5.
J ANIS
“Give me just a second to get the last detail on this set before you . . . do whatever it is you’re about to do to my face.”
Tad rolled her eyes and hopped onto the counter next to the bins that held my cake and cookie decorating supplies before she pulled out her phone to scroll social media. She said, “Did you see the news?”
“You know I can’t watch the news. Stupid people make me grumpy.”
I adjusted the camera a little to the left and then looked at the screen to make sure what I was working on was centered. When I was content with the angle, I adjusted the bag in my hand and started piping the final details on the cookie in front of me.
My first job was in a bakery, and I was thrilled to learn everything the owner was willing to teach me. However, as I practiced my new skills, I always tried to improve the process and introduce new concepts, which irritated the owner. She shot down every idea I had, and that made me even more determined to open a bakery of my own.
When I was sixteen, I started a website with the help of one of my father’s friends and took orders for custom cookies that were decorated with royal icing - which helped me get around most of the city and county rules for selling baked goods. Since the icing dried hard, instead of soft and creamy like the icing on a cake, it was perfect for transporting and shipping. Before long, I had saved quite a bit of money to go toward opening my bakery.
A few years passed, and my stash of money was growing slowly when I created an assortment of custom cookies for one of my mom’s friends to serve at her daughter’s baby shower. Since I was also invited to the party, I got to see everyone’s reaction to the cookies and was surprised when a guest mentioned that she loved watching cookie and cake decorating videos because they helped calm her anxiety. Another woman chimed in and said that they did the same thing for her autistic daughter.
I went home that evening and did an internet search for the sort of videos they had described. I learned that I could create videos of my own for my website with just a simple camera setup and a few extra lights. But when I found out that I could actually get paid for views if I released those same videos on a more public forum, I tried that too.
I released one on a whim, and just to show their support, almost everyone I knew shared it to their social media pages and groups that they belonged to. I thought it was a fluke that my video became so popular, but I went ahead and made a few more and released them too.
Since I wasn’t really a fan of social media, or what others thought of me, for that matter, I never looked at the analytics of my videos or even paid attention to the comments until I got my first check - a very substantial check that was more than I could make in three months working at the bakery. With that incentive, I got to work making more and more videos, taking the time to create new and interesting designs and using different techniques, which only helped me become better at the craft.
Four years before my projected date, I had enough money to open a bakery that was significantly bigger than I had originally planned. When I started out, I purchased used equipment that wasn’t always reliable but worked for the time being. However, I extended my budgeting plan, and with the help of my income from the videos I was still putting out, I was slowly able to purchase new equipment, piece by piece, until I had everything I needed to make what I’d been dreaming of since I was a kid finally come true.
The money I made from the videos, decorating both cookies and cakes, along with the money coming in from occasional online decorating classes I taught now went into a nice money market account that would serve as a cushion if there was ever a lull in business like there had been a few years ago when the world shut down overnight. And since the videos were still popular, I kept making them.
I’d been doing it so long that setting up the lighting and the camera became one of the natural steps of my process. I did it without much thought and ended up with hundreds of hours of video to go through. Finally, I dipped into my savings and hired a video editor who also helped me market them to gain even more popularity. I had a feeling that when the video for these cookies came out, it would go viral without any work from me, just because of who I was creating the cookies for.
Lucky Marks was a very popular musician, together with the rest of the band, who also happened to be my friends. He and my friend Rain Forrester had been in the news recently with a scandal that wasn’t really a scandal at all.
When this video was posted, I knew that Lucky would share it to his social media and make my views skyrocket.
I sincerely hoped so since I had my eye on an industrial stand mixer that was big enough for me to sit in the mixing bowl comfortably with room to spare. Once I met my goal, I’d find out.
Big dreams required lots of work, and that was something I was definitely equipped to handle.
“Those cookies are so fucking cool,” Tad said as she approached the table, making sure not to touch anything or block my light.
“Check out the ones on the table in the back. I’ve got a rain cloud with Lucky’s name scrolled on it, a heart and banner with Rain’s name on it, just like Lucky’s tattoo, his bike, her bike, and a bunch of basic Valentine shapes in coordinating colors.”
“Damn, Janis. These are awesome,” Tad called out over her shoulder as she bent over to study the designs. “How long has all of this taken you?”
“I baked them the night before last and then let them cool before I started the first steps of decorating them yesterday morning. I have to wait for up to two hours between steps, so that’s why I’m scrambling to get these final touches finished.” I turned off the camera since I had the finished shot and then slid the large tray of cookies in front of me so I could complete their last-minutes details. “What were you saying about the news?”
“Corey and Noble stopped an armed robbery in progress the other night.”
“No shit?”
“I know, right? It was that convenience store off of Arthur Street.”
“The one with the good slushie flavors?”
“That’s it.”
I gasped in shock and became instantly outraged. “Somebody robbed Mrs. Martinez?”
“Her granddaughter was working.”
“Shit! I remember when that girl was just a kid!”
“Me too.”
“Did Noble or Corey get to shoot someone, or did they have to do the arrest and trial bullshit?” I asked.
“The news said that two men were arrested. I haven’t talked to anyone to get the scoop, but we’ll probably hear about it at the party tonight. Speaking of which, we need to get started on your glow-up.”
“I suppose,” I agreed with a sigh as I finished the line on the last cookie. “Let me put these under the dryer, and then I’m all yours.”
“You seem to have gotten used to working with your new talons. How are you feeling about your hair?”
“I did what Opal told me and put that shit in it as soon as I got out of the shower, but I was running late, so I just twisted it up under my beanie like I always have.”
“Well, we’re going to work on that too. I’ve got all of my supplies ready and waiting.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“It was your idea!”
“I know it was, but I’m having a real problem remembering why.”
“You mentioned something about dying alone and starting to smell, I think. I don’t know for sure. I don’t always pay attention when you’re talking.”
“Sometimes, I wonder how we’re actually friends.”
“So do I, honey. So do I.”
◆◆◆
You can do this. You can do this. Janis Grissom, you’re a badass bitch on a mission. You’re gonna walk in there looking like . . . whatever the fuck it is that you look like . . . and . . . and . . . be nice to people. All the people. You can do this.
The silent mantra I kept chanting wasn’t making me nearly as self-confident as I thought it should. I had a tendency to talk out loud when I was alone, even laughing when I did something clumsy or berating myself when I messed something up. I also tended to have an inner dialogue going while around other people when I knew that something horrible would come out if I opened my mouth.
Unfortunately, that didn’t always work, and I really didn’t give a shit if it did or not. Knowing was half the battle, right?
But I was on a mission tonight and would not be deterred. I was going to be pleasant, inviting, cheerful, and social. I planned to use my friends and family who would be at this party as my test subjects to see if all the hours of poking, prodding, trimming, filing, and conditioning were worth it.
Because if this didn’t turn out the way I thought it should, I could guarantee that I’d never put myself through all of that again.
But if it did, and I felt more confident about myself, like Tad insisted I would, then I might keep up this self-care beauty bullshit. It drove me nuts, not that the trip would be long, but still - I was putting in the effort to change, right? Wasn’t that what counted?
Once I parked, I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror and jolted in shock, just like I’d done every time I’d seen myself since Tad worked her magic. My reactions had become more subdued since the first time, but I still felt like I didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror. I had to admit that she was pretty freakin’ hot, though.
I was fine with it as long as I didn’t develop a reaction to the shit that Cydney had carefully chosen to put on my face - products that guaranteed they were mild and without certain chemicals that could irritate my skin. However, I could develop a new allergy at any time to anything. I’d proven that just a few months ago when I almost died from ant bites.
I hoped I wouldn’t develop another allergy tonight or ever, but the odds were good it would happen again someday. My list of anaphylactic allergies was already so long that I had to buy a larger medical alert bracelet than standard. I had so many extra things to list that the cost of the engraving was astronomical. I wore the bracelet all the time.
All.The.Time.
I never took it off because I wasn’t able to. The clasp on it was built to give if there was a sudden yank, so that I wouldn’t get injured if it got caught on something, but the only other way to get it off was with a special tool that fit inside the clasp to unlock it. My father had been carrying one of those special keys in his wallet since I was a child. He wrapped my first bracelet around my wrist, and every time I had ever needed to have it removed, my father had been the one to do it.
That might seem extreme to some people, but to me and my family, it was just our life. I never took the bracelet off because if I did and something happened to me, even if it wasn’t life threatening, the medical attention I might receive that was protocol for everyone else would more than likely kill me.
Some of the most common drugs in the world would cause my throat to constrict and make me unable to breathe. Others would give me a horrible rash and breathing problems while others would just make me uncomfortable for a while. However, we had learned over the years that just because something - whatever it was - didn’t give me anaphylaxis then didn’t mean it wouldn't give me anaphylaxis now.
Case in point: the ant bites from a few months ago. When I was a child, I had been bitten many times, and those bites resulted in barely anything more than a little welt that was itchy and uncomfortable for a day or two before it disappeared. But when I was goofing around with my friend Zoey and got stung again and again, it closed off my airway and Zoey’s boyfriend had to perform rescue breathing on me until an ambulance arrived.
After that day, I had another thing to add to my never-ending list of things in the world that could easily kill me.
My mom had jokingly said that she could never relax and stop worrying about me, no matter how old I got, because if one of my allergies didn’t end my life, running my mouth would.
But if this plan to be a kinder and gentler Janis worked, that may not be a problem anymore.
With one last glance at the stranger in the mirror, I got out, ready to debut my new look to my friends and family to see if I should unleash it on the public.
Get ready world, here comes the new-and-improved, much gentler, less abrasive Janis who just happened to be wearing clothes that she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a month ago and stuff on her face that she didn’t know existed just last week.
You can do this!
I told myself that one last time before I opened the big metal door and walked inside the clubhouse of the Texas Kings MC, a place that held millions of memories for me and almost everyone I knew.
It was a safe place where I could be myself all the time. Well, until I decided to smother my true self by covering my face with shit and pasting a smile on my face.
This wasn’t going to hurt a bit.
Ten steps inside the door, I realized that not only was it not going to hurt, but it was going to be a lot of fun.
I knew that when a man I’d known for my entire life turned around and smiled at me - a smile I’d seen him give dozens of poor unsuspecting women over the years - right before he stuck his hand out to introduce himself.
“Hi. I’m Zane Duke. Can I buy you a drink?”
First target acquired. Let the games begin.