Chapter 9
The next morning, while I was making banana/chocolate-chip waffles and thinking of ways to exorcise Zach Jeffries from my mind, like imagining him gnawing on bloody steak, my phone pinged with a text from him.
Back in SM. Dinner Saturday night? I’ll cook. (Something you’ll actually eat, too.) Z.
Damn. I put down the phone and stirred the batter so hard a glob landed on the wall. Now he wasn’t gnawing anything. Beagle at his knee, he was standing in his kitchen, handing me his homemade guacamole. Looking like Zach, absolutely gorgeous.
Yeah. Hold up. Back in Santa Monica: no kidding.
My phone pinged with another text. Don’t look, I told myself, popping a chocolate chip into my mouth. Do not look.
I looked.
I have news , too . Z.
Let’s see. You have a new love interest? A redhead. You’re getting married after a whirlwind weekend love affair. Or maybe this: I’m as bad for you as you thought I was. Like corn syrup.
“Mmm,” Sara said as she came into the kitchen with her hair in some crazy bun on top of her head. “The smell of those waffles woke me up. Hope you made me some.”
I slid two on a plate and handed it to her, and we sat down at the table. I wrapped my hands around my mug of spiced green tea and told her about Zach’s texts. “He has news, he says.”
“He’s really an alien?”
“That’s not news,” I said, smiling for the first time since last night.
“Fuck. Fuckety fuckety fuck. Okay. Moving on. He’s who I thought, nothing more, nothing less. Moving. On.”
Sara made her “Yeah, I see that” face at me. “Sorry, Clem.”
She got my mind off Zach by telling me she was damned sure she’d get another callback for the Attractive Friend commercial today. Hell, yeah, she would. Sara was always incredibly awesome, but ever since she became a Skinny Bitch, she’d begun developing a kind of confidence that went beyond talk—it was real . She ate her last bite of waffles then went into her room to practice making “friend smiles” in the mirror for the callback. And the more I sat there, looking through the living room window at that dead deer sign, I kept thinking about Zach, walking past Ocean 88 with that woman. Over and over and over. The happy expression on his face. The way his arm was around her shoulder.
I needed to get the hell out of the apartment, go breathe some air, take a long stomp, and maybe do some hot yoga on the way back. I grabbed my bag and clomped downstairs, and because I couldn’t think straight, I walked left instead of right, the huge dead deer sign staring me in the face.
The more I stared up at that gross sign, the more I imagined Zach eating that bloody steak. Stealing my perfect dream location for Clementine’s No Crap Café. Messing with my up-until-then very well-guarded piece of crap heart. Ben had managed to crush me, and I wasn’t walking eyes wide open into another episode of “Clementine Gets Smashed.”
He took my perfect location—so it was time to find another. Another place to keep the dream going, anyway. I walked up Montana, looking in the storefronts. A bakery. A coffee lounge. More yoga. Used books. The dancing Laundromat that blasted music and had a dance floor, seriously, between the washers’ and dryers’ sections. Every kind of restaurant—Indian, bar and grill, Mexican, Italian, Thai. Frozen yogurt. Between Flo’s Fro Yo and a tae kwon do dojo was an empty spot with a sign— FOR LEASE . Former fifteen-table restaurant. Small outdoor dining area in back. I pressed my face against the glass and peered in. Fugly now, but with paint, Ty’s interior design skills, Sara’s elbow grease, and my ideas, this would be perfect for Clementine’s No Crap Café.
I want this more than I’ll ever want you, Jeffries, I said to myself .
Although if I were really honest, they had been kind of neck and neck for a while there.
I peered in again, mentally decorating the place. The walls, the floor, the rugs, the kind of tables. The waitstaff’s uniforms. The flowers for the garden dining area.
Clementine’s No-Crap Café, you are mine .
The sound of drills and banging woke me up at the crack of hell the next morning. Barely eight o’clock. I trudged to the window and shoved aside the gauzy curtains. Two huge guys in hard hats came out of The Silver Steer and lit up cancer sticks and started jabbering. I would have yelled down at them to shut it, but the drilling started up again from inside the restaurant. Assholes. I closed the window and crawled back under the covers, but my phone rang a second later.
My sister. She was on her way to her second meeting of the day, which sounded horrid, but wanted me to know she’d just spoken to our parents and that my dad was getting stronger every day. Also, my brother, Kale, and his longtime girlfriend, also a marine biologist, were “taking a break” and he was miserable, and I should give him a call and send him my family-famed peanut butter chocolate chip cookies to cheer him up. She asked way too many questions about how my Skinny Bitch business was going, and I was barely awake, so I said Sara was calling me and tried to fall back asleep. But the phone rang two minutes later. No one wanted me to sleep.
Not my sister again. This time: the sexy British accent of Alexander Orr.
“Hey,” I said. “You didn’t even wake me up.”
“Good, because I have a huge favor to ask and wouldn’t want you already pissed enough at me to tell me to sod off.”
I turned over onto my stomach, trying to imagine Alexander Orr naked and eating strawberries. Or red grapes. I could imagine that. I wondered what he was like in bed. Which made me wonder what Zach would be like in bed. Shit. “What kind of favor?”
“As I said, huge and a pain in the arse. My awesome cousin Sabine is getting married tonight—she’s eloping here, getting married at the pier, and I’m hosting the party at my place. The wedding cupcakes are my gift, but I have no time to make them myself without serious help, and I need forty-five Dr. Who cupcakes—you know that sci-fi TV show about the timetraveling alien bloke? The cupcakes have to be dairy-free and gluten-free. And I need them by six o’clock. Tell me you bake.”
“Dr. Who cupcakes. And high-maintenance Dr. Who cupcakes at that. Seriously?”
“Seriously. Five different designs. I’d do it myself, but I have a staff meeting at Fresh this morning, and then I’m attending a science fair thing at Jesse’s school, and then we’re doing wedding party pictures before the ceremony at 4:30. I’m bloody screwed. And the Dr. Who designs are pretty elaborate.”
“Well, you’re in luck. Because not only am I a kick-ass baker, but I’m free today. I’m all yours.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I thought he might say, Well , not really or I wish , but he said, “Uh, the thing is, I kind of can’t pay you. In money, anyway.”
“What time?”
“Seriously? Clem, you’re brilliant. My only time to work on them is between one and three, so could we make it at one?”
I’ll be there,” I told him. Dr. Who cupcakes. I’d have to make an extra one for Sara who loved that show. And Seamus, too. And Kale. Dr. Who cupcakes would definitely cheer him up.
Wedding cupcakes. Theme wedding cupcakes, no less. Even though the idea of love and happily ever after made me want to punch something at the moment.
On my way to Alexander’s, Zach called and I let it go to voice mail. That was willpower. Part of me wanted to answer and tell him I saw him with that woman on Wednesday night—when he was supposedly still out of town. When he’d kissed the hell out of me in a hotel hallway and made me think there was something between us. Again.
But how could I without sounding like an idiot? So what if he came back early? So what if he was walking down the street with his arm around some model? Avoidance was the answer.
By the time I arrived at Alexander’s house, Zach had left another text message.
Okay, now I’m worried. Is your dad ok? Let me know. Z.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He had to go there.
I heard Alexander’s dogs, Lizzie and Brit, barking as I started up the walk. I texted back Everything’s fine. Just busy. C.
I was busy. And good thing, too. Alexander came out, the dogs jumping at my legs, and I kneeled down to pet them both. Alexander looked great, as always, fresh-scrubbed and kind of hot at the same time. Maybe that blah kiss didn’t mean that much. Maybe there was a much hotter kiss just waiting for us to get to know each other better or something. Elmer Fudd and all that. I’d keep an open mind like my sister was always telling me to.
I loved his little house. And the kitchen was the biggest room. It was a chef’s kitchen: six-burner Viking stove, counter space galore. Racks hanging with great cookware. Score even more points for Alexander. My dream kitchen.
“So, I’ve got everything set out and have printouts of what Sabine wants.” He pointed at a stack of paper. I took a look—lots of blue icing and hard, flat embossed faces and numbers. As Alexander started pulling things out of the fridge, including a beer for each of us, and cupboards, he told me all about the bride, his thirty-year-old cousin Sabine who’d finally said yes to her constantly proposing on-again/off-again boyfriend of three years, the long-suffering Wills.
“Hmm, maybe it took her so long for a reason,” I said. “Does she really want to marry this guy?”
“Cynical, Miss C,” Alexander said, handing me a large silver mixing bowl. “Sometimes shit happens. Or people need time to know. Or a lot of other stuff.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I always thought you just know. Pretty much right away.”
“You can hardly know someone right away, though,” he said, adding the Earth Balance shortening sticks and sugar to his own bowl and creaming them together. “You can know if you fancy them; if there’s something there. But you can’t know you want to marry them.”
I knew I wanted to marry Ben Frasier the second I met him. Where was he now? Marrying someone else. So maybe Alexander was on to something. Like an actual mature outlook.
“So you think your cousin’s marriage is safe from the fifty percent divorce rate?” I asked, combining the vanilla and oil and adding it to the mixture.
“I hope so. She took her time and made sure he’s the one. He let her take that time. So I think it’s gonna work. They love each other; they’re great together. They have everything in common. Like these Dr. Who cupcakes, for one. And they’re both in love with America and California, much to my aunt’s dismay. They’re planning to move here.”
I raised my beer. “To good love, then.”
He raised his back. “So I guess you’re seeing someone?” he asked as he lined five muffin pans with cupcake liners.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you didn’t give me much of a chance. One great sort-of date and that was that.”
The that-was-that part was more about the uninspiring kiss, but I couldn’t tell him that. “Actually, I have been sort of seeing someone. Someone completely wrong for me. I suck at dating.”
“More like dating sucks. Well, sometimes. The part where you don’t get the girl.”
I smiled. “I’d drive you nuts.”
He laughed. “Maybe.”
As he spooned the batter—which a fingertip swipe of my spoon indicated was delicious—into the liners, I found myself checking him out. Tall, lanky, but muscular. Nice shoulders. Cool T-shirt. Very clear, very kind, dark brown eyes. He brought ill grandmothers soup. Baked for cousins’ weddings. Mentored tweens. Had this amazing chef’s kitchen.
Maybe I should give Alexander Orr that second chance. Give the tubas a chance to clank. Maybe a real relationship wasn’t about instant lust and hot sex and an inability to stop thinking about the person. Maybe it was about slow and steady and all that boring stuff. Really knowing someone. A wedding with Dr. Who cupcakes as your wedding cake.
“So who was your last girlfriend?” I asked, wanting to know his history.
He mock shot himself in the heart and staggered backward. “A lunatic called Maeve. You know that crap Rain pulled with the butter in your ravioli? Well, the night Maeve and I broke up, she pureed a slice of ham into the vodka smoothie she talked me into having while we were having a three-hour break-up talk.”
“You tasted it or she told you?”
“She told me as I was leaving with my sack of the stuff I gathered from her place—toothbrush, jacket, couple of books. She was like, “You suck, and by the way, I pureed a slice of day-old ham into your fucking drink. Have a nice life.’ Then she slammed the door in my face.”
“Mature,” I said.
“I threw up all over her welcome mat—unintentionally—so I sort of got her back.”
“Ha. So no date for your cousin’s wedding, huh?”
“Actually, I’m taking a new friend.”
A new friend. Was that Britspeak for Woman I’ve Just Started Dating? The tiniest wham of jealousy hit me in the stomach, which made no sense. Maybe I just liked that he liked me since I needed the ego boost these days.
Before I could ask about her, voices came from the hall. In seconds, there were lots of people in the kitchen commenting on the delicious smells. I figured the woman in the manytiered floaty white strapless dress was the bride-to-be. She looked like an angel, seriously. Big blue eyes. Tiny nose. Pink bow lips. Heart-shaped face. And perfect, light, frothy blond hair down her back.
“Oh my fucking God,” she shrieked, eyeing the Dr. Who cupcake photos. “The cupcakes are going to look amazing!”
She jumped into Alexander’s arms, completely not caring that his apron wasn’t exactly pristine. I liked this chick. Alexander made the introductions, and she squeezed me into a hug, too, and announced that I saved her reception.
While the wedding party—there were at least twenty of them—had beers in the living room and wrestled with the dogs, again despite their fancy duds, Alexander said he had to go get changed. And I … kind of missed him.
I had nothing to do for the next twenty minutes, either. Which made thinking about Alexander a little too easy. Upstairs changing. Leaving. Coming back home after the ceremony.
Jesus. So now I wanted Alexander? What the hell?
You’re screwed in the head, I told myself. Upset about Zach. And Alexander’s a very cool guy. Once the cupcakes were finally done, I’d be forced to painstakingly focus on perfect number 7s and telephone booths and rectangular faces for forty-five cupcakes, and I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.
Alexander appeared five minutes later in something of a tux, but with a white T-shirt instead of a button-down and Chucks instead of shiny black shoes. He looked like all the other guys in the wedding party. California-weekday-wedding-at-the-pier style.
He smiled at me, and I told him he cleaned up well, and then after sheepishly asking if I’d mind letting his dogs out in the yard in about a half hour, he was gone. The house went from wildly noisy with happily barking dogs to dead quiet.
I peered in the oven. Ten minutes left to bake and another thirty minutes to cool before I could even get started on my Dr. Who skills.
I let the dogs out in the yard, then took myself on a tour of his house. I wanted to see his bedroom. I found it upstairs: smallish, with a bed dominating the room, made but mussed, and a bedside table with an oversized hardcover of The Heirloom Tomato . This made me laugh, because I actually had a book called The History of Garlic , which was a gift from my dad on my last birthday. Alexander also had a J.D. Salinger novel, a crazy-looking lamp, and a few photos in frames—one of him with five other people, four guys and one woman who looked remarkably like him. Another of him in a kayak, and one of him and Jesse, the kid he was Little Brothering. They were both on skateboards, and Jesse’s helmet was covered in different stickers.
I picked up the picture of Alexander smiling in the kayak. He was damned cute.
I put it back on the table and sat down on his bed and tried to imagine sex with Alexander Orr.
I sort of could. He was good-looking, had that great, lanky body. Good guy hair. And that accent kind of swirled up on you, especially when you realized he was as great a guy as you thought, that some people didn’t go from very cool to asshole in a split second. Like other people.
Which brought me back to Zach. Who I had feelings for in a way that I just didn’t for Alexander, no matter how hard I tried.
The oven dinged. I went downstairs and took out the cupcakes to cool, then went out into the yard to hang out with the dogs; Lizzie was after me to throw her rubber bone for fetch.
Back inside, I spent the next hour and a half decorating the cupcakes. I screwed up one face and had to use a reserve cupcake—every baker always makes extras for just these fuck-up moments—but my designs looked damned close to the photos in the printout. I had the cupcakes all set on the heart-shaped triple-tiered cupcake holder when the door burst open with loud, laughing voices.
Perfect timing. I totally admit I wanted a glimpse of Alexander’s New Friend but not long enough to have to hang around finishing up the cupcakes.
He came into the kitchen with a very thin girl with light brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was insanely pretty and didn’t have a shred of makeup on her face. They were holding hands.
“Clementine, Shelby. Shelby, Clementine.”
We sized each other up. She shot me a warm smile.
What, now I was jealous of her? Just a little territorial about Alexander, maybe.
He gave me a quick hug, thanked me profusely, and so I was done here. I boxed up the five extra cupcakes I made for my Dr . Who –loving friends, congratulated the happy couple who were making out on the couch in between telling stories about the wedding. “Oh my GOD, remember when that seagull shit on that guy’s head?” Sabine was saying as I left.
I needed hot yoga and a long soak in a bath.
On the way home I passed by my new dream space for Clementine’s No Crap Café. I wanted this place. Bad. Once again, nose to the glass, I peered inside. This time I could vividly see how I’d arrange the tables, the color I’d paint the walls. Me, executive chefing in the kitchen with a trusty staff around me. James, the Shakespearean student/waiter my first hire.
I reached into my bag for my cell phone and called Ty.
“I just baked a zillion Dr. Who cupcakes for a wedding as a favor to a friend. My hand is numb. I’m numb.”
“Seamus loves Dr. Who!”
“I remember. I made one for him, too.”
“You’re totally even now for the work he did on your website,” Ty said, then shouted at someone in the background that he was over-mixing.
“So, Ty, I’m standing in front of a perfect location for my restaurant. It’ll be available in six months, right before Christmas. How can I make a shitload of money in under six months?”
“You could always waitress at a top place. Or bartend. Or make a thousand more of those Dr. Who cupcakes and sell them around town. I know pastry chefs who make sick money freelancing on specialty stuff like that.”
“Really?” I loved to bake. But I always thought of baking as something I did for myself. My whole family—uptight lawyer sister included—baked. My dad taught my brother and sister and me to stir batter the minute we were strong enough, like at eighteen-months old. But being a chef—making it to sous chef at a top restaurant, then chef, then executive chef, and ultimately owning my own place—had always been my goal, so I never thought about baking for profit.
Ty was shouting at the same person again in the background that he was still over-mixing. “Lightly, like this,” he said. “Sorry. I’m back,” he said to me. “My friend Jen did a rush Dora the Explorer cake and got paid almost five hundred dollars. L.A. moms pay big bucks for amazing birthday cakes.”
“Who’s Dora the Explorer?”
He shouted again at someone to use two hands on the tray. “I don’t know, some kiddie TV show. And I know someone who freelances in wedding cakes. He makes a fortune. You’re an amazing baker, Clem. You could get into that. Thousand bucks a cake, two a week. Add that up for six months. Between that and your Skinny Bitch clients, there’s your start-up costs.”
“But I hate weddings. It’s bad enough I have to go to my sister’s wedding next year.”
“Okay, forget wedding cakes. Skinny Bitch cakes, Clem. You could do all kinds of specialized baked goods. Vegan. Gluten-free. You could be the allergy free-cake chick. You’ll have moms calling you every minute. And I could get you appointments to show samples in coffee bars and cafés. Word-of-mouth, baby. Make me some cupcakes, cookies, scones, a cake, a pie for Sunday morning, and I’ll get you in all over L.A. You’ll rake it in.”
Skinny Bitch Bakes. Or something like that. Yeah. “I’m in.” And now I knew what I was doing this weekend instead of thinking about Zach.
Or Alexander.