And Gabe may have said the words.
But I’d handed him the scalpel and invited him to cut me open.
TWO
LUCK
Present day…
Seriously, I was tired.
But I had to get this cake done and delivered.
It was for a five-year-old’s birthday party. It was Encanto themed: bright and cheerful with lots of flowers coiling along the sides with two chocolate straws poking out the top. Swagging between them were colorful, fluttering pendants made from fondant, and of course, a cute Mirabel stuck in the middle under the streamer. It even had bows on the sides that lit up.
That five-year-old was going to be thrilled.
And once that cake was delivered, and I was paid in full, I was finally, after years of on-again, off-again covering Kevin, going to be getting ahead.
I had a decent, if not healthy, amount of savings. I had enough money in the bank to pay my bills for a couple of months. And to me, this was the absolute minimum of what I had to have on hand to live my life and be able to roll with the punches it inevitably landed on you.
Damn, I might be able to buy myself a new dress, the first treat yo’self moment in at least a year.
Man, with that guy, there were a lot of things I felt like a complete moron about, but covering him financially flashed blazing at the top of the list.
You see, I was a baker, cake decorator and pastry chef (that last one was a stretch, but I had the training) by trade.
So, not exactly a billionaire.
I didn’t have a professional kitchen. No way could I afford that. I made my cakes in the tiny kitchen in my tiny one-bedroom apartment at the Oasis Square complex, where me and all my besties—Shanti, Raye, Luna, Jessie and Harlow—lived.
I made the cookies, muffins and cupcakes that were sold in the case of the coffee cubby at the front of The Surf Club in the fabulous kitchen at SC.
I was also a server at SC, and when asked to come on as a full-time employee, I’d jumped at the chance.
I needed the money, for one. It was a fabulous place to work with good bennies, for two. Tito, the owner, was eccentric (to say the least), but quiet and a great boss, for three. The semi-recent addition of Tex buying into the place was a shocker, and even if he was loud and grumpy, he was also a very good guy (he just hid it well) and his loud and grumpy was pretty hilarious, so that was four. All my besties worked there, which was a big, fat five. Last, tips were decent, and that was six.
Sure, this meant I had to get up at four in the morning so I could get ready to look presentable for my shift and go into work to bake stuff for the case, after which, I waited tables. And then when my shift was done, I had to hightail it home to keep baking whatever orders I’d agreed to do (hence me being so danged tired all the time).
And sure again, customers were often assholes.
Not the ones at SC. There were some jerks, but that wasn’t the norm.
The ones for Willow’s Good Stuff.
I swear, people were crazy. It wasn’t like I didn’t have a website that shared my policies. It wasn’t like I didn’t reiterate them when discussing an order. It wasn’t like they didn’t legally accept them when they signed the contract.
It was just that people these days thought they could get away with shoveling a lot of irrational shit, and you’d be a-okay with eating it.
No, I wasn’t going to nix my deposit policy for you.
No, I was not going to hand over a cake I spent hours baking and decorating and you could “settle with me later” for the rest of what you owe.
No, I was not going to deliver for free. Do you do something for a stranger, pay for gas and spend time driving around Phoenix for free? No? No way you’d do that? So why should I?
No, I was not going to wait around for half an hour if you weren’t there at the appointed delivery window. I was on time. You need to be on time. My policies state I’d wait fifteen minutes beyond the window. You go one minute past that, I’m gone, and so is your cake, not to mention your deposit.
And I wasn’t coming back. You wanted it, you came and got it and paid the extra ten bucks my policy states you had to pay to get your cake if you wasted my time.
