Chapter 6
I followed this recipe exactly except that I replaced the flour with black beans because I’m trying to avoid gluten and I swapped out the peaches for carrots because I’m trying to limit my sugar intake.
Unfortunately, it did not turn out well.
It’s much too dense and doesn’t taste a thing like cake.
And it’s not nearly sweet enough. It tasted too savory, almost like a bean salad.
I sadly had to throw the whole “cake” away.
I don’t understand what went wrong because I followed the recipe to a tee.
Kathleen @TheBlueEyedBaker
Hi, Effie. This isn’t a recipe for carrot cake. This is a recipe for peach cake. The peaches are a must. And it was too dense because you substituted black beans in place of the flour. Extreme substitutions won’t always work and that’s not the fault of the recipe.
You should’ve said that in the recipe. I wasted a lot of money and time on this.
Kathleen @TheBlueEyedBaker
Some things should go without saying. I assumed I didn’t need to tell anyone not to use black beans and carrots when making a traditional peach cake.
Effie1526
You know what they say about assuming, Kathleen.
“No rest for the wicked,” Effie muttered to herself, pressing send on her latest bit of rage bait before pulling up Belphegor’s contact on her cell.
Effie (10:22 a.m.): Contractual snafu is regretfully taking longer than anticipated to un–fuck up. Lest Harbinger get his tail in a twist, you can reassure him I am working remotely. I’ll be back as soon as possible.
She read the message back over, frowned, and added an xoxo at the end. Her phone vibrated in her hand a moment later.
Belphegor (10:23 a.m.):
Effie rolled her eyes. Brevity is the soul of wit, Belphegor oft said, quoting the Bard, believing the fewer words he could use to effectively communicate a point, the better.
Emojis were, in his opinion, a brilliant economization of language, a brilliant evolution of language.
Effie wasn’t asking for sweet nothings, but there came a point where it all stopped feeling thrifty and started feeling… cheap. She wanted words, not Wingdings.
Alas, no one was perfect. Effie stood and slipped her phone into her pocket, making her way across the room to check her reflection in the mirror hanging over the back of the closet door.
Her chin rose, and a small, pleased smile crept across her face.
She looked like…well, she looked like a vicious trollop.
Like a living, breathing scarlet letter, a symbol of Finn’s imminent fall from grace clad in burgundy leather and lace.
Scandal would, if all went according to plan, make strange bedfellows of them.
Their goals would soon align once Finn’s desire to rid himself of this blight on his character outweighed his yen for being an obstinate pain in her ass.
“I imagine you’re probably getting hungry, so I’m going to leave the window cracked for you,” she told Nessie, who was curled up in the center of the bed atop the goose down comforter that, like everything in the room, was frilly, feathered, and some shade of off-white.
“No stealing any chicken eggs from Martha’s coop out back.
Be discreet. Small game only. And try not to kill anything endangered, please. ”
The last thing she needed was the US Fish and Wildlife Service sniffing around, curious about some new and deadly species of snake they’d never seen before.
I’m not a fool. Nessie gave a quiet hiss, her body bunching as she pulled her rear forward, slithering off the bed, across the floor, through the window, and out onto the roof.
The smell of cooked bacon and maple syrup greeted Effie as soon as she stepped out into the hall. She followed her nose, the clinking of cutlery and the chatter of voices growing louder as she descended the stairs and passed the unmanned front desk on her way to the parlor.
Four women, all mid-sixties to seventies, stood beside a table covered with an assortment of breakfast foods.
Martha spotted her first. “Oh, Effie dear, there you are.” The other women stopped speaking and stared at Effie with expressions ranging from friendly to frosty. “We were just talking about your little…situation.”
And showtime.
Effie gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “But, Martha, you promised you wouldn’t—”
“I know, but we’re all very good at being discreet,” she assured her. “Aren’t we, ladies?”
The women all murmured their agreement.
“Luella, hi.” A reed-thin woman with Coke-bottle glasses and an unruly mess of curly red hair pulled back haphazardly with a neon-pink scrunchie lurched forward and grabbed Effie’s hand, pumping it with fervor.
“When Martha called and told me she’d met a woman claiming to be Finley MacDonald’s wife, Lord, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather.
I said, What do you mean Finley MacDonald has a wife?
I don’t remember going to any wedding. But she then explained it, and I told her, Martha, I won’t believe it ’til I see this woman with my own two eyes, and now here I am, and here you are, and I can still hardly wrap my head around—”
“Heavens, Luella, the girl hasn’t even had a cuppa coffee and here you are talking her ear off.” A petite Black woman with gray hair slicked back in a low bun turned, offering Effie a beleaguered smile. “You’ll have to forgive her. She’s got tongue enough for ten rows of teeth.”
“Iris!” Luella gasped. “You take that back!”
“Why? It’s the truth. You could lick a skillet in the kitchen standing on the front porch. Everybody knows it.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to say it!”
Iris laughed. “You ought to tell yourself that.”
“Oh, stop it, you two.” Martha rested a hand on Effie’s arm. “Effie dear, would you like a cup of coffee?”
“That would be amazing. Thanks.”
Martha reached for the carafe on the table. “How do you take it? Cream? Sugar?”
“As black as my soul.” Effie smiled impishly. “If I had one.”
Iris smirked and Luella tittered.
“What is that you’re wearing? A handkerchief?”
“Aveline!” Luella hissed. “Be nice.”
Effie turned, a smile plastered on her face.
Aveline—her name according to Luella—appeared to be the youngest of the bunch.
Though chicly attired in a well-tailored short suit, her severe dyed-black bob and frosty pink lipstick did her no favors.
Unlike Luella and Iris, who had greeted her warmly, Aveline eyed her up and down with barely concealed contempt.
Effie narrowed her eyes right back.
Curious. Very curious.
“Most clothing is so cumbersome. Don’t you think?”
“And were you similarly unclothed when you and Finley became”—her nose scrunched, her upper lip curling—“acquainted?”
“Aveline, we talked about this,” Martha scolded, and stretched over the table to hand Effie her undoctored coffee. “You promised.”
“Oh, she’s fine.” Effie turned and met Aveline’s scowl with a smile that said butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “I was dressed quite differently when we met. As a matter of fact, we both were. Finn was wearing a kilt.”
“Finley?” Luella gasped. “No. Get out.”
Well, he’d worn a léine and tartan trews, but kilt sounded better. Everyone knew what one of those looked like.
“Oh, I know.” Iris snapped her fingers. “You were at a Renaissance faire, weren’t you?”
Luella hummed sagely and to Iris said, “Martha did say she mentioned mead.”
Effie lowered her cup of coffee and tilted her head. “It was something like that.”
“Now, I got to thinking last night, and what I don’t understand is”—Martha rounded the table, rejoining the group—“did y’all not exchange numbers?”
Phones hadn’t been invented for another 330 years. “That wasn’t on our minds at the time, no.”
“Heavens,” Aveline said primly, quite literally clutching the thin strand of pink pearls at her neck. “Did you two do any talking or was it just…”
Luella started to hum the melody of “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye before breaking down in a fit of giggles.
“Don’t tell me he left without so much as a goodbye,” Iris said, sounding reproachful. “His mother—”
“God rest her soul,” Martha said, crossing herself, and Luella and Aveline murmured in kind.
“—raised him better than that,” Iris finished.
“It was a little more complicated than that,” Effie conceded, happy to drag his name through the mud to achieve her ends, but lying and letting them think that Finn had forsaken her felt like doing a disservice to her Finn’s memory.
That was a bridge too far, even for her.
The truth was tawdry enough. “I had to go. There was an emergency, and like I’m sure Martha told you, neither of us thought our vows were binding. ”
“And this fiancé of yours, he doesn’t know you’re married?” Luella asked.
“No, and I’d like to keep it that way if at all possible.”
Iris was watching her closely, a wary look on her face. “Let me guess, he’s the sort to take no prisoners?”
“He takes prisoners,” Effie said. “I just don’t think you’d enjoy knowing what he does with them afterward.”
“My ex-husband was like that,” Iris said, her mouth set in a hard line. “It’s partly why he’s my ex.”
Luella delicately cleared her throat. “I think what Iris is getting at is…this fiancé of yours, you’re sure about him?”
“He makes you happy?” Martha asked, wringing a dish towel between her hands.
Happiness was overrated, the pursuit of it as pointless as a puppy chasing its tail. The time for indulging in such dreams was long gone. Most days, Effie was content. She couldn’t ask for more than that.
But the women were all watching her closely, making it clear that how she answered could make or break her plan.
Effie tried to affect a dreamy Disney-princess someday my prince will come tone. “There’s no one better suited for me than my Belphegor.”
A hairpin could’ve dropped outside and Effie would’ve heard it.
“I don’t think I heard you right, honey,” Luella said, frowning. “Did you say—”
“Belphegor?” Aveline made no bones about what she thought of the name, scoffing loudly. “What kind of name is that?”
“His mother didn’t love him,” Effie snapped, then threw a hand over her face as if overcome with emotion. She didn’t mind indulging in a bit of histrionics if it meant knocking a cow like Aveline down a peg.
“That poor thing,” Luella muttered.
“I, for one, think Belphegor is a lovely name.” Martha patted her on the arm. “Don’t you, ladies?”
Murmurs of half-hearted assent went up from the group, a shamefaced Aveline joining in even though it looked like it pained her to do so.
“And I’m sure he’s a wonderful man,” Martha tacked on.
“Finn really ought to sign those papers,” Luella said.
Iris nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“Clearly the two of you aren’t suited,” Aveline said, throwing her perfectly manicured hands up in the air when the other women glowered reprovingly at her. “Oh, come off it!” She whirled on Effie, demanding, “How old are you even, anyway? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?”
She offered Avaline a saccharine smile. “I’m older than I look.”
“Well—” Avaline harrumphed and gestured at Effie’s outfit in a way that couldn’t be construed as anything but censorious. “Finley is a nice boy.”
Even though she’d dressed provocatively on purpose, and even though she didn’t want Finn, the insinuation that she wasn’t good enough for him left a sour taste in her mouth.
“Mind yourself, Avaline,” Martha said, drawing herself up to her full height, and Aveline followed suit, puffing out her chest. She had several inches on Martha, but Martha looked as if she refused to be cowed.
“John 7:24: Do not judge by appearances, but judge with righteous judgment. Maybe you ought to remove that log from your eye before you try to remove a speck from someone else’s, hmm? ”
Avaline turned a satisfying shade of crimson. “I only meant—”
“We all know what you meant.” Luella crossed her arms. “You’re just sour because you’re holding out hope that one of these days Finley’s going to give Daisy the time of day.”
“My Daisy is a nice girl, a good girl,” Avaline argued. “And she and Finn get on very well with each other.”
“All right.” Iris snorted. “When’s the wedding?”
“Never if Finn doesn’t divorce this little tart!” Avaline’s voice went shrill, reaching a pitch at the end that only dogs and, unfortunately, demons could hear.
“You are out of line, Avaline!” Martha stepped forward, thrusting one finger in Aveline’s face.
Effie threw herself between Martha and Aveline, both hands raised. “Now, hold on. Let’s not let our tempers get the better of us, ladies. Martha, I appreciate the support, but Avaline’s right about one thing.”
Avaline jutted her chin out, every line of her body radiating smug satisfaction.
“I didn’t come here to cause trouble. I came here to put the past behind me. If only Finn would let me.”
Martha tutted. “Oh, I have half a mind to go down to that bar and give that boy a piece of my mind.”
“Well.” Iris set her hands on her hips. “What’s stopping us?”
“You’re right.” Martha snatched a fluffy biscuit off the table and shoved it at Effie. “A little something for the road.” Martha stomped over to the front door and threw it open. “Let’s go, girls. I’ve got words for Mr. MacDonald, and he’s gonna hear ’em whether he likes it or not.”
“Don’t you worry, sugar.” Luella looped her arm through Effie’s and gave her a little pat on the hand. “We’ll get this taken care of in no time. You’ll see.”