I open the oven to be met with a plume of smoke. Damn it. I was hell-bent on making Damien’s first birthday cake. I bought the ingredients myself yesterday, looked up the recipe for vanilla rainbow. I wanted to video him smashing it, the colorful frosting all over his face.
I take it out. It’s vomiting smoke—the black clouds risingviolently from this small, sad charred circle. Three extra minutes, and the whole entire thing is destroyed.
There’s a moment when I think about sending Leo to Gelson’s and seeing what they have in the bakery section. That thick, grocery store icing.
But then another thought crosses my mind, and before I can think whether it’s good or not, it’s in motion.
I lift the lid off the cookie jar—the one that has sat on the counter since Sylvia moved into this house, seventy-three years ago. The first thing she bought. A butler, holding a bottle of champagne.
It’s empty, save for what I’m looking for. A small piece of metal, right at the very bottom. I look at the cake, singed black, and then I press the ticket into my palm.
This time, I’ll get it right.
