow frame made narrower by the vertical stripes on his candy-cane-colored suit.
“Bakers, we’re delighted to finally taste some of the creations you’ve been so diligently working on.
” She pauses. “The rules are simple. You’ve spent your own time developing the recipe you want to make today.
Now you’ll have the next ninety minutes to put together a batch of your cookies for our five judges to sample.
We’ll try each one and score them privately, then announce the four teams who will move to the next round. ”
The candy-cane man steps forward. “No one begin until the official signal! Counting down from ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and…”
“Ho ho ho, ho ho ho, ho ho ho!” A baritone Santa voice bellows from above us, and its source—a robust, red-cheeked man who looks like the real deal—rappels down from a mezzanine at one side of the ballroom. “Bake away!”
Corey bumps his shoulder against mine. “Let’s do this.”
For the next ninety minutes, we do. We put in the work ahead of time, and the entire process flows smoothly.
Corey and I negotiate our space like dancers, him spinning behind my back to add vanilla to the batter, me ducking beneath his arms as he pulls a fresh mixing bowl from a high shelf, him tossing me a wooden spoon when I drop my first one.
If synchronized baking was an Olympic event, we’d get the gold.
Not once do I look across the room to see what Grant and Fiona are up to. When I’m writing, this kind of focus often eludes me, but when it happens, it’s like magic. It’s the same way today. By the time Corey and I are decorating our messy Santas, I’m practically high off the process.
We have twelve cookies decorated when an obnoxious buzzer blares, alerting us to our time being up. I jump two feet in the air. Corey lunges for our tray of cookies before it hits the floor.
“Wow, that is so uncool.” I check the cookies to make sure none are damaged. “The buzzer. Not your cookie save; that was amazing.”
Corey nods approvingly at our Santas. “No matter what happens, Jill, we make a great team.” He peeks at me through the fringe of his thick lashes.
“We really do,” I agree. “Now, let’s wait to be judged.”
We have the fortune, or misfortune, of being the last team in the semicircle of stations, so we have to wait as the judges go to all our competitors first.
The twins offer up something they call a “Whoopie! It’s Christmas!” pie. The prince and his assistant have turned out a stacked shortbread with peppermint frosting between each cookie piece. The mother-daughter duo serves up miniature sugar cookies, “so Santa can share with his elves.”
Grant speaks for himself and Fiona. “We’ve made an elevated version”—I almost snort when he says “elevated”; his snobbery is so reliable—“of a thumbprint cookie. This one uses sugarplum jam that I made myself. We think every kid on Christmas Eve deserves better than just a vision of sugarplums dancing in their heads.”
As the judges sample Grant and Fiona’s creation, I catch Grant’s eyes shifting toward our cookies. His mouth is set in a straight line, but I know Grant’s eyes too well, and their careful survey of my and Corey’s work tells me that he’s at least slightly impressed.
We wait while the fake-dating lesbian couple shares their work—sugar cookies fashioned into gift boxes that open to reveal a hazelnut candy piece.
Then it’s our turn.
Corey insisted I do the talking. As the judges circle me, I feel my mouth go a little dry.
I’ve never been great at pitching. “While our cookie might look like we don’t know what we’re doing, the eccentricities are intentional,” I say croakily.
Corey reaches out to squeeze above my elbow, a vote of confidence.
I clear my throat. “The holidays aren’t just about getting everything perfect.
The perfect part is how you share the holidays with others.
Our cookies are meant to invoke the spirit of collaborating with Santa’s biggest fans—the kids who can’t wait for him to slide down the chimney.
There’s a spirit of creativity, joy, and most of all, love about our cookies, which we’re calling the Messy Santa. ”
That sounded good. I tilt my chin up with pride, not hazarding any glances around the room.
The judges each take one of our cookies and taste them. Corey leans closer to me and says, “Wow, Jill, that almost brought a tear to my eye.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” I say.
I hear a sarcastic cough. Grant, at his station, swivels his head swiftly away from us.
Ha. I feel like I’ve already won.
The judges disappear into the pantry for ten minutes, during which we’re allowed to take bathroom breaks or just move away from our stations.
Corey uses the time to call the bakery, while almost everyone else uses the restrooms or takes a lap of the ballroom.
Grant, I notice, stays at his station, cleaning up, and—eager to hear the results—I do the same.
Finally, the judges emerge. Melinda is now wearing a full-on robe appliquéd with the words Cookie Lover in Chief . She reads off the teams who are moving on.
“Polly and Peppa O’Riley.” The twins. “Sir Lionel March and Lilith Carson. Grant Heath and Fiona Leonard.” Oh my God. It’s never crossed my mind that we wouldn’t make it to the finals. “And Corey Hartwell and Jill Jacobs.”
“We did it!” Corey sweeps me into a hug, and I hug him back.
My winner’s high lasts the rest of the day.
Corey has to check in on the bakery, so we part ways, and I grab a to-go cup of hot cocoa and enjoy it as I window-shop along Ninety-Fifth on my walk home.
There’s a party back at the inn to celebrate the qualifying round, so once I get back to my parents’ house, I change out of my baking clothes and into a plaid miniskirt and a thin V-neck sweater.
I don’t look Fiona glam, but I know I look cute and Sweetville appropriate.
Zav replied to the photo I texted with a You’re preheated.
I want all the details of who slides into the oven .
The ballroom of the inn is resplendent with fresh decorations for the party.
A mirrored ball hangs from the ceiling and casts red-and-green spinning lights onto the dance floor.
Cocktail tables scattered around the room are topped with dark-green tablecloths and robust-looking poinsettia plants.
A very convincing Santa—though not the guy I’ve come to think of as the real Santa—circulates among the guests, posing for selfies, and there’s a photo booth with an archway fashioned from faux candy canes.
I spot a karaoke machine at the far edge of the dance floor and wonder if it means alcohol is available. Does anyone do karaoke sober?