“Correct. This will be great for you.” Then she said in a singsong voice, “People will visit the website and learn about next week’s grand opening…”
He looked around the shop, at the shelves waiting to be filled with product, at the room beyond waiting to be filled with customers. She didn’t doubt that he knew what the correct answer was, just like he knew he needed to put the damn magnet on the van, but she couldn’t predict where his stubborn self would fall on this.
“Erik.” She set her hand on his flour-covered wrist. “Do you trust me?”
She held her breath until he grunted and snatched the bowl up again and resumed his motion.
“You know I do.” And then, so quietly she could barely hear it over the scrape of this whisk against the bowl: “Thanks for setting it up.”
Twenty-Nine
Erik felt like he was heading to an execution.Hisexecution. And he was doing it willingly, although he wasn’t sure what percent was for his business and what percent was for his girlfriend. Agreeing was smart on both counts, even if the very act of stepping inside a TV studio made his palms sweat.
There were cameras and cords and lights and people everywhere, all pointed at flimsy sets that looked substantial when you watched from home but would probably topple if a guy like him brushed past too aggressively. He felt like a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, as Pops used to say.
He followed in Josie’s wake as she grinned and waved and Josie-ed her way through the building, apparently on a first-name basis with every last person working under the roof at 7:00 a.m. on a Tuesday. How in the world had he landed himself the grown-up equivalent of the prom queen? He trudged behind her with the temperature-controlled cake transportation box he’d made out of corrugated cardboard and sheets of insulation with ice packs stashed inside. A little cash at Lowe’s would allow you to build a container that would keep a cake from sweating even at the most humid of outdoor weddings. Or in this case, under fearsome studio lights.
If only he’d made a box for himself. By the time they arrived at the kitchen set where the segment would be shot, moisture had collected between his shoulder blades under the white chef’s jacket. The sweat wasn’t from the lights though; his own nerves were launching his body temperature into overdrive. Christ, would this marketing shit ever get easier? Could they just fast-forward to the part where word of mouth was enough to keep customers coming through the door?
“I regret everything,” he muttered, eyeballing the counter where he’d be setting up his cake next to three more that were already in place.
“This is going to take you to the next level.” She squeezed his bicep, then squealed when she caught sight of someone over his shoulder. “Be right back!” She ran to hug a guy in, yep, an expensive suit. Her appreciation for men in ties was going to give him an ulcer.
“Well, this is a surprise.”
The snide tone hit Erik like a ball-peen hammer to the eardrums, and he turned away from Josie’s animated conversation to face his old boss.
“Dora,” he said flatly.
“I heard a rumor you were setting up your own bakery.” She folded her arms across her chest with a scowl. “How charitable of the studio to include one that isn’t even open for business yet. How’d you pull that off?”
Her gaze moved across the room and landed on the wildly gesticulating Josie.
“My, my,” she said. “I’m seeing things more clearly now.” With a mean little laugh, she brushed past him to fuss with her cake, which was already in place on the counter. Being in her orbit again spiked his anxiety even higher, and out of habit, he reached into his pocket but came up empty. Damn. He hadn’t needed his earbuds to block out his surroundings since he’d left Dora’s, and he really could’ve used them right now to crank the music and pretend he was anywhere but here.
From a few feet away, Josie grinned and waved, then pointed to the open spot on the counter next to Dora’s creation. He exhaled a thin stream of air and forced himself to step on the set and worked quickly to unpack his cake and position it precisely as he wanted it to appear on camera.
He took grim satisfaction that the sleek sophistication of his cream, mint, and gold leaf geometric creation would overshadow Dora’s fussy display of baby’s breath and icing flowers. And he knew Dora knew it too; her lips flattened so much that they disappeared when she glanced his way.
“Still looking for a replacement decorator, I see.”
“How did you…?” Her voice trailed off as she narrowed her eyes and studied his face, searching for the insult. Oh, it was definitely there, and the audience would spot the difference in her cake and his. Without deigning to respond, she squeaked away in her sensible shoes while he savored getting in the last word without having to say anything at all.
He looked at his four-tier creation one more time. No flaws. All perfection. To his right, the slot for the fifth cake remained unoccupied. The big clock on the wall told him there was six minutes to go before the segment was set to be filmed, so that bakery was cutting it awfully close.
He’d just stepped away from his masterpiece when Josie bustled up, breathless and beaming in her flowy brown pants and white shirt.
“Oh em gee, amazing news! Denise and her cake got stuck in traffic across town, and they need somebody else to feature, so I talked them into using you!”
The rest of her words were lost in the rush of blood to his head. Something about showcasing a new bakery and amazing opportunities for growth. She twinkled up at him, more thrilled than he’d ever seen her, as his skin tightened in terror.
“So you’ll be on with Donnie Parker,” she was saying. “He’ll ask you about your favorite flavors and decorating techniques. Talk about the business location and the open house. It’ll be just like when you helped me write your bio.”
“That was me talking to you though.” His voice creaked like a rusty hinge, but she waved away his concerns.
“Nah, you can give these answers in your sleep. I mean, it’s either you or Dora, and I’ll be damned if I let that bigot get a moment of extra airtime.” She called to the guy she’d been hugging. “Donnie will be gentle. Right, Yousef?”
The man stuck out his hand with a big, phony smile. “Yousef Bahar. Thanks for stepping up. You’re a lifesaver.”
