Chapter 49 Have Your Cake
Have Your Cake
Lily-Anne
It’s Friday morning, winter light slanting pale through Barbara’s kitchen windows, and together we’ve turned the place into a baking war zone.
There’s flour on the tiles, on the counter, on Barbara’s cardigan, as well as a smear of chocolate batter on my cheek that I can feel but can’t see as I swipe at it.
My sleeves are rolled to my elbows, my hair is tied messily on top of my head, and I’m wielding a mixing spoon like a weapon—because confidence breeds success, and I really need this to go well.
We are making the cake for Ellenor’s not-quite-a-surprise birthday party this afternoon—earlier than planned, thanks to Mum’s spontaneous London trip this weekend to catch up with an old friend from nursing school.
Attempting to bake a cake is my way of mending the last fence with Ellenor before we leave on our road trip.
I know I hit a soft spot when I criticised her love of Harry Potter.
As for her brattiness, she’s more than made up for it these past few weeks by looking after me while I recover—meals, company, and countless small things she’d never admit were acts of love.
So.
Cake.
Even with Barbara’s help, there are complications. I had no idea tablespoon measurements were different in the UK, or that I’d need to weigh everything in grams instead of cups.
“You’ve never weighed flour before?” she asks incredulously when I stare blankly at the kitchen scales.
“Nope,” I admit. “Ellenor always did the cooking.”
It’s another reason I want to bake my sister a cake. She’ll appreciate the gift more if she knows I suffered.
“See? You did it!” Barbara says to me a couple of hours later, patting my back and sending up little clouds of flour. “It’s perfect!”
“Too perfect,” I mutter, pushing down on the assembled layers to make it more lopsided.
Barbara watches in horror, but I assure her it’s meant to look terrible.
“It’s from a movie Ellenor likes. Hagrid the giant gives Harry a sticky chocolate cake for his eleventh birthday.”
“Half-giant,” Barbara corrects.
I blink at her, taken aback. “What?”
“He was a half-giant, dear.”
I gape after her as she goes to the pantry. She’s familiar with Harry Potter?
“We’d best make this cake stickier before the icing goes on,” she says, grabbing golden syrup. I’m sceptical, but she says, “Trust me—this will give it a soft, fudgy texture.”
Finally, after spending the better half of the day in her kitchen, we stand back to inspect the final result.
The cake is lopsided and slightly sunken, coated haphazardly in pink frosting. I’ve added messy green icing that spells:
HAPPEE BIRTHDAE ELINOR
“Now, it’s perfect,” I declare, turning to Barbara to hug her. “Thank you. Ellenor will love it.”
Barbara agrees to bring the cake over this afternoon for the party, and I return to the cottage.
With time to spare, I shower and change into jeans and a nice top before setting up the garden.
The cottage is quiet. Brandon’s still at work, and Ellenor asked Mum to go shopping with her so that she could come home and be ‘appropriately surprised’ for her party.
By mid-afternoon, everything is ready. I’ve hung up streamers, set the dining table—borrowed from Barbara, who insisted on having us hoist it over the fence—and blown up close to a hundred balloons with the hand pump.
One by one, people file in for the party.
Brandon arrives through the garden gate, carrying a cooler full of oysters.
“Here they are. I was thinking we could finally revisit your Dad’s recipe,” he suggests.
“Sounds good,” I say eagerly, following him to the kitchen, where I help him and Mum with the cooking and preparing the salads.
When we sit down to eat, Ellenor looks at Sean, pausing a fraction. “You’ve done something to your beard.”
He huffs a quiet laugh and shrugs, but I notice it too—the silvered auburn is trimmed close now, the line of his jaw more defined.
“Distinguished,” Brandon observes.
“Shut up,” Sean mutters, glancing at Ellenor, but she’s busy with her food.
After dinner, I present Ellenor with her cake.
“Aww, you even spelled my name wrong!” she fawns, her eyes dancing with the light of thirty candles as she hugs me. “This is amazing! Thank you, Lil. Best birthday gift ever.”
Mum gives her a matcha-coloured dress, which is not quite Slytherin-green, but Ellenor accepts it graciously.
Brandon gets her a Scrabble set, which Ellenor accepts not-so-graciously.
“I thought we could continue our Words with Friends game in real life,” he says.
“Scrabble is not the same,” Ellenor says, eyeing the board game dubiously. “Does this thing even have Wi-Fi?”
Rupert and Barbara bring separate gifts—he a bottle of rum, her a set of lace thongs. Both go down well with her.
Sean’s gift arrives loudly—one he’d hidden out of sight a few streets over.
“A motorbike?” I ask in awe as it roars into sight. It pulls up before the cottage, Sean astride it, wearing a leather jacket and helmet.
“It’s just like Hagrid’s!” Ellenor exclaims, rushing forward and pulling on the leather jacket Sean tosses her. “You have to bring this on the road trip!”
“That’s the plan,” he says. “We can sightsee in style. Want to take her for a spin?”
“Yes!”
He revs the engine, loud and showy. “We’ll just check out the coast and come back,” he calls, and then they tear off, Ellenor shrieking with delight.
Rupert makes a pining sound after them.
“No,” Barbara says softly.
“But Barb—”
“No.”
Mum’s smiling. “Sean asked for my permission before buying the motorbike—not that he needed it,” she reveals to me with a note of pride.
“And you said yes?” I ask, surprised she’d approve of anything so risky.
She nods. “I’d rather worry about a motorbike than see her spend her life making herself ill in an office.” She smiles sadly as the motorbike disappears from view, then she gives me a sidelong look. “There’s safe, and then there’s living. It’s time she had a little adventure.”
When we return to the garden, Mum nudges me lightly, her gaze drifting to where Brandon is setting up a small amp and his electric guitar.
“Looks like you’ve got your own adventure,” she murmurs.
“I’m not sure we’re the adventurous type,” I reply.
“You both flew across the world for each other. Adventure’s already happening.”
She has a point.
Brandon settles into a chair, electric guitar on his thigh. A loose, warm melody spills out—light, almost Spanish. Conversation meanders around him, and he tosses in the occasional comment without missing a beat.
Sean and Ellenor slip back in, windswept and elated.
As they sit on the grass together, her back against his, I see a new version of my sister.
Not less herself, just…eased. The sharp humour is still there, but the chaos that usually fuels it has calmed.
And when Sean leans over to murmur something to her—something that makes her snort and bump her shoulder into his—she looks genuinely content.
Sean pushes to his feet, clapping his hands together.
“Right. Tonight, you’re all coming to the pub.”
Ellenor blinks. “To do what, exactly?”
“Support the pub,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “I’ve booked a young band—kids just out of school. They’ve worked their arses off and deserve a proper audience.”
He looks hopeful and earnest, and of course, we all agree.
“I’ll expect lots of cheering,” he adds.
“That we can do.” Rupert laughs.
Sean nods, pleased. “Excellent. And Brandon, you’ll be on stage. Their rhythm guitarist is sick—so you’ll be filling in.”
The melody falters for half a heartbeat. Brandon stares at Sean coolly like he’s betrayed him. “No.”
“You already agreed to come,” Sean points out, chin tipped up in victory. “Too late to pretend you’ve got something better to do.”
Brandon’s jaw flexes. “I didn’t agree to play.”
Sean just shrugs, unbothered. “Thought you wanted to support the pub, mate.”
A tiny thrill zings through me at the idea.
Brandon. On stage.
Playing.
A switch flips inside my chest.
“Go on—do it!” Ellenor cries.
“Yes, think of the children, Brandon!” Rupert implores.
“If they’re high-school graduates, they’re hardly children,” Brandon says dryly.
“Please, Brando? It’s my birthday.” Ellenor pouts.
“That won’t work on me.”
“Pfft. Fine. Then do it for Lily. She wants to see you up there, roughing it with a bit of teenage angst.”
“There will be no teenage angst.” But he glances at me questioningly.
I shrug with a helpless smile. “I’d love to see you perform.”
His head drops in defeat, and Sean claps him on the back as Ellenor cheers, Barbara rubbing her hands together as Rupert booms, “Excellent, excellent.”
So much for my earlier observation that Sean has a calming presence on Ellenor, because she suddenly bounds to her feet, tugging Brandon’s arm like she’s just had the greatest idea of her life.
“Ooh! We forgot the Happy Birthday song.”
Barbara begins lighting the candles while Brandon pinches his nose. “Ellenor—”
“And sing it like Marilyn Monroe,” she adds. “All slow and sexy.”
My head snaps towards her.
The thought of hearing his deep voice singing that song strikes fear into me. It will be breathtakingly sexy, and if he agrees to her ridiculous Marilyn request, then I’ll die of embarrassment, mortified and aroused, in front of my family and friends.
Absolutely perish.
Ellenor grins wickedly at me.
I leap to my feet. “I’ll play it.”
Brandon looks relieved and all too happy to hand his guitar over.
My rescue attempt backfires when Ellenor says sweetly, “Oh, and Lil—sing it for Brandon.”
I stare. “But it’s your birthday.”
“Yep. And that’s my birthday wish.”
“You’re really milking your birthday for all its worth,” I grumble.
I’ve hardly sung the first painfully slow line, doing my best sultry attempt at Marilyn, when I realise Brandon has gone completely still. Not relaxed-still. Frozen in place like he’s been hit by lightning. The only movement is when his throat bobs. Once. Hard.
Heat rushes to my cheeks.