My gaze flicks up from the counter to Sugarplum’s front door for the tenth time in the last half hour. The sight of the lock flicked closed eases the ever-present tendril of anxiety wrapped around my heart. As soon as those assholes left my bakery, I called a locksmith. Luckily, there was a guy who went to school with one of my brothers, so he made an exception and stopped by after hours last night. I don’t even care that I had to pay a premium. His next available appointment wasn’t for three days, and I couldn’t wait that long.
I know a lock won’t stop someone determined to get inside, but it makes me feel better for now. And it gives me a little time to figure out how I’m going to broach the subject of security with one of my brothers—without anyone knowing what happened. The last thing I need is for my brothers to pull rank and try to strong-arm those guys and end up in the hospital or something.
I love my brothers, but they’re classic older brothers: protective in a somewhat restrictive way, give me entirely too much shit, and have an annoying habit of treating me like I’m still sixteen. Somehow, our younger sister escaped all of their brotherly love.
They’d probably tell me to run to our cousin with it, but she’s married to the president of the Rosewood Reapers. And his brother. And the Vice President.
Running to a Reaper is the last thing on Earth I’d ever do. Not after him.
I mull over a few different ways to spin the situation as I slide the rectangular wooden serving board full of vegan ice cream sandwiches across the countertop. I slide the artfully arranged bunches of blue hydrangeas to the side so I can lean my elbows on the counter and refocus on my current dessert photos. My head bobs along to the beat, the lyrics tumbling from my mouth unconsciously. I’m not that surprised really, today’s playlist is an old favorite of mine. One I spent many nights with. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen most of these people in concert over the years too, just to layer the nostalgia on thick. It’s doing wonders to keep my mind off of, well, everything.
I toggle back to my photo editing app and adjust the white balance ever so carefully. I never want to edit the photos so much that it throws off the authentic colors of the food, but sometimes the kitchen’s lighting doesn’t do the dish any justice. And I want the purple beetroot ice cream to stand out next to the soft green of the pistachio ice cream sandwich next to it. It’s balanced by the classic creamy vanilla sandwich in the middle. All of them have the same golden brown sugar-free biscuit cookies. It somehow looks both rustic and whimsical, which is honestly on brand for Sugarplum Bakery.
And me.
My mouth starts watering just looking at them, but I resist the urge to eat one now. I made two of each, which is just enough to bring to Sunday dinner at my parents’ house tomorrow. As long as my brothers don’t bring guests. I don’t understand why they continue to bring dates to family dinner knowing Mom will grill them about settling down the moment they walk through her front door.
I made that mistake before, and with quite possibly the worst person too. So I made a pact with myself to never do it again. No man has ever proven to be worthy of the family dinner invitation. And not because we’re pretentious, but because I have a pesky habit of dating the worst, most emotionally unavailable men within a three-town radius. And after the last one, I decided that no man is worth withstanding the category four hurricane that is my mother when it comes to her children’s relationships.
I throw a couple of hashtags underneath the song title and schedule the post to publish tomorrow morning. I started this account years ago as a fun way to express myself. For a while, it became a record of my growth, of my expanding creativity. Of my willingness to color outside the lines, my desire to be bold. One thing led to another, and here I am, strategically planning punny song-title captions to share with my sweet treat tribe.
While it’s not always puns, it’s always a song title.
When my grandma died a couple years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to bake for weeks. I think I received more messages in that time than I did in the six years I’d been posting. Something about the genuine concern for my well-being bolstered me and settled in the many, many cracks Nana Jo’s loss left me with.
Two weeks after she passed away, I baked an apple pie. A lattice top with crisp Granny Smith apples and more than enough cinnamon. Just like Nana Jo taught me. And I captioned my photo Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.
Something sharp pinches behind my ribs as I think about that bake. I cried so much, I was worried it would taste like grief.
It didn’t.
It tasted like a million happy moments I spent with my grandmother.
Like sunshine warming my shoulders on a Saturday morning stroll through the farmer’s market. And aching ribs from laughing too hard in her backyard. The way her arms wrapped around me so fiercely, and the way she would run her nails through my hair. The way she taught me and my cousin how to apply the perfect shade of lipstick and rouge—as she called it.
It was the best thing I’ve ever made.
It didn’t soak up my grief like a sponge, but it nurtured it. And that was enough.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved baking. Some of my fondest memories involve me in a kitchen with flour on my pants and something sticky on my cheek. The sweet scent of chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg, and spiced apples always surrounding me.
I spent a lot of my youth tucked inside Nana Jo’s kitchen. But the summers were always my favorite, because that meant I got Evangeline too.
My older brothers were at camp every day, and my younger sister alternated between daycare summer camp and my mother’s side. But Evangeline spent her summers in Rosewood. She’s been my very best friend since before I knew the meaning of the word. We were two peas in a pod, and Nana Jo wasted no time in sharing her extensive knowledge of baking with us. I made my first croquembouche by the time I was in middle school. It was terrible, barely edible really, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way Nana Jo acted. She made me feel like I could do anything.
Thank god there aren’t any photos floating around of that monstrosity. It wasn’t until I got my first job at Sugar & Spice bakery in Rosewood that I really started sharing my desserts on the internet. I still cringe thinking about some of those early cakes.
My phone rings, interrupting my reflection. I straighten up when I see Mom’s smiling face staring back at me. I swipe to answer on the third ring and a moment later, her bright brown eyes are staring back at me.
“Hey, Mom.” I smooth my hair out of my face and angle my phone so it’s a tight shot of mostly me. I don’t want her to see the mess of the kitchen behind me through the open door. I’m twenty-eight years old, and still, the thought of her disapproving frown sends a zing of anxiety down my spine.
“Hello, my darling daughter,” she croons in front of a wall of fiddle leaf fig trees. They tower over her, stretching toward the vaulted greenhouse ceiling. She squints and leans in. “Where are you?”
I tilt my head to the side and send her my most charming smile. “At the bakery.”
“Hm,” she says, her lips tipping into a frown. “You’ve got something on your nose, honey.” She taps the side of her nose with her garden-gloved index finger.
I swipe my hand across the bridge of my nose, my fingertip coming back purple. “Thanks. Guess I missed that. What’s up, Mom? You working today?”