Page 29 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
Kate’s command to stop working didn’t mean the challenge was over, not by a long shot. The cakes needed to be fully documented here and then chilled long enough to transport to the reception. It was only a half mile away, but the cakes would have to be hand-carried for most of that because of the terrain. They’d be walked over in teams of four, and the decorators were allowed to remove especially fragile decorations. The network was making sure it could be done as safely as possible — none of the usual shenanigans ofwill it make it to the display areathis time — but it was still nerve-wracking.
In looking at the other contestants’ offerings, Laurin could tell that Madison’s interview had gone very differently from Ronnie’s. Mark had a thick cascade of gum paste flowers that faded from teal, through royal blue and violet to magenta,confirming Laurin’s color choices. Zara’s colors were just as bright, but she’d iced her cake in the colors, done in a stained-glass pattern with stark white to simulate the leading. No flowers on hers; she’d also gone for hard candy. Hers were clear shards.
Harper rocked the natural look on hers, creating an entire snowy woods motif and topped with a tiny campsite that lit up. She’d managed to make a purple tent that glowed and a little fire, and Laurin was dying to ask how she did it. Patty’s was similar, but Laurin had to say it wasn’t as well executed. It was nice, but the trees didn’t look as real, and the topper was a nicely done but simple gingerbread couple.
Surprisingly, it was Belle’s that looked most out of place. The purple and green were light lavender and sage, and they’d been utilized in a fussy, dated lace. Was that how Belle’s cakes always looked? Oddly, Laurin couldn’t remember her previous wedding cakes. Perhaps they didn’t get much airtime in recaps.
“It’s beautiful.”
Laurin still had Belle’s cake in mind when he heard Candace’s astonished voice, so the look he shot her was more skeptical than it should have been. He only let his eyes settle on her cake for a second, worried she’d take his disapproving expression as a response to it.
He felt bad for her, though. She’d done the best she could with the time they had left, and the geode effect was well-executed now that she had a valid adhesive, but it was too little, too late. She’d covered the massive gash, but his handprint still marred the middle tier. The cake still leaned.
Candace scooted around her table to stand next to Laurin. It was his cake she was talking about. She got close to it,maintaining just enough distance to avoid touching it as she examined the layers.
“May I?” she asked, her hand hovering on the turntable.
Laurin nodded. She could destroy the cake right now, either deliberately knock it over or claim accident while spinning the table too fast, but Laurin trusted her. The more he observed her, the more apparent it became that any sabotage she’d done to another contestant, anything more substantial than hoarding supplies, must have been accidental. She fussed too much about her own work to plan and execute anything so dramatic.
“This technique,” she said as she spun the cake to one side and gestured to the fan of art deco peacock feathers. “It’s so simple but striking. I’ve never seen it before. Does it have a name?”
“Quilling,” Laurin told her as he reached out to adjust one of the embellishments that had slid slightly in transport. “It’s a paper technique. You cut long, narrow strips of construction paper and roll them into swirls and spirals. This is really beginner’s level — you should see it in paper.”
“I don’t have to. It’s amazing here. And the contrast.” She spun to the other side, where a smaller fan of white feathers had been attached to the marbled bottom tier. “There’s so much impact in the way you used color. This cake could have gone over the top in one false move,” she said with an obvious glance at Belle’s, “but you got it just right.”
She reached forward then, too, and Laurin held his breath as her delicate fingers traced the air around the clear sugar peacock. “She’s looking up at her mate,” Candace said, her soft voice tinged sad.
“The first one looked down, like the one on top.” The sapphire peacock topping the cake was high enough in the air right now that he appeared to be looking down his beak at everyone. “After I dropped it, I got to thinking. Even the person who’s the best, the one who’s in first place or the one who’s most experienced or . . . or whatever . . . deserves to have someone check on them sometimes, just to make sure they’re okay.”
“What was your wedding like?” Laurin asked in a soft voice while the newlyweds paced between the cakes. The reception would start in another hour, but it was only the Bake-Off crew watching them now.
“Terrible,” Candace murmured as she looked around at the decorations. They hadn’t done anything too fancy with the pavilion, keeping it open-air for now — although there were tent walls strung up to the roof to be dropped if needed. Instead of white tablecloths, they’d gone with pine green, and the white dishes set on them practically glowed. Just as Ronnie had said, the centerpieces did glow. Each vase had a single vibrant crocus with a proudly illuminated bulb, ready to go home with any green-thumbed attendant who wanted one.
She should have trusted her instinct about the bulb flowers. She could have banged out a whole pile of them and just gone to town and been lauded a mind-reader instead of confirming to the world that she had no business making wedding cakes.
Or anything at all.
“Sorry,” Laurin whispered at the ragged breath that slipped out of her. “I didn’t mean to bring up a bad subject.”
Candace laughed gruffly at that. Any energy she had toward keeping up her shield was long gone, so what did it matter that the emotions leeching from her like a cold sweat had nothing to do with her ex-husband? “It was a stupid, ill-conceived wedding for a stupid, ill-conceived marriage. It couldn’t have been any better suited to the event it commemorated.” She nodded to the display in front of them as she inhaled and exhaled deeply, puffing her cheeks out to settle herself. “Your cake is great. Yours and Zara’s.” She leaned over to look past Patty to Zara, finally having a moment to say what she wanted to say instead of what best held up her persona. “Your cake is really nice.”
Zara grinned and nodded in thanks. Patty’s nostrils flared slightly. Patty’s cake was nice, but not exceptional. On concept, Harper had her beat. Candace didn’t know why Patty thought she deserved a compliment so much that she’d be irritated by Zara getting one—
Candace recalled what Laurin had said about Patty being harsh with Zara. It was so out of Patty’s character that Candace hadn’t given it much thought, but Patty really did seem to be spiteful toward Zara.
Just like Candace was with Laurin. She could argue that she had even worse reasons for it than racism for being so mean. She was terrible simply to make herself the villain she figured the network wanted her to be.
“It’s going to be okay,” Laurin said.
Had she sighed pensively or something? “We blew all our money on our wedding,” she chuckled to dispel any oogie vibes. “We were practically destitute afterward.”
“Why didn’t your family bail you out?”
The way he asked it so casually showed how little he knew of the situation. Then again, she never talked about it with anyone. It was a matter of public record that she was the daughter of a brokerage empire, and she’d never sought to explain the reality of her relationship with her family. She’d never denied what was, at its core, the truth.
“They disagreed with my choice of husband and refused to help. I thought they were bluffing at first, but they weren’t. Really, I was the idiot for thinking they’d bluff after . . . well, everything.” She shrugged. “They would have let me starve to prove the point.”
That got both Laurin and Patty’s attention. A flutter of whispers down the line made it obvious that others had heard it as well. By the time the happy couple in front of them sent the loser — Candace — packing, everyone would know that family secret.
