Chapter 21 #2
“And in fourth place, we have Henry McCormick for his vanilla goat milk ice cream.”
Alex’s mouth puckered at the thought of tangy ice cream, but to each his own.
“The bronze ribbon goes to Patricia Winn for her very…ahem…creative moon cake.” A short dark-haired lady went to the front and held her hand over her mouth as if surprised by the news.
“The shining silver prize will be awarded to Raylene Pearce for her Double the Kahlua, Double the Fun Tiramisu.” The wave from a few minutes ago increased in volume and velocity.
“What’s the deal?” he asked Greer.
“Raylene normally aces this thing.” Sure enough, as Raylene took her place up front, she was smiling, but it was a strained expression.
“And the gold ribbon…” the guy dragged it out, scanning the crowd with a slight smile on his face, “…goes to the baked flan made by Alex Villanueva.”
Alex’s stomach dropped to the cement floor under his feet, and he looked down at Greer. “You’re shitting me. You ripped off my food from my fridge and entered it in some cooking contest?”
“Get up there,” she hissed. “People need to see you.”
The skin along Alex’s cheekbones and neck heated as the throng of dessert-lovers parted to let him through. The last time he’d felt this put on the spot was in fourth grade when he’d won his elementary school’s art contest with a sketch of Iron Man. That thing had been a piece of crap.
When he made it to the small podium and turned back toward the people clustered around, he tried like hell not to look at anyone, but Greer was all smiles, waving at him as though he were coming down the airplane ramp after a ten-year overseas assignment.
Jesus. He wanted to scrub his hands over his face to rid himself of the burn there, but he stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets instead.
The emcee ceremoniously walked along the line of winners and bestowed medals in different colors with the pomp and ceremony of the Olympics. When he had only the blue one left, Alex reached out to grab the damn ribbon. “I’ll just take that.”
“We don’t do it that way.”
“I don’t want a ribbon around my neck,” Alex gritted through his teeth, keeping his voice low and even.
The emcee stepped closer and lowered his voice as well. “Do you want me to go back to my microphone and tell these people you don’t want their ribbon?”
Sonofabitch. Alex ducked his head and let the guy loop the medal over his head. When he straightened, the round metal piece thunked against his chest, strangely warming his heart. Everyone was clapping and hooting and hollering.
The announcer returned to his mic and said, “The auction will open in five minutes.”
As people began rustling around, Alex stood there like a ten-point buck on the wrong end of a rifle barrel.
Raylene scooted up to him, and now her smile was broad and real.
“Oh, Alex.” She flung her arms around him and squeezed him in a hug, her flying squirrel earrings digging into left pec muscle.
“At first I was upset, but now I know exactly what Greer was up to.”
He awkwardly patted her on the back. “Mind explaining that to me?”
She drew back and looked up at him. “Well, who doesn’t like dessert?
And she wanted folks to see your sweet side.
You win the PTO dessert competition, and people will sweeten up to you as well.
And sugar, you kinda need it. We’ll stay up here until they auction off the five desserts.
Then the rest of dishes go for twenty dollars apiece. ”
Within ten minutes, the emcee had raised close to a thousand dollars with the fifth through second place dishes.
“And now for the flan,” he said, holding up the platter and peering at it. “Best I can tell it’s a kind of pudding.”
“Custard,” Alex told him.
“Custard then.”
The bidding started and went quickly, with people lifting their hands in the air to up the price. In the end, his simple dish of eggs, milk, and caramel went for three hundred bucks. These people were insane. Didn’t they know it would cost them less than five or six to make their own?
Afterward, Greer squirmed her way through the people crowding the still-packed dessert table to give Alex a hug herself.
“Knew it.” With her arms still looped around his waist, she looked up at him, her smile hitting him dead-center in the chest. “You just raised the PTO enough money for a tetherball set.”
Well, that was pretty cool actually. He sure as hell would’ve enjoyed that when he was a little kid.
His playground never had new equipment. It was mainly a mishmash of old tires, wooden swings, and 1950s teeter-totters.
But damn, he and his brothers had loved that place.
“Well, I guess I can’t be too pissed off that you robbed my fridge then. ”
“It was all in the name of good community relations.”
“Because you don’t think I can relate on my own?”
“Because I think it makes you uncomfortable, but this way you won’t have to approach other people because they’ll be flocking to you.”
“What?” He glanced up from Greer’s pleased face to notice people were ringed around them. “What the hell?” he said to Greer.
“People love to congratulate the winner and also see if they can mooch the recipe.”
He leaned close to her ear. “It’s just fucking flan.”
She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and pulled away. “Good luck.” Before he could grab her by the back of the shirt, she ducked between a woman in a soccer-mom yoga outfit and an older man with a goat tucked under one arm.
The goat guy, who Alex now recognized from his first day in town, thrust out his other hand. “Henry McCormick. Pleased to meet you.”
Alex automatically shook. “Alex Villanueva.”
“You know it’s tradition for the winner to share the winning recipe, right?” someone else said.
Alex forced his lips to stretch into a—hopefully—casual smile. “Is that so?” He raised his brows at the soccer mom. “Or are y’all just trying to get one past the new guy?”
“Told y’all that wouldn’t work,” someone else grumbled.
“It’s really not all that special,” Alex said. “Just Google flan, and you’ll come up with a thousand recipes.”
Soccer Mom placed her hand on his arm, squeezed as though she were searching for a ripe mango and smiled at him. “But those aren’t your recipe, and that’s the whole point.”
Skinny as she was, she didn’t look like she ever ate dessert, much less something with eggs and whole milk in it. Not like Greer. She obviously enjoyed her food and it settled on her curves just right.
“It’s a family recipe, isn’t it?” Mr. Garvey asked.
“Actually my great-great-abuela’s,” Alex told them. “And she would haunt me from her grave if she ever found out I’d given it out.”
“Don’t forget.” Soccer Mom leaned closer, and her perfume tickled his nose. “These are the same people judging the art competition.”
Shit. But hell, it wasn’t like his tatarabuela’s recipe was that different from what these people would find on the Food Network. “Someone have a piece of paper?”
McCormick dug a mangled receipt from his baggy jeans and handed it to Alex.
Alex glanced around at the group. “You will share, won’t you?”
They gave one another the stink eye, but eventually everyone nodded.
With one of his drawing pencils, he quickly scratched out the ingredients and directions that he knew by heart. And Greer thought he didn’t know how to garner good will. Well, he’d show her.
“Look, look,” someone yelled from outside the group clustered around Alex. Everyone turned in the voice’s direction. And over Soccer Mom’s head, Alex saw a red, yellow, and blue structure slowly taking shape outside the pavilion. The thing was getting bigger and bigger by the second.
“What is that?” he asked.
Soccer Mom said, “It’s a bouncy castle. Biggest one I’ve ever set eyes on, and believe me, with three kids, I’ve seen my share.”
“That was nice of the PTO,” he said.
Greer wiggled her way to Alex’s side. “The PTO didn’t have a damn thing to do with it. Chad Holcombe is responsible for that. He’s smart when it comes to waging a campaign.”
Son of a bitch. Alex’s flan had just been one-upped by a friggin’ bounce house.