Twenty-Six. Recipe for Disaster
Twenty-Six
RECIPE FOR DISASTER
It’s the morning of Christmas Eve in Sweetville.
The cookie competition finals. And, back in the real world, the anniversary of the day Grant and I broke up.
But yesterday’s fight stings far worse than even that painful memory.
Let me tell you, the day after you have an emotional breakdown over the issues you and your ex can’t escape or mend, the absolute best thing to do is work side by side making Christmas cookies.
I’m unsure how to stand next to Grant and seem like I know what I’m doing when the version of our past he served me is completely at odds with what I’ve always believed. If what he said is true, then it was me who threw our relationship away. Did I DIY my own broken heart?
If the struffoli ends up tasting anything like my mood, we’re about to serve the judges a heaping plate of anger and disappointment.
I’m only here because I can’t admit to my family that Grant and I were together and broke up again all in the space of twenty-four hours.
Also because I called Zav in tears and told him everything.
Everything minus the part that I was living in a winter wonderland where nothing could go wrong, and yet somehow, I had managed to make a total mess of things.
“So, you hooked up with the hot baker guy, and what? The bread didn’t rise?” Zav asked after I said through tears that I was destined to be alone forever.
“No. I’ve not so much as touched his muffin.
The hot baker guy rejected me because he’s still into his dead wife, but then he said maybe we should give it a go, but instead of waiting for my go, I hooked up with my chef ex because I must like my life being a disaster.
” I can’t bring myself to tell Zav that maybe the last three years, during which I’ve told myself that Grant didn’t love me like I loved him, were possibly my fault.
“Now we’re talking,” Zav said. “Did I mention I just signed up for a new course called Purposeful Pleasure? It’s, like, you do whatever feels good at the time and tell yourself afterward that it’s good for you so you’re, like, manifesting justification to be kind of slutty.”
“Zav, that doesn’t sound like something you’ll be happy with later,” I’d said, rubbing small circles on my face with an ice cube in an attempt to make my puffy eyes appear normal.
“We’ll deal with my issues later. So what happens now with the chef ex?”
“I’m supposed to go bake with him, but it’s going to be awful, and I don’t think I can do it.”
I could hear Zav cluck his tongue. “If it’s awful, it sounds like his fault,” he said. “Do you know that I have seen you fail more than anybody?”
“Zav, that’s not helpful,” I said.
“Oh, but it is. Because I’ve also seen you be scrappy and determined and, yes, sometimes very, very pathetic but also really inspiring.
When I met you, I gave you six months in LA, tops.
I had contacts much more together than you who’d barely made it that long.
But you’re like that off-center stop sign on Cherokee and Fountain that all those cars knock down. You just keep getting back up.”
I laughed. I almost took out that stop sign once. “But this isn’t LA. I don’t have to do this cookie competition,” I reminded him. And myself. Because, really, what was the point? I might be doomed to languish here in Sweetville forever.
“You don’t,” he agreed. “But remember what Queen Nora says,” he continued, invoking my screenwriting heroine. “Everything is copy.”
I’m late getting to the inn for the finals.
I half hope Grant won’t even show up. But when I walk into the ballroom, he’s at our station already, unconcernedly setting out equipment.
He’s not bothered at all that he’s the only person whose partner hasn’t arrived yet.
Maybe he was hoping I wouldn’t show, too.
Today, the rest of the ballroom has been set up for an audience. This round is the big one, and it seems like the whole town is here.
“Let’s go, Jill!” Allie calls out from the seating area.
She’s holding a ridiculous sign that says, That Jacobs Sure Can Bake-obs!
Brian and Rachel are wearing matching shirts that say, Jill Jacobs Will Cook the Competition .
My mom has a placard larger than anyone else’s, and hers reads, Hope You’re Sweet Enough for a Taste of Jill’s Cookie!
Great—I’m about to be miserable baking next to Grant, and my mom’s holding up a poster that seems to be offering samples of my vagina.
Sweat springs up under my arms. There’s nothing I want more than to fake cooperation and civility with my ex (is he a double ex now?) throughout the final round of a baking competition while all our friends and loved ones watch.
That Grant seems so unfazed by the hubbub registers as proof to me that I’m right.
That he doesn’t care about us as much as he claimed.
He was just trying not to be the bad guy.
It’s not only Grant who’s uberfocused. All the other teams are at their stations, and everyone is locked in.
No one so much as glances up to see who’s come into the room.
Instead of Christmas music, there’s instrumental music playing that has a somewhat tense drumbeat.
Sweetville suddenly has its claws out. Cookie competitions might as well be the Super Bowl.
The first time Grant and I broke up, we were able to—for better or worse—completely exit each other’s lives. But now that I’m ostensibly trapped in Sweetville with no idea how to leave, cookie making alongside the ex I just had hot sex with is about the only option I see available.
I’ve put no effort into my appearance for this round, so I’m slightly embarrassed when Corey glances up from whatever he and Fiona are working on and flashes me a big smile. I do my best to return a smile of equal enthusiasm, as if showing all my teeth can hide all my secrets.
Good luck , Corey mouths, because of course he does.
You, too , I mouth in return, and trudge onward to my and Grant’s station. He still hasn’t looked up. His hair is matted, and his complexion looks dull, as if the twenty-four hours since our fight have sucked all the life out of him. His dishevelment makes me feel a little better.
Quiet as a church mouse whose thighs still hurt from her strenuous sexual adventures, I start pulling out cookie sheets and cooling racks.
Grant already has some of the ingredients measured out.
But while usually he moves in the kitchen with a frenetic energy, double-and triple-checking all his prep work, right now, he’s merely staring into a bowl of flour, as if it will reveal his fate.
“Hey…” Grant is the first to speak.
“Hey,” I say.
“Once they blow the start whistle, I’ll get the dough going, and you can do whatever,” he tells me.
If he’s the expert and his only instruction for me is to “do whatever,” it implies I’m on my own in every way.
Melinda enters the baking area, wearing a cape adorned with beads that look like red and green sprinkles.
She’s followed by the Sweetville fire chief and the mayor, who will be her co-judges today.
The room’s buzz quiets as she taps on her microphone.
Melinda delivers a preamble about the competition so far, but I only register every third or fourth word.
It’s not until she blows her whistle, loud, that I snap back to attention.
Grant gets to work immediately and I—well, I try to figure out how to look busy.
I half shadow him as he makes the dough and starts the pot of oil on the stovetop.
Having only helped in the tasting and describing of the dessert, I now see that the only thing I was bringing to the table—literally—was my patter.
Patter that’s clearly not desired at the moment.
“Can I help?”
Grant shrugs. “Sure. Just cut these into puffs, and I’ll toss ’em in there.” The words are terse but not unkind. He’s flat, and somehow flat, indifferent Grant is so much worse than mad-at-me Grant.
But I tell myself to do what I can for Louis and the inn.
Or for the sake of not disrupting the Christmas Eve thrum of the contest. We stick out like dry Christmas trees in a lot full of more lush options.
The judges appear to cut a wide berth around our station, lest we suck the holiday spirit right out of them.
Grant leans way past me to take the tray of dough I’ve cut, careful to not so much as let his arm brush mine.
He dumps the balls into the bubbling oil.
A splash of hot liquid leaps from the pan and lands on his arm.
“Fuck!” he mutters, clutching the skin above his right wrist. A patch of skin begins to blister, directly above the spot where he has the other burn mark.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth. “It doesn’t matter.”
What I hear is this doesn’t matter. We don’t matter.
And maybe, for the first time in three years, we really don’t.
When our time is up, the struffoli we’ve plated are the best of the bunch and form a mediocre lot. I taste one, and it’s heavy, sodden with oil and greasy instead of airy. Despite its small size, it sits like a rock in the pit of my stomach.
Melinda and the cadre of judges taste the other three teams’ creations first. I’m not paying attention for the first two teams, and it’s only when they reach Fiona and Corey that I snap out of my fugue state to listen.
“We’ve prepared what we’re calling Full Christmas Hearts.
As you can see, we’ve borrowed the architecture and lightness of a macaron but incorporated the buttery goodness of a traditional shortbread.
” Fiona holds the platter of desserts like she’s a model at a car show.
She leans in to stage-whisper to Melinda and the group, but we can all hear her through the microphone.
“Between us, I wish I could fully explain how we got it to be this good. I’m very lucky my partner has magical powers.
” The crowd sighs dreamily at her choice of words, or maybe at the sight of Corey and Fiona, who are gorgeous and exude confidence.
She beams at Corey. When she sees me staring at her, she smiles with her eyes.
Her warm expression reminds me that I got Fiona all wrong.
I glance at Grant’s stoic, seemingly impassive profile. Did I really get him all wrong, too?
The judges succumb to what can only be described as an orgy of ecstasy as they sample the cookies. The crowd hums with interest, as if they can tell Corey and Fiona have baked a winner. I peer down at the mushy balls Grant and I have made and know without a doubt that we have an unequivocal loser.
So I can barely muster any of my words when Melinda asks what they’ll be tasting. “Struffoli. A fried doughball that we gave a hint of…” I pause, honestly forgetting what we’ve made.
“Gingerbread,” Grant pipes in. He doesn’t sound any more with-it than I do.
“Interesting.” Melinda smiles nervously. She actually backs away, allowing her fellow judges to choose first.
The scoring panel each sample our wares with a stoicism that can’t be good. Our dessert is more glum than yum.
Grant’s neck twitches. He hates to lose, and he has to know that’s what’s coming.
When the judges crown Fiona and Corey the winners, confetti falls from the ceiling and members of the audience crowd around them.
Grant offers me little more than a salute—I can detect the sarcasm in it—and says he needs to check something at the front desk.
Leaving me standing there at our station with a mess that looks like a reflection of how I’m feeling.
Hopeless and wrecked. And a lot like I did on Christmas Eve exactly three years ago in the real world.
I’m left unsure of what to do. Congratulations are in order for Corey and Fiona—I should show them I have no hard feelings—but they’re at the center of a circle of new fans, as well as an assortment of people in SweetHart’s clothing and hats—probably Corey’s employees.
I see no point trying to jam myself into the huddle.
Corey likely forgot all about his request that we try again.
With a heart as heavy as one of our failed struffoli, I skirt the edge of the room, navigating the clusters of onlookers so that my family and Allie can’t find me in the sea of people.
I’m thinking I’ll slip out the ballroom’s side door to the outside so that I don’t bump into anyone I know in the lobby.
My fingers touch the golden handle, and someone taps me on the shoulder. “Jill, you’re not leaving, are you?”
I spin to face Corey. My cheeks go blazing red that he caught me bailing. “I must look like a sore loser,” I say. Then I lie. “But I was going to come back. I thought I’d get a little air.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry we didn’t get to bake together in the finals.” I wonder if he means it, given he got paired with someone both as gorgeous and as talented as Fiona. “But congratulations. You put together something really great.” Now who’s lying? I think.
“You may be overselling it,” I tease. “The judges looked like they might sue.”
“Well, baking is a lot of trial and error. Sometimes you need more than one try,” he says, loading the words with meaning. “I wouldn’t mind some air, too. Do you want to take a walk?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Grant has returned to the ballroom.
He’s tasting one of Corey and Fiona’s cookies and nodding appreciatively.
Fiona leans against her and Corey’s station, watching Grant enjoy her cookie and talking animatedly.
Maybe I had no reason to be jealous of her before, but maybe I was right and she’d be good for Grant. It’s clear I’m not.
Whatever the case, it’s time for me to move on. For good. I smile at Corey. “Are you sure you don’t want to go meet your public? You’re basically the king of Sweetville today.” The buzz of the ballroom flows over us, but Corey seems oblivious.
“I know which member of the public I’m most interested in,” he says, quirking one eyebrow. “So, how about that walk?”
This might be it. My moment with Corey. My way out of Sweetville. Maybe the first day of the rest of my life, my fresh start. “I’d love a walk.”